"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Serpentine: her body was only recovered on the 10th of December, and the verdict of the Coroner's Jury was 'found drowned,' her name being given as 'Harriet Smith.' The career of Harriet since her separation from her husband is very indistinctly known. It has indeed been asserted in positive terms that she formed more than one connexion with other men: she had ceased to live along with her father and sister, and is said to have been expelled from their house. In these statements I see nothing either unveracious or unlikely: but it is true that a sceptical habit of mind, which insists ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... distrusted this legend. I am happy to say, that even as I write I have proof positive that it is purely a fiction. I have just had a card put into my hand requesting my presence at a private exhibition of the celebrated Bloomer Family, while an accompanying private note from Jack himself informs ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 422, New Series, January 31, 1852 • Various
... rose and she held her hands together under the cover of her muff. The anxious moment seemed an age to her, and although the green-robed girl had assured Margaret that the lady was on the way to meet them, she was positive that it was at least half an hour until the slim, silk-clad form of the directress of Artemis Lodge stood smiling gently ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... to glance at it to recognize it as a copy of the newspaper recording Tom Gray's disappearance, which Hippy had brought her. "How did you ever happen to come across this, Jean?" Her query held a note of positive awe. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... amusing. None, however, had ever tasted mutton before, and consequently the name of the meat remained, on that occasion, a profound secret to M'Evoy and his family.* It is true, they supposed it to be mutton; but not one of them could pronounce it to be such, from any positive knowledge of ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... was upon was broad and navigable. It flowed through a level country with a dead current and muddy water, and spread into frequent lakes. He found that it ultimately discharged itself into the sea, but was uncertain at what distance from its sources. He was positive he never travelled to the SOUTHWARD OF WEST. He ascended a hill near the sea, and observed an island in the distance, from which, the natives informed him, a race of light-coloured men came in large canoes ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... surprised," said the count at last, "after all that has passed, that I show so little resentment at your uninvited presence here, and at Rita's infringement of my positive commands." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... childlike fondness for trains. I like to be in them, I like to see them go by") to the peaceful, almost happy end, at the mountain refuge by the valley of the Rhone. They will not regret an inch of the way; and they will derive some very positive enjoyment from the picture of that most melancholy hotel where the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 17, 1920 • Various
... Hist. eccles., i. 169, 170; De Thou, ii. (liv. xxiv.) 766. This is also Etienne Pasquier's view, who is positive that he heard the Protestants called Huguenots by some friends of his from Tours full eight or nine years before the tumult of Amboise; that is, about 1551 or 1552: "Car je vous puis dire que huict ou neuf ans auparavant l'entreprise d'Amboise je les avois ainsi ouy appeller par ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... and I saw "The Impertinents" once more, now three times, and the three only days it hath been acted. And to see the folly how the house do this day cry up the play more than yesterday! and I for that reason like it, I find, the better, too; by Sir Positive At-all, I understand, is meant Sir Robert Howard. My Lady [Castlemaine] pretty well pleased with it; but here I sat close to her fine woman, Willson, who indeed is very handsome, but, they say, with child by the King. I asked, and she told me this was ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... final. Now to Baruch in such a mood the older man, the Prophet, might have appealed from his own example, for none in that day was more stripped than Jeremiah himself, of family, friends, affections, or hopes of positive results from his ministry; nor was there any whose life had been more often snatched from the jaws of death. But instead of quoting his own case Jeremiah brought to his despairing servant and friend a still higher example. The Lord Himself had been forced to relinquish His designs and to destroy ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... I should not urge it," was the reply, and Ruth seemed so positive that Agnes yielded. Weeks rolled on and to every inquiry made by Agnes as to the time when Ruth meant to buy herself a dress for winter, there was some trifling excuse made. Finally she told Agnes there was ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd
... valuable. Many of the observations and classifications are subtle and instructive. But in his hands nothing comes of them. They lead at the utmost to mere negative conclusions; they show what a thing is not. But his attempt to elicit anything positive out of them breaks down, or ends at best in divinations and guesses, sometimes—as in connecting Heat and Motion—very near to later and more carefully-grounded theories, but always unverified. He had a radically false and mechanical conception, ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... believe even in telepathy," asserted Mrs. Quigg, a very positive journalist who sat at his right. "I think even ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... according to kind. While the process of change implied in evolution is covered up in endless eons of time it is change nevertheless. The Bible does not say that reproduction shall be nearly according to kind or seemingly according to kind. The statement is positive that it is according to kind, and that does not leave any room for the changes however gradual or imperceptible that are necessary to ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... non-intervention was adopted as to territory both North and South of the Missouri compromise line of 36 deg. 30 min., to extend slavery into such territory? Hear what he said on the question in the Senate of the United States. He said in answer to a demand of Jefferson Davis for a positive provision for the admission of slavery south of the Missouri compromise line:—"Coming as I do from a Slave State, it is my solemn, deliberate and well-matured determination that no power—no earthly power—shall ...
— The Relations of the Federal Government to Slavery - Delivered at Fort Wayne, Ind., October 30th 1860 • Joseph Ketchum Edgerton
... the mountain side, and was succeeded by low evergreen bushes, trailing-pine, and finally by bare black rocks rising high over all, where not even the hardy reindeer-moss could find soil enough to bury its roots. I no longer wondered at the positive declaration of the Kamchadals, that with loaded horses it would be impossible to cross, and began to doubt whether it could be done even with light horses. It looked very dubious to me, accustomed as I was to rough climbing and mountain roads. I decided to camp at once where we ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... his foot! How they crowd around his barns and dwellings, and throng his garden and jostle and override each other in their strife to be near him! Some of them are so domestic and familiar, and so harmless withal, that one comes to regard them with positive affection. Motherwort, catnip, plantain, tansy, wild mustard,—what a homely human look they have! they are an integral part of every old homestead. Your smart new place will wait long before they draw near it. Our knot-grass, that carpets ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... She went through the entire scrapbook, skimming the stories there related, to learn if any were familiar. But no. She found nothing to suggest any of the other tales Cap'n Amazon had related in her hearing. And it was positive that her uncle had not read this particular story of the black man and the black dog since coming to the store on the Shell Road, for Louise had ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... from their wanderings, re injecta, faithfully accompanied by their Corean guides, whose explanations as to why the goal had not been reached were by no means satisfactory to Kublai. The whole party was despatched once more to Corea, carrying with them to the King positive instructions "to succeed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... remembered ever to have seen him; and yet he appeared to have been in the country before this time. His knowledge of its topography, as well as its affairs and political personages, was so positive and complete, as to make it evident that Sonora was no stranger to him; and the plan of his expedition appeared to have been conceived and arranged beforehand—even previous to his ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... away as he came closer. Solemnly he shook hands with Katherine and Bobby, expressing a profound sympathy. Even then Bobby remarked that those reserved features let slip no positive emotion. The man turned ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... realized, and that the several acts of the legislature of South Carolina which I now lay before you, and which have all and each of them finally passed after a knowledge of the desire of the Administration to modify the laws complained of, are too well calculated both in their positive enactments and in the spirit of opposition which they obviously encourage wholly to obstruct the collection of the revenue within the limits ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... drawers, with the bloody evidence of the deed only imperfectly effaced from it—and yet the son has been innocent!—the sister, years after, on her death-bed, confessing herself the fratricide as well as the parricide. There have been cases in which men have been hung on the most positive testimony to identity (aided by many suspicious circumstances), by persons familiar with their appearance, which have afterwards proved grievous mistakes, growing out of remarkable personal resemblance. There have been cases in which ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... relief while Adam was speaking; he perceived that Adam had no positive knowledge of the past, and that there was no irrevocable damage done by this evening's unfortunate rencontre. Adam could still be deceived. The candid Arthur had brought himself into a position in which successful lying was his ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... different in different countries. The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political.... It is so odious that nothing can be suffered to support it but positive law. Whatever inconveniences therefore may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.' Lofft's Reports, 1772, p. 19. 'The judgment of the court,' says Broom (Constitutional Law, 1885, p. 99), 'was delivered ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... mistress of the world. France was still her equal rival, and the United States were becoming formidable common carriers, although they had but little legitimate commerce of their own, and none that was under their positive control. The commercial men of England finding their statesmen ready to aid them in their efforts for national progress, wealth, and glory, directed their attention to steam as an agent of supremacy and power, both in the Navy and ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... the situation. He had not the slightest doubt of Sempland's courage. He knew his friend's rigid idea of soldierly duty or honor. Where had he gone? If there had been any way, he would have despatched men to hunt for him in every direction, but the general's prohibition was positive. And for some reason which he could not explain he refrained from saying anything about Sempland's visit to Fanny Glen, merely advising the general, in response to an inquiry, that he had left him to go to his quarters to ...
— A Little Traitor to the South - A War Time Comedy With a Tragic Interlude • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... the ears of most men, the song of flat wastes and deserts and limitless horizons, freighted with a loneliness which is communicated to man in a positive ache for companionship,—and which carries a wealth of companionship in itself for those who have lived so long under the open skies that the song of the desert choir comes to them as ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... splendid fighting of the despised Johannesburgers of the Imperial Light Horse, and of the other South African Colonial Corps, has become a matter of history, and the present levee en masse of the British people, including the townsmen, of this Colony, is proof positive that when the necessity is really felt they are equal to the best in courage and public spirit. In this respect the events of the past few months, unfortunate as they have been in many ways, have ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... sufficient length of time to produce disease in young and susceptible persons. * * * * * * To prevent the poison of typhoid fever when taken into the system, from producing its legitimate effects, except by natural agencies, would require as positive a miracle as to restore a severed head, or arrest the course of the heavenly bodies in their spheres. * * * The lesson for all, for the future, is too obvious to need further pointing out; and the committee cannot doubt that they would hazard little in predicting that the ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... evils that war brought to Haddon, you well know how desirable peace was. In time of war all Haddon was a field of carnage and unrest. In time of peace the dear old Hall was an ideal home. I persuaded Sir George not to insist on a positive promise from Dorothy, and I advised him to allow her yielding mood to grow upon her. I assured him evasively that she would eventually succumb to his ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... man of his day, and also in the highest degree a practical person, who clearly perceived what would most rapidly educate and interest the uncultivated. In his thirty-three dramas, sparkling comedies in prose, more or less in imitation of Molire, he has left his most important positive legacy to literature. Nor in any series of comedies in existence is decency so rarely sacrificed to a desire for popularity or a false sense ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... having sent with his communication a positive prepared in the manner described, we are enabled to corroborate all he says as to the richness and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... that a musical sound uttered with decision by one instrument always makes the corresponding chord of another vibrate; and Mary felt, as she left her positive, but warm-hearted friend, a plaintive vibration of something in her own self, in which she was conscious her calm friendship for her future husband had no part. She fell into one of those reveries which she thought she had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... rare and unmistakable beauty a kind of effrontery, at least they resented it with the same angry disapproval. A girl with no "man" to stand by her, ought not to look so provokingly radiant; nor, by the same rule, ought she to have such positive likes and dislikes, or a tongue always so ...
— A Daughter of Fife • Amelia Edith Barr
... this history has been hidden by a prejudice more general than the particular case of Saracens and Crusaders. The modern, or rather the Victorian prejudice against Crusaders is positive and not relative; and it would still desire to condemn Tancred if it could not acquit Saladin. Indeed it is a prejudice not so much against Crusaders as against Christians. It will not give to these heroes of religious war the fair measure it gives to the heroes ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... therefore, the man who died in 1910 was not our author. The anonymous editor of an edition of the protocols issued in New York toward the end of 1920 says that "a returning traveler from Siberia in August, 1919, was positive that Nilus was in Irkutsk in June of that year." No clew is given to the identity of the editor who makes this statement. And here let me remark in passing that it is a remarkable fact that all the editors of the numerous editions of the protocols, both here and abroad, ...
— The Jew and American Ideals • John Spargo
... testimony in its favor is, that, although it has been freely criticized, sometimes with closeness and severity, and sometimes with studied harshness and evident malice, its reputation has risen among candid and competent readers with the appearance of each volume. Faults, negative and positive, may undoubtedly be discovered in it; but the same is true, in a greater or less degree, of every other production of human labor; and the eyes neither of malice nor of hypercriticism have been able to find any sufficient reason why this Cyclopaedia should not be accepted as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... with him over his many crude heterodoxies; but he did not love the school, and as long as he was able had taught his boys himself, and likewise taken a few day-pupils of the upper ranks, who were preparing for public schools. But when his failure of health rendered this impracticable, the positive evil of idleness was, he felt greater than any possible ones that might arise from either the teaching or the associations of the town school, and he trusted to home influence to counteract any such dangers. Or perhaps more truly he dreaded lest his own ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... needs protection from interference by the courts in the exercise of its economic weapons, the strike and the boycott, upon which it is obviously obliged to place especial reliance. In other words, though labor may refuse to be drawn into the vortex of politics for the sake of positive attainments, or, that is to say, labor legislation, it is compelled to do so for the sake of a negative gain—a judicial laissez-faire. That labor does by pursuing a policy of "reward your friends" and "punish your enemies" in the sphere of politics. The method itself is an old one in ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... that perilous and slippery rock on the mountain-side, Benedict ceased saluting the Holy Virgin long enough to conceive a thought. It was this: To be acceptable to God, we must do something in the way of positive good for man. To pray, to adore, to wander, to suffer, is not enough. We must lighten the burdens of the toilers and bring a little joy into their lives. Suffering has its place, but too much suffering would ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... there is a formal and easily perceptible relation between one part of the structure and another, and this relation is a positive help to us in understanding the plain sense of the words, while its presence does not involve any loss of emotional significance which its absence would supply. The truth is—and here is the second ...
— The Lyric - An Essay • John Drinkwater
... for some hours in the morning, and I feel positive that the mother had no cubs of this spring with her; yet on examination milk was found in her breasts. My natives told me that frequently yearling cubs continue to suckle, and surely we had positive proof of this with the ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various
... even here. My kingship not only lacked the positive advantages with which youthful imagination (aided by the archbishop's pious hyperbole) had endowed it; it became in my eyes the great and fertile source of all my discomfort, the parent of every distasteful ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... there for a few days, or rather to the "George," where he slept and took his meals, spending the rest of the time with Bessie, who interested him more and more, and from whom he at last fled as from a positive danger. With his limited income and his habits, he could not hope to marry, even if Bessie would have joined her young life with his matured one, which he doubted, and, with a great pang of regret he left her in the old Stoneleigh garden and did not dare look back ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... The blood ran close to the skin, and his complexion had the rich transparency of light. There was nothing gross or heavy in his expression or texture; his soul seemed to have mastered his body. But he had strong passions, for his delicacy was positive, not negative: it was not ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... know in any country a man in whom great intellectual and practical elements are more happily combined. It is not with the warm partiality of private friendship that we thus speak of Mr. Whitney, for, like all men of ideas, and all of nature positive and deep enough to have a special mission in the world, he puts others into relation with the thoughts which engage him rather than with his own personality, and you become intimate with them, not with him. A native, as we believe, of Connecticut, brought up to business in this city, where ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... expedition whose absurdity was on a larger scale, and back again on the shady side of the two or three streets where he lived his normal life. The fare at wayside inns made the thought of his club a positive pain; and these pangs were at their sharpest when Stingaree cantered out of the scrub on his lily mare, a blessed bolt ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... profit, just as Nature was formerly said to abhor a vacuum. With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 per cent. will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 per cent. certain will produce eagerness; 50 per cent. positive audacity; 100 per cent. will made it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 per cent., and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged. If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, it will freely encourage ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... may be surprised at the positive and dictatorial language of Mr John Forster, relative to Newton's marriage, as detailed in a former chapter; but, as Mr John Forster truly observed, all the recompense which he had to expect for a life of exertion was to dispose of the fruits of ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... these frightful passages, these infamous laws of war, because the bible is the word of God. As a matter of fact, there never was, and there never can be, an argument, even tending to prove the inspiration of any book whatever. In the absence of positive evidence, analogy and experience, argument is simply impossible, and at the very best, can amount only to a useless agitation of the air. The instant we admit that a book is too sacred to be doubted, or even reasoned about, we are mental serfs. It is infinitely ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... hurried forward, but by the time they reached the forecastle no sail was to be seen. Snatchblock, however, was positive that he had not been mistaken. He rubbed his eyes in vain, and peered into the gloom. She was certainly not visible. Adair, who had returned aft, was pacing the deck, when suddenly a tremendous shock was felt. He and others on deck were nearly thrown off ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... great work to spend their energies in ordinary channels. A greater misery than indifference to the amusement in which one seeks to take part, which Hamerton counts as the most wearisome of all things, is positive dislike for the work one is bound to do. Fortunately, Fanny's project was never carried out. Probably Edward, as usual, failed to meet the proposals made to him, and Mary realized that the chains by which she would thus bind herself would ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... staggered by the positive assertions of the culprit. It must be considered that he was not acquainted with Fred, who, so far as he knew, might be an artful ...
— The Erie Train Boy • Horatio Alger
... enjoy, and then appreciate the superior obligations which are imposed on us. Consider in how many cases our evil propensities are now kept from breaking forth, by the superior restraints under which vice is laid among us by positive laws, and by the amended standard of public opinion; and we may be assisted in conjecturing what force is to be assigned to these motives, by the dreadful proofs which have been lately exhibited in a neighbouring country, that when their influence is withdrawn, the most atrocious crimes can be ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... are electrical atoms in association with the Aether, then they must be of two kinds, positive and negative, as it is impossible to find positive electricity disassociated from negative. Therefore, from the electro-magnetic theory of light we get further evidence of the polarity of the aetherial atom, by which Newton's ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... of this is shown in the religious experience known as conversion. To the convert, conversion means the profound acceptance of a mighty spiritual truth. It means positive knowledge taking the place of doubt or indifference. Conflicting ideas are no longer present in his consciousness. Pent-up energies are released. He wants to do things. His soul is fired with overmastering impulses to action. He wants ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... Mind than Gratitude. It is accompanied with such an inward Satisfaction, that the Duty is sufficiently rewarded by the Performance. It is not like the Practice of many other Virtues, difficult and painful, but attended with so much Pleasure, that were there no positive Command which enjoin'd it, nor any Recompence laid up for it hereafter, a generous Mind would indulge in it, for the natural Gratification that ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the Exposition being justly considered important, as a means of emphasizing the "statement," and enforcing the hearer's attention to the thematic contents before preceding to their development in the second division of the form. In the sonatine-form, on the contrary, this positive termination of the Exposition (and consequently the double-bar and repetition) will ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... sake, and Bartley was not one of these; but he practised it because his experience had been that lies were difficult to manage, and that they were a burden on the mind. He was not candid; he did not shun concealments and evasions; but positive lies he had kept from, and now he could not trust one to save his life. He unlocked the door and ran out to find help; he must do that at last; he must do it at any risk; no matter what he said afterward. When our deeds and motives ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... of war. Yet if there was any glory in war this was it. It was here, in this patient suffering and obedience. These men might well glory in their infirmities. This was heroism, the real thing, the spirit rising to incredible heights of patient endurance in the foreseen possible result of positive action for an ideal. The reaction from battle is overwhelming. Passions that the civilised man simply does not know, so colourless is his experience of them in ordinary days, are let loose, anger and terror and ...
— On the King's Service - Inward Glimpses of Men at Arms • Innes Logan
... Canfield. "I'll send word out and have him arrested if you are positive that he is the man ...
— The Call of the Beaver Patrol - or, A Break in the Glacier • V. T. Sherman
... during the interval must no doubt be granted, but we say that if those changes were serious ones affecting great principles of belief or order, those who maintain that such a hidden revolution took place are bound to bring positive evidence to the fact. This history of the Church during the second century has been likened with more of ingenuity than of poetical beauty to the passing of a ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... being diverted from whatever thought or idea happened to be uppermost in his narrow mind. He was, for some reason, eager to be done with his reception and had no eyes for any visitors except those from whom he expected immediate and positive advantage to himself. I escaped, but I went out sweating ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... than polished him. He still remained one of the people, rough almost to insolence, direct in speech, intolerant in his opinions, relying upon absolutely no one but himself; yet, with all this, of an astonishing degree of intelligence, and possessed of an executive ability little short of positive genius. He was a ferocious worker, allowing himself no pleasures, and exacting the same degree of energy from all his subordinates. He was widely hated, and as widely trusted. Every one spoke of his crusty temper and bullying ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... increase. Bereavement and separation take nothing from it, but, on the contrary, they illustrate and enforce our obligations. For since we must needs die, and are as water that is spilled upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, such a death as this amounts to positive happiness by the side of a contrasted experience in the joyless, hopeless death of a child, or friend. But without further preface, I proceed to ...
— Catharine • Nehemiah Adams
... be thought of for these first difficult years. When he does, there is no more question of his acceptance than there was of his assuming the command of the army. As for titles they come about as a matter of course, and it is quite positive that Washington, although a Republican, will never become a Democrat. He is a grandee and will continue to live like one, and the man who presumes to take a liberty with ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... take into account both the negative and the positive functions of the will. Many there are who think of the will chiefly in its negative use, as a kind of a check or barrier to save us from doing certain things. That this is an important function cannot be denied. But the positive is the higher function. ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... religious persuasions here represented, from the Universalist to the staid Quaker; a number had been Sabbath school attendants, one quite an Advent speaker, who seemed positive he would be able to convert us all to his notions could he have the stand for a suitable time, a privilege he earnestly strove for. More came from the Catholics than from any other sect, and more from the shoe-makers than from ...
— The Prison Chaplaincy, And Its Experiences • Hosea Quinby
... 23 It is not here asserted, that present possession or conquest are sufficient to give a title against long possession and positive laws but only that they have some force, and will be able to call the ballance where the titles are otherwise equal, and will even be sufficient sometimes to sanctify the weaker title. What degree of force ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... not ten feet from me, Miss Woodhull. Of this I am positive, because her cap fell from her head as she replied and delayed the response of the girl next on the roll, who stopped to ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Majesty might well have repeated, produced a deep impression on the people; and this enthusiasm had positive and immediate results, since on that day more than two thousand men were voluntarily enrolled, and formed a new regiment of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... her to wife; that thus the way might be left clear for himself; and he resolved, if possible, to effect this in such a manner—namely, by jests, innuendos and sneers—that it should never be directly traced to a positive assertion on his part. And in the mean time he determined to so govern himself in his deportment toward Capitola as to arouse no suspicion, give no offense and, if possible, win ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... he now received from the father, however, emboldened him to persevere, and he professed to look upon her marked disapproval as nothing but maidenly diffidence, and proceeded to address her as though a positive ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... only after a positive refusal to take Alice on to Cheyenne that the old capitalist left the lonely heiress sobbing in ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... of air. The opening of that door on the right-hand side of the body supplied that current, and supplied it with such strength and violence that the paper was, as one might say, absolutely sucked round the man's leg. That is a positive proof that the train was moving at the time it happened, for the day, as you ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... northeaster blowing and the flying spray, half-frozen, from the surf, driven by the gale until it cuts like a knife, the patrolman's task is no easy one. Indeed, there is perhaps no form of human endeavor about which there is more constant discomfort and positive danger than the life-saving service. It is the duty of the men to defy danger, to risk their lives whenever occasion demands, and the long records of the service show uncounted cases of magnificent heroism, and none of failure ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... positive that Atwood either killed or kidnapped Merton, for I have discovered, through the telephone girl at the hotel, that Merton received a telephone call at twelve o'clock Monday night, summoning him out. That telephone call was supposed ...
— The Sheridan Road Mystery • Paul Thorne
... questioned and cross-questioned the prisoner in the most subtle manner, to induce him state the degree of relationship subsisting between himself and Agnes; but he either refused to respond to their queries, or else answered direct ones by means of a positive denial. ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... power at his command that Dr. De la Rue proceeded to investigate several important electrical laws. He has found, for example, that the positive discharge is more intermittent than the negative, that the arc is always preceded by a streamer-like discharge, that its temperature is about 16,000 deg., and its length at the ordinary pressure of the atmosphere, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... of you to come to see me. I was positive you had forgotten me." She held out her hand to him with a gesture of delight; and Duroy, quite at his ease in that shabby apartment, kissed it as he had ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... often reinstating them and the nest in their original place the next morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped, from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested that he was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... went to Oxford, Birmingham, Lichfield, and Ashbourne, for which very good reasons might be given in the conjectural yet positive manner of writers, who are proud to account for every event which they relate. He himself, however, says, 'The motives of my journey I hardly know; I omitted it last year, and am not willing to miss ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... every direction, but saw nothing of the camp, although positive that his olfactories ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... separate themselves from reason and thought, even in religion; the latter was a matter for the reason and the intellect to decide, and was thus an elevated product of the mind rather than an instinct coming from the heart, or a positive revelation as it was in the seventeenth century. In this view, Madame de Lambert indicated the beginning ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... publishers can be said to present a true picture of their subject. Either the writer holds up the object of his literary effort as a person so blameless as to suggest the idea that he is an impossible prig, or else every piece of malevolent gossip is construed into a positive fact, his shortcomings magnified until they lose all touch of resemblance, while every word and action capable of misrepresentation is construed in the manner most detrimental to his reputation. In one word, he is either glorified as a preposterous saint, or ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... a great love that you seek, how can you believe that a soul shall be met with of beauty as great as you dream it to be, if you seek it with nothing but dreams? Have you the right to expect that definite words and positive actions shall offer themselves in exchange for mere formless desire, and yearning, and vision? Yet thus it is most of us act. And if some fortunate chance at last accords our desire, and places us in presence of the being who ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... business with him he had monkeyed with me all day long, and I had struck him as many as four times to go over to my sample room. If he had made a positive engagement and said that he would see me at twelve o'clock that night, it would have been all right; but he would turn away with a grunt the subject of going to look at samples, not even giving me the satisfaction of saying he didn't ...
— Tales of the Road • Charles N. Crewdson
... afternoon in question; that he remembered me; and that, there being one or two empty first-class compartments on that especial afternoon, he had, in compliance with my request, placed me in a carriage by myself. He was positive that I remained alone in that compartment all the way from London to Clayborough. He was ready to take his oath that Mr. Dwerrihouse was neither in that carriage with me, nor in any compartment of that train. He remembered distinctly to have examined my ticket at Blackwater; was certain that ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... can frequently be found, he states, in the degenerating ovaries of female birds which have put forth male plumage. Sir John Bland-Sutton, referring to the fact that the external conformation of the body affords no positive certainty as to the nature of the internal sexual glands, adds (British Medical Journal, Oct. 30, 1909): "It is a fair presumption that some examples of sexual frigidity and sex perversion may be explained by the possibility that the individuals concerned may possess sexual glands opposite ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the said archbishop had previously favored him, and regarded lightly other offenses of his—for no other reason than because Herrera had, to please the archbishop and his friars, drawn up documents expressing in positive terms, detestation of appeals to ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various
... crave for death, and young women who should be thinking only of work and love and brightness prefer to sink into languor. There is no curing a poet when once he takes to being mournful, for he hugs his own woe with positive pleasure, and all his ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... and won the curiosity, the sympathy, of many finer sensibilities. A dramatic and subtle sense of distance, such a powerful agent of spiritual injection in the hands of real artists is in this work absent; never skilfully employed either for negative or positive reflections of emotion. Linear perspective there is, and employed to much scenic advantage; but aerial perspective, utilised towards expressing overlapping figures, there is not, save in meagre degree. The canvas is too crowded, the sense of vision and admiration ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater
... he meant in his article to bring out his trouvaille—to the young lady he had loved and quitted. I use this last term, I may parenthetically say, because I subsequently grew sure that at the time he went to India, at the time of his great news from Bombay, there had been no positive pledge between them whatever. There had been none at the moment she was affirming to me the very opposite. On the other hand he had certainly become engaged the day he returned. The happy pair went down to Torquay for their honeymoon, and there, in a reckless hour, ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James
... helpful, so that our span of life may be passed with as much happiness as possible. Men will strive against each other, but the striving will not be carried on to an accompaniment of slaughter and torture. There are keen forms of competition which, so far from being painful, give positive pleasure to those who engage in them; there are triumphs which satisfy the victor without mortifying the vanquished; and, in spite of the indiscreet writers who have called forth this Essay, I hold that such harmless forms of competition will take the place of the brutal strife that ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... of business was investigated, there it was at once discovered that wealth was being amassed, not only by fraudulent methods, but by methods often a positive peril to human life itself. Whether large or small trader, these methods were the same, varying only ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... magistrates, the jury, the parties, even the public who were spectators; but the most incurable wounds were inflicted on justice by the doings of the advocates. In proportion as the parasitic plant of Roman forensic eloquence flourished, all positive ideas of right became broken up; and the distinction, so difficult of apprehension by the public, between opinion and evidence was in reality expelled from the Roman criminal practice. "A plain simple defendant," says a Roman advocate ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... all these points which I have mentioned are some very positive things. One is the very best kind of a vacation that it is possible to have. How frequently we hear in response to the question about enjoying a vacation, 'Oh, yes, I had a good enough time, but I'll never go back there again.' To my mind that indicates either that the person does not know what ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... to say that if you had positive proof?" She pointed to the drawer in the desk where he had placed the letters. "If you had absolute proof in that drawer, for instance? Wouldn't you help ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... it, did you?" I taunted him. "Proof positive that you're small potatoes in Stigma circles. Well, get set for a shock: I represent an organization of Psis—an organization devoted to protecting Stigma cases from Normal society, an organization devoted to establishing discipline among Psis so that our ...
— Modus Vivendi • Gordon Randall Garrett
... friend, a free speaker,—Mr Smith. TATTLE, a half-witted beau, vain of his amours, yet valuing himself for secrecy,—Mr Bowman. BEN, Sir Sampson's younger son, half home-bred and half sea-bred, designed to marry Miss Prue,—Mr Dogget. FORESIGHT, an illiterate old fellow, peevish and positive, superstitious, and pretending to understand astrology, palmistry, physiognomy, omens, dreams, etc; uncle to Angelica,—Mr Sanford. JEREMY, servant to Valentine,—Mr Bowen. TRAPLAND, a scrivener,—Mr Triffusis. ...
— Love for Love • William Congreve
... came he looked grave even for a doctor, and felt it his duty to tell Miss Noel that she might have yellow fever. It was always to be had for the catching in Cuba, and her symptoms were suspicious, though he could not, of course, be positive. Here was a sensation. It was curious to see the effect this declaration had on the different members of the household. Sir Robert, after turning pale and saying "God bless my soul! you don't mean ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... which prevail in many quarters. We believe in the essential healthfulness of literary culture, and in the invigorating power of sound knowledge. Emphatically do we believe that our common schools have been in the aggregate a positive physical benefit. We are confident, that, just to the degree that the unseen force within a man receives its rightful development, does vigorous life flow in every current that beats from heart to extremities. With entire respect for the opinions of others, even while we cannot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... about seventy-two thousand dollars, which the Jerome Company were obliged to assume. The great difference in the real and supposed amount of their indebtedness and the unsaleable property turned in as stock were enough to ruin any company. It is a positive fact that the stock of the Jerome Company was not worth half as much, three months after Barnum came into the concern as it was before that time. Some of the stock-holders did not like to have Terry own stock, and Barnum ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... a note to his poem on "Night") that the Atlantic Ocean is called the Sea of Darkness, on account of the great irruption of water which occasioned its formation; but this is one of his positive statements relative to facts not generally known to the world, for which he considered it ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... to love is virtually to know; but to know is not virtually to love. Redemption by knowledge or by intellectual love is inferior to redemption by the will or by moral love. The former is critical and negative; the latter is life-giving, fertilising, positive. Moral ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... time he read statutes and reports with proficiency proportionate to the force of his mind, which was already such that he endeavoured to comprehend law, not as a series of precedents, or collection of positive precepts, but as a system of rational government and impartial justice. When he was nineteen, he was, by the death of his father, left more to his own direction, and probably from that time suffered law gradually to give way to poetry. At twenty-five he produced ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... being examined a singular case occurred. A hat-box was opened and found to contain Bank of England notes to the amount of 65 pounds, with two letters, which led to its being restored to its owner after having lain for more than a year. The owner had been so positive that he had left the hat-box at a hotel that he had made no inquiry for it ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... Bet was so positive in her assertion that the treasure could remain in the ground for all she cared, that no one guessed that before the month was out, not Bet alone, but all The Merriweather Girls would have no thought of anything except that treasure, and all the ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... suggested—very naturally—that the entire western wing of the building A was originally a double house,[119] terraced both towards the east and the west. In sketching the cross-sections, I have taken due notice of this very probable, if not positive, fact. ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... Barby and the boys had excavated Pirate's Field under Tony's direction. They had unearthed positive evidence that pirates had landed there. The most vital evidence was the remains of a logbook, once the log of the bark Maiden Hand, sunk by the woman pirate Anne Bonney off the island of Clipper ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... herself. Once she found her with her cheek in her hand, and, by the way the young lady averted her head and slid suddenly into distinct cheerfulness, suspected there must have been tears in her eyes, but could not be positive. Next, she noticed with satisfaction that the round of gayety, including, as it did, morning rides as well as evening dances, dissipated these little reveries and languors. She inferred that either there was nothing in them but a sort of sediment of ennui, the natural remains of a visit ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... and those glancing thirty-seconds so coyly assail us we realize the seductive charm of Chopin. The reprise is still more festooned, and it is almost a relief when the little, tender unison begins with its positive chord assertions closing the period. Then follows a fascinating, cadenced step, with lights and shades, sweet melancholy driving before it joy and being routed itself, until the annunciation of the first theme and the dying away of the dance, dancers and the solid globe ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... innovation or initiative. It does not go into the future as a creative principle which makes innovations and adds new items of consumption and new elements of cost. The principle in question is, in a certain sense, a negative rather than a positive law. It is a regulative rather than a creative principle. It very rarely initiates or originates any usage or custom directly. Its action is selective only. Conspicuous wastefulness does not directly afford ground for variation ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... sir, and well I knew at the time You were wrong, it being not the character Of the Earl—whom all the world allows to be A most hilarious man. Be not, my son, Too positive again. ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... expression throughout the whole country. All are anxious to give explanation of any acts they have performed, and conclude the narration with, "I have no guilt or blame" ("molatu"). "They have the guilt." I never could be positive whether the idea in their minds is guilt in the sight of the ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... they have felt His presence, His unity, and His personality in a manner more pointed than have the rest of mankind; and those of us who pretend to find in the Desert a mere negation, are checked by the thought that within the Desert the most positive of religions have appeared. Indeed, to deny God has been the sad privilege of very few in any society of men; and those few, if it be examined, have invariably been men in whom the power to experience was deadened, usually by luxury, ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... feature in the character of Anne of Austria was an invincible obstinacy in her calculations, to which she would fain have subjected all events and all passions with a geometrical exactitude. There is no doubt that to this positive and immovable mind we must attribute all the misfortunes of her regency. The sombre reply of Cinq-Mars; his arrest; his trial—all had been concealed from the Princesse Marie, whose first fault, it is true, had been a movement of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the players on a base-ball nine, the pitcher is the one to whom attaches the greatest importance. He is the attacking force of the nine, the positive pole of the battery, the central figure, around which the others are grouped. From the formation of the first written code of rules in 1845 down to the present time, this pre-eminence has been maintained, and though ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... change the world. But he had a keen perception of what was false, with all his superficial criticism, a perception of what is now called humbug; and it cannot be denied that, in a certain sense, he had a love of truth, but not of truth in its highest development, not of the positive, the affirmative, the real. Negation and denial suited him better, and suited the age in which he lived better; hence he was a "representative man," was an exponent of his age, and led the age. He hated the Jesuits, but chiefly because they advocated a blind authority; and he ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... refight the Civil War, and trace every effect to its efficient cause; I have simply undertaken to make good my original proposition—that President Winston is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, "a fool positive," and should, therefore, hold ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... you going to do, Evelina?" Sallie again began to question, with positive alarm in her voice, and I saw that it was time for me to produce some sort of a protector then and ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... the seemingly interminable mass of old grey stone, and then to fall upon the pleasant flowers around me. I loved silence, for nothing that fell on the ear seemed in accordance with what so charmed the eye; and thus a positive evil found entrance in the midst of much enjoyment. I acquired that habit of dreamy excursiveness into imaginary scenes, and among unreal personages, which is alike inimical to rational pursuits and opposed ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... positive that he will come, but he won't come in a carriage. Let us drink to your future health. If you kill any rich man go halves with me . . . then I shall go to America, brother. To those . . . what do you call ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... "a great legislator and administrator, as he became a great soldier, by following out his instincts. The turn of his mind always led him toward the positive. He disliked vague ideas, and hated equally the dreams of visionaries and the abstractions of idealists. He treated as nonsense everything that was not clearly and practically presented to him. He valued only those sciences which can be verified by the senses, or which rest on experience and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... is what we wish to do in the religious field. The Abbe Marinier may rest assured that that negative accord of which he spoke will amply suffice. We must strive to widen it, that it may embrace the majority of the intelligent faithful; that it may even reach the Hierarchy. He will see that positive accord will ripen in it, mysteriously, as the seed of life ripens in the decaying body of the fruit. Yes, yes, the negative accord is sufficient. The feeling that the Church of Christ is suffering is sufficient to unite us in the love of our Mother, and to move us at least to pray for ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... had been more emphatic still. 'He had no doubt of the propriety of his accepting the Great Seal, indeed was so positive that Mr. Yorke told me he would hear no reason against it.' Mrs. Yorke herself was at first opposed to the idea; but influenced by such opinions and by her husband's extreme dejection after refusing the offer, she ended ...
— Charles Philip Yorke, Fourth Earl of Hardwicke, Vice-Admiral R.N. - A Memoir • Lady Biddulph of Ledbury
... who seemed never weary of trying to perform little acts of kindness for his father's prisoner; but there was only one thing which the midshipman desired, and, as that could not be accorded, the friendly feeling between the two lads stayed where it was. In fact, it seemed to be turning into positive dislike on one side, Archy fiercely rating his gaoler over and over again, and Ram bearing it all in ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn
... discretion and good sense. She had learned that her military power could not be used with any effect across the Channel, and that under existing conditions her national interests in relation to the other European Powers were more negative than positive. Her expansive energy was concentrated on the task of building up a colonial empire in Asia and America; and in this task her comparative freedom from continental entanglements enabled her completely to vanquish France. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Then, as that leg is drawn back to its original position, the other leg is brought down in precisely the same manner, the dropping of both legs alternately in much the same way as when walking. To do this effectively, pressure must be applied to the positive stroke; that is to say, while the foot is being drawn down. The reverse movement, or straightening of the leg, must be made gently. The knees should be brought to the surface of the water each time; this is in a slow but restful ...
— Swimming Scientifically Taught - A Practical Manual for Young and Old • Frank Eugen Dalton and Louis C. Dalton
... during the time of its exposure in the camera; in which case there is no cure for it.—2ndly. A greater intensity in negatives will be produced without the nitric acid, but with an addition of more acetic acid the picture is more brown and never so agreeable as a positive. 3rd. The protonitrate of iron used pure produces a picture as delicate, and having all the brilliancy of a Daguerreotype, without its unpleasant metallic reflexion—the fine metal being deposited of a dead white; ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... other into a solution of potash. A current was immediately produced, which was transmitted from the slip of zinc in the bottle to that in the tube, and the two slips having been connected by a metallic wire the slip in the tube became the positive pole, and that in the bottle the negative pole of the apparatus. Each bottle, therefore, produced as many currents as united would be sufficient to produce all the phenomena of the electric telegraph. Such was the ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... has suffered from many great floods in past years, but none so awful in its scope and terrible consequences. The present calamity must bring the country to its sober senses and make us see the positive necessity—the inevitable MUST—of taking immediate and adequate measures to guard against the repetition of such a disaster. "Strike while the iron is hot," has been the battle-cry of men of action throughout the world! And today, while ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... "Positive? Have I eyes and ears? Have I not seen and read and heard?" This time the duke struck the desk savagely. "Why do you always rouse me in this fashion, Herbeck? You know how distasteful all ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... have said that Faustus is an allegory of 'man's inhumanity to man.' That is emphatically, in more realistic form, the distinguishing feature of Celebrated Trials. Amid these records of savagery, it is a positive relief to come across such a trial as that of poor Joseph Baretti. Baretti, it will be remembered, was brought to trial because, when some roughs set upon him in the street, he drew a dagger, which he usually carried 'to carve fruit ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... song at all, as well as I can remember, though I rather think the crowd were always more or less singing a chorus,—"clock strikes." If it did, I didn't hear it. If it did, why didn't the characters behave as sich, and on Cinderella's saying what the authors have written, and which I am positive I didn't hear, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... the Hundred Second-best Books: nay, if you will, continue until you find yourself solemnly, with a brow corrugated by responsibility, weighing the claims (say) of Velleius Paterculus, Paul and Virginia and Mr Jorrocks to admission among the Hundred Tenth-best Books. There is, in fact no positive hierarchy among the classics. You cannot appraise the worth of Charles Lamb against the worth of Casaubon: the worth of Hesiod against the worth of Madame de Sevigne: the worth of Theophile Gautier against the worth of Dante or Thomas Hobbes or Macchiavelli or Jane Austen. They all wrote with ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... us but, not having been to the northward of the Great Slave Lake, he had no knowledge of that line of country except what he had gained from the reports of Indians. He was of opinion however that positive information on which our course of proceedings might safely be determined could be procured from the Indians that frequent the north side of the lake when they came to the forts in the spring. He recommended my writing to ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... Vivacious, inconsistent, positive, decided, she can not fail to give you plenty of exercise. An attentive and caressing woman would weary you; you must be handled in a military fashion, if you are to be amused and retained. As soon as the mistress assumes the role of lover, love ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... had the map folded in his pocket with the inside surface on the outside, the ink couldn't have gotten on. Besides, Andy always carries his fountain pen in his upper vest pocket, and that pocket is too small to hold the map. No, I'm almost positive that Andy or his father have sneakingly made ...
— Tom Swift in the Caves of Ice • Victor Appleton
... did indeed seem to blaze with jewels, which not only sparkled in their hair, but fringed their white robes, and were worked round the edges of their slippers; so that a positive light shone around their persons, and fell upon the path like a halo, giving them more the appearance of lovely supernatural beings than the daughters ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... ministers who loudly advocate attendance at class-meeting as a Church-law, and yet do not observe that law themselves perhaps once a year, much less habitually, as they insist in respect to private members; and the most strenuous of such advocates pay no heed to the equally positive prohibitions and requirements of the discipline in several other respects, especially in regard to band-meetings, which were designed, as the Discipline expressly states, "to obey that command of God, 'confess your faults one to another, ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of missing special. Driver and guard of slow train positive no accident between Kenyon Junction and Barton Moss. Line quite clear, and no sign ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... grew aware of an invisible darkness, a something more terrible than aught that had yet made itself felt. A horrible Nothingness, a Negation positive infolded her; the border of its being that was yet no being, touched me, and for one ghastly instant I seemed alone with Death Absolute! It was not the absence of everything I felt, but the presence of Nothing. The princess dashed herself from the settle to the floor with ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... the house six green coats, seven dozens of large buttons, and fifteen dozens of small ones. The proof is manifest. He explains what his project was and states his motive—it is a mere pretext. He makes a sign, as an order, to his valet—there is a positive complicity. M. de Bussy, his six guests, and the valet, are arrested and transported to Macon. A trial takes place, with depositions and interrogatories, in which the truth is elicited in spite of the most adverse testimony; it is clear that M. de Bussy never intended to do more than defend himself.—But ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... somewhere as if by magic, and stood for an instant all kingly, his breast blazing with jewelled orders in the sunset. Me he regarded with the haughty defiance of a Norman prince, and screamed with rage at the puppy, all his theories upset, because he had been so positive the world was entirely his. So it was, if he'd only stopped to let me assure him that he owned all the best things in it; but he whirred and soared; and thus I realized instantly that he was a fairy in disguise. How stupid of me not to have guessed ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... charges preferred against the bandits was that of aiding the Germans by stirring up trouble on the border. Not a man confessed, but while the government was unable to prove this particular charge, it was positive that in the arrest of this desperate gang a nest of dangerous ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... Of the positive love of God and their neighbour, and the strong sense of duty that actuated them, few of the Uphill inhabitants had the least notion. It would be much to say that if these motives were always present ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mean in detail will keep till a little later, and I need only say now that I should not have spoken in this way unless I were quite positive of being able to help you. Oh, there's no doubt as to that, believe me. In the first place, I am very familiar with the workings of this extraordinary drug, this drug which has had the chance effect of opening you up to the forces of another region; and, in the second, I have a ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... The positive excellences of Aeschylus are numerous enough to make us thankful that he has survived. His style is that of the great sublime creators in art, Dante, Michaelangelo, Marlowe; it has many a "mighty line". His subjects are the Earth, ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... no positive evidence of this passage having ever been attributed, by any competent scholar, to Euripides. Indirect proof that it could not have been written by him is thus shown:—In the Antigone of Sophocles (v. 620.) the chorus ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 195, July 23, 1853 • Various
... give your articles a careful perusal, and many instances came to my knowledge of the great positive good they effected in keeping men within the Union party when the first blow of ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... she's stuck on Dick," stated a shrill, positive young voice behind them, and Mrs. Kate turned sharply upon her offspring. "They was waving hands to each other just now, through the window. I seen 'em," Buddy finished complacently. "Dick was down fixing the ...
— The Uphill Climb • B. M. Bower
... is virtually a blank, the old apart- ments having been chopped up into small modern rooms; it will have to be completely reconstructed. A worthy woman, with a military profile and that sharp, positive manner which the goodwives who show you through the chateaux of Touraine are rather apt to have, and in whose high respectability, to say nothing of the frill of her cap and the cut of her thick brown dress, my companions ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... and dirty remnant of the Montreal Weekly Globe and Family Messenger, which had providentially strayed into that far port of the Labrador. Who could dispute the works of "the invaluable discovery"? Was it not a positive cure for bruises, sprains, chilblains, cracked hands, stiffness of the joints, contraction of the muscles, numbness of the limbs, neuralgia, rheumatism, pains in the chest, warts, frost bites, sore throat, quinsy, croup, and various ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... flags along the street and heard men calling upon the people in loud, strident voices to come and buy. At other places the grateful glow of coal fires shone from half-opened doorways, and the faint but positive click of ivory chips told that games of chance were ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Bermuda, without meeting a single enemy's ship. From this he concluded that "their trade is at present infinitely more limited than people imagine."[517] In fact, however, the experience indicated that the British officials were rigorously enforcing the Convoy Law, according to the "positive directions," and warnings of penalties, issued by the Government. A convoy is doubtless a much larger object than a single ship; but vessels thus concentrated in place and in time are more apt to pass wholly unseen than the same number sailing independently, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... dancer with a common mouse, or they may have been exceptional specimens of the true dancer variety. A third possibility is suggested by Rawitz's belief in the ability of the young dancer to hear. Cyon's positive results may have been obtained with immature individuals. I am strongly inclined to believe that Cyon did observe two types of dancer, and to accept his statement that some of the mice could hear, whereas others could not. It is evident, in the light of our examination of the experimental results ...
— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... notice of the advertisement, not only as she could not be positive it related to herself, as also because she thought, if he were certain she had read it, he might resent her not answering it, as discovering a too great diffidence of his honour. She added, however, a postscript, entreating him to let her ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... and though somewhat over-wrought when we first came in, we were now fresh and vigorous. But I am bound to add that either the miles proved more numerous than we had been led to expect, or that we were in bad case for walking. I have seldom suffered more from blistered feet and positive weariness, than I did on ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... that purity might be, she had such tender, such positive traditions! Her mother had been a Christian mystic—a 'sweet woman,' meek as a dove in household life, yet capable of the fiercest ardours as a preacher and missionary, gathering rough labourers into barns and by the wayside, and dying before her time, worn out by the imperious ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thing, Carnes. Ordinarily it is considered as simply the absence of heat; and yet I have always held it to be a definite negative quantity. All through nature we observe that every force has its opposite or negative force to oppose it. We have positive and negative electrical charges, positive and negative, or north and south, magnetic poles. We have gravity and its opposite apergy, and I believe cold is ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various |
