"Unmeaning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... third, the celebrated physician sips his wine; with a fourth, the fatherly planter exchanges his saliant jokes; with a fifth, Doctor Handy the politician-who, to please his fashionable wife, a northern lady of great beauty, has just moved from the country into the city, keeps up an unmeaning conversation. In the lefthand corner, seated on an ottoman, and regarding the others as if a barrier were placed between them, are two men designated gamblers. Your Southern gentleman is, with few exceptions, a votary of the exciting vice; but he who makes it his ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
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... contribution to society. She will make the same contribution a hundred times in the same evening. No one knows that she has flattered anybody; she does not know it herself; and the world calls her an agreeable woman. But Lady Dumbello put no flattery into her customary smiles. They were cold, unmeaning, accompanied by no special glance of the eye, and seldom addressed to the individual. They were given to the room at large; and the room at large, acknowledging her great pretensions, accepted them as sufficient. But when Mr Palliser came near to her she would turn herself slightly, ever so slightly, ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
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... they examined, and all judged to be empty. The bung was removed, the cask turned over, and no liquid issued from it. The Indian then commenced his incantations, raising his keg towards the heavens, dancing and performing many unmeaning gestures; after which he presented it to the Indian chief that was present, bidding him to drink of the water which it contained; the latter drank of it, found it very good, and passed it to his neighbour; the cask was circulated, to the great satisfaction of all the Indians, who drank ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
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... shall be on the throne, who shall feed his flock in many tribulations. When these are past, the City upon the Seven Hills shall be destroyed, and the awful Judge shall judge the people.'" Then I append my moral. "I deny that the distinction is unmeaning; Is it nothing to be able to look on our Mother, to whom we owe the blessing of Christianity, with affection instead of hatred? with pity indeed, aye, and fear, but not with horror? Is it nothing to rescue her from the hard names, which interpreters of prophecy have ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
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... aggravated each other, and ran through all the stages incident to literary affectation, until they assumed their worst form, and common sense breathed its last, as the 'Orphic Sayings' came; those most unmeaning and witless effusions—we cannot say of the brain, for the smallest modicum of brains would have rendered their appearance an impossibility—but of mere intellectual inanity.' The American Euphuists, being possessed of the demon of affectation, strive to set themselves ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
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... and perhaps his face might be a shade redder. He had the jolliest face you ever saw, gentleman: something like Punch, with a handsome nose and chin; his eyes were always twinkling and sparkling with good-humour; and a smile—not one of your unmeaning wooden grins, but a real, merry, hearty, good-tempered smile—was perpetually on his countenance. He was pitched out of his gig once, and knocked, head first, against a milestone. There he lay, stunned, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
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... the Author of the Advancement of Learning assures us 'are made of the pith and heart of sciences'; and that 'no man can write who is not sound and grounded.' But then, if they are only written in 'with a goose-pen,' they pass well enough for unconscious, unmeaning, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
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... at the uneasiness of her favourite bird, answered him very kindly to this purpose:—"If the Nightingale is blest with a fine voice, you have the advantage in point of beauty and size." "Ah!" says he, "but what avails my silent, unmeaning beauty, when I am so far ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
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... The following passage occurs in one of Miss Seward's letters, vol. iii p. 246: "It is curious that Shakspeare should, in so singular a character as Cloten, have given the exact prototype of a being whom I once knew. The unmeaning frown of countenance, the shuffling gait, the burst of voice, the bustling insignificance, the fever and ague fits of valor, the froward tetchiness, the unprincipled malice, and, what is more curious, those occasional gleams of good sense amidst the floating clouds of folly which generally ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
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... up with such materials as may be found in a private house on a rainy day. A man's definite daily work is generally run with such rigid convenience of modern science that thrift, the picking up of potential helps here and there, has almost become unmeaning to him. He comes across it most (as I say) when he is playing some game within four walls; when in charades, a hearthrug will just do for a fur coat, or a tea-cozy just do for a cocked hat; when a toy theater needs timber and cardboard, and the house ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
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... an ode to Greece, commencing with 'The Isles of Greece! the Isles of Greece!' a very feeble line, as any one will see, for it contained a useless and an unmeaning repetition." ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
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... a trench with his spurs. He wished the schoolma'am would not limit herself so rigidly to that one adjective. It became unmeaning with much use, so that it left a fellow ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
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... ask my friend to introduce him to Mr. Sampson, and my friend did so. Mr. Slinkton was very happy to see me. Not too happy; there was no over-doing of the matter; happy in a thoroughly well-bred, perfectly unmeaning way. ...
