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Natural   Listen
adjective
Natural  adj.  
1.
Fixed or determined by nature; pertaining to the constitution of a thing; belonging to native character; according to nature; essential; characteristic; innate; not artificial, foreign, assumed, put on, or acquired; as, the natural growth of animals or plants; the natural motion of a gravitating body; natural strength or disposition; the natural heat of the body; natural color. "With strong natural sense, and rare force of will."
2.
Conformed to the order, laws, or actual facts, of nature; consonant to the methods of nature; according to the stated course of things, or in accordance with the laws which govern events, feelings, etc.; not exceptional or violent; legitimate; normal; regular; as, the natural consequence of crime; a natural death; anger is a natural response to insult. "What can be more natural than the circumstances in the behavior of those women who had lost their husbands on this fatal day?"
3.
Having to do with existing system to things; dealing with, or derived from, the creation, or the world of matter and mind, as known by man; within the scope of human reason or experience; not supernatural; as, a natural law; natural science; history, theology. "I call that natural religion which men might know... by the mere principles of reason, improved by consideration and experience, without the help of revelation."
4.
Conformed to truth or reality; as:
(a)
Springing from true sentiment; not artificial or exaggerated; said of action, delivery, etc.; as, a natural gesture, tone, etc.
(b)
Resembling the object imitated; true to nature; according to the life; said of anything copied or imitated; as, a portrait is natural.
5.
Having the character or sentiments properly belonging to one's position; not unnatural in feelings. "To leave his wife, to leave his babes,... He wants the natural touch."
6.
Connected by the ties of consanguinity. especially, Related by birth rather than by adoption; as, one's natural mother. "Natural friends."
7.
Hence: Begotten without the sanction of law; born out of wedlock; illegitimate; bastard; as, a natural child.
8.
Of or pertaining to the lower or animal nature, as contrasted with the higher or moral powers, or that which is spiritual; being in a state of nature; unregenerate. "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God."
9.
(Math.) Belonging to, to be taken in, or referred to, some system, in which the base is 1; said of certain functions or numbers; as, natural numbers, those commencing at 1; natural sines, cosines, etc., those taken in arcs whose radii are 1.
10.
(Mus.)
(a)
Produced by natural organs, as those of the human throat, in distinction from instrumental music.
(b)
Of or pertaining to a key which has neither a flat nor a sharp for its signature, as the key of C major.
(c)
Applied to an air or modulation of harmony which moves by easy and smooth transitions, digressing but little from the original key.
(d)
Neither flat nor sharp; of a tone.
(e)
Changed to the pitch which is neither flat nor sharp, by appending the sign natural; as, A natural.
11.
Existing in nature or created by the forces of nature, in contrast to production by man; not made, manufactured, or processed by humans; as, a natural ruby; a natural bridge; natural fibers; a deposit of natural calcium sulfate. Opposed to artificial, man-made, manufactured, processed and synthetic.
12.
Hence: Not processed or refined; in the same statre as that existing in nature; as, natural wood; natural foods.
Natural day, the space of twenty-four hours.
Natural fats, Natural gas, etc. See under Fat, Gas. etc.
Natural Harmony (Mus.), the harmony of the triad or common chord.
Natural history, in its broadest sense, a history or description of nature as a whole, including the sciences of botany, Zoology, geology, mineralogy, paleontology, chemistry, and physics. In recent usage the term is often restricted to the sciences of botany and Zoology collectively, and sometimes to the science of zoology alone.
Natural law, that instinctive sense of justice and of right and wrong, which is native in mankind, as distinguished from specifically revealed divine law, and formulated human law.
Natural modulation (Mus.), transition from one key to its relative keys.
Natural order. (Nat. Hist.) See under order.
Natural person. (Law) See under person, n.
Natural philosophy, originally, the study of nature in general; the natural sciences; in modern usage, that branch of physical science, commonly called physics, which treats of the phenomena and laws of matter and considers those effects only which are unaccompanied by any change of a chemical nature; contrasted with mental philosophy and moral philosophy.
Natural scale (Mus.), a scale which is written without flats or sharps. Note: Model would be a preferable term, as less likely to mislead, the so-called artificial scales (scales represented by the use of flats and sharps) being equally natural with the so-called natural scale.
Natural science, the study of objects and phenomena existing in nature, especially biology, chemistry, physics and their interdisciplinary related sciences; natural history, in its broadest sense; used especially in contradistinction to social science, mathematics, philosophy, mental science or moral science.
Natural selection (Biol.), the operation of natural laws analogous, in their operation and results, to designed selection in breeding plants and animals, and resulting in the survival of the fittest; the elimination over time of species unable to compete in specific environments with other species more adapted to survival; the essential mechanism of evolution. The principle of natural selection is neutral with respect to the mechanism by which inheritable changes occur in organisms (most commonly thought to be due to mutation of genes and reorganization of genomes), but proposes that those forms which have become so modified as to be better adapted to the existing environment have tended to survive and leave similarly adapted descendants, while those less perfectly adapted have tended to die out through lack of fitness for the environment, thus resulting in the survival of the fittest. See Darwinism.
Natural system (Bot. & Zool.), a classification based upon real affinities, as shown in the structure of all parts of the organisms, and by their embryology. "It should be borne in mind that the natural system of botany is natural only in the constitution of its genera, tribes, orders, etc., and in its grand divisions."
Natural theology, or Natural religion, that part of theological science which treats of those evidences of the existence and attributes of the Supreme Being which are exhibited in nature; distinguished from revealed religion. See Quotation under Natural, a., 3.
Natural vowel, the vowel sound heard in urn, furl, sir, her, etc.; so called as being uttered in the easiest open position of the mouth organs. See Neutral vowel, under Neutral.
Synonyms: See Native.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Natural" Quotes from Famous Books



