"Positive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... figures of men, etc. At a distance, the words composed by the letters are alone distinguishable. Close at hand, the figures alone are seen, and not distinguished as letters. Thus things may have a positive, a relative, and a composite meaning, according to the ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... boy who uttered this threat, in the same manner that a general would examine an opposing force, with a view to ascertain his strength and ability to cope with him. It was clear that Tim was taller than himself, and doubtless older. As to being stronger, Ben did not feel so positive. He was himself well and compactly made, and strong of his age. He did not relish the idea of being imposed upon, and prepared to resist any encroachment upon his rights. He did not believe that Tim had any right to order him off. He felt ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger
... farewell, Church of God in England, and all the Christian friends there. We do not go to New England as separatists from the Church of England, though we cannot but separate from the corruptions of it. But we go to practise the positive part of Church reformation, and propagate the gospel in America.'"—Magnalia, Book III., Part II., Chap. i., quoted by Palfrey, Vol. I., p. ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... positively—but I have reason to think that, either directly or indirectly, the rumor comes from him. You know some men have a way of insinuating things. I—I—cannot recall any thing positive or definite. I cannot, indeed. He never spoke to me on the subject at all. There was only an expression at times, as he bore you off, that seemed to tell me that all my efforts to win you were vain. I can't see why you lay such stress on the ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... so much reveals Ravel the peer of Debussy as the fact that he has succeeded so beautifully in manifesting what is peculiar to him. For he is by ten years Debussy's junior, and were he less positive an individuality, less original a temperament, less fully the genius, he could never have realized himself. There would have descended upon him the blight that has fallen upon so many of the younger Parisian composers less determinate ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... 13 weeks of unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed. $600 million to train the disadvantaged and unemployed for new private sector jobs. Positive adjustment demonstrations to aid workers in declining industries. The important Title VII Private Sector Initiatives Program was reauthorized for an ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Jimmy Carter • Jimmy Carter
... away the whole expression of the edifice, render the brick-red glaring and harsh, and become themselves ridiculous in isolation. Besides, as a general principle, contrasts of extensive color are to be avoided in all buildings, and especially in positive and unmanageable tints. It is difficult to imagine whence the custom of putting stone ornaments into brick buildings could have arisen; unless it be an imitation of the Italian custom of mixing marble with stucco, which affords it no ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... cordiality in his dealings with Eugene Pearson, and had succeeded in establishing a friendly intimacy with him, that would have allayed any fears which the young man might have had, as to the opinions entertained by the detectives with regard to himself. Mr. Pearson was very positive that one of the robbers was the same man who had left the valise at the bank during the afternoon, and, after learning that Manning had paid a visit to Miss Patton, he stated his belief that this same person had called at the bank a few weeks before. He could ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... lines accompanied by excited gesticulations," the natives "biting their arms as a token either of vengeance or defiance.* (* Letter describing the founding of the Port Dalrymple settlement. Sydney Gazette December 23rd, 1804.) The blacks withdrew peaceably, but were positive in forbidding us to ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... history. The Gowrie Conspiracy is yet a riddle. According to one class of historical critics, the Earl of Gowrie and his brother, Alexander Ruthven, were bent upon assassinating the King; while another class are quite as positive that the King was bent upon assassinating the Ruthvens, and that he accomplished his purpose. We confess that we are strongly inclined to go with those who say that the Ruthvens were victims, and not baffled assassins; and we have always admired ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 93, July, 1865 • Various
... years gone by, when Earl Godwin, being exiled, made a raid on this conveniently accessible part of England, and after a hard fight captured all the vessels lying in the haven. Others find in the peculiar formation of the crania proof positive that the ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... the United States have decreed that on this day the control of their Government in its legislative and executive branches shall be given to a political party pledged in the most positive terms to the accomplishment of tariff reform. They have thus determined in favor of a more just and equitable system of Federal taxation. The agents they have chosen to carry out their purposes are bound by their promises not less ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... with the aid of his own imagination, to make an interesting story for publication, Poe began and continued to write. Then, as he progressed, he found that his imagination was embarrassed—frustrated by the known facts already employed—whilst it was not assisted by new facts which he was positive existed, but which he could not procure. As he attempted to close the narrative, the cold, written page was a very different thing from what he had conceived it would be as he sat in the tap-room of some New England old 'Sailor's Home,' with a couple of glasses ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... rapid, almost wild gleam of thought shot across the brain of the girl, and her resolution wavered; but endeavoring to trace the foundation of the pleasing hope on which it was based, she found nothing positive to support it. Trained like a woman to subdue her most ardent feelings, her thoughts reverted to her father, and to the blessings that awaited the child who yielded ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... fired. It would have been my fault wholly and solely had an accident happened, as I ought to have dropped to the rear, instead of passing to the front. How can I doubt Providence in the light of this incident? It was God who made the trigger hard to pull that day, and I am positive that had it been an easy pull-off, the bullet would have passed through my head, as my mate fired from ...
— From Lower Deck to Pulpit • Henry Cowling
... resembled that of the patriarchs in the Old Testament; and for the exercise of it he was responsible only to Zeus, and not to his people. But though the king was not restrained in the exercise of his power by any positive laws, his authority was practically limited by the BOULE; or council of chiefs, and the Agora, or general assembly of freemen. These two bodies, of little account in the Heroic age, became in the Republican age the sole depositories of ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... that his face was haggard, his eyes dark, the light in them exhausted as though he had not slept.... I had never before seen him show positive physical distress. Let his soul be what it might, his body seemed ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... should work with me more closely on the antigrav project. He understood, from his researches, that the most positive psi effects were experienced during a seance with a medium. Would I kindly arrange for the Swami to hold a seance that evening, after office hours, so that he might analyze the man's methods and procedures ...
— Sense from Thought Divide • Mark Irvin Clifton
... could be so positive in his opinions with regard to a subject on which he felt competent to say something, he was extremely modest with regard to many of the great problems of medicine. He often uses the expression in his writings, "I do not see how to explain this ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... happy prerogatives that the countenance best beloved gains to the lover's eye a charm beyond that with which any other face is endowed, even when he is forced to admit that dearest visage is surpassed in point of positive, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... But from positive science we know that although animals may think, they cannot reflect upon what they think. Descartes goes further and boldly states that they do not think at all. That is a statement which ...
— The Original Fables of La Fontaine - Rendered into English Prose by Fredk. Colin Tilney • Jean de la Fontaine
... top of the grade that ran up to the bleak house alone on the crest, he was leaning out of his seat, trying to penetrate the double gloom of rain and twilight; but not until he had reined in his horse was he positive that there was no shadowy figure standing there waiting ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... prophet, I shall take care not to recount here, in advance, events that are about to happen. I marvel at people who are so sure of their facts. The future has not the least obscurity for them; it has much for me. I confine myself to protesting against the positive assertions which have contributed but too greatly to mislead the opinion of Europe. My humbles theory is this: the defeat of the South is probable; the return of the conquered South ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Oig could prevent her, which, indeed, could only have been by positive violence, so hasty and peremptory were her proceedings, she had drawn from his side the dirk which lodged in the folds of his plaid, and held it up, exclaiming, although the weapon gleamed clear and bright in the sun, "Blood, blood—Saxon blood again. Robin ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... old man Adams had stated a theory with emphasis and utterly without any previous reflection, being a positive soul, but never a brilliant. And, again quite as usual, a theory stated was naturally to be combated with more or less violence. Out of the innocent enough statement there grew a long, devious argument. An argument which was at its height and evincing no ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... philosophy, which has not come to your share, as appears from your writings, where, as may easily be perceived, you retail all that little you have pickt up. The more knowledge a man has, he will always be the less assuming; and a positive stiffness, especially in commonly-received opinions, is a certain sign and constant attendant of ignorance. Socrates, the wisest man among the wisest people, after all his researches declared, that all that he knew ...
— Critical Remarks on Sir Charles Grandison, Clarissa, and Pamela (1754) • Anonymous
... believed. She entered the tenement. He hesitated. He knew the reputation of the place, which bore out his first impression that the woman was the one he thought she was; but he did not want to make a fool of himself by calling in the police until he was positive of her identity, so he finally followed her inside, and heard her go upstairs, and crept up after her in the dark. And then, suddenly, he was set upon and hustled into a room. It was the White Moll, all right; and the shots came from her companion, a ...
— The White Moll • Frank L. Packard
... he had derived from Mr. Enwright positive opinions about the relative importance of ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... would go off with eclat. The Mexicans, both the nearly white Mestizos and the Indians of pure race, delight in pulque. The brown people are grave and silent in their sober state, but pulque stirs up their sluggish blood, and they get into a condition of positive enjoyment. But very soon after this comes a state of furious intoxication, and a general scuffle is a common termination to a drinking-bout. Fortunately, the Indians are not a bloodthirsty people; and, though every man carries a knife or machete, or—if he can get nothing ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... he did not even dare to express the sentiments which the sight of this man awakened in him. It was more than repulsion, it was positive hatred, and an instinctive desire to rush upon him and throw him into the sea. He was convinced that this man had had some share in the misfortune of his life, but he would have blushed to abandon himself to such a conviction, or even to ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... astronomy, the angular distance of the rising or setting sun, or other heavenly body, from the east or west point of the horizon; used mostly by navigators in finding the variation of the compass by the setting sun. In algebra, if a be a real positive quantity and o a root of unity, then a is the amplitude of the product ao. In elliptic integrals, the amplitude is the limit of integration when the integral is expressed in the form $int0^phisqrt{1-N^2sin^2phi}dphi$. The hyperbolic or Gudermannian amplitude of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... on the following subjects: The Darwinian hypothesis, the positive philosophy, Protestant missions, temperance societies, Fichte, Leasing, Hegel, Carlyle, mummies, the Apocalypse, Maimonides, John Scotus Erigena, the steam-engine of Hero, the Serapeium, the Dorian Emigration, ...
— The Lady of the Ice - A Novel • James De Mille
... no notice of the advertisement, not only as she could not be positive it related to herself, as also because she thought, if he were certain she had read it, he might resent her not answering it, as discovering a too great diffidence of his honour. She added, however, a postscript, entreating ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... The Administrator was positive in his determination to have the judiciary a most efficient bureau of the people, and to have it sufficiently well paid to obtain the best talent. He wanted it held in the highest esteem, and to have an ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... sure I don't know how I did escape," said Barney, clambering over the rim of the road to her side. "That I had nothing to do with it I am positive. It was just luck. I simply dropped out ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... secret, to be kept until I release you from the obligation of secrecy. I have reasons for getting at the truth about Ashton's murder—so has Mr. Pawle. He and I have been making investigations and inquiries, and we are convinced, we are positive, that these papers which your partner now has in his pocket were stolen from Ashton's dead body—that, in fact, Ashton was murdered for the possession of them. And I tell you, for your own sake—find out who this client of yours ...
— The Middle of Things • J. S. Fletcher
... count, "I am to take leave of you; and I assure you I do it with so much reluctance, that nothing less than positive engagements to stay in town would prevent me from setting off with you to-morrow; but I shall be soon, very soon, at liberty to return to Ireland; and Clonbrony Castle, if you will give me leave, I will see before I see ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... left London. As to one point she was quite determined. Mrs. Western and her secret must be altogether discarded. As for her promise she had not really broken it. He had been clever enough to extract from her all that she knew without, as she thought, any positive statement on her own part. At any rate he did know the truth, and no concealment could any longer be of service to Cecilia. It was evident that the way was open to her now, and that she could tell all that she knew ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... in the pretence of blindness. The brethren were too much under delusion to see through the sharp practice of both of them, but considered the fact of Corey's inquiring of them whether Ann described her dress, as, under the circumstances, proof positive ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... lively and frisky, is quite dull and sluggish. He does not get over the ground as he is wont to do. The slightest touch of whip-cord, on other days, suffices to make him dart forward with redoubled speed; but upon this day, after two or three miles, he needs positive whipping, and he runs very sulkily with it all. By-and-by his coat, usually smooth and glossy and dry through all reasonable work, begins to stream like a water-cart. This will not do. There is something wrong. You investigate; and you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... liberation of the gambling passion. Wade recognized that when he met it. And Jack Belllounds was not in any sense big. He was selfish and grasping in the numberless little ways common to the game, and positive about his own rights, while doubtful of the claims of others. His cheating was clumsy and crude. He held out cards, hiding them in his palm; he shuffled the deck so he left aces at the bottom, and these he would slip off to himself, and he was so blind that ...
— The Mysterious Rider • Zane Grey
... where the least gleam of light assumes extraordinary importance, it is not to be neglected. I admit, for the rest, that there has so far been no time to carry out a serious enquiry on this point, but I should be greatly surprised if any such enquiry gave positive results and if it did not allowed us to state that the gigantic event, as a whole, as a general event, was neither foreseen nor divined. On the other hand, we shall probably learn, when the enquiry is completed, that hundreds of deaths, ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... negative evidence. This is, of course, the only evidence that ever can be available to prove the commencement of any series of phaenomena; but, at the same time, it must be recollected that the value of negative evidence depends entirely on the amount of positive corroboration it receives. If A.B. wishes to prove an alibi, it is of no use for him to get a thousand witnesses simply to swear that they did not see him in such and such a place, unless the witnesses are prepared to prove that they must ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... melancholy change into Schiller's circumstances: he had now another enemy to strive with, a secret and fearful impediment to vanquish, in which much resolute effort must be sunk without producing any positive result. Pain is not entirely synonymous with Evil; but bodily pain seems less redeemed by good than almost any other kind of it. From the loss of fortune, of fame, or even of friends, Philosophy pretends to draw a certain compensating benefit; but in general the permanent ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... found that it was caused by a desire to win her for himself. Why should he not succeed? He was positive that she liked him; she would have confidence in him, for she knew that he was intelligent, resolute, tenacious. Had she not sent for him? Was not that a kind of avowal? He was impatient to question ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... Maggot was a big baby—a worthy representative of his father—a true chip of the old block, for he was not only fat, riotous, and muscular, but very reckless, and extremely positive. His little nurse, on the contrary, was gentle and delicate; not much bigger than the baby, although a good deal older, and she had a dreadful business of it to keep him in order. All her efforts at lifting and restraining him were somewhat akin to the exertion made by wrestlers ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... the five hundred men, whom any one of five hundred women might have equally pleased,' said Dr. Spencer; 'but it is so far true, that the positive pain and envy wore out, and would not have interfered with my after life, but for my own folly. No, Ethel; it was not the loss of her that embittered and threw away my existence; it was my own rash vow, and its headstrong fulfilment, which has ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... will have a brief article on the subject from the conscientious and able pen of Dr. Henry Malter, but of books there is none. But while this is due to several causes, chief among them perhaps being that English speaking people in general and Americans in particular are more interested in positive facts than in tentative speculations, in concrete researches than in abstract theorizing—there are ample signs that here too a change is coming, and in many spheres we are called upon to examine our foundations with a view to making our ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... is not found in the genealogy published by David Malo. Nevertheless, we have positive information from our old man and other distinguished natives that Alapai was supreme chief ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... suppose that the sweeping away of those shanties would touch the solemn majesty of the mediaeval glories of the building that rises above them? Take them away if need be, and it, in its proportion, beauty, strength, and heavenward aspiration, will stand more glorious for the sweeping away. Preach positive truth. Do not preach doubts. You remember Mr. Kingsley's book Yeast. Its title was its condemnation. Yeast is not meant to be drunk; it is meant to be kept in the dark till the process of fermentation goes on and it works itself clear, and then you may bring it ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... Miss Peters—thank you, Miss Peters—missis did give orders most positive. These were her exact words: 'Hannah,' she said, 'the parlor is for callers. You remember that, Hannah, and the drawing-room ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... But the main point is—listen, gentlemen, let me finish!—the main point is that Mr. Burdovsky is not Pavlicheff's son at all. Gavrila Ardalionovitch has just told me of his discovery, and assures me that he has positive proofs. Well, what do you think of that? It is scarcely credible, even after all the tricks that have been played upon me. Please note that we have positive proofs! I can hardly believe it myself, I assure you; I do not yet believe it; I am still doubtful, because ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... railroad officer, and is also the most devoted student of geography and military history, with the most accurate and extraordinary memory for every detail, however minute, of battles and all other military operations that I have ever met with. He is positive in his recollection that not less than 100,000 and probably more, of that army were gradually concentrated at Toulon and sent thence by sea to Genoa, and the rest were during some weeks being concentrated ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... postscript to my paper in the 'Transact. Geolog. Soc.' (Vol. v. p. 505), and contains a serious error, as in the account received I mistook the figure 30 for 80. The tenant, moreover, formerly said that he had marled the field thirty years before, but was now positive that this was done in 1809, that is twenty-eight years before the first examination of the field by my friend. The error, as far as the figure 80 is concerned, was corrected in an article by me, in the 'Gardeners' Chronicle,' ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... is now making ready to go to Congress, and I am to be one of the delegates to the convention which is expected to nominate him. Having resigned a very lucrative post in the Land Office, he has gone into the practice of law and the pursuit of politics. For the latter he has a positive genius, as his whole mind is taken up with visions and plans for the development of the country, and for the aggrandizement of the United States. He is honest and outspoken, courageous even to audacity; but he is sometimes accused of devious ways, ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... at all!" promptly interrupted another, with the positive conviction of womankind. "Mrs. Wilkins told me all about it, and I know. It was another girl Mr. Ray was in love with, and—no, it was Mrs.—somebody—Tanner, whose husband was killed, and Mrs. Truscott did break an engagement ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... strangest and most incredible. Hitherto, not a suspicion had entered his mind but that the man so mysteriously slain in Geneva Square was Mark Vrain, and, for the moment, he thought that Diana was distraught to deny so positive a fact. ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... would arrive the usual time for going to Oxford. To Oxford my guardians made no objection; and they readily agreed to make the allowance then universally regarded as the minimum for an Oxford student, viz. L200 per annum. But they insisted, as a previous condition, that I should make a positive and definitive choice of a profession. Now I was well aware that, if I did make such a choice, no law existed, nor could any obligation be created through deeds or signature, by which I could finally be compelled into keeping my engagement. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... I've really forgotten which is which, but I'm sure—that is I think—I'm really positive—that the hair with a kink belongs to Sapphira! After all, that isn't such a dreadful name when you say it softly," ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... to have it, my boy," replied the Colonel kindly. "I really am indebted to you, for we have positive proof now that the Manor ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown
... "Story of Bhazad (!) the Impatient." The name is Persian, Bih (well, good) Zad (born). In the adj. bih we recognize a positive lost in English and German which retain the comparative (bih-tar ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... union—the impress of these institutions and the influence of the people of the French section. Still, while the French Canadians by their adherence to their language, civil law and religion are decidedly "a distinct and visible element which is not English"—an element kept apart from the English by positive legal and constitutional guarantees or barriers of separation,—we shall see that it is the influence and operation of English institutions, which have made their province one of the most contented ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... there was another pause. "I'll tell you what it is, Desmond," Owen said at last, going back to the rug and speaking with an effort. "As the people say, 'a sight of you is good for sore eyes.' There is a positive joy to me in seeing you. It is like a cup of cold water when a man is thirsty. But I cannot put the drink to my lips till I know on what terms we are to meet. When last we saw each other, we were speaking of your sister; and now that we meet again, ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... of the human spirit to reach those Gates of Truth whose lowest steps are the scarce discernible stars and furthest suns we scan, by piling Ossas of searching speculation upon Pelions of hardly-won positive knowledge. The highest exemplar of the former is Shakspere, Browning the profoundest interpreter of the latter. To achieve supremacy the one had to create a throbbing actuality, a world of keenest living, of acts and intervolved situations and episodes: the other ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... village from Saxon days to the present time. Some such plan had lain as a seed in his mind for many years; and now that he had decided, in a flash, to give up his profession, the seed grew in the space of twenty minutes both tall and lusty. He was surprised himself at the positive way in which he spoke. It was the same with the question of his cottage. That had come into existence, too, in an unromantic shape—a square white house standing just off the high road, no doubt, with a neighbor who kept a pig and a dozen squalling children; for these plans were shorn of all ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... conclusion, which he proclaimed in the beginning of his essay and held consistently throughout, all human striving and ambition, even life itself, are but superlative vanity, nor can man attain any permanent or complete satisfaction. The one positive teaching which Koheleth reiterates is that it is man's highest privilege to extract from passing experiences the small measure of joy and happiness that they offer, and therewith to be content. Compared ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... deal to be said for him; for, though he did not know as much as Felix of the nature and sentiments of Tod's children, he knew enough to make any but an Englishman uneasy. The fact that he went on eating ham, and said to Clara, "Half a cup!" was proof positive of that mysterious quality called phlegm which had long enabled his country to enjoy the peace of a ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sentimental or academical seekings after the ideal having been abandoned, momentary theories founded upon idiosyncratic or temporary partialities exploded, and nothing accepted but what is solid and positive, the scientific spirit shall make men progressively more and more conscious of these 'bleibende Verhaltnisse,' more and more capable of living in the whole; also, that in proportion as we gain a firmer hold upon our own place in the world, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... delay our minister in Paris, in virtue of the assurance given by the French minister in the United States, strongly urged the convocation of the Chambers at an earlier day, but without success. It is proper to remark, however, that this refusal has been accompanied with the most positive assurances on the part of the executive government of France of their intention to press the appropriation at the ensuing session of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... heard of the existence of the Victoria N'yanza. The Somali described its dimensions as equal in extent to the Gulf of Aden, and further alluded to its being navigated by white men. None of the men present had been there to see it, though it was currently known as a positive fact amongst them. I did not believe the story in the light they expressed it, supposing they confounded an inland sea with the Western or Atlantic Ocean. Colonel Rigby, H.B.M. Consul at Zanzibar, tells me he also heard of this lake when he was travelling ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... where my mother had some money put away in a drawer—some money she had been saving up a little at a time to buy the material for a new dress. I went into that drawer and took that money. You were so positive that I could not lose that I—well, I ...
— Rival Pitchers of Oakdale • Morgan Scott
... we may attribute to Tiglath-pileser I. the oldest of the Assyrian stelae at Nahr el-Kelb; no positive information has as yet confirmed this hypothesis, which is ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... their teeth, for both had been chased from their first entrance into American waters, and only their big topsails and a favouring wind brought them off. I examined the captains closely on the matter, and they were positive that their assailant was not Cosh or any one of his kidney, but a ship of the Brethren, who ordinarily were on the best ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... S[a]ugatas, whose religion consists in 'kindness to all.' In these sects there is found quietism, a kind of quakerism, pure morality, high teaching, sternest (almost bigoted) monotheism, and the doctrine of positive altruism, strange to the Hindu idolator as to the Brahman. The Prem S[a]gar, or 'Ocean of Love,' is a modern Hindu work, which illustrates the religious love opposed to that of the Sittars, namely, the mystic love ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... least thirteen years and eight months old. As to the profession we have overwhelming evidence that it took place on the 3rd of November, 1536, and her entrance in the convent a year and a day earlier. To begin with, we have the positive statement of her most intimate friends, Julian d'Avila, Father Ribera, S.J., and Father Jerome Gratian. Likewise dona Maria Pinel, nun of the Incarnation, says in her deposition: "She (Teresa of Jesus) took the habit on 2 November, 1535." [6] This is corroborated ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... man at periods brought provisions and their mail, but the house was acquiring an uncanny reputation. They were not understood, and such are ever foreign. With the passage of time and the coming of the mound in the dooryard, the feeling had developed into positive fear, and travellers avoided the place as though warned ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... rest of his head was covered and concealed by them. It is said that the student likes to appear on the street and in other public places in this kind of array, and that this predilection often keeps him out when exposure to rain or sun is a positive danger for him. Newly bandaged students are a very common spectacle in the public gardens of Heidelberg. It is also said that the student is glad to get wounds in the face, because the scars they leave will show so well there; and it is also said that these face wounds ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... we all of us!" returned Bullard. "Only I like to be prepared for emergencies. After all, we can't be positive that Christopher will do the friendly to us when the time comes, and Alan being the only relative is certain to benefit, more or less. Our own prospects are not so bright as they were. Of course, you've run through a pile—at least, Mrs. Lancaster ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... because she had allowed herself to leave the yacht with him and would therefore be compelled sooner or later to answer questions about him. She seriously feared that Mr. Gilman might refuse to sail unless she confessed to him her positive knowledge that Musa would not be seen again, and that thus she might have to choose between the failure of her plans for Jane Foley ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... of the several States to resume the powers delegated by them to the common agency, was not left without positive and ample assertion, even at a period when it had never been denied. The ratification of the Constitution by Virginia has already been quoted, in which the people of that State, through their Convention, did expressly "declare and make known that the powers ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... of goodness. They were oppressed and stifled by the ban of the meeting upon variation. And though the ideal of plainness has subtly ruled them even in their rebellion and freedom, it has done so by its negative power, in that the community has never furnished exceptional education. The positive dominion of the meeting broken, the negative "plainness" of the community rules all the children of the Hill to this day. So few are the sources of individual variation furnished, in the form of books, music, education, art, that no son or daughter of Quaker Hill has attained a place ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... spitting over the rail. I hailed them boldly from the shore (without showing them who I was), and was told they were starting for Langeoog in a few minutes; the wind was off-shore, the mails aboard, and the water just high enough. 'Did I want a passage?' 'No, I thought I would wait.' Positive that my party could never have got here so soon, I nevertheless kept an eye on the galliot till she let go her stern-rope and slid away. One contingency was eliminated. Some loiterers dispersed, and all port business appeared to be ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... "I am positive," she wrote, ingenuously, "that mother will relent in time, and then we can be married without going to so much trouble about it." Farther on she admitted that, "Mother is very firm about it now, but when she realizes that I am absolutely determined to ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... a lad of seventeen, spent the hours not devoted to his positive profession—that of gentleman—in the offices of the brewery, toying with big books and balances, which he despised with the combined zeal of the sucking ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... he reverted to more general subjects: the din and bustle of the city, the theatres, the race-course, the statues of charioteers, the nomenclature of horses, the horse-talk in every side-street. The rage for horses has become a positive epidemic; many persons are infected with it whom one would have credited with ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... has," asserted Mrs. Chatterton, in that positive way that made everybody hate her to begin with. "She was all right this morning when I left home. Where else is she, if she hasn't run ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... heaven, and he replied very humbly: "Lord, what dost Thou wish me to do?" And the Voice said: "Return to the land of thy birth, and there it will be told thee what thou shalt do; for it may behove thee to give another meaning to thy dream." He felt so positive that the Voice was from heaven, that he felt he simply could not disobey it. So, although it cost him a lot to do it, he turned his horse's head ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... Who came into the world to save sinners also exists. We can be unendingly thankful for that. But it is also true that the action of Christianity is not exhausted in the negative work of dealing with sin. Christianity is primarily a positive action for the bringing about and development of the relation of the soul with God in the state of union. We may say that Christianity has to turn aside from this its proper business of developing the spiritual life to the preliminary work of ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... it either by stratagem or open force. If it be of that highly wicked and immoral character which some have recently attributed to it, most assuredly it would be condemned in the Bible in terms the most positive and unequivocal. ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... miracle, he at once becomes a saint. With these "dutiful children of the Church" there can be no fixed laws of evidence; the only ground of belief is, and ever must be, Has the statement been sanctioned by the highest authority? If so, it is true; if not, it is to be doubted, however positive the proofs may be. A difficulty that the traveler every where encounters is that he can believe nothing that he hears, even on the most trifling subject, without careful examination and weighing of testimony. As he can not examine every thing himself, he is constantly ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... mild but positive terms that they must go on the reservation set apart for them by their chiefs and the agents of the white father at Washington; and warned that, in the event of their persistent refusal, soldiers ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... What needs emphasizing here is that to make boys do certain things under compulsion is not developing their faculties, but is absolutely preventing their development; and secondly, that this infamous but universal proceeding is responsible for a positive degeneration amongst those whom it is supposed ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... a way which serves better to detect the influence of electricity in such operations, as noted below. {166} Vegetable figures are also presented in some of the most ordinary appearances of the electric fluid. In the marks caused by positive electricity, or which it leaves in its passage, we see the ramifications of a tree, as well as of its individual leaves; those of the negative, recal the bulbous or the spreading root, according as ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... "leader," for such he seemed to be. He was no ordinary boy, this bright, keen, New York lad, with a form of rare build, tall and straight as a young Indian. He showed in every movement, and in the manner of his speech, that his character was a positive one, and that nature had endowed him with ...
— The Boy Broker - Among the Kings of Wall Street • Frank A. Munsey
... afraid of his mother, or, if he had been, it was the fear of hurting her who had been so hurt already. Ever since he could remember, he saw himself, even as a little boy, trying to get her away from his father who had a positive cast of mind, a perfect certainty of being right and a confirmed belief that robust measures always were the thing. If you did wrong, you were to be punished, promptly and effectually. If you were afraid of the dark, ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... gesture with a tiny hand peeping from under his cloak. His hat hung very much at the side of his head. "Senor," he said without any preliminaries. "Caution! It is a positive fact that one-eyed Bernardino, my brother-in-law, has at this moment a mule in his stable. And why he who is not clever has a mule there? Because he is a rogue; a man without conscience. Because I had to give up the macho to him to secure for myself a roof ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... of adjectives the Slavic has two principal forms, according as they are definite or indefinite. The Old or Church Slavonic knows only two degrees of comparison, the positive and comparative; it has no superlative, or rather it has the same form for the comparative and superlative. This is regularly made by the suffix ii. mostly united with one of those numerous sibilants, for which the English language has hardly letters or signs, sh, tsh, sht, shtsh, etc. In ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... delight at the leap she was taking through conventions she swung her right leg over the saddle and sat to place like any man. Although born and raised on a farm, horseback riding was to her something of a novelty, and the assumption of the masculine position was a positive epoch in her career. How the people of Plainville would have been scandalized if they could have witnessed her shocking familiarity with a horse! She thought of an English girl who had been cut by the good society of Plainville because she dared to ride like a biped instead of a ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... close imminence. In his condition, to put off the operation for another day, in order to consider her answer, would be to condemn him to death according to all probability of human science, since a few hours longer than that would put probability out of the question and make it a positive certainty. She could not speak; her tongue would not move when she tried to form words and her breath made no sound in ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... woman in the crowd, and kept his eye upon her for several minutes, but such was the crush, that all his efforts to reach her were unavailing, and when he got into the open street she was gone. He was quite positive as to his having distinctly seen her, however, for several minutes, and scouted the possibility of any mistake as to identity; and fully impressed with the substantial and living reality of his visitant, he was very much provoked ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... the beginning of Chapter 4, Tertullian says: "If for these and other such rules you insist upon having positive Scriptural injunction, you will find none. Tradition will be held forth to you as the originator of them, custom as their strengthener, and faith as ...
— The Last Reformation • F. G. [Frederick George] Smith
... probable that the firmness that distinguished her maturer will in youth might have been taken for obstinacy, that her nice discrimination might at the same period have been taken for adolescent caprice, and that the positive expression of her quick intellect might have been thought youthful impertinence before her years had won respect for ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte
... even while it shams to be praying to God? And there is a close connection which the history of every age has illustrated between formal religious profession and the love of money, which is the vice of the Church. Again, the promise of rewarding openly naturally leads on to the positive exhortation to make that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... Legislation as a positive power was very secondary in those old Parliaments. I believe no statute at all, as far as we know, was passed in the reign of Richard I., and all the ante-Tudor acts together would look meagre enough to a modern Parliamentary ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... superb bay "waler" had detached himself from the crowd, and was coming towards them at a swinging trot, sitting the horse as though he were part of the animal. Honor realised at a glance that here was that stimulating thing, a positive personality alive to the finger-tips, realised also with what success the photographer had caught and rendered the living essence of the man. Desmond was dark as his wife was fair, though a hint of chestnut in his moustache, and a peculiar light in the hazel-grey eyes, suggested fire not ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... up the Nevski I realised what it was that had given me the first positive shock of an altered world. The trams had stopped. I had never seen the Nevski without its trams; I had always been forced to stand on the brink, waiting whilst the stream of Isvostchicks galloped past and the heavy, lumbering, coloured elephants ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... Miss Howe was enclosed one to her from Miss Harlowe,* to be transmitted to my cousins, containing a final rejection of me; and that in very vehement and positive terms; yet she pretends that, in this rejection, she is governed more by principle than passion—[D——d lie, as ever was told!] and, as a proof that she is, says, that she can forgive me, and does, on ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... by Catholics as well as Protestants; and it was as a defence against this charge that the narrative of the Adelantado's brother-in-law was published. That Ribaut, a man whose good sense and courage were both reputed high, should have submitted himself and his men to Menendez without positive assurance of safety, is scarcely credible; nor is it lack of charity to believe that a bigot so savage in heart and so perverted in conscience would act on the maxim, current among certain casuists of the day, that faith ought not to be kept ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... mind was clearer for work. Work becoming not only more of a resource but more remunerative as well, all life grew brighter. Fear was not overcome; I had only made a more or less hesitating stand against it; but even from doing that I got positive results. ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... while, both standing ; and then Princess Augusta said, "Give my love to the duke (meaning of Gloucester), "and I hope I shall see him bye and bye; and to William."(155) (meaning the duke's son). And this, which was not a positive request that she would prolong her visit, was understood; and the lovely cousin made her curtsey ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... consideration of his writings. Macaulay calls him a drunkard. If this be true, it seems a little severe to call a Scotchman to account for being intoxicated one hundred years ago. He also speaks of him as a toady; but he was a friend of Johnson, whose detestation of sycophancy was a positive principle. Hume speaks of him as a "friend of mine, very good-humored, very agreeable, and very mad." Macaulay's and Carlyle's essays may be considered as mutually corrective. The truth is that Boswell was absolutely frank, and if a man is frank about himself on paper he must write himself ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... doubt but a good man may lawfully and justly become a witness in behalf of the public, and may perform that office (in its own nature not very desirable) with honour and integrity. For the command in the text is positive as well as negative; that is to say, as we are directed not to bear false witness against our neighbour, so we are to bear true. Next to the word of God, and the advice of teachers, every man's conscience, strictly examined, will be his best director in this weighty point; ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... the product of the cunning of Jugurtha, who had discovered their route. Volux implied that the object of the Numidian's movement was to compromise the Moorish government in the eyes of Sulla; but he stated his emphatic belief that Jugurtha would, or could, do no positive hurt to the Roman envoy or his retinue. He pointed out that the king had no great force at his command, and (what was more important still) that he was now wholly dependent on the favour of his father-in-law. It was incredible, he maintained, that ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... "we won't waste any time on thinking We are going to have some positive knowledge on the subject pretty immediately. I don't feel equal to starting any domestic santana today, but the forces are gathering and the blow is coming soon. To that I have firmly made up ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter |
