"Momentous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to this undertaking, several of the most respectable came to me, and stated their views and reasons for the momentous step they were about to take; and at the same time besought me in the most moving terms, in the name of the rest of their emigrant friends, to accompany them into the Wilderness of the West, lest they should ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... him. In regard to the second question, the answer both of Apollo and of Amphiaraus was deci sive, recommending him to invite the alliance of the most powerful Greeks. In regard to the first and most momentous question, their answer was as remarkable for circumspection as it had been before for detective sagacity: they told Croesus that if he invaded the Persians, he would subvert a mighty monarchy. The blindness of Croesus interpreted this declaration into ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... only he and the diviner knew. Could this man have felt it out by animal magnetism, or anything of that sort?' But his mind was at ease again when he was assured by further conversation that the owner was entirely ignorant of the momentous truth. The 'Squire's offers were tempting, and, from byplay and bantering, at last amounted to what appeared a perfectly fabulous sum. The upshot of the matter was that the coolheaded Jones got rid of the wretched little lot for $490 cash. The purchaser was now quite sure that he was the shrewdest ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... looked upon the man whom she adored—the one who, as she said, had over and over again saved her life; the one whose life she, too, in her turn had saved, with whom she had passed so many adventurous and momentous days— days of alternating peace and storm, of varying hope and despair. To him she owed every thing; to him she owed even the ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... conclusive of their legality. At the risk of wearying the reader I would reiterate my belief that this was one of the greatest juristic achievements of the English common law; and that the question whether it shall be all done away with or retained is the most momentous public question now before us in industrial and social matters.[1] Whether, on the one hand, Standard Oil combinations shall be permitted to the point of universal monopoly of trade and opportunity; or, on the other, close unions built ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... tribes,—Jutes, Angles, and Saxons,—who in the middle of the fifth century left their homes on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic to conquer and colonize distant Britain. Angeln was the home of one tribe, and the name still clings to the spot whence some of our forefathers sailed on their momentous voyage. The old Saxon word angul or ongul means a hook, and the English verb angle is used invariably by Walton and older writers in the sense of fishing. We may still think, therefore, of the first Angles as hook-men, possibly because of their fishing, more probably ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... never can or may be the goal of a policy. The policy of a great State has positive aims. It will endeavour to attain this by pacific measures so long as that is possible and profitable. It must not only be conscious that in momentous questions which influence definitely the entire development of a nation, the appeal to arms is a sacred right of the State, but it must keep this conviction fresh in the national consciousness. The inevitableness, the idealism, and the blessing of war, ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... universe which is in fact what we call science. Columbus made known America in 1492; the Portuguese rounded the Cape in 1497; Copernicus explained the solar system in 1507. It is not necessary to add anything to this plain statement, for, in contact with facts of such momentous import, to avoid what seems like commonplace reflection would be difficult. Yet it is only when we contrast the ten centuries which preceded these dates with the four centuries which have ensued that we can estimate the magnitude of that Renaissance movement by means of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the Fontainebleau road, comes upon an ancient pile, extended and renovated by modern hands, whose simple, unpretending architecture would scarcely claim a second look. Yet it was once the scene of an experiment of such momentous consequences that it will ever possess a peculiar interest both to the philanthropist and the philosopher. It was there, in that receptacle of the insane, while the storm of the great Revolution was raging around him, that a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... king was restless, and at a late hour of that very night a message reached Sulla entreating an immediate and secret interview. No one was present but Dabar, the trusty go-between, and interpreters whose secrecy was assured. The narrative of this momentous meeting[1185] is therefore due to Sulla, whose fortunate possession of literary tastes has revealed a bit of secret history to the world. The king began with some complimentary references to his visitor, an acknowledgment of the great debt ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... all, it was modest in price and so retired that it was almost unknown to ordinary travellers. This alluring description was not to be resisted, and Mrs. Osbourne, with her little family, now sadly bereaved, left for the place which was to play so momentous ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... announce to Madame de Villefort the approaching marriage of Eugenie Danglars and M. Andrea Cavalcanti. This announcement, which implied or appeared to imply, the approval of all the persons concerned in this momentous affair, had been preceded by a scene to which our readers must be admitted. We beg them to take one step backward, and to transport