"Solidity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bubbles. The whole secret of his process consisted, as he once informed me, in mixing with the soap-suds a little gum. Using a solution of soap and gum, he was able to produce bubbles of such size and solidity that they floated in the air for an almost indefinite time, like so many small balloons. In order to entertain the St. Petersburg public, Vivier would, in the most benevolent manner, take his seat at ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... harm in it, any how. Though you wouldn't believe it, I was young once myself, and don't like to be too hard upon the rising generation. There's a game I remember playing when I was a youngster, that is not too wise for you, but ought to have more solidity in it than the last, as it is all about lead. It is called the 'Lead-Merchant.' One tries in every mode to dispose of his lead to the company, asking question after question, to which you must answer without introducing the words lead, I, yes, ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... But somehow, I like Golden Butterfly best. Our machine may be a bit heavier, but solidity counts in hard service." ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... some gifts, and in fine, use every means to make himself beloved. He ought to be about thirty-five years old, and to have attained a certain solidity rarely met with before that age. He should also be noble and rich, and of a good presence, furnished with all qualities proper to a gentleman; and, above all, his life should be exemplary, without affectation or hypocrisy . . . . On the arrival of such an agent in London, speaking French ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... that our air and sea were outside the globe; the latter part, indeed, he already knew from his astronomical specialists. He was very anxious to have more detailed information of what he called this extraordinary state of affairs, for from the solidity of the earth there had always been a disposition regard it as uninhabitable. He endeavoured first to ascertain the extremes of temperature to which we earth beings were exposed, and he was deeply interested by my descriptive treatment of clouds and ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... another letter an analysis of the holy books which you are taught to respect as the oracles of heaven. I now perceive for the first time that I have perhaps made too long a dissertation; and I doubt not you have already perceived that a system built on a basis possessing so little solidity as that of the God whom his devotees raise with one hand and destroy with the other, can have no stability attached to it, and can only be regarded as a long tissue ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... reports of cases adjudged in the King's Court in Ireland,—the first reports of Irish cases made public. The preface to these reports is very highly esteemed. It has been said to vie with Coke in solidity and learning, and equal Blackstone in classical illustration and elegant language. Sir John Davis died 7th ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 66, February 1, 1851 • Various
... of a fall, and then cries for help which took me running into the dilapidated building. Daddy Ben lay on the floor, and a thick, young savage was kicking him. In some remarkable way I thought of the solidity of their heads, and before the assailant even knew that he had a witness, I sped forward, aiming my kettle-supporter, and with its sharp brass edge I dealt him a crack over his shin with astonishing accuracy. It was a dismal howl that he gave, and as he turned he got from me ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... half inches square of English gold leaf of good ordinary quality is from 1s. 3d. to 1s. 6d., whereas the cost of a book of double thick pure gold leaf is 3s. to 3s. 6d. For tooled work it is worth paying the increased price for the sake of the advantages in colour and solidity; but for lines and edges, which use up an immense amount of gold, the thinner and cheaper gold may quite well ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... was clear that the Epanchins' position gained each year, with geometrical accuracy, both as to financial solidity and social weight; and, therefore, the longer the girls waited, the better was their chance of making ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Pillar." The inhabitants write it Kambayat. The ancient city is 3 miles from the existing Cambay, and is now overgrown with jungle. It is spoken of as a flourishing place by Mas'udi, who visited it in A.D. 915. Ibn Batuta speaks of it also as a very fine city, remarkable for the elegance and solidity of its mosques, and houses built by wealthy foreign merchants. Cambeth is mentioned by Polo's contemporary Marino Sanudo, as one of the two chief Ocean Ports of India; and in the 15th century Conti calls it 14 miles in circuit. It was ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... haze, owing to the formation of solid ammonium salts in the state of line dust.] Immediately it comes in contact with atmospheric moisture phosphoric anhydride is converted into phosphoric acid, but this also occurs at first as a solid substance. The solidity and visibility of the phosphoric anhydride and acid are beneficial in preventing highly impure acetylene being unwittingly burnt in a room; but, on the other hand, being merely solids in suspension in ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield
... don't cry. A queen mustn't cry. (He rubs his arm, wondering at the reality of the smart.) Am I awake? (He strikes his hand against the Sphinx to test its solidity. It feels so real that he begins to be alarmed, and says perplexedly) Yes, I—(quite panic-stricken) no: impossible: madness, madness! (Desperately) Back to camp—to camp. (He rises to ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... the Tenth Legion, perhaps—in the general vein of Springhaven. There was scarcely a man who pretended to know much outside of his own business, and there was not a woman unable to wait (when her breath was quite gone) for sound reason. Solidity, self-respect, pure absence of frivolous humor, ennobled the race and enabled them to hold together, so that everybody not born in Springhaven might lament, but never repair, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... a nature to act as a spring. And this is easy to conceive as regards water and other transparent liquids, they being composed of detached particles. But it may seem more difficult as regards glass and other transparent and hard bodies, because their solidity does not seem to permit them to receive movement except in their whole mass at the same time. This, however, is not necessary because this solidity is not such as it appears to us, it being probable rather that these bodies are composed ...
— Treatise on Light • Christiaan Huygens
... was drawing Ireland away from the British monarchy, and towards the American Republic, maintained that by two things the "heart of Ireland" might be won, and her affections enlisted with her interests in the support of the unity, solidity, and prosperity of the British Empire. One of these two things was "perfect religious equality between the Catholics and the Protestants of Ireland." The other was that the Imperial Legislature should by statute make it impossible ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... consisted of lava, of tufa, of brick, excellently prepared, having more surface and less thickness than ours; of peperino (Sarno stone), which time renders very hard, sometimes with travertine and even marble in the ornaments; then there was Roman mortar, celebrated for its solidity, less perfect at Pompeii, however, than at Rome; and finally, the stucco surface, covering the entire city with its smooth and polished crust, like a variegated mantle. But these edifices tell us nothing ...
— The Wonders of Pompeii • Marc Monnier
... rich fibre. She paused, her breath coming and going hotly. She felt the smarting pain of a file drawn over the skin. The table was very old; for generations it had been a family treasure. As a child she had loved its polished surface and revered its massive solidity. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... grain or seed expecting that all its vegetative forces will cowork with his plans. Every energy of earth, air, water, and the far-off sun work into his plans as if they had no other end in all their being. If a man wants a house, he expects the solidity of the rock, all the adaptations of wood that has been growing for a century, expects the beauty of the fir tree, the pine, and the box to come together to beautify the place ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren
... which William Penn found growing upon the banks of the Delaware,—"Walnut," "Locust," "Sycamore." Here are long blocks of wholesale stores in the streets near the river, of Philadelphian plainness and solidity; and as we ascend, we reach the showier retail streets, all in the modern style of subdued Philadelphian elegance. It is a solid, handsome town,—the newer buildings of light-colored stone, very lofty, and well built; the streets paved with the small pebbles ground ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... had strong opinions concerning the districts of the Niger, was much at home also in Brazils, spoke with decision of affairs in the South Seas, was studious of his Parliamentary and itinerant speeches, and had the general solidity and suffusive pinkness of a healthy Briton on the central table-land of life. Catherine, aware of a tacit understanding that he was an undeniable husband for an heiress, had nothing to say against him but that he was thoroughly tiresome to her. Mr. Bult was amiably confident, and had ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... of sight and distance which determine the proper depth of bas-relief. Suppose that depth fixed; then observe what a pretty problem, or, rather, continually varying cluster of problems, will be offered to us. You might, at first, imagine that, given what we may call our scale of solidity, or scale of depth, the diminution from nature would be in regular proportion, as, for instance, if the real depth of your subject be, suppose, a foot, and the depth of your bas-relief an inch, then the parts of the real subject which were six inches round the side of it would be ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... the change came, He now wears, and for ever will wear, the body of a man. That is the dominant fact on which is built the Christian belief in a future life, and which gives to that belief all its solidity and force, and separates it from vague dreams of immortality which are but a wish tremblingly turned into a hope, or a dread shudderingly turned into an expectation. The man Christ Jesus is the pattern and realised ideal of human life on earth, the revelation of the divine life through a human life, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... semi-skyscrapers to throw it out of balance; and though the structures which surround it are of white stone, brown stone, and red brick, and of anything but homogeneous architecture, nevertheless a comparative uniformity of height, a universal solidity of construction, and a general grace about them, combine to give the Place an air of ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... meeting; they have all read the facts in the same newspapers. The orator possesses no information which his hearers have not; yet he teaches them to see the thing with his eyes. By the new placing, the circumstances acquire new solidity and worth. Every fact gains consequence by his naming it, and trifles become important. His expressions fix themselves in men's memories, and fly from mouth to mouth. His mind has some new principle of order. Where he looks, all things ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... love. In the interest of this she recalled Nettie Vollar's appearance, but was unable to discover any marked attractions. The elder had a good figure, rather full for her age, and totally different from her own square solidity. Her hair was coarse and carelessly arranged, her clothes noticeable for a love of brightness rather than care in the spending of a ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... tune. In order to strengthen the instrument, he introduced the iron tension bar. This, like nearly all of the English improvements of the piano during the first quarter of the nineteenth century, was in the direction of greater solidity, and better resisting power to the ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... character and the training of talent, and our historical judgments have as much to do with hopes of heaven as public or private conduct. Convictions that have been strained through the instances and the comparisons of modern times differ immeasurably in solidity and force from those which every new fact perturbs, and which are often little better than illusions or ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... hygienic, they seem to take up less room, and admit of a freer circulation of air; they can be painted over and freshened up when necessary, and look well with any furniture. The best patterns are formed by parallel bars and circles, those with simple lilies conveying the idea of solidity, and with the least ornamentation, being preferable always. The extension foot facilitates the arrangement of spread or valance, and if drapery is desired, beds with head posts fitted with canopy frames or "testers" are to be had. Brass beds are the ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... with it, to serve the same purpose as the hair in the mortar, the straw in the bricks and in the plaster of the old wall, and the amianthus in the earthen vessels. Thus we have the combination A B C, or fibro-cartilage. Again, the bones were once only gristle or cartilage, A B. To give them solidity they were infiltrated with stone, in the form of salts of lime, an inorganic element, so that bone would be spelt out by the letters A, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... sketch—often the satirical character sketch,—as in the introduction to "The Scarlet Letter" which scandalized the people of Salem. If he could have made a novel out of his custom-house acquaintances, he might have given us something less immaterial. He felt the lack of solidity in his own creations: the folly of constructing "the semblance of a world out of airy matter"; the "value hidden in petty incidents and ordinary characters." "A better book than I shall ever write was there," he confesses, ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... thing it really was. Bordman had called it a circular problem, but he hadn't seen its true circularity. It was actually—like all circular problems—inherently an unstable set of conditions. It began to fall apart when he saw that mere refrigeration would break its solidity. ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... suffered much from the influence of the heat and rain, and required frequent repairs. Often the tower would crumble away, and an entirely new edifice would have to be erected. The later custom of kiln-dried bricks was an improvement, and still more solidity was insured when the exterior series of brick was glazed. In the older buildings, the bricks were merely piled together, without cement. Afterwards straw was mixed with the clay, but as early as Gudea's days the bitumen, abounding in the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... most solemnly impressive trees in the world, and says that their massive trunks, clothed with a scaly texture almost like the skin of living animals and contorted with all the irregularities of age, may well have suggested those ideas of royal, almost divine, strength and solidity which the sacred writers ascribe to them.—Turn to the ninety-second psalm, Clara, ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church
... by mediaeval monks and modern Romanists, I would reckon it unworthy of notice; but it is received and uttered again as genuine at this day by grave and learned Protestant theologians of Germany, and notwithstanding the solidity and good sense which characterize his "Notes" generally, is formally reproduced in its boldest form by ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... a living proof," cried Paragot, "of the solidity rerum agrestium. Look at him! Shew me a horse of his age in Paris. The Paris horses, like Youth in the poem, grow pale and spectre thin and die of premature decay. Here, mon petit," said he giving ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... Rose From the faire forehead of an innocent loue, And makes a blister there. Makes marriage vowes As false as Dicers Oathes. Oh such a deed, As from the body of Contraction pluckes The very soule, and sweete Religion makes A rapsidie of words. Heauens face doth glow, Yea this solidity and compound masse, With tristfull visage as against the doome, Is thought-sicke ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... a new soul with unsuspected powers. It was not only the bold simplification of the drawing which showed so rich and so singular a personality; it was not only the painting, though the flesh was painted with a passionate sensuality which had in it something miraculous; it was not only the solidity, so that you felt extraordinarily the weight of the body; there was also a spirituality, troubling and new, which led the imagination along unsuspected ways, and suggested dim empty spaces, lit only by the eternal stars, where the soul, all ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... their constituent elements, amounting to little more than fifty substances, which are either the primary or the proximate bases of all existing bodies, and the marvellous transformations which these elementary principles undergo, in respect alike of form, of density, of solidity, and of magnitude, under the action of natural laws,—may serve to make it credible that there is no a priori impossibility in the assumption on which the Atomic Theory depends. Had it been the will of ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... was George Goring, the plague of his political party, the fly in the ointment of a respectable Marquis and his distinguished daughter. She had not fancied him like this. For one thing, she did not know him to be younger than his wife, and between the careworn solidity of Lady Augusta and this vivid restless personality, the five actual years of difference seemed stretched ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... extraordinary and unexpected. The king admitted him into his presence, and listened with admiration to the account which he gave of his voyage, while Columbus enjoyed the satisfaction of being able to prove the solidity of his schemes to those very persons who had with disgraceful ignorance rejected them as the projects of ...
— Peter Parley's Tales About America and Australia • Samuel Griswold Goodrich
... to loose the knot, which by this time he had applied to his teeth, answered this question in the negative, observing that the papers in his hand were the security which he proposed to give for the money. This reply converted the looks of the inquirer into a stare of infinite solidity, accompanied with the word Anan! which he pronounced in a tone of fear and astonishment. The other, alarmed at this note, cast his eyes towards the supposed lender, and was in a moment infected by his aspect. All the exultation ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... nothing more certain than that every Man would be a Wit if he could, and notwithstanding Pedants of a pretended Depth and Solidity are apt to decry the Writings of a polite Author, as Flash and Froth, they all of them shew upon Occasion that they would spare no pains to arrive at the Character of those whom they seem to despise. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... Bristol, was a self-taught artist. He also is noted for his brilliant colouring, but there is a want of solidity in his painting. He visited the Continent and travelled as far as Italy (see Plate XXIII). His landscapes were chiefly river and lake subjects. He published "The English Lake District" and "The Lake Scenery of England," illustrated with lithographs of his works. He was a ...
— Masters of Water-Colour Painting • H. M. Cundall
... separately; but their constructions are rudimentary. The characteristic of all these works is that they are manufactured with some substance to which the animal gives a determined form while it is still soft, and that in drying it preserves this form and acquires solidity. The matter most usually employed is softened and tempered earth—mortar; but there are animals who use with success more delicate bodies. Two examples will suffice to indicate the nature of these exceptions: the labours of Wasps and those ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... which would make men talk about it,—which would necessitate an expansive expenditure, reaching far and wide, doing nothing, or less than nothing, for his own personal comfort, but giving to him at once that rock-like solidity which is so necessary to our great aristocratic politicians. And his wife was, as far as he knew, all that he desired. He had not dabbled much in the fountains of Venus, though he had forgotten himself once, and sinned in coveting another man's wife. But his sin ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... was very beautiful, and, except that its ornaments were superior in solidity and good taste, differed little from a Romish church. The low altar, on which were lilies and lighted candles, was draped in blue and silver, and on the high altar, draped in crimson and cloth of gold, there was nothing but a closed shrine, an incense-burner, and ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... began on Monday, June 11, 1883. It was difficult, because we had to dig to a depth of twenty feet between houses of very doubtful solidity. First to appear, at the end of the third day, was a magnificent sphinx of black basalt, the portrait of King Amasis. It is a masterpiece of the Saitic school, perfected even in the smallest details, and still more impressive for its historical ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... minds of those that beheld him; inasmuch that Sir Lewis Stukely and the Frenchman grow very odious. This was the news a week since; but now it is blown over, and he almost forgotten.' The good Dean underrated the solidity and reasonableness of English feeling. The nation might not care to linger over creatures like Stukely and Manourie, even to execrate them. Its grief for Ralegh was a lasting sentiment. A spectator of his death declared that his Christian and truthful manner ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... tree-trunks, which had been cut to the desired height, and left rooted in the ground, while the two ends of it rested upon the end walls. The walls themselves were constructed of thick mud plaster, overlaying a foundation of laced willow branches. The whole construction was of unusual solidity, and the smoke-blackened thatch yielded two holes, Indian fashion, through which the fire smoke ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... question to the common consciousness of our race. If all men do not believe in a permanent reality—a substance which is external to themselves, a substance which offers resistance to their muscular effort, and which produces in them the sensations of solidity, extension, resistance, etc.—they believe nothing and know nothing at ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the rebel belligerents was concerted with France—France, so beloved in America, on which she had conferred the greatest benefits that one people ever conferred on another; France, which stands foremost on the continent of Europe for the solidity of her culture, as well as for the bravery and generous impulses of her sons; France, which for centuries had been moving steadily in her own way towards intellectual and political freedom. The policy regarding further colonization of America by European powers, known commonly as the doctrine ...
— Our American Holidays: Lincoln's Birthday • Various
... firm mind, which takes no more from the solidity of the female character than the solidity of marble does from its polish and lustre. She has such virtues as make us value the truly great of our own sex. She has all the winning graces that make us love even the faults we see in the weak ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of Roman greatness, which preeminently arrests attention, is military genius and strength. The Romans surpassed all the nations of antiquity in the brilliancy and solidity of their conquests. They conquered the world, and held it in subjection. For many centuries they stamped their iron heel on the necks of prostrate and suppliant kings, from the Atlantic Ocean to ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... insipidity; Twistiness, spiciness, and solidity. Hallelujah! I've got through! That is the best ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... eminence in the principal valley of a brook, (which I had been following nearly from its outlet,) when suddenly the mountains, of which I had lost sight for a time, rose up before me in sublime strength, no longer of translucent purple, but revealing, under the direct light, their rugged solidity. On my right, in the foreground, were lofty black cliffs, made darker by being seen lying in their own shadow. On my left, green hills, in varying forms, stretched almost an interminable distance, varying also in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... the Free Library and the Town Hall attract attention. The latter is nearly on the site of the old free schools, which were built by Sir John Vanbrugh with all the solidity characteristic of his style; and Leigh Hunt opined, if suffered to remain, they would probably outlast the whole of Kensington. However, no such misfortune occurred, and the only relics of them remaining are the figures of the charity children of Queen Anne's period, which now stand above ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Robert, mellow with ripe middle age and genial with the gentle buffets life had dealt them. He passed amusedly over the black-eyed, frail-bodied Mrs. Grantly, and halted on the fourth person, a portly, massive-headed man, whose gray temples belied the youthful solidity of his face. ...
— Moon-Face and Other Stories • Jack London
... the air round about; and if that were perfectly pure charcoal, which we can easily prepare, there would be no residue whatever. When we have a perfectly cleansed and purified piece of carbon, there is no ash left. The carbon burns as a solid dense body, that heat alone cannot change as to its solidity, and yet it passes away into vapour that never condenses into solid or liquid under ordinary circumstances; and what is more curious still, is the fact that the oxygen does not change in its bulk by the solution of the carbon in it. Just as the bulk is at first, so it ...
— The Chemical History Of A Candle • Michael Faraday
... be called ice, since ice implies a degree of cold, at least equal to the freezing point. Yet as water, in combining with lime, gives out more heat than in freezing, it must be in a state of still greater solidity in the lime, than it is in the form of ice; and you may have observed that it does not moisten or liquefy the lime ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... occupy. Morally, in that love of reality, and of all that is high and noble in character, which certainly marked him, he was much better than many suppose, who know only the strength of his animosities and the bitterness of his sarcasm. Intellectually, in reach, and fulness, and solidity of mental power, it may be doubted whether he was so great as it has recently been the ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... in another world, another order of poetry altogether; here is rightly due such supreme praise as that which M. Vitet gives to the Chanson de Roland. If our words are to have any meaning, if our judgments are to have any solidity, we must not heap that supreme praise upon poetry ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... the press, liberty of the subject, supervision of the taxes, inspection of the receipts and expenses, the safety-lock upon the public money-box, the right of knowing what is being done with your money, the solidity of credit, liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, protection of property, the guarantee against confiscation and spoliation, the safeguard of the individual, the counterpoise to arbitrary power, the dignity of the nation, the glory of France, the steadfast morals of free nations, movement, ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... to a rising ground more definitely marked by sarcophagi hewn from the solid rock, and covered by lids of such weight and solidity that a number of them had never been disturbed. Doubtless the dead within were lying as they had been left—but when, and by whom? What disclosures there will be when at last the end is ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... heat; the platform or floor of this kiln is raised about four or five feet above the top of the flue, and is made of three quarter inch boards, tongued and grooved, supported by joists two inches broad, and nine inches deep, placed at proportioned distances, to give solidity to the floor. The floor or platform of this kiln should be carefully laid, and well nailed; in this floor should be placed a wooden chimney, nine inches square, on the most convenient part of the inside next the wall, with ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... bodies, and of their solidity, and of their figure, and of their motions, is taken for granted in my account of ideas; because the ideas themselves are believed to consist of motions or configurations of solid fibres; and the question now proposed ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... converging lines to the fixation of the high point in the picture—the small area occupied by the Madonna and Child—and by the subordination of the free play of other elements. The contrast between the broad base and the apex gives a feeling of solidity, of repose; and it seems not unreasonable to suppose that the tendency to rest the eyes above the center of the picture directly induces the associated mood of reverence or worship. Thus the pyramidal form serves two ends; primarily that of giving unity; ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... and women are not paint and powder, corset-laced and fragile creatures, like your delicate, more ornamental than useful young ladies of the city; no, no, the gals of Frogtown were real flesh and blood; Venuses and Dianas of solidity and substance; and it would have taken several better men than Uncle Josh to have got away from them. It was a cool, moon-shiny night, but to better favor the women, just as old Josh got near his gate, a large, black cloud obscured the moon, and all was as dark as a stack of ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... the great towers, and found them deserted. Titus stood amazed at their strength and solidity; and exclaimed that God, indeed, was on their side for that by man, alone, these impregnable towers ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... measurable manifestations. So judging, what a contrast between the emotional and intellectual worlds of West and East! Far less striking that between the frail wooden streets of the Japanese capital and the tremendous solidity of a thoroughfare in Paris or London. When one compares the utterances which West and East have given to their dreams, their aspirations, their sensations,—a Gothic cathedral with a Shinto temple, an opera ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... age is made to appear more golden than it really was by the mists of time; but undoubtedly the old actors possessed a mellowness, a solidity, a sort of high tradition now almost unknown. These qualities were due in part, perhaps, to the long and arduous stock company training, where, in the old days, every actor must serve his apprenticeship, and in part ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... look for superior proofs of wisdom, talent, and patriotism. Lord Chatham said that, for himself, he must declare that he had studied and admired the free states of antiquity, the master states of the world, but that, for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, no body of men could stand in preference to this congress. It is hardly inferior praise to say that no production of that great man himself can be pronounced superior to several of ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... we must find some working hypothesis upon which a fair adjustment may be made in the practical life of the present moment. This working hypothesis must also serve—and perhaps that is after all its main function—as something to guide us, something having solidity upon which we can stand, in performing our ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... girls of fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, some young women from eighteen (as it appeared to me) up to twenty; the most modest attire, the simplest fashion of wearing the hair, were apparent in all; and good features, ruddy, blooming complexions, large and brilliant eyes, forms full, even to solidity, seemed to abound. I did not bear the first view like a stoic; I was dazzled, my eyes fell, and in a voice somewhat too low ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... frenzy known over the Continent as the "boom of '81," and holding on with abundant courage and invincible hope, had gathered to itself what of strength it could, until by 1884 it had come to assume an appearance of enduring solidity. Hitherto accessible from the world by the river and the railroad from the south, in this year the city began to cast eager eyes eastward, and to listen for the rumble of the first trans-continental train, which was to bind the Provinces of Canada into a Dominion, and make Winnipeg into one of ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... with dyes to rival Tyrian purple; printing and binding by hand books that surpass the best of the Aldine, and Elzevirs; carving in old oak; hammering brass; forging locks, irons, and candlesticks; becoming artists in burned wood and leather; seeking old effects of simplicity and solidity in furniture and decoration, as well as architecture, stained glass, and to some extent in dress and manners; and all this toil and moil was ad majorem gloriam hominis [To the greater glory of man] in a new socialistic ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... little cross-ripple, or still more like that felt by a person skating over thin ice, which bends under the weight of his body. A bad earthquake at once destroys our oldest associations: the earth, the very emblem of solidity, has moved beneath our feet like a thin crust over a fluid; — one second of time has created in the mind a strange idea of insecurity, which hours of reflection would not have produced. In the forest, as a breeze moved the trees, I felt only the earth tremble, but saw no other effect. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... somnolency in which it has for some years lain prostrate. But, strongly impressed with a conviction of the importance of the subject, and fully alive to the difficulty of treating it, the writer cannot help being crossed by fears for the success of this attempt. Relying, however, upon the solidity of the foundation upon which his subject rests, and surveying the vast store of accumulated materials which have, for more than thirty years, been constantly passing through his hands, and the facts which are now strewn before him in whatever society he may be placed, he would fain ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... blocks of granite or marble which the artisan piles, one on the other, and the result of which, though it may represent a poor style of architecture, is still a rude specimen of a Gothic edifice. The artist and artificer are both observable in Webster's work; but the reality and solidity of the construction cannot be questioned. At the present time, an educated reader would be specially interested in the mental processes by which Webster thus succeeded in giving objective existence and validity to the operations of his mind, and, whether ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... seen in almost every old manorial garden. Although pigeons are seldom kept in it, the structure has been preserved because of its usefulness for various purposes and the solidity of its masonry. In some of them is to be seen the old spiral ladder or staircase winding like a serpent round the interior wall from the ground to the domed or pointed roof. By means of this ladder the pigeons could be easily taken from their nests as they were wanted. ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... elementary passions and dramatic situations of which the British public never wearies. The American does not clamour for telling "curtains," if the character-drawing be keen, the conversations fresh, sparkling, and humorous. John Bull likes vividness and solidity of impasto; Jonathan's eye is often more pleasantly affected by a delicate gradation of half-tones. The one desires the downright, the concrete, the real; the other is titillated by the subtle, the allusive, the half-spoken. The antithesis is between ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... and roads became, the greater the inducement to have an electric carriage. The work of opening up the country far and near, by straightening and improving existing roads, and laying out new ones that combine the solidity of the Appian Way with the smoothness of modern asphalt, was largely done by convicts, working under the direction of State and Government engineers. Every State contained a horde of these unprofitable boarders, who, as they formerly worked, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... the solution of this problem (lines 1-3) is given in lines 4-6, No. 232. Objects seen with both eyes appear solid since they are seen from two distinct points of sight separated by the distance between the eyes, but this solidity cannot be represented in a flat ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... power, but our compound plate then becomes virtually an all-steel one, only differing in process of manufacture. The greatest faults of the compound plate are the imperfect welding of the parts and the lack of solidity of the iron. When fired at, the surface ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various
... and bronze figures, in these three courts, would be endless; but they strike you with a powerful degree of admiration—and a survey of every thing about you, is a convincing proof that you have entered a country where they shrink not from solidity and vastness in their architectural achievements: while the lighter, or ornamental parts, are not less distinguished by the grace of their design and the vigour of their execution. Will you believe it—I have not visited, nor shall I have an opportunity of visiting, the Interior? An ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and though just now they betrayed some anxiety, his eyes were genial and honest, and his mouth sensitive. In height he must have measured six foot two inches, yet he did not strike the observer as being tall, perhaps because of his width of chest and the solidity of his limbs, that were in curious contrast to the delicate and almost womanish hands and feet which so often mark the Zulu of noble blood. In short the man was what he seemed to be, a savage gentleman of birth, ...
— Black Heart and White Heart • H. Rider Haggard
... their life—abundant leisure, elegant display, exuberant merrymaking. Just such a life, by all the rules, as would produce a useless race devoid of any solidity of mind or of character. Just such a life as in fact produced a race of high-minded, intelligent, and capable men; a race that gave us Washington, Jefferson, Henry, Madison, Marshall, Monroe, and the scarcely lesser names on down the long list of ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... ancient still however; it was built by the kings; and by the solidity of its walls, and depth of its dungeon, seems built for eternity. Was it not this place to which Juvenal ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... understand why you should be in my dream, as I had almost always dreamed true—that is, about things that had been in my life—not about things that might be; nor could I account for the solidity of your hand, nor understand why you didn't fade away when I took it, and blur the dream. It was a most perplexing mystery that troubled many hours of both my waking and sleeping life. Then came that meeting with you at Cray, and part of the mystery was accounted for, ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... was of a size and solidity unknown on the mainland; they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in their hands, for it had no root. Stranger still, smoke began at once to ascend. The pirates looked at each other. 'A chimney!' ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie
... But at length he noted that the tail had slipped a little way out, and was loose; and experimenting with it, by and by discovered that by holding the parts together, and winding the tail round and round, the horse—how, he could not tell—was restored to its former apparent solidity. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... have been interested in such a vain, shallow creature as Mrs. Grobb had proved herself, and he excused himself on the ground that he had idealized her into something that she was not. All that Annie said and did had the solidity of truth, and not the hollowness of affectation. And yet there was one thing that troubled him. While her effort to help him out of his morbid, unhappy state was so sincere, she showed no special personal interest in himself, such as he had in her. If he should now go ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... that suit the Three-horned Osmia, who is not particular, it seems to me, and will make shift with any hiding-place, so long as it has the requisite conditions of diameter, solidity, sanitation and kindly darkness. The most original dwellings that I know her to occupy are disused Snail-shells, especially the house of the Common Snail (Helix aspersa). Let us go to the slope of the hills ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... on the death of his father in 1698, he showed, however, some capacity for improvement, under the influence of the new responsibility imposed upon him by his station. His private life did not amend, but his public conduct acquired a certain solidity and consistency which was not to have been expected from his previous mode of living. One of his merits was not likely to be by any means a merit in the eyes of the English people. He was, to do him justice, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... such facts the highest that can be known; they put therefore the highest word they know to the highest thing they know, and call the facts of nature truths; but to me it seems that, however high you come in your generalization, however wide you make your law—-including, for instance, all solidity under the law of freezing—you have not risen higher than the statement that such and such is an invariable fact. Call it a law if you will—a law of nature if you choose—that it always is so, but not ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... from the television set that was illuminating the interior of the shell, lighting it with a strange radiance that seemed to extend outward from the shell in a steadily widening cone. His hand touched this cone, and it possessed a curious solidity. ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... almost at full length; to which we may add, the disagreeable effect which would proceed from the body and arm making a right angle." He conjectures that Carlo Maratti, in his love for drapery, must have influenced the sculptors of the Apostles in the church of St John Lateran. "The weight and solidity of stone was not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... medium in which they were paid was less valuable; it was not possible that the small part of society which may be called the sober and reasoning part, should not be so struck with the sudden fortunes and extravagant enthusiasm which prevailed, as not to doubt of the solidity of a system, unphilosophical in itself, and which, after all, had to depend on the profits of a commercial company, the good faith of the regent, and the skill of Law; it was impossible, on these and other accounts, but that gold and ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... Arts we had a long conversation on the subject. I observed that it would be much better to build the bridge of stone. "The first object of monuments of this kind," said I, "is public utility. They require solidity of appearance, and their principal merit is duration. I cannot conceive, General, why, in a country where there is abundance of fine stone of every quality, the use of iron should be preferred."—"Write," ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... may give you a good opportunity of conferring with one of that class as much as you please. I obey at the same time my own wishes to oblige the writer. Mazzei is at this time ill, but not in danger. I am impatient to receive further letters from you, which may assure me of the solidity of your recovery, being, with great anxiety for your health and happiness, Dear Sir, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... to set down, in orderly fashion, the list of the gem's attributes. I grouped together the fluctuating nature of its pale blue colour, its power of reproducing those who had gone into the Blind Spot, its combination of perfect solidity with extreme lightness; its quality of coldness to the touch of a male, and warmth to that of a female; and finally its ability to induct—I think this is the right term—to induct sounds out of the unknown. This last quality might be called spasmodic or ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... that lying is the vice of slaves; but the ethics of West Indian would-be mastership assert, on its behalf, that they alone should enjoy the privilege of resorting to misrepresentation to give colour, if not solidity, to ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... "Dear, dear, and there's nothing young things want like generous living. Well, it's grievous. When I think of the quarts of milk I used to put into you, Bee, and the pounds and pounds of the best beef jelly—jelly that you could fling over the house, for thickness and solidity, and the fowls I had boiled down for you after the measles—who's that coming down the street, Bee? Look, my love, I'm a bit short-sighted. Oh, it's Miss Peters, of course. How are you, Miss Peters? ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... described as tall, pale, and sad-eyed,—a moonlight style of person, wanting in all those elements of warm color and physical solidity which give the impression of a real vital human existence. The strongest affection she had ever known had been that which had been excited by the childish beauty and graces of Agnes, and she folded her in her arms and kissed her forehead with a warmth that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... themselves in shifting yet recognizable reality. If this miserable affair should be successfully hushed up, there was yet one must know it: she must immediately acquaint lord Gartley with what had taken place! And therewith one of the shapes in the mist settled into solidity: if the love between them had been of an ideal character, would she have had a moment's anxiety as to how her lover would receive the painful news? But therewith her own mind was made up: if he but hesitated, that would be enough! Nothing could make her marry a man ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... from a state of solidity to that of fluidity, it absorbs a quantity of heat, which becomes chemically combined with it, and insensible to the touch or the thermometer; in the same manner, when it passes from a fluid state to that of vapour or gas, it combines with a still larger quantity ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... themselves confronting a pair of enormous bronze doors which completely filled the gateway, and which swung slowly open, apparently by some mechanical means, to admit them. Passing through the gateway, and noting, as they went, the extraordinary strength and solidity of the doors, they found themselves in a kind of tunnel, or passage, some twenty feet long, in the structure of the gateway, with a sunlit vista of a paved street, bordered on either hand by lofty shade trees, with houses behind them, and thronged with people. Another ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... square, in which were placed the College of Sages and all the public offices; a magnificent fountain of the luminous fluid which I call naptha (I am ignorant of its real nature) in the centre. All these public edifices have a uniform character of massiveness and solidity. They reminded me of the architectural pictures of Martin. Along the upper stories of each ran a balcony, or rather a terraced garden, supported by columns, filled with flowering plants, and tenanted by many kinds of ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... was superseded by Bessas, and the siege of Petra was recommenced. The strength of the place had been considerably increased since the former attack upon it. A new wall of great height and solidity had been built upon a framework of wood in the place which Dagisthaeus had so nearly breached; the Roman mines had been filled up with gravel; arms, offensive and defensive, had been collected in extraordinary abundance; a stock of flour and of salted meat had been laid in sufficient to support ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... upon the pretensions of authors had been based on anything more fundamental than a personal irritation due to having met blatant camp-followers of the arts. And it is certain that one of his reactions as he surveyed the abject respectability of that room was a slight awe of the solidity of social position which it represented, and which he consciously lacked. But, whether from artistic instinct or from ignorance, he was sure that into the room ought to blow a sudden great wind, with the scent of forest and snow. He shook his head when the maid ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... front with her than usual? It was that now first she was face to face with reality. Until this moment her life had been an affair of unrealities. Her selfishness had thinned, as it were vaporized, every reality that approached her. Solidity is not enough to teach some natures reality; they must hurt themselves against the solid ere they realize its solidity. Small reality, small positivity of existence has water to a dreaming soul, half ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... gone, the Minister showed us several curiosities in his possession, and amongst them a beautiful Spanish dagger. The steel was so hard, that, a Danish copper coin, about the size and solidity of an English penny, was placed horizontally on a marble slab, and the Spanish Minister, with one blow, pierced the piece of money with the dagger's point without blunting ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... his note-book. The lecturer was saying something about Tennyson's solidity and fifty heads were bent to take notes. Amory turned over to a fresh page and began ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... powers of elocution to escape being set to work. But the hypothesis was entirely imaginary; David Gellatley was in good earnest the half-crazed simpleton which he appeared, and was incapable of any constant and steady exertion. He had just so much solidity as kept on the windy side of insanity, so much wild wit as saved him from the imputation of idiocy, some dexterity in field-sports (in which we have known as great fools excel), great kindness and humanity in the treatment of animals entrusted to him, warm affections, a prodigious ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... a thing requiring the notes of seven German metaphysicians. I must go and talk a little to my friends the trees, and see if I can get any explanation from them. It is turning out a beautiful day after all, notwithstanding my praise of its solidity. ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... It was still echoing through the house when she entered her room. As it died away it seemed to sound hollow and veiled, when the texture of sunny, transparent solidity in his laugh was its ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... The stone was creamy white, with touches of soft pink and gray. Cornices and pillars broke the long, straight front, and there were towers at the ends. Carrie knew nothing about architecture, but she got a hint of strength and solidity. Somehow, she felt relieved; Mordaunt and Mrs. Halliday would not have built such a house. On the whole, she distrusted them, but it looked as if the head of the family ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... solidity of character, but Flora and Madame were essentially fluid. They never let themselves clash with any one, and their private rufflings of each other had only a happy effect of aerating their depths, and left them as mirror-smooth and thoroughly ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... If we suppose the agglomeration of a nebulous mass to be a process attended by refrigeration or cooling, which many facts render likely, we can easily understand why the outer parts, hardening under this process, might, by virtue of the greater solidity thence acquired, begin to present some resistance to the attractive force. As the solidification proceeded, this resistance would become greater, though there would still be a tendency to adhere. Meanwhile, ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... perseverance and durability that they frequently rise to the height of ten or twelve feet from the ground, with a corresponding diameter. They are so firm in their texture that the weight of a horse makes no apparent indentation on their solidity; and even the intense rains of the monsoon, which no cement or mortar can long resist, fail to penetrate the surface or substance ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... satisfaction to infer the great extent and solidity of the public resources from the prosperous state of the finances, notwithstanding the unexampled embarrassments which have attended commerce. When you reflect on the conspicuous examples of patriotism ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... cheap chairs before cheap tables and eat cheap food. They have given their lives for cheap things. The poorest peasant of one of the old countries is surrounded by more beauty. His very equipment for living has more solidity. ...
— Marching Men • Sherwood Anderson
... were erected, and protected the workmen and the work by their fire, a pier was built out into the stream from both banks, for which purpose the masts of the largest vessels were employed; by a skilful arrangement of the timbers they contrived to give the whole such solidity that, as the result proved, it was able to resist the violent pressure of the ice. These timbers, which rested firmly and securely on the bottom of the river, and projected a considerable height above it, being covered with planks, afforded ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... through, when he laid the corner-stones of two habitations; one on the Peak, which was his private property, standing on his estate; and the other on the Reef, which was strictly intended to be a Government, or Colony House. The first was of brick, and the last of stone, and of great solidity, being intended as a sort of fortress. The private dwelling was only a story and a half high, but large on the ground for that region, measuring sixty feet square. The. government building was much larger, measuring two hundred feet in length, by sixty feet in depth. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... strangely loud, is the only sound in the street.... Suddenly an odd feeling comes to me, with a sort of tingling shock,—a feeling, or suspicion, of universal illusion. The pavement, the bulks of hewn stone, the iron rails, and all things visible, are dreams! Light, color, form, weight, solidity—all sensed existences—are but phantoms of being, manifestations only of one infinite ghostliness for which the language of man ...
— The Romance of the Milky Way - And Other Studies & Stories • Lafcadio Hearn
... floating without form through limitless space, drifting as mere nebulous matter among the older creations of God. However this may be, it is regarded as quite certain, that time was when ft was entirely void of solidity, void of dry land, with no continent, island, or solid ground, with no living thing within its circumference. It was thus passing through one of the remote eras of its existence. It was then young, just emerging, as it were, from nothingness, growing into form, assuming shape, and gathering attributes ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond |
