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More "Precision" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the understanding itself abstractedly from the consideration of particulars, as in the case of geometry, numeral mathematics, universal logic, and pure metaphysics. The discursive faculty then becomes what our Shakspeare with happy precision calls "discourse of reason." ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the most ambitious publisher of to-day and were often far more successful. The scribe who was to make a fine manuscript chose his vellum with great care. He laid out his work with compass and ruler with the utmost precision. He was careful that his ink and his pigments should be of the most brilliant color and the finest quality. He looked well to the care of his pen and inscribed each letter with the patient care of the most ...
— Books Before Typography - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #49 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... were obeyed with precision, and two men stopped behind, while the rest, with Twining at their head, pressed forward. They ran against another door, but it also was open, as the watching man had not had time to close it. Through this the police poured, and found themselves in a large, ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... the beginning of the nineteenth century. These books were written from various points of view, and some of them were extremely interesting; but in every case there was one thing for which I looked in vain. I looked in vain for anything in the nature of statistical precision, except here and there in connection with minor and scattered details. Frequent references were made, for example, to the decline of the Highland population; but no attempt had apparently been made by anyone to state by reference to extant official documents what the ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... mother passed away, was with his sister in that city, and whose gentlemanly manners and kindness of heart won for him the love and confidence of his associates. An anecdote of Lieutenant Denny, characteristic of his precision of speech, his perfect self-control under the most exciting circumstances, and his strict regard to military etiquette, may be ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... to it, do you suppose that that was all that Peter was thinking about? Do you think that a wide, general, and if you leave it by itself, vague utterance like that which I have been indulging in, would give all the specific precision and fulness of the meaning of the word before us? I think not. I fancy that when this Apostle wrote these words he remembered a time long, long ago, when somebody stood by the little fishing-cobble there, and as the men were up to their knees in slush and dirt, washing their nets, said to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... careless, incogitant habits so formed in youth. But it is not systematically attempted, and the influences that continue to act upon a slave in the same direction, cultivating every quality at variance with industry, precision, ...
— The Negro Farmer • Carl Kelsey
... name was Old Charley. I was so much interested in the account of his sagacity, that I went to see him. The good animal was used for ploughing between lines of trees from three feet and a half to four feet apart, and moved with such precision and care as to run the plough and cultivator as near as possible to the trees, without ever hitting or injuring one of them. His owner told me Old Charley would go straight between the lines, turning at the end without any motion or word from the driver, with as much accuracy and skill ...
— Minnie's Pet Horse • Madeline Leslie
... the Police Power.—Because the police power of a State is the least limitable of the exercises of government, such limitations as are applicable thereto are not readily definable. Being neither susceptible of circumstantial precision, nor discoverable by any formula, these limitations can be determined only through appropriate regard to the subject matter of the exercise of that power.[105] "It is settled [however] that neither the 'contract' clause nor the 'due process' clause had the effect of overriding the power of the State ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... tangled as intricately as the bones in a kingfisher's nest—showed no more than a pretty surprise at the intrusion. She had, in fact, seen Captain Hocken pass the window some moments before; and it had not caused her to joggle the tiny ivory hook for a moment or to miss a moment's precision. What native quickness did for her, native stolidity did almost as well for Captain Hunken, who sat in an arm-chair by the fireplace smoking and watching her—and had been sitting and watching her for ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... great circle, and a combination of all such would give a representation of the shape of our stellar system. The more numerous and careful the observations, the more elaborate the representation, and the 863 gauges of HERSCHEL are sufficient to mark out with great precision the main features of the Milky Way, and even to indicate some of its ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... that troubles Miss Butterworth—Madam, I said it was not curiosity—but a laudable desire to have the whole matter arranged with precision," dropped now in his dryest tones from the ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... few men have, of close, concentrated, continuous thought, he was at the same time prompt in his decisions. His instructions to juries, and his legal judgments, usually pronounced at considerable length, were marked by that precision of statement, clearness of analysis, and felicity of language, which made them seem like the flowing of ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... HERMIT OF HOLYPORT has repeated his Queries on Gray and Dodsley, I must make a second attempt to answer them with due precision, assured that no man is more disposed than himself to communicate information for the satisfaction ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 59, December 14, 1850 • Various
... women and children almost wholly live aboard their floating homes, often never stepping ashore from one day to the other and going about their domestic duties, as well as those connected with their calling, with all the precision and cheerfulness in the world, as if there were nothing strange or ...
— Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe • Vincent Hughes
... challenged the Papal system as Antichrist, and the Pope as "The man of sin." In his estimation the Romish Church was a fallen Church and had become "The Synagogue of Satan." He entered the field of conflict clad in the armor of God and wielded the sword of the Spirit with precision and terrible effect. In prayer lay the secret of his power. He knew how to take hold upon God, and prevail like a prince. The Queen Regent, who in those times mustered the forces of the government at her pleasure, said, "I ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... the breech-chamber of each of them was a thousand-pound shell, carrying a bursting charge of five hundred pounds of an explosive which was an improvement on blasting gelatine, and the guns were capable of throwing these to a distance of twelve miles with precision. They were the most formidable ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... in which were encased the martial lower limbs visible below the long, voluminous skirts of their double-breasted frock-coats. Flo gazed with frank animation in her eyes, but Forrest never saw her until after he had waved adieu to his German friends, standing in statuesque and superb precision at the salute beyond the foaming wake of ...
— A Tame Surrender, A Story of The Chicago Strike • Charles King
... as if he had been alone in the counting-house, and wrote. I looked over his shoulder, admiring his clear, firm hand-writing; the precision, concentrativeness, and quickness, with which he first seemed to arrange and then execute his ideas. He possessed to the full that "business" faculty, so frequently despised, but which, out of very ordinary material, often makes a clever man; and without which ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... textiles, foodstuffs, motor vehicles partners: NA External debt: $NA Industrial production: growth rate NA% Electricity: 23,000 kW capacity; 150 million kWh produced, 5,340 kWh per capita (1989) Industries: electronics, metal manufacturing, textiles, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, food products, precision instruments, tourism Agriculture: livestock, vegetables, corn, wheat, potatoes, grapes Economic aid: none Currency: Swiss franc, franken, or franco (plural - francs, franken, or franchi); 1 Swiss franc, franken, or franco (SwF) 100 centimes, rappen, ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... cloak, and opened her blue eyes a little wider. She was still in circumstances to defy her reverend lover, if his eyes had declined upon lower attractions than her own. She looked very straight before her with unpitying precision down the road, on which St Roque's Church and Cottage were becoming already visible. The whole party were walking briskly over a path hard with frost, which made their footsteps ring. The air was still with a winterly touch, ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... ground for a night, after a day's march, are very lively, often amusing, and sometimes present picturesque effects. Where the country traversed by the army is known to the commander, he is able to designate the nightly camps of the different corps with precision; if, on account of ignorance of the country, this cannot be done, places are approximately indicated upon the information given by maps or extracted from the inhabitants, or procured by reconnoitring parties. Usually, however, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Mrs. Stainforth and myself were fast fixed in an angle at the corner of the stairs, and Mr. de Luc stood in the midst of the crowd, where he began offering so many grave arguments, with such deliberation and precision, every now and then going back in his reasoning to correct his own English, representing our right to proceed, and the wrong of not making way for us, that it was irresistibly comic to see the people stare, as they pushed On, and to see ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... sketch-books were later on developed with the utmost care, being written out again and again, with fresh alterations and additions each time, until every trace of crudeness had disappeared, and the finished work stood out with such clearness and precision as to suggest that it had been but that moment created. Nothing, indeed, has struck those who have followed the gradual development of his work from the first sketches which have been preserved more ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... probably on the west side. Perrot afterwards built another fort, called Fort St. Antoine, a little above, on the east bank. The position of these forts has been the subject of much discussion, and cannot be ascertained with precision. It appears by the Prise de Possession, cited above, that there was also, in 1689, a temporary French post near the mouth ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... six tomes, folio, bound in seven, which yet might be improved. Baluze and Lupus have published some letters of this holy doctor, which had escaped Aubert and Labbe. If elegance, choice of thoughts, and beauty of style be wanting in his writings, these defects are compensated by the justness and precision with which he expresses the great truths of religion, especially in clearing the terms concerning the mystery of the Incarnation. Hence his controversial works are the most valuable part of his writings. His books against Nestorius, those ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... and certain recognition of a great truth is seldom the work of a day. We often possess it in a confused and hidden way, before we can detect, to a nicety, its exact nature and limitations. It takes time to declare itself with precision, and, like a plant in its rudimentary stages, it may sometimes be mistaken for what it is not—though, once it has reached maturity, we can mistake it no longer. As Cardinal Newman observes: "An idea grows in the mind by remaining ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... eminent, modest, and persevering mechanic, Mr. Brunel; a gentleman of the rarest genius, who has effected as much for the Mechanic Arts as any man of his time. The wonderful apparatus in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, by which he cuts blocks for the navy, with a precision and expedition that astonish every beholder, secures him a monument of fame, and eclipses all rivalry. In a small building on the left, I was attracted by the solemn action of a steam-engine of a sixteen-horse or eighty-men power, and was ushered into a room, where it turned, by means ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... half-a-length—who in the hunting-field would ride the hottest, or the most phlegmatic made hunter, with equal skill, through all difficulties of ground, and over every species of fence, with admirable precision and equality of hand—or who on the exercise ground would place his broken charger on his haunches, and make him walk four miles an hour, canter six and a half, trot eight and a half, and gallop eleven, without being out in either pace a second of time, but who marred all by the besetting ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... precepts of Vitruvius, the several parts of the building, the baths, bed-chamber, the atrium, the basilica, and the Cyzicene, Corinthian, and Egyptian halls have been described with some degree of precision, or at least of probability. Their forms were various, their proportions just; but they all were attended with two imperfections, very repugnant to our modern notions of taste and conveniency. These stately rooms had neither ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... a full stop and gazed steadily at the upturned paper in the typewriter in front of him. Twenty-fives times he had written that sentence, and twenty-five times with mechanical precision and true adherence to time-honored custom he had finished it by ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... arms, which she promptly did. Putting her to one side out of the reach of the train, he ran forward to receive Mrs. Mackintosh; but that good lady, being unaccustomed to such acrobatic feats, and arriving with more force than precision, completely bowled him over, and they went flying into space together. Banborough and Friend Othniel followed almost immediately, and, both trying to get out of the door at the same time, collided with considerable force, and performed a series of somersaults, landing with ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... and you must understand if you can. You belong to a singular race. Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For every happiness turned out in the one department the other stands ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain—maybe a dozen. In most cases the man's life is about equally divided ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... motionless with hands clasped across their breasts. Then, as the reading proceeded, the great crowd, in perfect unison, as if it had practiced daily for months, performed the same motions one after the other. It was a remarkable exhibition of precision. No army of well drilled troops ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... a false impression of one's virtues or powers, the insidiously growing avarice that instinctively overvalues goods for sale and disparages what is offered. It is a good vantage point from which to attack carelessness, inaccuracy, and negligence; the man who has trained himself to precision of speech, who is painstakingly honest in his statements, who qualifies and discriminates, and hits the bull's eye in his descriptions of fact, can be pretty safely depended upon to do things rightly ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... well-stored memory always enabled her to display the soundness of her judgment. She was so well acquainted with the Koran as to repeat chapters of it at pleasure, and she explained its meaning with a precision that delighted every hearer. ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... We look upon the warehouses of its quadrangle with their slanting walls and dipping moss-covered roofs and try to conjure up the time long past when all was smart and imposing. In those days when the Indians brought in their precious peltries they were received and sent out again with military precision and all that goes with red tape and gold braid. Surely the musty archives of Simpson hold stories well worth the reading! We would fain linger and dream in front of this sun-dial across whose dulled ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... the weighted cords about his head. At precisely the right instant, and not upset by the sudden clamor of the rising fowl, the Aleut boy straightened his arm in front of him and launched his missile with precision into the very middle of the flapping ...
— The Young Alaskans • Emerson Hough
... said a pale little man in spectacles, who was evidently the leader of the band; and when the doctor went to his place, leaving his patient seated at the side-table, feeling as if he were in a dream, Wilkins carried out his orders with military precision; for, every time a piece was played, he conducted in regular musical fashion, flourishing a little ebony baton, and turning over the leaves of the book before him on the stand, but never once glancing ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn
... beings are but the different modes of expressing these formulae, and that all animals have, within the limits of their own branch of the Animal Kingdom, the same structural elements, though each branch is entirely distinct. If this be true, and if these organic formulae have the precision of mathematical formulae, with which I have compared them, they should be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... complaints were removed. But by his manner of receiving us we were disarmed in a moment, and could not utter one word of what we were going to say. He talked to us with an eloquence peculiarly his own, and explained with clearness and precision the importance of pursuing the line of conduct he had adopted, never contradicting us in direct terms, but controverted our opinions so astutely that we had not a single word to offer in reply, and retired convinced that he was in the right and that we were manifestly in the wrong." It ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Mr. Dupre did not mention this—added the weight of example to his precepts. His taste in ties was acknowledged. No member of the school eleven knotted a crimson sash round his waist with more admired precision. Nor was the success of the hero confined to the playing fields and the dormitory. Mr. Dupre noted the fact that Mannix had added other laurels to the crown of the house's glory by winning the head master's prize for ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... Who of them would recognise the superiority and greater trustworthiness of the Adept's knowledge over their own hypotheses, since in their case they can claim the mathematical correctness of their deductive reasonings based on the alleged unerring precision of the modern instruments; while the Adepts can claim but their knowledge of the ultimate nature of the materials they have worked with for ages, resulting in the phenomena produced. However much it may he urged that a deductive argument, besides being ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... monumental History of the United States, Bancroft says that, splendid as were the triumphs of Penn, his greatest conquest was the conquest of his own soul. Extraordinary as was the greatness of his mind; remarkable, both for universality and precision, as were the vast conceptions of his genius; profound as was his scholarship, and astute as was his diplomacy; the historian is convinced that, in the last resort, his greatest contribution to history is the development and influence of his impressive and robust ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham
... long block of buildings, and was elaborately fitted with bathrooms, a restaurant and a reading-room. The trapezes, bars, and all the usual appointments were of the best possible quality. The manager, a powerful-looking man dressed with the precision of the prosperous city magnate, came out of ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... regiment, Prince George of Cambridge, being in the Ionian Islands. Thus, three field-marshals, and four generals, passed in review before the illustrious guests of her Majesty. The Emperor expressed himself highly gratified; as every eye accustomed to troops must have been, by the admirable precision of the movements, and the fine appearance of the men. A striking instance of the value of railways for military operations, was connected with this review. The forty-seventh regiment, quartered in Gosport, was brought to Windsor in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... The Varl had been the dominant life form there until men had come. Now they were just another animal added to humanity's growing list of pets and livestock. The little Varl with their soft-furred bodies and clever six-fingered hands made excellent pets and precision workmen. The products of those clever hands, the tiny instruments, the delicate microminiaturized control circuits, the incredibly fine lacework and tapestries, formed the bulk of ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone
... dome of the old Swiss shone under the gas light; the scrap of thumbed music was propped up against a bottle, and he was blowing gravely into his instrument, his fingers moving up and down and along the keys with methodical precision. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... first rally. "You have made the most of your opportunities. Your wrist is strong and supple, your eye quick. You are a match, now, for most men who have not worked hard in a school of arms. Like almost all our countrymen, you lack precision. ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... other child?... For every infant who has a double supply of human milk at his disposal, there is another child who has none. The wealth in question is not an industrial product. It is apportioned by Nature with careful precision. For each new life, the ration of milk. Milk cannot be produced by any means other than the production of life. Cow-keepers know this well; their good cows are hygienically reared, and calves are sent to the butcher. Yet what distress is felt whenever the young of some animal is parted from ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... through grace, to be amusing and yet artistically upright. It is normal for them to articulate nicely. High in their consciousness there flame always the commandments of clarity, of delicacy, of precision. Indeed, so repeatedly have temperaments of this character appeared in France, not only in her music, but also in her letters and other arts, from the time of the Pleiade, to that of Charles Louis Philippe and Andre Gide and Henri de Regnier, that it is difficult not to hold theirs ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... passed in our glasses. Our chairs, being his patents, embraced and caressed us rather than submitted to be sat upon, and there was that luxurious after-dinner atmosphere when thought roams gracefully free of the trammels of precision. And he put it to us in this way—marking the points with a lean forefinger—as we sat and lazily admired his earnestness over this new paradox (as we ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... the boy Marquis was taken to call at the house of his future wife, and was presented to her in the garden. Formal paths wound under a row of chestnut-trees, carefully tended flower-beds were arranged with mathematical precision, a few peacocks strutted across the lawn, and here and there a marble statue or a great stone jar from Italy gave a classic ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... the momentous superiority of "sprinkling" over "immersion," or of "immersion" over "sprinkling"; that the "wax candles," "lighted" and "unlighted," appear to you alike insignificant; that even the jus divinum of any system of ecclesiastical government is sometimes not discerned with absolute precision; and, in short, that you look with contemptuous wonder on half our "great controversies." If I mistake not, things are coming to that pass amongst us, that we shall soon think of them almost with ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... have not room to record the speeches of the two gentlemen on this occasion, but they are preserved in the columns of the little blue newspaper, which is yet to be found on the file, and are said to be highly creditable to the legal formula of one of the parties, and to the military precision of the other. Everything had been previously arranged, and, as the red-coated drummer continued to roll out his clattering notes, some five-and-twenty privates appeared in the ranks, and arranged themselves in the order ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... that are threatening to disintegrate our social order, that we have all followed the details of this great catastrophe in the Atlantic with such intense solicitude. It was one of those accidents that happen with a precision of time and circumstance that outdoes art; not an incident in it all that was not supremely typical. It was the penetrating comment of chance upon our entire social situation. Beneath a surface of magnificent efficiency was—slap-dash. The third-class ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... was blooming in the wood than about what the Americans were doing on the Garonne. He wished he could talk to her as Gerhardt did. He admired the way she roused herself and tried to interest them, speaking her difficult language with such spirit and precision. It was a language that couldn't be mumbled; that had to be spoken with energy and fire, or not spoken at all. Merely speaking that exacting tongue would help to rally a broken spirit, ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... is to count for so much with Huysmans—in the crude malice of 'L'Extase,' for example, in the notation of the 'richness of tone,' the 'superb colouring,' of an old drunkard. And one sees already something of the novelty and the precision of his description, the novelty and the unpleasantness of the subjects which he chooses to describe, in this vividly exact picture of the carcass of a cow hung up outside a butcher's shop: 'As in a hothouse, a marvellous vegetation flourished in the carcass. ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... aggression of Spain, or France, or Austria. But if we carry our view to the moral world, do we find any principle equally obvious, and a solution as satisfactory? By no means. We may, indeed, say, with apparent precision, that during the earliest part of this epoch, Europe was divided between the champions and antagonists of religion, as, during its latter portion, it was between the enemies and supporters of political reformation. But a deeper analysis will show us that these names were but the badges ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... were then regarded as absurd, but which are now generally acknowledged by scientific gunners as the only means of insuring the desiderata of the rifle, i.e., high velocity, low trajectory, long range, penetration, and precision. ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... mathematics he abominates; but his great forte is history, especially English history. Here his superhuman memory, which appears to have the faculty of digesting and arranging as well as of retaining, has converted his mind into a mighty magazine of knowledge, from which, with the precision and correctness of a kind of intellectual machine, he pours forth stores of learning, information, precept, example, anecdote, and illustration with a familiarity and facility not less astonishing than delightful. He writes as if he had lived in the times and among the people ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... and pyramid had mingled to form a huge trident. With the three long prongs of this trident the thing struck, swiftly, with fearful precision—JOYOUSLY—tining those who fled, forking them, tossing them from ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... this want of inflective grace that English, and more especially French, speakers lose so much of their force. Both read admirably and articulate with precision, but the unvaried straight line tone, so suited to reading, will not serve the purpose when we not only wish to make people understand, but also ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... of necessity deceive themselves, as well as others, is, that there is great want of precision and distinctness in their views and definitions. We are told by them that the will is always determined by the strongest motive; that this is invariably the cause of volition. But what is meant by the term cause? We have final causes, ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... succeeded his father, who for many years had driven a coucou of capricious flight between Paris and Isle-Adam. Having married the daughter of a small inn-keeper, he enlarged his business, made it a regular service, and became noted for his intelligence and a certain military precision. Active and decided in his ways, Pierrotin (the name seems to have been a sobriquet) contrived to give, by the vivacity of his countenance, an expression of sly shrewdness to his ruddy and weather-stained visage which suggested wit. He was not without that facility ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... a gentleman handed Melinda to the piano, and there was a brief pause as she struck the instrument, and commenced going through the unintelligible intricacies of a fashionable piece of music. She could strike all the notes with scientific correctness and mechanical precision. But there was no more expression in her performance than there is in that of a musical box. After she had finished her task, she left the instrument with a few words of commendation extorted by ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... other waited awkwardly, his heart rushing out in ineffectual flood against the old man's barrier of stern restraint. For a moment he made folds in his soft hat with a fastidious precision. Finally he nerved ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... very important that the statute laws should be made as plain and intelligible as possible, and be reduced to as small a compass as may consist with the fullness and precision of the will of the Legislature and the perspicuity of its language. This well done would, I think, greatly facilitate the labors of those whose duty it is to assist in the administration of the laws, and would be a lasting benefit to the people, by placing before them in a more ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... things,—that the subject of prophetic intimation, as provided for by the Lord himself, is warranted, and, that it is beyond the power of men either to fulfil it otherwise than he has arranged, or to prevent its accomplishment. Prophecy describes, with precision, facts that will take place. Men are brought into the circumstances to which a prophecy refers, and they may be ignorant of the fact. Afterwards they know it, and attest the verity of the prediction. The descriptions afforded in prophecy concerning the circumstances ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... side of it, the three others, the silver bird, the mosaic and the mother-of-pearl arranged in a half-moon below them, in the front of the child's dress. They were placed with the greatest neatness and precision; it must have cost Molly both time and trouble to put each ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... others than such as are worn by themselves. Mr. Arnot moved rather in his own well-defined grooves, which he had deliberately furrowed out with his own steely will. In these he went through the day with the same strong, relentless precision which characterized the machinery in his several ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... soon became pretty animated on both sides, the Aurora having, however, a decided advantage over her antagonist both in rapidity and precision of fire. Thus, while at the end of half an hour only one of the schooner's shot had touched the barque, and that without doing any material damage, her own sails and rigging were pretty well cut up, several shot-holes being visible in her canvas, whilst a number of ends ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... are to let them want for nothing, and I send them plenty of ammunition." Rale says that the King allowed him a pension of six thousand livres a year, and that he spent it all "in good works." As his statements are not remarkable for precision, this may mean that he was charged with distributing the six thousand livres which the King gave every year in equal shares to the three Abenaki missions of Medoctec, Norridgewock, and Panawamske, or Penobscot, and which generally ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... Babylonians in Babylonia—why should one group be assumed to be older than the other? The only ground for suggesting that these groups had not each a separate evolution, is the assumption that man was "created" once for all, and created summarily; in which case it follows with mathematical precision that the ultimate ancestry of every man living extends back to exactly the same date. That is to say, the highest and the lowest, the blackest and the whitest, only differ in this, that some men began to keep records earlier than others; for the man who keeps no records ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... worth mentioning occurred to the hunters that day, save that little Tolly Trevor was amazed—we might almost say petrified—by the splendour and precision of the trapper's shooting, besides which he was deeply impressed with the undercurrent of what we may style grave fun, coupled with calm enthusiasm, which characterised the man, and the utter absence of self-assertion ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... the news had gone out that Jaureguy had killed the Prince at Antwerp, and Gerard felt that his mission was at an end. But when the Prince recovered, his murderous enthusiasm redoubled, and he offered himself formally and with matter-of-fact precision to the Prince of Parma as heaven's minister of vengeance. The Prince, who had long been seeking such an emissary, at first declined the alliance: he had become too much the prey of soldiers of fortune who ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... thing into his head and out of his fingers is ascertained. This time is called his personal equation, and is subtracted from all of his observations in order to get at the true time; so willing are men to be exact about material matters. Can it be thought that moral and spiritual matters have no precision? Thus distances east or west from any given star or meridian are secured; those north and south from the equator or the zenith are as easily fixed, and thus we make such accurate maps of the heavens that any movements in the far-off stars—so far ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... step; Redgrave laid an arresting hand upon him. There needed but this touch. In frenzied wrath, yet with the precision of trained muscle, Hugh struck out; and Redgrave went down before him—thudding upon the door of the veranda like one who ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... from perplexity. He was seeking enlightenment before he proceeded further, so he unfolded the paper with a deliberation unusual to him, which afforded time to Dryden to remark with clear precision: ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... as he looked, Mr. Jefferson saw rising warily from behind the fort nearest him, a girlish figure in a scarlet blanket suit, its dark head half shielded by a scarlet toboggan cap very much awry. A mittened hand flung a snowball with strength and precision straight into the opposite fort, and the assailant immediately dodged down behind ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... way along, in the warm twilight, Madame Beattie was gay over the prospect of being fought for. With the utmost precision and unflagging spirit she arranged a plausible cause for combat, and Jeffrey, not in the least intending to play his allotted part, yet enjoyed the ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... these attentions were addressed, is described by an anonymous emissary of the English Court, as leading a regular life,—hunting when the weather permitted, and hearing mass every day with great precision and devotion. "Il est fort maigre," adds the same writer, "assez grand; son teint est brun, son humeur et sa personne ne sont pas desagreables." In another place, it is added, "Il paroit manquer de jugement et de resolution:" an opinion, unhappily, too correct.[58] On the question being put by ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... can grow to, and will and must if England is to have a Downing Street beyond a few years longer, it is far from me, in my remote watch-tower, to say with precision. A Downing Street inhabited by the gifted of the intellects of England; directing all its energies upon the real and living interests of England, and silently but incessantly, in the alembics of the place, burning up the extinct imaginary interests of England, that we may see God's sky a little ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... Their craft had nothing in common with the world's older arts, excepting those of the scribe and the scholar. The entire book-trade, now divided into so many branches, was in their hands—binder, engraver, printer and publisher, being generally the same person; and this, together with the laborious precision required in working the primitive press, made them throughout Christendom a sort of caste who acquired their trade by inheritance, and kept it as such. Two generations of their family had transmitted the types to Christopher and Hubert; but not to them alone. There ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... memorandum. "Fifteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents," he read with careful precision. ...
— Lost Face • Jack London
... further back we go in time and the lower the stage of civilisation submitted to investigation. Historically, indeed, there would seem to be an inverse relation between supernatural and natural knowledge. As the latter has widened, gained in precision and in trustworthiness, so has the former shrunk, grown vague and questionable; as the one has more and more filled the sphere of action, so has the other retreated into the region of meditation, or vanished behind the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... There was precision, I may say dignity, in all his motions. If he turned to you, it was slowly and deliberately; there was nothing like rapidity in his movement. On the most trifling occasions, he wrapped himself up in etiquette with all the consequence of a Spanish Hidalgo; and showed in almost every action ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... read us a series of his "Sketches of his Political Contemporaries," quite admirable for the precision, distinctness, and apparent impartiality with which they were drawn, and for their happiness of expression-and purity of diction. Among them is a character of Lord Scarborough, which, if it be a faithful portrait, is perhaps the highest testimony in itself to the merit of one ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... furniture seemed to come toward me and taunt me with the fell crime I had committed. 'I was justified in the act,' said I to these dumb accusers, as though they had been, living witnesses. 'She was the bane of my existence.' And with cunning precision I arranged the disordered room, smoothed the pillows, and levelled the coverlet. 'The dead cannot speak,' said ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... "A child has no need of seizing on the exact meaning of words; on the contrary, a certain lack of precision seems to stimulate his imagination only the more vigorously, since it gives him a ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... quicksands were of great extent at low water, and had an infamous reputation in the country. Close in shore, between the islet and the promontory, it was said they would swallow a man in four minutes and a half; but there may have been little ground for this precision. The district was alive with rabbits, and haunted by gulls which made a continual piping about the pavilion. On summer days the outlook was bright and even gladsome; but at sundown in September, with a high wind, ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... Note the precision and confidence of the promise. The hour of the fulfilment, and the price of flour and the cheaper barley are stated. Man's promises are vague; God's are specific. Mark, too, the entire silence of the promise as to the mode of its ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the yawning heel of Tommy Sutton's sock with precision and celerity, and she ruminated silently upon the vicissitudes and failures of mortal life until she was interrupted ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... corrected for magnetic variation, and this gives us the exact location of the tragedy. We have the altitude, the temperature, and the degree of humidity prevailing—inestimably valuable, since they enable us to estimate with precision the degree of influence which they would exercise upon the mood and disposition of the assassin at that ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... the distance before the blacks saw us, and then ensured a general scrimmage. The women and children jumped into the lagoon, and the men, snatching up their weapons, threw a volley of spears with such force and precision that, had we been twenty yards closer, it would have gone hard with both my companions and myself. As it was, the missiles nearly all fell short, seeing which the warriors dropped their arms and took ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... buzzing pests at which we constantly slapped and, crossing a tiny bridge over the brook, approached the Mission of Tai-o-hae, that once pompous and powerful center of the diffusion of the faith throughout the Marquesas. The road was lined with guavas, mangos, cocoanuts, and tamarinds, all planted with precision and care. The ambitious fathers who had begun these plantings scores of years before had provided the choicest fruits for their table. All over the world the members of the great religious orders of Europe have carried the seeds of the best varieties of fruits ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... number of electors so represented;[483] and (3) that a parliament in which the various parties are represented in proportion to their voting strength can be depended upon to know and to execute the will of the nation with more precision than can a legislative body elected after the principle of ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... the house best qualified for such duty should endeavour to ascertain, with as much precision as possible, the extent and position of the fire, while the others collect as much water as they can. If the fire be in an upper floor, the inmates should be got out immediately, although the lower part of the house may generally be entered with safety for some time. If in the lower part ...
— Fire Prevention and Fire Extinction • James Braidwood
... an extent Rabelais' admirable style was due to conscious effort, care, and elaboration, a fact which is generally too much overlooked, and how instead of leaving any trace which would reveal toil and study, it has on the contrary a marvellous cohesion, precision, and brilliancy. It was modelled and remodelled, repaired, touched up, and yet it has all the appearance of having been created at a single stroke, or of having been run like molten wax ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... among the men who intend to stretch the law. Let me see; we have been in business together just one year, and our books balance with a most graceful precision. We are ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... melancholic lunatic, confined to his chamber by day, and wandering like a ghost by night, refusing all admission. Moreover my good Aylward had appeared hitherto a paragon of a duenna for discretion, only over starched in her precision. Little did I expect to find my young lady spending all her evenings alone with him, and the solitary hermit transformed into a gay and gallant bachelor like the Friar of Orders Gray in the song. And since matters have ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... There was no hope for the ship. "Lower the boats!" Everything was done with precision and in order, indicating that there was no panic on shipboard. Up to the last moment the wireless S. O. S., St. Duneen, 48, 50 N., 10 E., repeated and repeated ...
— The Boy Volunteers with the Submarine Fleet • Kenneth Ward
... medium is one of the most beautiful for pure line work, and its use is an excellent training to the eye and hand in precision of observation. Perhaps this is why it has not been so popular in our art schools lately, when the charms of severe discipline are not so much in favour as they should be. It is the first medium we are given ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... be replied, "are excepted cases." Certainly they are cases of which any one who maintains the opinion in question would be glad to disencumber himself; because they clearly expose the unsoundness of his principle. But it will be incumbent on such an one, first to explain with precision why they are to be exempted from its operation, and this he will find an impossible task; for sincerity, in its popular sense, so shamefully is the term misapplied, can be made the criterion of guilt and innocence on no grounds, which ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... days of Copernicus. It was, indeed, quite impossible to be certain of the real shape of the earth or the reality of its motions until knowledge became more extended and scientific instruments much greater in precision. ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... been very difficult to describe Grace Melbury with precision, either now or at any time. Nay, from the highest point of view, to precisely describe a human being, the focus of a universe—how impossible! But, apart from transcendentalism, there never probably lived a person who was in herself more completely a reductio ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Miss Garwood and a number of her teachers came forward to greet the cadets and those with them and invite them to the campus. Here another drill was given, the girls applauding louder than ever as each movement was executed with a precision that would have done credit to ...
— The Rover Boys at Big Horn Ranch - The Cowboys' Double Round-Up • Edward Stratemeyer
... opponent on the ground of corrupt influence, but, adds Mr. Rives, in his sesquipedalian measure, "for the want of adequate proof to sustain the allegations of the petition which in such cases it is extremely difficult to obtain with the requisite precision, the proceeding was unavailing except as a perpetual protest, upon the legislative records of the country, against a dangerous abuse, of which one of her sons, so qualified to serve her, and destined to be one of her chief ornaments, was the early though ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... with the same style of flowing grandeur, and revealing a breastplate of starched cambric scarcely less broad and brilliant, the uninitiated might have held the resemblance as perfect. The wristbands were turned up with not less compact precision, and were fastened by jewelled studs that glittered with not less radiancy. The satin waistcoat, the creaseless hosen, were the same; and if the foot were not quite as small, its Parisian polish was not less bright. But here, unfortunately, Mr. ...
— Henrietta Temple - A Love Story • Benjamin Disraeli
... ordinary rules of propriety; but during which much also that is diverting, witty, and even instructive, is manifested, which would never be heard of without this momentary breaking up of the barricades of precision. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... which he could speed up a four-horse team on that short straight-away, his ability to postpone slowing them down for the turn, and yet to pull them in handily and in time, the deftness and precision of his short turns, the promptness with which he compelled them to gather speed after the turn, these were astonishing, enough; but far more astonishing were his grace of pose, his perfect form in every motion, the ease ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... spontaneous rapture so good to see. One night, Nance Pete appeared, and established herself, with great importance, in the first row of the ten-cent seats; but she fell asleep, and snored with embarrassing volume and precision. She never came again, and announced indifferently, to all who cared to hear, that when she "wanted to see a passel o' monkeys, she'd go to the circus, an' done with it." There, too, one night when Comedy burlesqued her own rapt self, was Dana Marden; but he ...
— Meadow Grass - Tales of New England Life • Alice Brown
... The precision of this gentleman's aim as he expectorated through the open window, and the marvellous rapidity with which he managed his diversion, led me to watch him. He looked tired and cold and ill. It was still dark outside, and the jolting of the train was ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... parts, and not in others—which a person of judgment (in practice) can tell, as it were, instantaneously. I say in practice, because I believe that the best judges out of practice are not able to judge with precision—at least, I am not. We say this beast touches nicely upon its ribs, hips, &c., &c., because we find a mellow, pleasant feel on those parts; but we do not say soft, because there are some of this same sort of animals which have a soft, loose ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... can personate them. In avoiding the declamatory Kembletonianism of the old school, our actors are right enough; but they cannot safely disregard the skill which sharpens and chisels, as it were, the sentences; nor forego the care, study, precision and stern adherence to rules of art, ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Love in '76 - An Incident of the Revolution • Oliver Bell Bunce
... which has been given to, and the careful records which have been kept of certain branches of this work, in particular the Lancashire cotton industry, enable us to trace the operation of the new industrial forces here with greater precision than is the case with any other industry. As Schulze-Gaevernitz, in his masterly study, says of the cotton industry—"The English cotton industry is not only the oldest, but is in many respects that modern industry which ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... era, Pythagoras, and after him Philolaus, had suggested the movement of the earth and planets about a central fire; and, three centuries later, Aristarchus had restated the main truth with striking precision. Here comes in a proof that the antagonism between theological and scientific methods is not confined to Christianity; for this statement brought upon Aristarchus the charge of blasphemy, and drew after ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... gentleman. So, the moment he meets a more or less serious adversary, the colossus falls to pieces? Poor young man! Have a glass of water, to bring you round!" Lupin did not utter a word, did not betray a gesture of irritation. With absolute composure, with a precision of movement that showed his perfect self-control and the clear plan of conduct which he had adopted, he gently pushed Daubrecq aside, went to the table and, in his turn, took down the ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... said before, is perhaps one of the most graphic traits on record of the peculiar disposition of the hero of Waterloo. It bespeaks at once the soldier and the politician. He answers the letter with military precision, but with political astuteness—he pretends to be ignorant of the object I had in sending it. His ready reply was the first impulse of the man; his crafty and guarded mode of expression was the cautious act of the minister. Had I been disposed to have written a second time to my illustrious correspondent, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... years later he was persuaded to enter the monastery of Steyn, near Gouda, a house of Augustinian canons. The life there was uncongenial to him; for though he had leisure to read as much as he liked, his temperament was not suited to the precision and regularity of religious observance. An opportunity for escape presented itself, when the Bishop of Cambray, a powerful ecclesiastic, was inquiring for a Latin secretary. Erasmus, who had already become very facile with his pen, ...
— Selections from Erasmus - Principally from his Epistles • Erasmus Roterodamus
... to this country, in the hope that means might be found for the publication of the entire series. Among the many pictures of animals in each of the large sheets full of them, I was particularly struck with one of an eland as giving a just idea of the precision and purity of their best work. Others, again, were exhibited last summer at the Anthropological Institute ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... absence of anything like precision in the language employed in such verses frequently causes confusion. The word atma as used in the first line is very indefinite. The commentator thinks it implies achetanabuddhi, i.e., the perishable understanding. I prefer, however, to take it as employed in the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... consist of stone-headed spears (which they throw with great strength and precision) of throwing sticks, boomerangs or kileys, clubs, and stone hatchets. The dogs they use in hunting I have already stated to be of a kind unknown in other parts of Australia, and they were ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... early history is remarkable for the fullness and precision of the authorities that illustrate it. The incidents of the Huguenot occupation of Florida are recorded by eight eye-witnesses. Their evidence is marked by an unusual accord in respect to essential facts, as well as by a minuteness of statement ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... and the latitude, corrected for magnetic variation, and this gives us the exact location of the tragedy. We have the altitude, the temperature, and the degree of humidity prevailing—inestimably valuable, since they enable us to estimate with precision the degree of influence which they would exercise upon the mood and disposition of the assassin at that time ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... goods, textiles, foodstuffs, motor vehicles partners: NA External debt: $NA Industrial production: growth rate NA% Electricity: 23,000 kW capacity; 150 million kWh produced, 5,230 kWh per capita (1992) Industries: electronics, metal manufacturing, textiles, ceramics, pharmaceuticals, food products, precision instruments, tourism Agriculture: livestock, vegetables, corn, wheat, potatoes, grapes Economic aid: none Currency: 1 Swiss franc, franken, or franco (SwF) 100 centimes, rappen, or centesimi Exchange rates: Swiss francs, franken, ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... knowledge is the certainty, which nothing can shake, that nature's laws are immutable. The stability of her processes, the precision of her action, and the universality of her laws, is the basis of all science, to which biology forms no exception. Once establish, by clear and unmistakable demonstration, the life history of an organism, and truly some change must have come over ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... them understood a word of what the other was saying. So the near-argument became an animated discussion, the general meaning of which became clear: Brain surgeons should know more about the intricacies of electromechanics, and the designers of delicate, precision instrumentation should know more about the mass of human gray matter they ...
— The Fourth R • George Oliver Smith
... satisfaction at the power of it all. It was as ruthless and as admirable as a force of nature. She would not pause, this woman, for flesh and blood; she was as impersonal as one of her own great shears that would bite off a "bloom" or a man's head with equal precision, and in doing so would be fulfilling the law of its being. Assuredly she would stop Blair's puppy-love ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... the strangest manner, did M. de Cambrai little service. If people were offended to find it supported upon no authority, they were much more so with its confused and embarrassed style, its precision so restrained and so decided, its barbarous terms which seemed as though taken from a foreign tongue, above all, its high-flown and far- fetched thoughts, which took one's breath away, as in the too subtle air of the middle region. Nobody, except the theologians, understood ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... sheet, without gilt or black edging, and consequently very vulgar and indecorous, particularly to one of your precision; but this being Sunday, I can procure no better, and will atone for its length by not filling it. Bland I have not seen since my last letter; but on Tuesday he dines with me, and will meet M * * e, the epitome of all that is exquisite in poetical or personal ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... possessed of the very spirit of order and precision; for, although the papers had been neatly arranged before, he re-sorted every one of them; tying up the packets afresh, reading letter after letter, and making pencil memoranda in his pocket-book ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and swore they would go to the bottom rather than yield. We blazed away at the schooner, but in vain; she had been severely taught to respect us; our shot fell far short, while she, with her long metal, kept dropping shot after shot into us with deadly precision. We tried to close with her; but she saw her advantage, and kept it; all that we could do was to stand steadily on, the men lying down under the shelter of the bulwarks. A faint dull sound now fell upon our ears, like the report of a distant gun. "Thank heaven!" said I, "our guns have spoken ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... the right place this time, and with such precision that M. de Coralth turned livid, and made a furious gesture, as if he were about to fell her to the ground. "Ah, take care!" he exclaimed; ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... But this is certain, that in Philadelphia the free coloured people are a very respectable class, and, in my opinion, quite as intelligent as the more humble of the free whites. I have been quite surprised to see them take out their pencils, write down and calculate with quickness and precision, and in every other point shew great intelligence ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... of hand-wrought goods, therefore, is a certain margin of crudeness. This margin must never be so wide as to show bungling workmanship, since that would be evidence of low cost, nor so narrow as to suggest the ideal precision attained only by the machine, for that would ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... fully three quarters of an hour later when Jan saw Melisse, with Iowaka's red shawl over her head, walking slowly and with extreme precision of step ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... heard disbursing second-hand hyperboles? Have you never turned sick at heart, O best of critics! when some of your own sweet adjectives were returned on you before a gaping audience? Enthusiasm about art is become a function of the average female being, which she performs with precision and a sort of haunting sprightliness, like an ingenious and well- regulated machine. Sometimes, alas! the calmest man is carried away in the torrent, bandies adjectives with the best, and out-Herods Herod for some shameful moments. When you remember that, you will ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I have often taken notice of elsewhere, and I did so more especially at the discussion that was held at my friend C. Cotta's concerning the immortal Gods, and which was carried on with the greatest care, accuracy, and precision; for coming to him at the time of the Latin holidays,[79] according to his own invitation and message from him, I found him sitting in his study,[80] and in a discourse with C. Velleius, the senator, who was then ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... chairs in the parlors are pushed back with precision against the wall, and the funereal silence that reigns supreme seems to say that death yesterday came, and an hour ago all the inmates of the gloomy mansion, save the old soldier, followed the hearse afar and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... antiquity of islands, but not with your precision, or at all under the point of view of Natural Selection NOT having done what might have been anticipated. The argument of littoral Miocene shells at the Canary Islands is new to me. I was deeply impressed (from the ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... hurry for precision. 'Take your time, men; don't throw away your fire, my lads.' 'No, sir, but we'll give it to ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... organization was better than any other, and their celebrated tercios were the very model of all regiments. Their armament was likewise superior, as they had adopted the musket, which was the first fire-arm that a man could handle with any facility, load with rapidity, and aim with any precision. Each of their tercios or battalions contained a regulated proportion of these musketeers, and the number was large, compared to the whole mass ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... happened better for me than that I should have met you, a brother-student; though we follow divergent lines, you for the attainment of mathematical precision, I for the diffusion of Eastern lore, you of all men seem to have extended towards me ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... the novelty of the scene, and from the superior dimensions of every variety of equipment on board of the frigate, compared to the small craft to which he had been accustomed, passed away. The order which was exacted to preserve discipline, the precision with which the time was regulated, the knowledge of the duty allotted to him, soon made him feel that no more was exacted than what could easily be performed, and that there was no hardship in serving on board of a man-of-war; the only hardship was, the manner in ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... countrymen, should deem it an important part of their duty to draw out the stores of thought which are already latent in their native language, to purify it from the corruptions which Time brings upon all things, and from which language has no exemption, and to endeavour to give distinctness and precision to whatever in it is confused, or obscure, or dimly seen'—Guesses at Truth, ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... squarely faced. Conduct from the first then issues in progress, and, by reinforcing its own organisation at each rehearsal, makes progress continual. For there will subsist not only a readiness to act and a great precision in action, but if any significant circumstance has varied in the conditions or in the interests at stake, this change will make itself felt; it will check the process and prevent precipitate action. Deliberation or well-founded scruple has the same source as facility—a plastic and quick ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... sentence suggests that the just price was not a fixed and unalterable standard, but was somewhat wide and elastic. On this all writers are agreed. 'The just price of things,' says Aquinas, 'is not fixed with mathematical precision, but depends on a kind of estimate, so that a slight addition or subtraction would not seem to destroy the equality of justice,'[1] Caepolla repeats this dictum, with the reservation that, when the just price is fixed by law, it must be rigorously ...
— An Essay on Mediaeval Economic Teaching • George O'Brien
... immortal leader of our Revolution, in his letter to the President of the old Congress, written as president of the convention which formed this compact, thus speaks on this subject: "It is at all times difficult to draw, with precision, the line between those rights which must be surrendered, and those which may be reserved; and on the present occasion this difficulty was increased by a difference among the several States, as to their situation, extent, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... that I could not very well tell what he was about, though it was sufficiently apparent that he was acting entirely on the rotatory principle. I observed that he alighted, with singular accuracy, on the very spot where he had stood before, toeing the mark with beautiful precision. ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... more fully appear to your Lordships from the annexed sketch of the said tract, which we have since caused to be delineated with as much exactness as possible, and herewith submit to your Lordships, to the end that your Lordships may judge with the greater precision of the situation of the lands prayed for in ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... evolution. Now, has it arisen so, as a matter of fact? Paleontology, in spite of the insufficiency of its evidence, invites us to believe it has; for, where it makes out the order of succession of species with any precision, this order is just what considerations drawn from embryogeny and comparative anatomy would lead any one to suppose, and each new paleontological discovery brings transformism a new confirmation. Thus, the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... crowd into the bar-room, led by Yuba Bill, the driver. Then the crowd parted, and out of their midst stepped two children, a boy and a girl, the oldest apparently of not more than six years, holding each other's hands. They were coarsely yet cleanly dressed, and with a certain uniform precision that suggested formal charity. But more remarkable than all, around the neck of each was a little steel chain, from which depended the regular check and label of the powerful Express Company, Wells; Fargo & Co., and the words: "To Richard Spindler." "Fragile." "With great care." "Collect on delivery." ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... task, not merely to show what these principles are, but to point out how they have been discovered by our predecessors. We shall trace the growth of these ideas from their first vague beginnings. We shall see how vagueness of thought gave way to precision; how a general truth, once grasped and formulated, was found to be a stepping-stone to other truths. We shall see that there are no isolated facts, no isolated principles, in nature; that each part of our story is linked by indissoluble bands with that which ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... the John Bull warmth and heat which he, the dreamer, the recluse, the lover of abstract problems, could bring into such discussions. Here, at all events, his views were definite enough, and stated with a bold precision of English plainness that would have pleased the most pronouncedly Tory or Unionist newspaper ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... which was the worse to bear, her love for Maisie or Maisie's love for her. And who could have foreseen the pain of it? When she prayed that she might take the whole punishment, she had not reckoned on this refinement and precision of torture. God knew what he was about. With all his resources he couldn't have hit on anything more delicately calculated to hurt. Nothing less subtle would have touched her. Not discovery; not the grossness of exposure; ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... with absolute precision. At one-thirty the barrage lifted and over the boys went, sweeping everything before them, back to the original position and then a little farther for good measure. By daylight they had the new line so well consolidated that Fritz was never ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... columns of attack. Nine battalions of infantry moved up to their support, and forming into columns, echelons, and squares, performed before us all the manoeuvres of a review with the most admirable precision and rapidity; but from these our attention was soon taken by a brilliant display upon our left. Here, emerging from the wood which flanked the Aguada, were now to be seen the gorgeous staff of Marmont himself. Advancing at a walk, they came forward amidst ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... within a given time towards a lateral light did not correspond at all strictly with the amount of light which they received; the light not being at any time in excess. They continued for nearly half an hour to bend towards a lateral light, after it had been extinguished. They bend with remarkable precision towards it, and this depends on the illumination of one whole side, or on the obscuration of the whole opposite side. The difference in the amount of light which plants at any time receive in comparison with what they have shortly before received, seems in all cases to be the chief exciting ...
— The Power of Movement in Plants • Charles Darwin
... higher compliment be paid, than the mere statement that he was able, fifteen hours before a shot was fired in the battle, to prescribe the movements of the different organizations of his command, and to outline the plan of battle as it was finally carried out, with a degree of precision which can be fully appreciated only by those to whom the plan was communicated in advance. In spite of slight changes, made necessary by local failures and unforeseen circumstances; in spite of the very poor cooperation of the artillery arm; in spite of the absence of cavalry, which made good reconnaissance ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... continually oscillating on each side of mean rates, yet never losing or gaining in intensity. Such too is the case on the surface of our globe; the seasons alternately clothe the forests with verdure, and strip them of their leaves; seed time and harvest recur with invariable precision; the whole of existing vegetables perish, and animals die and decay, yet the race is perpetuated. Shall we set bounds to the exertion of almighty power, and say, that races, that families, that species and genera, nay that whole natural kingdoms may not in ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... system of science and thought; and you know that it is by constant and close mathematical study of analogy—of probability—that we exclude error little by little from our observations—we improve more and more our instruments of precision—we count out the errors of our observation; and we are constantly seeking those laws which are not transient and ephemeral only, but which are eternal and immortal. Upon those laws, finally, must rest all our real, certain knowledge; and it is the endeavor of the anthropologist ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various
... is proper to settle, with authentick precision, what has long floated in publick report, as to Johnson's being himself the authour of a considerable part of that poem. Much, no doubt, both of the sentiments and expression, were derived from conversation with him; and it was certainly submitted to his friendly revision: but in the year 1783, he, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... the operation went well enough, but by 8 A.M. we knew that our two Infantry brigades were having to go all out. The Boche machine-gunners were firing with exemplary coolness and precision. At 8.30 the brigade-major telephoned that every gun we possessed must fire bursts on certain hostile battery positions. The colonel and I didn't leave the mess that morning; the telephone was rarely out of use. At half-past ten Major Bartlett, who had gone forward to ...
— Pushed and the Return Push • George Herbert Fosdike Nichols, (AKA Quex)
... not sufficient to affect the outer tentacles, but all those near the two points were directed to them, so that two wheels were formed on the disc of the same leaf; the pedicels of the tentacles forming the spokes, and the glands united in a mass over the phosphate representing the axles. The precision with which each tentacle pointed to the particle was wonderful; so that in some cases I could detect no deviation from perfect accuracy. Thus, although the short tentacles in the middle of the disc do not bend when their glands are excited ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... privileges of his vassals. It paid little attention to the rights (if any) of the vast majority of the people, the peasants, but it offered certain securities to the rising class of the merchants. It was a charter of great importance because it defined the powers of the king with more precision than had ever been done before. But it was still a purely mediaeval document. It did not refer to common human beings, unless they happened to be the property of the vassal, which must be safe-guarded against royal tyranny just as the Baronial woods and cows were protected against an ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... had unbuckled his sword, evidently he had not lost the power of grappling with difficulties, of swiftly seeing the right thing to do, and of giving his orders with soldier-like precision. ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... among these mysteries, Absorbed and smiling and sure; Stirring, tasting, measuring, With the precision of a ritual. I like to think of you in your years of power — You, now so shaken and so powerless — High priestess ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... which Duveneck rejoices. Sargent's "John Hay" and "Henry James" are absolutely exhaustive as character studies. His "Nubian Girl", however, is woody, no matter how interesting in posture. In nothing does he disclose his marvelous precision of technique so completely as in some of the outdoor studies, like the "Syrian Goats" and the "Spanish Stable". There is nothing like them in the exhibition anywhere, and these two things alone make up for what ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... aiming, it is true, at the higher graces of style, somewhat diffuse, too, both in French and in English, but easy, natural, idiomatic, and lucid, with the distinctness of clear conceptions rather than the precision of vigorous conceptions, and a warmth which in his public letters sometimes rose to eloquence, and in his private letters often made you feel as if you were listening instead ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... would recognize that repetition is better than effort. Mastery, perfection, the doing of difficult things with ease and precision, depend more upon doing things over and over than upon putting forth ...
— 21 • Frank Crane
... large, quiet bedroom of Mr. and Mrs. Orgreave. The latter was enjoying a period of ease, and lay, with head raised very high on pillows, in her own half of the broad bed. The quilt extended over her without a crease in its expanse; the sheet was turned down with precision, making a level white border to the quilt; and Mrs. Orgreave did not stir; not one of her grey locks stirred; she spoke occasionally in a low voice. On the night-table stood a Godfrey's Chloride of Ammonia Inhaler, with its glass cylinder and triple arrangement of ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... tortuous play of the muscles around each man's rigid backbone while the strained, monotonous, half-weird chorus, "Hy-ah! Hullah! Hee-ah! Hey!" measures their tread and shifts the strain from man to man, step by step, with the precision of clock work. On the rivers in China, too, one sees boats run by human treadmill power: a harder task than that of Sisyphus is that of the men who sweat all day long at the wheel, forever ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... style possibly not always sanctioned by the Spanish Academy? Spain herself had denied to the Filipinos a system of education that might have made a creditable Castilian the common language of the Archipelago. A display of erudition alone does not make an historian, nor is purity, propriety and precision in choosing words ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... important, from the greater tendency of the heavy balls to strip; and there being less object in extreme lightness, the gun may be made a large-sized Kentucky rifle on wheels; and there is less difficulty in loading with the precision that the flat-ended picket requires. In the cannon, even more than in the rifle for the line, there is no gain in getting facility of loading at the expense of precision. If, by careful loading, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... grate: there were gaudily-tinted roses along the mantelpiece, and, on a small table by the window, beneath a glass-case, a gilt basket filled with imitation flowers. Every object was disposed with a scrupulous precision: the carpet and the red-patterned cloth on the centre table were much faded. The room was spotlessly clean, and wore, in the chilly winter sunlight, a ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... at once one of the charms of this woman. Her voice was deliciously soft and musical. The words seemed to leave her lips slowly, almost lingeringly, and she spoke with the precision and slight accent of a well-educated foreigner. Her eyes seemed to be wandering all over me and my possessions, yet her interest, if it amounted to that, never ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Cotton mss., Tib. B.V., fol. 59). This gives us the most interesting and accurate view of the world that we get in the pre-Crusading Christian science. The square, but not conventional outline is detailed with considerable care and precision. The writing, though minute, is legible; but the Nile, which, like the Red Sea in Africa, is coloured red, in contrast to the ordinary grey of water in this example, is made to wander about Africa from side to side, ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... his stockings. He threw over him his scarlet mantle, put on his head a montera of green velvet trimmed with silver edging, flung across his shoulder the baldric with his good trenchant sword, took up a large rosary that he always carried with him, and with great solemnity and precision of gait proceeded to the antechamber where the duke and duchess were already dressed and waiting for him. But as he passed through a gallery, Altisidora and the other damsel, her friend, were lying in wait for him, and the instant ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... care Martha draped the table with the white linen, and replaced the lily. How beautiful it looked now in its new surroundings!—too beautiful for the hacked white dishes Jerusha used. So a chair was placed in front of the green cupboard, and with precision in every movement the "sprigged" dishes were ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... by this time, though Olga is so convulsed with laughter that it might have been the best story on record, which somewhat astonishes though it consoles Terence, as when his funny incident is related in a carefully modulated voice, and with a painful precision, it strikes even him as being hopelessly uninteresting. However, Mrs. Bohun certainly enjoys it,—or something else, perhaps: fortunately, it never occurs to Terry to ponder on ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... that it is profuse and impartial ... that there is not a minute of the light or dark nor an acre of the earth and sea without it—nor any direction of the sky nor any trade or employment nor any turn of events. This is the reason that about the proper expression of beauty there is precision and balance ... one part does not need to be thrust above another. The best singer is not the one who has the most lithe and powerful organ ... the pleasure of poems is not in them that take the handsomest ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... little less than laughable. Today, with quick passages, cheap freights, and ocean transportation there is not a single wholesale trade in the world carried on with this degree of knowledge, or attaining anything like this point of precision in results. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... always before Justine. She never again betrayed her fears to Wyant—she carried out his orders with morbid precision, trembling lest any failure in efficiency should revive his suspicions. She hardly knew what she feared his suspecting—she only had a confused sense that they were enemies, and that she was the weaker ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... defin'd As rational, the human kind; Reason, they say, belongs to man, But let them prove it if they can. Wise Aristotle and Smiglecius, 5 By ratiocinations specious, Have strove to prove with great precision, With definition and division, 'Homo est ratione praeditum',— But for my soul I cannot credit 'em; 10 And must in spite of them maintain, That man and all his ways are vain; And that this boasted lord of nature Is both a weak and erring creature; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... many years, endured indeed until my master's death, and clouded all our subsequent relations, I may well consider of it more at large. When he was able to resume some charge of his affairs, I had many opportunities to try him with precision. There was no lack of understanding, nor yet of authority; but the old continuous interest had quite departed; he grew readily fatigued, and fell to yawning; and he carried into money relations, where it is certainly out of place, a facility that bordered upon slackness. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of the youth; he recognized the walk, a certain manner of standing, and once he plainly caught that upward shift of the shoulder. Then Gus gave his orders to Bennie, knowing that they would be carried out with precision, for the little fellow, almost a waif and lacking proper influences, would have nearly laid down his life for Gus after the athlete had very deservedly whipped two town bullies that were making life ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... required to contain a list of his numerous and various acquaintance[56], none of whom he ever forgot; and could describe and discriminate them all with precision and vivacity. He associated with persons the most widely different in manners, abilities, rank and accomplishments[57]. He was at once the companion of the brilliant Colonel Forrester[58] of the Guards, who wrote The Polite ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... well, as we do, the precision with which he uttered every syllable of this little address, and the unmistakable cordiality with which its close was greeted, we can assert with confidence that Reader and Audience from the very first instant stood ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... the stone steps, and, since Tess was standing close to the veranda rail, he turned to face her at the top. Saluting with martinet precision before removing his helmet, he did not get a clear view of the Rajputni. "As I've said many times, ma'am, the one house in the world where Tom Tripe may sit ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... of death, yet her eyes were undimmed and her lips unquivering. Her hands, covered with rings, lay out before her upon the lace coverlid. Supported by many pillows, she was issuing her last instructions with the cold precision of the man of affairs who makes the necessary arrangements for a few days, ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... during service in church and for removal to the graveside.[290] So, too, one fee was charged for interring a " great corse," another for a "chrisom child."[291] All, in fact, is tabulated with minute precision, the minister getting certain fees for himself alone, and sharing others with the parish; and so of the clerk and of the sexton, if any. Among other reasons alleged by the vestry of Stepney parish for dismissing their sexton in 1601 was ...
— The Elizabethan Parish in its Ecclesiastical and Financial Aspects • Sedley Lynch Ware
... him uneasily, then stared out at the grey wall of the arsenal. Upon its summit a sentry walked to and fro with the precision of a machine. High above him flapped the imperial flag of Germany, displaying its eagles and complacent motto. Marbeau, like every Frenchman, considered that flag an insult, for the lower arm of its cross bore the ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... no part of the world, certainly none familiar to science, where the early geological periods can be studied with so much ease and precision as in the United States. Along their northern borders, between Canada and the United States, there runs the low line of hills known as the Laurentian Hills. Insignificant in height, nowhere rising more than fifteen hundred or two thousand ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... examples of that exquisite precision in the choice of words, which never seems to be precise, but has all the aspect of absolute freedom. Through his language his thought bursts upon the mind as a landscape is seen instantly, perfectly, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... engraver this may be faithfully traced, and thus we are enabled to produce an accurate representation of them. Some of the beautiful crystalline deposits shown in Fig. 4 represent less than a millionth part of a grain, yet their forms are delineated with geometrical precision. Earthy phosphates are often mistaken for pus and also seminal fluid. Phosphates are always found in decomposed urine, otherwise they indicate brain affections, acute cystitis, etc. Experience has taught us that the voiding of urine ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... he smoked for a minute or two in silence. "Pretty terrible thing, marriage," and he puffed blue rings with perfect precision. "I have never been able to face it. What has made ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... mechanical deception with which he had nothing to do, but to watch and laugh at the astonishment of the spectators. A single error of a hair's breadth, of the smallest conceivable portion of time, would be fatal; the precision of the movements must be like a mathematical truth; their rapidity is ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... deep-chested, and yet indistinct and lisping tones, that had already baffled the utmost niceness of my hearing from her son. I answered rather at a venture; for not only did I fail to take her meaning with precision, but the sudden disclosure of her eyes disturbed me. They were unusually large, the iris golden like Felipe's, but the pupil at that moment so distended that they seemed almost black; and what affected me was not so much their size as (what was perhaps its consequence) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... adviser. His manner was very unmilitary, and in his talk he stammered and hesitated, so as to make an unfavorable impression on a stranger; but he was wonderfully accurate and skillful with his pen, and his orders and letters form a model of military precision and clearness. ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... as beautiful. The mist slowly rising was now high overhead, so that one could see to a considerable distance. Some fern-cutters in shirt-sleeves and slouch hats were already at work, cutting with rhythmic precision, calling to one another, ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... world, during which much passes that is not authorised by the ordinary rules of propriety; but during which much also that is diverting, witty, and even instructive, is manifested, which would never be heard of without this momentary breaking up of the barricades of precision. ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... is a little tool like a double adze, or perhaps rather like two chisels set in the head of a mallet. Though age was stealing upon him, Tibbald's eye and hand were still true, and his rude sculpture was executed with curious precision. The grooves, which are the teeth of the millstone, radiate from the centre, but do not proceed direct to the edge: ...
— Round About a Great Estate • Richard Jefferies
... difficulty was gradually diminished: synonyms crept into all languages from various sources, and when once adopted, they were in many cases gradually differentiated, the various senses which the original word had borne were portioned off among them, and increased precision was thus obtained. ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... California, on being stripped of their bark, are found to be perforated all over with holes about the size of a musket-ball. These are pierced by the woodpecker with such precision and regularity that one might believe they had been cut out by a ship-carpenter. The summer is spent by this busy little bird in making these holes and in filling them with acorns. One acorn goes to one hole, and the bird will not try to force the nut into a hole that is too small for it, but flutters ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the knowledge of the nature and prevention of disease. Though a great many new discoveries and, out of new discoveries, new inventions have appeared along specific lines and various sciences have advanced with accuracy and precision, perhaps the evolutionary theory has changed the thought of the world more than any other. It has connected man with the rest of the universe and made him a definite ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... below the power of the most powerful microscope to detect. All the combinations of chemical elements are made, hidden from the eye of the microscope. Substances are dissolved and new combinations made, atoms are numbered, counted and combined with mathematical precision, and with an intelligence difficult for man to compute. No law could do this. Only a Being who has sufficient power and intelligence is equal to it. Law has no power, nor intelligence. Water is composed of two atoms ...
— The Evolution Of Man Scientifically Disproved • William A. Williams
... rest of his dress, who stood leaning against the chimney-piece in a nonchalant attitude, was her eldest cousin, Elliot Lyddell. The other, a great contrast in appearance, small, slender, and pale, with near-sighted spectacles over his weak, light grey eyes, dressed with scrupulous precision and quietness, who had retreated to the other end of the room and taken up a book, was Walter. The elder girl, Caroline, was about fifteen, a very pleasing likeness of her mother, with a brilliant complexion, bright blue eyes, and a remarkably lively and pleasant smile, which Marian was so much ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... because with regard to such minute objects, they are not properly demonstrations, being built on ideas, which are not exact, and maxims, which are not precisely true. When geometry decides anything concerning the proportions of quantity, we ought not to look for the utmost precision and exactness. None of its proofs extend so far. It takes the dimensions and proportions of figures justly; but roughly, and with some liberty. Its errors are never considerable; nor would it err at all, did it not aspire ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... carefulness)—Ver. 21. By "obscuram diligentiam" he means that formal degree of precision which is productive ...
— The Comedies of Terence - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Notes • Publius Terentius Afer, (AKA) Terence
... heavy losses th' Boers kept up a fierce fire. They had no lyddite, but with their other divvlish modhern explosives they wrought thremenjous damage. F'r some hours shells burst with turr'ble precision in th' British camp. Wan man who was good at figures counted as manny as forty-two thousan' eight hundhred an' sivin burstin' within a radyus iv wan fut. Ye can imagine th' hor-rible carnage. Colonel C. G. F. K. L. M. N. O. P. Hetherington-Casey-Higgins lost ...
— Mr. Dooley's Philosophy • Finley Peter Dunne
... military precision. The place would be previously prepared for the reception of the people. An attractive programme would be arranged. Everybody would be made to feel comfortable and at home. And no effort would be spared to make the occasion morally and spiritually ...
— Darkest India - A Supplement to General Booth's "In Darkest England, and the Way Out" • Commissioner Booth-Tucker
... Sforza-Riario's poisoned letter reveals it to be neither wild nor impossible but simply diabolical. The explanation of the matter is to be found in Andrea Bernardi's Chronicles of Forli. He tells us exactly how the thing was contrived, with a precision of detail which we could wish to see emulated by other contemporaries of his who so lightly throw out accusations of poisoning. He informs us that a deadly and infectious disease was rampant in Forli in that year 1499, and that, ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... easily appreciable to a good ear." Mr. Lockwood gives both songs in musical notation; and adds that though this little mouse "had no ear for time, yet she would keep to the key of B (two flats) and strictly in a major key."..."Her soft clear voice falls an octave with all the precision possible; then at the wind up, it rises again into a very quick trill ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... and honoured sir, I will speak with the precision I may. True it is, and of verity, that the breath of man, which is in his nostrils, goeth forth ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... heard, more than once lately, to anathematize viciously the prairie-dogs for standing on their tails and chipchip-chipping at them as they went by. And though the Silent One did not swear, he carried rocks in his pockets, and threw them with venomous precision at every "dog" that showed his impertinent nose out of a burrow within range. For Pink, he vented his spleen on ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... missed the squirrel as before, driving him around the trunk. There the frightened creature had scarcely halted, when the great hen-hawk came at him with a whistling rush, and sent him back to the other side. The male bird had by this time turned and now darted with such suddenness and precision, that the squirrel, unable to pass round the tree again, sprang off into the air. Guided by his broad tail the hawk followed, and before the squirrel could reach the ground, the bird was seen to strike. Then with a loud scream he rose into the air, ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... nearly upright as they can, with the common carpenters' instruments; but they are not exact. To set a post of any kind, with great precision, perpendicular to the horizon, would require very expensive mathematical instruments, and very laborious and nice observations. Then, again, if the clock had been exact, and the post perfectly upright, Jonas could not have marked the place of the shadow exactly. ...
— Rollo's Experiments • Jacob Abbott
... we pass by many beautiful establishments, about of the quality of our handsomest country houses, but whose grounds are kept with a precision and exactness rarely to be seen among us. We cannot get the gardeners who are qualified to do it; and if we could, the painstaking, slow way of proceeding, and the habit of creeping thoroughness, which are necessary ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... for the use he made of Leland's collections, only show the insensibility of the mere heraldist to the nobler genius of the historian. Yet Brooke had no ordinary talents: his work is still valuable for his own peculiar researches; but his naive shrewdness, his pointed precision, the bitter invective, and the caustic humour of his cynical pen, give an air of originality, if not of genius, which no one has dared to notice. Brooke's first work against Camden was violently disturbed in its progress, and hurried, in a mutilated state, into the world, without licence or a publisher's ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... open hand, and a strenuous movement of the pelvis and lower part of the body called ami. This consisted of rhythmic motions, sidewise, backward, forward, and in a circular or elliptical orbit, all of which was done with the precision worthy of an acrobat, an accomplishment attained only after long practice. It was a hula of classic celebrity, and was performed without the accompaniment ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... incidentally, out of work devoted to very different and exceedingly practical interests. When men first took to the sea, they speedily learned to look out for shoals and rocks; and the more the burthen of their ships increased, the more imperatively necessary it became for sailors to ascertain with precision the depth of the waters they traversed. Out of this necessity grew the use of the lead and sounding line; and, ultimately, marine-surveying, which is the recording of the form of coasts and of the depth of the sea, as ascertained by the ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... be crowned with success. Old Rene had a true genius for the management of a sail; his watchfulness never flagged:—his strenuous exertions would have done credit to a man less than half his age. With delicate precision he guided the ropes, as a jockey might have guided the reins of a racehorse, and the vessel rose and fell lightly over the great waves, with such ease and rapidity, that the man who accompanied him and took the ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... for finishers and makers-up, as the delicacy with which the cloth is handled prevents any damage being done to the finish of the lightest fabrics. Double cloth can, of course, be plaited by it equally well, and the precision and uniformity with which the cloth is plaited makes the machine thoroughly reliable as a cloth ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 492, June 6, 1885 • Various
... great preparations to meet them, but, like the others, he was feeling the strong hand on the reins. He did not notice here the doubt and uncertainty that had reigned at Washington before the advance on Bull Run; in Grant's army were order and precision, and with perfect confidence in his commander he rolled himself in his blankets that night and went ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... motion continuing, this red center disappears, and is replaced by a blue center, which gradually expands into a sort of flare over the middle of the disk. The disk itself has in the mean time enlarged into a series of concentric bright rings, graduated in luminosity with beautiful precision from center toward circumference. The outermost ring is considerably brighter, however, than it would be if the same gradation applied to it as applies to the inner rings, and it is surrounded, moreover, on its outer edge by a slight flare which tends ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
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