"Random" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... trumpet from one of the men and blew a long, thrilling note. Before its last echo was ended, the little army rushed upon the town. Three or four shots came from the houses, and the soldiers fired a few at random in return, but that was all. Indian scouts had brought warning of the white advance, and the great chiefs, gathering up all the people who were in the village, had fled. A retreating warrior or two had fired the shots, but when the white men entered this important Iroquois stronghold ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... see it, and flung flakes of fresh snow upon the melting earth at a terrific rate. And the wind staggered like a drunkard. It would not let the snow settle on the ground, and whirled it round in the darkness at random. ...
— The Witch and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... perpetrated upon the slaves. Now no man that knows human nature will marvel at this. Though great cruelties have always been inflicted by men upon brutes, yet incomparably the most horrid ever perpetrated, have been those of men upon their own species. Any leaf of history turned over at random has proof enough of this. Every reflecting mind perceives that when men hold human beings as property, they must, from the nature of the case, treat them worse than they treat their horses and oxen. It is impossible for cattle to excite ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... which joined it, and beyond it again were stables, and byres, and kennels, and barns, and the countless other offices which a great house needs, filling up the rest of the space the stockade enclosed. Nor were they set at random, as one mostly sees them; but all having been built at once, they stood in little streets, as it were, most orderly to look on, with a wider street running from the back of the hall to the gate which led ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... chains of blue hills and richly wooded islands rising out of the water; the long coast of Java and Sumatra covered with vegetation and groups of beautiful trees, and the thousand little green islets that studded the straits like emeralds cast at random, presented a lively picture that contrasted pleasantly with the late monotony we had endured. Huge trunks of pistangs and tops of cocoanut trees, broken off by the wind were driven about in all directions, and as they met us, awakened almost as much apprehension as would a reef ...
— Hair Breadth Escapes - Perilous incidents in the lives of sailors and travelers - in Japan, Cuba, East Indies, etc., etc. • T. S. Arthur
... had in mind, but a student reciting, and confronted suddenly with some question, or step in a demonstration, which he has failed to master, or upon which he has not reflected, is apt to feel that the practical thing to do is not to admit ignorance; to trust to luck and answer at random. Such a one, explaining a drawing of a bridge to my father, was asked by him what was represented by certain lines, showing the up-stream part of a pier. Not knowing, he replied, "That is a hole to catch the ice in." "Imagine," said my father, in telling me the story, "catching ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... the house clearly, and so, moving stealthily, he stole quietly up the hill to a cross street, and turning to the left, in the shadow of a wall, walked rapidly down to a small alley which he took at random, at the end of which he paused for observation. The house with the meshrebiya windows was now just below where he stood, but opposite him was an ancient stone wall, and in its center was a blue door. There were trees within the enclosure, and he heard ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... concealing that his supplementary labours were considerable! how selfish his conduct, contrasted with that of the disinterested Gael, who, like Lear, gives his kingdom away, and is content to become a pensioner upon his own issue for a beggarly pittance!—Open this far-famed Book!—I have done so at random, and the beginning of the 'Epic Poem Temora,' in eight Books, presents itself. 'The blue waves of Ullin roll in light. The green hills are covered with day. Trees shake their dusky heads in the breeze. Grey torrents pour their noisy streams. Two green hills with aged oaks surround a narrow plain. ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... our Church was a most prudent design, that says that all who are ordained shall be ordained to somewhat, not ordained at random, to preach in general to the whole world, as they travel up and down the road; but to this or that particular parish. And, no question, the reason was, to prevent spiritual peddling; and gadding up and down the country with a bag of trifling and insignificant sermons, inquiring "Who will ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... disregard of the virtues possessed by our own wines? The reply to this question is not an easy matter, but I shall endeavour to answer it to the best of my ability. The probability is, if a dozen people were asked, at random, why Australian wine is so little used in Australia, that at least that number of different explanations would be forthcoming. The truth, however, is more likely to be found in a combination of reasons, rather than from any ...
— The Art of Living in Australia • Philip E. Muskett (?-1909)
... a little at the picture, and broke into a wider smile at some sentences read at random as the pages were hastily turned, and then as further developments appeared, the blue eyes showed a look of puzzled wonder, quickly followed by ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... Teen, apparently at random, but all the while keenly watching her companion's face. She saw Liz become as pale as death, though she smiled a sickly smile, and tried to ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... is dear to us all, and which the Muse has kissed, attracted your easily moved poet's soul and it fluttered off at random. Let it fly! My friend's true womanly nature was never carried away by it. She stands on a rock, that I am ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... deposit his hat also in the rack. He noted with a kind of chagrin that his companion's was an ordinary low black bowler. "I can tell you, I SHALL be glad of the change. I would have bought the tickets," he went on, giving words at random to the thought which he found fixed on the surface of his mind, "if I'd only ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... dwellings bright within, Tinges the flowering summits of the grass; No sound of life is heard, no village din, Wings rustling overhead or steps that pass, While, on the breast of Earth at random thrown, I listen to her mighty ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... could judge by some words dropped at random, and which I reflected on afterwards, it appeared to me, that the House of Solar, wishing to run the career of embassies, and hoping perhaps in time to arrive at the ministry, wished to provide themselves with a person of merit and talents, who ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... enough an hour ago. That red-bearded dog caught me by the throat. He was trying to strangle me. I fired at random, and then my senses were going, but I heard your shots. He has quite taken away my voice. Where is ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... the victory was no longer doubtful, and all were in full retreat or in full pursuit, a Zouave, in wantonness, firing his weapon before he throw it away, sent a random-shot which struck Theodora, and she fell. Lothair, who had never left her during the battle, was at her side in a moment, and a soldier, who had also marked the fatal shot; and, strange to say, so hot and keen was the ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... information are we likely to gain from a poor lunatic who does not know whether it is now day or night?" The learned man said, "There is no telling what he may say to us. But you know that the most foolish as well as the most wise have ideas, and a sentence uttered at random has sometimes furnished a clue by which the desired object may be attained." Meanwhile a little boy also came up, and perceiving the lunatic stopped to see his tricks. The two friends explained their case to the lunatic, who then seemed immersed in thought for some time, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... light a cigarette. Two priests, their black robes relieved by crimson sashes and stockings, approached, and until they were at a safe distance he talked on once more at random with the sing-song patter of the guide. "That dungeon-like building is the old Fortress do Freres. It has clung to that gut of rock out there in the bay since the days when the Moors held the Mediterranean. It is said that the new King will convert it from a fortress into a prison. It is ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... it as with Rossetti, a mystic opiate, or with Wiertz, a madman's delirious fancy. Moreau was a philosophic poet, and though he disclaimed being a "literary" painter, it is literature that is the mainspring of his elevated and decorative art. Open at random the catalogue full of quotations from the painter's pen and you encounter such titles as Leda and the Swan, treated with poetic restraint; Jupiter and Semele, Tyrtaeus Singing During the Combat, St. Elizabeth and the Miracle of the Roses, Lucretia and Tarquin, Pasiphae, the Triumph ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... examine the question of the distribution of punishments in the Papal States from this point of view, we shall see that papal justice never strikes at random. ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... examining 502 children, which involved the examination of 1004 eyes, one is forced to certain conclusions. These children are taken at random, and in this way they may be considered as a fair sample ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... by the Spirit of God, since "no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus accursed." (1 Cor. 12:3) This comes of the habit (happily less common now than formerly) of throwing about curses at random, against those who differ from our opinions. Some of them may thus, accidentally, hit the Master himself. It is, perhaps, of less consequence that this anathema also touches the apostle Paul, who declares that the heathen who have ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... principles which Coleridge with some vagueness had projected. To analyze in cold blood such living criticism as Hazlitt's may expose one to unflattering imputations, but the attempt may serve to bring to light what is so often overlooked, that Hazlitt's criticism is no random, irresponsible discharge of his sensibilities, but has an implicit basis of ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... the direction of Dr. Goddard the Binet tests were given to 100 juvenile court cases, chosen at random, in Newark, New Jersey. Nearly half were classified as feeble-minded. One boy 17 years old had 9-year intelligence; another of ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... from the coast of Brazil by the Portuguese and the natives, driven back by contrary winds, having made vain efforts to reach the island of St. Helena, where they had hoped to obtain the provisions of which they were in the most pressing want, the Dutchmen, deprived of their pilot, toss at random upon the ocean. They land upon the desert islands of Martin Vaz, again reach the coast of Brazil at Rio Doce, which they mistake for Ascension Island, and are finally obliged to winter in the desert ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... night he wandered about, prowled through the country at random, cutting down some Prussians, sometimes here, sometimes there, galloping through the deserted fields under the moonlight, a lost Uhlan, a hunter of men. Then when he had finished his task, leaving behind the corpses lying along the roads, ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... round us lie Some random truths he can impart The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... seemed all a hollow ghost That would dissolve away; And life itself a random boast Of elements at play; And time a swift elusive gleam, And man the mockery of a dream, A foam-bell to a moment's ...
— Iolaeus - The man that was a ghost • James A. Mackereth
... as a gauge of capacity none would suspect that Gould contained the elements of one of the boldest and ablest financial marauders that the system in force had as yet produced. About five feet six inches in height and of slender figure, he gave the random impression of being a mild, meek man, characterized by excessive timidity. His complexion was swarthy and partly hidden by closely-trimmed black whiskers; his eyes were dark, vulpine and acutely piercing; his forehead was high. His voice was very ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... by the way I came, but kept upon the plateau, going southward, then, dropping down into another valley at the bottom of which ran a tributary of the Vers, I crossed the stream and rose upon the opposite hill, making somewhat at random towards the village of Cours. On my way I started numerous coveys of red partridges from juniper and box and other low shrubs. Had I been a sportsman carrying a gun I could have made a splendid 'bag,' but these chances generally fall to those who cannot profit ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... himself with a poniard; and about midnight, when the family were asleep, stole into the chamber where she reposed, and close by her the infant son of her generous host. The villain being in the dark made a random stroke, not knowing of the infant, and instead of stabbing the object of his revenge, plunged his weapon into the bosom of the child, who uttered loud screams; upon which the assassin, fearful of detection, ran away, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... there were only good and bad in this world it would not matter so much," said Correze a little recklessly and at random. "Life would not be such a disheartening affair as it is. Unfortunately the majority of people are neither one nor the other, and have little inclination for either crime or virtue. It would be almost as absurd to condemn them as to admire them. They ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... Kennedy and the disappearance of little Harry Bertram when Guy Mannering, now a soldier famous for his wars in the East, penetrated a second time into Galloway. His object was to visit the family of Ellangowan, and secretly, also, to find out for himself in what way his random prophesies had worked out. ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... stone building, and Andy, not suspecting that he was being fooled, went in. Wandering at random, he found his way into a room, where a trial was going ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... followed quickly by a second report, but not by the whistling of any bullet. He had a pair of pistols in his belt, and, taking out one and cocking it, he searched the woods, though he found nothing. He concluded then that it was a random bullet fired by some returning hunter, and that the second shot was doubtless of the same character. But the first hunter had been uncommonly careless and he hastened his steps from a locality which had been so dangerous, ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... question and several others which his honest country friend asked, but his mind was preoccupied, and he answered some of the questions at random. Finally he excused himself on the ground that he must be getting back ...
— The Errand Boy • Horatio Alger
... somewhat with the locality and the existing market prices. The following analysis of several similar bills of fare used in widely different localities will serve to show something of the average cost. The first of these were taken at random from the daily menus, during the month of January, of a Michigan family of seventeen persons, grown persons and hearty, growing children, none younger than six years. In the estimates made of the cost of material, wherever ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... to have been taken from this feature.[44] Generally speaking, the country has a bald and barren aspect. Not a tree has apparently been cut upon its banks, and not a village is seen to relieve the tedium of an unimproved wilderness. The huts of an Indian locality seem "at random cast." I have already said these conical and angular hills present masses of white sandstone, whereever they are precipitous. The river itself is almost a moving mass of white and yellow sand, broad, clear, shallow, and abounding in small ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... this second phase of the Movement, in which I had taken so prominent a part. What I have been observing is, that this phase had a tendency to bewilder and to upset me; and, that, instead of saying so, as I ought to have done, perhaps from a sort of laziness I gave answers at random, which have led to my appearing close ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... that shots had been fired at the troops, the latter entered ten or twelve houses, at random, and despatched with their bayonets every one they found. In all the houses on the boulevard, there are metal pipes by which the dirty water runs out into the gutter. The soldiers, with no idea why it was so, conceived ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... State takes fifteen out of the forty sous which he pays for a pound of coffee, and five centimes out of every two sous he pays for a pound of salt; for him, this is simply a barren notion, a vague calculation at random; the impression on his mind would be very different if, standing before the grocer who weighs out his coffee and salt, he saw with his own eyes, right before him, the clerk of the customs and of the salt-tax actually taking the fifteen sous and the five centimes off ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... there is not a boat in sight; the next, two or three stand off from shore to see what is being done, ready, at the first sight of warlike preparation, to burn the town down. It is particularly unsafe since the news from Virginia, when the gunboats started from Bayou Goula, shelling the coast at random, and destroying everything that was within reach, report says. Of course, we cannot return to our homes when commissioned officers are playing the part of pirates, burning, plundering, and destroying at will, with neither law nor reason. Donaldsonville they burned before I ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... gradually from the peak to the sea, and covered with thick forest. On the right, is the coast of Sambawa, exhibiting the most extraordinary collection of sugar-loaf hills I ever saw: they look as if they had been dropped there at random in a shower. The whole collection would hardly be seen on the top of Lombak hill. Half this island was laid completely waste in 1816, by an eruption of one of its volcanic mountains: thousands of the inhabitants, with their cattle and poneys, were killed; and the effects are visible on ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... that Paul's hair stood on end. He darted behind a tree. Click! flash! bang! and a bullet came with a heavy thug into the tree. Bang! went another gun,—another,—and another; and the pickets all along the rebel lines, thinking that the Yankees were coming, blazed away at random. The Yankee pickets, thinking that the rebels were advancing, became uneasy and fired in return. Paul could hear the bullets spin through the air and strike into the trees. His first thought was to get back to his comrades as soon as possible; ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... out of half-closed eyes that never are twice alike. If you are speaking you will suddenly become aware that she is listening, and then you will become uncomfortable and try to stop, but can not; for you will realize that you have been talking at random, and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... holiday. They never knew what it was to dine. It was necessary that, before they stirred, they should finish the whole of their work. The King, always on his guard against treachery, took from the heap a handful of letters at random, and looked into them to see whether his instructions had been exactly followed. This was no bad security against foul play on the part of the secretaries; for if one of them were detected in a trick, ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... notary's office, to which—shrewdly inquiring of apple-women and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice—she easily procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... were not absent more than five or six times within this period. In the course of the thirteen months, during which they had exercised this public trust, they had printed, and afterwards distributed, not at random, but judiciously, and through, respectable channels, (besides 26,526 reports, accounts of debates in parliament, and other small papers,) no less ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... quilts and pillows were fetched somewhere from the adjacent scenery, and Mrs. Yellett asked her, with the gravity of a Pullman porter interrogating a passenger as to the location of head and foot, if she liked to sleep "light or dark." She chose "dark" at random, hating to display her ignorance of the alternatives, with the happy result that her bed was made up to leeward of the great sheep-wagon, in a nice little corner of the State of Wyoming. Mary was grateful ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... could find no indication of a house, until, at last, the barking of a dog gave us a clue. After some dispute as to which side of the road it was on, we struck off over a field. Our only guide were the random flashes of lightning that gave us a momentary view of the country around. The better to prosecute our search, we formed a line within hearing distance of each other, and thus swept around in all directions. At last we found a barn, but were so wet and chilly that we resolved to ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... At random, they picked the center of the five underground passages, and walked swiftly along it. And now they began to come in contact again with the normal life of the vast ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... out a random fist, which struck Lanyard's cheek a glancing blow that carried just enough sting to kindle resentment. So the virtuous householder was rather more than unceremonious about yanking the princely housebreaker inside and lending him a foot to accelerate his return to the living-room; where ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... have I erred through levity and want of thought! How many resolutions have I taken at random! how many judgments have I pronounced for the sake of a witticism! how many mischiefs have I not done without any sense of my responsibility! The greater part of men harm one another for the sake of doing something. ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... illustrate this independence could be given; one will suffice. In 1907 and 1908, Page's magazine published the "Random Reminiscences of John D. Rockefeller." While the articles were appearing, the Hearst newspapers obtained a large number of letters that, some years before, had passed between Mr. John D. Archbold, President of the Standard Oil ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... have come across lately," said Mr. Wilson, "is this. Eight men had been dining not wisely but too well at a certain London restaurant. They were the last to leave, but not one man was in a condition to identify his own hat. Now, considering that they took their hats at random, what are the chances that every man took a hat that did ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... Dark hurrying shapes beset my soul. In vain I struggled; as a fevered dreamer might; Or some spent, breathless swimmer, in despite Of desperate stroke, thrust headlong to the main. The waking nightmare, monstrous and inane, Whirled, rushed, and huddled in its random flight. ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... is also easy to make fun of, but the soupcon of blasphemy is in that case wanting, which, to many, forms the chief charm of witty converse. Richard looked at it as a dog looks at a stick; but he took it up, and opened it at random. "Having no hope, and without ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... as they are, it will be better to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle - taken together, they build up a face that "I have loved long since and lost awhile," the face of what was once myself. This has come by accident; I ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... attack the Stetsons drank more, and grew reckless. A dance was started. Music and "moonshine" were given to every man who bore a Winchester. The night was broken with drunken yells, the random discharge of fire-arms, and the mono-tone of heavy feet. The two leaders were helpless, and the inaction of the Lewallens puzzled them. Chafed with anxiety, they kept their eyes on the court-house or on ...
— A Cumberland Vendetta • John Fox, Jr.
... his jacket, curled up against his chest, while the wind blew raw and cold all through the night. He was on his way again at the first touch of daylight, the sky darker than ever and the wind spinning random flakes ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... the books. They shook hands. Durtal, at random, looked over some of the dusted books lying on ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... the walls. The Indian reached the fort unchallenged, climbed into an embrasure, and found the whole place deserted. Vaughan followed at once; and a young volunteer, shinning up the flag-pole, made his own red coat fast to the top. This defiance was immediately answered by a random salvo from Louisbourg, less than ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... random from among a thousand others are not found amongst those beings whose hands are as black as those of apes and their skin tanned like the ancient parchments of an olim; whose complexion is burnt brown by the sun and whose neck is wrinkled like ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there were tender fibers in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie's fondling; so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved; he actually began to kiss her ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... strain that is put upon it. Vain the attempt to estimate the amount of labor he undergoes; an example alone can give an idea of it. Let us then go about with him for one day as he attends to his multifarious concernments. What day? That matters little; it is the same every day. Let us then take at random September 25th of ...
— In the Year 2889 • Jules Verne and Michel Verne
... of the force of prejudice is afforded by the fact, that out of one hundred British subjects, taken at random, not ten believe in the possibility of ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... had been in difficulties in the former examination, he was utterly stranded now. He tried first one question, then another, but no inspiration seemed to come; and at last, after dashing off a few lines at random, he laid down his pen, and, burying his face in his hands, gave himself up to his own wretched thoughts. He must see Cripps soon; he must go to him or Cripps would come up to Saint Dominic's, ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... at random in the town through streets German and quaint and old, and streets French and fine and new, and got back to the river, which he crossed on one of the several handsome bridges. The rough river looked chill under a sky of windy clouds, and he felt out of season, both as to the summer travel, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the sodden graves lay the yet warm body of a dead man. The random bullet had found a billet in his heart, and "Nature's sweet restorer" had been merged into the sleep of death. Fortunate man! He had been spared, probably, months of slow-timed misery, with almost certain death at the ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... his house that morning, had walked till he saw a taxi-cab. Leaning back therein, with hat thrown off, he caused himself to be driven rapidly, at random. This was one of his habits when his mind was not at ease—an expensive idiosyncrasy, ill-afforded by a pocket that had holes. The swift motion and titillation by the perpetual close shaving of other vehicles were sedative to him. He needed sedatives this morning. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... tried to drive them away by a conversation upon indifferent subjects. My aunt is so full of the approaching races and the expected victory of Naughty Boy, who is put down for the government stakes, that she cannot think of anything else. Aniela thereupon began to talk about the races, and made some random remarks and asked a few questions, until my ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... the Orange River Colony at the end of January, 1902, the experience of the last few months had shown that they must be conducted on new methods. Hitherto the typical "drive" had been a net or nets cast too often hastily and at random, the meshes of which were large, irregular, and easily cut. The new "drive" was a bar of steel pushed steadily forward by simultaneous action throughout its length, and with its ends resting on the two completed blockhouse lines ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... the two sides of the loop the gold was sifted through wash gravel and black sand, piled there by God only knew how many centuries of glacial drift and flood. But it was there. He had taken panfuls at random over the bar, and uniformly it gave up coarse gold. With a rocker he stood a fair chance of big money ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... up with the swift motion of the boat in such a leisurely way. The porpoise is a deceiver. As he rolls up to the surface of the water, in his lumbering way, he looks as if he were a huge lump of unwieldy awkwardness, floating at random and almost helpless; but when you come to know him better, you find that he is a marvel of muscular power and swiftness. I have seen a "school" of porpoises in the Pacific swimming for hours alongside one of our fleetest ...
— California Sketches, Second Series • O. P. Fitzgerald
... another among the sheep, like a picture—and th' old squire was sitting there, for he mostly sits with her. Well, she was mighty pleased with the screen, and then she wanted to know what pay she was to give me. I didn't speak at random—you know it's not my way; I'd calculated pretty close, though I hadn't made out a bill, and I said, 'One pound thirty.' That was paying for the mater'als and paying me, but none too much, for my work. Th' old squire looked up at this, and peered in his way at the screen, and said, ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... greatly strengthened since the last assault, and through the loopholes in the walls the archers did their best to answer the storm of missiles poured into the fort. Edmund and Egbert went among them, begging them not to fire at random, but to choose moments when the movements of the assailants opened a space in the roof ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... fusillade broke out simultaneously at various points in the city (Louvain), notably at the Porte de Bruxelles, Porte de Tirlemont, Rue Leopold, Rue Marie-Therese, Rue des Joyeuses Entrees. German soldiers were firing at random in every street and in every direction. Later fires broke out everywhere, notably in the University building, the Library, in the old Church of St. Peter, in the Place du Peuple, in the Rue de la Station, in the Boulevard de Tirlemont, and in the Chaussee de ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... in silence, and with an air of absence and abstraction which could not give Miss Bradwardine a favourable opinion of his talents for conversation. He answered at random one or two observations which she ventured to make upon ordinary topics; so that, feeling herself almost repulsed in her efforts at entertaining him, and secretly wondering that a scarlet coat should cover no better breeding, she left him to his mental amusement ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... coffee for a moment. "These sonar devices are a new type, and very cleverly designed. They don't send out a continuous beam. Instead, they operate in bursts, in a random pattern. They might send out a beam twice in a minute, or wait an hour between bursts. The beam is a powerful one. It's effective for an ...
— The Wailing Octopus • Harold Leland Goodwin
... Coleridge, no word for Wordsworth. For Keats he had a word in the paper on Burns, and here it is: "Poetry, except in such cases as that of Keats, where the whole consists in a weak-eyed, maudlin sensibility and a certain vague, random timefulness of nature, is no separate faculty." A parenthesis, short and contemptuous, is all he gives to one of whom it has been truly said, that of no poet who has lived, not of Shakespeare, is the poetry written ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... that of the individual's needs, it is necessary here to discuss the present conditions of marriage in the civilized world, from the woman's point of view. We have to ask ourselves how these conditions act in selecting women from the ranks of the unmarried; whether the transition proceeds from random chance, or whether there is a selection in certain definite directions, and if so, what directions? We have to ask whether different women would pass into the ranks of the married if the conditions of marriage were other than they are; and we shall assuredly arrive ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... she had embodied all that seductiveness which he had formerly perceived at random, fragmentarily and vaguely, in a change of light on the sea, in a spread of landscape, in the grace of animals or the refinements of art, or in those streams of consciousness that flow as the senses are touched by some ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman
... of a busy world, Where praise and censure are at random hurl'd, Which can the meanest of my thoughts control, one settled purpose of my soul; Free and at large might their wild curses roam, If all, if all, alas! were well at home. No; 'tis the tale which angry conscience tells, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... of more than twenty feet from the windows. The fire was maintained as furiously as ever, but the bullets no longer flew so thickly about our ears; a clear indication that our antagonists were as much blinded as we were, and were aiming pretty much at random; as it was of the utmost importance to economise our ammunition as much as possible, I therefore directed my party to cease firing for a time, until the smoke should have cleared away a little, or, at all events, only to fire when they could ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... accord, and a strange silence had succeeded to the deafening din. What was about to happen? Would they dare to come on again? We hoped so with all our hearts, for we felt that if we could keep our men in hand, and prevent them from firing at random, the enemy could never get at us. But, above all, it was essential to economise our ammunition, for if we were short of cartridges, what resistance could we offer to a bayonet charge with our little carbines reduced ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont
... writing, of a reception given to him at the Manufacturers' Club in St. Louis three years before. A lot of names, after each some reminders of the standing and the personal appearance of the man. Another slip, taken at random from the same box, contained similar notes of a trip through Montana ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... three boats, leaving the launch behind us, and boarded. As we premised, the crew were on deck, and all on the other side of the vessel, so anxiously looking at the batteries, which were still firing occasional random shot, that they did not perceive us until we were close to them, and then they had no time to seize their arms. There were several ladies on board; some of the people protected them, others ran below. In two minutes we had possession of her, and had put her head the other ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... off a certain part of the coast of Maine,—a little rocky island, heaped and tumbled together as if Dame Nature had shaken down a heap of stones at random from her apron, when she had finished making the larger islands which lie between it and the mainland. At one end, the shoreward end, there is a tiny cove, and a bit of silver-sand beach, with a green meadow beyond it, and a single great pine; but all the rest is rocks, rocks. At the farther ...
— Captain January • Laura E. Richards
... husband, I've noticed with a sorrowful heart That you long have neglected your plow and your cart, Your horses, sheep, cattle at random do run, And your new Sunday jacket goes every day on. Oh, stay on your farm and you'll suffer no loss, For the stone that keeps rolling will ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... of agony and doubt swept her; she prayed convulsively, at random, reiterating incoherence in blind, frightened repetition till the stupefying ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... happened, but for bright eyes, and sighs, and that sort of thing. If you are obliged to marry, because you have an establishment, write the names of your lady acquaintances on scraps of paper, put them in your hat, and draw one forth at random. This admirable plan saves a great deal of trouble, and you will inevitably get a wife who, in all things, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... still a moment with beating heart behind the group. She heard Fraulein talking in English of councillors and centuries and assumed for a moment as Fraulein's eye passed her a look of intelligence; then they had all moved on together deeper into the town. She clung to Minna, talking at random... did she like Hoddenheim... and Minna responded to the full, helping her, talking earnestly and emphatically about food and the sunshine, isolating the two of them; and they all reached the cobbled open space and stood ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... hills, which send back the echoes of its voice in accurate reply. No satisfactory theory has ever been broached to explain these noises. Conjectures have been hazarded about chasms, and the escape of compressed air by the sudden admission of water; but all this is talking at random, and has probably no foundation in truth. The most that can be said is, that such sounds are heard, though at long intervals, and that no one as yet has succeeded ...
— The Lake Gun • James Fenimore Cooper
... interminable. Her lessons had been badly prepared the night before, and won for her a reproof from Miss Farrar; and her thoughts were so constantly occupied with wondering where Honor had fled that she could scarcely attend to the work in class, and often answered at random. Her head was aching badly, and her eyes were sore with crying, neither of which was conducive to good memory, or lucid explanations; so she was not surprised to find at the end of the morning that her record was the worst she had ...
— The New Girl at St. Chad's - A Story of School Life • Angela Brazil
... the gates of the town, left half of his troop to guard them, and with the remainder marched upon the Church of the Cordeliers, preceded by two pieces of cannon. These he stationed in front of the church and fired them into it at random. The assassins fled like a flock of frightened birds, leaving some few dead upon the church steps. Jourdan and his men trampled over the bodies and entered the holy precincts. No one was there but the Virgin, and the wretched Lescuyer, still breathing. Jourdan ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Chinese family to their uncle; and if there is an allegation which I would 'deny with both hands', it is this: that an insipid sameness is the chief characteristic of an anthology which offers—to name almost at random seven only out of forty (oh ominous academic number!)—the work of Messrs. Abercrombie, Davies, de la Mare, Graves, ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... at random the book of the Holy Scriptures which he had before him, and to read what came before his eyes: and these were words which finally induced him to give up Manichaeism. The good Steno, a Dane, who was titular Bishop of Titianopolis, Vicar Apostolic (as they say) of ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... Parliament, nor does the last chapter conclude in the most satisfactory and unobjectionable manner, by his marrying a dowager countess, as that wise man Addison did, or by his settling down as a great country gentleman, perfectly happy and contented, like the very moral Roderick Random, or the equally estimable Peregrine Pickle; he is hack author, Gypsy, tinker, and postillion, yet, upon the whole, he seems to be quite as happy as the younger sons of most earls, to have as high feelings ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... whatever he can lay his bands on, and passes out, always thanking the broker for his courtesy. The confederates leave soon after, and then the robbery is discovered. The Damper Sneak has to steal at random, taking the first thing within his reach, but he often secures a rich prize. He takes his peculiar name from the safe, which, in the thief language, is called a "Damper." One of the boldest of these robberies ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... letters to Goethe, had at least the very good excuse of her nationality for her peculiar English, the choicest, funniest, maddest, and saddest English ever penned on this planet or in any other, and of which I hope "N. & Q." will accept some small specimens, taken at random among thousands such. To ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... her closely. "I hope you aren't running a temperature," she said. "I'll take a shot at random. You have found out that the Peters family ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... Luther had still two centuries and a half to wait, so much difference in the course of history, in spite of all our philosophies and our general laws, may be made by an arrow shot at a venture, a wandering breath of pestilence, a random bullet, a wreath of mist lingering on one of the world's battlefields. But Luther has conquered at last. Would that he had conquered by other means than war— war with all its sufferings, with all its passions, with the hatred, the ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... of Lady Kirkbank's, flung out at random, Montesma blanched, and his deep black eye met hers with a ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Not at random had he made that backward leap. Still covering Gavin with his pistol, he flashed one hand behind him and pressed the switch-button which controlled the electric lights in the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... flower. He was vain, greedy, wanton, fond of the delight of the eye and the pride of life; he was loving and loose in his manners; he was pious, repentant, profligate; and he deliberately told the whole tale of all his many changes of mood and mistress, of piety and pleasure. One cannot open Pepys at random without finding him at his delightful old games. On the Lord's day he goes to church with Mr. Creed, and hears a good sermon from the red-faced parson. He came home, read divinity, dined, and, he says, "played the fool," and won a quart of sack from Mr. Creed. Then to supper at ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... I write these random thoughts, and, a sheet at a time, they start on their secret way out beyond the walls. . ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... reader will cut out the little circular disks which he will find at the back of the book, and place them at random on the numbered spots, leaving number ten vacant for his first move, he may find Bright-Wits' task to be less difficult than ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood
... awkwardly near-sighted, and stared up at me with an air of general trustfulness, but without a sign of knowing me. So at last I introduced myself. Then he jumped up and grasped my hands, and stared and blushed and laughed, and began a dozen random questions, ending with a demand as to how in the world I had ...
— Eugene Pickering • Henry James
... most apparent. She dropped the great-lady manner, and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking, and, when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her mind was entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was drawing rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down with the speed of the express-train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was, noticed that something was very wrong with her. I really believe that before we ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... religious things he said, and yet the reality and force of them, struck her powerfully. He had forgotten her, forgotten everything save the bitter human need, and the comfort it was his privilege to offer. Catherine stood answering Mrs. Tyson at random, the tears rising in her eyes. She slipped out while he was still talking, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Random hunches and circuit diagrams flashed through Tom's brain. "The job will boil down to blotting out sonar waves and piercing the enemy's own 'wave-trap defense,'" the young ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton
... home,—or rather before going to bed, which is usually after three o'clock,—it is Mr. Trevanion's habit to leave on the table of the said study a list of directions for the secretary. The following, which I take at random from many I have preserved, may ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Mailleraye, and as steadily looked forwards to JUMIEGES. We ascended very sensibly—then striking into a sort of bye-road, were told that we should quickly reach the place of our destination. A fractured capital, and broken shaft, of the late Norman time, left at random beneath a hedge, seemed to bespeak the vicinity of the abbey. We then gained a height; whence, looking straight forward, we caught the first glance of the spires, or rather of the west end towers, of the Abbey of Jumieges.[80] "La voila, Monsieur,"—exclaimed ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... is true, are not too conspicuous even in the oldest and best versions of 'Lord Bateman.' Choosing at random, however, we find a ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... able to do all that.' Then, O prince, that Brahmana, raving like a lunatic, and repeatedly scolding Marutta with rude words, again accosted him thus, 'I am afflicted with a cerebral disorder, and, I always act according to the random caprices of my own mind. Why art thou bent upon having this sacrifice performed by a priest of such a singular disposition? My brother is able to officiate at sacrifices, and he has gone over to Vasava (Indra), and is engaged in performing his sacrifices, do thou therefore have thy sacrifice performed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... which also was littered with dingy masculine apparel flung about at random. Pockets of trousers and of coats had been turned inside out, in what apparently had been a ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... chair which his host advanced, the young man tried to open the conversation by addressing to Mrs. Lombard some random remark on the beauties of Siena. The lady murmured a resigned assent, and Doctor Lombard interposed with a smile: "My dear sir, my wife considers Siena a most salubrious spot, and is favorably impressed by the cheapness of the marketing; but she deplores the total ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... not begun to ooze out; while the abnormal incapacity of our rulers was displayed at the attack upon Carthagena or during the Pretender's march into England. The history becomes a shifting chaos marked by no definite policy, and the ship of State is being steered at random as one or other of the competitors for rule manages to grasp the helm for a moment. Then after another period of aimless intrigues the nation seems to rouse itself; and finding at last a statesman who has a distinct purpose and can appeal to a great patriotic sentiment, ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... said the Donkey; and the random chords changed to a crooning melody which wonderfully pleased Buddie, whose opportunities to hear music were sadly few. As for the White Blackbird, he tucked his little head under his wing ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... now he could only act at random—he returned to the datcha. Great disorder reigned there. The guard had been doubled. The general's friends, summoned by Trebassof, surrounded the two poisoned sufferers and filled the house with their bustling devotion ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... inaugurated and continued by other observers, there are now about eight thousand nebulae known to us, and with every improvement of the telescope fresh additions are being made to the list. They differ from one another as eight thousand pebbles selected at random on a sea-beach might differ—namely, in form, size, colour, and material—but yet, like the pebbles, bear a certain generic resemblance to each other. To describe this class of bodies in any detail would altogether exceed the limits ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... finest abbot in the world, to the degenerate friar, who lives at the expense of others, a physician become poisoner, who destroys instead of healing them, and to the pardoner, a rascal of low degree, who bestows heaven at random by his own "heigh power" on whoever will pay, and who manufactures precious relics out of the pieces of his "old breech." Finally there are nuns, reserved, quiet, neat as ermines, who are going to hear on the way enough to scandalise ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... are beside yourself. Know you not that Freedom is a glorious thing and of great worth? But that what I desired at random I should wish at random to come to pass, so far from being noble, may well be ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... to her that the curate had had no knowledge of the facts of the case, and had therefore been compelled to talk at random. It was impossible he should suspect the crime of which her brother had been guilty, and therefore could not know the frightful consequences of such a confession as he had counselled. Had she not better then tell him all, and so gather from him ...
— Thomas Wingfold, Curate • George MacDonald
... way of mischief unnecessarily, would at first by no means accede; but, on being urged by Donald, agreed to move on a little with him towards the scene of conflict. This proceeding soon brought them near enough to the combatants to perceive that Donald's random conjecture had not been far wrong, by discovering to them one person, who, with his back to the wall, was bravely defending himself against no fewer than four assailants, all being ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... watched while it seemed that the great log with its gruesome freight must be swept out into the main current of the stream. Sluggishly it revolved, as upon an axis, and then, in the grip of a random cross-current, ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... away, and the Residency to fall piecemeal about the ears of impotent officials. And yet, though the hereditary favourer, and one of the chief props of French authority, he has always an eye upon the past. He showed me where the old public place had stood, still to be traced by random piles of stone; told me how great and fine it was, and surrounded on all sides by populous houses, whence, at the beating of the drums, the folk crowded to make holiday. The drumbeat of the Polynesian has a ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... up long and earnestly into the starry sky, his thoughts began to wander over the past and the present at random, and a cold shudder warned him that it was time to return to the hut. But the wandering thoughts and fancies seemed to chain him to the spot, so that he could not tear himself away. Then a dreamy feeling of rest and comfort began ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne |
