"Definiteness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... term "soldier" for the sake of definiteness. The soldier approaches the queen in size, and in many of the specimens the head is larger than ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... customs seem all to assume a definiteness of preference, a singleness and a limitation of love, which is not psychologically justifiable. People do not, I think, fall naturally into agreement with these assumptions; they train themselves to agreement. They take refuge from experiences that seem to carry ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... the Bering Sea Arbitration Tribunal. The application of the principles laid down by that august body has not been followed by the results they were intended to accomplish, either because the principles themselves lacked in breadth and definiteness or because their execution has been more or less imperfect. Much correspondence has been exchanged between the two Governments on the subject of preventing the exterminating slaughter of seals. The insufficiency of the British patrol ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... the difficulties of interpretation to which they give rise serve rather to mark the prevailing clearness and simplicity of his expression than seriously to impede its easy and unperplexed current. There are few sentences in the Divina Commedia in which a difficulty is occasioned by lack of definiteness of thought or distinctness ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... them as falling under the finite class. Again, we are able to define objects or ideas, not in so far as they are in the mind, but in so far as they are manifested externally, and can therefore be reduced to rule and measure. And if we adopt the test of definiteness, the pleasures of the body are more capable of being defined than any other pleasures. As in art and knowledge generally, we proceed from without inwards, beginning with facts of sense, and passing to the more ideal conceptions of mental pleasure, ...
— Philebus • Plato
... himself better, he had left his golden spurs with the leech as payment, and had slipped away. This had not, however, interfered with the progress of the affair. Justice, at that epoch, troubled itself very little about the clearness and definiteness of a criminal suit. Provided that the accused was hung, that was all that was necessary. Now the judge had plenty of proofs against la Esmeralda. They had supposed Phoebus to be dead, and that was ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... But this model itself, a marvellous sketch, the grandiose skeleton of an idea of Napoleon's, which successive gusts of wind have carried away and thrown, on each occasion, still further from us, had become historical and had acquired a certain definiteness which contrasted with its provisional aspect. It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and masonry, bearing on its back a tower which resembled a house, formerly painted green ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... beneath a mass of verbiage about Ahasuerus, and before them my forebears had every one of them left imprinted some sage injunction gained from their experience in living. So I gathered my strength to do my best. But there was a lack of definiteness in my purpose. There was no goal at which I aimed. In my younger days I had had instilled into me the necessity of aspiring to a particular height, to something concrete, to become a leader at the bar, in politics or commerce, a Webster, a Clay, or ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... collected and arranged by experimental science in favour of the hypothesis are such as to demand some kind of Evolution-philosophy; assuming that the very imperfect serial classification of living things according to their degree of organic definiteness, coherence, and heterogeneity not merely represents a variety which has always coexisted since life was possible on this earth, but rather traces out or hints at the genetic process by which this variety has been produced, let us see if there be any other governing principle directing the process, ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... Torricelli—to which we shall refer in a moment—had thrown new light on the question of atmospheric pressure. Still later the celebrated Huygens hit upon the idea of using the melting and the boiling point of water as fixed points in a scale of measurements, which first gave definiteness to thermometric tests. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... nature which, joined to its schematic definiteness, gives Empathy its extraordinary power over us. Empathy, as I have tried to make clear to the Reader, is due not only to the movements which we are actually making in the course of shape-perception, to present movements with their various modes of speed, intensity and facility and their ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... more definiteness of thought than ever before, what were the deep feelings which her reticent little mother—Marguerite was an inch the taller—kept hid in that dear breast. Rarely had emotion moved it. She remembered its terrible heavings at the time of her father's death, and the later silent ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the heart suggests that these beliefs may be a constituent element of the ancient heart-theory. In some of the rock-pictures in America, Australia, and elsewhere the air-passages are represented leading to the heart. But there can be little doubt that the practice of mummification gave greater definiteness to the ideas regarding the "heart" and "breath," which eventually led to a differentiation between their supposed functions.[69] As the heart and the blood were obviously present in the dead body they could no longer be regarded as the "life". The breath was clearly the "element" ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... first duty was to make a careful study of the publications of the parent society in England, with a view of learning their discoveries. The result was far from hopeful. I found that the phenomena brought out lacked that coherence and definiteness which is characteristic of scientific truths. Remarkable effects had been witnessed; but it was impossible to say, Do so and so, and you will get such an effect. The best that could be said was, perhaps you will get an effect, but more likely you ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... Kentucky Resolutions, certain clauses of the Constitution, and extracts from other historical documents may well be required to be memorized accurately. It is scarcely to be supposed that the student can improve on the clarity and definiteness of the English in such documents. He is expected to understand the principles which they assert. He may well be required to train his memory to accuracy by learning certain assignments verbatim. If memory work received a little more attention in our high schools to-day, ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell
... regularity, stability, consistency, unity, realness, system, government, organization, liberty, independence, soul, self, personality, entity, individuality, truth, beauty, justice, perfection, definiteness— ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... at a greater speed. He had only been stunned by Shad's blow—a part of the force of which he had caught on his arm. The arm was still numb and his head thumped, but as he went on in the cool air his brain cleared and he found it possible to plan with some definiteness. Brierly knew the sheriff at May's Landing. There was nothing his friends would rather do than to be sworn in as deputies for a job like this. He had thought it a wonder that Peter hadn't ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... comprehensiveness, penetration, and self-consistency. By the necessity of concentration, thought is sometimes led to forget its origin and the source of its problems. But in naming itself philosophy, thought has only recognized the definiteness and earnestness of its largest task. Philosophy is still thought about life, representing but the deepening and broadening ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... right nor to the left; no dreaming away time, nor building air-castles; but one look and purpose, forward, upward and onward, straight to his goal. He always hit the bull's-eye. His great success in war was due largely to his definiteness of aim. He was like a great burning-glass, concentrating the rays of the sun upon a single spot; he burned a hole wherever he went. The secret of his power lay in his ability to concentrate his forces upon a single ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... its own answer) seemed to drive one or two brass tacks with some definiteness. Cope himself was eking out his small salary with a small allowance from home; next year, with the thesis accomplished, better pay in some better place. A present partner and pal ought to be a prop rather than a drag: however welcome his ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... may be of course presumed that we only could have purchased this immunity from suffering at the expense of a large portion of that delicacy in which lie some of our most agreeable sensations. Or man's faculties might have been restricted to definiteness of action, as is greatly the case with those of the lower animals, and thus we should have been equally safe from the aberrations which lead to disease; but in that event we should have been incapable ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... Europe, many would call death what we call life, many would call life what we call death. Here, as elsewhere, it is high time that men should define the exact meaning of their words, trusting that definiteness, frankness, and honesty may offer a better chance of mutual understanding, and serve as a stronger bond of union between man and man, than vague formulas, faint-hearted reticence, and what is at the ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be put to death, and rise again on the third day." Here we have, obviously, the knowledge of the writer, after the event, reflected back and attributed to Jesus. It is of course impossible that Jesus should have predicted with such definiteness his approaching death; nor is it very likely that he entertained any hope of being raised from the grave "on the third day." To a man in that age and country, the conception of a return from the lower world of shades was not a difficult one to frame; and it may well ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... with Laurance Donovan was in Constantinople, at a café where I was dining. He got into a row with an Englishman and knocked him down. It was not my affair, but I liked the ease and definiteness with which Larry put his foe out of commission. I learned later that it was a way he had. The Englishman meant well enough, but he could not, of course, know the intensity of Larry’s feeling about