"Precision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... contrary to all expectation, when the 31st of August came, the house opened as usual, and Cocles appeared behind the grating of the counter, examined all bills presented with the usual scrutiny, and, from first to last, paid all with the usual precision. There came in, moreover, two drafts which M. Morrel had fully anticipated, and which Cocles paid as punctually as the bills which the shipowner had accepted. All this was incomprehensible, and then, with the tenacity peculiar to prophets ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... ever forget how they circled about us. One of their clan, as they supposed, was in dire danger and they functioned as only a fatu-liva can. Flying at an immense height, in battle formation, they began laying eggs with marvelous precision. The first two struck the wak-wak square on the nose and he screamed with pain. The third, landing corner-wise, put out his right eye and he began to thrash in helpless circles. The fourth was a direct ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... slackened on the 26th, the Prussians were not losing their time. Thanks to the hardness of the soil, and to the fog, they had got their guns into position in all their batteries from Villenomble to Montfermeil. The injury done to the park of Drancy by the precision of the aim of our artillery at Fort Nogent was repaired; cannon were brought to the trenches which the day before we had occupied at Ville Evrart; and, as well as it was possible, twelve new batteries, armed with cannon of long range, were unmasked. All through the 28th ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... a small grimace at her. "Ah, here's some tea!" Melrose, known among Magda's friends as "the perfect butler," had come noiselessly into the room and was arranging the tea paraphernalia with the reverential precision of one making preparation for some mystic rite. "Perhaps when you've had a cup you'll feel more amiable—that is, if I ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... positive and negative forms of electricity. Electricity is a form of energy. It is intelligent energy; otherwise it could not move with that same wonderful precision in the electrons of the atoms as in the suns and planets ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... describe, the account of a winter passed in these regions can no longer be expected to afford the interest of novelty it once possessed; more especially in a station already delineated with tolerable geographical precision on our maps, and thus, as it were, brought near to our firesides at home. Independently, indeed, of this circumstance, it is hard to conceive any one thing more like another than two winters passed in the higher latitudes of the Polar regions, except when ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she leaned over the balcony and came to ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... from Mazzini in many of his political views, and in our estimate of what may be the wisest policy for Italian liberals in existing circumstances. We think that he seeks to impart to politics a mathematical precision of which they are not susceptible, and does not sufficiently regard a principle the correctness of which has been admitted by himself, that the fact of a thing being true in principle cannot give the right of suddenly enthroning it in practice. But ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... the sea,' a legal term expressing a claim, if not a right. It has also been sometimes treated as though it were identical with the rhetorical expression 'Empire of the sea.' Mahan, instead of it, uses the term 'Control of the sea,' which has the merit of precision, and is not likely to be misunderstood or mixed up with a form of words meaning something different. The expression 'Command of the sea,' however, in its proper and strategic sense, is so firmly fixed ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... "dry sort;" or sometimes said, "How young he is!" But those whose fate it was to face the Minister in the House knew that there was something in him more to be feared even than his imperturability, his honesty, or his precision—and that was a certain sudden warmth, which was apt to carry away the House at unexpected times. On one of these occasions, it was rumored, Lady Betty Champion had seen him, and fallen in love with him. Why he had thrown the handkerchief ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... into being largely on French and Latin models, and as French is but a degraded Latin and retains Latin roots largely, in our older English poets the Latin forms of these names are generally used. In our own generation, with the precision now so much courted, a fashion has come in, of designating Mars by his Greek name of "Ares," Venus by her name of "Aphrodite," and so on. But in this book, as our object is to make familiar the stores of general English ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... certain finical precision to her English that told Peter she had been away to some school, and had been taught to guard her grammar very ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... been called by an uncountable number of housemaids and footmen "the little Madam"—the most sarcastic term of opprobrium contained in their dictionary. A leader of New York society, she had run charitable institutions and new movements with the same precision and efficiency that she had used in her houses. Every hour of her day had been filled. Not one moment had been wasted or frittered away. Her dinner parties had been famous, and she had had a spoke in the wheels ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... in the French style, as I afterwards, by comparing my garb with that of others, discovered. They were fitted to my shape with the nicest precision. I bedecked myself with all my care. I remembered the style of dress used by my beloved Clavering. My locks were of shining auburn, flowing and smooth like his. Having wrung the wet from them, and combed, I tied them carelessly in a black ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... precision in direction, let us proceed as follows: Imagine that you are standing on a stage, in a circle the diameter of your own feet; we will call that ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... the pool he saw a large flock of sheep approaching. They were very closely, even densely, packed, in a solid slow-moving mass and coming with a precision almost like a march. This fact surprised Shefford, for there was not an Indian in sight. Presently he saw that a dog was leading the flock, and a little later he discovered another dog in the rear of the sheep. They were splendid, long-haired dogs, of a wild-looking shepherd breed. He halted his ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... which remained "faithful among the faithless" to the house of David at a later day; Hebrew offspring of Hebrew ancestors,[9] child of a home in which, immemorially, the old manners and the old speech were cherished; in respect of the law,[10] a Pharisee—the votary of religious precision, elaborate devotion, exclusive ...
— Philippian Studies - Lessons in Faith and Love from St. Paul's Epistle to the Philippians • Handley C. G. Moule
... have to be strong enough and hard enough not to be afraid of me, by any trace. Able and eager to stand up to me and slug it out. To pin my ears back flat against my skull whenever she thinks I'm off the beam. Do it with skill and precision and nicety, with power and control; yet without doing herself any damage and without changing her basic feeling for me. In short, a ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... is." Lucille spoke now with cool precision, as yet untouched by the horror she had expected to feel. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... officers, who are not to be "treated with contempt," etc., I have not inquired. Apart from such amusing criticism of the times past, it is undoubtedly true that attention to minutiae is symptomatic of a much more important underlying spirit, one of exactness and precision running through all the management of a ship and affecting her efficiency. I concede that a thing so trifling as the buttoning of a frock-coat may indicate a development and survival of the fittest; but ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... examples of the new Gospel of French Self-Supply. Before the war France manufactured lathes that were beautiful examples of art and precision. The firms that made them were old and solid and took infinite pride in their product. Now they realise that output must dominate. A simple type of machine has been chosen as model and will henceforth be made in ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... of it or not, varied occasionally by a solitary skiffing expedition down the river, or a game of billiards with some very steady friend on the sly. His dress must exhibit either the negligence of a sloven, (in case he be an aspirant for very high honours indeed,) or the grave precision of a respectable gentleman of forty. He must eschew all such vanities as white trousers and well-cut boots. He must be profoundly ignorant of all university intelligence that does not bear in some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... distinguit bene docet. This is an old adage. Now, he who imposes new names upon all the acts, the functions, and the objects of the philosophic understanding, must be presumed to have distinguished most sharply, and to have ascertained with most precision, their general relations—so long as his terminology continues to be adopted. This test, applied to Kant, will show that his spirit yet survives in Germany. Frederic Schlegel, it is true, twenty years ago, in his lectures upon literature, ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... and not numerous. Outlines of operations, presented in skeleton, as they usually may be, are in most instances surprisingly clear; and, these once grasped, the details fall into place with a readiness and a precision that convey an ever increasing intellectual enjoyment. The writer has more than once been witness of the pleasure thus occasioned to men wholly strangers to military matters; a pleasure partly of novelty, but which possesses the elements of endurance ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... thing about me," she said with closely cut precision, "is my health. I haven't the faintest notion what it means to be ill. I am merely waiting for the conversation to take a I turn where I can join ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... to mention here A fact you all no doubt are sure to know, 'Tis necessary oftentimes to steer Clear of surrounding difficulties, so When an especial object lies below The precision of your kindness and attention, Snatch the right time (a glance may serve to show If in a mood for jesting or dissension, Domestic trials are too numerous ...
— The Minstrel - A Collection of Poems • Lennox Amott
... its warm, southern side. As the mounted musicians went by, the square was quite filled with the clang of drum and trumpet, which became fainter and fainter, and at length was lost on the ear beyond the Isar, but preserved the perfection of time and the precision of execution for which the military bands of the city are remarkable. After the band came a brave array of officers in bright uniform, upon horses that pranced and curveted in the sunshine; and the regiment of cavalry followed, rank on rank of splendidly ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... l'auteur; mais le style elegant, la precision des informations et quelques details d'opinion que je ne partage pas m'avaient fait supposer que nous devions attribuer a Jurien de la Graviere le travail en question. En tous cas, quelque soit l'auteur, je demande a tous mes amis de lui renvoyer le merite ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... felt a certain perplexing uneasiness; Elena was no longer exactly conscious of the moment, nor was she quite mistress of herself. In spite of all her efforts she was unable to recall with precision her motives for coming here, to follow out her intentions—even to regain her force of will. In the presence of this man to whom, once upon a time, she had been bound by such passionate ties, and in this spot where she lived the ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... eminent type of this class of men was Magliabecchi, librarian to the Grand-Duke of Tuscany, who could direct you to any book in any part of the world, with the precision with which the metropolitan policeman directs you to St Paul's or Piccadilly. It is of him that the stories are told of answers to inquiries after books, in these terms: "There is but one copy of that book in the world. It is ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... that set of ten applied with beautiful precision to the special vices of that people and that time; but there is room for many more needed ones to-day. There is no commandment against gambling, for instance; one of the most universal and indefensible evils. Gambling does no one good; the winner of unearned money is ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... of the Sixth Corps to the left together in a half-wheel. Then leaving Crook, I rode along the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, the open ground over which they were passing affording a rare opportunity to witness the precision with which the attack was taken up from right to left. Crook's success began the moment he started to turn the enemy's left; and assured by the fact that Torbert had stampeded the Confederate cavalry and thrown Breckenridge's infantry into such disorder that it could do little ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... precision, the killer turned his knife and forced it across the throat with the heel of his hand. Dark fluid welled out on the path, making a pool ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... miles away when Hoddan fired his rockets. They made a colossal cloud of vapor in emptiness. The yacht stirred faintly, shifted deftly, lost just a suitable amount of velocity—which now was nearly straight up from the planet—and moved with precision and directness toward the liner. Hoddan stirred his controls and swung the whole small ship. Here, obviously, he could not use the space-drive for its proper purpose. But a switch cut out certain elements of the Lawlor unit and cut in those others which made the modified ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... on his riding gloves with grave precision, put his hat on his head, and took up his riding whip; then he turned ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... best games for training self-control under excitement, as the precision needed for a long shot, especially with the Indian club, is ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... all the color out of the picture, and leaving it a dirty gray. She gazed moodily down at the whirl of dust in the corral, where Whizzer was struggling to free himself from the loop Chip had thrown with his accustomed, calm precision. Whatever Chip did he did thoroughly, with no slurring of detail. Whizzer was fain ...