— Hunted Down • Charles Dickens
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... has its name and value. But not one should be employed in a vague unmeaning manner. All the movements should be conformable to the expression required, and in harmony with one another. The steps regular, and properly varied, with a graceful suppleness in the limbs, a certain strength, address, ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
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... distressed woman to herself. She made a desperate effort for self-command. Little by little, the unmeaning look died down, and presently she sat silent and moveless, staring at the two with stormy eyes ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
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... me again, and sickened me with her unmeaning laughter. I remembered the object of my visit, and struggled for composure. Had I become a recreant so quickly? Had I not a word to say for my Master? Nothing to offer the needy creatures, perishing, perhaps, of spiritual want? Alarmed at my own apathy, and eager to throw it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
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... village, the three friends could hear many a wild whoop, now fierce and startling, now plaintive and mourning,—the one, as Nathan and Ralph said, the halloo for revenge, the other the whoop of lamentation,—at intervals chiming strangely in with unmeaning shrieks and roaring laughter, the squeaking of women and the gibbering of children, with the barking of curs, the utterance of obstreperous enjoyment, in which the whole village, brute and human, seemed equally ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
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... antagonist; and the more so, as I clearly perceive you are not inclined for peace." "At least," said I, "the war on my side shall be fair and open, and those belonging to you have not always waged it with me upon those terms." The duke merely warded off this last assertion by some unmeaning compliment, and we separated greater enemies than ever. The first person to whom I could communicate what had passed was the duc d'Aiguillon. He listened to my recital without any decided expression of his opinion; but no sooner had I concluded, than ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
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... need of neither!"—"Thank'ee, sir—thank'ee, sir." These few words, in one sense, are an epitome of England. They rang in our ears for the first five minutes after landing. Pressing forward for a livelihood, a multitude of conveniences, a choice of amusements, and a trained, but a heartless and unmeaning civility. "No; I do not want a boat." "Thank'ee, sir." You are just as much "thank'ee" if you do not employ the man as if you did. You are thanked for condescending to give an order, for declining, for listening. It is plain to see that such thanks dwell only on the lips. And yet we so easily ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
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... and untested way in which they had been formed, he called men from verbal generalisations and unproved assumptions to come down face to face with the realities of experience; that he substituted for formal reasoning, from baseless premises and unmeaning principles, a methodical system of cautious and sifting inference from wide observation and experiment; and that he thus opened the path which modern science thenceforth followed, with its amazing ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
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... the gusts of wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning Sunday tinkle. ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp
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... credit for the selection. It will be observed that it is a compound term, the latter part, "fugium" (from fuga, flight), characterizing the purpose to which my secluded nook is applied as a refuge, whither I fly from the unmeaning noise and vanity of the world; and the prefix, "con" (equivalent to cum, with), conveying the idea of its social designation. For I should be loth to have it thought that, like Charles Lamb's rat, who, ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
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... than a "slow mechanic exercise." Mere iteration, as such, is barren of spiritual power; witness the endless sayings over of Kyrie Eleison in the Oriental service-books, a species of vain repetition which a liturgical writer of high intelligence rightly characterizes as "unmeaning, if not profane."[21] Now the common popular criticism upon the Evening Prayer of the Church is that it repeats too slavishly the wording of the Morning Prayer. If this is an unjust criticism we ought not to let ourselves be troubled ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
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... not present you with the unmeaning compliments of the season, but I will send you my warmest wishes and most ardent prayers, that Fortune may never throw your subsistence to the mercy of a Knave, or set your character on the judgment of a Fool; but that, upright and erect, you may walk to an honest grave, where men of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
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... the various symptoms in plain and intelligible terms; rejecting such unmeaning appellations as syphiloidal, pseudo-syphilis, &c. as designating no particular phenomena, and therefore of no use in ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
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... one thrilling glance at this magnificent panorama, and then passed to the vestibule, where, if he had not been previously informed, he would immediately perceive that he was entering the house of no common man. In the spacious and lofty hall which opens before him, he marks no tawdry and unmeaning ornaments, but before, on the right, on the left, all around, the eye is struck and gratified with objects of science and taste, so classed and arranged as to produce their finest effect. On one side, specimens of sculpture ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
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... to her, are inimitably charming. This I have observed in general in our Author's Plays, that almost all his young Women (who are designed as good Characters) are made to behave with a Modesty and Decency peculiar to those Times, and which are of such pleasing Simplicity as seem too ignorant and unmeaning in our well taught knowing Age; so much do we despise the virtuous Plainness of ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
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... Mountain-Bees their fragrant treasure hide Murmuring; and sings the lonely Thrush conceal'd!— Then, Ceremony, in thy gilded halls, Where forc'd and frivolous the themes arise, With bow and smile unmeaning, O! how palls At thee, and thine, my sense!—how oft it sighs For leisure, wood-lanes, dells, and water-falls; And feels th' untemper'd ...
— Original sonnets on various subjects; and odes paraphrased from Horace • Anna Seward
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... No church-bell lent its Christian tone To the savage air, no social smoke Curled over woods of snow-hung oak. A solitude made more intense By dreary-voiced elements, The shrieking of the mindless wind, The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind, And on the glass the unmeaning beat Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet. Beyond the circle of our hearth No welcome sound of toil or mirth Unbound the spell, and testified Of human life and thought outside. We minded that the sharpest ear The buried brooklet could not hear, The music ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
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... the unredeemed loneliness of an October evening in this part of the polar world: the monotonous, rounded outline of the adjacent hills, as well as the flat, unmeaning valleys, were of one uniform colour, either deadly white with snow or striped with brown where too steep for the winter mantle as yet to find a holding ground. You felt pity for the shivering blade of grass, which, at your ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
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... visitor was now there for the purpose of unsaying what on his former visit he had said. There was something in the tone of the voice, something in the glance of the eye, which told the tale. Mr Quiverful knew it all at once. He maintained his self-possession, however, smiled with a slight unmeaning smile, and merely said that he was obliged to Mr Slope for the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
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... true than the relative and finite, and that they must alike be negatived before we arrive at a true absolute or a true infinite. The conceptions of the infinite and absolute as ordinarily understood are tiresome because they are unmeaning, but there is no peculiar sanctity or mystery in them. We might as well make an infinitesimal series of fractions or a perpetually recurring decimal the object of our worship. They are the widest and also the thinnest of ...
— Sophist • Plato
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... abstracted letter, which had only been misplaced and read brags, with, I trust, the like success? Be it remembered that Pistol, a braggadocio, is made up of brags and slang; and for that reason I would also read, with Hanmer, bull-baiting, instead of the unmeaning "bold-beating oaths." ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
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... gave rise to the use of Mawmet for an idol in general; whilst from the Mahommerie or place of Islamite worship the name of mummery came to be applied to idolatrous or unmeaning rituals; both very unjust etymologies. Thus of mosques in Richard Coeur ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
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... her drawing-room door as her guests were ushered in, not by the greengrocer's assistant, but by the greengrocer himself in person. And she made no quiet little curtsies, whispered no unmeaning welcomes with bated breath. No; as they arrived she seized each Littlebathian by the hand, and shook that hand vigorously. She did so to every one that came, rejoiced loudly in the coming of each, and ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
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... bodies, was a zealous advocate of astrology; and his great predecessor and master, the Prince of Astronomers, as he is called, Tycho Brahe, kept an idiot in his presence, fed him from his own table, with his own hand, and listened to his incoherent, unmeaning, and fatuous expressions as to a revelation from the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
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... might say what they would like to do they would not care to do it. The close relation between speech and action was not understood. Because the Americans themselves had long been accustomed, in their own political debates and discussions, to the use of unmeaning declamations and threats which they had no intention of executing, they reasoned that others were like them, and attributed to the menaces of these desperate and earnest outcasts no greater importance than to their own. They thought also that the ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
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... paper, "The New Sophistry", which I have written at a few vehement sittings, and have carelessly copied. If you think it worth while, will you have the kindness to send it for me to The Critical? I haven't signed it, as my unmeaning name would perhaps indispose the fellow to see much good in it. I should thank you if you would write in your own person, saying that you act for a friend; you are probably well known in those quarters. If it is accepted, time enough to claim ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
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... receive some of the lustre of a far-shining triumph. What we complain of in Napoleon Bonaparte, for instance, is not that he sought power, but that he sought it in the interests of a coarse, brutal, and essentially unmeaning personal ambition. And so of Robespierre. We need not discuss the charge that he sought to make himself master. The important thing is that his mastery could have served no great end for France; that it would have been like himself, poor, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
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... close above it. He loved to talk of interesting cases of reform and recovery, both because those things occupied his mind, and because every one loved to hear him; but the hearer who made these disclosures the occasion for unmeaning compliment, as if he fancied a craving vanity to have prompted them, soon found himself rebuked by the straightforward and plain-spoken patriarch. Precious indeed were those seasons of outpouring, when one ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
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... ought to have died in some really great cause; it was an age of gallant soldiers—an age, however, that brought out none more gallant than Berwick. Of him it might fairly be said that "his mourners were two hosts, his friends and foes." This unmeaning little war—unmeaning in the higher sense—was also the last campaign of the illustrious Prince Eugene. Eugene did all that a general could do to hold up against overwhelming odds, and but for him the victory of the French would have ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
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... degree whenever the contessa was present, but to-night it was strong and unmistakable. And after a while she became aware that other people's eyes were upon her with a new expression, that was not idle conjecture nor unmeaning curiosity. The old ladies against the wall whispered together and glanced openly in her direction, as their gray heads bobbed above ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
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... his gloves peculiarly clean and well-fitting. He has an eye as sharp as an eagle's, a slight hook to his nose, thin lips, and very white teeth; his countenance is as full of energy and fire as that of lieutenant Flat is heavy and unmeaning. ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
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... together in a strange fantastic way. As will be easily conceived, the fearlessness and stillness of those quiet creatures, on the brow of the rock, pursuing their natural occupations, contrasted with the restless and apparently unmeaning motions of the dwarf soldier, added not a little to the general effect of this place, which is that of wild singularity, and the whole was aided by a blustering wind and a gloomy sky. Coleridge joined us, and we went up to the top of ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
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... became very wild; broken sentences would pour from his lips, the foolish, unmeaning ravings of a ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
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... veritable pulsations of their hearts. And so it is in this play. The course of action, as we have seen, was partly borrowed. But there was no borrowing in the characteristic matter. The personal figures in the old tale are in themselves unmeaning and characterless. The actions ascribed to them have no ground or reason in any thing that they are: what they do, or rather seem to do,—for there is no real doing in the case,—proceeds not at all from their own natures or wills, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
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... as she said the words, and looked into the baby's fat, unmeaning face with eyes of sad import. Mrs. Clayton thought she had wounded her cousin, and stooped to kiss the slight offence away; but she fancied that Blanche almost ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
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... and the president of our committee replied, and stated ours; and among other things, observed that the word "baa," had no more meaning than a thousand other senseless cries, uttering constantly from the throats of idle, thoughtless boys; and begged Mr. Osmore to explain how such an unmeaning sound could be construed into an insult to him; that if he and his officers should cry baa! baa! baa! all day, none of the Americans would think themselves injured or affronted. As to forcibly keeping the port open, the president observed, that however offended he might ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
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... himself in his words, he began to talk hurriedly of an important order. Sidonie had disappeared after exchanging a few unmeaning words with the impassive Frantz. Madame Dobson continued her tremolos on the soft pedal, like those which accompany ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