the unhappy lot of Ireland. In the beginning of my own acquaintance ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... for all of a teacher's ills. The larger portion of the twelve pages is devoted to this object, although the explicit statement is made, on the third page, that "psychology ought certainly to give the teacher radical help." But so little space is given to this declaration that, in spite of its definiteness and positive character, the class as a whole reached the conclusion that he was advising teachers not to study psychology at all. In other words, they had failed to balance up one part of the chapter against the other; and ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... made him a warlike creature. Man does seem to be a creature of feelings rather than of instincts as far back as we find much account of him, and to be characterized rather by the weakness and variability of his instincts than by their definiteness. It is quite likely, too, that man never was at any stage a herd animal; in fact it seems certain that he was not, and that his instincts were formed long before he began to live in large groups at all. So he never acquired the mechanisms either for aggression ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... patch of moist mould was almost as large as that of the lynx himself—and the lynx well knew that the wildcats were a small-footed tribe. Like most of the hunting beasts, he was well-schooled in the lore of the trails, and all the signs were to him a clear speech. From the depth and definiteness of that footprint, he felt that both weight and strength had stamped it. His long claws protruded from their hidden sheaths, as he pondered the significance of this message from the unknown. Was the stranger a deliberate invader of his range, or a mere ignorant trespasser? ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... yawned, at the tender age of ten, over a certain dissertation on the etiquette of travel, given one summer afternoon by Mademoiselle D'Ormy, Felicia aged twenty-seven, embarked upon her first journey alone, found herself musing with mighty comfort upon the charming definiteness of those never-to-be-forgotten axioms. For Mademoiselle had made the small Felicia recite them over and over until she ...
— Little Miss By-The-Day • Lucille Van Slyke
... he does it as he does everything—with definiteness and force. He does not spill over as does the Alimentive nor drape himself gracefully like the Thoracic, but planks himself as ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... O the magnet! the flesh over and over! Go, mon cher! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness, Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity—nothing can make up for excess, or for the lack of definiteness. To carry on the heave of impulse and pierce intellectual depths and give all subjects their articulations, are powers neither common nor very uncommon. But to speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals, and the unimpeachableness of ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... be expressed at a man in the position of a teacher of languages knowing all this with such definiteness. A novelist says this and that of his personages, and if only he knows how to say it earnestly enough he may not be questioned upon the inventions of his brain in which his own belief is made sufficiently manifest by a telling phrase, a poetic image, the accent of emotion. Art ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... sisterhood—the decision which had crystallised out of the long black hours of the night of her return to Friars' Holm—Gillian had merely laughed the notion aside, attaching little importance to it. But now, a week later, when Magda reverted to the subject with a certain purposeful definiteness, ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... illuminated, has obscured its genesis and diverted attention from the simplicity and force of its fundamental principles.[1] In this, its progress has been like that of slang, which, gaining in popularity, must inevitably decrease in aptness and definiteness. ...
— Are You A Bromide? • Gelett Burgess
... was the alarm caused by the South German risings, and great as were the hopes which they kindled in the Viennese, the word that was to give definiteness and importance to the impulses that were stirring in Vienna could not come from Bavaria or Saxony. Much as they might wish to connect themselves with a German movement, the Viennese could not get rid of the fact that they were, for the present, bound up with a different political system. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... may be modified by future experiments it is, of course, impossible to predict, but they clearly point the way towards definiteness and boldness in the design of types as well as to a preference for the larger sizes in their use. All this, as we shall see in the next chapter, is in harmony with what experience has been gradually confirming in the practice ...
— The Booklover and His Books • Harry Lyman Koopman
... unless they are frequently revived by personal intercourse, are apt to alter insensibly and to become untrue. They acquire increased definiteness ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... that lay almost at her feet. And then someone took her by the arm—she thought it was Uncle Jepson—and she was led toward the door. At the threshold she paused, for Randerson's voice, cold and filled with deadly definiteness, reached her: ...
— The Range Boss • Charles Alden Seltzer
... producing chiefly in this manner are poverty, or at least only a moderate prosperity, but, to offset this, a certain definiteness and steadiness of ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... all that appears in any way useful or akin to the new system is wrought in at its proper place, though often with considerable transformation. In this work of mediation there is considerable loss in definiteness, the just and comprehensive consideration of the most diverse interests not always making good the loss. And since such a philosophy, as we have already shown, engages the whole man, its disciple has neither impulse nor strength ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... the same as the bride, who does not appear in the parable, might warn against such an error. They were ten, as being the usual number for such a company, or as being the round number naturally employed when definiteness was not sought. They were divided equally, not because our Lord desired to tell, but because He wished to leave unnoticed, the numerical proportion of the two classes. One set are 'wise' and the other 'foolish,' because ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... the garden and dug round things with her finger. And she thought about the brightness of that Chautauqua scene to which Ina and Dwight had gone. Lulu thought about such gatherings in somewhat the way that a futurist receives the subjects of his art—forms not vague, but heightened to intolerable definiteness, acute colour, and always motion—motion as an integral part of the desirable. But a factor of all was that Lulu herself was the participant, not the onlooker. The perfection of her dream was not impaired by any longing. She had her dream as a saint ...
— Miss Lulu Bett • Zona Gale
... of business in the underworld is one of the main props of white slavery it is well to go into it with definiteness and to give ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... went on, John seemed to take a more personal delight in life than he had done before. He forgot his ancient prejudices if not his ancient ideals, and, as was characteristic of him, he avoided thinking with any definiteness on the nature of the new life into which he was to enter soon. His neighbours declared he was very much improved; and there were dinner parties at Thornby Place. One of his great pleasures was to start early in the morning, and having spent a long day with Kitty, to return home across the downs. ...
— A Mere Accident • George Moore
... consequently from all possibility of error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of experience and the a priori ideas of the reason. The result of this involuntary and almost unconscious process of thought is that natural cognition of a God found, with greater or less clearness and definiteness, in all rational minds. The a posteriori, or empirical knowledge of the phenomena of the universe, in their relations to time and space, constitute the minor premise of the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... vein and contact deposits, a series of names which has the considerable advantage of definiteness:—hypogene ores, formed in general by ascending non-oxidizing solutions, perhaps hot; supergene ores, formed in general by oxidizing and surface solutions, initially cold and downward moving; ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... general sense of lacking strength or effectiveness, covers a wide range of meaning, signifying overcome with physical weakness or exhaustion, or lacking in purpose, courage, or energy, as said of persons; or lacking definiteness or distinctness of color or sound, as said of written characters, voices, or musical notes. A person may be faint when physically wearied, or when overcome with fear; he may be a faint adherent because naturally feeble or purposeless, or because half-hearted in the cause; he ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... validity, are there any that are valid within single geographical divisions? On what principle can we divide the earth into sections for economic purposes? These are some of the questions which must be answered if a theory of distribution is to have any definiteness of meaning, and they arise whenever we try to establish a static standard of any kind. If we talk about natural wages, we must know in how much of the world they are natural. The questions become even more urgent when we try to solve dynamic problems. ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... cornea and iris, were inserted. [Footnote: Marble statues also sometimes had inserted eyes] Finally, the whole was gone over with appropriate tools, the hair, for example, being furrowed with a sharp graver and thus receiving a peculiar, metallic definiteness ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... thousand small details which made for the weaving of the web. Mrs. Treat Hilyar driving in a leisurely, accustomed fashion down Bond Street, and smiling casually at her compatriots, whose "sailing" was as much part of the natural order of their luxurious lives as their carriages, gave a definiteness to the situation. Mina Thalberg, pulling down the embroidered frocks over the round legs of her English-looking children, seemed to narrow the width of the Atlantic Ocean between Liverpool and the docks on the ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the senses, and substituted for it a principle which, although a falsely conceived one, was still much more tangible than the "spirit," since it could be seen and felt as free phlogiston and weighed and measured as combined phlogiston. The definiteness of the statement that a metal, for example, was composed of phlogiston and an element was much less enigmatic, even if wrong, than the statement of the alchemist that "metals are produced by the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... towards this ideal, which we cannot describe with greater definiteness, we are bound to recognise that GOODNESS is our safe and only guide. The general direction of our advance in the past we can easily trace, but the purpose of the devious paths through which we were led is too difficult to understand. Our present puzzles us, our future sometimes ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... therein are different from what they would have been had it not been for Sterne's example. Some of these secondary fruits of the Sterne cult have been mentioned incidentally and exemplified in the foregoing pages. It would perhaps be conducive to definiteness to gather them here. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct:—It continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definiteness—until, at length, I found that the noise was not ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... windows of the dining-room, they had much more definiteness of outline, and were distinctly visible to the three gentlemen sipping their claret there, as two fair women in whom all three had a personal interest. These gentlemen were a group worth considering ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... continued vocational service outside the home. In the suggestive and encouraging book by Mrs. Mary Hinman Abel, entitled Successful Family Life on the Moderate Income, this economic aspect of the problem is treated with definiteness. In addition to the general conclusion reached by many that a family income of from $2,500 to $3,000 must be reached before continual hired help can be economically justified, Mrs. Abel shows by tables at pre-war prices that unless a married woman has a high-grade ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... such worn-out commonplaces, on such wordy vapourings as degeneration and absence of ideals, or on references to the splendours of the past. Every accusation, even if it is uttered in ladies' society, ought to be formulated with all possible definiteness, or it is not an accusation, but idle ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... throughout a Communist revolution, a number of conditions must be fulfilled which are not, at present, fulfilled anywhere. Consider, for the sake of definiteness, what would happen if a Communist revolution were to occur in England to-morrow. Immediately America would place an embargo on all trade with us. The cotton industry would collapse, leaving about five million of the most ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... The Blessed Damozel was a definiteness of sensible imagery, which seemed almost grotesque to some, and was strange, above all, in a theme so profoundly visionary. The gold bar of heaven from which she leaned, her hair yellow like ripe corn, are but examples of a general treatment, as naively detailed as the ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... having to toil with the pioneers and painfully make the road on which others are to travel,—precludes, on the other hand, every affectation and morbid peculiarity;—the second condition, sensuousness, insures that framework of objectivity, that definiteness and articulation of imagery, and that modification of the images themselves, without which poetry becomes flattened into mere didactics of practice, or evaporated into a hazy, unthoughtful, day-dreaming; and the third condition, passion, provides that neither thought nor imagery shall be simply ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... question and not in the facts themselves. For example: If a cannon ball were to be fired off by some mechanical device a million miles from where there was any ear to hear, would there be any sound? The lack of definiteness here which permits difference of opinion lies in the word "sound." If we add after the word "sound" the phrase, "in the sense of a conscious auditory sensation," the answer would obviously be, No, since there can be ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... foreign observers. It mattered little in 1812 on which side the United States took its stand; in 1914 such a decision Mould inevitably determine the issue. Of all European statesmen there was one man who saw this point with a definiteness which, in itself, gives him a clear title to fame. That was Sir Edward Grey. The time came when a section of the British public was prepared almost to stone the Foreign Secretary in the streets of London, because they believed ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... is interpreted in comparative terms, that is, with respect to the special traits of child and adult life, means the direction of power into special channels: the formation of habits involving executive skill, definiteness of interest, and specific objects of observation and thought. But the comparative view is not final. The child has specific powers; to ignore that fact is to stunt or distort the organs upon which his growth depends. The ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... of passions—saintly, earthly, and diabolic—on the varying human face. One fancies each corbel to have had its history, its archetype in nature; a thousand possible stories spring into one's mind. They are wrought with such a startling and individual definiteness, that one feels as about Shakspeare's characters, as if they must have had a counterpart in real existence. The pure, saintly nun may have been some sister, or some daughter, or some early love, of the artist, ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... movements of the Irishman O'Hara, but the efforts were altogether unavailing. The man seemed to have disappeared as noiselessly and completely as had young Arthur Benham himself. He was unable even to settle with any definiteness the time of the man's departure from Paris. Some of O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that they had seen the last of him two months before, but a shifty-eyed person in rather cheaply smart clothes came up to Ste. Marie one ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... important period of his life was that from 1841 to 1845, when his talent was forming and ripening. Little is known with definiteness regarding this period, but it is certain that while pursuing his literary labors, he moved in widely differing circles of society—fashionable, official, literary, theatrical, that of the students, and others—which contributed to the truth of his pictures from these different spheres in his poems. ...
— A Survey of Russian Literature, with Selections • Isabel Florence Hapgood
... conjectured rather than affirmed, and much must be left undetermined; but when all deductions on that score have been made, it still appears possible to carry the process sufficiently far to gain fresh insight into the force and definiteness of many of David's words, and to use them with tolerable confidence as throwing light upon the narrative of his career. The attempt is made in some degree in ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... steak, Steve observed the brooding eye of Culvera upon him. Faint suspicions, recollections too vague as yet for definiteness, were beginning to stir in the mind of the man. He had taken on the look of wariness, masked by a surface smile, that his face had worn the night ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine
... flatly refused. In answer to inquiries, he explained the position of the pope on the subject of lay investiture, declared that he must stand by that position, and that if Henry also would not obey the pope, he must leave England again. Here was a sharp issue, drawn with the greatest definiteness, and one which it was very difficult for the king to meet. He could not possibly afford to renew the quarrel with Anselm and to drive him into exile again at this moment, but it was equally impossible for him to abandon this right of the crown, so long unquestioned and one on which ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... the charge of didacticism, which is valid only when teaching is explicit and abstract. The educative power of literature, however, is not diminished because in its art it dispenses with the didactic method, which by its very definiteness is inelastic and narrow; in fact, the more imaginative a character is, the more fruitful it may be even in moral truth; it may teach, as has been said, what the poet ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... far, however, lose something of their authority, as well as definiteness, on the way; there was always room for charity to suggest a mistake or exaggeration; and if good men turned up their hands and eyes after a new story, and ladies of experience, who knew mankind, held their heads high and looked grim and mysterious at mention of his name, nevertheless ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... undisturbed placid nourishment and gigantic growth. Your audibly arrogant man exposes himself to tests: in attempting to make an impression on others he may possibly (not always) be made to feel his own lack of definiteness; and the demand for definiteness is to all of us a needful check on vague depreciation of what others do, and vague ecstatic trust in our own superior ability. But Lentulus was at once so unreceptive, and so little gifted with the ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... what people thought. It was difficult to influence him, but when influenced he was almost painfully open in his acknowledgment of the power that had reached him. As a rule, however, despite his apparent definiteness, his decisive violence, there seemed to be something fluid in his character, something that divided and flowed away from anything which sought to grasp and hold it. He had impetus but not balance; swiftness, but a swiftness that was uncontrolled. He ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... little colour in the cheeks, and the black hair and extraordinarily dark eyes served to enhance the creamy pallor of the skin. It was not altogether an English face; the cheek-bones were too high, and there was a definiteness of colouring, a decisive sharpness of outline in the piquant features, not often found in ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... his one talon into his side coat pocket with swift definiteness. "A hell of a chance you two cheap bums 'd have ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... volition, he sought to explain it to his own shocked senses, to realize it as some illusion, some combination of natural causes, the hour, the pallor pervading the air, the distance, for his boat was near the middle of the stream,—but the definiteness of the ...
— The Phantom Of Bogue Holauba - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... that long descent are marked out with a precision and definiteness which would be intolerable presumption, if Paul were speaking only his own thoughts, or telling what he had seen with his own eyes. They begin with what was in the mind of the eternal Word before He began His descent, and whilst yet He is 'in the form of God.' He stands on the lofty level before ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... thing—though it was but a few hours old 'twas not as red and crumple visaged as new-born infants usually are, its little head was covered with thick black silk, and its small features were of singular definiteness. She dragged herself nearer ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... book is an earnest and uncaricatured record of states of criminal life, written with didactic purpose, full of the gravest instruction, nor destitute of pathetic studies of noble passion. Even the "Mysteries of Paris" and Gaboriau's "Crime d'Orcival" are raised, by their definiteness of historical intention and forewarning anxiety, far above the level of their order, and may be accepted as photographic evidence of an otherwise incredible civilization, corrupted in the infernal fact of it, down to the genesis of such figures as the Vicomte d'Orcival, the Stabber,[40] ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... curious. Some are half afraid. Some rather more than half disgusted. Some indeed try to banish the whole subject from their minds. This may seem to be a refined thing to do; but, as we know with a new definiteness since the psychologists have explored the matter, it is really a disastrous thing to do. For to adapt ourselves to sex is one of the problems that cannot be escaped. In this world we cannot live the disembodied life. What we may do is to live ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... chaotic, or when orderly too busy with its ends to know itself, receives through expression the fixed, clear outlines of a thing, and can be contemplated like a thing. Every one has verified the clarifying effect of expression upon ideas, how they thus acquire definiteness and coherence, so that even the mind that thinks them can hold them in review. But this effect upon feeling is no less sure. The unexpressed values of experience are vague strivings embedded in chaotic sensations and images; these expression sorts and organizes ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... crisp definiteness about those two words which carried conviction with them. Mabane and I were a little staggered. Our position was such a strong one, our request so reasonable, that I think that we had never realized ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his successes, Berkeley now planned a more formidable invasion of the Western Shore. Public sentiment, he hoped, was beginning to turn in his favor. The death of Bacon had deprived the rebellion of all coherency and definiteness of purpose. The country was getting weary of the struggle, and was anxious for the reestablishment of law and order. In Gloucester and Middlesex especially there were many prominent planters that awaited an opportunity to take up arms against the rebels. And although the common people were indifferent ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... some among the audience began to wince. Helen came before the curtain several times, and each time with eyes that searched for some one, and Douglass knew with definiteness that she sought her playwright in order that she might share her triumph with him. But a perverse mood had seized him. "This is all very well, but wait till the men realize the message of the play," he muttered, and lifted the programme to ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... between the modern and the classical aesthetic mind is the greater precision and definiteness of the latter. The modern genius is Gothic, and demands in art a certain vagueness and spirituality like that of music, refusing to be grasped and formulated. Hence for us (and this is undoubtedly an improvement) there ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... to find within that mysterious room, they could not perhaps have explained with any definiteness. Once they stood within the threshold, however, they became slowly conscious of a vague disappointment. Here was nothing so very strange, after all! The room appeared to be in considerable disorder, and articles of clothing, books, and boyish ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... himself, deny it persistently through long periods of time. And there was the weakness in Claude which instinctively wished to give to others what they expected of him, or strongly desired from him. On that evening in the studio Charmian's definiteness gained a point for her. She was encouraged by this fact to ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... may say quite truly—through the will and power which they have derived from a fountain-head, the existence of which we can infer, but which we can never apprehend. By the help of this device, and in proportion as they have perfected it, living beings feel ever with greater definiteness, and hence formulate their feelings in thought with more and more precision. The higher evolution of thought has reacted on the nervous system, and the consequent higher evolution of the nervous system has again reacted upon thought. These things ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... disproportionate attention which has been given to the person and work of the Holy Spirit, as compared with that bestowed on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. It is affirmed, moreover, that in many of the works upon the subject now extant there is a lack of definiteness of impression which leaves much still to be desired in the treatment of this subject. These observations lead us to ask: Why not employ the same method in writing about the Third Person of the Trinity as we use in considering the Second Person? Scores of excellent ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... current, pressure, or resistance, in the terms of the other two. This relation holds true and is accurate in every possible case and condition of practical work. This remarkable precision and definiteness of action has made possible the creation of an extensive school of electrical testing, by which we are not only enabled to make accurate measurement of electrical apparatus and appliances, but also to make determinations in other fields by ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... and even took definite shape. There was a lady known for her frivolous behaviour who began to seek his favour. She talked to him and asked him to visit her. Sergius sternly declined, but was horrified by the definiteness of his desire. He was so alarmed that he wrote about it to the starets. And in addition, to keep himself in hand, he spoke to a young novice and, conquering his sense of shame, confessed his weakness to him, asking him to keep watch on him and not let him go anywhere ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy
... consonants boldly tackles and utilizes them. It will never be possible to sing so sweetly in the English and German languages as in Italian; but it is possible to sing with much more vigor, dramatic definiteness, and ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck
... class had acquired a thorough knowledge of the multiplication table, I gave a searching test upon that subject and issued a simple little certificate to the effect that the pupil had completed it. These little certificates acted like stakes put down along the way, to give incentive, direction, and definiteness to the educative processes, and to stimulate a reasonable class spirit or individual rivalry. I meet these pupils occasionally now—they are to-day grown men and women—and they retain in their possession these little colored certificates which they ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... not love her," was Barbara's quick decision, and she laid the open letter down with a definiteness which said that you, too, are laid out and laid low. Your sister's very wrists can be articulate. However, I laughed at her and she soon joined me. We do not mean to be extravagant with our fears. Who shall prescribe the letters of lovers to their sisters and foster-fathers? ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... his sleep, or laughing with holiday glee—at the drolleries possibly of some pantomime performed for his amusement in the Theatre Royal, Dreamland—a theatre mercifully open to all boys free of charge, long after the holidays have come to an end, the only drawbacks being a certain want of definiteness in the plot and scenery, and a liability to premature termination of ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... round Copernicus seem to respond more happily to the requirements of Professor Pickering's hypothesis, for here there is an absence of that definiteness of direction so manifestly displayed in the case of the Tycho rays, and we can well imagine that with an area of condensation surrounding this magnificent object beyond the limits of the streaks, and a number of active little craters ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... an interesting woman. She has opinions of her own, which she expresses clearly and firmly. I like her," responded Morgan with a definiteness of manner which suggested that he was not to be debarred by fear of banter from ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... to our being misinterpreted as a nation. We have suffered a good deal in the past from having attributed to us motives which were not ours. The reason was the assumption that the apparent absence of definiteness in national purpose must have been designed as a cover for hidden and selfish ends. It is not true. We are indeed very insular, and what has been called the international mind is not common among the people of these islands. But we are kindly at heart, and when we have seemed ...
— Before the War • Viscount Richard Burton Haldane
... moved her vaguely, and without strict definiteness. As soon as the nerveless pause of her surprise would allow her to stir, her impulse was to pass on out of his sight. He had obviously not discerned her yet in her position against ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... same expressions literally, and with the ordinary signification attached to the words that compose them. It is not so much that we do not hold what Paul held, but that we hold it with the greater definiteness and comprehension which modern discovery has rendered possible. We not only accept his words, but we extend them, and not only accept them as articles of faith to be taken on the word of others, but as so profoundly entering into our views of the world around us that that world loses the greater ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... in the definiteness of detail. He expected some kind of result. But there was none, except that the smile remained on her lips a moment longer, and there was a laughing flash back in the clear depths of her eyes. Her level glance was as innocent as a child's ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... horror at what she had seen, and afraid to inquire, or almost to imagine, how it had come to pass,—affrighted at the fatality which seemed to pursue her brother,—stupefied by the dim, thick, stifling atmosphere of dread which filled the house as with a death-smell, and obliterated all definiteness of thought,—she yielded without a question, and on the instant, to the will which Clifford expressed. For herself, she was like a person in a dream, when the will always sleeps. Clifford, ordinarily so destitute ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... favor of the United States Government. It was useless to discuss methods of controlling big business by the National Government until it was definitely settled that the National Government had the power to control it. A decision of the Supreme Court had, with seeming definiteness, settled that the National Government had not ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... definiteness and certainty to determine in what sense the apostle in such connections uses the word "brother." It describes a relation inconsistent with and opposite to the servile. It is "NOT" the relation of a "SERVANT." ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... are not merely loyal, but also enlightened, loyalty, never losing the definiteness and the concreteness of its devotion to some near and directly fascinating cause, sees itself to be in actual spiritual unity with the common cause of all the loyal, whoever they are. The great cause for all ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.) |
