"Fluctuation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... be named a Rath, or Councillor, and Counsellor, even in Weissnichtwo. What counsel to any man, or to any woman, could this particular Hofrath give; in whose loose, zigzag figure; in whose thin visage, as it went jerking to and fro, in minute incessant fluctuation,—you traced rather confusion worse confounded; at most, Timidity and physical Cold? Some indeed said withal, he was 'the very Spirit of Love embodied': blue earnest eyes, full of sadness and kindness; purse ever open, and ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... the reach of present explanation are the facts as to magnetic conditions at low temperatures. Even as to the facts themselves different experimenters have differed somewhat, but the final conclusion of Professor Dewar is that, after a period of fluctuation, the power of a magnet repeatedly subjected to a liquid-air bath becomes permanently increased. Various substances not markedly magnetic at ordinary temperatures become so when cooled. Among these, as Professor Dewar discovered, is liquid oxygen ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... diminished and feeble court in the maritime city of Almeria. He retained little more than the name of king, and was supported in even this shadow of royalty by the countenance and treasures of the Castilian sovereigns. Still he trusted that in the fluctuation of events the inconstant nation might once more return to his standard and replace him on the ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... them on the market as you may agree, slowly, thus preventing any material fluctuation in value," he went on. "How to hold this tremendous reserve secretly and still permit the operation of the other diamond mines of the world is the great problem you will ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... each coil, as it passes the zero point, top or bottom, at once generates a current in the desired direction and reinforces that in all the other turns of its own and of other coils on the same side of a line drawn vertically through the centre. There is thus practically no fluctuation in the pressure of ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... at her curtly, as he would to another man; he made no answer; then with a slight flush his eye returned to her dress and figure; he lifted his hat and stood uncovered till she had passed and turned from him. His face, under the influence of this fluctuation of color, changed exceedingly, and improved in proportion as ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... the artisan will find the purchase of an annuity the best thing to be aimed at. To buy a house or some furniture; to start a small business; to expend his savings in tiding over periods of slack or failing work; to avail himself of the advantage which some fluctuation in the market gives to the man who can transport himself promptly to a new locality or a new business is often far more to his advantage. Above all, money expended in settling his family is often his best policy as well as the course which is most beneficial to the community. At present ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... just the same opinion. I would not leave it to the chances of promotion, or to the characters of lawyers, what the law of the land, what the rights of juries, or what the liberty of the press should be. My law should not depend upon the fluctuation of the closet, or the complexion of men. Whether a black-haired man or a fair- haired man presided in the Court of King's Bench, I would have the law the same: the same whether he was born in domo regnatrice, and sucked from his infancy the milk of courts, or was nurtured in the rugged discipline ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... after a fashion. Change there must be, and fluctuation of feeling. But there is such a thing as 'peace subsisting at the heart of endless agitation.' You may remember the attempt that was made some years ago to build a steamer in which the central saloon was to hang perfectly ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... if not based, upon a resolve to defend the rights of civilisation against militarism, of intellect against brute force. "Brute force shall not rule Florence." Even so, it is only after conflict and fluctuation that he decides to allow Luria's trial to take its course. Puccio, again, the former general of Florence, superseded by Luria, and now serving under his command, turns out not quite the "pale discontented man" whom Browning ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... Burke alludes to such fluctuation is, however, evident, from what that fanciful but deeply-read man says, immediately after: "We have seen some states which have spent their vigour at their commencement. Some have [end of page vii] blazed out in their glory a little before their extinction. The meridian of some has been the most ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... personnel of the student body bring changes of interest and there is no guarantee of fixity so far as numbers are concerned. It is the ideal of the Central Associations to have the classes sustained each year with an increased efficiency, but all of the institutions testify to the fluctuation caused by the human element in the problem. These courses are mostly mapped out, even to the assigning of specific texts by accepted ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... should be exacted with as much strictness as if it were an ordinary tax. Another source of financial gain, which has brought on him still worse reproaches, was his commission against infractions of the law. It was inevitable that in the fluctuation of authority and of the statutes themselves innumerable illegalities should have taken place. And they were still always going on. The King took it especially ill that men omitted to pay the dues which belonged to the crown in right of its feudal ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... age, who had formerly been a builder, but was now much reduced in his circumstances, complained to me of an asthma which first attacked him about the latter end of autumn. His breath was very short, his countenance was sunken, his belly large; and, upon examination, a fluctuation in it was very perceptible. His urine for some time past had been small in quantity. I directed a decoction of Fol. Digital. recent. which made him very sick, the sickness recurring at intervals for several days, during which time he made a large quantity ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... interested to a degree that has had no parallel since, unless it may be, on the Southern side during our civil war. Politics and religion were one, and removal to Ipswich had not deadened the interest with which they watched and commented on every fluctuation in the stormy situation at "home," as they still called England, Cotton taking active part in all discussions as to ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... restructuring and failure to develop a well-functioning capital market played major roles in Czech economic troubles, which culminated in a currency crisis in May. The currency was forced out of its fluctuation band as investors worried that the current account deficit, which reached nearly 8% of GDP in 1996, would become unsustainable. After expending $3 billion in vain to support the currency, the central bank let it float. The growing current account imbalance reflected a surge in domestic ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... according to Bentham, is an article of merchandise, and that whatever represents money is equally merchandise," resumed the president; "allowing also that it is notorious that the commercial note, bearing this or that signature, is liable to the fluctuation of all commercial values, rises or falls in the market, is dear at one moment, and is worth nothing at another, the courts decide—ah! how stupid I am, I beg your pardon—I am inclined to think you could buy up your brother's debts ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... Grayson waiting Maxwell. "Well, you open it," he said, listlessly, to his wife, and in fact he felt himself at that moment physically unable to cope with the task, and he dreaded any fluctuation of emotion that would follow, even if it ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... comme d'un jouet, mais non etre heureux en votre presence; il pleurera, se mutinera, et bientot le souvenir d'un temps de desordre et d'humeur se liera avec votre idee. Vous n'avez pas ete le soutien de votre enfant, vous ne l'avez pas preserve de cette fluctuation perpetuelle de la volonte, maladie des etres faibles et livres a une imagination vive; vous n'avez assure ni sa paix, ni sa sagesse, ni son bonheur, pourquoi vous croirait-il sa mere."—L'Education ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... to an earl. But, what was worst of all, the parties did not find mutual happiness in the engagement they had formed. It is difficult for a woman of a violent temper and weak intellects, and such the lady seems to have been, to endure the apparently causeless fluctuation of spirits incident to one doomed to labour incessantly in the feverish exercise of the imagination. Unintentional neglect, and the inevitable relaxation, or rather sinking of spirit, which follows violent mental exertion, are easily misconstrued into capricious ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... seasons of scarcity, and the fluctuation of prices, might suggest a reasonable distrust of the excellence of the husbandry under this reign. [84] The turbulent condition of the country may account for this pretty fairly during the early part of it. Indeed, a neglect of agriculture, to the extent implied by these ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... Lord Spenser, earl of Glocester, the attainder pronounced against the two Spensers in the reign of Edward II.[*****] The ancient history of England is nothing but a catalogue of reversals: every thing is in fluctuation and movement: one faction is continually undoing what was established by another: and the multiplied oaths which each party exacted for the security of the present acts, betray a perpetual ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... whatever transacted during last week, and even the duty remains without fluctuation. In this state of inactivity the effects of the Metropolitan Total Abstinence movement was a topic of interest to the trade. As it appears that nearly 70,000 persons took the pledge, the consumption of malt liquor must seriously diminished, and the demand for Hops will consequently be ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... and when the inhabitants of the neighbourhood have acquired a knowledge of the modes of working at the machines, reasons of considerable weight are required to cause their removal. Such changes of position do however occur; and they have been alluded to by the Committee on the Fluctuation of Manufacturers' Employment, as one of the causes interfering most materially with an uniform rate of wages: it is therefore of particular importance to the workmen to be acquainted with the real causes which have driven manufactures from their ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... compared the tail of this comet to a flame, or "ray of fire shot out from the nucleus, as from some engine of artillery, and driven on one side by the wind." At the same time, he saw a second emanation nearly in the opposite direction. This last might arise from a momentary fluctuation in the relative intensities of the electric radiation of the comet, and of the radial stream, owing to the probable irregularities just alluded to. Such and kindred phenomena are utterly inexplicable, without we adopt ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... a wide, smooth beach of mixed pebbles and fragments of coral. This forms the thoroughfare of the village; the handsomest houses all facing it—the fluctuation of the tides being so inconsiderable that ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... the liberty here to observe, that the fluctuation of exchange will naturally strengthen that expectation, and nothing but steady, firm perseverance on the part of the administration, can, or indeed ought, to produce a ready sale on good terms. Bills of exchange are remitted to France in payment for European ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... not an unknown practice for stock-jobbers to have an emissary at the rate of five hundred pounds, and despatch to Frankfort, whence he brings forged attestations of some marvellous political event, and spreads it on 'Change, which produces such a fluctuation in the stocks as amply overpays the expense ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... of an id, as I conceive it, is in a state of continual fluctuation upwards and downwards. In most cases the fluctuations will counteract one another, because the passive streams of nutriment soon change, but in many cases the limit from which a return is possible will be passed, and then the determinants concerned will continue ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel
... than the fluctuation of the guests. At times they have dwindled to so small a number that one must reckon chiefly upon their quality for consolation; at other times they swelled to such a tide as to overflow the table, long or short, at dinner, and eddy round a second board beside ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... "The Fluctuation" is one of the most curious and beautiful of all of Tzensky's stories. Anton Antonovich, a rich and enterprising merchant, of a very violent and unruly character, lives like a wolf in his domains, ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... succeeding year the war was continued with unbroken perseverance and a constant fluctuation in its results. In the various battles which were fought, and the sieges which took place, the English army was, as usual, in the foremost ranks, under the Duke of York, second son of George III. The Prince of Orange, at the head of the Dutch troops, proved his inheritance of the valor which seems ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... membership between 1000 and 10,000, the average for the entire number being 5000; but the membership fluctuates from year to year, according to the conditions of labor, and is usually larger in seasons of contest. Fluctuation in membership is most evident in the newer unions and in the unskilled trades. The various unions differ also in resources. In some, especially those composed largely of foreigners, the treasury is chronically empty; yet at the other extreme ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... evidently regarded as something considerable, as a work of eminent virtue and respectability. The Northern poems, treasured and highly valued as they evidently were, belong to a different fashion. In the Beowulf of the existing manuscript the fluctuation and variation of the older epic tradition has been controlled by editors who have done their best to establish a text of the poem. The book has an appearance of authority. There is little of this in the Icelandic manuscript. The Northern poems have evidently been taken as they ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... charm, but of health, dear, and Laurent is a very sage old gentleman indeed, and you may follow his counsel with perfect certainty. I can't help owning,' he went on, 'that I've been a little nervous lately about the fluctuation of your spirits, and I'm glad he happened to drop in and have ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... attention, or vividness, is found to fluctuate periodically, so that in a series of objectively equal stimuli, certain ones, regularly recurring, would be more vividly sensed. This is exemplified in the well-known facts of the fluctuation of the threshold of sensation, of the so-called retinal rivalry, and of the subjective rhythmizing of auditory stimuli, already mentioned. There is a natural rhythm of vividness. Here, therefore, in the ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... or an unwashed shirt. But the Yankee millionaire can find no comfort with five telephones at his bed-head and ten minutes for his lunch. The round coins in the miser's stocking were safe in some sense. The round noughts in the millionaire's ledger are safe in no sense; the same fluctuation which excites him with their increase depresses him with their diminution. The miser at least collects coins; his hobby is numismatics. The man who collects noughts ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... they are to be had of the duplex type, that is, two wheels on one shaft. These are arranged so that either wheel may be run separately, or both together, thus permitting one to take advantage of the seasonal fluctuation in water supply. A convenient form of these wheels includes draft tubes, by which the wheel may be set several feet above the tailrace, and the advantage of this additional fall still be preserved. In this case the draft tube must be airtight so as to form suction, when filled with escaping ...
— Electricity for the farm - Light, heat and power by inexpensive methods from the water - wheel or farm engine • Frederick Irving Anderson
... COMPLEX CHANGE % 149. Changeableness. — N. changeableness &c. adj.; mutability, inconstancy; versatility, mobility; instability, unstable equilibrium; vacillation &c. (irresolution) 605; fluctuation, vicissitude; alternation &c. (oscillation) 314. restlessness &x. adj. fidgets, disquiet; disquietude, inquietude; unrest; agitation &c. 315. moon, Proteus, chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, weathercock, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... which the legitimate trader in futures protects himself from price fluctuation is easily understood. While a deal in cash wheat would refer to a definite shipment as shown by warehouse receipts, a deal for future delivery is merely an obligation involving a given quantity of grain at a given time at ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... history of chairs, in his "Cabinet Makers from 1750 to 1840": "Extravagance of taste and fluctuation of fashion had reached high water mark due to increase of wealth in England and her colonies. From the plain, stately pieces of Queen Anne the public turned to the rococo French designs of early Chippendale, then tiring of that, veered back to classic lines, as done by the Adam ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... beginning to be inaugurated by several of the men, who were examining the mash in tubs in the further recesses of the place. They were lighted by a lantern which, swinging to and fro as they moved, sometimes so swiftly as to induce a temporary fluctuation threatening eclipse, suggested in the dusk the erratic orbit of an abnormally magnified fire-fly. It barely glimmered, the dullest point of white light, when the rich flare from the opening door of the furnace gushed forth and the whole rugged interior was illumined with its color. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... the punishment of hearing these reproaches from men of honor, was the victim of a rapid and violent fluctuation of feeling. Hope, fear, triumph, doubt, remorse, alternately swayed him. As he saw the fugitives leaping from the walls, he shouted exultingly, without accurately discerning what manner of men they ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... creature so bereft of all dignity, all steadfastness. The slave of every impulse; blown about by the predominant gale; a scene of eternal fluctuation. ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... thin with illness, with eagerness and suspense, his complexion browned and paled out of its healthful English tints. But this was not because he was weak any longer, or in diminished health. He was worn by incessant travelling, by anxiety and the fluctuation of hope and fear; but the great tension had strung his nerves and strengthened his vitality, though it had worn off every superfluous particle of flesh. A keen anxiety mingled with indignation was ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... stormy light Jaime contemplated the fluctuation of the waters at his feet, hurling their boisterous swirls into the hollows of the rock, roaring and writhing, frothing with anger in the winding passages between the reefs. In the depths of this greenish mass, illuminated by the setting sun with transparencies of ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... of food are consumed on the farm that have to be purchased each year, and as there is not much fluctuation in the price paid, we may as well settle the per capita rate for the milch cows and hogs for once and all. At each year's end we can then easily find the cash outlay for the herds by multiplying the number of stock by ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... years, and which was not satisfactorily accounted for by unfavourable seasons. To obviate such charges it became necessary for those who superintended the business to pay attention to and explain the efficient causes which unavoidably occasioned this fluctuation, and to establish general principles of calculation by which to determine at any time the probable future produce of the different residencies. These will depend upon a knowledge of the medium produce of a determinate number of vines, and the medium number to which this produce is to be applied; ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... precautionary measures; he raises the price of grains. The manufacturer does the same with his products. The reaction comes, and, after some fluctuation, the farm-rent—which the tenant thought to put upon the manufacturer's shoulders—becomes nearly balanced. So that, while he is congratulating himself upon his success, he finds himself again impoverished, ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... those who love nature first; nor mountains, nor sea, nor anything to compare with the places they are hastening to, west or north. The downs! Yes, the downs are there, full in sight of your window, in their flowing forms resembling vast, pale green waves, wave beyond wave, "in fluctuation fixed"; a fine country to walk on in fine weather for all those who regard the mere exercise of walking as sufficient pleasure. But to those who wish for something more, these downs may be neglected, since, if downs are wanted, there is ...
— A Shepherd's Life • W. H. Hudson
... naturally agitating to King Olaf and, in the fluctuation of events there, his purposes and prospects varied much. He sometimes thought of pilgriming to Jerusalem, and a henceforth exclusively religious life; but for most part his pious thoughts themselves gravitated towards Norway, and a stroke for his old place and task there, which ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... as fairly pure instances of acute osteo-myelitis. The symptoms corresponded with the main seat of the suppuration; only moderate swelling of the limbs occurred, this mainly consisting in soft superficial oedema; often there was no redness, and fluctuation was difficult to determine. At the same time symptoms of constitutional infection, such as continued fever, rapid pulse, restlessness, loss of strength, progressive anaemia, and emaciation, were marked. Pyaemia, as evidenced by secondary ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... all in proportion to the demand for the article, but only in proportion to the price of food; the commodities produced being laid up in store to meet sudden demands, and sudden fluctuations in prices prevented:—that gradual and necessary fluctuation only being allowed which is properly consequent on larger or more limited supply of raw material and other natural causes. When there was a visible tendency to produce a glut of any commodity, that tendency should be checked by directing ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... itself is practically a guarantee of the absence of those bacteria liable to produce trouble in children. The number of organisms found in such milks is surprisingly low when compared with ordinary milk. Naturally, there is considerable fluctuation from day to day, and occasionally the germ content is increased to a high figure without any apparent reason. The average results though, show a greatly reduced number of organisms. De Schweinitz[39] found in a Washington dairy in 113 examinations extending ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... into a type of manhood "in its passionate desires and ideal aspirations"—the Faust of Goethe. All the magnificent energy of our ideal man is brought forward in the poet's conception, but it is an energy which is shattered in its fluctuation between sensual delights and ideal aspirations, respectively typified in the Venus and Elizabeth of the play. Here is the contradiction against which he was shattered as the heroes of Greek tragedy were shattered on the rock of implacable Fate. But the transcendent ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... the fact that his patient had in her constitution a taint of scrofula. There was no apparent congestion of the veins nor discoloration of the skin around the hard protuberance, no pulsation, elasticity, fluctuation or soreness, only a solid lump which the doctor's sensitive touch recognized as the small section or lobule of a deeply-seated tumor already beginning to press upon and obstruct the blood vessels in its immediate vicinity. Whether it were fibrous or albuminous, "benignant" ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... the Conservative Ascendancy, 1861-1876.*—In Italy, as in France, political parties are numerous and their constituencies and programmes are subject to rapid and bewildering fluctuation. In the earliest days of the kingdom party lines were not sharply drawn. In the parliament elected in January, 1861, the supporters of Cavour numbered 407, while the strength of the opposition was but 36. After the death of Cavour, however, June 6, 1861, the cleavage which ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... direction for years, for centuries, or for untold ages; but then a change comes, and the increase is changed into a decrease, so that after the lapse of becoming periods the original state of things is restored. Such periodic phenomena abound in astronomy. There is the annual fluctuation of the seasons; there is the eighteen or nineteen year period of the moon; there is the great period of the precession of the equinoxes, amounting to twenty-six thousand years; and then there is the stupendous Annus Magnus of hundreds of thousands ...
— Time and Tide - A Romance of the Moon • Robert S. (Robert Stawell) Ball
... for art after grave consultation with his father, and the real trouble that had been fretting him, it seemed, was that now he repented and wanted to follow Cardinal to Cambridge, and—a year lost—go on with science again. He felt it was a discreditable fluctuation; he knew it would be a considerable expense; and so he took two weeks before he could screw himself up to ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... the one infallible test as to whether any such movement is of man without God, or of God within the man, is the following life; only a large space for fluctuation must be allowed where a whole world of passions and habits has to be subjected to the will of God through the vice regency of a human will hardly or only just awakened, and as yet unconscious ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... to throw out of a horizontal position by raising one side or end or lowering the other; the words are closely similar, but tilt suggests more of fluctuation or instability. Slant and slope are said of things somewhat fixed or permanent in a position out of the horizontal or perpendicular; the roof slants, the hill slopes. Incline is a more formal word for tip, and also for ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... yearned for. The same objects every day in our walks—the same objects every moment to look out upon from our windows—the same faces, few or none, on the desolate sands—the very same sky, with hardly any variation, although the slightest fluctuation in the points of the wind, or the current of the clouds, produced a sensation! It suited us at first, for we had no space in our thoughts for external objects, and the total absence of all excitement threw us more in upon ourselves. But even then it was sad. Such days of idleness—such idle ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... of fluctuation in his aspect towards social questions and duties. He has not lost the kindness that used to make him a benefactor and succourer of the needy, and he is still liberal in helping forward the clever and industrious; but in his active superintendence of commercial undertakings he has contracted more ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... of the plan above proposed, I will consider in this chapter, first, the laws which regulate the denudation of strata and the deposition of sediment; secondly, those which govern the fluctuation in the animate world; and thirdly, the mode in which subterranean movements affect the ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... known by a tumor of the scrotum, which is without pain, gradually produced, with fluctuation, and a degree of pellucidity, when a candle is held behind it; it is the most simple incysted dropsy, as it is not in general complicated with other diseases, as ascites with schirrous liver, and hydrocephalus internus, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... painful fluctuation, I received a note, saying that I had but six hours before me, and that I must leave London ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... is less subject to fluctuation than that of most other vegetables. There is comparatively little competition between different localities, and about the only causes of low prices are temporary and local over-production, and forced sales caused by damaged stock. One year with another, a dollar and a half a dozen may ...
— The Cauliflower • A. A. Crozier
... in confinement seventeen years, while others were set at liberty after only one or two. It may be said, Yes, but then they might always hope. But hope, like other things, wants something to feed upon. It cannot bring much consolation, when it lives upon fluctuation and uncertainty. And so a criminal, who knows how long exactly his term will last, is in this respect better off than a prisoner of war, for he escapes the agitation of uncertainty; just as it has been known that a person threatened ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown
... who attain the position of classics are subject to variations in popular and even in scholarly favor or neglect. It happens to the princes of literature to encounter periods of varying duration when their names are revered and their books are not read. The growth, not to say the fluctuation, of Shakespeare's popularity is one of the curiosities of literary history. Worshiped by his contemporaries, apostrophized by Milton only fourteen pears after his death as the "dear son of memory, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the speculation are immediate and large. Transactions are managed on the ready money principle, and the markets of Italy and Spain (where pilchards are considered a great delicacy) are always open to any supply. The fluctuation between a good season's fishing and a bad season's fishing is rarely, if ever, seriously great. Accidents happen but seldom; the casualty most dreaded, being the enclosure of a large fish along with a shoal ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... preponderance of one over the other; finally, this adjusts itself again, by the fact, that a rapid advance will produce sellers and vice versa. A further element in the market, is the "jobber", whose main object is to take advantage of the small fluctuation caused by chance, but we must not forget the big speculators. By these, we do not mean those despicable people who aim to snatch a profit, and who, on having to face a loss, plead the gaming act. Experience ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer
... that throughout the valley there was most undue fluctuation of prices. Moreover, the Manbo sold a part of his rice in harvest time at 50 centavos a sack, and in time of scarcity repurchased it at as much ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... morning of a farewell we fluctuate sharply between the very distant and the close and homely: and even in memory the fluctuation occurs, the grander scene casting us back on the modestly nestling, and that, when it has refreshed us, conjuring imagination to embrace the splendour and wonder. But the wrench of an immediate division from what we love makes the things within us reach ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... but keenly when she said this, and he did not need more than a second glance to understand more than she understood herself. He read where Mr. Denis Oglethorpe stood, by the queer, sudden inner light in her eyes, and the unconscious fluctuation of rich color in her bright glowing face. He was struck with a secret pang in a second. There would be so frail a thread of hope for the man who was only second with a girl ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
... you upbraid me, my dearest Matilda, with abatement in friendship or fluctuation in affection? Is it possible for me to forget that you are the chosen of my heart, in whose faithful bosom I have deposited every feeling which your poor Julia dares to acknowledge to herself? And you do me equal injustice in upbraiding me with exchanging your friendship for that ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... back to Mr. Gilfil's face; he set his teeth and clenched his hands in the effort to repress a burst of indignation. Sir Christopher noticed the flush, but thought it indicated the fluctuation of hope and fear about Caterina. He went on:—'You're too modest by half, Maynard. A fellow who can take a five-barred gate as you can, ought not to be so faint-hearted. If you can't speak to her yourself, leave me to talk ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... deceptive as a means of measuring the strength of the Order, for the membership fluctuated widely; so that in the year 1883, when it reached 50,000 no less than one-half of this number passed in and out of the organization during the year. The enormous fluctuation, while reducing the economic strength of the Order, brought large masses of people under its influence and prepared the ground for the upheaval in the middle of the eighties. It also brought the Order to the attention ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... price of which necessarily varied, averaged in the middle of the fourteenth century tenpence the bushel;[15] barley averaging at the same time three shillings the quarter. With wheat the fluctuation was excessive; a table of its possible variations describes it as ranging from eighteenpence the quarter to twenty shillings; the average, however, being six and eightpence.[16] When the price was above this sum, the merchants ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... a great contrast between the ecclesiastical administration, which exhibited a dignified stability, resting on fixed rules and ancient traditions, and the civil government, which was exposed to continual fluctuation by the change of persons, of measures, and of systems; for few Popes continued the plans of their predecessors. The new Pontiff commenced his reign generally with a profound sense of the abuses and of the discontent which prevailed before his elevation, and naturally ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... posterity that can decide whether the success or failure shall be enduring; for it is only posterity that can reveal whether the relation now existing between the work and the public mind is or is not liable to fluctuation. Yet no man really writes for posterity; no ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... a third example two railway lines doing business between the same points. We have fully pointed out the practical working of this sort of competition in the chapter devoted to railways. It is plain that the general effect is a fluctuation of rates between wide limits, an enormous waste of capital and labor, and ultimately, the permanent death of competition by the consolidation ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... is added, first, a logarithmic factor for the temperature recorded for the calorimeter to correct the volume of air to standard temperature. As the temperature fluctuations are all within 1 degree, a table has been prepared giving the standard fluctuation represented by ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict
... chief instrumentality in great revival movements, under the direction of the churches, and especially in that under Mr. Moody in the great Tabernacle. The Boston Association has never forgotten the chief object of its existence, nor, though not without some fluctuation, has ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... has proved to be safe and useful to the Government, its effects have been most beneficial upon the business of the country. It has tended powerfully to secure an exemption from that inflation and fluctuation of the paper currency so injurious to domestic industry and rendering so uncertain the rewards of labor, and, it is believed, has largely contributed to preserve the whole country from a serious commercial revulsion, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Edmund might be supposed in town, and Fanny had heard nothing of him. There were three different conclusions to be drawn from his silence, between which her mind was in fluctuation; each of them at times being held the most probable. Either his going had been again delayed, or he had yet procured no opportunity of seeing Miss Crawford alone, or he ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... the macrocosm. The spirit has its risings and settings of sun and moon, its seasons, its clouds and stars, its solstices, its tides, its winds, its storms, its earthquakes—infinite vitality in endless fluctuation. To rule these changes, Florimel had neither the power that comes of love, nor the strength that comes of obedience. What of conscience she had was not yet conscience toward God, which is the guide to freedom, but conscience toward society, which is the slave of a fool. It was no wonder then that ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... innovation is too strong an impulse in democratic states, and must be regulated; that the organic law should be changed only after patience, experience and deliberation shall have demonstrated the necessity of the change; and that too great fixedness of the law is better than too great fluctuation. This is all true enough; but, on the other hand, it is equally true that development is as much a law of state life as existence. Prohibit the former, and the latter is the existence of the body after the spirit has departed. When, ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... are aware of the transitions and fluctuation, which our language experienced in the intermediate space comprised between Chaucer and Sir Thomas More; and still greater between Robert of Gloucester, 1278, and John Trevisa, or his contemporary Wickliffe, who died 1384, know, to a certainty, that ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... attempt such an ascent in January, my provisions were scanty, firewood only to be obtained from some distance, the open undulating surface of Jongri was particularly exposed to heavy snow-drifts, and the path was, at the best, a scarcely perceptible track. I followed every change of the wind, every fluctuation of the barometer and thermometer, each accession of humidity, and the courses of the clouds aloft. At 7 p.m., the wind suddenly shifted to the west, and the thermometer instantly rose from 20 degrees to 30 degrees. After 8 p.m., the temperature fell again, and the wind drew round ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... When, for example, the walls of the abscess are thick and rigid, or when its contents are under excessive tension, the fluid wave cannot be elicited. On the other hand, a sensation closely resembling fluctuation may often be recognised in oedematous tissues, in certain soft, solid tumours such as fatty tumours or vascular sarcomata, in aneurysm, and in a muscle when it is ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... will always be changes in general industrial conditions calling for reevaluation of the existing sources of income; and in this process there will always be a tendency to rhythmic swing like that of a river, which carries the stream of prices now on this side of the valley, now on that. But this fluctuation of general prices surely can be so greatly moderated in magnitude and in evil results as to make the word "crisis" almost a misnomer. It is toward the attainment of this irreducible minimum of uncertainty and disaster in business ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... are accustomed to regard money as of constant value, and an honest money must necessarily conform to this belief. If money varies in value, the people are deluded, and many are wronged if they are unaware of the fluctuation. If they become aware of it,—as they generally do by a bitter experience,—they are confronted with an uncertainty that is most detrimental to any business or enterprise. Imagine what our business would be with our measures of ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... Fluctuation in the price of base metals is a factor so much to be taken into consideration, that it is desirable in estimating mine values to reduce the working costs to a basis of a "per unit" of finished metal. This method has the great advantage of indicating ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover
... variations in the current there were during the course of the treatment. In the middle of the process, while the patient was conversing with the doctor, she was suddenly "obsessed." Coincidental with this obsession, the galvanometer showed a tremendous and permanent fluctuation, indicating that the resistance of the body to the current had suddenly and ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... belonging to the smaller nations of Europe, from the north and from the south, by the Russians, by most of the Turkish and Asiatic members, but also by all the Mexicans and South Americans. These figures may not be absolutely free from fallacy, due to temporary causes of fluctuation. But that they are fairly exact is shown by the results of the following Congress, held at Moscow. If I take up the programme for the department of psychiatry and nervous disease, in which I was myself chiefly interested, I find that of 131 communications, 80 were in French, 37 in German and 14 in ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... of jealousy into a flame; and the explosion is immediate and terrible as a volcano. The dialogues in Lear, in Macbeth, that between Brutus and Cassius, and nearly all those in Shakspeare, where the interest is wrought up to its highest pitch, afford examples of this dramatic fluctuation of passion. The interest in Chaucer is quite different: it is like the course of a river, strong, and full, and increasing. In Shakspeare, on the contrary, it is like the sea, agitated this way and that, and loud-lashed ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... which frequently, for want of ready money, remains long unsold. They take nothing but cash in payment; for, notwithstanding the endeavours of our Government, the notes of the Bank of France have never been in circulation among them. They have also been subject to losses by the fluctuation of paper money, by extortions, requisitions, and by the maximum. In this class of my countrymen remains still some little national spirit and some independence of character; but these are far from being favourable to Bonaparte, or to the Imperial Government, which ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... other troublous times, prices are subject to complicated causes of fluctuation, not always separable. Two great staples, flour and sugar, however, may be taken to indicate with some certainty the effects of impeded water transport. From a table of prices current, of August, 1813, it appears that at Baltimore, in the centre of the wheat export, ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... Gosson's School of Abuse. Scott's statement in the Advertisement as to why he did not omit any of the original collection shows his unpedantic attitude toward the kind of studies which he was encouraging by the republication of this series. He says: "When the variety of literary pursuits, and the fluctuation of fashionable study is considered, it may seem rash to pass a hasty sentence of exclusion, even upon the dullest and most despised of the essays which this ample collection offers to the public. There may be among the learned, even now, individuals ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... the government officers' homes were off the island, too, but this commuting did not cause any great fluctuation of the island's population. A city that governs a planet must operate at full capacity twenty-four hours a day, and there was a "rush hour" every three hours as the staggered six-hour ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... into the proceedings of that deposed government for several years back cannot fail to have observed, amidst the inconstancy and fluctuation natural to courts, an earnest endeavor towards the prosperity and improvement of the country; he must admit that it had long been employed, in some instances wholly to remove, in many considerably to correct, the abusive practices and usages that had prevailed in the state,—and ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... particularly in those which concern the personality of the wanderer. When the elders inform the wanderer that he must marry the woman that he has taken, he does not know clearly whether the matter at all concerns him or not; a remarkable fluctuation in his attitude takes place. We wonder whether he has taken on the role of the bridegroom or, quite the reverse, the bridegroom has taken the wanderer's. We are likewise struck by similar uncertainties, like those ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... Fluctuation in Tariff Policy.—As each of the old parties was divided on the currency question, it is not surprising that there was some confusion in their ranks over the tariff. Like the silver issue, the tariff tended ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... is something resulting from lust, just as inconstancy is, if by duplicity we understand fluctuation of the mind from one thing to another. Hence Terence says (Eunuch. act 1, sc. 1) that "love leads to war, and ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Delvile, but what now, to her, was either her defence or accusation? She had solemnly renounced all further intercourse with her, she had declared against writing again, and prohibited her letters: and, therefore, after much fluctuation of opinion, her delicacy concurred with her judgment, to conclude it would be most proper, in a situation so intricate, to leave the matter to chance, and commit ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... can say, we men of the nineteenth century, that the nineteenth century is not the dunghill. However deep the shame of the present, whatever blows we receive from the fluctuation of events, whatever the apparent desertion or the momentary lethargy of mental vigour, none of us, democrats, will repudiate the magnificent epoch in which we live, the virile ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... that it was the custom for traders to employ factors, whose business it was to recover bad debts from the planters, and prolonged lawsuits became very frequent. The use of tobacco as money caused a great amount of trouble, and the Virginians were not slow to take advantage of any fluctuation in the value of their medium of exchange. This was the occasion of great injustice and suffering. It was the standing complaint of the clergy that they were defrauded of a part of their salaries at frequent intervals by the varying ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... is encountered in recognizing these conditions even where considerable organization of tissue overlying distended thecae occurs. In such cases there may be only slight fluctuation of the enlargement, but if necessary, an aseptic exploratory puncture may be made with a ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix
... her bedroom, and with the help of the devoted Mary proceeded to make an elaborate toilette for the drive. Those wonderful trunks seemed to contain garments suitable for every possible occasion which could arise; for every fluctuation of weather, for every degree of festivity. From one of the number out came a long driving coat, snowy white, light of texture, an ideal garment for a warm yet dusty summer's day, which being fastened down the side by huge pearl buttons, displayed a degree of smartness nothing short of uncanny ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... another that has been, so to speak, closed and locked to the ordinary layman, and opens it up again with some original thrust of wholesome scepticism, and makes it flexible and porous. He indicates change and fluctuation and malleableness and the organic capriciousness of life, where the professors have shut themselves up in logical dilemmas. When it comes to the matter of his actual approach to these things it will be found that he plunges his ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... pull upon it, this way and that, as it was agitated by the fluctuation of the water, it soon drew it down, and the boat, being now entirely at liberty, began to move slowly off from the shore. It soon drifted out where it was more fully exposed to the action of the wind, when it began to move much faster. And thus, while our party of ...
— Forests of Maine - Marco Paul's Adventures in Pursuit of Knowledge • Jacob S. Abbott
... rate of exchange has developed among the masses of the people, who turn to the financial column of the morning paper as Westerners do to football news or baseball results. There is considerable fluctuation in the values, and it is no doubt possible to make a living by speculation alone, and many people do so. In the banks are, therefore, crowds, both of speculators and of people who have just crossed the frontier and must get their ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... thus forced upon him by imbibing an extraordinary quantity of the "spurious" liquid. When he says, "The waters have gone over me," he speaks in metaphor, not historically. He was never vanquished by water, and seldom by wine. His energy, or mental power, was indeed subject to fluctuation; no excessive merriment, perhaps, but much depression. "My waking life," he writes, "has much of the confusion, the trouble, and obscure perplexity of an ill dream. In the daytime I stumble upon ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... any certain account of Bess, or form a rational conjecture with respect to the termination of her disorder. She has not had a violent fit of frenzy since I saw you, but her mind is in a most unsettled state, and attending to the constant fluctuation of it is far more harassing than the watching these raving fits that had not the least tincture of reason. Her ideas are all disjointed, and a number of wild whims float on her imagination, and fall from her unconnectedly something like strange ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... his celebrated theory that it was the Cinderella of professions. The firm had quite recently obtained a very important job in a manufacturing quarter of London, without having to compete for it; but Mr. Enwright's great leading ideas never fluctuated with the fluctuation of facts. If the multiplicity of his lucrative jobs had been such as to compel him to run round from one to another on a piebald pony in the style of Sir Hugh Corver, his view of the profession would not have altered. He spoke ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... will not go yet,' he replied, with a nervous fluctuation of manner that had never before appeared ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... found that way to protect the farmers' prices from the effects of alternating crop surpluses and crop scarcities, we shall also have found the way to protect the nation's food supply from the effects of the same fluctuation. We ought always to have enough food at prices within the reach of the consuming public. For the consumers in the cities of America, we must find a way to help the farmers to store up in years of plenty enough to avoid hardship ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... rubato of Chopin many and fatal blunders have been made. Players without number have gone stumbling over the piano keys with a tottering, spasmodic gait, serenely fancying they are heeding the master's design. Reckless, out-of-time playing disfigures what is meant to express the fluctuation of thought, the soul's agitation, the rolling of the waves of time and eternity. The rubato, from rubare, to rob, represents a pliable movement that is certainly as old as the Greek drama in declamation, and was employed in intoning the Gregorian chant. The recitative of the sixteenth century ...
— For Every Music Lover - A Series of Practical Essays on Music • Aubertine Woodward Moore
... of the gland with the fingers; and when, on pressing any part of the surface, it is found to fluctuate or "give," then we may conclude that there is a collection of pus at that place. It is well not to open the abscess until the fluctuation is well marked, as at this stage the pus or matter is near the surface and there is less trouble in healing the wound than if the pus is deep seated. The abscess should be opened with a clean, sharp knife. The ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... will of the people, it will be uniform and coherent; but fluctuation, contradiction, and inconsistency of councils must be expected under those governments where every evolution in the ministry of a court produces one in the State—such being the folly and pride of all ministers, that they ever pursue measures ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... the naked eye, in which state it remains about five months, and continues increasing during the remainder of its period. Such is the general course of its phases. But the mean period above assigned would appear to be subject to a cyclical fluctuation embracing eighty-eight such periods, and having the effect of gradually lengthening and shortening alternately those intervals to the extent of twenty-five days one way and the other. The irregularities in the degree of brightness attained at ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... the direction of the wind was made after Andree's departure, and proved that there was a fluctuation in direction from S.W. to N.W., indicating that the voyagers may have been borne across towards Siberia. This, however, can be but surmise. All aeronauts of experience know that it is an exceedingly difficult manoeuvre to keep a trail rope dragging ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... times, to double the amount of wages, a very inadequate proportion of good would follow. You have to teach these poor people how to spend money: you have to give them the opportunities of doing so to advantage: you have to provide a system of education which shall not vary with every fluctuation of trade: and to adopt such methods of working as shall make the least possible disturbance of domestic ties. No sudden influx of money will do all these things. In fact, whatever part of this subject one takes up, one is perpetually brought back to the conviction of the necessity which exists for ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... (says Cardinal Newman) we survey the stream of human affairs for the last three thousand years, we find it to run thus:—At first sight there is so much fluctuation, agitation, ebbing and flowing, that we may despair to discern any law in its movements, taking the earth as its bed and mankind as its contents; but on looking more closely and attentively we shall discern, in spite of the heterogeneous materials and the various histories and fortunes which are ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... would not mind in the least, and leaving the patient in Miss Virginia's hands she walked thoughtfully toward home. She happened to know that there was considerable interest felt at present in the fluctuation of these bonds, for she sometimes read the market news to Mr. Goodman, and he had a few days before spoken of buying some. Was there any possible way by which she could sell Miss Sarah's bond ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... in his periodical visits; and though she felt an unaccountable timidity in his presence, yet she certainly was minded to make an experiment of the adventure; but"——And in this happy state of doubt and fluctuation she remained until eventide, when a calm bright moon, as it again rose over the hill, saw Alice at the casement of her own chamber, looking thoughtfully, anxiously, down where the dark surface of the stagnant moat wore a bright star on its bosom. ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... desolation yields to soothing play of waters—a berceuse of the sea—and now a song sings softly (in horn), though strangely jarring on the murmuring lullaby. The soothing cheer is anon broken by a shift of new tone. There is a fluctuation of pleasant and strange sounds; a dulcet air on rapturous harmony is hushed by ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... honesty redounds to his advantage." We make a better use of the word if we say of one (for example) who has squandered a fortune, that its loss redounds to his advantage, for the word denotes a fluctuation, as from seeming evil to actual good; as villification may direct attention to one's ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... larger organizations, of course, the employment supervisor must have more assistants, there must be more clerks and stenographers, according to the number of employees handled and the character of the work to be done. There are some organizations in which there is very little fluctuation in the personnel. In such cases a small employment department is all that is necessary, even although a large number of employees may be on the payroll. In other kinds of work there is a very large fluctuation, under ordinary conditions, and in such cases it is necessary ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... numerous, and intermixed in so complex a manner with one another, that even supposing their laws known, the computation of the aggregate effect transcends the powers of the calculus as it is, or is likely to be; or, lastly, where the causes themselves are in a state of perpetual fluctuation; as in physiology, and still more, if possible, in the social science. The mathematical solutions of physical questions become progressively more difficult and imperfect, in proportion as the questions divest themselves of their abstract and hypothetical character, ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... epistles of Ignatius appear in three forms or recensions, a longer Greek recension forming a group of thirteen epistles, a short Greek of seven epistles, and a still shorter Syriac version of only three. After much fluctuation of opinion, due to the general reconstruction of the history of the whole period, which has gone through various marked changes, the opinion of scholars has been steadily settling upon the short ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... have warred with inherent disease and overstrained sensitiveness, till the latter became victors. You know how I placed this wasted feeble hand on the abandoned helm of human government. I have been visited at times by intervals of fluctuation; yet, until now, I have felt as if a superior and indefatigable spirit had taken up its abode within me or rather incorporated itself with my weaker being. The holy visitant has for a time slept, perhaps to show me how powerless I am without its inspiration. Yet, stay for a while, O Power of goodness ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... Logos, if their rapid ascent towards the throne of heaven had not been imperceptibly checked by the apprehension of violating the unity and sole supremacy of the great Father of Christ and of the Universe. The suspense and fluctuation produced in the minds of the Christians by these opposite tendencies, may be observed in the writings of the theologians who flourished after the end of the apostolic age, and before the origin of the Arian ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... would not have forsaken me in my gray hairs." The world is a poor comforter at the last. No man or woman has become successful until their essential happiness is placed beyond the reach of all outward fluctuation and change. Faith in Christ, the faith that penetrates the future and brings down from heaven a bright and blessed hopefulness, which casts its illumination over the present scene and reveals the grand object of existence, is essential ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... disposition, with large, executive capacity and ripe experience, shut up almost to idleness; a woman of large benevolence, who had entered on work of peculiar excellence and attractiveness, cut off from all such activities. This, with frequent pain, with fluctuation of hope and discouragement as to the future; and yet there is about her an atmosphere as serene as the Alpine heights that look down upon her, as cheerful as the sunny Alpine pastures with their tinkle of sheep-bell and hum of mountain bee. Her constant thought goes out to distant friends ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam
... to a level.[301] A permanent elevation at one point is impossible. The agency by which this levelling or equilibrating process is carried out is competition, involving what Smith called the 'higgling of the market.' The momentary fluctuation, again, supposes the action of 'supply and demand,' which, as they vary, raise and depress prices. To illustrate the working of this machinery, to show how previous writers had been content to notice a particular change without following out the collateral results, and had thus ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... view to have the most perfect security against cold blasts and fluctuation of temperature in rooms intended for invalids, and still to retain the so much valued appearance of the open fire, a glazed frame or window may be placed at the entrance of the chimney, so as completely to prevent the passage of air from the room to the fire. The close ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... the level of the Lake rises, and a maximum amount of water escapes through its outlet. According to the observations of Capt. John McKinney, made at his residence on the western shore of this Lake, the average seasonal fluctuation of level is about 0.61 of a meter; but in extreme seasons it sometimes amounts to 1.37 meters. The Lake of Geneva, in like manner, is liable to fluctuations of level amounting to from 1.95 to 2.60 meters, from the melting of the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... that Mr Farquharson met Squire Ormiston on the steps of the Bank of British North America, an old-fashioned building with an appearance of dignity and probity, a look of having been founded long ago upon principles which raised it above fluctuation, exactly the place in which Mr Farquharson and Squire Ormiston might be expected to meet. The two men, though politically opposed, were excellent friends; ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... and his signal successes have been in the line of economics. He believes in Free Trade as the gospel of social salvation. He revels in figures; he has price, value, consumption, distribution, import, export, fluctuation, all at his tongue's end, ready to hurl at any one who ventures on ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... the slaves would not have detained him, but his brother's death did. We buried the youth, who has been ill three months. Mpamari descended into the grave with four others; a broad cloth was held over them horizontally, and a little fluctuation made, as if to fan those who were depositing the body in the side excavation made at the bottom: when they had finished they pulled in earth, and all shoved it towards them till the grave was level. Mullam then came and poured a little water into and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... Kansas argued "that the public debt is payable in silver, and if the money unit should be established in the metal least subject to fluctuation that metal is silver. Gold is the money of monarchs, and was in open alliance with our enemies in the ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... to show what is the present state of Zend scholarship, and though we would by no means disguise the fact of its somewhat chaotic character, yet we do not hesitate to affirm that, in spite of the conflict of the opinions of different scholars, and in spite of the fluctuation of systems apparently opposed to each other, progress may be reported, and a firm hope expressed that the essential doctrines of one of the earliest forms of religion may in time be recovered and placed before us in their original purity and simplicity. ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... pronounced—it may be to a right angle—the leg and foot are everted, and, in children, the tibia may be displaced backwards (Fig. 124). The wasting of muscles continues, the part becomes hot to the touch, the swelling increases, and may show areas of softening or fluctuation from abscess formation. ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... authors at the same time busy; and the press going on with fearfully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the number? Unless some unforeseen mortality should break out among the progeny of the Muse, now that she has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. I fear the mere fluctuation of language will not be sufficient. Criticism may do much; it increases with the increase of literature, and resembles one of those salutary checks on population spoken of by economists. All possible ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... never a misgiving about Himself. Only, I think, moments of a dreadful insight when he heard behind him the creeping of the tide of oblivion, and it frightened him. He was sensitive to every little fluctuation in his vogue. He had the fear of its vanishing before his eyes. And there he was, shut up among all his splendor with his fear; and it was his wife's work and Antigone's to keep it from him, to stand between him and that vision. He was like a child when his ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair
... 890 to 640. The directors were alarmed and gave their agents orders to buy. Their efforts succeeded. Toward evening confidence was restored, and the stock advanced to 750. It continued at this price with some slight fluctuation, until the company closed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... part of the population. In other strata, social and financial criteria of selection hold much importance. As a family ascends in economic position, its standards of sexual selection are likely to change. And in large sections of the population, there is a fluctuation in the standards from generation to generation. There is reason to suspect that the standards of sexual selection among educated young women in the United States to-day are higher than they were a quarter of a century, or ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... grossest manifestations and mischiefs of ignorance among the people, for the very purpose of whose exemption from that ignorance it was that they bore the sacred office. One of the most striking of the characteristics by which their writings so forcibly seize the imagination is, a strange continual fluctuation and strife of lustre and gloom, produced by the intermingling and contrast of the emanations from the Spirit of infinite wisdom, with those proceeding from the dark, debased souls of the people. We are tempted ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... exquisites was ruled by a punctilious etiquette, and their knee-breeches, lace ruffles, diamond buckles, and chapeaux bras were subject to the strictest regulations and to every fluctuation of the prevailing mode. Their gold-handled spy-glasses were impartially directed towards the stars upon the stage or to the belles in the neighbouring boxes, where, from the grand tier to the roof, was a ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Exchange on England rose from 5 per cent. to 10 per cent.; the discount on New Orleans notes, from 3 per cent. became 50 per cent., and on the 4th of December it had fallen back to 4 per cent. What fluctuation! What disasters! ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... opinions did not fluctuate sufficiently at different periods, and that Mr. Darwin considered him as having in some way entered upon the causes or means of the transformation of species. Certainly those who read Mr. Darwin's own works attentively will find no lack of fluctuation in his case; and reflection will show them that a theory of evolution which relies mainly on the accumulation of accidental variations comes very close to not entering upon the causes or means of ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... impropriety and offence of a Gothic revenge. But it is necessary upon a subject so important as that which now employs my pen, to be honest and explicit. It is not a time for compliment, it is not a moment for disguise and fluctuation. Whatever were the merits of the contest, I cannot forget that your hand is deformed with the blood of my husband. My lord, you have my sincerest good wishes. I bear you none of that ill will and covert revenge, that are equally the disgrace of reason and Christianity. But you have ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... the cutting has not been profitably carried on in this country on a scale large enough to justify branch houses in London, the great market for rough diamonds, where advantage can be taken of every fluctuation in the market and large parcels purchased, which can be cut immediately and converted into cash; for nothing is bought and sold on a closer margin than ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... the unstable and unbelieving man is like the "wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." There are two motions of the waves—one up and down, which we call undulation, the other to and fro, which we call fluctuation. How appropriately both are referred to—"tossed" up and down, "driven" to and fro! The double-minded man lacks steadiness in both respects: his faith has no uniformity of experience, for he is now at the crest of the wave and now in the trough of the ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... well observed: "In tone and rhythm music has a notation for every kind and degree of action and passion, presenting abstract moulds of its excitement, fluctuation, suspense, crisis, appeasement; and all this anonymously, without place, actors, circumstances, named or described, without a word spoken. Poetry has to supply definite thought, arguments driving at a conclusion, ideas mortgaged to this or that creed ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... "declination" of the magnetic needle—that is, to the position assumed by it with reference to the points of the compass when moving freely in a horizontal plane. Now this position—as was discovered by Graham in 1722—is subject to a small daily fluctuation, attaining its maximum towards the east about 8 A.M., and its maximum towards the west shortly before 2 P.M. In other words, the direction of the needle approaches (in these countries at the present time) nearest to the true north some ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... not know to this day what particular question he asked, but he vividly remembers that she answered, and every line or fluctuation of her face ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Hospital, had a special canula for the purpose, which expands at its extremity after its introduction, and thus is not apt to slip.[160] Some surgeons insist that the surgeon should be able to ascertain the existence of fluctuation between the finger in the rectum, and the other hand above the pubes. This is exceedingly difficult to elicit when the bladder is very much distended, and from the constrained position of the finger in ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... uneasy at the inquisitive gaze of the bystanders; and his companion observing the fluctuation of his countenance, added, as the door was opened by a ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... upon a paper ocean, it is yet an elementary and local view;—local, as not comprising the state of facts in England and France; and elementary, inasmuch as it omits all reference to the possibility of a great fluctuation of prices being produced by other means than an excess or deficiency of money.[A] In France, as we know, the currency is almost entirely metallic, while in England it is metallic so far as the lesser exchanges ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... peccant humours and to save him from the stagnation and the sensuality that have beset many foreign aristocracies. County business stimulates his activity, mitigates his class prejudices, and forms his judgment: and his standard of honour will keep him substantially right amid much fluctuation ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... savage instincts, but die, like wild animals, in captivity; and particular individuals die when not suffered any longer to retain their memories, their bodies, or even their master passions. Thus human nature survives amid a continual fluctuation of its embodiments. At every step twigs and leaves are thrown out that last but one season; but the underlying stem may have meantime grown stronger and more luxuriant. Whole branches sometimes wither, but others may continue to bloom. Spiritual unity runs, like sap, from ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... history of the moving of the civilized frontier northward and eastward against the disastrous encroachments of barbarous peoples. This great movement has, on the whole, been steadily kept up, in spite of some apparent fluctuation in the fifth and sixth centuries of the Christian era, and it is still going on to-day. It was a great gain for civilization when the Romans overcame the Keltiberians of Spain, and taught them good manners and the Latin language, ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... Walcott had manifested the deepest anxiety respecting her: he had wandered around and within the house, like a restless ghost, informing himself of the slightest fluctuation in her health, and thereby graduating his happiness or misery. He was at length informed that her convalescence had so far progressed, that, on the succeeding day, she would venture below. From that time Edward's ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... remarked that the farthing, which is the 960th part of L.1, might be set down as the 1000th, which would be a variation of 4 per cent. only—somewhat less than that to which copper is liable from fluctuation of price. We have thus the units at the one end of the scale, and the thousands at the other; it remains only to interpose the tens and hundreds between them, by introducing a florin as the tenth of a pound, and a cent—equal to 2-1/2d. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... menacing; and the two had gone out of the office and lunched together. And the confidential clerk thus chattering his news, declared that his employer was now evidently uneasy; and that from that uneasiness he augured a sudden fluctuation or fall in what had lately seemed the most ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... instruct myself in everything which relates to our Colonies. I was not less under the necessity of forming some fixed ideas concerning the general policy of the British Empire. Something of this sort seemed to be indispensable, in order, amidst so vast a fluctuation of passions and opinions, to concentre my thoughts, to ballast my conduct, to preserve me from being blown about by every wind of fashionable doctrine. I really did not think it safe or manly to have fresh principles to seek upon ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke |
