"Acquisition" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... any rivalry. The new buggy was a great acquisition. It was the first to appear in that part of the country. She felt favoured to have it at her service, but the crown of all her felicity had been John Hunter's adoration, which had been poured at her feet without stint. If she wished to go anywhere, ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... skimmed like a bird over the low flat meadows, Lionel began to think that the horse was an acquisition, in spite of the sudden freaks of temper which had made him so difficult to ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... of informing the publick that he has made the acquisition of the hotel to the Savage, well situated in the middle of this city. He shall endeavour to do all duties which gentlemen travellers can justly expect; and invites them to please to convince themselves of it by their kind lodgings ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... diminished the value of neighbouring arables by obstructing sun and air and harbouring legions of rabbits; and then, seeking tenants of enterprise and capital, more than doubled his original yearly rental, and perhaps more than tripled the market value of his property. Simultaneously with this acquisition of fortune, he emerged from the inhospitable and unsocial obscurity which his previous poverty had compelled, took an active part in county business, proved himself an excellent speaker at public meetings, subscribed liberally to the hunt, and occasionally joined in it,—a less bold ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... service of course. Unfortunately, there were some very important things from my report among them such as buying up liquid chlorine and about the Bridgeport Projectile Company, as well as documents regarding the buying up of phenol and the acquisition of Wright's aeroplane patent. But things like that must occur. I send you Albert's reply for you to see how we protect ourselves. We composed the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... as no rhetoric could have done, and they made him more eager still to devote his own life to the difficult acquisition of knowledge. Dr Porhoet gave him ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... our written work, and finally we may use it in speaking. We add a word to our reading vocabulary when we determine its meaning, but we must use it in order to add it to our writing and speaking vocabulary. A conscious effort to aid in this acquisition ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... over the acquisition of a knitted white silk sweater, which she assured Jane was an exact counterpart of the one Mrs. Weatherbee had ...
— Jane Allen: Right Guard • Edith Bancroft
... of these Indians is a dialect of the Sauteux or Bungee, intermixed with Cree, and a few words of French derivation. The greater part of them have a smattering of French or English; but the acquisition of a foreign language is extremely difficult to them, from the peculiar formation of their own, which wants the letter r. An Algonquin pronounces the word "marrow" "manno" or "mallo." Their dialect has all the softness of the Italian, but ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... — N. learning; acquisition of knowledge &c 490, acquisition of skill &c 698; acquirement, attainment; edification, scholarship, erudition; acquired knowledge, lore, wide information; self-instruction; study, reading, perusal; inquiry &c 451. apprenticeship, prenticeship^; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... produced by the acquisition of the treasure of letters on those who received them, and the vividness with which they realized the power that slumbered in those humble signs, are illustrated by a remarkable vase from a sepulchral chamber of Caere ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... zeal for propagating the tenets of the Koran has evaporated, and been replaced by the most intense selfishness and grossest sensuality. The only known efforts made by Mohammedans, namely, those in the North-West and North of the continent, are so linked with the acquisition of power and plunder, as not to deserve the name of religious propagandism; and the only religion that now makes proselytes is that of Jesus Christ. To those who are capable of taking a comprehensive view of this subject, nothing can be adduced of more telling significance than the ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the story, for Woofer, as they began to call him immediately, told it in a most comical manner. They all took to him immensely, and regarded him as quite an acquisition to the camp. ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... this was all: and even this poor triumph over absolute ignorance would never have been effected but for the unremitting attention of my parents, who, sometimes by threats, sometimes by entreaties, endeavoured to rouse the dormant energies of my nature, and to bend my wishes to the acquisition of the rudiments of knowledge; but in influencing the wish lay the difficulty. Let but the will of a human being be turned to any particular object, and it is ten to one that sooner or later he achieves it. At this time I may safely say that I harboured neither wishes ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... little grinning skeleton, whom he regarded as the dispenser of immortal renown. He would add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his ancestors and his sword, another title, derived from his last and proudest acquisition. His style should run thus: Frederic, King of Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg, Sovereign Duke of Silesia, Possessor of Voltaire. But even amidst the delights of the honeymoon, Voltaire's sensitive vanity began to take alarm. A few days after his arrival, he could not help ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... The acquisition of speech belongs to those physiological problems which can not be solved by the most important means possessed by physiology, vivisection. And the speechless condition in which every human being is born can not be regarded as a disease that may be healed by instruction, as is the case with ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... wish to say one or two very plain things about this matter, and I hope that you will not turn away from them because they are familiar and trite. Considering how much of your lives, especially as regards men of business, is taken up with money, its acquisition, its retention, its distribution, there are few things that have more to do with the vigour or feebleness of your Christian life than the way in which you handle these ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... great houses, never both leaving their parents at the same time; they wore pretty, even elegant clothing, and were always ready to assist at amateur concerts, private theatricals, church festivals, and other cheerful celebrations. Miss Julia Gardiner's voice was an acquisition at an evening party; her elder sister's brilliant touch on the piano was worth an invitation to the most select entertainment. And besides this, there are rich, kind people about in the world who are always ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... conducted by him to the sugar cane, on which he acquainted them he had solely subsisted from the time of their departure. Attracted by such powerful recommendation, every care and attention was bestowed, we may suppose, to convey such an invaluable acquisition to their own lands, where the soil and climate have mutually since contributed to its ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... campaigns in a War, as a chain which is all composed of battles strung together, one of which always brings on another; if we adopt the idea that the taking of a certain geographical point, the occupation of an undefended province, is in itself anything; then we are very likely to regard it as an acquisition which we may retain; and if we look at it so, and not as a term in the whole series of events, we do not ask ourselves whether this possession may not lead to greater disadvantages hereafter. How often we find this mistake ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... that I am L30,000 richer than I was at our parting, having just received intelligence from my lawyer that a cause has been gained at Lancaster assizes, [1] which will be worth that sum by the time I come of age. Mrs. B. is, doubtless, acquainted of this acquisition, though not apprised of its exact value, of which she had better be ignorant; for her behaviour under any sudden piece of favourable intelligence, is, if possible, more ridiculous than her detestable ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... the fixed points of Russia's policy, the Swedish agitators told their fellow-countrymen, is the acquisition of an ice-free port which can be utilized in winter. The Baltic ports do not answer this requirement, not only because they freeze in the cold season, but also, and especially, because the narrow Sound can be easily blocked by a hostile Power and Russia's ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... it have been for these last had they remembered God's word, "Make not haste to be rich;" but the thirst for gold, and the prospect of the sudden acquisition of enormous wealth, had blinded them to the fact that their frames were not equal to the rough life ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... is placed all their safety. A strange religion, which, practised in all its rigor, would drag society to ruin! The sincere devotee proposes impossible attainments, of which human nature is not capable; and as, in spite of all his endeavors, he is unable to succeed in their acquisition, he is always discontented with himself. He regards himself as the object of God's anger; he reproaches himself with all that he does; he suffers remorse for all the pleasures he experiences, and fears that they may occasion a fall from grace. For ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... treatment of the subject must always be suited to the age and experience of the pupils, to the seasons of the year, accessibility of materials, etc. Notes should not be dictated by the teacher. Mere information, whether from book, written note, or teacher, is not Nature Study. The acquisition of knowledge must be made secondary to awakening and maintaining the pupil's interest in nature and to training him to habits of observation ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... Moors of the Desert of Sahara are permitted to have over all the country bordering upon Senegal, the inhabitants of which they carry off to sell to the slave merchants of the island of St Louis. It is not to be doubted, that the abolition of the slave trade, and the acquisition which the French have made in the country of Dagama, will soon destroy the preponderance of the barbarians of the Desert upon the banks of the Senegal; and that things being placed on their former ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... well as of many species of wild vegetation, was particularly rapid and luxuriant on soils which had been burned over, and thus a new stimulus would be given to the practice of destroying the woods by fire, as a means of both extending the open grounds, and making the acquisition of a yet more productive soil. After a few harvests had exhausted the first rank fertility of this virgin mould, or when weeds and briers and the sprouting roots of the trees had begun to choke the crops of the half-subdued soil, the ground would be abandoned for new fields ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... education: the notion which ignores its social necessity and its identity with all human association that affects conscious life, and which identifies it with imparting information about remote matters and the conveying of learning through verbal signs: the acquisition of literacy. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... not the magnanimity to consider this, even so far as to propose that Judy should at any rate enjoy the reversion of her own. On the contrary, she had rapidly planned its division between her two little ragged girls. Judy, for her part, had set her heart desperately upon the acquisition, and she deemed it her best policy to say in a tone ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane
... he needed! So, in answer to Alice's remark, he said he should probably remain at home some time, that he always found it rather pleasant at Snowdon, though as a boy he had, he supposed, often chafed at its dullness; but he saw differently now. Besides, it could not now be dull, with the acquisition it had received since he was there before; and he bowed gracefully toward the young lady, who acknowledged the compliment with a faint blush, and then turned toward the group of "noisy, ill-bred children," as Dr. Richards thought, who came thronging ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... succession of great events. The acquisition of Louisiana, stretching from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, laid, in 1803, the foundations of that imperial domain which the steamboat and railroad were to convert to use in after-years. The continental empire of Napoleon and the island empire of Great Britain drifted into ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... those days, and Phillip's despatches prove that, although the food question was the practical every-day problem to be grappled with, he, in the midst of the most harassing famine-time, was able to look beyond when he wrote these words: "This country will yet be the most valuable acquisition Great Britain has ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... themselves a necessity of instructing those from whom they receive a salary. He wondered, likewise, why a man, who promises to teach virtue, should ask money; as if he believed not the greatest of all gain to consist in the acquisition of a good friend, or, as if he feared, that he who, by his means, should become virtuous, and be obliged to him for so great a benefit, would not be sufficiently grateful for it. Quite different from Socrates, who never boasted of any such thing, and ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... an easy victory; and how much it will strengthen your own government, you may easily judge; having Tuscany friendly, and bound by so powerful an obligation, in your enterprises, she will be even of more service to you than Milan. And, although, on former occasions, such an acquisition might be looked upon as ambitious and unwarrantable, it will now be considered merciful and just. Then do not let this opportunity escape, and be assured, that although your attempts against the city have been attended with difficulty, expense, and disgrace, this will ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... each of the other's acquisition, began to discuss with growing anger the comparative value of the articles. Unable to arrive at an agreement, they resolved to put up the hat and gaiters as a stake ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... New English raised an army, and, under the command of Pepperel, took cape Breton, with the assistance of the fleet. This is the most important fortress in America. We pleased ourselves so much with the acquisition, that we could not think of restoring it; and, among the arguments used to inflame the people against Charles Stuart, it was very clamorously urged, that if he gained the kingdom, he would give cape Breton back to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... amongst the greatest of romantic designers of the centuries following that of Giotto. His fertility of invention was very great; and, considering that his studies began at a period which for most artists would have been too late for the acquisition of technical excellence of a high degree, his attainment in that direction was most remarkable. Entirely original, if that quality could be predicated of any artist, he certainly was not, and he borrowed of his predecessors to an immense extent, not slavishly but adaptingly, and what ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... career thus writing on this subject: "The one, and that the most necessary, Moors (now called Hindustani), by not being written, bars all close application; the other, Persian, is too dry to entice, and is so seldom of any use, that I seek its acquisition very leisurely." He asked his father in turn to send him the Greek and Latin classics, evidently intending to carry on his old favorite studies, rather than begin a new career as an Oriental scholar. For a time he seemed, indeed, deeply disappointed with his life in ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... the acquisition of territory was thus shown to be far more important than the suppression of heresy. But a university was established at Toulouse for the teaching of true philosophy, and the Inquisition was set up under the Dominicans for the suppression of false doctrine. ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... and boyhood they ought to be put through a course of instruction carefully suited to their years; and while their bodies are growing up to manhood, especial attention should be paid to them, as a serviceable acquisition in the cause of philosophy. At the approach of that period during which the mind begins to attain its maturity, the mental exercises ought to be rendered more severe. Finally, when their bodily powers begin to fail, and they ...
— Le Petit Chose (part 1) - Histoire d'un Enfant • Alphonse Daudet
... Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... the people in territories have the same inherent rights of self-government as the people in the States, if, in the exercise of such inherent rights, the people in the newly acquired territories, by the annexation of Texas and the acquisition of California and New Mexico, south of the parallel of thirty-six degrees and thirty minutes of north latitude, extending to the Pacific Ocean, shall establish negro slavery in the formation of their ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... astray by a wave of sentimentality. So long as the world lasts there will be rich men and poor, but you must always remember in considering this that it is character as well as circumstances which is at the root of the acquisition of wealth. Generations have gone to the formation of our social fabric. It is the slow evolution of the human laws of necessity. The socialist and the sentimentalist and the philanthropist, dropping gold through his fingers, have each had their fling ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Education I read with unalloyed pleasure; it is justly, clearly, and felicitously expressed. The girls of this generation have great advantages—it seems to me that they receive much encouragement in the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of their minds. In these days women may be thoughtful and well read, without being stigmatized as ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... remote periods of our history, when the assassination of princes was practised by various arts, a faithful guardian of the royal cup might well be esteemed an acquisition to the court. A "chief butler" was one of the most ancient attendants on royalty, we know from Scripture history, and, according to the same details, was instrumental in bringing about that singular revolution in the court of Egypt[63], which resulted in planting the Jews there, for the accomplishment ...
— Coronation Anecdotes • Giles Gossip
... encumbered by a certain indolence and sluggishness that prevailed over every interested consideration, and even hindered him from profiting by that singleness of apprehension, and moderation of appetites, which have so frequently conduced to the acquisition of immense fortunes; qualities which he possessed in a very remarkable degree. Nature, in all probability, had mixed little or nothing inflammable in his composition; or, whatever seeds of excess she might have sown within him, were effectually stifled and destroyed by ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... and Holland lay between her and the open Atlantic, and the possession of these countries, with their splendid ports, would pay her well for a reasonable degree of risk and cost. The invasion of Belgium as her first move in the war game may have had an ulterior purpose in the acquisition of that country, one likely to be as distasteful to France as the taking over of Alsace-Lorraine. Perhaps the neutral position taken by Holland, with her seeming inclination in favor of Germany, may have had more than racial relations behind ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... crown; the list, with remarks, is given to the governor, who orders them to what part of the settlement he thinks proper, where the deficiency of hands in agricultural or other employments renders such an acquisition desirable. ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... ever. The changing wisdom of successive generations discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition—and, therefore, more permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity, and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all creation—and to the subtle ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... portions of the country were first visited by Europeans, a different state of affairs was found to prevail. There the acquisition of the horse and the possession of firearms had wrought very great changes in aboriginal habits. The acquisition of the former enabled the Indian of the treeless plains to travel distances with ease and celerity which before ...
— Indian Linguistic Families Of America, North Of Mexico • John Wesley Powell
... (virtuous) or an itinerant vendor of articles needed in every household. Singular, communed the guest with himself, the wonderfully unequal faculty of metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperal dormitory and the dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of such frivolity, that the mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest. But, he further added, ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... long months to live and she needs nourishment. Were it not better, then, to lodge the eggs in the immediate neighbourhood of the present home and to continue her hunting with the excellent snare at her disposal? The watching of the nest and the easy acquisition of provender would go hand in hand. The Spider is of another opinion; and I ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... that that number should not be exceeded. But now their activity seemed daily increasing, and it was not without concern that we noticed in her a certain restlessness and a growing tendency to discuss with the serpent questions relating to the acquisition of prohibited apples. After a while, and perhaps in consequence of the good advice we gave her, she sobered down and surprised us by her docility; but at best her moods were uncertain ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... will, of course, if in the majority, be liable to rule and ruin; if in a large minority, they will hold a balance of power that may easily be controlled by demagogues. To educate this mass up to the point of intelligence and the acquisition of property is America's great duty and the guaranty of ...
— The American Missionary, October, 1890, Vol. XLIV., No. 10 • Various
... their many obliging favours; amongst which I must not forget to mention an handsome present of tea for the use of the ships' companies, and a large collection of English periodical publications. The latter we found a valuable acquisition; as they both served to amuse our impatience, during our tedious voyage home, and enabled us to return not total strangers to what had been transacting in our native country. At one o'clock the next ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... rolling the barrel is not only a very important and valuable one, but very difficult of acquisition, the knowledge appertaining to its practical working having been wholly confined to one person in this country previously to the breaking out of the Rebellion. The invention is English, and has been used in this country but a few years. Only one set of rollers was used at this armory ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... you will never learn whither I have gone or where I am. Like the criminal escaping from jail, I shall change my name, and deny the term which I have served at your side. I shall possess no name, no home, no family. I shall be a stranger and an outcast, wandering to and fro for fear that the acquisition of a settled residence might betray my abode to you. And now, there are three roads open to you. You may return with your child to the old home of the Dumanys, my poor Slav kingdom. There you may live, secluded from the world, bringing up your child and teaching him virtue, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... distant and did not make Mina feel an outsider. The fault was the other way; she was confidential—and about Harry. She assumed an intimacy with him equal or more than equal to Mina's own; she even told Mina things about him; she said "we" thought him an enormous acquisition, and hoped to see a great deal of him. It was all very kind, and Mina, as a true friend, should have been delighted. As it ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... the invasion of India my idea is that the thing is not only practicable, but easy, unless we determine to act as an Asiatic Power. On the acquisition of Khiva by the Russians we should occupy Lahore and Cabul.[Footnote: It may be remembered that Lord Ellenborough strongly disapproved of any occupation of Afghanistan, or interference with its internal affairs, in 1840-42. At that time Russia had not advanced to Khiva. It is clear that he would ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... to the boat with our prize. Domingos had meantime been boiling some coffee; as we had now no sugar, the fresh milk proved a most valuable acquisition. The Indians, however, recommended us not to take much of it. We kept it, intending to use it again in the evening, but on taking off the lid of one of the monkey-cups, we found that our milk had thickened into a stiff and excessively tenacious glue. "My cow good?" ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... before the day was done she had found a furnished apartment in the dingy region of narrow streets behind Leicester Square, and for a time she was entirely absorbed in this new acquisition. It was her own, her very own. It was at the top of the house, and looked out over roofs and chimneys westward so that she had the London sunset for comfort and companionship: more than enough, sweeter intimacy than any she had yet found among human beings, whose shallow ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... thou, who now dreadest pike and sword, mightest have trolled a carol "in the robber's face," hadst thou entered the road of life with empty pockets. Oh, wondrous blessedness of perishable wealth, whose acquisition robs thee ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... accustomed to the new-rich point of view, understood Charles to mean that he had not the entree of that distinguished coterie in which Mr. Coleyard posed as a shining luminary. Which naturally made him rate even higher than before his literary acquisition. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... knowledge received under the immediate auspices of this sovereign. At a very early period, after his accession to the throne of these realms, expeditions of discovery were undertaken, 'not (as Dr. Hawkesworth observes) with a view to the acquisition of treasure, or the extent of dominion, but for the improvement of commerce, and the increase and diffusion of knowledge.' This excellent monarch was himself no mean proficient in the science of geography; and it may be doubted if any one of his ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... carrying out the life of toil which Count Tolstoy has advocated at times. One of these communities, of which I had direct information, purchased an estate of a landed proprietor, including the manor house, and began to work. This acquisition of an estate by them, while the count would like to give away his as sinful to retain, does not strike one as a good beginning. However, they did not use the manor house, but lived in one small peasant hut. "They ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... and when at last master of it, the magpie, to the astonishment of all its friends, suddenly broke its long silence, by a perfect imitation of the flourish of trumpets it had heard; observing with the greatest exactness all the repetitions, stops, and changes. The acquisition of this lesson had, however, exhausted the whole of the magpie's stock of intellect; for it made it forget everything ...
— A Hundred Anecdotes of Animals • Percy J. Billinghurst
... the almost unexpected inheritance which had set him on his feet and enabled him to carry out his bold plans. Riches had not been his only aim; his warmest desires had all along tended toward the acquisition of a great and commanding position in the world. He would have been in his element as an Indian chief, as a privy councillor, or even as a master-huntsman; but the life of a factory-owner seemed to him ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... to permeate the diners, Mr. Bucknor proceeded to tell the story, of course in the strictest confidence, about Tom Harbison and the milk can, all of which went to convince others beside Big Josh that Judith might prove a valuable acquisition to the family. ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... with a blind obedience to Rome and to all its maxims; with a great aversion for everything that passed for Jansenism, and made them so dependent upon the bishops that they began to be considered an acquisition in many dioceses. They appeared a middle party, very useful to the prelates; who equally feared the Court, on account of suspicions of doctrine, and the Jesuits for as soon as the latter had insinuated themselves into ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... I judg'd it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to fix it on one of them at a time; and, when I should be master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, till I should have gone thro' the thirteen; and, as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisition of certain others, I arrang'd them with that view, as they stand above. Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head, which is so necessary ...
— The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... can be made to enable them to settle in a compact colony, is of great interest, as going to show the light in which our institutions are regarded by an industrious, intelligent, and wealthy people, desirous of enjoying civil and religious liberty; and the acquisition of so large an immigration of citizens of a superior class would without doubt be of substantial benefit to the country. I invite attention to the suggestion of the Secretary of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... his red head and chuckled. "A bright idea, sweetheart," he repeated, "and if it works out and I am enabled to file first, the problem of getting back to the desert will be a minor one. The real problem is the acquisition of four or five thousand dollars to drive my tunnel, and after that I must scrape together thirty-nine thousand dollars to advance to my poor Pagans, in order that they may pay for the land on which I shall have ...
— The Long Chance • Peter B. Kyne
... what Keats was doing ten years later. Every now and then one pauses to think that this lad, once his youthful vapours were over, might have done great things. And as he says in his quaint little preface, "the unpremeditated effusions of a boy, from his thirteenth year, employed, not in the acquisition of literary information, but in the more active business of life, must not be expected to exhibit any considerable portion of the correctness of a Virgil, or the vigorous compression of ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley
... again take up the ambitious designs which the treaty of 585 had forced her to renounce. Alyattes, relieved from anxiety with regard to the Medes, had confined his energies to establishing firmly his kingdom in the regions of Asia Minor extending westwards from the Halys and the Anti-Taurus. The acquisition of Colophon, the destruction of Smyrna, the alliance with the towns of the littoral, had ensured him undisputed possession of the valleys of the Caicus and the Hermus, but the plains of the Maeander in the south, and the mountainous districts of Mysia in the north, were not yet fully brought under ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... have taken rest enough. I came not to Cairo to take my pleasure; my design is to obtain the ninth statue; it is time for us to set out in search of it." "Sir," said Mobarec, "I am ready to comply with your desires; but you know not what dangers you must encounter to make this precious acquisition." "Whatsoever the danger may be," answered the prince, "I have resolved to make the attempt; I will either perish or succeed. All that happens in this world is by God's direction. Do you but bear me company, and let your resolution be equal ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... breathes that ardor for discovery, that spirit of enterprise which characterized the men of his time, when the manners of chivalry were united to zeal for commerce, and made subservient to the acquisition of wealth. ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... remember that this wisdom of life is the true salt of literature; that those books, at least in prose, are most nourishing which are most richly stored with it; and that it is one of the main objects, apart from the mere acquisition of knowledge, which men ought to seek in the reading ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... Gradual Acquisition of the Idea of Natural Government by Law.—Eventually sustained by Astronomical, Meteorological, and Physiological Discoveries.—Illustrations from Kepler's Laws, the Trade-winds, Migrations of Birds, Balancing of Vegetable ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... the more elevated the topic, the more copious the preparation for it. It is inevitable that a being who has before him an eternity of progress through zones of knowledge and spiritual experience ever nearing the Central Sun, should be fitted for it through long acquisition of the faculties which alone can deal with it. Their delicacy, their vigor, their penetrativeness, their unlikeness to those called for on the material plane, show the contrast of the earth-life to the spirit-life. And they show, too, the inconceivability of a sudden transition from one ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... take his bargain off his hands without a considerable loss, yet still clinging to the belief that at some future day he should obtain a sum for it that would repay him, not only for his past outlay, but also the interest upon the capital locked up in his new acquisition, contented himself with letting the ground temporarily to some market-gardeners, at a yearly rental of 500 francs. And so, as we have said, the iron gate leading into the kitchen-garden had been closed up and left to the ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... his own labours, and the work fully bears out the character here given of it. No one capable of receiving pleasure from the disentanglement of intricacies, or the clear exposition of an abstruse subject; no one seeking assistance in the acquisition of distinct and accurate views on the various and difficult topics which these volumes embrace—can fail to read them with satisfaction ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... anything but aggressive; and if there be one collision which the English people would be less inclined to tolerate than another, it would be that of a little war entered upon for the mere purpose of territorial acquisition or philanthropic reform. China, moreover, is no mere petty principality like Abyssinia, Ashantee, or Afghanistan, that she had need be liable to the risk of annihilation or annexation, even should she again unhappily venture to take up arms against England on ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... much to say. It was a record of hard work and of little adventure; of experiments in this direction and in that; of the gradual acquisition of the knowledge of books and of men. I took care to ask Strickland nothing about his own doings. I showed not the least interest in him, and at last I was rewarded. He began to talk of himself. But with his ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... Corinth, Memphis and Vicksburg with the troops we then had, and as volunteering was going on rapidly over the North there would soon have been force enough at all these centres to operate offensively against any body of the enemy that might be found near them. Rapid movements and the acquisition of rebellious territory would have promoted volunteering, so that reinforcements could have been had as fast as transportation could have been obtained to carry them to their destination. On the other hand there were tens of thousands of strong able-bodied young ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... process of self-instruction, and by consequence a process of pleasurable instruction, we may advert to the fact that, in proportion as it is made so, there is a probability that it will not cease when schooldays end. As long as the acquisition of knowledge is rendered habitually repugnant, so long will there be a prevailing tendency to discontinue it when free from the coercion of parents and masters. And when the acquisition of knowledge has been rendered habitually gratifying, then there will be as ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... to thank you for publishing this notice, which resulted in the acquisition of several new members. We are all readers of Astounding Stories, and consider it the premier magazine in ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... of property is of great extent. It will be necessary to establish the foundation of the rights of acquisition, alienation, and transmission, not in imaginary contracts or a pretended state of nature, but in their subserviency to the subsistence and well-being of mankind. It will not only be curious, but useful, to trace the history of ...
— A Discourse on the Study of the Law of Nature and Nations • James Mackintosh
... discovered that this danger is accentuated when the little learning is combined with much native wit. In the days when religious persecution was universal—only, be it remembered, a few generations ago—it was the policy of England to avert this danger by prohibiting, as far as possible, the acquisition by Irish Roman Catholics of any learning at all. After the Union, Englishmen began to feel their responsibility for the state of Ireland, a state of poverty and distress which culminated in the Famine. Knowledge was then no longer withheld: indeed the English sincerely ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... be, that pretend Divine Inspiration, to be a supernaturall entring of the Holy Ghost into a man, and not an acquisition of Gods grace, by doctrine, and study; I think they are in a very dangerous Dilemma. For if they worship not the men whom they beleeve to be so inspired, they fall into Impiety; as not adoring Gods supernaturall Presence. And again, ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... Louisiana Purchase. The colony of Louisiana at the mouth of the Mississippi, with its vast hinterland stretching into the heart of the American continent, had, as we have seen, passed in 1762 from French into Spanish hands. Its acquisition by the United States had been an old project of Jefferson's. When Secretary of State under Washington, he had mooted it when settling with the Spanish Government the question of the navigation of the ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... also that my object was to dupe and intoxicate him gradually by delusive friendship and promises, by festivities and false homage, until it is indifferent to him whether, as a compensation for the acquisition of Spain by my brother, I give him Constantinople and the Balkan, or something else, provided it is palatable. He has an awful appetite for territory, and it is important to satisfy it in one way or another. It is easy to persuade a hungry man that a very ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... and Turkish spahis, Spanish hidalgos and Aztec soldiers, Carolina slaveholders and New England farmers,—these and a hundred other races or orders have all been parties to the great, the universal struggle which has for its object the acquisition of property, the providing of a shield against the ever-threatening fiend which we call WANT. Property once obtained, the possessor's next aim is to keep it. The very fact, that the mode of acquisition may have been wrong, and subversive of property-rights, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... time the sing-songs in a trench some little distance away from "Leicester Lounge" knocked spots off all the others anywhere, thanks to the acquisition of a piano for them—probably the only instrument of its kind which has ever been in the British trenches at the front. It came from "Dirty Dick's." The picture of "Dirty Dick's" gives a rough idea ...
— A Soldier's Sketches Under Fire • Harold Harvey
... diffused over her face and figure. Bell looked upon Sylvia as still a child, to be warned off forbidden things by threats of danger. But the forbidden thing was already tasted, and possible danger in its full acquisition only served to make it ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Spendall and Sir H. Simpson were sole prosecutors, and between forgeries on banks, and in betting-books, and the unjust acquisition of Spendall Lodge, Howel was found guilty of forgeries to the amount of some fifty or sixty thousand pounds, and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years. So much general villainy transpired amongst the set in which these ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... same time apportioned to Great Britain; the conquest from Mexico in 1848 of California and a vast mountainous tract at the back of it; the purchase from Mexico of a small frontier strip in 1853; and the acquisition at several later times of various outlying dependencies which will in no ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... which correspond to them. He mentions the instincts of flight, repulsion, curiosity, pugnacity, self- abasement, self-assertion, the parental instinct, the instinct of sex, the instinct for food, that for acquisition, etc. He points out that man is by nature open to sympathy, is suggestible, and has the impulse to play. In such instincts and inborn general tendencies, blending and reinforcing or opposing and inhibiting one another, he sees the forces ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... dust, I gathered my dress (my best, the reader must remember, and therefore a legitimate object of care) fastidiously around me, ascended this species of extempore throne, and being seated, commenced the acquisition of my task; while I learned, not forgetting to keep a sharp look-out on the black-beetles and cockroaches, of which, more even, I believe, than of the rats, I ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... exercise is much better. We ride in numbers and are well jolted, and without dread. 'Tis the most powerful exercise I know. No Spring seats; but, like so many pigs, we bundle together on straw. Four miles are equal to twenty. It is really an acquisition. I hope you will see our little girl rosy cheeked and plump as a partridge. I rejoice with you at the poor major's return. I grow lazy, and love leisure; and, above all, the privilege of disposing of my own time with quiet ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... first place, it has been asserted that the doll instinct has really nothing whatever to do with the parental instinct in either sex. Psychologists, whom one suspects of being bachelors, tell us that what we really observe here is the instinct of acquisition: it really does not matter what we give the child, though it so happens that we very commonly present it with dolls; it is the lust of possession that we satisfy, and in point of fact one thing will satisfy ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... more efficiently to their original purpose, and thus to secure to the university not only a staff of zealous teachers, which it certainly possesses, but likewise a class of independent workers, of men who, by original research, by critical editions of the classics, by an acquisition of a scholarlike knowledge of other languages besides Greek and Latin, by an honest devotion to one or the other among the numerous branches of physical science, by fearless researches into the ancient history of mankind, by a careful collection or revision of the materials for the history of politics, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... successfully accomplished. There had been discovered a heathen land, nearly three thousand miles in extent, before unknown to the civilized world, and, therefore, open to subjugation and settlement; healthy, populous, fertile and apparently rich in gold and aromatics, and, therefore, an acquisition as great and valuable as any discovery made by the Spaniards or Portuguese, except that of Columbus. Silence and indifference in regard to such an event were impossible. Printing introduced long previously ...
— The Voyage of Verrazzano • Henry C. Murphy
... Balearic Isles, and annexed them to the empire. [3] It penetrated into the farthest regions of the Levant; and the expedition of the Catalans into Asia, which terminated with the more splendid than useful acquisition of Athens, forms one of the most romantic passages in this stirring and ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... success. It introduced Captain Winstanley to all that was best in the surrounding society; for although in Switzerland he had seemed very familiar with the best people in the Forest, in Hampshire he appeared almost a stranger to them. It was generally admitted, however, that the Captain was an acquisition, and a person to be cultivated. He sang a French comic song almost as well as Monsieur de Roseau, recited a short Yankee poem, which none of his audience had ever heard before, with telling force. He was at home upon every subject, from orchids to steam-ploughs, from ordnance to light literature. ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... already been said, in susceptibility to a far larger series of physical vibrations than ordinary, but nevertheless its possession brings into view a good deal to which the majority of the human race still remains blind. Let us consider what changes its acquisition produces in the aspect of familiar objects, animate and inanimate, and then see to what entirely new factors it introduces us. But it must be remembered that what I am about to describe is the result of the ...
— Clairvoyance • Charles Webster Leadbeater
... conduct became decidedly eccentric. He had the black man conveyed at once into a cool, dark, strong room with a heavy iron door, where the new acquisition was locked up in company with a sufficient meal. Moore and I dined hastily, and then he summoned all his negroes together into the court of the house. "Look here, boys," he cried: "all these trees"—and ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... commercial one. We are preparing to share in every way the sacrifices, both in blood and wealth, which our allies have been making these past three years. And as our reward we ask for no selfish or commercial rights, nor do we seek to acquire extension of territory or acquisition of privilege in any part of the world. We have entered the war solely, because of wrongs committed in the past, and with the just determination that similar wrongs shall never again be perpetrated. No country and no people on this globe are more responsive to an obligation, and ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... go, for Joe knew something about the value of trained animals. Lizzie would be shipped to the next town in which the circus showed, and in a crate she had formerly traveled in, and this crate Joe would use in transporting his new acquisition about the country. ...
— Joe Strong, the Boy Fish - or Marvelous Doings in a Big Tank • Vance Barnum
... his early years became acquainted with some of the brightest geniuses which then illuminated the regions of wit, such as Dryden, Wycherly, Congreve, and Southern. Their conversation was in itself sufficient to divert his mind from the acquisition of any profitable art, or the exercise of any profession. He ranked himself amongst the wits, and from that moment held every attainment in contempt, except what related to ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... can exist without Charlotte Russes, I think," Nattie said. She had quite recovered her good humor, and was reconciled even to Mr. Stanwood's company; indeed, had secretly confessed he was really an acquisition. Such is the power ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... de Stael Holstein, and sent to Leigh Hunt (an acquisition to my acquaintance—through Moore—of last summer) a copy of the two Turkish tales. Hunt is an extraordinary character, and not exactly of the present age. He reminds me more of the Pym and Hampden times—much talent, great independence of spirit, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron |
