"Interpret" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... coming. The wisest course would be for her to keep away, and rely on his seeing to it that the patient received the utmost care that skill and experience could provide. "I knew that if I said I should not allow you to see her, you would come by the next train. Excuse my having taken the liberty to interpret your character on a ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... there is a state of mind which I have heard an astute expert call upon the witness stand "an insane knowledge," and equally obvious that there may be "imperfect" nor "incomplete knowledge," where the victim sees "through a glass darkly." Certainly it seems far from fair to interpret the test of responsibility to cover a condition where the accused may have had a hazy or dream-like realization that his act was technically contrary to the law, and even more dangerous to make it ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... break a girl's heart for a whole year; and I know it takes nearly that time for a well-brought-up young lady to get over a real matrimonial disappointment. However, shy or not shy, they certainly ought to be explicit. It's too bad to miss a chance because we cannot interpret the metaphor in which some bashful swain thinks it decorous to couch his proposals; and I once knew a young lady who, happening to dislike needlework, and replying in the negative to the insidious question, "Can you sew a button?" never knew for months that she had actually ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... first been cold and hard to Malchus, but gradually her manner had changed, and she now spoke kindly and condescendingly to him, and would sometimes sit looking at him from under her dark eyebrows with an expression which Malchus altogether failed to interpret. Clotilde was more clear sighted. One day meeting Malchus alone in the atrium she said to him: "Malchus, do you know that I fear Julia is learning to love you. I see it in her face, in the glance of her eye, in the softening of ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... looks and knew how to interpret them, but it was his profession to know how to shut his eyes to things that were inconvenient—no clergyman could keep his benefice for a month if he could not do this; besides he had allowed himself for so many years to say things he ought ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... the revenue from customs was suffered to accumulate; ever since, to the knowledge of the Chief Justice, and with the daily countenance of the President, it has been received, administered, and spent by the municipality. It is the function of the Chief Justice to interpret the Berlin Act; its sense was thus supposed to be established beyond cavil; those who were dissatisfied with the result conceived their only recourse lay in a prayer to the Powers to have the treaty altered; and such a prayer was, but the other ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... musingly: "And such secrets can live in one whole year, without another surmising it!" Suddenly she added: "But how will Miss Brandt on that occasion interpret the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors • Various
... on this basis that the moral ordering of the world must place itself if it is to stand on any basis at all. It is an easy and a pleasant task to interpret the facts of history from this standpoint. Everything fits together and harmonizes, and each turn in the historical development of civilization when observed from this point of view acquires a simple ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... of these gods were once men of power who lived on earth. The belief in special gods has often been held by very great men: Socrates looked to his "demon" for guidance; Themistocles consulted his oracle; a President of the United States visited a clairvoyant, who consented to act as a medium and interpret the supernatural. This idea, which is a variant of ancestor worship, still survives, and very many good people do not take journeys or make investments until they believe they are being dictated to by Shakespeare, Emerson, Beecher or Phillips Brooks. These people ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... to question me, for there are things of which I can but speak to thee in figures and in parables, not to mock and bewilder thee, but because I must. Interpret them as thou wilt. Still, Atene thought me no mortal, since she told us that man and spirit may not mate; and there are matters in which I let her judgment weigh with me, as without doubt now, as in other lives, she ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... said, were not in dispute, and all that his Lordship would be asked was to interpret the correspondence which had taken place between his client and the defendant, an architect, with reference to the decoration of a house. He would, however, submit that this correspondence could only mean one very plain thing. After briefly reciting the history of the house at Robin ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... immediately that she wished to do so. As if to make me understand why she did it, she added: "If I did not hear the wild things he says, some one else would; and the difference is that I understand them, and the some one else would interpret them with the genius of the writer of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... believe the work has been fairly done. The clergy are not going to scrape the butter off their own bread. The clergy are offensive partisans, and those of each denomination will interpret the Scriptures their way. No Baptist minister would countenance a "Revision" that favored sprinkling, and no Catholic priest would admit that any version would be correct that destroyed the dogma of the "real presence." So I might go through all ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... like it before," commented Dick, "and maybe it's worth more to them than to us. It was only a mere guess of ours, after Colonel Snow undertook to interpret it to us, that there might be anything behind it, and it was only because it had evidently come from an Arctic country that we even thought of bringing ...
— The Boy Scouts on the Yukon • Ralph Victor
... believe it will fairly interpret the feeling of all readers to admit that when the authority of a great church has been brought into operation to crush a great institution by charges which most seriously discredit it—which represent it as diametrically and in all respects opposite in its internal ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... same, the furniture was untouched, the ordinary domestic routine appeared to be unaltered, but a sense of something new pervaded the place which he could interpret only by the one ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... inhuman kind. The writers in defence of witchcraft quote Genesis vi. in proof of the reality of such intercourses; and Justin Martyr and Tertullian, the great apologists of Christianity, and others of the Fathers, interpret Filios Dei to be angels or evil spirits who, enamoured with the beauty of the women, begot the ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams
... belongs to him exclusively." At this time when a woman is being, so to speak, handed over to one particular individual, special individuals with whom at ordinary times she may have no intercourse, have the right of access to her. Such customs our authors interpret plausibly as partial promiscuity pointing to a time when still greater laxity prevailed—suggesting rudimentary organs in ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... experiences, no wonders for you? Everyone knows as much as the Savant." To some, the way to be humble is to admonish the humble, not learn from them. Carlyle would have Emerson teach by more definite signs, rather than interpret his revelations, or shall we say preach? Admitting all the inspiration and help that Sartor Resartus has given in spite of its vaudeville and tragic stages, to many young men getting under way in the life of tailor or king, we believe it can be said ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... a few pipes. The indifferent Italian, in which language he spoke to his Cicerone, and the latter's still more imperfect Turkish, made it difficult for the shopkeeper to understand their wishes, and as this seemed to vex the stranger, I addressed him in English, offering to interpret for him. When his Lordship thus discovered me to be an Englishman, he shook me cordially by the hand, and assured me, with some warmth in his manner, that he always felt great pleasure when he met with a countryman abroad. His purchase and my bargain being completed, we walked out together, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... a grete hylle of fyre were casten therin, it sholde torne to yce." One of their Legends, well remembered in the time of Shakespeare, gives us a Dialogue between a Bishop and a Soul tormented in a piece of ice, which was brought to cure a grete brenning heate in his foot: take care you do not interpret this the Gout, for I remember M. Menage ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... remarkable fact that the inhabitants of a tract of country nearly two thousand miles in breadth are governed by the same institutions: and what renders this more singular is that the people submitted to them are not subjected by written rules of faith, which the chiefs of each race may interpret and modify according to their will; as is the case with those who are governed by the Koran or other similar codes; but in this instance mere oral traditions are handed down, which teach that certain rules of conduct are to be observed under ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 2 (of 2) • George Grey
... comment is this on the words: "In Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free." Not that there shall be "no bond," according to the brother's interpretation; for then it would be equally right to interpret the other part of the passage literally,—there is no Jew, no Greek, and none free! How perfectly does the relation become absorbed by that state of heart which makes it proper for Paul to say: "Art thou called being a servant, care not for it; but ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... needed to develop country schools. The more progressive of them are striving earnestly to provide laws that will aid rather than hamper the rural school system. In his monograph on The Improvement of the Rural School, Professor Cubberley has done much to interpret current efforts of this type. From the standpoint of state administration he has contributed much definite information and constructive suggestion as to how the State shall respond to the fundamental need for (1) more money, (2) better organization, and ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... finally, with his head tipped back, sniffed the air in the direction of the tree above them and then suddenly pointing toward the carcass of Bara, the deer, he touched his stomach in a sign language which even the densest might interpret. With a wave of his hand Tarzan invited his guest to partake of the remains of his savage repast, and the other, leaping nimbly as a little monkey to the lower branches of the tree, made his way quickly to the flesh, assisted always by his ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Pelasgi (according to Herodotus the earliest inhabitants of Attica), which have vainly agitated the learned. It may amuse the antiquary to weigh gravely the several doubts as to the derivation of their name from Pelasgus or from Peleg—to connect the scattered fragments of tradition—and to interpret either into history or mythology the language of fabulous genealogies. But our subtlest hypotheses can erect only a fabric of doubt, which, while it is tempting to assault, it is useless to defend. All that it seems to me necessary ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... these priestly castes would naturally emphasize the importance of their calling, would hold themselves aloof from the common herd, endowed with special powers and entitled to special privileges. They would interpret the oracles in ways favorable to themselves and their order; they would proclaim themselves friends and confidants of the god, walking with him in the night-time, receiving his messengers and angels, acting as his deputies in forgiving offenses, in dealing punishments and in receiving gifts. ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... let none, who meriteth not such treatment, repute to have been said for her, albeit men have a byword which saith, 'Good horse and bad horse both the spur need still, And women need the stick, both good and ill.' Which words, an one seek to interpret them by way of pleasantry, all women will lightly allow to be true; nay, but considering them morally,[438] I say that the same must be conceded of them; for that women are all naturally unstable and prone [to frailty,] wherefore, to correct the iniquity of those who allow themselves too far to overpass ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... unexperienced, and unstudied material. The notion of criminal stigmata is, however, in no sense new, and Lombroso has not invented it; according to an incidental remark of Kant in his "Menschenkunde,'' the first who tried scientifically to interpret these otherwise ancient observations was the German J. B. Friedreich,[1] who says expressly that determinate somatic pathological phenomena may be shown to occur with certain moral perversions. It has been observed ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... authority and the power of the Congress are behind me in whatever it may become necessary for me to do. We are jointly the servants of the people and must act together and in their spirit, so far as we can divine and interpret it. ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... be trying to laugh the situation off when he caught sight of de Spain pausing for them to pass. Gale's face lighted as he set eyes on him, and he spoke quickly to Nan. De Spain could not at first hear his words, but he needed no ears to interpret his laugh and the expression on his face. Nan, persistently importuned, looked around. She saw de Spain, much closer, it would seem, than she had expected to see a man looking directly at her, and ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... resemblance to reason. I know that these birds show to us a life far more reasonable, and infinitely more beautiful, than that of the masses of mankind. They talk with each other, and in their talk is neither malice nor folly. Could one but interpret the converse in which they make their plans for the long and perilous flight—and then compare it with that of numberless respectable persons who even now are projecting ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... book can be taught by a very little man. This is a department of human effort which, as now usually conducted, succeeds in destroying much budding appreciation of poetry. Why endow these would-be interpreters of poetry, to the neglect of the class of artists whose work they profess to interpret? What should we think of England if her Victorian poets had all happened to be penniless, and she had packed them off to Grub Street and invested, instead, in a few ...
— The Joyful Heart • Robert Haven Schauffler
... or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are not good? Is there any necessity for a man's being a tool to perform a deed of which his better nature disapproves? Is it the intention of law-makers that good men shall be hung ever? Are judges to interpret the law according to the letter, and not the spirit? What right have you to enter into a compact with yourself that you will do thus or so, against the light within you? Is it for you to make up your mind,—to ...
— A Plea for Captain John Brown • Henry David Thoreau
... sound of the surf became a roar in my ears, the sunshine an intolerable blaze of light; the blue above and around seemed suddenly beneath my feet as well. We were fighting high in the air, and had fought thus for ages. I knew that he made no thrust I did not parry, no feint I could not interpret. I knew that my eye was more quick to see, my brain to conceive, and my hand to execute than ever before; but it was as though I held that knowledge of some other, and I myself was far away, at Weyanoke, in the minister's garden, in the haunted wood, anywhere save on that barren islet. I heard ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... or brain patterns has its own connection with the external world, and that each is attuned to receive impressions of but one kind, as in the apparatus of wireless telegraphy each instrument can receive and interpret waves of a certain rate of intensity only; that thought, will, ego, personality, perception, imagination, reason, emotion, choice, memory, are to be interpreted in terms of these brain patterns; that these so-called phenomena of human life depend upon the stimuli which can secure ...
— The Origin and Nature of Emotions • George W. Crile
... the opening remarks the speaker said it was now time that women asserted their rights. "Men have no right to define for us our limitations. Who shall interpret to a woman the divine element in her being? It is for me to say that I shall be free. No human soul shall determine my life for me unless that soul will stand before the bar of God and take my sentence. Men who denounce us do so because ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... fully convinced you had a companion on Sunday: I interpret it as owing to the weakness of human nature; but such proceeding is far from being ingenuous, and may produce bad effects, whilst it is impossible to answer the end proposed. You will see me again soon, as it were by accident, and may easily find where I go to; in consequence of which, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... gathered, and talk was going on about some passage from Dante, they called to Lionardo, and begged him to explain its meaning. It so happened that just at this moment Michelangelo went by, and, being hailed by one of them, Lionardo answered: 'There goes Michelangelo; he will interpret the verses you require.' Whereupon Michelangelo, who thought he spoke in this way to make fun of him, replied in anger: 'Explain them yourself, you who made the model of a horse to cast in bronze, and could not cast it, and to your shame left it in the lurch.' ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... will—in her quiet way, you know. She is not demonstrative; and when you see her silent, or even cool, you must not fancy her displeased; it is only a manner she has. Be sure to let me interpret for her whenever she puzzles you; always believe my account of the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... dog (vide Hamlet). "Cum multis aliis." The art of composing palindromes is one, at least, as instructive as, and closely allied to, that of de-ciphering. If any one calls the compositions in question "trash," I cannot better answer than in palindrome, Trash? even interpret Nineveh's art! for the deciphering of the cuneiform character is both a respectable and a useful exercise of ingenuity. The English language, however, is not susceptible of any great amount of palindromic compositions. The Latin is, of all, the best ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 207, October 15, 1853 • Various
... in six scenes. It took all evening to show them. When it was done the hall was filled full with black smoke and the audience quite unstrung with excitement. What I set down here represents my thoughts as I sit in front of a moving picture photoplay and interpret it as best ...
— Further Foolishness • Stephen Leacock
... we are to interpret as spoken concerning Fortune or Fate, of the casuality of both which no account can be given by us, nor do their effects fall under our power. But where anything is said of Jupiter that is suitable, rational, and probable, there we are to conceive that the names of that god ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Crocodile, makara, like the parrot, is sacred to K[a]madeva, Love. But as Ganges also is holy it is difficult to say for which divinity the offering was intended. Some, indeed, interpret ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... by the talk of those who think the home circle too insignificant for a woman's career, and who want to get you out on platforms and in conspicuous enterprises. There are women who have a special outside mission, and do not dare to interpret me as derisive of their important mission. But my opinion is that the woman who can reinforce her husband in the work of life and rear her children for positions of usefulness is doing more for God and the race and ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... it be? Could Rita, by importunity, intimidation, or from any other motive, have been induced to listen otherwise than with abhorrence to Baltasar's odious addresses? Herrera could not, would not, think so; and yet how was he to interpret the words of the abbess? Were they the mere ravings of delirium, or had they signification? If Rita was false, then indeed was there no truth upon earth. Confused, bewildered, tortured by the ideas that crowded upon his heated brain, Herrera sat like an ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... must not understand Castilian, you know," cried Padre Camorra. "They mustn't learn it, for then they'll enter into arguments with us, and the Indians must not argue, but obey and pay. They mustn't try to interpret the meaning of the laws and the books, they're so tricky and pettifogish! Just as soon as they learn Castilian they become enemies of God and of Spain. Just read the Tandang Basio Macunat—that's a book! It tells truths like this!" And he held ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... is the sanest of all the great writers; perhaps the only sane one. What he has the power of communicating to us is a renewal of that physiological energy, which alone makes it possible to enjoy this monstrous world. Other writers interpret things, or warn us against things. Rabelais takes us by the hand, shows us the cup of life, deep as eternity, and bids us drink and be satisfied. What else could he use, if not wine, as a symbol for such quenching ...
— Visions and Revisions - A Book of Literary Devotions • John Cowper Powys
... injured man's hut. Then you had better take the wagon down and outspan near the river, where the grass is good, but where our oxen are not likely to get among the mealies, and then come to me, for I shall probably need you to interpret for me." ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... warmth of the letters might easily lead to a suspicion of unseemly relationship, but the reviewer contends that virtue and rectitude are preserved in the midst of such extraordinary tenderness, so that one may interpret it as a Platonic rather than a sensual affection. Yet this review cannot be designated as distinctive of German opinion, for it contains no opinion not directly to be derived from the editor's foreword, and that alone; indeed, the wording suggests decidedly ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... after the obvious, common pleasures. What could you expect! Every boy and girl in this country is told from the first lesson of the cradle, over and over, that success is the one great and good thing in life. The people here are young and strong, and you can't blame them if they interpret that text a little crudely. But I am beginning to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... wanted," was plainly out of the question; "So useful" was also ruled out, but she could honestly admire the workmanship of the cloth, and enlarge on the care with which it should be preserved! It was an easy task to satisfy a correspondent who was eager to interpret words into the meaning ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Sinclair," said I, as he appeared at the gate. "It looks as if you will have to call round every morning to interpret and give 'em a ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 7, 1914 • Various
... man of honour, and imputed his behaviour with respect to me nothing else but forgetfulness. And indeed I have had some reason, since that time, to be convinced of his bad memory; for, in spite of appearances, I will not allow myself to interpret his conduct in any other way. Lord Rattle observing me very much affected with my disappointment, offered his interest to bring on my play at the other house, which I eagerly accepting, he forthwith ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... he said. "The mimic doesn't interpret. He's a mere thief of expression. You can always see him behind his stolen mask. The actress takes a different ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... productive of conditions that may terminate favorably or unfavorably, it becomes necessary for the diagnostician to develop a trained, discriminating, tactile-digital sense, in order to correctly interpret existing conditions, and handle cases in a rational ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... We can now interpret in terms of our theory the distinction between those mental occurrences which are said to have an external stimulus, and those which are said to be "centrally excited," i.e. to have no stimulus external to the brain. When a mental occurrence ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell
... wonderful country, but so far she has been skating over its surface. The time has come when she will strike down, think less in terms of material success and machine-made perfections. The time has come when she will brood, and interpret more and more the underlying truths, and body forth an art which shall be a spiritual guide, shed light, and show the meaning of her multiple existence. It will reveal dark things, but also those quiet heights to which man's spirit turns for rest and faith in this bewildering maze ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... routine.... And this case might be the means of introducing a new method. One can show from the psychological data alone how to get on the track of the real man. 'We have facts,' they say. But facts are not everything—at least half the business lies in how you interpret them!" ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... soldiers in war and policemen in times of peace. Any spectator from a foreign land would have thought it the business of such an officer of the law to press in and stop the fighting; but he did not so interpret his duty. He gingerly touched the shoulders next him with the tips of his fingers, and now and then lifted himself on the tips of his toes to look if the fight had stopped of ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... somewhat more injudicious than usual;—the other, that he was very, very much more profound and Shakespearian than usual. Seward's emendation, at all events, is right and obvious. Were it a passage of Shakespeare, I should not hesitate to interpret it as characteristic of Tigranes' state of mind, disliking the very virtues, and therefore half-consciously representing them as mere products of the violence of the sex in general in all their whims, and yet forced to admire, and to feel and to express gratitude ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... is so much more in singing than the mere possession of a beautiful voice. The singer must be able to supplement the beauty of the voice with intelligence in the exposition of the song. But few realize how much skill this demands. No amount of intelligence will enable a person rightly to interpret a song if he has not learned the elements of singing or has not a complete command of the technique of his art. The most important element of beautiful song is the lung capacity, and thereon hangs the whole success; control of the breathing muscles. One has infinite gradations of the ...
— Sixty Years of California Song • Margaret Blake-Alverson
... Evidently, old notions are doomed, nor are any preconceived ones likely to take their place. It would seem, on the contrary, as if their complete reconstruction were at hand. Subversive facts are steadily accumulating; the revolutionary ideas springing from them tend, if we interpret them aright, towards the substitution of electrical for chemical theories of matter. Dissociation by the brute force of heat is already nearly superseded, in the thoughts of physicists, by the more delicate process of "ionisation." ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... is unwilling to join a lower class. It is a trial to me to hear his daily failures, but, perhaps, he would do no better anywhere else. He would be as incompetent to interpret Caesar as Virgil, ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... Harry's arm, but he caught her hand before it fell to her side, and held it fast. She turned her face frankly toward him, and he looked down with anxious eyes upon the broad white forehead, framed in silken black hair, upon great eyes, flaming with a meaning that he feared to interpret, upon the eloquent lines about the mobile, sensitive mouth, all now lifted into almost supernatural beauty by the moonlight's ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... jerked up. To the trained eye of Cluff, swift to interpret physical indications, it seemed that Perkins's weight had almost imperceptibly shifted ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... last accepted as a standard, thus rising from the position of a dialect to be the language of the Empire. The Midland prevailed over the Northern and Southern dialects because it was intermediate between them, and so helped to interpret between North and South; and the East Midland prevailed over the Western because it contained within its area all three of the chief literary centres, namely, Oxford, Cambridge, and London. It follows from this that the Old Mercian ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... partly hidden—the importunity and unbrotherly disloyalty of Hugh's love. She must also awaken fresh distress in Paul's mind, already overburdened with grief for the loss of his mother. Probably Paul would be powerless to interpret his brother's strange language. And if he should be puzzled, the more he must be pained. Perhaps Hugh Ritson's threat was nothing but the outburst of a distempered spirit—the noise of a bladder that is emptying itself. Still, Greta's nervousness increased; no reason, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... She learned to interpret every sound below. There were times when the fumes from burning food came up the staircase and almost smothered her. And there were times, she fancied, when Herman weakened and Rudolph talked for hours, inciting and inflaming him again. She gathered, too, that Gus's place was under surveillance, ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... national councils of Toledo. This influence was maintained by the extraordinary position of the nation after the conquest. The holy warfare, in which it was embarked, seemed to require the co-operation of the clergy, to propitiate Heaven in its behalf, to interpret its mysterious omens, and to move all the machinery of miracles, by which the imagination is so powerfully affected in a rude and superstitious age. They even condescended, in imitation of their patron saint, to mingle in the ranks, and, with the crucifix ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Pentagovett, Penobskeag, Penaubsket, and in various other ways. The English began early to write it Penobscot. It is a word of Indian origin, and different meanings have been assigned to it by those who have undertaken to interpret the language from ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain
... abbot, "because he had blasphemed against the Holy Ghost. What do you think? Is a layman able to interpret ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... every male breast he constantly inspired a desire to kick him. The clergy of the diocese maintained towards him a kind of 'Dr Fell' attitude, and none of them had more to do with him than they could help. With all the will in the world, with all the desire to interpret brotherly love in its most liberal sense, the Beorminster Levites found it impossible to like Mr Cargrim. Hence he was a kind of clerical Ishmael, and as dangerous within as he ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... addition to his personal qualities, he has an astonishing knowledge of public affairs, which makes him a most valuable Minister. With the people he is deservedly popular, for not only is he liberal and kind, but he understands their feelings and can interpret their minds. ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... religious communications to those who spoke German, J. and M.Y. sometimes availed themselves of the interpretation of Pastor Majors, who they found was never at a loss, and who said, "It is no difficulty for me to interpret for you, because you say the very things that ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... an instant with her eyes on mine, and I divined that it struck her I might possibly intend it as a reference to some personal subjection to our fat philosopher, to some aberration of sensibility, some perversion of taste. At least I couldn't interpret otherwise the sudden flash that came into her face. Such a manifestation, as the result of any word of mine, embarrassed me; but while I was thinking how to reassure her the flush passed away in a smile of exquisite good nature. "Oh you see one forgets so wonderfully ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... anthropomorphism—the making of gods in man's image. What is the God of our own theology, as Matthew Arnold puts it, but a magnified man? We cannot transcend our own natures, even in imagination; we can only interpret the universe in the terms of our own consciousness, nor can we endow our gods with any other attributes than we possess ourselves. When we seek to penetrate the "mystery of the infinite," we see nothing but our own shadow and hear nothing but the ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... than his customary animal passions. He may at first have wanted Marie Ivanovna as he wanted his dinner or his supper ... now he wanted her differently. New emotions, surprising confusing emotions stirred in him. At least that is how I interpret the uneasiness, the hesitation, which I now seemed to perceive in him. He was no ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... expression favoring or condemning 'militant' methods. Be it further resolved: That since riot, revolution and disorder have never been construed into an argument against man suffrage, we protest against the practice of the opponents of woman suffrage to interpret 'militancy' employed by the minority in one country as an excuse for withholding the vote from the women of the world." At another time Mrs. Cobden Sanderson of Great Britain, speaking as a fraternal delegate, eulogized the self-sacrifice of the "militants" as the principal factor in ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... catches only a faint echo from some far, dim aisle. "How many centuries elapsed before this subterranean organ gave forth its delightful tones!" It lacked only the soul of a Beethoven or Chopin to interpret them aright. How like many noble lives whose talents perhaps shall only bud "unseen" or waste upon the desert air of environment. One thinks of Keats, whose wonderful Ode to the Nightingale and lovely Nature Poems might never ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... of subject corresponds a limitation of treatment. The Greek tragedy is composed from a definite point of view, with the aim not merely to represent but also to interpret the theme. Underlying the whole construction of the plot, the dialogue, the reflections, the lyric interludes, is the intention to illustrate some general moral law, some common and typical problem, some fundamental truth. ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... after he had made the proposal. The poor young man thought that Hester's composure of manner towards him since the event argued that he was not distasteful to her; and as he was now on very happy terms with Philip, he came constantly to him, as if the latter could interpret the meaning of all the little occurrences between him and his beloved. 'I'm o' right age, not two months betwixt us; and there's few in Monkshaven as would think on her wi' better prospects than me; and she knows my folks; we're kind o' cousins, ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... she did not know how to interpret the words of the nobleman, who understood how to reprove with subtle mockery, and answered naively: "Don't think me frivolous, Junker. I know the seriousness of the times, but I have just finished a silent ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to interpret the thought of Ktaadn and to fathom the meaning of the billows on the back of Cape Cod, in their indifference to the shipwrecked bodies that they rolled ashore. "After sitting in my chamber many days, reading the poets, I have been out early on ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... proposing a remedy. If, his lordship said, Sir William and Lady Hamilton would accompany him into the Bay of Naples, that he might have the assistance of their able heads, and excellent hearts, to consult, correspond, and interpret, on all occasions, he should not have the smallest doubt of complete success in the business. Sir William, and his lady, were accordingly requested, by the king and queen, to afford their requisite aid on the occasion: to which they agreed, without a moment's hesitation; ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... wrongly interpret, I presume, a silence continued far beyond the time agreed upon when we parted. You have rejected my suit. Well, be it so; and may you be happy with him who has found favor in your eyes. I do not think he can love you more sincerely than I do, or be more devoted to your ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... toward the United States. Two days after my arrival I was visited by Mr. Hamenof, one of the wealthiest merchants of Irkutsk. As he spoke only Russian, he was accompanied by my late fellow-traveler who came to interpret between us, and ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... to interpret this circumstance? For what end could he have entered this chamber? Did the violence with which he closed the door testify the depth of his vexation? This room was usually occupied by Pleyel. Was Carwin aware of his absence on this night? Could he be suspected of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... flood of tears, as her lover, interested deeply in their cause, gently drew her towards him. Her head sank on his shoulder, as she faintly whispered something that was inaudible, but which he did not fail to interpret into everything he most wished to hear. John was in ecstasies. Every unpleasant feeling of suspicion had left him. Of Grace's innocence of manoeuvring he never doubted, but John did not relish the idea of being entrapped into anything, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... as he listened. He remembered enough of his boyhood's Latin to interpret their message, and he muttered it sourly to himself in the vulgar ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... their consciousness and minds. In all their practical experiences rural life and thought form the anchorage of their later academic instruction. This early experience constitutes what the Herbartians term their "apperception mass"; and children, as well as grown-ups, can interpret new matter only in terms of the old. The experiences of the child, which constitute his world of thought, of discourse, and of action, are the only means by which he grasps and interprets new thought and experience. Consequently, the texts which rural children use ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... Brother Paul has left on record. If there is any danger at all of this kind, I think it is to be found in giving what he says on election and predestination a wrong interpretation. I have been frequently asked how I interpret his strikingly bold utterances on this subject, and how I reconcile them with my belief in the absolute freedom ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... directly at the left edge of his breastbone as outlined with the red paint. Hides-the-face craned, stepped into the path down the bank and passed out of range. Buddy gritted his teeth malevolently and waited, his ears strained to catch and interpret the meaning of every soft sound ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... to fascinate his eyes. He stared at it fixedly, and augured ominously of Barker's intentions, since that worthy obviously alluded to his having smiled in form, and chose to interpret it as an intentional provocation. He felt that he was in for it, and that Barker meant to pick a quarrel with him. This puzzled and annoyed him, and he felt very sad to ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... doctrine of the influence of the Spirit, would place among signs, and wonders, and divine notices, which others, acquainted with the philosophy of nature, would almost instantly solve. Thus again there may be occasions, which persons, carrying the same doctrine to an undue extent, might interpret into warning or prophetic voices, but which a due exercise of the intellect, where such exercise has been properly encouraged, would easily explain. This reminds me of a singular occurrence: A friend of mine was lately walking in a beautiful vale. In approaching ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... growing warm, insisted upon his attack with redoubled energy and spirit; but the medico, instead of translating, began to shake violently with terror, and at last he came out with his non ardisco, and fairly confessed that he dared not interpret fierce words ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... the boy and girl advanced to the water's edge, and kneeling, commenced to recite some strange incantation, which Van Hielen tried in vain to interpret. Sometimes their voices reached a high, plaintive key; sometimes they sank to a low murmur, strangely musical, and strangely suggestive of the babbling of brook water over stones and pebbles. When they had finished their incantation, ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... islands, such as Ithaca and Zacynthus, the population had become Hellenized at the time of the composition of the Homeric poems. In Corcyra, on the other hand, the original barbarism lasted longer. Such, at least, is the way in which I interpret the passages in the Odyssey concerning the Phaeacians (who were certainly not Greek), and the later language of Thucydides respecting the relations of the Corinthian colonies of Epidamnus, and Corcyra. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... read it very indifferently. Even in conversation where we are interpreting vocally our own thoughts and feelings, we sometimes misplace emphasis or employ the wrong inflection. How much more likely we are to fall into such errors when we attempt to interpret vocally from a ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... deserved. Common-sense must interpret etiquette; "nice customs courtesy to great kings." Society depends upon its social soothsayers for all that is good in it. A disagreeable woman can always find precedents for being formal and chilling; a ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood |