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... introduction to this history is well delineated, and the principal figure marked with that easy, unmeaning vacancy of face, which speaks him formed by nature for a DUPE. Ignorant of the value of money, and negligent in his nature, he leaves his bag of untold gold in the reach of an old and greedy pettifogging attorney, who is making an inventory of bonds, mortgages, indentures, &c. This man, ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
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... whole year, month after month, has gone by, and you repeat the same old story. A year—an age for me—I have waited. Do you think I have been making unmeaning threats? Do you expect to abuse my patience with impunity? It has given out at last—the more so as," added he, now that he felt his anger increasing, "I ought to have settled this affair a long while ago. This is your ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
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... selection arises, and with it the whole question of values, facts being no longer equal among themselves on the score of actuality, nor in fitness for the work in hand. The trivial, the accidental, the unmeaning, are rejected, and there will be no stopping short of the end; for art, being the handmaid of truth, can employ no other than the method of all reason, wherefore idealism is to it what abstraction ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
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... September, 1781. "Mr. Hollis employed Mr. Fingo to cut a number of emblematical devices, such as the caduceus of Mercury, the wand of AEsculapius, the owl, the cap of liberty, &c.; and these devices were to adorn the backs and sometimes the sides of books. When patriotism animated a work, instead of unmeaning ornaments on the binding, he adorned it with caps of liberty. When wisdom filled the page, the owl's majestic gravity bespoke its contents. The caduceus pointed out the works of eloquence, and the wand of AEsculapius was ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
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... architecture. What I am anxious to emphasize in this criticism is the principle involved. Instead of originating or relying upon nature, they copied without intelligence. The rude brick, adobe, or rubble work, left in the rough, or plastered and whitewashed, would have been preferable to their unmeaning patches of color. In the one, there would have been rugged strength to admire; in the other there exists only ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
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... world, to remind him of what he might have been, and still may be. In the dreams of the night they come; in vague terrors of the unseen, vague feelings of guilt and shame, vague dread of the powers of nature; driving him to unmeaning ceremonies, to superstitious panics, to horrible and bloody rites—as they might drive, to-morrow, my friends, an outwardly civilized population, debauched by mere peace and plenty, entangled and imprisoned in the ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
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... to the library and proceeded to examine the treasure trove. It consisted of a long strip of thin bluish paper less than a quarter of an inch in width and containing a succession of apparently arbitrary and unmeaning characters written in ink. I reproduce a section of the strip, which should make my ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
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... seem to know. She only made her figure look more tense than ever, tucked in her round little chin, which was dimpled and unmeaning, and said: ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
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... instincts. They set themselves against each other in attitudes as well chosen and as peculiar as those of a well-trained fencer. Before the assault they often go through a singular performance, which consists in picking up bits of twigs or pebbles. These they cast into the air, an unmeaning movement which may be compared to the like meaningless though similarly graceful salute with which swordsmen preface their contests. Then, with their legs flexed so that they may be ready for the spring, and with the rather stiff feathers about the neck erected so as to serve as a shield, they creep ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
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... prophecies or their oaths nothing ensued, and even the civilities and compliments she received from Lady Jane's particular friends and acquaintance, though in a more polite style, were equally unmeaning and unproductive. Days passed without leaving a ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
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... formula satisfied everybody. In those parts the people much prefer such unmeaning self-objurgation to our legal oaths as taken in the presence of the judges and they are considered a hundred times more binding. Meanwhile numerous single hairs had seemed to detach themselves from Black Mask's long locks and now stood upright all around his head like some ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
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... for reasons best known to herself. She was by nature rather a loquacious and, so to speak, irrelevant talker. She delivered herself in a soft, unmeaning monotone, which, like "the brook," flowed "on for ever"—at least until some desperate listener interrupted her discourteously. In the present instance it was her own ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
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... woman—a woman of forty-five or so, very beautiful still, a striking face of singular refinement. Yes, there could be no doubt whatever—the eyes of the miniature bore a striking likeness to the stranger's, which now gazed at nothing with that fixed, unmeaning stare. ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
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... King, nodding a great number of times with quite unmeaning solemnity; "right, right, right. Business, as the sad glad old Persian said, is business. Be punctual. Rise early. Point the pen to the shoulder. Point the pen to the shoulder, for you know not whence you come nor why. Point the pen to ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
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... "Yes, with these unmeaning phrases you banished me. Cruel and hard-hearted were you to the last. Oh, Charlotte! you know what I suffered at our last walk, with your reasoning remonstrances and cold-hearted reproaches; they pierced my heart like poisoned arrows. If the duke and ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
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... in my eyes, after witnessing an unending stream of concave and attenuated barbarian ghosts, was the sight of these perfections of Jones Bob-Jones, that instead of the formal greeting of this Island—the unmeaning "How do you do it?"—I shook hands cordially with myself, and exclaimed affectionately in our own language, "Illimitable ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
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... complaisance I thought the canteen tack the nastiest stuff I had ever tasted The depot barrack-room in which the recruits slept until the time of their deportation echoed morning, noon, and night with unmeaning ribaldries and obscenities, and was stale with the smoke of bad tobacco and the fumes of that most indifferent beer. I learned that I was bound for Ireland, and that the head-quarters of my regiment ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
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... them—the (Greek), as it was technically termed—began at once to appear. Two are truer than three, one than two. The words 'being,' or 'unity,' or essence,' or 'good,' became sacred to them. They did not see that they had a word only, and in one sense the most unmeaning of words. They did not understand that the content of notions is in inverse proportion to their universality—the element which is the most widely diffused is also the thinnest; or, in the language of the common ...
— Timaeus • Plato
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... the German Orders was added to the other woes by which Russia was rent and torn after the death of her Grand Prince at Suzdal. To us it all seems like an unmeaning panorama of chaos and disorder. But to them it was only the vicissitudes naturally occurring in the life of a great nation. They were proud of their nationality, which had existed nearly as long as from Columbus to our own ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
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... off, that Cross of Jesus, and it really is so near! For it is lifted up so high that the waves of time roll unheeded and unmeaning at its foot. It is the power of perfection ...
— Heart's-ease • Phillips Brooks
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... perhaps common veracity, who presents himself under the to me unmeaning title of The late John Bernard, offers the following sketch of a domestic establishment, the inmates whereof, though such is not stated expressly, appear to have been of that Faith. Thereby shall ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
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... city, but it is so hopelessly confused and commonplace that its natural dignity is lost. The heavy arch which supports the clock tower forms an arcade across a narrow street and makes it picturesque without adding dignity to the church itself. The walls are unmeaning, often hidden by buildings, and there is not a portal worthy of description. There is the dome of Saint Anne's Chapel with a huge statue of the Patron, and the lantern of the central dome ending in a pointed ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
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... murder, in the year 1731. Narrating the execution of the criminal, and mentioning some papers which he had prepared, the writer says: "We will not tire the reader's patience with transcribing these prayers, in which we can see nothing more than commonplace phrases and unmeaning Guthryisms." What {621} is the meaning of this last word, and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
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... once had a pastor (don't tell it), But we chanced on a time to discover That his sermons were writ long ago, And he had preached them twice over. How sad this mistake, tho' unmeaning, Oh, it made such a desperate muss! Both deacon and laymen were vexed, And decided, ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
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... run all godly sorrow pays, There is no better thing than righteous pain, The sleepless nights, the awful thorn-crowned days, Bring sure reward to tortured soul and brain. Unmeaning joys enervate in the end, But sorrow yields a glorious dividend In the ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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... a stupefied and unmeaning eye on the messenger who uttered this calamitous news; and, repeating the words, "in the dead-thraw!" as if he could not comprehend their meaning, suffered the old man to drag him towards his horse. During the ride home, he only ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
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... Darting its blood-red form along the sky, Glowing with heaven's glorious majesty. How with its phalaxy of rays unfurl'd, It comes: its radiance circling all our mother world. The pharos of the night; where gods might dance. Heedless of mortals dull, unmeaning trance; Where spirits in their mysteries might find, A sail to float upon the yielding wind; But see, it flies, its shadow; form outspread, In fainting radiance o'er earth's startled bed, Yet rests, like ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume X, No. 280, Saturday, October 27, 1827. • Various
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... valuable of all information—that relating to the institutions, the welfare, and the happiness of man. Statistics form almost an indispensable part of every book of travels which professes to communicate information; but mere statistics are little better than unmeaning figures, if the generalizing and philosophical mind is wanting, which, from previous acquaintance with the subjects on which they bear, and the conclusions which it is of importance to deduce from them, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
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... unaccommodating highmindedness, which, in more than one collision with Royalty, has proved him but an unfit adjunct to a Court. The reply to his refusal was, "Then I must get Sheridan to say something;"—and hence, it seems, was the origin of those few dexterously unmeaning compliments, with which the latter, when the motion of Alderman Newenham was withdrawn, endeavored, without in the least degree weakening the declaration of Mr. Fox, to restore that equilibrium of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
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... the widest range of doubt, and doubles upon itself in the redundancy of superfluous demonstration. Examined in detail, this and much of the show of testimony brought up to stare the daylight of conviction out of countenance, proves to be in a great measure unmeaning and inapplicable, as might be easily shown were it necessary. Nor do I feel the necessity of enforcing the conclusion which arises spontaneously from the facts which have been enumerated, by formally citing the opinions of those grave authorities who have for the last half-century been ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
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... agree on what he wants to tell, And future ages will declare his pen Inspired by gods with messages to men. To found an ancient order those devote Their time—with ritual, regalia, goat, Blankets for tossing, chairs of little ease And all the modern inconveniences; These, saner, frown upon unmeaning rites And go to church for rational delights. So all are suited, shallow and profound, The prophets prosper and the world goes round. For me—unread in the occult, I'm fain To damn all mysteries alike as vain, Spurn the obscure and base ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
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... less," said Mrs. Atmore; "but what I wish Marianne to do most particularly, and, indeed, the chief reason why I send her to drawing-school just now, is a pattern for a set of china that we are going to have made in Canton. I was told the other day by a New York lady (who was quite tired of the queer unmeaning things which are generally put on India ware), that she had sent a pattern for a tea-set, drawn by her daughter, and that every article came out with the identical device beautifully done on the china, all in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
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... sail of the goal, the planned disguise was finally carried out upon the schooner's fair sides and rigging, her beautiful stretch of sail curtailed, and her name (final disgrace), superseded by the unmeaning title of The Pretty Jane, open murmurs broke out which it required all Curwen's severity—and if the old martinet did not execute the summary justice he had threatened he was quite equal to the occasion nevertheless—and ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
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... and devour what you have saved. The religion of the world must be built on universal prosperity, and this is only possible on a foundation of universal justice. If the web of the cloth is knotted in one place it is because the threads have, in an unmeaning tangle, been withdrawn from another part. Human misery is the correlative and equivalent of ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
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... that the world was created by the supreme intelligent being, has been perverted by modern Christians to build up a second person of their tritheism, by a mistranslation of the word Xoyog. One of its legitimate meanings, indeed, is 'a word.' But in that sense it makes an unmeaning jargon: while the other meaning, 'reason,' equally legitimate, explains rationally the eternal pre-existence of God, and his creation of, the world. Knowing how incomprehensible it was that 'a word,' the mere action ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
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... hours, and it was only with immense difficulty that I at last succeeded in making her understand what kind of person poor mamma is, and how hopeless it would be to expect her to keep any secret, even if her daughter's honour was in question. I told her how she would run about, talking in her mild unmeaning way of "poor May and that shameful Mr. Scully;" and, at last, the Rev. Mother, as you prophesied she would, saw the matter in its proper light, and she has consented to receive all my letters, and if mother writes, to give her to understand that I am safe within ...
— Muslin • George Moore
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... present language of cookery, there has been a woful departure from the simplicity of our ancestors,—such a farrago of unappropriate and unmeaning terms, many corrupted from the French, others disguised from the Italian, some misapplied from the German, while many are a disgrace to the English. What can any person suppose to be the meaning of a shoulder of lamb in epigram, unless it were a poor dish, for a pennyless poet? Aspect of fish, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
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... true religion to mankind. We lose sight of the spirit, and exalt the substance; then we forget the substance, and deify the shadow. We crucify our Saviors when they are with us; and when they are gone, we crucify them worse with our unmeaning worship and dogmas made ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
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... leetle out o' keeping," says you. "He don't use his grays enough, nor glaze down well. That shadder wants depth. General effect is good, though parts ain't. Those eyebrows are heavy enough for stucco," says you, and other unmeaning terms like these. It will pass, I tell you. Your opinion will be thought great. Them that judged the cartoons at Westminster Hall, knew plaguey little more nor that. But if this is a portrait of the lady of the house, hangin' up, or it's at all like enough ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
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... as plain as possible in Joe's hat, and there was a wild unmeaning look in his eyes. It seemed already as if the old intimacy between him and his master were at an end. His memory was more a thing of the future than the past: he recollected the mutton chops that were to come. And I verily believe it was brightened ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
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... advanced with the confidence of novelty," said the Syrian, "though all of it has been urged, and vainly urged, thousands of years ago. There must be design, or all we see would be without sense, and I do not believe in the unmeaning. As for the natural forces to which all creation is now attributed, we know they are unconscious, while consciousness is as inevitable a portion of our existence as the eye or the hand. The conscious cannot be derived from the ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
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... It is to be hoped that a grand test series of games of this character will mark the closing professional campaign of 1889, for such a series would substitute very interesting championship matches for October in the place of the unmeaning and useless exhibition games of ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick
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... the epitaphs of Pope cannot well be too severely condemned; for not only are they almost wholly destitute of those universal feelings and simple movements of mind which we have called for as indispensible, but they are little better than a tissue of false thoughts, languid and vague expressions, unmeaning antithesis, and laborious attempts at discrimination. Pope's mind had been employed chiefly in observation upon the vices and follies of men. Now, vice and folly are in contradiction with the moral principle which can never be extinguished in the mind; and therefore, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
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... the pity was great. When he had been five minutes in his cab, bowling back towards his club, he was almost minded to return and give her one more chance. She would just have suited him. And as for her,—would it not be a heaven on earth for her if she would only consent to forget that foolish, unmeaning little episode. Could Clary have forgotten the episode, and been content to care little or nothing for that easiness of feeling which made our Ralph what he was, she might, probably, have been happy as the mistress of the Priory. But she would not ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
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... others, the painted show of various orders of nobility, even now, when the rank within the prince's gift was become an additional reason for the free barbarian despising the imperial noble. That the Greek court was encumbered with unmeaning ceremonies, in order to make amends for the want of that veneration which ought to have been called forth by real worth, and the presence of actual power, was not the particular fault of that prince, but belonged to the system of the government ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
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... Pray, Mrs. B., let these old unmeaning names be entirely given up, by us at least; and let us call this salt ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
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... world had become! It was ailing as I am ailing with a growth of unmeaning things. It was entangled, feverish, confused. It was in sore need of release, and I suppose that nothing less than the violence of those bombs could have released it and made it a healthy world again. I suppose they were necessary. ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
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... lateness of the hour. It was nearly seven before the weather allowed them to start, and for the last half hour she had stood at the window quite oblivious of Captain Grant's entreaties that she would make herself comfortable, and evidently deaf to his unmeaning compliments for she answered absently, and with a manner that showed that she ...
— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
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... husbandry and economical self-denial in his pleasures? What a stock of lively recollections? It is curious that Shakspeare has ridiculed in Justice Shallow, who was "in some authority under the king," that disposition to unmeaning tautology which is the regal infirmity of later times, and which, it may be supposed, he acquired from talking to his cousin Silence, and ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
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... within one of those deep embrasures we have noticed, at times glancing towards the youthful group with an earnestness of sorrowing affection that seemed to have no measure in its depth, no shrinking in its might; at others, fixing a long, unmeaning, yet somewhat anxious gaze on the wide plain and distant ocean, which the ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
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... typical, the types were true figures of the great Antitype, which is Jesus Christ, "the Lamb of God. which taketh away the sin of the world." No view of his death can be true which makes these types empty and unmeaning. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
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... with me than the weight and depth of the subject; and forasmuch as I am apt to be sleepy in all other communication, and give but the rind of my attention, it often falls out that in such poor and pitiful discourses, mere chatter, I either make drowsy, unmeaning answers, unbecoming a child, and ridiculous, or more foolishly and rudely still, maintain an obstinate silence. I have a pensive way that withdraws me into myself, and, with that, a heavy and childish ignorance of many very ordinary things, by which two qualities I have earned ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
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... his cobbler's shop, Fox beheld with righteous indignation the extravagant and insincere courtesies of the gentlefolk, and heard their exaggerated phrases of compliment. In protest against the unmeaning courtesies, he wore his hat in the presence of no matter whom, taking it off only in time of prayer. In protest against the unmeaning compliments, he addressed no man by any artificial title, calling all his neighbors, without distinction ...
— William Penn • George Hodges
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... the door, but the "Good night" which fell from her lips was lifeless and unmeaning. Jan shivered when he went out. Under the cold stars he clenched his hands, knowing that he had come from the cabin ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
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... enraptured ear informs the mind; Bids generous love or soft compassion glow, 45 And forms a tuneful Paradise below! Oh Britons! if the honour still you boast, No longer purchase follies at such cost! No longer let unmeaning sounds invite To visionary scenes of false delight: 50 When, shame to sense! we see the hero's rage Lisp'd on the tongue, and danced along the stage! Or hear in eunuch sounds a hero squeak, While ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
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... particular forms, that the pleasure, we receive from the beauty of the human form, originates from mental character: witness the charm of the infant, innocence of the snow-drop, of the soft elegance of the hyacinth, &c. and, on the contrary, our dis-relish of the gaudy tulip, the robust, unmeaning, ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
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... remarkable than any of those I have seen, lay in a line from east to west, across the middle of the cave, on that part of the floor where the ice was thickest. The central mass was extremely solid, but somewhat unmeaning in shape, being a rough irregular pyramid; its size alone, however, was sufficient to make it very striking, the girth being 66-1/2 feet at some distance from the ice-floor with which it blended. The mass which lay to the east of this was very lovely, ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
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... into the very spot towards which this mob seemed headed—the great library pulsing with its own terror, in the shape of the yet speechless and unconscious man to whom the loudest noise and the most utter silence were yet as one, and the worst struggle of human passion a blank lost in unmeaning chaos. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
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... called Mrs. Mansfield Violet. But there had never been even a hint of genuine intimacy between the girl and the married woman, and they seldom met except in society, and then only spoke a few casual and unmeaning words. They had little in common, Charmian supposed, except their mutual knowledge of quantities of people and of a certain ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
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... Brindehow I can do as I like with it at once, whilst the governor's all there, and a better life than I am any day? Unless you want me to shoot the old man by accident when we go out on the First.' He laughed a short, unmeaning masculine laugh which jarred somewhat on her. She did not, however, mean to be diverted from her main purpose, so ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
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... at Enrica's door, Pipa, who was with her, opened it, and gave her Fra Pacifico's message. The summons was so sudden Enrica had no time to think, but a wild, unmeaning delight possessed her. It was so rare for her aunt to send for her she must be going to tell her something about Nobili. With his name upon her lips, Enrica started up from the chair on which she had been half lying, and ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
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... to simplify their language; to cast aside the unspeakable and unintelligible jargon of the past, and to use plain, good, common English, thus rendering the study of nature pleasant even to children; while many divines, by clinging to the unmeaning and mischievous phraseology of ancient dreamers, render the study of religion repulsive, and the attainment of sound Christian knowledge almost impossible to the masses of mankind. And all these things ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
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... being!—So awkwardness is a perfection in the awkward!—At this rate, no man ever can be in the wrong. But I insist upon it, that an awkward fellow will do every thing awkwardly: and, if he be like thee, will, when he has done foolishly, rack his unmeaning brain for excuses as awkward as his first fault. Respectful love is an inspirer of actions worthy of itself; and he who cannot show it, where he most means it, manifests that he is an unpolite rough creature, a perfect Belford, and has it ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
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... the new absolutism is now in clear view. The perfect must be amended to admit the imperfect. The absolute significance must be so construed as to provide for the evident facts; for the unmeaning things and changes of the natural order; for ignorance, sin, despair, and every human deficiency. The new philosophy is to solve this problem by defining a spiritual absolute, and by so construing the ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
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... them directly to Him who is Truth itself, and enabled them the better to behold His glory, that their powers are now finding ample field for their exercise, and can orb themselves around without a limit. Not therefore with sadness but with joy we can turn from beholding the dead unmeaning eye of the lifeless body, through which the noble mind once shone with mild intellectual lustre, and contemplate the same mind rising over the everlasting hills, amidst the fresh unsullied brightness of a new-born day, and advancing ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod
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... in life, was in Harold, betimes, the result of study and reflection. The few books of the classical world then within reach of the student opened to the young Saxon views of human duties and human responsibilities utterly distinct from the unmeaning ceremonials and fleshly mortifications in which even the higher theology of that day placed the elements of virtue. He smiled in scorn when some Dane, whose life had been passed in the alternate drunkenness of wine and of blood, thought he had opened the gates of heaven by bequeathing lands ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
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... rejoice at our melancholy discovery. Never was there such a waste of Faith as in that man. He is ever preaching Faith. Very well, but in what? Why, again says he, 'Faith'—that is, Faith in Faith. Objectless, purposeless, unmeaning, disappearing, and eluding all grasp when any occasion for action arises, when anything is to be done, as sufficiently appears from the miserable unpracticability of the latter chapters of the 'Chartism,' where ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
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... to what 'tis given, and then declare, Mean though I am, if it be worth my care. Is it not given to Este's unmeaning dash, To Topham's fustian, Reynold's flippant trash, To Andrews' doggerel where three wits combine, To Morton's catchword, Greathead's idiot line, And Holcroft's Shug-lane ...
— English Satires • Various
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... hobnobbed seemed a little strange. Sitting down as a level member of the dairyman's household seemed at the outset an undignified proceeding. The ideas, the modes, the surroundings, appeared retrogressive and unmeaning. But with living on there, day after day, the acute sojourner became conscious of a new aspect in the spectacle. Without any objective change whatever, variety had taken the place of monotonousness. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
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... of rival schools of philosophy has obscured the application of the same distinction to the various orders of fact more nearly and immediately relating to man and the social union. One school has maintained the virtually unmeaning doctrine that the will is free, and therefore its followers never gave any quarter to the idea that man was as proper an object of scientific scrutiny morally and historically, as they could not deny him to be anatomically and physiologically. ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
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... deposited the remains of one Who possessed beauty without vanity, Strength without insolence, Courage without ferocity, And all the virtues of man without his vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning flattery If inscribed over human ashes, Is but a just tribute to the memory of BOATSWAIN, a dog, Who was born at Newfoundland, May 1803, And died at ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
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... midst of their proper shapes, and who shine in a light of their own, will say (the Great Bell being the chief spokesman) Who is he that being of the poor doubts the right of poor men to the inheritance which Time reserves for them, and echoes an unmeaning cry against his fellows? Toby, all aghast, will tell him it is he, and why it is. Then the spirits of the bells will bear him through the air to various scenes, charged with this trust: That they show him how the poor and wretched, at ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
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... along with circumcision, or with baptism, or with the Lord's Supper. However important these may be, they have no place among the things which bind a soul to its Saviour. They may be helps to these things, but nothing more. The rite does not ensure the faith, else the antithesis of our text were unmeaning. The rite does not stand in the place of faith, or the contrast implied were absurd. But the two belong to totally different orders of things, which may co-exist indeed, but may also be found separately; the one is the indispensable spiritual experience which makes us ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
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... in the legends of the Scandinavians a marvelous record of the coming of the Comet. It has been repeated generation after generation, translated into all languages, commented on, criticised, but never understood. It has been regarded as a wild, unmeaning rhapsody of words, or as a premonition of some future ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
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... Mariana, whose partner had been reft from her, as the Queen had related, was in no mind to lose the new one she had gained. She pressed upon him from time to time the wine-flask and the fruits; and in those unmeaning courtesies her hand gently lingered upon his. At length, the hour arrived when the companions retired to the Palace, during the fiercer heats of noon—to come forth again in the declining sun, to sup by the side of the fountain, to dance, to sing, and to make merry by torchlight and the stars till ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
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... awhile Beside his bed, and let my heart have time For that worst love that stabs and breaks and kills. This I thought over to myself by rote And habit, but I could not feel my thoughts; For still that dim unmeaning happiness Kept mounting, mounting round me like a sea, And singing inward like ...
— Gloucester Moors and Other Poems • William Vaughn Moody
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... kindred extravagance. The elect of the Lord were fond of describing themselves as the most contemptible of sinners; the salt of the earth as being rottenness and corruption. It is to this habit of unmeaning self-disparagement that we are to attribute many of those phrases which have been thought in Cromwell to be studied ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
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... themselves "The Orthodox," in finding themselves in a community where others had assumed that title, and refused to them any share in it. Therefore it is well to emphasize the declaration that Orthodoxy in the sense of "right belief" is an unmeaning expression, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
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... circles; during the progress of which the most hysterical converts, or the most fully "Cochranized," would swoon upon the floor; or, in obeying their leader's instructions to "become as little children," would sometimes go through the most extraordinary and unmeaning antics. ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
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... insuperable barrier to their union. After much hesitation, she resolved to be as explicit as her own respect for the feelings of filial piety would permit. "I will own," said she, "that what fell from me in a transport of joyful surprise, was not an unmeaning exclamation, but the confession of a strong preference. But now that I have had time for reflection, I must remember that you long struggled against your partiality for me, and even now you seem ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
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... scenes in the Lake District, probably unsurpassed in Europe for its perfectly balanced beauty of form and splendour of colouring. To the general reader of those times the descriptive poems of Wordsworth were probably unmeaning rhapsodies. Our ancestors, however, were very fond of "prospects." An old atlas of the counties of England, published about 1800, came into the writer's hands recently. The whole of the gentler hills, including every ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
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... I conceive—sculptured by Dannecker. Their forms are made to intertwine very gracefully; and they are cut in a coarse, but hard and pleasingly-tinted, stone. For out-of-door figures, they are much superior to the generality of unmeaning allegorical marble statues in ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
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... nothing, but looked cowed; and, indeed, not without excuse; for though there was a nasal whine in the tone of the little General, and no great fire in his unmeaning eye, there was yet a quiet self-reliance about him extremely imposing, and which, as I thought, reached back of any temporary sufflation as tyrant of Rivas, and was based upon perennial character. Nor is it contrary, so far as I know, to the laws of psychology, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
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