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noun
Multiplicity  n.  The quality of being multiple, manifold, or various; a state of being many; a multitude; as, a multiplicity of thoughts or objects. "A multiplicity of goods."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Multiplicity" Quotes from Famous Books



... fancy, coupled with so much soberness of line and colour, such reserve, that the whole presents a perfect instance of that harmony which is the essence of Renaissance expression. There is no exuberance, in spite of the multiplicity of matter and thought, but a temperateness, a smoothness, an airiness and clearness which are as gladdening as they are relaxing. In order perfectly to realize the artistic perfection of Erasmus's book we ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga

... The multiplicity and gaudiness of the drinking-saloons and bar-rooms were particularly noticeable in passing along the principal streets, and all were doing a thriving business, judging from appearances. The Cubans drink lightly, but they drink often, and are especially ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou

... expectations; for this prejudice does not only extend to blood, but even to the very names of the breeders, and the country where the Horses are bred, though it is beyond all doubt, that the North claims the preference of all other places in this kingdom; but that preference is allowed only from the multiplicity of Mares and Stallions in those parts, and from the number ...
— A Dissertation on Horses • William Osmer

... the thick glass of the windows of the waterworks building at Bloemfontein produced by Mauser bullets. They differed little from the opening seen in an ordinary plate-glass window resulting from a blow from a stone, except perhaps in the regularity and multiplicity of the radial fissures. As in the skull, the opening was a little larger than the calibre of the bullet, and the loss of substance on the inner aspect considerably exceeded that ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... a little story of a busy woman's life which illustrates this lesson. She was the mother of a large family, and, being in plain circumstances, was required to do her own work. Sometimes, in the multiplicity of her tasks and cares, she lost the sweetness of her peace, and, like Martha, became troubled and worried with her much serving. One morning she had been unusually hurried, and things had not gone smoothly. She had breakfast to get for her family, her husband to care for as he hasted ...
— Making the Most of Life • J. R. Miller

... afterwards adopted by Spinoza: 'One sole energy governs all things; all things are unity, and each portion is All; for of one integer all things were born; in the end of time all things shall again become unity; the unity of multiplicity.' Orpheus, his ...
— God the Known and God the Unknown • Samuel Butler

... tired, jaded mentality. If you do, you will get the same in kind from it. Go to it fresh, vigorous, and with active, never passive, faculties. This practise is a splendid and effective cure for mind-wandering, which afflicts so many people, and which is encouraged by the multiplicity of and facility of obtaining reading matter at the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden

... more than reflected light. In addition to the five or six large planets in each group, which, however, are many millions of miles apart, there is in some clusters a small planet that swings backward and forward across the common centre, like a pendulum, but in nearly a straight line; and while this multiplicity of motion goes on, the whole aggregation sweeps majestically around Sirius, its mighty sun. Our little solar system contains, as we know, about one thousand planets, satellites, and asteroids large enough to be dignified by the name of heavenly ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... has been rather the opposite, namely, that in the multiplicity of phenomena, we should never miss their underlying unity. After generations of this quest, the idea of unity comes to us almost spontaneously, and we apprehend no ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose

... to the shabby household at Downport. Her letters were never careless or behind time, and no one was ever neglected in the multiplicity of messages. She would be the most truthful and faithful of loving women a few years hence, this handsome Theodora. There was some reserve in her manner toward Denis this evening. She attended to Miss Elizabeth's octagon-stitch, and left him to amuse ...
— Theo - A Sprightly Love Story • Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett

... presidents of countries, politicians, philosophers dominate his outlook, his plans, his horizon. The slaves, the inferiors, the subnormals exist merely to be exploited by them. No one questions the causes of the multiplicity of them. No one asks why there are so many little lives. For a fundamentally minded statesman the control of the production of the careerist, why he is produced, and how he may be prevented, becomes the primary problem ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.

... topic claiming the attention of man, in the investigation of which it is so important to exercise with all deliberation, the highest capacities of reason and reflection, as religion. From the great multiplicity of opinions which prevail, those who are distrustful of their own judgment and reason, and who are more disposed to receive the ipse dixit of others, than to depend on the convictions of the good sense with ...
— Golden Steps to Respectability, Usefulness and Happiness • John Mather Austin

... paintings, though faintly indeed, are yet in many places perceptible. Pillars have been dug up, and some still remain amidst the ruins; while the Farnesian Bull and the famous Hercules, found in one of these halls announce the multiplicity and beauty of the statues which once ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 579 - Volume 20, No. 579, December 8, 1832 • Various

... have probably followed. Under no conditions would Goethe have been content to restrict himself to a narrow field of study and to give the necessary application for its complete mastery. As it was, the multiplicity of his studies supplied the foundation for the manifold productivity of his maturer years. In no branch of knowledge was he ever a complete master; he devoted a large part of his life to the study of Greek and Roman antiquity, yet he never acquired a scholar's ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown

... made their way towards the castle. They entered its vast and silent halls, frightening the owls and bats that fled before them with hideous hootings and flappings of wings, and passing by a multiplicity of mouldy stairs, dank reeking roofs, and rickety corridors, at last came to an apartment which, dismal and dismantled as it was, appeared to be in rather better condition than the neighboring chambers, and they therefore ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... often heard him say that the multiplicity of means proposed for advancement towards perfection frequently delays the progress of souls. They are like travellers uncertain of the way, and who seeing many roads branching off in different directions ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus

... the national department as a whole in its connection with the State stations is true in a greater or less degree of the different divisions of the department in connection with the different specialists of the stations. With the multiplicity of workers in any given direction in the different States, the necessity for national work lessens. A favorite scheme of mine in the past, for instance (and one I am glad to say fully indorsed by Prof. Willits), was to endeavor to have a permanent agent located in every section of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various

... revealed in his own conscience and authenticated by the Bible (for Milton did believe in such an eternal law, and, however it is to be reconciled with what we have just been saying, was a transcendental or a priori moralist at his heart's core), the field of human endeavour was overstrewn by a multiplicity of mere "scarecrow sins," one's duty in respect of which was simply to march up to them, one after another, and pluck them up, every stick of them individually, with its stuck-on old hat and all its ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... are composed of fewer elements than the men. A variety of types is presented, but each personality is somewhat constrained and controlled by its idea; the free movement, the iridescence, the variety in oneness, the incalculable multiplicity in unity, of real character are not always present. They admit of definition to a degree which places them at a distance from the inexplicable open secrets of Shakespeare's creation; they lack the simple mysteriousness, the transparent obscurity of nature. With a master-key ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... the state unofficially would have to do so from disinterested motives. Moreover, the professional politician could not only be destroyed, but he would not be needed. At present he is needed, because of the prodigious amount of business entailed by the multiplicity of elective officials. Somebody must take charge of this political detail; and it has, as we have already remarked, drifted into the hands of specialists. These specialists cannot be expected to ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... the little church-bells are ringing incessantly; the roads are thronged with beggars; the beautiful-faced but ragged children attract us by their bright eyes and dark complexions, just touched with a soft rose-tint. We are surprised at the multiplicity of donkeys, their bodies hidden by big loads of merchandise; we observe with interest those handsome milk-white oxen, with wide-spreading horns; we inhale the fragrance of the orange groves, and remember that we are ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... require it I will transmit this last letter of the Earl of Orford's, which my brother has sent to me, but beg leave to observe that no blame can be attached to his Lordship in this case, he having from a multiplicity of important business doubtless forgotten these minor matters. I hope now, Sir, that you will have no further objection to issue an order for the payment of that portion of my brother's arrears specified in the ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... beheld, either in a dream, or in a trance, vast oceans full of tempests and of rocks, desart islands, barbarous countries, hunger and thirst raging every where, nakedness, multiplicity of labours, with bloody persecution, and imminent dangers of death and of destruction. In the midst of this ghastly apparition, he cried aloud, "yet more, O my God, yet more!" and Father Simon Rodriguez heard these words ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden

... back to Castile now for a time, in the labyrinth of this much involved period, where the duplication of names and the multiplicity of places makes it difficult to thread one's way intelligently, it will be found that the court, during the reign of Henry IV., was chiefly distinguished by its scandalous immorality. Quintana, in his volume entitled ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... his endeavours to support and strengthen the interest of the administration; and faithfully promised to lay hold on the first opportunity to express the sense he had of his zeal and attachment; desiring to see him often at his levee, that, in the multiplicity of business, he might not be in danger of forgetting ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... was enforced by his example. Steele was Addison's friend and admirer; his comedies are perfectly polite, chaste, and genteel; nor were his other works contemptible; he wrote on several subjects, and yet it is amazing, in the multiplicity of his pursuits, how he found leisure for the discussion of any. Ever persecuted by creditors, whom his profuseness drew upon him, or pursuing impracticable schemes, suggested by ill-grounded ambition. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith

... brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality. Our famous Dryden has ventured to proceed a point farther, endeavouring to introduce also a multiplicity of godfathers {69b}, which is an improvement of much more advantage, upon a very obvious account. It is a pity this admirable invention has not been better cultivated, so as to grow by this time into general imitation, when such an authority serves it for a precedent. Nor have my endeavours ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift

... in the case of orphans if he sped not well; the estate also of his company moved him to care, being in the former respects after a sort unhappy, and were to abide with himself every good or bad accident; but in the meantime while his mind was thus tormented with the multiplicity of sorrows and cares, after many days' sailing they kenned land afar off whereunto the pilots directed the ships; and being come to it they land, and find it to be Rose Island, where they stayed certain days, and afterwards set sail again, and, proceeding ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt

... diversity, diversification, multiplicity, variousness; assortment, collection; kind, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... which cannot be differentiated as to sex, when there is compatibility of souls. I mean to say that the new being born under those conditions will be a conglomerate of male and female; a new creature to whom both will have yielded their personality, a unity in multiplicity, to use a well-known term, an 'hommefemme.' The man will cease to be man, the woman ...
— Married • August Strindberg

... dovecote soon settled down into a glorified routine. The elder Mrs. Minthrop returned to Boston, leaving Deena as her lieutenant, and perplexing her with the multiplicity of her charges; apparently Mrs. Ponsonby was to be Providence to her sister, with health and happiness under her control. The situation was paradoxical. Polly was to be denied nothing, but not allowed to have her own way too freely; she ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 5, June 1905 • Various

... many stoppings. At two o'clock we were at Rosenheim. Rosenheim is a windy place, with clear starlight, with a multitude of cars on a multiplicity of tracks, and a large, lighted refreshment-room, which has a glowing, jolly stove. We stay there an hour, toasting by the fire and drinking excellent coffee. Groups of Germans are seated at tables playing cards, smoking, and taking coffee. Other trains arrive; and huge men ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... as possible all depressing influences from its vicinity. At night she is required to enter the child's bedchamber without waking the little one and to whisper good suggestions into its sleeping ear. Thus Mlle. Kauffmant concentrates a multiplicity of means to bring about the same result. In this she is aided by the extreme acceptivity of the child's mind, and by the absence of that mass of pernicious spontaneous suggestions which in the adult mind have to be neutralised and transformed. It ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks

... the length of time which hath been consumed in the prosecution of this inquiry, it may without difficulty be accounted for by a survey of the multiplicity and complicated nature of the objects to which the Acts of Parliament extended our scrutiny; and when to these are added the investigation (delegated to us by your lordships) of the numerous claims for present relief and temporary support (which alone formed ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... repeatedly to Congress, and to Mr Morris, and enclosed my accounts; as I have not been honored with any answer, I fear either that my letters may have been intercepted, or that the multiplicity of business ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. I • Various

... point, bringing the travel and traffic of ten provinces, makes Cho Chou one of the most important cities in the Empire. The magistrate of this district is the only one, so far as we know, in the Empire who is relieved of the duty of welcoming and escorting transient officers. It was the multiplicity of such duties, so harassing, that persuaded Fang Kuan-ch'eng to write the couplet on one of the city gateways: Jih pien ch'ung yao, wu shuang ti: T'ien hsia fan nan, ti yi Chou. 'In all the world, there is no place ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... called into requisition to assist in the preparation of the dinner for the boarders—four gentlemen—who, her mistress informed her, were "very particular," and liked everything nice. She received a confusing multiplicity of directions as to waiting at table, for Mrs. Williams rather prided herself on the "stylishness" of her establishment. She got through her task tolerably well, though somewhat bewildered between Mrs. Williams' quick, sharp reminders and the ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar

... seemed new to Europe when Descartes revived it as the starting-point of his demonstration, it was as old and familiar as St. Augustine to the twelfth century, and as little conclusive as any other assumption of the Ego or the Non-Ego. The schools argued, according to their tastes, from unity to multiplicity, or from multiplicity to unity; but what they wanted was to connect the two. They tried realism and found that it led to pantheism. They tried nominalism and found that it ended in materialism. They attempted a compromise in conceptualism which ...
— Historia Calamitatum • Peter Abelard

... factor neglected in the study of great social phenomena. The growth of cities is not only a result of the economic forces of the time; it is made permanent by the fact that the cities are exciting. The multiplicity and variety of the stimuli of a city—social, sexual, its stir and bustle—make it difficult for those once habituated ever to tolerate the quiet of the country. Excitement follows the great law of stimulation; the same internal effect, the same feeling, requires a greater ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... private hours a most delightful society: the most attached of my subjects consider themselves highly favored when I invite them to these evening parties so necessary for my amusement. I see with pain that you have never yet asked me to admit you there." "Sire," replied the duke, "the multiplicity of the labors with which your majesty has charged me, scarcely allows me time for my pleasures." "Oh, you are not so fully occupied but that you have still some time to spend with the ladies, and I think that I used to meet ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon

... of the law it appears to your Committee that a course still better had been pursued, but grounded on the same principles; and that no other cause than the multiplicity of business prevented its continuance. "Of ancient time," says Lord Coke, "in cases of difficulties, either criminal or civil, the reasons and causes of the judgment were set down upon the record, and so continued in the reigns of Ed. I. and Ed. II., and then there was no need of reports; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... somewhat different fashion; he pours into this marvelous form certain phases of his own experience and is satisfied. Indeed Proteus is not only a Form, but a Form of Forms for the human mind, hinting both the oneness and the multiplicity of the Ego itself. We may go back to the Vedas and find traces of it there in some sun-myth; we may go to the sea and find it a miraculous legend in which the Greek sailor set forth his perils and his escapes. It certainly connects Hellas with Egypt, and suggests the movement ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... among the pleasantest of my life. I recall her room so bright and cheery, just like herself, and all the incidents of those Saturday afternoons. When she first asked me to paint with her, I thought it very kind, but with her multiplicity of cares, felt it must be burdensome to her, and that possibly she would even forget the invitation, and so I hesitated about going. But when the week came round everything was made ready to give me a cordial welcome. Again and again I found my chair, palette ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... brighter hues on the ceiling, the trophies of symbols and mythological groups that graced the walls in tinted high relief, and the statues and Hermes between the columns. A wreath of lovely forms and colors dazzled the eye with their multiplicity and profusion, and the heavy atmosphere of incense which filled the halls was almost suffocating, while the magical and mystical signs and figures were so many and so new that the enquiring mind, craving for an explanation and an interpretation ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... of intelligence looks upon the two as different from each other. This forms the distinction between the man of intelligence and man that is destitute of it. The indications of both Kshara and Akshara (destructible and indestructible) have now been said unto thee. Akshara is Oneness or Unity, while multiplicity or variety is said to be Kshara. When one begins to study and understands properly the five and twenty topics of enquiry, one then comprehends that the Oneness of the Soul is consistent with the scriptures and its multiplicity is what is opposed to them. These are the several indications ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... avoid multiplicity of laws, which by degrees always change the right foundations of the original government, all acts of parliament whatsoever, in whatsoever form passed or enacted, shall, at the end of an hundred years after their enacting, respectively cease and determine of themselves, ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt

... Business. Of this there is most general Use for the Purposes of Human Life, and it needs most Hands to carry it on. The bulk of Mankind seem turned for some or other of these Employments, and make them their Choice; and were not such a multiplicity of Hands engaged in them, great part of the Conveniencies of Human Life would be wanting. But even the Multitude of these Employments leaves room for great variety of Inclinations, and for different Genij, to ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill

... the requirements for earth materials are quite different. In the Stone Age there was little use for metals; in later ages the use of metals broadened. The multiplicity of demands of modern civilization, the increasing knowledge of processes of metallurgy, chemistry and physics, better transportation, better organization of commercial life, and many other factors, tend to bring new earth materials into use,—and, therefore, into ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... career is spent in the very closest contact with the people, for he often lives for years together in remote districts where he has practically no other society than that of natives. He generally knows and speaks fluently more than one vernacular, though, owing to the multiplicity of Indian languages—there are five, for instance, in the Bombay Presidency alone—- he may find himself suddenly transferred to a district in which the vernaculars he has learnt are of no use to him. Part of his time is always spent "in camp"—i.e. ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol

... remember what has been often said, and not make an Epic structure into a Tragedy—by an Epic structure I mean one with a multiplicity of plots—as if, for instance, you were to make a tragedy out of the entire story of the Iliad. In the Epic poem, owing to its length, each part assumes its proper magnitude. In the drama the result is far from answering to the poet's expectation. ...
— Poetics • Aristotle

... by reason of the massing of the population, which is annually increasing, the multiplicity of the wants to be satisfied renders the solution of this question more and more difficult. The old markets, some of the types of which still exist in various parts of Paris, were built of masonry and wood. They were massive structures ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... from escaping, it soon happens that we have close to the fistula that has closed a tender fluctuating swelling. This points and breaks, and pus is again discharged from another opening. In this manner is accounted for the multiplicity of scars and fistulas seen on the swelling ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks

... found in journals and brief chronicles of the times. The interior of courts, and the lesser features of history, are precisely those with which we are least acquainted,-I mean of the age preceding our own. Such anecdotes are forgotten in the multiplicity of those that ensue, or reside only in the memory of idle old persons, or have not yet emerged into publicity from the portefeuilles of such garrulous Brant'omes as myself. Trifling I will not call myself; for, while I have such ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... Absolute, Originating, Undifferentiated Life, and "the Son" is the same Life differentiated into particular forms. Hence, in the widest sense of the expression, "the Son" stands for the whole creation, visible or invisible, and in this sense it is the mere differentiation of the universal Life into a multiplicity of particular modes. But if we have any adequate idea of the intelligent and responsive nature of Spirit[2]—if we realise that because it is Pure Being it must be Infinite Intelligence and Infinite Responsiveness—then ...
— The Hidden Power - And Other Papers upon Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... more powerful relief. He is almost the equal of La Bruyere in the arrangement of skillful effects, in the aptness and ingenuity of developments, in the terseness of impressive summaries, in the overpowering directness of unexpected arguments, in the multiplicity of literary achievements, in the execution of those passages of bravura, portraits, descriptions, comparisons, creations, wherein, as in a musical crescendo, the same idea, varied by a series of yet more animated expressions, attains ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... vision. Then the trees upon it seemed to number some hundreds of thousands, a very fair proportion of which appeared to be of large size, and the timber of which would probably be found useful for a multiplicity of purposes. It was a veritable garden of flowers of the most varied and beautiful shapes and hues; butterflies of enormous size and the most gorgeous colours flitted here and there; bees hovered over the multitudinous blossoms, busily engaged in collecting their store of honey; ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood

... brothers with De Soto and twenty horse-soldiers to the camp of Atahualpa, which was distant only three miles, to announce to him his arrival. The envoys of the governor were received with magnificence, and were astonished at the multiplicity of the ornaments and vases made of gold and silver which they saw throughout the Indian camp. They returned, bringing a promise from Atahualpa that he would come on the next day to visit Pizarro, to bid him welcome to his kingdom. ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... circles of dead equality on stagnant levels of everlasting hopelessness of change. The law of spiritual attraction is no such force as that, produces no such results. It is broken up by contrasts, changes, multiplicity of other interacting forces. We are not only drawn by affinity to those like ourselves, but often still more powerfully, with rebuking and redeeming effect, to those above us that we may become like them, to those beneath us that we may pity and help them. The law ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger

... ancient streets of the Eternal City, a few paces from the Place d'Espagne, so well known to tourists—in the city which serves as a confluent for so many from all points of the world, has not that sense of the odd been obliterated by the multiplicity of singular and anomalous types stranded and sheltering there? You will find there revolutionists like boorish Ribalta, who is ending in a curiosity-shop a life more eventful than the most eventful ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... would entrust to nobody the supreme care of the government, he saw every thing himself; and it is easy to conceive, on what a multiplicity of objects he had to fix his eyes. Independently of his ministers, the Duke of Bassano, the commandant of the first division of Paris, the prefect of the police, the inspector general of the gendarmerie, ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... no stranger to your correspondence, and have been sorry to find so punctual a correspondent should have any reason to complain of the want of punctuality in others. This is not owing to want of inclination in Mr Deane, but to the multiplicity of business which occupies his whole time; for Mr Lee is absent, being at Berlin, where I first broke the ice last autumn,[1] and the age of Dr Franklin in some measure hinders him from taking so active a part in the drudgery ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various

... multitude; numerous &c adj.; numerosity, numerality; multiplicity; profusion &c (plenty) 639; legion, host; great number, large number, round number, enormous number; a quantity, numbers, array, sight, army, sea, galaxy; scores, peck, bushel, shoal, swarm, draught, bevy, cloud, flock, herd, drove, flight, covey, hive, brood, litter, farrow, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... them a morning or afternoon call, that they were not diligently engaged with needles and Berlin wool—fashioning wrought suspenders for brother, slippers for brother, or mother, or sister, or the Rev. Mr. So-and-So—the recently made inmate of the family. The multiplicity of such performances, for brother, mother, sister, the reverend gentleman—mere pastime, as Mrs. Somebody would remark,—most probably would have caused a mystery or misgiving in the minds of many adventurous Lotharios; but Rhapsody, though, as we see, a man of ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... part of the neighborhood used to congregate to celebrate the happy twilight hour in merry sports, have literally passed away; having been shovelled up and transported to the various places for many miles around, where the multiplicity of chimnies mark the increasing population of the village, that passing years ...
— Withered Leaves from Memory's Garland • Abigail Stanley Hanna

... that its bed is cumbered with immense wave-polished rocks, that its vast solitudes are silent and its cascades ceaselessly active—to say all this is but to tell in bare items of fact the narrative of its beauty. For the Winnipeg by the multiplicity of its perils and the ever-changing beauty of its character, defies the description of civilized men as it defies the puny efforts of civilized travel. It seems part of the savage-fitted alone for him and for his ways, useless to carry the burden of man's labour, but useful ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... the spirit labouring by the mind, Partaketh of celestial things by kind: For why the soul being divine alone, Exempt from gross and vile corruption, Of heavenly secrets incomprehensible, Of which the dull flesh is not sensible, And by one only powerful faculty, Yet governeth a multiplicity, Being essential uniform in all Not to be severed or dividual; But in her function holdeth her estate By powers divine in her ingenerate; And so by inspiration conceiveth, What heaven ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various

... interchanged, nay, of a violet gathered, a misunderstanding cleared up; and of that anniversary we remember no more than we do of our bells and coral. But she—she remembers it; it is no bells and coral to her. Of course, much is to be said in excuse of man, brute though he be. Consider the multiplicity of his occupations, the practical nature of his cares. But granting the validity of all such excuse, there is in man an original obtuseness of fibre as regards sentiment in comparison with the delicacy of woman's. It comes, perhaps, from the same hardness of constitution which forbids us the ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... rapidly; for, though it sounds strange, time moves with equal slowness whether we experience many impressions or none. In a new circle every character is a study, and every incident an adventure; and the multiplicity of the images and emotions restrains the hours. But after a few days, though Lothair was not less delighted, for he was more so, he was astonished at the rapidity of time. The life was exactly the same, but equally pleasant; the same charming companions, the ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... when they married of how they behaved to—the sainted women their wives; never to lend ear to the devil, nor to believe, as he had done, that there is no such thing as a devil, for he had been the victim of him, and he knew. The devil, he loudly proclaimed, has a multiplicity of lures, and none more deadly than when he baits with a petticoat. He had been hooked, and had found the devil in person. He begged them urgently to keep his example in memory. By following this and that wildfire he had stuck himself ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... yet remaining {Fables} for me to write, but I purposely abstain; first, that I may not seem troublesome to you, whom a multiplicity of matters distract; and next, that, if perchance any other person is desirous to make a like attempt, he may still have something left to do; although there is so abundant a stock of matter that an artist will be wanting to the work, not work to the artist. I request that you will give the ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus

... of an old-fashioned custom that has fallen into disuse since the multiplicity of typewriters made writing for one's own pleasure too arduous; or, if you will have another reason, since our existence and feelings have become so complex that we can no longer express them with the simple directness of our ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer

... difficult to realize the multiplicity of the cares which pressed upon Pitt. Rose feared that he would soon succumb to the burden; for, apart from the defence of a weak Government against a strong Opposition, Pitt transacted very much of the ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... austere and abstract philosophy of Parmenides, its passivity or indifference, could not repress the opulent genius of Plato, or transform him into a cynic. Another ancient philosopher, Pythagoras, set the frozen waves in motion again, brought back to Plato's recognition all that multiplicity in men's experience to which Heraclitus had borne such emphatic witness; but as rhythm or melody now—in movement truly, but moving as disciplined sound and with the reasonable soul of ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater

... seems not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality. Our famous Dryden has ventured to proceed a point farther, endeavouring to introduce also a multiplicity of godfathers; which is an improvement of much more advantage, upon a very obvious account. It is a pity this admirable invention has not been better cultivated, so as to grow by this time into general imitation, when such ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... so happened, through the multiplicity of business, that I have been much hindered and kept back from my wonted travels into those parts whence he went, and so could not, till now, obtain an opportunity to make further inquiry after whom he left behind, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... von Greifenstein. 'It is true. I daresay we did speak of it. Ah, you see, the multiplicity of my household cares drives ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... fell to me to present each of the thirteen chairmen with a pen-knife, refusing of course the customary coin in return. I was presented with a ferocious-looking knife, with a multiplicity of blades and other adjuncts, which I treasure as a memento ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss

... the Spaniards could make themselves understood wherever they went, although they only knew six of the Indian languages, which would have been of little use if Providence had not preserved them, considering the vast multiplicity of languages spoken among the detached tribes of America. Wherever they travelled, the tribes who happened to be at war immediately made peace at their approach, that they might have the opportunity of seeing the Christians; who thus left them all in amity, and exhorted them wherever they went ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr

... causes the first two, I think, are the multiplicity of good work, and its chance character. Not that any one ever does very good work for once and then never again—at least, such an accident is extremely rare—but that many a man who has achieved some skill by long labour does now and then strike out a sort of spark ...
— On Something • H. Belloc

... and it seems as if you had never seen anything in the world so grand. The Coliseum itself is no approach to it, so much do a multiplicity and irregularity of ruins add to the vastness of the vast enclosure. Before these heaps of red corroded masonry, these round vaults spanning the air like the arches of a mighty bridge before these crumbling walls, you wonder whether an entire city ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 7 - Italy, Sicily, and Greece (Part One) • Various

... measure was trodden out. They coughed as they danced, and laughed as they coughed. Of the rushing couples there could barely be discerned more than the high lights—the indistinctness shaping them to satyrs clasping nymphs—a multiplicity of Pans whirling a multiplicity of Syrinxes; Lotis attempting to elude Priapus, and ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... also, is a common feature. In "Professor Child and the Ballad," Mr. W. M. Hart gives a list of Professor Child's notes on the multiplicity of hands, which he, and every critic, detect in some ballads with a genuinely ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... was short, and Mother Goose was revived about 1825 by a Boston firm, Munroe and Francis. Since that time her fame has never waned. In spite of the present multiplicity of beautiful books for children, they are constantly exhausting large editions of the one universally beloved book of melodies. Some of these volumes have been collected and edited by men of the highest literary judgment and ability, such as Goldsmith (with hardly a doubt), Ritson, Halliwell, ...
— Mother Goose - The Original Volland Edition • Anonymous

... except Riemann's, recommend the fifth finger on F, the fourth on C. Von Billow believes that small hands beginning with his system will achieve quicker results than by the Chopin fingering. This is true. Riemann phrases the study with a multiplicity of legato bows and dynamic accents. Kullak prefers the Tellefsen metronome 80, rather than the traditional 96. Most of the others use 88 to the quarter, except Riemann, who espouses the more rapid gait of 96. Klindworth, with his ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... we have no authority for looking upon this number as an outside limit. Who could say, when the perforators are numerous, to what lengths this accumulation can go? I will set forth on some future occasion how the ration of one egg remains in reality the ration of one egg, despite the multiplicity of banqueters. ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... different factors, with the predominance of one or the other, explain the multiplicity of the imaginative conceptions of the world, in contrast to the unity and simplicity of ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot

... talents had thus early procured for him. But, however prosperous on the surface the complexion of the ministry might be, its intestine state was such as did not promise a very long existence. Whiggism is a sort of political Protestantism, and pays a similar tax for the freedom of its creed, in the multiplicity of opinions which that very freedom engenders—while true Toryism, like Popery, holding her children together by the one common doctrine of the infallibility of the Throne, takes care to repress any schism inconvenient to their general ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore

... various phenomena (pleasant or unpleasant according to the personal attitude) of modern art, and all art. It is evidenced in many ways—the sculptors' over-insistence on the "mold," the outer rather than the inner subject or content of his statue—over-enthusiasm for local color—over-interest in the multiplicity of techniques, in the idiomatic, in the effect as shown, by the appreciation of an audience rather than in the effect on the ideals of the inner conscience of the artist or the composer. This lack of perceiving is too often shown by an over-interest in the material value of ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... our perceptions, and there is in the representation, confused as it is, more than we see there. Thus there is reason for supposing that the ideas of heat, cold, colours, etc., also only represent the small movements carried out in the organs, when one is conscious of these qualities, although the multiplicity and the diminutive character of these movements prevents their clear representation. Almost in the same way it happens that we do not distinguish the blue and the yellow which play their part in the ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz

... student, not alone of Zola, but of literature in general. Not, however, as a model, for Zola, with all his tiresome preparations, never constructed an ideal book—rather, to put it the other way, no one of his books reveals ideal construction. The multiplicity of details, of descriptions weary the reader. A coarse spirit his, he revelled in scenes of lust, bloodshed, ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... to contend with these unruly tools, and now by brute energy, now by witty expedient, to drive and coax them to effect his will. Given these means, so laughably inadequate, and given the interest, the intensity, and the multiplicity of the actual sensation whose effect he is to render with their aid, the artist has one main and necessary resource which he must, in every case and upon any theory, employ. He must, that is, suppress much and omit more. ...
— The Art of Writing and Other Essays • Robert Louis Stevenson

... noble and curious sight. The great hall is almost as it was in the twelfth century; it is spanned by Saxon arches, and lighted by a multiplicity of Gothic windows of all sizes; it is very lofty, clean, and perfectly well ventilated; a screen runs across the middle of the room, to divide the male from the female patients, and we were taken to examine each ward, where the poor people seemed happier than ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray

... happiness is most commonly wrecked. If a life of luxurious idleness and selfish ease in some measure saves men from the first danger, it seldom fails to bring with it the second. No change of scene, no multiplicity of selfish pleasures will in the long run enable them to escape it. As Carlyle says, 'The restless, gnawing ennui which, like a dark, dim, ocean flood, communicating with the Phlegethons and Stygian deeps, begirdles every human life so guided—is it not the painful cry even of that imprisoned heroism?... ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky

... list of plants, such as the Ophioxylon serpentinum and Ophiorhiza mungos, the Aristolochia Indica, the Mimosa octandria, and others, each of which has been asserted to be the ichneumon's specific; whilst their multiplicity is demonstrative of the non-existence of any one in particular on which the animal relies as an antidote. Were there any truth in the tale as regards the mongoos, it would be difficult to understand why creatures, such as the secretary bird and the falcon, and others, which equally destroy ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... plenishings of their own apartments seemed sumptuous to them; for those were not days of great luxury in the matter of household furniture, and they had never before seen such hangings, such mirrors, such multitude of silver sconces for wax candles, such carpets and skins under foot, such multiplicity of table appointments, or even such store of books and manuscripts for their own and their father's ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... and complexity of the utilities in navy-yards for handling them; the necessity for providing and using means and methods for despatching the resulting "business" speedily, and for guarding against mistakes in handling the multiplicity of details—the increase, in brief, in the number, size, and kinds of things that have to be done in preparation, has brought about not only more labor in doing those things by the various bureaus assigned to do them, but has brought about even ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... Qualities, as depending entirely upon the reaction of some conscious animal. By physical science the world is considered in the abstract, as a perpetual redistribution of matter and energy, and the distracting multiplicity of sensations seems ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read

... Later, what a multiplicity of obscure wonders we were to glimpse upon Wandl! The slowing rotation of the Earth caused climatic changes there, volcanic and tidal disturbances, but Wandl rotated and stopped at will. Undoubtedly she was equipped to withstand the shock. Her internal fires could not break into ...
— Wandl the Invader • Raymond King Cummings

... longer the despairing man who, the night before, bewildered with the multiplicity of charges, surprised by the rapidity with which they were brought against him, had writhed beneath the magistrate's gaze, and appeared ready to succumb. Innocent or guilty, he had made up his mind how to act; his face left ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau

... following my entrance were extremely painful to me. I felt my intellect cramping rather than expanding under the multiplicity of the lessons and the tasks imposed; even the realm of my young dreams seemed closing against me little by little. The first dismal, foggy weather, and the first gray days added a greater desolation and sadness to my already ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti

... half a year, their lawn, their verandah, sometimes their rooms, were cumbered with the sick and dying, their ears were filled with the complaints of suffering humanity, their time was too short for the multiplicity of pitiful duties. In Mrs. de Coetlogon, and her helper, Miss Taylor, the merit of this endurance was perhaps to be looked for; in a man of the colonel's temper, himself painfully suffering, it was viewed with more surprise, if with no more admiration. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... by no will of their own, left behind. It is to these, in no small degree, that the safety and equanimity of London have been due. And it is as well that here tribute should be paid to those who have endured without retort the sneers of the malicious and ill-informed as well as the multiplicity of extra duties the war ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot

... she needed him! Spurred on by this new reason for breaking through the impalpable wall that separated their inner lives, she resolved that she would no longer let herself be dominated by the inconsequent multiplicity of the trifling incidents ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield

... destroyed the integrity of the national representation. The Bill he handled with a severity that inflicted the keenest smarts on the self-love of its designers. A few days later, the Capucin Chabot, one of those weak and excitable natures that in ordinary times divert men by the intensity, multiplicity, and brevity of their enthusiasms, but to whom the fiercer air of such an event as the Revolution is a real poison, rose and in the name of the Committee of General Security called the attention of the Chamber to what he styled ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 3: Condorcet • John Morley

... construction of the heavens has not been neglected amid the multiplicity of tasks imposed upon the cultivators of astronomy by its rapid development. But data of a far higher order of precision, and indefinitely greater in amount, than those at the disposal of Herschel or Struve must be accumulated before ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... multiplicity of the agents which act in the same manner. This harmony is founded upon the convergence or opposition of the movements. Thus the perfect accord is the consonance of the three agents,—head, torso and limbs. Dissonance arises from the divergence ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... formed from the multiplicity and diversity of his attainments, rather than from any single performance; for it would not be safe to claim for him the highest rank in any single denomination of literary dignity; yet, perhaps, there was nothing in which he would not have ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... several turns compensated each other, and the resultant action was at right angles to the bar. The arrangement then introduced by myself was superior to those of Arago and Sturgeon, first in the greater multiplicity of turns of wire, and second in the better application of these turns to the development of magnetism. The power of the instrument with the same amount of galvanic force, was by ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... Oloffe the Dreamer, when the community was governed without laws. Such legislation, however, was not suited to the busy, meddling mind of William the Testy. On the contrary, he conceived that the true wisdom of legislation consisted in the multiplicity of laws. He accordingly had great punishments for great crimes, and little punishments for little offences. By degrees the whole surface of society was cut up by ditches and fences, and quickset hedges of the law, and even the sequestered paths ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving

... acts of all religions; ceremonies are good only on the supposition that God has commanded them; but about the commands of God it is easy to be mistaken, for there are two thousand religions, each of which puts in its claim. Thus was the great argument of the Catholics, that the multiplicity of Protestant sects—provided their falsity, turned against its inventors.[Footnote: Ibid., i. 164. Letter xlvi. Compare with Montesquieu's opinion, expressed in the Spirit of the Laws, that the sovereign should neither allow the establishment ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... of this is a multiplicity of action. There was never so much talk in any other novels, and there was never so much action. Even the talk is of actions more than of ideas. Dostoevsky's characters describe the execution of a criminal, the whipping of an ass, the ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd

... their convictions, they made no open and resolute attack on the popular mythology. A very superficial examination was, indeed, enough to shake the credit of the heathen worship. The reflecting subjects of the Roman Empire might have remarked the very awkward contrast between the multiplicity of their deities, and the unity of their political government. It was the common belief that every nation had its own divine guardians, and that the religious rites of one country might be fully acknowledged ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... in an upper sphere, did not spend more than forty sous a day, and clothed himself no better than his under-clerk. Two clerks and an office-boy sufficed him to carry on his business, which was immense through the multiplicity of its details. One clerk attended to the correspondence; the other had charge of the accounts; but Pierre Graslin was himself the soul, and body too, of the whole concern. His clerks, chosen from his own relations, were safe men, intelligent and as well-trained in the work as himself. ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac

... object, nor all time be actively filled that might be left for reading. But without a definite object few will make a habit of walking, or learn to know and love the country; and not all, especially where there is a multiplicity of other interests, will form the habit of reading unless regular times are set apart for it, times when books must be read and not merely magazines. How far freedom of change from one occupation to another is desirable is largely an individual question. The ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... external observable habits (including the habit of words), there is also the generic image produced by the superposition, or, in Semon's phrase, homophony, of a number of similar perceptions. This image is vague so long as the multiplicity of its prototypes is not recognized, but becomes universal when it exists alongside of the more specific images of its instances, and is knowingly contrasted with them. In this case we find again, as we found when we were discussing words in general ...
— The Analysis of Mind • Bertrand Russell

... is devoted to some one special interest. The life of simpler or more primitive communities is a unit with regard to all phases of their life, religion, government, and social affairs. Such was the township of colonial New England and many a community in the pioneer stage. But in modern times a multiplicity of voluntary associations have sprung up and have spread from one community to another. In many cases the members of such organizations become more loyal to them than to the community; organizations become self-centered and divisive rather than ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson

... he put it off from year to year, and at last died without having done it perfectly. I have one in his own handwriting, which contains a certain number[326]; I indeed doubt if he could have remembered every one of them, as they were so numerous, so various, and scattered in such a multiplicity of unconnected publications; nay, several of them published under the names of other persons, to whom he liberally contributed from the abundance of his mind. We must, therefore, be content to discover them, partly from occasional information ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... to be the most simple imaginable; and, to use the words of an eminent author, "one, regular, and uniform, not charged with a multiplicity of incidents, and yet affording several revolutions of fortune, by which the passions may be excited, varied, and driven to their full tumult of emotion."—Nor is the action of this tragedy less great ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... concealed, of some of which man is sensible, while some takes place without his knowledge, and is not even to be guessed at, but by the effect it outwardly produces. In a machine so extremely complex as man, formed by the combination of such a multiplicity of matter, so diversified in its properties, so different in its proportions, so varied in its modes of action, the motion necessarily becomes of the most complicated kind; its dullness, as well as its rapidity, frequently ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach

... put forth more expansive promises of universal power than LEIBNITZ. Science, imagination, history, criticism, fertilized the richest of human soils; yet LEIBNITZ, with immense powers and perpetual knowledge, dissipated them in the multiplicity of his pursuits. "The first of philosophers," the late Professor Playfair observed, "has left nothing in the immense tract of his intellect which can be distinguished as a monument of his genius." As a universalist, VOLTAIRE remains unparalleled in ancient or in modern times. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... of each other's heart. The journalist took a tone of refined corruption to prove that love obeys no law, that the character of the lovers gives infinite variety to its incidents, that the circumstances of social life add to the multiplicity of its manifestations, that in love all is possible and true, and that any given woman, after resisting every temptation and the seductions of the most passionate lover, may be carried off her feet in the course of a few hours by a fancy, ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... Orleans are executed with inimitable lightness and delicacy of touch. They deal with floating and colourless sentiments, and the writer is never greatly moved, but he seems always genuine. He makes no attempt to set off thin conceptions with a multiplicity of phrases. His ballades are generally thin and scanty of import; for the ballade presented too large a canvas, and he was preoccupied by technical requirements. But in the rondel he has put himself before all competitors by a happy knack and a prevailing distinction of manner. He is very ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... all, my lord, if I may speak my thoughts, you are happy rather to us than to yourself; for the multiplicity, the cares, and the vexations of your employment, have betrayed you from yourself, and given you up into the possession of the public. You are robbed of your privacy and friends, and scarce any hour of your life you can call your own. Those, who envy your fortune, if they wanted ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden

... equals in every way. But she did feel, and strongly, that the Cossack was not the equal of the Count, and she reproached herself with having made a confidant of one beneath her idol in station and refinement. This feeling sprang from such a multiplicity of sources, as almost to defy explanation. There was, at the bottom of it, the strange, unreasoning notion of the superiority of one class over another by right of blood, from which no race seems to be wholly exempt, ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... live severely with the melancholy, merrily with the pleasant, gravely with the aged, wantonly with the young, desperately with the bold, and debauchedly with the luxurious. With this variety and multiplicity of his nature, as he had made a collection of friendships with all the most wicked and reckless of all nations, so, by the artificial simulation of some virtues, he made a shift to ensnare some honest and eminent persons into his familiarity; neither could so vast a design as the destruction of ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley

... the hermetic science. Ere he was sixteen, he longed for the great elixir which was to make him live for seven hundred years, and for the stone which was to procure him wealth to cheer him in his multiplicity of days. He published a small treatise upon the subject at Cologne, in 1531, which obtained him the patronage of the celebrated Maurice duke of Saxony. After practising for some years as a physician at Joachimsthal, in Bohemia, he was employed by Maurice as superintendent of the silver mines ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... troubled not at all about money. She was very ignorant of things outside her own field, and the words my work were the only ones that she spoke with passion. What she knew, she had acquired practically, through travel and association with a multiplicity of people. She hardly knew a dozen words of any language besides English, and was only acquainted with English and American writers; of poets, she knew Shakespeare and Byron best; from life and books ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes

... amount of neat clothing, shows more than the advantage held by the Japanese race in the struggle of life; it shows also the real character of some of the weaknesses in our own civilization. It forces reflection upon the useless multiplicity of our daily wants. We must have meat and bread and butter; glass windows and fire; hats, white shirts, and woolen underwear; boots and shoes; trunks, bags, and boxes; bedsteads, mattresses, sheets, and blankets; all of which a Japanese can do without, ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick

... been, and remains, a pillar of Empire. Each has emulated the Admirable Crichton in the variety and multiplicity of public posts. Lloyd George has held five Cabinet posts in England and Smuts has duplicated the record in South Africa. Each man is an inspired orator who owes much of his advancement to eloquent tongue. Their platform manner is totally different. Lloyd George is fascinatingly magnetic in and out ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... works for the first time; no one perhaps does that, such is the multiplicity of the copies of them; and I vividly remembered them from my acquaintance with the originals four decades before, as I had remembered the Michelangelos; but in their presence and in the presence of so many other masterpieces in the different ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells

... Ministry of Health Bill was in the Commons some objection was raised to the multiplicity of powers conferred upon it. But if certain noble lords could have their way the measure would become a veritable octopus, stretching its absorptive tentacles over all the Departments of State. It would take over the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 14, 1919 • Various

... domination to a period, remote indeed but none the less enviable, when they had been their own masters? Had not the British themselves removed one of the greatest barriers to India's national unity—the multiplicity of her vernaculars—by giving English to the Western-educated classes as a common language, without which, indeed, Indian Nationalism could never have found expression, and such an assembly of Indians from all parts of India to discuss their common aspirations as the Indian National Congress ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol



Words linked to "Multiplicity" :   magnitude, multiple, numerousness, numerosity, many, few, multitudinousness, number, figure



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