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Germ  v. i.  To germinate. (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Germ" Quotes from Famous Books



... was resolved no stiffness on her part should deposit a grain to the silting up of the channel of former affection. She was one of the few who understand that no being can afford to let the smallest love-germ die. ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald

... operating upon earthly substance produced earthly creatures. (Genesis 2:7; 1 Corinthians 15:47) The same holy power, energy, and influence begat the child Jesus, who was born of his mother Mary. Therefore the life of Jesus was without sin or imperfection. The germ of life of him who was born Jesus was transferred from the spirit plane or nature to the ...
— The Harp of God • J. F. Rutherford

... which seems to me the less questionable from the fact that, however much they may dispute over the word, all agree upon the thing, because it contains the germ of the greatest revolution yet to be accomplished in the world,—I mean the subordination of the unproductive functions to the productive functions, in a word, the effective submission, always asked and never obtained, ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon

... of affection to us, but of whose society death has deprived us. In the second case it can scarcely happen but that we desire ourselves to be kindly recollected by those we leave behind us. So simple is the first germ of that longing after posthumous honour, which presents us with so memorable effects ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin

... physically, as if she had been belittled and degraded by a personal stain; and this downfall caused her deep humiliation. By slow degrees, however, and notwithstanding this state of abject despair, she felt, cropping up somewhere in her heart, a faint germ of gladness, and, by close examination, discovered its origin: she was now loosed from her obligations toward Claudet, and the prospect of being once more ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... between Yaspard and the Manse boys before they parted; and there was a very significant "Good-bye," from the Yarl of Broch. He had kept our Viking-boy very much with him throughout the day, and had quite enchanted him by suggesting a scheme which contained the germ of much exciting adventure, although there was no enemy to meet or circumvent. And this scheme must have been on Viking lines, if we may judge from old Hoskald Halsen's farewell words ...
— Viking Boys • Jessie Margaret Edmondston Saxby

... cell membrane according to a definite plan to start that egg to growing. Life may be started from the egg in certain species without the presence of the other sex. This may lead us into a tremendous new field in our horticultural work. We may be able to treat germ cells with acids or other substances which destroy the cell membrane so as to allow crossing between very widely separated species and genera. Loeb, by destroying the cell membrane of the sea urchin, was enabled to ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... Delitzsch justly maintains it to be, was lacking in the German Maskilim, anxious for naturalization as they were. It was the Slavonic Maskilim who mastered Hebrew in its purity, as it had not been mastered since the day of Judah Halevi. In those days of transition the diligent student can find, in germ, what was later to develop into the resplendent poetical flowers produced by the Lebensohns, the Gordons, Dolitzky, ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin

... indebted for the earliest germ of the University. It was with them chiefly that education took that great leap, the greatest ever made, from the traditional teaching of the home, the shop, the social surroundings, to schoolmaster teaching properly so called. Nowadays, we, schoolmasters, think so much of ourselves, that ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... she was very thoughtful all that day, and during the days which followed, for she had found out the truth about herself, and a little germ that had been growing in her breast, but of which she had thought little till Daniel Barnett came up and spoke, and made her know she had a heart—a fact of which she became perfectly sure, when the news reached her next morning of the sad ...
— A Life's Eclipse • George Manville Fenn

... woman was enough to give her an occult and supreme significance. And she would be enduring which is the essence of woman's visible, tangible power. Of that I was certain. Had she not endured already? Yet it is so true that the germ of destruction lies in wait for us mortals, even at the very source of our strength, that one may die of too much endurance as well as of too little ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... similarity of causes and events, and will anticipate the glorious prospect of beholding a clever, brave, and, I may add, noble race of men, like the New Zealanders, rescued from barbarism. This pacific and rational discussion among the chiefs seems, in reality, to give promise of the germ of a regular reform. Should a few more such meetings take place, and terminate in the same amicable manner (and I think it very probable), some clever individual may rise up amongst them, take the reins in his own hands, and establish something ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle

... is caused by badly ventilated rooms, dark, damp, and dirty houses, want of good food, or bad food, alcoholic drinks, frequent illnesses, dirty habits, are powerful causes in producing this low state of health, which is so favourable to the growth of the consumptive germ. Therefore we insist on fresh air, especially for children in schools, for employees in factories, for clerks in offices. All places of public resort should be provided with proper ventilation. The breath from the lungs is loaded ...
— Papers on Health • John Kirk

... foundation for this much-needed House of Praise than the Catholic Church,—the word 'catholic' being applied in its widest sense, meaning a 'Universal' answering to the needs of all;—and I am willing to maintain that the ROMAN Catholic Church has within it the vital germ of a sprouting perfection. If it would utterly discard pomp and riches, if it would set its dignity at too high an estimate for any wish to meddle in temporal or political affairs, if it would firmly trample down all superstition, idolatry and bigotry, and 'use no vain ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli

... the ban of the world,—and the best considered efforts have often failed, from a want of strength in those unhappy ones to bear up against the sting of shame and the frigidness of the world, which makes them seek oblivion again in their old excitements,—you will at least leave a germ of love and justice in their hearts, that will prevent their becoming utterly embittered and corrupt." And you may learn the preventives for those yet uninjured. These will be found in a diffusion of mental culture, simple tastes, best brought by your example, a genuine ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton

... will you want me in the morning?" went on Curtis, looking in the direction of the office. He was really thinking about the mislaid key; not for an instant did he imagine that by that simple gesture he had almost eradicated from Steingall's mind the germ of doubt which events had ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy

... ungrateful, and you first of all, if you once refuse to be at his beck and call; he will accuse you of having bothered him to live under your roof and of having prevented him from yielding to the wishes of his country. I already see the germ of these accusations in the turn of the letters ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... long occupation. The "old Adam," i. e. the inheritance from our brute ancestors, is very strong in the human race. Callousness to the suffering of others than self is part of this brute-inheritance, and under the influence of certain habits and occupations this germ of callousness may be developed to almost any height of devilish cruelty. In the lower stages of culture the lack of political aggregation on a large scale is attended with incessant warfare in the shape in which it ...
— The Discovery of America Vol. 1 (of 2) - with some account of Ancient America and the Spanish Conquest • John Fiske

... marriage of Margaret Tudor with James IV, but how little lasting that had been is amply demonstrated by the fact that no such crushing defeat had ever been inflicted upon Scotland as that of Flodden, in which the King and the great part of his nobles perished. Perhaps it was the germ of the design to attract the lesser country into the arms of the greater by friendship rather than to set her desperately at bay against all peaceful influences, which had prevented the successful army from taking advantage of the victory; but certainly through all the distracted ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

... his work carefully. It was before the days of germ cultures, and the apparatus for such tests had not reached the perfection of today. There was much room ...
— Chicken Little Jane • Lily Munsell Ritchie

... Reference to self, i.e. without the motive of bettering one's own self, or without any motive at all. (This contains the germ of the doctrine preached more elaborately in the ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

... profoundest gravity. They were a fine, healthy, strapping race of men, only of medium height, but admirably developed in chest and limbs, and with shrewd, intelligent faces. Content, not stupidity, is the cause of their stationary condition. They are not yet a people, but the germ of one, and, as such, present a grand field for ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... asking you that for the sake of having my conscience clear. Accidents of this kind only develop the germ that is already there and hasten on the disease. The physical influence of the passions on the heart is a theory—It has been studied a great deal the last twenty years; and quite right, too, in my opinion. The thesis that the heart is ...
— Rene Mauperin • Edmond de Goncourt and Jules de Goncourt

... ready for the next action of steam. The strokes of such a pump could not be frequent, and it would not compare very favorably with the wonderful machinery exhibited in Philadelphia last summer; but it contains the germ of the idea, and is worthy of all honor. Having often seen it stated that Papin had invented a steamboat, I resolved during a recent visit to Germany to investigate the matter, and especially to search for the correspondence between Papin and Leibnitz ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various

... love for his elder son that he swore that he would slay with his own hand whosoever first brought him news of his death. As it chanced, Thyra heard sure tidings that this son had perished. But when no man durst openly hint this to Germ, she fell back on her cunning to defend her, and revealed by her deeds the mischance which she durst not speak plainly out. For she took the royal robes off her husband and dressed him in filthy garments, bringing him other signs of grief also, ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... neither the term nor the idea had then been thought of. Had Great Britain bought those vast regions which extended beyond the settlements? Or were the discontented Dutch at liberty to pass onwards and found fresh nations to bar the path of the Anglo-Celtic colonists? In that question lay the germ of all the trouble to come. An American would realise the point at issue if he could conceive that after the founding of the United States the Dutch inhabitants of the State of New York had trekked to the westward and established ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... but of a proper editorial faculty, and from the want of a habitude or a willingness on the part of those who conceive clever things to note them down and give them out in black and white. When "Vanity Fair" first appeared, we thought we saw in it the germ of a journal which might be an exponent of our national spirit of mirthfulness, and we took occasion to say so briefly. We have not been disappointed. The five volumes which have already been published in weekly numbers have been true to the honest purpose which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents, and can be moved from place to place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the air, and the bird liked it, so I imagine it's quite safe except for bacteria, perhaps. Naturally, at this altitude the air is germ-free." ...
— Islands of Space • John W Campbell

... cell germ of the Nigritians has no more potency than what is sufficient to form a being with physical power, when its dynamism becomes exhausted, dropping the creature in the wilderness with the mental organization too imperfect to enable him to extricate ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... misunderstanding) turns to the purely spiritual, that is to say, the conceptions of truth, beauty and goodness; it is a yearning for the supernatural, and it knows itself as the path to it. In the mutual love of all noble souls lies the germ of all higher things; it is the way to the gods of light which, in this connection, are conceived philosophically as ideas, though in the true Hellenic spirit as objective ideas, the prototypes and culminations ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka

... Fe Railroad now followed suit by introducing a new Pullman chair-car. The hideous and germ-laden plush or velvet curtains were gone, and leather hangings of a rich tone took their place. All the grill-work of a bygone age was missing; likewise the rope curtains. The woods were left to show the grain; no carving was visible anywhere. The car was a relief ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)

... own lips that her mind was not occupied with Lord Warburton; but if she desired the assurance she felt herself by no means at liberty to provoke it. The girl's father would have qualified this as rank treachery; and indeed Isabel knew that if Pansy should display the smallest germ of a disposition to encourage Lord Warburton her own duty was to hold her tongue. It was difficult to interrogate without appearing to suggest; Pansy's supreme simplicity, an innocence even more complete than Isabel had yet judged it, gave to the most tentative ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James

... The germ of another feature of modern naval organization is to be found in the annals of the War of 1812. The first war-vessel propelled by steam was launched by the Americans for service in this war. She was designed by Robert Fulton, and bore the name of "Fulton the First." In model ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... the door of a cottage, under the blooming lime-tree, sat a mother and her twin-babies: the one lay at her breast, the other in a cradle, which she rocked with her foot, keeping time to her singing. In the very germ, then, when the first trace of life begins to stir, music is the nurse of the soul: it murmurs in the ear, and the child sleeps; the tones are the companions of his dreams; they are the world in which he lives. He has nothing; ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... of the days, and the frequent occurrence of balmy showers, had completed in an incredibly short period the growth of plants which the lingering spring had so long retarded in the germ; and the woods presented every shade of green that the American forests know. The stumps in the cleared fields were already hidden beneath the wheat that was waving with every breath of the sum mer air, shining and changing its hues ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... Ernest Hart, editor of the British Medical Journal, read an able paper upon Cholera before the American Medical Association. His argument was that the introduction of such a substance as alcohol, itself being a product of germ action, into a system already suffering from the toxic influence of a ptomaine, could not be ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... the germ of the massacre as yet not resolved upon, which, rapidly developing, was to involve the murder of thousands of innocent persons throughout France. In opposition to the opinion that became almost universal among the Protestants, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird

... of the poor, with the obligation imposed that such children must be trained in a trade and in proper living, with general taxation of those of property to provide workhouses and materials for such a purpose, we have the germ, among English-speaking peoples, of the idea of the general taxation of all persons by the State to provide schools for the children of the State. The apprenticing of the children of the poor to labor and the requirement that they be taught the elements of religion ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... regarding His people. These words can be referred only to the threatenings of the Pentateuch, which a short-sighted criticism endeavoured to ascribe to a far later period, without considering that the germ of this knowledge of the future is found in the Decalogue also, the genuineness of which is, at present, almost unanimously conceded: "In order that thy (Israel's) days may be long in the land which the ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg

... be alone. She particularly missed Clive, who had grown to be her best playfellow. She begged for the dog or the cat to share her solitude, but that was strictly forbidden on the ground that they might be germ-carriers and convey the mumps to others. One day she was sitting at her table trying to amuse herself with an everlasting game of patience, when she suddenly heard peculiar noises on the roof above. There ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil

... concerned in reproduction are set aside during embryonic life and from then on are practically unmodified by the succeeding development and experiences of the parent. In fact, during the lifetime of the individual, the germ cells are so completely isolated from the growing organism that nothing but nourishment in the shape of blood can possibly reach them, hence they can be affected only by a vitiated or poisonous blood supply. It seems to be true, therefore, that only the old, deeply-impressed ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall

... question:—what is the nature of a church and what the duties, titles, and symbols of faithful membership, which in divers forms had shaken the world for so many ages and now first dawned upon his ardent mind, was the germ of a deep and lasting pre-occupation of which we shall speedily and without cessation ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley

... after death awake refreshed in a serene light and pure air, thereafter to dwell for ever in a state of untroubled blessedness, where all earth's puzzles solve themselves, and life is seen to be complete. As Senta's ballad is the germ of the Dutchman, so is Lohengrin's narrative, "In fernem Land," the germ of this more beautiful opera. It plays a more important part in Lohengrin than does the ballad in the Dutchman. Without exaggeration, the life, colour and emotion of the narrative ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... popularly called bois-brules, who were the vassals of the two great companies. When their strength had been spent in the labors of hunting and trapping, they retired to the vicinity of some post—the largest of these settlements being Fort Garry, the germ of the modern city of Winnipeg, which as early as 1823 boasted of a ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen

... within him, and endeavour, however haltingly at first, to give them some sincere expression. Try always when your mind is filled with some pictorial idea to get something put down, a mere fumbled expression possibly, but it may contain the germ. Later on the same idea may occur to you again, only it will be less vague this time, and a process of development will have taken place. It may be years before it takes sufficiently definite shape to justify ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... The Carenage, Grenada Early Factory Methods Women Grinding Chocolate Cacao Bean Warehouse Cacao Bean Sorting and Cleaning Machine Diagram of Cacao Bean Cleaning Machine Section through Gas Heated Cacao Roaster Roasting Cacao Beans Cacao Bean, Shell and Germ Section through Kibbling Cones and Germ Screens Section through Winnowing Machine Cacao Grinding Section through Grinding Stones A Cacao Press Section through Cacao Press-pot and Ram-plate Chocolate Melangeur Plan of Chocolate Melangeur Chocolate Refining Machine Grinding Cacao Nib and Sugar Section ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp

... of life in Christ, therefore leading to life like His, bringing us to conformity with Him because the same causes produce the same effects; it is a life in Christ having a law and regular orderly course of development. So, just as if we have the germ we may hope for fruit, and can see the infantile oak in the tightly-shut acorn, or in the egg the creature which shall afterwards grow there, we have in this gift of the Spirit, the victory. If we have the cause, we have the effects implicitly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... conduct, however, has checked the salutary progress of principle; but the object is fixed in the eye of nations, and they will press to its accomplishment, and to the general amelioration of the condition of man. What a germ have the freemen of the United States planted, and how faithfully should they cherish the parent tree at home. Chagrin and mortification are ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... and studied the physiognomies about him: "I doubt myself if the spiritual nature has been as generally diffused as you seem to imagine," he remarked in his crisp, dry way. "But if the germ of it is anywhere it is in the women. Help them out of their difficulties, and you will help the world at large. Now, there is one"—indicating Evadne, who was sitting in the ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... inculcated by its teachers. They also pronounce this record to be complete, and threaten to blot out from the book of life, the names of those who add to or subtract from it. Hence it is evident, that the church of this record is not as Romanists and Puseyites imagine, a mere seminal principle or germ, to which equally binding additions may be made by the church of every generation; but on the contrary, that the church of the New Testament is the church in its most perfect and faultless form, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker

... author and the time of its composition are unknown, but it was in use in the very earliest ages of the Church as a daily morning hymn. Its introduction into the Liturgy appears to have been gradual. The first words of it are found in the Liturgy of St. James, from which fact we learn that the germ of it was evidently used in Apostolic times. It is interesting to note that in ancient Liturgies the Gloria in Excelsis was placed at the beginning and not at the end of the Communion Office. It occupied such a position in our own Liturgy until A.D. 1552, when it was placed after the Thanksgiving. ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... the decision that he would know all about life even though he died for it. Unfortunately, under the terms of the existence of mortals one decision is not enough. We must keep reaffirming decisions if they are to hold. Even in Eden there was the germ of a new threat to degrade Adam and Eve back to innocence. When they ate the apple an amoeba in a distant corner of the Garden shuddered and began the long and difficult process of evolution. To all practical purposes John S. Sumner ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam

... "The germ of such an organization can be found in that form of trades unionism which has done away with centralization, bureaucracy, and discipline, and which favors independent and direct action on ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman

... Previous to his time, each pioneer depended only on himself for defence—his sole protection, against the wild beast and the savage, was his rifle—self-dependence was his peculiar characteristic. The idea of a fighting establishment—the germ of standing armies—had never occurred to him: even the rudest form of civil government was strange to him—taxes, salaries, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... awhile, This pool of private charity Shall make its continent an isle, And roll, a world-embracing sea; This foolish zeal of lip for lip, This fond, self-sanction'd, wilful zest, Is that elect relationship Which forms and sanctions all the rest; This little germ of nuptial love, Which springs so simply from the sod, The root is, as my song shall prove, Of all our love to man ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore

... but one which had a tendency towards them both, although it was not sufficiently developed to be identified with either of them. The tendency towards extreme exaggeration could be called a monotheistic bias in germ, whereas the correlation of different deities as independent of one another and yet existing side by side ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... knew how to look at it. He was naturally a conservative young man, who had been brought up by his mother to behave as simply as possible on all occasions, and to avoid the conspicuous as tacitly and tactfully as one avoids a new disease germ. His native point of view, however, had been somewhat deflected by his associations. His intimate circle consisted of a set of people who indorsed his mother's decalogue only under protest, and with the most stringent reservations. That is, they were young and healthy, and somewhat overcharged ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley

... the fact that the feet are constantly exposed to germ-laden soil and filth, if not actually bathed in such infectious materials, it naturally follows that septic infection of some part of the feet ...
— Lameness of the Horse - Veterinary Practitioners' Series, No. 1 • John Victor Lacroix

... of his fall, in the unpropitious month of his year." There was also lamentation for the cessation of the growth of vegetation, and one of these hymns, after addressing him as the shepherd and husband of Istar, "lord of the underworld," and "lord of the shepherd's seat," goes on to liken him to a germ which has not absorbed water in the furrow, whose bud has not blossomed in the meadow; to the sapling which has not been planted by the watercourse, and to the sapling whose root has been removed. In the ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Theophilus G. Pinches

... again. She did not turn back to exactly the same train of thought. A new idea had been given her, which was to become the germ of a long train of others. She hardly put it into words, even to herself; but it was this—that God meant something. He was not sitting on the throne of the universe in placid indifference to her sorrows; neither was He a malevolent Being who delighted in interfering with the plans ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... savages," but it is not only Germans who let themselves slip into national vanity and these ugly hostilities to unfamiliar life. The first line of attack against war must be an attack upon self-righteousness and intolerance. These things are the germ of uncompromising and incurable ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... Some germ had been born in the fertile mind of Mr. Birnes; now it burst into maturity. He leaned forward in his chair and stared ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle

... I will not so far give in to the smooth fashion of a supple and indifferent age, as to pay these seven writers a single compliment which they will care to accept. The most foolish composition of the seven is Dr. Temple's; the most mischievous is Professor Jowett's: but the germ of the last Essay is contained in the first; the foolishness of the first Essay is abundantly shared by the last: while the evidence of correspondence of sentiment between the two writers is unmistakable. The ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... to us from this man's studio, charged with a significance elevating it above the simply self-evident, and rendering it worthy of the place we have given it as a germ proposition. ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... assembly of the states into an assembly of the people. The system of orders disappeared in political powers, and this was the first step towards the abolition of classes in the private system. This memorable decree of the 17th of June contained the germ of the night of the 4th of August; but it was necessary to defend what they had dared to decide, and there was reason to fear such a determination could ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... What a place to seek the secret of life in! Lovelily enfolds the husk its kernel; but what the human eye turns from as squalid and unclean may enfold the seed that clasps, couched in infinite withdrawment, the vital germ of all that is lovely and graceful, harmonious and strong, all without which no poet would sing, no martyr burn, no king rule in righteousness, no geometrician pore ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... matter, and wherever this in its development attains the conditions for the maintenance of life (and so a higher manifestation of force than in the mineral) it brings forth the intellectual life in the protoplasmic germ for the finest organism. Through the laws of inheritance, of change, of the multiplication of progressive development, of natural selection and of the persistence of the most gifted individuals, living beings are developed through all classes ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various

... sumere non ante cuiquam moris, quam civitas suffecturum probaverit.—Tacitus de Mor. Germ. 13. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... flow, taking a savage gratification from this evidence that Christian had been gashed deeply, maddening afresh with desire to do likewise more excellently, and so slake his murderous hate. And he began to know that through all his despair he had entertained a germ of hope, that grew apace, rained ...
— The Were-Wolf • Clemence Housman

... penetrate beneath the mere verbal husk with which linguistic usage and convenience have clothed them, and which, in the course of ages, has become nothing but the dross of decomposed verbiage, and see if we can excavate the living germ, that has become buried within. If we can do so, we shall, at the commencement of our study, have attained unto a realization of the ancient meaning and real significance of the terms employed. And this will be no small gain, and ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne

... They enjoyed real authority only in war. This primitive Republicanism, which admits monarchy as an occasional incident, but holds fast to the collective supremacy of all free men, of the constituent authority over all constituted authorities, is the remote germ of Parliamentary government. The action of the State was confined to narrow limits; but, besides his position as head of the State, the king was surrounded by a body of followers attached to him by personal or political ties. In these, his immediate dependants, disobedience ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... fall. Tyrrhenian Aulus, bearer of a flag, Trod on a Dipsas; quick with head reversed The serpent struck; no mark betrayed the tooth: The aspect of the wound nor threatened death, Nor any evil; but the poison germ In silence working as consuming fire Absorbed the moisture of his inward frame, Draining the natural juices that were spread Around his vitals; in his arid jaws Set flame upon his tongue: his wearied limbs No sweat bedewed; ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan

... for the observer to read. By their teeth shall ye know them. Upon the whole history of the evolution of each tooth, in the growth of the dental follicle and its walls, the fruition of the dentinal germ, the making of the enamel organ, the dental pulp, the cementum and the peridental membrane, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... art seed in a fertile field," to use Miss Hurl's expression; but inasmuch as artistic endeavor shows that same lack of originality which was characteristic of all other forms of intellectual activity at this time, the germ took root but slowly, and for a number of centuries servile imitations of the highly decorated and decidedly soulless Byzantine Virgins were very common. One of these paintings may be found in almost every church throughout the length and breadth of Italy; but when you have seen one ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... remarkable energy, lie at the basis of all our wonderful modern science. And this, in turn, lies at the basis of all our phenomenal development. It is this that makes the West different from the East. The leading nations are Christian nations. The germ of vigorous life is in the ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon

... lightning running along And flashing between those simple words, he saw The great new power that lay at England's hand, An ocean-sovereignty, a power unknown Before, but dawning now; a power that swept All earth's old plots and counterplots away Like straws; the germ of an unmeasured force New-born, that laid the source of Spanish might At England's mercy! Could that force but grow Ere Spain should nip it, ere the mighty host That waited in the Netherlands even now, That host of thirty thousand men encamped ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes

... Could you choose your seat in the eternal mansions, it would be among the angels that rejoice over one sinner that repenteth. You can distinguish in another the feeblest light of conscience that ever dimly burned, and see in it the germ of a beautiful light, that may one day, by a little fanning and fostering, shine as a star, and shed a vital heat that may set the machinery of the heart in motion to throw off glorious actions. But let not the man that shams a conscience come in your way. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various

... like an antique mirror of brass; it reflects the features of educational humanity no less faithfully than one of more modern construction. In these few pages will be found the germ of all that is useful in present systems of education, as well as most of the ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... had become a free and independent people, standing alone in the world. Their attempt to establish a new white state on the coast was a matter of serious concern, because it might affect trade with the interior, and plant in a region which Britain deemed her own the germ of what might become a new maritime power. And as the colonial government considered itself the general protector of the natives, and interested in maintaining the Kafirs between the Boer state and Cape ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... The germ of the story of "Jack and the Bean Stalk" is to be found in old Hindu tales, in which the beans are used as the symbols of abundance, or as meaning the moon, and in which the white cow is the clay and the black cow is the night. There is also a Russian story in which a bean falls upon ...
— Fairy Tales; Their Origin and Meaning • John Thackray Bunce

... Cells; Sunlight, Pure Water, and Pure Air as Disinfectants; Foods contaminated from Leaky Plumbing; Utensils for Storage of Food; Contamination from Unclean Dishcloths; Refrigeration; Chemical Changes that take Place in the Refrigerator; Soil; Disposal of Kitchen Refuse; Germ Diseases spread by Unsanitary Conditions around Dwellings due to Contamination of Food; General Considerations; ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder

... election; and thus came to the creek, which babbled across the roadway and was overhung with thick foliage that lisped and whispered cheerfully in the placid light of the declining sun. It was there that the germ of As the Coming of Dawn ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... produce upon ourselves, these exhibitions can seem but unspeakably profane; they were not profane when tendered in simplicity, and received as they were given. They were no more profane than those quaint monastic illuminations which formed the germ of Italian art; and as out of the illuminations arose those paintings which remain unapproached and unapproachable in their excellence, so out of the mystery plays arose the English drama, represented in its final completeness by the creations of a poet who, it now begins to ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... pantry and china closet should have direct light and good ventilation. The dark, dingy places sometimes used for this purpose are germ breeders. There should be plenty of shelf room and cupboards for the fine glass and china-ware, with a well-arranged sink for washing the dishes. The sink for this purpose is preferably one lined with tinned or planished copper; for dishes will be less liable to become ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... germ of the picture. It contains the idea which may later become the finished work. In your sketches you gather effects and suggestions of possibilities, of all kinds. You do not work long over a sketch, nor do you work perfunctorily. You do not make it because you ought to, ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst

... Blake's wife, an open grave. My busy thoughts were recalled by hearing the penetrating voice of the preacher saying "dust to dust, ashes to ashes," with the remainder of the beautiful formula used by many of the churches in planting the human germ. A glance around revealed Daniel Blake leaning in the very abandonment of grief on a tombstone at the grave's side, and looking down into the coffin that was rapidly disappearing under the shovelfuls of clay. A keen sense of my own heartlessness in feeling so happy within touch of such woe came ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter

... where it listeth, does so under the prophetical management of the meteorological office, but where the secret of human hearts cannot be captured by prying or praying, it was infinitely more likely that the sanest of my friends should nurse the germ of incipient madness than that I should turn into ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad

... was to be found the germ of much of the ability which was concentrated in Jane, but of which others of her children had a share. She united strong common sense with a lively imagination, and often expressed herself, both in writing and in conversation, ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... least innocent of innoculating humanity with this particular disease. Moreover, a plausible idea that is now largely held insists that the recent spread of cultivation over the Lucanian Plain is itself largely responsible for the increase of malaria; it is the up-turning of the germ-impregnated earth that has lain fallow for centuries, say the supporters of this theory, which awakens and sets free the slumbering demon of fever in the soil, so that the speeding of the plough on the Neapolitan coast must inevitably mean also the spreading of this fell and mysterious sickness. ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... that every plant begins its existence under the same form; that is to say, in that of a cell—a particle of nitrogenous matter having substantially the same conditions. So that if you trace back the oak to its first germ, or a man, or a horse, or lobster, or oyster, or any other animal you choose to name, you shall find each and all of these commencing their existence in forms essentially similar to each other: and, furthermore, that the first processes ...
— The Present Condition of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley

... religion, supplanting the material and external paganism, makes its way to the heart of the ancient society, kills it, and deposits, in that corpse of a decrepit civilization, the germ of modern civilization. This religion as complete, because it is true; between its dogma and its cult, it embraces a deep-rooted moral. Arid first of all, as a fundamental truth, it teaches man ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... power of their rulers, and he exhorted, "as God has given us liberty to take it." There, at that moment, in Hartford, American democracy was born; and in the republican union of the three towns of the Connecticut colony, Hartford, Windsor, and Wethersfield, was the germ of the American federal system, which was adopted into the federal constitution and known at the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... a glance, or pretty soon, the general trend of a character. But not with you. Nothing that I might hear of you in the future, would very much surprise me. I should say to myself, 'Yes, the germ ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... form literally the dust of the earth, they make rock and water, vapor and air. In the hand of the Almighty, they are so many plastic elements, that form now a plant of the lowliest condition, now a magnificent oak, now a fish, and now a man. And the germ of each organized being bequeathes to its offspring the power to reproduce its likeness,—so that each succeeding generation is a repetition of its predecessor. There is no change in plants and animals from the first; the same materials in the same proportions that were selected by the earliest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... social civilization maintain themselves in spite of our rational and deliberate opinions. Reason tells us that there is nothing evil in sexual enjoyment, whether in man or woman, but an unconscious feeling directs our emotions, and this feeling (having a germ that was placed in modern men by Christianity, and perhaps by still older religions) says that woman ought to be an absolutely pure being, with ethereal sensations, and that in her sexual enjoyment is out ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... statement of the facts. My father, married in spite of himself, adores his mistress, and detests his wife. Both find themselves enceinte at the same time, and his feelings towards the two infants about to be born, are not at all concealed. Towards the end one almost sees peeping forth the germ of the idea which later on he will not be afraid to put into execution, in defiance of all ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... would have great weight in Europe; that they would never inquire there into the motives which dictated it, nor consider the small consequence of this State in the confederation; that it would be regarded as a germ of division, calculated to retard the operations of Congress; and that certainly this idea would prevent the resurrection of ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay

... take hold of her dress and say, "Ah, three and sixpence a yard!" The men were very rough, after the old Lancashire fashion. They have always, however, been a musical people, and this may have been a germ of refinement in them. They are still much more simple and natural than the Liverpool people, who love the aristocracy, and whom they heartily despise. It is singular that the great Art-Exhibition should have come to pass in the ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... or ophthalmia neonatorum, is defined by Dr Sydney Stephenson as "an inflammatory disease of the conjunctiva, usually appearing within the first few days of life, due to the action of a pus-producing germ introduced into the eyes of the infant at birth." Dr Crede found that, by putting two drops of the solution into each of the infant's eyes at birth, all danger of infection was averted. The solution is harmless to healthy eyes, and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, destroys ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley

... would give Domestic Science heart failure, yet it must have been altogether sanitary. Nothing about it was tight enough to harbor a self-respecting germ. It was the rise of twenty feet square, built stoutly of hewn logs, with a sharply pitched board roof, a movable loft, a plank floor boasting inch-wide cracks, a door, two windows and a fireplace that took up a full half of one end. In front of the fireplace stretched a rough stone hearth, a yard ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams

... more to say of him. But he is not master of the expression suitable to his noble and precious thought except in the briefest bursts—bursts compared to which even Crashaw's are sustained and methodical. His admirers claim for "The Retreat" the germ of Wordsworth's great ode, but if any one will compare the two he will hardly complain that Vaughan ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... the disciples. The incidents and sayings connected with their Divine Master naturally assumed a particular shape from repetition, though it was simply a rudimental one. They were not compactly linked in regular or systematic sequence. They were the oral germ and essence of a Gospel, rather than a proper Gospel itself, at least, according to our modern ideas of it. But the Aramaean language was soon laid aside. When Hellenists evinced a disposition to receive Christianity, and associated themselves with the small number of Palestinian ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant

... her soul, Owen too had gained something which his character had hitherto lacked; and in his new humility and comprehension there was the germ, also, of a new content ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... holy thoughts come to these solitudes. Here selfishness dies away, and purity and magnanimity expand, the essence and germ of life. Sitting here in these cool recesses, screened from the sun, moist and musical with the waters, crusts of worldliness and vanity cleave off from the soul. The din dies away, and, with ears attuned to the harmonies of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton

... quite different to Hugh. The bite of the man's teeth and the torn places on his cheeks left by the tense fingers had mended, leaving but a slight scar; but a virus had got into his veins. The disease of thinking had upset the harness maker's mind and the germ of that disease had got into Hugh's blood. It had worked up into his eyes and ears. Words men dropped thoughtlessly and that in the past had been blown past his ears, as chaff is blown from wheat in the harvest, now stayed to echo and re-echo in his mind. In ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson

... to last, put forward altogether tentatively. In the first edition of the "Origin," he attributes the strongest influence to changes in the conditions of life of parental organisms, which he appears to think act on the germ through the intermediation of the sexual organs. He points out, over and over again, that habit, use, disuse, and the direct influence of conditions have some effect, but he does not think it great, and he draws attention to the difficulty ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley

... thought that this letter gave Bunyan some germ of his Pilgrim's Progress!! He takes it from the words, 'In this world there is no mansion firm for me, and therefore I will travel up to the New Jerusalem, which is in heaven.'—Life ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of the fire. But all these were empty now, as men, women and children had gone to the open space in the center of the village. The communal lodges were much larger, often holding six or seven families, but with entirely distinct partitions for every family. Here in the woods was a rude germ of the modern ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... of course!" interposed Waldron, calmly, eyeing his smoke. "Don't get excited, Flint. Rome wasn't built in a day. There may be something in this; possibly there may be the germ of an idea. I don't say it's impossible. It looks visionary to me; but then, as you well say, so has every new idea always looked. Let me think, now; ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England

... man and assisted him in domesticating the animals. She built her house, and it was hers. She did not go to her husband's group after marriage. The child was hers, and remained a member of her group. The germ of social organization was, indeed, the woman and her children and her children's children. The old women were the heads of civil society, though the men had developed a fighting organization and technique which eventually ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... else gradually, as the imperfection of each is recognized, I say that each of these two courses is all but impossible. For to effect a gradual reform requires a sagacious man who can discern mischief while it is still remote and in the germ. But it may well happen that no such person is found in a city; or that, if found, he is unable to persuade others of what he is himself persuaded. For men used to live in one way are loath to leave it for another, especially when they are ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli

... 'baptized and infidel'—Christendom on the one side, strong by her intellect and her organization, and the 'Barbaric East' on the other, with her unnumbered numbers? The match was a monstrous one; but in its very monstrosity there lay this germ of encouragement, that it could not be suspected. The very hopelessness of the scheme grounded his hope, and he resolved to execute a vengeance which should involve as it were, in the unity of a well-laid tragic fable, all ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... clothing of persons suffering with diphtheria, tuberculosis, and other germ diseases should always be boiled and hung to dry in the bright sunlight. Heat and sunshine are two of ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark

... quiescent state, because we can transmit them to children in whom they become active. Mildred's father and mother, for example, are not scholars, although her grandfather and great-grandfather were; yet in one of her parents at least there must be a germ of the scholar's faculty which has never been developed, because Mildred has inherited it. Now why can't we develop all the faculties, the germs of which lie within our borders? Perhaps because we have each only a certain amount of what I'll call vital current. If the Nile could overflow the whole ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods

... tubercular ulcer, breeding the bacillus of consumption, and they are absorbed into the circulation. Ordinarily the white corpuscles would be able to destroy them, but now they are so overworked that the tubercular germ lands in the lung tissue alive and well, ready to commence his work of destruction and death. The person developes a hacking cough, and finally goes to the doctor, and he, if he knows his business, probably finds tuberculosis well established. ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell



Words linked to "Germ" :   source, wheat germ, germ plasm, micro-organism, microorganism, germ theory, muse, complex body part, germ cell, germinate, germ tube, germ pore



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