"Character" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mid Java extending from about 779 to 900 A.D. confirms his statement. But two questions arise. Firstly, is there any explanation of this sudden efflorescence of Buddhism in the Archipelago, and next, what was its doctrinal character? If, as Taranatha says, the disciples of Vasubandhu evangelized the countries of the East, their influence might well have been productive about the time of I-Ching's visit. But in any case during the sixth and seventh centuries religious travellers ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... and by thousands. A fine afternoon throws every thing into "good keeping"—as the artists say. The trees, and meadows, and upper lands, were not only bright with the sun-beam, but the human countenance was lighted up with gladness. The occupations partook of this joyful character. Accordingly there was dancing and singing on all sides; a little beyond, appeared to sit a group of philosophers, or politicians, upon a fantastically cut seat, beneath laburnums streaming with gold; while, still further, gradually becoming invisible from the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... at these: but we cannot smile at the account of unhappy Mary Dyer's malformed offspring; or of Mrs. Hutchinson's domestic misfortune of similar character, in the story of which the physician, Dr. John Clark of Rhode Island, alone appears to advantage; or as we read the Rev. Samuel Willard's fifteen alarming pages about an unfortunate young woman suffering with hysteria. Or go a little deeper into tragedy, ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... His forehead, I saw, was really impressive—high, narrow and thin-skinned. His face gave one somehow the impression of a carving once full of significant lines, now blurred and worn as though Time, having first marked it with the lines of character, had grown discouraged and brushed the hand of forgetfulness over her work. He had peculiar thin, silky hair of no particular colour, with a certain almost childish pathetic waviness around the ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... Author would be sorry to have it supposed that he alludes here to any individual; for he can say with truth, that such a character has never fallen under his observation: much less would he be thought to reflect on the Artists, as a class of men to which such baseness may be generally imputed. The case here is merely supposed, to shew how easily imbecility and selfishness may ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... companions were much attached to him, for his whole conduct had inspired them with respect and confidence. He had only one hand, and some of his companions conjectured that, perhaps, this loss gave so grave a tone to his character. Zaleukos thus answered ...
— The Oriental Story Book - A Collection of Tales • Wilhelm Hauff
... underdrain land?" is a question a thousand times asked, and yet is a question that admits of no direct general answer. Is it profitable to fence land? is it profitable to plow land? are questions of much the same character. The answers to them all depend upon circumstances. There is land that may be profitably drained, and fenced, and plowed, and there is a great deal that had better be let alone. Whether draining is profitable or not, depends ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... in whom the Protector was said to have lived again, was quite a character in Yarmouth society. Bridget Ireton, the granddaughter of the Protector, married in 1669 Mr. Thomas Bendish, a descendant of Sir Thomas Bendish, baronet, Ambassador from Charles I. to the Sultan. She died ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... uncleanness the shapes of beauty which it contains. To run away from life—that is easy enough; to yield to its evil—that is still easier; but to be in the world and to mould it—that is the {145} real problem of the Christian life. And here is the real test of Christian character. The saints of the past have been for the most part men who fled from the world, but the saint of to-day is the man who can use the world. He is the man of business who amid looseness of standards keeps himself clean. He is the youth in college who without the least ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... left shoe is my father; no, no, this left shoe is my mother; nay, that cannot be so neither; yes, it is so, it is so; it hath the worser sole." This passage was not necessary either to the progress of the play or to the development of the character; he believed he was justified in asserting that it was not borrowed from the original novel on which the play was founded; the inference was obvious, that without some personal allusion it must have been as unintelligib1e to the audience as it had hitherto been to the ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... I; and ere I laid the letter down, I again glanced at the small, neat handwriting, not a bit like that of a mercantile man, nor, indeed, of any man except Hunsden himself. They talk of affinities between the autograph and the character: what affinity was there here? I recalled the writer's peculiar face and certain traits I suspected, rather than knew, to appertain to his nature, and I answered, "A ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... it not necessary to produce evidence of these facts, it is sufficient that any minister is universally suspected; for when did an innocent man, supported by power, and furnished with every advantage that could contribute to exalt or preserve his character, incur the general hatred of the people? But if it could ever happen by a combination of unlucky accidents, what could be more for the happiness of himself, his master, and the nation, than that he should retire and enjoy the consciousness of his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... admiral's report, sent through channels to the Vice Admiral of the American destroyer fleet, and by him referred to the Secretary of the Navy, was of such character that Dave and Dan received the highest praise direct from Washington by cable, ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... full bench: Joe Gibbons, Barney Barnhart, Jase Baker, Billy Graham, Birney Wilkins, and George Muckle Fee. Fee was a peculiar character, with an unusual deformity, since his neck was bent like a huge bow, not unlike a limb with the knee bent, his face looking to the ground. To look to either side he must turn his entire body. The only human being he ever thought kindly ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... saw this woman till I met her lately at her brother's bedside. Her opinions of me were all derived from unfavourable sources, and I knew, from good authority, that she regarded me as a dangerous and hateful character. I had even, accidentally, heard her opinion of the affair between Jane and me. Jane was severely censured for credulity and indiscretion, but some excuse was allowed to her on the score of the greater guilt that was ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... was a delicate sub-tinkle in the Viceroy's tone which Wonder understood. He found that his health was giving way; and the Viceroy allowed him to go, and presented him with a flaming 'character' for use at ...
— The Kipling Reader - Selections from the Books of Rudyard Kipling • Rudyard Kipling
... as guides, we hoped that they might be deceived by our having sent the horses into the interior, and would follow their footsteps, supposing that we were still upon them, instead of continuing along the shore in the direction we were taking. The rocky character of the ground over which we passed after dismounting would, we believed, prevent any traces which even the keen eyes of Indians could discover, and we were careful not to break any branches or twigs as we passed along. When on the seashore, ...
— The Wanderers - Adventures in the Wilds of Trinidad and Orinoco • W.H.G. Kingston
... of newspaper work, it might seem odd that relaxation is sought in "more reading"—but it has been my experience, and that of many of my co-workers. I find, that the relief from the high tension of our trade comes from the change in the character of what we read, rather than in "something else," such as physical recreation. Fiction relaxes where "news" has ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... was employed in preparations for the execution. Every one grows childish in prison, but the character of Monsieur de Beaufort was particularly disposed to become so. In the course of his morning's walk he collected two or three small branches from a tree and found a small piece of broken glass, a discovery that quite delighted him. When he came home he formed his ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... meeting was neither a place of recreation nor weariness. Its single object was to save souls. True to this purpose, she forecast for weeks to obtain as tent guests thoughtful persons of honorable character whom she could bring and hold under the influence of the meeting until ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er
... intelligent, not of the nature of Self, and perishable; and it further follows therefrom that Brahman is not infinite. For by infinity we understand the absence of all limitation. Now on the theory which holds that there is a plurality of separate existences, Brahman which is considered to differ in character from other existences cannot be said to be free from substantial limitation; for substantial limitation means nothing else than the existence of other substances. And what is substantially limited cannot be said to be free from temporal and spatial limitation; for observation shows ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... Sentiments, which ought to be adapted to different Characters in Comedy, according to their different Dispositions, or, as he phrases it, Humours: As for Instance, he very rightly observes, That a Character of a splenetic and peevish HUMOUR, Should have a satirical WIT. A jolly and sanguine HUMOUR should have a facetious WIT. —But still this is no Description of what is well felt, and known, by the general ...
— An Essay towards Fixing the True Standards of Wit, Humour, Railery, Satire, and Ridicule (1744) • Corbyn Morris
... not be thought to recommend to our English nobility and gentry to become as great lawyers as Sulpicius; though he, together with this character, sustained likewise that of an excellent orator, a firm patriot, and a wise indefatigable senator; but the inference which arises from the story is this, that ignorance of the laws of the land hath ever been esteemed dishonourable, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... sufficient astuteness and experience to know that she had taken the most careful precautions, having destroyed every evidence of her own complicity, and feeling quite safe in that direction. Moreover, she had studied Malgat's character, as she studied afterwards Kergrist's. She was quite sure that neither of them would accuse her, even at the moment of death. And yet, in the case of this Mutual Discount Society, her calculations did not ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... partner's side examining some document through a reading-glass, which on his appearance, was folded over and presently thrust away into a drawer. It seemed, Alan noticed, to be of an unusual shape and written in some strange character. ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... self-devotion. No, she would not, could not believe any such thing; she was certain Edmund never would be so weak as to wish to do anything only doubtfully right, and thus, strangely enough, her full trust in the dignity of his character, prevented her from imagining him in ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... so-called "Village Judge" of Bulaq, the "Scribe" now in Paris, and a few figures in bronze in different museums, as well as the noble and characteristic busts of all epochs, which amply prove how great the variety of individual physiognomy, and, with that, of individual character was among the Egyptians. Alma Tadelna in London and Gustav Richter in Berlin have, as painters, treated Egyptian subjects in a manner which the poet recognizes and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Hawaiian lady of high character and extreme amiability, and both King and Queen have been exemplary in ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... The extent and character of the circulation of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE will render it a first-class medium for advertising. A limited number of approved advertisements will be inserted on two inside pages at 75 ...
— Harper's Young People, May 25, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... conspicuous for his bravery during the preceding days, gravely said to me: 'If there had been war, I wonder if I should have had the moral courage to keep out of the fight?' I looked into his face, and, seeing there his character, answered with dryness, 'Oh! I suspect you would.' He was too complaisant to appreciate the sarcasm. God made little as well as great things! I suppose we should love all humanity, even if it be in the spirit of ...
— A Woman's Part in a Revolution • Natalie Harris Hammond
... des Boscenos had lost his portfolio in a brawl and he was reduced to painful expedients which were repugnant to his impetuous character. The Viscountess Olive was expensive. Cornemuse advised that the monthly allowance of that ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... Verberie, the "bete noire" of the marquis, as he ungallantly termed her, was a tall, dry woman, angular in appearance and character, cold and arrogant toward her equals, and domineering ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... suggested as the physical basis for the Law of Gravitation, must itself not only account for the various forces already referred to, but must itself fulfil the Rules of Philosophy laid down by Newton. That is to say, the conception of the physical medium must be simple in character, its properties and motions must agree with all our experience, as given by observation, and experiments; and the properties and motions postulated for it must satisfactorily account for, and explain all the phenomena that are presented to us by the Universal ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... is known; and that little claims no praise but what can be given to intellectual excellence, seldom employed to any virtuous purpose. His character, as given by Mr. Oldisworth, with all the partiality of friendship, which is said, by Dr. Burton, to show "what fine things one man of parts can say of another," and which, however, comprises great part of what can be known ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... and Louise Edson. Both were endowed with superior mental and intellectual powers; both accomplished and beautiful; but there was at times a gentleness in Florence's manner, a dreamy light in the far depths of her large, hazel eyes, that indicated less firmness and strength of character, with tenderer susceptibilities. Perhaps life's trials would sooner unnerve ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... these criticisms was inherent in the Territorial idea. They rather belonged to the whole military policy of the country before the War. Public opinion held that a European War was practically impossible, and that the British Army must of necessity be small in numbers and voluntary in character. ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... from lack of exercise, the bones are attenuated, and all the parts are dry and shrivelled. In after-life the leg frequently regains its muscles and adipose tissue, but the foot always remains small. The binding process is said to exert a markedly depressing influence upon the emotional character of the subject, which lasts through life, and is ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... the whole affair, and it would be distinctly inconvenient if that failed to come to hand. However, God was great, and Mahbub Ali felt he had done all he could for the time being. Kim was the one soul in the world who had never told him a lie. That would have been a fatal blot on Kim's character if Mahbub had not known that to others, for his own ends or Mahbub's business, Kim could lie like ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... that to prove Him the human mind must be transformed. In the light of the great ideas which had dawned upon him in the past few days—the nature of God as mind, unlimited, immanent, eternal, and good; and the specious character of the five physical senses, which from the beginning have deluded mankind into the false belief that through them comes a true knowledge of the cosmos—Jose's mentality was ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... have already recognized the belligerent character of the Southern States, and they will continue to recognize them as belligerents. But Her Majesty's Government have not recognized and are not prepared to recognize the so-called Confederate States as a ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... tenor of her way, and letting nothing interfere with her household work, was not more in the line of duty than her beautiful sister. But the two sisters were, as often happens, so entirely different in character that one cannot be judged by the same rules as the other. The impulsive enthusiast and the matter-of-fact, practical labourer in the field see things ...
— Bristol Bells - A Story of the Eighteenth Century • Emma Marshall
... as a story, is replete with Oriental charm and richness and the character drawing is marvelous. No other novel ever written has portrayed with such vividness the events that convulsed Rome and destroyed Jerusalem in ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... problems, were treated as infinitely insignificant, as just the framework of human life, only interesting in so far as the baser and meaner elements of circumstance can just influence, refining or coarsening, the highest traits of character and emotion. ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is morally impossible for me to lay down the hardships I have received—I have been aspersed in my character. In the first place, it has been said that I have spoken ill of my father, that I have cursed him, and wished him at hell, which is extremely false. Sometimes little family affairs have happened, and he did not speak to me so kind as I could wish. I own I am passionate, my lords, ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... that very arrangement which the nature of the subject suggests. The most important and permanent effects of the progress of discovery and commerce, on the wealth, the power, the political relations, the manners and habits, and the general interests and character of nations, will either appear on the very surface of our work, or, where the facts themselves do not expose them to view, ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... a natural aptitude as a director while holding "prompt books" at rehearsals, he became a dramatic director and actor of eccentric comedy and character parts. Then his natural instinct for dancing asserted itself, and he became a specialty dancer, practicing from three to eight hours a day to perfect his dancing, incidentally developing his ...
— The Art of Stage Dancing - The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession • Ned Wayburn
... pathos, loyalty, and noble boy character are exemplified in this homeless little lad, who has made the world better for his being in it. The boy or girl who knows Remi has an ideal never to be forgotten. But it is a ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... moment her happiness was to begin: she added that she should never forget the kindness and friendship I had displayed towards her, and which was so much more than she deserved. A short time afterwards I went to see her. I was curious to know why she had remained so long in the character of an attendant to Montespan. She told me that God had touched her heart, and made her sensible of her crimes; that she felt she ought to perform a penitence, and suffer that which would be most painful to her, which was to love the King, and to be despised ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... hath anointed us, is God; who also hath sealed us and given the pledge of the Spirit in our hearts."(357) God confirmeth us in faith; He hath anointed us by spiritual unction, typified by the sacred chrism which is marked on our foreheads. He hath sealed us by the indelible character stamped on our souls, which is indicated by the sign of the cross impressed on us. He hath given the pledge of the Holy Ghost in our hearts, by the testimony of a good conscience, as an earnest of future glory. ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... farce, in which he impersonated the character of the awkward negro who breaks the dishes, was the closing number on the program. Alfred, always a stickler for natural effects, prevailed upon one of the boys to borrow his mother's china tea set. For safety these dishes were carried in ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... friends, and when he spoke his words came haltingly, as though he were weighing this damning statement against all that had formerly been good; he was unwilling to pronounce a verdict on the bare face value of such an accusation without throwing into the balance, not only Jeb's character since boyhood, but the affectionate memory of ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... think it is to the credit of Mr. Lovelace's character that he can be offensive and violent?—Does he not, as all such spirits must, subject himself to the necessity of making submissions for his excesses far more mortifying to a proud hear than those condescensions which the high-spirited are so apt to impute as ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... towards the celestial messenger who kneels before her; but both figures, though showing Fra Angelico's characteristic sentiment, have exaggerated proportions; the neck is inordinately long, the colouring enamelled, and so brilliant as to give the picture the character of a fine and elegantly illuminated missal. In the "Adoration" the Virgin displays the same defects of proportion, but among the figures of the three Kings and the personages accompanying them, are some of exceptional elegance and exquisite beauty. On the whole the scene may be ...
— Fra Angelico • J. B. Supino
... might expedite the event I most dreaded, or add to the discomfort to which Miss Oldcastle was already so much exposed. Meantime I heard nothing of Captain Everard; and the comfort that flowed from such a negative source was yet of a very positive character. At the same time—will my reader understand me?—I was in some measure deterred from making further advances by the doubt whether her favour for Captain Everard might not be greater than Judy had represented it. For I had always shrunk, I can ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... other people of the earth. The people of the colonies are descendants of Englishmen. England, sir, is a nation which still, I hope, respects, and formerly adored, her freedom. The colonists emigrated from you when this part of your character was most predominant; and they took this bias and direction the moment they parted from your bands. They are therefore not only devoted to liberty, but to liberty according to English ideas and our English principles. ... The temper and character which prevail in our ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... permit of; and when at length I discovered that some interest had attached not only to the adventures, but to their narrator, I would gladly have retired with my "little laurels" from a stage, on which, having only engaged to appear between the acts, I was destined to come forward as a principal character. ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... also, that for my disappointments, as a general thing, I had only myself to thank. They had too often been the consequence of arbitrary preconceptions produced by influences of which I had lost the trace. At any rate, I will say plumply that the ancient capital of Burgundy is wanting in character; it is not up to the mark. It is old and narrow and crooked, and it has been left pretty well to itself: but it is not high and overhanging; it is not, to the eye, what the Burgundian capital should ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... mourning, and is the languishing hopeless lover of the divine Hebe, the emblem of youth and beauty. The excellent and learned sage you behold in that furniture, is the strongest instance imaginable, that love is the most powerful of all things. You are not so ignorant as to be a stranger to the character of AEsculapius, as the patron and most successful of all who profess the art of medicine. But as most of his operations are owing to a natural sagacity or impulse, he has very little troubled himself with the doctrine of drugs; ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... meaning of these paragraphs, and of the representations which had yesterday been made to the Stock Exchange Committee. He had additional knowledge today of the character of these representations. Nothing definite had been alleged, but some of the members of the Committee had been informally notified, so Semple had this morning learned, that a specific charge of fraud, supported ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... in which the purity of the female character can fail to be of the first importance to every community; but it appears to us, that it requires at this moment to be more carefully watched over than at any other; and that the constitution of society has arrived among us to ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... Indian, the Guebre, and the Negro, and a few congenial spirits, were not eclipsed in the satisfactory character of their evidence by the luminous testimony of Kisloch the Kourd. The irresistible career of the Hebrew conqueror was undeniably accounted for, and the honour of Moslem arms and the purity of Moslem faith were established in their pristine glory and all their unsullied ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... of respite from the rage of the uncle, the insults of the aunt, and, worse than all, the addresses of the intended bridegroom, her mind, shocked and unhinged, reverted with such intensity to the sufferings she endured as to give her musings the character of insanity. It was in one of these moments that she had written to Mordaunt; and had the contest continued much longer the reason of the unfortunate and persecuted girl ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... nothing so clearly evinces the decay of genuine pride and genuine honour in high and low alike as the hunting after insignia and titles, which appeared under different forms of expression, but with substantial identity of character, among all ranks and classes. So urgent was the demand for the honour of a triumph that there was difficulty in upholding the old rule, which accorded a triumph only to the ordinary supreme magistrate who augmented the power of the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... he answered, "and one turns to you in times of stress, just as one used to turn to your dear brother, Henry. You have character, shrewdness and decision." ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... no personal opposition to Cowperwood—none, at least, of a deep-seated character. At the same time Hand, Merrill, and Schryhart were his friends. In him, they felt, centered the financial leadership of the city. The rise of Cowperwood, his Napoleonic airs, threatened this. As Mr. Arneel ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... prosecution for swindling the government out of large sums of money for a mail service never performed was well known to every one present, including the judge, yet he was allowed to testify against the character of a woman pure as a child, while his own past was protected from exposure by rulings ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... pillow. But some Mycenzean shields were perfectly flat; while, again, nothing could be more comfortable, as a head-rest, than the hollow between the upper and lower bulges of the Mycenzean huge shield. The Zulu wooden head-rest is of the same character. Thus this passage in Book X. does not prove that small circular shields were known to Homer, nor does X. 5 13. 526-530, an obscure text in which it is uncertain whether Diomede and Odysseus ride or drive ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... wonders to me. I am more at home amongst Men and Women. I would rather read Chaucer than Ariosto. The little dramatic skill I may as yet have, however badly it might show in a Drama, would, I think, be sufficient for a Poem. I wish to diffuse the colouring of St Agnes Eve throughout a poem in which Character and Sentiment would be the figures to such drapery. Two or three such poems if God should spare me, written in the course of the next six years would be a famous gradus ad Parnassum altissimum. I mean they would nerve me up ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... Napoli, as the citizens graphically term this drastic reconstruction of the old capital of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, is no doubt beneficial, not to say necessary, and we make no protest against these wholesale changes, which have certainly tended to destroy utterly its ancient character and appearance. But all seems commonplace, new, smart, and unpoetic, and we quickly grow weary of Naples now that it has been turned into a Liverpool of the South without the local colour and the peculiar attributes of which author and artist have so ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... has been attributed to thoughtlessness, but it could hardly have been that, for in such large emergencies as this, intelligent people do think. It must have been indifference, an over-confidence born of the proved submissiveness of the native character, when confronted by even one or two stern Britons in their war paint. But, however that may be, it was a fatal discovery that the mob had made. They were full of courage, now, and they broke into the fort and massacred the helpless soldiers and their ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... girl of the neighborhood. Mrs. Wayne was sternly trying to prosecute the inebriate; Burke was determined to protect him, first, by smirching the girl's name, and, next, by getting the girl's family to consent to a marriage, a solution that Mrs. Wayne considered most undesirable in view of the character of the ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... listlessly upon his stool with the two puppet monarchs enthroned behind him, but of a sudden a dark shadow passed over his face, and he sprang to his feet in one of those gusts of passion which were the single blot upon his noble and generous character. ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... does—oh, lordy! lordy! I jest raves and caves. I was home on a visit onct, and my old-maid aunt gits a notion of pickin' on me. Say, I ups and runs her all over the house with an axe! I'm more er less a dang'rous character when I'm on the peck. Is that feelin' workin off of you any?" he ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... strictly a question of order, to be decided on the consistency or inconsistency of amendments. So I take it. I am willing it should be decided by this body. Now, what is it? The proposed amendment contravenes the whole nature of the transaction, and changes its character. The representatives of twenty-one or twenty-two States—we will not make any question about Kansas; whether it be in or not, is not material—the representatives and delegates of over twenty States of the Union have recommended to us the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... the external perpendicular fissure of Gratiolet, therefore, is not a constant character of the human brain. On the other hand, its full development is not a constant character of the higher ape's brain. For, in the chimpanzee, the more or less extensive obliteration of the external perpendicular sulcus by "bridging convolutions," on one side or the other, ...
— Note on the Resemblances and Differences in the Structure and the Development of Brain in Man and the Apes • Thomas Henry Huxley
... goal might have been speedily achieved. Andrew demanded a reorganization, based upon acceptance of the results of the war, but carried through with the aid of "those who are by their intelligence and character the natural leaders of their people and who surely will lead them by and by. These men cannot be kept out forever," said he, "for the capacity of leadership is a gift, not a device. They whose courage, talents, and will entitle them to lead, will lead .... If ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... original supporters of the movement, regarding the non-religious character of the new university with suspicion, had decided to transfer their support to a new college, where the doctrine and worship of the Church of England should be recognised. The Duke of Wellington took a lively interest in this movement, and King George IV.'s patronage gave the new ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... once tired of it, she would in the morning appear at breakfast looking as if nothing had ever come between them, and they would be the best of friends for a few days, or perhaps a week, seldom longer. Some fresh discord, nowise different in character from the preceding, would arise between them, and the same weary round be tramped again, each always in the right, and the other in the wrong. Every time they made it up, their relation seemed unimpaired, but it was ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... knew her liege as he never did—he was too close to his subject to get the perspective. She knew that under right conditions his name would live as one of the world's great teachers, and so she set herself to supply the conditions. She deliberately sacrificed herself and put her character in a wrong light before the world in order that she might benefit the world. Most women have a goodly grain of ambition for themselves, and if their husbands have genius, their business is not to prove it, but to show that they themselves are not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... third, who was Owaneeyo himself, and no mean shot, he permitted to beat him. The glee of the Indian when the match was ended was so marked and childish that Boone instantly decided that if future contests of a similar character were held he knew what his own course of action ...
— Scouting with Daniel Boone • Everett T. Tomlinson
... simple, intelligent child of twelve or thirteen is a common character, then I will allow that I am ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... to that Pinckney than there are to a cutglass paperweight. You might think, with him such a Reggie chap, that havin' a suspicious character like that around would get on his nerves; but, when it comes to applyin' the real color test, there ain't any more yellow in him than in a ball of bluin', and he can be as curious about certain things as a kid investigatin' the ...
— Odd Numbers - Being Further Chronicles of Shorty McCabe • Sewell Ford
... repeat themselves; the human character was and will be the same during long ages and all ages; and as they were in the old writings, they must be in the new. But science always unfolds something new; light and truth are everything that is created—beam out from hence with eternally divine clearness. Mighty image of God, do thou illumine ...
— Pictures of Sweden • Hans Christian Andersen
... he gave to show me the prevailing character of misfortune in the mass of human beings, and the good which was to be hence derived, had nothing singular in them; in fact they were obvious to view; but he recounted them in language so just and forcible, that I could not but admit the deductions ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... great success. Macready, who had, at the age of seventeen, begun his career as an actor at his father's theatre in Birmingham, had, on Monday, October 5th, 1819, at the age of twenty-six, taken the Londoners by storm in the character of Richard III Covent Garden reopened its closed treasury. It was promptly followed by a success in Coriolanus, and Macready's place was made. He was at once offered fifty pounds a night for appearing ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... him greatly, ran away for two days, and was supposed to have visited him, to have been shocked at his convalescence, and to have been "cut" by Uncle Billy in his reformed character; and he returned to his old active life again, and buried his past with his forgotten bones. It was said that he was afterward detected in trying to lead an intoxicated tramp into camp after the methods employed by a blind man's dog, but was discovered ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... Peter, as might be expected from the indications of character developed by this incident, forms a narrative that is full of interest ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... so remote now—had been partially spent in a grove where they camped for dinner, and Grandma Padgett read the Bible, and made Bobaday and Corinne answer their catechism. But this June Sunday was to be of a thanksgiving character. And ...
— Old Caravan Days • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... imputed to nothing but great folly, or greater dishonesty. And a man, in his accounts with another may, with as much fairness make the characters of numbers stand sometimes for one and sometimes for another collection of units: v.g. this character 3, stand sometimes for three, sometimes for four, and sometimes for eight, as in his discourse or reasoning make the same words stand for different collections of simple ideas. If men should do so in their reckonings, I wonder who would have to do with ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... have I ploughed and sown, And kept my acres clean; And written on my churchyard stone This character ...
— Oliver Cromwell • John Drinkwater
... circle. It manufactures nothing specially. It has no great horse fair, or cattle fair, or even pig market of special notoriety. Every Saturday farmers and graziers and buyers of corn and sheep do congregate in a sleepy fashion about the streets, but Dillsborough has no character of its own, even as a market town. Its chief glory is its parish church, which is ancient and inconvenient, having not as yet received any of those modern improvements which have of late become common throughout ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... depend on the spruceness, but on character. If her nature is good, she's sure to be ...
— Fruits of Culture • Leo Tolstoy
... the part of the President or anyone to make a change in the officers of the New York customhouse. This is apparent from my letter to Collector Arthur. The commission proceeded with their examination, and on the 2nd of July made their second report. This contained specific charges, but of a general character, against persons employed in the customhouse. They found that for many years past, the view had obtained with some political leaders that the friends of the administration in power had a right to control the customs appointments; and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... of the fourth century marked the opening of a new period—'a period when oratorical denunciations are profuse, and when consequently philosophical speculation, though fairly active, is of too imaginative a character to be sufficiently definite.'[1] St. Basil's Homilies on the Fourteenth Psalm contain a violent denunciation of usury, the reasoning of which was repeated by St. Gregory of Nyssa[2] and St. Ambrose.[3] These three Fathers draw a terrible picture of the state of the poor debtor, who, harassed by ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... the marvellous ingenuity of plot, the power and subtlety of the portrayal of character, the charm of the romantic environment,—the entire atmosphere, indeed,—rank this novel at once among the great ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... of this poem is its completeness. The elaboration, not only of character and of mental discipline, but of incident also, is unbroken. The absences of all mention of Elspie in the opening scene and again at the dance at Rannoch may at first seem to be a failure in this respect; but second thoughts will show it to be far otherwise: for, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... architectural ant who attempted to introduce an art nouveau style of ant-hill would have a career as curt and fruitless as the celebrated bee who wanted to swarm alone. The isolation of this idea in humanity is akin to its religious character; but it is not even in humanity by any means equally distributed. The idea that the State should not only be supported by its children, like the ant-hill, but should be constantly criticised and reconstructed ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... the least of the uncountable daily dramas of which the externals are exposed to the gaze of any starer in an Elevated, I should have known what New York truly meant to New-Yorkers, and what was the real immediate effect of average education reacting on average character in average circumstances; and the knowledge would have been precious and exciting beyond all knowledge of the staggering "wonders" of the capital. But, of course, I could not approach so close to reality; the visiting stranger ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... look back with deep gratitude for the strange manner in which I have been enabled to avert all suspicion, and even to make myself quite a popular character among ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... it from him, looked at the title, and laughed. He knew it well. It was the 'Life and Errors of John Dunton, Citizen of London,' the eccentric record of a seventeenth-century dealer in books, who, like Daddy, had been a character ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Bryant, the Earl of Orford, and others eminent for wit or learning. Here he contracted not only a literary taste and habits of study, but that preference for the quiet amusements of a country life, which afterwards formed a part of his character. In 1734 he was removed from Eton to Oxford, and admitted a gentleman commoner of St. John's College. On the marriage of the Prince of Wales, two years after, he contributed some verses to the Congratulatory ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... seen from this house in Lesbos to that from the terrace of her palace on the Bosphorus, and described its differences to me. She asked me as to the Caliph Harun-al-Rashid, whom she understood I had seen, inquiring as to the estimate I had formed of his character. Lastly, with a laugh, she dwelt upon the strange vicissitudes ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... you! A mother's bl-l-essings go with you," gurgled the lady, who was not, it must be confessed, a woman of strong moral character. ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "Love's Last Shift, or the Fool of Fashion," that he wrote an improved version of it in "The Relapse." Thus Sir Novelty Fashion was developed into Lord Foppington, and Vanbrugh, who patronized Cibber, employed him to act the character. He was an exception to the rule that a good playwriter is not a good performer. In Cibber, we especially mark the Spanish element, which then tinged the drama, and although somewhat prosy and sententious, he is fertile and entertaining ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... of real maternal pity in Rose's adoption of little Dolly Darling as her chum. Dolly was obviously as fragile and ephemeral as a transparent sand-fly. She had nothing that you could call a mind or a character, even of the most rudimentary sort. She knew nothing, except how to dance, and she knew that exactly as a kitten knows how to play with a ball of string; she dreamed of diamonds and wonderful restaurants and a sardonic hero nine feet tall with a straight ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... remembered how at first, before she knew his character, she had spoken and thought of him just as Frederick was doing. It was but a natural impression that was made upon him, and yet she was a little annoyed by it. She was unwilling to speak; she wanted to make Frederick ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... a revelation," the avocat went on. "He fills in the vague spaces, clears up mysteries of incident, and gives, instead, mystery of character." ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... myself and not at all perhaps for that which is best for the public, I would have preferred a continuation of the Croker dynasty. As it is, good sooth! Mr. Croker is destroyed. And your ruin, of whatever character, the resort of owls, the habitat of bats, and all across it flung the melancholy ivy—that verdant banner of victorious decay!—is, at its loveliest, but a spectacle of depression; and one who has witnessed Mr. Croker in his vigor ...
— The Onlooker, Volume 1, Part 2 • Various
... closely. He saw the knitted brows. The curious set of the man's lips. His absorbed interest. Nor did he interrupt. He contented himself with that patient waiting which betrayed much of the solid strength of his character. ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... the trees may be regarded as either originally an offering to their spirits or—and this seems more probable—as a sacramental act intended to bring fertilizing influences to bear upon them. Customs of a similar character are found in Continental countries during the Christmas season. In Tyrol, for instance, when the Christmas pies are a-making on St. Thomas's Eve, the maids are told to go out-of-doors and put their arms, ...
— Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan • Clement A. Miles
... European houses or hotels throughout Egypt; and consequently one sees more women than men pottering about the villages or working in the fields. They are a fine race, clean in their habits and cheery in character. They can be distinguished with ease from the Egyptian fellahin; for their skin has more the appearance of bronze, and their features are often more aquiline. The women do not wear the veil, and their dresses are draped over one shoulder in a manner unknown to Egypt. ...
— The Treasury of Ancient Egypt - Miscellaneous Chapters on Ancient Egyptian History and Archaeology • Arthur E. P. B. Weigall
... to certify to the good character of the bearer, a Moqui Indian by the name of Havasupai, who has rendered me a very great service, which proves him to be the friend of the white man, and a believer in the pursuit of science. I cheerfully recommend him to all who may be in need of a trustworthy ...
— The Saddle Boys in the Grand Canyon - or The Hermit of the Cave • James Carson
... McKinley's excellent map of Nova Scotia as about fifty-eight miles east from Halifax. Subsequent discoveries at Wine Harbor, Sherbrooke, Ovens, Oldham, Waverley, Hammond's Plains, and at Lake Loon,—a small lake only five miles distant from Halifax,—have fully determined the auriferous character of particular and defined localities throughout the district already described, and abundantly justify the early opinion of Lord Mulgrave, that "there is now little or no doubt that this Colony will soon rank as one of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... work Rick met another interesting character, although a nonhuman one, and got an ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... borne in upon me that there was another side to the shield. I was too much immersed in my own thoughts to note the peculiar character of the small remote old-world town I came to in the afternoon; next day was Sunday, and on my way to the church to attend morning service, it struck me as one of the oldest-looking of the small old towns I had stumbled upon in my rambles in this ancient ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson
... inserts its fingers in the mouth as if trying to clutch something which closes the air passages. These symptoms may either increase to the rapid exhaustion of the patient or take a favorable turn. One of the first evidences of the latter is a change in the character of the cough, which, although it may not lessen in force or frequency, becomes lower in tone, less ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... the girl, "I knew Mr. Parrish pretty well. A woman, you know, gets to the heart of a man's character very often quicker than his daily associates in business. And I know that Mr. Parrish was the last man in the world to have done a thing like that. He was so ... so undaunted. He made nothing of difficulties. He relied ...
— The Yellow Streak • Williams, Valentine
... Alvin Johnson (Harcourt, Brace & Howe). This collection of sketches, largely reprinted from the New Republic, is rather a series of studies in social and economic relations than a group of short stories. But they concern us here because of Mr. Johnson's penetrating analysis of character, which constitutes a document of no little value to the imaginative student of our institutions, and "Short Change" has no little value as a ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... opulently endowed can hardly have been lacking in purely physical ardours. His pantheistic belief that the Spirit of God was in all things, was not inconsistent with, might encourage, a keen and restless eye for the dramatic details of life and character for humanity in all its visible attractiveness, since there, too, in [238] truth, divinity lurks. From those first fair days of early Greek speculation, love had occupied a large place in the conception of philosophy; and in after days Bruno was fond of developing, like Plato, like the Christian ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... been here, is no Indian; the second, that he is personally known to the governor, who has been, or I mistake much, more alarmed at his individual presence than if Ponteac and his whole band had suddenly broken in upon us. Did you remark his emotion, when I dwelt on the peculiar character of personal triumph and revenge which the cry of the lurking villain outside seemed to express? and did you notice the eagerness with which he enquired if I thought I had hit him? Depend upon it, there is more in all this than is dreamt of in ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... me if I could give him no hope, I answered no with such uncomplimentary quickness that I had to cough to overcome it, and then I told him it was impossible for a girl of Elizabeth's taste and training and character, who had once loved such a man as he, to really care for any one else. And the blackness in his face, caused by my unnecessary emphasis, died out, and I saw he was agreeing with me concerning Elizabeth, and that I would not have to insist on what ...
— Kitty Canary • Kate Langley Bosher
... several absurd things; but he finally surpasses himself by hurrying away from the woman he loves, without her knowledge, immediately after he has been joined to her in marriage. The representation of the half-witted Job—a character upon which the author clearly labored hard—neither arouses interest nor touches the heart. It is, indeed, impossible to feel much sympathy with one particular imbecile, no matter how patriotic, in a story where most of the actors are represented as ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... specimens by the millions, and in these millions looks, and often looks in vain for the lonely sport that is to father a new race. Burbank has, with plants, many advantages of which the animal breeder is deprived. He can produce his specimens in greater number, he can more easily find out the desirable character, and in many plants he has not the uncertain element of double parentage to contend with, while with others he is still more fortunate, as he can produce them by seed, stimulate variation until the desired mutation is found and can then reproduce the ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... the Rev. Mr. BALLOU on the subject. That, in order to render the controversy the more interesting, by calling into action the energies of mind, and by directing the correspondence to definite purposes, he assumed the character of a real opponent, determining to maintain the opposition, in all its forms, until reduced, by necessity, to yield to successful arguments directed against it. It was with great reluctance that the advocate for the christian religion, in this controversy, ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... in the legends the kindly character attributed to him in the story in which he and the Prophet Ilya are introduced together. It is to him that at the present day the anxious peasant turns most readily for help, and it is he whom the legends represent as being the most prompt of all the heavenly host to assist the unfortunate among ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... and the mortuary records of the city. Sometimes he presented himself at the doors of public institutions as a philanthropist, preparing by personal inspection for writing some book, or getting statistics, or establishing an institution on behalf of a public benefactor. Sometimes he went in the character of a lawyer, in search of a man who had fallen heir to a fortune. He had always a plausible story to tell, and found no difficulty in obtaining an entrance at all the doors to which his inquisition led him. He was treated everywhere so courteously that his ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... that seems industrious to place staring fools and unprincipled knaves in the foreground of his picture, while men of sense and honesty are too often thrown in the dimmest shades. Mrs. Riddell, who will take this letter to town with her, and send it to you, is a character that, even in your own way as a naturalist and a philosopher, would be an acquisition to your acquaintance. The lady, too, is a votary of the muses; and as I think myself somewhat of a judge in my own trade, I assure you that her verses, always correct, and often ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... stepped forward, and urged the following, not only in the name of his brother peers, but in the name of his native sovereign, Isabella; that in consideration of the complicated and contradictory evidence, of the prisoner's previous high character, and of his strongly protested innocence, a respite of one month should be granted between sentence and execution, to permit prayers to be offered up throughout Spain for the discovery of the real murderer, or at least allow time for some proof of innocence ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar
... he would," said Morgan. "But there's somebody." He gazed long into Harlan's face, and the latter gazed steadily back at him. He seemed to be searching Harlan's face for signs of character. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... queen of night, survey With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above, Thy huntress' name, that my full life doth sway. O Rosalind! these trees shall be my books, And in their barks my thoughts I'll character, That every eye which in this forest looks Shall see thy virtue witness'd every where. Run, run, Orlando; carve on every tree, The fair, ...
— As You Like It • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... they have received an advertisement from the landlord of the "National Hotel" contingent upon an editorial notice of its having been at one time the abode of M'liss; while an aunt of the heroine, alluding in excellent terms to the reformed character of her niece M'liss, clenches her sincerity by requesting the loan of twenty dollars to buy clothes for the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... My father, as you may have noticed during your stay at our stately home of England, is a man of a warm, impulsive character. He does not always do things as other people would do them. He has his own methods. Thus, he has sent me into the City to do the hard-working, bank-clerk act, but at the same time he is allowing me ...
— Psmith in the City • P. G. Wodehouse
... publishers have decided to issue a new edition beautified with drawings from the pencil of Mr. L. Maynard Dixon. This tale of the Indians of the far West has fairly earned its lasting popularity, not only by the intense interest of the story, but by its faithful delineations of Indian character. ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... to feelings of cowardice when she came face to face with the dejected and broken-down Therese, amidst the icy silence of the shop. She was not one of those dry, rigid persons who find bitter delight in living a life of eternal despair. Her character was full of pliancy, devotedness, and effusion, which contributed to make up her temperament of a stout and affable good lady, and prompted her to live in a ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... offence, and their preparations for defence. Meanwhile, fortunate in our geographical position,—weak for offence, but, in turn, unassailable,—we went in and out much as an unarmed man, relying on his character, his recognized force, position, and peaceful calling, daily moves about in our frontier settlements and mining camps amid throngs of men armed to the teeth with revolvers and bowie knives. Yet, evidence was not lacking of the consideration yielded to us when we were called upon, ...
— "Imperialism" and "The Tracks of Our Forefathers" • Charles Francis Adams
... romantic nonsense! Well! perhaps that was the true keynote of Sue's character; perhaps, too, it was that same romantic temperament which gave such peculiar charm to her personality. It was not mere beauty—of which she had a plentiful share—nor yet altogether her wealth which attracted so many courtiers to her feet. Men who knew her in those days at Acol and ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... and when he had done with his list of judicial mistakes about five o'clock in the afternoon, went on to make what he called the very few remarks necessary as to the evidence which on the next day he proposed to produce as to the prisoner's character. He ventured to think that evidence as to the character of such a nature,—so strong, so convincing, so complete, and so free from all objection, had never yet been given in a criminal court. At six o'clock he completed his ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... establish her conviction that the husband she had chosen, by a lightning instinct of the brain rather than the heart, was in all respects a man among men. He appealed to the artist in her by a natural dignity and distinction of person and character, by a suggestion of volcanic forces warring with the ascetic strain in him yet steadfastly controlled; and above all, by a superb simplicity and unconsciousness of self, that draws introspective temperaments as infallibly as the moon ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... that our country-folks in Hampshire call almost every thing he or she. It is curious to observe that country labourers give the feminine appellation to those things only which are more closely identified with themselves, and by the qualities or conditions of which their own efforts, and their character as workmen, are affected. The mower calls his scythe a she, the ploughman calls his plough a she; but a prong, or a shovel, or a harrow, which passes promiscuously from hand to hand, and which is appropriated to no particular labourer, is called a he."—"English ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... with the railroad company—a promoter, or something of that character. He is trying to make a boom town of Okar. He has bought a great deal ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Gosport near the mouth. Running into it on the north is Hampton creek, on which stands the town of Hampton, and a little to the north of it again is York river and York Town, which was to become the scene of operations of a character most disastrous to the royal cause. York Town stands on an elbow of York river, between it and James river. Some way up James river is the town of Richmond, the capital of the State of Virginia. The country was, at the time of which ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the river! Was not this sublime unconsciousness of time, this glorious appropriation of eternity, something we had missed all our lives, and, in missing it, had lost our birthright of quiet hours, calm thought, sweet fellowship, ripening character? The fever and tumult of the world we had left were discords in a strain, that had never yielded its ...
— Under the Trees and Elsewhere • Hamilton Wright Mabie |
