"Attempt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... back of the boy's head, with the other he thrust the edge of the glass to his lips, swearing at the same time, that if he shook it so as to spill its contents the consequences would be of a nature by no means agreeable to his back and shoulders. Disliking the liquor, and angry at the attempt to overbear him, the undaunted child lifted his hand and struck the arm of the sailor with a blow so sudden that the glass fell and was smash'd to pieces on the floor; while the brandy was about equally divided between ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the Electrometer pole.... There appears to be no doubt that a greater amount of electricity is collected by this apparatus than by that formerly in use.'—As regards the Magnetical Observations: 'The Visitors at their last Meeting, expressed a wish that some attempt should be made to proceed further in the reduction or digest of the magnetical results, if any satisfactory plan could be devised. I cannot say that I have yet satisfied myself on the propriety of any special plan that I have examined.... I must, however, confess that, in viewing the capricious ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... at present to attempt any more fundamental analysis of the sexual impulse. Beaunis, in the work already quoted, vaguely suggests that we ought possibly to connect the sexual excitation which leads the male to seek the female with chemical action, either ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws—it is more interesting to be peculiar—and that Claudia would have regarded such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... not refuse his request. He made no attempt to conceal the nature of his mission and obtained not alone His Excellency's gracious permission but his sincere wishes for success as well. With a heart buoyant with joy and anticipation he spurred on his mare and pushed her to her ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... "you must help me. You must do something, oh, something, to help!" Then he made an attempt to stand, to get on the animal's back, but his poor foot gave out, and he huddled down to the ground again in pitiful, hopeless pain. The horse's nose touched his ear, starting him from a fast oncoming ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... night, I could not but admire Guert's coolness of manner, and his admirable conduct. He was more than resolute; for he was cool, collected, and retained the use of all his faculties in perfection. As plausible as it might seem, to one less observant and clear-headed, to attempt escaping to the western shore, Guert had decided right in moving towards the island. The grinding of the ice, in another quarter, had apprised him that the water was forcing its way through, near the main land; and that escape would be nearly hopeless, on ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Banneker also regarded it. He had no desire to break it. Nor, after it was established, did Marrineal make any overt attempt to interfere with his conduct of ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... Street near Ashland Avenue, and so was part and parcel of the natural possession of the gang. Billy felt that it was entirely ethical to beat up a cop, provided you confined your efforts to those of your own district; but for a bunch of yaps from south of Twelfth Street to attempt to pull off any such coarse work in his bailiwick—why it ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... an idea of letting him do it, and then attempt to secure a true statement of the case with the aid of the shock which the doctor would have sustained on discovering how he ...
— The Crime of the French Cafe and Other Stories • Nicholas Carter
... as a monkey; and, failing in his first attempt to grasp something to support him, he made a second leap and caught at a hazel bough which grew out horizontally above ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... the snow, so as to hide all the lashings. That was successful; curiously enough, they never tried to force the "snow rampart." I may mention as a curious thing that these ravenous animals, that devoured everything they came across, even to the ebonite points of our ski-sticks, never made any attempt to break into the provision cases. They lay there and went about among the sledges with their noses just on a level with the split cases, seeing and scenting the pemmican, without once making a sign of taking any. But if one raised a lid, they were not long in showing themselves. ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... to the soil, and speaks the thoughts of the peasants, articulating their pleasures, their pains, and their superstitions. No deadness of conventionality dulls the edge of his art—he is an original man. His fancy is bold, and he makes no attempt to repress it. Perhaps his most striking poem is I am the Gilly of Christ—strange that its reverence has been mistaken for sacrilege! And in the little song, Go, Ploughman, Plough, one tastes the joy of muscle, the revelation of the upturned earth, and ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... together, Stella and I, to the strains of the last Sousa two-step (it was the Washington Post), and we conversed, meanwhile, with careful disregard of the amenities of life, since each feared lest the other might suspect in some common courtesy an attempt at—there is really no other word—spooning. ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... you say to all that, hey, Courtecuisse?" asked Vaudoyer, who had just come in, and to whom Tonsard had related Vatel's attempt. ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... snow fell thick, and the sight of a grate full of cinders, glowing like lumps of iron at red heat, was especially enlivening. I sat down to read, but in a few minutes found my eyes become strangely dim: after a vain attempt to clear them by ablution, I resigned my book, gave way to the headache and weariness, which grew worse every minute, and got into my bed, concluding these unpleasant symptoms were occasioned by previous cold ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... secret of it all? Was Hugh really guilty of the attempt upon the notorious Mademoiselle? If not, why did he not face the ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... kingly power. There was no notion of a social struggle and no systematic idea of political revolution; a dangerous crisis and intolerable sufferings constrained king and nation to come together in order to make an attempt at an understanding and at a mutual exchange of the supports and the reliefs of which they ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... 1/500 of an inch in a second, or 0.12 inch in a minute. The leaflets of Averrhoa made a countless number of little oscillations when the temperature was high and the sun shining. The zigzag movement may in all cases be considered as an attempt to form small loops, which are drawn out by a prevailing movement in some one direction. The rapid gyrations of the little lateral leaflets of Desmodium belong to the same class of movements, somewhat exaggerated in rapidity and amplitude. The jerking movements, ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... in the nature of things, any relations of reciprocal influence and mutual cooeperation between mind and matter. If this be not the question at issue, both our contributor and ourselves are engaged in a fruitless attempt to enlighten each other. We are well aware that his digression from the main argument to the disputed question of free will, is made for the purpose of attempting to show that all spiritual agency must be like that which he claims for the soul of man—that is to say, it must have a free will, 'constantly ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... said Captain Pharo, making an unsuccessful attempt to light his pipe, and kicking out ...
— Vesty of the Basins • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... am confident ... that the investigations, which will now of course be made, will fully remove those suspicions from the mind of your Excellency, and will prove that I had also no knowledge or expectation that any such attempt [i.e. insurrectionary ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... their body to present him with their good wishes, and usual fragrant donation. The first consul sternly received them, and after rejecting their nosegay, fiercely told them to retire, and in future to attend to their husbands, their children, and their fisheries, and never more to attempt an interference in matters relating to the state. Upon which he ordered the pages in waiting to close the door upon them. He thought no doubt that "Omnium manibus res humanae egent: paucorum capita sufficiunt."—"Human affairs require the hands of all, whilst the ...
— The Stranger in France • John Carr
... not attempt to give specific exercises, but will content ourselves with calling the attention of the student to a few general rules underlying ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... out with little hope in her heart, and a short while after she was gone Joe decided to follow her and make an attempt to get work. ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... missions could not be made the ordinary channel of direct influences for turning sceptics and Protestants to the true religion. The attempt to make them so, involving, as it does, a notable interspersion of controversial sermons, has never been tried by the Redemptorist or Paulist Fathers to our knowledge, and when done by others has resulted in not enough of controversy for making solid ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... course, any such burning, whole-souled, ardent warmth of beam as one finds in countries where they make a specialty of climate. It is, generally speaking, a half-hearted, uncertain ray, as pale and as transitory as a martyr's smile; but its faintest gleam, or its most puerile attempt to gleam, is admired and recorded by its well-disciplined constituency. Not only that, but at the first timid blink of the sun the true Scotsman remarks smilingly, "I think now we shall be having settled weather!" It is a pathetic optimism, beautiful but quite groundless, and leads ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... of hide fastened to a wooden frame. There is no ceiling, but only beams, to which are fastened strips of "biltong," or game's flesh, dried in the sun. Out of this room open one or two more, in which the whole family sleep, without much attempt at privacy. ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... least, anything that can be regarded as more than an appearance. What, then, is the external world? What are things really like? Can we give any true account of them, or are we forced to say with the skeptics that we only know how things seem to us, and must abandon the attempt to tell ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... apology that can be made for his attempt to claim the theory of descent with modification is to be found in the practice of Lamarck, Mr. Patrick Matthew, the author of the "Vestiges of Creation," and Mr. Herbert Spencer, and, again, in the total absence of complaint ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... more. Still, I will try to set down that history which ended in so great a sacrifice, and one so worthy of record, though I hope that no human eye will read it until I also am forgotten, or, at any rate, have grown dim in the gathering mists of oblivion. And I am glad that I have waited to make this attempt, for it seems to me that only of late have I come to understand and appreciate at its true value the character of her of whom I tell, and the passionate affection which was her bounteous offering to one so utterly unworthy ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... fountain of living waters, you shall not be ashamed, for your peace shall be as a river. The elephant is said to trust that he can drink out a river; but he is deceived, for he may drink again,—it runs, and shall run for ever. If any thing would essay to take your peace from you, it is a vain attempt, for it runs like a river; it may be shallower and deeper, but it cannot run dry, because of the living fountain it proceedeth from. There is no other thing can be made sure; all besides this is uncertain, and this only is worthy to be made sure; nothing ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... which were made at Fucheo, one of the most considerable was that of a famous Bonza, of Canafama, called Sacay Ecran. This Bonza, who was very learned, and a great pillar of his sect, seeing that none of his brethren durst attempt Xavier on the matter of religion, undertook a public disputation with him. The conference Avas made in a principal place of the town, in presence of a great multitude. Scarcely had Xavier made an end of explaining the Christian doctrine, ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... felt suddenly the hopeless, overwhelming dearth of words against which he labored in the attempt to ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... execution, has availed herself of the absence of the caliph, who went lately to put himself at the head of his troops, to chastise some neighbouring kings, who have formed a league of rebellion. Were it not for this opportunity, my rival, outrageous as she is, durst not have presumed to attempt any thing against my life. I know not what she will do to conceal this action from the caliph, but you see it highly concerns me that you should keep my secret. My life depends on it. I shall be safe in your house as long as the caliph is from Bagdad. It concerns you to keep my adventure ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.
... seen the captain and his companions at St. Louis. They had now been for some time at Westport, making preparations for their departure, and waiting for a re-enforcement, since they were too few in number to attempt it alone. They might, it is true, have joined some of the parties of emigrants who were on the point of setting out for Oregon and California; but they professed great disinclination to have any connection ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... MacMasters: "And your boatswain's mate deserves mention, too. That he did not succeed in doing what this young man accomplished, was not for lack of courage to attempt it. They are both men that the Navy may be proud of. With a will, men!" and he led in ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson
... mystery baffling any attempt at explanation, for there were no ships in the roadstead, and hence it was impossible for the pair to have taken French leave. While a search party was being organized there came word that the missing saddle-horses had been ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... this time, only solid round-shot had been used on shipboard. An attempt had been made to get Napoleon the First to sanction the use of shells for naval use; fortunately, for some reason or other, he declined to do so, and thus our great struggle for naval supremacy was carried on with the solid round-shot that had been in vogue from the earliest introduction ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... While she mocked him she was endeavouring to edge past him to reach the table on which Toni's letter still lay. Unconsciously he frustrated her, blocking the way in an attempt to ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... during the past winter; and shown, if the truth be told, just a little commiseration for Honora. Sutcliffe was not only a famous girls' school, Sutcliffe was the world—that world which, since her earliest remembrances, she had been longing to see and know. In a desperate attempt to realize what had happened to her, she found herself staring hard at the open china closet, at Aunt Mary's best gold dinner set resting on the pink lace paper that had been changed only last week. That dinner set, somehow, was always an augury of festival—when, on the rare occasions ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gave a surprised "Oh!" and like a flash her features changed in the attempt to appear calm ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... America, the capitalist system will linger for another fifty years; but it will grow continually weaker, and can never recover the position of easy dominance which it held in the nineteenth century. To attempt to bolster it up is a useless diversion of energies which might be expended upon building something new. Whether the new thing will be Bolshevism or something else, I do not know; whether it will be better or worse than capitalism, I do not know. But ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... themselves that Miller carried no deadly weapon upon his person. Meanwhile, a third ransacked the buggy with like result. Miller recognized several others of the party, who made not the slightest attempt at disguise, though no names were ...
— The Marrow of Tradition • Charles W. Chesnutt
... think it over, found it good, and acted upon it, though the first attempt was not made exactly as she planned to have it. Of course the children tyrannized over her, and ruled the house as soon as they found out that kicking and squalling brought them whatever they wanted. Mamma was an abject slave ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... a Scotchman, and Scottish taciturnity brought to bear upon the genial and jovial Yorkshire folk did not make for friendliness. Further, he would not let Mrs. Gaskell 'edit' and change The Professor, and here also he did wisely and well. He hated publicity, and above all things viewed the attempt to pierce the veil of his married life with almost morbid detestation. Who shall say that he was not right, and that his retirement for more than forty years from the whole region of controversy has not abundantly justified itself? One at least ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... up and moved towards the door. I think that she saw something in my face which checked any attempt she might have ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... courtiers, Richelieu struck terror. By means of spies and trickery, he ferreted out conspiracies and arbitrarily put their leaders to death. Every attempt at rebellion was mercilessly punished, no matter how exalted in rank the rebel might be. Richelieu was never moved by entreaties or threats—he was as ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... King," she answered quietly. "Nahana speaks truth. It is true that I entered the hut of Nandie and set the medicine there. I say it because by nature I am not one who hides the truth or would attempt to throw discredit even upon a humble serving-woman," and ...
— Child of Storm • H. Rider Haggard
... Uncle Billy knew must be handled promptly, and he picked up the rooster and made an attempt to escape. "Down on de low grouns—dis mornin'. Dat's right," he said, as he saw dawning unbelief in his mistress' face. "Now you have to skuse me, Miss Hallie. I got my ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... decision was made, he found it utterly impossible, to procure a separate conveyance for the corpse; and was equally unsuccessful in his attempt to procure that—which from being a common want, he had been disposed to consider of ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... without baggage, and scattered and came together as they wished, so that it was impossible to bring them to battle against their will. All that could be done was to try to beat them when they chose to receive or deliver an attack. With ordinary militia it was hopeless to attempt to accomplish anything needing prolonged and sustained effort, and, as already said, the thoroughly trained Indian fighters who were able to beat the savages at their own game were too few in numbers, and too unaccustomed to control and restraint, to permit of their forming the main body of the army ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... knowest we dare not attempt interchange of speech with Aklis, seeing that we disobeyed him in visiting the kingdoms of the earth: so it is for thee to question him as to the object of this youth, and it is ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... now appears, to escape, but afraid to adopt such a measure without certain precautions. It was not long after, that you, Mr. Forester, became my visitor. I observed, with dissatisfaction, the growing intercourse between you, reflecting on the equivocalness of his character, and the attempt he would probably make to render you the dupe of his hypocrisy. I accordingly threatened him severely; and I believe you observed the change that presently after occurred in his behaviour with relation ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... he is by his high position and firmly established reputation for talent and unswerving integrity, no one could oppose him; he is all-powerful even with the king; he would crush you at a word. Dear Maximilian, believe me when I assure you that if I do not attempt to resist my father's commands it is more on your account than ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... at least, are all against us. Struggle as we may, be as snobbish as we will, we cannot shake off these poor relations of ours. Our adult anatomy at once betrays our ancestry, if we attempt to deny it. Read the first chapter of that remarkable book by Professor Drummond on the "Ascent of Man," the chapter on the ascent of the body, and the second chapter on the scaffolding left in the body. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... says, that they will not attempt to creep up on us during the night. They will do nothing until morning. Then we ...
— The Young Treasure Hunter - or, Fred Stanley's Trip to Alaska • Frank V. Webster
... into the lake in a successful attempt to rescue one of her children; but neither is drowned, and she does not succumb rapidly enough for "shock" to account for it, or slowly enough for any other intelligible malady to ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... authority of Ludowico Sforza over the duchy of Milan against anyone who might attempt ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... three or four hours this insane demonstration proceeded apace. The Manchu guards listened gloomily and curiously from the inside of the gates, but made no attempt to open them, but they equally refused sullenly to parley with a strong body of sailors and volunteers we sent with instructions to shoot any one attempting to unlock the barriers. Yet it was evident that the guards had received special instructions, and ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... I desire to remain beside you, and study your mode of government, before I attempt myself ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... back, muttering inarticulate threats, and Saxon moved on as in a dream. Charley Long had taken water. He had been afraid of this smooth-skinned, blue-eyed boy. She was quit of him—something no other man had dared attempt for her. And Billy had liked her better ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... the altitude of 60, 70 or 80 degres, as it may bee more Northerly, when in these temperate partes of the world the shod of that frozen sea breadeth such noysome pester: as the pore fishermen doe continually sustain. And therefore it seemeth to be more then ignorance that men should attempt Nauigation in desperate clymates and through seas congeled that neuer dissolue, where the stiffnes of the colde maketh the ayre palpably grosse without certainty that the ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... was no idle one. That he would do, or attempt to do, all that he had promised, she was perfectly sure; but at the worst it meant but a little earlier release from the hideous anguish that she had been enduring. She must find some way to take her own life before the Russian could harm ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... "It is his heart I wish to secure," said she; "and all those young girls who have no education will not run away with it from me. I should not be equally confident were I to see some fine woman belonging to the Court, or the city, attempt his conquest." ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... conquests it would enable him to make, and of the boundless extension of his dominions which it would enable him to secure; and his eyes flashed and his bosom heaved with unsuppressed excitement as he inwardly vowed that he would achieve its possession or die in the attempt. All the conditions of his life, he angrily told himself, had been violently and permanently disarranged by the incidents of the previous day; he had been publicly threatened; publicly terrified into a cowardly and disgraceful state of submission; and it was quite impossible that he could permanently ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... of the British Academy, vol. ii, p. 55; reproduced in the Revue de Droit International, the Revista de Derecho International, and the Marine Rundschau.) In the three letters which follow, an attempt is made to point out the confusion which has resulted from failure to distinguish between the two last-mentioned heads of neutral duty; on the one hand, namely, the cases in which a neutral government is bound itself ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... on my arrival at Peshawur in December 1839, that a great deal remained to be done, I obtained permission to remain another season in Affghanistan. I immediately mentioned my wishes of travelling to General Avitabili, who strongly advised me not to attempt leaving Peshawur in any novel direction, as the whole of his district was much disaffected. Soon afterwards I heard of an expedition being on the point of leaving Jallalabad for Kooner, and I determined on joining it. I re- traversed ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... and locked on the inside, in accordance with Doctor Toole's solemn injunction; and there was no attempt to use violence. But a brisk knocking began thereat and Moggy, encouraged by hearing the voices of Betty and the vender of splendours at the little parlour window, and also by the amber sunlight on the rustling ivy leaves, and the loud evening gossip ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... have thought herself guilty of a great sin, if she had not told everything to Girard. So, however fearful she might be of displeasing and disgusting him, she spoke of this matter also. Looking at the wounds, he began playing his comedy, rebuked her attempt to heal them, and thus set herself against God. They were the marks, he said, of Heaven. Falling on his knees, he kissed the wounds on her feet. She crossed herself in self-abasement, struggled long-time ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... them, or my soul must be created afresh, and not improved. Yet a little while am I parted from my Ann—I could not exist without the hope of seeing her again—I could not bear to think that time could wear away an affection that was founded on what is not liable to perish; you might as well attempt to persuade me that my soul is matter, and that its feelings arose from certain modifications ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... where the brilliant mountains were clearly outlined against the dark background of the sky. Michel Ardan wanted to open one of the port-lights and jump upon the lunar surface. What was a fall of twelve leagues? He thought nothing of that. It would, however, have been a useless attempt, for if the projectile was not going to reach any point on the satellite, Michel would have been hurled along by its movement, and not have reached ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... Stamford: Methinks those things which others have confessed, together with your own confession, will weigh shrewdly. But what have you to say as to the rising in Kent, and Wyatt's attempt against the Queen's royal person ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... chapter little can be offered that will tell the story of half a century of life of a great city. No attempt will be made to trace its progress or to recount its achievement. It is my purpose merely to record events and occurrences that I remember, for whatever interest they may have or whatever light they may throw ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... have been the rallying point for the discussion of urgent public affairs. It was so in London. Paul's Cross was the constant meeting-place of the citizens of London whenever they were excited by oppressive laws, the troublesome competition of "foreigners," or any attempt to interfere with their privileges and liberties. The meetings of the shire or hundred moots took place often at crosses, or other conspicuous or well-known objects. Hundreds were named after them, such as the hundred of Faircross in Berkshire, of Singlecross in Sussex, Normancross ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... friends. In 1871 a second appeal was made for funds, and the result was a large increase in endowments, and in revenue. Several chairs were established and scholarships and exhibitions were provided. It was in this year that the first attempt was made to offer facilities for the higher education of women, not yet, however, within the University, but unofficially connected with it. But this movement must be left to ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... the Colonel's strong point. His oratorical engines are driven by midnight oil. Wisely, therefore, he did not attempt an elaborate replique to Mr. BALFOUR'S "sword-play," but contented himself with a brief restatement of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... because it was on my account you were placed there. You can, if you choose, re-enter my service as footman, and your wages shall be the same as those of any other servant of your class; but remember—henceforth I am the mistress, and you the menial, and any presumption on your part, or attempt at familiarity, shall be instantly followed by your discharge. Clean yourself of that filth, and begin your duties to-morrow, as a respectful, orderly and obedient servant. You can ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... and the execution was therefore a murder. But is it not perfectly obvious from the Gospel story that Pilate tried to save Jesus? Did not the obstinate prisoner plead guilty to what was really a charge of sedition? Did he attempt any defence? Did he call any witnesses? Was he not contumacious? And had Pilate any alternative to sentencing him to the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... systematic massacres of the second and third of September; when I observe that a Murat and a Robespierre, the notorious prompters of those bloody scenes, sit triumphantly in the convention and take a conspicuous part in its measures—that an attempt to bring the assassins to justice has been abandoned; when I see an unfortunate prince, whose reign was a continued demonstration of the goodness and benevolence of his heart, of his attachment to the people of whom he was the monarch, who, though educated in the lap of despotism, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... understand anything by it! It's a piece of hopeless legal gibberish to me. I stammer out some attempt at an answer, and see Baboo looking at me with a pitying, almost reproachful, glance. "Didn't I," he seems to say, "explain it all to you once at dinner? Do you really mean to say that you've forgotten the way in which I arranged the salt-cellars ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari Volume 98, January 4, 1890 • Various
... comfortable in the boats than it could possibly be in the sodden forest, where little lakes were already forming. In addition, night, very dark, was coming on, and no cessation of the rain was promised. It was useless, in the face of the deluge, to attempt to build fires on the shore, and huddling in the boats under tarpaulins, sails, and blankets, they ate cold food. But Adam Colfax, as a precaution, allowed a little brandy to ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Something that happened in your mother's life, maybe, if you are a girl, or your father's, if you are a boy—that happened to your mother or father some years, perhaps, before you were born. I have many such haunting memories—as of having once witnessed a murder, or an attempt at murder, for instance, and once seeing a tree fall on a man—and as a child I had a memory of having been a man myself once before. But here ...
— The Rising of the Court • Henry Lawson
... to build in such a manner that each outer face should be vertical, and in a straight line from corner to corner; but the inner side was left rough and irregular according to the shape and size of the blocks, no attempt being made to even it up. If timbers of any kind had been laid across the top, resting on the walls, there remained no indication of the fact. However, the bodies may have been protected at the time ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke
... not only be kept in safety, but ready and convenient, to be at any time produc'd for use, as occasion shall require. But I will not here prevent my self in what I may say in another Discourse, wherein I shall make an attempt to propose some Considerations of the manner of compiling a Natural and Artificial History, and of so ranging and registring its Particulars into Philosophical Tables, as may make them most useful for the raising ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... the opposite side. The master was umpire, and after his "Next!" had fallen there was no appeal. But if a mistake were made, it was the opponent's part and privilege to correct with all speed, lest a second attempt should succeed. ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... old age he tried to dispose of the Field to the market-gardener for five thousand dollars. But the lawyer raised the obvious objection that the Field could not be sold without Edward's consent, and of Edward nothing whatsoever was known. Some attempt was made at this time by John Clark on behalf of his father to trace the missing Edward—a feeble attempt. He wrote to an army friend in Chicago, who found evidence that Edward S. Clark, a carpenter, had lived in the city for five or six years and ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... true that all the bears did not show (if I may be allowed the expression) equal intrepidity, either owing to some being less pressed by hunger, or to their being by nature less carnivorous than the others; for some of them which entered the hut immediately betook themselves to flight on the first attempt of the sailors to drive them away. A repetition, however, of these ferocious attacks threw the poor men into great terror and anxiety, as they were in almost a perpetual danger of ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... platform he had been overcome by the audacity of the idea that he, a mere babe in knowledge, a recent scorner, should attempt to get up and tell a roomful of people, who knew far more about the Bible than he did, how he found Christ. There were no words in which to tell anything! They had all fled from his mind and it was ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... and outside shells of the dome. It was indeed a bold idea for Brunelleschi to raise such a mass in air. The dome of Saint Peter's, which is scarcely as large, was not made until a century after, and this was, therefore, the first attempt at raising one on so grand a scale. It seems still as solid ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... he said it was settled, and as many times began at the beginning to think it all over again. He went home finally, after the meat was carried around; but this didn't help him any. Home hadn't gone back to its old state of dirt and disorder: Kitty's first attempt had been too successful, and she had liked the looks of things too well to give up; so there was a great change for the better in the housekeeping, which both Kitty and her mother enjoyed. Still, there was no denying that, though a clean, it was ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... informs me that 'The English Novel' will soon be issued in an amended form and with a new sub-title, 'Studies in the Development of Personality', which indicates precisely what Mr. Lanier intended to attempt, and relieves the book of its seeming incompleteness as to ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... In 1889 an attempt was made to give a married woman control of her separate real estate, which up to that time had belonged to the husband. Endless confusion has resulted, as the law applies only to marriages made since that date. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... of the omens which are generally credited in modern Europe. A complete list of them would fatigue from its length, and sicken from its absurdity. It would be still more unprofitable to attempt to specify the various delusions of the same kind which are believed among oriental nations. Every reader will remember the comprehensive formula of cursing preserved in Tristram Shandy—curse a man after any fashion you remember or can invent, you ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... Abdul. "It appears that none of the belligerents cared about me at all. None had designs upon me. The war was not made, as we understood, Toomuch, as an attempt to seize my person. All they wanted was ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... up in rolls, or, as they are called, "carrots." This tobacco is raised mostly in the parish of St. James, La., and derives its name from an old Spanish navigator who settled in St. James parish in the year 1820. His first attempt at raising tobacco, for his own use, succeeded so well and gave him such a fine result, (the plant developing itself to a great extent and being very rich,) that he concluded to devote all his time to the culture of tobacco, in order to make a ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... office where the Harmon will was registered, and must have read the will. He anticipated Mr Boffin's consideration whether he should be advised with on this or that topic, by showing that he already knew of it and understood it. He did this with no attempt at concealment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his duty to have prepared himself at all attainable ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... instantly. He felt hot and annoyed. To escape was out of the question. Once one has been scientifically wrapped up by the attendant and placed on one's sofa, one is a fixture. He lay scowling at the ceiling, resolved to combat all attempt at conversation with a ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... might have avoided it by quietness; by undertaking so bold an attempt as he has done without being completely sure of success, and having laid his plans deeply; and, thirdly, I knew the feelings of the French people were decidedly in his favor, more especially the military. They feel as though Louis XVIII ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Samuel F. B. Morse
... with death," as the prophet Isaiah characters those monsters of profaneness. Take heed also of "corrupting this covenant," by an unholy gloss. Wo be unto those glossers that corrupt the text, pervert the meaning of these words: who attempt to expound the covenant by their own practice, and will not regulate their practice by the covenant. The apostle Peter speaks of Paul's writings, "That in them some things are hard to be understood, which they ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she and I were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances' thoughts, during this interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not occupied in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her composure. The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true, still detained her; but with a restraint that ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... we should require. He had resided some years on Mackenzie's River, and had been once so far towards its mouth as to meet the Esquimaux in great numbers. But they assumed such a hostile attitude, that he deemed it unadvisable to attempt opening any communication with them, and retreated as speedily as ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the Years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 1 • John Franklin
... way of stimulating public interest in agricultural work. Conditions were not favourable to organization. The 'town meeting' was concerned mainly with the question of the height of fences and regulations as to stock running at large. One attempt, however, was made which should be noted. Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe took charge of affairs early in 1792, and, immediately after the close of the first session of the legislature at Newark (Niagara) in the autumn of that year, organized an agricultural society at ...
— History of Farming in Ontario • C. C. James
... laughter greeted his attempt to explain; and there were a few remarks so uncomplimentary that the man of cloth sank back ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... next The Birches; we passed these well-known Yukon landmarks, camping, after a run of thirty-eight miles, some six miles beyond the last-named place, with a run of forty-four miles before us to Tanana. I judged it too much; but the trail was greatly improved and we decided to attempt it in one stage. A misreading of the watch, so that I roused myself and Walter at 3.30 A. M. instead of 5.15 A. M., and did not realise the mistake until the fire was made and it was not worth while returning to bed, gave us a fine start and we made good progress. ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... experiments and vicissitudes which he spared his listener—into tutoring English youths in Switzerland. Before that, however, he had lived much in Paris, frequented the Goncourt grenier, been advised by Maupassant not to attempt to write (even that seemed to Archer a dazzling honour!), and had often talked with Merimee in his mother's house. He had obviously always been desperately poor and anxious (having a mother and an unmarried sister to provide for), ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... doubt whether I do not mistake their meaning, and cannot, without hesitation and uncertainty, propose the motion to which all their arguments seem necessarily to conduct me; arguments of which I do not deny the force, and which I shall not attempt to invalidate by slight objections, when I am convinced, in general, of their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... dancer to forgive this latest whim of her dear demon and the crime of lese-majeste in which she had made her an accomplice. The idea of treating such a personage so cavalierly! No one else in the world would have done it, no one but her. As for Paul de Gery, he made no further attempt at resistance, being caught once more in the network from which he believed that he had set himself free by absence, but which, as soon as he crossed the threshold of the studio, suppressed his will and delivered him over, fast bound and conquered, to the sentiment that ...
— The Nabob, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... time before she could bring herself to a decision to set out. She was delighted with the political success of Lord Bute and pleased with her daughter's prosperity, but "I am doubtful whether I will attempt to be a spectator of it," she confided in Sir James Steuart in April. "I have so many years indulged my natural inclinations to solitude and reading, I am unwilling to return to crowds and bustle, which would be unavoidable in London. The few friends I esteemed are ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... Neptune to leave the battle, to which, after much reluctance and passion, he consents. Apollo reinspires Hector with vigour, brings him back to the battle, marches before him with his aegis, and turns the fortune of the fight. He breaks down great part of the Grecian wall: the Trojans rush in, and attempt to fire the first line of the fleet, but are, as yet, repelled by the greater ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... to work, as soon as she knew how one began to get to work. It was her first attempt at a drawing from the life, saving certain not unsuccessful caricatures of her fellow pupils, her professor and her chaperon. So far she had only been set to do landscape, and laborious drawings of casts from the antique. The work was much harder than she had expected. And the heat was overpowering. ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... made one more attempt to speak; but the widow rose, and saying: "Come, my children," she hastily withdrew with the girls into the adjoining room, and closed ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... metepeita aei en somati metangizesthai kai en pollois kata kairous deiknusthai]). As the Elkesaites (see the account by Epiphanius) traced back the incarnations of Christ to Adam, and not merely to Abraham, we may see in this view of history the attempt to transform Mosaism into the universal religion. But the Pharisitic theology had already begun with these Adam-speculations, which are always a sign that the religion in Judaism is feeling its limits too narrow. The Jews in Alexandria were also ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... party was ready to proceed soon after five o'clock, but the barometer got out of order while I was using it in the dry bed of the rivulet, and some time was lost in an unsuccessful attempt to repair it. This derangement of the instrument was very unfortunate at so early a stage ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... prolonged and acrimonious debate in the Senate, called the third battle of Bull Run, as it related to the conduct of Fitz John Porter in the second battle. One day Senator Plumb, of Kansas, declared that the attempt to reinstate Porter was the beginning of an attempt to re-write the history of the Union army, and to put that which was disloyal and unfaithful above that which was loyal and faithful. "This," said Mr. Plumb, "was our quarrel, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... hotel was built on Morgan land, and belonged to the Morgans. Nobody outside a madhouse could be found to dispute with Duke Morgan a title to land within ten miles of Morgan's Gap, and none but a lunatic would attempt to run a hotel at Calabasas, anyway. However, a solution of the difficulty was found: Duke's colorable title gave the cue to his retainers in the Gap, and in time they carted away piecemeal most of the main building, leaving for years the kitchen and the servants' quarters ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... me to even attempt to skiagraph all that took place on board the Germania from the time we left Naples of sunny Italy till we arrived in the docks of Brooklyn, eleven and one-half days' voyage with only a short stop at Gibraltar, that fortified rock for which Great Britain is ready to play all ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... McMaelisa, ("follower of Jesus"), and in our own comments on the memorable letter of Prince Donald O'Neil to Pope John XXII., written in the year 1317 or '18, we have seen how wide and deep was the gulf then existing between the English and Irish churchmen. In the year 1324, an attempt to heal this unchristian breach was made by Philip of Slane, the Dominican who presided at the trial of the Knights Templars, who afterwards became Bishop of Cork, and rose into high favour with the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Twenty-third Corps under Brigadier-General Milo S. Hascall was left as the garrison of Knoxville, with the heavy artillery organization under Brigadier-General Davis Tillson and a small detachment of cavalry. Hascall was particularly directed to scout far out to the eastward, watching for any attempt of the enemy to pass along the mountain base, as well as against any effort to capture the city ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... sight of Justice. I sat there squirming while he piled the top on a couple whose only crime was parking overtime; I itched from top to bottom while he slapped one miscreant in gaol for turning left in violation of City Ordinance. His next attempt gave a ten dollar fine for failing to come to a full and grinding halt at the sign of the big red light, despite the fact that the criminal was esper to a fine degree and dug the fact that there was no cross-traffic for ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... Bob did not attempt to say another word. He had new food for thought. Yes, to be sure, Peg and his two cowboy guides had had plenty of time to climb that far up the side of Thunder Mountain. If they had taken daylight ...
— The Saddle Boys of the Rockies - Lost on Thunder Mountain • James Carson
... poetic fire and originality. Cursor Mundi (c. 1320) is a very long poem which makes a kind of metrical romance out of Bible history and shows the whole dealing of God with man from Creation to Domesday. It is interesting as showing a parallel to the cycles of miracle plays, which attempt to cover the same vast ground. They were forming in this age; but we will study them later, when we try to understand the rise of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... forbids the treatment of playing cards under any but their pictorial aspects, though the temptation is great to attempt some description of their use from an early period as instruments of divination or fortune telling, for which in the hands of the "wise man" or woman of various countries they are still used, and to which primary purpose the early "Tarots" were doubtless applied; ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... Rousseau's peculiar feeling for nature, which acquired such a decisive place in his character during his life at Les Charmettes, it is to be remembered that it was entirely devoid of that stormy and boisterous quality which has grown up in more modern literature, out of the violent attempt to press nature in her most awful moods into the service of the great revolt against a social and religious tradition that can no longer be endured. Of this revolt Rousseau was a chief, and his passion for natural aspects was connected with this attitude, but he did ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... quite modern style—flounces, laces, and fringes, and so forth, while Alfredo had donned a black velvet coat a la something, with a huge jabot which fell over a frilled shirt-front. He wore short velvet trousers, and black-silk stockings covered his thin legs without the least attempt at padding. ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... been frustrated, Oglethorpe, perceiving that an assault would be unavailing, marched back to the river, where he continued for some time, expecting that the enemy would come out, and endeavor to drive him from their territory, but, as they made not the attempt, and as the affairs of the Colony as well as his own, required his presence in England, he returned, to make arrangements ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... dark blue mingling with white becomes a light blue; the union of flame-colour and black makes leek-green. There is no difficulty in seeing how other colours are probably composed. But he who should attempt to test the truth of this by experiment, would forget the difference of the human and divine nature. God only is able to compound and resolve substances; such experiments are ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... Turkey in line with a June 1998 agreement with Russia. Since 1997, Georgia's parliament has sharpened its rhetoric against Russia's continued military presence on Georgian territory. In February 1998 an assassination attempt was made against President SHEVARDNADZE by supporters of the late former president Zviad GAMSAKHURDIA. In October 1998, a disaffected military officer led a failed mutiny in western Georgia; the armed forces continue to feel the ripple effect of the uprising. Georgia faces parliamentary ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the Kings or Government of that Country have ever seem'd to incline to the hazardous Attempt of the Voyage to the Moon, at least not ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... indirect cause of the final catastrophe. On January 5, 1540, Cardan wrote to Tartaglia, telling him that Colla had once more appeared in Milan, and was boasting that he had found out certain new rules in Algebra. He went on to suggest to his correspondent that they should unite their forces in an attempt to fathom this asserted discovery of Colla's, but to this letter Tartaglia vouchsafed no reply. In his diary it stands with a superadded note, in which he remarks that he thinks as badly of Cardan as of Colla, and that, as far as he is concerned, they may ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... had been done. Everybody was smoking cigars, everybody was happily conscious of a warm glow at the pit of the stomach, everybody was firmly convinced that Silver Jack was the best fellow on earth. Morgan could do nothing. An attempt to eject Silver Jack, an expostulation even, would, he knew, lose him his entire crew. The men, their heads whirling with the anticipated delights of a spree, would indignantly champion their new friend. Morgan retired ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... to make the dogs leap a widening crack, though some of the best dog drivers can do it instantly, using the whip and the voice. A poor dog driver would be likely to get everything into the water in the attempt. It is sometimes necessary to go ahead of the dogs, holding the hand low and shaking it as though it contained some dainty morsel of food, thus inspiring them with ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... Laxdale, who happened to overhear his brother-officer's question. "Yes—rather. It seems that he struck our main camp about an hour or so ago. The colonel's sent to say that we are to attempt an enveloping movement. The Boches are in force on a kopje about five miles on our light front—about eight hundred of 'em according ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... the afternoon he spent in trying to lower the army's confidence by telling all the gruesome stories of Indian warfare he could think of; but he frightened himself a great deal more than them, and at last had to abandon the attempt in despair. ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey |
