"Vital" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... In this very matter of the State, for example, we are dealing with an organization of individuals, and if our way of talking about it makes us overlook the flesh and blood of which it is composed, the other way may obscure in our minds the vital differences introduced by the very fact of organization. The Germans have often seen the wood more clearly when the Englishman was more careful to distinguish and name the trees. So I cannot doubt that it will prove in the end to have been good for us to have been compelled ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... to vital sea lanes through South China Sea linking Indian and Pacific Oceans; two parts physically separated by Malaysia; almost an enclave ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... generation that is represented in these two texts as void of faith in the Son of Man, and as credulously giving heed to impostors. Unbelief and superstition are closely allied. Religion is so vital a necessity, that if the true form of it be cast aside, some false form will be eagerly seized in order to fill the aching void. Men cannot permanently live without some sort of a faith in the Unseen, but they can ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... their own way. The friends of General McClellan were so anxious to secure his nomination and to conciliate the opposition that they studiously avoided provoking any conflict with the predominant peace sentiment. The substance and vital spirit of the platform were contained in the second resolution as follows: "That this Convention does explicitly declare as the sense of the American people, that after four years of failure to restore ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... for Schwann not a morphological concept at all, but a physiological; the cell was a dynamical, not a statical unit. Cell-formation was the process at the back of all production of life, and cells were the centres of all vital activity. Each cell was itself an organism, and its life and activities were to some extent independent of the lives and activities of all the other cells. The multicellular organism was a colony of unicellular organisms, and its life was a sum of the lives of its ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... it will ever remain true that ownership, or property in man is not in itself wrong, and that it may be benevolent to all concerned. It is interesting to recollect that in proportion as human relations are cardinal, or vital, they approach most nearly to ownership, as in the case of parent and child. The highest relation of all, that between man and God, finds its most perfect expression in terms conveying the idea of ownership on the part of God. 'For ye are not your own;—therefore glorify ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... in his side, and for the first time he thought of his wound. Passing his hand to it, he found it was clotted with blood. The cold air had stopped the bleeding, and thus saved his life. Though the bayonet had gone clear through him, his hurt was not mortal, for no vital part was injured. ...
— Our Young Folks, Vol 1, No. 1 - An Illustrated Magazine • Various
... pirate's body literally flew into mist as a half-kilogram shell tore through his armor and exploded. Costigan shut off his beam, and, with not the slightest softening of one hard lineament, stared around the air-room; making sure that no serious damage had been done to the vital machinery of the air-purifier—the very ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... could have predicted the position of the parties to-day. The Democratic party is old enough to have outlived and defeated all other parties, young enough to represent the progressive spirit of to-day. It must be founded on vital principles and have a living faith. Its creed from its first to its thirty-ninth article is an abiding trust in the people, a belief that men, irrespective of the accident of birth or fortune, have a right to a voice in the government that rules them. Its principles ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... understand my design to be to get up to the South Side and ultimately to the Danville Railroad, as soon as he had heard of the movement commenced on the 29th. These roads were so important to his very existence while he remained in Richmond and Petersburg, and of such vital importance to him even in case of retreat, that naturally he would make most strenuous efforts to defend them. He did on the 30th send Pickett with five brigades to reinforce Five Forks. He also sent around to the right of his ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... its individual so much as its related life which is contemplated." The silent presence of children in the roles of the Greek drama is very impressive (350. 21). At Rome, though childhood is more of a "vital force" than in Greece, yet "it is not contemplated as a fine revelation of nature." Sometimes, in its brutal aspects, "children are reckoned as scarcely more than cubs," yet with refinement they "come to represent the more spiritual side of the family life." ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... of it. These are but pictures and images of Christians. We have mouths and faces of saints: but O how little of divine affection or of soul-desires, breathes in us! We are deniers of the power of godliness, by resting in a form, and this is the great sin of this generation. The essentials, the vital spirits of Christianity are exhausted, and some dry bones, like an anatomy of a Christian, remain behind. I beseech you, gather your spirits to this spiritual walking: they only can follow the Spirit. Your bodies are earthly and lumpish, and the way is all upward to the holy hill. ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... their horses and rode away. The spokesman had hit the vital point unerringly; for cow-punchers are shrewdly alive to frankness, and it often draws out the best that is in them; but its opposite affects them unfavorably; and I, needing sleep, sighed to think of their late sitting up over that joke. I walked to the board box painted "Hotel Brunswick"—"hotel" ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... think I know the sort of entertainments you mean. But please do not beg a vital question by calling them plays. I dont pretend to be an authority; but I have at least established the fact that these productions, whatever else they may be, are certainly ...
— Fanny's First Play • George Bernard Shaw
... exclaimed, "I burn! I burn!" She found that the fire had at last seized upon her vital parts, which made her still cry "I burn!" until death had put an end to her intolerable pains. The effect of that fire was so extraordinary, that in a few moments she was wholly reduced to ashes, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... the wit to slip from the net, to dig him a vital thrust with the trident: "If you thought that, why ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... Even the unfavourable description so often quoted of Eneas Silvius, reports the common people as having "abundance of flesh and fish," no small ingredient of wellbeing, and records rather a complete absence of luxuries than that want which reduces the vital strength of a nation. The same authority tells of exportations of "hides, wool, salt fish, and pearls," the latter a curious item, although there were as yet no manufactures, and even such necessaries as horse-shoes and every kind of harness had to be imported ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... indispensable to the prosperity and well-being of any and every organisation, and especially of a Christian church, that the teachings of its minister be in accord with the convictions of a majority of its members upon vital questions of eternal interest, with the end and aim of securing the greatest efficiency of that body in the community, as an example and a shining light before men to guide their steps in the strait and narrow ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... like this: whether a man in a fit of madness can have more physical strength than if he is in his senses; and we may admit this without on that account ascribing to him more strength of mind, if by mind we understand the vital principle of man in the free use of his powers. For since those crimes have their ground merely in the power of the inclinations that weaken reason, which does not prove strength of mind, this question ...
— The Metaphysical Elements of Ethics • Immanuel Kant
... horrible skill as the crones of the African race who have derived their knowledge from the West India Islands. Whether it should be brought near the head by concealment in a pillow, or near the more vital portions of the body itself through use of a bandage worn near the skin,—the effect would be the same—insensible debilitation, decline, death! But the latter plan would be much the more rapid; and in neither event, when the deed was done, would there be one mark, perceptible ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... intention of opposing the new government, and carrying himself free from every appearance of a factious spirit. He remarked:—"I retired from office because, from the first moment of my public life, I have taken an active and decided part on a great and vital question, that of the extension of political privileges to the Roman Catholics. For eighteen years I have constantly offered an uncompromising, but, I hope, a temperate, fair, and constitutional resistance to every proposition ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... type—the impossibility of continuing to share the life of the Western Church. Neither in the East nor in the West was a separation desired; but it was inevitable, since the lives of East and West were moving in different directions. It was the fall of Constantinople that first weakened the vital force of the Eastern Church. May we hope that the events of modern times are leading her ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... life now "hid with Christ in God?" Dost thou know the blessedness of a vital and living union with a living, life-giving Saviour? Canst thou say with humble and joyous confidence, amid the fitfulness of thine own ever-changing frames and feelings, "Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me?" "Jesus liveth!"—They ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... length of the intolerable hours, O nights that are as aeons of slow pain, 30 O Time, too ample for our vital powers, O Life, whose woeful vanities remain Immutable for all of all our legions Through all the centuries and in all the regions, Not of your speed and variance WE ...
— The City of Dreadful Night • James Thomson
... its origin and its destiny. I have thought much of Plato's mysterious ideas of light. Those ideas were doubtless brought from the East; for as that is the quarter where the sun rises, so we have thence derived many vital truths, which have kept a spark of life within the beautiful ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... terror of the moment, George Hammond had mistaken this reflection of the window for the window itself, and shot impulsively at the man he undoubtedly saw covering him from the trellis without. But while this explained the shattering of the mirror, how about the other and still more vital question, of where the bullet went afterward? Was the angle at which it had been fired acute enough to send it out of a window diagonally opposed? No; even if the pistol had been held closer to the man firing it than she had reason to believe, the angle still would be oblique enough ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... surprising fact that they are so poorly developed, or quite absent, in the females of so many animals. With female deer the development during each recurrent season of great branching horns, and with female elephants the development of immense tusks, would be a great waste of vital power, supposing that they were of no use to the females. Consequently, they would have tended to be eliminated in the female through natural selection; that is, if the successive variations were limited in their transmission to the female sex, for otherwise ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... one. The essential thing is that no undue strain be placed upon that great fund of capital as a whole which is derived from incomes of all kinds. It is this fund which in its turn is one of the vital forces necessary for the normal activities and progress of industry. If that fund is suddenly and too greatly reduced, the effect upon commerce and industry is liable to be abrupt ...
— War Taxation - Some Comments and Letters • Otto H. Kahn
... the woman he loved; that was something he could face, something he could live down. But it was the manner of it. It was the fact of Will's treachery that had opened the vital wound. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... desert was a place prepared For weary hearts to rest; The hillside was a temple blest; The grassy vale a banquet-room Where he could feed and comfort many a guest. With him the lily shared The vital joy that breathes itself in bloom; And every bird that sang beside the nest Told of the love that broods o'er every living thing. He watched the shepherd bring His flock at sundown to the welcome fold, The fisherman at daybreak fling His net across the ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... situation be considered. While at almost every point of subordinate importance the Confederates were holding their own, they were at those points, where the war assumed its grand proportions, and the issue was vital, ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... not consistent with strict scientific accuracy to say the person is asleep," said the emir; "for the vital processes are entirely in abeyance and the subject is devoid of any evidence of life. The pulse is still, for the heart no longer beats and all the blood having retreated to that inmost citadel of the body, the skin has the pallor of death. Only in a little spot upon the crown is ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... sinister because it is not seen. These lyrics and romances are "dramatic" not only in the sense that the speakers express, as Browning insisted, other minds and sentiments than his own, but in the more legitimate sense that they are plucked as it were out of the living organism of a drama, all the vital issues of which can be read ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... doubt it. Shall a mechanical experiment succeed infallibly, and the one vital experiment of humanity remain a chance? Is corn to grow by method, and character by caprice? If we cannot calculate to a certainty that the forces of religion will do their work, then is religion vain. And if we cannot ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... for the gate, and the other, stung in some vital part by the last words, stood motionless, white with anger, staring after her, first in silence, but presently she began talking audibly to herself. "My son—my son pick up with a girl! My son leave his mother to go on the parish!"—but I stayed to hear no more; it made ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... Hormayer, p. 795)] Among these letters was one which strongly inculpated Gunther. It was written by Baron Eskeles Flies to a commercial friend in Amsterdam. It stated that he (Eskeles Flies) had just received a communication of such vital importance that it was worth much more to him than the thousand ducats he had paid to his informer. The emperor, tired of his contention with Holland regarding the navigation of the Scheldt, had agreed ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... a man of head being at the centre of it, the whole matter gets vital. Swift, to Camp of Sablons; to secure the Artillery, there are not twenty men guarding it! A swift Adjutant, Murat is the name of him, gallops; gets thither some minutes within time, for Lepelletier was also ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the Roman Catholics. There was violent commotion in Oxford. Keble and Newman strenuously opposed the measure. In 1830 there was revolution in France. In England the Whigs had come into power. Newman's mind was excited in the last degree. 'The vital question,' he says, 'is this, how are we to keep the Church of England from being liberalised?' At the end of 1832 Newman and Froude went abroad together. On this journey, as he lay becalmed in the straits of Bonifacio, he wrote his immortal hymn, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... then, can I describe this girl, when painter, sculptor, writer—all—would miserably fail at attempting to portray a beauty whereon imagination might gaze in frank amazement and admit itself surpassed! Here, indeed, was all the vital, colorful magnetism of a type that men are quick ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... help themselves, and be forced to exercise their energy and address. This was the principal design of their hard fare; there was another not inconsiderable, that they might grow taller; for the vital spirits, not being overburdened and oppressed by too great a quantity of nourishment; which necessarily discharges itself into thickness and breadth, do, by their natural lightness, rise; and the body, giving and ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... must die, beloved dust, And all your beauty stand you in no stead; This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, This body of flame and steel, before the gust Of Death, or under his autumnal frost, Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead Than the first leaf that fell,—this wonder fled. Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost. Nor shall my love avail you in your hour. In spite of all ...
— Second April • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... disappeared when there is scarcely a scratch upon it. Therefore, if you are playing in an important match with a ball that has already been used at a large number of holes, it may be advisable to put down a new one when long work with the driver and brassy is a vital necessity. A close watch for loss of shape should also be kept on these rubber-cored balls. They vary very much in this respect, and not only is it impossible to putt well with a ball that is not perfectly round, but it never flies so well as one ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... of the most vital importance were made in the rebels' plan for the capture of Dublin, however, which were eventually to be the deciding factor of the whole situation, and to which more than anything they must be said to owe the sudden ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... very quiet; she never spoke much. Any one who has been oppressed with the weight of a vital secret for years, and much more any one the character of whose life has been stamped by one event, and that producing sorrow and shame, is naturally reserved. And yet Ruth's silence was not like reserve; it was too gentle and tender for that. ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... girls for the cultivation and training of the romping instincts which are really a serious part of education, for it is by such free exercise of the whole body that the neuro-muscular system, the basis of all vital activity, is built up. The neglect of such education is to-day clearly visible in the structure of our women. Dr. F. May Dickinson Berry, Medical Examiner to the Technical Education Board of the London County Council, found (British Medical Journal, May 28, 1904) among ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... is one of most vital importance to the farmer; indeed, so varied are its modes of action and its effects, that some writers have given it credit for every thing good in the way of farming, and have gone so far as to say that ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... Yet, though they were not, as Winthrop says, "of those that dreame of perfection in this world," they surely had vast hopes at heart, and the fire of repressed imagination played around them and before them as a vital and guiding gleam, of untold value to them, and using a mysterious power in their affairs. They were something morbid in their imaginings, but that this morbid habit was a chief source of their power is a mistaken theory. It is true that their errors of imagination were so closely ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... Cambridge,[41] London, and Edinburgh. Mrs. Marcet's Conversations (1818) were spreading the doctrine among babes and sucklings. The Utilitarians were the sacred band who defended the strictest orthodoxy against all opponents. They spoke as recognised authorities upon some of the most vital questions of the day, of which I need here only notice Free Trade, the doctrine most closely associated with the teaching of their revered Adam Smith. In 1816 Ricardo remarks with satisfaction that the principle ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... soft-nosed projectiles, for though this was my first experience with Felis leo, I knew the moment that I faced that charge that even my wonderfully perfected firearm would be as futile as a peashooter unless I chanced to place my first bullet in a vital spot. ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... giving for education, I have felt, scored a real step in advance when Mr. Andrew Carnegie consented to become a member of the General Education Board. For in accepting a position in this directorate he has, it seems to me, stamped with his approval this vital principle of cooeperation in aiding the ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... Dick. She was even more than that. If Lucy was right, from now on she was a part of that experiment in a human soul which he had begun with only a professional interest, but which had ended by becoming a vital part ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... order of things, as he would leave to every true Hollander. "For what," said he, "is a town without canals?—it is like a body without veins and arteries, and must perish for want of a free circulation of the vital fluid."—Ten Breeches, on the contrary, retorted with a sarcasm upon his antagonist, who was somewhat of an arid, dry-boded habit; he remarked, that as to the circulation of the blood being necessary to existence, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... great, that too often we fail to observe or understand the influence for good of a boy's recreational reading. Such books may influence him for good or ill as profoundly as his play activities, of which they are a vital part. The needful thing is to find stories in which the heroes have the characteristics boys so much admire—unquenchable courage, immense resourcefulness, absolute fidelity, conspicuous greatness. We ...
— Don Strong, Patrol Leader • William Heyliger
... we most of us live really with about a score of people. We can't choose our circle altogether, and there are generally certain persons in it whom we should wish away. I think we ought to devote ourselves to our work, whatever it is, and outside of that to getting a real, intimate, and vital understanding with the people round us. That is a problem which is amply big enough for most of us. Then I think we ought to go seriously to work, not arguing or finding fault, not pushing or shoving people about, but just living on the finest ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... this for a long time again, and the boys watched him closely, as though some result of vital importance hung upon ...
— Lost in the Fog • James De Mille
... so now. Ignorance of everything to do with the water is exceedingly common, even in England and Canada. The British mercantile marine is one of the biggest commercial enterprises of all time. It is of very great importance to Canada. It is absolutely vital to England. Yet it is less understood among the general public than any other kind of business that is of national concern. Some people even think that the mercantile marine differs from every other kind of business ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... express agent ties them up, affixes his official seal, which is so arranged that the package cannot be opened or tampered with, without breaking. This done, he gives the sender a receipt. This should be cared for as a vital part of ...
— Business Hints for Men and Women • Alfred Rochefort Calhoun
... unsullied, And bury in the grave a guilty passion; But I have been unable to withstand Tears and entreaties, I have told you all; Content, if only, as my end draws near, You do not vex me with unjust reproaches, Nor with vain efforts seek to snatch from death The last faint lingering sparks of vital breath. ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... particles, the rose wastes its perfume on the air. So this more spiritual sensibility dwelt in Helen as the latent mesmerism in water, as the invisible fairy in an enchanted ring. It was an essence or divinity, shrined and shrouded in herself, which gave her more intimate and vital union with all the influences of the universe, a companion to her loneliness, an angel hymning low to her own listening soul. This made her enjoyment of Nature, in its merest trifles, exquisite and profound; this gave to her tenderness of heart all the delicious ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and expelled by my own people!" His voice died away in a loud sob. With his head pressed against the wall he sobbed in great anguish. It was enough to hear one of these sobs, which shook his whole frame, to guess that he had been wounded in the most vital part of his soul. ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... are living men, still breathing and moving in their writings; the others, the conquerors of the world, are but the ashes in an urn. The sympathy [19so to speak] between thought and thought is more intimate and vital than that between thought and action. Thought is linked to thought as flame kindles into flame; the tribute of admiration to the MANES of departed heroism is like burning incense in a marble monument. Words, ideas, feelings, with the progress of time harden into substances: ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... writer of books. He heard the sermon, and was greatly taken with it. He wrote out a report of it, and handed his report to me for criticism and correction. He intended to send it for publication to a paper in Pennsylvania. I said to him that his report left out the most essential and vital part of the sermon, and proposed myself to write out an abstract of it for his use. This I did, but my friend Mr. Snyder concluded: "This is a hard saying, who can hear it?" He was not willing to be counted ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... taken ill suddenly I had waved to him for help because he chanced to be near. With all my wits about me I might have left him in that belief, for rather would I have deceived him than had him wonder why his welfare seemed so vital to me. But I, who thought the capacity for being taken aback had gone from me, clung to his arm and thanked God audibly that he still lived. He did not tell me then how my agitation puzzled him, but led me kindly to the hill, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... room a beauteous maiden lay, Moaning in agony no words express, A cancer eating rapidly away Her vital force,—so foul and pitiless; And when I saw that face, so young and fair, I thought such anguish was ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... of attractive books ... has been added this dainty volume on Poland by Monica M. Gardner, well known as the author of Adam Mickiewicz and Poland: a Study in National Idealism. That the war must have a vital effect on the destiny of Poland is universally acknowledged, and now is the time to study the characteristics of the Poles. ... The chapter devoted to Polish National Customs is quite fascinating, and 'A Day in Cracow' presents vivid glimpses of the chief city of 'Austrian' Poland. The vexatious ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... with spirited scenes and stirring adventures, and the boy who reads it attentively will acquire a sound knowledge on subjects that are of vital importance to ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... may have been a Jewish one, addressed to the Christian converts from Judaism who were scattered abroad, within or beyond the limits of the Roman Empire. Luther deemed it "an Epistle of straw," by reason of its insistence upon the vital importance of 'works.' But its practical ideal assumes the same basis of Christian faith as is found in the Letters of Paul. The opening references to severe trial seem to show that the persecution begun by Herod Agrippa had already been repeated elsewhere. If the later ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... at stake—though it was far more bloody and desperate—the Dutch War of Independence was fought mainly within the country itself, with the population divided, and the Spanish depending on land forces to maintain their rule; but, as in the American war, control of the sea was a vital factor. For munitions, supplies, gold, for the transport of the troops themselves, Spain had to depend primarily on the sea. It is true one could continue on Spanish territory from Genoa, which was Spain's watergate into Italy, across the Mont Cenis Pass, and through Savoy, Burgundy, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... chance killing, then I should expect as rather probable that after 10,000 years the two bodies would differ slightly in size, colour, and perhaps other trifling characters; this I should call the direct action of physical conditions. By this action I wish to imply that the innate vital forces are somehow led to act rather differently in the two cases, just as heat will allow or cause two elements to combine, which otherwise would not have combined. I should be especially obliged if you would tell me what ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... the new flue as long as he could," said Mrs Morgan. "Mr Proctor took no interest in the garden, and everything had gone to ruin; though I must say it was very odd that anybody from your college, William, should be careless about such a vital matter," said the Rector's wife, with a little asperity. "I suppose there must be something in the air of Carlingford which makes people indifferent." Naturally, it was very provoking, after all the trouble she had taken, to see her husband slicing ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... and serene, the mighty waters rolled through the beautiful and fertile earth. A vital breeze rose from their bosom. Every being responded to their genial influence. The sick were cured, the desponding became sanguine, the healthy and light-hearted broke into shouts of laughter, jumped from their camels, and embraced the fragrant earth, or, wild in their renovated ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... of the Siamese deals principally with religious topics. The "Kammarakya," or Buddhist Ritual,—a work for the priesthood only, and therefore, like others of the Vinnaya, little known,—contains the vital elements of the Buddhist Moral Code, and, per se, is perfect; on this point all writers, whether partial or captious, are of one mind. Spence Hardy, a Wesleyan missionary, speaking of that part of the work entitled "Dhamma-Padam," ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... causing the delay, and M. de Piles, who had been twice sent to urge them forward, had only succeeded in bringing a corps of one thousand two hundred arquebusiers and two hundred horse.[648] It was now expected, however, that realizing the vital importance of opposing to Anjou a powerful Protestant army, the viscounts would abandon their short-sighted policy; and it was the intention of Conde and Coligny, after effecting a junction, to march with the combined armies to meet the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... be the case—that you are a personal (or impersonal, if you like) friend of Mr. Rodney McCune. Whatever the motive, ulterior or otherwise, which prevents you from operating my paper as I direct, I should have been informed of it. This is a matter vital to the interests of our community, and you have hitherto shown yourself too alert in accepting my slightest suggestion for me to construe this failure as negligence. Negligence I might esteem as at least honest and frank; your course has been ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... for himself and hold his own in a hand-to-hand struggle. He had no rights that the herd of children among whom he was thrown felt bound to respect; and if he were not able to maintain his rights, he must go down helplessly, and he did go down daily, often hourly. But he had will and vital force, and these brought him always to his feet again, and with strength increased rather than lost. On the days that Mrs. Burke went out he lived for most of the time in the little street, playing with the children that swarmed its pavements, often dragged from before wheels or horses' ...
— Cast Adrift • T. S. Arthur
... Andromeda passage, afford ample indication of how deeply Browning had drunk of that vital stream whose waters are the surest conserver of the ideal loveliness which we all of us, in some degree, cherish ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Paderborn which was to be brought into Sennelager Camp to act as the stationary engine to supply power to the fumigator. But to our dismay we learned that the traction engine in question could not be driven to the camp under its own power because some of the vital parts constituting its internals had broken down, and repairs would be quite out of the question until it reached the camp. This we were told would demand the towage of the engine over the last three miles. We learned, moreover, that as horses were absolutely unobtainable at any ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... doubt, dear Ju—, I mean Home—I have no doubt," he continued, with a gusto infinitely annoying, "that you needed this rod. I am afraid that you are as yet unconverted; that you have as yet no saving, no vital sense of Christianity. Some sin, perhaps, ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... that should the old chief lose his life Reginald would be deprived of the only clue which might lead to its elucidation. He determined, therefore, to take the first favourable opportunity of telling the rajah who he was, and entreating him to give him the information that was of such vital importance to his future interests. Reginald had been led to believe that the rajah would be very unwilling to enter on the subject, and he had therefore hesitated to introduce it, till he felt more sure than he had hitherto ...
— The Young Rajah • W.H.G. Kingston
... the excitement or exaltation which in the dramatic experience usurps the place of definite feeling. We have met this phenomenon before. Aesthetic emotion in general, we have heard, consists just in the union of a kind of stimulation or enhanced life, with repose; a heightening of the vital energies unaccompanied by any tendency to movement,—in short, that gathering of forces which we connect with action, and which is felt the more because action is checked. Just such a repose through equilibrium of impulses is given by the dramatic conflict. Introspection makes assurance ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... sympathizes with any nation nor any individual who have for their motto "Emancipation," as emancipation means to Catholicism a vital blow to her teachings, as slavery of both body and soul ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... to speak, but he could only look. She had meant to withdraw, but she remained to return his look with the lingering, quiet, steady gaze which time and place and circumstance seemed to make the most natural mode of expression for the things that were vital between them. What passed thus defied all analysis of thought, as well as all utterance in language, but it was understood by each in his or her own way. To her it was the greeting and farewell of souls in different spheres, who again pass one another in space. For him ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... your children," so the letter ran, "I should so love to see them, and stay the night." Liso was greatly annoyed. She had just arranged a meeting with one of her numerous lovers, and this invitation upset everything. However, as it was of vital importance to her to keep in with her aunt, she at once decided to put off her previous engagement and take her children to see ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... my dear fellow," Fortescue cut in, "but you know as well as I do that you get case after case where the cellar diagnosis is simply vital. I had a case last week, a most interesting thing—" he turned to the group of us as he spoke—"a double lesion of a gas-pipe under a cement floor—half a dozen of my colleagues had been absolutely baffled. They had made an entirely false diagnosis, operated ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... his speech to fail began. For from his feet up to his breast was come The cold of death, that had him overnome*. *overcome And yet moreover in his armes two The vital strength is lost, and all ago*. *gone Only the intellect, withoute more, That dwelled in his hearte sick and sore, Gan faile, when the hearte felte death; Dusked* his eyen two, and fail'd his breath. *grew dim But on his lady yet ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... would avoid strong drinks, and take only a moderate portion of meat, they would escape much suffering from wounds and injuries to which all are liable, and which in so many cases prove fatal, although no vital part has been touched. I have seen the strongest men die from a slight scratch; and the weakest apparently recover from the most terrible hurts. The strong men have eaten and drunk to gratify their palates; the weak ...
— Manco, the Peruvian Chief - An Englishman's Adventures in the Country of the Incas • W.H.G. Kingston
... practice we owe his most vivid and notable work. "The poetry of Robert Browning," says Pater, "is pre-eminently the poetry of situations." He selects a character, no matter how uninteresting in itself, and places it in some situation where its vital essence may become apparent, in some crisis of conflict or opportunity. The choice of good or evil is open to it, and in perhaps a single moment its fate will be decided. When a soul plays dice with the devil there is only a second in which to win or lose; but the second may be worth ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... carcass, and shoot the bird when it alights; but it is very difficult to kill them in this way, on account of their strong thick feathers, as well as the tenacity of life which they possess: it can only be done when the shot takes effect in a vital part. This method, therefore, is not much practised. A second plan is, to wait until the condor has gorged himself to repletion, when, like most other vultures, he is unable to fly for some time after. ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... the national representation has noted with delight that the Government, having at heart the future of the country when it declared the neutrality of Bulgaria, is maintaining this attitude strictly and loyally, as the international necessities and the most vital interests ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... be felt, and her hands were icy cold, her voice sank to nothing, her eyelids scarcely raised, as if the strain of the day had exhausted all vital warmth or energy, and her purpose accomplished, annihilation was succeeding. Much terrified, Albinia would have hurried in search of remedies, but she raised her hand imploringly, and murmured, 'Please don't. I'm not faint—I'm not ill. If you would only ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... climbing down, perplexed equally, as I gather, by the management of her parapluie and of her—enfin, her petticoats. The candid anxiety of her round, underdone face, as she so wonderfully writhed to maintain the standard of pudicity dear—even vital—to the matron of the British Isles appealed—vividly, though mutely—to the forbearance that, seeing, would still seem not to see, her foot, her ankle, her mollet—as I early learned to say in Paris, where, however, so exigent a modesty is ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... be said that such things do no harm, I hasten, in one sense, at least, to agree. Far from it; they do good. They do good in the most vital matter of modern times; for they prove and print in huge letters the truth which our society must learn or perish. They prove that wealth in society as now constituted does not tend to get into the hands of the thrifty or the capable, but actually tends to get ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... the material would have survived. We've found a good many books and papers in excellent condition. But only a really vital culture, an organized culture, will publish magazines, and this civilization had been dying for hundreds of years before the end. It might have been a thousand years before the time they died out completely that such activities as ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... proceeding to the interior must not exceed nine in number, for which the horses are capable of conveying five months' provisions and equipment. The remaining half of the party will have full employment in the repair of the schooner and care of the stores—points of vital importance to the Expedition. It is therefore proposed to make the following division of the party, which, under existing circumstances, appears ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... alluded to. The seventh article makes the eternity of the State and the security of the Imperial house depend upon wise administration by well-selected officials, but says nothing of hereditary rights. How is such a vital omission to be interpreted, except on the supposition that Shotoku, who had witnessed the worst abuses incidental to the hereditary system of the uji, intended by this code to enter a solemn ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that we all, indeed I think it likely that we do not all, take it home to our thoughts with sufficient seriousness that this mysterious growth in the thing sown implies a mysterious vital power or force which is inherent ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... impotently abandons it, carries us straight into the presence of the King. Thus it has found room both for the keen speculator on theological problems and for the mystic who, because he feels God, declines to reason about Him—for a Maimonides and a Mendelssohn, but also for a Nachmanides, a Vital, and a Luria' (M. Joseph, op. cit., p. 47). Used in a vague way, mysticism stands for spiritual inwardness. Religion without mysticism, said Amiel, is a rose without perfume. This saying is no more precise ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... of love! for when all other means of salvation failed, a spark of this vital fire softened the man's iron will until a woman's hand could bend it. He let me take from him the key, let me draw him gently away and lead him to the solitude which now was the most healing balm I could bestow. Once in his little room, he fell down on his ...
— A Modern Cinderella - or The Little Old Show and Other Stories • Louisa May Alcott
... nor to help out a turn except under very exceptional circumstances and with the express permission of the Judges. The Judges must, however, satisfy themselves that the Candidates understand the use of the stick, and could, in emergencies, where speed is vital, increase their speed and steadiness on difficult snow by ...
— Ski-running • Katharine Symonds Furse
... the boy got so deathly pale, and seemed to suffer so intensely, that even Mistress Gowrie was obliged to acknowledge that it might be best to wait till the doctor came. Indeed, it soon became evident to all that Blackie's blows had touched some vital part, and Geordie's herding ...
— Geordie's Tryst - A Tale of Scottish Life • Mrs. Milne Rae
... together—amongst the rest, that she was always gloomiest on a Sunday—and concluded that religion was the cause of her misery. This made him ready to welcome the merest hint of its falsehood. Well might the doctrine be false that made such a good woman miserable! He had no opportunity of learning what any vital, that is, obedient believer in the lord of religion, might have to say. Nothing he did hear would, without the reflex of his mother's unhappiness, have waked in him interest enough for hate: what was there about the heap of ashes he heard called the means of grace, to set him searching ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... of him, and fascinated. Clear, before her eyes, as in a vision, she could see the sardonic, licentious mockery of his eyes, he moved towards her with subtle, animal, indifferent approach. The strangeness of his hands, which came quick and cunning, inevitably to the vital place beneath her breasts, and, lifting with mocking, suggestive impulse, carried her through the air as if without strength, through blackmagic, made her swoon with fear. For a moment she revolted, it was horrible. She would break the spell. But before the resolution had formed ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... not attended to. We get elaborate returns showing the number of persons vaccinated. Then comes an outbreak of smallpox, and on investigation we learn that the vaccinations so fully reported were made on paper only! In other words, the continuance of this work, of such vital importance to the Filipino people, is still directly dependent upon continued control by American ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... do something—it is a form of vital energy and the best thing it does, it does for the beloved. Flowers are love's own properties. And so flowers, natural or artificial, are a ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... how can a mind like Vittoria's find matter to suit her in such sentences? He asked himself the question, forgetting that a little time gone by, while he was aloof from the tumult and dreaming of it, this airy cloudy language and every symbolism, had been strong sustaining food, a vital atmosphere, to him. He did not for the moment (though by degrees he recovered his last night's conception of her) understand that among the noble order of women there is, when they plunge into strife, a craving for idealistic truths, which ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the Catholics are far better prepared than before. They have endeavoured, by means of these leagues, to organize themselves in our manner; but there is one vital difference. We know that we are fighting for our lives and our faith, and that those who hang back run the risk of massacre in their own homes. The Catholics have no such impulse. Our persecutions have been the work of the mobs in the towns, excited by the priests; and these ruffians, ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... materials, but has much the appearance of a dried and compressed mixture of horse dung and cow dung, with an abundance of the "fiber" or mycelium, "the greyish moldy, or thready matter," which constitutes the vital part of the spawn. In the selection of spawn this is an important item, that is, the presence of an abundance of "fiber" or mycelium. It can be seen on the surface, usually showing an abundance of these whitish threads or sheets, or a distinct moldy appearance ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... felt sooner or later in every home. Like snow disappearing under the sunshine, the life of Madeleine was fast melting away. At length, as if she knew when the absorbing heat would melt the last crystal of the vital principle, she summoned her family around her to wish them that last thrilling farewell which is never erased from the tablet of memory. In the farewell of the emigrant, torn by cruel fate from country and friends, hope smiles in his tears; the fortune that drives away can bring ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... cases of heterogenesis. At present I should prefer any mad hypothesis, such as that every disintegrated molecule of the lowest forms can reproduce the parent-form, and that the molecules are universally distributed, and that they do not lose their vital power until heated to such a temperature that they decompose ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... came a snapping as of something inside my brain ... then, for a period, blankness ... then a gradual awakening with that feeling of exhilaration one experiences only after the most blissful sleep. I opened my eyes, feeling strong and light of limb and charged with a marvelous vital energy—but, as I peered about me, my lips drew far apart in astonishment, and I am sure that I gaped like one ...
— Flight Through Tomorrow • Stanton Arthur Coblentz
... case? Then, with one of his quick changes of mood, he laughed at himself. "I'm jealous because I think I'm not the only victim! It's time I consulted a physician. I'm going dotty. She's a wonder, though, that woman. What a brain, and what a splendid presence! But there's something vital lacking; no soul, no conscience—that's the trouble," he commented inwardly—little dreaming that he exactly voiced the criticism universally passed upon himself. Then his thoughts took a new tack. ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... the cure. "Doing one's duty brings a knowledge of the religious principles which are a vital necessity ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac |
