|
|
|
More "Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bones. I wish you could see my son; he's a clever lad, only he ought to have more of the suaviter in modo." Thus, with the garrulity of wandering age, he prattled on, but his mind was clear and his memory tenacious and positive. There is a good prospect from the region of Hucknall-Torkard Church, and pointing into the distance, when his mind had been brought back to the subject of Byron, my aged interlocutor described, with minute ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... Not less positive are the expressions of Father Diego Duran, contemporary of Sahagun, and himself well versed in the native tongue. "All their songs," he observes, "were composed in such obscure metaphors that scarcely any one can understand them unless he give especial ...
— Ancient Nahuatl Poetry - Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature Number VII. • Daniel G. Brinton
... production, obeying a superior officer, like machines contributing the greatest possible output of labor—there you have the perfect state! Liberty was a purely negative idea if not accompanied with a positive concept which ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to purchase considerable quantities of bread-stuffs in the name of the city. Several ship loads of wheat and rye had been delivered by him the day before, but he was still in arrears with three-quarters of what was ordered. He openly said that he had as yet given no positive orders for it, because owing to the prospect of a good harvest, a fall in the price of grain was expected in the exchanges of Rotterdam and Amsterdam, and he would still have several weeks time before the commencement of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... was commanded to bring positive intelligence of who and what the Coompani was, of whom so much was said,—how connected with England,—whether an old woman, as sometimes reported, or whether it consisted of many old women; ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... writing beside the hearth, over which hangs a print of Queen Victoria, listening to the muffled roar of the world's metropolis, and with a window at but five paces distant, through which, whenever I please, I can gaze out on actual London,— with all this positive certainty as to my whereabouts, what kind of notion, do you think, is just now perplexing my brain? Why,—would you believe it?—that all this time I am still an inhabitant of that wearisome little ...
— P.'s Correspondence (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Christmas had been a desolation to Gabrielle, her parting from Arthur next Easter was clouded by a sense of more positive want. It was the season of lovers, days of bright sunshine, evenings of a surpassing tenderness. She went to the station with him in the pony-cart alone. She sat like a statue in the trap while ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... photography consists in taking the images on what is called a negative—that is, a glass coated with a silvered collodion (gun-cotton dissolved in alcohol and ether) film. From this plate another image is taken on silvered paper, which we call the positive image. There are also other chemicals used instead ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... appeal to women which brought New York into direct connection with many other portions of the country, enabling it "to report its monthly disbursements by tens of thousands, and the sum total of its income by millions." But very soon after its organization, Miss Schuyler saw the need of more positive connection with the Government. A united address was sent to the Secretary of War from the Woman's Central Relief Association, the Advisory Committee of the Board of Physicians and Surgeons of the hospitals of New York, and the New York Medical Association for furnishing medical ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... his thoughts turned in another direction, for he came upon the two gipsy lads, seated under the hedge, with their legs in the ditch, proof positive that the people of their tribe were somewhere ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... loss of their great armies was not all the enemy had to endure. As the grass had stood our ally and swallowed the attackers, helping us in a negative fashion as it were, it now turned and became a positive force in our relief. Unnoticed for months, it had crept northwestward, filching precious mile after mile of the hostile foothold. Now it spurted ahead as it had sometimes done before, at a furious pace, to take over the coast as far north ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... nothing?" she asked. And as he began to protest, she went on: "Yes, yes, I have confidence in you. And so you believe that he is dead! Ah! to think of all those children who die, when so many women would be happy to save one, to have one for themselves. Well, if you haven't been able to tell me anything positive, you have at least done ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... the only breaks in Bessie's monotonous life. Once Jack had been there for a few days, or rather to the "George," where he slept and took his meals, spending the rest of the time with Bessie, who interested him more and more, and from whom he at last fled as from a positive danger. With his limited income and his habits, he could not hope to marry, even if Bessie would have joined her young life with his matured one, which he doubted, and, with a great pang of regret he left her in the old Stoneleigh garden and did not dare look back at her, sitting there with ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... all-round sport of the Prince of Wales and in this he heartily embodied one more characteristic of the typical English gentleman. It has been described as a positive passion with him and as being "the love of his life." His father had been a thorough sportsman, though not a very good shot; the son became not only a thorough sportsman but perhaps the best shot in the United Kingdom. At seven years of age he was taught deer-stalking, at Oxford ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... around was filled with deserters and stragglers; though the Federals had brigades lying round Richmond in perfect idleness—still for a time the rumor gained credit that General Lee had turned on his pursuer, at Amelia Court House, and gained a decisive victory over him. Then came the more positive news that Ewell was cut off with 13,000 men; and, finally, on the 9th of April, Richmond heard that Lee had surrendered. Surely as this result should have been looked forward to—gradually as the popular mind had been led to it—still ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... "It is a positive and absolute breach of contract!" exclaimed Miss Raybold. "You agreed to remain in my service during my stay in camp, and you have no right to go away now, no matter who else ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... as it did the rude appeal to the ordeal or to battle by the sworn testimony of the chosen representatives, the good men and true, of the neighbourhood. But the custom was not yet governed by any positive and inviolable rules, and the action of the King's Court in this respect was imperfectly developed, uncertain, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... cried Richard. "James I am positive would, for he was skulking down to Hallijohn's often then, and saw Thorn a dozen times. Otway Bethel must have seen him also, though he ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... experience—such experience as may be attributed to a woman slightly faded and eminently distinguished. Subject and treatment in this valuable piece are of an equal interest, and in the latter there is an element of positive sympathy which is not always in a high degree the sign of Mr. Sargent's work. What shall I say of the remarkable canvas which, on the occasion of the Salon of 1884, brought the critics about our artist's ears, the already celebrated portrait of "Madame G.?" It is an experiment ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... an act of positive inhumanity to leave the unfortunate preacher any longer to his solitude, without taking some note, however brief it may be, of his feelings and his sufferings. After consigning his packet (which, as we have seen, was not only received, but appreciated by—the Protector) ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... him Drennen the Unlucky had named him Headlong Drennen. His is that type which, in another environment and taking the gamble of life from another angle, is termed a plunger. There was no room for half-heartedness in so positive a nature. Where he loved he worshipped. He had had an idol once before, his father. Now, after half a score of years, he made himself another idol. And it, in turn, made ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... rather than romantic, as are so many of the Highland rivers. They have their legions of admirers, but there is no Scottish stream that can count so many ardent lovers as the Tweed, and this for many reasons. It has much varied and positive picturesqueness of its own, it has associations of legend and history; Walter Scott lived on its banks, and its dividing course between the nations that used to harry or be harried invests it with an abiding interest. As a river it is distinguished ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... of the slatees, and people that composed the caravan, were entirely unknown to me—and as they seemed rather averse to my purpose, and unwilling to enter into any positive engagements on my account—and the time of their departure being withal very uncertain, I resolved, on further deliberation, to avail myself of the dry season, ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... sofa. What joy to behold him again—her only son, her pride, her darling! How she glorified him, and exulted in him, and rejoiced in every evidence of his beautiful manhood! The sight of the thick-soled boots gave her a positive thrill of joy; she looked unmoved at the mud on the carpet, and did not even wince when he crumpled her best ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... failed as yet in getting any positive evidence that there was any relation between Elsie and the schoolmaster other than such as might exist unsuspected and unblamed between a teacher and his pupil. A book, or a note, even, did not prove ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... upon which he dropped the Biparie and seized the 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 recovered, and ...
— The Book of Enterprise and Adventure - Being an Excitement to Reading. For Young People. A New and Condensed Edition. • Anonymous
... calamity which had overwhelmed her. Some time afterwards (in October 1843) she wrote to Mrs. Martin: 'For my own part and experience—I do not say it as a phrase or in exaggeration, but from very clear and positive conviction—I do believe that I should be mad at this moment, if I had not forced back—dammed out—the current of rushing recollections by work, work, work.' One of the projects in which she was concerned was 'Chaucer Modernised,' a scheme for reviving interest in ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... is extremely easy. Divide the observed volume of air by 210, and multiply the quotient by the degrees of temperature above or below 10 deg. (54.5 deg.). This correction is negative when the actual temperature is above the standard, and positive when below. By the use of logarithmical tables this ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... intention to purchase a very considerable number of copies of the New Testament, and to dispatch them forthwith to the various British consuls established in different parts of Spain, with strict and positive orders to employ all the means which their official situation should afford them to circulate the books in question and to assure their being noticed. They were, moreover, to be charged to afford me, whenever I should appear in their respective ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... ten boundaries or commandments, as mentioned by the Commentator, are the five positive ones, viz., Purity, Contentment, Penances, Study of the Vedas, Meditation on God, and the five negative ones, viz., abstention from cruelty, from untruth, from theft, from non-observance of vows, and from acquisition ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... daughter's safety, in these words:-'Lady Laura Gaveston will be restored to Beaufort House as soon as her father can make up his mind to behave with spirit and patriotism, and follow out the only plans which can save his country. This must be done by actions, not by words; but a positive engagement under his hand will be considered sufficient. In the meantime, she remains a hostage for his good faith.' At the bottom was written, in a hand which he says is that of Lady Laura herself—'My dear father, I am well; but this is all they ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... whether she thought anything, was a matter of little consequence, for when the richer lady came to mention the terms at which she rated the hospitality of the Doherty household, Mrs. Doherty showed a positive anxiety to oblige her, and even murmured something about being glad to do anything in their power for ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 3 • Various
... soil in too friable a condition for the advantageous reception of medium red clover seed. In other words, it does not often happen that soils are in too fine tilth to sow seed upon them without such fineness resulting in positive benefit to the plants. The exceptions would be clays of fine texture in climates subject to rainfalls so heavy as to produce impaction. On the other hand, the hazard would be even greater to sow clover on these soils when in a cloddy condition. The ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... The said smile rapidly broadened into a positive grin that spread all over his face, while his ...
— The Chums of Scranton High Out for the Pennant • Donald Ferguson
... and the institution: for the political or civil power is grounded upon the law of nature itself, and for that cause it is common to infidels with Christians; the power ecclesiastical dependeth immediately upon the positive law of Christ alone: that belongeth to the universal dominion of God the Creator over all nations; but this unto the special and economical kingdom of Christ the Mediator, which he exerciseth in the church alone, and which ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... Positive freedom, a share in the making of treaties affecting Canada, came still more gradually. When in 1870 Galt and Huntington pressed for treaty-making powers, Macdonald opposed, urging the great advantages of ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... Marlowe have been maintained with something very like party spirit. I have seen latterly several indications of this, unmistakeable, though expressed, perhaps, but by a single word. Now it is true both Mr. Collier and Mr. Dyce are committed to a positive opinion on this subject; and it would be unreasonable to expect either of those gentlemen to change their views, except with the fullest proof and after the maturest consideration. But who, besides these, is interested in maintaining the precedence of Marlowe? ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 53. Saturday, November 2, 1850 • Various
... complete, is nearly so. Here, however, we must be careful. It is important to realise, and few readers are in danger of ignoring, this extraordinary deadness of feeling, but it is also important not to confuse it with a general positive ill-will. When Iago has no dislike or hostility to a person he does not show pleasure in the suffering of that person: he shows at most the absence of pain. There is, for instance, not the least sign of his enjoying the distress of Desdemona. But his sympathetic feelings are ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... couple of Letters, which I lately communicated to the Publick, has given the Ladies ample Satisfaction by marrying a Farmer's Daughter; a piece of News which came to our Club by the last Post. The Templer is very positive that he has married a Dairy-maid: But Will, in his Letter to me on this Occasion, sets the best Face upon the Matter that he can, and gives a more tollerable Account of his Spouse. I must confess I suspected something ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the hand that drew the model, and then again dictated to and sent the energy into the hands whereby the first instrument was clothed in the material form of metal or of wood. The lower negative always gives way to the higher when made positive. Mind is positive: ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... added valuable information to the knowledge of anatomy. The art and process of embalming, in such vogue among the Egyptians, naturally fostered the advance of this science. Whilst Alexandria in abstract speculation could not rival Greece, yet it became the home of the pioneers of positive science, who left a great and priceless legacy to modern civilisation. The importance of this event (the foundation of the Museion), says Draper, in his Intellectual Development of Europe, though ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... often, though not always, to settle questions of Church policy. It was often appealed to at Synods. If a difficult question came up for discussion, the Brethren frequently consulted the Lot. The method was to place three papers in a box, and then appoint someone to draw one out. If the paper was positive, the resolution was carried; if the paper was negative, the resolution was lost; if the paper was blank, the resolution was laid on the table. The weightiest matters were settled in this way. At one Synod ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... a little overdone? We find a piece of the true cross in every old church we go into, and some of the nails that held it together. I would not like to be positive, but I think we have seen as much as a keg of these nails. Then there is the crown of thorns; they have part of one in Sainte Chapelle, in Paris, and part of one also in Notre Dame. And as for ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... they knew that would be an impossibility to do by crossing the Sierra, and their object at that time was to find a settlement where they might know their whereabouts, and in what direction to go in order to return. The old Indian was positive there were people like themselves over the mountain of snow, and knowing they must have wandered a great way to come to it, they determined to make the most direct route to the nearest European habitation; for they had wandered so long that their friends had become ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... detail of that moving little episode had escaped de Marmont's keen eyes: he had seen Crystal's look of positive abhorrence wherewith she had regarded Clyffurde, he had seen the gathering up of her skirts away—as it were—from the contaminating propinquity of the ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... are unsusceptible of number or gender, in which they resemble the English; yet when it is necessary to distinguish the sexes, alca is used for the masculine, and domo for the feminine. The comparative is formed by prefixing jod or doi to the positive, and the superlative by cad or mu. Thus from chu limpid, are formed doichu more limpid, and muliu most limpid. There are no diminutives or augmentatives, which are supplied by means of the adjectives picki little, and buta great. Diminutives ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... for his recovery, with much expenditure of pains; but meanwhile little account would be taken of the friend in like condition, and if both should die, he will show signs of deep annoyance at the death of his domestic, which, as he reflects, is a positive loss to him; but as regards his friend his position is in no wise materially affected, and thus, though he would never dream of leaving his other possessions disregarded and ill cared for, friendship's mute appeal is met with ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... loud and drawn out, not short and quick. Witness led the way up stairs. Upon reaching the first landing, heard two voices in loud and angry contention—the one a gruff voice, the other much shriller—a very strange voice. Could distinguish some words of the former, which was that of a Frenchman. Was positive that it was not a woman's voice. Could distinguish the words 'sacr' and 'diable.' The shrill voice was that of a foreigner. Could not be sure whether it was the voice of a man or of a woman. Could not make out what was said, but believed ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... is that the record of what men have done in the past and how they have done it is the chief positive guide to present action. The second fact is that most men must now receive the impression ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... refrain from disturbing her any more, on condition that she would pray that he might find some repose. He had previously declined having any masses said for his soul. Rest, rest, rest, appears to be the continual craving of unhappy spirits; they do not venture to ask for positive bliss: perhaps, in their utter weariness, would rather forego the trouble of active enjoyment, but pray only for rest. The cold atmosphere around this monk suggests new ideas as to the climate of Hades. If all the afore-mentioned twenty-seven monks had a similar one, the combined temperature ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of having met you," the girl said carelessly; which was positive disingenuousness, for she remembered very well indeed. And here she sat, talking to the man whose suggestion, as Charles quoted it, had roused her interest in the business. Helen was not sufficiently Oriental to ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... whites continued; for, though all others might be disposed of, Nat Turner was still at large. We have positive evidence of the extent of the alarm, although great efforts were afterwards made to represent it as a trifling affair. A distinguished citizen of Virginia wrote, three months later, to the Hon. W. B. Seabrook of South ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... Cherokee Hall, who's lookin' on, shoulders in between Enright an' the Red Dog man, mighty positive. Cherokee is a heap sot in his idees, an' I sees right off he's took a notion ag'in ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... arranged that Ned, Jimmie and the Captain were to proceed to the ruined temple with the four and there learn something of the mysticism of the East! Ned was positive that the time for his test of courage had come. Still, he did not waver, for he was prepared. The marines were instructed to gradually encircle the old temple, and to listen ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... Robin was so positive on the matter that we thought it advisable not to follow the Indian. We accordingly retreated towards the fort, though very unwilling to return ...
— Snow Shoes and Canoes - The Early Days of a Fur-Trader in the Hudson Bay Territory • William H. G. Kingston
... that you have. But when you said good-bye to your dear man I am positive that you had no intention of coming here. My dear, I am a woman of experience, and I know the world. While he is away you have a fever in your blood. Your sad heart flies for comfort to these foreign lands. At home you cannot bear the sight of that ...
— In a German Pension • Katherine Mansfield
... find everywhere two opposites or contradictories to be recognized and judged, as the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual, the false and the true, the mortal and the immortal, the unreal and the real, the negative and the positive. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... presence in the chamber, and turned with an actual assurance that some one stood behind me. I was alone, as a single glance about the room informed me, but the sense of that second presence was so clearly defined and positive that the mere evidence ...
— Schwartz: A History - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... that's neither here nor there. It isn't the point! But the danger is, that, whether he comes or not, she is a woman well on in years, with a constitution breaking down under her,—that is as far as appearances go, for of course I can't say anything positive about it,—and she has nobody to inherit her money, and as far as anybody knows she has never made ...
— Mrs. Cliff's Yacht • Frank R. Stockton
... his gesture, and I caught the glance that replied— a glance of horror, distrust, despair. The beautiful face was distorted into positive ugliness. ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... James Mill as his leading apostle, Mr. Stephen gives us a very shrewd and incisively critical examination. The founder of a new faith has usually begun by the earnest and authoritative declaration of a few simple truths and positive doctrines, for which his disciples provide, in course of time, the necessary philosophical basis. Bentham's voice had been crying ineffectually in the wilderness; and he now set about laying with his own hands the foundations of his beliefs upon primary scientific principles, always ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... There can be no positive rules as to the exact time of baking each article. Skill in baking is the result of practice, attention, and experience. Much, of course, depends on the state of the fire, and on the size of the things to be baked, and something on the thickness ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie
... is asked us: "If slaves will go in notwithstanding the general principle of law liberates them, why would they not equally go in against positive statute law—go in, even if the Missouri restriction were maintained!" I answer, because it takes a much bolder man to venture in with his property in the latter case than in the former; because the positive Congressional enactment is known to and respected by all, or nearly all, whereas ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... we first came in, we were now fresh and vigorous. But I am bound to add that either the miles proved more numerous than we had been led to expect, or that we were in bad case for walking. I have seldom suffered more from blistered feet and positive weariness, than I did on ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... one would choose to drink, but the Admiral was convinced that 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, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... for itself, while that which develops its existence through such impulsion pays the penalty and suffers loss. For it is phenomenal being that is so treated, and, of this, a portion is of no value, another is positive and real. The particular is, for the most part, of too trifling value as compared with the general; individuals are sacrificed and abandoned. The Idea pays the penalty of determinate existence and of corruptibility, not from itself, but ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... Pearson, and had succeeded in establishing a friendly intimacy with him, that would have allayed any fears which the young man might have had, as to the opinions entertained by the detectives with regard to himself. Mr. Pearson was very positive that one of the robbers was the same man who had left the valise at the bank during the afternoon, and, after learning that Manning had paid a visit to Miss Patton, he stated his belief that this same person had called at the bank a few ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... of water was found in the well on sounding, and not even a rope-yarn was gone from aloft. Altogether, we came out of the ordeal triumphantly, where many a gallant vessel met her fate, and the behaviour of the grand old tub gave me a positive affection for her, such as I have never felt for ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... quality, and so it has not been emphasized by writers on composition as it ought to be. But if it is negative, it is none the less real and important, and fortunately we have in Thackeray a masterly example of its positive power. ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... we received news by the way of Tunis, Algiers, or Morocco; but there is no contradicting a positive fact. At that period I had been with Bonaparte more than two years, and during that time not a single despatch on any occasion arrived of the contents of which I was ignorant. How then should the news alluded to ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... to his conduct. The horrible dread which had first suggested itself, of the partial overthrow of intellect, had passed away, but to this had succeeded a discovery, attended by quite as much concern —although creating less positive alarm. He had seen, with inexpressible pain, that Gerald ate but little, seeming rather to loathe his food, while on the other hand, he had recourse more frequently to wine, drinking off bumpers with ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... are nothing, general! A rebel regiment, at the most a brigade, thrown out from Jackson's right. I have positive information. Fitz John Porter is mistaken—arrogantly mistaken.—Ah, the rebel guns are going to indulge ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... floating cork, but I didn't propose to follow those two lunatics. I knew the Man from the Quarter—had known him from the day of his birth—and knew what he would do and where he would go (over his head sometimes) for a poor devil of a fish half as long as his finger, and I had had positive evidence of what the other web-footed duck thought of ice-cold water. No, I'd take a little sugar in mine, if you please, and put a drop of—but the Sculptor had already foreseen and was then forestalling my needs, so we leaned back in ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Under the double fluid theory of electricity the action of electrification in accumulating positive electricity in one conductor and negative on the other of the ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... all these, Jeremiah and his followers were positive in their hearts and souls that sacrifices were by no means the all-important feature of the worship of God, but, as Jeremiah had reminded the people on the day of the Great Passover, God asked them only to obey His voice and to live in accordance with ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... and mine the brain. Don't you see what this means? I'll gamble my right hand that these very words have been sent to Lord Fitzhugh at two or three different points, so that they would be sure of reaching him. I'm just as positive that he has already received a copy of the letter which we have. Mark my words, it's catch Lord Fitzhugh within the next few ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... may we, if w' have but sense To use the necessary means; 1310 And not your usual stratagems On one another, Lights and Dreams To stand on terms as positive, As if we did not take, but give: Set up the Covenant on crutches, 1315 'Gainst those who have us in their clutches, And dream of pulling churches down, Before w' are sure to prop our own: Your constant method of proceeding, Without ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... the albumen quickly; a greater heat would spoil it, as it would produce coagulation. So soon as the film is dry, which will be seen by the iridescent aspect it assumes, the plate is allowed to cool to the ordinary temperature, and is then at once exposed either beneath a positive, or beneath an original drawing the lines of which have been drawn in opaque ink, so as to completely prevent the luminous rays from passing through them; the light should only penetrate through the white or transparent ground of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... propositions. That there is a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently, that I am an accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfection, nay, positive injustice, in the administration of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave; must, I think, be allowed by every one who will give ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... States have decreed that on this day the control of their Government in its legislative and executive branches shall be given to a political party pledged in the most positive terms to the accomplishment of tariff reform. They have thus determined in favor of a more just and equitable system of Federal taxation. The agents they have chosen to carry out their purposes are bound by their promises not less than by the command of their masters to ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... territories which, experience does not forbid us to hope, may be as vast as have ever been grasped by the iron gripe of a despotic conqueror. The origin of so happy an innovation is one of the most interesting objects of inquiry which occurs in human affairs; but we have scarcely any positive information on the subject; for our ancient historians, though they are not wanting in diligently recording the number and the acts of national assemblies, describe their composition in a manner too general to be instructive, and take little note of novelty or peculiarity in the constitution ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... and matters go as they please, they are willing not to know it. And those of them who are at the Fresh River have desired to enter into an agreement and to make a yearly acknowledgement or an absolute purchase, which indeed is proof positive that our right was well known to them, and that they themselves had nothing against it in conscience, although they now, from time to time, have invented and pretended many things in order to screen themselves, or thereby to cause at ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... sharply around in every direction, but saw nothing of the camp, although positive that his olfactories ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... of impending fate, and as this unexpected web of circumstantial and positive evidence is being slowly and systematically woven about him, the shadow of the gallows falls upon him, and yet he makes no sign. The resolute will and inflexible nature sustain him ...
— Bucholz and the Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... literary empirics, under the name of "men of power," will claim his suffrages at every turn; and in vain will he draw upon his politeness to the utmost, in vain assent, ejaculate, and admire—no amount of positive praise will suffice, till America Felix is admitted to be the chosen home of every grace and every muse. "Did Mr Bull meet with any of our literary characters at Boston?" Mr Bull had that happiness. "Well, he was very much pleased of course?" Bull hastens to lay his hand upon his heart, and to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... not like spoiling a new pelisse, or a handsome plume; but when there is nothing in question but a white gown and a straw bonnet, as was the case to-day, it is rather pleasant than not. The little chill refreshes, and our enjoyment of the subsequent warmth and dryness is positive and absolute. Besides, the stimulus and exertion do good to the mind as well as body. How melancholy I was all the morning! how cheerful I am now! Nothing like a shower-bath—a real shower-bath, such as Lizzy and May and I have undergone, ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford
... I dare not; my orders are positive, and if I violate them and survive, a court-martial and ignominious dismissal may follow. I feel as though myself and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... For positive proof that it is sometimes used to denote the earth, or that from which vegetation comes, it is only necessary to refer to the lower right-hand figure of plate 12, Borgian Codex. Here is Tlaloc sending down rain upon the earth, from which the enlivened plants are springing forth and expanding ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... their nationalism has increased. This must continue to be true of any internationalism which is based upon hatred of the capitalist and adherence to the doctrine of the class war. Something more positive and constructive than this is needed if governing democracies are not to inherit the vices of ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... While there is no positive proof that men dwelt in Europe before the coming on of the glacial chill, we have no just reason to doubt it. That he lived there during glacial times is unquestionable, and we may be very well assured that a naked tropical ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... in and about Manila, male or female, staff or supply, signal or hospital corps, Red Cross or crossed cannon, rifles, or sabres, this indomitable woman was now the most sought after—the most in demand. Her identification of the dead man had been positive ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... Marian Lesley—or thought he had. They had grown up together from childhood. He was an only son and she an only daughter. It had always been an understood thing between the two families that the boy and girl should marry. But Marian's father had decreed that no positive pledge should pass between them until Marian ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... of the Archbishop of Mainz. [34] For this reason there is little logical sequence in the arrangement of the Theses, and none of the attempts to discover a plan or scheme underlying them has been successful.[35] In a general way it may be said that for the positive views of Luther on the subjects discussed, Theses 30-37 and 41-51 are the most vital, while Theses 92-95 are sufficient evidence of the motive which led Luther to ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... diplomatic labours. Apart from the diatribes of zealots and the evidence of interested informers, apart also from the inclination to generalise from well authenticated but extreme examples, it is evident that, in the absence of a positive religious enthusiasm, the system was peculiarly liable to grave degeneration; and it was long since there had been any active spiritual ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... acquaintance with the subject he professed to discuss. But besides these, there were of course the legitimate objections which can always be urged in matters of a debateable character, where there is no positive evidence on either side. With regard to such I can at least echo the words of one of the most eminent and most courteous of my opponents, M. Charles Ploix, and say for euhemerism what he says for naturalism:—"Tant que la theorie sur laquelle il s'appuie n'aura pas ete ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... good, blue, square, large. The signification of adjectives may be increased or diminished, and this is called comparison; there are two degrees of comparison, the comparative, which increases or diminishes the quality, is formed by adding er to the adjective in its positive state; the superlative increases or diminishes the comparative to its last degree, and is formed by adding est to the adjective in its positive or original state, as long, longer, longest; short, shorter, shortest. When the adjective consists of more than two syllables, the comparative ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... experience in the management and publication of a paper of the class herewith submitted, and with the still more positive advantage of an Ample Capital to justify the ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 3, April 16, 1870 • Various
... at first as a criticism, sometimes even as a destructive and revolutionary criticism. Its negative aspect is for centuries foremost. Its business seems to be not so much to build up as to pull down, to remove obstacles which block human progress, rather than to point the positive goal of endeavour or fashion the fabric of civilization. It finds humanity oppressed, and would set it free. It finds a people groaning under arbitrary rule, a nation in bondage to a conquering race, industrial enterprise obstructed by social ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... such despatches. This much you are at liberty to use in any way you may deem proper. The other reflections which the author of the article alluded to [made] against you I of course am not called upon to say anything in regard to. The fact is, your subsequent promotions are proof positive that I entertained none of the views set forth to your disadvantage in ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... L1000 for procuring his pardon; and on the 20th, having disclosed the cipher used in the correspondence between himself and Mary, he was executed [v.03 p.0096] with the usual barbarities in Lincoln's Inn Fields. The detection of the plot led to Mary's own destruction. There is no positive documentary proof in Mary's own hand that she had knowledge of the intended assassination of Elizabeth, but her circumstances, together with the tenour of her correspondence with Babington, place her complicity ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... close contact without feeling the influence of the gravitating force which, at insensible distances,—such as the breadth of a wave of ether, is increased in power, and becomes a cohering and combining force. We contend that this fluid is the only fluid of space; when condensed it is positive, and seeks to escape; when rarefied it is negative, and receives from the contiguous space a restoration of its power. That it can give and receive, from planetary matter, what we call motion; and consequently can affect the temperature of such matter, and be in turn affected by it. And finally ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... I was glad to dispense with them at Kisagoi, a small upland hamlet, a very poor place, with poverty- stricken houses, children very dirty and sorely afflicted by skin maladies, and women with complexions and features hardened by severe work and much wood smoke into positive ugliness, and with ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... time, the theatre of the Rue de Richelieu had perceptibly declined, after the fall of Robespierre, and the public appeared to have come to a positive determination to frequent it no longer. The manager of the Theatre Feydeau, M. SARGENT, formerly a banker, who was rich, and enjoyed a good reputation, succeeded in uniting all the actors of the Comedie ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... going to carry the tent or send it up by the camp wagon?" Roy Blakeley asked, as he and the others crowded each other off the train at Catskill Landing. "Answer in the positive or negative." ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... examples of lack of fine feeling mark them for what they are. Among gentlemen no comment is necessary. The mark of breeding is more often discovered in what one does not say, does not write, does not do, than in positive action. There was much, at that time, when fifteen hundred people had been buried in icy water, and scores of American and English gentlemen had gone down to death, just in answer to: "Ladies first, gentlemen!" that should have been left unsaid and unwritten. The quality ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... carriage. Near the entrance Mervyn Quentock was talking to a Serene Highness, a lady who led a life of obtrusive usefulness, largely imposed on her by a good-natured inability to say "No." "That woman creates a positive draught with the number of bazaars she opens," a frivolously-spoken ex-Cabinet Minister had once remarked. At the present moment she was being ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... There was something so positive, so prohibitory in her voice and gesture, that my heart contracted, and a sudden chill of despondency ran through me. But I could not be silent now. It was impossible for me to hold my ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... science had raised themselves above the condition of their birth, and risen to eminence and wealth; and these instances have been dwelt upon and repeated, in a manner, that, whether intentionally or not, produces the impression that positive and scientific knowledge is the summum bonum of human education, and that to rise above our station in life, should be the great object of our exertion. This is not my creed. I am satisfied that it is an erroneous one, in any system of education for any ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps
... recalling Dr. Saul Ascher, with his abstract legs, his tight-fitting transcendental-grey long coat, his forbidding icy face, which could have served as frontispiece for a textbook of geometry. This man, deep in the fifties, was a personified straight line. In his striving for the positive, the poor man had, by dint of philosophizing, eliminated all the splendid things from life, such as sunshine, religion, and flowers, so that there remained nothing for him but the cold positive grave. The Apollo Belvedere and Christianity ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... possible to contend that we have got the bare abstract concept or category of Causality in our minds, and yet that there is nothing within our experience to give it any positive content—so that we should have to say, 'Every event must have a cause, but we never know or can know what that cause is. If we are to talk about causes at all, we can only say "The Unknowable is the cause of all things."' Such a position can be barely ...
— Philosophy and Religion - Six Lectures Delivered at Cambridge • Hastings Rashdall
... to be positively no spot for Marion; and, in spite of all the cares and perplexities which each day brought her, Miss Ashton could not forget it. It became a positive source of worry to her before she received a letter stating the day on which Marion ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... sculptors shape statues, by removing the superfluous parts; and a mere glance at the forms of animals in general will show that it is well-nigh as dominant and universal a principle as is that of the positive development of useful parts. Other causes, moreover besides actual economy, would favour shorter and more convenient wings on oceanic islands. In the first place, birds that were somewhat weak on the wing would be most likely to settle ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... naturally attendant on it. Maurice took care to make her understand that her interest in his object was not trifling. Long time attached to Gertrude van Mechlen, his favorite mistress, who had borne him several children, he now announced his positive resolution to remain unmarried; so that his brother Frederick Henry, the dowager's only son, would be sure to succeed to the sovereignty he aimed at. The princess, not insensible to this appeal, followed the instructions of Maurice, and broached the affair to Barneveldt; ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... the Judge, heartily. "But oh! for some more positive proof of this change of character! If we could only identify the corpse, prove clearly that it is not Quadling. And still more, if we had not let this so-called Ripaldi slip through our fingers! You will never find him, ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... Caesar, speaking of the Germans. Pillage brings no shame. This desire of gain, this positive and realistic tendency is one of the motives which the brusque and prodigious economic expansion of Germany has promoted in the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... with suitable feedings, given at definite times, followed by the proper periods of sleep, but little trouble will be experienced with sleeplessness. When sleep is disturbed and broken, it means bad habits, unsuitable food, minor forms of indigestion, or positive illness of some kind. Sleep is absolutely essential in infancy and all through childhood for purposes of growth. It is wrong to permit a child to sleep too much during the day; it will become a habit, and it will not sleep well during the night as a consequence. In ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... to think them. From the charge of inordinate length it is, of course, impossible to clear the whole class, and Artamene more particularly.[188] Length "no more than reason" is in some judgments a positive advantage in a novel; but this is more than reason. I believe (the moi, I trust, is not utterly haissable when it is necessary) that I myself am a rather unusually rapid, without being a careless or unfaithful, reader; and that I have by nature ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... to interrupt a direct process; and that, accordingly, in all doubtful questions and presumptive murders, the practice of the law inclined, with a laudable partiality, to the vindication of its own officers. In addition to these general rules, he was influenced by the positive injunctions and assurances of Swineard, and the terror which, through a circle of many miles, was annexed to the name of Tyrrel. Before they departed, Mrs. Hammond despatched a messenger with a letter of three lines to Mr. Falkland, informing him of this extraordinary event. Mr. Falkland ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... good spirits, for Sir Marmaduke Towler, a great Yorkshire baronet, was most particular in his attentions to me; indeed so much so, that I saw it made poor Sabre very uneasy. I do not know why it should, for I have given him no positive encouragement to hope for anything; not that I have the least idea that the baronet's attentions were more than commonplace politeness, but he has since called. I cannot, however, say that my vanity is at all ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... expect it, but we mean to be ready for it at any hour of the day or night. We have positive evidence that there are about half a dozen too many Abolitionists, and altogether too many free niggers, ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon
... Carus is today the ablest American exponent of Monism, and to him it is a positive religion. If Monism could make men of the superb mental type of Paul Carus, well might we place the subject on a compulsory basis and introduce it into our public schools. But Haeckel and Carus believe quite ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... her dog that day; the animal wasn't a pin-cushion—and became aware that Gussie, who an instant before had, to all appearances, gone so far back in the betting as not to be worth a quotation, was the big winner after all, a positive thrill permeated the frame and there escaped my lips a "Wow!" so crisp and hearty that the Bassett leaped a liberal inch and a ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... universal principle of Being and the multitudinous principle of atoms, entered into the composition of the world; which could distinguish between the true and false analogy, and allow the negative as well as the positive a place in human thought. To such a philosophy Plato, in the Theaetetus, offers many contributions. He has followed philosophy into the region of mythology, and pointed out the similarities of opposing phases of thought. He has also shown that extreme ...
— Theaetetus • Plato
... apprehension with gayety, to combat uneasiness by diversion. But the hours passed in mirthfulness; the first general feeling of depression began to weigh less and less upon the guests; they had found reason to confide in the solidity of the massive building; there were no positive terrors, no outspoken fears; and the new conviction of all had found expression in the words of the host himself,—"Il n'y a rien de mieux a faire que de s'amuser!" Of what avail to lament the prospective devastation of cane-fields,—to discuss the possible ruin of crops? Better to seek ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... Thomas close in Nashville. I have said all I can to force him to attack, without giving the positive order until to-day. To-day, however, I could stand it no longer, and gave the order without any reserve. I think the battle will take place to-morrow. The result will probably be known in New York before Colonel Babcock (the bearer of this) will leave it. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... in recognition of the special dangers to which they were 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
... other reasons, this alone would be sufficient to make her wages low and prevent their very rapid increase.... The growing importance of woman's labor, her general equipment through technical education, her more positive dedication to the life-work she chooses, the growing sentiment that an educated and skilful woman is a better and truer companion in marriage than an ignorant and unskilful one, her appreciation of the value of organization, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... maritime intercourse were changed and enlarged by the progress of the age, proclaimed the vital need of interoceanic transit across the American Isthmus and consecrated it in advance to the common use of mankind by their positive declarations and through the formal obligation of treaties. Toward such realization the efforts of my Administration will be applied, ever bearing in mind the principles on which it must rest, and which were declared in no uncertain tones by ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... conscious that that day I had committed a loathsome action again, that what was done could never be undone, and secretly, inwardly gnawing, gnawing at myself for it, tearing and consuming myself till at last the bitterness turned into a sort of shameful accursed sweetness, and at last—into positive real enjoyment! Yes, into enjoyment, into enjoyment! I insist upon that. I have spoken of this because I keep wanting to know for a fact whether other people feel such enjoyment? I will explain; the enjoyment was just ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... turned to him wearily. "Do you know what you'll do in another minute? You'll talk yourself into another one of your disgusting rages over my own private affairs. You are a business man and would not violate an ordinary business agreement, but you are constantly ignoring the positive ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... him was not half the size it had been before this stranger from the country had sat down to play. He tried to remain master of himself, not to show before these egotistical, careless cavaliers all the agony of mind which he now endured and which had turned to positive ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... an expensive one for me, in that case," replied the prince, laughing. "You are making me a positive present, comte." ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... stalked the knife as it lay on the ground, and when within a few feet of it he let fly a stone at it—or as near it as he could. This was, he explained, to hit and hurt the "pal" which was in the knife, by which he meant that the knife was "possessed," and a positive proof of it lay in the fact that he had dropped it on no less than three ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... contrivance to forward Philip's views; whether we adopt Leland's opinion, that each tetrarchy was governed by a council of ten, or Schaefer's, that each city was placed under ten governors. Jacobs understands the word decemvirate not to refer to any positive form of government, but generally to designate a tyranny, such as that which the Lacedaemonians used to introduce into conquered cities. So, for example, the Romans might have spoken of a decemvirate ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... were so many other and better ways of letting Elmendorf know that in the coming conference his presence could be dispensed with, that Sloan spoke of it the moment they reached the library; but Allison was imperious and positive. "You don't begin to know the man," said he. "Anything less than unmistakable prohibition he would consider as invitation, and he'd turn our talk into a lecture on the relations of capital to labor. You saw how he got in the instant I ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... Ripogenus, a lake of Maine, we found not a single aquatic fact in the landscape. Ripogenus, a lake, had mizzled, (as the Americans say,) literally mizzled. Our simplified view comprised a grassy hill with barns, and a stern positive pyramid, surely Katahdin; aloft, beyond, above, below, thither, hither, and yon, Fog, not ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... thing!" Bobby was positive about it. "Anyway," he added, weakening, "we'll have on our ...
— Four Little Blossoms and Their Winter Fun • Mabel C. Hawley
... bein' subject to croup, both of which has snapped off many a fam'ly tree fore to-day. But I reckon the Joneses ain't suffered much that a-way. I doubt ef any of 'em has ever left 'thout passin' the name on—not knowin' positive, but thess jedgin'. None o' mine ain't, I know, leastwise none of my direc' ancestors—they couldn't have, an' me here, ...
— Sonny, A Christmas Guest • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... great lung-power of Caruso that made him a great singer. It was his remarkable heart-power that brought him through an illness in February, 1921, when every newspaper in the world carried on its front page the positive statement that he could not live another day. That he lived for six months afterward was due chiefly to ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... he at once becomes a saint. With these "dutiful children of the Church" there can be no fixed laws of evidence; the only ground of belief is, and ever must be, Has the statement been sanctioned by the highest authority? If so, it is true; if not, it is to be doubted, however positive the proofs may be. A difficulty that the traveler every where encounters is that he can believe nothing that he hears, even on the most trifling subject, without careful examination and weighing of ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... General Council was called together by Constantine the Great, A.D. 325. It was held at Nicaea in Bithynia, and was attended by 318 Bishops. The great work of this Council was the positive and explicit assertion of what the Church had always implicitly believed concerning the Nature of our Divine Lord, and His Oneness with the Father. It was at this Nicene Council that the great St. Athanasius, then only a deacon, first distinguished himself by his ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... have it: it will become you a thousand times better than that you have on," cried Mrs. Ludgate, insisting the more the more Lucy withdrew; "and, besides, you must wear it for my sake. You won't? Then I take it very ill of you that you are so positive; for I assure you, whatever you may think, I wish to be as kind to you now as ever. Only, you know, one can't always, when one lives in another style, be at home as ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... clearing his throat, "you imagine me to have a daughter. You're positive of it. You even visualize her so well, that you remember something about how you were ...
— Next Door, Next World • Robert Donald Locke
... the endless day? It was compared to the short waiting outside some door beyond which was warmth, cheer, and unending bliss. So that the pious soul thought of life only in terms of waiting, watching, enduring. Piety became positive only in prospect, negative in ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... probability of gaining; but my success with the clerical Armado had inspirited me, and I did not suffer myself to fear, though I could scarcely persuade myself to hope. How exceedingly impossible it is, in governing men, to lay down positive rules, even where we know the temper of the individual to be gained. "You must be very stiff and formal with the St. Quintins," said my mother. She was right in the general admonition, and had I found them all seated in the best drawing-room, Mrs. St. Quintin in her ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... is no spirit higher or stronger than the spirit of naturalism in man.' Are you positive ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... delight. The whole morning passed only too quickly in talking to the coastguard on duty, peeping through his telescope, and staring at the vessel. The sailor gave it as his opinion that it was a French boat, though something in the rig made him not quite positive. It cruised about in a queer manner, 'just as if she was on the watch for something,' as the man said. However, towards mid-day she drew out into the offing, and they saw her sails slowly ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... This positive enforcement of the law against the taking of increase on any loan, makes unmistakably clear the interpretation of the law by the devout, earnest, sincere, God-fearing Hebrews, down to the close of the Old ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... certainty be determined. The general opinion is, that he is the same as the person of that name referred to by St. Paul (Phil. iv. 3). The writings themselves contain no statement as to their author.... Although, as has been said, positive certainty cannot be reached on the subject, we may with great probability conclude that we have in this epistle a composition of that Clement who is known to us from Scripture as having been an associate of ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... these bad years ending in one of positive famine have stripped the poorer tenants bare, and pigs are so dear, where could a poor man get thirty shillings to buy a sucking pig or buy provender to feed it?" This is true, the first step is the difficulty. They might do this, or this, or this, and it would be profitable, but where are ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... corner of the ten-rouble note, which fluttered in the draught. Varvara Petrovna frowned slightly, and with a serious, almost severe, face held out her hand. The cripple kissed it with reverence. Her grateful eyes shone with positive ecstasy. At that moment the governor's wife came up, and a whole crowd of ladies and high officials flocked after her. The governor's wife was forced to stand still for a moment in the crush; many ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... countries, and perhaps the climate of Bengal, producing lassitude and low 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 in a state ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... risings which have occurred, I would remark that much blame attaches itself to the Porte, not only because of long years of misgovernment, but also on account of the supineness shown by its officials, who, in the presence of the most positive proofs to the contrary, treated the idea of a rising with supercilious disregard. Frequently whole villages came in to declare that they should be compelled to rise, unless they received protection and support. This was of course promised ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... some whales were seen, which the sailors say is the first sign of land. On the following day they saw some seals, which, according to the sailors, was the second sign of land. On the 24th, they saw some ducks, which, they say, is proof positive of land being near. On the same day land was sighted at 4 p. m.; the North Farallones of San Francisco were seen to the north and Point Ano Nuevo to the southeast. At 7 p. m., the South Farallones were seen at a ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... the Person, and as for the Money it cou'd not be sworn too; but the Box with little Roman Pieces being found upon him, he cou'd not stand that Proof, besides, it appears he can give no Account where he was the Evening of the Robbery, and the Innkeeper upon the Road, is positive he was one of the Persons which pass'd by his House that Evening; and to compleat all, several Persons who came in to see him out of Curiosity, depos'd, that he is very like the Man, by Description, has follow'd that Road several Years. To conclude, the Englishman only stays ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... Then, recalling how she had already been mortified in the matter of his first bath, and returning, girl-like, to that worn-out subject, "Johnnie, are you positive Mr. Perkins didn't see you empty the tub that day? and did he see the bottom of it when the water was all out? and in the bottom wasn't ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... his fist and scowled. "Do I understand that you refuse to obey the positive orders of ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... dear my son,[FN122] there is no man can tell thee other but tints I have said, except he twist the words handed down to us of the Holy Law and turn the truths thereof from their evident meaning. And such a perversion is their saying that the Word hath inherent and positive power and I take refuge with Allah from such a mis-belief! Nay, the meaning of our saying that Allah (to whom belong Might and Majesty!) created the world with His Word is that He (exalted be His name!) is One in His essence and His ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... attention to these particulars, its virtues may be thought exaggerated, or doubtful, if beneficial consequences do not always flow from its use. There are diseases it cannot cure; and in several of those patients in this town, who first took the Digitalis by your orders, there was the most positive proof of the viscera being unsound. In these desperate cases it often procured a plentiful flow of urine, and palliated a disease ...
— An Account of the Foxglove and some of its Medical Uses - With Practical Remarks on Dropsy and Other Diseases • William Withering
... yards now to the wagons and still no sign of life, no positive sign of death, though we looked carefully for both. We fear that perhaps there are Indians in ambush, and with nervous irregular breathing we counsel what to do. Finally Rogers suggested that he had ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... restriction, and other parenthetical circumstances, becomes a separate section—an independent whole. But, without insisting on Lord Brougham's oversights, or errors of defect, I will digress a moment to one positive caution of his, which will measure the value of his philosophy on this subject. He lays it down for a rule of indefinite application, that the Saxon part of our English idiom is to be favored at the expense of that part which has so happily coalesced ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... ensconced in her own country castle somewhere in St. John's Wood, furnished to hand with servants and vassals complete. Thus you will be charmed to observe in me the growth of the prophetic instinct, for you will remember my positive prediction that if a girl were in trouble, and the necessity arose, Mr. Drake would be the first to help her. Of course, he had a great deal to say that was as sweet as syrup on the loyalty of my own friendship also, and he expended ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... of cold—every combination introduced conducing to the great principles of breadth. When such is the plan upon which a work is laid down, we can easily perceive how powerfully the smallest touch of positive colour will tell—as in the midst of stillness a pin falling to the ground will be heard. Cuyp has this quality in a high degree, only on another scale—a uniformity of unbroken tone, and in masses of half-tint only, like a few sparkles of ...
— Rembrandt and His Works • John Burnet
... translate her triumph into more concrete speech. The essential lesson of experience, then, is that no device, plan, or policy adopted by England for the subjugation of Ireland has ever been anything except an abject failure. And the positive of this negative is that every claim that ever formed part of the national programme of Ireland has won its way against all enmities. No plough to which she ever put her hand has been turned back or stayed eternally in mid-furrow. ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... in erratic orbits of thought, now close upon the central light of Truth, now distantly remote from it, but always brilliant, and generally leaving a sparkling train of recollection behind. The author's subsequent productions, until the present, have been less successful; some by reason of their positive inferiority; some because of their extraordinary affectations of expression, repelling the multitude, who do not choose to risk their brains through unlimited pages of labyrinthine rhetoric; some, perhaps, because of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... returned any of them. On March 21, 1842, Joshua R. Giddings, untiring defender of the rights of the Negro, offered in the House of Representatives resolutions to the effect that slavery could exist only by positive law of the different states; that the states had delegated no control over slavery to the Federal Government, which alone had jurisdiction on the high seas, and that, therefore, slaves on the high seas became free and the ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... tribes who built these graves were not in possession of the country, or parts of it, at the time of the conquest. As to the affinities of the ancient middle isthmian tribes with the peoples north and south of them we can learn nothing positive from the evidences of their art. So far as the art of pottery has come within my observation, it appears to indicate a somewhat closer relationship with the ancient Costa Rican peoples than with those of continental South ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... Bethlehem were happily adjusted. There were only a few "business details" to arrange, and the episode would be closed. But the trouble was not over. Hidden away among the "business details" was the germ of a great war. The Emperor of Russia "felt obliged to demand guarantees, formal and positive," assuring the security of the Greek Christians in the Sultan's dominions. He had been constituted the Protector of Christianity in the Turkish Empire, and demanded this by virtue of that authority. The Sultan, strengthened now by ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... up with alacrity he gave a yell of positive anguish. "Why didn't you let me tickle 'im in the ribs, sir? He's gone!" ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... of the flight of the Wright brothers in France and Virginia, which were just then—in the summer of 1908—arousing the world to a belief in aviation. He had as positive information regarding aeroplanes as he had regarding socialism. It seemed that a man who was tremendously on the inside of aviation—who was, in fact, going to use whole tons of aeroplane varnish on aeroplane ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... degree of adjectives is formed by adding er, the superlative by adding est, to the positive; as, fair, fairer, fairest; lovely, lovelier, loveliest; sweet, sweeter, sweetest; low, ...
— A Grammar of the English Tongue • Samuel Johnson
... to Draw my sword, at this motion Capt. Lewis ordered all under arms in the boat, those with me also showed a disposition to Defend themselves and me, the grand chief then took hold of the roap & ordered the young warrers away, I felt myself warm & spoke in very positive terms. We proceeded about 1 mile & anchored out off a willow Island placed a guard on shore to protect the Cooks & a guard in the boat, fastened the Perogues to the boat, I call this Island Bad Humered Island as we were in ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... nearest origin is the father or the grandfather, as we are descended from them, and they from their fathers in succession. (They say) that the remotest (origin) is the undefinable (primordial) Gas[FN286] in the state of chaos; that it split itself into the two (different) principles of the Positive and the Negative; that the two brought forth the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Man, which (in their turn) produced all other things; that man as well as other things originated in ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... nothing, on the parasite's side, that resembles an attack. No matter what the ill-informed authors say—ill-informed because they had not the patience to see for themselves—the conclusion at which I arrive is positive: to inject the germs, the Microgaster never attacks ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... deep interior sacrifice, the constant self-abnegation, which all her life involved. She was born with a strong, vehement, impulsive nature,—a nature both proud and sensitive,—a nature whose tastes were passions, whose likings and whose aversions were of the most intense and positive character. Devoted as she always seemed to the mere practical and material, she had naturally a deep romance and enthusiasm of temperament which exceeded all that can be written in novels. It was chiefly owing to this ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... positive as to the possibility of the Sixth Corps complying with Hooker's order as given. He thinks a night attack could have been made on the Fredericksburg heights, and that they could have been speedily carried, and the corps have been well on ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... going to do, Major?" said Fitz, now really anxious. "I am positive that old Klutchem has either left town or is at this moment at police headquarters. If so, the dear old fellow will be locked up before sundown. Klutchem got that ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... just such a unifying figure now," said Cam. "And just such a cause, one that will inspire positive action against the Commie Complex. Otherwise, the U. S. of E. will keep on floundering around in a morass of debate while They single-mindedly ...
— Telempathy • Vance Simonds
... hommine, and its argument becomes ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the matter by its root. Now the root for mankind is man himself. The evident proof of the radicalism of German theory, and therefore of its practical energy, is its outcome from the decisive and positive ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... actually exist. He quotes the Egyptian magicians, the witch of Endor, the possessions mentioned in the New Testament, and many more exceptionable authorities from the fathers, and canons of the church. He is positive the incantations of the Egyptian magicians were real operations of infernal agents, and that the accounts of them, delivered by Moses, can admit no ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... him as to the captain's competency to navigate his ship. The ignoramus must have lost his way, and drifted into the outer confines of creation, the region of the everlasting lull, introductory to a positive vacuity. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... General Hospital in this department, Doctor Stringer, was sent to New-York three and thirty days ago, with positive orders to return the instant he had provided the drugs and medicines so much wanted. Since then, repeated letters have been wrote to New-York and Philadelphia, setting forth in the strongest terms the pressing necessity of an immediate ...
— Drug Supplies in the American Revolution • George B. Griffenhagen
... bare brown legs, and large feet stuck in a pair of new red shining slippers: "that oval tower has not been opened for a long time. If any one were to go in, his head would be cut off by an invisible hangiar." I smiled, but was immediately assured by several by-standers that it was a positive fact! Our party, swelled by fresh additions, all well armed, that made us look like a large body of Haiducks going on a marauding expedition, now issued by a gate in the castle, opposite to that by which I entered, and began to toil ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... such was the belief of Christians everywhere in the early years of the second century, can we trace the evidence further back? In answering this question, we are brought face to face with the Gospels. But first it must be noted that the positive evidence for such a subject must, in the nature of the case, be much more limited than the evidence for the Resurrection. The Apostles were primarily witnesses of what they themselves had seen. There are ...
— The Virgin-Birth of Our Lord - A paper read (in substance) before the confraternity of the Holy - Trinity at Cambridge • B. W. Randolph
... North has written to see if he can get an entire wing for her. I hope he can go too, but he always seems to have so much to do at home in summer. I do like him. He's the only man I know who, I feel positive, never could ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... was very near refusing him the barrette. He did grant it—but just as he would have thrown a bone to a dog. The Abbe had always the air of a protege when he was in the company of Madame de Pompadour. She had known him in positive distress. The Due de Choiseul was very differently situated; his birth, his air, his manners, gave him claims to consideration, and he far exceeded every other man in the art of ingratiating himself with Madame de Pompadour. She looked upon him ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... communal duties and discipline. It is only by actually refraining for a time from dependence on Government that we can regain self-reliance, learn first-hand the value of communal duties and build up true national co-operation. Non-co-operation is a practical and positive training in Swadharma, and Swadharma alone can ...
— Freedom's Battle - Being a Comprehensive Collection of Writings and Speeches on the Present Situation • Mahatma Gandhi
... As for my opinion, Tubero, for I always tell you just what I think, I hardly agree in these subjects with that friend of mine, since, respecting things of which we can scarcely form a conjecture as to their character, he is as positive as if he had seen them with his own eyes and felt them with his own hands. And I cannot but the more admire the wisdom of Socrates, who discarded all anxiety respecting things of this kind, and affirmed that these inquiries concerning ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... forgotten. Tomorrow is exactly two weeks since the weather machine was destroyed. My father, Martin Robbins, built it. He told me then that its effects were so powerful that they lasted for two weeks, even with the machine turned off. Only positive action could bring an immediate reversal, of weather conditions. That's ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... a very wicked boy," remarked the broker, when Hal had finished. "But about these slips that he is going to have printed. Are you positive Mr. Allen gave ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... would not advance a thing of this nature without I had positive proof. I repeat to you again, on my word of honour, on the faith of a Christian, that I saw him do it. What ...
— George Leatrim • Susanna Moodie
... who had talked of her waiting-maid and wealthy uncle to Mrs. Hastings, sat down to breakfast with her waiting-maid eating her potatoes with a knife and cooling her tea in her saucer; two points which in the parlor she loudly denounced as positive marks of ill breeding, but which in the kitchen, where there was no one to see her, she found vastly convenient! Piles of soiled clothes were scattered over the floor, and from a tub standing near, a volume of steam was ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes
... one moreover in which any fool well up to crammed book games may crow over the wisest of men in an easy, because stereotyped, checkmate. However, in this connection, I recollect a small experience which proves that positive ignorance of famous openings may sometimes be an advantage; just as the skilled fencer will be baffled by a brave boor rushing in against rules, and by close encounter unconventionally pinning him straight off. When a youth, just before matriculation, I was a guest at ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... especially those in the North, were more positive and frank as regards their attitude toward the movement. These may be roughly divided into two distinct classes, namely, the conservative and the radical. Those of the former class adhered largely to the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... When by any means, positive knowledge, facts, are once in possession of the mind, something must next be done to prevent their slipping away. You may tell a class the history of a certain event; or you may give them a description of a certain place or person; ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... hesitation; I prefer in every case the ruined, however ruined, to the reconstructed, however splendid. What is left is more precious than what is added; the one is history, the other is fiction; and I like the former the better of the two—it is so much more romantic. One is positive, so far as it goes; the other fills up the void with things more dead than the void itself, inasmuch as they have never had life. After that I am free to say that the restoration of Carcassonne is a ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... of the Scriptures. I derived but little assistance from their good will, however, supposing that they entertained some, as they never took any decided stand nor lifted up their voices in a bold and positive manner, denouncing the conduct of those who would withhold the light of Scripture from the world. At one time I hoped by their instrumentality to accomplish much in Spain in the Gospel cause; but I was soon undeceived, and became convinced that reliance on what they would effect, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... been in the army, though his title was won in the militia. He was a thorough teacher, and was conscientious and faithful in the discharge of his duties to those who were intrusted to his care. He was a "positive man," and no fear of what the father or mother would say or do ever induced him to alter his plans, ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... remains in control of its forces, and itself, and not the Council, directs them, but paragraph 2 of Article 11 gives us positive material upon which to form a judgment as to whether or not the obligation has been carried out in any concrete case. This criterion is supplied by ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... face and to meet with smiling indifference those who know our past and have themselves been a part of it. Even a quarter of an hour for preparation would have been better than this gradual recognition, in which each minute made certainty more positive. There was but one ray of consolation or hope for her, and she tried to make the most of it. He had come because he had failed to obtain his pardon, and his brother was helping him to leave the country quietly. She ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... nulla there, and wait on events. A report came from our air-folk that five thousand Turks were on Juber Island, opposite Huweslet. We moved steadily forward to the attack, steadily but unbelievingly. Unbelief rose to positive derision, for as we topped a slight brow we gave a target no artillery could have resisted, yet nothing happened. 'It's a trap,' said Fowke darkly; 'he's luring us on.' Why should John lie doggo in ...
— The Leicestershires beyond Baghdad • Edward John Thompson
... were wrong. There was really no doubt of Henry's sincerity, but his isolation was terrible. There was none true to him at home but Sully. Abroad, the States-General alone were really friendly, so far as positive agreements existed. Above all, the intolerable tergiversations and suspicions of those most interested, the princes in possession, and their bickerings among themselves, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... convention which is expected to nominate him. Having resigned a very lucrative post in the Land Office, he has gone into the practice of law and the pursuit of politics. For the latter he has a positive genius, as his whole mind is taken up with visions and plans for the development of the country, and for the aggrandizement of the United States. He is honest and outspoken, courageous even to audacity; but he is sometimes accused ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... constitute a highly complex sphere, often hidden from observation, sometimes not conscious at all, and liable to many lesions besides that due to the non-satisfaction of sexual desire. At the same time we are not thus enabled to overthrow any of the positive results attained by Charcot ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the journey, and the girl now seemed already transformed. This was caused solely by meeting her cousins again; but if any one should ask her whether Daphne preferred Myrtilus or Hermon, she could not give a positive answer. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... due humility that we approach a view of the work of our own time, with a dim feeling that our best will be a mere conjecture. But we shall the more cheerfully return to our resolution that our chief business is a positive appreciation. Where we cannot praise, we can generally be silent. Certain truths concerning contemporary art seem firmly grounded in the recorded past. The new Messiah never came with instant wide ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... literature as an important thing, playing a significant part in the life of a nation, must, as I have already indicated, seek in it something more positive than a distraction from life; for them it must be an addition to life. It must provide experience compounded of the same stuff as other experience; but not having the vividness which the direct impact of life carries with it, it must gain its ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... "raise his fair locks;" then to "spread them on the arch of the rainbow;" and to "smile through the tears of the storm." Of this kind of thing there are no less than nine pages; and we can so far venture an opinion in their favour, that they look very like Macpherson; and we are positive they are pretty nearly ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... soon known that they had joined Cucumetto. After some time Cucumetto became the object of universal attention; the most extraordinary traits of ferocious daring and brutality were related of him. One day he carried off a young girl, the daughter of a surveyor of Frosinone. The bandit's laws are positive; a young girl belongs first to him who carries her off, then the rest draw lots for her, and she is abandoned to their brutality until death relieves her sufferings. When their parents are sufficiently rich to pay a ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "I had positive evidence that the boy in question had a tin box concealed in his house—in his mother's trunk. His poverty made it impossible that the box could be his, and I ...
— Struggling Upward - or Luke Larkin's Luck • Horatio Alger
... not last long. I learned to make distinctions, and to generalize; and from this primary stage of development I began to entertain positive likes and dislikes. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... districts, to protect themselves from roaming gangs of plunderers, and so spare the exhausted police and military. Yet he called on the citizens to resume their usual avocations, and directed the railroad and stage lines to resume their routes. This opinion of the Mayor was strengthened by the positive announcement that the draft had been suspended, and the passage of an ordinance by the City Council, appropriating $2,500,000 towards paying $300 exemption money to the poor who might be drafted. It was plain, if the draft ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... required the sacrifice of one whose nature represents equally the dignity of the Law-maker and the humanity of the transgressor. In him Deity and humanity must be united: Deity, that he may give value to the offering; humanity, that he may obey the positive precepts and endure the penal sanction of the law human nature has violated. It was therefore essential that the prophecy of Isaiah, uttered six hundred years before the advent, should be fulfilled, viz., "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the inner part of the collar-bone, and passed out obliquely backward. We were sure, from the state of the wound, that he was the person who had been fired at by one of the sentinels three days before, though positive orders had been given, that none of them should load their pieces with any thing but small shot. We gave some directions to his friends how to manage the wound, to which no application had been ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... ne'er drink small Beer more, that's positive; I'll burn all's Books too, they have help'd to spoil him; and sick or well, sound or unsound, Drinking shall be his Diet, and Whoring ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... as if she was stunned. She was not crying in any positive fashion, but the tears dropped silently. She could not go indoors, so she went down to the big apple tree that had a seat all around the trunk. Was Uncle Win at home? Then she heard voices. Miss Recompense had a visitor, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... x. 6 seq., where the number seven in the case of the deities corresponds with the number seven of the nations mentioned in that connection. Ordinarily he is content with "Baals " or "Astartes " or "Asheras," where the plural number is enough to show how little of what is individual or positive underlies the idea, not to mention that Asheras are no divinities at all, but ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... things with their half-shut eyes, they asked, and Lady Cecilia answered, and parried, and explained, and her conscience winced, and her countenance braved, and Miss Clarendon listened with that dreadfully good memory, that positive point-blank recollection, which permits not the slightest variation of statement. Her doubts and her suspicions returned, but she was silent; and sternly silent she remained ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... troubled (in mind). In course of birth, mature or immature, or while ensconced in the womb, in every condition, they with spiritual eyes recognize the relation of their soul to the supreme Spirit. Those great-minded Rishis of positive and intuitive knowledge passing through this arena of actions, return again to the abode of the celestials. Men, O king, attain what they have in consequence of the grace of the gods of Destiny or of their own actions. Do thou not think otherwise. O Yudhishthira, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... I come to consider the matter, that it would be folly for me to attempt to gain my rights without being armed with positive proof of what I assert. It exists, however, though it will necessitate much trouble and expense to secure it. Three months hence, however, I shall hope to have it in my hands, then, let your 'peer of the realm' and his 'honored ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... some seeking in those exactions the marks of its divinity; others apologizing for it, and toning it down; still others assuring us that, although it be very bad, it is not to be compared with the positive blessings of Christianity. How many, especially among the young, has this one mistaken phrase driven forever away from the kingdom of God? Instead of making Christ attractive, it makes Him out a taskmaster, narrowing life by petty ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... was positive. He had seen the Prince several times, about two years before, in the Castle in Warsaw. He had even spoken to him once at a reception of officers ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... record levels by running a current account surplus of $40 billion. As of December 1998, the first tentative signs of a rebound in the economy emerged, and most forecasters expect GDP growth to turn positive at least in the second half of 1999. Seoul has also made a positive start on a program to get the country's largest business groups to swap subsidiaries to promote specialization, and the administration has directed many of the mid-sized conglomerates ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... longer any desire to secure the land. It has been so long denied me, that at length I have grown indifferent to the possession of it. That is a merciful provision of the Creator, that the human mind should have the faculty of accommodating itself to circumstances, even of positive nuisance." ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... to talk as we pleased. Our conversation was for the most part of that particular kind which is not of the smallest importance to any third person in the whole world. One portion of it, however, was an exception to this general rule. It had a very positive influence on my fortunes, and it is, therefore, I hope, of sufficient importance to bear ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... of love and peace, instead of worry and fear, lest she may harm others. A woman should be unafraid to conquer life's problems. She should have faith in herself or she will be a dreamer instead of a doer. She must be positive instead of negative, but be positive in the right way which includes the thought ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... in evolution is covered up in endless eons of time it is change nevertheless. The Bible does not say that reproduction shall be nearly according to kind or seemingly according to kind. The statement is positive that it is according to kind, and that does not leave any room for the changes however gradual or imperceptible that are necessary to ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... you are the lawful Earl of Kilfinnan," answered the lawyer in a positive tone, as if his word had been called in question. "Although the elder members of your family were deprived of the right to assume the title, as long as another branch existed, I have sufficient evidence to prove that in your generation ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... Eustace by now. Unlike Nutty, she read the papers, and she knew all about Lady Wetherby and her pets. The fact that Lady Wetherby, as she had been informed by the grocer in friendly talk, had rented a summer house in the neighbourhood made Eustace's identity positive. ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... of seventy-five or eighty, the door into the barn was thrown open majestically by Gilbert, in his character as head of the house of Carey. Words fail to describe the impression made by the barn as it was introduced to the company, Nancy's debut sinking into positive ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... about it. Forty years ago, said Ridley, all held that the Bishop of Rome was supreme head of the Universal Church. What then? was Master Feckenham beginning to say; but Master Secretary (Bourne) took the tale, and said that was a positive law. A positive law, quoth Ridley; he would not have it so; he challenged it by Christ's own word, by the words, 'Thou art Peter; thou art Cephas,' Tush, quoth Master Secretary, it was not counted an article of ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... liberty to use in any way you may deem proper. The other reflections which the author of the article alluded to [made] against you I of course am not called upon to say anything in regard to. The fact is, your subsequent promotions are proof positive that I entertained none of the views set forth to your disadvantage in this ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... Kepler, of Newton, and of all who have helped to discover them." Theology belongs only to the infancy of the human intellect; metaphysical philosophy is the amusement of youth; but the full-grown man has learned to relinquish both religion and reason, and comes to the "positive state of science in which the human mind, acknowledging the impossibility of obtaining absolute knowledge, abandons the search after the origin and destination of the universe, and the knowledge of the secret causes of phenomena." The crown of modern science is ultimately to be ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... in time upon the face of the sun, and well within the margin of the solar disc. The negative evidence here is strong; though it must always be remembered that negative evidence requires to be overwhelmingly strong before it can be admitted as effective against positive evidence. It seems at a first view utterly impossible that Liais, examining with a more powerful telescope the region where Lescarbault saw the spot, could have failed to see it had it been there; ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... of November the prince made his entry into the city, and having read the reports of the general to the King Louis XVIII, and having received positive injunctions from his uncle to pacify the unhappy provinces which he was about to visit, he arrived full of the desire to displays whether he felt it or not, a perfect impartiality; so when the delegates ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... seems to have been delivered in the late spring or early summer of 341 B. C., about two months after the Speech on the Chersonese, which apparently had little positive result, though it probably prevented the recall and prosecution of Diopeithes. The immediate occasion of the Third Philippic was a request from the forces in the Chersonese for supplies. The general situation is the same as at the date of the last ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 2 • Demosthenes
... noticed—an amiable temper, a sufficient amount of weak health to excuse her all the more tiresome duties of life, and an incorrigible tendency to sing the praises of her daughters at all times and to all people. The daughters winced under it: Catherine, because it was a positive pain to her to hear herself brought forward and talked about; the others, because youth infinitely prefers to make its own points in its own way. Nothing, however, could mend this defect of Mrs. Leyburn's. Catherine's strength of will could keep it ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that a great party like ours can, with his help, do things for him he could not hope to accomplish for himself without its aid. It brings to his assistance the potent influences drawn from the great middle classes of this country, which would be frightened into positive hostility by a purely class organization to which they do not belong. No party could ever hope for success in this country which does not win the confidence of a large ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... render us, if we abide in them after a pure manner, benevolent and friendly to all men; on which account we have reason to expect the like return from others, and to inform them that they ought not to esteem difference of positive institutions a sufficient cause of alienation, but [join with us in] the pursuit of virtue and probity, for this belongs to all men in common, and of itself alone is sufficient for the preservation of human life. I now return to the thread ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... Protestant. Nevertheless the King, under a strong infatuation, had determined to use his vast patronage as a means of making proselytes. To be of his Church was, in his view, the first of all qualifications for office. To be of the national Church was a positive disqualification. He reprobated, it is true, in language which has been applauded by some credulous friends of religious liberty, the monstrous injustice of that test which excluded a small minority of the nation from public trust: but he was at the same ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... assumed that he wished to mislead. Yet if we remember how carelessness in words, how the slovenly combination under the same name of things entirely different, how the taking for granted as matter of positive proof what is at the most only possible or barely probable—when we think of all the mischief and folly that has been wrought in the world by loose habits of mind that are almost as much the master vice of the head as selfishness is the master ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... radicalism abroad in this country," said Sir Brian Newcome, crushing his egg-shell desperately, "is dreadful, really dreadful. We are on the edge of a positive volcano." Down went the egg-spoon into its crater. "The worst sentiments are everywhere publicly advocated; the licentiousness of the press has reached a pinnacle which menaces us with ruin; there is no law which these shameless newspapers respect; no rank which ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... drove round through Regent's Park. I suppose that if we use the superlative in speaking of Hyde Park, Regent's Park will be the comparative, and Battersea Park the positive, ranking them in the descending grades of their hierarchy. But this is my conjecture only, and the social geography of London is a subject which only one who has become familiarly acquainted with the ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... twenty-four hours overdue. Mr. Tyler's assistant secretary, who had been left at home, assured me that there was no doubt but that the Toreador had sailed as promised, since he knew his employer well enough to be positive that nothing short of an act of God would prevent his doing what he had planned to do. I was also aware of the fact that the sending apparatus of the Toreador's wireless equipment was sealed, and that it would only be used in event of dire necessity. ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... 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.
... another draught is made upon the sufferer's reservoir of vitality, and hence additional exhaustion. But this waste of tissue, loss of vital force, non-assimilation and non-supply, are not so grave as the positive danger of the permanent destruction of the millions of small absorbing vessels (villi) of the small intestine by a continuance of this abnormal irritation. Of course the secretory and excretory glands of the colon also ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison
... this travelling plan was our old physician, Dr. Mathews. I don't know exactly what he said about it, but I knew he thought I had been studying too hard, and needed to "let up" for a while. And I'm sure, too, that he was quite positive that I would have no let up as long as I staid in the same town with ...
— A Jolly Fellowship • Frank R. Stockton
... her allies had required on behalf of the Christian population of Turkey. The Christians are to be allowed to hold landed property; the capitation tax is to be abolished—for they are actually contending for the abolition of that which the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Layard) says is a positive benefit to those upon whom it is imposed; and the evidence of Christians is to be admitted into courts of justice. But the Times' Correspondent asks, what is the use of a decree at Constantinople, ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... says Jesus; and then side by side with this negative precept He lays this positive one: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." Christ came to establish a kingdom in which "all men's good" should be "each man's rule," and love the universal law. When, therefore, He bids the anxious seek the kingdom, what He means is that they are to find an escape from self and self-consuming cares ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty's forces in Scotland, received information that a vessel containing arms and ammunition had landed in the Isle of Sky, and that five strangers had disembarked there, and had instantly dispersed themselves throughout the country. This was the first positive indication of the combination, which already comprised most of the ancient and respected names in Scotland. This confederacy, as it may be called, had existed ever since the peace of Utrecht, under the form of the Jacobite Association. In 1710, the formation of the October ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... position powerfully influencing the commercial and military control of the Pacific, and especially of the Northern Pacific, in which the United States, geographically, has the strongest right to assert herself. These are the main advantages, which can be termed positive: those, namely, which directly advance commercial security and naval control. To the negative advantages of possession, by removing conditions which, if the islands were in the hands of any other power, would constitute to ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan
... staggered by the positive way in which the young woman spoke. But the facts were too plain for him to hesitate. "I must trouble you to come along with me," he said. "No, ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... than mine, for five or six months later the Italian robbed me of fifty thousand crowns. Twenty-three years afterwards, in 1784, I found him in Venice, valet to Count Hardegg, and I felt inclined to have him hanged. I shewed him by proof positive that I could do so if I liked; but he had resource to tears and supplications, and to the intercession of a worthy man named Bertrand, who lived with the ambassador of the King of Sardinia. I esteemed this individual, and he appealed to me successfully to pardon Costa. I asked the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... us shudder; but what they describe is something positive and self-justified, something deeply rooted in our animal nature and inspiring to our hearts, something which, like every vital impulse, is pregnant with a morality of its own. In vain do we deprecate it; ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... Truth to tell he felt positive that there had been nothing to the scare of the preceding night. Surely the ordinarily alert Dixie must have barked had any stranger been moving about on the deck while they sat ...
— The House Boat Boys • St. George Rathborne
... receive it, as I can produce the requisites usual and necessary for landing or delivering the said teas alongside the ship, either by yourselves, your agents or assigns; and as my cargo of lumber is ready for shipping on discharge of the said tea, I demand an immediate and positive answer ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... childish passion. But he could only find one white; the other had probably struck sideways and sunk deeply in. With a single white in his pocket, all his projects for a rousing night in some wild tavern vanished utterly away. And it was not only pleasure that fled laughing from his grasp; positive discomfort, positive pain, attacked him as he stood ruefully before the porch. His perspiration had dried upon him; and though the wind had now fallen, a binding frost was setting in stronger with every hour, and be felt benumbed and sick ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to its close, she became calmer. She reflected that some sort of registry would be kept of the graves. A few dismal monuments, and two rows of little black wooden crosses that stuck up mournfully out of the snow, gave proof positive of that. She counted the crosses. Stampa was standing near the seventh from a tomb easily recognizable at some future time. Bower faced it on his knees. She could not see him distinctly, as he was hidden by the other man's broad shoulders; but she did ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... the same with Jimmy Holden; the "missing person" report stated that one of the most prominent factors in the lad's positive identification was his high quality of speech and his superior intelligence. (This far Paul Brennan had to go, and he had divulged the information with ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... mingled product of all the delicate browns and yellows and golds in the bindings of the books, of the brass lattice-work that covered them, and of reflections from the beautiful stone-work of the Schools Quadrangle outside. It was in these noble surroundings that, with far too little, I fear, of positive reading, and with much undisciplined wandering from shelf to shelf and subject to subject, there yet sank deep into me the sense of history, and of that vast ocean of the recorded past from which the generations rise and into which they fall back. And that in itself ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... high-mannered positive man, this Kannegiesser, of the Ahlden Heritages; not without sharpness of temper, if the Hanover Officials drive ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... declared on the part of the United States until it had been long made on them, in reality though not in name; until arguments and expostulations had been exhausted; until a positive declaration had been received that the wrongs provoking it would not be discontinued; nor until this last appeal could no longer be delayed without breaking down the spirit of the nation, destroying all confidence in itself and in its political institutions, and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 1: James Madison • Edited by James D. Richardson
... him out perhaps in the '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. Do ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... means positive, Cratylus, in the view which Hermogenes and myself have worked out; and therefore do not hesitate to say what you think, which if it be better than my own view I shall gladly accept. And I should not be at all ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... inquiries. But, why should I conceal my sentiments? Considering the attributes of God, I believe, that whatever punishment may follow, will tend, like the anguish of disease, to show the malignity of vice, for the purpose of reformation. Positive punishment appears so contrary to the nature of God, discoverable in all his works, and in our own reason, that I could sooner believe that the Deity paid no attention to the conduct of men, than that he punished without ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... once more. It is a safe generalization that whenever human thought shows some decided trend, a corrective movement is not far away. However enthusiastic we may be, therefore, about the idea of progress and the positive contributions which it can make to our understanding and mastery of life, we may be certain that there are in it the faults of its qualities. If we take it without salt, our children will rise up, not to applaud our far-seeing wisdom, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... them, Vergniaud, complained before the Tribunal, that he was being tried for what he thought, not for what he had done. This the government denied, but it was true. Nay, more; he was tried not for positive but for negative opinions, and he was convicted and executed, and his friends were convicted and executed with him, because, had they remained in the Convention, the Dictatorship, through their opposition, would have lost its energy. Also ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... no-mercurials, no violent, desperate remedies be allowed. If the patient cannot be cured without them, I am positive that he will not be ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... years openly opposed the gospel, and now so intimidates the interior mountain districts under his immediate control, that it seems preposterous to attempt to prosecute labors there, unless on a separate foundation. And we now find the opposition on the plains, and all over the field, not less positive, and daily ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... pressure shall be from beneath, with all the good impulses and capacities of human nature pressing upward what is good. I come here not only to hold out the right hand of friendship to you from my country, but also to assert in the most positive, the most salient way the solidarity of republican institutions in the New World, the similarity of results, the mutual confidence that is felt by my country in yours, and by yours in mine; to assert before all the world that the great experiment of free self-government ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... thermal power plant near Vlore and improved transmission line between Albania and Montenegro will help relieve the energy shortages. Also, the government is moving slowly to improve the poor national road and rail network, a long-standing barrier to sustained economic growth. On the positive side, macroeconomic growth was strong in 2003-07 and inflation is low ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... instant, my good doctor," replied Adrienne. "I am about to cast off my reveries for realities, and speak plain and positive language, as you ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... country to your own ease, has condescended to become our leader. But we also pointed out as a necessary and indispensable preparatory step to the achievement of our purpose—and, I must say, as a positive condition of our engaging in it—that an individual, supposed,—I presume not to guess how truly,—to have your Majesty's more intimate confidence, and believed, I will not say on absolute proof but upon the most ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... synthesis and in humanity and natural life this takes the form of sex, the masculine, the feminine, and the neuter, or third, forgotten sex spoken of by Plato, which is not the absence of the life of sex, but its fulfilment and power, as the electric fire is the fulfilment and power of positive and ...
— Mysticism in English Literature • Caroline F. E. Spurgeon
... child might have a father, and that father might be a citizen, one of the sovereign people, possessed of that inestimable privilege—a vote. So the Mayor was cautious, as usual, about exhibiting any positive traces of the ill-humor that possessed him. He had not groped and grovelled his way to the Mayoralty, without knowing how and when to exhibit the evil feelings of his heart. Those that were not evil he very prudently left to themselves, knowing that they ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... true. But if they mean by it that ownership in man will come to an end, their opinion and prophecy are as good as those of men who should undertake to differ from them, and no better; while both would be entirely presumptuous in being positive on such a subject. Some people seem to think that, in the good time coming, it is as though we should dwell out-of-doors, among flowers and fruits, with few wants, these being supplied by ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... least, the singer and the modest English girl agreed, for they both detested Rufus Van Torp, and each had positive proof that he was in love with her, if what he felt deserved ...
— The Primadonna • F. Marion Crawford
... air is then admitted to the expansion cylinder, but as it still contains a large quantity of water in solution, which, if expansion was carried immediately to atmospheric pressure, would, from the extreme cold, be converted into snow and ice, with a positive certainty of causing great trouble in the valves and passages. It is got rid of by a process invented by Mr. Lightfoot, which is at the same time extremely simple and beautiful in action, and efficient. Instead of reducing the compressed air at once to atmospheric ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... whose coat I had on alternate days. He watched for me, and timed his visit to the lavatory to suit me. Of course, the other boys helped him with the contributions. Edwards was equally well supplied. In the prison-camp the word "friend" has an active and positive quality in it which it sometimes lacks in ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... as, after rumbling a long way through the dark, we turned into a yard. We knocked at a door and were met in the hall by a man who stammers a little in his speech, and whose inquiry, "Is this Mrs. Stowe?" was our first positive introduction. Ushered into a large, pleasant parlor lighted by a coal fire, which flickered on comfortable chairs, lounges, pictures, statuettes, and book-cases, we took a good view of him. He is tall, slender, with blue eyes, brown hair, and a hale, well-browned face, and ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... conjunction of vices and follies, so inconsistent with each other in the same breast: Furious and fawning, scurrilous and flattering, cowardly and provoking, insolent and abject; most profligately false, with the strongest professions of sincerity, positive and variable, tyrannical ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Vol. VII - Historical and Political Tracts—Irish • Jonathan Swift
... coming back to live on the estate,—from England. And he wasn't there a week. I can't think where he's seen any women—that is," Mrs. Shorter corrected herself hastily, "of his own class. He's been in the jungle—India, Africa, Cores. That was after Sally Harrington broke the engagement. And I'm positive he's not still in love with Sally. She lunched with me yesterday, and I watched him. Oh, I should have known it. But Sally hasn't got over it. It wasn't a grand passion with Hugh. I don't believe he's ever had such a thing. Not that he isn't capable of it—on the contrary, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... even John Knox, though he has become a national hero, was an extremely anti-national politician. The patriot party in Scotland was that of Cardinal Beaton and Mary Stuart. Nevertheless, the new creed did become popular in the Lowlands in a positive sense, not even yet known in our own land. Hence in Scotland Puritanism was the main thing, and was mixed with Parliamentary and other oligarchies. In England Parliamentary oligarchy was the main thing, ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... and indomitable as Nestorius, and had the advantage of taking the positive against the negative side of the question, anathematized the doctrines of his opponent, in a synod held at Alexandria in 430, to which Pope Celestine II gave the sanction of his authority. The emperor ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... of the few substances which, in the present state of toxicology, might be criminally administered and leave no positive evidence of the crime. If a small but fatal dose of the poison were to be given, especially if it were administered hypodermically, the chances of its detection in the body after death would be ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... not!" and Janet was very positive about it. "But I'm tired and hungry, and I want a drink ...
— The Curlytops at Uncle Frank's Ranch • Howard R. Garis
... adopting self-denial as a principle, and that to his latest days he retained many private habits of a simple and honourable character, even when the exigencies of public life had compelled him to modify others. Although he abandoned an unusual abstinence out of respect for his father, we have positive evidence that he resumed in his old age the spare practices which in his enthusiastic youth he had caught from the lessons of high-minded teachers. These facts are surely sufficient to refute at any rate those gross charges against ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... quantity; so that if the two bodies are held in contact after the rubbing has ceased the two electricities come together again and the electrical phenomena disappear. They have been added together, and the result is zero. Franklin proposed to call these electricities positive and negative. These names are well chosen, but we do not know any reason why one should be called positive rather than the other. The electricity generated on glass when rubbed with silk is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... protagonists of the New Reformation—and a well-abused man if ever there was one—a score of years since, in the remarkable book in which he discusses the negative and the positive results of the rigorous application of scientific method to the investigation of the higher ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... all monophysites have consciously adopted that basis; many, had they recognised its presence, would have rejected it. But it was present as a tendency. A tendency may be neutralised by counteracting causes; but it has its effect, and sooner or later it will produce positive results. ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... everyone seemed only half awake. The reception clerk at the hotel was sulky and inclined to be argumentative. Yes, he was positive, he said in reply to my inquiry, that nobody of the name of Challoner was staying at the hotel,—no, nor yet of the name of Stapleton. They had slept there the night before? Yes, that was quite possible, ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... coming to any positive understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, when and where you first saw me. During my stay there I had letters from her which did not change my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but on the ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... should always be properly cooked; for if the cooking is poorly done, it affects not only the nutritious qualities, but is not so easily digested, thus making food, which is originally the best kind, of very little value to us, and with very poor cooking it is sometimes a positive injury. ...
— The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) - The Whole Comprising A Comprehensive Cyclopedia Of Information For - The Home • Mrs. F.L. Gillette
... provoked a question from her "beloved" charge, were accounted for by a curt "I have a headache coming on." But we may be certain that the talk being over she must have said to that young blackguard: "You had better take her out for a ride as usual." We have proof positive of this in Fyne and Mrs. Fyne observing them mount at the door and pass under the windows of their sitting-room, talking together, and the poor girl all smiles; because she enjoyed in all innocence the company ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... when He said:—'Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.' Your 'light'—remember!—that word 'light' is not used here as a figure of speech but as a statement of fact. A positive 'light' surrounds you—it is exhaled and produced by your physical and moral being,— and those among us who have cultivated their inner organs of vision see IT before they see YOU. It can be of the purest radiance,— equally it can be a mere nebulous film,—but whatever the moral ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... sure foundation of demonstrable truth, then is the resulting state of mind worse than before, for the trusting, though deceived, soul has no recourse but to fall into the agnosticism of despair, or the black atheism of positive negation. ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 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 ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... assembled, and particularly to organize and set on foot an expedition to operate on the Gulf coast, if, on arriving at the theater of action, you shall deem it to be practicable. It is not proposed to control your operations by definite and positive instructions, but you are left to prosecute them as your judgment, under a full view of all the circumstances, shall dictate. The work is before you, and the means provided or to be provided for accomplishing it are committed to you, in the full confidence that you will use them ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... fool to offer to command Achilles; Achilles is a fool to be commanded of Agamemnon; Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool; and this Patroclus is a fool positive. ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... savings? Certainly not. The owners of the Grosser Carl were the benefiting parties, and it was only just that they should take up the expense. So the entire Press wired off to the German firm, and next morning were able to publish a positive assurance that of course these grateful foreigners would reimburse ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... Why, what the devil do I have a general manager for if not to help me out in these little affairs? And besides, Skinner, when he blew in here the day Morrow & Company hit the ceiling, he was so excited and worried I felt positive he was busted then; so what was the use calling him for his overdue payment when if I let him run on I'd have his young soul in hock for the next ten years?" Cappy leaned forward and laid an impressive ...
— Cappy Ricks • Peter B. Kyne
... some of David's vagaries. However, when we parted with him, he had settled into that strange phase of lunacy, in which the distant past seems nearly obliterated, and memory exists, but revolves in a narrow round of things present: this was accompanied with a positive illusion, to wit, a fixed idea that he was an able seaman: and, as usual, what mental power he retained came out strongest in support of this idea. All this was marked by a bodily agility somewhat more than natural in a man of his age. Owing to the wind astern, he was ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... of the swelling tide of popular opinion in favor of quick, drastic, and positive action, McKinley chose first the way of diplomacy. A short time after his inauguration he lodged with the Spanish government a dignified protest against its policies in Cuba, thus opening a game of thrust and parry with the suave ministers at Madrid. The results of the ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... 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 Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... day passed, Edwin began to ask himself: "Has he had the letter?" There was no sign of the letter in his father's demeanour, which, while not such as to make it credible that he ever had moods of positive gay roguishness, was almost tolerable, considering his headache and his nausea. Letters occasionally were lost in the post, or delayed. Edwin thought it would be just his usual bad luck if that particular letter, that letter of all letters, should ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... clothes were immediately missing from the group. His taste was for the society of gentlemen, of whom, with the reader's permission, there was no lack in our five steerages and second cabin; and he avoided the rough and positive with a girlish shrinking. Mackay, partly from his superior powers of mind, which rendered him incomprehensible, partly from his extreme opinions, was especially distasteful to the Irishman. I have seen him slink off, with backward looks of terror and offended delicacy, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... goin' to dictate to us," Mrs. Steadman declared vehemently, after Mrs. Burrell had gone to speak to Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate. Mrs. Steadman had a positive dread of having any person ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung
... the sun, and at the aphelion, relatively too small, which urges the planet towards sun; and the law is the same in both cases, being null at the mean distance of the planet, at a maximum at the apsides; it is, consequently, as the cosine of the planet's eccentric anomaly at other distances, and is positive or negative, according as the planet's distance is ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... pronounced on the Journal a year later by M. Paul Bourget, a young and rising writer, whose article is perhaps chiefly interesting as showing the kind of effect produced by Amiel's thought on minds of a type essentially alien from his own. There is a leaven of something positive and austere, of something which, for want of a better name, one calls Puritanism, in Amiel, which escapes the author of "Une Cruelle Enigme." But whether he has understood Amiel or no, M. Bourget is ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... lifted the canteen and drank long and deep. When he had wiped his mouth with the back of his hairy hand and had returned the canteen to its place, he faced his companion—his blue eyes twinkling with positive approval. Scratching his head meditatively, he said: "An' all because av me wantin' to enjoy the blessin's an' advantages av civilization agin afther three long months in that danged gradin' camp, as is the right av ivery healthy man wid his ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright
... upon his face for ten years before. I bit my lip for vexation: walked about the room; but nevertheless took my post again; and blinked with my eyes to the Captain, as a caution for him to take more care of his: and then scouling with my brows, and giving the nod positive, I as good as said, resent ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... was offered to the new-comers. Lady Penwether was largely made, like her brother; but was a languidly lovely woman, not altogether unlike Arabella herself in her figure and movements, but with a more expressive face, with less colour, and much more positive assurance of high breeding. Lady Penwether was said to be haughty, but it was admitted by all people that when Lady Penwether had said a thing or had done a thing, it might be taken for granted that the way in which she had done or said that thing was the right way. The only other gentleman ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... aristocratic and exclusive tendencies, and such a matter-of-fact person as Mr Boas, who, in spite of his sentimentality, which is a sort of national infirmity, and although he informs us in one part of his book that he is a poet, leans much more to the practical and positive than to the imaginative and dreamy, and we moreover suspect is a bit of a democrat. Having, however, taken the Countess en grippe, as the French call it, he shows her no mercy, and, it must be owned, displays some cleverness in hitting off and illustrating the weak points of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... he recollected that he had seen them in Bennington's hands, but he was positive that the gloves meant nothing to Bennington. He had picked them up just as he would have picked up a paper-cutter, a pencil, a match-box, if any of these had been within reach of his nervous fingers. Most men who are at times ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... alive, Harry Squires, you don't suppose I'm tellin' my real suspicions to any newspaper reporter, do you? How do I know you ain't a spy? Still, dog-gone you, if it will set your mind at rest, I'll say this much: I have positive proof that Smock's warehouse was set on fire by agents of the German gover'ment. That's one of the reasons I was a little late in gettin' to the fire. Now, don't try to pump me any more, 'cause I can't tell you anything that would jeopardize the interests of justice. Hey! Where in thunder ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... always clung. All these beliefs are prehistoric, and what remained for the great religions was not to bring them forward for the first time, but to surround them with a new kind of authority, and to establish as a matter of positive ordinance or revelation what had formerly grown up without any ordinance by the unconscious work of custom. It was not left for any of the great founders to plant religion in the world as a new thing, but only to add to the old religion new ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... "Quite positive. There he goes again. The brute has treed some animal, and is informing his master of its whereabouts," I replied, listening to see in what direction the sound ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... all, the thought of the cows reminded me of Sam, and immediately, in my mind, I shared the weight of the manuscript with him and began to breathe easier. The way Sam and Peter love each other inspires positive awe in my heart, though Mabel says it is provoking when they go off to their fraternity fishing-camp for week-ends instead of coming to her delightful over-Sunday parties out on Long Island. Judge Vandyne feels as I do about it, and he loves Sam as much as Peter ...
— Over Paradise Ridge - A Romance • Maria Thompson Daviess
... never met a woman as positive as you. Then you think that if chance made me your husband, I should cease to ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... use of the comma have been compiled from those given by a considerable number of authorities. Further examination of authorities would probably have added to the number and to the complexity of these rules. No two sets of rules which have come under the writer's observation are alike. Positive disagreements in modern treatises on the subject are few. The whole matter, however, turns so much on the use made of certain general principles and the field is so vast that different writers vary greatly in their statements and even in their ideas ...
— Punctuation - A Primer of Information about the Marks of Punctuation and - their Use Both Grammatically and Typographically • Frederick W. Hamilton
... is true, believe that it was logically formulated in primitive times and ruthlessly applied. Some of its applications were the result of positive legislation due to a growing consciousness of the self-sufficiency of the city state and of the privileges of citizenship, as when Athens passed a law excluding from citizenship the offspring of citizens who had married foreign wives. But in its broad outlines the principle ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... not limited by any laws; his power resembled that of the patriarchs in the Old Testament; and for the exercise of it he was responsible only to Zeus, and not to his people. But though the king was not restrained in the exercise of his power by any positive laws, his authority was practically limited by the BOULE; or council of chiefs, and the Agora, or general assembly of freemen. These two bodies, of little account in the Heroic age, became in the Republican age the sole depositories of ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... the leopard beast. If it takes both the leopard beast and the two-horned beast to constitute the papacy, the prophet should have said that the dragon gave his seat and power to these two beasts combined. The fact that his transfer was to the leopard beast alone, is proof positive that that beast alone symbolizes the ...
— The United States in the Light of Prophecy • Uriah Smith
... under the heads of attention, perception, memory, imagination, comparison, judgment, reasoning, etc. As for the organic apparatus, very far from being the principle or base of these two orders of faculties, it must be considered as their synthetic and positive realization, their living and harmonious expression. For just as from the long-continued issue by humanity of its antagonistic principles must some day result social organization, so man must be conceived as the result of two ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... course of positive punishment has ceased to have its effect, a contrary treatment may lead to quite a change in the character, and if anything will touch the heart of a vicious Briton, it is to bring him to think upon the early counsels ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... head of exaggeration I have a positive experience, more curious than the speculation I have just set down. It is this: I have never touched a character precisely from the life, but some counterpart of that character has incredulously asked me: "Now really, did I ever really, see ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of view, the pulpit is of great value to the Negro race. The example set by the Negro pulpit in acquiring its intellectual status is worthy of imitation, and the youth of the rising generation will profit by it. The positive instruction and counsel coming from safe and trusted leaders will certainly yield its fruit. We cannot estimate the worth of the pulpit as the moulder of the thought, the character and ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... to us, our far greater commercial ambitions have not only figured as a danger to Germany, but, in conjunction with our alliance with France and Russia, her ancient foes, may well have led to a state of positive panic among her people? And if, as the Allies would doubtless say, there was really no need for any such panic, the situation was obviously sufficiently grave to be easily made use of by a military class for its own ends, or by an armaments ring or a clique of financiers ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... two sides from which positive laws may be attacked:—either from the side of nature, which rises up and rebels against them in the spirit of Callicles in the Gorgias; or from the side of idealism, which attempts to soar above them,—and this is the spirit of Plato in the ...
— Statesman • Plato
... remained unknown, the victim was prima facie assumed to be French, "Francigena," and the whole county was fined. But the county was allowed to prove, if it could, that the dead man was only an Englishman, and in that case there was nothing to pay. Bracton, in the thirteenth century, is very positive; an inquest was necessary, "ut sciri possit utrum interfectus Anglicus fuerit, vel Francigena."[384] The Anglicus and the Francigena therefore still subsisted, and were not equal before the law. The rule had not fallen into disuse, since ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... it is far safer to do without intoxicating drink. Livingstone says that he lived without it for twenty years. Stanley performed his wonderful journey without it. Bruce said more than one hundred, years ago: "I laid down as a positive rule of health that spirits and all fermented liquors should be regarded as poisonous. Spring, or running water, if you can find it, is to be ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... oxidation and precludes escape of aroma from the original package, it would seem likely to hasten the initial volatilizing of the aroma. Also, it would appear from Gould's[179] work that roasted coffee evolves carbon dioxid until a certain positive pressure is attained, regardless of the initial pressure in the container. Accordingly, vacuum-packing apparently enhances decomposition of certain constituents of coffee. Whether this result is beneficial or otherwise is ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... mused, that made an evil deed so much more memorable than a good one? Why should a crime have so much longer lodgment in our minds, and be of consequences so much more lasting than the sort of action which is the opposite of a crime, but has no precise name with us? Was it because the want of positive quality which left it nameless, characterized its effects with a kind of essential debility? Was evil then a greater force than good in the moral world? I tried to recall personalities, virtuous and vicious, and I found ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... case. For, do not most part drive over their days, and have no assurance of salvation, they dare not say either pro or contra. It may be, and it may not be. And this is the length that the most part come,—a negative peace; no positive confidence; no clear concluding, on sure grounds, an interest. Always ye are most called to this, when God afflicteth the land or you: if ye do not then make peace it is most dangerous. 2. The Lord ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... require ten times that quantity for only 1000 copies) of the very paper, I believe, on which the Mandchou Gospel of St. Matthew was printed, and some of the workmen said that they could make as much more as should be required. Concerning the price of this paper, I could obtain no positive information, for the director and first and second clerks were invariably absent, and the place abandoned to ignorant understrappers (according to the custom of Russia). And notwithstanding I found out the director in Petersburg, he himself could not tell me the price, but informed ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... he made me feel sick. I met him afterwards at Berlin. He is now quite clean and proper, and, I believe, an imperialist. But the uncomfortable feeling this uncongenial neighbour inspired in me, the cold draughts blowing on my feet, mortal boredom—all this reduced me to a state of positive suffering, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... contains considerable nitric acid, the water which percolates through the soil to the underdrains beneath, contains more nitrate of lime when the land is not occupied by a crop, than when the roots of growing plants fill the soil, is deemed positive proof that ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... it is understood—is the facility with which many nouns may be converted into either adjectives or verbs. Thus, mapei a bite, becomes mapeile capable of biting, and is the root of the verb mapeipa to bite. The positive adjunct leg, and its negative aige (802, 803), are also used to convert nouns into adjectives: the former follows the same rules as those before given for forming the plural: gizu sharpness, becomes either gizule sharp, or gizuge ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... the great lung-power of Caruso that made him a great singer. It was his remarkable heart-power that brought him through an illness in February, 1921, when every newspaper in the world carried on its front page the positive statement that he could not live another day. That he lived for six months afterward was due chiefly to ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... appearance of girls. This charge was very deliberately brought against hockey for women some little time ago in an influential London journal, and was rightly and promptly answered by a spirited article with illustrations of some well-known lady hockey players—proof positive of the fallacy that hockey damaged their appearance. I am afraid most of these contortions are the product of the snapshot camera. It must be remembered that instantaneous photographs show players of games as they are really ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... beginner, but the cross between him and the proficient performer is too wide for fertility. It savours of impatience, and is in flat contradiction to the first principles of biology. It does a beginner positive harm to look at the masterpieces of the great executionists, such as ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... which, if I had that capacity or partiality for flowery writing, the absence of which in me some critics have deplored, I might almost call Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter. There is the season, of little positive crop but important seed-sowing,—the season in which the greater writers, Chateaubriand and Mme. de Stael, perform their office. Here, too, quite humble folk—Pigault-Lebrun completing what has been already dealt with, Ducray-Duminil and others doing work to be dealt with here, and Paul de Kock ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... that the first day of the trial ended with everybody positive that I would not be found guilty on the charge of obtaining secret information about their guns. Of course all this information ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... materialistic theories revolted his shrewd and sensible mind; without caring to go to the bottom of his thought and contemplate its consequences, he clung to the notion of Providence as to a waif in the great shipwreck of positive creeds; he could ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... eloquence and art, till he destroyed their effect by guarding the jury against that impression which eloquence and art produce in defiance of simple fact, he contended that Aram had yet alleged nothing to invalidate the positive evidence against him. ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as his spirit is free; but let him once be persuaded that his soul is chained down forever in adamantine fetters, and, though, like Prometheus, he may endure with silence, patience, even divinely, he is nevertheless utterly incapable of any positive effort towards recuperation. His faith becomes, by a subtile law of our being, his fact; the mountain is gifted with actual motion, and rewards the temerity of his zeal by falling upon him and crushing him forever. Such a person moves on, perchance, like a deep, noble river, in calm and silence, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... an invitation to a ball if he does not dance. When ladies are present who would be pleased to receive an invitation, those gentleman who hold themselves aloof are guilty, not only of a negative, but a positive act of neglect. ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... of a small, wistful face, with faded blue eyes and a shabby, unbecoming bonnet, which, surrounded as it was on all sides by tossing plumes, rich velvets and sparkling gems, with their accompaniments of full-fleshed, patrician countenances, took to itself a look of positive distinction. Mrs. Smart's theme, as announced by the President of the Ontological Club, was Thought Forces and the Infinite, a somewhat formidable-sounding subject, but one which the pale, slight, plainly dressed but singularly bright-eyed ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... went well with him until he had an attack of fever, which laid him up for eighteen months, and not only absorbed all his own little savings but that of his comrades, to whose kindness he was indebted for the positive necessaries of life. Now he is coachman at the largest hotel here, and as soon as he has scraped a little money together, intends going off to the Croydon diggings, where I hope he will be fortunate, and trust he will invest his hard-earned money more satisfactorily. Owing to our late ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... supernatural being, and there's verily no need for us to say anything! We have now, ready at hand, in our household, a good number of medical gentlemen, who are in attendance upon her, but none of these are proficient enough to speak in this positive manner. Some there are who say that it's a genital complaint; others maintain that it's an organic disease. This doctor explains that there is no danger: while another, again, holds that there's fear of a crisis either before or after the winter solstice; ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... may make us shudder; but what they describe is something positive and self-justified, something deeply rooted in our animal nature and inspiring to our hearts, something which, like every vital impulse, is pregnant with a morality of its own. In vain do we deprecate it; it has possession ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... novices held forth to his charges upon the ravening wolves who lurked for them beyond the peaceful folds of Beaulieu. There was cruelty in it, doubtless, and lust and sin and sorrow; but were there not virtues to atone, robust positive virtues which did not shrink from temptation, which held their own in all the rough blasts of the work-a-day world? How colorless by contrast appeared the sinlessness which came from inability to sin, the conquest which was attained by flying from the enemy! Monk-bred as he was, Alleyne ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... terminating in the syllable -lyche form the comparative in -loker and the superlative in -lokest; as, positive uglyche ( ugly), comp. ugloker, superl. uglokest. The long vowel of the positive is often shortened in the comp. and superl., as in the modern English ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... some positive evidence that birds appreciate bright and beautiful objects, as with the bower-birds of Australia, and although they certainly appreciate the power of song, yet I fully admit that it is astonishing that the females of many birds and some mammals should ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... while the French Canadians by their adherence to their language, civil law and religion are decidedly "a distinct and visible element which is not English"—an element kept apart from the English by positive legal and constitutional guarantees or barriers of separation,—we shall see that it is the influence and operation of English institutions, which have made their province one of the most contented communities of the world. While their old institutions are ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... course of the evening. The playwright should not let himself be constrained by custom to force his theme into the arbitrary mould of a stated number of acts. Three acts is a good number, four acts is a good number,[3] there is no positive objection to five acts. Should he find himself hankering after more acts, he will do well to consider whether he be not, at one point or another, failing in the art of condensation and trespassing on the ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... to redeem the general insipidity of her appearance; but when she spoke that insipidity vanished, for her lips were very firm, and were apt to utter incisive words, and at such moments her pale blue eyes would flash with a light fire which was full of sarcasm, and might even rise to positive cruelty. ...
— A Bunch of Cherries - A Story of Cherry Court School • L. T. Meade
... advisable to take a straightforward survey of this spirit, to look closely into its eyes, and to openly assert that it has NOTHING in common with the true spirit of German music. It is not easy to estimate the positive weight and value of modern, Beethovenian, music—but we may perhaps hope to get at some negative proof of its worth, by an examination of the pseudo-Beethovenian-classicism now ...
— On Conducting (Ueber das Dirigiren): - A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music • Richard Wagner (translated by Edward Dannreuther)
... such as Miss Ponsonby could never have thought about. It suited her tremendously and seemed to alter the whole character of her face, giving verve and piquancy to her delicate little features. The excitement had flushed her cheeks into positive pinkness and her eyes were starry. The roses were pinned on her shoulder. Miss Ponsonby, as she stood there, was a pretty woman, with fifteen apparent birthdays ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fact, could conceive. Yet, throughout this astonishing, inconceivable variety, science walks in steady perception of a unity extending far toward details of structure. The boor laughs, when told that the forefoot of his horse and his own hand are essentially the same member. A "Positive Philosopher" laughs, when told that through Fetichism and Lutheranism there runs a thread of unity,—that human belief has its law, and may be studied in the spirit of science. But it is more than questionable whether the laugh is on ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of his own accord, or by a particular summons from the king. The barons by writ, therefore, began gradually to intermix themselves with the barons by tenure; and, as Camden tells us,[**] from an ancient manuscript now lost, that after the battle of Evesham, a positive law was enacted, prohibiting every baron from appearing in parliament, who was not invited thither by a particular summons, the whole baronage of England held thenceforward their seat by writ, and this important privilege of their tenures was in effect abolished. Only where writs had been regularly ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... disown it), said the Hind, 70 The certain mansion were not yet assign'd; The doubtful residence no proof can bring Against the plain existence of the thing. Because philosophers may disagree If sight by emission or reception be, Shall it be thence inferr'd, I do not see? But you require an answer positive, Which yet, when I demand, you dare not give; For fallacies in universals live. I then affirm that this unfailing guide 80 In Pope and General Councils must reside; Both lawful, both combined: what one decrees By numerous votes, the other ratifies: On this undoubted ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... do not know in any country a man in whom great intellectual and practical elements are more happily combined. It is not with the warm partiality of private friendship that we thus speak of Mr. Whitney, for, like all men of ideas, and all of nature positive and deep enough to have a special mission in the world, he puts others into relation with the thoughts which engage him rather than with his own personality, and you become intimate with them, not with him. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... in Philadelphia while that place was yet in possession of their army, and are understood to have brought positive orders for its evacuation. Their arrival was immediately announced to General Washington by Sir Henry Clinton, who was joined with them in the commission, and a passport was requested for their secretary, Doctor Ferguson, as the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... side of fifty. As people grow old they accumulate two kinds of spiritual supplies: one, a pile of doubts, questionings, and mysteries; and the other, a much smaller pile of positive conclusions. There is a great temptation to expatiate upon the former subjects, for negative and critical statements have a seductive appearance of depth and much more of a flavour of wisdom than clear and succinct declarations. But I will endeavour to resist this temptation, and will set down, ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... up in the saddle, and drew in deep breaths of the pure air of the plains; an air so pure and thin, so free from mists, that the very distances were deceiving, and one would have been positive that the distant foot-hills were but half an hour's ride away, whereas the better part of a day must be spent in ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... acted what they tell you is still under deliberation. I had almost lost a very good friend the other day, who came to know how I liked his design to marry such a lady. I answered, "By no means; and I must be positive against it, for very solid reasons, which are not proper to communicate." "Not proper to communicate!" said he with a grave air, "I will know the bottom of this." I saw him moved, and knew from thence he was already determined; therefore evaded it by saying, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... not quite positive, it is my opinion, after having examined the specimen carefully, that the body of the cloth belongs to my first group and that the border only is of the second group. My section and drawing give a clear idea of the construction of this fabric. A finely-preserved bit of cloth belonging ...
— Prehistoric Textile Fabrics Of The United States, Derived From Impressions On Pottery • William Henry Holmes
... upon deck for more than five hours, and was so much fatigued that he went down to the gun-room to get some refreshment, at a little after ten o'clock, leaving positive orders with the officer of the watch and the master to be most attentive to the ship's course; and he was so anxious for her safety, that he had scarcely sat down in the gun-room before he sent for the pilot-book of sailing directions, that he might ascertain more exactly the position of ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... asked to state definitely what he anticipated, on whom disaster was to fall, he could not have answered with any real conviction. Something prompted him that Jake was to be the central figure, the prime mover. But beyond that his ideas were vague. The man's very summons at the door was a positive aggravation, and suggested possibilities. ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... took out his purse, and handed Mr. Hawkins a sovereign. A look of positive rapture mingled with the habitual cunning of the groom's countenance ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... individual genealogist does this, the science of genealogy will become a useful servant of the whole race, and its influence, not confined to a few, will be felt by all, as a positive, dynamic force helping them to lead more worthy lives in the short span allotted to them, and helping them to leave more worthy posterity to carry on the names they bore and the sacred thread of immortality, of which they were for a time ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... FRANCE.—Victor Cousin (1792—1867), a brilliant thinker and eloquent lecturer and writer, founded in France the eclectic school of philosophy. He aimed to construct a positive view on the basis of previous systems, which he classified under four heads,—idealism, sensualism, skepticism, and mysticism. In his teaching, he sought a middle path between the German ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... superiority over the supreme of beauties within a narrow circle. It is unintelligibly but mesmerically potent, this secret fascination attached to features oftentimes that are absolutely plain; and as one of many cases within my own range of positive experience, I remember in confirmation, at this moment, that in a clergyman's family, counting three daughters, all on a visit to my mother, the youngest, Miss F—— P——, who was strikingly and memorably plain, never walked ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... a great rattle-box, aren't you? Now, confess! I am talking a great deal, am I not? But I can't seem to help it! I'm not always like this; indeed I'm not," she said earnestly. "It's a positive luxury to utter the first thought that comes into one's mind—a luxury I seldom get, I can tell you! Somehow or other you drew me out, and I allowed myself to ramble on and on without in the least knowing why. Can you ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... into a boat, Captain Ludlow, though a lubber carried it!" said the positive old forecastle-man, shaking his head and beginning to pace across the deck, with the air of a man who needed no further confirmation of ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... men. All gone," was the positive declaration of the venerable head of the bailiwick, when compelled at last to answer. But Schreiber had studied the pony herd and knew better. Moreover, not more than six of their ponies had been ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... them; if any privilege was to be given, I was sure to be one of the first names called to share it; if I was spoken to for anything, the manner and tone were in contrast with those used towards almost all my fellows. It may have been partly for these reasons that there was a little positive element in the slight which I felt. The effect of the whole was to make a long struggle in my mind. "The world knoweth us not"—gave the character and condition of that party to which I belonged. I was feeling now what those words mean,—and ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... these wild herds will be attended with any advantages to the colony. On the contrary, it is my belief, that their total destruction ought to be effected; since the increase of them is of mere negative importance, compared with the positive disadvantage that attends their occupation of one of the most fertile districts in the colony, which it is to be hoped will be soon covered with numerous flocks of fine wooled sheep, for the pasture of which the greater part of it is so ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... herself because of a curse that seemed to be hanging over her. Twice, following an irresistible impulse, she had left her husband with another man for whom she had no particular affection. It was a kind of recurrent madness which she did not understand except that she was positive that it had something to do with the phases of the moon. During about ten days of the month when the moon was "dark," she was perfectly normal, but when a new moon appeared she was conscious of a vague uneasiness that increased and ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... men from doing what must be done under modern business conditions, so that the law itself provides that its own infraction must be the condition precedent upon business success. To aim at the accomplishment of too much usually means the accomplishment of too little, and often the doing of positive damage. In my Message to the Congress a year ago, in speaking of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... seen her continually glance at him as she talked as if seeking approbation for what she said. I trust that he is kind to her. There is a dry glitter in his eyes, and a firm set of his thin lips, which goes with a positive and possibly a harsh nature. You would ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... partly by stage, partly on horseback, and one or two days they left the ladies at the tavern where they stopped. Cynthia was charmed and amused at the uncouthness of the people and their dialect in some places, and positive good breeding in others. Anthony unearthed a college chum who was tally man at a sawmill. The new town was really making progress. A small chapel had been started, a schoolhouse built. And twenty years later it was a pretty town; in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... days, he had reached a development with the advance of youth that satisfied her high ideal. His love and appreciation and tender care for her repaid her every day, she told herself, for all the years of watching, working, waiting. Never before had he withstood her positive wish ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... for him, has not improbably been blessed with some years of previous intercourse with the said John. Taking, then, the above advertisement to be true, or nearly so, down to the words "left leg" inclusive, (though I have some doubt if the blemish there implied amount to a positive lameness, or be perceivable by any but the nearest friends of John,) I ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... as to make it unlikely that any honest man would risk his honor by taking her to wife; that thus the way might be left clear for himself; and he resolved, if possible, to effect this in such a manner—namely, by jests, innuendos and sneers—that it should never be directly traced to a positive assertion on his part. And in the mean time he determined to so govern himself in his deportment toward Capitola as to arouse no suspicion, give no offense and, if ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... "No, though very positive, he was kind, and urged me to exert my will; reminding me that the effort was in behalf of destitute orphans, and that the charitable object should ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to dress, after hesitating whether he should go to bed again. But the bright morning was so attractive, and after the first application of cold water, he felt a positive eagerness to get ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... "Your opinion of that production is proof positive that you are destitute of real poetical taste, as I ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... and bits of garden ground. Presently, as I looked at the pastures beyond, I caught a last glimpse of Mrs. Todd herself, walking slowly in the footpath that led along, following the shore toward the Port. At such a distance one can feel the large, positive qualities that control a character. Close at hand, Mrs. Todd seemed able and warm-hearted and quite absorbed in her bustling industries, but her distant figure looked mateless and appealing, with something about it that was strangely self-possessed and mysterious. Now and then she stooped to ...
— The Country of the Pointed Firs • Sarah Orne Jewett
... Oratory was bulletined to lecture at the Young Men's Union upon "The Philosophy of Expression" I went to hear him, more by way of routine than with any expectation of being enlightened or even interested, but his very first words surprised and delighted me. His tone was positive, his phrases epigrammatic, and I applauded heartily. "Here is a ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... here is well known. He is a bad man. For you to keep up any acquaintance with him is positive madness." ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... punishments on weak or depraved persons in the shape of transportation from one place to another, or of imprisonment in a fortress where, living in security and indolence, they only become weaker and more depraved; or the worse than uselessness and injustice, the positive insanity and barbarity of preparations for war and of wars, causing devastation and ruin, and having no kind of justification. Yet these forms of violence continue and are supported by the very people who see their uselessness, injustice, and cruelty, and suffer ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... and I cannot yet take in the strange coincidence of it. If I hadn't come by when I did—— Well, it does not bear thinking about. Did you know you had a father living, Bobby? For your grandmother seems to have thought I was dead. I suppose my long silence has seemed inexcusable, but I am positive that I wrote twice after your daughter's death, Mrs. Egerton, and to neither letter received any reply. Then I went off with an exploring party through South America, and have been out of touch with civilisation ...
— 'Me and Nobbles' • Amy Le Feuvre
... "Positive. I have not finished yet. When I saw Dr. Hardman in the woods that day you were with him, and noted that he ran away from me, I thought I was on the right track. He recognized me, it seems, and that's why he ran. Then I made inquiries and I learned there was an asylum, a new ...
— Frank Roscoe's Secret • Allen Chapman
... small, however, as to give occasion for considerable patience in pasting them, and are rather difficult to arrange with regularity without first drawing the design. It is doubtful, in our opinion, if they may be considered to be of any particular educational benefit, if indeed they are not a positive harm to the child in that they require a too minute and long-sustained use of ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... had disclosed their utter lack of men for such an expedition and it was found that the only hope lay in drawing the bulk of the needed troops from the United States forces, and when the statement of the cases in the usual polite arguments brought from President Wilson a positive refusal to allow American troops to go into Russia, it was only by the emphasis, it is said, of the pathetic appeal of the North Russian anti-Bolshevists, coupled with the stirring appeals of such famous characters as the one-time leader of the Russian Women's Battalion ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... which we wish to think and act. For instance, my parents object to Sunday travelling and Sunday visiting. Now, while I am living with them, I feel it would not be right for me to do either of these things—even though as a matter of principle I might not see any positive wrong in them—because it would bring me into opposition with my parents. So, in spending evenings away from home, I know it would be contrary to their wish, and it is right to try and prevent ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... figures of men, etc. At a distance, the words composed by the letters are alone distinguishable. Close at hand, the figures alone are seen, and not distinguished as letters. Thus things may have a positive, a relative, and a composite meaning, according to the ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... boy who uttered this threat, in the same manner that a general would examine an opposing force, with a view to ascertain his strength and ability to cope with him. It was clear that Tim was taller than himself, and doubtless older. As to being stronger, Ben did not feel so positive. He was himself well and compactly made, and strong of his age. He did not relish the idea of being imposed upon, and prepared to resist any encroachment upon his rights. He did not believe that Tim had any right to order him off. He felt ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... farewell, Church of God in England, and all the Christian friends there. We do not go to New England as separatists from the Church of England, though we cannot but separate from the corruptions of it. But we go to practise the positive part of Church reformation, and propagate the gospel in America.'"—Magnalia, Book III., Part II., Chap. i., quoted by Palfrey, Vol. I., p. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... positively—but I have reason to think that, either directly or indirectly, the rumor comes from him. You know some men have a way of insinuating things. I—I—cannot recall any thing positive or definite. I cannot, indeed. He never spoke to me on the subject at all. There was only an expression at times, as he bore you off, that seemed to tell me that all my efforts to win you were vain. I can't see why you lay such stress on the ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... so much reveals Ravel the peer of Debussy as the fact that he has succeeded so beautifully in manifesting what is peculiar to him. For he is by ten years Debussy's junior, and were he less positive an individuality, less original a temperament, less fully the genius, he could never have realized himself. There would have descended upon him the blight that has fallen upon so many of the younger Parisian composers less determinate ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... 13 weeks of unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. $600 million to train the disadvantaged and unemployed for new private sector jobs. Positive adjustment demonstrations to aid workers in declining industries. The important Title VII Private Sector Initiatives Program was reauthorized for an ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Jimmy Carter • Jimmy Carter
... away the whole expression of the edifice, render the brick-red glaring and harsh, and become themselves ridiculous in isolation. Besides, as a general principle, contrasts of extensive color are to be avoided in all buildings, and especially in positive and unmanageable tints. It is difficult to imagine whence the custom of putting stone ornaments into brick buildings could have arisen; unless it be an imitation of the Italian custom of mixing marble with stucco, which affords it no ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... cordiality in his dealings with Eugene Pearson, and had succeeded in establishing a friendly intimacy with him, that would have allayed any fears which the young man might have had, as to the opinions entertained by the detectives with regard to himself. Mr. Pearson was very positive that one of the robbers was the same man who had left the valise at the bank during the afternoon, and, after learning that Manning had paid a visit to Miss Patton, he stated his belief that this same person had called at the bank a few weeks before. He could ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... lines accompanied by excited gesticulations," the natives "biting their arms as a token either of vengeance or defiance.* (* Letter describing the founding of the Port Dalrymple settlement. Sydney Gazette December 23rd, 1804.) The blacks withdrew peaceably, but were positive in forbidding us to ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... history. The Gowrie Conspiracy is yet a riddle. According to one class of historical critics, the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, Alexander Ruthven, were bent upon assassinating the King; while another class are quite as positive that the King was bent upon assassinating the Ruthvens, and that he accomplished his purpose. We confess that we are strongly inclined to go with those who say that the Ruthvens were victims, and not baffled assassins; and we have always admired ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... years gone by, when Earl Godwin, being exiled, made a raid on this conveniently accessible part of England, and after a hard fight captured all the vessels lying in the haven. Others find in the peculiar formation of the crania proof positive that the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... the United States have decreed that on this day the control of their Government in its legislative and executive branches shall be given to a political party pledged in the most positive terms to the accomplishment of tariff reform. They have thus determined in favor of a more just and equitable system of Federal taxation. The agents they have chosen to carry out their purposes are bound by their promises not less ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... with the aid of his own imagination, to make an interesting story for publication, Poe began and continued to write. Then, as he progressed, he found that his imagination was embarrassed—frustrated by the known facts already employed—whilst it was not assisted by new facts which he was positive existed, but which he could not procure. As he attempted to close the narrative, the cold, written page was a very different thing from what he had conceived it would be as he sat in the tap-room of some New England old 'Sailor's Home,' with a couple of glasses ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... rapid, almost wild gleam of thought shot across the brain of the girl, and her resolution wavered; but endeavoring to trace the foundation of the pleasing hope on which it was based, she found nothing positive to support it. Trained like a woman to subdue her most ardent feelings, her thoughts reverted to her father, and to the blessings that awaited the child who yielded ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... fired. It would have been my fault wholly and solely had an accident happened, as I ought to have dropped to the rear, instead of passing to the front. How can I doubt Providence in the light of this incident? It was God who made the trigger hard to pull that day, and I am positive that had it been an easy pull-off, the bullet would have passed through my head, as my mate fired from ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... resembled that of the patriarchs in the Old Testament; and for the exercise of it he was responsible only to Zeus, and not to his people. But though the king was not restrained in the exercise of his power by any positive laws, his authority was practically limited by the BOULE; or council of chiefs, and the Agora, or general assembly of freemen. These two bodies, of little account in the Heroic age, became in the Republican age the sole depositories of ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... that his face was haggard, his eyes dark, the light in them exhausted as though he had not slept.... I had never before seen him show positive physical distress. Let his soul be what it might, his body seemed ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... should work with me more closely on the antigrav project. He understood, from his researches, that the most positive psi effects were experienced during a seance with a medium. Would I kindly arrange for the Swami to hold a seance that evening, after office hours, so that he might analyze the man's methods and procedures ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... could be so positive in his opinions with regard to a subject on which he felt competent to say something, he was extremely modest with regard to many of the great problems of medicine. He often uses the expression in his writings, "I do not see how to explain this ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... happy prerogatives that the countenance best beloved gains to the lover's eye a charm beyond that with which any other face is endowed, even when he is forced to admit that dearest visage is surpassed in point of positive, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... But from positive science we know that although animals may think, they cannot reflect upon what they think. Descartes goes further and boldly states that they do not think at all. That is a statement which ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... top of the grade that ran up to the bleak house alone on the crest, he was leaning out of his seat, trying to penetrate the double gloom of rain and twilight; but not until he had reined in his horse was he positive that there was no shadowy figure standing there waiting ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... prophet, I shall take care not to recount here, in advance, events that are about to happen. I marvel at people who are so sure of their facts. The future has not the least obscurity for them; it has much for me. I confine myself to protesting against the positive assertions which have contributed but too greatly to mislead the opinion of Europe. My humbles theory is this: the defeat of the South is probable; the return of the conquered South ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Oig could prevent her, which, indeed, could only have been by positive violence, so hasty and peremptory were her proceedings, she had drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaiming, although the weapon gleamed clear and bright in the sun, "Blood, blood—Saxon blood again. Robin ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... old man Adams had stated a theory with emphasis and utterly without any previous reflection, being a positive soul, but never a brilliant. And, again quite as usual, a theory stated was naturally to be combated with more or less violence. Out of the innocent enough statement there grew a long, devious argument. An argument which was at its height and evincing no ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... philosophy, which has not come to your share, as appears from your writings, where, as may easily be perceived, you retail all that little you have pickt up. The more knowledge a man has, he will always be the less assuming; and a positive stiffness, especially in commonly-received opinions, is a certain sign and constant attendant of ignorance. Socrates, the wisest man among the wisest people, after all his researches declared, that all that he knew ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... believed. She entered the tenement. He hesitated. He knew the reputation of the place, which bore out his first impression that the woman was the one he thought she was; but he did not want to make a fool of himself by calling in the police until he was positive of her identity, so he finally followed her inside, and heard her go upstairs, and crept up after her in the dark. And then, suddenly, he was set upon and hustled into a room. It was the White Moll, all right; and the shots came from her companion, a ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... he had derived from Mr. Enwright positive opinions about the relative importance of ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... would go off with eclat. The Mexicans, both the nearly white Mestizos and the Indians of pure race, delight in pulque. The brown people are grave and silent in their sober state, but pulque stirs up their sluggish blood, and they get into a condition of positive enjoyment. But very soon after this comes a state of furious intoxication, and a general scuffle is a common termination to a drinking-bout. Fortunately, the Indians are not a bloodthirsty people; and, though every man carries a knife or machete, or—if he can get nothing ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... he did not even dare to express the sentiments which the sight of this man awakened in him. It was more than repulsion, it was positive hatred, and an instinctive desire to rush upon him and throw him into the sea. He was convinced that this man had had some share in the misfortune of his life, but he would have blushed to abandon himself to such a conviction, or even to ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... astronomy, the angular distance of the rising or setting sun, or other heavenly body, from the east or west point of the horizon; used mostly by navigators in finding the variation of the compass by the setting sun. In algebra, if a be a real positive quantity and o a root of unity, then a is the amplitude of the product ao. In elliptic integrals, the amplitude is the limit of integration when the integral is expressed in the form $int0^phisqrt{1-N^2sin^2phi}dphi$. The hyperbolic or Gudermannian amplitude of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... on the following subjects: The Darwinian hypothesis, the positive philosophy, Protestant missions, temperance societies, Fichte, Leasing, Hegel, Carlyle, mummies, the Apocalypse, Maimonides, John Scotus Erigena, the steam-engine of Hero, the Serapeium, the Dorian Emigration, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... no notice of the advertisement, not only as she could not be positive it related to herself, as also because she thought, if he were certain she had read it, he might resent her not answering it, as discovering a too great diffidence of his honour. She added, however, a postscript, entreating ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... The Administrator was positive in his determination to have the judiciary a most efficient bureau of the people, and to have it sufficiently well paid to obtain the best talent. He wanted it held in the highest esteem, and to have an ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... sure I don't know how I did escape," said Barney, clambering over the rim of the road to her side. "That I had nothing to do with it I am positive. It was just luck. I simply dropped out ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... secret, to be kept until I release you from the obligation of secrecy. I have reasons for getting at the truth about Ashton's murder—so has Mr. Pawle. He and I have been making investigations and inquiries, and we are convinced, we are positive, that these papers which your partner now has in his pocket were stolen from Ashton's dead body—that, in fact, Ashton was murdered for the possession of them. And I tell you, for your own sake—find out who this client of yours ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... count, "I am to take leave of you; and I assure you I do it with so much reluctance, that nothing less than positive engagements to stay in town would prevent me from setting off with you to-morrow; but I shall be soon, very soon, at liberty to return to Ireland; and Clonbrony Castle, if you will give me leave, I will see before I see ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... left London. As to one point she was quite determined. Mrs. Western and her secret must be altogether discarded. As for her promise she had not really broken it. He had been clever enough to extract from her all that she knew without, as she thought, any positive statement on her own part. At any rate he did know the truth, and no concealment could any longer be of service to Cecilia. It was evident that the way was open to her now, and that she could tell all that she knew ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... in the pretence of blindness. The brethren were too much under delusion to see through the sharp practice of both of them, but considered the fact of Corey's inquiring of them whether Ann described her dress, as, under the circumstances, proof positive ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... lively and frisky, is quite dull and sluggish. He does not get over the ground as he is wont to do. The slightest touch of whip-cord, on other days, suffices to make him dart forward with redoubled speed; but upon this day, after two or three miles, he needs positive whipping, and he runs very sulkily with it all. By-and-by his coat, usually smooth and glossy and dry through all reasonable work, begins to stream like a water-cart. This will not do. There is something wrong. You investigate; and you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... liberation of the gambling passion. Wade recognized that when he met it. And Jack Belllounds was not in any sense big. He was selfish and grasping in the numberless little ways common to the game, and positive about his own rights, while doubtful of the claims of others. His cheating was clumsy and crude. He held out cards, hiding them in his palm; he shuffled the deck so he left aces at the bottom, and these he would slip off to himself, and he was so blind that ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... where the least gleam of light assumes extraordinary importance, it is not to be neglected. I admit, for the rest, that there has so far been no time to carry out a serious enquiry on this point, but I should be greatly surprised if any such enquiry gave positive results and if it did not allowed us to state that the gigantic event, as a whole, as a general event, was neither foreseen nor divined. On the other hand, we shall probably learn, when the enquiry is completed, that hundreds of deaths, ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... negative evidence. This is, of course, the only evidence that ever can be available to prove the commencement of any series of phaenomena; but, at the same time, it must be recollected that the value of negative evidence depends entirely on the amount of positive corroboration it receives. If A.B. wishes to prove an alibi, it is of no use for him to get a thousand witnesses simply to swear that they did not see him in such and such a place, unless the witnesses are prepared to prove that they must ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... melancholy change into Schiller's circumstances: he had now another enemy to strive with, a secret and fearful impediment to vanquish, in which much resolute effort must be sunk without producing any positive result. Pain is not entirely synonymous with Evil; but bodily pain seems less redeemed by good than almost any other kind of it. From the loss of fortune, of fame, or even of friends, Philosophy pretends to draw a certain compensating benefit; but in general the permanent ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... found that it was caused by a desire to win her for himself. Why should he not succeed? He was positive that she liked him; she would have confidence in him, for she knew that he was intelligent, resolute, tenacious. Had she not sent for him? Was not that a kind of avowal? He was impatient to question ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... Maggot was a big baby—a worthy representative of his father—a true chip of the old block, for he was not only fat, riotous, and muscular, but very reckless, and extremely positive. His little nurse, on the contrary, was gentle and delicate; not much bigger than the baby, although a good deal older, and she had a dreadful business of it to keep him in order. All her efforts at lifting and restraining him were somewhat akin to the exertion made by wrestlers ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the five hundred men, whom any one of five hundred women might have equally pleased,' said Dr. Spencer; 'but it is so far true, that the positive pain and envy wore out, and would not have interfered with my after life, but for my own folly. No, Ethel; it was not the loss of her that embittered and threw away my existence; it was my own rash vow, and its headstrong fulfilment, which has ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will have a brief article on the subject from the conscientious and able pen of Dr. Henry Malter, but of books there is none. But while this is due to several causes, chief among them perhaps being that English speaking people in general and Americans in particular are more interested in positive facts than in tentative speculations, in concrete researches than in abstract theorizing—there are ample signs that here too a change is coming, and in many spheres we are called upon to examine our foundations with a view to making our ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... is not found in the genealogy published by David Malo. Nevertheless, we have positive information from our old man and other distinguished natives that Alapai was supreme chief ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... suppose that the sweeping away of those shanties would touch the solemn majesty of the mediaeval glories of the building that rises above them? Take them away if need be, and it, in its proportion, beauty, strength, and heavenward aspiration, will stand more glorious for the sweeping away. Preach positive truth. Do not preach doubts. You remember Mr. Kingsley's book Yeast. Its title was its condemnation. Yeast is not meant to be drunk; it is meant to be kept in the dark till the process of fermentation goes on and it works itself clear, and then you may bring it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Miss Peters—thank you, Miss Peters—missis did give orders most positive. These were her exact words: 'Hannah,' she said, 'the parlor is for callers. You remember that, Hannah, and the drawing-room ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... But the main point is—listen, gentlemen, let me finish!—the main point is that Mr. Burdovsky is not Pavlicheff's son at all. Gavrila Ardalionovitch has just told me of his discovery, and assures me that he has positive proofs. Well, what do you think of that? It is scarcely credible, even after all the tricks that have been played upon me. Please note that we have positive proofs! I can hardly believe it myself, I assure you; I do not yet believe it; I am still doubtful, because ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... railroad officer, and is also the most devoted student of geography and military history, with the most accurate and extraordinary memory for every detail, however minute, of battles and all other military operations that I have ever met with. He is positive in his recollection that not less than 100,000 and probably more, of that army were gradually concentrated at Toulon and sent thence by sea to Genoa, and the rest were during some weeks being concentrated ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... postscript to my paper in the 'Transact. Geolog. Soc.' (Vol. v. p. 505), and contains a serious error, as in the account received I mistook the figure 30 for 80. The tenant, moreover, formerly said that he had marled the field thirty years before, but was now positive that this was done in 1809, that is twenty-eight years before the first examination of the field by my friend. The error, as far as the figure 80 is concerned, was corrected in an article by me, in the 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... is now making ready to go to Congress, and I am to be one of the delegates to the convention which is expected to nominate him. Having resigned a very lucrative post in the Land Office, he has gone into the practice of law and the pursuit of politics. For the latter he has a positive genius, as his whole mind is taken up with visions and plans for the development of the country, and for the aggrandizement of the United States. He is honest and outspoken, courageous even to audacity; but he is sometimes accused of devious ways, ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... at all!" promptly interrupted another, with the positive conviction of womankind. "Mrs. Wilkins told me all about it, and I know. It was another girl Mr. Ray was in love with, and—no, it was Mrs.—somebody—Tanner, whose husband was killed, and Mrs. Truscott did break an engagement ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... strangest and most incredible. Hitherto, not a suspicion had entered his mind but that the man so mysteriously slain in Geneva Square was Mark Vrain, and, for the moment, he thought that Diana was distraught to deny so positive a fact. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... would arrive the usual time for going to Oxford. To Oxford my guardians made no objection; and they readily agreed to make the allowance then universally regarded as the minimum for an Oxford student, viz. L200 per annum. But they insisted, as a previous condition, that I should make a positive and definitive choice of a profession. Now I was well aware that, if I did make such a choice, no law existed, nor could any obligation be created through deeds or signature, by which I could finally be compelled into keeping my engagement. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... I've really forgotten which is which, but I'm sure—that is I think—I'm really positive—that the hair with a kink belongs to Sapphira! After all, that isn't such a dreadful name when you say it softly," ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... to have it, my boy," replied the Colonel kindly. "I really am indebted to you, for we have positive proof now that the Manor ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zad (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... union—the impress of these institutions and the influence of the people of the French section. Still, while the French Canadians by their adherence to their language, civil law and religion are decidedly "a distinct and visible element which is not English"—an element kept apart from the English by positive legal and constitutional guarantees or barriers of separation,—we shall see that it is the influence and operation of English institutions, which have made their province one of the most contented ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... there was another pause. "I'll tell you what it is, Desmond," Owen said at last, going back to the rug and speaking with an effort. "As the people say, 'a sight of you is good for sore eyes.' There is a positive joy to me in seeing you. It is like a cup of cold water when a man is thirsty. But I cannot put the drink to my lips till I know on what terms we are to meet. When last we saw each other, we were speaking of your sister; and now that we meet again, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... of the human spirit to reach those Gates of Truth whose lowest steps are the scarce discernible stars and furthest suns we scan, by piling Ossas of searching speculation upon Pelions of hardly-won positive knowledge. The highest exemplar of the former is Shakspere, Browning the profoundest interpreter of the latter. To achieve supremacy the one had to create a throbbing actuality, a world of keenest living, of acts and intervolved situations and episodes: the other ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... village from Saxon days to the present time. Some such plan had lain as a seed in his mind for many years; and now that he had decided, in a flash, to give up his profession, the seed grew in the space of twenty minutes both tall and lusty. He was surprised himself at the positive way in which he spoke. It was the same with the question of his cottage. That had come into existence, too, in an unromantic shape—a square white house standing just off the high road, no doubt, with a neighbor who kept a pig and a dozen squalling children; for these plans were shorn of all ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... conclusion, which he proclaimed in the beginning of his essay and held consistently throughout, all human striving and ambition, even life itself, are but superlative vanity, nor can man attain any permanent or complete satisfaction. The one positive teaching which Koheleth reiterates is that it is man's highest privilege to extract from passing experiences the small measure of joy and happiness that they offer, and therewith to be content. Compared ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... deal to be said for him; for, though he did not know as much as Felix of the nature and sentiments of Tod's children, he knew enough to make any but an Englishman uneasy. The fact that he went on eating ham, and said to Clara, "Half a cup!" was proof positive of that mysterious quality called phlegm which had long enabled his country to enjoy the peace of a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sentimental or academical seekings after the ideal having been abandoned, momentary theories founded upon idiosyncratic or temporary partialities exploded, and nothing accepted but what is solid and positive, the scientific spirit shall make men progressively more and more conscious of these 'bleibende Verhaltnisse,' more and more capable of living in the whole; also, that in proportion as we gain a firmer hold upon our own place in the world, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... delay our minister in Paris, in virtue of the assurance given by the French minister in the United States, strongly urged the convocation of the Chambers at an earlier day, but without success. It is proper to remark, however, that this refusal has been accompanied with the most positive assurances on the part of the executive government of France of their intention to press the appropriation at the ensuing session of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... heard of the existence of the Victoria N'yanza. The Somali described its dimensions as equal in extent to the Gulf of Aden, and further alluded to its being navigated by white men. None of the men present had been there to see it, though it was currently known as a positive fact amongst them. I did not believe the story in the light they expressed it, supposing they confounded an inland sea with the Western or Atlantic Ocean. Colonel Rigby, H.B.M. Consul at Zanzibar, tells me he also heard of this lake when he was travelling ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... where my mother had some money put away in a drawer—some money she had been saving up a little at a time to buy the material for a new dress. I went into that drawer and took that money. You were so positive that I could not lose that I—well, I ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... we may attribute to Tiglath-pileser I. the oldest of the Assyrian stelae at Nahr el-Kelb; no positive information has as yet confirmed this hypothesis, which is ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... their teeth, for both had been chased from their first entrance into American waters, and only their big topsails and a favouring wind brought them off. I examined the captains closely on the matter, and they were positive that their assailant was not Cosh or any one of his kidney, but a ship of the Brethren, who ordinarily were on the best ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... S[a]ugatas, whose religion consists in 'kindness to all.' In these sects there is found quietism, a kind of quakerism, pure morality, high teaching, sternest (almost bigoted) monotheism, and the doctrine of positive altruism, strange to the Hindu idolator as to the Brahman. The Prem S[a]gar, or 'Ocean of Love,' is a modern Hindu work, which illustrates the religious love opposed to that of the Sittars, namely, the mystic love ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... least thirteen years and eight months old. As to the profession we have overwhelming evidence that it took place on the 3rd of November, 1536, and her entrance in the convent a year and a day earlier. To begin with, we have the positive statement of her most intimate friends, Julian d'Avila, Father Ribera, S.J., and Father Jerome Gratian. Likewise dona Maria Pinel, nun of the Incarnation, says in her deposition: "She (Teresa of Jesus) took the habit on 2 November, 1535." [6] This is corroborated ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... man at periods brought provisions and their mail, but the house was acquiring an uncanny reputation. They were not understood, and such are ever foreign. With the passage of time and the coming of the mound in the dooryard, the feeling had developed into positive fear, and travellers avoided the place as though warned ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... rest of his head was covered and concealed by them. It is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other public places in this kind of array, and that this predilection often keeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for him. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public gardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to get wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well there; and it is also said that these face wounds ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... we all of us!" returned Bullard. "Only I like to be prepared for emergencies. After all, we can't be positive that Christopher will do the friendly to us when the time comes, and Alan being the only relative is certain to benefit, more or less. Our own prospects are not so bright as they were. Of course, you've run through a pile—at least, Mrs. Lancaster ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... because she had allowed herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him. She seriously feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail unless she confessed to him her positive knowledge that Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she might have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane Foley ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... of the several States to resume the powers delegated by them to the common agency, was not left without positive and ample assertion, even at a period when it had never been denied. The ratification of the Constitution by Virginia has already been quoted, in which the people of that State, through their Convention, did expressly "declare and make known that the powers ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... of goodness. They were oppressed and stifled by the ban of the meeting upon variation. And though the ideal of plainness has subtly ruled them even in their rebellion and freedom, it has done so by its negative power, in that the community has never furnished exceptional education. The positive dominion of the meeting broken, the negative "plainness" of the community rules all the children of the Hill to this day. So few are the sources of individual variation furnished, in the form of books, music, education, art, that no son or daughter of Quaker Hill has attained a place ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... spitting over the rail. I hailed them boldly from the shore (without showing them who I was), and was told they were starting for Langeoog in a few minutes; the wind was off-shore, the mails aboard, and the water just high enough. 'Did I want a passage?' 'No, I thought I would wait.' Positive that my party could never have got here so soon, I nevertheless kept an eye on the galliot till she let go her stern-rope and slid away. One contingency was eliminated. Some loiterers dispersed, and all port business appeared to be ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... "I am positive," she wrote, ingenuously, "that mother will relent in time, and then we can be married without going to so much trouble about it." Farther on she admitted that, "Mother is very firm about it now, but when she realizes that I am absolutely determined to ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... a lad of seventeen, spent the hours not devoted to his positive profession—that of gentleman—in the offices of the brewery, toying with big books and balances, which he despised with the combined zeal of the sucking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he reverted to more general subjects: the din and bustle of the city, the theatres, the race-course, the statues of charioteers, the nomenclature of horses, the horse-talk in every side-street. The rage for horses has become a positive epidemic; many persons are infected with it whom one would have credited with ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... has," asserted Mrs. Chatterton, in that positive way that made everybody hate her to begin with. "She was all right this morning when I left home. Where else is she, if she hasn't run ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... heaven, and he replied very humbly: "Lord, what dost Thou wish me to do?" And the Voice said: "Return to the land of thy birth, and there it will be told thee what thou shalt do; for it may behove thee to give another meaning to thy dream." He felt so positive that the Voice was from heaven, that he felt he simply could not disobey it. So, although it cost him a lot to do it, he turned his horse's head ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... Who came into the world to save sinners also exists. We can be unendingly thankful for that. But it is also true that the action of Christianity is not exhausted in the negative work of dealing with sin. Christianity is primarily a positive action for the bringing about and development of the relation of the soul with God in the state of union. We may say that Christianity has to turn aside from this its proper business of developing the spiritual life to the preliminary work of ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... it either by stratagem or open force. If it be of that highly wicked and immoral character which some have recently attributed to it, most assuredly it would be condemned in the Bible in terms the most positive and unequivocal. ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... miracle, he at once becomes a saint. With these "dutiful children of the Church" there can be no fixed laws of evidence; the only ground of belief is, and ever must be, Has the statement been sanctioned by the highest authority? If so, it is true; if not, it is to be doubted, however positive the proofs may be. A difficulty that the traveler every where encounters is that he can believe nothing that he hears, even on the most trifling subject, without careful examination and weighing of testimony. As he can not examine every thing himself, he is constantly ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... mild but positive terms that they must go on the reservation set apart for them by their chiefs and the agents of the white father at Washington; and warned that, in the event of their persistent refusal, soldiers ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... What needs emphasizing here is that to make boys do certain things under compulsion is not developing their faculties, but is absolutely preventing their development; and secondly, that this infamous but universal proceeding is responsible for a positive degeneration amongst those whom it is supposed ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... a way which serves better to detect the influence of electricity in such operations, as noted below. {166} Vegetable figures are also presented in some of the most ordinary appearances of the electric fluid. In the marks caused by positive electricity, or which it leaves in its passage, we see the ramifications of a tree, as well as of its individual leaves; those of the negative, recal the bulbous or the spreading root, according as ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... "leader," for such he seemed to be. He was no ordinary boy, this bright, keen, New York lad, with a form of rare build, tall and straight as a young Indian. He showed in every movement, and in the manner of his speech, that his character was a positive one, and that nature had endowed him with ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... afraid of his mother, or, if he had been, it was the fear of hurting her who had been so hurt already. Ever since he could remember, he saw himself, even as a little boy, trying to get her away from his father who had a positive cast of mind, a perfect certainty of being right and a confirmed belief that robust measures always were the thing. If you did wrong, you were to be punished, promptly and effectually. If you were afraid of the dark, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... gesture with a tiny hand peeping from under his cloak. His hat hung very much at the side of his head. "Senor," he said without any preliminaries. "Caution! It is a positive fact that one-eyed Bernardino, my brother-in-law, has at this moment a mule in his stable. And why he who is not clever has a mule there? Because he is a rogue; a man without conscience. Because I had to give up the macho to him to secure for myself a roof ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... of adjectives the Slavic has two principal forms, according as they are definite or indefinite. The Old or Church Slavonic knows only two degrees of comparison, the positive and comparative; it has no superlative, or rather it has the same form for the comparative and superlative. This is regularly made by the suffix ii. mostly united with one of those numerous sibilants, for which the English language has hardly letters or signs, sh, tsh, sht, shtsh, etc. In ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... delight at the leap she was taking through conventions she swung her right leg over the saddle and sat to place like any man. Although born and raised on a farm, horseback riding was to her something of a novelty, and the assumption of the masculine position was a positive epoch in her career. How the people of Plainville would have been scandalized if they could have witnessed her shocking familiarity with a horse! She thought of an English girl who had been cut by the good society of Plainville because she dared to ride like a biped instead of a ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... close imminence. In his condition, to put off the operation for another day, in order to consider her answer, would be to condemn him to death according to all probability of human science, since a few hours longer than that would put probability out of the question and make it a positive certainty. She could not speak; her tongue would not move when she tried to form words and her breath made no sound in ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... woman in the crowd, and kept his eye upon her for several minutes, but such was the crush, that all his efforts to reach her were unavailing, and when he got into the open street she was gone. He was quite positive as to his having distinctly seen her, however, for several minutes, and scouted the possibility of any mistake as to identity; and fully impressed with the substantial and living reality of his visitant, he was very much provoked ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the beginning of Chapter 4, Tertullian says: "If for these and other such rules you insist upon having positive Scriptural injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... probable that the firmness that distinguished her maturer will in youth might have been taken for obstinacy, that her nice discrimination might at the same period have been taken for adolescent caprice, and that the positive expression of her quick intellect might have been thought youthful impertinence before her years had won respect for ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... even while it shams to be praying to God? And there is a close connection which the history of every age has illustrated between formal religious profession and the love of money, which is the vice of the Church. Again, the promise of rewarding openly naturally leads on to the positive exhortation to make that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Legislation as a positive power was very secondary in those old Parliaments. I believe no statute at all, as far as we know, was passed in the reign of Richard I., and all the ante-Tudor acts together would look meagre enough to a modern Parliamentary ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... superb bay "waler" had detached himself from the crowd, and was coming towards them at a swinging trot, sitting the horse as though he were part of the animal. Honor realised at a glance that here was that stimulating thing, a positive personality alive to the finger-tips, realised also with what success the photographer had caught and rendered the living essence of the man. Desmond was dark as his wife was fair, though a hint of chestnut in his moustache, and a peculiar light in the hazel-grey eyes, suggested fire not ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... up the Nevski I realised what it was that had given me the first positive shock of an altered world. The trams had stopped. I had never seen the Nevski without its trams; I had always been forced to stand on the brink, waiting whilst the stream of Isvostchicks galloped past and the heavy, lumbering, coloured elephants ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... Miss 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 ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... by Catholics as well as Protestants; and it was as a defence against this charge that the narrative of the Adelantado's brother-in-law was published. That Ribaut, a man whose good sense and courage were both reputed high, should have submitted himself and his men to Menendez without positive assurance of safety, is scarcely credible; nor is it lack of charity to believe that a bigot so savage in heart and so perverted in conscience would act on the maxim, current among certain casuists of the day, that faith ought not to be kept ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... mind was clearer for work. Work becoming not only more of a resource but more remunerative as well, all life grew brighter. Fear was not overcome; I had only made a more or less hesitating stand against it; but even from doing that I got positive results. ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... while, both standing ; and then Princess Augusta said, "Give my love to the duke (meaning of Gloucester), "and I hope I shall see him bye and bye; and to William."(155) (meaning the duke's son). And this, which was not a positive request that she would prolong her visit, was understood; and the lovely cousin made her curtsey ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... consideration of his writings. Macaulay calls him a drunkard. If this be true, it seems a little severe to call a Scotchman to account for being intoxicated one hundred years ago. He also speaks of him as a toady; but he was a friend of Johnson, whose detestation of sycophancy was a positive principle. Hume speaks of him as a "friend of mine, very good-humored, very agreeable, and very mad." Macaulay's and Carlyle's essays may be considered as mutually corrective. The truth is that Boswell was absolutely frank, and if a man is frank about himself on paper he must write himself ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... doubt but a good man may lawfully and justly become a witness in behalf of the public, and may perform that office (in its own nature not very desirable) with honour and integrity. For the command in the text is positive as well as negative; that is to say, as we are directed not to bear false witness against our neighbour, so we are to bear true. Next to the word of God, and the advice of teachers, every man's conscience, strictly examined, will be his best director in this weighty point; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the product of the cunning of Jugurtha, who had discovered their route. Volux implied that the object of the Numidian's movement was to compromise the Moorish government in the eyes of Sulla; but he stated his emphatic belief that Jugurtha would, or could, do no positive hurt to the Roman envoy or his retinue. He pointed out that the king had no great force at his command, and (what was more important still) that he was now wholly dependent on the favour of his father-in-law. It was incredible, he maintained, that ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... "we won't waste any time on thinking We are going to have some positive knowledge on the subject pretty immediately. I don't feel equal to starting any domestic santana today, but the forces are gathering and the blow is coming soon. To that I have firmly made up ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
