"Action" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... most amiable countenance. They both came and seated themselves near Madame and Miss de Clinville, when the young stranger could not keep her eyes from the bunch of cherries, and remarked to the lady who was with her: 'How fresh and beautiful they are!' Anxiety was depicted in her eyes and in every action, and at length, slowly advancing towards Emmelina, with the most affable condescension, she said: 'What a delicious nosegay you have there, miss! The freshness of it can only be compared with ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... reduced, and as he approached us, it was evident that the animal was calculating his distance with admirable precision. The puma, now expecting to seize his prey, followed about thirty yards behind; the bear, aware of the close vicinity of her enemy, cleared the briars and squared herself for action, when the deer, with a beautiful and powerful spring, passed the bear's head and disappeared. At the moment he took the leap, the puma was close upon him, and was just balancing himself for a spring, when ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... what is this God who has a will? And what can be the subject of this divine will? Is it more ridiculous or more difficult to believe in fairies, in sylphs, in ghosts, in witches, in were-wolfs, than to believe in the magical or impossible action of the spirit upon the body? As soon as we admit of such a God, there are no longer fables or visions which can not be believed. The theologians treat men like children, who never cavil about the possibilities of the tales which they ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... that I am just in season to help you," said Marcus Wilkeson, who, during the recital of this brief history, had decided upon his course of action. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... and zealous industry. Unless, however, security of property is enjoyed, as well as political liberty, industry, even if it could spring up under such circumstances, must soon droop and decay. It is a contradiction in terms to suppose that comprehensive views and desires can exist and lead to action, when at the same time it is extremely doubtful whether the objects of them could be realized, or, if realized, whether they would not immediately be destroyed, or torn from those whose labour, and skill, and anxious ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... water-hole, which covered about an acre of ground, and was densely clothed with reeds, now in the sear and yellow leaf. From the farther edge of this pan the ground sloped up again to a great cleft, or nullah, which had been cut out by the action of the water, and was pretty thickly sprinkled with bush, among which grew some large trees, I ...
— Stories by English Authors: Africa • Various
... Sol," replied Paul earnestly, as he girded his spirit for action. He knew that the attack would come very soon, as the Indians would choose the darkest period before the moon rose. Nor was he wrong. The battle in the night began only a half ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... be happening to the colonists, there was growing clamor from the people and pressure from various governmental bodies to get off the dime and get going—rescue those people, or, cynically, at least make a show of action to quell the flood of telegrams. E.H.Q. resisted the pressures in favor of doing a workmanlike job in preparation for a genuine rescue instead of a haphazard show, but ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... other original, ratified by General Vivanco, which is now in the Department of State. In order to obviate this difficulty as far as may be in my power, I transmit a copy of the convention, under the seal of the United States, on which the Senate might found any action they ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... existed, and while every gum-tree or wattle-tree had its name, there was no word for 'tree' in general, nor for qualities such as hard, soft, hot, cold, etc. Anything hard was 'like a stone,' anything round 'like the moon,' and so on, the speaker suiting the action to the word, and supplementing the meaning to be understood by some gesture." [109] Here the original concrete form of language can be clearly discerned. They had a sufficiency of names for all the objects which were of use ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... the tribunes of the people, now interposed, crying aloud that the consuls were veiling a most barbarous action under the specious name of sending out colonists. They were despatching many poor men to certain destruction by transporting them to a city whose air was full of pestilence and the stench from unburied corpses, where they were to dwell under the auspices of a god ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... father, they know who did!" exclaimed Spargo. "Now, then, it's time for more action. Let Elphick and Cardlestone alone for the moment—they'll be tracked easily enough. I want to tackle something else for the moment. How do you get an authority from the Government to ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher
... hesitation, "but I can at least give you this warning. It is not for his health alone that Prince Shan is flying from China to Paris. If there is a single member of your Government who has the least apprehension of world politics, now is the time for action." ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... an army of collectors, assistant collectors, inspectors, assistant inspectors, cashiers, accountants, receivers, clerks, supernumeraries, tide-waiters, and all this in order to exercise on the industry of the people that negative action which is summed up in ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... kinds of men in the world, two great creeds, two different forms of natures: men to whom the end of life is action, and men to whom the end of life is thought. As regards the latter, who seek for experience itself and not for the fruits of experience, who must burn always with one of the passions of this fiery-coloured world, who find life interesting not for ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... Paladin's helmet, such as he had never yet received from mortal man. For a moment it took away his senses. His sight failed; his ears tinkled; his frightened horse turned about to fly; and he was falling from the saddle, when the very action of falling jerked his head upwards, and with the ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... ones, Serato," urged Job Titus. "Get some fellows like Koku," for the giant did the work of three men in the tunnel, not because he was obliged to, but because his enormous strength must find an outlet in action. ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton
... or Eratostratus—an Ephesian, who wantonly set fire to the famous temple of Diana, in order to commemorate his name by so uncommon an action. ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... others, not by us; but that you have done all that men could do has been admitted by those in authority, and we have a right to join in the universal joy that fills our land because the war is over, and our Government stands vindicated before the world by the joint action of the volunteer armies and navy ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... consider the relationship of mind (thought and consciousness) to body. He quotes the "lucky" paragraph from Tyndall, "The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and a definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously; we do not possess the intellectual organ, or apparently any trace of the organ which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from one to the other." This is the "parallel" theory which postulates a hideous ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... lawlessness of the human race, has its precepts graven on every breast. The grand principles of virtue and honour, however they may be distorted by arbitrary codes, are the same all the world over: and where these principles are concerned, the right or wrong of any action appears the same to the uncultivated as to the enlightened mind. It is to this indwelling, this universally diffused perception of what is just and noble, that the integrity of the Marquesans in their intercourse with each other, is to be attributed. In the darkest nights ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... of July resting and girding their loins for the first baptism of fire. The volunteers were eager for the fray. The first touch of the skirmishers had resulted in fifteen or twenty killed. But the action had been too far away ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... the Swede's face. Involuntarily the watchman drew back, whereupon the unwelcome visitor crowded past, jostling his inhospitable host roughly, laughing the while, although in his laughter there rang a dangerous metallic note. Emerson's quick action gained him entrance and Fraser followed behind into the living-room, where a flat-nosed squaw withdrew before them. The young man flung down his burden, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... many of the difficulties were overcome, still it is not to be denied that, on the whole, macadamized roads are not adapted to locomotive machines. Even when the road is in the best possible condition, the concussion is found so great as materially to interfere with the action of the machinery; and if the road be slightly muddy, or sandy, or newly gravelled, the draught will be double, or even treble what it is on the same road when free from dirt or dust. The author of the Treatise on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... Harwick] to possess a theoretical notion of what is right and wrong, but quite another to act according to it. In order that the knowledge of good should be transformed into an ardent desire for its triumph, as food is converted into chyle and blood, it must be urged to action by elevated sentiments, and these are generally lacking in the criminal. If, on the contrary, good feelings really exist, the individual desires to do right and his convictions are translated into action with the same energy that he displayed in ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... arrived that the mob were sacking the house of one of the chiefs of the council, whereupon his Highness Duke Philip called out again, "Will ye stand by me or not? Here is no time for hesitation, but action. Will ye ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... Montmartre quarter. M. Clemeneau severely criticizes the new Viviani Cabinet. "Viviani," said he, "asked me twice to form part of it. I declined because, in addition to personal reasons, the Ministry did not seem to me to realize the elements of power and action required by this war. Having this opinion, it would not be fair either to Viviani or to myself to enter into a combination where I should have to assume the responsibility for acts that to my mind would not adequately ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... method. His prudence repressed and dissembled some youthful sallies; and as soon as I was confirmed in the habits of industry and temperance, he gave the reins into my own hands. His favourable report of my behaviour and progress gradually obtained some latitude of action and expence; and he wished to alleviate the hardships of my lodging and entertainment. The principles of philosophy were associated with the examples of taste; and by a singular chance, the book, as well as the man, which contributed the most effectually to my education, ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... never touched my heart until now, my clay tobacco-jar, and my old pouch. I had said good-by to these before my friends came in, and I could now speak with a comparatively firm voice. Marriot and Gilray and Scrymgeour signed to Jimmy, as if some plan of action had been arranged, and Jimmy said huskily, sitting upon ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... idealist, 'all this is intensely interesting, and right glorious for us. One sees at last a possibility of action. I ask nothing better than to be allowed to work with you. It happens very luckily that you are a practical engineer. I suppose the mechanical details of the undertaking are ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... than undaunted courage,' etc. The two things are not opposed enough. You mean, rather than rash fire of valour in action. ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... negroes can be so elevated as to bring them to put some confidence in one another, they may improve in individual industry, as they manifestly are improving, but the benefits resulting from combined action can be enjoyed only in a very limited measure. Even now two black men can hardly own so much as a small sugar mill in common. They are almost sure to quarrel over the division of the profits. The consequence is, that, whereas they might ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... our tents!" shrieked Corney, who was part way up a tree, so rapid had been his action after being warned ...
— Fred Fenton on the Crew - or, The Young Oarsmen of Riverport School • Allen Chapman
... what the action of the saliva is, its composition or reaction on the tissues. It is generally supposed to prevent coagulation of the blood that is to be drawn through the narrow tube of the labrum. Others think that its presence causes a greater flow ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... where they would be better accommodated. Yet, in spite of all these fair pretences, the Dutch suspected that some mischief was intended by the savages, who now began to environ the ship all around, and then, with a great outcry, made a sudden attack. The king's ship was the foremost in the action, and rushed with such violence against the Unity, that the heads of the two canoes composing it were both dashed to pieces. The rest came on as well as they could, throwing repeated showers of great stones on board; but the Dutch, having been on their guard, so galled them with musquetry, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... immediately upon sense, that explanation of human action is deemed to be the truest which is nearest to sense. As knowledge is reduced to sensation, so virtue is reduced to feeling, happiness or good to pleasure. The different virtues—the various characters which ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... decks for action means that everything possible is removed from the deck, and a clear space left for the sailors ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... structure in nature, absolutely infusible, totally inert chemically, one a perfect conductor of light and of all radiation in space, the other a perfect reflector of all radiations—save molecular rays. Made into the condition of reflection by the action of special frequencies in its formation from light, molecular frequencies were, unfortunately, able to convert it into perfectly transparent lux metal, when the protective ...
— Invaders from the Infinite • John Wood Campbell
... never attack men, and that even the big leaders never use their massive, battering ram heads to injure anyone. With this in mind I moved up to within ten feet when a movement of his haughty head stopped me. Somehow in his action was the suggestion that he might forget tradition. One bump of his huge head would knock me overboard. There was nothing but space for a hundred feet below, then sheer wall ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... in September George Barrett, a kindly brother distinguished by his constant air of dignity and importance, was commissioned to hire a country house for the family at Dover or Reigate or Tunbridge, while paperers and painters were to busy themselves at Wimpole Street. The moment for immediate action had come; else all chance of Italy might be lost for the year 1846. "We must be married directly," wrote Browning on the morning when this intelligence arrived. Next day a marriage license was procured. On the following morning, Saturday, September 12th, accompanied by her maid Wilson, ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... rest of the company, and was attending to us, though he endeavored to conceal his attention by looking carelessly over a play which lay on the window by him. Yet he evidently watched every word and action of Miss Wharton, as if he were really interested ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... the distance-entrance [Left Side-door] the colossal figure of Hercules. Here is the turning-point of the play: which has the peculiarity of combining an element of the Satyric Drama (or Burlesque) with Tragedy, the combination anticipating the 'Action-Drama' (or 'Tragi-Comedy') of modern times. Accordingly the costume and mask of Hercules are compounded, of his conventional appearance in Tragedy, in which he is conceived as the perfection of physical strength toiling and suffering for ...
— Story of Orestes - A Condensation of the Trilogy • Richard G. Moulton
... he said and suited the action to the word. He took one of the long light curls and pulled it gently, yet with a brusque show of savagery and strength—"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, and one to make you grow. Now who says ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... wonder just a trifle what would have happened to any such thing as a policeman or town marshal in the valley of Heart's Desire! In short, there was neither judicial nor executive arm of the law in action. One may, therefore, realize the hindrances which Dan Anderson met in getting up his lawsuit. Yet he went forward in the attempt patiently, driven simply by ennui. He did not dream that he was doing ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... favorite attitude was one of concentrated immobility. He was capable of standing for hours at a stretch in the same place with his eyes fixed on the same spot without stirring. He never moved except on impulse, and then only when an occasion presented itself for some rapid and abrupt action: catching a running dog by the tail, pulling off a woman's kerchief, or jumping over a big hole. It need hardly be said that with such parsimony of movement Savka was as poor as a mouse and lived worse than any homeless outcast. As time went on, I suppose he accumulated ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and never will have an end. "The world and everything in it is but an illusion, a Maya," say the Vedantists, the Buddhists, and the Jainas; but, whereas the followers of Sankaracharya preach Parabrahm (a deity devoid of will, understanding, and action, because "It is absolute understanding, mind and will"), and Ishwara emanating from It, the Jainas and the Buddhists believe in no Creator of the Universe, but teach only the existence of Swabhawati, a plastic, infinite, self-created principle in Nature. ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... spokesman better suited the temper of those he addressed, a temper rather stubborn than impetuous, sedate though ferocious, and desirous of colouring their cruel and revengeful action with a ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... from London, who had induced several people to take shares in a bogus concern, and was consequently defendant in an action ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... what help they could. May standing at the horses' heads, and her mother trying to wrap everybody up, since stay in their carriages they could not. Transferring the horses to Nuttie, the two sisters hurried on towards the scene of action, but Blanche's white satin boots did not carry her far, and she turned on meeting her uncle. He spoke with a briskness and alacrity that made him like another man in this emergency, as he assured the anxious ladies that their friends were safe, but that they could ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Italian ethics are the most singular ever met with. The perversion, not only of action, but of reasoning, is singular in the women. It is not that they do not consider the thing itself as wrong, and very wrong, but love (the sentiment of love) is not merely an excuse for it, but makes it an actual ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... its prodigality of original thought. But the reflection constantly recurred to me that each suggestion, to be of real value to science, would require years of work. It is also very unsatisfactory, the impossibility of conjecturing where direct action of external circumstances begins and ends—as he candidly owns in discussing the production of woody tissue in the trunks of trees on the one hand, and on the other in spines and the shells of nuts. I shall like to hear what you think of this ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... removal of the Druidical works, predicted retributive justice to those who disturbed the sacred relics. For a long time every misadventure to the company, or to individuals connected therewith, was attributed to the sacrilegious action. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... was the brief but bloody action which was known among the Christian warriors by the name of 'The Queen's Skirmish;' for when the Marques of Cadiz waited upon her majesty to apologize for breaking her commands, he attributed the victory entirely ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... well with the Ship of State. The nation had passed from action to talk, and from talk to passivity, and from passivity to resignation. The era of revolutions was gone forever. The infallible system of government had proved to be this mechanism of pre-arranged "crises" and amicable exchanges of patronage between Liberals and Conservatives, ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... infant, when grown to riper years, left without his protectors; Juventas was the god of youth; Agenoria excited men to action; and the goddesses Stimula and Strenua inspired courage and vivacity; Horta[52] inspired the fame or love of glory; and Sentra gave them the sentiments of probity and justice; Quies was the goddesses of repose or ease,[53] and Indolena, or laziness, ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... permit of, or to favour, or to necessitate cross-fertilisation. The adaptations for cross-fertilisation are perhaps more obvious in the Orchideae than in any other group of plants, but it is an error to speak of them, as some authors have done, as an exceptional case. The lever-like action of the stamens of Salvia (described by Hildebrand, Dr. W. Ogle, and others), by which the anthers are depressed and rubbed on the backs of bees, shows as perfect a structure as can be found in any orchid. Papilionaceous flowers, as described by various authors—for ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... statement may seem, when one remembers the conditions that circumscribed his freedom of action on board the Sybarite, that he stood utterly alone in that company of conspirators and their creatures, alone and unarmed, with never a friend to guard his back or even to whisper him one word of counsel, warning or encouragement, with only his naked wits and hands ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... returning from Saarbruck when I got winged. Bullets whizzed through the 'plane, and one or two impinged on the engine. I tried to turn and fly out of range, but a shot had put the rudder out of action. An attempt to rise and trust to luck was baulked by my engine losing speed. A bullet had opened the water cooler, and down, down the 'plane glided, till a clear space beyond a clump of trees received it rather ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... pusillanimity with which we have borne many insults and indignities from the creatures of power at home, and the creatures of those creatures here, than it ever did, or ever will by the freedom and spirit that has been or will be discovered in writing or action. Believe me, my countrymen, they have imbibed an opinion on the other side the water, that we are an ignorant, a timid, and a stupid people; nay, their tools on this side have often the impudence to dispute your bravery.—But I hope ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... most unwise course of action conceivable; but Mrs. Hermon, with her quiet and philosophical husband, and her only son, had led a sheltered, smoothly flowing married life, after a yet more sheltered girlhood, far removed from the passionate upheavals of society, and she had ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... I would ask: one month to restore this island to peace and prosperity. I have always been a Liberal, but I confess that I entirely fail to understand the action the Government are taking ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... changes his natural manner, in the action of his mind, of his speech, and of his person, is to be set down as false in his complaint, or [if a ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... expedient to relate it. It is ignored by General Sherman in his memoirs, yet Sherman ordered it. General Howard wrote an account of the campaign of which it was an incident, and dismissed it in a single sentence; yet General Howard planned it, and it was fought as an isolated and independent action under his eye. Whether it was so trifling an affair as to justify this inattention let the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... do a shame to our city at the age I am, and in the reputation of wisdom which is now charged against me, to appear in such an abject form. What would men say of the other Athenians? I have always admonished those who have frequented my lectures, not to redeem their lives by an unbecoming action; and in the wars of my country, at Amphipolis, Potidea, Delia, and other expeditions where I have been, I have effectually manifested how far I was from securing my safety by my shame. I should, moreover, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... would have reached. For the Jesuits were, above all things else, the harbingers of a militant faith. Their organization and their methods admirably fitted them to be the pioneers of the Cross in new lands. They were men of action, seeking to win their crown of glory and their reward through intense physical and spiritual exertions, not through long seasons of prayer and meditation in cloistered seclusion. Loyola, the founder of the Order, gave to the world the nucleus of a crusading host, disciplined as no army ever was. ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro
... imminence of war in South Africa was realised. It was not the first time that our kinsmen had sent their sons for the general service of the Empire. In 1881, within twenty-four hours of the receipt of the news of the action at Laing's Nek, two thousand men of the Australian local forces had volunteered for employment in South Africa, but were not accepted. Four years later, eight hundred colonists from New South Wales were welcomed for service at Suakim, while a special ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... poet of romantic emotion, as Scott of romantic action. Professor Gates says that Keats' heroes never do anything.[41] It puzzles the reader of "The Eve of St. Agnes" to know just why Porphyro sets out the feast of cates on the little table by Madeline's bedside unless it be to give the poet an opportunity for his luscious description ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... was a happy thing, and no one under forty days' time could say for a fact that they were not genuine. The dramatic production of these letters lulled the fast gathering suspicions, and would have called a halt had they purposed any serious action, for the reason that during the forty days it would take to communicate with London the credits could not be proved to be forgeries. That such letters existed at all was due entirely to the foresight which had provided to meet ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... I had rather it were in thy power to forgive me, for thou hast the sharpest action against me; the law, my honest friend, lies in thy hands now: here's thy fee [His purse.]; and, my good fellow, let my suit be dispatched presently; for tis all one pain, to die a lingering death, and to live in the continual mill of a lawsuit. But I can tell thee, my neck is ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "Only one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be presented which may be striking and bizarre without being criminal. We have ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... round and saw him sitting in my open port, twirling his moustache and gazing out upon the sea. I said "Time" again, but he paid no attention; so I stole upon him, with the stealth of a wild Indian, and smote him behind. This action was unsportsmanlike, but conclusive. He shot out into the ocean, where probably some not over-particular tropic fish attempted to digest him ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... resolved not to go to class, when he thought, 'Did'nt my friend say the devil would tempt me and that I was to resist him? Perhaps it is the devil that is filling me with these distressing feelings, but I'll resist him,' and, suiting his action to his words, in a moment, John was seen darting along the street at his utmost speed; nor did he pause till, panting and almost breathless, he found himself seated in the vestry of the Primitive Methodist ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... for domestic servitude and forced labor tier rating: Tier 2 Watch List - Jamaica is placed on the Tier 2 Watch List based on the determination that it is making significant efforts to undertake future action ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... though evidently with much less heart than before. A few were very violent. The Dublin University Magazine, after the traditional Hibernian fashion, charged Mr. Darwin with seeking "to displace God by the unerring action of vagary," and with being "resolved to hunt God out of the world." But most notable from the side of the older Church was the elaborate answer to Darwin's book by the eminent French Catholic physician, Dr. Constantin James. In his work, On Darwinism, or ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... cruel and agonizing form of death; but the facts are written with surprising delicacy and reserve. As Jesus was being led from the city a certain Simon of Cyrene was pressed into the service of bearing his cross. The cause of this action is purely a matter of conjecture. Its result was to give Simon immortal fame and apparently to secure for him eternal salvation; for it seems that this experience, and the knowledge of Christ gained at Calvary, resulted in the conversion of Simon and his household, Mark 15:21; Rom. ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... these scenes, I kept him continually in action, walking with him in rain and sunshine, by day and by night. I sometimes wandered with him into the depths of the forests, or led him over untilled grounds, hoping that change of scene and fatigue might divert his mind from ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... foliage, Captain Nockelles, a hardy backwoodsman, leading. Soon I caught sight of a couple of blacks, and a white man with a pistol in his hand standing before them, while two of the blood-hounds lay dead at his feet. The blacks held their rifles ready for action. On seeing the white man, our captain, refraining from firing as I thought he would ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... An action was tried before Mr. Justice Maule, July 30, 1846—the first case of the kind—which established the liability of railway engineers for the consequences of any errors ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... that's a lightning rod?" he inquired innocently. "If it is, I should like to ask about its action in a mountain that is so impregnated with ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... he had planned, the British hold on New Jersey would have been shattered. As it was, it was only loosened. Congress, aroused at last, had invested Washington with almost dictatorial powers; but the time for action was short. The army was again melting away, and only by urgent appeals were some veterans retained, and enough new men gathered to make a force of five thousand men. With this army Washington prepared to finish what ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... passion, the passion which will face life-long suffering to save its object from unhappiness or degradation is greater than the passion which, for the sake of possessing its object, drags it into danger and the risk of ruin. It may be that all this is untrue, and that the action of these two imaginary individuals, the one sacrificing himself, the other endangering the loved one, is dependent upon the balance of the animal, intellectual and moral elements in each. We do not know much about the causes of what we feel, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... was necessary to work through and sift for my strictly limited object, I came upon a narrative (in Cotelerius Ecclesiae Grecae Monumenta) which seemed to me peculiar and touching notwithstanding its improbability. Sinai and the oasis of Pharan which lies at its foot were the scene of action. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... still took issue with his respected friend the squire on the illegality of the means used to rid the community of a most undesirable member. The squire replied with heat, referring to the case of The Commonwealth versus Hodgins, and the subsequent action of Hodgins versus The Commonwealth for damages. It was very evident that he would be relieved in mind if the case of The Commonwealth versus Blight did simmer down. But there was one obstacle to this programme of forgetting. It was not the ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... of the rectum when the animal can not be drenched, or the drug can not be given in any other way and when a local action is desired. An enema or clyster is a fluid injection into the rectum and is employed for the following purposes: to accelerate the action of a purgative; to stimulate the peristaltic movement of the intestines; to kill ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.
... at the head of the group, and serves as a sort of vanguard, and is, perhaps, the most dangerous of all. A gloomy collection of black rocks, full of crevices worn by the action of the winds, the waters, and the tempests, it does not nourish a single plant; not an atom of soil adheres to its surface; it is naked and barren; its steep sides bristle with cockle shells ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... whole of the "Song of Revolution." But crippled as the unions are under the law against strikes and by the poverty of the workers, they find it difficult to attain the financial strength necessary for effective action. Many workers are trade unionists when they are striking but their trade unionism lapses when the strike is over, for then the unions seem to have small reason for existing. The head of the Federation of Labour lately announced that the number of trade unionists was ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... The Origin of Species Darwin says,[160] "I will not attempt any definition of instinct.... Every one understands what is meant, when it is said that instinct impels the cuckoo to migrate and to lay her eggs in other birds' nests. An action, which we ourselves require experience to enable us to perform, when performed by an animal, more especially by a very young one, without experience, and when performed by many individuals in the same way, without their ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... dragged by, and no answer came back to him. He chafed anew at this fresh evidence that his power was a thing of the past, that his word was no longer law. He burned with a sullen and self-consuming anger, an anger that could be neither expressed in action nor relieved in words. ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... that Cerizet had not decided on any definite course of action in the new affair he was now undertaking. The part of doctor, which for a moment he thought of assuming, frightened him, and he gave himself out, as we have seen, to Madame Perrache as the business agent of his accomplice. Once alone, he began to see that his original idea complicated ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... of women into the world of struggle. Women are the natural and only custodians of the ideals. We men are compelled to wander, often to wander far, from the ideal. Unless our women remain aloof from action, how are the ideals to be preserved? Man for action; woman to purify man, when he returns stained with the blood ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... the street, engaged in that self-torture which is the chief recreation of unhappy lovers. He steeped his heart in gall by imagining Maud in love with another. His passion stimulated his slow wits into unwonted action, until his mind began to form exasperating pictures of intimacies which drove him half mad. His face grew pale, and his fists were tightly clinched as he walked. He hardly saw the familiar street before him; he had a far clearer vision of Maud and Farnham by the garden gate: ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... its execution? Clearly, here was a very great problem, a problem for statesmanship,—the best statesmanship anywhere to be had. Clearly this was a time, at any rate, for wise and experienced men to come to the front; a time, not for rash counsels, nor for spasmodic and isolated action on the part of any one colony, but for deliberate and united action on the part of all the colonies; a time in which all must move forward, or none. But, thus far, no colony had been heard from: there had not been time. Let Virginia wait a little. Let her make no mistake; ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... attitude being taken up; we had a lecture from Major Howard, R.E., at Kemmel as to the construction of an invisible loophole, low down in the parapet, and so built as to afford a good field of fire and permit of our replying better to the Hun snipers. Sergt.-Drummer Clewes also got into action with his telescopic rifle from sniping posts cunningly placed behind the front line, the only possible position from which really successful sniping could be done, and was not long in getting quite a good "bag." Shortly ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... "The rarer action is In virtue than in vengeance: they being penitent, The sole drift of my purpose doth extend ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... man of action, Kelley did not stop with the mere observation of these evils but cast about to find a remedy. In doing so, he came to the conclusion that a national secret order of farmers resembling the Masonic order, of which he was a member, ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck
... not forget, in dreams of the future, the necessity for action. I have many important things to do this day. I must take these letters to Marietta, see her address and post them; then I must seek La Trouffle and receive from her leave of absence, on the plea of visiting a sick friend at Magdeburg. This will be a tedious undertaking, ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... Tremouille, and du Plessis-Mornay,[280] were about to involve the kingdom in new troubles, M. de Sully proceeded to Poitou under pretext of taking possession of his new government, and by his unexpected appearance on the scene of action counteracted the project of the conspirators; while a short time subsequently the Due de la Tremouille fell into a rapid decline which terminated his existence at the early age of thirty-four years, and deprived the reform party of one of their most ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Government to decide at any future time whether or not to assist the other by armed force. We have agreed that consultation between experts is not, and ought not, to be regarded as an engagement that commits either Government to action in a contingency that has not yet arisen and may never arise. The disposition, for instance, of the French and British Fleets respectively at the present moment is not based upon an engagement ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... In one notorious instance, that of the Earl of Bristol (confer Hallam, i., 518), in the time of Charles I., the House of Lords had interfered and compelled the issue of the writ; their action forming a precedent for their right of interference in such matters, which in the present case the Lord ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... distance the ranks of fells rose black and solemn out of filmy trails of mist, but the valley had faded to a trough of shadow. A faint breeze was stirring, and the silence was broken by the soft patter of withered leaves which fluttered down across the lawn. Vane noticed it all by some involuntary action of his senses, for although, at the time, he was oblivious to his surroundings, he afterward found that he could recall each detail of the scene with vivid distinctness. He was preoccupied and eager, but fully aware ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss
... of the angels, the union of all good, the overthrow of evil, the domain of faith. It gives grace, it is perfection, which has only need to show itself to conquer. The action of the Holy Spirit rendered Lucy so heavy that a thousand men and five pair of oxen could not drag her away from her home. An officer who tried to kiss Anastasia was struck blind. Under torture, the purity of the virgins is always powerful; from their exquisite white limbs, torn by instruments, ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... wanted, more than ever, the whole of Stephen Arnold, all that was so openly the Mission's and all that was so evidently God's. It will be seen that she felt in no way compelled to advise him of this her backsliding. I doubt whether such a perversion of her magnificent course of action ever occurred to her. It was magnificent, for it entailed a high disregarding stroke; it implied a sublime confidence of what the end would be, a capacity to wait and endure. She smiled buoyantly, in the intervals of arranging it, at the idea that Stephen ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... advantage. Mackay brought a body of horse and dragoons to the assistance of the left wing, and first turned the tide of battle in favour of the English. Major-general Rouvigny, who had behaved with great gallantry during the whole action, advanced with five regiments of cavalry to support the centre; when St. Kuth, perceiving his design, resolved to fall upon him in a dangerous hollow way which he was obliged to pass. For this purpose he began to descend ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... pretence of increasing our knowledge of the curative action of poisons, by trying them on animals. The very poisons, the action of which dogs and cats have been needlessly tortured to demonstrate, I have successfully used on my human patients in the ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... should be his business to comfort her in it; but descend he would not—would not yet—from his pedestal, to meet the silly thing on the level ground of humanity, and the relation of the man and the woman! Something like this, I say, he would have found in his heart, horrid as it reads. That heart's action was not even, was ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... figure for beauty," Ray insisted. "And a girl with a voice like yours ought to have plenty of lung-action. But you know my sentiments on that subject. I was going to tell you about the handsomest thing we ever looted out of those burial mounds. It was on a woman, too, I regret to say. She was preserved as perfect as any mummy that ever came out ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... guardian's regulations that he should not touch paints or canvas during his collegiate course, and until within the last few months he had obeyed orders, and only lately had taken to water-colors as a sort of negative course of action calculated to give him relaxation after the monotony of his unnatural deprivation, without infringing upon his uncle's injunctions. He was painting a girl in a flower-garden, and over his shoulder was gazing a shabby, jaunty, decayed-looking ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... action suspended inside the prison walls. It is carried on within their cells, and still more frequently in the courtyards of the ancient convent, where they are permitted to meet in common and spend a considerable portion of their time. Here they may be seen in groups, ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... landlady to leave Gladys in bed the next morning until nine o'clock, by which hour he supposed she would be sufficiently refreshed, and then retired himself, feeling thankful to Miss Gwynne for having made him do a good action, but still believing that Owen must have been in the secret of Gladys' ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... him in such a plight. At the same time, he was impatient of lingering in the heart of the clammy fog at such a late hour; so, as his companion seemed indisposed to move, he caught him again by the arm without ceremony. The abrupt action seemed to waken again the fears ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... nature to remain long a helpless encumbrance. Seeing the labor and peril still before them, her will returned, and with it her strength. She grasped a branch by which he was trying in vain with one hand, holding her with the other, to draw them both up a steep place. Her prompt action enabled him to seize the trunk of a young tree: she assisted still, and slipping from his hands, clung to it until he had reached the next tree above. He pulled her up after him, and then pushed her on still farther, until Pepperill could reach her from where he stood. A minute ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... their zeal, were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were taken in arms, received, and they soon deserved, the same treatment which might have been shown to the wild beasts of the desert. The captives ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... of law by the highest court in a State does not, however, bind its lower courts as absolutely as would a statute. An inferior court may disregard it and decide the same point another way if it be fully satisfied that the action taken by the court above was ill-considered and erroneous. It is possible that in such event, on reconsideration, the court of last resort may reverse its original position.[Footnote: A good instance of this ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... to its pellucid depth. She understood all the secrets of the aqueous catapult, at which its contriver had little more than hinted on that memorable night when he disclosed so much, and believed she could arrange it for action without assistance. At the same time her new responsibilities required but a portion of her leisure, and lady Margaret was not the less pleased with the wise-headed girl, whose manners and mental ways were such a contrast to her own, that her husband considered her fit to be put ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... the herring were caught in great abundance. Indeed, they flocked to the land in such numbers that many nets were taken to the bottom with their weight, and the fishermen lost considerable sums from this odd mishap. The action of the Meteorological has produced important results. The entirely new discovery has been made that the herring love cold water, and in seasons when the temperature of the sea water rises, they keep away from the land, in deeper water, between the fifteen to eighteen fathoms for which the ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... ago an application was received by the Home Secretary for permission to unearth the body of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, from its grave in the burial-ground of Jordans, near Chalfont St. Giles, and transport it to Philadelphia. This action was successfully opposed by the trustees of the burial-ground, but it was considered expedient to watch the ground for some time to guard against the possibility of ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... Ludgate Hill; how few think of the multiplied passions and powers which flit by them on their way—of the separate world which surrounds each passer-by—of the separate history, external and internal, of each—each possessing feelings, motives of action, characters, differing from the others, as the stamp of nature on his brow differs from his fellows! Thus, also, men's ears ring with the advancement of science, men's beards wag with repetition of the novel powers which have been educed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... under the gloom of the trees. There was not a moment's hesitation. The child rose and put her arms around the figure with a divine, womanly gesture, as though to shield him and his infirmities from the whole world. It was the action of one ashamed to ...
— Katrine • Elinor Macartney Lane
... was glad when my new Master took it from me—I was now washed, and clothed in the Dutch or English manner.—My master grew very fond of me, and I loved him exceedingly. I watched every look, was always ready when he wanted me, and endeavoured to convince him, by every action, that my only pleasure was to serve him well.—I have since thought that he must have been a serious man. His actions corresponded very well with such a character.—He used to read prayers in public to the ship's crew every Sabbath ...
— A Narrative Of The Most Remarkable Particulars In The Life Of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, An African Prince, As Related By Himself • James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw
... him, and minus the pistol with which he had intended to do his infernal work, would—ten to one—be heading away from justice, and for dear life. Still, where so much was mystery, the doctor decided to take no risks. Whatever the event, his course of action—his only possible course—lay plain before him. Here of a sudden it occurred to Doctor Unonius that the man, though travelling alone, might be travelling to meet accomplices; and these accomplices might be hiding around and waiting, even ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... Natalie laid it to her heart. No, I am not afraid of her doing anything very wild or reckless. She is sensible; she thinks; she has not been brought up in an atmosphere of sentiment. One may say this or that on the spur of the moment, when one is excited; but when it comes to action, one reasons, one sees what one's duty is. Natalie may have said something to you, madame, about going to America, but not with any ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... existing between the two was most extraordinary; it was so fine, so strong, so subtle, that what the one ate the other digested; when one slept, the other snored; if one sold a thing, the other scooped the usufruct. This independent and yet dependent action was observable in all the details of their daily life—I mean this quaint and arbitrary distribution of originating cause and resulting effect between the two —between, I may say, this dynamo and the other always motor, or, in other words, that the one was always the creating force, the other ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... think it dreadful, Rilla? I thought it wonderful—beautiful. Such a story makes one ashamed of ever doubting human nature. That man's action was godlike. And how humanity responds to the ideal of self-sacrifice. As for my shiver, I don't know what caused it. The evening is certainly warm enough. Perhaps someone is walking over the dark, starshiny ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... really are an oracle!" Hadria exclaimed. "What could more simply describe the action ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... and your entire staff! You ought all to be interned. If George ever thinks of leaving me I trust it will not be to marry one of your household. In the name of decency I must insist on your taking strong action to end what ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152. January 17, 1917 • Various
... together; there would be no repetition of that half-hysterical collapse. More than one of his officer-friends had confessed to him that they had spent the night before their first battle in abject terror, but that that had all gone off as soon as they were called into action. And as for himself, he had many things to arrange before starting on this hunting-expedition, which was to serve as a cloak for another enterprise. He would have to write at once, for example, to his sister—an invalid widow, who passed her life alternately on the Riviera and in Switzerland—informing ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... of Ragobah's guilt in any of our minds, so that action at our end of the line seemed entirely useless, and nothing was left us but to quietly await whatever developments Maitland should disclose. We were not kept long in suspense, for in less than a week his next letter arrived. I broke its seal in the presence of Gwen and my sister ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... that I surrender was conveyed to my father by Col. Neugent, who was in charge of the militia at Harrisonville, again charging that I was a spy. I never doubted that his action was due to the enmity of Walley. My parents wanted me to go away to school. I would have liked to have stayed and fought it out, and although I consented to go away, it was too late, and I was left ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... literally, one who is never fatigued with work; hence one capable of obtaining the results of action by a mere fiat of the will. It may also mean, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... is not inviolable. Before the departure of the bridegroom for the bride's village, he stands at the entrance of the marriage-shed, and his mother comes up and places her breast to his mouth and throws rice balls and ashes over him. The former action signifies the termination of his boyhood, while the latter is meant to protect him on his important journey. The bridegroom in walking away treads on a saucer in which a little rice is placed. Widow-marriage and divorce ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... Briggs of Overton) on the possibility of growing wheat on the same land year after year, in which the utility of lime in preventing rust was incidentally touched upon. I also saw Liebig's letters explaining the action of quicklime in liberating potash from the clay; and then I considered it very important to ascertain the proper quantity to be applied. The quantity required to decompose the phosphate of iron was not great, and assuming Liebig's theory of its action in liberating the potash to be true, ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... know what you have come to see me about. Let me say, gentlemen, once for all, that I have no secrets, and no use for any in my political life. I do not believe in all this private conference and closed doors in connection with any action of mine in the coming legislature. I am not going to do a single thing that will require me to whisper or retire behind any closed doors. So, seeing this is my office, and it is the regular custom to leave the door open, ...
— The High Calling • Charles M. Sheldon
... her out of money that in all equity and decency ought to have gone to another and a poorer man. His biographers, some of whom have vied with his canonisers in insisting upon seeing virtue in his every action, have gone to all kinds of ridiculous extremes in accounting for this piece of meanness. Irving says that it was "a subject in which his whole ambition was involved"; but a plain person will regard it as an instance of greed and love of money. We must not shirk facts ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... facial muscles brought a wry smile to old Daney's stolid countenance. "Even if I felt that I could afford to or was forced to accept reimbursement for my expenses and lost time," Nan resumed, "her action precluded it. Can't you realize that, Mr. Daney? And Jane and Elizabeth went her one—no, two—better. I'm going to tell you about it. I went up-town the other day to send a telegram, and in the telegraph-office I met Donald's sisters. I knew ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... his breast-pocket an engraved card, without having to search for it, because during the few days the card had been in his possession the action ...
— His Own People • Booth Tarkington
... point of vantage he seized the young man's hand, kissed it very reverently, and then laid it against his forehead. This was all done so solemnly and with such a calm dignity that even the youngster's entire lack of raiment could not detract from its impressiveness or the significance of the action. It was evident that he imagined the big, blond lieutenant was a Serif, a direct descendant of Mohammed, or perhaps even a Habi, which means a Serif who has been to Mecca, or a Hadji and Serif in one, ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... underwood. At this point of my narrative I must bespeak the forbearance of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and beg them to read on to the end, and weigh well the question and the result, before they bring an action against me for what follows. The calves in question having been placed, they each—must I write it?—receive an incision in the neck, the effect of which is that the blood flows slowly, and they bleat without ceasing;—such is the custom, ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... in the crowd had wit enough to carry the tale to barracks where it might be expected to produce action. He was a Bengali babu, bare of leg and fat of paunch, who had enough imagination to conceive of a regiment in receipt of the news, and the mental picture so appealed to him that he held his protruding stomach in both hands while he ran down-street like a landslide, his mouth agape and his eyes ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... slip that might enable him to change their relative positions. Newman was leaning comfortably back on the davenport, his legs crossed and his feet a long way from the floor. Marsh surmised that there would be some delay in getting the latter into action again. The automatic, however, was still ready. Held firmly in one hand, the weight of the barrel was supported in the palm of the other, the back of which rested on Newman's knee. Marsh realized that when he looked at this gun he was staring directly into its muzzle. Obviously, this ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... recent and extensive inundation. These plains are destitute of water, grass, and timber, and have only a few salsolaceous plants growing upon them; whilst their surface, whether stony or sandy, is quite smooth and even, as if washed so by the action of the water. Throughout this level tract of country were interspersed, in various directions, many small flat-topped elevations, varying in height from 50 to 300 feet, and almost invariably exhibiting precipitous banks. These elevations are composed almost wholly ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... treated as a thing understood, requiring little enforcement; while, the main thing demanded of them being sermons in some sense their own—honey culled at least by their own bees, and not bought in jars, much was said about the plan and composition of sermons, about style and elocution, and action—all plainly and confessedly, with a view to pulpit-success—the lowest of all low successes, and ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... instincts are right, should understand the American constitution as it is, and so understand it as to render it impossible for political theorists, no matter of what school or party, to deceive them again as to its real import, or induce them to depart from it in their political action. ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... This collection is actually in Mr. Browning's possession; and he values it, perhaps, for the reason he imputes to its imagined owner: that those who are accustomed to the slower processes of thought, like to play with the suggestions of prompt (if murderous) action; as the soldier, tired of wielding the sword, will play with ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... by the justification and purification of God Himself. Plato's dream brushed by the gate of this doctrine when it walked highest, and won for him the title of 'Divine.' That it is vulgarised sometimes by narrow-minded teachers in theory, and by hypocrites in action, might be an argument (if admitted at all) against all ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... at me curiously. I saw a shrewd question in his eyes and set instant action as a barrier in the way of ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... path. He now invited them to run. They hesitated, but he insisted, telling them that they could run, that they ought to run, that they had but to believe in their own power, and their thought would be manifested in action. ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... points—both of them vital however—did I call for Congressional action. These two vital points were: First, taxation; and, second, the stabilization of ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... yonder, on the table," said Croyden, indicating one of those they used on Greenberry Point. "It's a self-cocker—you simply pull the trigger and the action does the ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... things thoroughly, poured out a liberal dose of raw, red liquor. Then, with his fingers clamped tightly about the bottom of the glass, the better to conceal its contents from any casual but inquisitive passer-by, he quickly filled it with soda and placed it before Blinky, accompanying the action with the sweetest ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... carry them into execution by its own authority. Disposed to act in the spirit of the most cordial concurrence with other nations for the suppression of the African slave-trade, that great reproach of our times, it deems it to be right, nevertheless, that this action, though concurrent, should be independent, and it believes that from this independence it will derive a ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... us scarcely anything of penitence itself except trivial satisfactions[10] and laborious confession, because, forsooth, they had derived their idea from the Latin words poenitentiam agere,[11] which indicate an action, rather than a change of heart, and are in no way an equivalent ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... to venture. Finally, the reserve, consisting of thirty-five galleys, was given to the brave Marquis of Santa Cruz, with directions to act on any part where he thought his presence most needed. The smaller craft, some of which had now arrived, seem to have taken little part in the action, which was thus ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... could hardly be the most conscientious of their kind, who, presuming upon their incompetent understanding, could intrigue for a trust which led them from their natural relation to their flocks, and their natural spheres of action, to undertake the regeneration of kingdoms. This preponderating weight, being added to the force of the body of chicane in the Tiers Etat, completed that momentum of ignorance, rashness, presumption, and lust of plunder, which nothing has been ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... up his mind to go to London, to look after his lady-love, but when he found himself there he did not quite know what to do. It is often the case with us that we make up our minds for great action,—that in some special crisis of our lives we resolve that something must be done, and that we make an energetic start; but we find very soon that we do not know how to go on doing anything. It was so with Mr Maguire. When he had secured ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... before his courtiers could anticipate his action, the emperor stooped and picked up ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... day before, together with the temperature of the apartment and the labours of digestion, had prevented him from sleeping, so much so that, unable to stand it any longer, he had flung off his flannel waistcoat. In the morning he recalled his action, which fortunately had no serious consequences, and he came to inform Bouvard about it, showing him in this way that he had placed him ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert |
