"Fluctuate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... farewell we fluctuate sharply between the very distant and the close and homely: and even in memory the fluctuation occurs, the grander scene casting us back on the modestly nestling, and that, when it has refreshed us, conjuring ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the state is not the proprietor, either for use or dominion, but the guardian only and the regulator. They have ordained that the provision of this establishment might be as stable as the earth on which it stands, and should not fluctuate with the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... cities—pauperism is almost unknown—the people are on farms—the style of living is less costly by half, but greatly superior in quality and comfort—according to the census, there is but little crime—almost all have homes—the amount of agricultural labor does not fluctuate—the farms are not cultivated by the spade and hoe, but are large enough to justify a system of enlarged agricultural operations by the aid of horse power. The result is that more is saved, and the proceeds more ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... know what to say to you about the subject which now interests me the most keenly of anything in this world, for, in truth, I hardly know what to think myself. Hope and fear fluctuate daily. The pain in her side and chest is better; the cough, the shortness of breath, the extreme emaciation continue. I have endured, however, such tortures of uncertainty on this subject that, at length, I could endure it no longer; and as her repugnance to seeing a medical man continues ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... be issued by the German Astronomische Gesellschaft. Mr. A. W. Roberts's researches on southern variables[1465] have greatly helped to give precision, while adding to the extent of knowledge in this branch. Dr. Gould held the opinion that most stars fluctuate slightly in brightness through surface-alterations similar to, but on a larger scale than those of the sun; and the solar analogy might be pushed somewhat further. It perhaps affords a clue to much that is perplexing in stellar behaviour. Wolf pointed out in 1852 the striking resemblance ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... fortune may remain as it is now; or even [if it be something] less: and that I may live to myself, what remains of my time, if the gods will that aught do remain: that I may have a good store of books, and corn provided for the year; lest I fluctuate in suspense of each uncertain hour. But it is sufficient to sue Jove [for these externals], which he gives and takes away [at pleasure]; let him grant life, let him grant wealth: I myself will provide equanimity of temper. * ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... perform its function according to law. From this, it was claimed, would follow the making of silver the exclusive basis of all commercial transactions; the disturbance of our commercial relations with other countries, and the establishment of a standard of value which would fluctuate and shrink as the value of silver fluctuated and shrunk. So that no man who contracted a debt on time could tell what would be the value of the coin he would be compelled to pay when his debt became due, and all business ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... or will-o'-the-wisps, called expectations. Ever since the squire's grandfather had left him—then in short clothes—a legacy of L500, the captain had peopled the future with expectations! He talked of his expectations as a man talks of shares in a Tontine; they might fluctuate a little,—be now up and now down,—but it was morally impossible, if he lived on, but that he should be a millionnaire one of these days. Now, though Miss Jemima was a good fifteen years younger than himself, yet she always stood for a good round sum in the ghostly ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... confident that reason in this contest would be impotent. I must owe my safety to his own suggestions. Whatever purpose brought him hither, he had changed it. Why then did he remain? His resolutions might fluctuate, and the pause of a few minutes restore to him his ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... separated by a resonant area, was noted to the left of the umbilicus and in the left iliac fossa. The abdomen moved fairly, and there was little tenderness over the swelling. During the next week the swelling appeared to increase and to fluctuate; at the same time the temperature again began to rise to 100 deg. and 101 deg. at eve. The swelling was taken to be a localised peritoneal suppuration, and an incision was made over it; but this ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... influence the style of the fabric, and its selection must be according to the effect intended to be produced.[133] The fashions of the day, and the needs of the special manufacture, must greatly modify the choice of materials, which fluctuate, often disappear, and sometimes ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... can belie. We may and must doubt as to many things; but there are principles lying at the root of human life which are invincible to all doubt. We can demonstrate many things; but there are natural realities beyond our power of demonstration. On the side of sense, all things seem to fluctuate and waver in uncertainty; on the side of mere intellect we soon cross the limit of our powers. But Humanity is more than either sense or intellect. There is, as he believes, a primitive endowment of spiritual instinct in man, which looks forth upon a higher world of reality. Repeatedly, and ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... hundred cases report a change of faith. Starbuck's conclusion is that the effect of conversion is to bring with it "a changed attitude towards life, which is fairly constant and permanent, although the feelings fluctuate.... In other words, the persons who have passed through conversion, having once taken a stand for the religious life, tend to feel themselves identified with it, no matter how much ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... that quarter, I perceived, at the extremity of the Mediterranean, in one of the nations of Europe, a prodigious movement—such as when a violent sedition arises in a vast city—a numberless people, rushing in all directions, pour through the streets and fluctuate like waves in the public places. My ear, struck with the cries which resounded to the ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... superstitions of the learned Orient, magic and astrology always remained the hybrid daughters of sacerdotal culture. Their existence {194} was governed by two contrary principles, reason and faith, and they never ceased to fluctuate between these two poles of thought. Both were inspired by a belief in universal sympathy, according to which occult and powerful relations exist between human beings and dead objects, all possessing a mysterious ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... uniformity and permanency, that he may feel a confidence that he is not to be ruined by sudden changes. But to make a tariff uniform and permanent it is not only necessary that the laws should not be altered, but that the duty should not fluctuate. To effect this all duties should be specific wherever the nature of the article is such as to admit of it. Ad valorem duties fluctuate with the price and offer strong temptations to fraud and perjury. Specific duties, on the contrary, are equal and uniform ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson
... never fails greatly to diminish, and is perhaps destined ultimately to exterminate, such of the larger wild quadrupeds as he cannot profitably domesticate, yet their numbers often fluctuate, and oven after they seem almost extinct, they sometimes suddenly increase, without any intentional steps to promote such a result on his part. During the wars which followed the French Revolution, the wolf multiplied in many parts of Europe, partly because the hunters were withdrawn ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... The UAE has an open economy with one of the world's highest incomes per capita and with a sizable annual trade surplus. Its wealth is based on oil and gas output (about 40% of GDP), and the fortunes of the economy fluctuate with the prices of those commodities. Since 1973, the UAE has undergone a profound transformation from an impoverished region of small desert principalities to a modern state with a high standard of living. At present levels of production, ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... simple. Buffon does but correct himself. He does not fluctuate. He goes once for all from one opinion to the other, from what he accepted at starting on the authority of another to what he recognized as true after twenty years of research. If while trying to set himself free from the prevailing notions, he in the first ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... democratic principle, and of which European democrats never could approve. All through the organic laws of the Nation and the States there are to be found restraints on numbers, as if the leading idea of the Constitution-makers of America were aversion to mere majorities, things that fluctuate from year to year,—almost from day to day,—and therefore are not to be trusted. We are stating the fact, and it does not concern our purpose to discuss the wisdom of what has here been done. How happened it, then, that our polity was so generally regarded as ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... dial from its setting, watched a slender thread of light within a transparent sphere above it fluctuate in breadth as the dial twisted. And when it was at its widest, she gambled that it indicated the broadest transmitting beam of which the mentacom ...
— The Women-Stealers of Thrayx • Fox B. Holden
... wheel, whirl, revolve, rotate, turn, gyrate, spin, trundle, circumgyrate; inwrap, infold, convolve; wallow, welter; rock, sway, lurch, titubate, fluctuate. ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... caravan will of course fluctuate throughout the whole line of route; but I may as well mention the most important personages who were to start with me from Tripoli. Setting aside my colleagues, Barth and Overweg, there was, in the first ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... {-en}, {-er}, when their stem-syllable is long, as {mantel}, mantle, {[a]tem}, breath, {morgen}, morning, {acker}, field. Those in {-em}, {-en} generally retain the {e} in the dative plural. Polysyllabic nouns with short stem-syllables fluctuate between the retention or loss of the {e}, as gen. sing. {vogeles} or {vogels}, dat. sing, and nom. acc. pl. {vogele} or {vogel}, and similarly {vadem}, thread, {r[e:]gen}, rain, ...
— A Middle High German Primer - Third Edition • Joseph Wright
... will cause the engine speed to fluctuate through more or less regular periods from high to low speeds; the engine will seem to be mis-firing and there will be noticeable a strong odor, as well as, usually, a heavy ...
— Marvel Carbureter and Heat Control - As Used on Series 691 Nash Sixes Booklet S • Anonymous
... 1. The beauty of this simile will be lost to those who have never been at sea during a calm. The water is then not quite motionless, but swells gently in smooth waves, which fluctuate in a balancing motion, until a rising wind gives them a certain determination. Every circumstance of the comparison is just, as ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... of supply, so abundant as the Ural Mountains, California, and Australia, may be the commencement of another period of decline, on the limits of which it would be useless at present to speculate. But, on the whole, no commodities are so little exposed to causes of variation. They fluctuate less than almost any other things in their cost of production. And, from their durability, the total quantity in existence is at all times so great in proportion to the annual supply, that the effect on value even of a change ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... upon in the standing position, being simply pressed against the wall by a pole passed from before backward along the other side of the body. The tepid water is injected into the end of the penis until it is felt to fluctuate under the pressure of the finger, in the median line over the bone just beneath the anus. The incision is then made into the center of the fluctuating canal, and from above downward. When a sound or catheter is used as a guide it is inserted through the penis until it can be felt through ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... But the crops fluctuate from year to year, and a less favorable season for 1860, accompanied by an increase of at least ten per cent. in spindles, leaves the supply barely equal to the demand, while the diminished crop, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... by bar, and with an interest and a pleasure that did not concord with his appearance. For there was nothing in his appearance to indicate that his intelligence was on a higher plane than that of the mess-room. His appearance seemed to fluctuate between the mess-room and the company promoter's office. He was a good-looking solicitor, he was a good- looking officer; the eyes were attractive; the nose was too large, but it was well-shaped; a heavy military moustache curled over his cheeks, and, as he stood ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... This speculation soothed him, moving between the high hedges slowly, so as not to get overheated, though the day was chill enough. After all was said and done there was something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and good pictures! The values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they were always going up—worth holding on to, in a world where there was such a lot of unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a "Here to-day and gone to-morrow" spirit. The French ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the NEXT came on with artless grace, And on a javelin's quivering length reclined: To exalt her mien she bade no splendour blaze, Nor pomp of vesture fluctuate on the wind. ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... spring morning, with wet earth, rising mists, and shafts of pure, warm sunlight, made her sing like the forest birds all about her, but even on the coldest and blackest of winter nights, when the storm made the lamp-light fluctuate alarmingly, and trees creaked over the cabin, she would look up from the piano to say contentedly: "Well, I'd rather be here than anywhere ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... begins with a red, livid color, slight aching and burning pains, the part swells and is elevated some like a boil, except that it does not "point," but has a broad base rising like a cone and flattened at the top. It feels soft and spongy, and will appear to fluctuate, but if punctured, blood only flows. The pain and burning increases rapidly, and sooner or later several openings appear upon the top, varying from three or four to half a dozen or more, looking like the holes in a sponge, out of which issues ...
— An Epitome of Homeopathic Healing Art - Containing the New Discoveries and Improvements to the Present Time • B. L. Hill
... and to keep it. Hail, to the ancient farmer, Naught to him the fall of stocks that turns pale the speculator, Naught to him the changes of trade, wrinkling the brow of the merchant, Naught to him, the light weight, or exorbitant price of the baker; Sure was his bread, howsoe'er the markets might fluctuate, Sweet loaves of a rich brown, plentifully graced his table, Made by the neat hand of wife or daughter, happy in healthful toil. Skilfully wrought the same hands, amid the treasures of the dairy, Rich cheeses, and masses of golden butter, and bowls ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... Aponal. Of no interest. Some say that Bianca Cappello fled from it; but the tradition seems to fluctuate between the various houses belonging ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... place which may chance to be frequented by elephants, observe that the numbers of the same herd fluctuate very slightly; and hunters in pursuit of them, who may chance to have shot one or more, always reckon with certainty the precise number of those remaining, although a considerable interval may intervene before they again encounter them. The proportion of ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... suppuration the matter generally can be felt to fluctuate in the groin, or near the top of the thigh. In this circumstance, my friend Mr. Bent, Surgeon near Newcastle in Staffordshire, proposes to tap the abscess by means of a trocar, and thus as often as necessary ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... know not what to think of the death of Edward the Fifth: I can neither entirely acquit Richard of it, nor condemn him; because there are no proofs on either side; and though a court of justice would, from that defect of evidence, absolve him; opinion may fluctuate backward and forwards, and ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... years of age, complained of great tension and pain across the abdomen, and of loss of appetite; his urine, he thought, was less than usual, but the difference was so trifling he could speak with no certainty: his belly seemed to fluctuate. Among other things he tried the Foxglove leaves dried, twice a day; and, although it appeared to afford him relief, yet the effect was ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... can forgive them, as their own worst enemies. They know nothing of the luxury of doing good, and when they are called to make up their last account, they will mourn that they have no investments in those funds that never fluctuate—in that bank "where moth and rust doth not corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal." Let such remember, moreover, that as they brought nothing into world, so they can carry nothing out of it. And let it also be remembered, in the language of another, that were ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... famous Gothic architect Mr. George Gwilt. He did his work most carefully and conscientiously, adhering as far as possible to the original, though hampered throughout his progress by contradictory instructions from the managing committee, who, like most bodies of that kind, were apt to fluctuate between motives of economy and a sense of what was due to the ancient fabric. The Gothic revival was then in an incipient stage, and Mr. Gwilt, or his committee, must be held responsible for the removal of the old east gable, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... time will come when New England will be as thickly peopled as old England. Wages will be as low and will fluctuate as much with you as with us. You will have your Manchesters and Birminghams, and in those Manchesters and Birminghams hundreds of thousands of artisans will assuredly be sometimes out of work. Then your institutions ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... may change, and the public affections fluctuate with respect to others, with respect to him they have, in war and in peace, in public and in private life, been as steady as his own firm mind, and as constant as his ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... am not one of those to whom the croupier or porters will lend money. The second rule is the most difficult, and decides whether you are a gambler or not. I make a rule always to leave off when I have won a certain sum—or even before, if the chances of my game fluctuate. There is the difficulty; it appears very foolish not to follow up luck, but the fact is, fortune is so capricious, that if you trust her more than an hour, she will desert you. This is my mode of play, and with me it answers; but it does not follow that it would answer ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... of mankind—whenever they have been desirous to render him unsociable, they have cried out that their gods ordained that he should be so. Thus they render mortals uncertain, make the ethical system fluctuate by founding it upon changeable, capricious idols, whom they represent much more frequently cruel and unjust, than ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... influences there are disturbing tendencies that cause the market to fluctuate back and forth across the line where the more general influences ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... I fluctuate between the peril of sensuous pleasure and the proof of wholesomeness, and am more inclined (though I would not offer an irrevocable judgement) to approve of the use of singing in the Church, that, by the pleasure of the ear, weaker minds may rise to the emotion ...
— A Practical Discourse on Some Principles of Hymn-Singing • Robert Bridges
... right judgment, and with that strong predilection in favor of local objects, which can hardly fail to mislead the decision. The same process must be repeated in every member of which the body is constituted; and the execution of the plans, framed by the councils of the whole, will always fluctuate on the discretion of the ill-informed and prejudiced opinion of every part. Those who have been conversant in the proceedings of popular assemblies; who have seen how difficult it often is, where there is no exterior pressure of circumstances, to bring them to harmonious resolutions on ...
— The Federalist Papers
... upon the doctor describing minutely how he had hacked his friend Gibbs's leg off with a hand-saw, laughing hugely thereat, and wiping the icy tears from his cold blue eyes with his delicate cambric handkerchief. Then the fascinating game began to fluctuate, and the luck set back with a steady run into the piles of the banker. Captain Brand liked as little to lose his money as any other gambler in cards, stocks, or dice, and he was somewhat chafed in spirit; but what especially irritated ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... and people are very glad of it. I am not. With respect to the funds, if I were to sell out I should not know what to do with the money. J. says they will rise. I do not think they will, they may, however, fluctuate a little.—Keep up your spirits, my heart's dearest, and kiss old ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... ailments will gradually leave her. But my father shakes his head and speaks of others of our family once similarly afflicted, for whom he likewise persisted in hoping against hope, and who are now removed where hope and fear fluctuate no more. There were, however, differences between their case and hers—important differences I think. I must cling to the expectation of her recovery, I ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... himself in one of those difficult situations, in which prepossession, being compelled to fluctuate in uncertainty between several points at once, has no sooner determined and fixed upon one side, than it removes ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... an impressive silence, "I greatly fear that you have allowed zeal, my dear Sir, to outrun discretion. Robin Lyth is a young, and in many ways highly respected, parishioner of mine. He may have been guilty of casual breaches of the laws concerning importation—laws which fluctuate from year to year, and require deep knowledge of legislation both to observe and to administer. I heartily trust that you may not suffer from having discharged your duty in a manner most truly exemplary, if only the example had ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... do I wait to hear, in vain still wait, Of that sweet enemy I love so well: What now to think or say I cannot tell, 'Twixt hope and fear my feelings fluctuate: The beautiful are still the marks of fate; And sure her worth and beauty most excel: What if her God have call'd her hence, to dwell Where virtue finds a more congenial state? If so, she will illuminate that sphere Even as a sun: but I—'tis done with me! I then am nothing, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... scrap of MS. found amongst his papers) various and opposite qualities—all the great and all the little passions unfavourable to public tranquillity united in the breast of one man, and of that man, unhappily, whose personal caprice can scarce fluctuate for an hour without affecting the destiny of Europe. I see the inward workings of fear struggling with pride in an ardent, enterprising, and tumultuous mind. I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation, dreaded, detested, ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... power over the press, without claiming the right of defining what is freedom and what is licentiousness, and that would be to claim a right which would defeat the Constitution; for every Congress would have the same right, and the freedom of the press would fluctuate according to the will of the legislature. This is, therefore, only a new mode of claiming absolute power over ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... to the question of changes in the appearance of bright stars. It seems pretty certain that more than one per cent of these bodies fluctuate to a greater or less extent in their light. Observations of these fluctuations, in the case of at least the brighter stars, may be carried on without any instrument more expensive than a good opera-glass—in ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... say—I fluctuate. At times, I feel as though I should drop insensible on the earth, and then I feel better than I have done for ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... visits, yielded five capsules with an average of 35.2 fine seed; and this shows that the agency of insects is necessary for the full fertility of this plant. Analogous facts could be given with respect to the crossing of many other flowers, such as carnations, &c., of which the varieties fluctuate much in colour. ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... that followed, Dave's vague plans changed a dozen times as he found each idea unworkable. His emotional balance was also erratic—though that was natural, since the stars were completely berserk in what was left of the sky. He seemed to fluctuate between bitter sureness of doom and a stupidly optimistic belief that something could be done to avert that doom. But whatever his mood, he went on working and scheming furiously. Maybe it was the desperate need to keep himself ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... spir- 462:30 itual love. It urges the government of the body both in health and in sickness. The Christian Scientist, through understanding mental anatomy, discerns and 463:1 deals with the real cause of disease. The material physi- cian gropes among phenomena, which fluctuate every in- 463:3 stant under influences not embraced in his diagnosis, and so he may stumble ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... France! though now the traveller sees Thy three-striped banner fluctuate on the breeze;[177] Though martial songs have banished songs of love, And nightingales desert the village grove, [178] 615 Scared by the fife and rumbling drum's alarms, And the short thunder, and the flash of arms; That cease not till night falls, when far and nigh, Sole sound, the Sourd [Gg] ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... children just let loose from school, The watch-dog's voice that bay'd the whispering wind, And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind— These all in sweet confusion sought the shade, And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made. But now the sounds of population fail, No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, For all the bloomy flush of life is fled— All but yon widow'd, solitary thing, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; She, wretched matron—forc'd in age, for bread, To strip ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... differences in an ordinary population are recognized as due to different genetic (hereditary) combinations. No one will dispute this statement. But is all the variability accounted for in these two ways? May not a factor itself fluctuate? Is it not a priori probable that factors do fluctuate? Why, in a word, should we regard factors as inviolate when we see that everything else in organisms is more or less in amount? I do not know of any a priori ...
— A Critique of the Theory of Evolution • Thomas Hunt Morgan
... disquietude, inquietude; unrest; agitation &c. 315. moon, Proteus, chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, weathercock, harlequin, Cynthia of the minute, April showers[obs3]; wheel of Fortune; transientness &c. 111[obs3]. V. fluctuate, vary, waver, flounder, flicker, flitter, flit, flutter, shift, shuffle, shake, totter, tremble, vacillate, wamble[obs3], turn and turn about, ring the changes; sway to and fro, shift to and fro; change and change about; waffle, blow with the wind (irresolute) 605; oscillate &c. 314; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... after noon, when the burning heat of the sun was reflected with double violence from the hot sand, and the distant ridges of the hills, seen through the ascending vapour, seemed to wave and fluctuate like the unsettled sea, I became faint with thirst, and climbed a tree in hopes of seeing distant smoke, or some other appearance of a human habitation—but in vain: nothing appeared all around but thick underwood and hillocks of ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... fell constantly; but still a fall disturbed us little, because a thousand dollars a foot was our figure, and so we were content to let it fluctuate as much as it pleased till it reached it. My pile of stock was not all given to me by people who wished their claims "noticed." At least half of it was given me by persons who had no thought of such a thing, and looked for nothing more than a simple verbal "thank you;" ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... exaggerated accounts of the difficulties to be surmounted, when the commander in chief had resolved on forcing the passage of the Sound, represented the enterprise as more practicable, and less hazardous, by the circuitous passage of the Great Belt. Though Lord Nelson's mind could not be thus induced to fluctuate, and was decidedly for the immediate passage of the Sound, when the Great Belt appeared to be preferred—"Let us, then, go by the Great Belt!" said the hero. Impatient for action, he was desirous of proceeding by any way which might ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... are the doubts, the misgivings which fluctuate in, and irritate the minds of a very large proportion of the Americans; and such is the decided conviction of a portion who retire into obscurity and are silent; and every year adds to the number of both these parties. They remind one of a husband who, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the other. But it is impossible to say that the one attitude is the other. It is correct to say that the one attitude may follow the other. But it is to be misled by language to say that the one attitude becomes the other. It is possible for one and the same man to fluctuate between the two attitudes, to alternate between them—possible, though inconsistent. The child, or even that larger child, the man, may beg and scold, almost in the same breath. The savage, as is well known, will treat his fetish in the same inconsequential way. That ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... maxim of a disappointed self-love. But we, who look on, may sometimes doubt whether they WERE pearls thus ineffectually thrown; and always doubt the judiciousness of strewing pearls before swine. The prosperity of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and works, before neglected, emerge into renown. A small minority to whom these works appealed has gradually become a large minority, and in the evolution ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... Israel in his subsequent history. His new name was a name of character and of spiritual standing, and that might fluctuate, and the old self resume its power; so he is still called by the former appellation, just as, at certain points in his life, the apostle forfeits the right to be 'Peter,' and has to hear from Christ's lips the old name, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... opinion, and creates no permanent inequality between the servant and the master. But whilst the transition from one social condition to another is going on, there is almost always a time when men's minds fluctuate between the aristocratic notion of subjection and the democratic notion of obedience. Obedience then loses its moral importance in the eyes of him who obeys; he no longer considers it as a species of divine obligation, and he does not yet view it under its purely human aspect; it ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... into wages and interest, and the conception of such a static state is therefore not complete unless we know how wages and interest themselves are determined. What we have already said implies that they fluctuate about certain standards, just as do the prices of goods, and that they would remain at these standards if society were reduced to a ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... of mind and force Hast Thou made Thy universe, But as atmosphere and zone Of Thy loving heart alone. Man, who walketh in a show, Sees before him, to and fro, Shadow and illusion go; All things flow and fluctuate, Now contract and now dilate. In the welter of this sea, Nothing stable is but Thee; In this whirl of swooning trance, Thou alone art permanence; All without Thee only seems, All beside is choice of dreams. Never yet in darkest mood Doubted I that Thou ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... reasoning, which is of two kinds, reasoning in 65 thought and in speech. Let us look first to that of thought. This kind of reasoning, judging from the teachings of those Dogmatics who are now our greatest opponents, those of the Stoa, seems to fluctuate between the following things: the choice of the familiar, and avoidance of the alien; the knowledge of the arts that lead to this choice; and the comprehension of those virtues that belong to the individual nature, as regards the feelings. The dog then, upon whom it was decided to fix the argument ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick
... transaction will be a stipulation as to whether the foreign bank loaning the money wants to loan it on the basis of receiving a commission and letting the borrower take the risk of how demand exchange may fluctuate during the life of the loan, or whether the lender prefers to lend at a fixed rate of interest, say six per cent., and himself accept the ...
— Elements of Foreign Exchange - A Foreign Exchange Primer • Franklin Escher
... the consciousness of that certainty would raise me above hatred and slander. I should then have some kind of principle by which to regulate my conduct; I should then know on what foundation to build. To fluctuate, to waver, to postpone inquiry, was more criminal than any kind of opinion candidly investigated and firmly adopted, and would more effectually debar me from happiness. At my age, with my talents and inducements, it was sordid, it was ignoble, it was culpable, to allow indifference ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... occurred to me that a third method can be used to solve this important problem. My plan is this: It is well known that many variable stars, such as Algol, [sigma] Librae, U Coronae, and the remarkable variable D.M. 1.3408, discovered by Mr. E.F. Sawyer, fluctuate at regular intervals. Now, I believe it is possible to determine very accurately the intervals between these changes, and, by noting the change of time in these intervals, when the earth is in different points of its orbit, we get the time light requires ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... conception; and if, after having thus fixed our conception, we never vary from it, never include in the class any thing which has not those common properties, nor exclude from it any thing which has. A clear conception means a determinate conception; one which does not fluctuate, which is not one thing to-day and another to-morrow, but remains fixed and invariable, except when, from the progress of our knowledge, or the correction of some error, we consciously add to it or alter it. A person of clear ideas is a person who always knows in virtue of what ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... balanced, the price will be determined largely by the cost of production and transportation. If events or circumstances operate to increase or curtail either the sugar supply or the number of buyers, and such events or circumstances follow one after the other alternately, the price will fluctuate. ...
— About sugar buying for Jobbers - How you can lessen business risks by trading in refined sugar futures • B. W. Dyer
... the face of old days," said Richard in his cordial voice, and taking my hand with the brotherly regard which nothing ever changed, "that I can't make pretences with her. I fluctuate a little; that's the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes I—don't quite despair, but nearly. I get," said Richard, relinquishing my hand gently and walking ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... disposition of the citizens is not the same, for those who live in the Piraeus are more attached to a popular government than those who live in the city properly so called; for as the interposition of a rivulet, however small, will occasion the line of the phalanx to fluctuate, so any trifling disagreement will be the cause of seditions; but they will not so soon flow from anything else as from the disagreement between virtue and vice, and next to that between poverty and riches, and so on in order, one cause having more influence ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... in the drawing-room: she was sure that Selden would be punctual. But the hour came and passed—it moved on feverishly, measured by her impatient heart-beats. She had time to take a fresh survey of her wretchedness, and to fluctuate anew between the impulse to confide in Selden and the dread of destroying his illusions. But as the minutes passed the need of throwing herself on his comprehension became more urgent: she could not bear the weight of her misery alone. There ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... pulled the trigger may have been a series of pictures in the mind aroused by printed or spoken words. These pictures fade and are hard to keep steady; their contours and their pulse fluctuate. Gradually the process sets in of knowing what you feel without being entirely certain why you feel it. The fading pictures are displaced by other pictures, and then by names or symbols. But the emotion goes on, capable now of being ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... heart. There too, working through man, it 'is found in fashion as a man'; and though the origin of the conviction be of God, and though the voice in my heart be not only my voice, but God's voice there, it will obey those same laws which make human thoughts and emotions vary, and fluctuate, flicker and flame up again, burn bright and burn low, according to a thousand circumstances. The witness of the Spirit, if it were yonder in heaven, would shine like a perpetual star; the witness of the Spirit, here in the heart on earth, burns like a flickering flame, never to be extinguished, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... a fascinating age, when an intelligent girl is said to fluctuate between childhood and womanhood. Let me add that these seeming fluctuations depend much on the company she is in: the budding virgin is princess of chameleons; and, to confine ourselves to her two most piquant contrasts, by her mother's side she is always more ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... institutions—the wonder is that Oberlin could have held its own at all. Yet the largest class of women it ever graduated (thirteen) was so late as 1865, and if the classes since then "average but two or three," so did the classes for several years before that date. Professor Tyler knows very well that classes fluctuate in every college, and that a decennial period is the least by which the working of any system can be tested. Tried by this test, the alleged diminution assumes a very different aspect. If, however, there were a great decline at Oberlin, it would simply show a transfer of students ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... the processes of malting being equally well performed during the summer months. The further advantage of this is that brewers secure entire uniformity in age of malt. By the English system the stocks of finished malt necessarily fluctuate largely. All grain is subjected to the same conditions of surrounding air, exposure, and temperature. The volume of air supplied to the germinating corn is entirely under control, as are also its temperature and humidity. When germination is arrested and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... We fluctuate betwixt various inclinations; we will nothing freely, nothing absolutely, nothing constantly. In any one who had prescribed and established determinate laws and rules in his head for his own conduct, we should perceive an equality of manners, an order ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... modern style of music: but you meet them in some few pieces that are the growth of wild unvitiated taste; you discover them in the swelling sounds that wrap us in imaginary grandeur; in those plaintive notes that make us in love with woe; in the tones that utter the lover's sighs, and fluctuate the breast with gentle pain; in the noble strokes that coil up the courage and fury of the soul, or that lull it in confused visions of joy; in short, in those affecting strains that find their way to the inmost ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... at the commencement of the season to fish for a stated price, or they might allow it to fluctuate from week to week?-They might do either; or they might agree to be settled with at the end of their six weeks' fishing, in a similar manner to what they do at the herring fishing, when they settle with the men immediately upon ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Akchanaya -81 m (note - Sarygamysh Koli is a lake in north eastern Turkmenistan whose water levels fluctuate widely; at its shallowest, its level is -110 m; it is presently at -60 m, 20 m above Vpadina Akchanaya) highest point: ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a paradoxical specimen, if you observe him narrowly: a sort of cross between a sycophant and a psalmist, a poet whose imagination is alternately fired by the "Last Day" and by a creation of peers, who fluctuate between rhapsodic applause of King George and rhapsodic applause of Jehovah. After spending "a foolish youth, the sport of peers and poets," after being a hanger-on of the profligate Duke of Wharton, after aiming in vain at a parliamentary career, and angling for pensions ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... inexpensive in the country which creates them, but to our distress we discovered Avenue de l'Opera prices on everything we wished. Each time that we went back the price was different. The market seemed to fluctuate. One blue enamelled belt, upon which I had set my heart, varied in price from one to three dollars each time I looked at it. Finally, one day I hit upon a plan. I asked my friend, Mile, de Falk, to follow me into this shop and ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... resolution was scarcely formed ere it began to fluctuate, when he reflected upon the fittest manner of carrying it into execution. To show himself at a distance, might give the lady an opportunity of turning back and avoiding the interview which he had determined upon—to hide himself till the moment when her horse, in rapid motion, should pass ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... Austria-Hungary would facilitate England's neutrality, but that the conditions would inevitably change in the event of Germany and France being involved. Public opinion in England, which after the assassination was very favourable to Austria, was now beginning to fluctuate, as it was difficult to understand ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... would fain blend itself more deeply with the quiet it beholds! The sleep of a desert would not so affect it; it is Beauty that makes the difference—that attracts spirit to matter, while spirit becomes not thereby materialised—but matter spiritualised; and we fluctuate in the air-boat of imagination between earth and heaven. In most and in all great instances there is apprehension, dim and faint, or more distinct, of pervasion of a spirit throughout that which we conceive Beautiful. ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... have had histories with so many identities that we are coming to look upon them as standard products of evolutionary processes. These stars usually rise to maximum brilliancy in a few days: some of the most noted ones increased in brightness ten-thousand-fold in two or three days. All of them fluctuate in brightness irregularly, and usually in short periods of time. Several novae have become invisible to the naked eye at the end of a few weeks. With two or three exceptions, all have become invisible in moderate-sized telescopes, or have ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... particularly if the cause of the rise or fall be visible, and its continuance in any degree probable. Average estimates are never just but when the object fluctuates, and no reason can be assigned why it should not continue still to fluctuate. The author chooses to allow nothing at all for this: he has taken an average of six years of the war. He knew, for everybody knows, that the first three years were on the whole rather unsuccessful; and that, in consequence of this ill success, trade sunk, and navigation declined with it; but ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... not always. For the price of sheep and wool could go down by leaps and bounds, as well as up; the progeny of the ewes bought for 30s. each in 1862 might have to go at 5s. each in 1868, and greasy wool might fluctuate in value as much as 6d. a lb. Two or three bad years would deliver over the poor squatter as bond-slave to some bank, mortgage company or merchant, to whom he had been paying at least 10 per cent. interest, plus ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... eve, my feelings have greatly changed in intensity, and I fluctuate beneath an emotion of oblivious delight. Alas! we young, weak women, try in vain to obstruct the gurgling of the bosom; for I perceive that even I am not proof against the arrows of the god Diana. My heart has thrilled, my dearest friend, ever since you departed, ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... could have really and honestly felt all the confidence that he expressed in his harangues to his soldiers. He must have had some fears. In fact, in all enterprises undertaken by man, the indications of success, and the hopes based upon them, will fluctuate from time to time, and cause his confidence in the result to ebb and flow, so that bright anticipations of success and triumph will alternate in his heart with feelings of discouragement and despondency. This effect is experienced by all; by the ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... some day to be a great city. It has a favorable location, is the great mining center, and the State, I feel convinced, has an immense territory fit for agricultural purposes. Lots here may fluctuate, but they will go up a good ...
— Joe's Luck - Always Wide Awake • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... present valuation) for the latter. Investment securities are, and will be, a drug on the market. In other words, the rate of return to the investor will be high; the rate of interest on long-time loans will be high and stay high, that on short-time loans may fluctuate greatly. The rise in the rate of interest on long-time investments is one of the most vital and far-reaching effects of the war. At bottom, interest always arises from the exchange of present and future goods. The rate of interest, as I have tried to show in ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... destroys all permanent improvement in a tongue through elegance of style, sonorous periods, or delicacy of expression, and the life of the language itself is weakened when its forms are left to fluctuate uncontrolled. Written poetry, grammar, rhetoric, all are impossible to the student who draws his ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... the gas gage on the instrument board of the roadster fluctuate wildly as the attendant of the station shook the hose to speed the flow of the last few drops. Five gallons—a dollar ten. Did he have that much? He began to assemble various small hoards ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... that do pilgrimage to Melrose. Then I give up an expensive farm, which I always hated, and turn all my odds and ends into cash. I do not reckon much on my literary exertions—I mean in proportion to former success—because popular taste may fluctuate. But with a moderate degree of the favour which I have always had, my time my own, and my mind unplagued about other things, I may boldly promise myself soon to get the better of this blow. In these circumstances, I should be unjust and ungrateful ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... drawing the food to him. Instead, he reached persistently with his arm, pulled and gnawed at the wires which were in his way, and occasionally picked up and gnawed or pounded with the sticks in the cage. His attention every now and then would come back to the food, but it tended to fluctuate rather rapidly, and in the regular period of observation, thirty minutes, it is unlikely that he attended to the bait itself for as much as five minutes. In this respect as well as many others, Skirrl's behavior contrasts sharply with that of the ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... invariably which will in fact be profoundly modified in societies differently organised and composed of individuals differing in character. The very fundamental assumptions as to the elasticity of population, and the accumulation of capital as wages and profits fluctuate, are clearly not absolute truths. An increase of the capitalist's share, for example, at the expense of wages, may lead to the lowered efficiency of the labourer; and, instead of the compensating process supposed to result from the stimulus to accumulation, the actual result may ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... is anchored and stationary in my dreams; but great storms and driving mists cause him to fluctuate uncertainly, or even to retire altogether, like his gloomy counterpart the shy Phantom of the Brocken—and to assume new features or strange features, as in dreams always there is a power not contented with reproduction, but which absolutely creates ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... miles exerts a considerable influence in clarification. The Lower Wabash, flowing through a soft clay bottom, runs an erratic course, and its mouth is a variable location, so that the bounds of Illinois and Indiana, hereabout, fluctuate east and west according to the exigencies of the floods. The far-reaching bottom itself, however, is apparently of slight value, giving evidence, in the dreary clumps of dead timber, of being ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... where he leads a life of splendour; he had carriages and wonderful horses, he was arrayed in a princely kind of uniform and was surrounded by a kind of guard. The source of his revenues, which always seemed to fluctuate, was never fathomed; but they may at this period have accrued from his literary labours, which—although the present generation smile—produced among the Bulgars a vast, patriotic pride. At Belgrade the visionary historian and whimsical philologist becomes a most sagacious politician. He is the ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... object of the holding of this amount of specie by the bank which issued the notes was designed by Sir Robert Peel to cause the circulating medium of the country, being partly of notes and partly of specie, to fluctuate in the same manner as if it had been a metallic circulation only. The specie held in Scotland and Ireland against the note-issue is not a special security for the note circulation, but is placed in the banks ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... are to be kept within a certain limit. They are not to fluctuate, as they do in these books of yours. You must get rid of two or three women-servants. There are at least three too many. I am always seeing strange faces about upstairs. One might as well live in a hotel. Think it over, Trimmer, and make up your ...
— Vixen, Volume II. • M. E. Braddon
... one must have complained to Mr. Darwin of his saying that Isidore Geoffroy gave an account of Buffon's "fluctuating conclusions" concerning evolution, when he was doing all he knew to maintain that Buffon's conclusions did not fluctuate; for I see that in the edition of 1876 the word "fluctuating" has dropped out of the note in question, and we now learn that Isidore Geoffroy gives "a full account of Buffon's conclusions," without the ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... solitude; and the waters play a painter's part in setting their splendid subject free. Two movements shake but do not scatter the still night: the bright flashing of constellations in the deep Weir-pool, and the dark flashes of the vague bats flying. The stars in the stream fluctuate with an alien motion. Reversed, estranged, isolated, every shape of large stars escapes and returns, escapes and returns. Fitful in the steady night, those constellations, so few, so whole, and so remote, have a suddenness of gleaming life. You imagine ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... Patriot, this Sunday; and sees his own grim care reflected on the face of another. Groups, in spite of Patrollotism, which is not so alert as usual, fluctuate deliberative: groups on the Bridges, on the Quais, at the patriotic Cafes. And ever as any black cockade may emerge, rises the many-voiced growl and bark: A bas, Down! All black cockades are ruthlessly plucked off: one individual picks his up again; kisses ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... different slant and has determined the development of its poetic forms, is still responsible for the evolution of new forms. Neither stress nor syllabic weight is a very keen psychologic factor in the dynamics of French. The syllable has great inherent sonority and does not fluctuate significantly as to quantity and stress. Quantitative or accentual metrics would be as artificial in French as stress metrics in classical Greek or quantitative or purely syllabic metrics in English. French prosody was compelled to develop on the basis of unit syllable-groups. Assonance, ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... or desire of exciting pleasurable senstations. On the very contrary, Mrs. Morgan and her sister will bear witness so far as to say that the longer I abstained the higher my spirits were, the keener my enjoyments, till the moment, the direful moment arrived when my pulse began to fluctuate, my heart to palpitate, and such falling abroad as it were of my whole frame, such intolerable restlessness and incipient bewilderment, that in the last of my several attempts to abandon the dire ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... ending December, was one thousand nine hundred and thirty-two. The average number of apprentices in the district during that time was twelve thousand seven hundred. Offences, generally speaking, are not of any magnitude. They do not increase, but fluctuate according to the season ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... and unstable minds of men! How quickly our intentions fluctuate! All thoughts we lightly change, but mostly when These from some lover's quarrel take their date. But now, so wroth I saw that Saracen With woman, so outrageous in his hate, I weened not only he would ill assuage, But never more would calm, ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... carefully, your Grace," said Law, "nor must it ever be forgotten in our understanding. The shares of this bank must have a fixed value in regard to the coin of the realm. There must be no altering of the value of our coin. Grant that the coin does not fluctuate, and I promise you that my bank actions, notes of the chief bank of Paris, shall soon be found better than gold or silver in the eyes of France. Moreover, given a greater safety to foreign gold, and I promise you ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... moveable Types having been once introduced, little room was left for improvement, beyond the slight variations in the form of the Letters, which, as a matter of taste, would always be liable to fluctuate: a comparison of works, printed at different periods, ...
— The Author's Printing and Publishing Assistant • Frederick Saunders |
