"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sunderland, and several other collectors, employed themselves during the winter months in rambling through various quarters of the town in search of additions to their libraries, and with some of these collectors the acquisition of books became a positive passion. In 1813 Dr. Dibdin thought that the thermometer of bibliomania had reached its highest point, and it would certainly appear to have been very high indeed, judging from the prices obtained at the Roxburghe and other sales of the time. For some years there ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... fond of liberty that they bore the figure of a cat upon their banners. It is well known that the arms of Gruyere are a Grue on a scarlet field, and this circumstance alone has evidently given rise to the anonymous author's conjecture. His opinion not only has no positive proof to support it, but has no color of probability in ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... not usual to call the rich young man a hypocrite. To outward appearance he was in earnest. Negatively, he had kept the commandments. Now he is required to perform positive duties, and to live by faith. Here the mask falls off, and he concludes that eternal life is not ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... ain't the case. I will have to explain to you"—and a positive blush came to his ruddy face. "They won't touch me or my property. They say a man who uses such good horses and such bad language as I do—that's just what they say—is one of them, and sha'n't be racketed. I ain't very proud of my popularity, but I am willing to profit by it and I'll ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... was not so easy to appraise as her unusual costume proclaimed her to be. Jane realized this; country girls are apt to make such mistakes, and even dinner gown tags on school day togs would hardly be proof positive of inferiority, Jane reflected. ...
— Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... Howe was enclosed one to her from Miss Harlowe,* to be transmitted to my cousins, containing a final rejection of me; and that in very vehement and positive terms; yet she pretends that, in this rejection, she is governed more by principle than passion—[D——d lie, as ever was told!] and, as a proof that she is, says, that she can forgive me, and does, on this one condition, that I will never molest her more—the whole letter so written ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... wholesome corrective of the teaching of our new jurists, "that no intention, however sincere, of protecting the interests of others can make it safe or salutary to tie up their own hands. Still more obviously true is it, that by their own hands only can any positive and durable improvement of their circumstances in life be worked out" (Repres. Government, p. 57). It is these wise lessons from human experience to which the advocate of Home Rule appeals, and not ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... so much said of Johnson's slovenliness and roughness. I have preserved nothing of what passed, except that Crosbie pleased him much by talking learnedly of alchymy, as to which Johnson was not a positive unbeliever, but rather delighted in considering what progress had actually been made in the transmutation of metals, what near approaches there had been to the making of gold; and told us that it was affirmed, that a person in the Russian dominions had discovered the secret, but died without ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... unsuitable—something either too special or too every-day. She longed to evince sympathy for Mr. Farron, but was afraid that, if she did, it would be like intimating that he was as good as dead. She was caught between the negative danger of seeming indifferent and the positive ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... herdsman: the buffaloes observing it, attacked the tiger, and rescued the poor man; they tossed him about from one to the other, and, to the best of my recollection, killed him; but of that I am not quite positive. Both of the wounded men were brought to me. The Biparie ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... watched the distant form of a husband, engaged in a duty like that we have described. Notwithstanding the influence of long habit, the forest was rarely approached, after night-fall, by the boldest woodsman, without some secret consciousness that he encountered a positive danger. It was the hour when its roaming and hungry tenants were known to be most in motion; and the rustling of a leaf, or the snapping of a dried twig beneath the light tread of the smallest animal, was apt to conjure images of the voracious and fire-eyed panther, or perhaps of a lurking ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... difficult to see how Germany can make any break for freedom without coming in conflict not only with one of the Great Powers but with a combination of two or more. It is improbable that she will attempt the enterprise without at least the benevolent neutrality of the United States. Assurances of positive sympathy would probably go a long way towards encouraging her to the hazard. But if the United States should range herself definitely on the side of peace the venture ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... carriage struck a stump instead of a stone." The public mind was divided. Some held that the attempt to operate the coal mine was farcical, but that the improvement of the Lehigh River was an undertaking of great value and of probable profit to investors. Others were just as positive that the river improvement would follow the fate of so many similar enterprises but that a fortune was in store for those who invested in the ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert
... are often used without proper discrimination being made in their respective meanings. Indecency and immodesty are opposed to morality: the former in externals, as dress, words, and looks; the latter in conduct and disposition. "Indecency," says Crabb, "may be a partial, immodesty is a positive and entire breach of the moral law. Indecency is less than immodesty, but more than indelicacy." It is indecent for a man to marry again very soon after the death of his wife. It is indelicate for any one to obtrude himself upon another's retirement. It is indecent for women to expose ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... now we shall find Gilbert dismissing belief in any positive existence of evil and treating the universe on the Whitman principle of jubilant and universal acceptance. He writes, too, in the Whitman style. By far the most important of his notebooks is one which, by amazing good ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... one I am doing, I am afraid that the idea is defective, an irremediable fault; will such weak characters be interesting? Great effects are reached only through simple means, through positive passions. But I don't see simplicity anywhere ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... his wife. "I would allow more latitude to medical men," he said. "In such a case as this child of the Stotts, for instance; it becomes a burden on the community, I might say a danger, yes, a positive danger. I am not sure whether I was right in administering ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... all the rest were to be taken in the confidence; but she looked so conscious, and Jim was so positive, ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Handsome, sir? handsome, sir, as—as—oh, dammit, words fail me; but go, sir, go and ransack Olympus, and you couldn't match her, 'pon my soul! Diana, sir? Diana was a frump! Venus? Venus was a dowdy hoyden, by George! and as for the ox-eyed Juno, she was a positive cow to this young beauty! And then—her ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... sooner arrives at any truth which admits of an unconditional positive statement—a statement defying all rational contradiction—than he abstracts it from amongst the acquisitions of experience, and throwing over it, we suppose, the light of these fundamental ideas, pronounces it enrolled in the higher class of universal and necessary truths. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... in news writing is that the story begin with the most important fact and give all the essential details first. These details are generally summarized in the questions who, what, when, where, why, and how. If the writer sees that his lead answers these questions, he may be positive that, so far as context is concerned, his lead will ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... caressed by old women, and wondered at by spectacled fellows of colleges." Eustace paused. "I see, my brave fellow," resumed the tempter, "you are determined to be one of us. I know your heart, and can predict that the consciousness of positive disobedience will make you miserable. Go, then, in the hope that your uncle would not have restrained you. Are you not old enough to judge for yourself? They have permitted you to chuse a wife; why ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... exposed and the eminent services they performed as facing the hostile shores of France. Owing to their privileges and their position, the 'Cinque Ports' came to be cities of great strength, till, as time went on, they became a positive weakness rather than a strength to the land that lay behind them. Privilege bred pride, and in their pride the Cinque Ports proclaimed wars and formed alliances on their own account: piracies by sea and robberies ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... fellow-mortal who knows how to make up his mind for twelve months ahead. All the woman in his nature surrenders to this businesslike decisiveness. "O man!"—the exhortation is Mr. George Meredith's, or would be if I could remember it precisely—"O man, amorously inclining, before all things be positive!" I have sometimes, while turning the pages of Mrs. Beeton's admirable cookery book, caught myself envying Mr. Beeton. I wonder if her sisters envy Mrs. Zadkiel. She, dear lady, no doubt feels that, if it be not in mortals to command the weather her husband prophesies for August, ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... at last, "what is right. Mr. Murray is very positive, and absolutely insists that it is my duty to allow ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... period to his own existence. But what established the truth of the whole was, a book in cyphers found among my papers, which exactly tallied with one found in his chest, after his disappearance. This, he observed, was a presumption very near positive proof, and would determine any jury in Christendom to find me guilty. In my own defence, I alleged, that I had been dragged on board at first very much against my inclination, as I could prove by the evidence of some people now in the ship, consequently could have no design of becoming spy ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... for the black and the yellow sinner. True, the black and the yellow man will first have to shed their somewhat irregular appearance and come forth white and radiant, but the belief in the possibility of such a feat is proof positive that we regard the nationality of a man as a transient business. Nationality is local, spirituality universal. Nationality is a form, a mould, a means; spirituality is the essence, the force, the object. The problems of nationality ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... submit to the ordeal of being present in the court on the occasion of the trial. The Marchese's extreme dislike to appearing thus publicly had been in no degree overcome or diminished. And it was only the lawyer's positive and repeated declaration, that he would assuredly be sent for, if he did not spontaneously present himself, that had availed to induce him to say at length that he would go. Every possible attention, the lawyer had assured him, would be paid to ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... by Natural Selection. It appears to me that, given a differentiation of a species into two forms, each of which was adapted to a special sphere of existence, every slight degree of sterility would be a positive advantage, not to the individuals who were sterile, but to each form. If you work it out, and suppose the two incipient species a...b to be divided into two groups, one of which contains those which are ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... it awful! You can't make him jealous! I think it's a positive flaw in his character! Not like—us, ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... one had shown on positive evidence the economic basis of the political, juridical and moral life, the aspirations of the great majority for the amelioration of social conditions aimed vaguely at the demand and the partial conquest of some accessory instrumentality, such as freedom of worship, ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... to march. My head was swimming, but all thoughts of my own plight were dispelled by an incident which was as unexpected as it was sudden. At the command "March" one of the two Indian students, positive that he was now going to his doom, staggered. I caught him as he fell. He dropped limply to the ground, half-dead with fright, and with his ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... help that, why, he would. And considering that this day's evidence rather bound him down to the morrow's, he determined, after much ploughing and harrowing through obstinate shocks of hair, to be not altogether positive as to the person. It is possible that he became thereby more a mansion of truth than he previously had been; for the night, as he said, was so dark that you could not see your hand before your face; and though, as he expressed it, you might be mortal sure of a man, you could not identify him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he had made such a study of the younger man. He paused for a moment; but meeting his daughter's absorbed gaze, he continued: "The thing which gives me most hope of Flint is his genuine devotion to truth. Positive or negative truth—it is all the same to him. Now, many a man is loyal to his convictions; but very few are loyal to their doubts. He will 'come into port greatly or sail with God the seas.' Fine line that, isn't it? The sound is quite majestic if you say ...
— Flint - His Faults, His Friendships and His Fortunes • Maud Wilder Goodwin
... demand some trifling payment in advance; but he could not get a doit. Should we be violating secrecy too much if we suggested that George Bertram had had some slight partial success even when he had no such positive claim—some success which had of course been in direct ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... always imperfect light on the question of the conformation of the coast-line. How was it, we may ask, that it was especially after 1616 that this coast was so often touched at, whereas there had never been question of this before that time? The question thus put admits of avery positive answer. ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... to be positive. May I not want to be in so many places, and in so many things, that I can never be found in anything. Help me to know that a purpose secured is worth many attempts, and that to have a character I must ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... operation above described so far as the production of the positive, and so perfect is the impression that I see no reason why the second negative should be at all distinguishable from ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 223, February 4, 1854 • Various
... fear to leave her, or because you get on all right, is not love at any rate. I can't see that marriage has got much to do with it. It's a decent convention of society at this stage of development perhaps, and it may sign and seal love for some people. But I reckon love's love—a big positive thing that's bigger than sin, and bigger than the devil. I reckon that if God sees that anywhere, He's satisfied. I don't think Cranmer's marriage service affects Him much, nor the laws of the State. If ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... became their theme. Then he told something of Milly's sleep-walking, her collapse of memory; and watched Tims meantime, hoping to see in her face merely surprise and concern. But there was no surprise, hardly concern in the queer little face. There was excitement, and at last a flash of positive pleasure. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... it was the habitual beverage of all English people, and had actually sent his steward ashore to procure the precious liquid. It was a delicate attention, but it so happened that both ladies had a positive aversion to stout; they drank it bravely notwithstanding, and we all assumed expressions of intense delight, to the Admiral's ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... inclined to the opinion, that, if positive legislation could be brought to bear upon this subject, making it a criminal offence for one person deliberately to concoct and designedly to spring a surprise upon another, society would derive incalculable benefit from the act. For the ordinary and inevitable surprises of every-day life ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... if I had noticed how unusually feeble her mother looked. I imagined that some one was dragging the ladder from under the window, and once I fancied that I heard the old man call me. The thought, the possibility of committing murder never occurred to me. The positive knowledge that I should never be discovered and that I should get every dollar of his money would not have tempted me to kill him. I lay for a long time—until I knew that every one must be asleep. Then I carefully got out of bed. I struck a chair, and I waited to see if my wife had been awakened ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... the marines. The pilot made his appearance, and soon afterwards down went the bridles, and we were fairly adrift. We reached the Nore, and let go the anchors in a hail squall, and it was with the greatest difficulty we got the top-sails furled. The admiral, having proof positive that we were as helpless as a cow in a jolly-boat, took compassion on us and sent fifty more men from the flag-ship, most of them able seamen. On the fourth day after quitting the Nore we anchored in ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country. The rate may be positive or negative. The growth rate is a factor in determining how great a burden would be imposed on a country by the changing needs of its people for infrastructure (e.g., schools, hospitals, housing, roads), resources (e.g., food, water, electricity), and jobs. Rapid population growth can be ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... before, Mr. Curtis would have considered impossible. But now, to his surprise, he found himself actually doing it to an amazing extent, and discovered that no calamity resulted in consequence. On the contrary it was a positive relief to have a bright, strong, eager boy lift a part of the burden which had become so heavy for the older man to bear alone. For Giusippe possessed that rare gift seldom found in the young and often lacking, even, in elder persons—he ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... dumfoundered and mad, too, when he told me that his father was alive, and that he would some day find him and his big nugget together. Mind you, he didn't say this as though he hoped and believed it might be true, but as positive as though he ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... negative is coated with solutions of collodion and rubber cement, which makes the film exceedingly tough—so tough that it is easily stripped from the glass on which it was made, and is "turned" with the positive side up on another sheet of glass. If this were not done, the plate would be reversed in printing—that is, a line of type would read from right to left, or backward. After the negative is "turned," it is ready for the etching room. Here the surface of a sheet of zinc about one-sixteenth of an inch ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... only number of a new magazine[1] that expired for want of patronage, and support, having just survived long enough to give ample proofs that it deserved the patronage, and support, that were denied it. The very favorable notice that the Evening Star took of "Old Cuff," is proof positive that it is much higher than "fair to middling;" and if it is true that "the proof of the pudding is eating the bag," (and the reader will consider "Old Cuff" as the bag,) I think it follows that the pudding now set before him cannot ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... were destined to become so. The disparity in force was justly less considered than the result. However bravely the British commanders had fought their ships, the disasters were no less distressing, politically considered, than if they had been the result of positive weakness or of lamentable cowardice. These advantages even compensated in glory to the Northeastern States for the losses which their commerce had sustained, and would, had they continued very much longer, have stimulated them to forget their selfishness, their bankruptcies, and ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... father of George Bellmont; tyrannical, positive, and headstrong. He imagines it is the duty of a son to submit to his father's will, even in ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... around the difficulties by devices not provided for in the Constitution, sometimes with unfortunate results. But a recognition of defects in our government should not cause us to lose respect for the Constitution. They are due not to positive blunders on the part of the framers, but to the mere absence of provision for conditions that did not exist when the Constitution was framed and that could not be foreseen by the wisest men of that time. The wise course for all good citizens is to seek to understand ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... business in the ship, but it was plain he was Swope's enemy, and there was a private feud between them. His mere appearance had caused the Old Man to run below, and remain hidden for three days! . . . There was the lady. She was Newman's friend. She knew the Old Man's moods, and she was positive about it. The warning was doubtless well founded, I concluded. And Newman was my friend, my chum for the voyage, I hoped. If there were danger for him in the dark, it were well his friend stayed handy by. So, throughout ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... foregoing hemistich is rather lame without it. The propriety of consulting Micio, or Demea's present ill-humor with him, are of no consequence. The old man is surprised at Hegio's story, does not know what to do or say, and means to evade giving a positive answer, by saying that he ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... Grandpa Horton. "Positive. The poor lad is as hoarse as a crow. Got the New Year cakes and the candy canes, Sunny Boy? Then I think we are ready ...
— Sunny Boy and His Playmates • Ramy Allison White
... 'Proof positive of my two propositions,' said Hazel with a laugh. 'Waiting on me, is bewildering work to a ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... was!" exclaimed Ruth, with a look of triumph. I have found that out—only I fear that is not proof positive, because, you know, although not a common name, Bream is ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... I shall come over and spend a month going about everywhere. But, of course,' he added, with a twinkle in his eyes, 'I have about two years' imprisonment to do as things stand, so I must make no positive promises.' ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... nature of property of all sorts is that it becomes the inmost shrine of its possessor's being, and when the shrine is robbed or desecrated, the injured personality resents the outrage with bitterness. Many a man or woman will submit with Christian fortitude to insults upon character or positive unjust burdens, but will flame into rebellion at the least touch upon the purse. In the case of Archie and Adelle it was all the more remarkable because neither had been born to wealth so that property could become a part of the nature: they were both "the spoiled ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... Amahagger sowing a plot of ground with the grain from which they make their beer. This they did in scriptural fashion—a man with a bag made of goat's hide fastened round his waist walking up and down the plot and scattering the seed as he went. It was a positive relief to see one of these dreadful people do anything so homely and pleasant as sow a field, perhaps because it seemed to link them, as it were, with the rest ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... at this season, any more than all the year through in heaven. Indeed we have seldom real positive night in this world—so many provisions have been made against it. Every time we say, "What a lovely night!" we speak of a breach, a rift in the old night. There is light more or less, positive light, else were there no beauty. Many a night ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... Chateaubriand, who was truly devoted to the elder branch of the Bourbons,[4] may at that time have discovered in Lamartine little of that political talent or devotion which could have recommended him to a diplomatic post. Chateaubriand was a man of positive convictions in politics and religion, while Lamartine, at that period, though far surpassing Chateaubriand in depth of feeling and imagination, had not yet acquired that objectiveness of thought and reflection which is indispensable to the ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... has just come; yes, it was long enough, though you did not tell us how the cat did. You speak as if you were going to Paris, but papa is positive you are not. Yesterday was a lovely day, though very hot. Dr. Adams came and drove papa to the Park. Late in the afternoon I went to see Mrs. G., the woman whose husband is in jail. She is usually all in a muss, but this time was as nice as could be, the ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... good providence of God, that the field in which she went to glean belonged to a very rich and prosperous man named Boaz. And to that very field where Ruth was gleaning Boaz came that day. He was a young, vigorous, and positive man. He was accustomed to command. There was a dignity about him that made him seem older than his years. Everybody respected him. He was just and ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... nothing to do with France, I imagine," he said. "The person I refer to is an American, and although I have no positive information, I believe that he is sometimes intrusted with the carrying of despatches from Washington to his Embassy. Once or twice lately I have had it reported to me that communications from the other side to Mr. Harvey have been sent ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have laughed in his face. It is possible he remained unconscious of this extreme fever of my resentment; yet I think he was too quick; and rather that he had fallen, in a long life of idleness, into a positive need of company, which obliged him to confront and tolerate my unconcealed aversion. Certain, at least, that he loved the note of his own tongue, as, indeed, he entirely loved all the parts and properties ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... waste is so very trifling, especially with brain-workers, that one may be a vegetarian, fruitarian, or even an eater of pork, without positive violence to practical physiology. There is this further very practical consideration, that when Nature is so fairly dealt with that she can speak in natural tones she will call only for those foods easily available along ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... Tom is so cheerful and positive," thought Hazelton. "I'll do my best to help him keep in that frame of mind; though, for myself, I believe we would make more money if we stood on a cliff and tossed pennies into ...
— The Young Engineers in Nevada • H. Irving Hancock
... centre was to grow the workingmen's consumers' league. Finally he warned the men earnestly against damage to the company's property, smashing of windows and breaking of machines. Help should come in a positive and constructive manner, and the destructive tactics of passive resistance and of sabotage should be discarded as being unworthy of a German workingman. One should not forget that besides a strong body one had to transmit to one's children ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... white man is prejudiced against eating human flesh, and consequently they conceal very carefully their performances in this line. In former times they were not so particular, and there was the most positive proof that they devoured their enemies killed in battle, and also killed and devoured some of their own people. They were not such epicures in cannibalism as the inhabitants of the Feejee Islands formerly were, ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... became owners of slaves, in imitation of the colonists around them. No positive condemnation of the evil system had then been heard in the British islands. Neither English prelates nor expounders at dissenting conventicles had aught to say against it. Few colonists doubted its entire compatibility with Christian ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Bet was so positive in her assertion that the treasure could remain in the ground for all she cared, that no one guessed that before the month was out, not Bet alone, but all The Merriweather Girls would have no thought of anything except that treasure, and all the ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... the preceding, insomuch that the seductive advances of the Fairies failed in their object. I am not quite positive whence I obtained the story, but this much I know, that it belongs to Pentrevoelas, and that a respectable old man was in the habit of repeating it, as an ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... appointed. I need not tell you that Beauman is to be the happy deity of the hymeneal sacrifice. I had this from his own declaration. He did not name the positive day, but it is certainly to be soon. You will undoubtedly, however, have timely notice, as a guest. We must pour a liberal libation upon the mystic altar, Alonzo, and twine the nuptial garland with wreaths ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... his dragoman began, "is either superlative, comparative, positive, or negative. And superlative morality is found, of course, only in the newspapers. It is the special prerogative of leader-writers. Its note, remote and unchallengeable, was well struck by almost every organ at the commencement of the Great Skirmish, and may be summed up in a single ...
— Another Sheaf • John Galsworthy
... judgment, and a delicacy of impression which would not be imagined, unless one has studied them. Justice and equity are easily born in their minds, for they possess, above all things, positive logic. Profit by all this. There are unjust and harsh words which remain graven on a child's heart, and which he remembers all his life. Reflect that, in your baby, there is a man whose affection will cheer ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... spring; but the season had hitherto been backward, with only a few warm and pleasant days. The present afternoon, however, was a delicious mingling of spring and summer, forming in their union an atmosphere so mild and pure, that to breathe was almost a positive happiness. There was a little alternation of cloud across the brow of heaven, but only so much as to render the ...
— Fanshawe • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... up quickly, pleased with this mark of confidence from his uncommunicative chief. He was positive. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... you cannot rest happy in the fact that you and she do not disagree. For comfort's sake you would have a negative dimension to your cosmos, forgetting that your longings and your needs and, it may be, your dreams, are positive. If sex-comradeship and affection were not as accidental and as dependent on mood as love itself, your position would have much in its favour. You could then arrange for compatibility ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... we must have money. We are in positive want. Of course, I never meant to proceed to extremities; I thought the mere mention of such a threat would be enough to make him see that we really were desperately hard up, and that he might as well help us. But he doesn't care. Like all rich people, ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... surprise was entirely disagreeable. He had not expected to be dismissed in this summary fashion, and the thought of so speedy a break with the new life came upon him with a positive shock. To-morrow! To-morrow, then, at this very hour he would be back in the dingy lodgings which did duty for home, preparing to sit down to a solitary meal, to spend a solitary evening, to sleep and wake up to a day's work in the stifling City, where the thought of green fields and rose- gardens, ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... nominative of the personal pronouns is commonly expressed only when emphatic. Here the use of the pronoun makes the promise more positive. ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... the story of a young man of positive character facing the stern problem of earning his way in a big school. The hero is not an imaginary compound of superlatives, but a plain person of flesh and blood, aglow with the hopeful idealism of youth, who succeeds and is not spoiled by success. ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... spirits, and a yearning for their native land, of which they are so justly proud, contribute to make our countrymen in the East even more than usually unsusceptible of pleasurable emotions until at last they turn away in positive disgust from the scenes and objects which remind them that they are ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... in that state of hope and fear when inaction becomes positive pain, and relief is only felt while in pursuit of an object which entails some degree of bodily movement. Joan had so laughed at her fears for the Lottery that to a great extent her anxiety had subsided; and everybody else seemed so certain that with Adam's caution and foresight ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... who at one time have an excessive affection for some friend, and at another take a violent disgust at him: and who (though sometimes permanently remaining at the latter point) oscillate between these positive and negative poles. You, being a sensible man, would not feel very happy if some men were loudly crying you up: for you would be very sure that in a little while they would be loudly crying you dovvn. If you should ever happen to feel for one day an extraordinary ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... give you personal and positive orders not to let anything or anybody occupy this space after the baggage was got aboard, sir?" ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... right of possession. Men lived in a state of communism; whether positive or negative it matters little. Then there was no property, not even private possession. The genesis and growth of possession gradually forcing people to labor for their support, they agreed either formally or tacitly,—it makes no difference which,—that ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Vicksburg was doomed unless "Joe" Johnston came west with sufficient force to relieve it in time. Johnston did come early enough, but not in sufficient force; so the next best thing was to destroy all stores, abandon Vicksburg, and save the garrison. The Government, however, sent positive orders to hold Vicksburg to the very last gasp. Johnston had meanwhile sent Pemberton (the Vicksburg commander) orders to combine with him in free maneuvering for an attack in the field. But Pemberton's own idea was to await Grant on the Big Black River, where, with ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... 'Revue des Deux Mondes.' There's no strong imagination, understand—nothing of that sort! but you have a sweet, fresh, cool sylvan feeling with him, rare among Frenchmen of his class. Edgar Quinet has more positive genius. He is a man of grand, extravagant conceptions. ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... you. The passage is from One of our Conquerors. Here is another:—"Reverting to the father and mother, his idea of a positive injury, that was not without its congratulations, sank him down among his disordered deeper sentiments, which were a diver's wreck, where an armoured livid subtermarine, a monstrous puff-ball of man, wandered seriously light in heaviness; trebling his ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... Colloquies might seem to be mere innocent genre-pieces. But as to the contents, they are more satirical, at least more directly so. The Moria, as a satire, is philosophical and general; the Colloquia are up to date and special. At the same time they combine more the positive and negative elements. In the Moria Erasmus's own ideal dwells unexpressed behind the representation; in the Colloquia he continually and clearly puts it in the foreground. On this account they form, notwithstanding all the ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... circumstances admitted of no such expenditure, and before many weeks she was again without materials. She would not tell Russell that she had exhausted his package, and passed sleepless nights trying to devise some method by which she could aid herself. It was positive torture for her to sit in school and see the drawing-master go round, giving lessons on this side and that, skipping over her every time, because her aunt could not afford the extra three dollars. Amid all these yearnings and aspirations she turned constantly to Russell, ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... readily accepted as facts owing their origin to divine interposition, they fall to the opposite extreme of denying the occurrence of any events out of the common course of Nature's operations. Of the positive and powerful ministration of angels in human affairs they make no account whatever, or accept it as a pleasing dream; and they forget that what we call a miracle may be as truly an offspring of immutable law as the dew and the sunshine,—failing to learn of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... former case nobody could blame him for the resolution he had taken, for he was not obliged to keep a whore for the greatest prince alive; and the indignity to himself he would submit to the good pleasure of God. But if there were any reason to suspect the other, he was ready to give a positive judgment, in which he hoped their lordships would concur with him; that the King should immediately cause the woman to be sent to the Tower, and to be cast into a dungeon under so strict a guard, that no person living should ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... expressed to me respecting the education which ought to be given youth. Though the sworn enemy of everything like liberty, Bonaparte had at first conceived a vast system of education, comprising above all the study of history, and those positive sciences, such as geology and astronomy, which give the utmost degree of development to the human mind. The Sovereign, however, shrunk from the first ideas of the man of genius, and his university, confided to the elegant suppleness of M. de Fontaines, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... all changed, Amanda, the chambermaid, is the only one who knows the truth; and she will be very careful to say nothing about it. Therefore, all our positive information goes back no farther than five months. And what do we hear? That your father seemed to try and make his extravagant expenditures as conspicuous as possible. That he did not even take the trouble to conceal the source of the money he spent so profusely; for ...
— Other People's Money • Emile Gaboriau
... in a wood some hundreds of yards from her home; its result will sufficiently appear in the sequel. One circumstance, however, we must not omit. She recurred to a conversation which had passed sometime before, in relation to the legality of her marriage; and though Cutler gave no positive opinion, his parting advice was nearly ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... order to protect others from infection. But the cause must be explicitly declared. By declaring it, you educate the country to look beyond the temporary measure,—to look forward to a return to a normal state of things, and to study the positive organic principle destined to govern that normal state. By keeping silence, you accustom the mass to disjoin the moral from the political, theory from practice, the ideal from the real, heaven ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... the services toward equal opportunity programs, had been used to advise civilian officials on complaints from the black community, especially black servicemen, and to rationalize service policies for civil rights organizations. The new civil rights office, reflecting McNamara's positive intentions, was organized to monitor ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... beg pardon," interrupted he; "but my friend is most positive in his account, and describes the altercation as having continued from the Salon to the street, when you struck him, and at the same time threw him your card. Two of our officers were also present; and although, as ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... at the sale of Dean Stanley's pictures, several of those which had been the dean's favourites, and which, independently of their positive merit, were peculiarly dear to Helen. He had ordered that they should be sent down to Clarendon Park; at first, he only begged house-room for them from the general while he and Lady Davenant were in Russia; then he ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... writing by Mr. Cotton in the name of them all, they being all present, and not one dissentient." Then the magistrates propounded four more questions, the last of which is as follows: "Whether a judge be bound to pronounce such sentence as a positive law prescribes, in case it be apparently above or beneath the merit of the offence?" To which the elders replied at great length, saying that the penalty must vary with the gravity of the crime, and added examples: ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... his hands together with positive enjoyment, "we can't pay a cent: isn't it great? Have ...
— The Hohenzollerns in America - With the Bolsheviks in Berlin and other impossibilities • Stephen Leacock
... one mark of age that strikes me more than any of the physical ones;—I mean the formation of Habits. An old man who shrinks into himself falls into ways that become as positive and as much beyond the reach of outside influences as if they were governed by clock-work. The ANIMAL functions, as the physiologists call them, in distinction from the ORGANIC, tend, in the process of deterioration to which age and neglect united gradually lead them, to assume the periodical or ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... he had trouble a-plenty. When, short-handed as he was, two of his cowboys went a-spreeing and a-leisuring in town, with their faces turned from honest toil and their hands manipulating pairs and flushes and face-cards, rather than good "grass" ropes, he was positive that his cup was dripping trouble all ...
— The Lonesome Trail and Other Stories • B. M. Bower
... if it were not evaded, we must remember that the Civil Service examinations and rules are not a guarantee of efficiency or excellence. The best that can be said for them is that they are a protection against absolute incompetence and, to a certain extent, against political spoiling. But in a positive sense, the Civil Service is merely a guarantee of mediocrity. And mediocrity never yet made a success of a great transportation or productive system such as our railroads or industrial corporations. The political ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... man, who promised as well as he does, that turned out very badly; and men fully developed in character, sustaining the highest reputations in the community, have been detected in the grossest frauds. I trust Don John will realize the hopes of his friends; but we must not be too positive." ...
— The Yacht Club - or The Young Boat-Builder • Oliver Optic
... calumnies have brought down upon me; and the disfavor in which I stand before a majority of the people, excited against me by their artifices;—their demerits to me are proportioned to the obligations to me—Jackson's the greatest, Crawford's the next, Calhoun's the least of positive obligation, but darkened by his double-faced setting himself up as a candidate for the Presidency against me in 1821, his prevarications between Jackson and me in 1824, and his icy-hearted dereliction of all the decencies of ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner |
