"Variable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... middle of the foresaid month of December the thermometer was 86 deg. at breakfast time, and before dinner down to 63 deg. These memoranda, gained from undoubted sources, would show the climate—in summer at least—to be more variable than my reference proves it; yet I am told that even in summer time you hear of little sickness amongst grown up people. New comers suffer from dysentery, and children are attacked in the same way. I have had two visitations, from which I rallied in the course of four and twenty hours, with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... return of Armstrong, all traces of violent emotion had disappeared, and given place to exhaustion and lassitude. Faith had, by this time, become so accustomed to the variable humors of her father, that, however much they pained her, she was no longer alarmed by them as formerly. It was her habit, whenever he was attacked by his malady, to endeavor to divert his attention from melancholy thoughts to others of a more cheerful character. And now, on this ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... variable, but, in general, the older peats contain the most. To this topic we shall shortly recur, and now ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... Cornwallis was born in 1738. Early in life he had embraced the military profession, which he pursued with undeviating honour, though variable success. In him the want of any shining talents was in a great measure supplied by probity, by punctuality, by steady courage, by vigilant attention to his duties. In 1776, on the Declaratory Bill, he had shown his ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... the difference of the earth's diameters; proving its true ratio to be not less variable than as 45 is to 46, and shortest in its pole's axis 174 miles.... likewise a method for fixing an universal standard for weights and measures. By Thomas Williams.[380] London, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... osseous tissue (astrocytes), and behaves just like a rhizopod (such as Gromia); it sends out numbers of stellate processes all round, which ramify and stretch into the surrounding food-yelk. These variable and very mobile processes, the pseudopodia of the merocytes, serve both for locomotion and for getting food; as in the real rhizopods, they surround the solid particles of food (granules and plates of yelk), and ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... little and very variable, and this day was a calm, so that they could advance very little in their voyage. In the evening the wind grew fresh, and increased till three o'clock the next morning, so that they made good way in their course; but these deep seas began to rise, and the ship to roll and ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... humblest parentage. No such extreme variations are seen in any of the lower orders. Indeed, in one's lifetime one sees but very slight variation in any of the wild or domestic creatures, less in the wild than in the domestic because they are less under the influence of that most variable of animals, man. And man's variations are mainly mental and not physical. The higher we go in the scale of powers, the greater the variation and hence the more rapid the evolution. Probably man's body has not changed radically ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... change in the fastenings of the jaws and in the teeth; and you will find that the same sort of modifications take place in the whole class of mammals. This is in fact the essentially movable and variable point in their apparatus for nutrition. The jaw and its weapons vary their character from one species to another, according to the nature of their food; but the modifications generally terminate there, i.e. on the threshold, as it were. The interior arrangements of ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... these changes, and to be up-to-date, and all that. I'm happy as I am, and so's David. He has his hope of the council, and the bribes and them things. And I've my guild and my friends, with their odd clothes and variable accents. That's the life I want, and I won't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... was rife with the sweet and balmy air and the gay sunshine, so duly prized in our variable climate, because of the rarity of their occurrence; more especially when the year is yet too young to assist with vigour the energies of all-industrious nature. The trees, in their faint greenery, looked ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... ever tending to increase and to appear where it is absent," as Dr. Wallace believes, then we ought to find it varying in the direction of greater brightness in some species in a family so numerous and variable as the Dendrocolaptidae, however feeble and in need of a protective colouring these birds may be in a majority of pases. And this in effect we do find. In many of the dark-plumaged species that live in perpetual shade some parts are a very bright chestnut; ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... tendency, perhaps, to magnify some one thing beyond its proportionate importance to adopt hasty conclusions; to entertain some questionable or erroneous principle because it appears to solve a difficulty, or perhaps falls in with an old prepossession; to make too much account of variable and transitory feelings; or to carry zeal beyond the limits of discretion. In examples of a lower order of the correction or reversal of the effects of ignorance by the influence of religion, the remains will be still more palpable. So that, while it is an unquestionable and gratifying fact, that ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... anatomy, is basic; but it cannot long continue to exist (outside a refrigerator) without accompanying vital rhythms in heart, respiration and digestion. Nor do these perform their parts without the intermittent support of variable but still characteristic activities: dogs not only breathe and digest, they run about, hunt their food, look for mates, bark at cats, and so on. The anatomical pattern, the vital rhythm, and the characteristic acts ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... applause. And what work, among others, was he elaborating at this time, but the notorious "First Blast"? So that he may have rolled out in his big pulpit voice, how women were weak, frail, impatient, feeble, foolish, inconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the spirit of counsel, and how men were above them, even as God is above the angels, in the ears of his own wife, and the two dearest friends he had on earth. But he had lost the sense of incongruity, and continued to despise in theory the ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... form of the monuments, it is very variable at different ages; there are some covered passages or chambers completely closed, some dolmens with openings like those of India. At the very time when my excavations were attaining their greatest importance I was compelled to discontinue ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... the water at 21, through the natural effect of their difference in density. This latter is likewise utilized for causing the oil to flow into the vaporizer through 26 and 27, instead of using a graduated cock that receives a variable pressure from the receiver. In this way every cause of obstruction ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... Adder," leading her in full course to the tree he is "the dire Snake," springing to his natural height before the astonished gaze of the cherubs he is "the grisly King." Every fresh designation elaborates his character and history, emphasises the situation, and saves a sentence. So it is with all variable appellations of concrete objects; and even in the stricter and more conventional region of abstract ideas the same law runs. Let a word be changed or repeated, it brings in either case its contribution of emphasis, and must be carefully chosen for the part ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... water may be purchased in gutta-percha or lead bottles. It is of variable strength and doubtful purity. It must always be examined quantitatively for the residue left on evaporation. It is used occasionally for the examination of silicates. It attacks silica, forming fluoride ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... this, as in other respects, he showed more of the Scottish character, more of the true sense of Highland honour, than any of his immediate predecessors in the Stuart line. Naturally gay, though variable; quick and shrewd, rather than deep or strong in intellect; easily to be flattered, too easily led by some, too wilful in resisting the counsels of others,—as a Prince, as the head of a Court, ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... conspiracy. In 1857 a permanent body was formed in Sheffield, and in the years immediately following in Glasgow, London, Bristol, and other cities. They have since come into existence in most of the larger industrial towns, 120 local trades councils existing in 1892. Their influence has been variable and limited. ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... beside the two detectives, rendering it easy for any one within to have shot them dead. This observed, the light was cautiously removed, and everybody took care to keep out of its reflection. By this time the crisis of the position was at hand, the cavalry exhibited very variable inclinations, some to run away, others to shoot Booth without a summons, but all excited and fitfully silent. At the house near by the female folks were seen collected in the doorway, and the necessities of the case provoked prompt ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... This phenomenon having been often noted subsequently, the conclusion drawn therefrom is, that the sun is a spherical body, having a movement of rotation about its centre, of which the duration is equal to twenty-five days and a half. These dark spots, irregular and variable, but well defined on their edge, are sometimes of considerable dimensions. Some have been seen whose size was five times that of the earth. They are generally surrounded by an aureola known as the penumbra, and sensibly less ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... variable, with mostly westerly winds throughout the year interspersed with periods of calm; nearly all ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... showing all the circle of sunny blue. Then would come the ragged edge of a cloud, brightened throughout with sunshine, passing and changing quickly,—not that the divine smile was not always the same, but continually variable through the medium of earthly influences. The great slanting beam of sunshine was visible all the way down to the pavement, falling upon motes of dust, or a thin smoke of incense imperceptible in the ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... with that ineffable insolence which is the other side of the flunkey's insufferable self-abasement. He cast a glance at us as he went by, a withering glance of brazen effrontery. We knew him now, of course: it was that variable star, our old acquaintance, Mr. ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... saw the white cliffs of Cape Rulhieres, which, like Point Pearce, we found to be four miles and a half west of its assigned position. On the 14th and 15th we were beating to the westward with a light and variable wind. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... these more modern branches of science alone that this influence is felt. It is to Gauss, to the Magnetic Union, and to magnetic observers in general, that we owe our deliverance from that absurd method of estimating forces by a variable standard which prevailed so long even among men of science. It was Gauss who first based the practical measurement of magnetic force (and therefore of every other force) on those long established principles, which, though they are embodied in every dynamical ...
— Five of Maxwell's Papers • James Clerk Maxwell
... swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon, That monthly changes in her circled orb, Lest that thy love prove likewise variable. ...
— Romeo and Juliet • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... perceptions of the senses with the utmost accuracy, but regarding everything in the concrete, it is unfriendly to the nobler labors of the mind, to abstraction and generalization. In the numberless changes of these languages, their bewildering flexibility, their variable forms, and their rapid deterioration, they seem to betray a lack of individuality, and to resemble the vague and tumultuous history of the tribes who employ them. They exhibit an almost incredible laxity. It is nothing uncommon for the two sexes to use different names for the same ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... Irish case is found in the Irish saga of Diarmaid and Grainne. We read Mr. O'Grady's introduction on the position of Eionn Mac Cumhail, the legendary Over-Lord of Ireland, the Agamemnon of the Celts. "Fionn, like many men in power, is variable; he is at times magnanimous, at other times tyrannical and petty. Diarmaid, Oisin, Oscar, and Caoilte Mac Rohain are everywhere the [Greek: kaloi kachotoi] of the Fenians; of them we never hear anything ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... landscapes. Sometimes this sublime spectacle presents itself to them at the hour of prayer, and seems to invite them to lift up their hearts with their voices to the heavens. It changes every instant into forms as variable as the shades, presenting celestial colors and forms which no pencil can pretend to imitate, and ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... or of cured dry tea from a single bush is necessarily variable with its age, size and condition. In China, the proportion of manufactured tea to the green leaves is one to three, or one to three and one-third, while in the East Indies and Java the allowance is ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... termination as they express different sexes; as prince, princess; actor, actress; lion, lioness; hero, heroine. To these mentioned by Dr. Lowth may be added arbitress, poetess, chauntress, duchess, tigress, governess, tutress, peeress, authoress, traytress, and perhaps othets. Of these variable terminations we have only a sufficient number to make us feel our want; for when we say of a woman that she is a philosopher, an astronomer, a builder, a weaver, a dancer, we perceive an impropriety in the termination which we cannot avoid; but we can say that she is an architect, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... of the variable winds. How can we penetrate the law of our shifting moods and susceptibility? Yet they differ as all and nothing. Instead of the firmament of yesterday, which our eyes require, it is to-day an eggshell ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... him, and for him alone, to use. BUT WHAT RULE HAVE WE, BY WHICH WE CAN DISTINGUISH THESE OBJECTS? Here we must have recourse to statutes, customs, precedents, analogies, and a hundred other circumstances; some of which are constant and inflexible, some variable and arbitrary. But the ultimate point, in which they all professedly terminate, is the interest and happiness of human society. Where this enters not into consideration, nothing can appear more whimsical, unnatural, and even superstitious, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... for a week—he remained away for a month. We heard of him, leading a wild life, among a vicious set of men. It was reported that a frantic restlessness possessed him which nobody could understand. He came back as suddenly as he had left us. His variable nature had swung round, in the interval, to the opposite extreme. He was full of repentance for his reckless conduct; he was in a state of depression which defied rousing; he despaired of himself ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... for human life of the two facts of dependence and variable control has been summed up in the doctrine of the significance of prolonged infancy. 1 This prolongation is significant from the standpoint of the adult members of the group as well as from that of the young. The presence of dependent and learning beings is a stimulus to nurture and affection. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... complained months back, when I returned to London, seemed to have increased. His face was still the same impenetrable face which had so powerfully impressed me when I first saw him, but his manner, hitherto so quiet and self-possessed, had now grown abrupt and variable. Sometimes, when he joined us in the drawing-room at North Villa, he would suddenly stop before we had exchanged more than three or four words, murmur something, in a voice unlike his usual voice, about an attack of spasm and giddiness, and leave the room. ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... noun place itself is just as loose and variable in its meaning as the adverb there. For example; "There is never any difference;" i.e., "No difference ever takes place." Shall we say that "place," in this sense, is not a noun of place? To take place, is, to occur somewhere, or anywhere; and the unemphatic ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... English or Persian walnut, under northern conditions, has been variable and not very satisfactory. With good scions and good stocks and other favorable conditions, we have sometimes gotten over 90 per cent to grow, but the stand is more often much below this and the present season we did not average over 25 per cent. The fact ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fifth Annual Meeting - Evansville, Indiana, August 20 and 21, 1914 • Various
... temperature of zero for four days, yet when it was thawed these animalcules, as they are supposed to be, were as active as ever. They are not, however, always present, and when present may be of variable activity. In young men, just past puberty, and in aged men, they are often scarce and languid in motion." At the proper age the secretion is supposed to be the most active, generally at the age of twenty-five, ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... disproved ny the fact that some swans are black, because a thing may very well happen in spite of the fact that some data render it improbable. In the case of the swans, a man might know that colour is a very variable characteristic in many species of animals, and that, therefore, an induction as to colour is peculiarly liable to error. But this knowledge would be a fresh datum, by no means proving that the probability relatively to our previous data had been wrongly estimated. The fact, therefore, that things ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... of figure 6A. The oesophagus, oe, is seen as a small, circular opening between two much larger openings, the lungs, lu. The epithelium of the oesophagus is the same here as in the more anterior regions described above; that of the lung rudiments is very variable in thickness, even in different parts of the same section, being in some places composed of a single layer of cuboidal or even flattened cells, in other places consisting of four or five layers of cells (not well shown in the figure). Surrounding the epithelium of the lung rudiments is a thin layer ...
— Development of the Digestive Canal of the American Alligator • Albert M. Reese
... or indications of indigestion will be present as the appetite is variable, temperature elevated, breathing labored, the animal avoids walking down hill as it causes pain from the stomach and intestines pressing the lungs against the heart. The symptoms, however, are so slight that they may ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... that very reason, it is apt to be more sought after: the persiflage of a writer of another nation and of a past age is of necessity peculiarly difficult to realize and reproduce. Nothing is so variable as the standard of taste in a matter like this: even on the minor question, what expressions may and what may not be tolerated in good society, probably no two persons think exactly alike: and when we ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... reasoning, his vocabulary and method, instead of constantly suggesting a false simplicity, warn him that every individual instance with which he deals is different from any other, that any effect is a function of many variable causes, and, therefore, that no estimate of the result of any act can be accurate unless all its conditions and their relative importance ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... variable, freezing nights and thawing in the day. The soil in this locality is rich, and, where trodden, extremely muddy. We shall miss the clear water of the mountain streams. A large number of troops ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... mental reality to her, tradition possessed for her all the power of the living and the sublime. Thus the conception of "honor" with all its personal and social facets was to her as fixed, clear, clean-cut and immutable as a diamond. That it might be variable, that some ages had called honorable what was now considered dishonorable, and vice versa, on that she never reflected and she did not seek for the lasting kernel of the changing idea. Through this she possessed a serenity and peace of mind which, in ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... marked tabular character of the pueblo masons' material. The narrow edges of similar stones are visible in the unplastered portions of the house wall, which also illustrates the relative proportion of chinking stones. This latter, however, is a variable feature. Pl. XV affords a clear illustration of the proportion of these small stones in the old masonry of Payupki; while in Pl. XI, illustrating a portion of the outer wall of the Fire House, the tablets are fewer in number and thinner, their use predominating in ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... desert of the geography naturally conceives it an absolutely forsaken and empty region where nothing but dust-storms are born unattended and die "without benefit of the clergy." But the desert has character and is as variable ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... movement is not in them, nor in any one body of men, let me tell you. It is the people that makes the clergy, and not the clergy that makes the people. Of course, the profession reacts on its source with variable energy.—But there never was a guild of dealers or a company of craftsmen that did not ...
— The Professor at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes (Sr.)
... a nebulous but suggestive remark that the newspaper occupies the borderland between literature and common sense. Literature it certainly is not, and in the popular apprehension it seems often too erratic and variable to be credited with the balance-wheel of sense; but it must have something of the charm of the one, and the steadiness and sagacity of the other, or it will fail to please. The model editor, I believe, has yet to appear. Notwithstanding ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... is still in a state of colostrum, the fluid contains a variable quantity of albumen coagulable by heat, much less caseine, and an excess ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... to be effected by the conscientious consecration and prayerful use of wealth. That is for each man to settle for himself. But what is not variable is the obligation to set the kingdom high above all else, and to use all outward wealth, as Christ's servants, not for luxury and self-gratification, but as in His sight and for His glory. Let us not be afraid of believing what Jesus and His ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... brass, was that of Jupiter, emblem of his solidity and dry nature. The fourth, of iron, was that of Mercury, expressing his indefatigable activity and sagacity. The fifth, of copper, was that of Mars, expressive of his inequalities and variable nature. The sixth, of silver, was that of the Moon: and the seventh, of gold, that of the Sun. This order is not the real order of these Planets; but a mysterious one, like that of the days of the Week consecrated to them, commencing with Saturday, ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... She is a respectable person who lets her house in lodgings. Twenty-five years ago she had a house in Westminster, and let the drawing-room floor to a gentleman of the name of Gilmore. He was rather tall and dark, and very variable in his temper. He had his wife with him, and two months afterwards a child was born. It was christened at St. Matthew's. I was its god-mother, as they seemed to have very few friends in the town. Mr. Gilmore was out a good deal looking for ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... Englishmen for the most part were willing to wait for the perfection of society, if only they could keep their throats perfect and help to drive away the chief enemy of mankind from our coasts. To my father's mind the noisy teachers of revolutionary doctrine were, to speak mildly, a variable mixture of the fool and the scoundrel; the welfare of the nation lay in a strong Government which could maintain order; and I was accustomed to hear him utter the word "Government" in a tone that charged it with awe, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... The variable position of the head of steamboat navigation on the Kanawha made it impossible to fix a permanent depot as a terminus for our wagon trains in the upper valley. My own judgment was in favor of placing it at Kanawha Falls, a mile ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... two stood this variable, sensuous, woman's nature, so capable both of good and evil. Rachel felt the burden of their virtues too much for her, together with the sting of her ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... administered its temporalities, consisting of the cura and churchwardens), four for the parrocos (parish priests) and lower clergy, one and one-half for the hospitals, and two for the King—all but this last being variable. See Baluffi's America en tempo Spagnuola (Ancona, 1844) ii, p. 41.—Rev. T. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... was no such will or hope to exalt the quiet instincts of his natural industry; and partly as a scholar's exercise, partly as an old man's recreation, the severity of the Latin language was softened, like Venetian crystal, by the variable fire of Hebrew thought, and the "Book of Books" took the abiding form of which all the future art of the Western nations was to be an ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... daughter, as a souvenir," said Gotzkowsky, folding it up carefully, and then added thoughtfully: "Who knows but what the time may come when it will be necessary to remind the merchants of Leipsic of this document? The opinions and destinies of men are very variable." ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... through a ribbon give variable shades and the typist in filling in must watch carefully to see that her typewriter ribbons match the impressions made in the body of the letter, especially where the form letters are printed several months in advance ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... were it not for the rational and moral elements in their nature, which suggest noble pieces of abstinence and self-restraint, thus securing a certain freedom, a certain superiority to the brute pressure of interest and impulse. These rational and moral elements are in variable counterpoise with the ruder desires,—sometimes commanding them with imperial ease, sometimes overcoming them by struggle, sometimes striving with them feebly and vainly, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to consider WILKES merely as a political adventurer, and it may surprise to find this "city chamberlain" ranked among professed literary characters: yet in his variable life there was a period when he cherished the aspirations of a votary. Once he desired Lloyd to announce the edition of Churchill, which he designed to enrich by a commentary; and his correspondence on this subject, which has never appeared, would, as he ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... beauty, but the large black eyes and raven hair contrasted sadly with the pallor of her face. Poe himself, poor, proud, and ill, anticipating grief and nursing the bitterness that springs from helplessness in the sight of suffering borne by those dear to us, was restless and variable, the creature ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... singular and mysterious. Whatever love of humour you have,—whatever sympathy with imperfect, but most subtle, feeling,—whatever perception of sublimity in conditions of fatal power, may here find fullest occupation: all these being joined, in the strong animal races, to a variable and fantastic beauty far beyond anything that merely formative art has yet conceived. I have placed in your Educational series a wing by Albert Duerer, which goes as far as art yet has reached in delineation of ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... oblong-lanceolate, veins { Beeches terminating in teeth { Chestnut A D Ovate-oblong, doubly serrate, surface rough Elms A D Ovate to ovate-lanceolate, serrate, surface slightly rough Hackberry A D Outline variable, ovate-oval, sometimes lobed (3-7), serrate-dentate Mulberry A D Ovate, serrate, oblong { Shadbush { Plums { Cherries A D Oval or oval-oblong, spines, evergreen Holly A D Broad-ovate, one-sided, ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... ever-changing and ever-shifting assumptions of the human mind. For the materialistic theories of to-day are not those of yesterday, nor is there any certainty that they will be those of to-morrow. They are almost as fantastic and variable as the forms of the kaleidoscope, although, as a general rule, they lack the symmetrical arrangements and proportions of ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... coldest. It is at the close of the invierno (May) that fevers most abound. The climate of Guayaquil during the dry season is nearly perfect. At daybreak there is a cool easterly breeze; at sunrise a brief lull, and then a gentle variable wind; at 3 P.M. a southwest wind, at first in gusts, then in a sustained current; at sunset the same softened down to a gentle breeze, increasing about 7 P.M., and dying away about 3 A.M. Notwithstanding heaps of filth and green-mantled ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... words were found in variable forms in the original text and both versions have been retained: armchair/arm-chair; byword/by-word; hearthrug/hearth-rug; housekeeping/house-keeping; ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... letter. The doctor, to whom the reports were communicated, received them in his turn with unabated confidence in the precautions that had been adopted up to the morning of the 8th. On that date the irritation of continued suspense had produced a change for the worse in Miss Gwilt's variable temper, which was perceptible to every one about her, and which, strangely enough, was reflected by an equally marked change in the doctor's manner when he came to pay his usual visit. By a coincidence so extraordinary that his enemies might have suspected it of not being ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... I might strive to appall thee," he added faintly smiling, "with a description of the gloom and discomfort of thine unknown northern mansion; but if thou art willing to bear with its scanty means of accommodation, as well as with thy husband's variable temper, come with him to ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... truth, and Law is the earthly reality; liberty is Right and society is Law. Wherefore there are two tribunes, one of the men of ideas, the other of the men of facts; and between these two the consciences of most still vacillate. Not yet is there harmony between the immutable and the variable power; Right and ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... gentle. In all probability she has a passion for battles and bloodshed. I judged from your father's point of view. She has money, and you are to have money; and the union of money and money is supposed to be a good thing. And besides, you are variable, and off to-morrow what you are on to-day; is it not so? and heiresses are never jilted. Colonel Barclay is only awaiting your retirement. Le roi est mort; vive le roi! Heiresses may cry it ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of each, according to either specification, is such a variable quantity that nothing can be determined satisfactorily. According to one officer's statement, about one in every five is considered an employee.[20] In the winter of 1903-4, 209 men were sent to Hadleigh and supported there by a special fund, called ...
— The Social Work of the Salvation Army • Edwin Gifford Lamb
... oxe havyng a sweete nosegaie of flowers tyed on the tippe of his hornes, and these oxen draw home this Maiepoole (this stinckying idoll rather), which is covered all over with flowers and hearbes, bound round aboute with stringes from the top to the bottome, and sometyme painted with variable colours, with two or three hundred men, women, and children, following it with great devotion. And thus beyng reared up, with handkerchiefes and flagges streaming on the toppe, they strewe the ground about, binde greene boughs about it, set up summer haules, ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... Institution, (the first High Court of Parliament on the present Establishment, having been ordained in the Reign of Henry the First, Son of William the Conquerer) avoiding the turbulent Licentiousness of a Democracy, the factious domineering Temper of Aristocracy, and the variable oppressive Sway of Arbitrary Monarchy; but including, by an harmonious Assemblage, the essential Virtues of those different Systems of Government; is unquestionably the best digested and wisest in the known World: Under which, the King and the Nobles, with the Commons, unite, ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... those of Nature. The baths, erected there nearly twenty centuries ago, present only heaps of ruins, and even the bricks of which they were built, though hardened by fire, are crumbled into dust, whilst the masses of travertine around it, though formed by a variable source from the most perishable materials, have hardened by time, and the most perfect remains of the greatest ruins in the eternal city, such as the triumphal arches and the Colosaeum, owe their duration to this source. ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... seven A.M.; went on shore again at nine, and stopped all day. Dined and slept on board; rough living here, but no cattle, which is a great thing.—26th. Set sail at eleven A.M.; fair wind; fine day, and very hot.—27th. Rain all night; wind light and variable, and one made but little progress. Cape Bona still close to us this morning. We are only going at three and three-quarter knots per hour. A fine breeze got up at twelve, and at seven we passed Panteleria Isle, going at seven knots.—28th. Wind fell away early ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... in this trade are very variable, for although their goods are all disposed of apparently at enormous prices, yet there are so many of them delivered to powerful chiefs, or to the Sultan, as presents, or sold to these dignitaries without the traders ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking
... was as variable as the strength of the current. Sometimes I saw the stony bed seven or ten feet below, and then quite suddenly the boat would get into rushing water that sparkled with crystal clearness over a bank of pebbles, and I expected momentarily to hear a grating noise and to feel myself aground; ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the more fastidious sense of the present day the vagaries and weaknesses of their writer. Johnson protested against this attempt to 'enchain his volatility' by vows. But Boswell replies that they may be useful to one 'of a variable judgment and irregular inclinations. For my part, without affecting to be a Socrates, I am sure I have a more than ordinary struggle to maintain with the Evil Principle, and all the methods I can devise are little enough to keep me tolerably steady in the paths of rectitude.' ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... bird, far less brilliant in plumage than the tanager, alighted even nearer, and poured forth a flood of song to which Henry listened without moving. Then the gray bird also flew away, not in fear, but because its variable mind moved it to do so. It too had come as a friend and it departed without changing. A rabbit hopped through the brush, stared at him a moment or two, and then hopped calmly out of sight. Its visit ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the dropping out of detail that accomplishes this in one case and the other. In either, the point of view alone is fixed. The rest is variable, and depends, it may be, on the nature of that subtile and volatile ether through which each ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... the female is incapable of reproduction. But for some days before her monthly illness she is liable to conception, as for that length of time the male element can survive. This period, therefore, becomes a variable and an undetermined one, and even when known, its observation demands a large ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... of good writing. Writing, as a means of expression, has to compete with talking. The talker need not rely wholly on what he says. He has the help of his mobile face and hands, and of his voice, with its various inflexions and its variable pace, whereby he may insinuate fine shades of meaning, qualifying or strengthening at will, and clothing naked words with colour, and making dead words live. But the writer? He can express a certain amount through his handwriting, if he write in a properly elastic way. But his ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... than the free-swimming medusa; and the cold-blooded and less heterogeneous fish is quicker in its movements than the warm-blooded and more heterogeneous sloth. But the admission that the several aspects under which this increasing contrast shows itself bear variable ratios to one another, does not negative the general truth enunciated. Looking at the facts in the mass, it cannot be denied that the successively higher groups of organisms are severally characterized, ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... the wind was variable at daylight, and a dense fog was on the river. As the sun rose, it was dissipated and a light breeze sprung up from W.S.W. We ran up the stream with a free sheet for six hours, when we stopped ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... made in the House upon this occasion, printed at the end of his poems, gives us some notion of his principles as to government.' Indeed we cannot but confess he was a little too inconstant in them, and was not naturally so steady, as he was judicious; which variable temper was the cause of his losing his reputation, in a great measure, with both parties, when the nation became unhappily divided. His love to poetry, and his indolence, laid him open to the insinuations of others, and perhaps prevented his fixing so resolutely to any one party, as to make him ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... our journey westward. I arrived at Toronto on the 27th of June, and found the weather had changed to variable ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... always be renewed, and in an equal degree, by the objects which first excited it. The weakness of humanity is never willingly perceived by young minds. It is painful to know, that we are operated upon by objects whose impressions are variable as they are indefinable—and that what yesterday affected us strongly, is to-day but imperfectly felt, and to-morrow perhaps shall be disregarded. When at length this unwelcome truth is received into the mind, we ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... watching an orb that is only variable at our caprice, and contemplating a woman who shifts and quivers ever with her own, how vast ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... as the day before. The thermometer had risen twenty-five degrees during the night—a great change, but not unusual in our variable climate. Phil rather enjoyed this walk, notwithstanding his back was ...
— Phil the Fiddler • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... Impulsive, variable as the wind, San Francisco found a new adventure. It listened spellbound to golden eloquence, extolling the virtues of a favored candidate. Meanwhile Acting Sheriff Townes rushed his prisoners to the county jail without anyone so ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... approach of such a revolution. There is nothing more striking to a person newly arrived in the United States, than the kind of tumultuous agitation in which he finds political society. The laws are incessantly changing, and at first sight it seems impossible that a people so variable in its desires should avoid adopting, within a short space of time, a completely new form of government. Such apprehensions are, however, premature; the instability which affects political institutions is of two kinds, which ought not to be confounded: ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... application of this rule to those over whom we have control, is not without its difficulties. Our own sensations are so variable, independently of external and obvious causes, that we cannot at all times judge for others, especially for infants. The absolute and real state of temperature in a room can only be ascertained by the aid of a thermometer; and no nursery should ever be without one. It should be placed, however, ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... changed from its calm. Variable emotions shot over it. Prescott, as he stood there before her, was conscious of admiration. What vagary had sent a girl who looked like ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... approximate figures may always be had and they are extremely useful. The cost of writing an ordinary letter is quite surprising. Very few letters can be dictated, transcribed, and mailed at a cost of much less than twelve cents each. The factors which govern costs are variable and it is to be borne in mind that the methods for ascertaining costs as here given represent the least cost and not the real cost—they simply tell you "Your letter costs at least this sum." They do not say "Your letter costs exactly this sum." The ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... and the demand for every freely produced commodity is variable, and since a true standard of value, like a true standard of weight or length, must be invariable as regards that which it measures, it necessarily follows that no single freely produced commodity can be a true standard of value. But while it is true that every single commodity must vary ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... we imagined that she was either from Falkland's Islands, where the French had then a settlement, to get wood, or upon a survey of the strait. The remaining part of this day, and the next morning, we had variable winds with calms; in the afternoon therefore I hoisted out the boats, and towed round Saint Anne's Point into Port Famine; at six in the evening we anchored, and soon after the French ship passed by us ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... "A most variable climate," said the Duchess; "and how unfortunate that we should have had that very cold weather at a time when coal was so dear! So distressing ...
— Reginald • Saki
... impossible to bring a fleet of forty sail of the line into line of battle in variable winds, thick weather, and other circumstances which must occur, without such a loss of time that the opportunity would probably be lost of bringing the enemy to battle in such a manner as to make the business decisive; I have therefore ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... our own country is exceedingly variable. The transitions from heat to cold are very sudden, the range of the mercury is very great. In the North, we have almost the Arctic winters; in the South, almost the peculiarities of the tropics. Of the State of Pennsylvania ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... amount of water in wood is extremely variable it usually is not satisfactory to refer to the density of green wood. For scientific purposes the density of "oven-dry" wood is used; that is, the wood is dried in an oven at a temperature of 100 deg.C. (212 deg.F.) ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... With variable winds, the three ships that composed the fleet sailed towards the west till the 26th of January, 1606, when, in the afternoon, they sighted a small island. No anchorage could be found and it was thought that it could not be inhabited, so they passed it. Continuing on a westerly course three days ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... to allow of any amount of selected change; so that it does not seem to me at all incompatible that a group which at any one period (or during all successive periods) varies less, should in the long course of time have undergone more modification than a group which is generally more variable. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... clearness, receipts on one side and expenses on the other, each section divided into chapters and each chapter into articles, the state of the liabilities, each debt, the state of the assets and a tabular enumeration of distinct resources, available capital and unpaid claims, fixed income and variable income, certain revenue and possible revenue. In no case must "the calculation of presumable expenditure exceed the amount of presumable income." In no case must "the commune demand or obtain an extra tax for its ordinary expenses." Exact accounts ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a very remarkable influence upon the irritability of the sensitive plant. Thus, if a sensitive plant be placed in complete darkness, by carrying it within an opaque vessel, it will entirely lose its irritability, and that in a variable time, according to a certain state of depression or ...
— The Mirror, 1828.07.05, Issue No. 321 - The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction • Various
... with Bramble that we would return together and halve the pilotage. About eight leagues from the Lizard Point we boarded a small ship which had hoisted the signal, the weather at that time being fine and the wind variable. When we went on board it was but just daylight, and the captain was not yet on deck, but the mate received us. We were surprised to find that she mounted twelve brass guns, remarkably well fitted, and that everything was apparently ready for action, rammers and sponges, shot ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... news story is probably the most variable part of a newspaper. Given the same facts, each individual reporter will write the story in his individual way and each editor will change it to suit his individual taste. No two newspapers have exactly the same ideal form of news story and no newspaper ...
— Newspaper Reporting and Correspondence - A Manual for Reporters, Correspondents, and Students of - Newspaper Writing • Grant Milnor Hyde
... and the discussion is complicated by the fact that conflicts of men as groups of individuals within the same species are somewhat anomalous among biological forms of struggle. Commonly, struggle takes place among individuals, organisms having definite characteristics and but slightly variable each from its own kind contending with one another, by direct competition or through adaptation, in the first case individuals striving to obtain actually the same objects. Or, again, species having the ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... undulation of the sea-bed: its highest ridges do not rise more than the height of a man above the salines on either side;—the salines themselves lie almost level with the level of the flood-tides;—the tides are variable, treacherous, mysterious. But when all around and above these ever-changing shores the twin vastnesses of heaven and sea begin to utter the tremendous revelation of themselves as infinite forces in contention, then indeed this sense of separation from humanity appalls ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... of him where the body is. King Now sonne Hamlet, where is this dead body? Ham. At supper, not where he is eating, but Where he is eaten, a certaine company of politicke wormes [G4] are euen now at him. Father, your fatte King, and your leane Beggar Are but variable seruices, two dishes to one messe: Looke you, a man may fish with that worme That hath eaten of a King, And a Beggar eate that fish, Which that worme hath caught. King What of this? Ham. Nothing father, but to tell you, how a King May go a progresse through the ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... compelled the explorer to return, and on October 12th he started for Buenos Ayres in a small vessel. During this journey he had an opportunity of examining the shifting and variable islands of the muddy Parana, on which the jaguar thrives. Arrived at Las Conchas, a revolution had broken out, and Darwin was detained to a certain extent under surveillance; but by the influence ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... distinguish a German or a Briton, in the habits of his mind or his body, in his manners or apprehensions, from an American, who, like him, with his bow and his dart, is left to traverse the forest; and in a like severe or variable climate, is obliged ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... after the other to the world. Hence the many transformations of that semi-madness, and their quick variety. Young Gourlay was showing them now. His had always been a wandering mind, deficient in application and control, and as he neared his final collapse it became more and more variable, the prey of each momentary thought. In a short five minutes of time he had been alive to the beauty of the darkness, cowering before the memory of his father's eyes, sobbing in self-pity and angry resolve, shaking in terror—indeed he was ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... my governement, a field hath been wonne so honourably, I suppose that it is good, that I tempt not fortune any more, knowyng how variable, and unstable she is: and therefore, I desire to give up my governement, and that Zanobi do execute now this office of demaundyng, mindyng to followe the order, whiche concerneth the youngeste: and I knowe he will not refuse this honoure, ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Variable passions throng her constant woe, As striving who should best become her grief; 968 All entertain'd, each passion labours so, That every present sorrow seemeth chief, But none is best; then join they all together, Like many clouds consulting for ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare
... Mrs Enderby had been in agitated and variable spirits for some time, apparently wishing to say something that she did not say, and expressing a stronger regard than ever for her old friends—a regular sign that some act of tyranny or rudeness might speedily be expected from Mrs Rowland. The Greys were in the midst of their speculations, ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... of the new cuts were easily navigable, being from 140 to 200 feet wide at bottom, whereas the old outlets had been variable and were often choked with shifting sand. The district was thus effectually opened up for navigation, and a convenient transit afforded for coals and other articles of consumption. Wisbeach became accessible to vessels of much larger burden, and in the course of a few years after ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... runways; 12 locations have snow-surface skiways limited to use by ski-equipped planes - 8 runways/skiways greater than 3,000 m,10 runways/skiways 1,000 to 3,000 m, 3 runways/skiways less than 1,000 m, and 4 of unspecified or variable length; airports generally subject to severe restrictions and limitations resulting from extreme seasonal and geographic conditions; airports do not meet ICAO standards; advance approval from the respective governmental or non-governmental ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... of fire as a punishment, which has been suggested, though not absolutely advised, by Bentham, would have a decisive preference. "Fire," writes that voluminous jurist and legislator, "may be employed as an instrument of punishment without occasioning death. This punishment is variable in its nature, through all the degrees of severity of which there can be any need. It would be necessary carefully to determine, on the test of the law, the part of the body which ought to be exposed to the action of fire; the intensity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... gives strength to the rest: for they are not to be regarded as separate and successive states, a discrete series through which we must pass one by one, leaving penitence behind us when we reach surrendered love; but as the variable yet enduring and inseparable aspects of one rich life, phases in one complete and vital effort to respond more and more closely ...
— The Life of the Spirit and the Life of To-day • Evelyn Underhill
... his Cromwell (1827)], or rather there are no other rules than the general laws of nature which encompass the whole art, and the special laws which for every composition result from the conditions of existence peculiar to each subject. The former are eternal, internal, and remain; the latter variable, external, and serve ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... introduction of bronze, of iron, of glass and glazed earthenware; and these we perceive increasingly not as turning points of the whole, but as processes within it, affecting now one region, now another, in a sequence which is clearly geographical and at very variable speed. Bronze, for example, took some thousands of years to permeate the continent of Europe; iron perhaps as many hundreds; platinum a little more than fifty years; and radium less ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... that two-ninths of the atmosphere by weight is a highly magnetic body, subject to great changes in its magnetic character, by variations in its temperature and condensation or rarefaction, without being persuaded that it has much to do with the variable disposition of the magnetic forces upon the surface of ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... thick, solid, firm, slightly tapering toward the apex, very bulbous at base, same color as cap, stuffed with brown pith inside. There are two or three reddish oblique zones encircling the stem. Gills adnate, swollen in the middle, distant, variable, at first pale cinnamon color, and then dark brown. We found them at the end of August in great numbers, sometimes united in tufts (caespitose) in all stages of growth, the younger ones covered with a cobwebby ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... Roquevaire; they are very large and very sweet. This sort is rarely eaten by any but the most wealthy. The dried Malaga, or Muscatel raisins, which come to this country packed in small boxes, and nicely preserved in bunches, are variable in their quality, but mostly of a rich flavour, when new, juicy, and of ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... appearance in The Room with the Tassels made that story more than ordinarily worth while. I do not know, though, whether Penny Wise would be interesting or even notable if it were not for his curious assistant, Zizi. The merit of detective stories is necessarily variable; The Vanishing of Betty Varian is one of the author's best; but Miss Wells (really Mrs. Hadwin Houghton) is, to me, as extraordinary as her stories. All those books! She herself says that "having mastered the psychology ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... corrected only when unambiguous ("Symrna"), or when the expected spelling occurs many times in the book. A few variable forms such as "handsom ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... arabesques, denticulations, capitals, and bas-reliefs,—it combines all these flowers of the fancy according to the logarithm that suits it best. Hence the immense variety in the exteriors of those structures within which dwell such unity and order. The trunk of the tree is fixt; the foliage is variable. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... that it was in any case necessary to analyze the products of combustion in order to detect imperfect action. Thus, in the case of substances containing carbon, carbonic oxide was always present to a variable extent with the carbonic acid, and corrections were necessary in order to determine the total heat due to the complete combination of the substance with oxygen. Another advantage gained was that the absorption of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 441, June 14, 1884. • Various
... with all other commodities, the idea of a "constant" measure of prices is unthinkable. We would have to suppose here, that not a single kind of goods varied in its price; since, otherwise, at least as compared with those that varied in price, the measure of prices would itself be variable.(773) But we may, indeed, search for a kind of goods such that its inherent elements and the elements peculiar to it, so far as it is itself concerned, and which go to determine price, should exert the same uniform influence at all times. If there be such ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... mind. It did not so much blow in gusts as with the steady sweep of a waterfall, so that there was no remission of discomfort while it blew. But higher upon the mountain, it was probably of a more variable strength, with accesses of fury; for there came down at times a far-off wailing, infinitely grievous to hear; and at times, on one of the high shelves or terraces, there would start up, and then disperse, a tower of dust, like ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Prussian Militarism or the rise of German Commercialism, or the long tradition and growth of a Welt-politik philosophy, or the general political ignorance which gave to these influences such rash and uncritical acceptance; or whether we accuse the somewhat difficult and variable personal equation of the Kaiser himself—the fact still remains that for years and years this war has been by the German Government most deliberately and systematically prepared for. The fact remains that Britain—though for a long period she had foreseen ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... for other purposes too vague to enumerate. I have attempted, by Hooker's help, to ascertain in a similar way whether the different species of the same genera in distant quarters of the globe are variable or present varieties. The definition I should give of a "CLOSE SPECIES" was one that YOU thought specifically distinct, but which you could conceive some other GOOD botanist might think only a race or variety; or, again, a species that you had trouble, though ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... fiction would do well to study the Spanish picaresque novels; for in their simplicity of design he will find one of the best forms for an American story. The intrigue of close texture will never suit our conditions, which are so loose and open and variable; each man's life among us is a romance of the Spanish model, if it is the life of a man who has risen, as we nearly all have, with many ups and downs. The story of 'Latzarillo' is gross in its facts, and is mostly "unmeet for ladies," like most ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... proved to be, perhaps not so predictably, quite similar in practical consequences. One pressure felt by all the services was the recently acquired knowledge that the nation's military manpower was not only variable but also limited in quantity. Military efficiency demanded, therefore, that the services not only make the most effective use of available manpower, but also improve its quality. Since Negroes, who made up approximately 10 percent of the population, formed a substantial part of the nation's manpower, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... day we discovered land at five of the clock in the morning, being very great and high mountains, the tops of the hills being covered with snow. Here the wind was variable, sometimes north-east, east-north-east, and east by north; but we imagined ourselves to be 16 or 17 leagues off ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... as a King," she whispered, and drew from her bosom the opal, as lovely and as variable as the human spirit. "With the other three stones you may, if you will, buy back your father's kingdom. But this, which contains all qualities in one, let us keep for ever, for our children and theirs, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... Nanson, in condemning Mr. Hare's original scheme, has denied that they are free to vote as faddists; but he still holds that they are free to vote on any basis if only they form one-sixth to one-twelfth of an electorate. Thus the amount of freedom is variable and a matter of opinion. Now, we altogether deny that electors should be given the opportunity to subordinate the national interests to factious interests. Just as the faddist argument is fatal to Mr. Hare's original scheme, ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... and when the groups began to scatter themselves through the light and shadow made here by closely neighboring beeches and there by rarer oaks, one may suppose that a painter would have been glad to look on. This roving archery was far prettier than the stationary game, but success in shooting at variable marks were less favored by practice, and the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise than they would have been in target-shooting. From this cause, perhaps, as well as from the twofold distraction of being preoccupied and wishing not to betray her ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... consist of the valleys of the Nubra and Shayok rivers. These are deep, fierce, variable streams, which have buried the lower levels under great stretches of shingle, patched with jungles of hippophae and tamarisk, affording cover for innumerable wolves. Great lateral torrents descend to these rivers, and ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)
... Bob in the Hut, soon," he added, "and this will repay us all for more than twice the risks—all but you, little vixen; for your mother tells me you are getting, through some caprice of that variable humour of your sex, to be a little estranged from ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... shadow over this place too long as it is! Miss Clairville is no child; she knows, has always known, her own mind, and I do not grudge her a slight flirtation or two with any one she fancies; it is her way, a safe outlet for her strong yet variable temperament. You take things too seriously, ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... in the afternoone, the wind came to the West northwest for the space of one houre, and presently to the East againe, and so was variable ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... pleasant, his manners affable. In stature he was short; in movement, quick and nervous. But in the make-up of the man one essential of true greatness—fixedness of purpose—had been omitted. He lacked the staying qualities. He was "variable and fond of change." "His full nature, like that river of which Alexander broke the strength, spent itself in channels which led to no great name on earth." By a single exploit, at the age of thirty, he ...
— Pioneer Surgery in Kentucky - A Sketch • David W. Yandell
... as near to the sportsman as possible, otherwise the game will be flushed at such a distance that it will be impossible to get at it. The cocker spaniel is much smaller than the springer; his ears are long, pendulous, and silky; his body round and compact; his legs short and tufted; his coat variable; his nose black; tail bushy and feathered, and, when hunting, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... begins a fight most fierce and fell. "And fight they did confusedly, and with variable fortunes; while, on the one hand, the English manfully rescued the ships of London, which were hemmed in by the Spaniards; and, on the other side, the Spaniards as stoutly delivered Recalde being in danger." "Never was heard such thundering of ordnance on both sides, which notwithstanding from ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... Veronica found him an exceptionally interesting man. To begin with, he struck her as being the most variable person she had ever encountered. At times he was brilliant and masterful, talked round and over every one, and would have been domineering if he had not been extraordinarily kindly; at times he was almost monosyllabic, and defeated Miss Garvice's ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... to communicate to previous molecular supplies. Hitherto it has used such molecules solely for the repair of its own waste; now it employs a large portion of them to build up an entirely new fabric. It seems then that molecular polarity is not a fixed but a variable property, and, being such, cannot be inherent or originate in the molecular nature. But I will not linger over this point nor yet over the fact, absolutely unintelligible on the polar hypothesis, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... existence and the competition of life; antagonistic cooperation. The struggle for existence must be carried on under life conditions and in connection with the competition of life. The life conditions consist in variable elements of the environment, the supply of materials necessary to support life, the difficulty of exploiting them, the state of the arts, and the circumstances of physiography, climate, meteorology, etc., which favor life or the contrary. The struggle for ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner
... and his ministers tried to grapple with the altered circumstances, and strove to substitute and equitable Crown rent or money payment for the existing and variable claims which were collected by the Court of Ward and Livery. The knight's fee then consisted of twelve plough-lands, a more modern name for "a hide of land." The class burdened with knight's service, or payments in lieu thereof, comprised 160 temporal ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... flowers is pollen. Candle-alder (Alnus Rubra)[9] yields the first supply. The time of flowering varies from the 10th of March to the 20th of April. The amount afforded is also variable. Cold, freezing weather frequently destroys a great portion of these flowers after they are out. These staminate flowers are nearly perfected the season previous, and a few warm days in spring will bring them out, even before any leaves appear. When the weather continues ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby |
