"Prevailing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a coat of mail, Which was of a fish's scale, That when his foe should him assail, No point should be prevailing: His rapier was a hornet's sting: It was a very dangerous thing, For if he chanced to hurt the King, It ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... and repeated, as he opened convulsively his other hand, "The gold, Sibyll, the gold! Why didst thou hide it from me?" speedily convinced her that her father's mind was under the influence of the prevailing malady that made all its weakness and ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... such man as he could walk in high success the streets of any other country in the world; for that would only have been a logical assurance to him of the correct adaptation of his labours to the prevailing taste, and of his being strictly and peculiarly ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... aesthetic bias appears in the moral sphere. Utilitarians have attempted to show that the human conscience commends precisely those actions which tend to secure general happiness and that the notions of justice and virtue prevailing in any age vary with its social economy and the prizes it is able to attain. And, if due allowance is made for the complexity of the subject, we may reasonably admit that the precepts of obligatory morality bear this relation to the general ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... a good education at an academy at Newington, young De Foe, before he had attained his twenty-first year, commenced his career as an author, by writing a pamphlet against a very prevailing sentiment in favour of the Turks who were at that time laying siege to Vienna. This production, being very inferior to those of his maturer years, was very little read, and the indignant author, despairing of success with his pen, had recourse to the sword; or, as he termed it, when boasting ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... of the Committee think it very strange, that there should be such great difficulty in prevailing with persons, who had already given their evidence before the Parliament of Ireland, to come over and give the same evidence here, and especially, that the chief difficulty should arise, from a general apprehension of ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... to the camp, Mr. Hunt found some uneasiness prevailing among the Canadian voyageurs. In straying among the thickets they had beheld tracks of grizzly bears in every direction, doubtless attracted thither by the fruit. To their dismay, they now found that they had encamped in one of the favorite resorts of this dreaded animal. The idea ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... readily believe such tales as these; but there are, in all ages of the world, certain habits of belief, in conformity to which the whole community go together. We all believe whatever is in harmony with, or analogous to, the general type of faith prevailing in our own generation. Nobody could be persuaded now that a dead head could speak, or a wolf change his nature to protect it; but thousands will credit a fortune-teller, or believe that a mesmerized patient can have a mental perception ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... throwing classical studies overboard as useless lumber might do far worse than listen to the eloquent tribute which the poet pays to the great writers of antiquity. And finally nothing could be more salutary for an age in which literature itself has caught something of the taint of the prevailing commercialism than to bathe itself again in that spirit of sincere and disinterested love of letters which breathes throughout the 'Essay' and which, in spite of all his errors, and jealousies, and petty vices, was the master-passion of ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... exclusion of the Southerners even proposed. Let them come: but when they claim to carry with them the right to hold a certain class of men as property because they are recognized as property by certain local regulations elsewhere prevailing, they must not complain, if such a claim be disallowed. The Southerner's complaint, that he is accustomed to the institution of slavery, is fairly met by the Northerner's retort, that he is accustomed to the institution ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... wax. And here, in this many-purposed hall (unless the selectmen of the village chance to have more than their share of the Puritanism, which, however diversified with later patchwork, still gives its prevailing tint to New England character),—here the company of strolling players sets up its little stage, and claims patronage ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... part of the Bostonians was not unnatural. But whatever may have been the popular feeling, the provincial authorities did their full part towards supplying the needs of the new-comers; for Dudley, with his strong Tory leanings, did not share the prevailing jealousy, and the country members of the Assembly were anxious before all things to be delivered from war-parties. The problem was how to raise the men and furnish the supplies in the least possible time. The action ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... intestinal area should be watched with care. In the face of the numerous recoveries in such cases, habitual abdominal exploration is not justified, under the conditions usually prevailing ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... This became a prevailing fashion in the vith century; e.g. when the Cod. Laudianus of the Acts (E) was written. The only trace of anything of the kind in Cod. B is at the ...
— The Last Twelve Verses of the Gospel According to S. Mark • John Burgon
... Light winds prevailing, we were some time getting clear of the river. We thought that we should at once stand down channel, but as we rounded the North Foreland the weather looked more threatening than ever, and we found that we were to bring up in the ...
— The Two Whalers - Adventures in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... and the Spaniards had a great advantage in living nearer the natural starting-point for such voyages. To go to Asia ships went by way of the Cape of Good Hope. To go to America a southern route was taken, for in the North Atlantic the prevailing winds are from the southwest, while south of Spain the trade-winds blow towards the southwest, making it easy to sail to America. To take the northern route, which was the natural one for French and English sailors, would be to battle against head winds ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... phosphates, that keep us on the minority side of the house. In point of fact, it is one of the many results of Spiritualism to make the permanent destiny of the race a matter of common reflection and discourse, and a vehicle for the prevailing disbelief of the Middle-Age doctrines on the subject. I cannot help thinking, when I remember how many conversations my friend and myself have sported, that it would be very extraordinary, if there ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the long nights of autumn, I, to a certain extent, perfected myself in setting up specimens, but found they would not keep, as I had no arsenic to work with, using in its place a disinfectant which was not a preservative, consequently my specimens began to get mouldy and to smell high, and this prevailing mustiness brought them to an untimely end, or at least the greater portion of them. Thinking a day in the sunshine and fresh air might improve them, I took them all out of the house, and carried them a few at a time down to the ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... impression it bears—a character of strong, unflinching endurance, appropriately reminding one of the Scotch people, whom Walter Scott compares to the native sycamore of their hills, "which scorns to be biased in its mode of growth, even by the influence of the prevailing wind, but shooting its branches with equal boldness in every direction, shows no weather side to the storm, and may be broken, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... The prevailing theories, and practice, regarding the employment of color in therapeutics and human welfare work, are in the main correct. But, I urge the study of the occult significance of color, as mentioned in this book in connection ...
— The Human Aura - Astral Colors and Thought Forms • Swami Panchadasi
... and those of the United States in contrast; this is not a fair view of the subject; they must necessarily be involved in each other. What we apprehend is, that some sinister prejudice, or some prevailing passion, may assume the form of a genuine interest. The influence of these is as powerful as the most permanent conviction of the public good; and against this influence we ought to provide. The local interests of a State ought in every case to ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... interested me, as a statesman, was the matter of wages. I picked up what I could under that head during the afternoon. A man who hasn't had much experience, and doesn't think, is apt to measure a nation's prosperity or lack of prosperity by the mere size of the prevailing wages; if the wages be high, the nation is prosperous; if low, it isn't. Which is an error. It isn't what sum you get, it's how much you can buy with it, that's the important thing; and it's that that tells whether your wages are high in fact or only high in name. I could remember how it ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... circumstances of life. As a consequence of this philosophy of externalism there is a filtering down of these materialistic views to the multitude, who care, indeed, little for theories, but are quick to be affected by a prevailing tone. Underlying the feeling of unrest and dissatisfaction, so marked a feature of our present day life, there is distinctly discernible among the masses a loosening of religious faith and a slackening {5} of moral obligation. The idea of personality and the sense ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... portrayed by ancient writers has had by far too much sway. The prevailing type which permeates all literature is that of inferiority and subjection. In early times Oriental poets often likened woman to some clear, flawless jewel, and made them serve simply as ornaments, while, on ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... nerves,—a morbidity of brain in which the thoughts brood on the impossible, —on things that have never been, and never will be. Thus, Sah- luma's verse resembles the incoherent ravings of a moon-struck madman,—moreover, it hath a prevailing tone of FORCED SUBLIMITY..." here Theos gave an involuntary start,—then, recollecting where he was, resumed his passive attitude—"which is in every way distasteful to the ears that love plain language. For instance, what warrant is there for ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... to do was to hit the ball whenever he saw it within reach; but after a few experiments he accepted the fact that every game required a certain talent, quite as distinct as that needed to sell green neckties (old stock) when the prevailing fashion was polka-dot blue. How he loathed Thomas Webb. How he loathed the impulse which had catapulted him into this mad whirligig! Why had not fate left him in peace; if not satisfied with his lot, at least resigned? And now ...
— The Voice in the Fog • Harold MacGrath
... prevailing rule in these affairs, your neighbor knows how little a written reference is worth. She will satisfy the proprieties by reading it, and form her own opinion of the girl. When Katy has worn out her saucepans and patience, your successor in ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... stone period, seems as yet to have been carefully examined. Respecting this specimen, Professor His observes that it exhibits, instead of the small and rounded form proper to the Danish peat-mosses, a type much more like that now prevailing in Switzerland, which is intermediate between the long-headed and short-headed form. (Rutimeyer "Die Fauna der Pfahlbauten in ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... license another play in which the fear of a German invasion was ridiculed. The German press drew the inevitable inference that the Lord Chamberlain was an anti-German alarmist, and that his opinions were a reflection of those prevailing in St. James's Palace. Immediately after this, the Lord Chamberlain licensed the play. Whether the inference, as far as the Lord Chamberlain was concerned, was justified, is of no consequence. What is important is that ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... Perhaps due to the prevailing idea of the family as a continuing unit. M166 No final word can yet be said. M167 Explanation of the structure of the kindred to be found in the descent of city life from earlier stage of tribal society. M168 Similarity between the bond of tribal blood and that of citizenship. M169 The threefold ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm
... direction—that of the supreme authority—the different strength of each particular member of the society not coming into the idea—whereas, if you leave out the subordination, the union, and the one direction, you destroy and lose it—so reason, several appetites, passions, and affections, prevailing in different degrees of strength, is not that idea or notion of human nature; but that nature consists in these several principles considered as having a natural respect to each other, in the several passions ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... primitive state, the Kaffirs might have prevailed, though who could say? Neither the Maoris, nor the Australians, worked in iron weapons, while the Kaffirs did, and that circumstance would have told, in the clash of prevailing or going down.' ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... probability; excepting yourself, I esteem no one within its precincts. You were my only rational companion; and in plain truth, I had more respect for you than the whole bevy, with whose foibles I amused myself in compliance with their prevailing propensities. You gave yourself more trouble with me and my manuscripts than a thousand dolls ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... they do. Ever since man emerged from the jungle he has been shedding his instincts—shaping them to new desires. Where do you find this all-prevailing instinct towards maternity? Among the women of society, who sacrifice it without a moment's hesitation to their vanity—to their mere pleasures? The middle- class woman—she, too, is demanding "freedom." Children, servants, the home!—they are too ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... is preserved solely in official documents, that of Camarines prevailing, as it is the name of the province where the bishop lives. [The names of the bishops of this bishopric until ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... wrongly in a matter of so much consequence. This is the kindest thing you can do; for we ought to take every precaution not to make a mistake before it is too late. Speak out quite plainly; do tell me distinctly as far as you can see them my prevailing faults, what they were in boyhood at Eton, and at College. It may help me to contemplate more clearly and truly the prospect before me. We shall have many opportunities, I trust, of discussing all this by-and-by. I shall tell Uncle John, ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to be dead, and that he would step into the fortune. He might not know enough of the law of property to be aware of the difficulties attending a succession of that kind. There is a most extraordinary ignorance of the law of the land prevailing among well-educated Englishmen. Or he may have been tired of his wife, and have seen his way to a more advantageous alliance. Men are not always satisfied with one wife in these days, and a man who married in such a strange underhand manner ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... master is done he is content, and the affair is settled to this extent, that neither the rebuked one nor his fellows can detect the least thing in the conduct of the master—no bitterness, nor vehemence, nor anything else. These reprimands are mostly of good effect by virtue of the prevailing fatherly tone, the calmness of their delivery, and their considerately chosen setting. Of the self-control and calm serenity in such houses one can scarcely ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... The prevailing religion of Japan is Shintoism, and through the kindness of Rev. B. T. Sakai, I will give a bit of his experience. He wished to acquire a better knowledge of English and found that Trinity College in Tokio could give ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... lamented because the prevailing theme of fiction is love. Every story is a love story, every romance finds its inspiration in the heart, and even the musty tomes of history are beset ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... vindicated the most unfavorable prophecies that had been hazarded. The style and versification are beneath criticism; the morals are those of Rochester. For Rochester, indeed, there was some excuse. When his offences against decorum were committed, he was a very young man, misled by a prevailing fashion. Wycherley was sixty-four. He had long outlived the times when libertinism was regarded as essential to the character of a wit and a gentleman. Most of the rising poets, Addison, for example, John Philips, and Rowe, were studious of decency. We can hardly conceive anything ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... revival out breaks seem to assume a much more extravagant form than with us. Mr. Stanley Hall, for example, thus describes a Kentucky camp meeting in which the prevailing term of spiritual manifestation was that of 'jerking.' Quoting from an ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... fellow, this prisoner of Grady's, and knew how to trim his sails to the prevailing wind. The marches of the convoy were slow, as the patients could not bear the jolt of a camel's trot; and the old medical direction, "When taken to be well shaken," would have been death to most of them, so the halts were fixed at various intermediate wells, where zerebas had ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... feverishly anxious, could not rest, craved, partly to hear the latest news, partly to feel the pulse of Paris. One day after dinner, Chasles invited me to go into town with him, and when we arrived he took a carriage and drove about with me for two hours observing the prevailing mood. We heard countless anecdotes, most of them apocryphal, but reflecting the beliefs of the moment: The Empress had sent three milliards (!) in French gold to the Bank of England. The Emperor, who was jealous of Macmahon since the latter had ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... with his Bible, singing Psalms by himself and offering prayer. Till his student son felt, as he stood behind the counter for an hour in the afternoon, that he was like Aaron and Hur holding up his father's praying and prevailing hands. ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... greenish-purple, slaty and dove-coloured; others have a tinge of red more visible. The flowers are few, on twice-forked stems, are 2in. or more across, and commonly, as the name implies, of a purplish colour; the inner surface of the sepals is a slaty shade, the purple prevailing on the outer surface; the form of the flower is nearly round and slightly cupped, from the nearly round or kidney shaped sepals, which neatly overlap each other, and are also incurved at the edges; the petals ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... in the advance into Russia. At first, I must confess, I thought that this charming and intelligent lady had offered to work for us, especially as she refused our pay, in order to get information of the regiments and the prevailing diseases and sick rate of our army. Soon I had reason to know that she played the game, and stayed only in order to work to help the prisoners of her own people, and our wounded too. For any day her husband might want help from us or might be brought in wounded to our hospital, where ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... revelation of nebular forms, showed the spiral to be the typical shape. Indeed, it is a question whether all nebul are not to some extent spiral. The extreme importance of this discovery is shown in the effect that it has had upon hitherto prevailing views of solar and planetary evolution. For more than three-quarters of a century Laplace's celebrated hypothesis of the manner of origin of the solar system from a rotating and contracting nebula surrounding the sun had guided speculation on that subject, and had ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... must be remembered that in those days there were no such things as laws in the sense we now understand the term. There were magistrates who heard causes and complaints, but their decisions were based not on laws which had been enacted by the government, but upon prevailing custom and upon the innate sense of justice which was assumed to be present in the mind of every man. Whatever laws or rules therefore were in existence were not for the information of the people, but for ...
— Japan • David Murray
... signal being immediately given, both cavalry and infantry commenced an attack; some cut down the multitude pouring from the town, others hurried to the gates, others secured the towers, revenge and the hope of plunder prevailing over their weariness. Thus Vacca triumphed only two days in its treachery; the whole city, which was great and opulent, was given up to vengeance and spoliation. Turpilius, the governor, whom we mentioned as the only person that escaped, was summoned by Metellus to answer for ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... these quotations less on account of any merit which they possess, than to give our readers an idea of the general opinion prevailing in Germany in regard to our country; and to confirm an assertion made in a recent number of the International, that in no country in Europe are we so impartially and favorably judged. There is one particular, however, in which we find this book worthy of especial ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... also had strategic bearing. From the autumnal to the spring equinox the wind blows regularly from the northeast, at times with much violence, throwing a heavy surf upon the beach and making landing difficult; but during the summer months the prevailing wind is southwest, giving comparatively smooth seas and good weather. The "change of the monsoon," in September and October, is often marked by violent hurricanes. Active operations, or even remaining on the coast, were therefore unadvisable from this time until the close of the ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... few days the prevailing features of camp life for Madeline's guests were sleep and rest. Dorothy Coombs slept through twenty-four hours, and then was so difficult to awaken that for a while her friends were alarmed. Helen almost fell asleep ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... hesitates; in comparison Spartan methods are antiquated, but modern principles cannot help prevailing; in a stagnant state conservative institutions are the best, but when men are faced with various difficulties great ingenuity is essential; for that reason Athens through her wide ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... superstitious condition of the popular mind—with the actual bodily presence of the Devil as one of the participants; while it is also not improbable that, in some cases at least, heartless and evil-minded persons worked upon the prevailing credulity to further their own nefarious purposes. Our esteemed Bailiff has offered a suggestion or two of considerable value on this point with regard to certain Guernsey phases of the superstition. He thinks it highly ...
— Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands • John Linwood Pitts
... establishments of culture. They are institutions which teach one how to take part in the battle of life; whether they promise to turn out civil servants, or merchants, or officers, or wholesale dealers, or farmers, or physicians, or men with a technical training. The regulations and standards prevailing at such institutions differ from those in a true educational institution; and what in the latter is permitted, and even freely held out as often as possible, ought to be considered as a criminal offence in ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... piety, was the prevailing spirit; for this was one of the few annual holidays of the industrious ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... the soberness of later times than the quaint, irresolute, wayward prince whose chief characteristics have just been described. His titles of Confessor and Saint belong not to the general instincts of Christendom but to the most transitory feelings of the age." (I protest, No.) "His opinions, his prevailing motives, were such as in no part of modern Europe would now be shared by any educated teacher or ruler." (That's true enough.) "But in spite of these irreconcilable differences, there was a solid ground for the charm which ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... if they can get a good bathing place tolerably hidden from the world, take their bath or swim in nature's dress. In all these river-side towns and villages are public baths, swimming schools, and doubtless the prevailing love of water in these parts may partly account for the healthful looks and fine physiques of the population. In fact, people are as clean here as they are the reverse in Brittany, and the blue linen clothes, invariably worn by the men, are constantly ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... it is the prevailing opinion—that in a civil action for damages, a libel must be false as well as scandalous, and, consequently, that the truth may be pleaded in justification. This point, however, is not fully settled. The reason for this distinction between cases of public ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... neighboring widow—all the middle-aged women there are widows, with dim or dimmer memories of husbands lost off the Banks, or elsewhere at sea—who came in to get his meals and make his bed, and then had instructions to leave. It was in one of her prevailing absences that I arrived with my bag, and I had to hammer a long time with the knocker on the open door before Alderling came clacking down the stairs in his slippers from the top of the house, and gave me his somewhat defiant greeting. I could almost have said that he did not recognize me at ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... which Chester again seemed to be in a chafe, and put off his hat, and as she thought, scratched his head for anger: but when I saw, said she, that there was no prevailing to have my husband sent for, though I often desired them that they would send for him, that he might speak for himself; telling them, that he could give them better satisfaction than I could, in what they demanded ...
— Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners • John Bunyan
... meantime a Spanish engineer, Senor Torres, had been quietly working out a new idea. He realised the shortcomings of the prevailing types of airships some eleven years ago, and unostentatiously and painstakingly set out to eliminate them by the perfection of a new type of craft. He perfected his idea, which was certainly novel, and then sought ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... Confusion in Mr. de la Bruyere's Designs, that one cannot easily discover whether he intended to draw the Character of a particular Person, or to make a Picture of some prevailing Vice, or only a moral Reflexion.—Such is the [R]Article of Zenobia. Was it design'd for the Character of Zenobia? But 'tis rather a Description of the Magnificence, and beautiful Situation of the Palace, which she was then building. Or was it design'd to censure ...
— A Critical Essay on Characteristic-Writings - From his translation of The Moral Characters of Theophrastus (1725) • Henry Gally
... of Barbadoes. When examined with a pocket lens, the Arran earth is found to be full of small objects, clear as crystal, fashioned by some mysterious geometry into forms of exquisite symmetry. The substance is silica, a natural glass; and the prevailing shape is a six-sided prism capped at either end by little ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... north-eastern course, along the west-coast, or close by the east-coast, of Madagascar, and then tried to reach India coming from the west. To this route there were grave objections both as regards the winds prevailing in those latitudes, the intense heat soon encountered, the great number of "shallows or foul islands," etc. Besides, the voyage was apt to last very long. In 1611, however, certain ships going from the Netherlands to India followed another route: ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... defended; against the assault on the miracles the defense was really a shifting of the ground, and an insistence as by Butler on an ethical order in the observed workings of the world, which gives a sort of analogue and support to the Christian scheme of future retribution. In speculative thought the prevailing school, as in Locke, approached reality from the side of sense-knowledge, till Hume showed how this road led to a denial of miracle and in philosophy to a fundamental skepticism. Berkeley reverted to the ideal philosophy, ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... caught the prevailing mood. He, like the others left lingering about the silent building, had fallen into a reverie which, judging by his bright expression, was full of happiness. For many months, and for the first ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... every sight and sound was eloquent with the tenseness of preparation and the tragedy of the long fight. Soldiers were everywhere. Coats of blue, trousers of red, jackets of green, gave color and variety to the prevailing mass of sober khaki. Here too, dotting the hurrying throng, were the pathetic figures of the stricken and wounded, haggard, bandaged, limping, maimed, on canes and crutches, back from the front, released from the hospitals, seeking the rest ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... story is told or a natural phenomenon described; in the second, the spiritual application of the parable is formally set forth. This method became with him almost a trick of style, and his readers learn to look for the hoec fabula docet at the end as a matter of course. As for the prevailing optimism in Longfellow's view of life—of which the above passage is an instance—it seems to be in him an affair of temperament, and not, as in Emerson, the result of philosophic insight. Perhaps, however, in the last analysis optimism and pessimism are subjective—the ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... on the precarious ground of the Government's will, its continuance was assured under the circumstances of the time by its practical utility to Great Britain; for the trade of that country, and its vital importance in the prevailing wars, were developing at a rate which outstripped its own tonnage. The numbers of native seamen were likewise inadequate, through the heavy demands of the Navy for men. The concurrence of neutrals was imperative. Under the conditions it was ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... is remembered for her early advocacy of the higher education of women and for her faithful pictures of lowly Scottish life; "Letters of a Hindoo Rajah" and "Modern Philosophers" were clever skits on the prevailing scepticism and republicanism of the time; "The Cottagers of Glenburnie" ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... avowed intention of extirpating either the faith or the race—or, better still, the faith and the race. "The Irish," said Dr. Johnson, "bursting forth," as his biographer tells us, "with a generous indignation," "are in a most unnatural state, for we see there the minority prevailing over the majority. There is no instance, even in the ten persecutions, of such severity as that which the Protestants of Ireland have exercised against the Catholics." The Revolution, which had brought liberty ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... has the right in Cuba to execute upon American citizens or vessels any laws prevailing there, in the same way as they would execute them upon the Spaniards, unless they are prevented by the provisions of some treaty with the United States. The fact that the vessel in the harbor of Havana was flying a neutral flag could not protect it from ...
— Cuba in War Time • Richard Harding Davis
... was at the old home, and I read that book again, after not looking at it for more than thirty years; and I read it with amazement at its prevailing artistic vulgarity, its prevailing aesthetic error shot here and there with gleams of light, and of the truth that Reade himself was always dimly groping for. The book is written throughout on the verge of realism, with divinations ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... run we had come so far to the west that our course to Hobart was rapidly approaching true north. On the other hand, we should have liked to be able to take advantage of the prevailing winds, — the westerlies. These vary little from one year to another, and we found them much the same as we had been accustomed to before: frequent, stiff breezes from the north-west, which generally held ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... in the books. Indeed, I am acquainted with scarcely any writer on ornithology whose head is not muddled on the subject of our three prevailing song-thrushes, confounding either their figures or their songs. A writer in the Atlantic[A] gravely tells us the Wood-Thrush is sometimes called the Hermit, and then, after describing the song of the Hermit with great beauty and correctness, coolly ascribes it to the Veery! The new Cyclopaedia, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... talent for explaining this or anything to them; and you swam and fluttered on the mistiest, wide, unintelligible deluge of things for most part in a rather profitless uncomfortable manner." And the few vivid phrases of eulogy which follow seem only to deepen by contrast the prevailing hue of the picture. The "glorious islets" which were sometimes seen to "rise out of the haze," the "balmy sunny islets of the blest and the intelligible, at whose emergence the secondary humming group would all cease humming and hang breathless upon the eloquent words, till ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... advanced—here and there alternating with glades—the trees were of slender growth, and the foliage lighter and thinner. I was no longer among the heavy trunks of platanus and liquidambar. The leguminoseae were the prevailing trees; and many beautiful forms of inga, acacia, and mimosa, grew around. Myrtles, too, mingled their foliage with wild limes, their branches twined with flowering parasites, as the climbing combretum, with ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... demand. The monetary demand of a community at a given time is the sum of the monetary demands of the various individuals and enterprises. It is that stock of money which is necessarily present to effect the exchanges of the community in the prevailing manner at the existing price level. A single dollar as it circulates helps to supply the monetary demand of many individuals in turn: the more quickly each person spends the piece of money he receives, the greater its rapidity ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... enter the Sophomore year. I'm tired of teaching in a back country school. Some day I'm going to write a treatise on 'The Trials of a Country Schoolmarm.' It will be a harrowing bit of realism. It seems to be the prevailing impression that we live in clover, and have nothing to do but draw our quarter's salary. My treatise shall tell the truth about us. Why, if a week should pass without some one telling me that I am doing easy work for big pay I would conclude that I might as well order my ...
— Anne Of The Island • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... right, in nature and reason, the christian princes in Europe, claimed the lands of heathen people, upon a discovery made by any of their subjects, is equally mysterious. Such, however, was the doctrine universally prevailing, when the lands in America were discovered; but, as the people of England, upon those principles, held all the lands they possessed, by grants from the King, and the King had never granted the lands in America to them, it is certain they could have no sort of ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... problematical element in this matter is the measure of our faith in God and man and all-prevailing truth. Wherever the ground has been broken by faithful men there is a crop to show as returns for invested toil. More than a thousand children are now under Christian instruction in our schools. Our pupils are in hungry demand as teachers, even to a minimum of years that ...
— American Missionary, Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889 • Various
... arable land covered by human habitations does not yet interfere with agricultural products. So let us spread ourselves freely. When we have learned the beauty and the strength of co-operation for mutual helpfulness, we shall see the prevailing mode of constructing houses in cities very much modified. Now they stand as books are placed on their shelves,—vertically and edgewise. They would hold just as many people, and be far more convenient, if they could be laid ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... speeches, and had taken comparatively little part in every-day debate, he was now acknowledged, after his few months of service, to be one of the foremost men in the House, and the strongest leader in his party. He differed somewhat at this time from the prevailing sentiment of the Federalists in New England, for the guiding principle of his life, his love of nationality, overrode all other influences. He discountenanced the measures which led to the Hartford Convention, and ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... one hundred and fifty men of war. The levy completed, and the hundred new ships launched, Quintus Fabius held the election for the creation of censors, when Marcus Atilius Regulus and Publius Furius Philus were chosen. A rumour prevailing that war had broken out in Sicily, Titus Otacilius was ordered to proceed thither with his fleet; but as there was a deficiency of sailors, the consuls, in conformity with a decree of the senate, published ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... the inadmissibility of argument is due really to the authority of the philosopher, but that it lies ingrained in the character of the people. Indeed the genius of the one may be said to have consisted in divining the genius of the other. Confucius formulated the prevailing practice, and in so doing helped to make it perpetual. He gave expression to the national feeling, and like expressions, generally his, served to stamp the idea all the more ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... Amid the wild uproar prevailing around the gaming table that night the duel which had cost young Vorchtel his life was not mentioned until the last dice had been thrown. In the discussion the victor's betrothed bride had been named, and Siebenburg clearly remembered that he had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... hundred years, the spoils of Jerusalem were transferred from Rome to Carthage, by a Barbarian who derived his origin from the shores of the Baltic. These ancient monuments might attract the notice of curiosity, as well as of avarice. But the Christian churches, enriched and adorned by the prevailing superstition of the times, afforded more plentiful materials for sacrilege; and the pious liberality of Pope Leo, who melted six silver vases, the gift of Constantine, each of a hundred pounds weight, is an evidence of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... nation that already possessed them, in the hope that a victorious Germany could seize the colonies she desired. On the other hand, without war, she had gained some large colonies and was assured of others in Africa, and she had secured a prevailing influence over the immense domains of Turkey in Asia. By 1914 the Germans had more than half completed a railroad through Turkey to the Persian Gulf, and expected soon to dominate the eastern trade by ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... country in Europe—its envy and admiration—is also a hanging community par excellence, I must beg to remind him of the intense interest which an English public feels in the victims of capital punishment, in the Thurtells and the Fauntleroys; as also of the universal conviction prevailing in England, that the gallows is a short and sure cut to everlasting happiness. From all this, if there is any force in logic, we must conclude, that hanging, in this country, is only applied honoris causa, as an ovation, in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... was commonly held to be one of the great literary masterpieces of the world. It seemed to me that there must be some other Goethe and some other Wilhelm Meister. Indeed I find myself so depressingly out of harmony with the prevailing not opinion only, but spirit—if, indeed, the Huxleys, Tyndals, Miss Buckleys, Ray Lankesters, and Romaneses express the prevailing spirit as accurately as they appear to do—that at times I find it difficult to believe I am not the victim of hallucination; nevertheless I know that either ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... planned together, entered all sports together. They were inseparable. All were manly young fellows. When they entered Gridley High School, and caught the fine High School spirit prevailing there, they made the honor of the school even more ...
— The High School Captain of the Team - Dick & Co. Leading the Athletic Vanguard • H. Irving Hancock
... and adaptable man will conduct himself in sexual matters as in others according to the prevailing fashion. He will most often succeed in accommodating his sentiments to those of his conjoint. On the other hand, this average representative of normal mediocrity easily becomes the slave of routine and incapable of new ideas. However normal he may be, he has less faculty of adaptation or mental ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... custom prevailing at that time, kings sometimes arranged marriages for their children when they were only a few years old, and sometimes even when they were babies. All King Edward's children were engaged to be married before they could speak! It happened, however, ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... curtainless, and neutral except as to its blue valance, and the carpet only cocoa-nut matting, which, however, harmonized fairly with the prevailing ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... daring, vivacious and happy spirit—and acknowledged to be the best dancer and most popular girl in Middleville. Her dress, while not to be compared with her friends' costumes in costliness, yet was extreme in the prevailing style. ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... length, to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and, sooner or later, the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation on the ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... following record cannot fail to notice occasional inaccuracies in respect to persons, places, and dates; and, as a matter of course, will make due allowance for the prevailing prejudices and errors of the period to which it relates. That there are passages indicative of a comparatively recent origin, and calculated to cast a shade of doubt over the entire narrative, the Editor would be the last to deny, notwithstanding its general accordance ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... I was right, Ione,' said Glaucus, 'in prevailing on thee not to waste this beautiful noon in thy chamber—confess ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... fine Gentlemen among Us, who study other Accomplishments than That of Dress, by which they labour to recommend themselves to Company. The prevailing Artifice of their Conduct is, in every Stage of Action, to appear Great, and insinuate themselves to be thought the Favourites only of the Great. These nice Oeconomists, being equipped with one Thread-bare Suit, a German Wig, guilty of few or no Curls, and happy in a single ...
— The Theater (1720) • Sir John Falstaffe
... to ignore constitutional restraints on search and seizure, evidence obtained in violation thereof is made inadmissible against an accused in federal courts.[64] This is contrary to the practice prevailing in the majority of States and has been severely criticized as a matter of principle.[65] The Court has intimated recently that the federal exclusionary rule is not a command of the Fourth Amendment, but merely a judicially created rule of evidence which Congress could overrule. In Wolf v. ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... Lies like sweet wines: lie to me: I believe. Will ye not lie? not swear, as there ye kneel, And solemnly as when ye sware to him, The man of men, our King—My God, the power Was once in vows when men believed the King! They lied not then, who sware, and thro' their vows The King prevailing made his realm:—I say, Swear to me thou wilt love me ev'n when old, Gray-haired, and ...
— The Last Tournament • Alfred Lord Tennyson
... said Lord Crawford; "a soldier on duty should say naught of what he sees. Besides," he added after a pause, his own curiosity prevailing over the show of discipline which he had thought it necessary to exert, "why should these litters contain this very same ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... give your attention to the character of the background against which you are to appear. If it is a ball-room, and the occasion a costume-ball, is it done in light or dark colours, and what is the prevailing tone? See to it that you settle on a colour which will be either a harmonious note or an agreeable, hence impressive contrast, against the prevailing background. If you are to wear the costume on a stage or as a living picture against a background ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... idea of the exaggerations prevalent at this epoch, and of the horror inspired by the Bonapartists. However insignificant and petty Amelie's action may now seem to be, it was at that time a very natural expression of the prevailing hatred. Ginevra Piombo, one of Servin's first pupils, had occupied the place that was now taken from her since the first day of her coming to the studio. The aristocratic circle had gradually surrounded her. To drive her from a place that in ...
— Vendetta • Honore de Balzac
... was wholly insufficient to restrain the reckless and desperate men who congregated in the towns, and who thought no more of taking life than eating a meal. To put a stop to the frightful state of things prevailing, the more peaceful of the San Francisco citizens had also been obliged to organise a Vigilance Committee to carry out what was called Lynch law, a rough and ready method of justice subject to grave abuses under other circumstances, but admirably suited to such a condition of ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... the Senators referred to, with their allies in the House, had used such marvelous industry in organizing and drilling their forces, and the majority of the members knew so little about the question involved, that I found the chances decidedly against me. I was obliged, also, to encounter a prevailing but perfectly unwarranted presumption that the representatives of the mining States were the best judges of the question in dispute, while it was foolishly regarded as a local one, with which the old States had no concern. The clumsy ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... light from his eyes went out, and the tones of his voice ceased forever. Grief for the loss of his children, and remorse for the blight which he had brought upon his household, had undermined his constitution, never strong; and when a prevailing fever settled upon him it found an easy prey. In ten days' time Margaret and Walter alone were left of the happy band who, two years before, had gathered around the fireside ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... Mary and Joseph, or at least before the return from Egypt. Such, however, was the popularity of these family groups, and the desire to give them all possible variety, that the ancient version of the story was overruled by the prevailing taste, and St. Anna became an important personage. One of the earliest groups in which the mother of the Virgin is introduced as a third personage, is a celebrated, but to my taste not a pleasing, composition, by Lionardo da ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... accompanying the funeral of Vespasian. This archimimus performed his part admirably, not only representing the person, but imitating, according to custom, ut est mos, the manners and language of the living Emperor. He contrived a happy stroke at the prevailing foible of Vespasian, when he enquired the cost of all this funeral pomp—"Ten million of sesterces!" On this he observed that if they would give him but a hundred thousand they might throw ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... found that a very grave state of things was prevailing. The generals were in open dissension with Barclay for having suffered the enemy to overrun so many provinces, and for not making any dispositions to defend the line of ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... some time in pointing out, to James, the signs by which the hunters found their way through the forest; by the moss and lichens growing more thickly on the side of the trunks of the trees opposed to the course of the prevailing winds, or by a slight inclination of the upper boughs of the trees ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... way up the side of the "Mountain" or hill, as it more properly is, the total height being only about 700 feet. The plateau slopes somewhat and looks towards the south-east, and being protected by the hill behind it from prevailing winds, and having a good light soil, constitutes a very favorable situation for the growth of the Indian crops of corn and beans. The Mountain being an isolated rise in the great plain of the St. Lawrence, the plateau was also most favorably placed for look-out and defence. A hundred ...
— A New Hochelagan Burying-ground Discovered at Westmount on the - Western Spur of Mount Royal, Montreal, July-September, 1898 • W. D. Lighthall
... much better than I. He was heir to a fortune of about two hundred thousand pounds, left him by an uncle in the West Indies; and his guardians, to qualify him for the management of it, had bound him apprentice to an attorney. Thus avarice was his prevailing passion; all his questions on the road were how money might be saved—which was the least expensive course of travel—whether anything could be bought that would turn to account when disposed of again in London. Such curiosities on the way as could be seen for nothing he was ready enough to look ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... that in His reply to the casuistical Pharisees, Jesus announced no specific or binding rule as to legal divorces; the putting away of a wife, as contemplated under the Mosaic custom, involved no judicial investigation or action by an established court. In our Lord's day the prevailing laxity in the matter of marital obligation had produced a state of appalling corruption in Israel; and woman, who by the law of God had been made a companion and partner with man, had become his slave. The world's greatest champion of woman and womanhood ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... pyramids and among the stones of the walls of Dashur and El Kab studied by Unger, different species and varieties of cereals were discovered in large quantities, that showed their identity with the present prevailing cultivated races of Egypt. ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... so he talked of these things as opportunities which he had made for Stener and others. Shannon was not a financier, neither was Steger. They had to believe in a way, though they doubted it, partly—particularly Shannon.) He was not responsible for the custom prevailing in the office of the city treasurer, he said. He was a banker ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... reverses on the mainland of Greece had left the real sources of her power untouched; and taught her, if she would but take the lesson to heart, the proper limits of her empire. And she had risen to this height, not by the prevailing force of any single mind, but by the united efforts of all her citizens, working together for a whole generation, shunning no sacrifice, and shrinking from no exertion, in their devotion to the common mother ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... the 12th day of June, A.D. 1895,[34] attention was called to the serious civil disturbances, accompanied by armed resistance to the established Government of Spain, then prevailing in the island of Cuba, and citizens of the United States and all other persons were admonished to abstain from taking part in such disturbances in contravention of the neutrality laws of the United ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... explain so far as I am able. I suppose that I have committed nearly every one of the crimes which our abbreviated dictionary of modern life enumerates. If the truth were known about me, and I were judged by certain prevailing laws, not only my reputation but my life might be in serious danger. But there is one crime which I have not committed and which I do not intend to commit, one pain which I have avoided all my life myself, and avoided inflicting upon others. ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... manners, their address; and conform your own to them. But this is not all either; go deeper still; observe their characters, and pry into both their hearts and their heads. Seek for their particular merit, their predominant passion, or their prevailing weakness; and you will then know what to bait your ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Deschars furnishes his wife's chamber anew. Then he has his wife's diamonds set in the prevailing fashion. Monsieur Deschars never goes out without his wife, and never allows his wife to go out without offering her ...
— Petty Troubles of Married Life, Part First • Honore de Balzac
... the function of consciousness and its domain, we still leave a large field of activities untouched. And so we come to the conception of the subconsciousness. There are two prevailing sets ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... in, and soon darkness reigned around, the prevailing gloom being only broken by the fiery path of some bombshell winging its parabolic flight through the air, or the long tongue of fire darting forth from the mouth of a stray cannon; while, in the sky above, ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... This prevailing truthfulness of nature and of vision manifested itself in many ways. First. In the strength of it, he interpreted the lives, thoughts, feelings, manners of the Scottish peasantry to whom he belonged, as they had never been interpreted before, and never can be ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... bishops and archbishops have been chosen. They boast almost sixteen thousand writers, some of great distinction. Their monasteries furnished retreats where the scholar might study and write in spite of the prevailing disorder of the times. The copying of books, as has been said, was a natural occupation of the monks. Doubtless their work was often done carelessly, with little heart and less understanding. But, with the great loss of manuscripts due to the ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... their fears that they might run on some sand-banks and be lost. Then a whale was seen, which creature Columbus assured them never went far from land. Notwithstanding, they became uneasy at the calmness of the weather, declaring that as the prevailing winds were from the east, and had not power to disturb the torpid stillness of the ocean, there was the risk of perishing amidst stagnant and shoreless waters, and being prevented by contrary winds from ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... depths of the brook, and listening to the delicious liquid note of a blackbird swinging on the willow. Red lilies starred the grass with fire, and goldenrod and chicory grew everywhere; purple and orange and yellow-green the prevailing tints. ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... over, I turned in to my hammock. I had not been long asleep when my ears were saluted by the most unearthly sounds, so it seemed to me, that ever broke the stillness of night. A universal panic seemed to be prevailing. Men were rushing up on deck, shouting out that Old Nick himself had gained possession of the ship, some carrying their clothes with them, but others only in their shirts, leaving in their ...
— Paddy Finn • W. H. G. Kingston
... Old Testament. In every age fresh beauty and hidden treasure is found in its pages. Another phase of the Bible which has had a far reaching and lasting effect upon all language and literature, is its prevailing spirit of types and symbols. This is conspicuous both in the poetical books and in those that are didactic or historical. It has had the same influence on the thoughts and imagination of all Christian people and upon the poetry and imitative arts of the Middle ...
— The Interdependence of Literature • Georgina Pell Curtis |