— Chip, of the Flying U • B. M. Bower
... ladies by the pillar that I cannot tell to a certainty which one you mean,' whispered my would-be informant. Stooping and glancing along my arm with the precision of a Kentucky rifleman, I brought my finger to bear directly upon the head of the unknown, who, as the devil would have it, at this critical juncture turned her head and encountered the deadly aim which we ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... say, have been filled—with worthless "proofs" of the ownership of Iroquois, Shawnees, or Cherokees, as the case might be. In truth, it would probably have been difficult to get any two members of the same tribe to have pointed out with precision the tribal limits. Each tribe's country was elastic, for it included all lands from which it was deemed possible to drive out the possessors. In 1773 the various parties of Long Hunters had just the same right to the whole of the territory ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... is sleeping; but, with a precision such as the somnambulist so strangely exerts, she trod the well-known paths slowly, but surely, toward that summer's bower, where her dreams had not told her lay crouching that most hideous spectre of her imagination, Sir Francis Varney. He who stood between her and her heart's best ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... should have imagined the other incapable of doing. He had bestowed the greatest care and attention on his dress, had brought his beard within reasonable limits, had combed his hair with the greatest precision, and held lightly in one hand an elegant little cap that I am sure must be provokingly becoming. Why, he was handsome! Ah ca! some mistake, surely, I cried to myself. My Mr. Halsey was not, certainly! "If it be I, as I hope ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... determined sailors without feeling that the men of the finest navy in the world, which I take to be that of her Britannic Majesty, would find in them foemen worthy of their steel. I remember that they were daily exercised at the guns, and the promptitude and precision with which they sank the Kowtung—such was the unlucky despatch-boat's name—was a handsome testimonial to ...
— Under the Dragon Flag - My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War • James Allan
... sight. This constant employment of words, impregnated with meaning, affords the blind considerable facility in acquiring information by pertinent questions, and enables him to communicate his thoughts with precision and correctness. These words, and the intelligence that resides in them, are the only sources of his knowledge, (his perceptions being commuted for words,) and the meaning they import is all that it is necessary for him to comprehend. It may here ...
— On the Nature of Thought - or, The act of thinking and its connexion with a perspicuous sentence • John Haslam
... with efficiency and precision; she smiled at the Gimmers and Ffoulkes and the Hedley Seatons. She threw with exactitude pennies to the boys who opened gates for her; she sat upright on the seat of the high dog-cart; she waved her hands to Edward and Nancy as they rode off with the hounds, and every ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... of government, commanded a degree of order sufficient at least for the temporary preservation of society. The Confederation which was early felt to be necessary was prepared from the models of the Batavian and Helvetic confederacies, the only examples which remain with any detail and precision in history, and certainly the only ones which the people at large had ever considered. But reflecting on the striking difference in so many particulars between this country and those where a courier may go from the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... pardon you," returned Mary coldly. "I have so much to pardon that I can well forgive the lukewarmness and precision that are so bred in your nature that you cannot help them. I pardon injuries, and I may well try to pardon disappointments. Fare you well, Mr. Talbot; may your fidelity have its reward ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... had evidently been coached before he came. With slender, long-fingered hands, which trembled at first, he selected certain tools with nice precision, made some rapid measurements of the weapon and of the cleared space around it, and began to adjust the parts of a queer little machine. Arnold watched ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... With what precision are national changes and destinies foretold and depicted in Dan. 2 and 8! Acts 15:18—"Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world (ages)." In the context surrounding this verse are clearly set forth the religious changes that were to characterize the generations ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans
... no nurse or watcher by the bed. Everything was arranged with extreme neatness and precision; but it seemed to him that there were objects missing in the room, objects that had been familiar to him during the dead girl's illness, and which were associated with her presence,— the clock that had stood on the ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... September when the old yellow omnibus rolled up for Miss Barbara and her trunk. This time there was no returning in mad haste after forgotten property. With a precision that was almost fussiness, she had packed her trunk days before her departure, and her bonnet was on an hour before ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston
... meantime our whole transport came safely inside a little semi-circular valley, and arranged itself with almost ludicrous precision. The nigger drivers chaffed one another as the shells made melody above their heads, and made the air fairly dance with the picturesque terms of endearment they bestowed upon their mules, between the welts they bestowed with their long two-handed whips. ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... stood after her again. This manoeuvre he practised for two hours and a quarter, never allowing the CA IRA to get a single gun from either side to bear on him; and when the French fired their after-guns now, it was no longer with coolness and precision, for every shot went far ahead. By this time her sails were hanging in tatters, her mizen-top-mast, mizen-top-sail, and cross-jack-yards shot away. But the frigate which had her in tow hove in stays, and got her round. Both these French ships now brought their guns to bear, and opened their ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... the house of every article it contained, leaving nothing but the blanket in which the girl had wrapped herself. All their clothes, household utensils, money, everything was carried off with astonishing precision; and having made her swear not to move till they had time to leave the village, they paid her no further attention. The other women, who had given the alarm, found no one inclined to move in the middle of the night against a party ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... most part new, and have the merit of combining precision in the methods with extreme simplicity and elegance of design. The value of the book is further enhanced by the numerous carefully-drawn cuts, which add greatly to its beauty."—American Journal of ...
— Freedom in Science and Teaching. - from the German of Ernst Haeckel • Ernst Haeckel
... questioned whether, among the many varieties of work which Stevenson has left, all distinguished by a grace and precision of workmanship which are the rarest qualities in English art, there are any which can be pointed to as absolute masterpieces, such as the future cannot be expected to let die. Let the future decide. What is certain is that posterity must either be very well ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was, we soon found to our annoyance that it pitched an ounce of lead nearly twice as far as any of our rifles, and with sufficient precision to make it probable that, before the sun had set, El Zorro would be able to pick off our horses, and ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... counting-room were, like itself, peculiar. There were three—corresponding to the bedrooms. The senior was a tall, broad-shouldered, muscular man—a Scotchman—very good- humoured, yet a man whose under lip met the upper with that peculiar degree of precision that indicated the presence of other qualities besides that of good-humour. He was book-keeper and accountant, and managed the affairs intrusted to his care with the same dogged perseverance with which he would have led an expedition of discovery to the North ...
— The Young Fur Traders • R.M. Ballantyne
... October. The Army of the Cumberland was now under Thomas, Rosecrans having been recalled. The first action was fought at Brown's Ferry in the Wauhatchie valley, where Hooker executed with complete precision a plan for the revictualling of Chattanooga, established himself near Wauhatchie on the 28th, and repulsed a determined attack on the same night. But Sherman was still far distant, and the Federal forces at Knoxville, against which a large detachment of Bragg's army under Longstreet was now ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... first day, the firmament on the second, dry land on the third, and so on? Probably for two reasons. First, that the rehearsal, as in a catalogue, of the leading classes of natural objects, might give definiteness and precision to the teaching that each and all were creatures, things made by the word of God. The bald statement that the heaven and the earth were made by God might still have left room for the imagination that the powers of nature were co-eternal with God, or were at least subordinate divinities; ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... his appearance in their village in great state, being accompanied by the band, the marines, and several boats' crews of jackies. He was hospitably received by the natives, who crowded about to listen to the band, and wonder at the military precision of the marines, whom they regarded as supernatural beings. Gattanewa, the chief, expressed his abounding love for the captain, and exchanged names with him, after the custom of the people; but ended by saying that the lawless Happahs were at war with the Taeehs, and ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... of the greatest good fortune, the day was beautifully fine and clear, so that I was able without the slightest difficulty to get every one of my bearings with the most absolute accuracy, and to place my several buoys on the prearranged spots with perfect precision. The work was successfully and most satisfactorily accomplished shortly before noon; and now all that remained to be done was to affix the different coloured flags to the buoys. But that part would have to be deferred ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... those who have not read the gospel would submit to such a change, or satisfy themselves with such an evasion. Besides, in adopting it we must confess at least that the Son of God himself was unable to prophesy with greater precision ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... contrasting elements. A tall and active fellow, a good horseman and a good shot, living through seven years of civil war, which he had himself heralded in, without the inclination to strike a blow; a scholar, musician, and mathematician, without delicacy, elevation, or precision of thought or language; a man of intense ambition, without either administrative capacity or the courage to assert himself in counsel or in debate; a dealer in philanthropic sentiment, privately malignant and vindictive. This is not ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... then tactical regulations should lay down no fixed evolutions, but should confine themselves essentially to forms and principles of action, which should be treated with the utmost clearness and precision. ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... days the awkwardness arising from the novelty of the scene, and from the superior dimensions of every variety of equipment on board of the frigate, compared to the small craft to which he had been accustomed, passed away. The order which was exacted to preserve discipline, the precision with which the time was regulated, the knowledge of the duty allotted to him, soon made him feel that no more was exacted than what could easily be performed, and that there was no hardship in serving on ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... Martiney when he saw them abandoned. [Footnote: The English diary shows that the Spaniards had spiked the guns.] The principal Castle and the Mole batteries, supported by that of La Concepcion, rained a shower of grape at a long range with such precision that three boats were sunk and the two others fell back upon the squadron. At the same time the Port Captain and Flag Officer of the frigate ordered his men to knock out the bottoms of eighteen boats which the enemy after his attack had ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... Veronese, and he quickly became known as the most rapid and intrepid ceiling painter of the time. He worked with tremendous spirit, as one deduces from the the examination of his many frescoes. Tiepolo drew with masterly precision and brio, and his colour can be very sprightly: but one always has the feeling that he had no right to be in a church at all, ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... at him and smiled, soothed into something resembling good-nature by the odd humour and appearance of his old companion, who was tricked out, with much precision, in a blue doublet and yellow hose, while a large bow of sad-coloured riband, with fringed ends, dangled from either knee. He then glanced a look of complacency on his own ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... the school physician or the schoolmaster to know, in individual cases, the degree to which the sexual life has developed? He must have definitely abandoned the old view that either the child's age in years or the external physical signs of puberty can be regarded as indicating with any degree of precision the progress of psychosexual puberty. But since this latter, the psychosexual development, should most often guide us in the choice of the right moment for effecting the sexual enlightenment, we are compelled to depend upon an individual ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... another grievance by refusing on ecclesiastical grounds to allow Henry to marry his brother to Stephen's daughter-in-law, the Countess of Warenne; and on the general question of the relations of Church and State, he hastened to define his views with sharp precision in an eloquent sermon preached before the king. "Henry observing it word by word, and understanding from it how greatly Thomas put the ecclesiastical before the civil right, did not receive this doctrine with an equal mind, for he perceived that the archbishop was far from his own view, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... interest and kindred which they were at all times to be inspired with; the precautions to be taken in procuring the consent of parents, and securing the free action of the Oblates who might hereafter join the order, were all indicated with the greatest precision; and instructions were transmitted to Don Giovanni and his co-operators to enlighten them as to the guidance and government of the congregation. The miraculous manner in which the Saint had often read their most secret thoughts, ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... the inductive system of science and thought; and you know that it is by constant and close mathematical study of analogy—of probability—that we exclude error little by little from our observations—we improve more and more our instruments of precision—we count out the errors of our observation; and we are constantly seeking those laws which are not transient and ephemeral only, but which are eternal and immortal. Upon those laws, finally, must rest all our real, certain knowledge; and it is the endeavor of the anthropologist ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... us have what you can give us without preface. Why, it stands well enough, man," he continued, addressing impatiently the ancient butler, who, without reply, kept shifting the dish, until he had at length placed it with mathematical precision in the very ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... parts of the earth. It was on this account apprehended, that the parallax of the sun, by means of observations taken from different places at the time of the transit of Venus in 1761 and 1769, might be ascertained with a great degree of precision(53). ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... lines of San Pedro Macati Dyer's guns had sighted swarms of rebels up the Pasig, and with placid and methodical precision were sending shrapnel in that direction and dull, booming concussions in the other. An engagement of some kind was on at San Pedro, and Stuyvesant twitched with nervous longing to get there, despite the doctors, and sat wondering was another engagement ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... gray cloak and hose were rather of Flemish than of French fashion, while the smart blue bonnet, with a single sprig of holly and an eagle's feather, was already recognized as the Scottish head gear. His dress was very neat, and arranged with the precision of a youth conscious of possessing a fine person. He had at his back a satchel, which seemed to contain a few necessaries, a hawking gauntlet on his left hand, though he carried no bird, and in his right a stout hunter's pole. Over his left shoulder hung an embroidered scarf ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... and distracting. Never surely was there a career more beset with insoluble riddles and unmanageable dilemmas. At each step, in the relation of the most ordinary incidents, exactness of dates, or precision of events, appears unattainable. Fiction is ever elbowing fact, so that it might be supposed contemporaries had with one accord been conspiring to disguise the truth from posterity. The uncertainty is deepened tenfold when motives have to be measured ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... the use he made of Leland's collections, only show the insensibility of the mere heraldist to the nobler genius of the historian. Yet Brooke had no ordinary talents: his work is still valuable for his own peculiar researches; but his naive shrewdness, his pointed precision, the bitter invective, and the caustic humour of his cynical pen, give an air of originality, if not of genius, which no one has dared to notice. Brooke's first work against Camden was violently disturbed in its progress, and ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Don Quixote had nourished his soul, and from the heroic world of beauty and grace of the dramatists, to the bare and hard reality of the life of the beggar and the vagabond. Not even Defoe himself ever surpassed the clearness and precision of the Lazarillo, and it was the first work of a type, whose slow development can be traced in almost every country in Europe: in England, in the realistic attempts of Greene and Nash and Deloney, in Germany in Simplicissimus, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... sun, though the season was so early, had induced the wearer to fold up his cloak in small compass, and form it into a bundle, attached to the shoulders like the military greatcoat of the infantry soldier of the present day. The neatness with which it was made up, argued the precision of a practised traveller, who had been long accustomed to every resource which change of weather required. A great profusion of narrow ribands or points, constituting the loops with which our ancestors ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... trunk. There the frightened creature had scarcely halted, when the great hen-hawk came at him with a whistling rush, and sent him back to the other side. The male bird had by this time turned and now darted with such suddenness and precision, that the squirrel, unable to pass round the tree again, sprang off into the air. Guided by his broad tail the hawk followed, and before the squirrel could reach the ground, the bird was seen to strike. Then with a loud scream he rose into the air, with the squirrel ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... mechanical precision. On March 9 Morton and his company occupied Holyrood, going up the great staircase about eight at night; while Darnley and Ruthven, a dying man, entered the queen's supper- room by a privy stair. Morton's men burst in, Riccio was dragged forth, and died under forty daggers. Bothwell, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... medium is one of the most beautiful for pure line work, and its use is an excellent training to the eye and hand in precision of observation. Perhaps this is why it has not been so popular in our art schools lately, when the charms of severe discipline are not so much in favour as they should be. It is the first medium we are given to draw ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... a fair, and gives us the list, of which this is a part: '5thly, a silver box, with 7s. in small silver; 6, a pocket-handkerchief; 7, another; 8, a jointed baby, and a little looking-glass.' The affectation of extreme precision, especially in the charming item 'another,' destroys the perspective of the story. We are listening to a contemporary, not to an old man giving us his fading recollections ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... and they waited. With noiseless precision Bessie lit the gas, made the fire, drew the curtains, and departed. Then they could hear John's ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... kill ourselves in the attempt. There is no necessity for throwing all caution to the winds, but we should press our advantages. With self-analysis comes a certain poise, a certain dignity and kindliness that tempers every move with precision. ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... was a commentary of about twelve hundred pages on the "Book of Sentences," in the Parma edition, which was received with great admiration for its logical precision, and its opposition to the rationalistic tendencies of the times. In it are discussed all the great theological questions treated by Saint Augustine,—God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, grace, predestination, faith, free-will, Providence, and the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... St. Bennet the whole order of psalmody had not yet been fixed with precision in the Psalter and the Antiphoner: it was the incomparable Pope Gregory of holy memory, himself a zealous observer of the rule of St. Bennet and an imitator of his monastic perfection, who afterwards regulated the arrangement ...
— St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music • E. G. P. Wyatt
... morning service ends. Now, remember that this worship is daily, that these formulas must be pronounced, these movements of the hands made with mechanical precision; that if the worshipper forgets one of the incarnations of Vishnu which he is to figure with his fingers, if he stop his left nostril when it should be the right, the entire ceremony loses its efficacy; ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... 1839. But if he will carefully consider the terms of this instrument he will see that there is nothing in them calculated to bear out that statement. It is perfectly true that this is a cumulative treaty, added to the Treaty of 1839, as the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Disraeli), with perfect precision, described it. Upon that ground I very much agree with the general opinion he expressed; but, at the same time, peculiar circumstances call for a departure from general rules, and the circumstances are most peculiar under which we have thought it right ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... belong to the preceding chapter, for originally they were simply regularly recurring occasions for sacrifice. The results of the investigation there made accordingly repeat themselves here, but with such clearness and precision as make it worth while to give the subject a separate consideration. In the first place and chiefly, the history of the solar festivals, that of those festivals which follow the seasons of the year, claims ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... out to the letter, the five shells exploding at the exact points and moments indicated, and the people realised with what horrible precision the German artillery-men held Manhattan ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... son of Zippor, King of Moab, has sent unto me, saying, Behold there is a people come out of Egypt, which covereth the face of the earth: come now, curse me them; peradventure I shall be able to overcome them and drive them out." The precision of Balaam's language is admirable, and so is its accuracy. He neither desired to keep the Lord in suspense, nor to leave him in ignorance of necessary details. God's answer was equally brief and perspicuous: "Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... approaching strife between laborers and employers, between poor and rich, and pointed out the cause of this strife in the selfishness, unkindness, and mutual distrust which ran through the community. He also described, with perfect precision, the only ultimate remedy,—namely, the sentiment of love. "Love would put a new face on this weary old world in which we dwell as pagans and enemies too long.... The virtue of this principle in human society ...
— Four American Leaders • Charles William Eliot
... fighting-ships and transports, three-deckers, frigates, great troopers, ocean steamers, full-rigged ships—an Armada such as the world had never seen before. A grand display of naval power, a magnificent expedition marshalled with perfect precision, moving by day in well-kept parallel lines; at night, motionless, and studding the sea with a ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... well-hung curtains, her trains like heavy carpets; one might fancy that she got her gowns from Gillows. Her pearl dog-collar, her diamond ear-rings, her dark red fringe and the other details of her toilette were put on with the same precision when she dined alone with Sir Charles as if she were going to a ceremonious reception. She was a very tall, fine-looking woman. In Paris, where she sometimes went to see Ella at school, she attracted ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... shall know where she was last night," he said to himself, and was about to tear open the envelope, when suddenly the thought that she had touched the paper made him tender in his usage of it. He found a paper-knife and with careful precision cut the envelope along the top. The slight delay whetted his eagerness to read what Victoria had to tell. She had probably heard of the visit which she had missed, and had written this letter before going to bed. It was a sweet thought of ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... we were opposite our plates, the Sister clapped her hands three times, and, with the precision of soldiers presenting arms, the women made a rapid sign of the cross, and then the priest slowly repeated the 'Benedictus' in Latin. Then we sat down, and the two fowls appeared, brought in by Marchas, who chose to wait rather ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... Life Guards, a Mistress of the Robes, and the grandfather of the Central American Ambassador at the Court of St. James, and all four of them were smiling at a neat little low comedian, who was singing, without any voice and with the utmost precision, a pathetic romance entitled, "De Coon ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... or immaterial alike. This necessary distinction between the inheritance, bodily and mental, and the heritage, economic and social, obviously next requires further elaboration, and with this further precision of language also. For the present, let us leave the term heritage to the economist for the material wealth with which he is primarily concerned, and employ the term tradition for these immaterial and distinctively social elements we are here specially ...
— Civics: as Applied Sociology • Patrick Geddes |