... slavery among the Greeks; and the ingenious philosophy of the Greeks found, or sought to find, a justification for it exactly upon the grounds which have been assumed for such a justification in this country; that is, a natural and original difference among the races of mankind, and the inferiority of the black or colored race to the white. The Greeks justified their system of slavery upon that idea, precisely. They held the African and some of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... idleness to my fellow-townsmen, no doubt; but if the birds and flowers had tried me by their standard, I should not have been found wanting. A man must find his occasions in himself, it is true. The natural day is very calm, and will hardly reprove ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock

... tending their herds, or labouring in the ground." J. Leo says, page 65. "That they lived in common, having no property in land, no tyrant nor superior lord, but supported themselves in an equal state, upon the natural produce of the country, which afforded plenty of roots, game, and honey. That ambition or avarice never drove them into foreign countries to subdue or cheat their neighbours. Thus they lived without toil or superfluities." "The ...
— Some Historical Account of Guinea, Its Situation, Produce, and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants • Anthony Benezet

... camera. All of us enjoy dabbling in amateur photography, and every amateur must take "action" pictures with his first camera. It is a natural desire to attain to the hardest before understanding how to reach it. The result is one of two things: either a blurred moving object and a clear background, or a clear moving object and a blurred background. Both suggest speed, but only one is a good picture of the object one attempted ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D

... ladies who are not beautiful may perhaps be able to say. There flits across our memory at the present moment some reminiscence of angry glances at the too speedy attendance given by custom-house officers to pretty women. But this priority of service is, we think, if not deserved, at least so natural, as to take it out of the catalogue of evils of which complaint should be made. One might complain with as much avail that men will fall in love with pretty girls instead of with those who are ugly! ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope

... trotting, anon descending, and not less merrily trudging up, steep ascents—we proceed by a track as sound as if it had been under the care of a model board of trustees—for the simple reason that it rested on natural rock. We pushed along at an average rate of some six miles an hour, allowing for the slow crawling up hills; passing many rich fields wherein fat oxen of the Devon breed calmly grazed, with sheep that had certainly not been bred on mountains. Once we passed a deserted copper-mine; which, ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey

... It is natural that the attention and affection of Americans should be attracted to a woman who has devoted herself assiduously to understanding and to making known the aspirations of our country, especially in introducing the labors and achievements ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon

... or if it places the animal in a positively annoying situation. There are certain situations—being fed when hungry, resting when weary, etc.—which are immediate and original satisfiers; there are others such as bitter tastes, being looked at with scorn by others, etc., which are natural annoyers. The first type the animal will try various means of attaining; the second, various means of avoiding. Through "trial and error," through going through every response it can make to a given situation, the animal or human hits upon some ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... man of great natural ability. If you ask me, How pious is he? I treat it as a conundrum, and give it up. Personally he treated me with marked kindness throughout my sojourn ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 4 • Charles Farrar Browne

... need to dwell upon this painful interview. The dissection of the heart serves no useful purpose when there is no gleam of consolation to come from it. Pauline was quite strong to go through the ordeal. She was tender, too, and natural—indeed her own self throughout. After speaking of many things relating to former days, omitting nothing that she thought Roderick would like to have recalled, she came at length to the object of ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance

... The natural woods of Ceylon are like the most curious orchards and gardens of Europe, producing citrons, lemons, and many other kinds of delicious fruit. It abounds in cinnamon, cardamums, sugar-canes, honey, and hemp. It produces iron, of which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... appeared at breakfast and tried to appear natural and at ease. He spoke of his peculiar hallucination, but his remarks were simply repetitions of those he had frequently made before. Andrews again requested him to describe the appearance of the spectre, but Drysdale seemed averse to continuing the conversation ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton

... Magda was in a curiously petulant and uncertain mood. To some extent her fractiousness was due to natural reaction after the emotional excitement of the previous evening. Granted the discovery of the Garden of Eden, and add to this the almost immediate intrusion of outsiders therein—for everybody else is an "outsider" to the pair in possession—and ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler

... when she had seen them to bed, as was her custom, she came downstairs into my study and said quietly:—"I was wrong, Hugh. If you want to build a house, if you feel that you'd be happier, I have no right to object. Of course my sentiment for this house is natural, the children were born here, but I've realized we couldn't live ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... The barriers of Phillida's natural reserve were melted away by her friend's effusive sympathy, and the weary heart lightened its burdens, as many another had done before, by confessing them to the all-motherly Mrs. Frankland. Phillida told the story of her lover, of his dislike to the notoriety of ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... familiarity of the oft-repeated prayers and the oft-sung hymns leads to inattention perhaps, but seldom, it may be hoped, to callousness; religious emotion may only occasionally be stirred but the thread of natural piety, binding man to man and man to God, is strengthened, as fresh strands are added. At the least it may be claimed for the chapel services that they rescue from our hours of business some minutes each day in which our thoughts are free to make their way to the throne of God. Christ's ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... evident. These robbers, having located the rich mine and having no concession to mine it, had discovered this natural cave and had cut a channel from it to the place of the gold deposit. They had reached the point by balloon. Having deflated it, they had stowed it away in the cave and had blocked the entrance of the cave with ...
— Panther Eye • Roy J. Snell

... monastery, and the liberty she was suffered to enjoy, in wandering among the woods and shores of this delightful province, gradually restored her spirits to their natural tone, except that anxiety would sometimes intrude, concerning Valancourt, as the time approached, when it was possible that she might receive an answer to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... the camp, and among familiar scenes again, the recent centurion falls back, swiftly and easily, into the slovenly habits and careless demeanor that were natural to him before he was called to command; his uniform begins to look like a masquerade dress hired for the occasion; of the hard and, perhaps, gallant service of months past, there is soon no other evidence, than an unnecessary loudness of speech, and a readiness ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence

... not come back on compulsion," he said. "I do not think I am a natural Paul Pry, but I would like to ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe

... be made either continuous or with intervals. In adopting either plan, the engineer should avail himself of all the natural obstacles presented by the position, so as to diminish the labor of ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... and will resist every domination but its own. She had been punished, that is, she had submitted to control, and her sense of freedom, of privilege, of very being, was outraged. The mind flinches even from the control of natural law, and how much more from the despotism of its own separated likenesses, for if another can control me that other has usurped me, has become me, and how terribly I seem diminished by the ...
— Irish Fairy Tales • James Stephens

... treated in this way will generally so far anticipate its natural time of flowering as to present you the smiling, perfumed faces of its blossoms while the fields may yet ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various

... as I soon discovered, of fine rolling country, well wooded and watered, the road of macadam, rising slowly from the entrance gates, turning here and there through a succession of natural parks, along the borders of a lake of considerable size, toward the higher hills at the further end of the estate, among which, my companion told me, were built the Manor house and stables. Except for the excellent ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... women are reduced to distress for food, but yet have a considerable supply of handsome clothing, would you not suppose it natural that they should have recourse to the pawnbroker's shop in winter, or when they were in straits?-I would, but I am not quite sure if there is a pawnbroker's shop here. There is a sort of pawn in the town, but I don't think it is much resorted to. I have no doubt, if they were in a large city, ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... of power. On the contrary, he damns it, and explains it as the logical and almost inevitable outcome of the rights of man! The steps of the process by which the change is effected are these. First, we have the Rousseaus asserting that the natural man is essentially good, but that he has been depraved by an artificial social system imposed on him from without. Instead of the quarrel between good and evil in his breast, they see only the quarrel between the innate good in man and his evil ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... spoke, he looked at me. It was all so natural, so simple, that there was absolutely nothing to be said against it. And at the same time I saw, I was sure, that it was false, that they were in a conspiracy ...
— The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... you and your wife have treated me with great kindness; but it is natural that one should wish to go to one's own people. Had you been taken a prisoner and carried to England, however well you were treated you would sigh for your free life in the desert, for your people ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty

... of St. John Baptist might in some degree be applied to him, that he scarce seemed to eat or drink at all. A rough hair-cloth, concealed under a coarse cloak, was his garment, and the bare floor his bed, with a stone for his bolster. By the constant mortification of his natural appetites, and crucifixion of his flesh, his life was a prolongation of his martyrdom, or a perpetual sacrifice which he made of himself to God in union with that which he daily offered to him on his altars. If it be true that he preached in Ireland in the ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... were water close to the surface, the divining rod would bend and turn with such force that it was hard to keep the prongs in hand. It was said to work by a process of natural attraction, and was formerly regarded ...
— Land of the Burnt Thigh • Edith Eudora Kohl

... such accidents often happen to great drinkers of wine and brandy, and that it would be of much more frequent occurrence, were it not for the natural moisture of the body. Notwithstanding this, your readers must not think that I am opposed to the "cheerful draught:" I ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various

... self-possessed, poured burningly and passionately forth all those tumultuous and almost tremendous thoughts, which, however much we may regulate, control, or disguise them, lurk deep within the souls of all of us, the seeds of the eternal war between the natural man and the artificial; between our wilder genius and our social conventionalities;—thoughts that from time to time break forth into the harbingers of vain and fruitless revolutions, impotent struggles against destiny;—thoughts that ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... the eighteenth dynasty, 1500 B.C.; and the cat appears in written rituals of that dynasty. Herodotus tells of the almost superstitious reverence which dwellers along the Nile felt for the cat, and gravely states that when one died a natural death in any house, the inmates shaved their eyebrows as a token of grief; also, that in case of a fire the first thing they saved was the household cat. ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow

... list of natural flies contains several other species of small Nemouridae unknown to me, save one brown one, which is seen in the South, ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley

... scene to the unaccustomed eye. Hastily presented to a few people, Banneker drifted to one side and, seating himself on a wire chair, contentedly assumed the role of onlooker. The air was full of laughter and greetings and kisses; light-hearted, offhand, gratulatory kisses which appeared to be the natural currency of felicitation. Betty Raleigh, lovely, flushed, and athrill with nervous exaltation, flung him a smile as she passed, one hand hooked in the ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Jesus Christ! Exalt me with Thee so to know the mystery of life, that I may use the earthly as the appointed expression and type of the heavenly; and by using to Thy glory the natural body, I may be fit to be exalted to the use of ...
— Out of the Deep - Words for the Sorrowful • Charles Kingsley

... "honnete," or respectable. Excluded from public affairs, from all those things which are judged of according to rigorous ideas of justice, or according to positive laws, the things with which they are occupied and which are affected by them are precisely those which are regulated by natural feelings of honesty (or, rather, propriety) and of sentiment. It is, then, unjust to allege as an excuse for continuing to refuse to women the enjoyment of all their natural rights motives which have only a kind of reality because women lack the experience ...
— The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women • Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet

... remaining forty-seven sections. Naturally, these elected commissioners will hold meetings of their own, appointing a president and secretary, and making official reports of their proceedings in the same form as a veritable municipal council. As they are elected to-day, and with a special mandate, it is natural that they should consider themselves more legitimate than a municipal council elected four or five months before them, and with a very uncertain mandate. Installed in the town hall of Paris (Hotel-de-ville), only two steps from the municipal council, it is natural for them to ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... reserved for exposure to wild beasts, was left under guard at the place of execution. Intense darkness fell on the night, and in the morning the body had disappeared. The angels had borne it to the summit of the loftiest mountain of the Horeb range, where still a rock, bearing the form of a natural sarcophagus, meets the eye of the traveller. Here it was watched by angel-guards, and preserved in unchanging beauty, till, in the fulness of time, it was revealed to a holy man, who removed it to the shrine, under which it lies to this day, with the ring still on its hand, in the convent ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock

... more possible than that the Anglo-Indian should have been seized with a momentary giddiness? He was not a young man; and though his broad chest, square shoulders, and long, muscular arms betokened strength, that natural vigour might have been impaired by the effects of a ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

... commanding aspects! this Terpsichore of the curtains and scenes! this Proserpine of fire and excitement! this Katterfelto of wonders! exceeded expectation, went beyond belief and soared above all the natural powers of description! She was nature itself! She was the most exquisite work of art! She was the very daisy, primrose, tuberose, sweet brier, furze blossom, gilliflower, wall flower, cauliflower, auricula, ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous

... hour before Saxe stopped short, and took off his straw hat to wipe his steaming forehead, as he gazed up at the end of the glacier; he was now so low down that the surface was invisible, and facing him there was a curve rising up and up, looking like a blunted set of natural steps. ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... said of the inferiority of the ancients to the moderns in natural and mechanical science, which no one is disposed to question, or even in the realm of literature, which may be questioned, there was one department of knowledge to which we have added nothing of consequence. In the realm of art they were our equals, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord

... suffer, and meantime you live. Still you plant and plough, though the guns are loud in the night, and Les Bosches just over the meadow. And here was one of these women in the wrecked, charred village of Pervyse carrying on the great, natural process of life as unperturbed as if her home was in a ...
— Young Hilda at the Wars • Arthur Gleason

... a Natural History Poem," said Mrs. Maynard, coming up to the teacher's desk. "It is founded on fact, and it is ...
— Marjorie at Seacote • Carolyn Wells

... and there, we should have dropped off while we were looking at our watches, and have slept till ten. As there was no earthly necessity for our getting up under another two hours at the very least, and our getting up at that time was an utter absurdity, it was only in keeping with the natural cussedness of things in general that we should both feel that lying down for five minutes more would ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome

... twenty years I don't particularly crave. Of course, if Ethel won't come, she won't, but I say again it's deuced shabby treatment. Because, baronet, that sort of thing is a marriage in Scotland, say what you like. I suppose it's natural she should prefer the owner of Catheron Royals and twenty thousand per annum, to a poor devil of a sailor like me; but all the same it's hard lines. Good-by, Inez—be sisterly, can't you, and come and see a fellow. I'm stopping ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... death, he had asked Sir John Hawkins, as one of his executors, where he should be buried; and on being answered, 'Doubtless, in Westminster-Abbey,' seemed to feel a satisfaction, very natural to a Poet; and indeed in my opinion very natural to every man of any imagination, who has no family sepulchre in which he can be laid with his fathers. Accordingly, upon Monday, December 20, his remains were deposited in that noble ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell

... promised firm to give up drinking. But, good land! what could you expect from that chin? That chin couldn't stand temptation if it came in his way. At the same time, his love for Cicely was such, and his good heart and his natural gentlemanly intuitions was such, that, if he could have been kep' out of the way of temptation, he would have ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)

... obsession with him. Throughout his life whenever it was possible, and sometimes when it seemed practically impossible, my brother would listen to the call of his beloved tropics and, casting aside all responsibilities, would set sail for Santiago. After all it was quite natural that he should feel as he did about this little Cuban coast town, for apart from its lazy life, spicy smells, waving palms and Spanish cooking, it was here that he found the material for his first novel and greatest monetary success, "Soldiers ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis

... and deep-rooted, is natural, and history will probably add that it was justified. It starts from the assumption, which there is no gainsaying, that the Conference was convoked to make peace between the belligerents and that whatever territorial changes it might ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... breast—every breath I drew was with an effort. I clung to Lecamus with deadly and helpless terror, and forced myself back upon the wall, crouching against it; I did not turn and fly, as would have been natural. What say I? did not! I could not! they pressed round us so. Ah! you would think I must be mad to use such words, for there was nobody near me—not a shadow even ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant

... me originated from him. However, I have managed to live thirty years without this protection, you will say; but I will endeavor a little to illustrate my meaning. He invited me to dine with him on Saturday, which was a very natural thing for him to do. Well, what have I learned since? That your mother and M. de Villefort are both coming to this dinner. I shall meet them there, and who knows what future advantages may result from the interview? ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... Italians in shaking off the yoke of Austria, to the extent that circumstances should warrant. Whatever were his political crimes, his personal sympathies were with Italy. His youthful alliance with the Carbonari, his early political theories, the antecedents of his family, and his natural wish for the close union of the Latin races seem to confirm this view. Moreover, he was now tempted by Cavour with the cession of Savoy and Nice to France to strengthen his southern boundaries; and for the possession ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord

... Countryman, pretending that he concealed a pig beneath his clothes (which, in fact, he did; but quite unsuspected, because they had found none about the other), twitched the ear of the real {pig}, which he was concealing, and with the pain forced from it its natural cry. The people shouted with one voice that the Buffoon had given a much more exact imitation, and ordered the Countryman to be driven from the stage. On this, he produced the pig itself from the folds of his cloak, and convicting them of their disgraceful ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... know," said he, "that Monsieur l'Abbe Hauy comes to see me; our conversation is an exchange; but I do not want a man to come and tell me whether it is hot or cold, raining or sunshine. My barometer and thermometer know more than all possible visitors; and in my studies in natural history," added he, "I have not found in the whole animal kingdom a species, or class, or family, who frighten me so much as the numerous ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... inoculate them at a guinea a man; he performed the operation, received his guinea from many, and then left them to shift for themselves, though he had agreed to attend them through the disorder. Many of them, as well as those who took it in the natural way, died. Colonel Gee, with many respectable characters, fell victims to the unrelenting cruelty of O'Hara, who would admit of no discrimination between the officers, privates, negroes, and felons; but promiscuously confined the whole in one house. * * * They also suffered ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... written word that he had engaged the same cutter which had carried Sir Marcus and his daughter to Shetland. It was very natural, therefore, that Edda should very frequently have her eye at a large telescope Sir Marcus had brought with him, and which he had placed in Hilda's room at the top of the tower. One day, as she was looking through the glass, she exclaimed suddenly ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... an apt pupil," said the woman. "All your natural tendencies were evil. I only fostered and called them out. But what is the use of recalling unpleasant truths. Why don't you silence memory, when you have ceased to feel remorse. But I tell you ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie

... of children which another would scarcely have heard, he preserves—little flies in the priceless amber of his Attic wit—and has his "Praise of chimney-sweepers" (as William Blake has written, with so much natural pathos, the Chimney-sweeper's Song), valuing carefully their white teeth, and fine enjoyment of white sheets in stolen sleep at Arundel Castle, as he tells the story, anticipating something of the mood of our deep humourists of the last generation. His simple mother-pity ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... possession of a cabin, had then proceeded to borrow half-a-dozen necessities of the toilet which she had forgotten, and had advanced to the length of terms of endearment before the bell sounded for dinner. It was only natural then that she should exhibit a breathless anxiety to know how her new friend had fared during the night, and the invalid braced herself to bear the attack ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey

... barks of the men sounded faintly, then were hushed. Nothing moved, except by the natural motion of the wind. The people crouched among the trees, so still that Kieran would not have seen them if he had not ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton

... it—nothing prosy or difficult to comprehend in the matter it contains. Its stories are graphic, entertaining and by the best writers, while each number has articles especially prepared on subjects of practical interest to boys and girls by authors whose fame in the arena of natural history, science, biography and art is national. Add to all these excellencies and attractions the fact that no impure line or thought ever stains its pages, and it must be acknowledged that GOLDEN DAYS is pre-eminently fitted to become the intellectual and pleasant companion ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887 • Various

... I write to-day because your lovely letters and your lovely old age have been forced into my thoughts often by dreadful contrast during these days in Italy. You who are so purely and brightly happy in all natural and simple things, seem now to belong to another and a younger world. And your letters have been to me like the pure air of Yewdale Crags breathed among the Pontine Marshes; but you must not think I am ungrateful for them when I can't answer. ...
— Hortus Inclusus - Messages from the Wood to the Garden, Sent in Happy Days - to the Sister Ladies of the Thwaite, Coniston • John Ruskin

... express-boats which in time of peace run from Vienna to Rustchuk whisk the traveller so rapidly through these famous defiles that he sees little else than a panorama of high rocky walls. But the slow-moving and clumsy tug, with its train of barges attached, offers better facilities to the lover of natural beauty. We had dropped down only a short distance below Drenkova before we found the river-path filled with eddies, miniature whirlpools, denoting the vicinity of the gorges into which the great current is compressed. These whirlpools ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... contemporaries, but their superstitions were the legends of the Catholic Church, not the inherited folklore of Gothic and Celtic heathendom. I will venture to suggest, as one reason of this difference, the absence of forests in Spain. The shadowy recesses of northern Europe were the natural haunts of mystery and unearthly terrors. The old Teutonic forest, the Schwarzwald and the Hartz, were peopled by the popular imagination with were-wolves, spectre huntsmen, wood spirits, and all those nameless creatures which Tieck has revived in his "Maehrchen" and Hauptmann ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... upsets Newton, but cuts away the very ground he stands on: for he destroys the first law of motion, and will not have the natural tendency of matter in motion to be rectilinear. This, as we have seen, was John Walsh's[277] notion. In a more recent work "On Orbital Motion," London, 1863, 8vo., Dr. Pratt insists on another of Walsh's notions, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan

... for the initiated and another for the simple. His political work on 'Reforme intellectuelle et morale' contains the strongest argument of the last hundred years against the very principle of democracy, natural equality. His two symbolic dramas—'Caliban' and 'Eau de Jouvence'—may be summed up in this reflection of the prior of Chartreux, seated in his stall while the organ plays alone, and the crowd presses around the crowned Caliban: "A11 civilization is the work ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various

... imaginarius), that is, not a point from which the conceptions of the understanding do really proceed, for it lies beyond the sphere of possible experience—serves, notwithstanding, to give to these conceptions the greatest possible unity combined with the greatest possible extension. Hence arises the natural illusion which induces us to believe that these lines proceed from an object which lies out of the sphere of empirical cognition, just as objects reflected in a mirror appear to be behind it. But this illusion—which we may hinder from imposing upon ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant

... many walls, laws, and penalties between the Father and His children. Too much fear, too little love; too many saints and intercessors; too little faith in the instincts of the soul which turns to God as flowers to the sun. Too much idle strife about names and creeds; too little knowledge of the natural religion which has no name but godliness, whose creed is boundless and benignant as the sunshine, whose faith is as the tender trust of little ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... will aim to provide the means of livelihood for its constituents along six lines: to conserve the human heritage of natural resources, using them sparingly and, where possible, adding to them; to produce and distribute those goods and services which are needed to maintain health and provide for social decency; to produce and distribute goods and services honestly, efficiently ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... constitution and fuller of blood than Henry Gaston, with that activity which a fine flow of animal spirits and a high degree of health give, would have cared little for the exposure to which he was subjected at Sharp's, even if clad no more comfortably. But Henry had little of that healthy warmth natural to the young. He was constitutionally delicate, and this caused him to feel more keenly the chilling intensity of the cold to which he was frequently exposed without sufficient clothing. His whole dress, intended to protect ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur

... subjects come forth to the last judgment. The resurrection of the wicked of all the ages is the loosing of Satan. Here again is his kingdom, and again he plies his deceptions and takes up anew his fight against God. How very natural that Satan should persuade the wicked that he has raised them to life, that his word in the beginning was true, "Ye shall not surely die"! If they are immortal, why may they not yet prevail against God? Satan rallies his angels and the hosts ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... dispatching the prisoners into Russian territory, which was carried out at the rate of 10,000 a day. Extensive arrangements were set on foot to supply the inhabitants with food, drink, and other necessaries of life. As the Russians had not bombarded the town, its natural and artificial beauties had suffered no damage beyond that which the Austrians had themselves inflicted; only the outskirts and the fortifications had been injured by ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various

... A natural growth of trees and brush-wood intervened between the buildings along the canal, which were generally situated about one thousand feet apart; thus the explosion of any one of them would be harmless to the remainder. There was a temporary structure of wood used at first ...
— History of the Confederate Powder Works • Geo. W. Rains

... visit the lady himself. AEthelwold, in alarm, hurried to his wife and begged her to conceal her beauty and clothe herself in unbecoming attire, so that she might not win the king's admiration; but she did just the reverse, and enhanced her natural beauty by donning handsome raiment and jewellery. Her plan succeeded, the king fell in love with her and, according to one account, slew AEthelwold with his own hand while they were hunting, and when no man was by; or, according ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey • Thomas Perkins

... They regarded the Greeks as having set the standard of the highest possible achievement in literature, and believed that it should be the aim of every writer to be faithful, not only to the spirit, but even to the letter of their great exemplars. Hence it was only natural that when Virgil essayed the task of writing the national Epic of his country, he should be studious to embody in his work all that was ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil

... which he was born, and attains no higher rank than that of a warrant-officer. The author skilfully introduces little touches and incidents, such as True Blue's conduct when at a theatrical performance, which make his career seem entirely natural and reasonable, and enlists the sympathy and approval of the reader. "He had not aimed high, in one sense of the word," says Kingston in the closing pages, "and yet he had in another sense always aimed high and nobly—to do his duty." In Kingston's eyes no mariner, nor ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston

... again. The moment appeared to him propitious; let the king ally himself with Queen Elizabeth of England, the Prince of Orange in the Low Countries, and the Protestant princes of Germany; here was for France a certain guarantee of power in Europe, and at the same time a natural opportunity for conquering Flanders, a possession so necessary to her strength and her security. But high above this policy, so thoroughly French, towered a question still more important than that of even the security and the grandeur of ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... in beginning a row. But neither was oppressed by lack of speech. They understood each other, and no more thought of "making talk" than of pulling up a seed to learn whether it had germinated. It was Mrs. Pettis who, after, a natural interval; felt moved ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown

... universe it answers to a law. It has its reason—there is no such thing as chance. Do you follow? That fragment is simply a principle, allowed to manifest itself through a natural law! ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... surprised me much. It would be easy to fall into pseudo-utilitarianism, and I would fain believe that the system may be good for the children of very rich parents, or for those who show a natural instinct to acquire hypothetical lore; but the misery was that their Ydgrun-worship required all people with any pretence to respectability to send their children to some one or other of these schools, mulcting ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... indispensable when that entrance should be secured. Among those most needed now, were a Hebrew and Hebrew-Spanish vocabulary of the Old Testament (then in preparation); a Spelling Book for schools; a short Hebrew Grammar; a brief Arithmetic; a Geography of the Bible, and a Natural History of the same; various religious tracts and essays on prophecies, especially those concerning the Messiah; and a translation of McCaul's "Old Paths" ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson

... trust him out of my sight again. He ain't competent to take care of himself and so I'll have to take care of him. Well," with a sigh, "it'll only be natural, that's all. I've been used to takin' care of somebody all my days. I wonder how 'twould seem to have somebody take care of me for a change? Not that there's liable to be anybody ...
— Thankful's Inheritance • Joseph C. Lincoln

... a country almost his own, for he has 10,000 Irish acres here. His domain, and the grounds about it, are very beautiful; not a level can be seen; every spot is tossed about in a variety of hill and dale. In the middle of the lawn is one of the greatest natural curiosities in the kingdom: an immense arbutus tree, unfortunately blown down, but yet vegetating. One branch, which parts from the body near the ground, and afterwards into many large branches, is six feet two inches in circumference. The General buried part of the stem as it laid, and ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young

... Scotland now. And at all events, if there was anything in Scotland now, any power in the world, it had sprung from these progenitors. They must have some corrective for an exaggeration of that notion, which was very natural. One was biography. They would be surprised if they were to know how many biographies there might be along the course of Scottish history, say from the Reformation. If they fastened on a single individual, and told the story of his life, they not only told the story of his community ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder

... to the species which, whilst living under their natural conditions, have their reproductive organs in this peculiar state, we may conclude that it has been naturally acquired for the sake of effectually preventing self-fertilisation. The case is closely analous ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... his Spanish fellow-countrymen, he was constitutionally unable to appreciate the fact that true religion and true faith are the natural fruits of penitence and effort, and that individual repentance and striving are the ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... natural, then, that the Granges should be drawn into all sorts of schemes to divert into the pockets of their members the streams of wealth which had previously flowed to the greedy middlemen. The members ...
— The Agrarian Crusade - A Chronicle of the Farmer in Politics • Solon J. Buck

... he likes, and see what would happen to the window; but although this is the alphabet of art, and we are past spelling words of one syllable, the criticism teaches at least one lesson. Primitive man seems to have had a natural colour-sense, instinctive like the scent of a dog. Society has no right to feel it as a moral reproach to be told that it has reached an age when it can no longer depend, as in childhood, on its taste, or smell, or sight, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... her pretty daughter. Then, moreover, there was that English family, between whom and ourselves there was the reluctance and antipathy, personal and national, which exists between all right-minded Englishmen and Americans. No Italian can understand this just and natural condition, and it was the constant aim of our landlord to make us acquainted. So one day when he found a member of each of these unfriendly families on the neutral ground of the grand sala, he introduced them. They had, happily, the piano-forte between them, and ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells

... has something they're afraid of. It's natural. And everyone has their pet hates, too." For an instant, he thought ...
— Final Weapon • Everett B. Cole

... strangely noticeable, however, that a great many things which never can be done, are nevertheless somehow brought about, especially in the progress of the Church. So it was here. Careful drainage overcame the natural lack of adaptation, and, though the work met with delays and drawbacks, the church was completed in 1755. It is a tradition of the time that when the frame of the building was raised, the shout that burst from the lips of those engaged in or watching the work ...
— Report Of Commemorative Services With The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary, 1883-1885. • Diocese Of Connecticut

... from Homer, but the spirit which animates it is altogether different. The Greek, in spite of his intellectual scepticism, retained an aesthetic and emotional belief in his national gods, and at any rate it was natural that he should celebrate them in his verse; but the Roman poet claimed to utilize the Greek Pantheon for artistic purposes alone. He professed no belief in the beings he depicted. They were merely an ornamental, supernatural element, either ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell

... act on the embryo of lower organisms. However this may be, it is quite certain that in predisposed women, coitus during pregnancy causes premature birth; it sometimes happens that labor pains begin a few minutes after the act.[15] The natural instinct of animals refuses to allow intercourse during pregnancy; the ritual observance of primitive peoples very frequently points in the same direction; the voice of medical science, so far as it speaks at all, is beginning to utter the same warning, and before long will ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... three leagues. We determined to stay at the hut, although the prospect of our night's entertainment was a most cheerless one. The hut was about twenty feet square, with a small attached shed for a kitchen. The floor was the natural earth, littered with corn husks and other refuse. There was not a bit of furniture, excepting some rough sleeping-places made of hides stretched over poles. There was not a stool nor even a log of wood to sit down upon. In this miserable ...
— The Naturalist in Nicaragua • Thomas Belt

... this I answered that it was so, but that we must remember that in the Holy Scriptures we find governors and kings addressed by poor men in the term "Thou;" for this was the only form of speech in use, whilst in Germany, where the "Thou" is not used except to denote near natural relationship or familiarity, it ought not to be used, except there be that inwardly corresponding to what we outwardly seek to convey by the term; else it will lead to formality, if not to hypocrisy, and sooner or later the pernicious ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller

... conflict that there was something else; but now he comes at once upon a literature in which the old creeds do not even furnish matter for discussion, but it is stated baldly that there is nothing else—evolution, natural selection, struggle for existence—and that's all. In my ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... at Lane End was somewhat peculiar even then, and would now be almost unique. It was partly the natural expression of an instinctive and justified feeling of superiority, and partly due to a discretion which forbade the family to scandalize the professional classes of the district by dining at night. Dinner ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... with our eyes his upward-pointing finger, we saw, soaring slow in majestic poise above the highest summit, the bird of Jove. It was a glorious sight, yet I know not that I felt more on seeing the bird in all its natural freedom and royalty, than when, imprisoned and insulted, he had filled my early thoughts with the ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... father was a Tyrolese, and his mother a Bavarian. Educated at the university at Salamanca, he took the Jesuit habit in the same city in 1614. He became known for his learning and ability and for fourteen years filled the chair of natural history at the royal school at Madrid, and for three years after that lectured on the scriptures. At the same time he was held in high esteem as a confessor, and was solicited by many prominent people as such. In 1642, he gave up teaching ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 41 of 55, 1691-1700 • Various

... out of each other's sight or thoughts, he went his way and she went hers. But the past and secret trouble left its mark on both. Leonard became sterner, more silent, watchful, and suspicious. Juanna grew suddenly from a girl into a woman of presence and great natural dignity. She did not often laugh during those months as had been her wont, she only smiled, sadly enough at times. Her thoughts would not let her laugh, for they were of what her life might have been had no such person as Jane Beach existed, and of what it must be because of Jane Beach. Indeed ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard

... burial-place was that: no poet could have dreamt or desired a better. Above, the huge vault, with its natural frettings and arches; below, the greenest, freshest grass; around, an eternal half light, streaked and varied, and radiant as a rainbow. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various

... something clumsy in his form; very negligent of his clothes, and remarkable for wearing his grey hair in a particular manner; for he held that the fashion was no rule of dress, and that every man was to suit his appearance to his natural form[183]. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... the case," said I, "and in point of fact, I think bone-dust, especially from steamed or boiled bones, can be used with more economy in its natural state than ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris

... above, amid various psalmodies, into an infinite luminous space, while below the damned, howling, writhing, and half transformed into loathsome beasts, should be engulfed in a fiery furnace. The two cities, always opposite in essence, should thus be finally divided in existence, each bearing its natural fruits and ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... to the natural order Salsolaceae. The shrubs of the order are not peculiar to Australia, but ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... in the first edition, and fostered the assumption. Saxo was a cleric; and could such a man be of less than canonical rank? He was (it was assumed) a Zealander; he was known to be a friend of Absalon, Bishop of Roskild. What more natural than that he should have been the Provost Saxo? Accordingly this latter worthy had an inscription in gold letters, written by Lave Urne himself, affixed to ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")



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