themselves, the morning of that day of great catastrophes, into the showy, gilded salon we have before shown them, and which was the pride of its owner, ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... any correspondence in France, as you are curious about their present history; which I believe very momentous indeed. What little I have accidentally heard, I will relate, and will learn what more I can. On the King,'s being advised to put out his talons, Necker desired leave to resign, as not having been consulted, and as the measure violated ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... face to his, and he saw that her eyes were moist and that her face was pale. The momentous thing had been prettily said, as if only a touch of fun and a touch of commonplace could make the sacredness of it bearable to either. In that second he forgot everything. Indifference melted, vanished, and he took her in his arms with a feeling he had never ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... Luna's elastic conscience urged him to duplicity; he pretended to submit to the will of the majority, expressed through the Congress, with the reserved intention of carrying on the war at all hazards, as military dictator, if the vote were for peace. Congress met, and during the debate on the momentous question—peace or war—the hitherto compact group of intransigents weakened. No agreement could be arrived at in the first session. There was, however, a strong tendency to accept American sovereignty. ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... indication of the momentous character of these changes is to be found in the quickening of that operation, the beginning of which was observable before the great inventions, the substitution of the Factory System for ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... to help his daughter into the boat without any further leave-taking of the passenger, to the consul's great surprise, and with only a parting nod from the young girl. It was as if this momentous incident were a sufficient reason for the absence ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... that arise from the audience; as, when at a momentous point of the plot there entereth one heated with liquor, and causeth a disturbance, or a woman with a huge bonnet becometh the subject of a discussion as to her right to wear the same, and impede the view of them that be behind; also ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... on opposite sides of the room, Jack keeping boon company with the lead soldiers, his spouse reposing, her lead-balanced eyes closed, in the broken clockwork motor-car. With the air of performing some vaguely momentous ritual, the children were kissing one another beneath the bunch of mistletoe that hung from the centre beam. In the intervals of kissing they told one another in whispers that Aunt Rachel was not very well, and Angela woke Flora to tell ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... times when momentous decisions are influenced by the most trivial circumstances; times when affairs of the greatest importance are made or marred by the lift of an eyebrow or the tone of a voice; times when life-long associations are severed and new ties contracted purely upon ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... equipped and for a better cause, is in form and essence a more noble hero than the soldier. Do you, by any chance, deceive yourself into supposing that a general would either ask or expect, from the best army ever marshalled, and on the most momentous battle-field, the conduct of a common constable at ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... momentous to me as I sat on the oat box, shivering in the cold air, listening with all my ears, and when we finally went toward the house, the stars were big and sparkling. The frost had already begun to glisten on the fences and well-curb, and high in the air, dark against the sky, the ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... the cradle with his left hand, while with his right he inflicted the most lacerating sarcasms on an opponent who had betrayed a brutal ignorance of Hebrew. Weaknesses and errors must be forgiven—alas! they are not alien to us—but the man who takes the wrong side on the momentous subject of the Hebrew points must be treated as the enemy of his race. There was the same sort of antithetic mixture in Martin Poyser: he was of so excellent a disposition that he had been kinder and more respectful than ever to his old father since he ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... political bodies may not appear to be formidable, but it is only the more immense. It does not act directly upon the governed, but it renders the majority more absolute over those who govern; it does not confer an unbounded authority on the legislator which can only be exerted at some momentous crisis, but it establishes a temperate and regular influence, which is at all times available. If the power is decreased, it can, on the other hand, be more conveniently employed, and more easily abused. ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... quarters in Paris in a humble house near the School of Medicine. Literature had not yet acquired that importance in France which it was so soon to obtain. The Encyclopaedia was still unconceived, and the momentous work which that famous design was to accomplish, of organising the philosophers and men of letters into an army with banners, was still unexecuted. Voltaire, indeed, had risen, if not to the full height of his reputation, yet high enough both to command ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol 2 of 3) - Essay 1: Vauvenargues • John Morley
... he was named lieutenant-general of the armies of William, and immediately made a new organization of the troops, under officers whom he could trust, which proved of the utmost service to William on the unstable throne on which he was soon after seated. He was present at most of the long and momentous debates which took place in the House of Peers on the question on whom the crown should be conferred, and at first is said to have inclined to a regency; but with a commendable delicacy he absented himself on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... constant readiness for an argument upon any subject under the sun, which had endeared him to his comrades in Glasgow. Every Cheshunt man of that day readily recalls, and rejoices as he does so, the memory of his good-natured practical joking, of his racy and pointed speeches upon all momentous 'house questions,' of his power as a reciter, and of his glowing personal piety. To know him even slightly was to respect him; and to enter at all into sympathy with him was to love him ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... changes in the village, the most momentous to me was the change in Yen Sin. I don't know why it should have been I, out of all the Urkey youth, who went to the Chinaman's; perhaps it was the spiritual itch left from that first adventure on the scow. At any rate, I had fallen into ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... follow. Now, so far as I can judge, self-love is the root of all evil; but, of course, I may be wrong, for La Fontaine had greater opportunities of observing men than I am likely ever to have. I do not object so much to the cynical and satirical fables as to those in which momentous truths are taught by monkeys ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... as this story is with the period of vague and legendary antiquity as well as with the disorders of mediaeval time and with centuries of seclusion, it is plain that it is not an easy task to present a trustworthy and connected account of the momentous changes through which the empire has been called to pass. It would be impossible to state in detail the sources from which I have derived the material for this work. I place first and as most important a residence of several years in Japan, during which I became familiar with the character ...
— Japan • David Murray
... lest the cabman confuse the address in his own mind and deposit me at the wrong pier, there being many piers in New York and all of such similarity of outward appearance, I must confess that I slept but poorly the night. Betimes, upon the morn of the all-momentous day I arose, and with some difficulty mastering an inclination toward tremors, I performed the customary ablutions. Then after a brief and hurried breakfast—in fact a breakfast so hurried as to occasion a subsequent touch of dyspepsia—I engaged a taxicab ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... as the words rang once again in Taurus Antinor's ears, the awful darkness of that momentous hour fell upon the dream-hill far away. Golgotha, with its three towering crosses vanished from before the visionary's gaze. Once more there rose before him the marble temples of pagan Rome that crowned the Capitol—the gorgeous idols covered in gold, these gods ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... from Constantinople. But am I? I can't believe it even now, with the words before me. Anyway, whether by my own fault or those of others, one thing is certain, namely, that up to date there has been misunderstanding. Now, the Cabinet of to-morrow forces me to send a momentous wire without too much time to think it over. To clear my brain let me set down the sequence of facts as they have so far ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... thunder, devoted himself from sincere conviction, with a heart full of youthful enthusiasm, to his sacred cause—if Heinz, consecrated by him, and fully aware of the real purposes of the saint, who, also untaught and rich only in knowledge of the heart, had begun a career so momentous in consequences, announced himself as a fearless champion of St. Francis's will, then the St. George had been found who was summoned to slay the dragon, and with his blood instil new life at last into the monasteries of Germany, then perhaps the fresh prosperity which he ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a fair enough summary of the biography of an average man, let us look at these three momentous occasions in the career of ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... carolled: "Un telegrafo por Senor Goodwin!" The comandante, Don Senor el Coronel Encarnacion Rios, who was loyal to the Ins and suspected Goodwin's devotion to the Outs, hissed: "Aha!" and wrote in his secret memorandum book the accusive fact that Senor Goodwin had on that momentous date ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... British partners in the Consortium that the completion of this line be the first undertaking financed by the Consortium. The document also includes what is perhaps a novelty in legal documents having such a momentous economic importance, namely, the words "etc." after ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... never attained in England in the eighteenth century the proportions which it assumed in France and Germany. In France that movement ran its full course, both among the learned and, equally, as a radical and revolutionary influence among the unlearned. It had momentous practical consequences. In no sphere was it more radical than in that of religion. Not in vain had Voltaire for years cried, 'Ecrasez l'infame,' and Rousseau preached that the youth would all be wise and pure, ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... even retire to bed. I laid my head upon my hands, and surrendered myself to turbulent yet intense reflection. Every man who has lived much in the world, and conversed with its various tribes, has, I fear, met with many who, on this momentous subject, profess the same tenets as Bezoni. But he was the first person I had met of that sect who had evidently thought long and deeply upon the creed he had embraced. He was not a voluptuary nor a boaster nor a wit. He had not been misled ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no passion, but the strong thrill of something momentous and irreparable, together with a swelling pride—pride in such ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... as the Unknown promised. There had been a secret betrothal between Fisher and Miss Danvers, and, singularly enough, the momentous question and answer had been given in the very ravine leading to my upper dell! The two meant to keep the matter to themselves; but therein, it seems, I thwarted them; there was a little opposition on the ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... royal Chaplain, Almoner, Archbishop of York, Papal Legate, Lord Chancellor, and Lord Cardinal. From the fifth to the twentieth year of King Henry, he was, in effect, sovereign in the state, and it is wonderful to find how much time he contrived to borrow from the momentous foreign affairs of that eventful age for the ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... sweep it clean or give it new vigour. And your own experience is in exact accordance with these parabolic warnings of the Saviour. You know that your moral and spiritual nature is now at this present time undergoing a process of continual and momentous change, that every day, or week, or month leaves its mark upon it; and that your soul's life means not waiting for some angel of God's providential grace to visit you and carry you up into a new air; but it means that you are weaving the web ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... see included the most solemn forms ever used. This time the whole service took place behind the grating: there were no "bridesmaids" now, no shadow of worldly pomp was borrowed to enhance the last and momentous consecration of religion. The novice knelt between the superior and the mistress of novices, each bearing a lighted taper. The white veil was taken from her head, and a black one, previously blessed with holy water sprinkled over it in the form of a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... cut for him in its accustomed place, but for some five minutes Mr. Taynton did not appear to notice it, though evening papers, on the money-market page, might contain news so frightfully momentous to him. But something, this strangeness in Morris, no doubt, and his general anxiety and suspense as to how this dreadful knot could unravel itself, preoccupied him now, and even when he did take up the paper and turn to the reports of Stock Exchange dealings, ...
— The Blotting Book • E. F. Benson
... away some hundred leagues from the capital, to scramble about the clay floor of an unwholesome cottage, in company perhaps with some half-dozen atomies like himself, as strange to each other as they were to their own parents, to pass those famous mois de nourrice which form so important and momentous a period in the lives of most French people. Madame Panpan was however in no way responsible for this state of things; the system was there, not only recognised, but encouraged; become indeed a part of the social habits of the people, and it was ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... I don't mind telling an old friend like you, Halibut, though it is a profound secret. Makes me rather particular about my dress just now. Women notice these things. I'm—sha'nt get much sympathy from a confirmed old bachelor like you—but I'm on my way to put a very momentous question." ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... Lane felt himself equal to the momentous interview with Mel Iden. After his call upon Mel's father and mother he was overcome by one of his sick, weak spells, that happily had been infrequent of late. This one confined him to his room. He ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... entirely new in the colonies, so bold and so startling in its character, that, for many minutes, not a word or whisper was heard through the hushed assembly, whose bowed heads and working countenances showed how deeply their minds were engaged in trying to grapple with the momentous subject, upon which their action was thus unexpectedly required. At length, nowever, low murmurs of doubt or disapproval began to be heard; and soon the expressions, "unprecedented step!"—"doubtful policy!" and "injury to ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... in this issue is "The Gods' Return," by Olive G. Owen. Inspired by a recent article from the pen of Richard Le Gallienne, these well-wrought lines interpret one of the subtlest yet most potent of the varied moods created in the human breast by the momentous occurrences of the age. Looking over the file of THE UNITED AMATEUR for the present administrative year, one may discover a diverse and meritorious array of poetry and prose, which amply proves the contention of Pres. Campbell ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the will of God? Is it so? Is there a shadow of reason for saying it? I have not been able to discover it. Have I not shown you it is lawful to deliver up, in compliance with the laws, fugitive slaves, for the high, the great, the momentous interests of those ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... But Virginia read momentous things in his face and eyes, and when the time was fully ripe she cornered him. It was the old story over again, of a woman's determination to know pitted against a truthful man's blundering efforts to conceal; and before he knew what ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... we absolutely do not go to Sinzheim to-night; we are to stop at Steinfurth, a small quiet Hamlet with Barns, four or five miles short of that! This was a great disappointment to the Prince,—and some say, a highly momentous circumstance in his History: ["Might perhaps have succeeded at Sinzheim" (Seckendorf's Relation of the Crown-Prince's meditated Flight, p. 2;—addressed to Prince Eugene few days afterwards; given in Forster, iii. 1-13).]—however, he rallies in the course of the evening; speaks again ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... God is successful just because He is forever seeking to manifest Himself to us. The revelation of God to any man is not God coming from a distance upon a time to pay a brief and momentous visit to the man's soul. Thus to think of it is to misunderstand it all. The approach of God to the soul or of the soul to God is not to be thought of in spatial terms at all. There is no idea of physical distance involved in the concept. It is not a matter ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... in the future," she answered, still struggling to be gayly reassuring, though she knew, perfectly well, that she was face to face with a most momentous decision and that an insistent, determined lover was about to be restored to confidence and pride. "And now, good-bye." And she gave him her hand in ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... and sympathies with popular rights and with Puritanism were blended with a feeling of independence that was hateful to him. He once said that five hundred kings were assembled there, and he thought that he was fulfilling a duty in resisting them. The most momentous questions affecting constitutional rights in regard to the freedom of elections, freedom of speech, the limits of legislative power, and above all the right of granting taxes, were brought forward under King James. And on every other side he saw himself involved in a struggle with ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... unification of our people and of a revived national spirit. The vista that now opens to us is wider and more glorious than ever before. Gratification and amazement struggle for supremacy as we contemplate the population, wealth, and moral strength of our country. A trust momentous in its influence upon our people and upon the world is for a brief time committed to us, and we must not be faithless to its first condition—the defense of the free and equal influence of the people in the choice of public officers and in the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... reached a momentous point in your life's history. Much depends on the words you use. I will not tell you to conceal the truth, but you need not incriminate yourself—that is the law"—his voice was almost inaudible, but Harold heard it. "If Slocum dies—oh, ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... there. She was a very regular attendant, but for some reason she was absent on this momentous afternoon. I did not say anything to him on the subject, but I knew he ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... no bush, no plant is ever suffered to escape the examination of their vigilant eyes, and thunder may mutter, and rain fall, without disturbing the abstraction of their reveries. Not so, however, with the disciple of Linnaeus, during the momentous period that it remained a mooted point at the tribunal of his better judgment, whether the stout descendants of the squatter were not likely to dispute his right to traverse the prairie in freedom. The ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... faubourgs seemed to construe it. Such seemed to be the epitome of the French revolution; but it was not so. There was order amid disorder; two principles were at work; and the revolution—so frivolous in its details, so momentous in its results; exhibiting so much talent and energy, so much vanity and folly, so much honesty and treachery, such kind feelings and such malignant passions, such planting of trees and cutting of throats, such recommendations of order, such instances of disorder, so much wisdom ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... lightest word that falls from thee, O King! Becomes a mighty and momentous thing: O'er many placed as arbiter on high, Many thy goings watchful see. Thy ways on every side A host of faithful witnesses descry; Then let thy liberal temper be thy guide. If ever to thine ear Fame's ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... in what mood Violet Wood arose on that momentous morning of her life—probably in a very pleasant one. Her chaperon confided to an intimate friend that the child was not in love; that she had never been in love in her life, and did not even know ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... briefly recall the circumstances under which this momentous battle was fought. One after another the English had been compelled to surrender to the victorious armies of Charles VII. their fortresses in Poitou, Angoumois, Guyenne and Gascony; so that of their ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... views were too momentous to be hastily taken up, or hastily dismissed; the station, my attainment of which depended wholly on myself, was high above vulgar heads, and was to be gained by years of solicitude and labour. This, at least, was true with regard to minds ordinarily constituted; I, perhaps, deserved to be regarded ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... series of momentous questions grows up, and forces itself on the consideration of the thoughtful. Republicanism has learned how to introduce into its constitution every element of order, as well as every element of freedom; ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... was at once sent on by the senior naval officer at New York, but was attacked by hostile vessels, forced ashore on Long Island, and lost. The Active was captured before she reached New York. Graves, thus uninformed of the momentous crisis at hand, continued cruising until the 16th of August, when he returned to Sandy Hook. There he found the duplicates of the Swallow's letters, but they only notified him of the course a reinforcement would take, ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... This momentous transfer took place one hundred years ago, when almost nothing was known of the region so summarily handed from the government of France to the government of the American Republic. Few white men had ever traversed those trackless plains, or scaled the frowning ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... form in its early environment, and as it was seen through the media of contemporary governments, customs, and criticisms, it is believed that readers will derive satisfaction, and will be aided in their own inquiries, through this threefold presentation. On so vast a subject, with its momentous implications, no single author, however profound his genius, can do more than contribute a partial essay toward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... empty-handed five years before, that he was to make it forever famous. Palos to-day is a miserably poor, humble little place; but its people, especially the Pinzon family who still live there, are very proud that it was the starting-point of the momentous voyage of discovery; and hundreds of tourists visit it who never know that the sovereigns had intended punishing, instead of glorifying, ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... said, like "shaking hands with himself," the reaction had been so great, and Bob's news so satisfactory. It might be looked at as an omen of good luck for the momentous occasion. Surely a day that had opened in such a glorious manner for Big Bob, and the team in general, could not have bitterness and gall in store for those gallant Chester fellows who expected to improve upon their work ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... unrest and vain efforts after peace. Still oftener does he recount the story of his conversion, and hold himself up to all ages as a miracle of grace and a monument of Divine mercy. He was very far, therefore, from having forgotten the way along which he had been led. It had been too momentous both for himself and others. It had been too full of both storm and sunshine not to be worth remembering. It had written, as with a pen of steel, lessons of law and love upon the soul of the apostle, and in characters too deep ever to ...
— Joy in Service; Forgetting, and Pressing Onward; Until the Day Dawn • George Tybout Purves
... debate, Mr. President, in no spirit of personal unkindness. The issue is too grave and too momentous for the indulgence of such feelings. I see the great question before me, and that ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... mother that night. The next morning Simmy Dodge came down with George Tresslyn, who steadfastly refused to enter the house but rode to the hospital with his mother and sister in Simmy's automobile. Anne did not see Braden again after that momentous interview in the ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... light withal, a wet, muddy, and dusty yellow dog, eminently kickable. The man was heavily built about the legs, and the vigor of what he did may have been additionally inspired by his recognition of the mongrel as Joe Louden's. The impact of his toe upon the little runner's side was momentous, and the latter rose into the air. The Judge hopped, as one hops who, unshod in the night, discovers an unexpected chair. Let us be reconciled to his pain and not reproach the gods with it,—for two of his unintending adversary's ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... and beautiful story of two young Roman patricians whose great and perilous love in the reign of Augustus leads them through the momentous, exciting events that marked the year just preceding the ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... De Soto and Hernando Pizarro returned to the city. Long and serious were the deliberations of the leaders that night. At length they arrived at a momentous decision, one for which they have been severely and justly censured, but which under the circumstances was the only possible decision which insured their safety. They had no business in that country. They had come there ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... negotiations. I accordingly so instructed the minister of the United States to Great Britain, and found that my views in this regard were shared by Her Majesty's ministers. I hope that the time may soon arrive when the two Governments can approach the solution of this momentous question with an appreciation of what is due to the rights, dignity, and honor of each, and with the determination not only to remove the causes of complaint in the past, but to lay the foundation of a broad principle of public law which will prevent ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... he felt the enthusiasm for it which nothing but the work we can do well inspires in us. He believed that he had found his place in the world, after a good deal of looking, and he had the relief, the repose, of fitting into it. Every little incident of the momentous, uneventful day was a pleasure in his mind, from his sitting down at his desk, to which Lapham's boy brought him the foreign letters, till his rising from it an hour ago. Lapham had been in view within his own office, but he had given ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... had looked at the map or even stopped to think, she would have consulted with Tom before typing that letter, which was the cause of such momentous consequences. As for Mr. Burton, he knew that Tom knew the camp like A. B. C. and he simply signed his name to the letter and ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... I must ask you more particularly what this document is, and why its disappearance should have such momentous consequences?" ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Burke made his first speech in the House of Commons a few days after the opening of the session of 1766 (January 27), and was honoured by a compliment from Pitt, still the Great Commoner. A week later he spoke again on the same momentous theme, the complaints of the American colonists, and his success was so marked that good judges predicted, in the stiff phraseology of the time, that he would soon add the palm of the orator to the laurel ...
— Burke • John Morley
... accomplished what it had never before realized. The light of the moon witnessed the retreat of the royalist army, defeated and destroyed, seeking shelter in the city of Pasto; and the name of Bombon was written in history beside those of Boyac and Carabobo as among the most momentous, the most significant battles fought for ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... Seeking to be comfortable, if it does not inconvenience anyone else, is not laziness. Why, what is comfort?" The skipper began to wax philosophical at this point, and took the pipe from his mouth as he gravely propounded the momentous question. "What is comfort? If I go out to camp in the woods, and after turning in find a sharp stump sticking into my ribs on one side, and a pine root driving in the small of my back on the other side, is that comfort? Certainly ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... always a momentous date in Gilead local history. Every year on that day, down in the little church on the Plains, the grand old guard of '83 held ...
— Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... momentous occasion this two-day revel had been planned, since, he said, after he began working he'd have to get to bed early during the week. Maury Noble had arrived from Philadelphia on a trip that had to do with seeing some man in Wall Street (whom, incidentally, he failed to see), and ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... hydrant in the factory yard. He had not forgotten that it was Saturday. Neither had Growler, who stood watching him with an oblique look in his old eye that said as plain as words that he knew what momentous business ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... was designed by the aid of the one from the Gulf to clear the river to the mouth, etc. Could it succeed? Could it open the Mississippi to its mouth? These momentous questions and the military delay were weakening the confidence of the people and confirming foreign powers in the belief that the Government had neither the strength nor the ability to conquer the rebellion. And ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... the echoes of pursuit. Ay, dead or not, this was still the enemy. "Time was that when the brains were out," he thought; and the first word struck into his mind. Time, now that the deed was accomplished—time, which had closed for the victim, had become instant and momentous for ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... duty—the imperative duty—of every individual (however humble) to express conscientiously, but calmly, his public opinions, for by such means truth is elicited."[1] Hence it may be permitted the writer of the annexed Letter to observe, that a momentous question is now brought to the notice of the people of Great Britain,—that it ought not to be neglected, until perhaps a voice from her colonial children may go forth proclaiming "it is too late,"[see Note 64]—for ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... brought to Miss Woodley, she knew what it contained before she opened it, and therefore took it with an air of resignation—yet though she guessed the momentous part of its contents, she dreaded in what words it might be related; and having now no essential good to expect, hope, that will never totally expire, clung at this crisis to little circumstances, and she hoped most fervently, the terms of ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... about an entire change in the aspect of nature, and was the cause of a sad and momentous era in the adventures of ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... his attempts to regain his throne, but still he tried again, the last time having the aid of his son-in-law, Mamilius of Tusculum. It was a momentous juncture. The weakened Romans were to encounter the combined powers of the thirty Latin cities that had formerly been in league with them. They needed the guidance of one strong man; but they had decreed that there should never be a king again, and so they appointed ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... scrambled out of the saddle with the speed of light, and after a few momentous seconds, during which it seemed horribly likely that the horse would relapse bodily into the drain, his and Mrs. Pat's efforts prevailed, and he was standing, trembling, and dripping, on the narrow road. She ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... wants become more numerous and diverse. The mere expression of his inner feelings no longer suffices; he differentiates objects in the external world, and needs sounds—names—to express them. For this he utilizes the newly developed faculty of language. It is the most momentous crisis of his development, the point where he becomes a human being, severed by a wide gap from other animals, and incomparably above them. The mark of language has from the first rightly been made the crux of the theory ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... to him that an immediate renunciation was demanded. But it was a momentous step. He wanted to think. And to go on thinking. Rather than to act precipitately. Although the imperative seemed absolute, some delaying and arresting instinct insisted that he must "think" If he went back to Princhester, the everyday duties of his position ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... of William Tell, was momentous to the main plot of the emancipation of Switzerland in its issue. This man, who was one of the sworn at Rutli, and noted for his high and daring spirit, exposed himself to arrest by Gessler's myrmidons, for passing the hut without making obeisance. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 554, Saturday, June 30, 1832 • Various
... unpleasant sight. As he regarded her, he thought of Chonita, and the tide of love rose in him as it had not before. In the beginning he had been hardly more than infatuated with her originality and her curious beauty; at Santa Barbara her sweetness and kinship had stolen into him and the momentous fusion of passion and spiritual love had given new birth to a torpid soul and stirred and shaken his manhood as lust had never done; now in her absence and exaltation above common mortals he reverenced her as an ideal. Even in the bitterness ...
— The Doomswoman - An Historical Romance of Old California • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... he replied. And at that Edith turned and stared at him, bewildered, shocked, brought face to face with a new and momentous fact in ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... with all the momentous consequences, mechanical, commercial, and economical, which it has entailed, might be brought forward as a witness on our side; for it was almost completely worked out in the laboratory before being ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various
... capable mechanics digging holes or grooming horses; and skilled draughtsmen addressing envelopes and writing: "Passed to you, please, for information and necessary action," on documents referring to the momentous question as to whether No. 54321 Dr. Jones, R.H.A., should have a pair of new breeches at the public expense or pay for them out of his beer-money. All were very necessary tasks, no doubt, but requiring the right men to do them; and the engineers very urgently wanted the right men, ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... When they saw the Englishmen establishing themselves at Plymouth, they at first held a powwow in the forest, at which the new-comers were cursed with all the elaborate ingenuity that the sorcery of the medicine-men could summon for so momentous an occasion; but it was deemed best to refrain from merely human methods of attack. It was not until the end of the first winter that any of them mustered courage to visit the palefaces. Then an Indian named Samoset, ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... imaginings were the more creditable or discreditable to Lizzie, that she had never read "Romeo and Juliet." At any rate, they served to dissipate time,—heavy, weary time,—the more heavy and weary as it bore dark foreshadowings of some momentous event. If that event would only come, whatever it was, and sever this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... like other inhabitants of Moultrassie Hall on that momentous night, awakened by the report of the sentinel's musket, followed by the shouts of his father's vassals and followers; of which he collected enough to guess that Bridgenorth's house was attacked with ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... collect their thoughts, they desired that supper might be prepared for them, which was done. When finally ready, they advanced from their tent to the council-fire in single file, accompanied by their agent and an interpreter. Arrived at the fire, another brief delay ensued. No matter how pressing or momentous the occasion, an Indian invariably declines to engage in a council until he has filled his pipe and gone through with the important ceremony of a smoke. This attended to, the chiefs announced that they were ready "to talk." They were then introduced to the principal officers of the ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... to make final preparations for the momentous morrow, had just closed; the other scouts had gone off to their several homes, and these three—Tom Slade, Roy Blakeley and Walter Harris (alias Pee-wee)—were lingering on the sidewalk outside the troop room for a few parting ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... been possible to maintain peace hitherto, but not without considerable loss of power and prestige. This apparently peaceful state of things must not deceive us; we are facing a hidden, but none the less formidable, crisis—perhaps the most momentous crisis in the ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi
... protection of their perishing flocks. The ever spreading torrent of corruption and infidelity, looked, as though in its fully gathered strength, it might one day inundate the world. Where could an efficacious barrier be found to its farther progress? The question was a momentous one, involving the honour even of Him who had given His life- blood to purchase the very souls of whom Satan was thus making an easy prey. All unknown to each other, two faithful children of the mourning Mother were just then occupied in studying the grand problem, and both succeeded in discovering ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... these intimacies and relationships, however, the poetry of these years discloses hardly a glimpse. His actual dealings with men and women called out all his genial energies of heart and brain, but—with one momentous exception—they did not touch ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... bishop, and with no faltering hand pulled the bell. (So, he reflected for an instant,—only an instant,—Luther had gone, somewhere or other, he forgot at the moment what was the exact locality; but the occasion had been a momentous one in the ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... however, when one realizes that the appearance of these thinkers was really a momentous thing. For these men turned their faces away from the poetical and mythologic way of accounting for things, which had obtained up to their time, and set their faces toward Science. Aristotle shows us how Thales may have been led to the formulation of his main thesis ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... by, spent in hunting and fishing. Max succeeded in spearing one skate himself, and was nearly pulled out of the boat by the curious fish as it made its final struggle for life. And then a momentous day came, when, after spending the morning in having a glorious sail, during which, as there was a splendid breeze, Max had felt quite comfortable, as he sat well to windward, holding on by the gunwale and helping to act as ballast to keep ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn |
