"Dissertation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... unbearable. This was presented to the legislature in a pamphlet of 1796 at the height of the party strife between the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans; and it was impatiently dismissed from consideration.[19] Tucker, still nursing his project, reprinted his "dissertation" as an appendix to his edition of Blackstone in 1803, where the people and the politicians let it remain buried. In public opinion, the problem as to the freedmen remained unsolved ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... of Dugald Stewart, which I have endeavored to enforce, has been contested by Dr. Whewell, both in the dissertation appended to his excellent Mechanical Euclid, and in his elaborate work on the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences; in which last he also replies to an article in the Edinburgh Review (ascribed to a writer of great scientific eminence), in which Stewart's opinion ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... books, the first of which, in irony of some histories which had previously been published, gives a description of the world and a history of its creation, and in brief, the story of Noah and the discovery of America, and a dissertation on the origin of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... this pencil," I continued, in cold blood, "that I wrote my dissertation on 'Philosophical Cognition,' in three volumes." Had he never heard mention ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... friend the physician could, by smelling each finger, distinguish the Hibernian excrement from the British, and was not above twice mistaken in an hundred experiments; upon which he intends very soon to publish a learned dissertation. ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... verses show him to have been a zealous friend to the revolution; but his political ardour did not abate his reverence or kindness for Dryden, to whom he gave a Dissertation on Virgil's Pastorals, in which, however studied, he discovers some ignorance of the ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... contained in a microscopic delineation of the structure of the wood and an analysis of the flower of Phytocrene gigantea, in the third volume of Dr. Wallich's 'Plantae Asiaticae Rariores'; and in a note on the development and structure of Targionia hypophylla, appended to M. de Mirbel's Dissertation on Marchantia polymorpha, both published in 1832. So highly were his talents as an observer appreciated at this early period, that Dr. Wallich speaks of him as one "whose extraordinary talents and knowledge as a botanist, entitle him to the respect of all lovers of the science;" and M. de ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... fitting occasion, I might venture here a brief dissertation touching the manner and kind of my young friend's poetry. But I dubitate whether this abstruser sort of speculation (though enlivened by some apposite instances from Aristophanes) would sufficiently interest your oppidan readers. As regards ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... Leon," said M. Renault, "you remind me of a college commencement. We have listened to your dissertation just as they listen to the Latin discourse of the professor of rhetoric; there are always in the audience a majority which learns nothing from it, and a minority which understands nothing of it. But every body listens patiently, on account of the sensations which are to come by and ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... satisfied himself that the two men whose conversation he had overheard were at a sufficient distance to prevent his encountering them in his descent. In ten minutes after the strangers had departed, Franz was on the road to the Piazza de Spagni, listening with studied indifference to the learned dissertation delivered by Albert, after the manner of Pliny and Calpurnius, touching the iron-pointed nets used to prevent the ferocious beasts from springing on the spectators. Franz let him proceed without interruption, and, in fact, did not hear what was said; he longed to ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... to the Dutch, the honor of being the first European tea-drinkers, and states that early English supplies of tea were obtained from Dutch sources. It is related by Dr. Thomas Short, (A Dissertation on Tea, London, 1730), that on the second voyage of a ship of the Dutch East India Co. to China, the Dutch offered to trade Sage, as a very precious herb, then unknown to the Chinese, at the rate of three pounds of tea for one pound of Sage. ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... This dissertation, uttered in a sufficiently didactic manner, was a hint that Miss Peyton did not neglect. She arose and ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... the preceding Dissertation on the SONNET, conscious that there is no order of Verse, upon which so much erroneous opinion has gone forth, and of whose beauties the merely common Reader is so insensible. But when the Author of this just Treatise says of the assertion, that the legitimate Sonnet suits not our language, "its ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
... Martyrs, which is still in use among the Copts and the Abyssinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of August, A. D. 284; as the beginning of the Egyptian year was nineteen days earlier than the real accession of Diocletian. See Dissertation Preliminaire a l'Art de verifier les Dates. * Note: On the aera of martyrs see the very curious dissertations of Mons Letronne on some recently discovered inscriptions in Egypt and Nubis, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... a long dissertation on the preference he would give to Germany as the theatre of war; the fine character of the people, and the prosperity and wealth of the country, and its power of supporting an army. His conversations were sometimes very long; but always replete ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... insisting peremptorily on the right, as the act did, in his opinion, extend to America, and to every part of the King's dominions, where the necessities of the people should oblige him to send his troops. He concluded a long dissertation on the question in the following decisive terms, "that having used gentleness and patience, and confuted their arguments, without effect, they having returned to their first mistaken plan, their not complying would lay him under the necessity of taking measures to prevent ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... the Miracles," p. 444. See a full exposition of the design and import of this miracle in this exhaustive and admirable dissertation. ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... seemed able to learn her A B C even after all my full explanations, and after spending unusual pains upon her, but because now she has learnt it so rapidly, just after I had made up my mind to make no further attempts at the impossible but to put the letters as they were before her without any dissertation on their origin and meaning, and now she has as you might say learnt her letters over night, and started at once to read correctly, quite unlike most beginners. And it is almost as astonishing to me that you should have guessed such an ...
— Heidi • Johanna Spyri
... the Academy of Sciences and Letters of Genoa to examine into these pretensions, after a long and diligent investigation, gave a voluminous and circumstantial report in favor of Genoa. An ample digest of their inquest may be found in the History of Columbus by Signer Bossi, who, in an able dissertation on the question, confirms their opinion. It may be added, in farther corroboration, that Peter Martyr and Bartholomew Las Casas, who were contemporaries and acquaintances of Columbus, and Juan de Barros, the Portuguese historian, all make Columbus a native of the ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... they suffered, but which has nearly disappeared from among us, was intermittent fever, or fever and ague. I investigated the question as to the prevalence of this disease in New England, in a dissertation, which was published in a volume with other papers, in the year 1838. I can add little to the facts there recorded. One which escaped me was, that Joshua Scottow, in "Old Men's Tears," dated 1691, speaks ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to have been first thoughts, which were probably intended to be amplified and connected, and so worked up into a regular dissertation. No date appears of the time when they were written, but it was probably ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... yourself; set apart certain hours in the day for your books, and allow no consideration on earth to influence you to violate their sacredness; and above all, my dear boy, keep your papers in order. I find a dissertation on 'The Commerce of Carthage' stuck in my large paper copy of 'Dibdin's Decameron,' and an 'Essay on the Metaphysics of Music' (pray, my dear fellow, beware of magazine scribbling) cracking the back ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... have shown above how St. John lays down with authority the identity of the Logos with the pre-existent Divine Nature of Jesus, not in long, elaborate, carefully reasoned philosophical dissertation, but in four short, clear, decisive enunciations. "In the beginning was the Word"—"The Word was with God"—"The Word was ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler
... Sufficientia in Republica procuranda, 1625, gives in this encyclopaedia of political science, together with a dissertation on agriculture, commerce and manufactures, a complete survey of the ministeria. Several modern writers refuse to look upon personal services, or the ability to render such services, as elements of wealth: compare ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... to the English, some comments are necessary. Let us follow the text, step by step, and it will afford our readers, as Lord Kames says of Blair's Dissertation on Ossian, a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... their pilgrimages on foot, their staves serving them instead of horses or mules, then called bourdons and burdones, by writers in the middle ages." Mr. Johnes's Translation of Joinville's Memoirs. Dissertation xv, by M. du Cange p. 152. 4to. edit. The word is thrice used by Chaucer in the ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the reader, we omit, or rather postpone a long dissertation on the famous Erototheogonic chorus of Aristophanes's Birds, with illustrations taken from all earth and heaven, from the Vedas and Proclus to ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... how ill-convenient it was for people, who could not be drove backwards, to travel in a stage. This brought on a dissertation on stage-coaches in general, and the pleasure of keeping a chay of one's own; which led to another, on the great riches of Mr. Deputy Bearskin, who, according to her, had once been of that industrious order of youths who sweep the crossings of the streets for the ...
— The Man of Feeling • Henry Mackenzie
... of this sort were not universally despised in the eighteenth century. In 1727 in a "critical dissertation prefix'd" to A Collection of Epigrams, the anonymous editor of the work argued that the epigram itself "is a species of Poetry, perhaps, as old as any other whatsoever: it has receiv'd the approbation of ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... would have gone off in a dissertation on dancing hostesses, but Miss Gryll recalled him to the story, which he continued, in the words ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... your lordship's patience, with this long, rambling, and, I fear, trivial discourse. Upon the one-half of the merits, that is, pleasure, I cannot but conclude that Juvenal was the better satirist. They who will descend into his particular praises may find them at large in the dissertation of the learned Rigaltius to Thuanus. As for Persius, I have given the reasons why I think him inferior to both of them; yet I have one thing to add on ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... defend a Latin thesis drawn from some department or other of medical science, and this, like his fellows, had Dr. Thomson to do. "De Evolutione Cordis Animalibus Vertebratis," was the title of his dissertation, a subject wide as the poles apart from the customary jejune hackneyed topics figuring on such an occasion, and, at this period, one of all others, we would imagine, where learned professors, if modest men, would in all probability be the ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
... time Benjamin had his review of "Religion of Nature" prepared and printed, bearing the somewhat dignified title, "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," and it was inscribed to his friend, James Ralph. A copy was submitted to Mr. Watts for examination, and his opinion awaited with ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... rate, "Concerning Drunkenness" appeared at the price of one ruble (about fifty cents) in 1891, prefaced by a dissertation by Count Tolstoy, "Why Do People Stupefy Themselves?" specially written for this occasion, as Dr. Alexyeeff told me. (It has been translated under the title of "Alcohol and Tobacco," London, and published without any indication ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... having just completed a sermon dealing with the war and, being full of his subject, read the said sermon to his daughter and to Albert. The reading itself lasted for three-quarters of an hour and Mr. Kendall's post-argument and general dissertation on German perfidy another hour after that. By that time it was late and Albert went home. The second call was even worse, for Ed Raymond called also and the two young men glowered at each other until ten o'clock. They might have continued to glower indefinitely, ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... I was making up my letter, I received yours of the 6th, O. S. I like your dissertation upon Preliminary Articles and Truces. Your definitions of both are true. Those are matters which I would have you be master of; they belong to your future department, But remember too, that they are matters ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... other half being put under strict sequester at the time by my friend O'Kweene, the great Irish philosopher, who was delivering to me, for my own special behoof and benefit, a brilliant, albeit somewhat abstruse, dissertation on the "visible and palpable outward manifestations of the inner consciousness of the soul in a trance;" which occupied all the time from Paris to Calais, full eight hours, and which, to judge from my feelings ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... An essay is a brief dissertation on some special subject. It aims to present its statements in a clear and interesting manner, and this careful regard for a finished form brings the essay within the scope of literature in the strict sense of the word. ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... discussing nothing of more importance than the lesson for the coming Sabbath; and though she hovered in their vicinity for some time, she caught only stray words—names of places in the far away Judean land, that seemed to her like a name in the Arabian Nights; or an eager dissertation on the different views of eminent commentators on this or that knotty point; and so engrossed were they in their work that they bestowed on her only the slightest passing glance, and then bent over ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... house—and he was the uncle of Margot and of the young Poins—there was a great and solemn dissertation towards. For word had been brought that certain strangers come on an embassy from the Duke of Cleves were minded to hear how the citizens of London—or at any rate those of them that held German ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... exist independent of the Constitution. They are not derived from the Constitution or the laws, but are the means of asserting and protecting rights that existed before any civil governments were formed—the right of life, liberty and property. Says Paine, in his Dissertation upon the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... sense, destitute of ideas. He has nothing to say, and he cannot say it. There are men in the House of Commons who have plenty of thoughts, and who have plenty of words besides, and could branch out on any subject whatever into a dissertation which would command the interest even of political foes. But Jimmy is not of this class. He is capable, on the contrary, of bringing down the loftiest subject that ever moved human breasts to something stumbling, commonplace and prosaic. When he gets up, then, his speech consists rather of a ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... fault of mine (for I rolled the cigarettes tight and smooth), but the upshot of some whim of his own, that instead of to an Odyssey of the chaparral, I listened to—a dissertation upon matrimony! This from Buck Caperton! But I maintain that the cigarettes were impeccable, ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... frontispiece; cover, binding. folio, quarto, octavo; duodecimo^, sextodecimo^, octodecimo^. encyclopedia; encompilation^. [collection of books] library, bibliotheca^. press &c (publication) 531. [complete description] definitive work, treatise, comprehensive treatise (dissertation) 595. [person who writes a book] writer, author, litterateur [Fr.], essayist, journalism; pen, scribbler, the scribbling race; literary hack, Grub-street writer; writer for the press, gentleman of the press, representative of the press; adjective jerker^, diaskeaust^, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... whole of the above named chapter, then in humble and solemn prayer to Almighty God, through Christ Jesus, implore a just and true understanding of his word and truth contained in that portion of his written will, and close my performance with a candid dissertation on the chapter? Grant me liberty to do this in your hearing; after which I will not object to your pointing out any misapplication or perversion which you may think you discover. By what law is a man condemned without first ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... to acknowledge your letter, and not to make a dissertation. I am obliged to you for your good wishes, and more than obliged by the extract from the papers of the beloved object whose qualities you have so well described in a few words. I can assure you that all ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... give any information is when a child asks a question. The simple answer giving no more than is necessary is the desirable one. The question "Mummy, where do babies come from"? should not involve a dissertation on sex. If this method of approach is clearly understood, the parent need never be worried about the time to ...
— Report of the Special Committee on Moral Delinquency in Children and Adolescents - The Mazengarb Report (1954) • Oswald Chettle Mazengarb et al.
... him especially characteristic at meals, during which he is wont to sit absorbed, with an air of 'I cannot shake off the god'; and when they are over he goes off, moodily chewing a toothpick, to his den, where, maybe, the genius finds vent in a dissertation on 'Peg-Tops,' for The Boy's Own, or 'The Noses of Great Men,' ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... Roche (1866), and Le roman d'un brave homme (1880)—-a kind of counterblast to the view of the French workman presented in Zola's Assommoir—-contain striking and amusing scenes, no doubt, but scenes which are often suggestive of the stage, while description, dissertation, explanation too frequently take the place of life. His best work after all is to be found in the books that are almost wholly farcical, Le nez d'un notaire (1862); Le roi des montagnes (1856); ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Mr. Long's preliminary dissertation on "The Philosophy of Antoninus" is thorough and satisfactory, so far as that specific subject is concerned, but presents a very inadequate view of the Stoic philosophy in general, and strikes us as unjust in its incidental disparaging notice (in a footnote) of Seneca, who, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... Lamb (1775-1834), English essayist, is noted for his humorous sketches. You should read his "Dissertation on Roast Pig" With his sister Mary, he wrote Tales from Shakespeare, which you ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... of the Medico-Botanical Society, a very interesting dissertation on the medicinal plants which occur in the plays of Shakspeare, from the pen of Mr. Rootsay, of Bristol, was read, and excited considerable attention. The hebenon henbane alluded to in Hamlet, the mandragora, the various plants so beautifully alluded to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 495, June 25, 1831 • Various
... sharp," said Miss Emily. It was a long time since I had heard the word so used, but it was very apt. Maggie was indeed sharp. But Miss Emily launched into a general dissertation on servants, and Maggie's sharpness ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... did the restoration of ancient learning produce any effectual or immediate improvement in the state of criticism. Beni, one of the most celebrated critics of the sixteenth century, was still so infatuated with a fondness for the old Provencal vein, that he ventured to write a regular dissertation, in which he compares Ariosto with Homer." Warton says again, of Ariosto and the Italian renaissance poets whom Spenser followed, "I have found no fault in general with their use of magical machinery; notwithstanding ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... refused to speak again on the subject; judiciously repentant, we can fancy, of having spoken at all, and brought such a matter into the streets and their pie-powder adjudications. [In KUTZEN, pp. 217-237, a long dissertation on it.] For the present, he is Adjutant to Moritz, busy obeying to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... that these conjectures are none of my own, nor could I have had any opportunity of making them; the stones and the hillocks having disappeared before the operations of the plough. Such as they are, I have borrowed them from a dissertation by the Abbe de Fontenu[15], a copy of whose engraving of the place I insert. Indebted as I am to him for his hints, I can, however, by no means subscribe to his reasoning, by which he labors with great erudition to prove that, neither ...
— Account of a Tour in Normandy, Vol. I. (of 2) • Dawson Turner
... another opportunity like that," he groaned, at the close of a ten minute dissertation on the treachery of friends; "never in all the years to come. The driveling fools! What do I pay them for? To let me lie there snoring so loud that I couldn't hear opportunity for the noise I was making? ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... disposition. He then gave a case in which this resemblance was very well marked. Orton, Burdach (Traite de Physiologie), and Dr. William Sedgwick have all remarked on this physical resemblance; and Dr. Metcalfe, in a dissertation delivered before this society in 1855, observed that in the cases of widows remarrying the children of the second marriage ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... hate me in your hearts for preaching. Go along, children! You certainly look as well as anybody can in that style of getting up; so go to your party, and to-morrow night, when you are tired and sleepy, if you'll come with your crochet, and sit in my study, I will read you Christopher Crowfield's dissertation on dress." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... Reformation in the sixteenth century. He was born, in 1509 at Noyon in Picardy, was brought up in the bosom of the Catholic church, and held a cure in 1527 at Pont-l'Eveque, where he preached several times, "joyous and almost proud," as he said himself, "that a single dissertation had brought me a cure." In 1534, study, meditation on the Gospels, discussion of the religious and moral questions raised on every side, and the free atmosphere of the new spirit that was abroad, changed his convictions and his resolves; he abandoned ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... an entertaining dissertation on the ancient art of war. He observed that the ancients allowed of little baggage, which they very properly called "impedimenta;" whereas the moderns burthen themselves with it to such a degree, that 50,000 of our present ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... may be apprenticed until they learn to read, and study our institutions; and then let them become joint proprietors and feel a proportionate responsibility. The two learned and distinguished authors of the minority report have been studying the science of ethnology and have treated us with a dissertation on the races. And what have they attempted to show? Why, that a race which, simply on account of the color of the skin, has long been buried in slavery at the South, and even at the North has been tabooed and scarcely permitted to rise above the dignity of whitewashers ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... on Indian Conjuring, and with the exception of a dissertation upon the great Indian Rope Imagination, we have confined ourselves to tricks that we ourselves have seen, and which are common to the Indian conjuror. It would however, be incomplete without touching on ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... the thread of some relation or dissertation which was intended for his benefit, and that of Hunsdon under his rule; he ran serious risk of displeasing Mr. Beresford, and finally he became so weary of thinking incessantly of one subject, but never speaking of it, that he made up his ...
— A Canadian Heroine, Volume 2 - A Novel • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... man, even though parliamentary fame required the sacrifice of twelve hours per day amid red tape and blue books, and the management of a government carried with it responsibility and care. Some other things which Harry had dropped in his rattling dissertation about living in one of the two great abodes of freedom, had struck Ashburner's youthful mind, and, without well knowing why, he determined that neither of the brothers were right, and that he would look a little deeper into matters and things for himself before utterly ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... ago, the acute and valuable Prolegomena of F. A. Wolf, turning to account the Venetian Scholia, which had then been recently published, first opened philosophical discussion as to the history of the Homeric text. A considerable part of that dissertation (though by no means the whole) is employed in vindicating the position, previously announced by Bentley, amongst others, that the separate constituent portions of the Iliad and Odyssey had not been cemented together ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Mr. Merryweather; and he plunged into a dissertation upon the abominations of most varnishes and the iniquities of their makers. Gerald replied, defending certain kinds for certain purposes; the others chimed in, and a heated discussion was going on, when Claud Belleville joined the party. In spotless gray tweeds, with a white Manila hat ...
— The Merryweathers • Laura E. Richards
... What dissertation on the strange outward form, or stranger mode of reproduction to which this famed member of the Marsupialia belongs, could contain as much in little space as Charles Lamb's happy description in ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... well as I could, to the golden times of the beheader of Mary Queen of Scots. I instantly ran to the water-side, bartered for a garret, purchased the wares of a strolling company at a bargain, and I now pen this dissertation reclining on clean straw, on a stage of my own construction, and smoking a pipe of Maryland tobacco, according to the authority above quoted. "By spreading your body on the stage, and by being a justice ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... this essay was the dissertation submitted for a doctorate in philosophy conferred by Yale University in 1908. When first projected it was the writer's purpose to take up the subject of English witchcraft under certain general political ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... No elaborate dissertation is needed to prove that we are ignorant of what the morrow may bring forth, and that the best-laid plans of men are at all times subject to dislocation. It is sufficient here to state that immediately after parting from the Indians, ...
— The Crew of the Water Wagtail • R.M. Ballantyne
... dissertation on HERE AND THERE," said the girl. "I could not very well help it—it would have been rude to interrupt a conversation." Her eyes sparkled ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... said to him suddenly, during a breakfast-table dissertation in which he had dwelt upon the business capability of some women, and the utter lack of it in others, "Why not rent Holly Court and go somewhere else for a year ...
— Undertow • Kathleen Norris
... dissertation on Shakespeare's reading and the immediate sources of his works. By H. R. D. Anders. Berlin, 1904. The best book ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... solicitation of numerous friends, follows the general course of my experience as a member of the Machine Gun Section of the Twenty-first Canadian Infantry Battalion. Compiled from letters written from the front, supplemented by notes and maps and an occasional short dissertation covering some phase of present-day warfare and its weapons and methods, it is offered in the hope that, despite its utter lack of literary merit, it may prove of interest to those who are about to engage in the "great adventure" or who have relatives ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... demanding the abolition of permanent leaseholds; how they openly resisted the collection of rents and had inaugurated an aggressive anti-rent war against tyrannical landlordism. His lengthy and rambling dissertation was finally broken in upon by a rumbling on the road, as of carriage wheels drawing near, and the sound of voices. The noise sent the boniface to the window, and, looking out, he discovered a lumbering coach, drawn by two heavy horses, which came dashing up with a ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... gentle reader! We are not about to inflict upon you a dissertation on Pelargoniums, Calla-Ethiopias, Japonicas, and such like unmentionable terms, that bring to your mind the green-house, and forcing-house, and all the train of expense and vexation attending them; but we desire to have a short familiar conversation about what is all around ...
— Rural Architecture - Being a Complete Description of Farm Houses, Cottages, and Out Buildings • Lewis Falley Allen
... read in history, he asked my opinion, and gave me his own with great good sense and judgment; but such was the irresistible weight of my eyelids, that I used, when he was in the midst of a long dissertation, to slip down the gangway-ladder and leave him to finish ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... A dissertation on the comparative merits of Manton's, Lancaster's, and Moore's guns, and the advantage of percussion locks, it is ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... collection. These were published in Rome in 1828. The best edition of all the extant books is that which M. Alexandre issued in Paris, under the name of Oracula Sibyllina. This editor exaggerates the extent of the Christian element in the Sibylline prophecies; but his dissertation on the origin and value of the several portions of the books is exceedingly interesting. The oldest book is undoubtedly the third, part of which is preserved in the writings of Theophilus of Antioch, and originally consisted of one ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... on with immense energy, puffing away at his cigar and turning his small, keen eyes swiftly from Arabian to Miss Van Tuyn and back again. The talk, which was now a monologue, fed by frequent draughts of the excellent whisky, included a dissertation on Pissaro's oil paintings, his water-colours, his etchings and lithographs, his pupils, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin, his friendships, his troubles, and finally a paean on his desperate love of work, which was evidently ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... acknowledging the obligations myself, and the readers in general of that luminous paper, the "Morning Post," are under to you for the very novel and exquisite manner in which you combined political with grammatical science, in your yesterday's dissertation on Mr. Wyndham's unhappy composition. It must have been the death-blow to that ministry. I expect Pitt and Grenville to resign. More especially the delicate and Cottrellian grace with which you officiated, with a ferula for a white wand, as ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... me and I plunged into the subject of getting a passport for to-morrow without preliminaries. Perhaps I took the poor man's breath away, for certainly he was not nearly as enthusiastic as I about it. In fact, he embarked upon a dissertation pertaining to the invaders which made me cry out in astonishment, "Why, you surprise me, you seem to have pro-enemy tendencies." "Well," he said, "they've done everything they've said they have, ...
— Lige on the Line of March - An American Girl's Experiences When the Germans Came Through Belgium • Glenna Lindsley Bigelow
... the minutest details, he would describe all. He brought an encyclopaedic knowledge to bear upon his task; he can give an exact account of the machinery of a provincial printing-press; he can write a dissertation on the methods of military organization; he can reveal the secret springs in the mechanism of Paris journalism; he is absolutely at home in the fraudulent transactions of money-makers, the methods of usurers, the operations of high finance. And into all this ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... the historical method of exposition, beloved by all nervous orators, who find in its limitation a check on their own eager rhetoric. At this moment in his speech he went off into a dissertation on Grushenka's "first lover," and brought forward several interesting thoughts on ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... up the consideration of the Virtues in detail, but prefaces them with a dissertation, occupying five chapters, on the Voluntary and Involuntary. Since praise and blame are bestowed only on voluntary actions,—the involuntary being pardoned, and even pitied,—it is requisite to define Voluntary and Involuntary. ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... introduced at the Coroner's Inquest in Bleak House as "Anastasia Piper, gentlemen." Regarding that as a favourable opportunity for informing the court of her own domestic affairs, through the medium of a brief dissertation, Mrs. Cluppins was interrupted by the irascible Judge at the most interesting point in her revelations, when, having mentioned that she was already the mother of eight children, she added, that "she entertained ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... its catholicity well-nigh heretical. Which is the best possible definition of a heresy? It is the expanding of orthodoxy or the lessening of it. Thus Chesterton was a pioneer. He gave to the essay a new impetus—almost, we might say, a 'sketch' form; it dealt with subjects not so much in a dissertation as in a dissection. Having dissected one way so that we are quite sure no other method would do, he calmly dissects again in the opposite manner, leaving us gasping, and finding that there really are two ways of looking at every question—a thing we ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... was a dissertation on the Book of Jonah, a sort of resume of all the argument, on both sides, that has torn the theological world in these latter days. Not a word of Stephen Marshall's Christ, save a sort of side reference to a verse about Jonah being three days and three nights ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... excellent works, has published a dissertation, showing the reasons and causes of these supposed letters and writings respecting Christ, the Apostles, &c., to which I would beg to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 19, No. 536, Saturday, March 3, 1832. • Various
... regardless of the fact that he should have been listening intently at the aperture, began what was evidently about to be a long dissertation on the subject of a fish being able to smell while in the water, and to prevent him from neglecting his duties as sentinel, the boys went back to the stream, arriving there just as Cummings landed a ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis
... day of July a few of us met together in Gibson's rooms, those neat, white rooms in Balliol that overlook St Giles. Naymier, the Pole, was certain that Armageddon was coming. He proved it conclusively in the Quad with the aid of large maps and a dissertation on potatoes. He also showed us the probable course of the war. We lived in strained excitement. Things were too big to grasp. It was just the other day that 'The Blue Book,' most respectable of Oxford magazines, had published an article showing ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... of the Grand Jury in 1723, it is insinuated that in The Fable of the Bees there are Encomiums upon Stews, which I can assure you, Sir, is not true. What might have given a Handle to this Charge, must be a Political Dissertation concerning the best Method to guard and preserve Women of Honour and Virtue from the Insults of dissolute Men, whose Passions are often ungovernable. As in this there is a Dilemma between two Evils, which it is impracticable to shun both, so I have treated it with the utmost Caution, and ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... for having pursued a different course from that of Lord Durham towards the political prisoners, I reconciled the course of the two administrations. Several numbers of the Guardian containing that dissertation were requested for the Government House, and ... were sent to England.... But when both my position and myself stand virtually ... impugned by proclamation, I am neither the sycophant nor the renegade to crouch down under unmerited imputations, come from whence ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... for one thing," said Jock. He had not intended a dissertation on Jethro Bass, but he felt ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Negro Academy has published Number 20 of its Occasional Papers containing a study of Alexander Crummell, an Apostle of Negro Culture by William H. Ferris. This dissertation sets forth not only the main facts of the life of the subject of the sketch but gives also some interesting history in connection with the founding of the American ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... he taught at Northborough, and following his graduation he spent a year as a tutor in a family at Meadville, Pennsylvania. In the autumn of 1834 he entered the theological school at Harvard, and graduated therefrom in August, 1836, his dissertation being on "The Proper Character of Poetry and Music for Public Worship," which was published in the Christian Examiner for ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... his own observation, of the man-like Apes of either Africa or Asia, but a dissertation by his pupil Hoppius in the 'Amoenitates Academicae' (VI. 'Anthropomorpha') may be regarded as embodying his ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... a very pleasant day yesterday at Gregg's, and as often as I mention these excursions I have a long dissertation from the Duke [of Queensberry] upon the folly of having a country house at above ten or fourteen miles distance from London; which reflections will end in nothing but a condemnation of what he has, and never procure the enjoyment of that which I am ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... life to counterbalance the changes perpetually being introduced into man's condition by his own free will and that of those around him, so that no injustice may be done, and Karma may be accurately worked out, if not in one way then in another. A learned dissertation upon these marvellous beings will be found in The Secret Doctrine, vol. i., pp. 122-126. They are able to take human material forms at will, and several cases are recorded when they have done so. All the higher nature-spirits and hosts of artificial elementals act as their ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... le Grand. Miafarakain. Miau-tzu. Mien, Amien, Ava (Burma), king of, his battle with Tartars; City of; its gold and silver towers; how it was conquered; communications and war with Mongols; Chinese notices. Mikado. Military engines of the Middle Ages, dissertation on; two classes; Trebuchets; Balista; shot used, carrion, live men, bags of gold; Mangonel; Napoleon's experiments with heavy shot; size and accuracy; length of range (Sanudo on); effect of Mangonel on Saracens; procured by Kublai for siege of Siang-yang; ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... across the Paria down by the Colorado, and when Brother Lee came back the following Sunday he called to give us a lengthy dissertation on the faith of the Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), while Andy, always up to mischief, in his quiet way, delighted to get behind him and cock a rifle. At the sound of the ominous click Lee would wheel like a ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... finished with her dissertation when Sperver opened the door quietly and beckoned me to ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... twenty plants used in Cherokee practice will give a better idea of the extent of their medical knowledge than could be conveyed by a lengthy dissertation. The names are given in the order in which they occur in the botanic notebook filled on the reservation, excluding names of food plants and species not identified, so that no attempt has been made to select in accordance ...
— The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees • James Mooney
... cried he. "No more copy! Your dissertation is unnecessary, since you can justify yourself by merely ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Ab Gwilym! I am much indebted to him, and it were ungrateful on my part not to devote a few lines to him and his songs in this my history. Start not, reader, I am not going to trouble you with a poetical dissertation; no, no; I know my duty too well to introduce anything of the kind; but I, who imagine I know several things, and amongst others the workings of your mind at this moment, have an idea that you are anxious to learn a little, a very ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... good foundation in languages, and other matters reckoned part of a learned education, had subsequently applied himself to jurisprudence at Leipzig, and had at last taken his degree at Giessen. His dissertation, "Electa de aditione Hereditatis," which had been earnestly and carefully written, is still cited by ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... A good reproduction of it will be found in the Miscellanea francescana, t. ii., pp. 33-37, accompanied by a learned dissertation by ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... of this mystical dissertation appears to have been inspired by some remarks in Castiglione's Libro del Cortegiano—which Margaret was no doubt well acquainted with, as it was translated into French in 1537 by Jacques Colin, her brother's secretary. This work, which indeed seems to have suggested several passages in the Heptameron, ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. III. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... course of instruction was almost at an end. The priest spoke of the reservation of the wine and of the practical situations in which the celebrant may find himself during the holy office. I thought such a dissertation entirely unsuitable for children, and one which was likely to distract their attention from the end in view; but I saw with amazement that their faces were turned intently to the altar; they were evidently ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... don't get into a dissertation upon the moral character of the natives," cried Drummond, "because there is no end to ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... would dive into his books and be heard no more until a half hour past his suppertime, but I had made a mistake. Today he was in a talkative mood, and knowing that work was impossible, I devoted the next half hour to listening to a dissertation on the general perverseness of human nature, and to an elaborate description of my friend Pitkin's scheme for endowing a rival institution with a hundred million, and making things so cheap and attractive that our university would have to ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... the late M. Millin published a dissertation upon this medal, to which he prefixed an engraving of the figure of Louis. There can indeed be but one opinion that the Engraving is unworthy ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... of the battle wounded soldiers crawled into the streets, and lay down to die on the pavement.... The Moniteur of this day was a full sheet; but no notice was taken of the war, or the army. Four columns were occupied by an article on the dramatic works of Denis, and three with a dissertation on the existence of Troy."—Memorable Events in Paris ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... the first essentials of table manners we are bound to consider the laying of the table, the manner of being seated thereat, the use of the napkin, the proper handling of those most invaluable implements, knife, fork and spoon, together with a short dissertation on those older implements, "Adam's knives ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... out of their mind; whereas such things give me not the least uneasiness; for, indeed, I cannot, at all, make them the object of my attention, as I shall hereafter more plainly relate. I shall, besides, demonstrate the certainty I have of living to an hundred. But, to render this dissertation more methodical, I shall begin by considering man at his birth; and from thence accompany him through every stage of life to ...
— Discourses on a Sober and Temperate Life • Lewis Cornaro
... breeds with the sheep, and may therefore serve as the text for a dissertation on hybridism, which is accordingly given in the preface to this animal. The presence of rudimentary organs under a pig's hoof suggests an attack upon the doctrine of final causes in so far as it is pretended that every part of every animal or plant was specially designed with a view to the ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... it," said Melissa, who saw that Philip was on the point of losing himself in a philosophical dissertation, for he had begun to enjoy the sound of his own voice, which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of superstitious belief, the creed of the borderers admitted the existence of sundry classes of subordinate spirits, to whom were assigned peculiar employments. The chief of these were the Fairies, concerning whom the reader will find a long dissertation, in Volume Second. The Brownie formed a class of beings, distinct in habit and disposition from the freakish and mischievous elves. He was meagre, shaggy, and wild in his appearance. Thus, Cleland, in his satire against the Highlanders, compares ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... Parnassus, with an exact Delineation of all the Cells, Apartments, Palaces and Dungeons, of that most famous Mountain; with a Description of its Heighth, and a learned Dissertation, proving it to be the properest Place next to the P—-e House to take a Rise at, for a flight to the ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... Executive Committee of the League, to which many of them had contributed funds for the campaign, and ready to assume the responsibility of my engagement, and the expenses of Mrs. F., who in following out her original plan, generously consented to precede my lectures with a brief physiological dissertation apropos to the object of the canvass. The burden of the speaking, as planned, rested with me, provided my hitherto untested physical ability proved equal, as it did, to the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... In his inaugural dissertation, Dr. Peiser, under the title of Jurisprudentiae Babylonicae quae supersunt, commented upon and illustrated the above text by numerous examples of cases, actually occurring during the period of the second empire. But the whole collection ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... modern thought. This part of his work was assiduously studied by his compatriots. Among his unpublished writings was found a work on mathematical physics, Ta'alumot Hokmah, and in his Talmudic treatise, Heshek Shelomoh, he inserted a dissertation, Ma'aseh Hosheb, on arithmetic, like a skilful physician putting a healing, though to some it may appear a repelling, balm ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... be holden in public before the executive authority of the college by the medical professor, and candidates shall read and defend a dissertation, etc. ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... MEDICAL ADVISER. The frequent inquiries from his numerous patients throughout the land, suggested to the Author the importance and popular demand for a reliable work of this kind. Consequently, he has been induced to prepare and publish an extensive dissertation on Physiology, Hygiene, Temperaments, Diseases and Domestic Remedies. It is for the interest and welfare of every person, not only to understand the means for the preservation of health, but also to know what remedies should be employed for the alleviation ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... of the work of Addison and Steele. Lamb's pervasive humor in discussing trivial subjects makes him very delightful reading. His well-known Essays of Elia first appeared in the London Magazine between 1820 and 1833. The peculiar flavor of his style and humor is shown in his A Dissertation upon Roast-Pig, as one of the most popular of these Essays is called. Lamb relates how a Chinese boy, Bo-bo, having accidentally set his house an fire and roasted a litter of pigs, happened to acquire a liking for roast ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... quite a fragment; it purports to be the substance of a dissertation in which he explained to Hirtius (soon after Consul) the sentiments of Chrysippus, Diodorus, Epicurus, Carneades, and others, upon that abstruse subject. It is supposed to have consisted at least of two books, of which we have ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... little book is purely descriptive of the stirring scenes and deeply interesting people I have met with on my way through the counties of Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, Cork, and Kerry. It is neither a political treatise, nor a dissertation on the tenure of land, but a plain record of my experience of a strange phase of national life. I have simply endeavoured to reflect as accurately as might be the salient features of a social and economic upheaval, soon I fervently hope, to pass into the domain of history; and in offering ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker
... had not spoken in a very loud tone, but she understood him at once, and drank off a full glass of wine to his long life and happiness; after which the worthy old soul launched forth into a minute and particular account of her own wedding, with a dissertation on the fashion of wearing high-heeled shoes, and some particulars concerning the life and adventures of the beautiful Lady Tollimglower, deceased; at all of which the old lady herself laughed very ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... fable, parable, paraphrase, proverb, and dialogue. The third element in his education was writing for publication; he began very early, while he was still a young boy, to put all he had learned to use in writing for the press. When he was but nineteen years old he wrote and published in London "A Dissertation on Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain." In after years he was not proud of this pamphlet; but it was, nevertheless, a remarkable production for a youth of nineteen. So soon as he was able to establish a newspaper in Philadelphia he wrote for it with great spirit, and in a style at ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... ancient country-life, into a milieu where men are not copies of each other. And you fall in with strange scenes of adventure, great or small, of which a strange man is the centre as he is the scribe; and from a description of a lonely glen you are plunged into a dissertation upon difficult old tongues, and from dejection into laughter, and from gypsydom into journalism, and everything is equally delightful, and nothing that the strange man shows you can come amiss. And you will hardly make up your mind whether he is most Don Quixote, or ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter |
