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Negative   /nˈɛgətɪv/   Listen
Negative

noun
1.
A reply of denial.
2.
A piece of photographic film showing an image with light and shade or colors reversed.



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"Negative" Quotes from Famous Books



... extracted from this street youth, who would, Neale was sure, know of anything odd happening around this section of Milton, were negative. ...
— The Corner House Girls Growing Up - What Happened First, What Came Next. And How It Ended • Grace Brooks Hill

... Belfast is, or should be, enough to negative all arguments in favour of Home Rule. The agitators say that Ireland is decaying from political causes, while all the while this Ulster town is getting richer and more powerful and influential. While the people of Cork are begging the Viceroy to please to do something for ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... slightly modified form the same system was applied to the fore-and-aft balance. The main aeroplane was set at a positive angle, and a horizontal tail at a negative angle, while the center of gravity was placed far forward. As in the case of lateral control, there was a tendency to constant undulation, and the very forces which caused a restoration of balance in calms caused a disturbance of the ...
— The Early History of the Airplane • Orville Wright

... without even leaving the least idea behind. I must, in spite of the worthiest education, have had a strong tendency to degenerate." The truth was that he had never had any education in its veritable sense, as the process, on its negative side, of counteracting the inborn. There are two kinds, or perhaps we should more correctly say two degrees, of the constitution in which the reflective part is weak. There are the men who live on ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley

... Mrs. Owl was at home, and very much disliked being disturbed. Unlike the larger owls, she refused to fly away, and I had to lift her repeatedly from the eggs that I might take the picture. As sometimes happens, the negative was a failure; and returning the next week to try for better luck, I found safely curled up within the cavity an opossum. The eggs and mother bird were not in evidence, and the "possum" told no tales. Similar experiences have often occurred to me when I have returned for better views or ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... profoundly—a coarseness not of the social so much as of the spiritual nature—in a word, genuine selfishness; whereas this quality was rather less remarkable in those who had less to be selfish about. I do not say therefore that they had less of it.—I soon saw that their profanity had chiefly a negative significance; but it was long before I could get sufficiently accustomed to their vileness, their beastliness—I beg the beast's pardon!—to keep from leaving the room when a vein of that sort was opened. But I succeeded in schooling myself to bear it. 'For,' thought I, 'there ...
— Adela Cathcart - Volume II • George MacDonald

... were so inextricably entangled. Indeed, on the first arrival of the news, that men of high rank had been arrested in Brussels, the Cardinal eagerly inquired if the Taciturn had been taken, for by that term he always characterized the Prince. Receiving a negative reply, he expressed extreme disappointment, adding, that if Orange had escaped, they had taken nobody; and that his capture would have been more valuable than that of every man ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... negative as a charging grizzly," Crane snorted and headed for the door as though his air ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... Central America were occupied at the time of the Spanish conquest; and, second, whether or not the present Indians of the country are the descendants of the people who constructed them. There is no basis whatever for the negative of either proposition; but it is assumed by those who regard the so-called palace at Palenque and the Governor's House at Uxmal as the ancient residences of Indian potentates that great cities which once surrounded them have perished, ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan

... old. I abandoned my waist-line to Nature's will and my face settled into the expression of a good negative that has been blurred by too long exposure to a strong light. Toward the end William looked like the skin-and-bones remnant of a saint. His face was sunken and hollowed out till the very Wesley in him showed through. His beard was ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris

... police. "When they were seated alone in his bureau,—Madame," said he, "you have position, conversational talent, and wield the pen effectively; are you disposed to exert this influence, henceforth, in behalf of, instead of against the government?" Before her indignant negative was fairly uttered, he opened a drawer that seemed full of Napoleons, and glanced at them and her significantly. Thus Montesquieu's observation continues true:—"The individual who would attempt to judge of the government by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... while to put the negative. The accused have heard the verdict, which is that Mr. Bidwell shall not drink a drop of anything except water or coffee for a period of four days, dating from this moment, while Mr. Ruggles is to undergo the same penalty for a period of ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis

... criticism of Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the relativity of knowledge and of the speculations concerning the Infinite and Absolute based upon the writings of Hamilton and Mansel. I have been restricted, also, to the negative side of the question, but so far as inconceivability enters as a factor into the argument against Religion, I contend that it has broken down; that so far as that element affects the problem, Religion has ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 19, June, 1891 • Various

... and insert the words "and House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President, and the members of each State shall have one vote," and this was adopted by ten States in the affirmative to one State in the negative. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... my dear. But I can't help thinking this is a negative thing. If you had something to do—something that would interest you so much you ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles

... the Spirit" will do His part. The tempting expedient is, in haste for abrupt or visible progress, to try some method less spiritual, or to defeat the end by watching for effects instead of keeping the eye on the Cause. A photograph prints from the negative only while exposed to the sun. While the artist is looking to see how it is getting on he simply stops the getting on. Whatever of wise supervision the soul may need, it is certain it can never be over-exposed, or that, being exposed, anything else in the world can improve the result or quicken ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... her wish produced it. Clara held it in the light of the fire, and regarded the pencilled words closely. Then she inquired if he wished to keep it, and on his answering in the negative threw it to be burnt. Hewett took her hand, and for a while ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... something—alcohol in the case we are considering—which not only exerts a negative chemiotaxic action—i. e., which drives the leucocyte away—but which, as we have seen, also causes degeneration of nerve, muscle and epithelial cells, shall we not injure the infected patient both directly and indirectly by interfering with the return of the leucocytes driven away, by diminishing ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... peremptorily refuse Weissenfels, and take to a bed of sickness; inexpugnable there, for the moment. Baireuth is but a weak middle term; and there are disagreements on it. Answer from England, affirmative or even negative, we have yet none. Promptly affirmative, that might still avail, and be an honorable outcome. Perhaps better pause till that arrive, and declare itself?—Friedrich Wilhelm knows nothing of the Villa mission, of the urgencies that have been used in England: but, in present ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle

... is proverbially hard to prove a negative, and my main reason for believing I did not say the thing about figs and grapes is that I never could remember the whole of any proverb in conversation; but I am absolutely certain I never said that 'some of them (the National Leaguers) expect to found an Irish republic on ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... hereupon, to nod my head twice—once in the negative, meaning thereby that I would prefer not taking the other bottle at present—and once in the affirmative, intending thus to imply that I was sober and had positively come to my senses. By these means I somewhat softened ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... provided with a more stated ministry, and that thus men in every corner of the land might attain some knowledge of the truths of our holy religion, as well as some feeling of godliness. (4) Finally, the bishop in all episcopal churches, so far as my knowledge extends, is allowed to claim a negative voice in synods of his clergy, and can in no case be taken under discipline and judged by them, but only by a synod of his own order; while the superintendent in the Scottish Church was merely the permanent Moderator of Synod, and was bound to give effect to the decision of the majority, or ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... Falchion had risen. She said that she had not: that she had been told of the disaster, and had appeared shocked; but had complained of a headache, and had not risen. I then asked Justine if Mrs. Falchion had been told who the suicide was, and was answered in the negative. At that moment a lady came to me and said in an awed whisper: "Dr. Marmion, is it true that the man who committed suicide was a second- class passenger, and that he appeared at the ball last night, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... bill becomes a law without his sanction. If his objections be not thus overruled, the subject is only postponed, and is referred to the States and the people for their consideration and decision. The President's power is negative merely, and not affirmative. He can enact no law. The only effect, therefore, of his withholding his approval of a bill passed by Congress is to suffer the existing laws to remain unchanged, and the delay occasioned is only that required to enable the States and the people ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... little expense and some trouble we might make her an object for John Bull's admiration in the juvenile tragedy. I have sounded the fair lady on the subject of a London engagement. She proposes to append a very long family, to which I have given a decided negative. If she accepts the offered terms I shall sign, seal and ship herself and clan off from Cork direct. She is very pretty, and so, in fact, is her brogue, which, by the way, she only uses in conversation. She totally forgets ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... quietly closed the window and sat down as if I had not heard her; but I was so furious with rage that I could hardly restrain myself. That cold silence, that negative force, exasperated me to the last point. Had I been really deceived and convinced of the guilt of a woman I loved I could not have suffered more. As I had condemned myself to remain in Paris, I reflected that I must compel ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset

... are miracles of rapid construction. The business is overshadowing all other activities. A leading merchant of Detroit asked a contractor the other day if he could do some work for him. On receiving a negative reply, he asked the reason, whereupon the man said: "These automobile people keep me so busy that I can't do anything else. I have a year's ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... on it ever since this morning," Tom was saying. "We checked him from here to breakfast, and the record is absolutely negative. Same for the elevator operator. The barber is a wanderer, never stays in one shop for long. He's hunting another job right now. The machine is his, and it's the only one of its kind. We sent Mike Malone in for a treatment. He says the machine is good. Apparently it's nothing but a hood ...
— The Electronic Mind Reader • John Blaine

... smiling face. The absence of her whom at that moment he valued above all else was so sad to him that he ventured one last attempt, and after the meal he sent little Luc to see if his mother would receive him. The child returned with a reply in the negative. "Mamma is resting.... She does not wish to be disturbed." So the matter was irremissible. She would not see her husband until the morrow—if he lived. For vainly did Boleslas convince himself that afternoon that he had lost none of his skill in practising before his admiring ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget

... disciples. He was deeply interested in every phase of life. While his point of view was somewhat similar to that of Koheleth, his outlook was thoroughly optimistic. His teachings were positive rather than negative. His faith was that of the fathers, and his purpose constructive. Out of the wealth of teachings inherited from the past, and also out of his own personal experience and observation, he sought to inspire right ideals in the young and to develop them into happy and efficient servants of God and ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent

... at a wine table, when the company are over-excited, must be answered for; and if the party insulting have no recollection of the insult, it is his duty to say so in writing, and negative the insult. For instance, if the man say: "you are a liar and no gentleman," he must, in addition to the plea of the want of recollection, say: "I believe the party insulted to be a man of the strictest veracity and ...
— The Code of Honor • John Lyde Wilson

... principles of Lutheranism; but, as is ever the case with those set adrift on the sea of doubt, freed from the anchor of faith, the definite character of his belief was shipwrecked in a confusion of ideas. At length he lapsed into the negative deism of the French infidels, just then commencing to gain ground in France. He joined them, too, in open blasphemies against God and plotting against the stability of the Government. The blood chills ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly

... promised an account of Spaniard's Cave on Nipple-Top Mountain in the Adirondacks, if such a cave exists, and could be found. There is none but negative evidence that this is a mere cave of the imagination, the void fancy of a vacant hour; but it is the duty of the historian to present the negative testimony of a fruitless expedition in search of it, made last summer. I beg leave to offer this in the simple language befitting ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... could adequately meet; the country, in her adverse hour, must have his services; the King desired them, solicited them. With a remarkable degree of reticence he declined all these overtures, and in a letter addressed to his sovereign gave a most respectful, but decided negative. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various

... he would have, without hesitation, sacrificed his most lively wishes to the appearances which it was important to give himself. Some words on the character of this man. He was a son of the grand family of misers. Avarice is, above all, a negative, passive passion. Yet Jacques Ferrand risked, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue

... the threshold of a peace restored, we must pray that out of the epic experience of the great conflict something more than the stern negative of our victory shall be preserved for the time to come, something positive of good, something of that divine light of men's heroic sacrifice which shone out in the darkest hour, something of new strength and understanding of life ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell

... or dissembling whatever he wished —Cujuslibet, rei simulator ac dissimulator. "Dissimulation is the negative, when a man lets fall signs and arguments, that he is not that he is; simulation is the affirmative, when a man industriously and expressly feigns and pretends to be that he ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust

... is determined by the laws of the state, family discipline, and social custom. For that reason his vices on the positive side will mostly be those of his appetites, and on the negative side a want of charity and compassion. He may be guiltless of lying and stealing, murder and violence; he may be honest and law-abiding; but there is nothing to make him temperate, continent, or gentle. His avowed code is "duty," and duty is ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker

... to be divided; first, into the life of the box which contains the plates. This box, if appropriately constructed of the best materials, will last many years, because there is no actual wear on it. The life of the negative plates will be very considerable, because no chemical action is going on in the negative plate. The negative plate consists almost entirely of spongy lead, and the hydrogen is mechanically occluded in that spongy lead. Therefore the depreciation ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various

... of my interview with the Emperor, then, I referred to the archbishop, and congratulated the monarch on having so accomplished and devoted a prelate in his church. At this he said, "You speak Russian, then?" to which I answered in the negative. "But," he said, "how then could you talk with the archbishop?" I answered, "He spoke in French." The Emperor seemed greatly surprised at this, and well he might be, for the ecclesiastics in Russia seem the only exceptions to the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... Raleigh, he dispatched to Grant, through a staff officer at New Berne, a brief report of the "full and frank interchange of opinions" with Johnston. "He evidently seeks to make terms for Jeff. Davis and his cabinet," he said. The adjournment was mentioned with its reason; and to negative any thought that he might neglect military advantages by the delay, he said, "We lose nothing in time, as by agreement both armies stand still, and the roads are drying up, so that if I am forced to pursue, we will be able to make better speed. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... Breton made a negative gesture. "Monsieur," timidly, "I do not want money, and I could never grow accustomed to a new master. I was born at the chateau in Perigny. My mother was your nurse and she loved you. I know your ways ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath

... "Negative demonstration at Gaba Tepe, 19th. Will you come to Tenedos and see me to-morrow. We have had disastrous day owing either to floating mines or torpedoes from shore tubes fired at long range. H.M.S. Irresistible and Bouvet sunk. H.M.S. Ocean still afloat, but probably lost. H.M.S. Inflexible ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... lockup, blackhole, or penitentiary—presents us with such a set of impenitents and irreclaimable thieves as those who write books. Theft is their profession, and gets them the dishonest bread by which they live. These may always read the eighth commandment by leaving the negative out, and then take it in an injunctive sense. Such persons, in prosecuting another for stealing a book, cannot come into court with clean hands. Felons in literature, therefore, appear here with a very bad grace in prosecuting others ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... Governor, to declare that the ulterior object of the French Canadian politicians was "the separation of this country from England, and the establishment of a republican form of government," and who met the imaginary demand with a sharp and scornful negative, would soon have brought Canada to the verge of ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan

... exclaiming, "if this is all we can look forward to, if this is all that real, practicable happiness amounts to, is life worth living?" That is a question which each person has to answer for himself. If he answers it in the negative, no argument, no persuasion, no sentimentalisation of the facts of life, will make him alter his opinion. Most people, however, answer it in the affirmative. Despite all the drawbacks, despite all the endless disappointments, ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett

... from the salvage money for what sums they had expended on the present cruise, explaining, however, that he wasn't particular on his own account. The question was argued and finally decided in the negative. As Phil put it, what they had spent would have been spent in any case, whether they had gone on the cruise or stayed at home, and they had all received full value for their contributions. Still planning, they went back to the boats and spent the rest of the ...
— The Adventure Club Afloat • Ralph Henry Barbour

... without importance in the world of thought, literature, or education. Their intellectual and material poverty, lack of business enterprise, unfavorable situation, and defenseless position in the eyes of the law rendered them almost a negative factor in the later life of New England. No great movement can be traced to their initiation, no great leader to birth within their borders, and no great work of art, literature, or scholarship to ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews

... forms the positive electrode, and with this plate the positive wire of the electric circuit is connected. The outer end of the retort is closed by means of an inverted graphite crucible, D, to which the negative wire of the electric circuit is attached. The graphite crucible serves as a plug for closing the end of the retort. It also forms a condensing chamber for the zinc fumes, and it also constitutes the negative electrode. The term "electrode" is used in this case as designating ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various

... know, in the second place, the clouds are very good fellows, and share with each other the good things they possess. When one cloud meets another, the one over-supplied with this fluid and the other in its normal state, there is an immediate interchange of courtesies, the negative electricity of the one is exchanged for the ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien

... point, jamais, plus, guere, rien, personne, pas un, que, aucun, nul, ni.-Order of negative particles with infinitive.—Omission of pas after savoir, pouvoir, cesser, oser.—Que introducing oui, non, etc., after verbs of saying, thinking and the like.—Idioms: aller chercher, envoyer chercher, ...
— French Conversation and Composition • Harry Vincent Wann

... success I had during that visit to England. I went to Smith, Elder, & Co. to ask if I could not get anything for the shilling edition of "Tender and True," and was answered in the negative; but I had not talked ten minutes with Mr. Williams before he said that if I would put these ideas into shape, he thought he could get an article accepted by The Cornhill Magazine. "An Australian's Impressions ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence

... the same tongue, leading the same life, cherishing the same habits, entertaining the same wholesome or unwholesome hatred of all civilisation, and now, as then, utterly devoid of even the simplest rudiments of religious belief. His whole attitude of mind is negative. To him all who are not Gipsies, like himself, are 'Gorgios,' and to the true Gipsy a 'Gorgio' is as hateful as is a 'cowan' to a Freemason. It would be interesting to speculate whether, when the Romany folk first began their wanderings, the 'Gorgios' were not—as ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith

... replied in a somewhat ambiguous speech. Annexation, he said, had not yet received the sanction of Great Britain, and could not until improvement in the administration had taken place. But beyond this negative attitude of disapproval, Sir Edward Grey seemed to think that Great Britain could not wisely act alone, and that under the Berlin Act isolated action was in some measure barred. This, in the temper of the moment, was construed as a hint that insistence on reform ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... he might have escaped. He was a negative sort of a being at best; and no one, save Logan and the girl, either hated him or loved him greatly, tender and true as he was. They both implored him to slip between the fingers of the soldiers and not go to the Reservation. But he would not think of being separated from his sister. Poor, ...
— Shadows of Shasta • Joaquin Miller

... procedure against witches was negative rather than positive: the enactments in the statute-books were left unrepealed, and so seemed not to altogether discountenance a still somewhat doubtful prejudice. It was so late as in the ninth year of the reign of George II., 1736, that the Witch Act of 1604 was formally and ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... at least the negative invitation of desuetude. It showed no lights; had not an open window—so far as could be determined by straining sight aided only by a faint reflection from the livid skies. One felt warranted in assuming the premises to be vacant. Encouraging surmise! ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... of electricity, positive and negative; and these have a pugnacious tendency. A, a student, goes up to the College positive he shall pass; B, an examiner, thinks his abilities negative, and flummuxes him accordingly. A afterwards meets B alone, in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... down on a cool surface (e. g., a glass slide). The rapid cooling of the air in the clean end of the pipette creates a negative pressure, and the blood is sucked back into the pipette, leaving the soiled end free from blood. Seal this end in ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... quivering candle, with her finger to her mouth, there appeared his aunt. He looked at her coldly as she came across the room towards him. He had never felt any affection for her because she had always seemed to him weak and useless—a frightened, miserable, vacillating, negative person—even when he had been a very small boy he had despised her. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, her grey and scanty hair had fallen about her collar, her old black blouse was unbuttoned at the top ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole

... observed to him that it was plain what Mr. Osmond was thinking of, Ralph replied that he was quite of her opinion. Mrs. Touchett had from far back found a place on her scant list for this gentleman, though wondering dimly by what art and what process—so negative and so wise as they were—he had everywhere effectively imposed himself. As he had never been an importunate visitor he had had no chance to be offensive, and he was recommended to her by his appearance of being as well ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... want dressmaking going on in the house,' contentedly Vida told off her maid's negative qualifications, 'and I hate having anybody do my hair for me. Wark packs quite beautifully, and then I do like some one ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... a Government one. Now, under such circumstances as these, would it have been proper in me to have breathed a syllable on the subject, until I had obtained the consent of the illustrious personage to whom I have alluded?[10] I call upon my noble relative to answer this question, if he can, in the negative. I beg of my noble relative to ask himself this question, whether I was wrong in having kept secret my views, since the month of July or August, not talking to any man upon the subject, until I had the consent of that exalted personage, to form a Government upon the ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... give, in the affirmative form of speech, the three mental acts that are directed to be avoided. In the original, these are given in the negative form. Absence of coveting the possessions of others is the act that is directed to be followed. So compassion for all creatures is prescribed; and, lastly, the belief is directed to be entertained that acts have fruits, for the Vedas ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... thought that they were following the example of Socrates, (and Cicero appears to have thought so too,) when they reasoned against everything, and laid it down as a system, that against every affirmative position an equal force of negative argument could be brought as a counterpoise: now this view of Socrates is, in my judgment, not only partial, but incorrect. He entertained no such doubts of the powers of the mind to attain certainty. About physics he thought man could ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... home; or they would both be out; or perhaps have gone down to their river cottage. Cramier! What cruel demon had presided over that marring of her life! Why had he never met her till after she had bound herself to this man! From a negative contempt for one who was either not sensitive enough to recognize that his marriage was a failure, or not chivalrous enough to make that failure bear as little hardly as possible on his wife, he had come already to jealous hatred as of a monster. To be face ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... concerned with historical so much as practical Christianity. Its object was to point a moral: and it did this in two ways; either as an affirmative, constructive inculcator of what life should be,—as the portrayer of the ideal; or as a negative, critical describer of the types of life actually existing,—as the portrayer of the real. It approached more nearly to comedy in its latter function, but in both aspects it really prepared the way for the comic muse. The natural prey of comedy, as our greatest comic writer has ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson

... on which his happiness depended. The vision of the miraculous image was, it may be supposed, uppermost in the mind of Eveline, who, tied down by the solemn vow she had made on that occasion, felt herself constrained to return evasive answers, where she might perhaps have given a direct negative, had her own wishes alone been ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... Fonsegue hasn't yet arrived," resumed Massot; "he's interested in what's going on. However, he's so cunning, that when he doesn't behave as others do, one may be sure that he has his reasons for it. Do you know him?" And as Pierre gave a negative answer, Massot went on: "Oh! he's a man of brains and real power—I speak with all freedom, you know, for I don't possess the bump of veneration; and, as for my editors, well, they're the very puppets that I know the best and pick to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... monetary policies implemented to keep the current account deficit in check and lower export earnings - the latter a product of the global financial crisis. A severe drought exacerbated the recession in 1999, reducing crop yields and causing hydroelectric shortfalls and rationing, and Chile experienced negative economic growth for the first time in more than 15 years. Despite the effects of the recession, Chile maintained its reputation for strong financial institutions and sound policy that have given it the strongest sovereign bond rating in South America. By the end of 1999, exports and economic ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... suppressing all motives of strangeness, all the beauty which is born of difficulty, permitting nothing but an Olympian, though perhaps somewhat wearisome calm. In effect, such a conception of Greek art and poetry leaves in the central expressions of Greek culture none but negative qualities; and the legend of Demeter and Persephone, perhaps the most popular of all Greek legends, is sufficient to show that the "worship of sorrow" was not without its function in Greek religion; their legend is a legend made by and for sorrowful, wistful, anxious ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... self-denial that is undertaken, not for God, and in God for man, but merely to secure one's own peace and well-being—what is this but selfishness after all? Enjoining a rule of life that is essentially negative—the natural product of that blank despair of the world and of human nature which led to the Great Renunciation—Buddhism, as a religious system, has yielded but scanty fruits of positive holiness, ...
— Religion in Japan • George A. Cobbold, B.A.

... differences; because by making resemblances we produce new images; we unite, we create, we enlarge our stock; but in making distinctions we offer no food at all to the imagination; the task itself is more severe and irksome, and what pleasure we derive from it is something of a negative and indirect nature. A piece of news is told me in the morning; this, merely as a piece of news, as a fact added to my stock, gives me some pleasure. In the evening I find there was nothing in it. What do I gain by ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... Play.—We have already noted (page 133) a changing attitude on the part of the rural church toward play and recreation.[65] In the past it has too often been simply a negative condemnation of the so-called "worldly amusements," with no effort to understand the normal cravings of human nature which they satisfy or to furnish any satisfactory substitute for them. It is true that socials of the older classes in the Sunday school and of the young ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... Richmond, and these petitions occasioned considerable debate in both Houses. Several motions were grounded on these petitions, but to those proposed by the Lords and gentlemen in the opposition, were determined in the negative, and others to exculpate the Government in this business were resolved in the affirmative. It appeared upon inquiry, that the American prisoners were allowed a half pound of bread less per day than the French and Spanish prisoners. But the petitions of the Americans ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... all atoms are composed of small heavy protons that are always positive in charge, and larger lighter electrons that are always negative. In Arret the protons were negative, and the electrons positive. The result was two worlds occupying the same space at the same time, yet with matter so essentially and completely different that each world was intangible to the other. They had named the unseen ...
— Devil Crystals of Arret • Hal K. Wells

... prosecution, the side to affirm guilt, that opens the case. The question about government ownership of railroads should be so worded that the affirmative side will advocate the new system, and the negative will uphold the old. It should be stated thus: "Resolved, That all railroads in the United States should be owned and operated by the Federal government." This obligation of adducing evidence and reasoning to support one side of ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee

... answer from Sir Robert Peel in the negative. His reason is non-connection with Upper Canada! A gentleman of the house of Thomas Wilson & Co. gave utterance to a sentiment which singularly contrasted with the selfishness of Sir Robert Peel. He said: Education was the same thing throughout the world, and that was the light in ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson

... We haven't been letting the grass grow under our feet. There's a beautiful negative washing upstairs and a bromide enlargement too, which will be mounted and dried by the time you have ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... came in to see if the fire was burning, to ask her if she wanted anything, to tell her that the wind had shifted from south to west, to ask her if she would like him to gather her some blackberries; to all which inquiries she replied in the negative or ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... to that of a healthy, vigorous tree, set in poor soil and deriving its sustenance from the weakness of the home rulers and the primitive or defective economic conditions of foreign countries. As soon as these negative mediaeval conditions were swept away by the storms of the Reformation the tree gradually but surely fell into decay. With this later stage there is associated the historic tragedy of Juergen Wullenwever, that genial and daring democratic ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... of your individuality show up across the footlights. They are commented upon, and they have to pass muster. Artistically, you and Arlt are as alike as two peas; personally, you are positive, he is negative.'" ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray

... so-called pictorial photographers any 'secrets?' People often ask, 'How are these effects produced?' What is the best method of producing soft, atmospheric pictures? Can a skilled worker take an ordinary hard negative and, by suitable manipulation or the use of soft paper, produce an atmospheric print? Is the medium the secret? Will one paper or developer produce soot and whitewash effects and another a picture? Are soft effects generally produced by manipulation ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1921 • Pictorial Photographers of America

... beauty of old Charleston produced the same negative effect, Southern literature would have suffered a distinct loss—if that may be regarded as lost which has never been possessed. For centuries the Queen of the Sea stood in a vision of splendor, the tumultuous ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... a little apology to Psychoanalysis. It wasn't fair to jeer at the psychoanalytic unconscious; or perhaps it was fair to jeer at the psychoanalytic unconscious, which is truly a negative quantity and an unpleasant menagerie. What was really not fair was to jeer at Psychoanalysis as if Freud had invented and described nothing but an unconscious, in all ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence

... but above all a lover of choice fruit. An arbor is visible, or rather the wreck of an arbor, and under it a table still stands not entirely destroyed by time. At the aspect of this garden that is no more, the negative joys of the peaceful life of the provinces may be divined as we divine the history of a worthy tradesman when we read the epitaph on his tomb. To complete the mournful and tender impressions which seize the soul, on one of the walls ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac

... something corresponding as it were to the brain cell of some transcendent Mind. The idea is to be found in Newton. The thing is a mere guess, it is not an impossibility, and it cannot be excluded from a philosophic system by any negative statement based on scientific fact. In some such sense as that, matter and mind may be, for all we know, eternally and necessarily connected; they can be different aspects of some fundamental unity; and a lofty ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge

... living in this uncertainty, with the memory of her pressed against him always compelling him to put out his arms and draw her again to himself, was intolerable. He would speak, and settle it once for all, nor would he take any compromising negative as a reply. That tone she had used could indicate but one thing, she loved him, and whether she knew it or not, whether she wanted to know it or not, should not matter. He would argue it out with her, showing her ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades

... no be such fools. We had to pull together i' the war to keep frae being destroyed. But noo we've a chance to get something positive—to mak' something profitable and worth while oot of pulling together. Before it was just a negative thing that made us do it. It was fear, in a way. It was the threat that the Hun made against all we held most ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... voted a bounty of 5000 pounds of tobacco to any planter producing 100 pounds of wound silk. There were no claimants. Two years later, the bounty was increased to 10,000 pounds of tobacco and the amount of silk required was reduced to 50 pounds. Again the results were negative. Then a bounty of fifty pounds of tobacco for each pound of silk was ordered. The effects from all these orders are summed up in an act of the General ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier

... cloud passed over the brow of Athos, a haughty smile curled the lip of Porthos, and a negative sign was the reply ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... clutching at the mantel-shelf, shaking with emotion. The sight of her unnerved, almost incoherent, shocked him. He realised the depth of the impression that had been made upon her—deep indeed to produce such a result. But what she asked was impossible. He made a little negative ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... solid eyepieces, give excellent results, and for high powers are often to be preferred to any other. The eyepieces usually furnished with telescopes are, in their essential principles, compound microscopes, and they are of two descriptions, "positive" and "negative." The former generally goes under the name of its inventor, Ramsden, and the latter is named after great Dutch astronomer, Huygens. The Huygens eyepiece consists of two plano-convex lenses whose focal lengths are in the ratio of three to one. The smaller lens ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... a loud chuckle, and a full display of his magnificent teeth, which Frank understood to signify a decided negative. ...
— Ungava • R.M. Ballantyne

... morning he was married. She was a well-meaning girl, though her piety, as with most people, was of the negative order; and her antipathy to things evil much stronger than her sympathy with things good. For a much longer time than I had expected she kept him straight—perhaps, a little too straight. But at last there ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... withdrawal of the female sex. Mohammedan society, thus truncated, incapable of progress. The defects of Mohammedan society.] This ordinance and the practices flowing from it must survive, more or less, so long as the Koran remains the rule of faith. It may appear at first sight a mere negative evil, a social custom comparatively harmless; but in truth it has a more debilitating effect upon the Moslem race perhaps than any thing else, for by it woman is totally withdrawn from her proper place in the social circle. She may, indeed, in the comparatively ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir

... must apparently have occurred, if they occurred at all, at a period not earlier than the XXVI. dynasty, which constitutes a minimum difference of seven hundred years. Yet, in view of the decalogue, with its curious analogy to the negative confession in the Book of the Dead; in view also of a practice surgical and possibly hygienic which, customary among the Egyptians, was adopted by the Jews; in view, further, of ceremonies and symbols peculiarly Egyptian that were also ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus

... not begin to realize how fearfully dangerous is this habit of constantly reiterated negative suggestion. Let me illustrate by an actual incident: A beautiful girl in a near-by state grew up quietly in the little village until she was eighteen years of age, when suddenly she decided to run away from home, declaring she was old enough to do as she pleased. She confided ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler

... a glass cell in which two plates of chemically pure zinc are dipped in a solution of zinc sulphate. When the lights or motors in the circuit are turned on, and a certain definite small portion of the current is diverted to flow through the meter, from the positive plate to the negative plate, the latter increases in weight by receiving a deposit of metallic zinc; the positive plate meantime losing in weight by the metal thus carried away from it. This difference in weight is a very ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin

... Military Intelligence Division consist, in general, in the organization of the intelligence service, positive and negative, including the collection and coordination of military information; the supervision of the department intelligence officers and intelligence officers at posts, stations, camps, and with commands in the field, in matters relating to military intelligence; ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish

... express what could not have been expressed by any native idiom; 2d, That they harmonize with the English language, and give a coloring of the antique, but not any sense of strangeness to the diction. Thus, in the double negative, "Nor did they not perceive," &c., which is classed as a Hebraism—if any man fancy that it expresses no more than the simple affirmative, he shows that he does not understand its force; and, at the same time, it is a form of thought so natural ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... nose is large, his mouth rather wide, but his teeth are perfect. His English has a very slight accent, and he impresses one with scholarly ways at once. Arthur Delancy, a very good-looking young man, seems rather insignificant beside him. Violet experiences a thrill of negative preference; she is glad it was not her fate ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... back my goods and chattels, so I ventured to ask again whether he thought there was any chance at all of my recovering them, or of his recovering them for me. He smiled a sweet smile, and—shaking his head, I regret to say, in a negative way—answered that he thought there was not the slightest hope, as, from the description of the watch, chain, etc., which I had given him, he had no doubt that they had by that time passed through the melting pot, so that it was not even worth ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon

... D'UNION. A peculiar use of the preposition de, allied to, and possibly derived from, the partitive after a negative: Il n'y a pas de mariage. It would be more natural today to say un mariage ... une union. The use of the form de mariage is easily explained by the ellipsis of the ...
— A Selection from the Comedies of Marivaux • Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux

... horsemanship. You could not have even Danish pirates without ships, or ships without seamanship. This person, whom I may call the Positive Barbarian, must be rather more superficially up-to-date than what I may call the Negative Barbarian. Alaric was an officer in the Roman legions: but for all that he destroyed Rome. Nobody supposes that Eskimos could have done it at all neatly. But (in our meaning) barbarism is not a matter of methods, but of aims. We say that these veneered vandals ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton

... afternoon; her lessons for Monday were all learned and she burst into the brick house sitting-room with the flushed face and embarrassed mien that always foreshadowed a request. Requests were more commonly answered in the negative than in the affirmative at the brick house, a fact that accounted for the slight ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... it was nice.... "It is strange that he should be thinking of the view just now," she was saying to herself. A painful turmoil raged within her; but outwardly she was so calm that Harboro was puzzled. To him, too, that view became a negative thing for the moment. "I suspect that house down under the mesquite-tree was a bit shabby," he was thinking. "She's oppressed by so many new things." He gave her time to find her bearings. That was a thing she would do better ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge

... Bluebell answered in the negative, giving as a reason that, though unable to guess the cause, her manner had always repelled any approach to confidence on ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston

... in her repeated negative replies a mystery full of unkindness; he began to look round the apartment with a suspicious air. There happened to be in La Valliere's room a miniature of Athos. The king remarked that this portrait bore a strong resemblance to Bragelonne, for it had been taken when the count was ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... man of fashion is the more difficult to reduce to words, in that it is mostly negative. It is easier to say what this expression is not, than what it is. We can only say, that there is nothing professionally distinctive about it. It is the expression of a man perfectly at ease in his position, and so well aware that he is so, that he does not seem to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... seemed possible to change, and on the morning of the 11th of January it was publicly announced that the ordinance of secession had passed the convention by a vote of sixty-one in the affirmative against thirty-nine in the negative. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... corner. These wise persons speak with an air of positiveness, and doubtless ought to know whereof they affirm. Hath not a Bostonian eyes? And doth he not cross the Common every day? But it is proverbially hard to prove a negative; and some of us, with no thought of being cynical, have ceased to put unqualified trust in other people's eyesight,—especially since we have found our own to fall a little short of absolute infallibility. My own vision, by the way, is reasonably good, if I may say so; at any ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... influence of German theosophy (Jacob Boehme) is apparent; with the exception of Philosophy and Religion, 1804, the Treatise on Human Freedom, 1809, and a few others, the works of this period did not appear until after Schelling's death. His previous philosophy is now called by him "negative philosophy;" the higher or positive philosophy has as its aim the rational construction of the history of the universe, or the history of creation, upon the basis of the religious ideas of peoples; it is a philosophy of mythology and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... with admirers, who solicited her hand for the dance. But to one and all she returned a negative. She was tired with her long walk, and would not dance, at least not this set; she preferred to sit still and watch the others. So at last she was left to her chosen occupation. She had sat thus but a few moments, her eyes lovingly ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... them effectively by mere counter-insistency on war's expensiveness and horror. The horror makes the thrill; and when the question is of getting the extremest and supremest out of human nature, talk of expense sounds ignominious. The weakness of so much merely negative criticism is evident—pacificism makes no converts from the military party. The military party denies neither the bestiality nor the horror, nor the expense; it only says that these things tell ...
— Memories and Studies • William James

... may be.' Thus, were the reader a native of Heliopolis, his God would be Atomu, the Setting Sun; of Memphis, Ptah, the Revealer; of Hermopolis, Thoth, Master of Divine Words and Chief of the Eight. It was for this reason that the unknown author of what is called the 'Negative Confession'[17] makes the deceased say, 'I have not scorned the {36} God of my town.' And, indeed, so simply and purely does Ptah-hotep speak of the God that the modern reader can, without the least degradation of his ideals, consider the author as referring to the Deity of monotheism, and ...
— The Instruction of Ptah-Hotep and the Instruction of Ke'Gemni - The Oldest Books in the World • Battiscombe G. Gunn

... same end. We were granted much cooperation by Japan, but we were unable to come to an agreement with Great Britain. While the results of the conference were of considerable value, they were mostly of a negative character. We know now that no agreement can be reached which will be inconsistent with a considerable building program on our part. We are ready and willing to continue the preparatory investigations on the general subject of limitation of armaments ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Calvin Coolidge • Calvin Coolidge

... he is for this Reason to be excluded from every Department. Who could wish to hold a Seat in Government on so slavish a Tenure? The People of Massachusetts under the old Government have seen enough of the mischievous Effects of the Governors having a Power to negative Elections & I cannot see the Difference between this & his being able to influence or prevent an Election by causing it to be believd that a Candidate is his Enemy. He who gives his Suffrage according ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams

... vexations which interrupted them, in the hospitable duty of pressing her assembled visiters to eat and drink, watching every trencher as it waxed empty, and loading it with fresh supplies ere the guest could utter a negative. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... the negative. Three minutes later he was seated in the trap, Josephus at his feet. He turned up the collar of his mackintosh, and pulled down his tweed ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore

... have these developed and printed, quickly, but in some way so neither negative nor positive will be out of ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... the terminal vowel of the common root are those from a (which is almost invariably the terminal vowel of Bantu verbs), (1), into e to form the subjunctive tense, (2) into i to give a negative sense in certain tenses. With these exceptions the vowel a almost invariably terminates verbal roots. The departures from this rule are so rare that it might almost be included among the elementary propositions determining the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... religion—of duty toward an unseen maker—was but an old-wives'-fable; and that, as to the hereafter, a mere cessation of consciousness was the only reasonable expectation. The testimony of his senses, although negative, he accepted as stronger on that side than any amount of what could, he said, be but the purest assertion on the other. Why should he heed an old book? why one more than another? The world was around him: some things he must believe; other things no man could! One ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... without men—and none being granted from civil life, I employed myself writing certain articles for the press, hoping by this means to relieve the Secretary of the useless and painful labor of dictating negative replies to numberless communications. This had the sanction of both the President and the Secretary, and produced, in some measure, the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones

... opinion, rather than be disappointing. But when another person having one's trust, says: "Your natural line is to do thus-and-so," it is time to ask him why, and check his reasoning with one's own. Worth just as much earnest consideration is his negative opinion, his strong feeling that what one is about to undertake is ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense

... similar use of a double negative is frequent in Chaucer; as in the "Miller's Tale": "That of no wife toke he non offering For curtesie, ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell

... consumers' goods a person wants at one time one unit and no more, and a second unit, if he has to use it himself within the same time in which he uses the first, would be an incumbrance. Its utility would be a negative quantity. Two quite similar coats would never be bought by the same person if he had only his own needs in view and must use both coats through the same period. The first unit of his supply is, for this period, ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark

... heads, and murmured an answer in the negative, as each man looked round and appealed to his fellow; when a noise was heard without, and a man was heard to say that he wanted Hugh—that ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... the district itself he knew next to nothing, save that up to the war it had been the favorite roosting-place of short-haired women and long-haired men. He wondered whether Maisie's hair was short. He decided in the negative. To have attracted three husbands in four and a half years she must be outwardly conventional. An unconventional woman might persuade one man to marry her, but not three in such rapid succession. She probably belonged ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... their report, followed by the electronic engineers, followed by the physicist—all negative. But each group had a suspicion that another had overlooked something. Before it regressed to a high-school debate, the general ...
— A Fine Fix • R. C. Noll

... to me was almost exclusively doctrinal. He did not observe the value of negative education, that is to say, of leaving Nature alone to fill up the gaps which it is her design to deal with at a later and riper date. He did not, even, satisfy himself with those moral injunctions which ...
— Father and Son • Edmund Gosse

... but see that the book to which I have alluded, like most other modern books on Biblical criticism, was altogether negative; was possessed too often by that fanaticism of disbelief which is just as dangerous as the fanaticism of belief; was picking the body of the Scripture to pieces so earnestly, that it seemed to forget that Scripture had a spirit as well as a body; ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley

... some measure, deliberates for his country. In whatever does not derogate from his rank, he has an arm ready to serve the community; in whatever alarms his sense of honour, he has aversions and dislikes, which amount to a negative on the ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... again visited the ruins this morning. The Emir had been apprised of my arrival by his secretary, to whom I had a letter of recommendation. He sent the secretary to ask whether I had any presents for him; I answered in the negative, but delivered to him a letter, which the Jew bankers of the Pasha of Damascus had given me for him; these Jews being men of great influence. He contented himself with replying that as I had no presents for him, it was not necessary that I should pay him my respects; ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... intention, a printer of the Bible in the reign of Charles I. omitted the important negative in the Seventh Commandment. He was summoned to appear before the High Commission Court, and fined three thousand pounds. The story is also told of the widow of a German printer who strongly objected to the supremacy of husbands, and desired to revise the text of ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... Emperor Paul, who was also an amateur of ribands and stars, but never with so many at once. I have just heard that the Grand Master of Malta has presented Napoleon with the Grand Cross of the Maltese Order. This is certainly a negative compliment to him, who, in July, 1798, officially declared to his then sectaries, the Turks and Mussulmans, "that the Grand Master, Commanders, Knights, and Order of Malta existed ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... pulse, because the connection was broken; but she detected the apology before I could word it, and indicated by a negative tilt of her head that the pulse was another dumb servant that she had no use for. Then I thought I would tell her my symptoms and how I felt, so that she would understand the case; but that was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... upon the negative when examined by Lord Evandale. As for Halliday, he could only say that as he entered the garden-door, the supposed apparition met him, walking swiftly, and with a visage on which anger and grief appeared ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... intervening years he had never ceased to have her in his mind; he would not think of her it is true if he could help it, but often he could not help it, and as a negative presence, as a thing denied, she was almost more potent than she had been as a thing accepted. Meanwhile he worked. His nervous irritability increased, but it did not hinder the steady development ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells

... leeward, waiting for the Hannibal, which was the last ship to leave Algeziras. Sir James now made the interrogatory signal to know if all the ships were ready for battle, which was most properly answered in the negative, as all had much to do. The time which the combined squadron took to get into the order of battle and sailing was invaluable to all of us, by enabling us to complete the arrangements so necessary upon so momentous an occasion. ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... decision sagely. An assent Would yield the Empire many years of peace, And leave me scope to heal those still green sores Which linger from our late unhappy moils. Therefore, my daughter not being disinclined, I know no basis for a negative. Send, then, a courier prompt to Paris: say The offer made for the Archduchess' hand I do accept—with this defined reserve, That no condition, treaty, bond, attach To such alliance save the tie itself. There are some sacrifices whose grave rites No bargain ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... out of this text because it is not in the original. B. Wilson translates the verse in these words: "Do we then nullify law through the FAITH. By no means; but we establish law." The negative use of law is to restrain the evil; and the affirmative is to bring out the good, the spiritual. So, without any interference with the spiritual of any law that ever was, either divine or human, we have a better covenant, ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880

... curriculum. No proficiency in it can well compensate for failure in studies of perhaps less intrinsic importance. The neglect of these latter had no tendency to recommend him to the regard of those in authority. Positive faults were in course of time added to negative. A frolic in which he was engaged during his third year was attended by consequences more serious than disfavor. It led to his dismissal. The father took the boy's side, and the usual struggle followed between the parents ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... said presently; "in these lines Virgil, or rather the poet of the Alexandrine age who was his model, has anticipated Laplace's great hypothesis and Charles Lyell's theories. He shows cosmic matter, that negative something from which everything must come, condensing to make worlds, the plastic rind of the globe consolidating; then the formation of islands and continents; then the rains ceasing and first appearance of the ...
— The Aspirations of Jean Servien • Anatole France

... that bound men; but, then, neither could it believe in the men they bound. It was always restrained in its hatred of slavery by a half remembrance of its yet greater hatred of liberty. They were almost alone, I think, in thus carrying to its extreme the negative attitude already noted in Miss Arabella Allen. Anselm would have despised a civic crown, but he would not have despised a relic. Voltaire would have despised a relic; but he would not have despised a vote. We hardly find them both despised till we come ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton

... father's blood upon you," cried Balthazar, looking at her with abhorrence. He rose, glanced round the room, and slowly left it. When he reached the door he turned as a beggar might have done and implored his daughter with a gesture, to which she replied by a negative motion ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac

... COLLODION.—J. B. HOCKIN & CO., Chemists, 289. Strand, have, by an improved mode of Iodizing, succeeded in producing a Collodion equal, they may say superior, in sensitiveness and density of Negative, to any other hitherto published; without diminishing the keeping properties and appreciation of half-tint for which their ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 238, May 20, 1854 • Various

... to decide the proposition affirmatively," he said, "it was lost. The voice of a single individual of the State which was divided or of one of those which were of the negative, would have prevented this abominable crime from spreading itself over the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... in my experience, is invariably stern, and 'in the negative': in tolerant moments compromising on 'Wait, like ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch

... was followed by a gentleman on the other side of the subject, but, for a reason that will be obvious to the reader before he gets through the chapter, we shall not report the arguments in the negative. ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer

... availing myself of all sources of information, e.g., spies, secret agents, disaffected elements of the local population, and including two UPREA Cabinet Ministers on my payroll. I regret to report that results of this investigation have been entirely negative. No one here appears to know anything of ...
— Operation R.S.V.P. • Henry Beam Piper

... seen what the playlet is not. We have considered the various dramatic and near-dramatic forms from which it differs. And now, having studied its negative qualities, I may assemble its positive characteristics before we embark once more upon the troubled seas of definition. The true playlet is marked by the ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... in his mind the project of offering to help her, as he had done so often in those dear old days when they laughingly began life together. Something decided this project in the negative for him, and after lingering moments he put on his hat and ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... valued by her servants. Often enough the servants wish to do their best, but little irritations, unsalved by sympathy and not to be discussed on terms of equality, lead to sulky, don't-care moods which exasperate the mistress into positive, instead of negative, unkindness. So a vicious circle is formed. The covert enmity between one woman and another simply calls for give and take where both are of the same class, but when one of them is, for payment and all day, at the ...
— A Poor Man's House • Stephen Sydney Reynolds

... an enterprising fellow thought that a great many people would like to see how 'Abe' Lincoln looked, and, as I had not long before sat for a photograph, the fellow, having seen it, rushed over and bought the negative. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure

... a friend's house, but only by way of explaining that he had been very unwell from eating mushrooms and such dishes, which his host had had cooked in order not to contravene a recent sumptuary law.[452] The Letters are worth far more as negative evidence of the usual character of dinners than either the invectives (vituperationes) against a Piso or an Antony, or the lively wit of the satirists. Let us return for an instant, in conclusion, to that famous letter, ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... his Ministry no man has been found base enough, in my debased country, to extenuate, much less to defend, his past enormities. In a nation so greatly corrupted and immoral, this alone is more than negative evidence. ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... the school, and presently Janet Wild threw her arms out on the desk before her, let her face fall on them, and sobbed heart-brokenly. The master saw his mistake too late; he gave his head a little half-affirmative, half-negative movement, in that pathetic old way of his; rested his head on one hand, gazed sadly at ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... books is found in the librarian himself, or in any of his assistants, yet there have been those employed in the care of books who have abused their positions and the volumes entrusted to their charge, not only by neglect of care, (which is a negative injury) but by positive and continual ill treatment. This may arise from ignorance of better methods, but ignorance is a poor excuse for one credited with the intelligence of a librarian. In some libraries, books ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... Hermes, a magazine published in Bilbao, Salaverria assumes that I have been cured of my anarchism, and that I persist in a negative and anarchistic attitude in order to retain my literary clientele; which is not the fact. In the first place, I can scarcely be said to have a clientele; in the second place, a small following of conservatives is much more lucrative than a large ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja

... silver armour sitting afar in halls of black marble, seemed to hear and disdain the little gnat-like voice, as they heard Vessons' defiant 'Never will I!' and Mrs. Marston's woolly prayers, and Reddin's hoof-beats. All man's desires—predatory, fugitive, or merely negative—wander away into those dark halls, and are heard no more. Among the pillars of the night is there One who listens and remembers, and judges the foolishness of man, not by effects, but by motives? And does that One, in the majesty of everlasting ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb

... possible that cosmic crucibles, unrivalled by terrestrial ones, may help materially to reveal the secret of the formation of complex elements from simpler ones. Physicists now believe that all of the elements are compounded of hydrogen atoms, bound together by negative electrons. Thus helium is made up of four hydrogen atoms, yet the atomic weight of helium (4) is less than four times that of hydrogen (1.008). The difference may represent the mass of the electrical energy released when the ...
— The New Heavens • George Ellery Hale

... support the props. The aristocracy must bear them on their shoulders. If your Squire stays away from church, he may be called a heathen with propriety, though a Liberal. And why? Because he makes public exposure of himself as a heathen negative! He is bound to keep up the church factor in the community. Otherwise he runs ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... the Israelites were oppressed and the Exodus took place), and it occurs, more than once, in the famous tombs of the kings of this and the preceding dynasty at Thebes. [30] This "Book of Redemption" is chiefly occupied by the so-called "negative confession" made to the forty-two Divine Judges, in which the soul of the dead denies that he has committed faults of various kinds. It is, therefore, obvious that the Egyptians conceived that their gods commanded them not to do the deeds which are here denied. The "Book of Redemption," ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley



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