"Centred" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... international politics as were possible in the then dim and inchoate state of European affairs. England, which in the mind of the Norman kings had taken the first place, fell into the second rank of interests with her Angevin rulers. Henry's thoughts and hopes and ambitions centred in his continental domains. Lord of Rouen, of Angers, of Bordeaux, master of the sea-coast from Flanders to the Pyrenees, he seemed to hold in his hand the feeble King of Paris and of Orleans, who was ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... the results of this first group of experiments? Our interest must evidently be centred on the question of how many judgments were correct at the first vote before any discussion and any show of hands were influencing the minds of the men, and how many were correct at the last vote after the two periods of discussion ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... stamped on her face as well as on her hand. If, however, I had said to her, "Yours is a flaccid repressed disposition you have a lack of imagination and a total absence of humour; your life is too narrow and self-centred to be of the least interest to anyone," she might not have liked it. You see, with even a slight knowledge of palmistry you soon find out when reading hands that it's no use telling people the truth. They want a version which I can only describe ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... time almost the sole occupation of the people. The trade and commerce that had centred in the towns and flowed along the Roman roads and across the Channel had long since come to an end with the Roman civilization of which it was a part. In Saxon England cities scarcely existed except as fortified places of defence. The products of each rural district sufficed ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Von Barwig as a son, but the best of sons are self-centred when they are in love; ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... possessed of a palace in London, and a palace in Scotland, and a rent-roll of forty thousand pounds. Maria, to use her own expression, never recovered it. From the horrid day when Susan became Lady Northlake, Maria became a serious woman. All her earthly interests centred now in the cultivation of her intellect. She started on that glorious career, which associated her with the march of science. In only a year afterwards—as an example of the progress which a resolute woman can make—she ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... But here was Emerson, a hopelessly confirmed pie-eater, never, so far as I remember, complaining of dyspepsia; and there, on the other side, was Carlyle, feeding largely on wholesome oatmeal, groaning with indigestion all his days, and living with half his self-consciousness habitually centred beneath his diaphragm. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... morning—if the rollers of the Irish Sea permitted sleep—in the oily waters of the Mersey, to find at the landing-stage a crowd that in dimensions and demeanour seemed to be a duplicate of the one they had left outside the dock gates at Belfast. Except that the point round which everything had centred in Belfast, the signing of the Covenant, was of course missing in Liverpool, the Unionists of Liverpool were not to be outdone by the Ulstermen themselves in their demonstration ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... an opportunity to every soldier of becoming a general. There is nothing which a leader of genius might not accomplish with such men. He must have regretted, at this recollection of his earlier years, that he ever centred in himself all liberty and intelligence, that he ever created mechanical armies and generals only fit to obey. Bonaparte began the third epoch of the war. The campaign of 1792 had been made on the old system, ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... the sort. In ordinary circumstances, knowing Nicky-Nan to be an honest man, he would have treated him easily. But he wanted to "develope" Polpier to his own advantage: and his scheme of development centred on the old house by the bridge. He desired to pull it down and transfer the Bank to that eligible site. He had a plan of the proposed new building, with a fine stucco frontage and ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... good-hearted, and for which men of a master-genius, however elevated their studies, however stern or reserved to the vulgar world, are commonly noticeable amidst the friends they love or in the home they adorn. Occupied with one dream, centred in self, the young Italian was sullen and morose to all who did not sympathise with his own morbid fancies. From the children—the sister—the friend—the whole living earth, he fled to a poem on Solitude, or stanzas ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and there can be small doubt that, had Parma at this time been able to take advantage of the dissensions in the ranks of his adversaries, he would have met with little effectual resistance to his arms. His whole attention was, however, centred in preparations for the proposed invasion of England. Leicester had no sooner left the country than the Estates of Holland, under the strong leadership of Oldenbarneveldt, took measures to assert their right to regulate their own affairs, independently of the Council of State. A levy of troops ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... thoughtfully. "Yet if the Naya had intended to secure the treasure for herself she would most certainly have taken this first of all. It is one of the most historic and valuable ornaments of the royal jewels of Mo, besides being one in which most superstition is centred. In her flight she would entertain the bitterest ill-feeling towards me and desire my rule to be brief. Therefore, she must have stolen the necklet; she would have secured that, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... of a cheer. We were simply more tired and hungry than usual, and until matters had been straightened out for the night had no time for sentiment. And, when we finally went into camp on the very field where we had just ceased fighting, we found our chief interest centred in hot coffee, crisp hard-tack, and comfortable blankets. We had begun to realize that we might have lain stiffer and starker that night but for the whim of chance, and were silent with the ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... evil between men and women that is not a common evil,' said Karenin. 'It is you poets, Kahn, with your love songs which turn the sweet fellowship of comrades into this woman-centred excitement. But there is something in women, in many women, which responds to these provocations; they succumb to a peculiarly self-cultivating egotism. They become the subjects of their own artistry. They develop and elaborate themselves ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... should render up their contents, consisting of half-forgotten souvenirs of travel. The change was magic. Unmounted photographs appeared upon the wall, an ivory Faust and Gretchen from Nuremberg stood, self-centred and unobservant, upon the chimney-shelf among trophies from Turkey, and Japan, Spain, and Norway. A gorgeous kimono served as curtain at the south window, a Persian altar-cloth at the west; and through the west window, the great Peak gazed with ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... all-absorbing topic in two villages and three hamlets, and more than one swain, hitherto successful, felt the wind blow colder. But in a fortnight it was known that a petticoat did not make Isaac Worthington even turn his head. Curiosity centred on Silas Wheelock's barn, where Mr. Worthington had fitted up a shop, and, presently various strange models of contrivances began to take shape there. What these were, Silas himself knew not; and the gentleman of leisure was, alas! close-mouthed. When he was not ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... respectful gesture, and cried to someone they could not see, "Good evening, sir, I've brought the friends of Ninety-three," and turned and left them with some haste, impelled, Ellen thought, as she still amusedly centred her imagination upon him, by a fear of being rebuked for officiousness. But as she came to the landing and saw the four people who were standing there, having evidently just come through the door, which one of them was softly closing, everything left ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... grown too deep to permit the little herd to roam at will, he had chosen a sheltered area where the birch, poplar, and cherry, his favorite forage, were abundant, and there had trodden out a maze of deep paths which led to all the choicest browsing, and centred about a cluster of ancient firs so thick as to afford covert from the fiercest storms. The news was what the wise old woodsman had been waiting for. With three of his men, a pair of horses, a logging-sled, axes, and an unlimited ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... spirit, and not in form; New England in neither; and New York largely in both. This social crystallization had, it is true, many opponents. In politics, as in religion, there were sharp antagonisms and frequent quarrels. They centred in the city; for in the well-stocked dwellings of the Dutch farmers along the Hudson there reigned a tranquil and prosperous routine; and the Dutch border town of Albany had not its like in America for unruffled ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... without a sign of unfriendliness. Their chief interest seems to be centred in two large black mounds that are visible in the foreground of the camp; what they are I am unable to make out — there is not light enough for that — but I am probably not far wrong in guessing that they are seals. They are rather hard eating, anyhow, for I can hear them crunching under the ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... not stay. She had come to mingle romantic tears with Laura's over the lover's defection and had found herself dealing with a heart that could not rise to an appreciation of affliction because its interest was all centred ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... gained by having blasted the hopes of a more happy rival, since I was not able to perform this without depriving myself, at the same time, of her upon whom the whole happiness and comfort of my life was centred." ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... was excited by this accidental service to her at a critical juncture to vow an active devotion to her cause, instead of, as hitherto, sighing and holding aloof. After what had happened, it was impossible that he should not doubt the honesty of Wildeve's intentions. But her hope was apparently centred upon him; and dismissing his regrets Venn determined to aid her to be happy in her own chosen way. That this way was, of all others, the most distressing to himself, was awkward enough; but the ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... common warfare frustrated, at one moment by a design upon French Flanders, at another by the course of Polish or Bavarian intrigue, at another by the hope of conquests in Italy. Of all the interests which centred in the head of the House of Hapsburg, the least befriended at Vienna was the interest of the ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Mr Roker. I know where your affections are centred in this ship. You go right along to your engines, and Mr Hingeston will see about the rest of us. Now then, Mr Lennard, you come along into the conning-tower, and whatever you may have seen from the conning-tower of the Ithuriel, I reckon you'll see something ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... let him work. He has to take a dory to Dutch Harbor to get food. He doesn't dare leave the country and abandon the meagre thousands he has invested in buildings, so he has stayed on living off the country like a Siwash. He's a simple, big-hearted sort of fellow, but his life is centred in this business; it's all he knows. He considers himself the father of this section; and when he sees others rounding up the task that he began, it breaks his poor heart. Why, every summer when the run starts he comes across the marshes and slinks about the Kalvik thickets like a wraith, ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... memory of her lover's patient attendance upon her in that group of rustic groundlings. With a self-reproachful ache at the heart she pictured herself as she had sat far up in the gallery gazing downward with every faculty centred upon the stage, while he, thinking ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... his self-contempt. And whilst he trifled away his time and played Scaramouche, and centred all his hopes in presently becoming the rival of such men as Chenier and Mercier, M. de La Tour d'Azyr went his proud ways unchallenged and wrought his will. It was idle to tell himself that the seed he had sown was bearing fruit. ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... me, without interrogations on my part, that my mother and Mr. Floyd had resigned at least all present hopes of marriage. All their thoughts seemed to be centred in me, and I felt myself a hinderance in their plans of happiness. So, while I was still holding my guardian's hand, I reminded him of our talk on the bluff that far-off ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... of the utmost importance to keep the two aspects before us concurrently, because reliance on the growing fullness of the individual life to the neglect of the social evolution is likely to empty that life itself of its true content, to leave the self-centred visionary absorbed in the contemplation of some ideal perfection within himself, while the world outside him from which he ultimately derives his notions, is toiling and suffering from the want of those very elements which he ...
— Progress and History • Various
... the play is centred in Hubert the other characters, also, are fairly well drawn. There is ample matter for cogitation in watching the peaceful end of Genzerick, who spends his dying moments in steeling his son's heart against the Christians. The consultation between the physicians, in Act 3, amusingly ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... keeping warm, dinner and supper were the most interesting things we had to think about. Our lives centred around warmth and food and the return of the men at nightfall. I used to wonder, when they came in tired from the fields, their feet numb and their hands cracked and sore, how they could do all the chores so conscientiously: feed and water and bed the horses, milk ...
— My Antonia • Willa Cather
... unturned to recover it. The police knew what they were doing; they must have a free hand. The Duke did not press her with any great vigour; he realized the futility of an appeal to a nature so shallow, so self-centred, and so lacking in sympathy. He took his revenge by teasing her about the wedding presents which were still flowing in. Her father's business friends were still striving to outdo one another in the costliness of the jewelry ...
— Arsene Lupin • Edgar Jepson
... qualify, Standeth aloof even from his acts. Th' untaught Live mixed with them, knowing not Nature's way, Of highest aims unwitting, slow and dull. Those make thou not to stumble, having the light; But all thy dues discharging, for My sake, With meditation centred inwardly, Seeking no profit, satisfied, serene, Heedless of issue—fight! They who shall keep My ordinance thus, the wise and willing hearts, Have quittance from all issue of their acts; But those who disregard My ordinance, ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... to estimate the elements of good fortune that centred in Catherine Tonsard, his ambition was to succeed her father at the Grand-I-Vert. He made use of all his craftiness and all his actual powers to capture her; he promised her wealth, he also promised her the license her mother had ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... crown life with fruition. The character of a physician, therefore, not only supposes natural sagacity, and acquired erudition, but it also implies every delicacy of sentiment, every tenderness of nature, and every virtue of humanity. That these qualities are centred in you, doctor, I would willingly believe. But it will be sufficient for my purpose, that you are possessed of common integrity. To whose concern I am indebted for your visits, you best know. But ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... advance was continued, and interest was chiefly centred in an attempt to cut off, if possible, the Turkish rearguard which had held the Tank and Atawineh systems. Considerable captures of prisoners, guns, ammunition and other stores were made, especially at Huj and Deir ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... and gentle mother had reared her and been called hence. Her father, an officer whose sabre-arm was left at Molino del Rey, and whose heart was crushed when the loving wife was taken from him, turned to the child who so resembled her, and centred there all his remaining love and life. He welcomed Chester to his home, and tacitly favored his suit, but in his blindness never saw how a few moonlit strolls on the old moss-grown parapet, a few evening dances ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... whether he could be of any assistance, and promising to call again shortly. "Rather a formal epistle," he concluded, on reading it through. He was unable to force the note: he could never write or talk otherwise than he felt, and this cousin, after all, was rather remote, self-centred, and difficult of comprehension. "It must go as it is," he decided. "To be quite frank, she's not exactly encouraging either. Asks such queer questions. What on earth did she mean by that conundrum about ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... appearance. The decrees of the Government, which Cambaceres signed during the campaign of Marengo, were now issued from all the towns of France and Belgium which the First Consul visited during his six weeks' journey. Having thus centred the sole authority of the Republic in himself, the performers of the theatre of the Republic became, by a natural consequence, his; and it was quite natural that they should travel in his suite, to entertain the inhabitants of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... rise superior to the crushing effects of domestic infelicity: man's hopes, man's happiness, all centred in her whom he has chosen as the companion of his life. His love selects, and his love centres in her. The struggle for fortune, for happiness, for fame, is for her; she shares every success, every misfortune; ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... his thoughts than himself, however; and as the time for the publication of the first number of his periodical came nearer, his cares all centred upon it. Without fixing any date, Fulkerson had announced it, and pushed his announcements with the shameless vigor of a born advertiser. He worked his interest with the press to the utmost, and paragraphs of a variety that did credit to his ingenuity were ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was rumored that some mysterious inquiries were being circulated around London banks. It was possible that robbery, after all, had been the real motive of the crime, but robbery on a scale as yet unimagined. The whole interest of the case now was centred upon the discovery of the man's identity. As soon as this was solved, some very startling developments might ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... motions just named are centred in what is termed the "Head Stock," this being placed midway in the ...
— The Story of the Cotton Plant • Frederick Wilkinson
... problem be put, and your solution worked out, as quaintly as you choose; above all, see that your work is easily and happily done, else it will never make anybody else happy; but while you thus give the rein to all your impulses, see that those impulses be headed and centred by one noble impulse; and let that be Love—triple love—for the art which you practise, the creation in which you move, and the ...
— The Two Paths • John Ruskin
... evident that the persistence of opposition was in no way checked, and that a fierce struggle between Parliamentary power and the royal prerogative was threatened in the immediate future. To Clarendon, the opposition in the House of Commons centred in these two Bills. Taken together, they roused his unrelenting hostility, the one because it was founded upon no constitutional precedent, and was dangerous to the royal prerogative, the other because it was conceived ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... everybody"—I had feared some very sweeping measure, but I don't think this is anything of the sort. In the next place, by way of consolation, I persuaded myself that the hope of a distribution of land is now all centred on the Campanian territory.[238] That land cannot support more than 5,000, so as to give ten iugera apiece:[239] the rest of the crowd of expectants must necessarily be alienated from them. Besides, if there is anything that more than another could inflame the feeling of the aristocrats, ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... long as there's a shot in the locker, she shall want for nothing," said the generous fellow, quite pleased with himself for his magnificence of spirit. Nor did Dobbin try and convince him that Amelia's happiness was not centred in turtle-soup. ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... part of that grim desolation surrounding them. No one of the three felt like speaking; the gloomy, brooding desert oppressed them, their vagrant thoughts assuming the tinge of their surroundings; their hope centred on escape. Keith rode, grasping the rein of the woman's horse in his left hand, and bending low in vain effort at picking a path. He had nothing to aim toward, yet sturdy confidence in his expert plainscraft yielded him sufficient ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... a little before ten o'clock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing's room. He told us all what he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too, "for," he said, "there is a grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter?" This query was directly addressed to ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... in human life. It is the poise of a great nature, in harmony with itself and its ideals. It is the moral atmosphere of a life self-centred, self-reliant, and self-controlled. Calmness is singleness of purpose, absolute confidence, and conscious power,—ready to be focused in an instant to meet ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... outer hall. The old man rang it again and again, but no one came. Then he stood still on the landing, took off his cap and deliberately scratched his head. In former times, it would have been his duty to inform Sassi, in whom centred every responsibility connected with the palace. But the porter did not know whether Sassi were dead or alive now, and was quite sure that the Baron would not ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... disconcerting. The book gave three or four methods of buying boots; George had carefully selected the one centred round "Mr. X," as being of all the most courtly. You talked a good deal with the shopkeeper about this "Mr. X," and then, when by this means friendship and understanding had been established, you slid naturally ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... his worshipful admiration writ large on his little tired white face. Aymer Aston saw it and laughed. He was quite aware of his own good looks and perfectly unaffected thereby, though he took some pains to preserve them. But his vanity had centred itself on one thing in his earlier life, and that, his great strength, and it died when ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... love a woman, and with all the greater fire because I am naturally undemonstrative and self-centred. The stream comes with an increased rush when it has to break through the ice. I love a woman, I say, and I am determined to have her. You know well who ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Papers against war and slavery and the war for slavery upon Mexico, and later I had read those criticisms of English poetry, and I knew Sir Launfal must be Lowell in some sort; but my love for him as a poet was chiefly centred in my love for his tender rhyme, 'Auf Wiedersehen', which I can not yet read without something of the young pathos it first stirred in me. I knew and felt his greatness some how apart from the literary proofs of it; he ruled ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the continent: but no foreign war or invasion had ever broken the monotony of murdering the Welsh and harrying the surrounding English. The isolation of England was complete. Ship-building was almost an obsolete art: and the small trade which still centred in London seems to have been mainly carried on in Frisian bottoms; for the Low Dutch of the continent still retained the seafaring habits which those of England had forgotten. But a new enemy was now beginning to appear in northern ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... found that the only thing which eased the restless moaning woman was the touch of her son. All her unmanageable, delirious thoughts centred on him— ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... accusation with abuse and fanned it with words, but it lacks the fuel of facts and, your verdict once given, is destined to leave not a wrack of calumny behind. The whole of Aemilianus' calumnious accusation was centred in the charge of magic. I should therefore like to ask his most learned advocates how, precisely, they would define a magician. If what I read in a large number of authors be true, namely, that magician ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... these old and venerated monarchies, with their dependent states and provinces, though imposing and majestic, did not compose the vital part of the empire of the Caesars. It was those new provinces which were rescued from the barbarians, chiefly Celts, where the life of the empire centred. It was Spain, Gaul, Britain, and Illyricum, countries which now compose the most powerful European monarchies, which the more truly show the strength of the Roman world. And these countries were added last, and were not fully incorporated with ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... so behave as to bring no discredit upon a power which has been a source of inestimable joy to them. And prisoners thus discharged have often gone forth with a feeling that the hopes of many whom they had left behind were centred in them. ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... the street, and the famous Honfleur of the wharves and floating docks lay before us. About us, all at once, was the roar and hubbub of an extraordinary bustle and excitement; all the life of the town, apparently, was centred upon the quays. The latter were swarming with a tattered, ragged, bare-footed, bare-legged assemblage of old women, of gamins, and sailors. The collection, as a collection, was one gifted with the talent of making itself heard. Everyone appeared to be shrieking, or yelling, ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... not felt then, as they are felt now to be inconsistent and incompatible. It was the likeness between the two that filled the field of mental vision, originally. Whether a man makes a petition or a command, the fact is that he wants something; and, with his attention centred on that fact, he may be but little aware, as the child is little, if at all, aware, that he passes, or is guilty of unreasonable inconsistency in passing, from the one mood to the other, and back again. It is in the course of time and as a consequence of mental growth ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... Tyrian blue the King was drest, A jewelled collar shone upon his breast, A giant ruby glittered in his crown— Lord of rich lands and many a splendid town. In him the glories of an ancient line Of sober kings, who ruled by right divine, Were centred; and to him with loyal awe The people looked for leadership and law. Ten thousand knights, the safeguard of the land, Lay like a single sword within his hand; A hundred courts, with power of life and death, Proclaimed decrees of justice by his ...
— Music and Other Poems • Henry van Dyke
... dignified house, with its narrow casements, its high rooms. Though the name of the house, though the tale of its dwellers was unknown to me, I felt the appeal of the old associations that must have centred about it. The whole air, that quiet afternoon, seemed full of the calling of forgotten voices, and dead faces looked out from the closed lattices. So near to my heart came the spirit of the ancient house, that, as I mused, I felt as though ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... queer mad jumble of a shut-in world our London was, and how blindly self-centred we all were in our pursuit of immediate gain, in our absolute indifference to the larger outside movements, the shaping of national destinies, the warring of national interests! I remember that we were quite triumphant, in our little owlish way, that year; for the weight of socialistic ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... apprehension, for he thought his discourse had a tendency to tranquillize my mother, and he had a strong affection for all that left him undisturbed, to the enjoyment of the occupation in which his whole energies were now completely centred. The physician got his guinea at each visit, with scrupulous punctuality; the nurses were well received and were well satisfied, for no one interfered with their acts but the doctor; and every ordinary ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... product of inspiration, genius, is incomprehensible to itself. Its activity proceeds on no beaten track, and we seek in vain to trace its footsteps. There is no warrant for the value of its efforts. This it can alone secure through voluntary submission to law. All its powers are centred in the energy of production, and none is left for idle ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... He was intimate with all the distinguished men of his time, and a personal friend of the Emperor. After the publication of his second work, the Georgics, he was recognized as being the greatest poet of his age, and the most striking figure in the brilliant circle of literary men, which was centred at the Court. He died at Brindisi in the spring of 19 B.C. whilst returning from a journey to Greece, leaving his greatest work, the Aeneid, written but unrevised. It was published by his executors, and immediately took ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... centred in the professors of the University. On March 1st Doctor Loehner had proposed, at one of the meetings of the Reading and Debating Society, that negotiations should be opened with the Estates, and that they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... was but a child, the court had been my home, with Owen as my father, and Ina the king as the loved guardian for whom I would gladly give my life in need. All my training and thoughts were centred here, not as what one calls a courtier at all, but as one of the household who feared the king and queen no more than Owen himself, and yet reverenced all three as those to whom all homage was due since ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... Donald stood rooted to the spot by the suddenness and awfulness of the fate that had overtaken his enemy. Then like a flash it came to him that, even while his attention was wholly centred on the tragedy just enacted, he had been aware of another man ascending the pathway who had turned and fled. Was he then to be robbed of the fruits of his arduous journeyings? Was Edith again to be snatched from him when almost ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... Magdeburg surrendered in 1551. Its chieftains were secretly assured that the terms of capitulation should not be observed. His next point was, to keep the army together until his schemes were ripened, and then to arrest the emperor, whose thoughts now centred on the council of Trent. So he proposed sending Protestant divines to the council, but delayed their departure by endless negotiations about the terms of a safe conduct. He, moreover, formed a secret treaty with Henry II., the successor of Francis, ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... were actuated merely by desire for land; they welcomed war because they thought it would be the easiest way to abate Indian troubles. The savages were supported by the fur-trading interests that centred at Quebec and London.... The Southerners on their part wished for Florida and they thought that the conquest of Canada would obviate some Northern opposition to this acquisition of slave territory." While Clay and Calhoun, spokesmen of the West ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... that all these powers were centred in one famous man, known among the laity as "Parson Upandown." For the Reverend Turner Upround, to give him his proper name, was a doctor of divinity, a justice of the peace, and the present rector of Flamborough. Of all his offices and powers, there was not one that he overstrained; and ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... your new mode of life is that it is entirely self-centred. There is no projection of yourself into other lives. You are contributing nothing to the common stock of moral effort. You are simply marooned. It alters nothing that you have marooned yourself under conditions that ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson
... your exertions. Let home be now the stage on which, in the varied character of wife, of mother, and of mistress, you strive to act and shine with splendour. In its sober, quiet scenes, let your heart cast its anchor, let your feelings and pursuits all be centred. And beyond the spreading oaks that shadow and shelter your dwelling, let not your fancy wander. Leave to your husband to distinguish himself by his valour or his talents. Do you seek for fame at home; and let the applause of your God, of your ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... for an explanation. It was not his way. He left her moodily, a frown of deep dissatisfaction upon his handsome face. Daisy did not spend much thought upon him. Her interests at that time were almost wholly centred upon her boy who was so backward and delicate that she was continually anxious about him. She was, in fact, so preoccupied that she hardly noticed at dinner that Muriel scarcely spoke and ate next ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... hand-in-glove with the town's people; they drove their trotters in every day or so to get their mail, to chat with their cronies, to attend to their affairs in court, to sell or to buy—their pleasures centred in the town, and they turned the cold shoulder upon the country, which supported them, and gave their influence to Colbury, accounting themselves an integrant part of it. Thus, at the fairs the town ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the martyr death of which he was forewarned? So vivid were his impressions of this divine personality that it seemed almost to absorb his own. Christ, though He had ascended, was still with him as a living presence. All his inspiration, all his strength came from Him. His plans and purposes centred in his Divine Master, and his only ambition was to be found well-pleasing in his sight. He saw all types and prophecies fulfilled in Him as the Son of God, the fulness of His glory, and the express image of His person. ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... joked, with never a reference to the great conflict in which all present bore part. Of course much of this was but veneer, and back of repartee and well-told story, we were intent upon our own problems. With me, now that I had decided upon my plans, everything centred upon Miss Willifred. I would search the house for Le Gaire, endeavor to have one word with her alone, and then retire to a place of greater safety with my men. The quicker I might complete these arrangements the better, and I could trust ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... creatures" were out of sight they were extinct. All the embryo mother in her was centred on Roy. It was a shame sending him to his room, like a naughty boy, when he was really a champion, a King-Arthur's-Knight. But if only he properly explained, Uncle ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... western length. Market square, the houses of which were almost wholly wood, and mean and contemptible in appearance, was the home of the wholesale and more respectable retail dealers in dry goods and hardware. The larger grocery dealers centred near the then head of Broadwater. The population ranged between 6,500 and 7,500, and consisted of a large infusion of French from the West India islands, Scotch and English in considerable proportions, Irish, and New English. ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... centred in one man; men tried to fill their lungs with the air which he had breathed. Yearly France presented that man with three hundred thousand of her youth; it was the tax to Caesar; without that troop behind ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... possibilities enfolded in it would have fevered Nietzsche and fascinated Renan. But, be that as it may, Ireland played Cleopatra to the Antony of the invaders. Some of them, indeed, the "garrison" pure and simple, had all their interests centred not only in resisting but in calumniating her. But the majority yielded gaily to her music, her poetry, her sociability, that magical quality of hers which the Germans call Gemuetlichkeit. In a few centuries a new and enduring phrase had designated ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... lead them to better things, and did not indulge in them in order to express his own discontent, or to amuse or curry favor with foreigners. In a word, he loved his country, and had an abiding faith in its future and in its people, upon whom his most earnest thoughts and loftiest aspirations were centred. No higher, purer, or more thorough Americanism than his could be imagined. It was a conception far in advance of the time, possible only to a powerful mind, capable of lifting itself out of existing conditions and alien influences, ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... sir, great friends. Our past has been saddened by the same blow. All our hopes, in the future, are centred on ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... more along the edge of the black belt. The forester was walking well within the burned area. The two boys centred their attention on the strip between the forester's tracks and the edge of the black area. This was a strip roughly fifty to seventy-five feet wide. Practically everything was blackened in this area. A piece of unburned paper would have shown with startling distinctness. But ...
— The Young Wireless Operator—As a Fire Patrol - The Story of a Young Wireless Amateur Who Made Good as a Fire Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss
... brightened a few years of my lonely and sorrowful life overwhelms me when I think of it as the probable result of any change. They seem to be the links that bind me to life, the stars that shed light on my path, the beings in whom past, present, and future enjoyments are centred, without whom ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... that you marry, quoth Hippothadee; for you should rather choose to marry once than to burn still in fires of concupiscence. Then Panurge, with a jovial heart and a loud voice, cried out, That is spoke gallantly, without circumbilivaginating about and about, and never hitting it in its centred point. Gramercy, my good father! In truth I am resolved now to marry, and without fail I shall do it quickly. I invite you to my wedding. By the body of a hen, we shall make good cheer, and be as merry as crickets. You shall wear the bridegroom's colours, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... correspondence for the Times, and is as well known by his chess books as by his play. The game between him and Zukertort in the tournament now in progress was looked forward to with intense interest, for he and Zukertort were the leading scorers, and the fight for the first prize would have centred in this contest. A good feature in Bird's character is his disposition to make acquaintances with working men. He has taught many of them his "charming game," and has frequently been told afterwards that it has been the means of saving them a few ...
— Chess History and Reminiscences • H. E. Bird
... Nevill looked very young. His eyes no longer seemed to gaze at far-away things which no one else could see. All his interests were centred near at hand. ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... a Sophoclean drama is always intensely personal, and is almost always centred in an individual destiny. In other words, it is not historical or mythical, but ethical. Single persons stand out magnificently in Aeschylus. But the action is always larger than any single life. Each tragedy or trilogy resembles the fragment of a sublime Epic poem. Mighty issues revolve ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... long history. Travelling by rail from Calcutta to Benares, the metropolis of Hinduism, situated upon the north bank of the sacred Ganges, we see the British rule, in symbol, in the great railway bridge spanning the river. By it old India, self-centred, exclusive, introspective, was brought into the modern world; compelled, one might say, by these great spans to admit the modern world and its conveniences, in spite of protest that the railway bridge would pollute the sacred stream. Crossing the bridge, our ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... Spirit. I believe that we stand on the verge of a far clearer perception of, and of a far more fervent and realising faith in, the Spirit of God, than ever the Churches have seen before. And I pray you to remember that however much your Christian thought and Christian faith may be centred upon, and may be drawing its nourishment and its joy from, the work of Jesus Christ who died on the Cross for our salvation, and lives to be our King and Defender, there is a gap—not only in your Christian Creed, but also in your Christian experiences and joys and power, unless you have ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... nucleus of his professional labours that all my father's scientific inquiries and inventions centred; these proceeded from, and acted back upon, his daily business. Thus it was as a harbour engineer that he became interested in the propagation and reduction of waves; a difficult subject, in regard to which he has left behind him much suggestive ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... for, running coincident with parallels of latitude, its agricultural products were not very varied, and the wants of its populations the same. But tin was brought from the Cassiterides, amber from the Baltic, and dyed goods and worked metals from Syria. Wherever these trades centred, the germs of taste and intelligence were developed; thus the Etruscans, in whose hands was the amber trade across Germany, have left many relics of their love of art. Though a mysterious, they were hardly a gloomy race, as ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... industry, can be attacked from the air and, if attacked on a large enough scale, can be destroyed. For instance, eighty per cent of the German steel industry was within bombing range of the Allies. The Westphalian group of high-grade steel industries centred at Essen is about two hundred miles from Nancy. If this group had been bombed on a large scale the source of supply of German guns and munitions could have been destroyed; for a blast furnace destroyed cannot be replaced within nine months, and the destruction of the central electrical plant ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... that he had treated the horse very shabbily indeed. He wanted old Slop-eye back again. He suddenly wanted him with a terrific longing; wanted him more than anything else in the world. For a moment he forgot the girl, and all his homesickness centred about the beast which had been so long his companion ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... however, centred most about the mysterious old parrot, of whose strange legend so much had been said to her. After they had sat for a little under the shade of the spreading banyan, to cool down from their walk—for it was an oppressive morning—M. Peyron ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... his eyes and he saw himself as he was, a self-deluded man and a cheat. The impulses that had prompted him to this night's work had really centred in Glory. It had been Glory first and Glory last, and his pity for Brother Paul and his fear for the fate of Polly had been only a ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... secondly, their personality, as it were,—who were their founders, their patrons, their bishops; thirdly, the functions in which they may have partaken, any significant events which may have passed within their walls or centred within their sees; and fourthly, the artistic beauties of their ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... into the village and could see its extent, precisely how it was placed in the Sahara, in what relation exactly it stood to the mountain ranges, to the palm groves and the arid, sunburnt tracts, where its life centred and where it tailed away into suburban edges not unlike the ragged edges of worn garments, where it was idle and frivolous, where busy and sedulous. She realised for the first time that there were two distinct layers of life in Beni-Mora—the life ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... for it. Could it be that Senorita Mendoza had some antipathy which did not include the son? Though we did not seem to be making much progress in this way in solving the mystery, still I felt that before we could go ahead we must know the little group about which it centred. There seemed to be currents and cross-currents here which we did not understand, but which must be charted if we were to steer ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... them, still trying with loving caress and youthful smiles to lead us to their shadowy world beyond. O youth, beautiful and undying, the sage's dream, the poet's song, all that is loving and lovely, is centred still in thee! O lovely youth, with thine arrowy form, and slender hands, thy pearly teeth, and saintly smile, thy pleading eyes and radiant hair; all, all must worship thee. And if in waking hours and daily toil we cannot always greet thee, yet in our dreams you are ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... to them if he went out with the hounds a little oftener or were a rather better shot. For, being shortsighted, he was never particularly fond either of sport or of games of skill, and his interest had always centred on intellectual pursuits to a degree that amazed the more ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... the desiccated Harriet, who had already faded to the semblance of one of her own great-aunts, listened languidly to the kind of talk that the originals might have exchanged about the same table when New York gentility centred in the Battery and the Bowling Green. Mr. Dagonet was always pleasant to see and hear, but his sarcasms were growing faint and recondite: they had as little bearing on life as the humours of a Restoration comedy. As for Mrs. Marvell and Miss Ray, they seemed to the ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... kind of resentful fury he pushed back his chair and fell to pacing, eddies and loops and spirals of smoke whirling and sweeping behind him. The only light was centred upon the desk, so he might have been some god pacing cloud-riven Olympus in the twilight. By and by he laughed; and the atmosphere—mental—cleared. Maeterlinck, fifty-six, and Cutty, fifty-two, were two different men. Cutty might mix his metaphors occasionally, but ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... years the iron and steel industry which formerly centred about the navigable waters at the head of the Ohio River, has undergone a readjustment. Rolling-mills and smelteries exist at Pittsburg and vicinity, and at Youngstown, New Castle, and other nearby localities, but greater steel-making plants have been built along the south ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway
... the movement of St. Benedict in the 6th century stamped its permanent form on Western Monasticism, and that of St. Francis in the 12th gave it a more comprehensive range, entrusting the care of the poor, the sick, the ignorant, &c., to the hitherto self-centred monks and nuns; during the Middle Ages the monasteries were centres of learning, and their work in copying and preserving both sacred and secular literature has been invaluable; English Monachism was swept away at the Reformation; in France at the Revolution; and later in Spain, Portugal, and Italy ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood |
