"Contend" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... as shall effect his purpose. But in those stages which are prominent in every nation's progress, when the tide of public opinion sets full and irresistibly in one direction, sweeping along all thought and energy in its course, against which it were madness to contend until the tempest shall have worn itself out by its own violence—more especially when the great questions involve a mere difference of opinion as to the results of important measures or the general tendency ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... forced them to land their boat, and as the water rose they had three times to haul it higher on the bank. He introduces an affecting little incident: "So completely cold and drenched was everything outside, that a poor little lemming, unable to contend with the floods, which had driven it successively from all its retreats, crept silently under the tent, and snuggled away in precarious security within a few paces of a sleeping terrier. Unconscious of its danger, it ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... purpose. Still there was little to be feared so long as Mrs. Bernard remained securely locked in her room. I was freer for exploration now than I would be later, and must know at once the conditions with which we had to contend. Beyond doubt the woman was still asleep, and, perhaps, by the time she aroused and appeared below stairs I could find a reasonable explanation of all this mystery—something to smile over, rather than fear. While this was but a vague hope, it still ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... return to Java, they restored the village community with its joint ownership and joint liability, and abolished all proprietary rights of the natives in the soil, only allowing ownership of land to Europeans. They contend that this attempt of Raffles to apply Western principles to an Eastern society had already proved disastrous. The peasants, on the one hand, had not acquired the habits necessary for the successful ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... nor the special statute in question, authorize you to enslave your fellow men, there is, probably, but one ground on which you will contend for authority to do so—and this is the ground of the general morality of the Christian religion—of the general principles of right and duty, in the word of God. Do you find your authority on this ground? If you do, then, manifestly, you have a right to enslave me, and I a right to ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... bridges had, of course, been destroyed. The storm raged with such fury that we were actually afraid to go to bed. Mr. Gouverneur and I were elated because we believed it meant the end of hostilities and the Union restored; for in our opinion, it seemed impossible for human beings to successfully contend with the elements and at the same time to live under the fire of Meade's guns. It would therefore be difficult to describe our surprise when we learned the next morning that Lee's troops had safely crossed the Potomac and were again on ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... it, couldn't you?" he asked. "All that I must leave undone? The struggle would not be so great for you. There are schools near at hand now. You would not have the fearful odds to contend with that I had. Will you take up my battle? Shall I leave you my sword, John Jay? Oh, you do understand me, ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... go in a speckled garment on a grey speckled steed to the heath of Dal Chais, nor repair to an assembly of women at Seaghais, nor sit in autumn on the sepulchral mounds of the wife of Maine, nor contend in running with the rider of a grey one-eyed horse at Ath Gallta between two posts. The king of Ulster was forbidden to attend the horse fair at Rath Line among the youths of Dal Araidhe, to listen to the fluttering of the flocks of birds of Linn Saileach ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... my statements regarding Mr. Forrest, because I feel it my duty to open your eyes as to his character and intentions. You refused to believe what I said concerning him and you, and that only confirms my fears. I am powerless to contend against the logic of a woman's love, but when I spoke of him and her whom I may be pardoned for referring to as your rival, I spoke ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... to it or not, while others seem naturally proof against any amount of malaria, and though they sleep out of doors through the whole rainy season, and tramp about the jungles in the autumn, will never catch the least ague, though they may have all other kinds of ills to contend with. ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... make towards the pebbled shore So do our minutes hasten to their end; Each changing place with that which goes before, In sequent toil all forwards do contend. ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds
... observed Corthell, "the water-color that pretends to be anything more than a sketch over-steps its intended limits. The elaborated water-color, I contend, must be judged by the same standards as an oil painting. And if that is so, why not have the oil ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... of his unifying will, ever obstructing the one prayer of the first-born—that the children may be one with him in the Father. Against the heart-end of creation, against that for which the Son yielded himself utterly, the sowers of strife, the fomenters of discord, contend ceaseless. They do their part with all the other powers of evil to make the world which the love of God holds together—a world at least, though not yet a family—one heaving mass of dissolution. But they labour in vain. Through the mass and through it, that it may cohere, this way and that, ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... discontent arose from the circumstance of no longer having to take her orders from the Queen direct, but from her superintendent. Ridiculous as this may seem to an impartial observer, it created one of the most powerful hostilities against which Her Majesty had afterwards to contend. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... how the grass in patches here and there deepens into green of the richest—a plain token of moisture in the hollows—a blessing indeed in this dry weather. In the far West and Northwest the buffalo grass has often to contend with drought for months together, so that it has learned to strike deep in quest of water to quench its thirst. It is a by-word among the ranchmen that the roots go clear through the earth and are clinched as they sprout from the ground in China. Joking apart, they have been ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... "and, what is more surprising, it seems to increase. Jonathan completely baffles and derides the ends of justice. It is useless to contend with him, even with right on your side. Some years ago, in 1715, just before the Rebellion, I was rash enough to league myself with the Jacobite party, and by Wild's machinations got clapped into Newgate, whence ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... those who in their own language are called Celts, in ours Gauls, the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs, and laws. Among the Gauls the Helvetii surpass the rest in valour, as they constantly contend in battle with the Germans. When Messala and Piso were consuls, Orgetorix, the most distinguished of the Helvetii, formed a conspiracy among the nobility, persuading them that, since they excelled all in valour, it would be very easy to acquire the supremacy ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... rose to the surface. Great was the relief of Frank and the others when, amid the foaming water, Johnston's head appeared, and he struck out to keep himself afloat. But it was evident that he had little strength left, and was quite unable to contend with the mighty current. Good swimmer as he was, the danger ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... which even our idle dreams of Olympus never shadowed forth. There, instead of the harsh and imperious helpmate to whom the joyless Spartan confines his reluctant love, all the beauties of every clime contend for the smile of their lord. And wherever are turned the change-loving eyes of Passion, the Aphrodite of our poets, such as the Cytherean and the Cyprian fable her, seems to recline on the lotus leaf or to rise from the unruffled ocean of ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... less alarmed than their comrade, contrived to scramble over the wall, and were soon engaged hand to hand with those on the opposite side. But not alone had they to contend with adversaries like themselves. The stag-hounds, which had done so much execution during the first attack upon the house by Roger Nowell, raged amongst them like so many lions, rending their limbs, and seizing their throats. To ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... making good progress on the surface we have to contend with. We picked up the 3 Degree Depot soon after noon, which puts us up to time. We took our provision for a week. We have got to reach Mt. Darwin Depot, a distance of 120 miles, with 7 days' provisions. We picked up our ski and camped for the night. We have been wondering if the others ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... by cavalry suddenly appeared on Barnett's Hill and opened fire upon Pleasanton at Falls Church, while dismounted cavalry fired upon and killed 3 of his mounted pickets, who, armed only with sabers and pistols, could not contend with the enemy protected by timber. Pleasanton replied with his battery but the shots fell very short. The enemy supposed to have come from direction of Hunter's Mill returned toward Vienna. He states that the country beyond his picket lines affords every facility for such attacks, and that ...
— A Virginia Village • Charles A. Stewart
... year's end to another. Though everything remained green and flourishing in the plains below, the inheritance of the three brothers was a desert. What had once been the richest soil in the kingdom, became a shifting heap of red sand; and the brothers, unable longer to contend with the adverse skies, abandoned their valueless patrimony in despair, to seek some means of gaining a livelihood among the cities and people of ...
— Junior Classics, V6 • Various
... degree, as he proceeded: "Nowadays the forger has science to contend with, too. The microscope and camera may come in a little too late to be of practical use in preventing the forger from getting his money at first, but they come in very neatly later in catching him. What the naked eye cannot see in this check they reveal. Besides, a little iodine ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... trading in Wine and Tobacco, in which sort of commodities he is well studied; and the woman is for dealing in linnen, stockings, gloves, or such like Wares as she knows best how to traffick with. And verily it looks but sadly (although it oftentimes happens) when a Man and his Wife do contend about this. Nevertheless some men, because they imagine to have the best understanding, use herein a very hard way of discourse with their wives, making it all their business to snap and snarl, chide and bawl, nay threaten and strike also; which indeed rather mars then ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... Indian party had separated to such an extent that no others were in sight of the fugitive, who thus had but a single man to contend against, although there was no question but what any number of others could be summoned to the spot in a twinkling. The foeman understood the situation at a glance; that is, he knew that the man for whom he was seeking was prostrate upon the ground before ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... contend with in my quest of local matter in Santiago. Some of my Cuban friends help me in my researches, and I also pick up fragments of 'intelligence' in the cafes, the public promenade, the warehouses, and the newspaper offices. Occasionally I hold secret audience ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... interposed. To deny that this is conceivable, is to make GOD inferior to His own decree; to pronounce it incredible that the Lawgiver should be superior to His own Laws. "The universal subordination of causation," (p. 134,) we as freely admit as the Professor himself: but then we contend that everything else must be subordinate to the First great Cause of all. Worse than unphilosophical is it to argue as the Professor presumes to do, concerning the MOST HIGH; but unphilosophical in the strictest sense it ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... perfumed with pearly dews, when on the 1st of June, her birth-day, the blooming maid, in loose attire, gently trips it over the verdant mead, where every flower rises to do her homage, till the whole field becomes enamelled, and colours contend with sweets ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... course," she added, and then, bethinking herself, "But perhaps you're a Roman, Mr. Peter, like your dear brother and sister? Well, Roman or no Roman, I always say as how Mrs. Margerison is one of the best. A dear, cheery soul, as has hardships to contend with; and if she finds the comforts of religion in graven images an' a bead necklace, who am I to ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... as a legislator, whether, when men contend for their freedom, and to be allowed to judge for themselves, respecting their own happiness, it be not inconsistent and unjust to subjugate women, even though you firmly believe that you are acting in the manner best calculated ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... to leave the city as often as possible, full as it is of high and glorious reminiscences, and am inclined much rather to indulge in quieter scenes, whither the Graces and Friendship lead me. I would not contend even with men able to contend with me. You, Leontion, I see, think differently, and have composed at last your long-meditated work against ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... rendered possible by the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman, from Francis I. of France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it was against this modern Caesar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch under whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters of Germany, for whose honour marched the incomparable infantry of Spain, for whom the fleets of the gallant Genoese sailed in battle-array under the orders of the greatest admiral ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... more remote, compelling them to become citizens. Thus was feudalism overthrown in Italy in the thirteenth century. Elsewhere, commerce had as yet done less for the cities, and their progress was less rapid. But, whenever they appeared, they had the great barons to contend with. The free cities or communities gradually extended intercourse with each other; and for objects of commerce and mutual defence against their enemies, they formed into leagues. Coalitions of the feudal barons also sprung up, and wars between the two systems ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... suspended by the would-be circus managers in view of the coming of the real show. It would have been commercial folly to attempt to enter into competition with it; the real circus would, without a doubt, prove too strong a rival for them to contend against; and by waiting until after it had come and gone they might be able to pick up some useful ideas regarding the ...
— Mr. Stubbs's Brother - A Sequel to 'Toby Tyler' • James Otis
... minority or the subject body, in a manner that nothing but the recognition of the doctrine of national personality can justify. National honour and good faith are words in every one's mouth. How do they less imply a personality in nations than the duty towards God, for which we now contend? They are strictly and essentially distinct from the honour and good faith of the individuals composing the nation. France is a person to us, and we to her. A wilful injury done to her is a moral act, and a moral act quite distinct from the acts of all the individuals composing the nation. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Many persons contend that certain kinds of criminals inherit their law-breaking propensities. There are others, less charitably disposed, perhaps, who strenuously insist that all criminals, without exception, are simply born with a natural desire to be ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... and it is worthy of remark that such slaves invariably suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with, than others. They are, in the first place, a constant offence to their mistress. She is ever disposed to find fault with them; they can seldom do any thing to please her; she is never better pleased than when she sees them under the lash, especially when she suspects her ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... and even storm, to enter and leave blockaded harbors. In spite of large squadrons, under command of competent and zealous officers, enough war material was carried into ports of the Confederate States to enable them, for three years, to contend vigorously against all the armies the United States could collect, not only from its own population, but from all the ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... commission. They wandered about No Man's Land for awhile when they suddenly came upon a supply of Fritz's bombs. There were a few hundred of them, so it was quite plain that they intended to make a big raid on us. But when he had the "25th" to contend with he had the wrong crowd. The next night the same party went out, prepared for anything that might happen and they waited by that supply of bombs, and sure enough, quite a few Huns appeared. Our fellows then threw the bombs, and I can assure you there were many Huns ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... Is this my fate? Can I nor struggle, nor contend? And am I doomed for years to wait, ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
... interval of the fifth, and, by sounding them together, produce the tone of a pipe 33 feet long (CCCC). This is the stop which will be found labeled "32-ft. Resultant." Hope-Jones makes a stop which he calls Gravissima, 64-ft. Resultant, in his large organs. Many contend that this system produces better results than if pipes of the actual lengths of 32 or 64 feet were employed. Indeed, a pipe 64 feet long would be inaudible; the human ear has its limitations and refuses to recognize tone lower than 32 feet (just as we cannot lift water by a suction ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... be," Chad returned; "but all the same I'm sincere. You talk about taking the whole thing on your shoulders, but in what light do you regard me that you think me capable of letting you pay?" Strether patted his arm, as they stood together against the parapet, reassuringly—seeming to wish to contend that he HAD the wherewithal; but it was again round this question of purchase and price that the young man's sense of fairness continued to hover. "What it literally comes to for you, if you'll pardon my putting it so, is that ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... region we traversed between the so-called towns of Verkhoyansk and Sredni-Kolymsk. Twelve hundred miles may not seem very far to the railway passenger, but it becomes a different proposition when the traveller has to contend against intense cold, scanty shelter, and last, but not least, sick reindeer. For the first seven or eight hundred versts we passed through dense forests, which gradually dwindled away to sparse and stunted shrubs until the timber line was crossed and vegetation finally disappeared. The ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... friends: I always kept this peril in mind, when some foe 2700 should deprive me—a stranger—of my life, who wished to have this woman for his own. Therefore I have told warriors in plain words that Sarra was my sister, wher- 2705 ever on this earth we have had to contend against foreigners in our exile. I did the same thing in this country, great king, after I chose thy protection: nor was there any knowledge in my heart as to whether 2710 the fear of God Almighty was in this race, when I first came here; therefore ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... the absolute and unconditional interdiction of this article among these people as the first and great step in their melioration. Halfway measures will answer no purpose. These can not successfully contend against the cupidity of the seller and the overpowering appetite of the buyer. And the destructive effects of the traffic are marked in every page of the history ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... quite misrepresented [***] decisive one. Pitt actually thought at first [***] to his policy, and likely to encourage [***] as December 20th the following [***] "Even supposing the advantage of [***] must have been obtained with a loss which cannot have left his force in a condition to contend with the army of Prussia and at the same time to make head against the Allies. If on the other hand it should appear that the advantage has been with the Allies, there is every reason to hope that Prussia will come forward with vigour to decide the contest." ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... back the class fund? We can't arrest that miserable Henry Hammond without making the affair public, and this simply must remain a private matter. It is the hardest problem that I have ever been called upon to contend with. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School - or The Parting of the Ways • Jessie Graham Flower
... well that, with her, I should have to contend for a long time against those first few weeks of dalliance ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... religions with which, in Gaul, nascent Christianity had to contend. Compared with them it was, to all appearance, very small and very weak; but it was provided with the most efficient weapons for fighting and beating them, for it had exactly the moral forces which they lacked. Christianity, instead of being, like Druidism, a ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... whole of its forces in an unbroken continuity of life. Then comes the spectacle of the reserve of the elder generation exquisitely refined by the antagonism of the new. That current of new life chastens them as they contend against it. Weaker minds do not perceive the change; clearer minds abandon themselves to it. To feel the change everywhere, yet not to abandon oneself to it, is a situation of difficulty and contention. Communicating in this way to the passing ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... who is practical enough to reduce the dream to a possible and working scheme. The advocates of the Cause are still, however, a good way from getting the scheme established. The battle with the opposition follows, in which one has to contend—first with those who cannot be touched by any generous aims, always a pretty large body; next with those who are afraid of the people; and lastly with those who have private interests of their own to defend. The triumph which presently arrives by no means concludes the history ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... submit to such a rigorous and cruel discipline? By education; by the inculcation from infancy of these ideals. In these ideals they have been brought up, and to them they cling with the utmost tenacity." One might as well contend that it was easy to teach all men to live the self-denying life of earnest Christians because some savage tribe was successful in maintaining among its members a universal and orthodox worship of idols. The ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... songs interspersed through the others. These songs I recited in the field, and they were a great comfort to me. Little do the poets know in what strange, obscure places, and in what lonely, unknown hearts their verses find lodgment. It is not necessary that one should contend that Scott is the greatest of poets, who thought so for ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... observance of them is of shorter duration. It often happens, that in the first year all are infringed, and in the second, forgotten. Such was the army at this time, and we soon had abundant opportunities to note its incapacity to overcome the enemies with whom we had to contend. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... movements of both armies. Riall boldly assumed the offensive, although he was aware that he had fewer men. His instructions intimated that liberties might be taken with the Americans which would seem hazardous "to a military man unacquainted with the character of the enemy he had to contend with, or with the events of the last two campaigns on that frontier." The deduction was unflattering but very much after ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... end is glaringly at hand. The other gods look to him as chief among them. But he is ever acknowledging the existence of something outside and above himself, a law, a moral necessity, which it is no use to contend against; through which, do what he may, disaster finally overtakes him for having tried to disregard it. There is a stray hint from him that the world is his very possession and that he could at will destroy ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... when you have it—that is, it is not even an opinion that the patentee has really invented anything, but merely an evidence that he claimed to have done so at such a date, and a permission to prove that he actually did, if he can. In other words; a patent gives a permission and an opportunity to contend legally for your rights; and if the holder is known to have money enough, it generally suffices; if not, he can and will be not only plundered with impunity, but defied and laughed at. A bill radically revising the British Patent-Laws is now on its way through Parliament, but in ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... belongs to the small class of those who by a liberal education have been made masters of the domain of thought, he ought always, before marrying, to examine his physical and moral resources. To contend advantageously with the tempest which so many attractions tend to raise in the heart of his wife, a husband ought to possess, besides the science of pleasure and a fortune which saves him from sinking into any ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... proposal. My principal reason was, that the special nature of his foundry work did not quite harmonise with my desire to follow the more strictly mechanical part of the iron business. Besides, I thought I had a brighter prospect of success before me; though I knew that I had many difficulties to contend against. Did I throw away my chances in declining the liberal proposal of Mr. Cragg? The reader will be able to judge from the following pages. But to the last* [footnote... Mr. Cragg died in 1853, aged ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... not written for ages. Well, what is there of interest to write to you? I will begin by telling you that the journey is extraordinarily long. From Tyumen to Irkutsk I have driven more than three thousand versts. From Tyumen to Tomsk I had cold and flooded rivers to contend with. The cold was awful; on Ascension Day there was frost and snow, so that I could not take off my sheepskin and felt boots until I reached the hotel at Tomsk. As for the floods, they were a veritable plague of Egypt. The rivers rose ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov
... susceptible of scientific observation, and do not therefore concern psychology as a science. Psychology as a science, they say, is only concerned with BEHAVIOUR, i.e. with what we DO; this alone, they contend, can be accurately observed. Whether we think meanwhile, they tell us, cannot be known; in their observation of the behaviour of human beings, they have not so far found any evidence of thought. True, we ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... these domestic anxieties the only ones against which the French King had to contend at this particular crisis; for while the Court circle had been absorbed in banquets and festivals, the seeds of civil war, sown by a few of the still discontented nobles, began to germinate; and Henry constantly received intelligence of seditious movements in the provinces. On the banks of the ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... A glance, as I contend, shows these lines to be corrupt: they were not written, that is to say, in the above form, which violates metre and rhyme-arrangement, and is both uncouth and redundant. The carol now picks up ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... building totters and is insecure to the point of utter falling and destruction!" Here, opening his eyes, he gazed dreamily at the pictured face of the Madonna above him. "Walden, it is useless to contend with facts, and the facts are, that the masses of mankind are as unregenerate at this day as ever they were before Christ came into the world! The Church is powerless to stem the swelling tide of human crime and misery. The Church in these days has become merely a harbour of refuge ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... you attempted upon my property; because I did not then make it public; it could not be occasioned by any personal offence taken in 1777, (when I privately mentioned it to Colonel Hamilton,) because you contend that our "former habits of friendship" were revived, and acknowledge, that I never made it public for several years afterwards. Here, then, the man of humanity may ask me, why did you, at so late a date, publicly mention a circumstance injurious to General Reed's reputation, as adjutant-general ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... connexion between the A.-S. Ig and water; nor do I believe that such an idea would ever have been started, but to support the old derivation of the word; I have never seen a genuine instance of such connexion brought forward. Then the word Ig, if it be supposed to mean an eye, as I contend, may very well stand by itself for island; but, if water be expressed by it, I cannot understand how it can serve ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 194, July 16, 1853 • Various
... knew that he might expect an immediate attack on the part of that particular surviving bull-ape who felt himself best fitted to contend for the kingship of the tribe. Among his own apes he knew that it was not unusual for an entire stranger to enter a community and, after having dispatched the king, assume the leadership of the tribe himself, together ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... question raised by Dr. Newman's work, on which, if our limits did not absolutely prevent, we should be glad to enter. We mean the present position of the Church of Rome with that great rationalistic movement with which we, too, are called to contend. Everywhere in Europe this contest is proceeding, and the relations of the Church of Rome towards it are becoming daily more and more embarrassed. Mr. Ffoulkes tells us that "the 'Home and Foreign Review' is the only publication professing to emanate ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... God, while battling for the freedom of the slave, we broadened our consciousness, not only as to the inalienable rights of human nature, but received larger conceptions of civil liberty, coupled with a spirit of determination to defend our homes and churches from infuriated mobs, and to contend for ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... Cat (and as he spoke he touched the ground, and then his two ears, and called on Krishna to witness to his words), 'I that have overcome passion, and practised the moon-penance, know the Scriptures; and howsoever they contend, in this primal duty of abstaining from injury they are unanimous. Which ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... of resignation and endurance that had so long upheld her, was unable to contend against bodily weakness and infirmity. She fell sick. She dragged her tottering limbs from the bed to visit her son once more, but her strength failed her, and she sank powerless ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... does not seek to portray the lowest expression of that soul," persisted Dumaresque's critic. "Across the Atlantic there are thousands who contend that a woman such as this Kora whom you paint, has no soul because of the black blood in her veins. They think of the dark people as we think of apes. It is all a question of longitude, Monsieur ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... forbid their young men to contend in the pancratium, or with the caestus, in which games the defeated party has to acknowledge himself beaten. The winner of a race is he who first reaches the goal; he outstrips the others in swiftness, but not in courage. The wrestler who has been thrown three times loses ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... attacks of the French wore out the patience of their general, and so thinned his ranks, that he at length ceased to contend, and drew off his troops from the field, leaving the English masters of it, and holding every point of the position which they had taken up in the early part of the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 13, No. 359, Saturday, March 7, 1829. • Various
... never more gratified than when an opportunity offers of instituting a parallel between their houses of parliament and ours; indeed, their taste for comparing is such, that they gravely contend for a perfect similarity of principle between the constitutions of England and of Hungary. It would be as impolitic as unjust, when discussing the question with them, to deny that some such resemblance prevails. Both monarchies are limited monarchies, in which ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... battles fought and won are assurances that victory shall also reward those who contend against this sin of usury. There are also other good grounds ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... of Naples. In the new duchess he had also recognized the primadonna of San Carlo da Felina. Thus the two angels, which in his ecstatic vision at his father's tomb the Count had seen, and who appeared to contend for him—Aminta and La Felina—the two women, one of whom he adored, while he was himself adored by the other, were no longer free. Aminta had married from ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... lion, he wrenched the loathsome bowl from between his royal jaws. The two Africans, believing they had a thief to contend with, rushed upon the foreigner with uplifted cudgels. There was a dreadful conflict: the blackamoors smiting, the women screaming, and the youngsters laughing. An old Jew cobbler bleated out of the hollow of his stall, "Dake him to the ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... the foot of her bed, and, thinking how surely evil was coming upon her with the night, she burst out crying anew. A boy just then came along with a snapping-turtle that he had caught, and stopped to ask what had happened to her. On learning the cause of her weeping, he said it was of no use to contend against sprites, but that he would give her his snapping-turtle as a proof, of his sympathy. She took the turtle, tied it in front of her bedstead, and ...
— Childhood's Favorites and Fairy Stories - The Young Folks Treasury, Volume 1 • Various
... Mesopotamia" of the slipshod diagnostician. Nearly one-fourth of the cases which come into our sanatoria for tuberculosis have been diagnosed and treated for months and even years as "neurasthenia." It satisfies the patient—and it means nothing; though some experts contend for a distinct disease entity of this name but admit ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... will tell you. Heretofore many a time hath there been a passing by of knights both of hardy and of coward, and it was my business to contend and joust with them and do battle, and I made them present of the shield as did I you. The more part found I hardy and well able to defend themselves, that wounded me in many places, but never was knight ...
— High History of the Holy Graal • Unknown
... for Glory, but the Phantom fades; Some write as Party, or as Spleen invades; A third, because his Father was well read, And Murd'rer-like, calls Blushes from the dead. Yet all for Morals and for Arts contend—— They want'em both, who never prais'd a Friend. More ill, than dull; For pure stupidity Was ne'er a crime in ...
— An Essay on Satire, Particularly on the Dunciad • Walter Harte
... Westminster declare that St. Patrick was born in Ireland, but scarcely any writer of the present day ventures to express that view. O'Sullivan, Keating, Lanigan, and many French writers contend that he was a native of Armoric Gaul, or Britain in France. Welshmen are strongly of opinion that Ross Vale, Pembrokeshire, was the honoured place; whilst Canon Sylvester Malone attributed the glory to Burrium, Monmouthshire, a town situated, as Camden narrates, near ...
— Bolougne-Sur-Mer - St. Patrick's Native Town • Reverend William Canon Fleming
... original; a singular instance of Dryden's liberality of criticism, since the alteration of the "Chances" was made by that very Duke of Buckingham, from whom he had just received a bitter and personal offence. Dryden proceeds to contend, that the living poets, from the example of a gallant king and sprightly court, have learned, in their comedies, a tone of light discourse and raillery, in which the solidity of English sense is blended with the air and gaiety of their French neighbours; ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... interests is gone, and who shall take his place? The mother—tears burst from her eyes, when looking into her child's face, she says, Henry Clay is dead! for a nation's freedom is woman's incalculable blessing. She thinks with grief and gratitude of him who never ceased to contend for that which gives to her, social ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... vast social advantages over other colonists. He has no convict neighbours—no cruel savages, now, to contend with—no war—no arid soil wherewith to contend. The land is, generally speaking, of a rich quality, and the colonist has fire-wood for the labour of cutting, fish for the catching, game for the pleasant exercise of hunting and shooting in Nature's ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... question, however, is not what the public thought at the time, but what a fuller knowledge of the facts will determine, and I contend that my father's dissatisfaction with the manner in which the war was conducted, and his failure to induce the Cabinet to supply an effective remedy, justified if it ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... defend The sunny beams which on the billows bet, And those which therein bathed mote offend. As Guyou happened by the same to wend Two naked Damsels he therein espied, Which therein bathing seemed to contend And wrestle wantonly, ne cared to hide Their dainty parts from view ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... and self-control. The idea of fearing anything human had never occurred to him after his first battle; but this, if true, was a very different matter. To be threatened with ruin or death by a power which he could not even see, to contend against enemies who could read his very thoughts, and even be present in a room with him without his knowing it—as Phadrig had assured him more than once that they could be—was totally beyond the power of the bravest or strongest of men. No, it was impossible: ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... it to have been created in consequence of some domestic insurrection or foreign war, then it becomes a case not within the principles of the objection; for this is levelled against the power of keeping up troops in time of peace. Few persons will be so visionary as seriously to contend that military forces ought not to be raised to quell a rebellion or resist an invasion; and if the defense of the community under such circumstances should make it necessary to have an army so numerous as to hazard its liberty, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... attack of three of the Gauls. Tearing off his helmet, as if it were an incumbrance, and making his short sword flash through the air, Marcus rushed to his old companion's help, but too late to save him being hurled heavily to the ground, while, ready as he was to contend against ordinary weapons, this barbaric method of attack confused and puzzled him. One of his half-nude enemies made as if to flinch from a coming blow, and then sprang up, hurling something through the air, and in an instant the boy found himself entangled in the long cord of strips ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... citizen, took up the word: "Ye men of Ithaca," he said, "give ear to what I have to say. Odysseus was not the cause of your misfortunes, but you, yourselves. Ye would not check the insolence of the suitors, even when Mentor bade you do it. Contend not with Odysseus nor bring down his ...
— Odysseus, the Hero of Ithaca - Adapted from the Third Book of the Primary Schools of Athens, Greece • Homer
... was how to gain the affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... Also the Russian Government allows enormous advantages to her own traders with Persia in order to secure the Persian market, and to develop her fast-increasing industrial progress,—advantages which British traders do not enjoy. Still, considering all the difficulties British trade has to contend with in order to penetrate, particularly into Ghilan, it is extraordinary how some articles, like white Manchester shirtings, enjoy practically a monopoly, being of a better quality than similar goods sent by Russia, Austria, Hungary, Germany, Italy ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... other mode of progression would simply have resulted in their being tripped up at every other step. This, to men unaccustomed to such exercise, was in itself a sufficiently fatiguing process; but in addition to this they had to contend with the stifling heat of the stagnant atmosphere, which had been oppressive enough even whilst they had been in a condition of comparative inactivity; now it seemed to completely sap their strength and cause their limbs to hang heavy ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... in his bashfulness, "that part of the discourse which related to the flying of kites has interested me greatly, and I am ready to contend that kites fly, not, as many say, through the influence of a demon or spirit which inhabits the materials, but through the pressure of ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... and gain their cause By their deserts, or by the world's applause; Let merit crowns, and justice laurels give, But let me happy by your pity live. True poets empty fame and praise despise; Fame is the trumpet, but your smile the prize. You sit above, and see vain men below Contend for what you only can bestow: 20 But those great actions others do by chance, Are, like your beauty, your inheritance; So great a soul, such sweetness join'd in one, Could only spring from noble Grandison.[12] You, like the stars, not by reflection bright, Are born to your own ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... before they got to the point where they were to halt, and daylight before the troops could be organized to advance to their position in line. They gained their position in line, however, without any fighting, except a little in Wright's front. Here Upton had to contend for an elevation which we wanted and which the enemy was not disposed to yield. Upton first drove the enemy, and was then repulsed in turn. Ayres coming to his support with his brigade (of Griffin's ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... world, with some help from the masters. It is a sound system on the whole, if based, to appearance, rather too much on the principle of the weaker to the wall. The tendency of the weaker inevitably is to the wall, and if he is to contend against it effectively, it will be by finding out his weakness and being made to feel it at ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... supply, and that of the most delicious quality, but it had to be carried to inconvenient distances. In general, water was found in sufficient quantities and in suitable places, among the group; but, at the Reef, there was certainly this difficulty to contend with. As the governor caused his brother, the surveyor-general, to lay out a town on the Reef, it was early deemed necessary to make some provision against this evil. A suitable place was selected, and a cistern was blown out of the rock, into which all ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... desperate valour peculiar to mountaineers. One officer of the Covenanters alone, trained in the Italian wars, made a desperate defence upon the right wing. In every other point their line was penetrated at the first onset; and this advantage once obtained, the Lowlanders were utterly unable to contend at close quarters with their more agile and athletic enemies. Many were slain on the held, and such a number in the pursuit, that above one-third of the Covenanters were reported to have fallen; in which number, however, must be computed a great many ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... had no other effect than to warn The Masque of his own danger, and to place him more vigilantly on his guard. Aware of new defences raising, it seemed that he waited to see the course they would take; once master of that, he was ready (as it appeared) to contend with them as successfully ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... levity, Miss Wallingford," he said in a grave and gentle voice, "but you know not what emotions I had to contend with! I thank you for your charming sympathy, and I beg you to accept in my uncle's name that salute by which his ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... he had another enemy with which to contend, for a peculiarly stifling vapour was arising, producing a sensation of giddiness, against which he could not battle; and as Hilary drew back from the approach of the tiny sea of waves of fire, pressing back, as he did so, the straw, he felt that unless he could reach ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... has arisen of late at the Cape, As touching the devil, his color and shape; While some folks contend that the devil is white, The others aver that he's black as midnight; But now't is decided quite right in this way, And all are convinced ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... you to have some more," said the rajah. "I intend to lead an expedition that will shortly set out from hence. It will afford you better sport, for we shall have two-footed instead of four-footed beasts to contend with. Some hill tribes to the north have dared to come down and plunder and kill my people in the plain, and they must be punished at all hazards. I shall be glad of your advice and assistance, for you ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... sound in its teaching; yet, behold, there was an article of which the whole purport was to excuse the vices of the lower classes on the ground of their poverty and their temptations. Could anything be more immoral, more rotten in principle? There is the spirit we have to contend against—a spirit of accursed lenity in morals, often originating in so-called scientific considerations! Evil is evil—vice, vice—the devil is the devil—be circumstances what they may. I do not care ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... well-nigh taken the law into their own hands against its author,—yet it commanded a vast public of admirers. And against such a popularity even an offended clergy, though aided by the sneers of the fastidious and the vehemence of the fair, is wont to contend in vain. ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... the night through, men near dead with fatigue whose hard fate it was to contend now with pirates and again with the hostile ocean. The skipper managed to stay the foremast and to bend steering sails so that the ship was brought into the wind where her motion was easier. The sky cleared before daybreak and the rosy horizon proclaimed a fair sunrise. How far and in what ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... departure of his vessel a considerable army advanced upon the colonists; they, however, on their part were better defended than on the former occasion, and although the force against which they had to contend was more numerous and better disciplined than before, yet as the forest in the neighbourhood of the town was now converted into a wide plain, the assailants were obliged to approach under a fire from the cannon, the rapidity of which ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... object worthy of the ambition of the noblest man who lives in the land, and therefore I find no fault with those who may think any opportunity a fair one for endeavoring to place themselves in so distinguished and honorable a position; but I contend that we have not in our foreign policy done anything to forfeit the confidence of the country. We may not, perhaps, in this matter or in that, have acted precisely up to the opinions of one person or of another; and hard indeed it is, as we all know by our ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... social, and favors domestic habits. And in this way, we contend, it prevents drinking, rather than leads to it. Many still associate the cigar with the bar-room. This notion should have become obsolete ere this, for it has an extremely limited foundation in fact. Bachelors and would-be-manly boys are not the only consumers of tobacco, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... young working Masters conspire against the Heads. Now, however, we are improving; if we must quarrel, let it be the rivalry of intellect and conscience, rather than of interest or temper; let us contend for things, not ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... sir; I admit that. I admit also—for who, in his senses, could deny them?—the very great advantages of these schools as facilities; I only contend that they cannot insure success to any law student who has not talent, industry, perseverance, and a taste for the profession; and that, to one who has all these elements of success, a diploma from the schools is not necessary. ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... contend that there is no difference between a good yellow man and a good white man is like saying that a vegetarian chop of minced peas is like a chop ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various
... protection which they had received had been amply repaid. But for their exertions it is probable that the Bishop of Rome would have been merely the honorary president of a vast aristocracy of prelates. It was by the aid of the Benedictines that Gregory the Seventh was enabled to contend at once against the Franconian Caesars and against the secular priesthood. It was by the aid of the Dominicans and Franciscans that Innocent the Third crushed the Albigensian sectaries. In the sixteenth century ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... reached without so much intermediate strife, as if she were contending for some chance (where chance was none) of happiness, or were dreaming for a moment of escaping the inevitable. Why, then, did she contend? Knowing that she would reap nothing from answering her persecutors, why did she not retire by silence from the superfluous contest? It was because her quick and eager loyalty to truth would not suffer her to see it darkened by frauds which she could expose, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... the thing itself was the one thing that Audrey could not see. In that world she was a pilgrim and a stranger; it was peopled with shadowy fantastic rivals, who left her with no field and no favour; flesh and blood were powerless to contend against them. They excited no jealousy—they were too intangible for that; but in their half-seen presence she had a sense of helpless irritation and bewilderment—it baffled, overpowered, and humiliated her. To a woman thirsting ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... more adventurous settlers found themselves isolated from the villages and stockades. Every hostile influence they had to meet alone and unaided. Cold and storm, fire and flood, hunger and sickness, savage man and savage beast, these were the foes with which they had to contend. The battle was going on all the time while the pioneer and his wife were subjugating the forest, breaking the soil, and gaining shelter and food for themselves ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... The man of honour ought always to be ready to use the sword to defend himself from insult, or to give satisfaction for an insult he has offered. I know that the law of duelling is a prejudice which may be called, and perhaps rightly, barbarous, but it is a prejudice which no man of honour can contend against, and I believed Schmit to be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... countrymen as perfectly worthy of confidence. The two first volumes are occupied by a general introduction, in which Seu-ke-ju speaks of the sources from which he has derived information, and of the many difficulties he has had to contend with; he explains the use of maps, gives the simplest ideas concerning the spherical form of the earth, and expatiates on the difference of climates. Nothing can give a better idea of the profound ignorance of the Chinese upon these subjects, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... stood gazing perplexedly at the phenomenon. I might have been satisfied with the supposition that, unknowingly, I had made an instrument which was capable of receiving wireless waves from another instrument of similar tone in or near Paris, if I had had only the humming sounds to contend with, but the shadow impelled me to look for the reason further than this. I glanced upward, eagerly seeking some explanation. One star was visible through the open skylight—Mars. Clear and bright it shone in the inky blackness framed ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... utterances historians need take but little notice. They are of value here for the reason that they show the lack of scientific Reconstruction history. No intelligent man who lived through this stormy period or who has read documents bearing on its history will contend that these commonwealths were Africanized merely because the Negroes along with the formerly disfranchised and ignorant poor whites were given the right of suffrage. It will be difficult to prove that the majority of poor whites ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... be allowed to run about the ship, I defy any one to continue long in a bad humour. Jacko is an overmatch for the demon of idleness, at least if light hearts and innocent diversions be weapons against which he cannot long contend. Be this as it may, I make a rule of entering a monkey as speedily as possible after hoisting my pendant; and if a reform takes place in the table of ratings, I would recommend a corner for the "ship's monkey," which should be borne on the books for "full allowance of victuals," excepting only ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... superior resources of its English rival than was the case in 1654. John de Witt, aided by his brother Cornelis, had supplied the lack of an admiral-general by urging the various Admiralty Boards to push on the building of vessels in size, construction and armaments able to contend on equal terms with the English men-of-war. He had, moreover, with his usual industry taken great pains to study the details of admiralty-administration and naval science; and now, in company with the Commissioners of the States-General, he visited all the ports and ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... logic, by means of which he proved the imperative necessity of finding other anchorage for this stray and apparently very frail bark. Of necessity these letters were vague, since he did not know what particular form of frailty he had to contend with. Of one thing, however, he was sure—the Colony offered opportunities for the indulgence of every form known to man, with none of those nice restrictions which are thrown round such opportunities in more civilized parts of the globe. He would explain all this at length, as soon ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... matter-of-fact knowledge are, for the present purpose, to be valued from this point of view only. For this purpose the use of such epithets as "noble", "base", "higher", "lower", etc., is significant only as showing the animus and the point of view of the disputants; whether they contend for the worthiness of the new or of the old. All these epithets are honorific or humilific terms; that is to say, they are terms of invidious comparison, which in the last analysis fall under the category of the reputable or the disreputable; that is, they ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... the smack to the wreck was but short, a mere hundred feet or so, but with the heavy surf to contend against and the line sagging and swaying in the sea behind him, it taxed Bob's energies to their utmost limit to make any progress at all. Indeed, it appeared to him that, instead of progressing, he was, like the keg, drifting ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood |
