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Comparative   /kəmpˈɛrətɪv/   Listen
Comparative

adjective
1.
Relating to or based on or involving comparison.
2.
Estimated by comparison; not absolute or complete.  Synonym: relative.



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"Comparative" Quotes from Famous Books



... conspired in our history as a colony to intensify the good-nature of our people—at any rate, so far as extravagance in vicarious charity is concerned. Our sensitiveness to suffering has been greatly stimulated by the comparative absence from our towns of those sights of misery and squalor that deaden the feelings by familiarity; and the lavish life we have led since 1870 has made us free-handed to the poor and impatient of the trouble required to find out ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... DEAR SIR,—Anne seems so tranquil this morning, so free from pain and fever, and looks and speaks so like herself in health, that I too feel relieved, and I take advantage of the respite to write to you, hoping that my letter may reflect something of the comparative peace I feel. ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter

... visits to their tents, and by allowing his door to be free of access to all those encamped near Southampton, when they have needed his help and advice. Thus has he gained a general knowledge of their vicious habits, their comparative virtues, and their unhappy modes of life, which he hopes the following pages will fully prove, and be the means of placing their character in the light of truth, and of correcting various mistakes respecting ...
— The Gipsies' Advocate - or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of - The English Gipsies • James Crabb

... of this century, as Van der Velde, Spindler, Rellstab, Storch, and Rau, have been succeeded by Koenig, Heller, and several others. Good French and English novels are translated into German, almost immediately after their appearance, and the comparative scarcity of interesting German novels is accounted for by the taste for this foreign literature, and also by the increasing absorption of literary talent in the periodical press. Schucking is remarkable for his power of vividly conceiving character. Fanny Lewald ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... themselves. They lean upon the concrete, and to see as the result of their efforts something which lasts, especially something useful, as a witness to their power and skill, this is a reward in itself and needs no artificial stimulus, though to measure their own work in comparative excellence with that of others adds an element that quickens the desire to do well. Children will go quietly back again and again to look, without saying anything, at something they have made with their own hands, their eyes telling ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart

... not disappointed. They received him into their houses, and for a while he sojourned in the Vatican. The year 1593 seems, through their means, to have been one of comparative peace and prosperity. Early in the summer of 1594 his health obliged him to seek change of air. He went for the last time to Naples. The Cardinal of S. Giorgio, one of the Pope's nephews, recalled him in November to be crowned poet in Rome. His entrance into the Eternal City was honorable, and ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds

... attempt to answer it? He endeavors to show, first, that the work of creation having been for the most part accomplished thousands of years ago, we have no reason to expect that the origination of life and species should be conspicuously exemplified in the present day; secondly, that the comparative infrequency, or even the entire absence, of such phenomena now would be no valid reason for believing that they have never been exhibited heretofore, if, on other grounds, the doctrine of 'natural creation' or 'life-creating laws' can be rendered probable; and, thirdly, ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... unfortunate creatures being driven below out of the way. The vessel, lying there inert as a log on the water, proved very heavy to start, especially as the blacks knew not how to handle the sweeps, having evidently never touched one before; but, once fairly started, the craft was kept moving with comparative ease at a speed of about three and a half knots per hour. But it was cruel work for the unhappy blacks, who, naked as when they were born, were remorselessly kept at it by the boatswain and his mate, both of whom paced the deck, fore and aft, armed with a heavy "colt," which they plied ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood

... is not necessary. We do not, indeed, find verses in six groups, because there is not room for six in the ten syllables; and we do not find verses of two, because one of the main distinctions of verse from prose resides in the comparative shortness of the group; but it is even common to find verses of three. Five is the one forbidden number; because five is the number of the feet; and if five were chosen, the two patterns would coincide, and that opposition which is the life of verse would instantly ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... roving bands, and that the gradual completion of chains of blockhouses placed at intervals of a mile, sometimes less, along the Transvaal and Orange River Colony railways, had obtained for our traffic a comparative security which ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... used in the Chinese pharmacopoeia, and this was privately circulated. For obvious reasons I may not repeat it here. But it was summed up—again after the usual Californian epigrammatic style—by the remark that "whatever were the comparative merits of Chinese and American practice, a simple perusal of the list would prove that the Chinese were capable of producing the most powerful emetic known." The craze subsided in a single day; the interpreters and their oracle vanished; the Chinese doctors' signs, which ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte

... expenditures from the National Treasury on works of a local character within the States. Memorable as an epoch in the history of this subject is the message of President Jackson of the 27th of May, 1830, which met the system of internal improvements in its comparative infancy; but so rapid had been its growth that the projected appropriations in that year for works of this character had risen to the alarming ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson

... We followed him. My eyes soon grew accustomed to this comparative gloom. I distinguished the unpredictably contoured springings of a vault, supported by natural pillars firmly based on a granite foundation, like the weighty columns of Tuscan architecture. Why had our incomprehensible guide taken us into the ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... These supplied cheap and indispensable, but hitherto wholly lacking, means of transportation to the hunters; and at the same time the demand for buffalo robes and hides became very great, while the enormous numbers of the beasts, and the comparative ease with which they were slaughtered, attracted throngs of adventurers. The result was such a slaughter of big game as the world had never before seen; never before were so many large animals of one species destroyed in so short a time. ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt

... artillery, were to support the attack by water, aided by the canoes of the Tlascalan and Texcocan allies. A series of attacks was made by this method, and at last the various bodies of Spaniards advanced along the causeways and gained the city walls. But frightful disaster befel them. The comparative ease with which they entered the city aroused Cortes's suspicions; and at that moment, from the summit of the great teocalli, rang out a fearful note—the horn of Guatemoc, calling for vengeance and a concerted attack. The notes of the horn struck some ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... Carlisle, Lord and Lady Blantyre, &c. The conversation flowed along in a very agreeable channel. I told them the more I contemplated life in Great Britain, the more I was struck with the contrast between the comparative smallness of the territory and the vast power, physical, moral, and intellectual, which it exerted in ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... close a secret, that it did not ooze out until yesterday. The "ultras" in the Government were, I understand on good authority, opposed to it, but M. Jules Favre was supported by Picard, Gambetta, and Keratry, who, as everything is comparative, represent the moderate section of our rulers. We are as belligerent and cheery to-day as we were despondent on Monday evening. When any disaster occurs it takes a Frenchman about twenty-four hours to accustom himself to ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... say nothing of its almost inevitably mischievous concomitants, brings into play chiefly that part of the body which is already in comparative vigor, and which, besides, has little to do directly with the size, position, and vigor ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... of song, only in the deepest and most remote forests, usually in damp and swampy localities. On this account the people in the Adirondack region call it the "Swamp Angel." Its being so much of a recluse accounts for the comparative ignorance that prevails in ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs

... comparative seclusion to which the father had doomed himself for the sake of his child, he had found time for large and varied reading. The learned Judge Thornton confessed himself surprised at the extent of Dudley Veneer's ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... produce shapely solid buttons. This crop is often grown on Potato land, the plants being put out between the rows in the course of the summer. It is better practice, however, to plant Kales or Broccoli in Potato ground, because of the comparative slowness of their growth, and to put the Sprouts on an open plot freely dressed with somewhat fresh manure. If a first-class strain, such as Sutton's Exhibition, is grown, it will not only pay for this little extra care, but will pay also for plenty ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... had the ordinary heroism to intervene, and I with ever increasing rapidity was borne helplessly down the declivity towards the gates of Hyde Park Corner, when, by the benevolence of Providence, the anterior wheel ran under a railing, and I flew off like a tangent into the comparative ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey

... child in the village, has fallen into the new comer's hands, who (being prepared to make the most of him, from the fact that he commenced the practice of the healing art in the stable, rising from thence to the parlor) has rubbed him into comparative sleekness, cleaned his mane and tail of the accumulated burrs of many autumns, and made quite a gay nag of him. The wagon, too, in which at least two generations of boys and girls have ridden in noisy hilarity whenever they encountered it on their way to school, has ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... me. "Oh, I mean comparative poverty, of course. Who is this fellow, anyhow? Dal knew him at school, traveled with him through India. On the strength of that he brings him here, quarters him with decent people, and wonders when they are ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... which possess for one reason or another an abnormal strength, are encountered frequently when a pilot is fairly near the earth; and his peril is all the greater in consequence. On a windy day, one on which there are heavy gusts followed by comparative lulls, it is when he is close to the ground, either in ascending or before alighting, that a pilot has most to fear. If he is well aloft, with plenty of air space beneath him, and particularly if he has a machine that is inherently stable, he has little to fear from the wind; ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... the branches of error were disregarded, and the roots only attacked. If, then, so lofty a station was taken with regard even to such errors as had moral and spiritual relations, how much more with regard to the comparative trifles, (as in the ultimate relations of human nature they are,) of merely human science! But, for my part, I go further, and assert, that upon three reasons it was impossible for any messenger from God, (or ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... necessary assistance from her benevolent mistress, the cottage soon assumed a new appearance. The wretched pallet of straw was removed, and gave place to a comfortable bed. A table and chairs were provided, and a degree of comparative comfort reigned around. ...
— Domestic pleasures - or, the happy fire-side • F. B. Vaux

... at the beginning of the century but much more the condemnation of Delaney, and of the New Transcendentalism generally, as it was then understood. He died outside the Church, you know. Then there was the condemnation of Sciotti's book on Comparative Religion.... After that the Communists went on by strides, although by very slow ones. It seems extraordinary to you, I dare say, but you cannot imagine the excitement when the Necessary Trades Bill became law in '60. ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson

... whom Buckingham is said to have procured his poisons was one Dr. Lamb, a conjuror and empiric, who, besides dealing in poisons, pretended to be a fortune-teller. The popular fury, which broke with comparative harmlessness against his patron, was directed against this man, until he could not appear with safety in the streets of London. His fate was melancholy. Walking one day in Cheapside, disguised, as he thought, from all observers, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... turn to the previous winter and find that the best storage eggs are quoted at 19c, when the best fresh are selling at 35c. This was a poor storage season and a quotation of 22c and 25c would perhaps be a fairer comparative figure. We find the per cent, of premium on ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings

... essays, one in answer to a letter of Mathetes (Professor Wilson), and the other on Epitaphs, republished in the Notes to The Excursion. Here also he wrote his Description of the Scenery of the Lakes. Perhaps a truer explanation of the comparative silence of Wordsworth's Muse during these years is to be found in the intense interest which he took in current events, whose variety, picturesqueness, and historical significance were enough to absorb all the energies of ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... memorial of which remains in the "Lines composed while climbing Brockley Combe". It was in one of these excursions that Mr. Coleridge and Mr.Wordsworth first met at the house of Mr. Pinney. [1] The first six of those Lectures constituted a course presenting a comparative view of the Civil War under Charles I and the French Revolution. Three of them, or probably the substance of four or five, were published at Bristol in the latter end of 1795, the first two together, with the title of "Conciones ad Populum", and the third with ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... a holy temple in the Lord are but few. The Lord cannot work in them, because He has not the mastery of their inner life. His personal indwelling and fellowship, the rest of His Holy Presence, His Holiness reigning and ruling in the heart and life,—to all these they are comparative strangers. It has been rightly said that work is the cure for spiritual poverty and disease; to some believers who had been seeking holiness apart from service, the call to work has been an unspeakable blessing. ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray

... good advice and Stanley and Spud determined to act on it. Stanley came first with Spud at his heels. The many small branches of the sapling afforded good holds, and as each of the youths was something of an athlete, both of them came up with comparative ease. ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield

... 10th of May there was great confusion and agitation at Versailles. The physicians declared that the king could not live out the day; and the dauphin had decided on removing his household to the smaller palace of La Muette at Choisy, to spend in that comparative retirement the first week or two after his grandfather's death, during which it would hardly be decorous for the royal family to be seen in public. But, as it was not thought seemly to appear to anticipate the event by quitting Versailles while Louis was still alive, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge

... importance of ferry-boats as a means of traffic distribution has already been greatly reduced by the construction of bridges and tunnels which provide for the greater part of the passenger and vehicular traffic. The North River, however, by reason of its greater width and the comparative slowness of its currents, is by far the more important waterway for the use of ocean-going vessels of the larger classes. In this river the conditions for the construction of bridges, within the limits of commercial convenience, seem to be practically prohibitory. Tunnels, for ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 • Charles W. Raymond

... culminating point. The road here passes through firs, umbrella pines, carouba trees, cypresses, evergreen oaks, arbutus trees, and some fine shrubs of Phillyrea angustifolia, with here and there just enough olive trees to afford evidence of the comparative mildness of the climate. About half-way between Varazze and Cogoleto is ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... talent, or his genius, spoke with no uncertain voice, dictated to him what he must do. In those days he was seldom in doubt. He did not have to search. There was no vagueness in his life. The Bible, that inexhaustible mine of great literature, prompted him to music. But, then, he was living in comparative solitude. Quiet days stretched before him, empty evenings. He could give himself up to what was within him. Even now he could have quiet days. He had recently passed not a few with the French Revolution. But the evenings of course were not, could not be, empty. ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... an income which comes to me from the Manor of Kingston," Brooks answered, "settled on the eldest sons of the Arranmore peerage, with which my father has nothing to do. This alone is comparative wealth, and there are ...
— A Prince of Sinners • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... no less truthful than graceful, from so respected a functionary as the Surveyor-General of India, who knew Mr. McNair personally, will carry a weight far beyond the official recognition of that deceased officer's worth to his department. The comparative neglect of a great scientific department of State, such as the Indian Survey Department undoubtedly is, as a mere ornamental section of the huge and complicated machinery of that gigantic Empire called India, is but too often repeated by a department and its official heads in regarding the merits ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard

... the chapel she reviewed her position. She hoped that by this time the others had managed to reach the Fort. If they had, then she could face with comparative equanimity what might happen to herself. Her only fear was what her father, in his distress on hearing of her capture, ...
— The Rising of the Red Man - A Romance of the Louis Riel Rebellion • John Mackie

... be defeated in the election which took place within two weeks after his arrival. His patriotism had been stronger than his political sagacity. If he had stayed at home to help himself to the Legislature he might have been elected, though he was then a comparative stranger in the county. One of the four representatives chosen was ...
— The Story of Young Abraham Lincoln • Wayne Whipple

... his commissioners to the Province to select four or five hundred, or whatever number may be ordered, of the most beautiful young women, according to the scale of beauty enjoined upon them. And they set a value upon the comparative beauty of the damsels in this way. The commissioners on arriving assemble all the girls of the province, in presence of appraisers appointed for the purpose. These carefully survey the points of each girl in succession, as (for example) her hair, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... man, then, who stood there. To go to the door just at this time was impolitic, and she shrank back into an inner corner to wait. The comparative security from discovery that her new position ensured resuscitated reason a little, and empowered her ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... understood Harley, in a freak of generous romance, had adopted, was familiar and courteous, as became a host; but he looked upon Helen as a mere child, and naturally left her to the countess. The dim sense of her equivocal position, of her comparative humbleness of birth and fortunes, oppressed and pained her; and even her gratitude to Harley was made burdensome by a sentiment of helplessness. The grateful long to requite. And what could she ever ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... love-interest of an ordinary English novel as an indecency; and so will recognise the improbability of the romantic element in the play. Still, all that is of little consequence, for there must have been very few who went to His Majesty's to improve their acquaintance with comparative ethnology. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various

... siren, that consummate coquette, that most fascinating woman the world has ever known. Three weeks of steeping one's soul in the oldest, most complete and satisfactory ruins on the face of the earth. Here, in delving into the past, we would have no use for the comparative word "hundreds." We could boldly use the superlative word "thousands." What memories! what dreams! what fragments of half-forgotten history and romance came floating through the brain! I have, generally, little use for guide-books except, afterwards, to verify what I have seen. But I admit that I ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell

... A day of comparative tranquillity succeeded. The survivors erected their mast again, which had been wantonly cut down in the battle of the night; and endeavored to catch some fish, but in vain. They were reduced to feed on the dead bodies ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman

... apprehending is included in comprehending; yet to comprehend is more. To comprehend is to know a thing fully; or, to reach it all. But here we must distinguish, and say, that there is a comprehending that is absolute, and a comprehending that is comparative. Of comprehending absolutely, or perfectly, we are not here to speak; for that the Apostle could not, in this place, as to the thing prayed for, desire: For it is utterly impossible perfectly to know whatsoever ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... were all-embracing. It seems to have been under his direction that the vast collection of clay tablets—a sort of Royal Library—was made at Nineveh, from which the British Museum has derived perhaps the most valuable of its treasures. Comparative vocabularies, lists of deities and their epithets, chronological lists of kings and eponyms, records of astronomical observations, grammars, histories, scientific works of various kinds, seems to have been composed in the reign, and probably at ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson

... way through the solid rock back from Ontario to Erie? It is highly probable that the earth has been approximately the same as it now is for many millions of years. Reaching still farther back into the past, before this state of comparative quiescence, can we not find adequate time for the gradual succession of organized beings on this earth, and for the structural differentiations which have finally resulted in the present position of things? Because we see one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... two points he must try to cross the State Road. ... After that, comparative safety. For the miles that still would lie between him and distant civilisation seemed as nothing to the horror of ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers

... effect which this delicious draught had upon our exhausted frames is impossible; our strength and our voices returned to us like magic, our spirits revived, and we felt like new creatures. We re-hoisted the mast and sail into its place with comparative ease, and then, with one accord, knelt down and offered our sincere and heart- felt thanks for the mercy which had been shown us in our extremity; while the raft swept cheerily away before the rising blast at almost double her ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood

... partly through the comparative study of religions, we are conscious that religious thought in the West possesses some common characteristics, notably, faith in the solidarity of mankind and in the reality of progress. Of themselves, ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... This comparative comfort gave me a new and strange kind of despair. I began to fear that I might become contented to live out my life alone in the midst of this lonely ocean. In that case, what sort of a ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... coach suddenly, and the confusion redoubled until he mounted to a bench and clapped his hands loudly above the din. Comparative silence ensued. "Fellows," he began, "here's the list for the next half. Answer to your names, please. And go over to the door. Fellows, you'll have to make less noise. Dutton, ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... of human nature and be eminently serviceable to the worlds For centuries the mind has been spreading out its treasury of revelations, to be turned to practical account, in ascertaining the constitution, and determining better methods of treating disease. Since comparative anatomists and physiologists have revealed the structure of animals and the functions of their organs, from the lowest protozoan to the highest vertebrate, the physician may avail himself of this knowledge, and thus gain a deeper insight into the structure and physiology ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... of less than twenty men, it was thought sufficient to protect itself, could it be brought to act together; whereas, now, when ten times twenty were left at home, unusual caution was deemed necessary, because the colony was weakened by this expedition of so many of its members. But everything is comparative with man. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper

... boats cheered each other as they thus found themselves in comparative safety, the sound of their voices echoing from cliff ...
— The Voyages of the Ranger and Crusader - And what befell their Passengers and Crews. • W.H.G. Kingston

... the old trapper bade us farewell, saying that he should strike away north, to a district where beavers abounded, for he could no longer spend his time in comparative idleness. We were sorry to lose him, for he was a capital companion, especially round the camp fire, when he indulged us in his quaint way with his numberless adventures and hair-breadth escapes, sufficient to make the hair of my old uncle, ...
— Adventures in the Far West • W.H.G. Kingston

... In adjusting their comparative fertility, the contrasted disposition of their soils is much more prominent than any inequality in their quantity. They are poor countries; but, as far as the eye of discovery has yet penetrated into either, the cultivable soil of the latter is found lying in a few distinct patches of limited ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... the two youths, being themselves, from the retired situation in which they dwelt, comparative strangers in the Halidome, did not serve in any degree to alter the feelings of the inhabitants towards the young lady, who seemed to have dropped amongst them from another sphere of life. Still, however, she was regarded with respect, ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... individuals from the mutability of fate. So was it with Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and Rome, though in their case we look far back into the vista of history to recall the change, whereas in the instance of Spain we are contemporary witnesses. From a first-class power, how rapidly she has sunk into comparative insignificance! She has been shorn of her wealthy colonies, one after another, in the East and in the West, holding with feeble grasp a few inconsiderable islands only besides this gem of the Antilles, the choicest jewel of her crown. Extremely poor and deeply ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... to a question of information," explained Miss Kiametia, in tones which echoed through the rooms. "Is this an indignation meeting or an assemblage of Sisters in Unity?" she demanded, and sat down. In the comparative quiet that ensued, the peace resolution was seconded and passed by a ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... proceed for a mile or two without hindrance; sometimes we would come to big sheets of thin ice which broke easily as our iron-shod prow struck them, and sometimes even a thin sheet would resist all our attempts to break it; sometimes we would push big floes with comparative ease and sometimes a small floe would bar our passage with such obstinacy that one would almost believe it possessed of an evil spirit; sometimes we passed through acres of sludgy sodden ice which hissed as it swept along the side, and sometimes ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... kind of sound that was called 'a good tone,' since the expression of feeling necessarily demands in many cases the use of relatively harsh sounds. Moreover, I could see no reason for trying to overcome what are generally called natural defects, such as the comparative weakness of the fourth finger for example, as it seemed to me rather a good thing than otherwise that each finger should naturally and normally possess a ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke

... a year for myself. I found the duration of the comparative darkness, or what might with me be termed night, in the course of the twenty-four hours, or day, gradually increased for six months; after which it decreased reciprocally for an equal time, and the lighter part of the day took its turn, as in our parts of ...
— Life And Adventures Of Peter Wilkins, Vol. I. (of II.) • Robert Paltock

... If the comparative prudence of the British Government had not tempered this exultant movement, the hopes of civilization would have been blasted by such a war as it is sickening to think of: England in alliance with an empire trying to spread and perpetuate Slavery as its very principle of life, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... the first to take advantage of the comparative security prevailing in that district, I thought that I could best further the aims of Science by associating with me a staff of scientists and students. Professor W. Libbey, of Princeton, N. J., took part ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... confronted the Italians was that of constructing the vast system of trenches through which the troops could be moved forward in comparative safety to the positions from which would be launched the final assault. This presented no exceptional difficulties in the rich alluvial soil on the Isonzo's western bank, but once the Italians had crossed the river they found themselves on the Carso, through whose ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell

... "it was ill-naturedly said; do not fret about it; you were not in the least to blame. I should not like you half so much—should not think nearly so well of you, if you had been willing to give up all your own people, to throw them lightly over, all of a sudden, for a comparative stranger, treble your ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton

... waiting period for the education of American public opinion. His campaign speeches prophesied the abandonment of American isolation in the interest of a League of Peace. His note of last December to the belligerents brought out the sinister secrecy of German peace terms and the comparative frankness of that of the Allies. His address to the Senate clearly enunciated the only programme on behalf of which America could intervene in European affairs. Never was there a purer and more successful example of Fabian political strategy, for Fabianism ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman

... noted with interest that a passionate hatred of pain inflicted on animals is apt to be accompanied by a comparative indifference to pain inflicted on human beings, and sometimes a certain complaisance, even pleasure, in such pain. But it is rare to find the association so clearly presented. Pain is woven into the structure of life. It cannot be dispensed ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis

... upon letting off the things they called guns at every little knot of the enemy that ran across. Thus, the first few lots were indeed practically swept away, but after that, as it took a long while to load the gas-pipes and old flint muskets, those who followed got across in comparative safety. For my own part, I fired away with the elephant gun and repeating carbine till they grew almost too hot to hold, but my individual efforts could do nothing to stop such a rush, or perceptibly to lessen the number ...
— Maiwa's Revenge - The War of the Little Hand • H. Rider Haggard

... While resting in the comparative cool portico where he was served, a barber came and offered his services, and Harry, suddenly remembering how the barber in the "Arabian Nights' Entertainments" always knew everybody, thought he would ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough

... attending, and versed in the mysteries, received, and reported to the people, the declarations which had been thus received. When the priest had uttered the response of the oracle, the violent paroxysm gradually subsided, and comparative composure ensued. The god did not, however, always leave him as soon as the communication had been made. Sometimes the same taura, or priest, continued for two or three days possessed by the spirit or deity; ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... in the world, there exist veins of auriferous quartz, practically inexhaustible in extent, teeming throughout with virgin gold of a standard of almost absolute purity, and yielding a return to the labors of the scientific miner, rivalling, if not fairly surpassing, in their comparative results, the richest deposits of California, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... Rabbling of the Episcopal Clergy State of Edinburgh Question of an Union between England and Scotland raised Wish of the English Low Churchmen to preserve Episcopacy in Scotland Opinions of William about Church Government in Scotland Comparative Strength of Religious Parties in Scotland Letter from William to the Scotch Convention William's Instructions to his Agents in Scotland; the Dalrymples Melville James's Agents in Scotland: Dundee; Balcarras Meeting of the Convention Hamilton elected President Committee of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Complete Contents of the Five Volumes • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... of cattle, which are most profitable, and where, and how; as for instance, what advantage will arise from keeping horses, or oxen, or sheep, or any other live stock; it is also necessary to be acquainted with the comparative value of these things, and which of them in particular places are worth most; for some do better in one place, some in another. Agriculture also should be understood, and the management of arable grounds ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle

... the front of this hastily-constructed raft, on three sides of which were breastworks, with strong, loose ropes attached, so that those who clung to this refuge might support themselves with comparative safety, or rather have a chance for life, when our "floating grave" should hang suspended perpendicularly on the steep side of a mountain-billow, or ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield

... reduce its action to a mechanical process. (3) Parallelism in the end reduces Mind to an epi-phenomenon {an important undoubted fact which has been often ignored by what are left of the Parallelists!] (4) The object of Comparative Psychology is to determine empirically the actual function of Mind in successive stages of development. (5) It involves a social as well as an individual psychology. (6) The statement of the higher phases also opens ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... honeymoon. She wanted this man's companionship and his help. But she had slowly been forced to the conclusion that Clavering's was a mind whose enthusiasms could only be inspired by some form of creative art; politics would never appeal to it. In her comparative ignorance of the denaturalized brain, she had believed that a brilliant gifted mind could concentrate itself upon any object with equal fertility and power, but she had seen too much of the Sophisticates of late, and studied Clavering in too many of his moods to cherish the illusion any longer. ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... so seems quite successful, but a great many varieties produce so many suckers that the graft is liable to be choked or crowded out if not constantly watched, and it should not be expected of the average person to know the difference between the graft and the wild shoot, and consequently, in a comparative short time, he would have a wild or common hazel. For that reason grafted plants should not be used for the trade until our people get better acquainted with hazel plants. I, therefore, should recommend layering, thereby having the plants on their own roots, which ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various

... ought to have been added, Bunyan's statement made in introducing his second part:—'Now, having taken up my lodgings in a wood about a mile off the place': no longer in 'a den,' but sheltered, in a wood, in a state of comparative, but not of perfect liberty, about a mile distant from the den in which he wrote his first part. Whether this may refer to his former cottage at Elstow, of which there is great doubt, or to the house he occupied in Bedford ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... forest of lodge-pole pine than out on the ice- field, but the timber offered comparative refuge from the driving sleet and wind. Another difficulty presented itself, however, in the close growth of trees. To avoid collision with the crowded trunks, it became necessary to undo the rope that held the five beasts together. Each was thus allowed ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... for the representation was much nearer the present. It was only a hundred years back, from 1740 to 1750. It may be that this comparative nearness fettered rather than emancipated the players in the game, and that, though civil wars and clan feuds had long died out, and the memory of the Scotch rebellion was no more than a picturesque tragic romance, a trifle of awkwardness survived in the encounter, face to face once more, in ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... upon Thomas Telford, Esq. a gentleman of long experience, and of whose abilities, as a civil engineer, every reliance was placed. About the latter end of May following, this gentleman visited Knaresbro', viewed the localities of the place, took running and comparative levels over the shortest and most convenient ground, to the higher side of Linton-lock, and also towards Tadcaster. In the latter direction, as being a more direct communication with the port of Hull, he fully recommended a close survey to be made, for which purpose he ...
— Report of the Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee • Knaresbrough Rail-way Committee

... and other guests came in. There was much talking of first-rate Welsh and very indifferent English, Mr Bos being the principal speaker in both languages; his discourse was chiefly on the comparative merits of Anglesey runts and Scotch bullocks, and those of the merched anladd of Northampton and the lasses of Wrexham. He preferred his own country runts to the Scotch kine, but said upon the whole, though a Welshman, ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow

... the village for an hour, Felworth despatched his business, and we turned homewards. He did not appear so much inclined for conversation as he had been in the morning; and we both soon lapsed into comparative silence. The very act of driving has at any time a tendency to produce a ruminating mood; and my thoughts naturally turned on Alice Vernon. It was true, I had seen her only twice, and on the first occasion ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... the doctor. He pounded his key with feverish rapidity. The two remaining destroyers slackened speed and veered off. Slowly, as though loath to turn their backs on the enemy, they headed out for the broad Atlantic and comparative safety. ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various

... be the consequences of thus lightly esteeming such authority?—of impugning the stability of the legal fabric, by asserting one-half of its materials to consist merely of "law taken for granted?"[23]—and, consequently, not the product of experience and wisdom, and to be got rid of with comparative indifference, in spite of the deliberate and solemn judgment of an overwhelming majority of the existing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... commentators and has the merit of giving an interesting and important type of philosophy, his main thesis is that everything short of the Whole is obviously fragmentary, and obviously incapable of existing without the complement supplied by the rest of the world. Just as a comparative anatomist, from a single bone, sees what kind of animal the whole must have been, so the metaphysician, according to Hegel, sees, from any one piece of reality, what the whole of reality must be—at least in its large outlines. Every ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... described as Mr. KIPLING's first long story. His publishers, moreover, are good enough to take all the trouble of criticism upon their own shoulders. They declare that "there is more stern strength in this novel than in anything which Mr. KIPLING has written;" but that is, after all, only a comparative statement, which profits me little, as I never yet estimated the amount of "stern strength" in Mr. KIPLING's previous writings. I am, however, told, in addition, that the tale "is as intensely moving as it is intensely masculine" (there's lovely language!) "and it will not be surprising ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various

... Bonhomme Michael followed one another at short intervals, bringing to the Convent exact details of all that occurred in the streets, with the welcome tidings at last that the threatened outbreak had been averted by the prompt interposition of the Governor and troops. Comparative quietness again reigned in every ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... truth, it might be said, that there are none. When such a case occurs, it is among the rare evils of society. And apart from other and better reasons, which we believe to exist, it is plain that it must be so, from the comparative absence of temptation. Our brothels, comparatively very few—and these should not be permitted to exist at all—are filled, for the most part, by importations from the cities of our confederate States, where slavery does not exist. In return for the benefits which they receive from our ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... Area - comparative: about half the size of Russia; about three-tenths the size of Africa; about half the size of South America (or slightly larger than Brazil); slightly larger than China; almost two and a half times the ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... one who recalls the succession of prosecutions carried on by the victorious party after the fall of the Gracchi and Saturninus(27) will be inclined to yield to the victor of the Esquiline market the praise of candour and comparative moderation, in so far as, first he without ceremony accepted as war what was really such and proscribed the men who were defeated as enemies beyond the pale of the law, and, secondly, he limited as far as possible the number of victims and allowed at least no offensive outbreak of fury ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... gloom. There was not a sound to disturb the night. She almost held her breath as she opened the door silently and crept out into the hall. Stella possessed no knowledge of any back stairway, but the dim light enabled her to advance in comparative quiet. ...
— The Strange Case of Cavendish • Randall Parrish

... The rest of the people in the circles crystallized out into the central space as two apparent sisters and an apparent aunt and the nurse, who was packed off at once to supervise the lamp cleaning. The head of the family found some difficulty, it would seem, in readjusting his mind to the comparative innocence of Anthony, and Sir Richmond and the young lady on the rock sought as if by common impulse to establish a general conversation. There were faint traces of excitement in her manner, as though there had ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells

... first case taken from the Arunta a comparison of them shows that it is not among this tribe that the greatest number of forms common to the whole group and the greatest general resemblance of the names is to be found, as is shown by the comparative tables below. Judged by the standard of resemblance the Oolawunga of the north-west, on the Victoria River, have preserved the names nearest their original forms. Judged by the standard of least deviation from the common stock of names ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas

... strongly against every principle of nature, of moral right and wrong, seems to have felt the force of this remark. Their learned men have been employed in writing volumes on the subject, the principal aim of which appears to be that of impressing on the minds of the people the comparative authority of the Emperor over his subjects and of a parent over his children. The reasonableness and justice of the latter being once established, that of the former, in a patriarchal government, followed of course; and the extent of the power delegated to the one could not in justice be withheld ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow

... may be attained with comparative ease, it performs a lofty philosophical function. Everything rusts by use. Our moral ideals grow mouldy if preached too much; our stories stale if told too often. Conventionality is but a living death. The other side of everything ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... so. There must be a pleasure in counting the contents of one's till every night. Boxon! Of course, a mere brute. There came into Will's memory the picture of Boxon landed on the pavement one night, by Allchin's fist or toe—and of a sudden he laughed. When he had half-smoked his pipe, comparative calmness fell upon him. Sherwood spoke of at once raising the money he owed, and, if he succeeded in doing so, much of the mischief would be undone. The four thousand pounds might be safely invested somewhere, and life at The Haws would go on as usual. But ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing

... would be quickly sent to the naval authorities at Devonport. The necessity for secrecy also prevented him from making use of the wireless: not that the message would be deciphered, but because the origin of the message could be fixed with comparative certainty by any of the British wireless stations that "picked up" ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... factors; volume and head of water; flexibility; reliability; power conditions; mechanical efficiency; capital outlay. Systems of drainage,—steam pumps, compressed-air pumps, electrical pumps, rod-driven pumps, bailing; comparative value of ...
— Principles of Mining - Valuation, Organization and Administration • Herbert C. Hoover

... since he came into public life; than which nothing is more detrimental to the unfolding of natural ability, while it induces a sort of artificial talent, connected with forms and technicalities, which, though useful in business, is but of minor consequence in a comparative estimate of moral and intellectual qualities. I am told that in his manner he resembles Mr. Pitt; be this, however, as it may, he is evidently a speaker, formed more by habit and imitation, than one whom nature prompts to be eloquent. He lacks that occasional ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt

... chatted on for the remainder of the afternoon. I had taken him out on the balcony: there were an awning and some chairs, and we could sit there in comparative privacy looking down on the passers-by. Aunt Philippa was nodding again: we could hear her regular breathing behind us: poor woman! she was worn out with bustle and gaiety. I was thankful that a grand horticultural fete kept all the aunts and cousins away, with the exception of the ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... knowledge may be instilled by compulsory tasks; but to form the scholar, to really educate the man, there should intervene between the years of compulsory study and the active duties of life a season of comparative leisure. By leisure I mean, not cessation of activity, but self-determined activity,—command of one's ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various

... light reflected from water as it showed in patches here and there. It matched and continued the pale green light of the heavens, as though the sky had flowed down and through the blackness of the marshes. The wind came now in heavy gusts, succeeded by intervals of comparative calm. During these intervals could be heard the cries of ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... last the Varmint II again turned from the course and with a wide sweep started across the river there had been no sure test of the comparative speed of ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay

... create than an inflamed gallbladder or the sensations accompanying the passing of a gall stone. I hear from kidney patients that passing a kidney stone is worse but I've never had a patient who experienced both kinds of stones to give me an honest comparative evaluation. ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon

... idleness than a call to professional occupation and improvement. Nelson therefore was sent by his careful guardian to a merchant-ship trading to the West Indies, to learn upon her, as a foremast hand, the elements of his profession, under conditions which, from the comparative fewness of the crew and the activity of the life, would tend to develop his powers most rapidly. In this vessel he imbibed, along with nautical knowledge, the prejudice which has usually existed, more or less, in the merchant marine against the naval service, due probably to ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... formed the principal part of road-making among the early settlers for many a day. At these annual road-making gatherings opportunity was offered for discussion of the news, politics, religion, war, the state of the crops, comparative advantages of the new country over the old, and so forth, but the principal opportunities, recurring every week, were the hours after Sunday church services. I remember hearing long talks on the wonderful beauty of the Indian corn; the wonderful melons, so wondrous fine for "sloken ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... these general characteristics of all great poets he added a special one of his own; a gift, namely, of happy, abundant, and ingenious expression, eminent and unrivalled: so eminent as irresistibly to strike the attention first in him and even to throw into comparative shade his other excellences as a poet. Here has been the mischief. These other excellences were his fundamental excellences, as a poet; what distinguishes the artist from the mere amateur, says Goethe, is Architectonice ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... reclaimed rubber is a matter of common knowledge to all who are familiar with the rubber industry, there are nowhere available any statistics of either the absolute or comparative volume of its consumption, with the single exception of the official returns of imports into Canada. There separate accounts are kept of crude India rubber and of recovered rubber received in each year, and as only a consuming market exists for these commodities ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... already indicated, to nothing more than a (sometimes) personified force of nature, principle of order, or abstract conception—not a God. Take away the inaccurate and misleading terms by which the original Greek is rendered in most of the English versions, in which the enthusiasm of the student of comparative religions has taken the place of the careful and accurate translator, and, aside from frequent apostrophes, such as are continually addressed by the poets to the many gods of the popular religion, the end of the arguments ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole

... effective instrument of propaganda has ever been devised. And in considering the question whether or no the Russians will be able after organizing their military defence to tackle with similar comparative success the much more difficult problem of industrial rebirth, the existence of such instruments, the use of such propaganda is a factor not to be neglected. In the spring of this year, when the civil ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... me mad. A fire occurred in Broadway the night of my arrival, and the din of the mobs which ran to its relief was greater than all the combined clamors of Europe. So I resorted to a beautiful village called Wyoming, in the heart of the Susquehanna mountains, and passed the month of September in comparative quiet. If any place in the world is shut in from brawls and storms, it is this historic valley. Its reminiscences were sad and painful to me, but its scenes were ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... recognition of the incentive, and an appreciation of the effect which he has been directed to produce or has adopted on his own initiative. To complete the basis for his solution, he also requires an understanding of comparative resources as influenced by the conditions obtaining ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College

... considered merely as a piece of construction, is weak and barbarous compared with the two others. For instance, in the case of a large window or door, such as fig. 1, if you have at your disposal a single large and long stone you may indeed roof it in the Greek manner, as you have done here, with comparative security; but it is always expensive to obtain and to raise to their place stones of this large size, and in many places nearly impossible to obtain them at all: and if you have not such stones, and still insist upon roofing the space in the Greek way, that ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin

... makes use of the imagination for its agencies. Fancy, intuition, and the train that follows the inner vision, these make of night a phantasmagoria, compared to which Milton's inferno is a place of comparative repose. ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan

... was prevalent, leading men to faith in and worship of a Being or Beings infinitely greater than themselves, present with them and presiding, though invisibly, over their destinies. The study of Comparative Religion has shown how nearly the primeval inhabitants of lands widely distant from each other were at one in the views they had come to entertain. Hymns, prayers, precepts, and traditions are found in the sacred books of the great religions of the East, and archaeologists have deciphered ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds

... and agreeable to live with. This added to Elizabeth's conviction that the difficulty had been somewhat within herself. She ceased to ask for the things which caused friction, and there was a season of comparative peace. ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... increased circulation of notes would bring great relief. At the beginning of the session of Congress, President Grant had clearly intimated that he had come to the same conclusion. He said in his annual message: "In view of the great actual contraction that has taken place in the currency, and the comparative contraction continuously going on, due to the increase of manufactures and all the industries, I do not believe there is too much of it now for the dullest period of the year. Indeed, if clearing-houses should be established, thus forcing redemption, it is a question for your consideration ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... by the toilet table and the candle, and set the rushlight at her foot. Something - it might be in the comparative disorder of her dress, it might be the emotion that now welled in her bosom - had touched her with a wand of transformation, and she seemed young with the youth ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... viewing her unmanageable puff determinedly for a few minutes, saw her mistake, and immediately went to work and finished it with no trouble. Kat, after much grumbling, finally brought her tooth to comparative submission, and went to sleep, while Kittie fled from the field of fractions, and spent her morning in the swing, which hung ...
— Six Girls - A Home Story • Fannie Belle Irving

... these meritorious persons as less entitled to attention than their more showy companions; just as schoolmasters are, not unnaturally, disposed to devote most of their time to the cleverest boys, to the comparative neglect of those who cluster round the point of mediocrity. It may, however, be easily conceived that the persons least attended to, afloat as well as on shore, often stand more in need of notice and assistance than their gifted brethren, who are better able to make their own consequence ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... was over, or at least when it was cut short (for it will never be over), I went away with one of my companions, who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House of Commons, where the police ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton

... but a dim understanding. But it soon appeared that the gentlemen's dressing-gowns, which were among her commodities, were objects of such general attention and inquiry, and excited so troublesome a curiosity as to their lining and comparative merits, together with a determination to test them by trying on, as to make her post a very conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of their own to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the frivolity and bad taste of this masculine ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... Confederate flotilla at Elizabeth City, and the affair at Winton, the Union fleet remained quietly at anchor off Roanoke Island, or made short excursions up the little rivers emptying into the sounds. Over a month passed in comparative inaction, as the ships were awaiting supplies and particularly ammunition. When finally the transports from New York arrived, and the magazines of the war-vessels were filled with shot and shell and gunpowder, they again turned their attention to the enemy. The victories already won had ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... was Aileen, still, according to her mother's account, very ill, and almost speechless. Under the shadow of such a tragedy it seemed to him amazing that a mother could find words in which to tell her daughter's story to a comparative stranger. Lady Blanche appeared to him an ill-balanced and foolish woman; a prey, on the one hand, to various obscure jealousies and antagonisms, and on the other to a romantic and sentimental temper which, once roused, gloried in despising "the world," ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... noon he found himself dull, melancholy, and disconsolate, before the sign of the "Pig and Whistle," on the Westerham road, where, after wetting his own whistle with a pint of half-and-half, he again journeyed onward, ruminating on the uncertainty and mutability of all earthly affairs, the comparative merits of stag-, fox-, and hare-hunting, and the necessity of getting rid of the day somehow or other in ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees

... this period of comparative inactivity in port, followed by monotonous though arduous winter cruising off Toulon, which was broken only by equally dreary stays at San Fiorenzo, that Nelson found time to brood over the neglect of which he thought himself ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... the bones associated with the adductor mechanism; the area behind the orbit in Dimetrodon is relatively shorter, reducing the comparative longitudinal extent of the adductor chamber. Furthermore, the dermal roof above the adductor chamber slopes gently downward from behind the orbit to its contact with the occipital plate in Dimetrodon. Temporal fenestrae are, of course, ...
— The Adductor Muscles of the Jaw In Some Primitive Reptiles • Richard C. Fox

... we able to cook a specially abundant dinner and drown our past troubles in a bucketful of boiling tea, but we also managed to dry our clothes and blankets. The relief of this warmth was wonderful, and in our comparative happiness we forgot the hardships and sufferings we had so far encountered. With the exception of a handful of sato, this was the first solid meal we had had for forty-eight hours. In those two days we had travelled twenty miles, each of us carrying a weight averaging ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... thou take this place, O Prince?" asked the Shaykh, who was proud of his company, and their comparative good order. ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... nowhere else but behind the footlights and in the condensed falseness of some grossly tragic situation. It was almost impossible to remember who he was—only a petty chief of a conveniently isolated corner of Mindanao, where we could in comparative safety break the law against the traffic in firearms and ammunition with the natives. What would happen should one of the moribund Spanish gun-boats be suddenly galvanized into a flicker of active life did not trouble us, once we were inside the bay—so completely did it appear out of ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad

... consent with little difficulty. When they visited her, for that purpose, she had just been reading for the first time the life of Mrs. Judson; and the example of this excellent lady had so interested her that when the project was laid before her she listened with comparative calmness, and, though somewhat astonished, was willing they should go where duty led them. This in some measure relieved Mrs. White, and with a lightened heart and more composure she set ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... occupation. "And are you really going away from here to be an amanuensis?" he said, and started her upon the theme of herself, a theme she treated with a specialist's enthusiasm. They dealt with it by the comparative methods and neither noticed the light was out of the sky until the soft feet of the advancing shower had stolen right ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells

... crosses and difficulties, when she marries, what is it but to exchange a life of comparative ease and comfort for one of toil and uncertainty? Perhaps, too, the lover, for whom, in the fondness of her nature, she has committed herself to fortune's freaks, turns out a worthless churl, the dissolute, hard-hearted husband of low life; who, taking to the alehouse, leaves ...
— Bracebridge Hall • Washington Irving

... he minds that part of it; no, I left him in comparative comfort. I think his trouble is about you. And he ought to have come here!—but people don't always know what they ought to do. I am going down there again presently to look after him and make sure that Gotham ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner

... the solemn imbecilities one hears, surely the most foolish is this, that we are in "an age of specialisation." The comparative fruitfulness and hopefulness of our social order, in comparison with any other social system, lies in its flat contradiction of that absurdity. Our medical and surgical advances, for example, are almost entirely due to the invasion of medical research ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells

... fires at their backs. We still our breathing to catch the full grandeur of the volleys that are to tear them to shreds. Minute after minute passes and the sound does not come. Then for the first time we note that the silence of the whole region is not comparative, but absolute. Have we become stone deaf? See; here comes a stretcher-bearer, and there a surgeon! ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... killed them; and when any one became sick, Adam Donald supplied a remedy either by charms or herbs. Every Sunday, for many years, people of all classes crowded to consult him either as a necromancer or physician. His fee seldom exceeded sixpence for each consultation, yet he lived in comparative comfort. ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... employ myself usefully, and at the same time avoid giving offence. Better days will soon arrive, which will enable me to return to Madrid and reopen my shop; till then, however, I should wish to pursue my labours in comparative obscurity. ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... their power; and in that view it would, I think, be desirable to circulate short forms of prayer for family use. Many such have lately been published; and, whatever difference of opinion may be entertained as to the comparative merits of extempore or liturgical prayer for the public worship of the church, there can be no question that in many instances a form must be very useful, and often essential at the commencement, at least, of cottage worship. I have known cases where it has been ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... ADJECTIVE ends in "a". Case and number as with the substantive. The Comparative is made by means of the word "pli", the Superlative by "plej"; with the Comparative the conjunction "ol" ...
— The Esperanto Teacher - A Simple Course for Non-Grammarians • Helen Fryer

... truth does the dramatic Bard raise the veil and exhibit to us the imagination of this retired girl, bred up in all the deep earnestness of mind that a country life and comparative seclusion could induce, dwelling and brooding over the form of one individual brought into intimate association with her, 'seeing him every hour' where she had little else to interest her, nor any thing to contemplate, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various

... any of his queries, and burying her face in her pillow, she wept with convulsive and irrepressible violence. At length the very vehemence of her grief seemed, by exhausting itself, to restore her to comparative calm: her tears ceased to flow, her heavy sobs no longer shook her frame, and she remained for some time perfectly quiet and silent. At ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... reached the first tree of a long row of poplars. The row started from the farm and bordered the road we were following up to about 100 yards from the outer wall. By slipping along from one tree to another he would be able to get near in comparative safety. Suddenly I saw him stop quickly and, standing up in his stirrups, look ...
— In the Field (1914-1915) - The Impressions of an Officer of Light Cavalry • Marcel Dupont

... power of the segment of a glass sphere had been noted by Alhazen, who had observed also that the magnification was increased by increasing the size of the segment used. Bacon took up the discussion of the comparative advantages of segments, and in this discussion seems to show that he understood how to trace the progress of the rays of light through a spherical transparent body, and how to determine the place of the image. He ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... dismissal, however had gone through the oracle of the Horse Guards, and to withdraw was impossible. Captain Leper then found employment for him at Bradford in looking after the orderly-room, &c., and with his remuneration from this source, and a small army pension, the ex-drill-sergeant managed to live in comparative comfort. ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... greater part of the 19th century it was obscured by the series of national upheavals which have remodelled the map of Europe; yet it underlay all the efforts of diplomacy to stay or to direct the elemental forces let loose by the Revolution, and with the restoration of comparative calm it has once more emerged as the motive for the various political alliances of which the ostensible object is the preservation of peace ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various

... history has handed down to us. But, of all matters which interested Cicero, the governance of men interested him the most. How should the great Rome of his day rise to greater power than ever, and yet be as poor as in the days of her comparative insignificance? How should Rome be ruled so that Romans might be the masters of the world, in mental gifts as well as bodily strength, in arts as well as in arms—as by valor, so by virtue? He, too, was an oligarch by strongest conviction. His mind could conceive nothing ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope

... good-natured, sociable, and civil, complaining of the heat. He had rings on his fingers of great weight of metal, and one of them had a seal for letters; brooches at the bosom, three in a row, up and down; also a gold watch-guard, with a seal appended. Talks of the comparative price of living, of clothes, etc., here and in Europe. Tells of the prices of wines by the cask and pipe. Champagne, he says, is drunk of better quality here than where it grows.—A vendor of patent medicines, Doctor Jaques, makes acquaintance with me, ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... you know what that means. Then he took to working off bogus gold propositions on Kimberley and Johannesburg magnates, and what he didn't know about salting a mine wasn't knowledge. After that he was in the Kalahari, where he and Scotty Smith were familiar names. An era of comparative respectability dawned for him with the Matabele War, when he did uncommon good scouting and transport work. Cecil Rhodes wanted to establish him on a stock farm down Salisbury way, but Peter was ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan

... hast the most unsavoury similes, and art, indeed, the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince,—But, Hal, I pr'ythee trouble me no more with vanity. I would to God thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the Council rated me the other day in the street about you, sir,—but ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]



Words linked to "Comparative" :   farthermost, less, adverb, earliest, utmost, nearer, more, worse, adjective, finer, relational, furthermost, compare, farthest, furthest, better, uttermost, comparison, absolute, earlier, best, closer, more than, fewer, nigher



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