"Attain" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sheik Salah caught were sinking deep. They were of the intense purity and holiness of God and of His laws, and of the need of His power to attain to the keeping of them, as well as of His Sacrifice to atone for man's sinfulness. Sheik Salah could not rest without hearing more, and becoming determined to obtain employment at Cawnpore, he undertook to copy Persian manuscripts for Sabat, and was lodged ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Johnson could not bear; he thought it impossible, perhaps, for another Man to strike out the greatest Thoughts in the finest Expression, and to reach those Excellencies of Poetry with the Ease of a first Imagination, which himself with infinite Labour and Study could but hardly attain to. Johnson was certainly a very good Scholar, and in that had the advantage of Shakespear; tho' at the same time I believe it must be allow'd, that what Nature gave the latter, was more than a Ballance for what Books had given the former; and the Judgment of a great ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... cause, indeed, was the cause of God, he remained unshakenly convinced; but in a sadder spirit than he had ever shown before, he left God's will to determine what amount of visible success that cause should attain to in the present evil world, or how far the decision should depend ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... boasted little, but we knew ourselves better. There was as yet small talk of independence, of separation. Another year was to elapse before Thomas Paine's Common Sense should flash a flood of light as from some new sun upon men's minds, and show us both our real goal and the way to attain it. But about fighting, we had resolved ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... by His earliest followers. Lives of Christ by historical students have their value when our main aim is historical information; but the best of them is poor indeed compared with our gospels when we wish to attain the life of Christ's followers. The humblest reader of the New Testament has the same chance with the most learned scholar of attaining a true knowledge of Jesus for religious purposes; and Jesus remains, ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... y no temo ningn castigo. The philosophy of stoicism is especially attractive to Galds, and he plays with it in several of his works. Thus, Orozco, of Realidad, strives to attain stoic perfection; and the chief characters of other plays sometimes act like stoics (Paternoy, Los condenados, II, 14; Pantoja, Electra, IV, 10; Berenguer, La fiera, III, 5). That the stoicism of Seneca (a Spaniard) is the fundamental trait of Spanish character, is the contention brilliantly ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... of labor is exerted for a longer or shorter time, and by "more capital" that a greater or less quantity of wealth abstained from is employed for a longer or shorter time; or, in other words, that laborers and capitalists undergo more or less sacrifice in exertion and abstinence, respectively, to attain a given result. This is the contribution to cost of production made by Mr. Cairnes, and briefly defined as follows: "In the case of labor, the cost of producing a given commodity will be represented by the number of average laborers employed in its production—regard ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... declare war against Germany and we command our army and navy to carry on hostilities against that empire with all their strength, and we also command all our competent authorities to make every effort in pursuance of their respective duties to attain the national aim within the limit of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... enough to eat and drink: You are respected in the world: And at the barber's, as I think, You often get your whiskers curled. Though Nobleness you ca'n't attain To any very great extent— The path of Honesty ...
— Sylvie and Bruno • Lewis Carroll
... her Russian and Persian adventure it is clear that she was deeply disappointed at feeling herself unwanted and useless in a region of waste and muddle. It is probable that for all her courage and unselfish devotion she was too sensitive to the suffering she encountered ever to attain the routine indifference which makes work among such horrors possible. Her deep religious convictions aggravated rather than eased that suffering. She was honestly old-fashioned and never took quite kindly to the khaki-breeched free-spoken young women of the subsidiary ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 16, 1919 • Various
... composition of matter, water, earth, stone or air, and this intuition serves him in place of intellectuality in his art. He is a painter par excellence, a man born for painting, and this power of penetrating the secrets of matter and of light helps him to attain a kind of grand, unconsciously lyrical poetry. He transposes the immediate truth of our vision and elevates it to decorative grandeur. If Manet is the realist-romanticist of Impressionism, if Degas is its psychologist, Claude Monet ...
— The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... enthusiasm, energy, and honesty," she announced sententiously. "A country and a people never attain perfection of finish until they have begun to grow decadent. I'd rather have my doll and my big apple than sit, like an old cynic, in the corner, watching the ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... Birth of Oriental Art. A man in armor on a fanciful, dragon is attacking an eagle, symbolizing man's effort to attain the inspiration of the heavens. Below, China can be recognized in the man with a brilliant colored robe, and Japan in the ...
— An Art-Lovers guide to the Exposition • Shelden Cheney
... Delegates expresses the belief that the conditions thus created by the acceptance of the proposal of His Majesty's Government may speedily be so ameliorated that our People will thereby attain the enjoyment of those privileges to which they consider they can justly lay claim, on the ground not only of their past history, but also of their ...
— The Peace Negotiations - Between the Governments of the South African Republic and - the Orange Free State, etc.... • J. D. Kestell
... etre, une population de 30,000,000.' The territory of the United States contains about a million of square miles, English. There is, in them, a greater proportion of fertile lands, than in the British dominions in Europe. Suppose the territory of the United States, then, to attain an equal degree of population, with the British European dominions; they will have an hundred millions of inhabitants. Let us extend our views to what may be the population of the two continents of North and ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... into the background: and Bentham began to attain a hearing as a reformer upon different lines. In 1803 Dumont visited St. Petersburg, and sent home glowing reports of Bentham's rising fame. As many copies of the Traites had been sold there as in London. Codes were wanted; laws were being digested; and Bentham's work would supply ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... unendurable. Day and night, thousands of cicades (the cigales of the French) kept up their incessant "dzig, dzig, dzig," a sound very familiar to those who have sojourned in the tropics. Has Nature given this singular insect the power of dispensing with sleep? What possible object can it hope to attain by keeping up this incessant din? If a love-song, surely the most optimistic cicada must realise that his amorous strains can never reach the ears of his lady-love, since hundreds of his brethren are all keeping up the same perpetual purposeless chirping, which must obviously ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... objects there was one, which, to my great vexation, I found it extremely difficult to attain. This was the procuring of any assurance from those who had been personally acquainted with the horrors of this trade, that they would appear, if called upon, as evidence against it. My friend Harry Gandy, to whom I had been first introduced, had been two voyages, as ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... are rewards, and most desirable ones, reserved by the just Judge for the intention alone of doing good, do not let us hesitate to continue our researches. Altho we may not attain to the truth, if, with the help of the Spirit, we do not fall away from the meaning of Holy Scripture, we shall not deserve to be rejected, and with the help of grace, we shall contribute to the edification ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... up his mind not to forego this new advantage which chance threw in his way. Pressure and pressure alone could enable him to attain his end, and he was applying it unmercifully. Well, she had done with him now, it did not matter to her; but she could not help faintly wondering at the extraordinary tenacity and hardness of purpose which his action showed. Then she turned her mind to the ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... I remember that the House did ever capitulate, or prefer their private to the public and the Queen's necessities, but waited their times, and, in the first place, gave their supply, and according to the exigence of her affairs; yet failed not at the last to attain what they desired, so that the Queen and her Parliaments had ever the good fortune to depart in love, and on reciprocal terms, which are considerations that have not been so exactly observed in our LAST assemblies. And I would to God they had been; ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... personal experience, I would say that whilst soul-saving is hard work, it appears equally difficult to persuade professors of religion to definitely seek deliverance from inward sin, and to attain those spiritual realizations which we speak of as 'Full Salvation' or 'The Blessing of Holiness'. As evidence of this difficulty, I may point to the state of soul and spiritual experience in which even some of you are now found: receiving light and instruction about Holiness, but continuing ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... taken a stand against Freemasonry or any other secret society. To join a lodge was always viewed as a purely private affair and of no concern to the Church. Neither laymen nor ministers were forbidden to unite with lodges. Indeed, for a minister to attain a higher degree in a lodge was occasionally referred to as a special honor and regarded as a recommendation. In 1902 the Pennsylvania Freemason said of Dr. Stock, a pastor of the General Synod: "The Doctor is in possession ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... political party, or to pursue aught else than his personal advantage. Why should Crassus, the wealthiest and most intriguing man in Rome, and no penurious miser but a speculator on the greatest scale, not speculate also on the crown? Alone, perhaps, he could not attain this object; but he had already carried out various great transactions in partnership; it was not impossible that for this also a suitable partner might present himself. It is a trait characteristic of the time, that a mediocre ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... consequences of sinfully doing so, and of not performing, is indispensable. To do so, is to use an appointed means of arriving at the knowledge of God, to make progress towards spiritual perfection, and to prepare to attain at last to the great end of all his arrangements for sinners—even complete conformity to the will of God, and the ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... were, the more intently they gazed into the little hand-mirrors. He watched them with hungry eyes, for he knew that here he was in the midst of high life, the real thing, the utmost glory to which man could ever hope to attain, and he wanted to know all there was to know about it. He strolled on, innocent and unsuspecting, and the two hundred and twenty-four white boy angels in the ceiling smiled their bland and placid smiles at him, and Peter knew no more than they what complications fate ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... goods, bread and molasses when we should reach a place where these luxuries were to be had. It was much like the way children plan what wonderful things they will do, and what unbounded good things they will indulge in, when they attain that high pinnacle ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... Montague's parlor until her return from the concert, brooding over the failure of his purpose, and trying to devise some scheme by which he could attain the ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... require the elector to be of a certain age, to have had a fixed residence, to be of a sane mind, and unconvicted of crime, etc., because these are qualifications or conditions that all citizens, sooner or later, may attain; but to go beyond this, and say to one-half the citizens of the State, notwithstanding you possess all these qualifications you shall never vote, is of the very essence of despotism. It is a bill of attainder of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... before he could attain composure enough to ask, "And what is your object, Cuddie? and how can I ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... care was extended to their vassals; and the rude institutions of the Alemanni and Bavarians were diligently compiled and ratified by the supreme authority of the Merovingian kings. The Visigoths and Burgundians, whose conquests in Gaul preceded those of the Franks, showed less impatience to attain one of the principal benefits of civilized society. Euric was the first of the Gothic princes who expressed, in writing, the manners and customs of his people; and the composition of the Burgundian laws was a measure of policy ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... mirror, would have seen there the image of Ugo's fat pale face and colourless moustache. But if Ugo was a liar, he must have had a good memory, for he never got himself into trouble, and he had the reputation of being a useful member of society, an honour to which persons of doubtful veracity rarely attain. Giovanni, however, disliked him, and suspected him of many things; and although he had intended to go up to Donna Tullia, the sight of Del Ferice at her side very nearly prevented him. He strolled leisurely down the little slope, and ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... thinking about it. The great things of the world have all been done by men who didn't stop to reflect on them. If a man comes to a halt and analyses his motives and distrusts the value of the thing he strives for, then the odds are that his halt is final. You strive to strive and not to attain. A man must have that direct practical virtue which forgets itself and sees only its work. Parsons will tell you that all virtue is self-sacrifice, and they are right, though not in the way they mean. It may all seem a tissue of contradictions. ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... dominating both. Following his example his successors managed for many centuries to remain "lords of France" with a security and absoluteness of power which no English king, no German emperor, was ever again to attain. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... remembered seeing a picture of a volcano or burning mountain in his geography 50 years ago, but he told me he never believed there was a volcano in the world, but that he always thought they put those pictures in geographies to make them sell. How a man can attain the prominence and position in the business world that dad has, and not know any more than he does, ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck
... another half-breed for two years, and before that there had been a series of full-blooded native boys. I found the half-breed greatly preferable. With full command of the native language, with such insight into the native mind as few white men ever attain, he combines the white man's quickness of apprehension and desire for knowledge; and the companionship had been pleasant and profitable. Both these boys had picked up quickly and efficiently, without the slightest previous experience, the running and the care of ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... a pension for Thomas Dixon and his wife, and various other pensions and small annuities; Henry, Earl Tatham, and Victoria, Countess Tatham, appointed trustees, and to act as guardians, till the said Felicia Melrose should attain the age of twenty-four; no mention of any other person at all; the whole vast property, precisely as it had passed from Melrose to Faversham, just taken up and dropped in the lap of this little creature with the dangling feet without reservation, or deduction—now that it was done, and not ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... homestead, and already lights were beginning to twinkle in the many windows; there was to be a ball that night, and he thought of the unconquerable woman ruling within, apparently gaining still in vitality and youth. "Unjailed malefactors often attain great ages," he said to himself, as he turned away and thought of the lives she had helped to blight ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... itself to the new ideas, found that it could not attain to satisfactory representation merely by form and colour, but that it required light and shadow and effects of space. Indeed, venial faults of drawing are perhaps the least disturbing, while faults of perspective, of spacing, ...
— The Venetian Painters of the Renaissance - Third Edition • Bernhard Berenson
... affairs and faced the fact that his hope of Jenny grew thin. The thought of her was now complicated by her position. He had never considered that in the future she might be rich and possessed of far larger means than he could ever attain. He looked forward and perceived that opportunity would lie with him to enjoy some private conversation on the following day. Yet, when the time came, what was there that he could say to her? The storm had blown itself out and dawn ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... dear Watson! With all respect for your natural acumen, I do not think that you are quite a match for the worthy doctor. I think that possibly I can attain our end by some independent explorations of my own. I am afraid that I must leave you to your own devices, as the appearance of TWO inquiring strangers upon a sleepy countryside might excite more gossip than I care for. No doubt you will find some sights to amuse you ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... desert us; Phoebus' panting steeds "Would in the mighty deep be plung'd, ere I "Could finish, should I every substance tell "Chang'd to new form. This we perceive, that time "All turns. These nations mighty strength attain: "Those sink in power. Thus Troy in wealth and strength "Was mighty; and for ten long years could shed "Her blood in torrents. Low she lies, and shews "Her ancient ruins, and her numerous tombs "For all her riches. Sparta once was great; "And fam'd Mycene once in power was strong; "With Athens; ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... colleagues nor that of the people—the vanity and duplicity of his conduct disgust and alarm the first, while his reputation of partizan of the Duke of Orleans is a reason for suspicion in the latter. But if Sieyes has never been able to conciliate esteem, nor attain popularity, he has at length possessed himself of power, and will not easily be induced to relinquish it.—Many are of opinion, that he is secretly machinating for the son of his former patron; but whether he means to govern in the name of the Duke of Orleans, or in that of the republic, it is ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... those in the same respectable position in life, because they are the only parties who have it in their power to commit the same crime. The punishment cannot warn those who are not in and cannot attain to the position which makes the crime possible, and who could not find the opportunity to commit it, even if they were paid to seek it; then why punish such men as this prisoner the more severely, because ...
— Six Years in the Prisons of England • A Merchant - Anonymous
... and power, faithfully to fulfil all my good desires, because He Himself has put them into my heart not to mock me, not to disappoint me—not to make me wretched with the sight of noble graces and virtues to which I cannot attain, but to fulfil His work in me. What He has begun in me He will carry on in me. He has sown the seed in me, and He will make it bear fruit, if only I pray to Him, day by day, for strength to do what I know I ought to do, and cry morning ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... enquiries of a generation of readers who have been born since she died. Of events her life was singularly barren: few changes and no great crisis ever broke the smooth current of its course. Even her fame may be said to have been posthumous: it did not attain to any vigorous life till she had ceased to exist. Her talents did not introduce her to the notice of other writers, or connect her with the literary world, or in any degree pierce through the obscurity ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... those who fared forth resolutely into the night that we have to do; the rest of the world is to be barred from any further connection with this little history. It is far out in the dreary country lane and not inside the warm hotel that we struggle to attain our end. First one, then another stealthy figure crept forth into the drizzle; before the big clock struck half-past eight, at least six respectable and supposedly sensible persons had mysteriously ...
— The Flyers • George Barr McCutcheon
... "Now, in order to attain to these ends, the only means is to look another way, to turn all our thoughts to bring about a general peace, and to sign to-morrow the most solemn and positive engagement with the enemy, and, the better to please the public, to insert in the articles the expulsion ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... them created altogether, others severally; some will have them corporeal, some incorporeal; some of the substance of God, some of the substance of the body. So infinitely are men's conceits distracted with a variety of opinions, whereas there is but one Truth, which every man aims at, but few attain it; every man thinks he hath it, and yet few ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... meet with men of worth, think how you may attain to their level; when you see others of an opposite character, look ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... more upright. But it is always more or less branched, and the stems are relatively stiffer than those of other clovers. They rise but a few inches above the ground in poor soils, not more than 2 to 4; but in good rich soils it will attain to the height of 2 feet. About 1 foot may be named as the average height. The leaves are trifoliate. The flower produced in the axils of the leaves are numerous, but quite small. They appear from July onward, according to locality, but are probably more numerous in ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... my dear boy, that you may be able to make your way, here, in the same manner as your father was doing, when he fell; and that, someday, you may attain to an honourable position, in which you will be able, if you visit England, to call upon your aunts, not as one who has anything to ask of them, but as a relative of whom they need not feel ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... sea, land dropping quickly from sight behind, the horizons water-bounded on all sides. From their nearness Norman guessed that this second satellite of Earth's was small indeed beside its mother planet. He had to look up to earth's great gray sphere overhead to attain a sense of reality. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... heart can have settled rest; that in them be abundantly and fully comprehended all things, whatsoever be needful for our salvation, as Origen, Augustine, Chrysostom, and Cyrillus have taught: that they be the very might and strength of God to attain to salvation: that they be the foundations of the Prophets and Apostles, whereupon is built the Church of God: that they be the very sure and infallible rule, whereby may be tried, whether the Church do stagger, or err, and whereunto all ecclesiastical doctrine ought to be ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... devised in order to express with some accuracy the degree of prognathism or orthognathism of any given skull; most of these methods being essentially modifications of that devised by Peter Camper, in order to attain what he called ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... the actors speak only Malay, this does not deter them from including a number of Shakesperian plays in their repertoire (imagine Macbeth being played by a company of piratical-looking Malays in a nipa hut on the shores of the Sulu Sea!) but they attain their greatest heights in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. There are no programmes, but, in order that the audience may not be left in doubt as to the identity of the players, the manager introduces the members of his company ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... three would be the nominee of the Republican convention. I soon found that the fact that I held an office which compelled me to express my opinions was a drawback rather than a benefit, and, while I had the natural ambition to attain such a distinction, I was handicapped by my ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... not attention called over and over again to the fact that for the great peoples, who have so many compensating interests, the free commerce of ideas is one condition of life among many others; while for us, the small peoples, it is absolutely indispensable. A people numerically large may attain to ways of thought and enterprise that no political censure can reduce to a minimum; but under narrower conditions it may easily come about that the whole people will fall asleep. A powerful propaganda of enlightenment under the conditions of free speech is for ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... begun to improve over the past few years. In 1984, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Marxist-Leninist, separatist group, initiated an insurgency in southeast Turkey, often using terrorist tactics to try to attain its goal of an independent Kurdistan. The group - whose leader, Abdullah OCALAN, was captured in Kenya in February 1999 - has observed a unilateral cease-fire since September 1999, although there have been occasional clashes between Turkish military units and ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... they have all the qualities and ruin most of them through being slaves, not masters to their own desires. If with his qualities a Russian could be balanced and deductive, and rule his vagrant thoughts, to what height could he not attain!" ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... tell that these cuttlefish or octopods sometimes attain a very great size, and that sailors tell wonderful stories about them. In one of these stories, the captain of a ship declared that, while sailing off the African coast, he sent three of his men over the side of the ship ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... its List of Authors who have lived in Netley, of Mr. Carville and his Cameos of the Sea. Happy the nations who have no history, they say, and no doubt the aphorism may be applied to families as well. Certainly, if Mr. Carville proposed, as no doubt he did, that his family should attain to felicity by a profound obscurity, he has attained his desire. It is left for Time to show whether Benvenuto Cellini and Giuseppe Mazzini, when they grow up, will emerge from that obscurity and astonish the world with some novel manifestations of ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... tradition is submission to spurious authority, whatever advantages the latter may have in social, literary, and aesthetic respects. Not a generation has yet passed since the admission of Nonconformists to the Universities; and more than a generation is needed in order to attain the highest culture. Give the Free Churches time, and let us see whether they have not something better to give us in return than "hideousness" and ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... Socialism had his position allowed him to do so. He was glad to see his wife immersed in grave historical and scientific reading; he said to himself that in this way she would be delivered from her religious prejudices, and some day attain to 'free thought.' Adela as yet had no such end in view, but already she understood that her education, in the serious sense, was only now beginning. As a girl, her fate had been that of girls in general; when she could write without orthographical errors, and could ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... defined a tragedy. Secondly, what he assigns the end of it to be. Thirdly, what he thinks the beauties of it. Fourthly, the means to attain the end proposed. ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... under whom there can be neither personal property nor individual security, because he is subject to no law, and there are no courts of justice in Kodiak, or any other of the company's possessions. Few of these wretched outcasts ever again reach Russian ground, very few indeed attain the object of their wishes (we dare not say hopes) to return to Europe. Disease, disappointment, innumerable sufferings, continual drunkenness, the only solace in which, for obvious reasons, they ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... only on the males, and attain their full size only when these have reached their seventh year. In the yearlings appear two knobs, about an inch in length; in two-year-olds, these knobs have become spikes a foot high; in the third year they begin to palmate, and ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... distances are reckoned, Davies and I were leagues apart. Sitting between Dollmann and Dollmann's daughter, the living and breathing symbols of the two polar passions he had sworn to harmonize, he kept an equilibrium which, though his aims were nominally mine, I could not attain to. For me the man was the central figure; if I had attention to spare it was on him that I bestowed it; groping disgustfully after his hidden springs of action, noting the evidences of great gifts squandered and prostituted; questioning where ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... perhaps resolve to propose an alliance with him, by offering her to him as a wife. And as she was well persuaded she was not indifferent to the prince, and that he would be pleased with the proposal, she hoped to attain to the utmost of her wishes, and preserve all the decorum becoming a princess, who would appear resigned to the will of her king and father; but the prince of Persia did not return her an answer ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... intoxicated artist did not hear these criticisms. He began to attain to the age of dignity, both in mind and years: to grow stout, and increase visibly in flesh. He often read in the papers such phrases as, "Our most respected Andrei Petrovitch; our worthy Andrei Petrovitch." ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... increasing in population has a right to expel the inhabitants of another country to make room for its own emigrants is surely untenable. If it justifies war at all, it sanctions a war of extermination, which would attain its objects most completely by massacring girls and young women. The pressure of population is a real cause of war; but the moral is, not that war is right, but that a nation must cut its coat according to its cloth, and ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... seized her; and that one of them Did compass in the other's beam; and both In such sort whirl around, that each should tend With opposite motion and, conceiving thus, Of that true constellation, and the dance Twofold, that circled me, he shall attain As 't were the shadow; for things there as much Surpass our usage, as the swiftest heav'n Is swifter than the Chiana. There was sung No Bacchus, and no Io Paean, but Three Persons in the Godhead, and in one Substance that nature and the human ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... between the two was very considerable. The captain, Don Hernan Escalante, was a refined, highly-educated man. His knowledge on most matters was extensive, if not profound; he spoke several languages, and among them English, with a fluency few Spaniards attain. Few Spaniards indeed of that day were equally accomplished. His first lieutenant, Pedro Alvarez, was every inch a seaman, and like many seamen despised all who were not so. Again the captain stopped before the chart, and placing his finger on it, observed: "Here I hope we may anchor to-night, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... were alike in essentials, they were alike in the great qualities which made each able to do service to his nation and to all mankind such as no other man of his generation could or did render. Each had lofty ideals, but each in striving to attain these lofty ideals was guided by the soundest common sense. Each possessed inflexible courage in adversity, and a soul wholly unspoiled by prosperity. Each possessed all the gentler virtues commonly exhibited by good men who lack rugged ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... general knowledge of what constitutes the bases of technical training, and such a skill in some special trade as would enable each of them to take his or her place in the grand world of the manual production of wealth. I know that many will find that aim too large, or even impossible to attain, but I hope that if they have the patience to read the following pages, they will see that we require nothing beyond what can be easily attained. In fact, it has been attained; and what has been done on a small ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... burst forth in unrestrained adulation to the God that made it, it is here, where the immortal heroes and patriots of more than one hundred years ago succeeded in establishing these United States, as the 'land of the free and the home of the brave.' Here, then, human excellence must attain to the summit of its glory. Mind constitutes the majesty of man, virtue his true nobility. The tide of improvement which is now flowing like another Niagara through the land, is destined to flow on down ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... the Amazon River in South America are very numerous, and owing to scarcity of hunters attain a very great size. In the upper waters apparently they are entirely unaccustomed to the report of firearms, and if not actually hit will lie still while shot after shot is fired. The largest I ever killed and measured was thirteen feet and four ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... evening. I can still recall some of the emotions of that journey. London was to me the city of all cities—the one great goal of the journalist's ambition. I took short views of life even then, but my secret hope, ever present to my mind, was that I might some day attain a post in connection with the London Press. As the crawling train came into the southern counties—farther south than I had ever been in my life before—I remember counting the milestones on the road, and suffering ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... for dwelling so long upon Orville Dewey's genius as a preacher. No plainer duty exists than to commend his example to the study and imitation of our own preachers; and no exaltation that the Church of the Messiah will ever attain can in any probability equal that which will always be given to it as the seat of Dr. Dewey's thirteen years' ministry in the city of New York. Of the tenderness, modesty, truthfulness, devotion, and spotless purity of his life and character, it is too soon to ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... the growths are out of the earth the flowers begin to appear. The greatest height the plants attain rarely exceeds a foot; this commends it as a suitable border plant. Individually the flowers are not showy, but collectively they are pleasing and effective. When they first open they are a mixture of green, red, blue, and purple, the latter predominating. As ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... that the whole number of blocks had been made use of to repair the heavens, that it alone had been destitute of the necessary properties and had been unfit to attain selection, it forthwith felt within itself vexation and shame, and day and night, it gave way ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... Antigone, it was but a momentary relapse into what had been for a year or so a dear familiar habit. The heart of the girl grew and expanded in the belief that her new role of counsellor and worldly guide to her husband was the highest to which any woman could attain. ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... accordingly, only a means to enable him to accomplish these ends. His distributing his estates and revenues in the manner above described was only a judicious appropriation of the money to the promotion of the great ends he wished to attain; it was expenditure, not gift. It answered admirably the end he had in view. His friends all looked upon him as extremely generous and self-sacrificing. They asked him what he had reserved for ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the Jardin de Colline, and then ascend the narrow road, the Monte des Oblats. On descending be careful to take the path to the left of the stone altar under a canopy on 4 columns. Asmall omnibus drives up the length of the Plateau de la Croix, whence a series of 178 steps has to be ascended to attain to the terrace on which the church stands, 535 ft. above the sea. The church is shut between 12 and 2, but the tower, ascended by 154 steps, can always be visited. Fee, fr. It is 148 ft. high, crowned with a gilded image of Mary 30 ft. high, ascended by steps ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... centuries before the eyes of the world as a type of character which Christian men should emulate—a vision of life whose influence has touched millions with its inspiration. The price which had to be paid to attain this nobleness of character and this vastness of holy influence ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... preserve them from all sin. 'My Father,' He said, 'I ask not that You take them from the world, but keep them safe from evil.' If, madame, you pray for M. de Brinvilliers, let it be only that he may be kept in grace, if he has it, and may attain to it if ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... been well said that we grow to be like our nearest neighbors, and the effect of Albert Page's vigorous efforts to attain success was not ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... "To attain one's end, one must make use of many means, and sometimes to disguise one's purpose. For instance, it is perfectly proper for an officer of the I.F.P. to disguise himself like a son of the idle rich in order to lay the infamous 'Scourge' by ...
— In the Orbit of Saturn • Roman Frederick Starzl
... notwithstanding there was no remedy, but we that were appointed to go away must of necessity do so. Howbeit, those that went in the first boat were safely set ashore, but of them which went in the second boat, of which number I myself was one, the seas wrought so high that we could not attain to the shore, and therefore we were constrained—through the cruel dealing of John Hampton, captain of the Minion, and John Sanders, boatswain of the Jesus, and Thomas Pollard, his mate—to leap out of the boat into the ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... existed in the world, went to the theatre, expecting not to be interested or surprised by the unravelling of a new and intricate story, but to be fascinated by the force of expression and pathos of feeling, with which a mournful catastrophe already known was told. To attain this object, the dramatic writers of antiquity selected that period in an interesting and tragic story, when its incidents were approaching their crisis, when the denouement for good or for evil took place; and they represented that at full length, and in all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... independent supply be considered as such an object, how far, and by what sacrifices, are restrictions upon importation adapted to attain the end in view. ...
— Observations on the Effects of the Corn Laws, and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and General Wealth of the Country • Thomas Malthus
... should I not again find peace? But my sittings with Marcus Harding would be at an end. Could I give them up? I asked myself that, and I felt as if I could not. Through them, by means of them, I felt as if I might attain to something wonderful—terrible perhaps, but wonderful. I felt as if I were approaching the threshold of absolute truth. A voice within me whispered, 'Go no further.' Was it the voice of conscience? I did not heed it. Something irresistible urged me forward. I thrust away ...
— The Dweller on the Threshold • Robert Smythe Hichens
... yesterday—only yesterday—had passed utterly away in a few hours. It seemed incredible, beyond the bounds of possibility. Again and again Sir Beverley's speech and look returned to her. How emphatic he had been, how resolutely determined to attain his end! He had discharged his obligation, as he had said. He had paid his last debt. And in the payment of it he had laid upon her a burden which she had felt compelled ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... "Were all these devouring furnaces of burning brimstone, he would be content to go through them, if he could thereby be assured of the existence of God." There was at length made for him a way of escape from this severe temptation, and not only did he attain to a full and joyful persuasion of God's existence, but to the assurance of his personal interest in God as ...
— The Life of James Renwick • Thomas Houston
... preserve a discreet silence. The thing will out. The truth will stay swathed in no cave in the rock. The things that have been spoken in the ear in closets will be proclaimed upon the house tops. The Christian public will the sooner attain correct views on this subject through free discussion. If the thing be not of God, it will sooner come to nought through this process than through any other. But by their love for souls, and by their sworn loyalty to God and truth, let the clergy run the sword of the ...
— Amusement: A Force in Christian Training • Rev. Marvin R. Vincent.
... attain the universal form. His world was peopled with Titans, and he realised his ambition of portraying generic humanity: not, indeed, by making conventional, but by eliminating everything that was not typical. The earliest plastic art took clay and moulded the human form; the next achievement ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... those of moles. I have said that I derived valuable hints from the old man, and, indeed, became a very tolerable groom, but there was a certain finishing touch which I could never learn from him, though he possessed it himself, and which I could never attain to by my own endeavours; though my want of success certainly did not proceed from want of application, for I have rubbed the horses down, purring and buzzing all the time, after the genuine ostler fashion, until the perspiration fell ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... predominating facial expression is formed by countless fleeting and characteristic contortions is also the reason why the faces of intellectual men only become moulded gradually, and indeed only attain their sublime expression in old age; whilst portraits of them in their youth only show the first traces of it. But, on the other hand, what has just been said about the shock one receives at first sight coincides with the above remark, that ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... John Russell, however, is only imitating Pym under the same circumstances. In 1640, when the English movement was satisfied, and the constitutional party, headed by such men as Falkland and Hyde, were about to attain power, Pym and his friends, in despair at their declining influence and the close divisions in their once unanimous Parliament, fled to the Scotch Covenanters, and entered into a 'close compact' for the destruction ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... it is with our hardy and brave forefathers, fighting to defend their country and their firesides against the southern intruders. How many teachers of history try to utilize race-consciousness in their pupils to make them attain a clearer knowledge of what it all meant? Should we not be proud that we are of the blood of men who withstood the self-styled rulers of the world and won their freedom and their right to shape their own ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... your disgust: a picture gallery is a dull place for a blind man. But even as you enjoy the contemplation of such romantic mirages as beauty and pleasure; so would I enjoy the contemplation of that which interests me above all things namely, Life: the force that ever strives to attain greater power of contemplating itself. What made this brain of mine, do you think? Not the need to move my limbs; for a rat with half my brains moves as well as I. Not merely the need to do, but the need to know what I do, lest in my blind ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... richer and more extensive than many a small kingdom, should have no university, when some states of not half its size have even two; for instance, the grand duchy of Baden, one of whose universities, that of Heidelberg, ranks among the first in all Germany. If ever I attain a position allowing me so to do, I shall make every effort in my power to procure for my country the greatest of benefits: namely, that of an intellectual unity, which can arise only from a high degree of civilization, and from the radiation of ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... may, for anything he knows, have as good a title to his pretences as another man; for judgment being not past in the case (which shall never be by his means), his title still stands fair. All he can possibly attain to is but to be another thing than nature meant him, though a much worse. He makes that good that Pliny says of children, Qui celerius fari cepere, tardius ingredi incipiunt. The apter he is to smatter, the slower he is in making any advance ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... aspect is sallow and prematurely senile, so that children are often wrinkled, their muscles flaccid, their hair lank, and frequently pale, the abdomen tumid, the stature stunted, and the intellectual and moral character low and degraded. They rarely attain what in more wholesome regions would be considered old age. In the marshy districts of certain countries,—for example, Egypt, Georgia, and Virginia,—the extreme term of life is stated to be forty in the latter place.... In portions of Brittany which ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... theory was one of selfishness. That is, it inculcated that my first business must be, to save my soul from future punishment, and to attain future happiness; and it bade me to chide myself, when I thought of nothing but about doing present duty and ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... Orchomenus, and is the only river of Greece that is a copious and navigable stream at its source; it also increases like the Nile about the summer solstice, and the same plants grow on its banks; but they produce no fruit and do not attain any large size. Its course however is short, for the larger part of the water is soon lost in obscure marshes overgrown with shrubs: a small part joins the Kephisus somewhere about the point where the lake is ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... is much truth in this: a few Leibnitzes in every age would be of much use: but neither are many men fitted by nature for the part of Leibnitz; nor would the aspect of knowledge be better, if they were. We should then have a state of Grecian life amongst us in which every man individually would attain in a moderate degree all the purposes of the sane understanding,—but in which all the purposes of the sane understanding would be but moderately attained. What I mean is this:—let all the objects of the understanding in civil life or in science be represented by the letters of the alphabet; ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... he sighed, "that England is different. To attain the same ends here, one may have ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... work under her maiden name) in the Melbourne press in 1875. Others of the same character followed at irregular intervals. Two were issued in book-form by a London firm of publishers, but did not attain to much more ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... has been subjected to many displacements, both flexures of the monoclinal type and faults. Some of these flexures attain a length of over 80 miles and a displacement of 3,000 feet, and the faults reach even a greater magnitude. There is also an abundance of volcanic rocks and extinct volcanoes, and while the principal eruptions have occurred about the borders of the ...
— The Cliff Ruins of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... Parliament sent for Stephenson that they might discuss with him the feasibility of building a railroad from Manchester to Liverpool. The committee had no great faith in the enterprise. Most of its members did not believe that a railroad of any sort was practical or that it could ever attain speed enough to be of service. However, it was a possibility, and as they did not know which way to turn to quiet the exasperated populace they felt they might as well investigate this remedy. It could do ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... MILTON. Milton is like an ideal in the soul, like a lofty mountain on the horizon. We never attain the ideal; we never climb the mountain; but life would be inexpressibly poorer were ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... think and do what was right in itself and conducive to the great aim of his life, the building of an edifice which, rooted in the hearts of people, would be independent of the personality of the ruler. Before I attempt to state in detail the means he adopted to attain this end, I propose to say a few words on a subject which may be said to underlie the whole question, the conformation of his mind and the manner in which it was affected by matters relating to the spiritual condition of mankind. Than this there cannot be any more important investigation, for it ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... its natural condition, completely adapted to the use of man, but only to the sustenance of wild animals and wild vegetation. These live, multiply their kind in just proportion, and attain their perfect measure of strength and beauty, without producing or requiring any important change in the natural arrangements of surface, or in each other's spontaneous tendencies, except such mutual ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... scholastic philosophy, while his lapses testify to the self-complacency and levity characteristic of the times. Yehuda Romano, one of his contemporaries, is said to have been teacher to the king of Naples. He was the first Jew to attain to a critical appreciation of the vagaries of scholasticism, but his claim to mention rests upon his translations from ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... stitching, in spite of even the fierce longing, whenever she passed a telephone, to speak with Dudley Hamilt, Felicia found herself—happy, happy with the same haunting happiness with which she had long ago untangled the puzzle of the lost garden, happy with the aching happiness that longs to attain and trembles ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... with good successe, disdaines the shadow which he treads on at noone, but I do wonder, his insolence can brooke to be commanded vnder Cominius? Bru. Fame, at the which he aymes, In whom already he's well grac'd, cannot Better be held, nor more attain'd then by A place below the first: for what miscarries Shall be the Generals fault, though he performe To th' vtmost of a man, and giddy censure Will then cry out of Martius: Oh, if he ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... is generally acknowledged to be far superior to the latter in its architectural details, and few, if any, Italian churches can be said to surpass it, either in general composition or external effect, although it must be admitted that everything having been sacrificed to attain the latter quality, S. Paul's taken as a whole, is neither worthy of its fine situation nor of its ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... heard the sentence, replied: "Since you were predetermined to put me to death, you ought at least to have sought for more plausible pretexts to attain that end; for you will never persuade the world that you deem me guilty of what you now declare me to be convicted. However, since my lot is decided, I demand that you will not let me languish here until to-morrow, but order that I be led to execution ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... as well as the real end, which the author had in mind, and these were always such that those who had performed the best deeds could be accredited with the least charitable intention. Their pious works had always been executed in order to make them conspicuous in the eyes of men, or to attain for themselves some distinction, or to flatter their vanity, or to arouse the envy of their neighbours, or to contribute in some indirect way to the increase of their riches. Perhaps you may not altogether understand what I mean; but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... poetry was first experienced: but the thought has suffered a transformation since it was an experience. Cultivated men often attain a good degree of skill in writing verses; but it is easy to read, through their poems, their personal history: any one acquainted with parties can name every figure: this is Andrew, and that is Rachael. The sense thus remains prosaic. It is a caterpillar with wings, and not yet a butterfly. ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... a great delight to hear of the numerous societies, in various countries, working well and vigorously for that justice which for so long has been denied to women. The time can not be far distant now, when we shall attain the right of expressing our opinion by giving ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... that it sometimes happens that schools earn grants twice over for the same subjects; and in other cases they enjoy aid from one Department of State which is refused for the same subject by another, owing to failure to comply with its conditions or to attain to its standard. Just as the connection of the Elementary schools with the Intermediate schools is very imperfect, so at the other end is the connection with the universities. The system of payment by results, under which the Intermediate schools are subsidised, is notoriously ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... time about the city. Believing that country air and exercise would soon enable me to be longer on my feet, I concluded to set out as I was, without waiting for additional strength, so slow and difficult to attain in the smoky atmosphere and hot streets ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... out, barking in a most excited manner whenever the blessing is commenced. The congregation of one of these churches determined that the service should close in a more decorous manner, and steps were taken to attain this object. Accordingly, when a stranger clergyman was officiating, he found the people all sitting when he was about to pronounce the blessing. He hesitated, and paused, expecting them to rise, till an old shepherd, looking up to the pulpit, said, "Say awa', sir; we're ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... they do those in a tranquil pool; but in the rapids a further set of forces is also operative. In the work referred to, issued in 1899, an effort was made to isolate the phenomena of Economic Statics and to attain the laws which govern them. Necessarily this study made a certain impression of unreality, since it put out of sight changes which are actually going on and are the conspicuous fact of modern life. It assumed the ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... popular leaders, but he differed from them in the choice of the means, the selection of arguments, and the proper mode of conducting the controversy. All certainly desired to be exempt from taxation and to secure freedom of trade; the question was how best attain these ends and reconcile their pretensions with the acknowledged principles of English law? Otis opposed both the Sugar Act and the Stamp Act on the same broad principle on which Hampden in England resisted the payment of ship-money, ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... upstart, whose strength lay in universal military service. As the century progressed, the influence of Prussia became greater; and the jealousy of Austria grew proportionately. Bismarck, the Prussian prime minister, adopted a policy of "blood and iron." By this he meant that Prussia would attain the objects of her ambition by means of war. Under his guidance she would intimidate or conquer the other German states and force them into trade and commercial agreements, or annex their territory to ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... founded the Russian Social Democracy and gave to the Russian revolutionary movement its Marxian character, inspiring such men as Nikolai Lenine and Leon Trotzky, among many others. The society did not attain any very great amount of success in its efforts to reach the peasants, and it was that fact more than any other which ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... habits, precision in drill and precision in daily living are the high road to that kind of discipline which best insures cool and collected thought and unity of action on the field of battle. When men, working together, successfully attain to a high standard of orderliness, deportment and response, each to the other, they develop the cohesive strength which will carry them through any great crisis. For this reason mainly, military life is far more exacting than civil ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... that boy's ache as we shot in among the wall rocks again. It was a psychic hunger for something that does not exist. Oh, to attain the terrible speed one experiences in a fever-dream, to get somewhere before it is too late, ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... perceives the infinite and essential so clearly that it scorns or spurns the mere accidents. But earth being earth, and life growth, and accidents an inevitable part of life, the rule remains that man, to attain, must climb step by step, and not expect to fly at once to the top of the ladder. Finding that he cannot do everything, Sordello sees no alternative but to do nothing. Consequently his state comes to be a virtual indolence or inactivity; though it is in reality ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons |
