"Singleness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... whose proportions were evidently no more to be regulated by the laws hitherto observed in detached colonnades. The column expanded into the shaft, or into the huge pilaster rising unbanded from tier to tier; shaft and pilaster were associated in ordered groups, and the ideas of singleness and limited elevation once attached to them, swept away for ever; the stilted and variously centered arch existed already: the pure ogive followed—where first exhibited we stay not to inquire;—finally, and chief of all, the great mechanical ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... authority had been confided to Leicester. He had not perhaps proved himself extraordinarily qualified for his post, but he was the governor-in-chief, and his departure, without resigning his powers, left the commonwealth headless, at a moment when singleness of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... course for Le Bourget. No more acrobatics and no more hedge hopping. To an observer below they would have resembled two homing pigeons flying rather close together and maintaining their positions with a singleness of ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... regarding the natural world, are recorded in the Old Testament; but they are not there merely to perpetuate history nor to increase the total of scientific knowledge, but rather because they concretely illustrate and impress some vital ethical and spiritual truth. Such singleness of religious purpose is paralleled nowhere else except in the work and teachings ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... besetting sin of man! None may speak of her inclinations, Captain Ludlow, but herself. It never shall be said, that any of the sex had aught but fitting reverence for their dependent state, their constant and confiding love, their faithfulness in all the world's trials, and their singleness of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... and clearness of Haeckel's deductions, the extent of his knowledge, and the singleness of his aim, to which he makes them all subservient, lend {50} to his works a great charm. But on the other hand we dare not conceal that, even on the ground of explanations belonging purely to natural history, the character of hypothesis is often ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... became a quasi-religious movement, ministers and churches, without any very far-reaching hopes and plans, labouring to bring about a spirit which should induce men to renounce Masonry; and in their zeal they worked with the singleness of thought and the accepted methods that dominate ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... obedience than he can gather from the constraint of duty or from the promptings of affection. Let the master be holy, and while he upholds authority he will dispense blessing. Let the servant be holy, and service will be rendered with cheerfulness, "not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God." Let the man be holy, and vigorous health and lofty intellect and swaying eloquence and quenchless zeal will all be offered to God. Let the woman be holy, and patient prayer will linger round the cross, and ardent ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... self-absorption Gift of waiting for things to happen He's so resting Life alone is credible to the young Morbid egotism Motives lie nearer the surface than most people commonly pretend Real artistocracy is above social prejudice Singleness of a nature that was all pose Submitted, as people always do with the trials of others Sunny gayety of self-forgetfulness Understood when I've said something that doesn't mean anything We change whether we ought, or not When she's really sick, she's better Women don't seem to belong very much ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of William Dean Howells • David Widger
... speedily transferred Pao-y into the I Hung court, where they stretched him out comfortably on his own bed. Then after some further excitement, the members of the family began gradually to disperse. Hsi Jen at last entered his room, and waited upon him with singleness ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... conviction, that the existing system of government, if not the most eligible that could have been devised, was at least unproductive of those glaring ill consequences, with which it has subsequently been attended. A singleness of design and a unity of action, could not be deviated from during the period of its infancy by the most ignorant and inexpert bungler in political science. There was a broad path open to its government, which it could not possibly mistake. The colony as yet entirely ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... beauty of the irrational soul of the mind, that is, of the lower animal—which is singleness. The simplicity, the integrity, the one thing at a time, of a good animal's eyes is a great beauty, and is apt to cause us to exaggerate our sense of their expressiveness. An animal's eyes, at their best, are ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... possible to say something more. Such in fact is the simplicity, the truth, and the loveliness of Juliet's character, that we are not at first aware of its complexity, its depth, and its variety. There is in it an intensity of passion, a singleness of purpose, an entireness, a completeness of effect, which we feel as a whole; and to attempt to analyze the impression thus conveyed at once to soul and sense, is as if while hanging over a half-blown ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... and Smith's brother Hyrum to write to the Missouri brethren. In this letter they were told plainly that, unless the rebellious spirit ceased, the Lord would seek another Zion. To Phelps the message was sent, "If you have fat beef and potatoes, eat them in singleness of heart, and not boast yourself in these things." It was, however, as a concession to this spirit of complaint, according to Ferris, that Smith announced the "revelation" which placed the church in the hands of a supreme governing body ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... after he had the news from Lawyer Means, he could not sleep until nearly morning. He lay awake, spending, mentally, principal and interest of his little fortune over and over, and spending, besides that, much of the singleness and unselfishness ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... complete and glaring contrast with what he had repeatedly written in his Antiquities and his Wars about the strife of different sects. His books would have supplied the best argument to any pagan criticising his apology. Josephus further ascribes to the singleness of the tradition the absence of original genius among the people. The excellence of the Law produces a conservative outlook, whereas the Greeks, lacking a fixed law, love a new thing. S.D. Luzzatto, the Hebraist of the middle of the nineteenth century, emphasized ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... affection of the will and the consequent thought of the understanding in the head. Suppose, now, one body to have several heads and each head to be free to act from its own understanding and its own will, could such a body continue to exist? For among several heads singleness of purpose, such as results from one head would be impossible. As in the church, so in the heavens; heaven consists of myriads of myriads of angels, and unless these all and each looked to one God, they would fall away from one another and heaven would ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... I don't deserve it; it scorches me," he protested with eyes suddenly grave and glowing. "The 'one' is of course one's self, one's conscience, one's idea, the singleness of one's aim. I think of that pure spirit as a man thinks of a woman he has in some detested hour of his youth loved and forsaken. She haunts him with reproachful eyes, she lives for ever before him. As an artist, ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... stir of his better nature, this clearing of his mental eyesight under the light of a bright example, that made him call the little torch-bearer his good angel. If this were truth, this purity, uprightness, and singleness of mind, as conscience said it was, where was he? how far wandering from his ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... one or another enquirer taking up this book will ask, to begin with, "What is a Herbal Simple?" The English word "Simple," composed of two Latin words, Singula plica (a single fold), means "Singleness," whether of ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... living. His address is a fine combination of dignity with the desire to confer happiness,—of perfect deference to the feelings of others with absolute certainty of himself and his own opinions. He is a remarkable example of the educating influence of tactful perception, combined with entire singleness of aim, considered quite apart from its moral character. His early life was passed among the uncouth and illiterate; his daily associations, since he embraced Mormonism, have been with the least cultivated grades of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... least Dr. Harry Ironside did. He was a young fellow born to be popular whether he would or not; handsome, with pleasant manners, kind-hearted, possessed of a respectable competence independent of his profession, to which he brought considerable abilities and great singleness of purpose. Everybody "took" to him, from crusty Mr. Foljambe to jaunty Mr. Lyle; from Miss Perkins, whose ear-trumpet he improved upon, to old Susan, into whose gold-rimmed spectacles he put new glasses which made her see like a girl ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... Jesuits established a remarkable system of schools, noted for their thoroughness, for their singleness of purpose, for their rapid growth, and for their trained teachers. They gave little attention to primary education, but sought to reach the higher classes. Emulation was ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... any in his writings of the inevitable and unfathomable consequences of sin. But, as the story went on, it was incident to these designs that what had been accomplished in its predecessor could hardly be attained here, in singleness of purpose, unity of idea, or harmony of treatment; and other defects supervened in the management of the plot. The interest with which the tale begins has ceased to be its interest before the close; and ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... clear to Garrison the man's singleness of purpose had left his mind impaired. He began to see how a creature so bent on some wondrous solution of the flying-machine enigma could even become so obsessed in his mind that to murder for money, insurance benefits, or anything else, would seem a fair means ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... this letter comes from by opening slap-dash upon the text, as in the good old times. I never could come into the custom of envelopes,—'tis a modern foppery; the Plinian correspondence gives no hint of such. In singleness of sheet and meaning, then, I thank you for your little book. I am ashamed to add a codicil of thanks for your "Book of the Church." I scarce feel competent to give an opinion of the latter; I have not reading enough of that kind to venture at it. I can only say the ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... extraordinary tenacity and single-mindedness, he had climbed from rung to rung of the ladder of fame, until now he was a member of the Berlin Academy, and there was every reason to believe that he would shortly be promoted to the Chair of the greatest of German Universities. But the singleness of purpose which had brought him to the same high level as the rich and brilliant Englishman, had caused him in everything outside their work to stand infinitely below him. He had never found a pause in his studies in which to cultivate the social graces. It was only when he spoke of his own subject ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... pressure from Arkansas for assistance was too great. Blunt sympathized with Phillips more than he dared openly admit and tacitly sanctioned his advance. Never at any time could there have been the slightest doubt as to the singleness of the virile Scotchman's purpose. In imagination he saw his adopted country repossessed of Indian Territory and of all the overland approaches to Texas and Mexico from whence, as he supposed, the Confederacy expected to draw her grain and ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... were exclusively composed of women, positive results would show. For, in Russian novels, the irresolution of the men is equalled only by the driving force of the women. The Russian feminine type, as depicted in fiction, is the incarnation of singleness of purpose, and a capacity to bring things to pass, whether for good or for evil. The heroine of "Rudin," of "Smoke," of "On the Eve," the sinister Maria of "Torrents of Spring," the immortal Lisa of "A House of Gentlefolk," the girl in Dostoevski's "Poor Folk;" Dunia ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... some slight clue to the secret of Sir Thomas Blunt's rise in the world. It certainly suggests singleness of purpose, which is one ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... whom you justly call our apostle, during the bustle and gaiety of a court, may yet find better acceptance during the leisure for reflection which this place affords. God knows, lady, that I speak in singleness of heart, as one who would as soon compare himself to the immortal angels, as to the holy man whom you have named. Yet would you but condescend to apply to their noblest use, those talents and that learning ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... his ardour had vanished. "Yes, Abdul," he said. "I suppose we must be going on our way. It is sad to leave this camp, where we have witnessed such a wonderful example of humility and singleness of purpose. Don't you shrink from leaving him ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... occasions that this sentiment got possession of him strongly. He was generally able to keep it down. Hard work, assisted by his natural faculty for singleness of purpose and concentration of attention, kept him from lifting the eyes of his heart toward the unattainable. Moreover, he had developed an enthusiasm, genuine in its way, for the land of his adoption. The elemental hugeness of its characteristics—its rivers fifty ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... to obey their masters: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart as unto Christ." Eph. 6:5. The servant's service to his master should not be wholly for the hire. He should not fear to do him ill service because of not receiving his wages, but his service should be in singleness of heart—an ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... offspring they devote To misery through ill-assorted unions, Or habits reckless of maternal dues; How marriage, sacredest of mortal steps, Is entered on from motives all unworthy; Social ambition, mercenary aims, The dread of poverty, of singleness,— The object of uniting families,— And momentary passion fatuous. So I resolved, God helping, to be true To my own self, and that way true ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... was most certainly the correct manner in which to face the question, and while Egypt has benefited enormously by this singleness of purpose in her officials, it was, historically, a false attitude. Egypt is not a little country: Egypt is a crippled Empire. Throughout her history she has been the powerful rival of the people of Asia Minor. At one time she was mistress of the Sudan, Somaliland, Palestine, Syria, Libya, ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... result of these new techniques, armament programs may be dangerously delayed. Singleness of national purpose may be undermined. Men can lose confidence in each other, and therefore lose confidence in the efficacy of their own united action. Faith and courage can yield to doubt and fear. The unity of the State can be so sapped ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... practical endeavor to prepare the way for a future gospel preaching. We need complete science, clear understanding, solid judgment. We need to solve innumerable problems, to comprehend principles exactly by their detailed development in practice. We need inward concentration, to gain singleness and unity of purpose. ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... itself shall fall." There was only one, with the blood of mothers in his veins, whelmed by a consciousness that reached back far as the consciousness of the race. Somehow, his simple manhood, the inheritance in his blood of men and women, who had loved, fused the conflict of his nature to a singleness of purpose and ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... for one thing, and he derived exquisite pleasure from the exercise of execution. The surety of his touch, the knowledge of the exact effect he was after, made his working hours an absorbing pleasure rather than an exasperating penance. And through his secluded life, with its singleness of purpose, its absence of the social ambitions of his youth, and the complexity of life in the world, the restlessness and agitation of his earlier devotion to his art disappeared. He was content to forget the ...
— Literary Love-Letters and Other Stories • Robert Herrick
... the last, section 21: The duty and after privileges of all students.... Go to Nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thoughts but how best to penetrate her meaning, and remember her instruction; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing; ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... particular feeling, and intentionally omits all irrelevant details. It is the expression caught from a glimpse of the soul of nature by the soul of man; the mirror of a mood, passing, perhaps, in fact, but perpetuated thus to fancy. Being an emotion, its intensity is directly proportional to the singleness with which it possesses the thoughts. The Far Oriental fully realizes the power of simplicity. This principle is his fundamental canon of pictorial art. To understand his paintings, it is from this standpoint they must be ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... an address in the Divinity School of Harvard, which produced a gusty shower of articles, sermons, and pamphlets, and raised him without will or further act of his to the high place of the heresiarch. With admirable singleness of mind, he held modestly aloof. 'There is no scholar,' he wrote to a friend, 'less willing or less able to be a polemic. I could not give account of myself if challenged. I delight in telling what I think, but if you ask me how I dare say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men,' The ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... upon this laughing lady. She called it nearer; but the child hung back. Instantly, with that curious passion which you may see any woman in the world display, on the most odd occasions, for a similar end, the Countess bent herself with singleness of mind to overcome this diffidence; and presently, sure enough, the child was seated on her knee, thumbing and glowering at ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... made possible only by the interposition of Lahoma; but for the Indian's deep-seated affection for her whom he regarded as a child, the man now smiling into Annabel's pale face would long ago have found his final resting-place. It was due to the Indian's singleness of thought that Lahoma's plan had struck him as good. Gledware, stripped of all his possessions, slinking as a beggar from door to door, no roof, no bed, but sky and earth—that is ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... the skill, courage, and singleness of heart of a Breton sailor, who saved the French squadron when beaten at Cape la Hogue and flying before the English to St. Malo, by guiding it through the shallows of the river Rance, in a manner declared impracticable by the Maloese themselves; being all the ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... epic, though, in spite of its scenes being mainly rural, it perhaps approaches more nearly to the epic. There is an Homeric simplicity in its descriptions of half-drunken warriors with their superb physique, their bravado, their native dignity and singleness of character. Marianka, the beautiful heroine, passes from one picture to another in her quiet, regular toil. Whether, clad in a loose skirt of pink cotton, she drives the oxen or piles the kizyak or dung-fuel along the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... In early days it never occurred to me to think what a rare and wonderful being this old domestic was. Not only did she never talk, but she seemed never even to think, of herself. Her whole life was compounded of love and self-sacrifice. Yet so used was I to her affection and singleness of heart that I could not picture things otherwise. I never thought of thanking her, or of asking myself, "Is she also happy? Is she also contented?" Often on some pretext or another I would leave my lessons and run to her room, where, ...
— Childhood • Leo Tolstoy
... had toiled and labored at the desk before him! He had put away the old wild hopes of the masterpiece and executed in a fury of inspiration, wrought out in one white heat of creative joy; it was enough if by dint of long perseverance and singleness of desire he could at last, in pain and agony and despair, after failure and disappointment and effort constantly renewed, fashion something of which he need not be ashamed. He had put himself to school again, and had, with what patience ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... singleness of soul, the will Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand And governed appetites; and piety, And love of lonely study; humbleness, Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives, Truthfulness, slowness unto ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... the artist is disinterested, I do not mean that he may not be concerned with any conceivable theme under the sun, but that his business is to provide us with an experience, and that any end he may have beyond making that experience vivid and complete is an alien end, destroying his singleness of purpose, wholly disruptive of his art and ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... band of noble women who during the war gave their time and best labors with devotedness and singleness of purpose to the care of the suffering defenders of their country, few, perhaps, have been as efficient and useful in their chosen sphere as ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... him passionately. Blessed ignorance of the hardening influences of the coming years! Blessed tenderness of heart and singleness of affection which could see no possibility that circumstances might make the acquaintance of a now loved and adored superior being appear undesirable! And blessed sanguineness of five years old, which could bridge the gulf between then and ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... where we are infected with the foreign singleness more than at Boston. Perhaps a still livelier illustration of our ironical temperament was given me once before when I brought some things into Boston. There were some Swiss pewters, which the officers joined me for a moment in trying to make ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... world of forgetfulness and decay, in the sight of his own shortcomings and limitations, or on the edge of the tomb, he alone who has found his soul in losing it, who in singleness of mind has lived in order to love and understand, will find that the God who is near to him as his own conscience has a face of ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... proportion alike in declamation and in debate. And throughout the whole play, and under all the diversity of composite subject and conflicting interest which disturbs the unity of action, there is a singleness of spirit, a general unity or concord of inner tone, in marked contrast to the utter discord and discrepancy of the several sections of The Two Noble Kinsmen. We admit, then, that this play offers us in some not unimportant passages the single instance ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... with sweets war not, joy delights in joy: Why lov'st thou that which thou receiv'st not gladly, Or else receiv'st with pleasure thine annoy? If the true concord of well-tuned sounds, By unions married, do offend thine ear, They do but sweetly chide thee, who confounds In singleness the parts that thou shouldst bear. Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing: Whose speechless song being many, ...
— Shakespeare's Sonnets • William Shakespeare
... discourse passes into what we may call its epilogue. The thought recurs to the sublime contrast between the pathetic numerousness of the successors of Aaron, "not suffered to continue by reason of death," and the singleness, the "unsuccessional" identity for ever, of the true Melchizedek, who abides eternally. And then, moving to its end, the argument glows and brightens into an "application" to the human heart. We have in JESUS (the Name has now already been pronounced, ver. 22) a Friend, an Intercessor, infinitely ...
— Messages from the Epistle to the Hebrews • Handley C.G. Moule
... heroic commander of the army, the President said appealingly, "He and his brave soldiers are now in the midst of their great trial, and I trust that at your meeting you will so shape your good words that they may turn to men and guns, moving to his and their support." This patriotic singleness of thought for the country's safety defeated and scattered all more political plans, and the hearts of the people turned more and more to Mr. Lincoln. He had been steadily growing in the esteem of his countrymen. The patience, wisdom, and fidelity with which he had guided the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... seems a strained harshness in it when I think of the complacency with which you must needs contemplate the irremediable perdition of such hosts of outcasts. In Adele, too, there seems a beautiful singleness of trust; but I suppose God made the birds to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various
... as a weakness. Her own mind was like a garden in which nothing is ever transplanted. She allowed for no intermediate stages between error and dogma, for no shifting of the bounds of conviction; and this security gave her the singleness of purpose in which he found himself ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... get that miserable, stripped, undecked, smouldering shell of a ship back again with her head pointing at her port of destination. Bankok! That's what he was after. I tell you this quiet, bowed, bandy-legged, almost deformed little man was immense in the singleness of his idea and in his placid ignorance of our agitation. He motioned us forward with a commanding gesture, and went to ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... which had been taken away from him; and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday desire had seemed simple—just his freedom and Annette. 'I'll go and dine there,' he thought. To see her might bring back his singleness of intention, calm ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... graceful without weakness—marks of the ideal athlete that had long since disappeared with the coming of the Roman gladiator. Opposite was a grown man, tall, broad and deep chested, with prominent eyes wide apart and a large mouth. There was a singleness of attitude in him, as in all persons reared to a purpose. It was that certain self-centeredness which is not egotism, yet a subconsciousness of self in all acts. He was the finished product of a specific, life-long training, and the confidence ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... without the exception of any of its members, is by profession, not merely a missionary society, but a missionary band: the minute-men of the Lord Jesus, ready to do his will, at home or abroad, with singleness of aim, and with a spirit ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... fulfilment of Joseph Glanvill's declaration so strikingly illustrated in the return of Ligeia: "Man doth not yield himself to the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will." In Ligeia, Poe concentrates on this idea with singleness of purpose. He had striven to embody it in his earlier sketches, in Morella, where the beloved is reincarnated in the form of her own child, in the musical, artificial Eleonora and in the gruesome ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... In blessed singleness of heart, What heed has she for nations' wrath? She sings a little peaceful hymn As she prepares ...
— Songs for a Little House • Christopher Morley
... eulogium that overwhelmed me. "What a good thing it is, Miss Spence, that you have only one idea," a gentleman once said to me on my country tour. He wished thus to express his feeling concerning my singleness of purpose towards effective voting. But at this welcome home I felt that others realized what I had often said myself. It is really because I have so many ideas for making life better, wiser, and pleasanter all of which effective voting will aid—that I seem so absorbed in the one ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... particular, one uplifted peak, silver and sapphire as the clear day, and soaring supreme over the jumble of lesser summits, attracted him. He knew now that that was where he was going, and thither he pressed on with singleness of purpose, delaying only when absolutely necessary, to hunt or to sleep. The cage, the stage, the whip, Hansen, the bear, even the proud excitement of the flaming hoops, were swiftly fading to ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... has dabbled somewhat in orchestration, he has been wisely devoting his genius, with an almost Chopin-like singleness of mind, to songs and piano pieces. His piano works are what would be called morceaux. He has never written a sonata, or anything approaching the classical forms, nearer than a gavotte or two. He is very modern in his harmonies, ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... the Canadian fort in the care of the preacher Finney. He was a revivalist of great renown, possessing a lawyer-like keenness of intellect, much rhetorical power, and Pauline singleness of purpose. That night he ate and slept ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... twenty-six—and they seemed to feel their position; their speech was strained and odd; all the "sceptical, wicked, immoral French novels, over forty of them, the best substitute for French conversation to be met with," which the girls had toiled through with so much singleness of spirit, had not cured the broadness of their accent nor the artificial idioms of their Yorkshire French. Monsieur Heger, indeed, considered that they knew no French at all. Their manners, even among ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... see the irony of our human limitation of sight and achievement. The blood-red cross of the crusader will stand no admixture of colour. The soul dominated by one idea gains ground. Henri Dunant, Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry, General Booth, Josephine Butler—these succeed by dint of their singleness of purpose. The narrowness serves to concentrate the strength and accelerate ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... which the picture rests for its singleness of purpose. No picture but begins in this way, whether it is afterwards built up on the same canvas or not. The sketch points the way. But all the preliminary sketches of a painting are not problems of composition or color; ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... needed as to the sincerity and singleness of purpose of the Committee, the action taken by the deputation in Pretoria and the rest of the Committee in Johannesburg, whilst acting independently of each other and without any opportunity of discussing matters and deciding upon a common line, should be sufficient. ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... tea, when she is sitting on someone's lap, facing an empty, uninteresting plate, she sees another plate three chairs distant, and upon that plate there is a biscuit or some other sweet attraction. Upon such occasions Lulla all but plunges into space between the chairs, in her singleness of purpose. Having reached the lap nearest that plate, she turns and smiles at her late entertainer just to make sure she is not offended. But even if she knew she would be, Lulla would not hesitate. Curly head foremost, eyes on ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... days men, giving themselves leave to be glad for a little space, were glad with the same sinewy force and manful singleness of purpose as made them in other times laborious, self-denying, patient, and fruitful of high ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... what to think or do till I hear from you; and Mr. Moore appeared to me in a similar state of indetermination. I do not know that it may not be better to reserve it for the entire publication you proposed, and not adventure in hardy singleness, or even backed by the fairy Jacqueline. I have been seized with all kinds of doubts, &c. &c. since I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... our object. Since the impediments created by fear and anxiety are now removed our ideas will flow freely, our plans will construct themselves in the quiet of the mind, and we shall come to the actual work with a creative vigour and singleness of purpose. ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... lanes of the tropic sun The column is standing ready, Awaiting the fateful command of one Whose word will ring out To an answering shout To prove it alert and steady. And a stirring chorus all of them sung With singleness of endeavor, Though some to "The Bonny Blue Flag" had swung And some to "The Union ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... these jargons, and go your way straight to God's work in simplicity and singleness of ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... else it had not been so freely admitted by her own sex. However that may be, Catherine Cavendish had had few lovers as compared with many a maid less fair and less dowered, and at this time she seemed to have settled into an expectation and contentment of singleness. ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... exalted terms of the young artist, of his virtues and his genius, the singleness of his heart, the uprightness of his principles, and the warmth and purity of his affections. Had he, my father, needed any passport to the favor of Mrs. Linwood, he could not have had a surer one; but her noble nature instantaneously recognized his congenial and exalted worth. He had that in ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... Moleville, who was entirely new to official life, became the minister of marine. The whole kingdom did not contain a man more attached to the king and queen. But he combined statesman-like prudence with his loyalty; and his conduct before he took office elicited a very remarkable proof of the singleness of mind and purpose with which the king and queen had accepted the Constitution. M. Bertrand had previously refused office, and was very unwilling to take it now; and he frankly told Louis that he could not hope to be of any real service ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... it in the morning," said Eddring, quietly. His singleness of purpose had its effect. Captain Wilson abruptly turned ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... With such singleness of purpose to crystallize her, she cannot absorb even the gravest of warnings; not from unwillingness or stupid obstinacy, but from sheer inability to grasp any novelty. That her beloved master and mistress—either or both—should not have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... this adventure: there must be no frittering of energy, no mixture of motives. We hear much of the mystical temperament, the mystical vision. The mystical character is far more important: and its chief ingredients are courage, singleness of heart, and self-control. It is towards the perfecting of these military virtues, not to the production of a pious softness, that the discipline of asceticism is largely directed; and the ascetic foundation, in one ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... standing; only this stone chimney with the wide, blackened fireplace, and the flat doorstones before what was once the threshold. Grass and brambles covered the foundations; lilacs, with spikes of brown dead blossoms, grew tall and thick around it, and roses, gone back to wild singleness, blossomed near the steps and along a path, which was only a memory, the grass had tangled so ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... his individual taste, that general reaction from the insipid imitation of the Palladian style, towards a restoration of the Gothic, which marked the close of the eighteenth century. This was the object he had set his heart on, with a singleness of determination which was regarded with not a little contempt by his fox-hunting neighbours, who wondered greatly that a man with some of the best blood in England in his veins, should be mean enough to economize in his cellar, and reduce his stud to two old coach-horses ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... Missions," not a few, have planted the banner of the cross in that land of the trident and are prosecuting their mission and proclaiming their message with singleness of purpose and exemplary zeal. The "Christian Alliance" is the most pretentious organization of this class which does work in that land. Its efforts are chiefly confined to the Bombay Presidency where it has a goodly number of ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... still, though seventy-nine, dear to troops of dear ones, encircled in his age by love and honor, living in poverty that was abundance, with faith that was itself the substance of things hoped for, his simple face ruddier and mellower than before—rocking his head and singing in the singleness of his heart. The other man—barely thirty, yet already old, having missed his youth, his thin cheeks pallid as linen, his eyes burning with a somber light—alone in the world, desolate, apart—walking with an uncertain step and a tremor of the whole frame, which ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... righteousness in his day and generation, but for this very reason less a professional novelist of assured standing. His gifted, erratic brother Henry, in the striking series of stories dealing prevailingly with the Australian life he so well knew, makes a stronger impression of singleness of power and may last longer, one suspects, than the better-known, more successful Charles, whose significance for the later generation is, as we have hinted, in his sensitiveness to the new spirit ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... commercial object, and yet after the first campaign the general idea never was to make the enemy's commerce a primary objective. That place was occupied throughout by their battle-fleets, and under Monk and Rupert at least those objectives were pursued with a singleness of purpose and a persistent ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... his heart"—that is, applies himself with singleness of purpose "to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven." No path that gives the slightest promise of leading to happiness shall be untrodden; no pleasure shall be denied, no toil be shirked that shall give any hope ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... he remonstrated with him for wasting his time when he might be working for the company. Always the younger man listened respectfully, and continued to read his books and to search for the lost mines with a determination and singleness of purpose that aroused the secret approbation of the old Scotchman, and the covert sneers ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx
... to call Stuart's entire force away from Lee's army. Nor was it impossible, in part at least, to do the work cut out for it. Even to threaten Lee's communications would have seriously affected the singleness of purpose ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... less like to hear described as 'popular.' No one had less an easy power of endearing herself at first sight to those with whom she came in contact—at least, in the relations of the Unit. The first impression, as has been repeated over and over again, was always one of great strength and singleness of purpose, but all those fine qualities with which the general public is, quite rightly, ready to credit her had their roots in a serenity and gentleness of spirit which that same public has had all too little opportunity to ...
— Elsie Inglis - The Woman with the Torch • Eva Shaw McLaren
... Braves whom Mahtoree had dispatched in quest of his daughter, appeared in view in pursuit of the fugitives. It was not till Mahtoree had taxed his courage that the Big Horse had ventured on the perilous and fearful quest. He approached with the strength of heart and singleness of purpose which accompany an Indian warrior who deems the eyes of his nation upon him. When first the Brave was discovered thus wantonly, and with no other purpose but the shedding of blood, intruding on the dominions of the spirits, no words can tell the rage which appeared to possess ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... for the students of students; having already seen in many instances their [25] talents, culture, and singleness of purpose to uplift the race. Such students should not pay the penalty for other people's faults; and divine Love will open the way for them. My soul abhors injustice, and loves mercy. St. John writes: "Whom God hath sent speaketh [30] the words of God: for ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... said seriously, "your happiness is very dear to me. For nothing else would I let any differences between us amount to an issue. For God's sake, forego this mad idea. You are disrupting a family for whose upbuilding I have fought with a very fierce singleness of purpose." ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... he not on the whole tried to find out what the ways of God were, and to follow them in singleness of heart? To a certain extent, yes; but he had not been thorough; he had not given up all for God. He knew that very well he had done little as compared with what he might and ought to have done, but ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... have heard that the king protecteth virtue; and virtue, protected by him, protecteth him (in return)! I see, however, that virtue protecteth thee not! Like the shadow pursuing a man, thy heart, O tiger among men, with singleness of purpose, ever seeketh virtue. Thou hast never disregarded thy equals, and inferiors and superiors. Obtaining even the entire world, thy pride never increased! O son of Pritha, thou ever worshippest Brahmanas, and gods, and the Pitris, with Swadhas, and other ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... have taken place before and have also often been followed by reconciliations, yes, by several farewells and reconciliations. But here there was not the mutual equality of vehement passion, and not the singleness of purpose that, overriding all scruples, wins by perseverance. My rival made swift and prosperous use of ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... the indeterminate continuance of his sister's maiden singleness and a like prolongation of her lover's galling suspense. To Ruth it stood not only for the loss of her brother, but for the narrowing of their father's already narrowed life,—a narrowing which might come to mean a shortening as well; and ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... indictment: I too am guilty—infinitely culpable. Even if I had devoted my life to pure science—perhaps even more certainly then—patterning myself on a medieval monastic, faithful to vows of poverty and singleness of purpose; even if I had not, for an apparently laudable end, betrayed my efforts to a base greed; even if I had never picked for a moment's use such an unworthy—do not be insulted again, Weener, unworthiness is a fact, insofar as there are any facts at all—such an unworthy ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... contentment, and to dictate an exemplary and uniform correctness of conduct in whatever condition we may be placed by Providence. "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ: not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men: knowing that whatsoever ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... seemed vague, far-fetched, little better than affectations. The clear thing to be done was to get that bird. This done, I could consider the rest. To admit any other thought militated in some way against the singleness and compactness of my being. Wise or unwise, what had I to do with far-off matters of that sort? My business was to succeed in a certain task, not to be sage and so forth. I actually felt a kind of shame to be debating any other than the all-important question, Can I get my right foot over here ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... hypocrisies by which the champions of opposite opinions are flattered and propitiated. But his spirit is that of the knight "without reproach," as well as the knight "without fear"; and even his adversaries cannot but delight in the singleness and simplicity of purpose with which he strives after the truth. Nothing in his position or in his character gives them the slightest pretence for supposing that his bold advocacy of liberal views is connected with any ulterior ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the practices that were followed by them? Are accomplished Brahmanas entertained in thy house and in thy presence with nutritive and excellent food, and do they also obtain pecuniary gifts at the conclusion of those feasts? Dost thou, with passions under complete control and with singleness of mind, strive to perform the sacrifices called Vajapeya and Pundarika with their full complement of rites? Bowest thou unto thy relatives and superiors, the aged, the gods, the ascetics, the Brahmanas, and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... aware not only of the abundance of this quality in his own nature, but of the danger in which it placed consistency and singleness of character, did not require the note on this passage to assure us. The consciousness, indeed, of his own natural tendency to yield thus to every chance impression, and change with every passing impulse, was not only for ever present in his mind, but ... had the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... but she was not deterred by that nor by the conviction that her conquest, if she prevailed, would be transitory. She had a code of her own. It included an uncertain element of honour, fixed rather rigidly upon what she would have called constancy. Singleness of purpose was her notion of morality. She would not have believed herself to be a bad woman any more than she would have looked upon her lover as a bad man. To her, morality in its accepted sense signified no more than the suppression of human emotions and human sensations. As a matter of fact, ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... antagonists, who contended with pride, selfishness, superstition, and irreligion. And in our own time the lives of such men as Clarkson and Granville Sharpe, Father Mathew and Richard Cobden, inspired by singleness of purpose, have shown what ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... plays may waken something of the Maid's great soul in him." Then, before La Mothe could tell her that she herself had shown much of Joan's strong courage, singleness of heart, and unselfish spirit, she added, "It was a sorrowful year when France ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... she answered. "Why,—you can see that happen every day. Men whom young ladies actually repulse at first, often attract these same ladies in the end by their devotion, determination and singleness of purpose, and they gain the love they seek in the ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... mentioned also speaks of him as 'a singularly able controversialist in his argument with Hoadly;' and adds: 'Of all the writers whom he must have irritated—Freethinkers, Methodists, actors, Hanoverians,—of all the nonjuring friends whom he alienated by his quietism, none doubted his singleness of purpose.' It may be added that there were few of his opponents who might not have learnt from him a lesson of Christian courtesy. Living in an age when controversy of every kind was, almost as a rule, deformed by virulent personalities, he yet, in the face of much provocation, kept ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... remark on his lips, the master walked slowly forward, continuing his orders to repair the damages with a singleness of purpose that rendered him, however uncouth as a friend, an ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... referred to is of the human being, we do not gainsay it; but this is beauty in its mixed mode,—not in its high, passionless form, its singleness and purity. It is not Beauty as it descended from heaven, in the cloud, the rainbow, the flower, the bird, or in the concord of sweet sounds, that seem to carry back the soul to ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... eyes, sans everything:"—at least, very far beyond "the lean and slippered pantaloon." Leaving my surviving friends to fight their own battles, I think I may here venture to say, in quiet simplicity and singleness of heart, that books, book-sales, and book-men, will then—if I am spared—pass before me as the faint reflex of "the light of OTHER DAYS!" ... when literary enterprise and literary fame found a proportionate reward; and when the sickly sentimentality ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... If singleness of heart, true charity, and Christian works; if trials and sufferings, dangers and perils, encountered boldly by a helpless woman on her errand of mercy in the camp and in the battle-field, can excite ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... the heat of excitement, to forget the deference due his age, his experience, and commanding abilities, yet there was ever a deep, under-current feeling of veneration for him, pervading all hearts. Those who were excited to the highest pitch of frenzy by his proceedings, could not but admire the singleness of his purpose, and his undaunted courage in discharging his duties. On all subjects aside from slavery, his influence in the House has never been surpassed. Whenever he arose to speak, it was a signal for a general abandonment ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... mover. He gave to each his strong support, but uniformly shunned to appear in public. For himself or his friends he asked no reward: for himself, he asked only to do the hard work. His transparent singleness of purpose, his freedom from all by-ends, his plain good sense, courage, adherence, and his romantic generosity disarmed first or last all gainsayers. His examination before the United States Senate Committee on the Harper's Ferry Invasion, in January, 1860, as reported ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... N. perseverance; continuance &c (inaction) 143; permanence &c (absence of change) 141; firmness &c (stability) 150. constancy, steadiness; singleness of purpose, tenacity of purpose; persistence, plodding, patience; sedulity &c (industry) 682; pertinacy^, pertinacity, pertinaciousness; iteration &c 104; bottom, game, pluck, stamina, backbone, grit; indefatigability, indefatigableness; bulldog courage. V. persevere, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... younger brother, and friends; of 'the three virtues by which those duties are carried into effect,' namely, knowledge, benevolence, and energy; and of 'the one thing, by which those virtues are practised,' which is singleness or sincerity [1]. It sets forth in detail the 'nine standard rules for the administration of government,' which are 'the cultivation by the ruler of his own character; the honouring men of virtue and talents; affection to his ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... father, who was of a very sweet disposition, and some instances of this modesty are given. They are all things that Elspeth did, but Tommy is now represented as the person who had done them. "On the other hand, his strong will, singleness of purpose, and enviable capacity for knowing what he wanted to be at were a heritage from his practical and sagacious mother." "I think he was a little proud of his strength of will," writes the R.A. who painted his portrait (now in America), "for I remember his anxiety ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... we may, however, use the term "distinction" on account of the relative opposition. Hence whenever we find terms of "diversity" or "difference" of Persons used in an authentic work, these terms of "diversity" or "difference" are taken to mean "distinction." But lest the simplicity and singleness of the divine essence be taken away, the terms "separation" and "division," which belong to the parts of a whole, are to be avoided: and lest quality be taken away, we avoid the use of the term "disparity": and lest we remove similitude, we avoid the terms "alien" and "discrepant." For Ambrose says ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... in his nature, more happy in his cause, and more fortunate in the issues of his career. They are taught to see in him a soldier whose sword wrought only mercy and justice for mankind; a statesman who steadied a remarkable generation of public men by his mental poise and exalted them by his singleness of heart; and a ruler whose exercise of power established for the time on earth a righteous government ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... nature in all singleness of heart, and walk with her laboriously and trustingly, having no other thought but how best to penetrate her meaning; rejecting nothing, selecting nothing, and scorning nothing." Advice which, whether bad or good, involved infinite labor and humiliation in the following ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... with language and almost with violence. Then a strange thing took place. If Jason had married Selina without opposition, his congregation would have been enraged. He might have been forced from his pulpit. Now it regarded him as a martyr, and with clacking tongues and singleness of purpose it espoused his cause and declared that their minister was good enough to marry any girl alive, and that Deacon Pettybone was a mean, narrow-minded, bigoted, cantankerous old grampus. The thing ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... abyss of the Eternal and Unknowable, let him be content, once for all, not only to renounce the good things promised by 'Infallibility,' but even to bear the bad things which it prophesies; content to follow reason and fact in singleness and honesty of purpose, wherever they may lead, in the sure faith that a hell of honest men will to him be more endurable than a paradise full of angelic shams." There can be no doubt that the Apostle Paul ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge
... had more pride of character—more need to respect himself—than ambition, as that word is usually understood; excellence more than distinction was his aim;—no one of the leaders in the Revolution sought office less, none fulfilled its duties with more singleness of purpose, or escaped from its responsibilities with greater alacrity; the instincts of John Jay were mainly for truth, duty, and success, in the higher acceptation of the term. What he undertook, indeed, he strove to do well, but it was from ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the unanimous conclusion of the London Anti-Slavery Committee, in which I entirely concurred, on the points at issue. I observed, in substance, that in the struggle for the liberation of the slaves in the British Colonies, one great source of our moral strength was, the singleness of our object, and our not allowing any other subject, however important or unexceptionable, to be mixed up with it; that though the aid of our female coadjutors had been of vital importance to the success of the anti-slavery enterprize, yet that their exertions had been ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... its action, and between its own processes; and language, being a chief instrument of culture, has to follow and subserve these multiplied and diversified demands, Any fall, therefore, on its part from the obedient fineness of its modes and modulations back into barbaric singleness and crudeness, any slide into looseness or vagueness, any unweaving of the complex tissue, psychical and metaphysical, into which it has been wrought by the exquisite wants of the mind, will have a relaxing, debilitating influence on thought itself. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... avoiding the crowded plot which spoilt Cambyses, it attains more nearly to tragedy. The low characters, Mansipulus and Mansipula, the Vice (Haphazard), and the abstractions, Conscience, Comfort and their brethren, reappear with as little success. But the singleness of the theme helps towards that elevation of the main figures and intensifying of the catastrophe which tragic emotion demands. Unfortunately, from the start the author seems to have been obsessed ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... you always, and your name will be sacred to us, and that will teach us singleness and devotion," Verena went on, in the same tone, still not meeting Ransom's eyes again, and speaking as if she were trying now to stop herself, to tie ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... keeping on repeating the one Creative Process at an ever-rising level; and since these are the sole working conditions, the progress is one which logically admits of no finality. And this is where the importance of realizing the Singleness of the Originating Power comes in, for with a Duality each member would limit the other; in fact, Duality as the Originating Power is inconceivable, for, once more to quote "Paddy's Philosophy," "finality would be ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... and racial consequences of the fact that (speaking generally) the more highly prepared modern men and women are to transmit intelligence to posterity, the more steadily do they tend to give their most vigorous years to singleness? ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. 46. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, 47. Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... weak and groundless confidence that you have reached me. You have employed without scruple all those advantages it put into your hands. You have undermined me at your ease. I left you to protect my life's blood, my heart of heart, from every attack, to preserve the singleness of her affections, and the constancy of her attachment. It was yours to have breathed into her ear the sighs of St. Julian. It was yours ambitiously to expatiate upon his amiable qualities. You were every day to have added fuel to the flame. ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... crafty plan which the priest had laid with a singleness of aim and a detachment from minor considerations that never hesitated to sacrifice the princess, together with the chief instrument of the intrigue. Was the liberation of a kingdom, the deliverance of a nation from ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... godly fear of God "singleness of heart" (Col 3:22). Singleness of heart both to God and man; singleness of heart, that is it which in another place is called sincerity and godly simplicity, and it is this, when a man doth a thing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... physician, and the reader can discern therein something of the man himself, can get some glimpse of his life and its meaning, can gain some sense of the sincerity, the simplicity, the self-sacrifice and singleness of purpose which guided him and finally lifted him so far out of and above the ordinary, then will the pleasant task of recalling fully justify ...
— Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway • James Bayard Clark
... essence of the Greek civilisation, was a temporary compromise, not a final solution. It depended on presumptions of the imagination, not on convictions of the intellect; and as we have seen, it destroyed itself by the process of its own development. The beauty, the singleness, and the freedom which attracts us in the consciousness of the Greek was the result of a poetical view of the world, which did but anticipate in imagination an ideal that was not realised in fact or in thought. It depended ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... demand must be directed by every power of the mind and every possible element should be used to make the demand materialize. You can so intently desire a thing that you can exclude all distracting thoughts. When you practice this singleness of concentration until you attain the end sought, you have developed a Will capable of ...
— The Power of Concentration • Theron Q. Dumont
... moment did Ghek tarry by the river, for his seemingly aimless wanderings were in reality prompted by a definite purpose, and this he pursued with vigor and singleness of design. He followed such runways as appeared to terminate in the pits or other chambers of the inhabitants of the city, and these he explored, usually from the safety of a burrow's mouth, until satisfied that what he sought was not ...
— The Chessmen of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... do so," rejoined the Jerseyman, "I seek no offence, nor mean any. But, as touching the Knight's spirit, and whether he sought the welfare of our island with singleness of heart, let me have leave to be of mine own mind. Will you not let me take the affirmation from the doings of Sir George, his nephew, and present successor? Where is the place of profit that he hath not bestowed upon a kinsman or creature of ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene
... letter is that in thy bosom, Conscience? Diligence, reach it hither. [Make as though he[229] read it. Conscience, speak on; let me hear what thou canst say, For I know in singleness thou ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... positiveness, in its aspects of singleness, or homogeneity, or oneness, or completeness. In data now coming, I feel it myself. A Leverrier studies more than twenty observations. The inclination is irresistible to think that they all relate to one phenomenon. It is an ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... creatures. Then, my tabernacle was indeed pitched in the wilderness, and the candle of the Lord shone brightly upon it; now, the blending of many inferior lights distracted my mind from its one object of contemplation, and broke the harmony that was so sweet in its singleness. ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... prosperity or adversity—for, at first at least, he, like many others, was not prosperous in golden-fleeced and golden Victoria—he toiled, late and early, for what, in his honest judgment, was for the good of his colony; and with a singleness of purpose which was not excelled—was not, I think, equalled, to my knowledge at least—by any other ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... rootless must ever be fruitless; And thou art alone in thy death and thy birth; No last loving token of wedded love broken, No sign of thy singleness, sweetness and worth; Lost as the flower that is drowned in the shower, Fall'n like a snowflake to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to her had of late been warm with that spirit which sooner or later glows in every heart. She felt that to him she had a duty to perform which at the farthest could not long be deferred, and she knew that to meet it, required a strength and a singleness of purpose which would call into service all ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... all laboring men as a class. To combine effectually these dual interests, the Federation espouses the principle of home rule in purely local matters and of federal supervision in all general matters. It combines, with a great singleness of purpose, so diverse a variety of details that it touches the minutiae of every trade and places at the disposal of the humblest craftsman or laborer the tremendous powers of its national influence. While highly centralized in organization, it is nevertheless democratic ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... of rebellion. Miss Peyton looked on the gallant show with an exulting pride, which arose in the reflection that the warriors before her were the chosen troops of her native colony; while Frances gazed with a singleness of interest ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... wrote to his editor, "a man must have an exclusive passion for his art, and all the obstinacy and self-denial which is combined with such a temperament—an unconquerable and always enduring will, always working forward to the only goal he knows." This singleness of purpose Beddoes never possessed. Inheriting from his father the qualities of both poet and physician, the faculties of the scientific man, trained and cultivated through a long life by Dr. Thomas Beddoes (with whom poetry was but an occasional pastime), seem to have overbalanced and diverted ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... cannot be assigned to him the individuality of merit that may belong to a conception, and does belong to the man who initiates and assumes, as he did, the responsibility for a novel and hazardous course of action. Many agents had to contribute to the forwarding of supplies and repairs; but, while singleness of credit cannot be assumed, priority is justly due to him upon whose shoulders fell not only all blame, in case his enterprise failed, but the fundamental difficulty of so timing the reliefs of the vessels under his command, so arranging the order of rotation in their ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... of his wishes, the establishment of a system of public education second to none in its efficiency and adaptation to the condition and circumstances of the people. The system is a noble monument to the singleness of purpose, the unwavering devotion, the tireless energy, the eminent ability, and the administrative powers of Dr. Ryerson, and it will render his name a familiar word for many generations in Canadian schools and homes; and place him high in the list of the great ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... Spenser introduces. The attempt at uniting a series of poems into a single fabric is Spenser's chief contribution to the formal side of pastoral composition. The method by which he sought to correlate the various parts so as to produce the singleness of impression necessary to a work of art, and the measure of success which he achieved, though they belong more strictly to the general history of poetry, must also detain us for a moment. The chief ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... and independent mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern attitude, into the field ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and expensive, but women were never to be seen in his house; and his confirmed dislike to them was the occasion of his seldom visiting, except with those who were like himself in a state of happy singleness. In other points, he was a liberal, worthy man, and a perfect gentleman, but extremely ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... excellence of much of the wit, that, whatever the play may in other respects have lacked of subtlety or refinement, such defect was no fault of hers. What Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY himself thought of it all I cannot say, but the play did not begin to compare, either for irony or singleness of motive, with the last two in which he figured, The Naughty Wife and Home and Beauty. He clearly enjoyed his own part, but it was rather noticeable that in his brief speech at the fall of the curtain he confined himself to a personal acknowledgment of the public's sympathy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... in addition, one good quality without any defect to balance it. He was always ready to help people. And when he set himself to do this, he was never put off by discomfort or risk. He went at the thing with a singleness of purpose that asked ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the imitative arts, taking the given unity of the objects represented as a basis, the superior unity of the image is partly due to the singleness of the artist's interest. For art, as we know, is never the expression of mere things, but of things so far as they have value. Out of the infinite fullness of nature and of life, the artist selects those elements that have a unique significance ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... leave off scribbling statutes, and learn to write them, and to bridle the egotism of cliques, and respect the nation. The present form of government exists on that understanding, and so must all forms of government in England. And it is so easy. It only wants a little singleness of mind and common sense. Years ago certificates of attendance on various lectures were reasonably demanded. They were a slight presumptive evidence of proficiency, and had a supplementary value, because the public examinations were so loose ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... be inferred, from the remarks made upon the singleness of purpose and fidelity of the public school to the cause of education, that the instruction given in it is more thorough than is usually given in the private school. But, in examining yet further the claim of the public school to superior thoroughness, ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell |
