"Variable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wrangling any more, I should 'bout ship and settle the difference with them in a less ceremonious manner in the harbour. This effectually stopped their tongues, and we again proceeded on the journey. After two entire days' sailing across the Gulf with variable and gentle breezes, we arrived at our destination, Kurrum, in safety, on the third evening, the 24th March, and at once sent some Government letters to the Akils, ordering their attendance, and to proclaim publicly the nature ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Here the variable character of humour is recognised, but it is not to be supposed that Rosalind's arguments were intended to be strictly correct. Very much must depend upon the form in which a jest is produced, and without the tongue of ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of air now required all the attention of Paul, for they again became variable, and at last the wind drew directly ahead in a continued current for half an hour. As soon as this change was felt, the sails were trimmed to it, and the boat began to stir the ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... has yielded itself to me, the nineteenth seeker after the truth in one direct line. One slight detail alone baffles me. So far as I have gone at present, the constituent parts, containing always the same elements and producing, therefore, the same effect, appear in variable dimensions or potencies, for reasons which at present elude me. Of my formula there is no longer any doubt. This substance which I have produced shall purify and make holy ...
— The Double Life Of Mr. Alfred Burton • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is ever tending to increase and to appear where it is absent," as Dr. Wallace believes, then we ought to find it varying in the direction of greater brightness in some species in a family so numerous and variable as the Dendrocolaptidae, however feeble and in need of a protective colouring these birds may be in a majority of pases. And this in effect we do find. In many of the dark-plumaged species that live in perpetual shade some ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... perhaps ever unanswerable question—How they exist and grow at all? By what miracle they are compacted out of light, air, and water, each after its kind? How, again, those kinds began to be, and what they were like at first? Whether those crowded, struggling, competing shapes are stable or variable? Whether or not they are varying still? Whether even now, as we sit here, the great God may not be creating, slowly but surely, new forms of beauty round us? Why not? If He chose to do it, could He not do it? And even had you answered that ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... least of the reasons militating against complete success was the short time possible for psychoanalytic treatment. The patient was seen only three weeks. As the time needed for a psychoanalysis is variable depending on the particular patient, it is clear that this would be too short a time to enable a young girl, only recently here from Russia, to understand, or to overcome resistances. That the treatment was as nearly successful as it was is perhaps encouraging to the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... Woman! in our hours of ease, Uncertain, coy, and hard to please, And variable as the shade By the light quivering aspen made; When pain and anguish wring the brow, A ministering angel thou! Scarce were the piteous accents said, When, with the baron's casque, the maid To the nigh streamlet ran: ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... Cats," says that "Mme. Ronner excels all other cat painters, living or dead. She not only infuses a wonderful degree of life into her little figures, but reproduces the shades of expression, shifting and variable as the sands of the sea, as no other artist of the brush has done. Asleep or awake, her cats look to the" felinarian "like cats with whom he or she is familiar. Curiosity, drowsiness, indifference, alertness, love, hate, anxiety, temper, innocence, cunning, ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... coursed masses of precipice, but it is somewhat curious that the most noble cliff in Europe, which this eastern front of the Cervin is, I believe, without dispute, should be to us an example of the utmost possible stability of precipitousness attained with materials of imperfect and variable character; and, what is more, there are very few cliffs which do not display alternations between compact and friable conditions of their material, marked in their contours by bevelled slopes when the bricks are soft, and vertical steps when they ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... will still be ours, and memory, the Janus-headed, will still pursue us, calling to our minds the enacted evil and that good which, having been, must always be. For we are immortal, and though we put off the mortal dress —yes, though our forms become as variable as the clouds, and assume proportions of which we cannot dream—yet shall memory companion us and identity remain. For we are each fashioned apart for ever, and built about with such an iron wall of individual life that all the force of time and change cannot ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... blocked the way, extending a considerable distance along the creek, and leading sheer to the water from a variable height of forty to ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... domestic machinery running smoothly. It was astonishing what a peculiar and uncomfortable state of things was produced by the 'resting and reveling' process. The days kept getting longer and longer, the weather was unusually variable and so were tempers; an unsettled feeling possessed everyone, and Satan found plenty of mischief for the idle hands to do. As the height of luxury, Meg put out some of her sewing, and then found time hang so heavily, that she fell to snipping and spoiling ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... was thinking of himself when he thus criticised the character of Sir Roger de Coverley. 'The variable weather of the mind, the flying vapours of incipient madness, which from time to time cloud reason without eclipsing it, it requires so much nicety to exhibit that Addison seems to have been deterred from prosecuting his own design.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... there is a wretched small silver coin called Dama, of which the value in exchange is variable; but commonly 136 Damas are ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... production for the very good reason that it is only with respect to them that any clear and certain laws as to distribution can be laid down. Into the distribution between individuals and classes there enter other and variable factors, governed by no fundamental economic law; and here, the conclusion should at once suggest itself, is the field for action designed to alter the distribution of wealth. What is possible or desirable in this field, it is again not the purpose ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... contained is variable," said Challenger, "depending upon the pressure and care with which it has been bottled. I am inclined to agree with you, Roxton, that this ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... counted as two. Usage is not altogether consistent in this particular; the same combination is in some words pronounced as two syllables (ni-ais, li-en, pri-re, pri-ons, jou-et), in others as one (biais, rien, bar-rire, ai-mions, fou-et); and even the same word is sometimes variable (ancien, hier, duel). In general such combinations are monosyllabic if they have developed from a single vowel in the Latin ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... the milk is still in a state of colostrum, the fluid contains a variable quantity of albumen coagulable by heat, much less caseine, and an ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... (during twilight) with light, variable, westerly breezes. All around hangs a heavy curtain of haze, and, although very light snow is falling, overhead is black and clear with stars shining. As soon as the faint noon light fades away the ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... est. That mysterious independent variable of political calculation, Public Opinion—which some whisper is, in the present case, very much the same thing as publican's opinion—has willed otherwise. The Heads may return to their wonted slumbers—at any rate for ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... Kantian viewpoint amounts to is an exaltation of conscience-a much more concrete (and variable) thing than this abstract formula. Do your duty, at any cost! Our hearts respond to such preaching, but our intellects remain perplexed, if the practical apotheosis of goodness is not supplemented by an ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... any one within to have shot them dead. This observed, the light was cautiously removed, and everybody took care to keep out of its reflection. By this time the crisis of the position was at hand, the cavalry exhibited very variable inclinations, some to run away, others to shoot Booth without a summons, but all excited and fitfully silent. At the house near by the female folks were seen collected in the doorway, and the necessities of the case provoked prompt conclusions. The boy was placed at a remote ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... easy flexibility. The third, of brass, was that of Jupiter, emblem of his solidity and dry nature. The fourth, of iron, was that of Mercury, expressing his indefatigable activity and sagacity. The fifth, of copper, was that of Mars, expressive of his inequalities and variable nature. The sixth, of silver, was that of the Moon: and the seventh, of gold, that of the Sun. This order is not the real order of these Planets; but a mysterious one, like that of the days of the Week consecrated to them, commencing with Saturday, and retrograding ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... been doing that for millions of years. The shock of their meeting has transformed their motion into light and heat. They have united to form a single sun and a nebula, which will some day condense into a system of planets like ours. To-night the astronomers on Earth will discover a new star—a variable star as they'll call it—for it will grow dimmer as it moves away from our system. ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... those ancient histories which have been preserved and yet remain among us; and withal of so many tragical poets, as in the persons of powerful princes and other mighty men have complained against {13} infidelity, time, destiny, and most of all against the variable success of worldly things and instability of fortune. To these undertakings these great lords of the world have been stirred up, rather by the desire of fame, which plougheth up the air and soweth in the wind, than by the affection of bearing ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... be well knowen Of you thre specially, and of duetie Great payne and busines as for mine owne For you I haue taken because I loue you hartely To maintaine you is all my desyre and faculty yet hard it is to doo, the people be so variable And many be so wilfull, they will not ...
— The Interlude of Wealth and Health • Anonymous
... the district there are parts where wells can be profitably worked. Belts of uneven sandy land are found especially in the west and south. The dry cultivation is most precarious, for the rainfall is extremely variable. In the old district it averages 20 inches. But averages in a tract like Rohtak mean very little. The chief crops are the two millets ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... words were found in variable forms in the original text and both versions have been retained: armchair/arm-chair; byword/by-word; ...
— The Scarlet Feather • Houghton Townley
... The Madonna-like purity of her face might have been inspired by the Sanctus in Gounod's Mass. But I was always glad when she changed that mood for what we called her "April Manoeuvres." She was often as variable as an April day. In the morning grave, dignified and sweet, at noon laughing, capricious, at evening whatever one least expected. I preferred her so rather than in that Madonna-like tranquillity which stirred the depths of my ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... brotherhood. Science has given us the steamship,—it has destroyed the sailor. The age of discovery is closing with this century. Up to the limits of the ice-fields, every shore is mapped out, every shoal sounded. Not only does Science give the fixed, but she is even transferring to her charts the variable features of the deep,—the sliding current, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... of the Jew to his environment has been at once his strength and his weakness. His strength, in that it provided a variable cloak to shelter him in storm on the one hand,—on the other, to deck him seasonably, as it were, for the onward journey, when days were fair; his weakness, in that it has often led him to forget that the cloak was but raiment;—"and is not the body more than raiment?" ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... his ministers tried to grapple with the altered circumstances, and strove to substitute and equitable Crown rent or money payment for the existing and variable claims which were collected by the Court of Ward and Livery. The knight's fee then consisted of twelve plough-lands, a more modern name for "a hide of land." The class burdened with knight's service, ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... simple cavity; it is filled with a soft cellular or spongy substance in which the ink is diffused. This has no relation or analogy with bile, as Munro believed; but it is a peculiar secretion, somewhat glutinous, readily miscible with water, and variable in point of shade, according to the species of cephalopode from which it comes; so that, as Dr. Grant remarks, a more intimate acquaintance with this character might be useful in tracing relations among the different species. The colour of the ink in Loligo sagittata[16] is a deep brown, approaching ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... calculable forces? If the will is free, and is the chief factor in the moulding of life, then you cannot forecast what line conduct will take or predict what shape character will assume. The whole conception of Ethics as a science must, it is contended, fall to the ground, if we admit a variable and incalculable element ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... detained in the Chops of the Channel, that I agreed with Bramble that we would return together and halve the pilotage. About eight leagues from the Lizard Point we boarded a small ship which had hoisted the signal, the weather at that time being fine and the wind variable. When we went on board it was but just daylight, and the captain was not yet on deck, but the mate received us. We were surprised to find that she mounted twelve brass guns, remarkably well fitted, and that everything was apparently ready for action, rammers and sponges, shot and wadding being ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... a standard NorCon Patrol vehicle. She was sixty feet long, twelve feet wide and twelve feet high; topped by a four-foot-high bubble canopy over her cab. All the way across her nose was a three-foot-wide luminescent strip. This was the variable beam headlight that could cut a day-bright swath of light through night, fog, rain or snow and could be varied in intensity, width and elevation. Immediately above the headlight strip were two red-black plastic panels which when lighted, sent out a flashing ...
— Code Three • Rick Raphael
... some variable spelling; this has been repaired where there was an obvious prevalence of one form over the other, but is otherwise left as printed. There is a reference on page 112 to "gambling hells", which seems to be a genuine ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum
... incongruous animal is man! how unsettled in his best part, his soul, and how changing and variable in his frame of body. What is man altogether but ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... week—he remained away for a month. We heard of him, leading a wild life, among a vicious set of men. It was reported that a frantic restlessness possessed him which nobody could understand. He came back as suddenly as he had left us. His variable nature had swung round, in the interval, to the opposite extreme. He was full of repentance for his reckless conduct; he was in a state of depression which defied rousing; he despaired of himself and his future. Sometimes ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... strange, variable fools we are! Months of tender intercourse had failed to bring about anything like a positive engagement between Margaret and myself; and here behold me irrevocably pledged to Flora, after ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Valley, instead of proving a dreary season of frost or fog, was apt to be as variable as April. Sheltered by the tall mountains, the climate was mild, and though snow would lie on the peaks of Penllwyd and Cwm Dinas it rarely rested on the lower levels. Very early in January the garden at The Woodlands ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... States are to be found even more striking examples of crop adaptation, although the areas are much smaller, as in the case of tobacco, potatoes, celery, onions, apples, peaches and other fruits. Regions containing residual soils are more variable in crop adaptation than drift soils and require more careful watchfulness on the part of those who ...
— The Young Farmer: Some Things He Should Know • Thomas Forsyth Hunt
... rifle-shooting. The sights and the object aimed at cannot be in focus together, and a great deal depends on the form of sight. Tycho Brahe invented, and applied to the pointers of his instruments, an aperture-sight of variable area, like the iris diaphragm used now in photography. This enabled him to get the best result with stars of different brightness. The telescope not having been invented, he could not use a telescopic-sight as we now do in gunnery. This not only ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes
... species, instead of its structure, he will find a much broader line of demarcation. Wherever he examines the existing relations or former records of his race, and compares them with those of other animals, he will find that the instincts of the one are variable and progressive, those of the other are definite and stationary. As far as has ever been ascertained by the most accurate observer, the nest of the grossbeak, the dam of the beaver, the cone of the termites, were, ages ago, each similar in character, and equal ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... recommended and J. cordiformis, the Japanese heart nut, is also promising. This nut can be recommended for planting for its own sake as the tree is hardy, a rapid grower, comes into bearing early and bears a fairly good nut. There are no grafted trees, however, so the variable seedlings will have ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... medical experts proved as dubious and uncertain as if the court had confined itself to the original witness. It seemed to be generally agreed that the data for determining the time of death of anybody were too complex and variable to admit of very precise inference; rigor mortis and other symptoms setting in within very wide limits and differing largely in different persons. All agreed that death from such a cut must have ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... I state that every opaque body is surrounded and its whole surface enveloped in shadow and light. And on this proposition I build up the first Book. Besides this, shadows have in themselves various degrees of darkness, because they are caused by the absence of a variable amount of the luminous rays; and these I call Primary shadows because they are the first, and inseparable from the object to which they belong. And on this I will found my second Book. From these primary shadows there result certain shaded rays which ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... essentially the same as the infinitely tender tissues of the eye? This difference is due to and accounted for by the adaptation of certain portions of the immense accumulation of cells to diverse functions, which has necessitated the variable conformity of the supporting elements. But all of these elements are in the blood, which carries them in the necessary quantities to the different organs to which they belong and where they are ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... do not that way tend; Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little, Was not like madness. There's something in his soul, O'er which his melancholy sits on brood; He shall with speed to England, For the demand of our neglected tribute: Haply, the seas, and countries different, With variable objects, shall expel This something-settled matter in his heart; Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus From fashion of himself. ...
— Hamlet • William Shakespeare
... their duty to be mournful; why? I cannot love your weeping poets; I Am sad in winter, but in summer gay, And vary with each variable day. ...
— Poems of West & East • Vita Sackville-West
... Its composition is very variable, and probably no two samples would yield exactly similar analyses. In this fact lies one of the chief difficulties of the treatment of the subject, and all statements made in the following pages as to its chemical composition must be taken as ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... "They are variable, then? That is distinctly curious, because—but do I understand that the type of the delusion varies? For example, Mr. Sargent believes that he ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... there was an odd occurrence. Soon after our arrival we had learned that Mr. Schurman was a man of very variable opinions. He was rather readily convinced by plausible arguments, but sometimes very suddenly reversed his views on an ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... exceptionally up to 0.2 per cent., but generally below 0.1 per cent., and with less than 0.1 per cent. of phosphorus and sulphur. On the other hand, rails with a tendency to break or split are low in carbon, with variable proportions of manganese, but contain much silicon, 0.3 to 0.9 per cent., and often above 0.1 per cent. of phosphorus. Another series of experiments upon rails for the Finland lines made by the author in 1879-80 shows the high quality of manganese ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... accordingly, from six thousand to six hundred dollars each. He ordered them a berth on deck, at the after part of the vessel, where they had nothing to shelter them from the weather, which at this time was very variable,—the days excessively hot, and the nights cold, with heavy rains. The town being plundered of every thing valuable, it was set on fire, and reduced to ashes by the morning. The fleet remained here three days, negotiating for the ransom of the prisoners, and plundering ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various
... while a man at sedentary employment would be well nourished with 92 grams (1400 grains) or 0.20 pound of available protein, and enough fat and carbohydrates in addition to yield 2,700 calories of energy. The demands are, however, variable, increasing and decreasing with increase and decrease of muscular work, or as other needs of the person change. Each person, too, should learn by experience what kinds of food yield him nourishment with the least discomfort, and should avoid those which do ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... that incandescent youth, From the coals that he'd preferred to the advantages of truth. He cast his eyes about him and above him; then he wrote On a slab of thin asbestos what I venture here to quote— For I read it in the rose-light of the everlasting glow: "Cloudy; variable winds, with local showers; ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... evil.' Now I've got that, sure; ye know I'm always thinkin' somethin' dreadful's goin' ter happen. 'Sparks before the eyes.' There! I had them only jest ter-day. I was sweepin' out the barn, an' I see 'em hoppin' up an' down in a streak of sunshine that come through a crack. 'Variable appetite.' Now, Hitty, don't ye remember? Yesterday I wanted pie awful, an' I ate a whole one; well, this mornin' seems as if I never wanted ter see an apple pie again. Now, if that ain't 'variable,' I don't know what ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... second-hand booksellers attached to an important library, from whom the librarian may naturally expect to obtain such books as he requires. Of course a man of knowledge and experience must be paid for the exercise of these qualities, but the price of books is so variable that it is quite possible that the bookseller, from his knowledge, may buy the required books cheaper than the librarian himself would pay for them. As far as it is possible to judge from the information given us respecting the collection of libraries, ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... must for long remain, in that period of life when one has not yet separated the fact of this sensual pleasure from the various women in whose company one has tasted it, when one has not reduced it to a general idea which makes one regard them thenceforward as the variable instruments of a pleasure that is always the same. Indeed, that pleasure does not exist, isolated and formulated in the consciousness, as the ultimate object with which one seeks a woman's company, or as the cause of the uneasiness ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... governmental group which, like the Privy Council, differs from the cabinet while containing it, is the ministry. The ministry comprises a large and variable body of functionaries, some of whom occupy the principal offices of state and divide their efforts between advising the crown, i.e., formulating governmental policy, and administering the affairs of their respective ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... the weather was variable, sometimes strong gales from the southward and south-east, with moist and hazy weather; a great sea rolling in upon the coast. This month the marines were ordered to clear ground and begin to build ...
— An Historical Journal of the Transactions at Port Jackson and Norfolk Island • John Hunter
... past; and we should probably live as long and as happily as all the others." That was the way his father and mother had married; and why were he and Margaret different from the generations before them? What variable strain in their natures impelled them to lead their own separate lives instead of the collective life of the family? "I suppose Mother is right as far as she sees," he admitted. "To marry Margaret and settle down would be the best thing that could happen ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... still remaining valid. That would be a form of polygamy, but Hinton was careful to point out that by "polygamy" he meant "less a particular marriage-order than such an order as best serves good, and which therefore must be essentially variable. Monogamy may be good, even the only good order, if of free choice; but a law for it is another thing. The sexual relationship must be a natural thing. The true social life will not be any fixed and definite relationship, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... these were points that made his appearance undeniably striking and attractive. A physiognomist might, however, have found something to blame as well as to praise in his features. There was an ominous upright line between the dark brows, which surely told of a variable temper; the curl of the laughing lips, and the fall of the heavy moustache only half concealed a curious over-sensitiveness in the lines of the too mobile mouth. It was not the face of a great thinker nor of a great saint, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Francis Keary's Outlines of Primitive Belief Among the Indo-European Races (London, 1882), chaps, iv, vii. He observes: "The wind is a far more physical and less abstract conception than the sky or heaven; it is also a more variable phenomenon; and by reason of both these recommendations the wind-god superseded the older Dyaus. * * * Just as the chief god of Greece, having descended to be a divinity of storm, was not content to remain only that, but grew again to some likeness of the older Dyaus, so Odhinn came ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans; he was worshipped accordingly with more bloody sacrifices. But in all Europe, Western Asia and the northwestern coast of Africa, where the earth is uneven and the climate variable, their religion was more gloomy and their gods more ferocious than among ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... school-girl herself: sent fastidiously on her way, with long gloves covering her arms, a white linen mask tied over her face to screen her complexion from tan, a sunbonnet sewed tightly on her head to keep it secure from the capricious winds of heaven and the more variable gusts of her own wilfulness; or on another picture of her—as a lonely little lass—begging to be taken to court, where she could marvel at her father, an awful judge in his wig and his robe of scarlet and black velvet; or on a third picture ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... all inevitably out of sight. I have heard it mentioned as an article of belief among sextons that a hundred years is the fair measure of a head-stone's "life" above ground, but this reckoning is much too short for the evidences, and makes no allowance for variable circumstances. In some places, Keston for instance, the church is founded upon a bed of chalk, and out of the chalk the graves are laboriously hewn. It is obvious therefore that the nature of the soil, as it is yielding or impervious, must ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... people, unsad* and ev'r untrue, *variable And undiscreet, and changing as a vane, Delighting ev'r in rumour that is new, For like the moon so waxe ye and wane: Aye full of clapping, *dear enough a jane,* *worth nothing * Your doom* is false, your constance ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... had been extremely variable since dawn, now whipped around a couple of points, swinging the boat's stern to them. Barnet, putting aside his glass ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... sportsman as possible, otherwise the game will be flushed at such a distance that it will be impossible to get at it. The cocker spaniel is much smaller than the springer; his ears are long, pendulous, and silky; his body round and compact; his legs short and tufted; his coat variable; his nose black; tail bushy and feathered, and, when hunting, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt
... what propriety in calling him the younger son? The order in which Noah's sons are always mentioned, makes Ham the second, and not the younger son. If it be said that Bible usage is variable, and that the order of birth is not always preserved in enumerations; the reply is, that, enumeration in the order of birth, is the rule, in any other order the exception. Besides, if the younger member of a family, takes precedence of older ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... always considered to be most probably the true explanation; which is, that as these services were compiled when algebra stood much higher in the rank of sciences than it does at present, it is by no means unlikely that these two letters should be used to signify indefinite and variable names, as they are in algebra to represent indefinite or variable numbers, in the same manner as A. B. C. are as signs of known or definite, and X. Y. Z. of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... Mill here demands much more of philosophy than Sir W. Hamilton deems it capable of accomplishing. Why may not Hamilton, like Kant, distinguish between the permanent and necessary, and the variable and contingent—in other words, between the subjective and the objective elements of consciousness, without therefore obtaining a "direct intuition of things in themselves?" Why may he not distinguish between space and time as the forms of our sensitive ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... before them descending gradually, passed through a gulch, where the darkness was greater, and such light as sifted through the larch and poplar trees rested in variable spots on the earth. Overhead the somber obscurity appeared touched with a veil of shimmer or sheen like diamond dust floating through the mask of night. Their horses but crept along; the girl bent forward wearily; heretofore the excitement and danger ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... everything which is mutable is variable. But forms are invariable; for it is said (Sex Princip. i) that "form is essence consisting of the simple and invariable." Therefore it does not belong to God alone ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... number of minor differences in the composition even of those to which the same name has been applied, due manifestly to the fact that their production is the result of a gradual decomposition, which renders it impossible to extract from the soil one pure substance, but only a variable mixture of several, so similar to one another in properties, that their separation is very difficult, if not impossible. For this reason great discrepancies exist in the statements made regarding them by different observers, but this is a matter of comparatively small importance, as ...
— Elements of Agricultural Chemistry • Thomas Anderson
... could convey to others a little of the happiness I have enjoyed all through my life in the study of Natural History. During twenty years of variable health, the companionship of the animal world has been my constant solace and delight. To keep my own memory fresh, in the first instance, and afterwards with a distinct intention of repeating my single experiences ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... Lord's Supper was determined in its main features by the memory of its institution. The sphere of sacred song remained the most unfettered, though here also, even at an early period—no later in fact than the end of the first and beginning of the second century—a fixed and a variable element were distinguished; for responsory hymns, as is testified by the Epistle of Pliny and the still earlier Book of Revelation, require to follow a definite arrangement. But the whole, though perhaps already fixed during the course of the second century, still bore the stamp of spirituality ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... and simple stock will not, as I have just been saying, prove variable in religion; nor will they get nearer to apostasy than a mere external conformity like that of Naaman in the house of Rimmon. When Louis XVI., in the words of the edict, "convinced by the uselessness of a century of persecutions, and rather from necessity than sympathy," ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crevices of morn Let in those regal luxuries of light, Which all the variable east adorn, And hang rich fringes on the skirts of night, Leander, weaning from sweet Hero's side, Must leave a widow where he ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... Song Sparrow's nest is variable; sometimes on the ground, or in a low bush, but usually in as secluded a place as its instinct of preservation enables it to find. A favorite spot is a deep shaded ravine through which a rivulet ripples, where the solitude is disturbed only by the notes of his song, made more sweet and clear ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography, Vol. II, No 3, September 1897 • Various
... digger to pick out the roots, which must be thoroughly cleaned and dried on a kiln till they are so brittle as to break across, when they are fit to be packed in bags, and sold to the dye-stuff manufacturers who grind and reduce them to powder for use. The produce is variable; usually from eight to twenty cwt. per acre, but as much as 3,000 to 6,000 lbs. is frequently obtained. The forage amounts to about 15,000 lbs. the first year, and 7,500 lbs. the second year. In a new and good soil manure ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... exactions of his variable temper along with the responsibility for the economical administration of his ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... being against them. I've been thinking of it, William, a great deal, and my idea is, that it will be at the beginning of the rainy season that we shall have a visit, if we have one at all; for you see that the wind don't blow regular from one quarter, as it does now, but is variable, and then they can make sail in their canoes, and come here easily, instead of pulling between thirty and forty miles, which is hard work against wind and current. Still, we must not be careless and ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... the eyelids. Though it may perhaps be stimulated into the performance of its natural action by the blood, which surrounds its origin, or by some part of that heterogeneous fluid; yet as the tears secreted by this gland are more wanted at some times than at others, its secretion is variable, like that of the saliva above mentioned, and is chiefly produced when its excretory duct is stimulated; for in our common sleep there seems to be little or no secretion of tears; though they are occasionally produced ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... conditions of liberty. Thus he set himself another of the insoluble problems he seems to delight in by neglecting the most important factor in the equation. Yet the invisible soul of man, ignored, as a variable, varying quantity, has upset all societies and constitutions, and all schemes of bondage as well ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... arises and the discussion is complicated by the fact that conflicts of men as groups of individuals within the same species are somewhat anomalous among biological forms of struggle. Commonly, struggle takes place among individuals, organisms having definite characteristics and but slightly variable each from its own kind contending with one another, by direct competition or through adaptation, in the first case individuals striving to obtain actually the same objects. Or, again, species having the ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... which print through a ribbon give variable shades and the typist in filling in must watch carefully to see that her typewriter ribbons match the impressions made in the body of the letter, especially where the form letters are printed several months in advance ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... Climate: variable, with mostly westerly winds throughout the year interspersed with periods of calm; nearly ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... ranges from 2 to 5 per cent and, together with the nitrogen, represents what was taken from the soil during growth. In animal bodies, the ash is present mainly in the bones, but there is also an appreciable amount, one per cent or more, in all the tissues. Ash is exceedingly variable in composition, being composed of the various salts of potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, and iron, as sulphates, phosphates, chlorides, and silicates of these elements. There are also other elements in small ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... commercial model. Inside is an ultra-slow fine-wire recorder holding a spool that runs for a week. The clock lets you go to any place on the 7-day wire and record a message. The buttons give you variable speed in going there, so you don't waste too much time making a setting. There's a knack in fingering them efficiently, but ...
— The Creature from Cleveland Depths • Fritz Reuter Leiber
... them by any words of distinct and settled meaning; such are bear, break, come, cast, fall, get, give, do, put, set, go, run, make, take, turn, throw. If of these the whole power is not accurately delivered, it must be remembered, that while our language is yet living, and variable by the caprice of every one that speaks it, these words are hourly shifting their relations, and can no more be ascertained in a dictionary, than a grove, in the agitation of a storm, can be accurately delineated from its picture in the water. The particles ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Hyphenation has been made consistent within the main text. There is some archaic and variable spelling, which ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... was in a most variable frame of mind; one day hoping devoutly that the Langham affair might prove lasting enough in its effects to tire Hugh out; the next, outraged that a silly girl should waste a thought on such a creature, while Hugh was in her way; at ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... insufficient knowledge. Dr. Johnson, indeed, made it the distinguishing merit of the French, that they "have a book upon every subject." But Dr. Johnson was not only capricious as regards temper and variable humors, but as regards the inequality of his knowledge. Incoherent and unsystematic was Dr. Johnson's information in most cases. Hence his extravagant misappraisement of Knolles, the Turkish historian, which is exposed so severely by Spittler, the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the 21st of December the phenomenon appeared partially, and with a variable light, in different parts of the southern sky for several hours. At seven on the following morning it became more brilliant and stationary, describing a well-defined arch, extending from the E.S.E. ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... it out, kept it from her mind: so she knew him, knew him to be a sweeter and a variable Willoughby, a generous kind of Willoughby, a Willoughby-butterfly, without having the free mind to summarize him and picture him for a warning. Scattered features of him, such as the instincts call up, were not sufficiently impressive. Besides, the clouded ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... seen them, but asked me to bring him a few. When he saw them he was surprised and at once pronounced them the finest hickories he had ever seen, and named them "Hales' Paper Shell." The hickory is one of the most valuable of North American nuts. It is of a variable nature. I have over twenty old trees on my place, and no two bear nuts of the same shape or size, and although some neighbors planted some nuts from the old tree and produced fruit from them they were only ordinary sized, so that it is necessary to propagate ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... temperature of heate (which hauing any extremitie, as either of heate, or his contrary, breedeth disorder in the worke) as also in the framing of the Ost or furnace after many new moulds and fashions, as variable as mens wits and experiences, yet because innouations and incertainty doth rather perplexe then profit, I will shunne, as much as in me lyeth, from loading the memory of the studious Husbandman with those stratagems which disable his vnderstanding from the attaining of better perfection, ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... Mental Examination:—Attitude was variable, but was distinctly that of one in a stupor. Arms, hands and legs, placed in uncomfortable positions, would remain fixed indefinitely, i.e., so observed from 20 to 30 minutes. Did not resent liberties taken with him; smiled in a silly fashion at each person. Orientation perfect; ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... Hunt, in his autobiography, writes, "I will not dwell upon the moment." From Leghorn he drove with the Hunts to Pisa, and established them in the ground-floor of Byron's Palazzo Lanfranchi, as comfortably as was consistent with his lordship's variable moods. The negotiations which had preceded Hunt's visit to Italy, raised forebodings in Shelley's mind as to the reception he would meet from Byron; nor were these destined to be unfulfilled. Trelawny tells us how irksome the poet found it to have "a man with a sick wife, and seven ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... much as the affections of men are naturally variable and different one from an other: vpon this occasion I may bee excused. For although that bread sometime denyed and kept backe from the hungrie body, may cause a hard conceit, yet when it is eftsoones offered vnto him, the mallice is forgotten, and ...
— Hypnerotomachia - The Strife of Loue in a Dreame • Francesco Colonna
... these two stood this variable, sensuous, woman's nature, so capable both of good and evil. Rachel felt the burden of their virtues too much for her, together with the sting of her own ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... course was slower and more variable, often taking us into great depths. Several times they made use of the inclined planes, which certain internal levers placed obliquely to the waterline. In that way we went about two miles, but without ever obtaining the greatest depths of the Indian ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... Mr. Vail had no natural aptitude for executive work, and he had a temper somewhat variable and unhappy. He and I got along very well together until I determined to order my own instruments, his being too heavy and too difficult, as I thought, for an operator to handle while receiving. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... else whom she could appeal to. Mrs. Lander, after her first warning, had not spoken of him again, though Clementina could feel in the grimness with which she regarded her variable treatment of him that she was silently hoarding up a sum of inculpation which would crush her under its weight when it should fall upon her. She seemed to be growing constantly better, now, and as the interval since her last attack widened behind her, she began to indulge ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... short, on superstition; and as free inquiry is fatal to a belief in those fables which awed the childhood of the race, it has followed that established priesthoods have been almost uniformly the most conservative of social forces, and that clergymen have seldom failed to slay their variable brethren when opportunity has offered. History teems with such slaughters, some of the most instructive of which are related in the Old Testament, whose code of morals is ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... that the main force of the attack should be in the north, upon the Rhine and Meuse. Villeroy and those who were secretly in the Spanish interest were for beginning it with the southern combination and against Milan. Sully believed the Duke of Savoy to be variable and attached in his heart to Spain, and he thought it contrary to the interests of France to permit an Italian prince to grow so great on her frontier. He therefore thoroughly disapproved the plan, and explained ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ballad verses and the ballad airs, also, these 'owerwords' are exceedingly variable, and are often interchangeable. Some of them are 'owerwords' literally; that is to say, they simply repeat or echo a word or phrase of the stanza to which they are attached. A specimen is the verse from Johnie o' Braidislee, quoted in the previous chapter. ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... proved to be, perhaps not so predictably, quite similar in practical consequences. One pressure felt by all the services was the recently acquired knowledge that the nation's military manpower was not only variable but also limited in quantity. Military efficiency demanded, therefore, that the services not only make the most effective use of available manpower, but also improve its quality. Since Negroes, who made up approximately 10 percent of the ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... in Cape Cod harbor. The fourth Sunday here. Scarce any of those aboard free from vehement coughs, some very ill. Weather very variable. ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... North, and the course, "east, and by south and east," and continues: "After much trouble, with fogges sometimes, and more dangerous ice. The nineteenth, being Tuesday, was close stormie weather, with much wind and snow, and very cold. The wind variable between the north north-west and north-east. We made our way west and by ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... antiquity, and of the host of smaller stars which our telescopes disclose? Can it be true that these countless orbs are really majestic suns, sunk to an appalling depth in the abyss of unfathomable space? What have we to tell of the different varieties of stars—of coloured stars, of variable stars, of double stars, of multiple stars, of stars that seem to move, and of stars that seem at rest? What of those glorious objects, the great star clusters? What of the Milky Way? And, lastly, what can we learn of the marvellous nebulae which our ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... goods—one company furnishing the waggon and tarpaulin, besides undertaking the trouble of loading and furnishing station-accommodation and the use of its line, while, it may be, several other companies give the use of their lines only, and that to a variable extent. In addition to all this, the company providing its carriages or waggons is entitled to "demurrage" for every day beyond a certain time that these are detained by the companies to which they ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... differences and distinctions of the race would require a book all to itself, for in 1597, more than three hundred years ago, Gerarde wrote: "There are, under the name of Caryophyllus, comprehended diuers and sundrie sorts of plants, of such variable colours and also severall shapes that a great and large volume would not suffice to write of euery one in particular." And when we realize that the pink was probably the first flower upon which, early in the eighteenth century, experiments in hybridization ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... English law, would have secured the acquittal of so wicked a poisoner as Palmer. He quoted from the famous French lawyer d'Aguesseau: "The corpus delicti is no other thing than the delictum itself; but the proofs of the delictum are infinitely variable according to the nature of things; they may be general or special, principal or accessory, direct or indirect; in a word, they form that general effect (ensemble) which goes to determine the conviction of an honest man." If such a ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... taxation, and must vary with every variation in that system. As they have contrived matters, their taxation does not so much depend on their constitution as their constitution on their taxation. This must introduce great confusion among the masses; as the variable qualification for votes within the district must, if ever real contested elections take place, cause ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... whirled up in a solid mass, blinding and choking me. The cold penetrated my heavy clothing. I went on. In a few minutes I was in the midst of the turmoil, utterly lost, buffeted about. I tried to keep the wind in my face for compass, but it was so variable, eddying from all directions, that it was not reassuring. Near the top of the mountain a blast knocked me down, and half smothered me with flying snow. I arose groggily, uncertain which way to head; it was impossible to see even a step in front. ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... exceeded both of these his ancestors; and in this, as in other respects, he showed more of the Scottish character, more of the true sense of Highland honour, than any of his immediate predecessors in the Stuart line. Naturally gay, though variable; quick and shrewd, rather than deep or strong in intellect; easily to be flattered, too easily led by some, too wilful in resisting the counsels of others,—as a Prince, as the head of a Court, he soon won upon the affections ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... fancy according to the logarithm that suits it best. Hence the immense variety in the exteriors of those structures within which dwell such unity and order. The trunk of the tree is fixt; the foliage is variable. ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... 42. Variable or regulating lashing. By laying the piece, a f, horizontally, it can be slipped along the rope, b; by raising or lowering this, we shall raise or depress the weight, c, the cord, b, running over the two pulleys, d, from the piece, ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various
... argument is not disproved ny the fact that some swans are black, because a thing may very well happen in spite of the fact that some data render it improbable. In the case of the swans, a man might know that colour is a very variable characteristic in many species of animals, and that, therefore, an induction as to colour is peculiarly liable to error. But this knowledge would be a fresh datum, by no means proving that the probability ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... thus require 10 microseconds for completion. Examples of this are add, subtract, deposit, load, etc. One cycle instructions do not refer to memory and require 5 microseconds. Examples of the latter are the jump instructions, the skip instructions, and the operate group. The operating times of variable cycle instructions depend upon the instruction. For example, the operating time for a shift or rotate instruction is 5 0.2N microseconds, where N is the number of shifts performed. The operating times for multiply and divide are functions of the number of ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation
... as we may choose for our own ends; but a thorough knowledge is attained only by incessant observation and long practice; like music, it demands a special talent possessed by different individuals in variable quantity or not at all. You, gentlemen, all are, what I am not, commercial tourists. Before you I must be modest. You, each of you, have been chosen from surrounding hundreds or thousands for your superior ability, natural or acquired, to scan the human ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... paddle-wheel constitute at present the means of propulsion that are exclusively employed when one has recourse to a motive power for effecting the propulsion of a boat. The sail constitutes an entirely different mode, and should not figure in our enumeration, considering the essentially variable character of the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... singular and mysterious. Whatever love of humour you have,—whatever sympathy with imperfect, but most subtle, feeling,—whatever perception of sublimity in conditions of fatal power, may here find fullest occupation: all these being joined, in the strong animal races, to a variable and fantastic beauty far beyond anything that merely formative art has yet conceived. I have placed in your Educational series a wing by Albert Duerer, which goes as far as art yet has reached in delineation ...
— Lectures on Art - Delivered before the University of Oxford in Hilary term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... book is to stimulate thought and to encourage the average young officer to seek truth for, and in, himself. It is never a good idea to attempt a precise formula about matters which are by nature indefinite and subject to all number of variable factors. ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... other considerations than those of equity and his own conscience. But the voice of his conscience had never spoken—let us better say whispered—against the government. For that conscience was born a functionary. It registered thoughts as a State function—variable but infallible. Established powers were invested by him with a sacred truth. He admired sincerely those souls of iron, the great free and unbending magistrates of the past; and perhaps secretly believed himself ...
— Pierre and Luce • Romain Rolland
... if I should propose some accommodation of this nature? Lord Etherington does not pretend to the ardour of a passionate lover. He lives much in the world, and has no desire to quit it. Miss Mowbray's health is delicate—her spirits variable—and retirement would most probably be her choice.—Suppose—I am barely putting a supposition—suppose that a marriage between two persons so circumstanced were rendered necessary or advantageous to both—suppose that such a marriage were to secure ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... returned Trent, showing by his tone the momentary depression which settled so easily upon his variable moods. ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow
... conspiracy. In 1857 a permanent body was formed in Sheffield, and in the years immediately following in Glasgow, London, Bristol, and other cities. They have since come into existence in most of the larger industrial towns, 120 local trades councils existing in 1892. Their influence has been variable and limited. ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... less brilliant in plumage than the tanager, alighted even nearer, and poured forth a flood of song to which Henry listened without moving. Then the gray bird also flew away, not in fear, but because its variable mind moved it to do so. It too had come as a friend and it departed without changing. A rabbit hopped through the brush, stared at him a moment or two, and then hopped calmly out of sight. Its visit had all the appearance of a friendly nature, and ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... term Tincture is meant that variable hue which is given to shields and their bearings; they are divided ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... Fifth Species of Females were made out of the Sea. These are Women of variable uneven Tempers, sometimes all Storm and Tempest, sometimes all Calm and Sunshine. The Stranger who sees one of these in her Smiles and Smoothness would cry her up for a Miracle of good Humour; but on a sudden her Looks ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... thrown out of cultivation become admirable natural pastures. The hemp is of very fine quality when cultivated with care. The vine and the mulberry thrive wherever they are planted. The finest olive-trees and the best olives in Europe grow in the mountains. A variable, but generally mild climate, brings to maturity the products of extreme latitudes. Half the country is favourable to the palm and the orange. Numerous and thriving flocks roam across the plains in winter, and ascend ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... and ideas. If their meaning or content is not fixed, and specially if they are undergoing a constant change, in the way of growth, with the progress of reason and society, how can we employ them as a test of morality, which is itself also a variable conception? Surely this is to make one indefinite idea the gauge of another indefinite idea. The answer to this question will, I trust, bring out clearly the nature of a moral test, as well as the ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... space of 48 yeeres, and then departed this life, as in place afterwards it shall appeere. But for that the contrarietie in writers in such points may sooner be perceiued than reformed, to the satisfieng of mens fansies which are variable, we will leaue euerie man to his libertie to thinke as seemeth him good, noting now and then the diuersitie of such writers, ...
— Chronicles 1 (of 6): The Historie of England 5 (of 8) - The Fift Booke of the Historie of England. • Raphael Holinshed |
