"Negative" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moderation in regard to territorial demands looms the desire to destroy the opponents' chances of political predominance. The war is, for the present at least, in the first instance a struggle about the supremacy in Europe. And this perhaps more in a negative sense than otherwise. Jingoes are, of course, everywhere in high and low quarters, but it is very doubtful whether one of the responsible heads of the belligerent nations pursues for himself or his nation seriously and consistently ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... companionship. Looking back, he could not see that he owed him any gratitude. The balance of favors was on the other side. He had done more for Jack than Jack for him. He asked himself if he wanted to go with Jack Morgan on this journey, and he answered his own question in the negative. It was better that he should leave him now forever. With him he could only look forward to a future of shame ...
— Slow and Sure - The Story of Paul Hoffman the Young Street-Merchant • Horatio Alger
... Madame d'Epinay finally expressed in her book. The important question is—did Grimm know that Rousseau was in reality an honourable man, and, knowing this, did he deliberately defame him in order to drive him out of Madame d'Epinay's affections? The answer, I think, must be in the negative, for the following reason. If Grimm had known that there was something to be ashamed of in the notes with which he had supplied Madame d'Epinay, and which led to the alteration of her Memoires, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... material obtained from the Air Force. Shallet's article casually admitted that a few UFO sightings couldn't be explained, but the reader didn't have much chance to think about this fact because 99 per cent of the story was devoted to the anti-saucer side of the problem. It was the typical negative approach. I know that the negative approach is typical of the way that material is handed out by the Air Force because I was continually being told to "tell them about the sighting reports we've solved—don't mention the ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... accomplished fact. This alone is a convincing proof of the want of grasp, of definiteness that exists in religious matters. We would refer our reader to the Chapter "Ploughing the Sands." To what extent this rather negative disposition will hasten the spreading of the true Faith, is difficult to state. Will it, as is evident in England, promote a movement of return to the Church or accentuate, as in the United States, indifference and unbelief, the future alone can tell. ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... sanitary campaign so vitally important to the people of the Philippines be effectively continued if American authority were withdrawn at this time? With regret I must answer this question emphatically in the negative. We have succeeded in training a few good physicians and surgeons. We have thus far failed to train really efficient sanitary officers. What is lacking is not so much knowledge as to what should be done as initiative ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... a woman, aged thirty-eight, of American birth and ancestry. Family history is negative so far as mental disease is concerned, but there seems to have been a decadence of stock as manifested in the steady dropping of her family in the social scale. She is one of two children, there being a brother, who, from all accounts, is a fairly industrious, but poverty-stricken farmer. ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... Evangelii into an asceticism based on a dualistic conception, and into a practice of mysteries.[345] We have now briefly to shew, with due regard to the earliest tradition, how far this transformation was of positive or negative significance for the following period, that is, in what respects the following development was anticipated by Gnosticism, and in what respects Gnosticism was disavowed by ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... and "the assumed power of the general Government." "How," wrote Pickering, referring to the Constitution, Amendment X., "are the powers reserved to be maintained, but by the respective States judging for themselves and putting their negative on the usurpations of the general Government?" A sermon of President Dwight's on the text, "Come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord," even Federalists deprecated as hinting too strongly at secession. This unpatriotic ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... PROOF that Chaucer was a married man before 1374, when he is known to have received a pension for his own and his wife's services. But with this negative result we are asked not to be poor-spirited enough to rest content. At the opening of his "Book of the Duchess," a poem certainly written towards the end of the year 1369, Chaucer makes use of certain expressions, both very pathetic and very definite. The most obvious interpretation ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... is nothing in that to worry mother, and soon I shall have good news for her." (If he had seen its reception, he would have learned his mistake. The intuitions of love are keen, and this formal negative note in the constrained hand told more of his disappointment than any words could have done. While he knew it not, his mother was suffering with him. In reply she wrote a letter full of general sympathy, intending to be more specific when he gave ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... the land struggle—that was the soil and climate that would fight inexorably against the settlers; but with them we have little to do, since the Happy Family had nothing to do with them save in a purely negative way. ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... morning arrives when the inconsistencies which have prevailed in this union rise up like branches of a tree bent down for a moment under a weight which has been gradually lightened. You have mistaken for love the negative attitude of a young girl who was waiting for happiness, who flew in advance of your desires, in the hope that you would go forward in anticipation of hers, and who did not dare to complain of the secret unhappiness, for which she at first accused ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... is the first lecture. Concentrate on this sentence: 'I am a positive spirit and not negative to any condition.' Then follow with concentration on positive love. After that peace and harmony will vibrate through and around your body. Your soul—The other writing breaks right in. This is the ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... comp. principally indicates mediocrity, but often comes to have a distinct negative value; see, e.g., ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall
... it acts in an ordinary way and we say that it is not charged with electricity. If there are more than the usual number of electrons on an object, however, we say that it is negatively charged, or that it has a negative charge of electricity on it. But if there are fewer electrons than usual in an object, we say that it has a positive charge of electricity on it, or that ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... internal friction in the vehicle. f{p} resistance due to impact of the road surface. f{a} resistance due to air. f{g} resistance due to grade, which is positive when ascending and negative when descending. ...
— American Rural Highways • T. R. Agg
... imagine that she looked ugly. Her dark eyes had a look of persistence in spite of fear, a line or two shot up from between her brows, her lips were pursed a little and drawn down at the corners, her chin thrust forward. Her face and her attitude helped each other to express the distinctest possible negative. Her neck had an obstinate bend; she leaned forward clasping her knees, for the moment a creature of rigid straight lines. She had hardly moved ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... all negative evidence," he replied, "and does not conclusively prove that another might not have observed what we failed to detect. However, it is all so self-evident that they will not question it. I know so well their methods of reasoning that I am already prepared to refute their conclusions ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... soon as peace was thus consolidated. Even Holland, though it had particularly felt the scourge of these dissensions, and suffered severely from repeated inundations, began to recover. Yet for all this, Philip can be scarcely called a good prince: his merits were negative rather than real. But that sufficed for the nation; which found in the nullity of its sovereign no obstacle to the resumption of that prosperous career which had been checked by the despotism of the House ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Despite my negative attempts, therefore, I remain convinced that the Anthrax flies strew their eggs one by one, on the spots frequented by those bees who suit their grubs. Each of their sudden strokes with the tip of ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... Breton made a negative gesture. "Monsieur," timidly, "I do not want money, and I could never grow accustomed to a new master. I was born at the chateau in Perigny. My mother was your nurse and she loved you. I know your ways so well, Monsieur Paul. Can I not accompany you to Quebec? I ask no wages; I ask nothing ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... ill-timed jocularity? "And Mr. Penny had spoken to you of his—his relations with Mrs. Scofield, the woman in whose house Culser was killed. Did he refer to her on this particular evening, standing by the river's brink?" Susan replied in the negative. "Did he seem ill at ease, worried about anything? ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... it, for they approached divers persons of their acquaintance as if they had business of a confidential nature. The invariable result of these mysterious negotiations, however, was a negative shake of ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... such as your lordship, both from nature and choice, is inclined to be, to prop the cause of despotism. In order to this, the dignity of the sovereign is not to be committed, but exalted. To bring forward the royal person to put a negative upon any bill in parliament, is a most inartificial mode of proceeding. It marks too accurately the strides of power, and awakens too pointedly the attention of the multitude. Your lordship has heard that ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... by nature, a politician by circumstances, a boss by evolution, and a grafter by choice. He became grand sachem of Tammany and chairman of the general committee. This committee he ruled with blunt directness. When he wanted a question carried, he failed to ask for the negative votes; and soon he was called "the Boss," a title he never resented, and which usage has since fixed in our politics. So he ruled Tammany with a high hand; made nominations arbitrarily; bullied, bought, and traded; became President of the ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... was preparing for publication, and is a fair sample of the manner in which the entire Journal was written, and certainly does not justify the sneers that have been uttered about bad grammar and spelling, the double negative notwithstanding. In handwriting, spelling, and grammar he can compare well with his press either in the Navy or civil life; and many of the examples of bad spelling given have been abbreviations common in the Navy, which his critics ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... interj. and adv. "An aboriginal expression of disapproval." (Gilbert Parker, Glossary to 'Round the Compass in Australia,' 1888.) It was the negative ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... speak my own opinion, sir," answered the peer, "you know I shall answer in the negative. But you are too well acquainted with the world to be told that the conduct of politicians is not formed upon the ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... school of thought one of the great vices of the old theological type of ethics was that it was unduly negative. It thought much more of the avoidance of sin than of the performance of duty. The more we advance in knowledge the more we shall come to judge men in the spirit of the parable of the talents; that is by the net result ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... he suffered may be readily conceived by the lover of Fiddles. Away he started in search of his Fiddle's head, dead to all around him but the sense of his loss; he demanded of every one he met whether they had by chance picked up the head of a Fiddle. The answers were all in the negative; and many were the looks of astonishment caused by the strange nature of the question and the bewildered appearance of the questioner. At length he arrived at the house of the Fiddle doctor, whose want of punctuality had brought about the misfortune. Here was his forlorn hope! He might possibly ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... National Convention expelled him from its bosom, and since his Ministry no man has been found base enough, in my debased country, to extenuate, much less to defend, his past enormities. In a nation so greatly corrupted and immoral, this alone is more than negative evidence. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... and many freindis,)[296] to accept the provostrie of Sanct Johnestoun, which he purchasses to him by donatioun of the Governour, with a charge to the said Toune to obey him as thare lauchfull Provest. Whareat, not only the said Lord Ruthven, but also the toune, being offended, gave ane negative ansuer, alledging, That such intrusioun of men in office was hurtfull to thare priviledge and fredom; which granted unto thame free electioun of thare Provest from year to year, at a certane tyme ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... House, has noticed with concern the departure for Canada for indefinite period of Member for East St. Pancras. At Question time asked CHANCELLOR OF EXCHEQUER whether Mr. MARTIN had applied for Chiltern Hundreds. Answered in the negative, he put a further question to PREMIER, directing his attention to Act of 6 HENRY VIII. c. 16, ordering that no Member of Parliament shall absent himself from attendance except he have licence of Mr. SPEAKER. This upon pain of having his wages docked. PREMIER brushed him aside ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 29, 1914 • Various
... extra-parochial thought, had lulled him into a lazy mournfulness, which at times was very like imbecility. His income allowed him to do no good to the parish, whether in work, trade, or charity; and thus he had no moral weight with the parishioners beyond the example of his sinless life, and such negative effect as might be produced by his slumberous exhortations. Therefore his parishioners troubled him very little; and but for the influence which, in hours of Montfydget activity, Mrs. Leslie exercised over the most tractable,—that is, the children and the aged,—not ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... two consecutive moments it is impossible to have predication, and knowledge must be hopeless. In fact, sensation is not man's function as a reasoning being, but rather comparison. Neither is knowledge true opinion, for this at once demands the demarcation of false opinion or error; the latter is negative, and will be understood only when positive knowledge is determined. Perhaps knowledge is true opinion plus reason; but it is difficult to decide what is gained by adding "with reason", words which may mean either true opinion or knowledge itself, thus involving either tautology ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... kinds of electricity, positive and negative; and these have a pugnacious tendency. A, a student, goes up to the College positive he shall pass; B, an examiner, thinks his abilities negative, and flummuxes him accordingly. A afterwards ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... empty? A century ago the answer to this question, founded on the Newtonian theory, would have been, 'No, for particles of light are incessantly shot through space.' The reply of modern science is also negative, but on different grounds. It has the best possible reasons for rejecting the idea of luminiferous particles; but, in support of the conclusion that the celestial spaces are occupied by matter, it is able to offer proofs almost as cogent as those which ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... the tent or send it up by the camp wagon?" Roy Blakeley asked, as he and the others crowded each other off the train at Catskill Landing. "Answer in the positive or negative." ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... shuffling along the sidewalks of Bourges. That was enough. For me she will always wear that look, that frock, that clumsy gait. Recollections, my good uncle, are not unlike instantaneous photographs; and this one is a distinct negative to your designs. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... finding so many points of attraction as would allure him hitherward. We were of all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every imaginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but negative. We had individually found one thing or another to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the inexpediency of lumbering along with the old system any further. As to what should be substituted there was much less unanimity. We did not greatly care—at least, I never did—for ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... Lieutenant Holmes, "if the datto takes your negative course for a confession of weakness, and attempts to carry ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Philippines - or, Following the Flag against the Moros • H. Irving Hancock
... answer in the negative, he laid his hand upon Moffat's breast and said, "Father, I love you much. Your visit and your presence have made my heart as white as milk. The words of your mouth are sweet as honey, but the words of a resurrection are too great to be heard. I do not wish ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... once. Her father grunted and asked her if she and Helena Belmont had behaved themselves, and, more particularly, if she had been outside the house without an attendant; he never failed to ask this when he had been away from the house for twenty-four hours. Magdalena replied in the negative, and did not feel called upon to confess her minor sins. She had a conscience, but she had also a strong distaste for her ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... kept to his first impression of her, for first impressions are nearly always right; he should have sought for the reason of so much charm proving charmless, so much positive attraction proving so negative in effect. But he did not. He just took her as he found her and was glad she ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... drifts. A few days later he crossed the railway and joined Botha at Ermelo. Early in May the active operations north of the Delagoa Bay Railway ceased. As in French's campaign, so also in Blood's, the results were chiefly negative. A glut of live stock was rounded up, a considerable amount of ammunition and all the guns known to be in the district were taken, and 1,100 Boers either surrendered or were made prisoners. The columns were withdrawn, as troops were in request ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... for soil samples to be taken from an area covering ten thousand square miles. Our chemical analysis has been thorough, and we find nothing that could be remotely harmful to human life. Atmospheric samples produce the same negative results. On the other hand, we have direct evidence that no animal life has ever evolved on Rythar; the life ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... or benefit. The third class of legislation is where the state bases its action upon the supposed weakness of the deaf, their "physical disability," as it is frequently termed, and here we have a series of what may be called negative benefactions, designed to make less hard the way of the deaf. Such special provision has consisted chiefly in the remission of taxes in certain instances or of some other form of ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best
... Birotteau, imploring aid, and gave him a letter of recommendation for Nucingen, the result of which was quite different from what the unfortunate merchant had anticipated. Indeed, it was agreed between the two business men, if the i's in the letter in question were not dotted, to give a negative answer; by this intentional omission, Du Tillet ruined the unfortunate Birotteau. He had his bank on the rue Joubert when Rodolphe Castanier, the dishonest cashier, robbed Nucingen. [Melmoth Reconciled.] Ferdinand du Tillet was now a consequential ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... wanted to be seen with him. And he's a stranger over there, and doesn't need to get chummy with the girls. The boys here all know me, and ask me to go, and—a man, you see, can just be passive and nothing happens. But a girl's got to be downright negative, and it's no joke. One misses so many good times. You see ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... Philemon. The New Testament was less a Christiad then a Pauliad to his intelligence—less an argument than an intoxication. His creed of determinism was such that it almost amounted to a vice, and quite amounted, on its negative side, to a renunciative philosophy which had cousinship with that of Schopenhauer and Leopardi. He despised the Canons and Rubric, swore by the Articles, and deemed himself consistent through the whole category—which ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... path, I took from the first a rather more serious view of his scope and intention than you did. The same day I sent a cipher cable to Pierson of the New York service. I asked for news of any man of such and such a description—merely negative—who was known to have left the States; an educated man, expert in the use of disguises, audacious in his operations, and a specialist in 'dry' ...
— Four Max Carrados Detective Stories • Ernest Bramah
... dead-lock at Berlin: rebellious Womankind peremptorily refuse Weissenfels, and take to a bed of sickness; inexpugnable there, for the moment. Baireuth is but a weak middle term; and there are disagreements on it. Answer from England, affirmative or even negative, we have yet none. Promptly affirmative, that might still avail, and be an honorable outcome. Perhaps better pause till that arrive, and declare itself?—Friedrich Wilhelm knows nothing of the Villa mission, of the urgencies ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... reduced to any desired size, nearly all drawings being made much larger than they are desired to be reproduced in the plates. The exposure is much longer than in ordinary dry plate work, generally lasting in the neighborhood of five minutes. The result is a black and white negative. That is, the lines that were black in the drawing are absolutely clear and transparent in the negative, but the rest of the negative is black. From the photographer, the negative goes to the "negative-turning" ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... one when Berry's antagonist rose again to his feet. Shortly he opened his case. Nothing, he said, was more difficult to prove than a negative. But for one thing, it might have gone hard with an innocent man. Everything looked very black, but, as luck would have it, most fortunately for himself, Mr. Bladder could prove incontestably that upon the twenty-second ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... he abstained from were all exquisite. They were brought from far to undergo his judgment, if haply he might have selected them. Things ignoble never approached near enough for his refusal; they had not with him so much as that negative connexion. If I had to equip an author I should ask no better than to arm him and invest him with precisely the riches that were renounced by the man whose intellect, by integrity, ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... or less theoretical objections are certainly not weighty enough to negative a proposal like that of introducing this Imperial right of succession if the national danger demands direct and rapid help and the whole future of ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... pyritous mass most subject to the current until a continuous film of some size appears. This being formed the pyrites and gold are to a certain extent polarised, the film or irregular but connected mass of gold forming the negative, and the pyrites the positive end of a voltaic pair; and so according as the polarisation is advanced to completion the further deposition of gold is changed in its manner from an indiscriminate to an orderly ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... Roman power, and it is a fact that all Italy is in a state of revolt; in the first place, has any one people of the Latin confederacy come over to us? In the next place, has any individual of the five and thirty tribes deserted to Hannibal?" When Mago had answered both these questions in the negative, he continued: "there remains then still too large a body of the enemy. But I should be glad to know what degree of spirit and hope that ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... declaration had a negative as well as a positive side. It was in effect an announcement to the world that we would not use force in support of law and justice anywhere except in the Western Hemisphere, that we intended to stay at home and mind our own business. Washington and Jefferson had recommended ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... time to consider these proposals, and, 65 feeling that their apprehensions for the future forbade them to assent, while their present circumstances forbade them to return a plain negative, they answered as follows: 'We have seized our first opportunity of freedom with more haste than prudence, because we wanted to join hands with you and all our other German kinsmen. As for our town-walls, seeing that the ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... De Tocqueville could now search for a law that would negative this provision in its effect upon social equality, he would fail to find it. But he would find it in the unwritten law of the natural aversion of the races. He would find it in public opinion, which is the vital force in every law in a free government. ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... house. Entering, he requests an interview with the colonel's eldest daughter; obtains it; makes declaration of his love; asks her if she will have him for a husband; and in response receives a chilling negative. ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... that State does an act or holds an opinion, it is his nature to confess it and avow the motives thereof, without quibbling or hesitation. It is a persuaded, self-poised community, strikingly like its negative pole on the Slavery Question, Massachusetts. All those Charlestonians whom I talked with I found open-hearted in their secession, and patient of my open-heartedness as an advocate of the Union, although often astonished, I suspect, that any creature capable of drawing a conclusion from two premises ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... One cannot come to know them without a double emotion, one of respectful devotion towards themselves, and the other of abhorrence for the herd of swine who surrounded them. Pamela, Harriet Byron, Clarissa, Amelia, and Sophia Western were all equally delightful, and it was not the negative charm of the innocent and colourless woman, the amiable doll of the nineteenth century, but it was a beauty of nature depending upon an alert mind, clear and strong principles, true womanly feelings, and complete ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... built on the chromatic scale, was much the same as that of China. Actors and musicians command hardly more respect in the island than on the Continent. Women play a negative part in both countries, if we except the Geishas, who entertain in the tea-houses. But Japan has made such rapid strides in civilization recently that it may not be impossible for woman to develop the activity that she has already ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... others should be adapted, either by harmonising with it, or by contrast; in the latter case the relieving color should be in small quantity, or it would overpower the other in effect, as a general rule, sombre negative colours show off a woman to the greatest advantage, just as the beauties of a painting are enhanced by being set in a dull frame; still, there are some occasions with which the gayer tints accord better, and as propriety and fitness are matters ...
— The Jewish Manual • Judith Cohen Montefiore
... which it is most necessary to furnish in this way, and which in all but exceptional cases produce a marked effect on the crop. The other substances, such as potash, soda, magnesia, etc., occasionally act beneficially, but the results obtained from them are very uncertain, and frequently entirely negative. ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... in the negative, but added that Mr. Arden was waiting. The Earl ordered him to be sent in; and the Messenger accordingly entered, bearing on his face an air of triumph and insolence which provoked Wilton's anger a ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... forgets one thing that he has learned breaks a negative commandment; for it is written (Deut. iv. 9), "Take heed to thyself ... lest ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... Legislature, by voting for one or two men once in three or five years, however conscientiously this duty may be performed, can exercise but little active influence upon any man's life and character. Moreover, it is every day becoming more clearly understood, that the function of Government is negative and restrictive, rather than positive and active; being resolvable principally into protection—protection of life, liberty, and property. Laws, wisely administered, will secure men in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labour, whether of mind or body, at a comparatively small ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... practically. They use it where it has a meaning, and he uses it where it has no meaning at all, except in an a priori way, like a pair of brackets with nothing between them. When the Agnostic speaks of the "possibility" of miracles, he only means that we cannot prove a universal negative. ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... best acknowledgments to Lord Holland, I have to offer my perfect concurrence in the propriety of the question previously to be put to ministers. If their answer is in the negative, I shall, with his Lordship's approbation, give notice of a motion for a Committee of Enquiry. I would also gladly avail myself of his most able advice, and any information or documents with which he might be pleased to intrust me, to bear me out in the statement ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... feeling and passion and purpose, all holy instincts and impulses, can chisel away on a woman's face for thirty, forty, fifty years, and leave that face at the end worse than they found it. They found it a negative,—mere skin and bone, blood and muscle and fat. They can but leave their mark upon it, and the mark of good is good. Pity does not have the same finger-touch as revenge. Love does not hold the same brush as hatred. ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... is as follows: The disease makes its appearance very soon after arrival in India, the animal being admitted to hospital suffering with undoubted foot lameness, generally slight. One is soon led to suspect this disease by negative symptoms of other disease being in existence. No coronary enlargement or flinching on pressure to the coronet, no shrinkage or wiring in of the heels, neither is the characteristic pointing of navicular present. In the early stages one has false hopes ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... disgorged by the worms. In the same way, ordinary pepsin does not attack fatty substances; it takes pancreatin to reduce them to an emulsion. This curious analogy of properties, positive for albuminous, negative for fatty matter, proclaims the similarity and perhaps the identity of the dissolvent discharged by the grubs and the pepsin of the ...
— The Life of the Fly - With Which are Interspersed Some Chapters of Autobiography • J. Henri Fabre
... the letter hopelessly. Beyond the negative, there was just a possibility of sarcasm in it—'nice long speeches on mangold-wurzel' had a suspicious sound. However, sarcasm or none, there was the answer, and he had to ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... in the way of negative argument as against the reputed differences between Biological and other methods. No such differences, I believe, really exist. The subject-matter of Biological science is different from that of other sciences, but the methods of all are ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... ever come to pass that the Constitution shall be perverted to the destruction of our rights so that we shall have the mere right as a feeble minority unprotected by the barrier of the Constitution to give an ineffectual negative vote in the Halls of Congress, we shall then bear to the federal government the relation our colonial fathers did to the British crown, and if we are worthy of our lineage we will in that event redeem our rights even if it be through the process of revolution. And it gratifies me to be enabled to ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... branches of the legislature, for reconsideration; and the bill so returned is to become a law, if, upon that reconsideration, it be approved by two thirds of both houses. The king of Great Britain, on his part, has an absolute negative upon the acts of the two houses of Parliament. The disuse of that power for a considerable time past does not affect the reality of its existence; and is to be ascribed wholly to the crown's having found the means of substituting influence to authority, or the art ...
— The Federalist Papers
... him, If after [receiving [1]] this great Favour he would be content[ed] to lose his Life? or if he would receive it though he was sure he should make an ill Use of it? To both which Questions Alcibiades answers in the Negative. Socrates then shews him, from the Examples of others, how these might very probably be the Effects of such a Blessing. He then adds, That other reputed Pieces of Good-fortune, as that of having a Son, or procuring ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... murder—murder and suicide; and all because of this strange love of a woman. He had been driven stark raving mad because of it. He sat there now before him, an odd combination of craven weakness and giant strength because of it. In the face of such a revelation, Covington felt petty; he felt negative. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... spiritually—that is, thoroughly and egotistically, or not. If my enemy who lives under the hill will continue to not-murder me, I desire him to continue whether he enjoys not-murdering me or not. But it is no credit to him. Except in some baldly negative fashion as this, however, it is literally true that a man's virtues are of little account to others except as they are of account to him, and except he enjoys them as much as his vices. The first really important shock that comes to a young man's religious sentiment in ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... that Lucy was even an inmate of my own house the day we sailed. This little knowledge only excited a desire for more, and, by the end of a week, I was obliged to submit to devices and expedients to pump me, than which even the thumbscrew was scarcely more efficient. I practised on the negative system, myself, with a good deal of dexterity, however, and threw my inquisitors off, very handsomely, more than once, until I discovered that Wallace Mortimer, determined not to be baffled, actually opened communications ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... on all sides; but every answer was in the negative, and we stood there by our troopers and chargers in the darkness, listening to the ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... two vessels should keep reasonably close together, it had been agreed that each should be held at an acceleration of exactly twenty-six feet per second, positive and negative. This figure represented a compromise between the gravitational forces of the two worlds upon which the different parties lived. While considerably less than the acceleration of gravitation at the surface of the Earth, the Terrestrials could ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... saintly nature seems to be a negative result of the biologically useful instinct of welcoming leadership, and glorifying the chief of the tribe. The chief is the potential, if not the actual tyrant, the masterful, overpowering man of prey. We confess our inferiority and grovel before him. We quail under his ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... far are they from thus raising Jupiter, that he is sometimes made the ground of nature (not, observe, for any positive reason that they had for any relation that Jupiter had to Creation, but simply for the negative reason that they had nobody else)—never does Jupiter seem more disgusting than when as just now in a translation of the 'Batrachia' I read that Jupiter had given to frogs an amphibious nature, making the awful, ancient, first-born secrets of Chaos to be his, and thus forcing into ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... no was as a trumpet note—a defiant negative hurled at the Force of the Universe. And Charles-Norton began to race around the fountain, striking with his right fist his left hand, muttering unintelligible and tremendous protests. You see, his wings had grown altogether too long. He could feel their ligatures ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... the Court of Exchequer delivered the unanimous opinion of the Judges upon the said question, in the negative,—and gave his reasons. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Perkins if they could call at just a few houses coming and going, and sell a little soap for the Simpsons, she at first replied decidedly in the negative. She was an indulgent parent, however, and really had little objection to Emma Jane amusing herself in this unusual way; it was only for Rebecca, as the niece of the difficult Miranda Sawyer, that she raised scruples; but when fully persuaded that the enterprise was a ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... my hobbies. I had an earnest desire to acquire the art and mystery of practical photography. I bought the necessary apparatus, together with the chemicals; and before long I became an expert in the use of the positive and negative collodion process, including the printing from negatives, in all the details of that wonderful and delightful art. To any one who has some artistic taste, photography, both in its interesting processes and glorious results, becomes a most attractive and almost engrossing pursuit. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... man whose gifts are greater than mine, a man destined for a brilliant future—David Sechard, my brother, my friend. I shall find an answer waiting when I go home. All the aristocrats may have been asked to hear me read my verses this evening, but I shall not go if the answer is negative, and I will never set foot in ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... and dim in that sound-proof place. Nothing happened, and thrice he repeated the rapping with like negative results. But he had learnt something: the door was ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... himself to frown, as if he had reached a negative decision. Harrison, torn by desire, flung himself down on his ragged knees, and sobbed on Peter's hand. Peter pushed him ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... colored paper for a half-minute, it will be found that if the colored paper is removed one sees its complementary color. If the head is not moved, this complementary color has the same size and shape as the original colored piece of paper. The negative after-image can be projected on a background at different distances, its size depending on the distance of the background. The after-image will be found to mix with an objective color in accordance with the principles ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... how to swamp good?" he asked. Bill studied the toes of his moccasins and, without looking up, replied with a negative shake of his head. ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... most of whom gave positive evidence that the defendant was not Arthur Orton, and whose testimony in two instances only was questioned in a court of law—as against about 200 witnesses for the prosecution, whose evidence was chiefly of a negative character—was of itself enough to raise a doubt in the defendant's favour, of which doubt he ought to have had the benefit, in accordance both with the law and ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... more flowers associated with suppression and other changes. The position of the supernumerary organs and the absence of any positive sign of fusion in the bracts or other part of the flower, seemed, however, to negative the ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... the work's been useless. The research has saved others thousands of man hours chasing false leads. In this business negative results are almost as important as positive ones. We may never discover the solution, but our work will keep others from making ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone
... that your opponent designedly returns a negative answer to the questions which, for the sake of your proposition, you want him to answer in the affirmative, you must ask the converse of the proposition, as though it were that which you were anxious to see ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... hereupon, to nod my head twice—once in the negative, meaning thereby that I would prefer not taking the other bottle at present—and once in the affirmative, intending thus to imply that I was sober and had positively come to my senses. By these means I somewhat softened ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Netherlands have been massed, in order to present a connected and distinct view of the relative attitude of the different countries of Europe. The conferences and diplomatic protocolling had resulted in nothing positive; but it is very necessary for the reader to understand the negative effects of all this dissimulation and palace-politics upon the destiny of the new commonwealth, and upon Christendom at large. The League had now achieved a great triumph; the King of France had virtually abdicated, and it was now requisite for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... and for a moment there was a dead silence. Then through the tense air there came a strange sound, and the President demanded silence from the galleries, whereupon the reporters rose and made a negative movement of the hand with two fingers upraised, pointing at the same time ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... teaching that the myth was a late one, for the earliest Greeks and Romans did not believe in a real happiness after death. They believed in existence after death, but it was a very shadowy existence, with the most negative sort of pleasures. Later, the Romans, even before they accepted Christianity, had their beliefs more or less modified by their contact ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... for us the negatives; these being of paper, and nearly sixty years old, rendered their reproduction a work of some difficulty. We also thank Messrs. Elliott & Fry for very kindly placing at our disposal a negative of the fine portrait, which forms the frontispiece to Volume II. For the opportunity of making facsimiles of diagrams in certain of the letters, we are once more indebted to Sir Joseph Hooker, who has most generously given the original letters ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... wrong to regard the new movement as merely negative. Had that been all, it would be impossible to account for the passionate enthusiasm it aroused in those who came beneath its spell; an enthusiasm which lived long after the movement itself was spent, and which—except in so far as it led ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... degree of genius, the same cast of mind, the same habits, his consciousness of the world around him would have been a very different affair; however obscure, however reserved, his own personal life, his sense of the life of his fellow-mortals would have been almost infinitely more various. The negative side of the spectacle on which Hawthorne looked out, in his contemplative saunterings and reveries, might, indeed, with a little ingenuity, be made almost ludicrous; one might enumerate the items of high civilization, ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... 1557; superintendent in Wurtzen; died 1616], and others, who were to conduct the visitation, composed the so-called Visitation Articles which were printed in 1593. The complete title of these articles runs: "Visitation Articles in the Entire Electorate of Saxony, together with the Negative and Contrary Doctrines of the Calvinists and the Form of Subscription, as Presented to be ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... ideal had esprit, lightness of touch, the faculty of seizing just the aspect of a subject that delighted me, and a knowledge of the world; Maude was simple, direct, and in a word provincial. Her provinciality, however, was negative rather than positive, she had no disagreeable mannerisms, her voice was not nasal; her plasticity appealed to me. I suppose I was lost without knowing it when I began ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... (D) to the seed-corn (C). Hence the expression in the poet, 'sowing around a god-created flame' (D A). There is also another form of qualified metaphor. Having given the thing the alien name, one may by a negative addition deny of it one of the attributes naturally associated with its new name. An instance of this would be to call the shield not the 'cup of Ares,' as in the former case, but a 'cup that holds no wine'. * * * A coined word is a name which, ...
— The Poetics • Aristotle
... those countries, whether persons born before their separation, and once completely invested, in both, with the character of natural subjects, can ever become aliens in either? There are respectable opinions on both sides. If the negative be right, then General Oglethorpe having never become an alien, and having devised his lands to his wife, who, on this supposition, also, was not an alien, the devise has transferred the lands to her, and there is nothing left for the treaty to ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the least idea behind. I must, in spite of the worthiest education, have had a strong tendency to degenerate." The truth was that he had never had any education in its veritable sense, as the process, on its negative side, of counteracting the inborn. There are two kinds, or perhaps we should more correctly say two degrees, of the constitution in which the reflective part is weak. There are the men who live on sensation, but who do so ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the Christian religion shall have faded from the earth, when its memory like that of Polytheism now shall remain, but remain only as the subject of ridicule and wonder'. But as time went on, Shelley's views became less purely negative. Instead of ruling the adversaries back to back out of court, he bethought himself of venturing a plea in favour of the older and weaker one. It may have been in 1817 that he contemplated an 'Essay in favour of ...
— Proserpine and Midas • Mary Shelley
... of Belfast is, or should be, enough to negative all arguments in favour of Home Rule. The agitators say that Ireland is decaying from political causes, while all the while this Ulster town is getting richer and more powerful and influential. While the people ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... affinity, or of an electric light at once the immediate object and the ultimate organ of inward vision, which rises to the brain like an Aurora Borealis, and there, disporting in various shapes,—as the balance of plus and minus, or negative and positive, is destroyed or re-established,— images out both past and present. Aristotle delivers a just theory without pretending to an hypothesis; or in other words a comprehensive survey of the different ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... such power at his command that Dr. De la Rue proceeded to investigate several important electrical laws. He has found, for example, that the positive discharge is more intermittent than the negative, that the arc is always preceded by a streamer-like discharge, that its temperature is about 16,000 deg., and its length at the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere, when taken between two points, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... Pemble had thought fit to tell his audience only of the first two articles of this creed, it would have been difficult to resist the suggestion that they presented us merely with an example of stupid, or, perhaps, impudent, blasphemy caused by the events of the day. But the negative nature of the first two items of the creed is counterbalanced by the positive nature of the second two items; and thus this example shows us the importance of considering evidence as to all phases of non-belief ...
— Folklore as an Historical Science • George Laurence Gomme
... the negative; but it showed only the door of the Grey Room, half opened. Then I left the house, as I wanted to get certain matters and implements that might be necessary to life; perhaps to the spirit; for I intended to spend the coming night ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... many personal letters and one or two business missives which were of little interest. Altogether the examination of the trunk—a process which occupied three hours—established nothing definite, save that there was nothing to be discovered. Its results were hopelessly negative. ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... appetite is perverted so that he prefers candy to meat and vegetables, conscious reference to results is indicated. He needs to be made conscious of consequences as a justification of the positive or negative value of certain objects. Or the state of things may be normal enough, and yet an individual not be moved by some matter because he does not grasp how his attainment of some intrinsic good depends upon active concern with what ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... but some one said if we went in "that" direction we should find them. On we went uphill, losing our way in a maize field. In front of us were hundreds of camp fires. At the first we asked if they had seen the English. They shrugged their shoulders in negative. We asked at the next; same result. We had the awful thought that we should have to search every camp fire before we found our people, but luckily almost fell over Mawson, who had been fetching water. We were going in quite the wrong ...
— The Luck of Thirteen - Wanderings and Flight through Montenegro and Serbia • Jan Gordon
... reticence. Even during our walk to the police office he debated several times with Johnson, the third officer, whether he ought not to give up himself, as well as to denounce the captain. He had decided in the negative, arguing that "it would probably come to nothing; and even if there was a stink, he had plenty good friends in San Francisco." And to nothing it came; though it must have very nearly come to something, for Mr. Nares disappeared immediately from view, and was scarce less closely ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... past, I suggested to them that a report of the previous occurrence, with their present disregard of orders, might be serious. I told them that they knew what I desired; that they might at once inform me whether it would be done or not; if they decided in the negative, the secretario and my mozo must start at once on foot to Oaxaca, carrying my complaint to the governor; that, as for me, having started them upon their journey, I should leave early the following morning ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... and incorporeity of God divide the Arabic philosophers into two schools. Maimonides naturally espoused the view permitting the most exalted conception of God, that is, the conception of God free from human attributes. He recognizes none but negative attributes; in other words, he defines God by means of negations only. For instance, asserting that the Supreme Being is omniscient or omnipotent, is not investing Him with a positive attribute, it is simply denying imperfection. The student ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... aurora borealis, or polaris, has never been satisfactorily explained. It is acknowledged as purely magnetic in character, and to be due to the passage of currents upward from the earth. It has received the regard due to a mere negative though brilliant exhibition, whereas the character, extent, and significance of its manifestations should have caused it to be greeted, and studied, as the index of the operation of very ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... is true, she gave a somewhat less blunt, but nevertheless a decided negative reply, although it was gilded ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... something exceedingly pathetic in this little volume. Its weakness as verse, for it certainly is weak, had nothing ignoble about it, and what is weak without being in the least base has already a negative distinction. The author hopes to be a Lovelace or a Montrose, equally ready to do his monarch service with sword or pen. The Duke of Rutland has not quite been a Montrose, but he has been something ...
— Gossip in a Library • Edmund Gosse
... Bradlaugh or agnostics like Herbert Spencer, whilst Communism claims Jesus as an exponent; still, if the question be raised as to whether any of the Fabian Essayists attended an established place of worship regularly, the reply must be in the negative. Indeed, they were generally preaching themselves on Sundays. To describe them as irreligious in view of their work would be silly; but until Hubert Bland towards the end of his life took refuge in the Catholic Church, and Mrs. Besant devoted herself to Theosophy, ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... crudeness in theorising and his inexperience in practice resulted in not a few youthful errors. Gradually he left behind him "this low practical dexterity"; gradually he learnt that "the best way of removing abuses is to stand fast by truth. Truth is one, as they are manifold; and innumerable negative effects are produced by the upholding of one positive principle." Browning urges that Shelley, before the close, had passed from his doctrinaire atheism to what was virtually a theistic faith. "I shall say what I think," he adds—"had Shelley lived he would have finally ranged ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden
... sense: for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge. By long years of patient industry and reading of the newspapers,—for what are the libraries of science but files of newspapers?—a man accumulates a myriad facts, lays them up in his memory, and then when in some spring of his life he saunters abroad into ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... of Regulus and to follow it up as far as might be required not merely to break the courage but to breach the walls of the mighty Phoenician city, is another question, to which no one now can venture to give either an affirmative or a negative answer. At last the settlement of the momentous question was entrusted to a commission which was to decide it upon the spot in Sicily. It confirmed the proposal in substance; only, the sum to be paid by Carthage for the costs ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... is often made, Do all swarms have a place looked out before leaving the parent stock? The answer to this must ever be guess-work. I could offer some circumstances indicating the affirmative very strongly, and as much for the negative; and will let it pass at that. Yet I think if bees are properly cared for, that ninety-nine swarms in a hundred will prefer a good clean hive to a rotten tree in ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... my calling for scripture to prove it lawful thus to exclude them; blame me for it no more; verily I still must do it; and had you but one to give, I had had it long before this. But you wonder I should ask for a scripture to prove a negative. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... preferred? She always treated him with such marked courtesy. There was no one else,—it must be he! Bertha could not frame the question that hovered about her lips, though to have heard it answered in the negative would have made her heart ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... one take the burden off my shoulders!" They visited, made excursions, attended anti-slavery meetings and also spiritual seances, which were then attracting great attention. Of the many discussions which arose as to existence or non-existence after death, she writes: "The negative had reason on their side; not an argument could one of us bring, except an intuitive feeling that we should not cease to exist. If it be true that we die like the flower, what a delusion has the race suffered, what a vain dream ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... simple life at La Trappe, the negative protest against the Empire and all existing social conditions, the purity of motive, the serene and inspired self-abnegation, could not save the colony at La Trappe nor the young chatelaine from the claws of those who prey upon the innocence of ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... Napoleon Forebodings of the Empress Prince Napoleon Ampere on Roman affairs Inquisition Infidelity Mortara affair Torpor of Roman Government Interference with marriages Ampere expects Piedmont to take possession of Rome Does not think that Naples will submit to Piedmont Wishes of Naples only negative Ampere's reading Execution of three generations Familiarity with death in 1793 Sanson Public executioners The 'Chambre noire' Violation of correspondence Toleration of Ennui Prisoners of State M. and Madame de La ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... overpowered her, and this did not escape his notice; for one day, while his young wife hung on his arm and added a few brief words of sympathy, he asked Kuni if she was ill or if she needed anything; but she answered curtly in the negative and hurried into the garden, where the children, with merry shouts, were helping the gardener to free the beds of crocuses and budding tulips from the pine boughs which had protected them ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... seemed to prove that they were born, like birds, with a certain innate balance. Home influences alone never saved the New England boy from ruin, though sometimes they may have helped to ruin him; and the influences outside of home were negative. If school helped, it was only by reaction. The dislike of school was so strong as to be a positive gain. The passionate hatred of school methods was almost a method in itself. Yet the day-school of that time was respectable, and the boy had ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... and we can judge of the temper with which the Irish Home Rulers would administer affairs. Of their statesmanlike provision—of their patriotism and care for the well-being of the country at large—the local war now ruining Tipperary is the negative proof—the damnatory evidence that they are utterly unfit for practical power. Governed by hysterical passion, by mad hatred and the desire for revenge, not one of the modern leaders, save Mr. Parnell, shows ...
— About Ireland • E. Lynn Linton
... intimated that Government of South African Republic had nothing more to say on this subject than had been already embodied in proclamation of President of South African Republic. I inquired as to whether any decision had been come to as regards disposal of prisoners, and received a reply in the negative. President of South African Republic said that, as his burghers, to number of 8,000, had been collected, and could not be asked to remain indefinitely, he must request a reply, 'Yes' or 'No,' to this ultimatum within twenty-four hours. I have communicated ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... scientific hypothesis; and such inquiries as those which have been set afoot, into the possible dissociative action of the great heat of the sun upon our elements, are not only legitimate, but are likely to yield results which, whether affirmative or negative, will be of great importance. The idea that atoms are absolutely ingenerable and immutable 'manufactured articles' stands on the same sort of foundation as the idea that biological species are 'manufactured articles' stood thirty years ago; and the supposed constancy of the elementary ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... any of your correspondents be good enough to say what they consider the best method of securing a calotype paper negative for a few days or a week, in cases where it may be difficult, from lack of conveniences during that time, to use hyposulph., with its consequent washings, &c.? Some, I believe, recommend bromide of potassium; some, the iodide; others, common salt: but I should like to know which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... was anxious to do so, and looked upon the chance as a good opportunity. Miss Davenport had the contract made out, executed it, and then, in high glee, Bok took it home to show it to his mother. He had reckoned without question upon her approval, only to meet with an immediate and decided negative to the proposition as a whole, general and specific. She argued that the theatrical business was not for him; and she saw ahead and pointed out so strongly the mistake he was making that he sought Miss Davenport the next day and told her ...
— A Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward Bok
... kinds of poets, just as there are two kinds of blondes. [Movement of curiosity among our ladies at table.—Please to tell us about those blondes, said the schoolmistress.] Why, there are blondes who are such simply by deficiency of coloring matter,—NEGATIVE or WASHED blondes, arrested by Nature on the way to become albinesses. There are others that are shot through with golden light, with tawny or fulvous tinges in various degree, —POSITIVE or STAINED blondes, dipped in yellow sunbeams, and as unlike in their mode of being to the others as an ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... light is reflected in a different way from that of the others. This property of reflecting light is known as luster. Metals have a metallic luster which is peculiar to themselves; and this, for the present, may be regarded as their chief characteristic. Are they at the positive or negative end of the list? See page 43. How is it with the non-metals? This arrangement has a significance in chemistry which we must now examine. The three appended experiments show how one metal can be withdrawn from solution by a second, ...
— An Introduction to Chemical Science • R.P. Williams
... independence, that she had acquired a possibility of being herself with all her tastes, the very existence of which she had forgotten while living under the shadow of that strange and disagreeable great man. A negative sense of compensation, of pleasure in the foreign society to which she could now devote herself; of satisfaction in the miniature copy of her former Parisian salon which she could arrange in her Florentine house; of comfort in a gently bustling, ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... say against Monsieur de Fischtaminel: he does not gamble, he is indifferent to women, he doesn't like wine, and he has no expensive fancies: he possesses, as you said, all the negative qualities which make husbands passable. Then, what is the matter with him? Well, mother, he has nothing to do. We are together the whole blessed day! Would you believe that it is during the night, when we are the most closely united, ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part • Honore de Balzac
... guard your own boys. We women, thank God, have to do with the fountain of sweet waters, clear as crystal, that flow from the throne of God; not with the sewer that flows from the foul imaginations and actions of men. Our part is the inculcation of positive purity, not the part of negative warning against vice. Nor need you fear that the evil you must know, in order to fulfil your most sacred trust, will sully you. This I say emphatically, that the evil which we have grappled with to save one of our own ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... power, it had never been exercised during his tenure of the estate, so that Felix had not been hardened to the sight of executions, common enough elsewhere. Upon the Old House estate a species of negative humanity reigned; if the slaves were not emancipated, they were not hanged or ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... observations lately upon the structure of the vessel. Although well armed, she is not, I think, a ship of war. Her rigging, build, and general equipment, all negative a supposition of this kind. What she is not, I can easily perceive—what she is I fear it is impossible to say. I know not how it is, but in scrutinizing her strange model and singular cast of spars, her huge size and overgrown suits of canvas, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe |
