"Reality" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sing to himself over and over again, and go to bed at night quite hopeful and sanguine after a merry day spent among his many friends; and soon sink into sleep, persuaded that his trouble was a bad dream which next morning would scatter and dispel. But when he woke, it was to find the grim reality sitting by his pillow, and he couldn't dry-cup it away. The very sunshine was an ache as he went out and got his breakfast with his blue spectacles on; and black care would link its bony arm in his as he listlessly strolled by the much-sounding sea—and cling to him close as he swam or dived; ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... Staple as his home. Twice a year, as he went up to town, he stayed there for a couple of days; but he was soon looked on as a visitor, and the little Wilkinsons no longer regarded him as half a brother in reality and ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... ever thus, when Plato is with us," exclaimed Pericles. "He walks with his head among the stars—and, by a magic influence, we rise to his elevation, until we perceive the shadows of majestic worlds, known in their reality only to the gods. As the approach of Phoebus fills the priestess with prophecy, so does this son of Phoebus impart something of his own eloquence to all who come ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... pupils in the school, when she was first received but the work of conviction and conversion was a thorough one, and she has been enabled by the grace of God to offer constant and most efficient testimony to the reality of Christian experience, in the responsible position she has been called upon to fill in the ...
— The Women of the Arabs • Henry Harris Jessup
... lord, I have here a woman faced like the moon, and more melting than the peach that drops from the wall, the Old Man would straightway conceive what manner of beauty this was, and picture it more glorious than the truth could ever be; and then the reality would climb up to meet his imagining. But otherwise if he saw her barefaced before him; for eyesight is destructive to mind-sight if it precede it. The eye must be servant. So then he, dreaming of the veiled treasure, weds her and finds that she is just ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... to be set ashore at Helvoet all by myself and with no hope of any reward but the pleasure of embracing James More, if I should want to. But this was to reckon without the lass's courage. She had seen me leap with very little appearance (however much reality) of hesitation; to be sure, she was not to be beat by her discarded friend. Up she stood on the bulwarks and held by a stay, the wind blowing in her petticoats, which made the enterprise more dangerous, and gave us rather more of a view of her stockings than would be thought ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... way with us; we may go on half of our life not knowing such a thing is in us, when in reality it was there all the time, and all we needed was something to turn up that would call for it. Indeed, it was always so without family. My grandfather had a cancer, and they never knew what was the matter with him till he died, and he didn't know himself. It is wonderful how ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... airs of scepticism now; his imagination was stirred, and a sense of some unknown reality at the bottom of that which he had affected to treat before as illusion, inspired a strange ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... did not forget that it was impossible in the darkness to follow precisely his own course. Having emerged at a different point from where he entered, he was in reality following a different course, which might be the same as if it were a half mile farther up or ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... say any more for some minutes, and we were all silent and sorry, and Mel was fidgeting in a riot of repentance; we had never, either of us, heard a word of any romance of Aunt Pen's before. We began to imagine that there might be some excuse for the overthrow of Aunt Pen's nervous system, some reality in the overthrow. "You will leave this ring on my finger;" said she; by-and-by. "If Chauncey Read comes, and wants it, he will take it off. It will fit his finger as well now, I suppose, as it did when he wore it before he gave it to ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... lad grasped the reality of their position, for voices rose from the right bank of the river, to be answered from the left, and as the occupants of the boat came to the same conclusion, that the great trunk against which the boat had struck must have been placed there by their enemies, so many flashes of light streaked ...
— Hunting the Skipper - The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop • George Manville Fenn
... Minta put the letter on her knee, and dream and reality flowed together as she saw her own ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and which, when analysed in terms of Time and Space, produce the appearance of succession and motion. It requires a keener perception, unbounded by these limitations, to look through the glass at the Reality which is beyond. I propose then in a series of short views, through a window not hitherto unshuttered and in a direction which I believe has not before been attempted, to lead those of my readers who have the necessary aspiration, patience, and, above ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... him. Was he thinking of her own refusal to remove temptation out of the way of his wife when she first began to fall into her fatal habit? He was not in reality thinking of her at all, but her conscience pricked her, though her pride kept her silent. It was such an unheard-of course for a person in her station, that none but fanatics could expect her to take it. Quixotic, irrational, ...
— Brought Home • Hesba Stretton
... the electric light mains is opened, one of those canvas shelters is put over the top. Now there is nothing under that shelter—nothing but the bit of road it covers. The thing seems to be simply a stage accessory, planted there to give the encampment an aspect of reality. ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... philosophy on assertions which have nothing in them of theory or hypothesis; they are in immediate reference to three ultimate facts—namely, the reality of the law of conscience; the existence of a responsible will as the subject of the law; and lastly, the existence of evil—of evil essentially such, not by accident of circumstances, not derived from physical consequences, nor from any cause out of itself. The ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... merrier. The Ramsey girls seem to be amiable enough," returned Mr. Dawson who failed to see any reason for the little girl's vexation. Indeed, Alene herself could not define what was, in reality, the dismay any hostess might feel if called upon to entertain a group of people which she knows ...
— Peggy-Alone • Mary Agnes Byrne
... ever more or less friction, but Geordie had begun to take a fancy to him. Cullin would never have said what he did had he known the identity of Toomey's pupil, and Geordie argued that Cullin's gruff and insolent greeting was in reality a tribute to his powers—a recognition of the fact that he looked the part he ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... especially when I am accused of impiety by this Melitus. For clearly, if I should persuade you, and by my entreaties should put a constraint on you who are bound by an oath, I should teach you to think that there are no gods, and in reality, while making my defense, should accuse myself of not believing in the gods. This, however, is far from being the case; for I believe, O Athenians! as none of my accusers do, and I leave it to you and to the deity ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... I looked somewhat startled. Although, baldly stated, the fact may not seem calculated to affright, in reality there was something so weird about this unnatural bloom that I dropped it on the table. As I did so I uttered an exclamation; for in spite of the stranger's assurances on the point, I had by no means overcome my idea of the ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... fleeting shadows of popular opinion. He proposed, therefore, in all seriousness, that the citizens of his Republic should live under the despotic government of those who by 'slaving for it'[65] had acquired a knowledge of the reality which lay behind appearance. Comte, writing when modern science was beginning to feel its strength, made, in effect, the same proposal. Mr. H.G. Wells, in one of his sincere and courageous speculations, follows Plato. He describes a Utopia which is the result of the forcible overthrow ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... of finding the true ruler; and therefore are ready to acquiesce in any of the five or six received forms of government as better than none. And the best thing which they can do (though only the second best in reality), is to reduce the ideal state to the conditions of actual life. Thus in the Statesman, as in the Laws, we have three forms of government, which we may venture to term, (1) the ideal, (2) the practical, (3) the sophistical—what ought to be, what might be, what is. And thus Plato seems ...
— Statesman • Plato
... home pictured such a scene as that in which he was now taking a part, but how far short did the scene he had drawn come of the reality! Scarcely had the ship disappeared than the wind fell and the sea became like glass, while the sun shone with intense heat on the unprotected ...
— Paul Gerrard - The Cabin Boy • W.H.G. Kingston
... am not fond of far fetched descriptions, which may upon investigation prove to have originated more in the imagination of the author than in reality to exist." ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... he was saying. "It has no objective reality. Without light, we can see neither colors nor objects themselves. All objects are black in the dark, and in the dark it is impossible to see them. If no light strikes upon them, then no light is flung back from them to the eye, and so we have ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... shrug of his shoulders, as though rousing himself to present reality, a curious smile flickering on his lips, he brushed the pieces of paper into one hand, carried them to the empty fireplace, laid them down in a little pile, and set them afire. Lighting a cigarette, he watched them burn until the last glow had gone ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Emily would have yielded to her she would have arranged meetings at her own house between the lovers altogether in opposition to the father. Nevertheless there was a show of reason about what she said which Mr. Wharton was unable to overcome. And at the same time there was a reality about his girl's sorrow which overcame him. He had never hitherto consulted any one about anything in his family, having always found his own information and intellect sufficient for his own affairs. But now he felt grievously in want of some pillar,—some female pillar,—on ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... Nancy, you've heard of steamboats, and maybe you believed in them—of course you did. You've heard these cattle here scoff at them and call them lies and humbugs,—but they're not lies and humbugs, they're a reality and they're going to be a more wonderful thing some day than they are now. They're going to make a revolution in this world's affairs that will make men dizzy to contemplate. I've been watching—I've been watching while some people slept, and ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... admirers, and full of animation; the gayest among the gay at all their rural festivities, and apparently most gay when he was most dejected. Every one saw through this caprice, but himself; everyone saw that in reality she doted on him; but Eugene alone suspected the sincerity of her affection. For some time he bore this coquetry with secret impatience and distrust; but his feelings grew sore and irritable, and overcame his self-command. A slight misunderstanding ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... bed." The minister came (Mr. John Mor MacDougall was his name) and slept a night or two in the house, but the bocan kept away so long as he was there. Another visitor, Angus MacAlister Ban, whose grandson told the tale, had more experience of the bocan's reality. "Something seized his two big toes, and he could not get free any more than if he had been caught by the smith's tongs. It was the bocan, but he did nothing more to him." Some of the clergy, too, ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... bishops never claimed the power wielded by their successors in later times. These pretensions to supreme jurisdiction were founded upon the false decretals of Isidore and other forgeries, and constituted a corruption that should not be tolerated any longer in the Church. In reality the Pope was only the first among equals, empowered no doubt to carry on the administration of the Church, but incapable of making laws or irreformable decrees on faith or morals. He was subject to a General Council which alone enjoyed the prerogative of infallibility. ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... the fall; nevertheless, the descent takes place according to a scientific trajectory, the 'parabola,' of which the section of a cone by a plane furnished the prototype to the geometer's speculations. A figure, which was at first but a tentative glimpse, becomes a reality by the fall of a pebble ...
— The Life of the Spider • J. Henri Fabre
... had subsided, Buck turned to see Young Matt standing just outside the shed, ostensibly doing something with the belt that led to the burr, but in reality looking up the creek. ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... when tempted to be naughty, I was afraid to do what I knew was wrong lest, if I broke my side of what I felt to be a compact, the toothache would return. This little incident had a real influence over my early life, gave me a constant sense of the reality of a divine presence, and so helped to prepare me for the public confession of Christ as my Saviour a few years later, at the ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... leaves a comparatively slight impression. But when, after a night's sleep, one wakes up and sees the spire and the old walls full before him, that impression is very greatly deepened, and the whole scene becomes far more a reality. Now I was nearly a whole week at Stratford-on-Avon. The church, its exterior, its interior, the birthplace, the river, had time to make themselves permanent images in my mind. To effect this requires ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... more destructively with what she had, took his hand, and led him to the deed. From her imagination, again, she for her part takes refuge in unbelief and denial, declaring to herself and her husband that there is no reality in its representations; that there is no reality in anything beyond the present effect it produces on the mind upon which it operates; that intellect and courage are equal to any, even an evil emergency; and that no harm will come to those who can rule themselves ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... her deportment when the family was at last prepared for the outing, all were most amusingly represented. Doris was really a born actress, and so completely carried her audience with her that the lack of costumes and scenery was not felt in the force of the reality that she managed to throw into her part. Covered with glory, she gave place to her successor, who, while bewailing the hardness of her luck in having to follow so smart a performance, recited a humorous ballad which won peals of applause. Mrs. ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... This bravado did in reality astonish the Lacedaemonians. But they were still more alarmed at the formidable league that was formed against them. The Delphic oracle, which they consulted, in order to know by what means they should be successful in this war, directed them to ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... transports of joy these tributes of adoration to the woman whom she could no longer claim to be. Frederick, becoming intoxicated with his own words, came to believe himself in the reality of what he said. Madame Arnoux, with her back turned to the light of the lamp, stooped towards him. He felt the caress of her breath on his forehead, and the undefined touch of her entire body through the garments that kept them apart. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... and day for weeks the dread spot had been with her, in every dream she had watched men digging, digging—digging with frantic haste; and, as in her dreams, all strength seemed to fail, and some unseen power to hold her back, so now, in that frightful reality, her arms fell half paralyzed, and she could not lift her hand ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... like that at Amiens, was famous; every guidebook sings the praises of the regular features, the calm expression of the face; in reality the countenance is particularly fatuous and cold, beautiful but lifeless. How inferior to that of the twelfth century, the expressive and living God seated between the symbols of the Tetramorph in the tympanum of the ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... readily accepted Lambert Simnel as King of Ireland. He was crowned in the Cathedral of Dublin, and held a Parliament. After the defeat of this Pretender, the able and astute Henry VII saw that it was necessary without further delay to make the shadowy suzerainty of England over Ireland a reality. He accordingly persuaded the Irish Parliament to pass an Act which from the name of the Lord Deputy was known as "Poyning's Act." By this Act, all English statutes then existing in England were made of force in Ireland; the chief fortresses were secured to the Crown of England; and the Irish ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... passage."—Churchill cor. "The infinitive is distinguished by the word TO, which immediately precedes it."—Maunder cor. "It will not be a gain of much ground, to urge that the basket, or vase, is understood to be the capital."—Kames cor. "The disgust one has to drink ink in reality, is not to the purpose, where the drinking of it is merely figurative."— Id. "That we run not into the extreme of pruning so very closely."—See L. Murray's Gram., 8vo, p. 318. "Being obliged to rest for a little while on the preposition itself." Or: "Being obliged to rest a while ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... before him someone or something like a battered, ghostly edition of his sister. For a few moments there came upon him a sort of fear. The woman before him, with distorted features and burning eyes seemed hardly human, and the only thing that seemed a reality of his sister, as she had been, was her wealth of golden hair, and this was now streaked with grey. She eyed her brother with a long, cold stare; and he, too, as he looked and began to realise the actuality of her presence, found the hatred of her which ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... possible that she might conceal herself. She gained it, and placed herself in a position which allowed her to watch the door of her dwelling. All was silent for a long time—more than that space, which among my people, is called an hour, and she began to doubt the reality of what she had seen, imagining she had been deceived, and taken a stump for a human figure; and she was about to descend from the tree, where her situation had become uncomfortable, when suddenly a forest ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... with the old chief, apparently talking on nothing of importance, but in reality telling him with great glee of how he had succeeded in lulling the captain's suspicions. Presently the whole party reached the thicket in which the well was situated, and as the path was narrow they had to walk in single file, the children who were carrying the ...
— The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton - 1902 • Louis Becke
... more suitable to my circumstances than that, as above, my husband was so fuddled when he came to bed, that he could not remember in the morning whether he had had any conversation with me or no, and I was obliged to tell him he had, though in reality he had not, that I might be sure he could make to inquiry about ...
— The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c. • Daniel Defoe
... those plots were discovered, the Duke was sent into a sort of banishment to Blois. His son, who was then at Court with him, was, upon the pretext of a liaison with Mdlle. d'Hautefort, one of the ladies in waiting on the Queen (Anne of Austria), but in reality to prevent the Duke learning what was passing at Paris, sent with his father. The result of the exile was Rochefoucauld's marriage. With the exception that his wife's name was Mdlle. Vivonne, and that she was the mother of five sons and three daughters, nothing is known of her. While Rochefoucauld ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... forget anything I choose. Nor could anything he said, nor anything he may have become, horrify me. Don't you think I have pictured all that? I think of him every moment and I am not a coward. I have imagined things that may be worse than the reality." ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... Miss Huff's, but I said, "No, that may do for other times, but when I first enter this Fair ground as a Observer" (for in our visit to the Inside Inn we wuz only weary wayfarers, too tired to observe, and the Sabbath we felt wuz no time to jot down impressions). No, this day I felt wuz in reality our dayboo, and I sez impressively, "I will not go sneakin' in by any side door or winder, I'm goin' to ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... entertained about a woman's life in hospital service that I am tempted to transcribe a page from my own experience, in order that a glimpse may be had of its reality. Imagine me, then, in a small attic room, carpeted with a government blanket, and furnished with bed, bureau, table, two chairs, and, best of all, a little stove, for the morning is cold, and the lustrous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... confusion of the board-room, with the remains of the incense in the plates, would have shown them at once that the visit of the Phoenix had been no dream, but a radiant reality, but no one went into the board-room again that day; and next day, before the office was opened, it was all cleaned and put nice and tidy by a lady whose business asking questions was not part of. That is why ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... us and in our city. His description and drawn likeness have been published many times. There are those who aver that they have seen him in reality of the flesh walking through the ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... very talented author are also very good. There is just enough of the Irish manner of speech to convey the flavour of the way the twins and their relatives would have spoken, had they done so in English. Of course in reality it is likely that such children would have spoken in the Irish language, instead of just occasionally using an Irish word. But the book not only has a good story-line, but also conveys to its target audience, American ...
— The Irish Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... the liberty of varying from the forms in Knox's Book and exercising their own gifts. The charges made against the character of their prayers, in what is called the King's Declaration, but what was in reality the declaration of some of his prelates, is only intelligible on this supposition.[178] And the Assembly, as I read their deliverance, rather deny that the prayers of the readers were of the particular character charged than affirm they were the identical ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... conveyed in the saying of Aristotle that a wise man will make it his aim rather to avoid suffering than to attain pleasure. Men can in reality do very little to mitigate the force of the great bereavements and the other graver calamities of life. All our systems of philosophy and reasoning are vain when confronted with them. Innate temperament which we cannot greatly ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... pretty in its way," I said at last, "but it's a dream. Let's come back to reality. What I want to know is, what are you going to do in Brompton, let us say, ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... of this paper to collect together some of these facts and incidents of progress, in order to show that this is not a mere dream, but a stupendous reality. History shall be the inspiration of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... a very acute knowledge of what it is to be uncomfortable. His brain is not able to grasp death but it is quite capable of informing him that his fingers are cold. Often men receive credit for showing coolness and courage in times of danger when, in reality, they are not properly aware of the danger and through habit are acting automatically. The girl in Chicago who went back into the Iroquois Theatre fire to rescue her rubber overshoes was not a heroine. She merely lacked imagination. Her mind was capable ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... answered without impatience, grown suddenly thoughtful, less excited again, "and that's why it was true. No chance of clumsy senses deceiving one. It was direct vision. What is Reality, in the last resort," he asked, "but the thing a man's vision brings to him—to believe? There's no other criterion. The criticism of opposite types of mind is merely a confession ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... engineering advice when they found themselves up against knotty problems. This led to a more intimate relation with the young Cornell graduate, and in the end the boys suggested that he become the Assistant Scoutmaster. This office rather pleased him, for in reality Austin Ford was little more than a big boy ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters • Irving Crump
... Beresina, of the Earthquake at Lisbon, of the Plague at London, of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew, or of the stifling of the hundred and twenty-three prisoners in the Black Hole at Calcutta. But in these accounts it is the fact——it is the reality——it is the history which excites. As inventions, we should ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... home—the chicken-house, the pig-sty, the back fence with the broken elm tree in the corner, the railroad beyond. He could not believe that he had come to the place at all—he could not credit the reality of such nightmare sights as his eyes reported to him. He rushed about, stumbling over mountains of upheaved brown dirt, sliding down into craters that were filled with a strange, penetrating odour which caused his eyes to smart; and then clambering out again and running after men with lanterns, ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... passionate description, he bowed his head on her knees, and wept aloud. He had succeeded in rousing his own sympathy; he believed in his own grief. He had so feelingly played the part of a repentant sinner, an ardent lover, that for a moment probability and reality had become blended in one, and he felt himself thoroughly possessed ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... motherhood must be realised before the child can reach up to the Father of all. Then there is the atmosphere of the home, the real reverence for higher things, if it exists, affects even a little child more than is usually supposed, but children are quick to distinguish reality from mere conventionality though the distinction is only half conscious. Reality impresses, while conventionality is apt to bore. Even to quite young children Froebel's ideal mother would begin to show ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... faced me. "I am in your hands, Mr. Garland; do as you like. Mr. Mitchell told me this morning that he would yet convince you of the reality of the spirit world. He is assembling all the forces at his command, and will certainly do ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... the first Church represented in reality the smallest Church in number as well as in time and space, but the richest in its dramatic changes ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... that argue will yield, and only she that sends him back his own letters without reading them can give despair. He read therefore without a sigh, nor complained he on her rigours; and because it was too early yet to make his visit, to shew the impatience of his love, as much as the reality and resolution of it, he bid his page wait, and sent her back ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... For an instant they painted a vision for him, a picture of that slim and adorable creature crushed close in the great arms of St. Pierre, so close that she could not breathe. In that mad moment of his hurt it was almost a living, breathing reality for him there on the golden fore-deck of the scow. He turned his face toward the far shore, where the wilderness seemed to reach off into eternity. What a glory it was—the green seas of spruce and cedar and balsam, the ridges of poplar and birch rising like silvery spume ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... tame as a cat after a full meal. Nor did he derive any pleasure from the society of his craft at Newlyn. He hated the clatter of art jargon, he flouted all schools, and pointed out what nobody doubts now: that the artists of the Cornish village in reality represented nothing but a community of fellow-workers, all actuated indeed by love of art, but each developing his own bent without thought for his neighbor's theory. Barron indeed made some enemies before he had been in the place a week, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... breed our firmest facts of air; We make our own reality— We dream a thing and it is so. The fairest scenes we ever see Are mirages of memory; The sweetest thoughts we ever know We plagiarize from Long Ago: And as the girl on canvas there Is marvelously rare and fair, 'Tis ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... said nothing, and after a moment Conniston wiped the stain away and laughed softly, even before the shadow of pain had faded from his eyes. One of his hands rested on a wrist that still bore the ring-mark of a handcuff. The sight of it brought him back to grim reality. After all, fate was playing whimsically as well as tragically with ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... the dense, dark, miserable haunts of labour. Upon her bed of ashes, and amidst the squalid horrors through which they had forced their way, visions of such scenes—beautiful indeed, but not more beautiful than this sweet reality—had been always present to her mind. They had seemed to melt into a dim and airy distance, as the prospect of ever beholding them again grew fainter; but, as they receded, she had loved and panted ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... this narrative the scenes of the plantation rise before us, with a distinctness which approaches reality. We hear the sound of the horn at daybreak, calling the sick and the weary to toil unrequited. Woman, in her appealing delicacy and suffering, about to become a mother, is fainting under the lash, or sinking exhausted beside ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Brothers" (q.v., No. 12 of this collection), and which he shows to have spread into Europe from India. There are significant differences, however, between these two groups; and Benfey's treatment of them together causes confusion. In the "Skilful Companions" cycle, the extraordinary men are in reality servants of the hero, who sets out and wins the hand of a princess. They are picked up by chance. In the "Rival Brothers" cycle, on the other hand, the three (or four) brothers set out to learn trades and to win their fortunes, ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler
... an ass,' said Pringle, with a laugh which should have been careless, but was in reality merely feeble. 'She's ...
— A Prefect's Uncle • P. G. Wodehouse
... was the other girl; but Letty found it hard to see her as a reality. Besides, she had, in appearance at least, treated him badly. Might it not easily have come about that she, Letty, had caught his heart in the rebound? She quite understood that if the prince had fallen in love with her at first sight, there might be convulsion in his inner self without, ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... of the fact that this was my second love-affair, as if it were something to be proud of. My love for Matilda was remote as a piece of art, while my passion for Dora was a flaming reality. "Matilda only tortured me," I said to myself, without malice. "She treated me as she would a dog, whereas Dora is an angel. I would jump into fire for her. Dora dear! Sweetheart mine!" I had not ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... had charge of one watch with one of the seamen and Mr Scuttle under him, and I took the other with the other seaman, Tom Rockets and the boy. Tom had not got over his innocent country look, though he was sharp enough in reality, and did his duty as a seaman very fairly. Old Grampus, who had taken a fancy to him, was always teaching him something or other likely to prove useful. "Now, Tom, you may be no wiser nor a young gull as has never learned to fly," I heard ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... you set one foot in that maze we shall both roll down a precipice where I shall perish—but with your name upon my lips, your heart in my heart. Why hold me so high in that heart and yet so low in reality? What! you who give credit to so many as to money, can you not give me the charity of faith? And on the first occasion in our lives when you might prove to me your boundless trust, do you cast me from my throne in your heart? Between a madman and me, it is the madman whom you choose ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... sister, who was going to wait for the selection, in the second place to see his relatives, and in the third to enter personally the capital, (professedly) to settle up long-standing accounts, and to make arrangements for new outlays, but, in reality, with the sole purpose of seeing the life ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... no dream. Certain solid facts convinced me of its stern, astounding reality. The man upon whose body I had helped to make an autopsy was ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... unfortunately the hope of gain made them risk so great a danger. At this period, too, there was not a single vessel in the bay to protect us. The known partiality of all the tribes for Europeans was the only consolation we had; and we endeavoured to cheer each other with this hope, under what in reality might be considered ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... that Sir Richard Calmady intervened. He had watched his cousin's struggle, had accepted its reality, sympathising, through friendship rather than through moral or intellectual agreement. For he was one of those fortunate mortals who, while possessing a strong sense of God, have but small necessity to define Him. Many ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... readers to take him seriously, for he says that women have greater delicacy of touch and facility of manipulation than men, and that their hands are less awkward and their fingers more lissom than those of the sterner sex. In poetry, my minstrel, yes; in reality, bosh. Where are your women conjurors? You say that their brain is not strong enough to second their manual advantage, but that they can "knock off" a pretty water-colour or oil study of flowers, or a graphic caricature! Caricature, indeed! Perhaps ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... to now had been pleasantly and superficially stirred, suddenly saw the play from a new angle. With quick imagination she visualized the great reality of which all this was but a clever sham. She saw Quin passing through it all, not to the thunder of stage shrapnel and the glare of a red spot-light, but in the life-and-death struggle of those eighteen ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... editor of the Boston Chronotype, and other gentlemen of ability and intelligence, have visited Worcester, and examined the whole process and the apparatus employed in it, and are perfectly convinced of the reality and importance of the discovery. A similar discovery is said to have been made recently in Paris. Mr. Paine has received from England letters patent for ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... seemed to speak so promptly from the heart as those touching words of love to an old friend. To himself they might well have been applied in all truthfulness and sincerity. Of the famous group of New England singers, that gave strength and reality to American letters, but three names survived until the other day, when, perhaps the greatest of them all passed away. Whittier and Holmes remain, but Lowell, the younger of the three, and from whom so much was still expected, is no more to gladden, to delight, to ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... "but it is a religion of the imagination. It has a certain beauty and a poetic charm, while the Christian religion has the reality of the principle that kindliness is the real gold of life, which I ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... Curiously enough, the tale I had heard at the ruined castle tallied in the main with the monkish documents here preserved. Indeed it supplied me with knowledge of much which otherwise I would not have comprehended so completely. The horrible reality of that weird recital was still fresh and distinct before me, undimmed by time and unforgotten ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... it's done once more before playing," parried Evan, who was in reality beginning to hanker after the game. It would, he figured, be almost as much fun looking on as playing—one ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... The daughter of Duke Aymon stood aghast, And silent listened to the speech; while she Knew not, sore marvelling at all that passed, If 'twere a dream or a reality. At length, with modest brow, and eyes down cast, Replied (like one that was all modesty), "And is this wrought for me? and have I merit Worthy the workings of ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... himself. He feared to ask for her hand, yet did not fear to seduce her! The thing is so absurd that it vitiates all the play, which indeed but once or twice approaches aught that we can figure to ourselves of reality in any period of history. "Mediaeval" is a strange adjective, used by Mrs. Orr to characterise a work of which the date is placed by Browning ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... sweep over the autumnal foliage. Sudden as a sigh, and cold; in her ear it sounded like a whisper or a shudder, and she lifted up her eyes and saw the darkening dell before her; and with a pang, the dreadful sense of reality returned. She stopped, with something almost wild in her look. But with an effort she smiled, and said, with a little shiver, 'The air has grown quite chill, and the sun nearly set; we loitered, Stanley and I, a great deal too long in the park, but I am now at home, and I ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... though older by a year, might have passed for being several years younger. He was in reality two and thirty years of age, but his clear complexion was that of a boy, his dark brown hair curled closely on his head, and his soft brown eyes had a young and trustful look in them, which contrasted strangely with his brother's hard and dominating expression. He was ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... brethren who were present: 'How fair must be that heavenly Jerusalem, if the earthly Rome be thus magnificent! And if in this world such honour is paid to the lovers of vanity, what honour and glory shall be bestowed on the Saints who behold the Eternal Reality.' With many such words as these did the blessed Fulgentius debate with them in a profitable manner all that day, and now with his whole heart earnestly desiring to behold his monastery again, he sailed swiftly ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... material: but it is invisible. The allegorical is that which is shadowy and doth but exist in the fantasy. If I say of these my daughters, they be my jewels, I speak allegorically: for they be not gems, but maidens. But I do not love them in an allegory, but in reality. Love is a moral and spiritual matter, but no allegory. So, Heaven is a spiritual place, but methinks not ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... interruption of her meditations from any external circumstance of interest and amusement, she became pensive, absent, wrapt herself up in contemplations which withdrew her attention from the conversation around her, and walked in the world of reality like one who is still in a dream. When she thought of her engagement with the Constable of Chester, it was with resignation, but without a wish, and almost without an expectation, that she would be called upon to fulfil it. She had accomplished her vow by accepting the ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... or brick, gives greater strength by binding the whole together. This has not always a good excuse for extending beyond the wall-face. But a projecting belt of brick adds nothing either in appearance or in reality. If horizontal lines are required to diminish the apparent height of the building or affect its proportions, make them of brick of different color from those of the main wall or laid in different position. Remember this; fanciful ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... beneficial, and the like? For that this entire apparent world, in which good and evil actions are done, &c., is a mere illusion, owing to the non-discrimination of (the Self's) limiting adjuncts, viz. a body, and so on, which spring from name and form the presentations of Nescience, and does in reality not exist at all, we have explained more than once. The illusion is analogous to the mistaken notion we entertain as to the dying, being born, being hurt, &c. of ourselves (our Selfs; while in reality the body only dies, is ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... celebrated scribes. I have, however, found writers superior to their books, and I cling to my first belief that a strong head will dispose fast enough of these impediments, and give one the satisfaction of reality, the sense of having been met, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the professional nurse and would read, talk, or listen, as he wished. He spoke disjointedly one day and wove reality and ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... her eyes, and thus forced her to tell him what was troubling her, on the assumption that he could deal with her answer. But this was outside his experience. He did not know anything about girls; he had hardly believed in the positive reality of girlhood; it had seemed to him rather a negative thing, the state of not being a woman. But in the light of her gentle, palpitant distress, he saw that it was indeed so real a state that passing from it to the state of womanhood would be as terrible as if she had to ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... ground like the Ithaca of Odysseus, [Greek: traechsi all agathae koyrotrophos], "rough, but a nurse of men;" of some life like that which a poet of kindred spirit to Wordsworth's saw half in vision, half in reality, among the husbandmen of the ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... melodious tumult of praise, and to remember that in less than a week he would be standing there among the novices and adding his voice. It seemed to him as if he had already come into the heart of life that he had felt pulsating round him as he swam in the starlight a month before. It was this that was reality, and the rest illusion. Here was the end for which man was made, the direct praise of God; here were living souls eager and alert on the business of their existence, building up with vibration after vibration the eternal temple of glory in which God ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... of wit and humor by which the way was enlivened during this cold and tedious journey. The scene was certainly a rude one, and seems more like a dream than a reality, when we remember that it occurred not very many years ago, in a State which contains hardly less than three millions of people and seven thousand and six hundred miles ...
— A Cousin's Conspiracy - A Boy's Struggle for an Inheritance • Horatio Alger
... no further inquiries. From Daisy's point of view, he seemed to be standing motionless, but in reality he was quite unconsciously, though very deliberately, pulling the tassel ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... then," said the gentleman, after a dismal pause, "why you wouldn't paper a room with representations 10 of horses. Do you ever see horses walking up and down the sides of a room in reality—in fact? Do you?" ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... influence upon her stomach as to excite vomiting, and upon her heart as almost to arrest its motion and induce fainting, can we believe that it will have no effect upon her womb and the fragile being contained within it? Facts and reason then, alike demonstrate the reality of the influence, and much practical advantage would result to both parent and child, were the conditions and extent of ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... ever-to-be-lamented death, wrote about Canada: "We are two peoples to all intents and purposes, and it is a perilous delusion to both parties to attempt to keep up a sham connection and dependence, which will snap asunder if it should ever be put to the strain of stem reality. It is all very well for our cockney newspapers to talk of defending Canada at all hazards. It would be just as possible for the United States to sustain Yorkshire in a war with England as for us to enable Canada to contend against ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... very angry, admittedly not without cause. Forgetting his conversation to a belief in the reality of Menzi's magic, he talked in a loud voice about the disgrace of being infected with vile, heathen superstitions, such as he had never thought to hear uttered by his wife's Christian lips. Dorcas, however, stuck to her point, and enforced it by a domestic ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... or psychic being, has external and internal perceptions (for which it has cerebral organs). When the former predominate too greatly, the human body and all external objects are realized most vividly, and the reality of psychic life is not so well realized or understood. Hence persons so organized are disposed to materialism, and either doubt the existence of their psychic being, or ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, April 1887 - Volume 1, Number 3 • Various
... he'll clap on your head a big wig uv snow-white hair, fallin' all about your shoulders an' he'll buckle a silver sword to your side, an' he'll say: 'Gentlemen, him that hez long been known ez Shif'less Sol, an' desarvin' the name, but who in reality is the King o' France, is now before you. Down on your knees an' say ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... callus appears in from fourteen to twenty-one days, and can hardly be relied upon till the fourth or sixth week. The disturbed perspective produced by divergence of the rays may cause the fragments of a fracture to appear displaced, although in reality they are in good position. If the limb and the plate are not parallel, the bones may appear to be distorted, and errors in diagnosis may in this way arise. In this relation it should be mentioned that ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... forgotten your description? The stately palace with its architecture, each pillar with its architecture, those pilasters, that frieze; you ought to know them all. Somewhat less than you imagined in size, perhaps; a fairy reality, inches for yards; that is the only difference. And ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... hand them over to a mill owner in want of hands, who would come and examine their height, strength, and bodily capacities, exactly as did the slave owners in the American markets. After that the children were simply at the mercy of their owners, nominally as apprentices, but in reality as mere slaves, who got no wages and whom it was not worth while even to feed and clothe properly, because they were so cheap and their places could be so easily supplied. It was often arranged ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... unconscionable to cram the child's mind with these preposterous fables. I pictured the poor little chap's disappointment when the bleak reality came to stare him in the face. To my mind, his father was worse than an idiot, and I could hardly bring myself to greet him next morning, ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... parents! What would they say? Her father and mother soon now must learn that she had been deceiving them day after day. How horrified and amazed they would be to learn that the chauffeur she had brought into the household was in reality a government detective, and that she, their daughter, had been a witness of his tragic death. What would they think when they learned about her part in this gruesome drama that had just been enacted? They, serene in their trust in her, supposing she was at ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... from minute to minute whether we were planning for a world of solid reality, or telling ourselves fairy tales about this prospect of life. So much seemed possible, and everything we could think of so improbable. There were lapses when it seemed to me I could never be anything but just the entirely unimportant and undistinguished ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... modern French duel is ridiculed by certain smart people, it is in reality one of the most dangerous institutions of our day. Since it is always fought in the open air, the combatants are nearly sure to catch cold. M. Paul de Cassagnac, the most inveterate of the French duelists, had suffered so often in this way that ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... proposed in the table for the station district because in the province that estimate would be almost impossible to make. Different missions have different ideas, and their estimates have for themselves some reality; but they have no reality for others, and a mere average of the estimates given for all the missions of the province would have still less reality. It would be an absurd guess, meaning nothing. If we want to judge progress in ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... was occasion, he found within himself the vigour necessary for rapid and earnest action. Perseus devised comprehensive and subtle plans, and prosecuted them with unwearied perseverance; but, when the moment arrived for action and his plans and preparations confronted him in living reality, he was frightened at his own work. As is the wont of narrow minds, the means became to him the end; he heaped up treasures on treasures for war with the Romans, and, when the Romans were in the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... diametrically than the capital, is really shorter measured vertically. There is a reason for this. The eye must travel a greater distance to reach the upper end of the shaft, and is also at a greater angle to that part of the shaft, hence it appears shorter, while it is in reality longer. For this reason a capital must be longer or taller than the base of a shaft, and it is also smaller ...
— Carpentry for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... wife that Princess Henrietta Maria of France whom he and Buckingham had first seen dancing in a royal masque, during their holiday visit in disguise to Paris. The romance of his life was over. The reality was ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... instantly. He was caught in the whirlpool which some of the farmers had spoken about in a vague manner, as though they doubted its existence. There was no doubt about it now. The whirlpool was a stern reality, and he was fast ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... was to conquer in the strength of the Spirit of God and "by the word of his mouth." Such as these were ready for a ministry like John's, and not unready for the new ideal which Jesus was about to offer them, though their highest spiritualization of the Messianic hope was but a shadow of the reality which Jesus asked ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... it was a thing made in lumps and kept somewhere in Heaven, and that when people prayed for it, pieces were somehow let down and fitted into their souls. I am not sure that views as gross and material are not often held by people who ought to be wiser. In reality, Joy is as much a matter of Cause and Effect as pain. No one can get Joy by merely asking for it. It is one of the ripest fruits of the Christian life, and, like all fruits, must be grown. There is a very clever trick in India called the mango trick. A seed is put in the ground and covered ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... interest stories is the pathetic story. Although it does not openly strive for pathos, it is pathetic in that it tells the story of a human misfortune, simply and clearly, with all the details that made the incident sad. It is the story that attempts to put the reader into the very reality of the pain and sorrow of every human life. Sometimes it makes him cry, sometimes it makes him shudder, and sometimes it disgusts him, but it always shows him misfortune as it really is. It looks down behind the outward actions and words into the hearts of its actors and shows us motives and feelings ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... belong to this class. And in Assyria where doorways were several yards deep and two or three wide, these sills were in reality the pavements of ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... the pagan world with a profound lesson that the future is greater than the present; that there is to be a day of rewards and punishments. Amid all the miseries and desolations of society, it was a great thing to bear witness to the reality of future happiness and misery. The hope of immortality must have been an unspeakable consolation to the miserable sufferers of the Roman Empire. It gave to them courage and patience and fortitude. It inspired them with hope and peace. Amid the ravages of disease, and the incursions of barbarians, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... shot the spark leaped, but did not go out. After the second there was no longer the fiery, creeping thing on the floor, and, crushing his head back against the sacks, Howland sat for many minutes as if death had in reality come to him in the moment of his deliverance. After a time, with tedious slowness, he worked a hand into his trousers' pocket, where he carried a pen-knife. It took him a long time to saw through the rawhide thong ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... fact, not at all spoiled. Even this suspicion of a lack of the gift of seeing that the violet 'neath a mossy stone is a good deal more than that—the chief good quality George had—around which I have been writing in these pages, seems to be more a suspicion than a reality; for recently he has once or twice ventured on discussions of such matters with a confidence and an insight which put me—me, who have plumed myself on my mental St. Simeon's tower, like a detestable intellectual ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... little did he suspect that the man who on the morrow was to become his son-in-law—who was to lead to the altar his only child, that pure and gentle girl—little, we say, did he suspect that the Chevalier Duvall was in reality a branded villain of the blackest dye—a man whose soul was stained by the commission of almost every crime on the dark catalogue of guilt. And as little did he think that his warm political and personal friend, the Honorable Timothy Tickels—the man of ample wealth, of unbounded ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson
... capital my father started with. For fifteen years an invalid, he had a fearful struggle to support his large family. Nothing but faith in God upheld him. His recital of help afforded, and deliverances wrought, was more like a romance than a reality. He walked through many a desert, but every morning had its manna, and every night it's pillar of fire, and every hard rock a rod that could shatter it into crystal fountains at his feet. More than once he came to his last dollar; but right behind that last dollar he found Him who ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... majority of the carvings, instead of being, as assumed, exact likenesses from nature, possess in reality only the most general resemblance to the birds and animals of the region which they were doubtless ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... the pursuit of science, to collect stores of knowledge and acquire an ever-increasing mastery over the forces of nature. Here the national domain is offered and held in millions of separate freeholds, so that our fellow-citizens, beyond the occupants of any other part of the earth, constitute in reality a people. Here exists the democratic form of government; and that form of government, by the confession of European statesmen, "gives a power of which no other form is capable, because it incorporates every man with the state and arouses ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... dubious); or possibly at once (Miss Vivian smiled in hurried approval). She was eager to be gone. And when she had gone he stood deliberating. Miss Quincey was a pathological abstraction, Miss Vivian was a radiant reality; it was clear that Miss Quincey was not urgent, and that once safe in her bed she could very well wait till to-morrow; but when he thought of Miss Vivian he became impressed with the gravity and ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair |
