"Reasonableness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not over the innate reasonableness of it: the universe is immeasurably more reasonable with it than without it; but over its practicability after the body is gone. We, in our immeasurable wisdom, don't see how it can work—we don't see how a universe that we don't begin to know, which already ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... most salient quality in all their institutions was reasonableness. When I dug into the records to follow out any line of development, that was the most astonishing thing—the conscious ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... MODERATIONEM ... AEQUITATEM: 'the self-control and even balance of your mind'. Moderatio is in Cic. a common translation of [Greek: sophrosyne]. Aequitas is not used here in its commonest sense of 'reasonableness' or 'equity', but as the noun corresponding to aequus in the ordinary phrase aequus animus (Horace, 'aequam memento rebus in arduis servare mentem'), cf. Tusc. 1, 97 hanc maximi animi aequitatem in ipsa morte. said of Theramenes' undisturbed ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... morning, and having been much in the open air afterwards, the Adonis-astronomer's appetite assumed grand proportions. How much of that pheasant he might consistently eat without hurting his dear patroness Lady Constantine's feelings, when he could readily eat it all, was a problem in which the reasonableness of a larger and larger quantity argued itself inversely as a smaller and smaller quantity remained. When, at length, he had finally decided on a terminal point in the body of the bird, the door was ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... probably have gone forthwith to Selby, told him the secret, and enlisted his aid; but Mr. Baruch did not work like that. He allowed chance a week in which to show its reasonableness; and not till then, nothing having happened, did he furnish himself, one afternoon, with an excuse, in the form of a disputed customs charge, and cross the narrow landing ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... subject to get aflame with the smallest things, and with what force it plunges into the imagination of the object that attracts it, vain as that object may be. The most grotesque, the most childish, the maddest schemes come to caress my favourite idea, and to show me the reasonableness of surrendering myself to it."[37] It was this deep internal vehemence which distinguished Rousseau all through his life from the commonplace type of social revolter. A vagrant sensuous temperament, strangely compounded with ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... that Grindley junior had for the moment parted company with that sweet reasonableness that otherwise, so Peter Hope felt sure, ...
— Tommy and Co. • Jerome K. Jerome
... the Athenians ask the inhabitants of Melos (the island where the "Venus of Milo" was found), hitherto neutral, to own their lordship. The envoys meet, and hold a debate which Thucydides gives in full, and which, for sweet reasonableness of form, would have satisfied Matthew Arnold. "The powerful exact what they can," said the Athenians, "and the weak grant what they must." When the Meleans say that sooner than be slaves they will appeal to the gods, the Athenians reply: "Of the gods we believe and of men we know that, by ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... minds the "proof" of a doctrine is its reasonableness and its adaptability as an answer to existing problems. And, accordingly, to such, the many arguments advanced in favor of the doctrine, of which we have given a few in the preceding chapters, together with the almost universal acceptance of the fundamental ideas on the part of the race, in ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson
... mouth resolutely unsmiling. Under one arm she carried a roll of cheap white lawn. Annabel frequently commented on the uselessness of buying expensive materials for a girl who grew as rapidly as Diantha, though the reasonableness of this contention was slightly discounted by her recognized ability to demonstrate that the cream of things was invariably her portion, while an all-wise Providence had obviously designed the skimmed milk for the rest ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... letters I have written have come to your hands or Eliza's, you know that I am safe, through the protection of an American, a most worthy man, who joins to uncommon tenderness of heart and quickness of feeling, a soundness of understanding and reasonableness of temper rarely to be met with. Having been brought up in the interior parts of America, he is a most natural, unaffected creature. I am with him now at Havre, and shall remain there till circumstances point ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... character, and it was, perhaps, too much in the nature of a speculation to excite notice in scientific circles. One of the curious features of the history is that it was Kant who first cited Wright's theory, pointed out its accordance with the appearance of the Milky Way, and showed its general reasonableness. But, at the time in question, the work of the philosopher of Konigsberg seems to have excited no more notice among his scientific contemporaries than ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... impression on the minds of those that beheld him; inasmuch that Sir Lewis Stukely and the Frenchman grow very odious. This was the news a week since; but now it is blown over, and he almost forgotten.' The good Dean underrated the solidity and reasonableness of English feeling. The nation might not care to linger over creatures like Stukely and Manourie, even to execrate them. Its grief for Ralegh was a lasting sentiment. A spectator of his death declared that his Christian and truthful ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... Poverty and misfortune had overhung her childhood and she had none of the pretty delusions about life that are supposed to be the crowning grace of girlhood. This very competence, which gave her a touching reasonableness, made Glennard's situation more difficult than if he had aspired to a princess bred in the purple. Between them they asked so little—they knew so well how to make that little do—but they understood also, and she especially did not ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... he would arrange the government of a State on just and equable lines; the only tyranny that he would originate would be the tyranny of common-sense. The only thing which he would be hard on would be unreasonableness in any form. I am very fond of reasonableness myself; I think it a very fine and beautiful quality, and I think that it wins probably the best victories of the world. But I desire in the world a certain driving force, whereas to me Meyrick only represents an immensely strong regulating force. When ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... premises is complete. If, therefore, in the administration of our responsibility, our wards should make a request for independence, it is our duty to examine this request, to inquire into its origin, and then to investigate its reasonableness with the purpose of determining whether, in the circumstances, our wards are able, prepared, or ready to undertake the responsibilities which they pray us to ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... that has just been quoted, Aristotle enumerates all the virtues in order to explain them individually. They are Justice, Courage, Moderation, Magnificence ([Greek: megaloprepeia]), Magnanimity, Liberality, Gentleness, Reasonableness, and Wisdom. How different from the Christian virtues! Even Plato, without comparison the most transcendental philosopher of pre-Christian antiquity, knows no higher virtue than Justice; he alone recommends it unconditionally and for its own sake, while all the other philosophers make a happy ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... contention which arose in the New England colonies from these discussions over "singing by rule" or "singing by rote." Many prominent clergymen wrote essays and tracts upon the subject; of these essays "The Reasonableness of Regular Singing," also a "Joco-serious Dialogue on Singing," by Reverend Mr. Symmes; "Cases of Conscience," compiled by several ministers; "The Accomplished Singer," by Cotton Mather, were the most important. "Singing Lectures" also were given in many parts ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... make of that child's soul? She does not wet the clay. She does not stop to consider before each command whether it be wholly just, whether it be the best time to make it, and whether she can explain its necessity. Oh! the sweet reasonableness of children when disagreeable necessities are explained to them, instead of being enforced as arbitrary tyrannies! She does not make them so feel that she shares all their sorrows and pleasures that they cannot help being in turn glad ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... drearily around and around the circle which they felt closing so inexorably upon them, and there was no longer any use to wear themselves out in futile discussions of impossible plans. They had both been trained to regard reasonableness as one of the cardinal virtues, and to the mild nature of the old man it was a natural one, so they tried conscientiously to force themselves not only to act, but to feel, "like sensible folks," as they put it bravely ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... estates of men" have been more or less affected, the proposal to signalize entrance upon a fresh stretch of national life by making devotional preparation for it is something better than a pretty conceit; there is a serious reasonableness ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... in his cause and the people that even after he fell ill he could not believe that ratification would fail. What his enemies called stubbornness was his firm faith in the righteousness of the treaty and in the reasonableness of the proposition that the time to make amendments was not prior to the adoption of the Treaty and by one nation, but after all the nations had agreed and had met together for sober, unpartisan consideration of alterations in the interest of all the contracting parties and the peace and welfare ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... spent as much time in the exercise of both. The real causes of the decay of the interests of religion are set forth in a clear and lively manner, without unseasonable passions; and the whole air of the book, as to the language, the sentiments, and the reasonableness, show it was written by one whose virtue sits easy about him, and to whom vice is thoroughly contemptible. It was said by one of this company, alluding to that knowledge of the world the author seems to have, the man writes much like a gentleman, and goes ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... offer for the round-up, but when Rebstock made it known that the fight was over sending out Du Sang, the rage of the rustlers turned on Du Sang. Again, however, no man wanted to take up personally with Du Sang the question of the reasonableness of Whispering Smith's demand. Instead of doing so, they fell on Rebstock and demanded that if he were boss he make good and send Du ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... started, and many such there were, a profusion of words demonstrated the reasonableness of the whole design; impressing all who heard, with the conviction that the citadel was too strong for assault. The Mercury at these times was generally Mr. Coleridge, who, as has been stated, ingeniously parried every adverse argument, and after silencing ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... reasonableness of saving our manufactures from sacrifices which a change of circumstances might bring on them, the national interest requires that, with regard to such articles at least as belong to our defense and our primary wants, we should not ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that is accepted with conviction and acted upon, even though there may be no logic, no reason, no proof of its truth. It is an influence that takes hold of the mind and works itself out to fulfilment, quite apart from its worth or reasonableness. Of course, logical persuasion and argument have their place in the communication of ideas; an idea may be conveyed by other ways than suggestion. But while suggestion is not everything, it is equally true that there ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... that if the Emperor had wished to punish him for some crime, he could not have done it better than by giving him this person for a colleague. Fortunately he had a splendid temper; Urbain de la Mariniere himself was not endowed with a larger share of sweet reasonableness. Most men would not have endured the General's insolence for five minutes. The Prefect's love of peace and sense of public duty, united with extreme fairness of mind, helped him to make large allowances for his fellow-official. He knew ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... 14, he says, 'The apostle supposes, that the moral law is founded in the nature and reason of things: that every man is endued with such powers ana faculties of mind, as render him capable of seeing, and taking notice of this law; and also with such a sense and judgment of the reasonableness and fitness of conforming his actions to it, that he cannot but in his own mind acquit himself when he does so; and condemn himself when he does otherwise.' And as to the second—viz., Phil, iv., 8, where the same ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... or traceable connection between Lady Waterham and the unknown woman whose property it had been. Jim was not shaken in his own private conviction (strengthened as it had been by his dream), but he was too hard-headed not to admit the reasonableness of Mr. Hendrick's arguments; and the more he heard of the tales that had been circulated, the more deeply he regretted his pride and misplaced confidence. He finally made no objection to Hendrick's proposal that the matter should ...
— A Child of the Glens - or, Elsie's Fortune • Edward Newenham Hoare
... important personages in the government against the plans of Pitt. The prudence of their drift must be settled by external considerations. Those who think that the French were likely to show a moderation and practical reasonableness in success, such as they had never shown in the hour of imminent ruin, will find Burke's judgment full of error and mischief. Those, on the contrary, who think that the nation which was on the very eve of surrendering itself to the Napoleonic absolutism was not in a hopeful ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... read and heard seemed to point in exactly the opposite direction. But at the first meeting I attended I heard Lucy Stone, Henry B. Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other pioneers of the cause, found nothing but reasonableness in their speech and their arguments and ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... environment. There may be only one avenue between the new life and the old, it may be but a small and subterranean passage, but this is sufficient to keep the old life in. So long as that remains the victim is not "dead unto sin," and therefore he cannot "live unto God." Hence the reasonableness of the words, "Whatsoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend at one point, he is guilty of all." In the natural world it only requires a single vital correspondence of the body to be out of order to insure ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... wild-goose chase, conceived entirely as an excuse for being some time in each other's company? To be whimsical, therefore, in pursuit of a whim, fanciful in the chase of a fancy, is surely but to maintain the spirit of the game. Now, for the purpose, therefore, of a romance that makes no pretence to reasonableness, I had very good reasons for buying that petticoat, which (the reasons, not the petticoat) I ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... That those Notions, or Ideas of Vertue, and consequent Rules of Action, which are usually given to such young Persons, do rarely carry along with them an entire conviction of their Truth and Reasonableness: Whence if these Instructions at any time happen strongly to cross the Inclinations of those to whom they are given, it will appear rational to question their Solidity: And when Principles that thwart People's passions or interests, come once to be doubted ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... and type of the moderate anti-slavery sentiment was William Ellery Channing. In Channing was a blending of high moral ideals, intelligent views of human nature and society, an apostle's earnestness wedded with "sweet reasonableness," and a personal character of rare symmetry and beauty. He was an evolutionist and not a revolutionist. Foremost among the group of New England ministers who broadened and ripened out of the orthodoxy of their day, and were ostracized by their former brethren, he was forced into the position of ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... Stoics, the Epicureans, and a few modern teachers, such as Kant and Bentham, have each of them supplied 'moments' of thought to the world. The life of Christ has embodied a divine love, wisdom, patience, reasonableness. For his image, however imperfectly handed down to us, the modern world has received a standard more perfect in idea than the societies of ancient times, but also further removed from practice. For there is certainly a greater interval between the theory and practice ...
— Philebus • Plato
... But the reasonableness of a requirement by Spain of unconditional surrender on the part of the insurgent Cubans before their autonomy is conceded is not altogether apparent. It ignores important features of the situation—the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... of Penrod, this question was without meaning or reasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire to analyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him, and was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew only that his gorge rose at the ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... fundamental, nonegoistic purpose, one that would rally both her emotions and her intelligence into service. Finally she was told bluntly that on these steps depended her health and that from now on any breakdown would be merely a confession of failure in reasonableness and purpose. ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... grasp of things, it will display its powers with more or less effect according to its particular quality and capacity in the individual. In the case of most men it makes itself felt in the good sense, sobriety of thought, reasonableness, candour, self-command, and steadiness of view, which characterize it. In some it will have developed habits of business, power of influencing others, and sagacity. In others it will elicit the talent of philosophical ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... Mainwaring, which, impressed with the deepest conviction of my merit, is satisfied that whatever I do must be right; and look with a degree of contempt on the inquisitive and doubtful fancies of that heart which seems always debating on the reasonableness of its emotions. Mainwaring is indeed, beyond all compare, superior to Reginald—superior in everything but the power of being with me! Poor fellow! he is much distracted by jealousy, which I am not sorry for, as I know no better support of love. He ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... ruined, without any reference to their mines, through men deciding on the reasonableness of new process and machinery who have no knowledge of the business in hand. It is assumed often, that if an inventor or manufacturer of new machinery will agree to guarantee success, or take no pay if not successful, the company takes no risk. In actual ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... refused to pronounce whether that which I can not apprehend exists or not, was that my fault, or theirs? There may be divine forces which created and govern the universe; but never talk to me of their goodness, and reasonableness, and care for human creatures! Can a reasonable being, who cares for the happiness of another, strew the place assigned to him to dwell in with snares and traps, or implant in his breast a hundred impulses of which the gratification only drags ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... is your view, I can scarcely wonder at your course," she said, so quietly that he misunderstood her, and felt that she half conceded its reasonableness. Then she changed the subject, nor did she revert ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... by the thunder rain, sent up a rare whiteness as of incense smoke. For she had been somewhat anxious about Dickie lately. To her sensitive observation of him, his virtue, his evenness of temper, his reasonableness, had come to have in them a pathetic element. He was lovely and pleasant in his ways. But sometimes, when tired or off his guard, she had surprised an expression on his face, a constrained patience of speech, even of attitude, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... character of a truly great man. With a courage which no danger could appal, he possessed the utmost calmness of temper and sweetness of disposition, by which all who conversed with him were engaged to love and esteem his character. He was naturally eloquent, both in illustrating and proving the reasonableness of his own opinions, and in converting others from their erroneous preconceived notions. Above all, he possessed that steady and persevering resolution, which not only enabled him to vanquish the greatest ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... with the same sedateness and dignity, the same reasonableness, in imitation of her husband. As the veterinary surgeon was disappearing behind the door below, she ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Bible and Stevenson, distinct from the context or interwoven with it, the whole a fabric quite of her own design. Her vocabulary has all the phrases that other people use, and the explanation of it, and the reasonableness of it ought to be evident by this time. There is no reason why she should strike from her vocabulary all words of sound and vision. Writing for other people, she should in many cases be true to outer fact rather than to her own experience. So long as she uses words correctly, she should be granted ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... of the men and women who ask for evidence, or at least for plausible argument, proving the reasonableness of immortality? What can be ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane
... expatiating on the Maumsey household, turned the conversation to something else—especially to Nora's first attempts at golf, in which he had been her teacher. Nora, whose reasonableness was abnormal, very soon took the hint, and after five minutes' "chaff" with Winnington, to whom she was devoted, she took up her work and went back ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... disappointed, and of finding things go against you. It is, in the case of ordinary human beings, just what they expect. Of course, you remember the adage, "Blessed is he who expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." I have a good deal to say about that adage. Reasonableness of expectation is a great and good thing: despondency is a thing to be discouraged and put down as far as may be. But meanwhile let me say, that the corollary drawn from that dismal beatitude seems to me unfounded in fact. I should say just the contrary. I should say, "Blessed ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... young friend, a policy like yours would decimate the House of Commons and abolish the House of Lords. Practical religion has a sweet reasonableness. We are all human, even if we are all gentlemen; and ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... Higher Christian Life," Service, Pain and Sorrow, Peace and Joy, and the Indwelling Christ. She was dissatisfied with the work and required some persuasion before she would consent to its being published. But its spiritual tone, its tenderness, its "sweet reasonableness," and the bright little pictures of Christian truth and life, which enliven its pages, have led some to prize it more than any ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... understanding and interpretation of these wonderful chapters, but its value is insignificant compared with the divine messages contained in these chapters and their direct application to life. Moreover, instead of presenting first the testimony and then patiently pointing out the reasonableness and vital significance of the newer conclusions, scholars sometimes, under the influence of their convictions, made the fatal mistake of enunciating those conclusions ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... flattery to a man's foibles than of credit to his discretion and his judgment. But at the time when the quarrel between Great Britain and her colonies was fast becoming imbittered, the same kindliness, coupled with a calm reasonableness of temper, ruled his feelings and guided his action. Although by political creed a moderate Tory, he had none of the wrong-headedness of the party zealot; and the growing alienation between those whom he, like his brother, regarded as of one family, caused ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... useful or pleasing, the first requisite is the religious and moral knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acquaintance with the history of mankind, and with those examples which may be said to embody truth, and prove by events the reasonableness of opinions.[16] Prudence and justice are virtues and excellences of all times, and of all places—we are perpetually moralists; but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary and ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the treatise on the novel to which reference has been made, was regarded by contemporary and subsequent criticism as an imitator of Sterne in his oddly titled novel "Beytrge zur Geschichte des teutschen Reiches und teutscher Sitten,"[58] although the general tenor of his essay, in reasonableness and balance, seemed to promise a more independent, amore competent and felicitous performance. Kurz expresses this opinion, which may have been derived from criticisms in the eighteenth century journals. The Frankfurter Gelehrte Anzeigen, July 28, 1775, does not, however, take ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... "matter-of-fact" element to which he refers could not have owed its origin to myth or fancy. The question being fascinating, there was therefore no alternative but to make further inquiry. And the more it was considered, the more did his theory proclaim its reasonableness. He suggests, for example, that certain "fairy herds" in Sutherlandshire were probably reindeer, that the "fairies" who milked those reindeer were probably of the same race as Lapps, and that not unlikely they were the ...
— Fians, Fairies and Picts • David MacRitchie
... the poor awakened sinner, convinced of his sin and misery, of his own inability to help himself, of the insufficiency of all means beside Christ, of Christ's all-sufficiency, readiness, and willingness to help, of the equity and reasonableness of the conditions on which he is offered, and life through him, is now content and fully satisfied with this way, actually renouncing all other ways whatsoever, and doth with heart and hand embrace Jesus Christ, and take him as he is offered ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... Blackstone's admirable demonstration of the reasonableness of the legal succession, upon the principle of there being the greatest probability that the nearest heir of the person who last dies proprietor of an estate, is of the blood of the first purchaser. But supposing a pedigree to be carefully authenticated ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... recognised the enormity of his crime, and excused himself on the ground of a serious affection of the throat, and stated that it was under urgent medical advice that he was induced to transgress the unwritten ordinances of the Bar. Despite the reasonableness of the plea, a small majority passed upon him a vote of censure for subjecting the Bar to general ridicule by his extravagant physiognomy. "This was," says Mr Serjeant Robinson, "the worst that could befall him, for of course he could not be prevented from ...
— At the Sign of the Barber's Pole - Studies In Hirsute History • William Andrews
... of love would ever and anon come upon the sculptor, when his matured reflecting powers would insist upon informing him of the fearful lapse from reasonableness that lay in this infatuation. It threw him into a sweat. What if now, at last, he were doomed to do penance for his past emotional wanderings (in a material sense) by being chained in fatal fidelity to an object that his intellect despised? One night he dreamt that he saw dimly masking ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... exciting combats of outspread individualities. And in the second place it recalled a slight difficulty between Tom and his father. Osmond Orgreave was a most reasonable father, but no father is perfect in reasonableness, and Osmond had quite inexcusably resented that Tom on his marriage should take away all Tom's precious books. Osmond's attitude had been that Tom might in decency have left, at any rate, some of the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... For his part he had not a moment's doubt that her good sense, relieved from the immediate pressure of her feelings, which were in themselves but too divine for the needs of this world, would convince her of the reasonableness of all he had sought to urge upon her. As soon as she was able, and judged it safe to admit a visitor, his aunt would be happy ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... exhibited in Hepaee and Tongataboo, we add the general view of the usual amusements of the inhabitants of these islands, contained in this paragraph, and compare it with the quotation from the Jesuit's Letters, in a former note, we shall be still more forcibly struck with the reasonableness of tracing such singularly resembling customs to one common source. The argument, in confirmation of this, drawn from identity of language, has been already illustrated, by observing the remarkable coincidence of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... is grateful. No matter that it comes unsought, and comes not for the seeking. You do not discuss the reasonableness of your gratitude. You only know that your whole being bows with humility and utter thankfulness to him who thus crowns you monarch of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... means true, as Dr. Maxwell asserts, that children are born solely because men are animals possessing animalistic instincts. True, they could not well be born were men not animals; but the "sweet reasonableness" of things enters ever more and more into the advent of children upon this earth. Were man made altogether of mud, intent only on the indulgence of brute desire, there had been no sacred institution of marriage, and family names proudly handed down from sire ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... offending company (after it shall have been first duly cited, proceeded against by due process of law before the commission sitting as a court, and afforded opportunity to introduce evidence and to be heard, as well against the validity, justness or reasonableness of the order or requirement alleged to have been violated, as against the liability of the company for the alleged violation), such fines or other penalties as may be prescribed or authorized by this Constitution or by law. The commission may be vested ...
— Civil Government of Virginia • William F. Fox
... Supreme Court at Washington, following some tentative gestures in that direction, accepted the new dispensation outright. In Smyth v. Ames decided that year, partially overturning Munn v. Illinois, it gave notice of its intention to review in detail the "reasonableness" of railway rates set by State authority and in Holden v. Hardy it ratified, at the same term, the doctrine of freedom of contract.[70] The result of the two holdings for the Court's constitutional jurisdiction is roughly indicated by the fact that whereas ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... had served as foundations for new developments of character in the man. He existed through a period of unutterable despair and loneliness; then the fruits of bygone battles fought and won came to his aid, and long-past years of self-denial and self-control fortified his spirit. The reasonableness of Martin Grimbal lifted him slowly but steadily from the ashes of disappointment; even his natural humility helped him, and he told himself he had no more than his desert. Presently, with efforts the very vigour of which ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... formidable assailant is least resistible when he attacks the probability of the action, and the reasonableness of the plan. Every critical reader must remark, that Addison has, with a scrupulosity almost unexampled on the English stage, confined himself in time to a single day, and in place to rigorous unity. The scene never changes, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... son was gone, sir Wilton began to miss him. He wished, first, that the obstinacy of the rascal had not made it necessary to give him quite so sharp a lesson; he wished, next, that he had given him time to see the reasonableness of his demand; and at length, as the days and weeks passed, and not a whisper of prayer entered the ears of the family-Baal, he began to wish that he had not sent him away. The desire to see him grew a ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... degraded, but she cannot set it free from earth except by exalting it towards heaven. It was for this end that a renovating grace was put into her hands; and therefore from the nature of the gift, as well as from the reasonableness of the case, she goes on, as a further point, to insist, that all true conversion must begin with the first springs of thought, and to teach that each individual man must be in his own person one ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... that she and Frances had a duet they wanted to practise before playing it to their mother, that Mrs Mildmay's slight instinctive misgiving as to her elder daughter's docility and reasonableness was for ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... be made by a minister, and Mr. Asquith would turn to Lord Kitchener for his opinion. Lord Kitchener would say, "It's impossible," and close his lips firmly. At this Mr. Lloyd George would attack him, pointing out the reasonableness of this proposal in swift and persuasive phrases. Lord Kitchener, shifting on his chair, would repeat, "It's impossible." Then in question after question Mr. Churchill would ask why it was impossible. "It's impossible," Lord Kitchener would ...
— The Mirrors of Downing Street - Some Political Reflections by a Gentleman with a Duster • Harold Begbie
... and a mother's nervous vitality, but his own cheerful spirit and indomitable will." The Sheriff, in this letter to me, recalls several reminiscences of Stevenson-some in a playful or contrariwise vein, and another memory illustrates, he says, "the sweet reasonableness which mingled with his wayward Bohemianism"; but space does not allow me to quote more than how, "It seems but yesterday that I met Louis in the Parliament House, and said I heard he had got a case. And I seem to see the twinkle in his eye and the toss of his arms as he answered, 'Yes, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • E. Blantyre Simpson
... the services of Lord Saxingham, etc.; he rejoiced that Lord Vargrave's absence from London had prevented his being prematurely mixed up, by false scruples of honour, in secessions which his judgment must condemn. He treated of the question in dispute with the most delicate address,—confessed the reasonableness of Lord Vargrave's former opposition to it; but contended that it was now, if not wise, inevitable. He said nothing of the justice of the measure he proposed to adopt, but much on the expediency. He concluded by offering to Vargrave, in the most cordial and flattering terms, the very seat in ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the North Carolina Synod for the reasons of the hope that is in them, or properly, for the proofs of their doctrines; and, agreeably to the last invitation given them, they might have had the opportunity of showing the reasonableness of their doctrines. Now as they have neglected to endeavor to convince us, why do they warn the people against us, especially since they are not willing to confront us in a public debate?" (42 f.) Henkel continues: "We, as it has ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... they should then have mutinied for the captains. But, I say, they got intelligence what had passed there, and were much concerned therewith, wherefore, they, getting some of the town together, began to possess them with the reasonableness of the noble captains' demands, and with the bad consequences that would follow upon the speech of old Incredulity, the Lord Mayor—to wit, how little reverence he showed therein, either to the captains, or to their King; also, how he implicitly charged them with unfaithfulness, and treachery: ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fitting—and in this the child quite acquiesces—that as he approaches the reverend period of nine or say ten years, he should still be the unabashed and proclaimed possessor of a hoop and a Noah's Ark. The child will quite see the reasonableness of this, and, the goal of his ambition being now a catapult, a pistol, or even a sword-stick, will be satisfied that the titular ownership should lapse to his juniors, so far below him in their kilted or petticoated incompetence. After all, the things are still there, and if relapses of spirit occur, ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... to speak, the front window, where the goods were displayed, but where one got away with the goods was in the back parlour. There, too, the fiercest international questions boiled up, boiled over, and were cooled by the calming temperature of the table and the sweet but firm reasonableness of some of the representatives of the more considerable powers. The committee meetings were, in fact, not only more effective than the Assembly meetings, ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... communities of varied races, and all the other peculiarities of India, you have to think out how your proposals will work. Democracies do not always think how things will work. Sir Henry Cotton made a speech that interested and struck me by its moderation and reasonableness. He made a number of remarks in perfect good faith about officials, which I received in a chastened spirit, for he has been for a very long time a very distinguished official himself. Therefore, he knows all about it. He went on to talk of the great problem of the separation ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... disregarded, probably because they were couched in respectful language. He said this, because recent experience had shown that if they had formed illegal associations, collected funds, and spoken to government in the language of intimidation, they would have received attention. Of the reasonableness of their complaints no man could doubt who knew their situation. Rents were paid from the capital of the farmer; and numbers of tenants had already been driven from their farms in bankruptcy and beggary. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... damned, choose and refuse at pleasure; and besides, they at this day shall be convinced that there was so much reality, and downright willingness in God, in every tender of grace and mercy to the worst of men, and also so much goodness, justness, and reasonableness in every command of the gospel of grace, which they were so often entreated and beseeched to embrace, that they will be drowned in the conviction of this, that they did refuse love, grace, and reason—love, I say, ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... will show the reasonableness of this statement and prove our contention that all we see here is really crystallized thought. Our houses, our machinery, our chairs and tables, all that has been made by the hand of man is the embodiment of a thought. As the juices in the soft ...
— The Rosicrucian Mysteries • Max Heindel
... raised her head for the moment, but soon let it sink again in her musings, and when Bennet reminded her, replied, "I can't, Bennet, it breaks my neck." Her will was not with her mother's, in a trifling matter of which the reasonableness could not but approve itself to her. How, then, was it likely to be bent to that of her Heavenly Parent, ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge
... And the reasonableness of this view grows the clearer to us the more we realise the purposive character of the evolutionary process. The unmistakeable purpose of that process is the production of the higher from the lower; all through the ages the vast design ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... "Sweet Reasonableness? Another host Of sages see! The habits of the Ghost, The Astral Body's action, Absorb them, eager. Does more furious fire The councils of the Caucusites inspire, Or light the feuds ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 8, 1890 • Various
... enough,' say the inhabitants, 'that our houses should be made a receptacle of this mass of want and misery: it cannot surely be intended that we are to be mulcted in heavy pecuniary damages besides.' The reasonableness of these sentiments can hardly be questioned—bitter indignation would be aroused by the attempt to confute them—and yet I feel that if I were too freely to assent to them, I might encourage recklessness, ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... antagonist of the established order of things. He seems to have attained a sort of optimism strangely at variance with his earlier views; to have declared that running through all these conflicts, revolutions, and evolutions there is and has been a certain national sense, a sort of collective reasonableness, which is constantly making itself felt, and being expressed in its best form by the leaders of opinion, the aristocrats of nature; that the torrent runs, as it were, between solid banks; that in the long run character triumphs ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... certain timidity held me back. It was so great a matter that I was afraid to broach it by word of mouth lest I might fail to put it in just the best way before your mind, and its strangeness might terrify you before you could be led to consider its reasonableness. But, now that I am coming home to stay, I should not be able to keep it from you, and it has seemed to me better to write you in this way, so that you may have time fully to debate the matter with your own heart before you see me. ...
— Miss Ludington's Sister • Edward Bellamy
... that such a method should incur the charge of sentimentalism. "It would be so nice to believe it, therefore it must be true," sounds like a shameless abandonment of reasonableness. The fact that a belief is "consoling," quite independently of its truth or falsehood, creates a bias towards its acceptance. That it is pleasant to believe oneself very clever and competent will incline one to that belief until ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... will be struck by their thorough reasonableness,—a reasonableness which does not exclude, but includes, the deepest and warmest religious sensibility. Moral and religious feeling pervades every statement; but the feeling is still confined within a flexible framework of argument, which, while it enlarges with every access of emotion, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... since his declaration of Republicanism, and defence of it, and an allusion to one must imply the other, she feared: feared, but far from quailingly. She had come to think that she could read the man she loved, and detect a reasonableness in his extravagance. Her father had discovered the impolicy of attacking Beauchamp in her hearing. The fever by which Cecilia was possessed on her lover's behalf, often overcame discretion, set her judgement in a whirl, was like ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... not consider an atom of oxygen as in itself important, yet if it wishes to get a volume of pure gas, it must separate the elements. The human soul was an atom that could unite with God only as a simple element. The French mystics showed in their mysticism the same French reasonableness; the sense of measure, of logic, of science; the allegiance to form; the transparency of thought, which the French mind has always shown on its surface like a shell of nacre. The mystics were in substance rather more logical than the schoolmen and much more artistic in their ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... there was nothing, which something created everything; its advocates would be tongue-tied and lost if reduced to the hard necessity of appealing to facts, or rigidly regarding rules of philosophising which have only their reasonableness to recommend them. They profess ability to account for Nature, and are of course exceeding eager to justify a profession so presumptuous. This eagerness betrays them into courses, of which no one bent on rejecting whatever is either opposed to, ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... up a better suit for half the price at old Battista, the Lombard's at Bordeaux; nevertheless, since young Eustace would be the show of the camp if he appeared there provided in Ralph's fashion, it may be as well to see whether there be any reasonableness ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... religion on authority, or on the word of others. I reply, that a faith so received seems to me of little worth. The precious, the living, the effectual part of a poor man's faith, is that of which he sees the reasonableness and excellence; that which approves itself to his intelligence, his conscience, his heart; that which answers to deep wants in his own soul, and of which he has the witness in his own inward and outward ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... I had always been accustomed to cheerfulness, good humour, and serenity; and this habit now returned to visit me at the bottom of my dungeon. No sooner did my contemplations take this turn, than I saw the reasonableness and possibility of tranquillity and peace; and my mind whispered to me the propriety of showing, in this forlorn condition, that I was superior to all my persecutors. Blessed state of innocence and self-approbation! The ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... extirpation of any village in which an illicit death occurs. One will incline to presume that on this head the German Imperial procedure would be more after the Russian than after the Turkish pattern; although latterday circumstantial evidence will throw some sinister doubt on the reasonableness ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... errors are excluded by the fact that Christ instituted this sacrament under the species of bread and wine, as is evident from Matt. 26. Consequently, bread and wine are the proper matter of this sacrament. And the reasonableness of this is seen first, in the use of this sacrament, which is eating: for, as water is used in the sacrament of Baptism for the purpose of spiritual cleansing, since bodily cleansing is commonly done with water; so bread and wine, wherewith men are commonly ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... and Judaea was governed by the procurator, Pontius Pilate (A.D. 26). Jesus announced himself as the Messiah, the founder of a kingdom "not of this world;" the members of which were to be brethren, having God for their Father. He taught in a tone of authority, yet with "a sweet reasonableness;" and his wonderful teaching was accompanied with marvelous works of power and mercy, as "he went about doing good." He attached to himself twelve disciples, among whom Peter, and the two brothers James and John, were the men of most mark. These had listened to the ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... stones of the street—all the dumb things of nature—might find a voice to talk to you. I have no facility; I am awkward and embarrassed and dry." When this young lady, after a struggle with the winds and waves of emotion, emerged into the quiet stream of a certain high reasonableness, she presented her most graceful aspect; she had a tone of softness and sympathy, a gentle dignity, a serenity of wisdom, which sealed the appreciation of those who knew her well enough to like her, and which always ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... and reasonableness of the great main positions of Christian faith and service are constructively presented. Careful attention is also given to the practical application of Christian principles to the perplexing problems ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... but she saw the reasonableness of her mother's proposal, and pressing Lady Westborough's hand ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... time less favorable to the equity of such a taxation. I don't mean to dispute the reasonableness of America contributing to the charges of Great Britain, when she is able; nor, I believe, would the Americans themselves have disputed it at a proper time and season. But it should be considered, that the American governments themselves have, in the prosecution of the late war, contracted very ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Parser, p. 123. "If I say, 'I gallopped from Islington to Holloway;' the verb is intransitive: if, 'I gallopped my horse from Islington to Holloway;' it is transitive."—Churchill's Gram., p. 238. "The reasonableness of setting a part one day in seven."—The Friend, Vol. iv, p. 240. "The promoters of paper money making reprobated this act."—Webster's Essays, p. 196. "There are five compound personal pronouns, which are derived from the five simple personal pronouns by adding to some ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... always fastening the door with his dagger, and never opening to any summons but his own, not even Prince Carloman's. Richard wondered, but he was obliged to obey; and he knew enough of the perils around him to perceive the reasonableness of Osmond's caution. ...
— The Little Duke - Richard the Fearless • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Mrs. Manderson, looking up at him with a mild reasonableness in her eyes, "as I knew that he was innocent I was not going to expose him to ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... genius. He would not find a single patient now, it would be a useless cruelty to force him to make an attempt which would assuredly result only in a lacerated heart and empty hands. Clotilde, on the contrary, had used all her influence to turn him from the idea. Martine comprehended the reasonableness of these objections, and she too declared that he must be prevented from running the risk of so great a chagrin. But while she was speaking a new idea occurred to her, as she suddenly remembered an old register, which she had ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... correctly," continued Ferris, imperturbably, "you will see that there is probably a moment of anguish, perhaps not even that moment, and then your wife is here with you in the land of spirits. I am sure that is a consummation devoutly to be wished. Even a man in your state of mind must see the reasonableness of this. Now, looking at the question in what you would call its most serious aspect, see how little it amounts to. It isn't worth a moment's ...
— From Whose Bourne • Robert Barr
... raisings of the "dead." The insistence of some writers on the virgin birth and corporeal resurrection of Jesus as essential to Christianity has required brief discussion of these also, mainly with reference to the reasonableness of that demand. As to the latter miracle, it must be observed that in the Biblical narratives taken as a whole, whichever of their discordant features one be disposed to emphasize, the psychical element clearly preponderates ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... because he said it, he would show his pleasure by making the man more and more dissatisfied until he knew why the Lord had said it. He would make him see that he could not in the deepest sense—in the way the Lord loves—obey any command until he saw the reasonableness of it. Observe I do not say the man ought to put off obeying the command until he see its reasonableness: that is another thing quite, and does not lie in the scope of my present supposition. It is a beautiful thing to obey the rightful source of a command: it is a more beautiful thing ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald
... "If reasonableness counted for anything in things like that, it was a pretty good plan. It would have to be somebody like Hermione. You can't get on at all with young girls. As long as you remember they're around, you're afraid to say ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... your discourse be full of "sweet reasonableness." Peter tells you "to be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason for the hope that is within you," although Peter himself seldom gave a ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... constitutional party conflict have been fully allowed for, there does remain the bold, bleak question which Dickens in substance asks, "Suppose I want somebody else who is neither Coodle nor Doodle." This is the great quality called satire; it is a kind of taunting reasonableness; and it is inseparable from a certain insane logic which is often called exaggeration. Dickens was more of a satirist than Thackeray for this simple reason: that Thackeray carried a man's principles as far as that man carried them; Dickens carried a man's principles as far as a man's principles ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... adaptation to the wants of man, and of its tendency to promote his highest welfare, is the best answer to all objections, and the most convincing proof of its truth and divinity. And the truth, the reasonableness, the consistency, the purifying and ennobling tendency, and the unequalled consoling power of Christianity, can be proved, and proved with comparative ease; but to defend the nonsense, the contradictions, the antinomianism ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... actions. We need not discuss the legitimacy of their inferences. We are concerned solely with a chronicle of historic facts so far as they can be ascertained; and these have a certain significance of their own, as events, quite apart from their reasonableness or desirability. ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... Bible. I call it an abuse, for such action degrades the Bible to the level of a heathen oracle. Isaiah, like all the great prophets, habitually contrasted the true and the false communications of of the Divine will by the test of the reasonableness of their manifestations. The real prophet heard the voice of God, not so much in dreams and visions, in the "peepings and chirpings" of the oracles, as in the calm and sober working of his mind, illumined from on high. The oracle was the antithesis of ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... and that chastisement, when it comes, is sent in fatherly love, viii. 5; and it presses home upon the sluggish conscience the duty of kindness to the down-trodden and destitute, with a sweet and irresistible reasonableness—"Love the sojourner, for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt," ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... numerous than the body of the allies; and in that body, again, probably the Latins as a whole were liable to far greater demands upon them than the non-Latin allied communities. There was thus a certain reasonableness in the appropriation by which Rome ranked first, and the Latins next to her, in the distribution of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... sweetness of England, her hills and dales, her pastures with sweet flowers, and the loveliness of her silver streams. It is the cherishing of the wholesome enjoyments of daily life that has implanted in the sons of England love of home, goodness of nature, and sweet reasonableness, and has given strength to the thews and sinews of her children, enabling them to defend her land, her principles, and her prosperity. With regard to the three Sonning bridges, parts of them have been already rebuilt with iron fittings in recent years, and no disinterested reasonable person can see ...
— Vanishing England • P. H. Ditchfield
... freedom of man's will is a logical necessity. Reason demands it. Now, let us look at this a little. If man is not free to choose between good and evil; between right and wrong; between truth and falsity; wherein lies the reasonableness of instructing him? of exhorting him to do what is right, and to shun what is wrong? of commanding him to do good, with promises of reward for his obedience, and threatenings of judgment and fiery indignation as the sure penalties of his ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... impress upon the jury the reasonableness of this disposition, Clark said: "This, gentlemen of the jury, is another striking illustration of the power of human friendship. All history—sacred and profane—is full of instances of strong personal ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... it, and she moved with greatest ease in the regions which most of her rivals carefully avoided. To throw out those scintillant bubbles of sound which used to be looked upon as the highest achievement in singing seemed to be an entirely natural mode of expression with her. With the reasonableness of such a mode of expression I am not concerned now; it is enough that Mme. Melba came nearer to providing it with justification than any one of her contemporaries of that day, except Mme. Sembrich, or any of her contemporaries of to-day. ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... was just ending his speech. He was congratulating the Community on their reasonableness and loyalty. By an overwhelming majority they had decided to trust the King, and they would not find his grace unmindful of that. As for those who had not signed he could say nothing but that they had used the liberty that his Grace had given them. Whether ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... kept silence. Then she continued, in a voice in which persuasiveness was added to calm, engaging reasonableness: ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... open to conviction. To him, truth had no stereotyped forms. His mind never became a petrifaction, but was ever growing and vital. At first he was opposed to civil service reform; but after a study of the subject, he was convinced of its reasonableness and practicality, and became ever afterwards a hearty upholder of this method of selecting the servants of government, in the nation, the ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... willingness is all, forget that it seems no more in our power to believe than it is to love. We apparently "fall into" the one as we do into the other; we do not choose to believe, we cannot help believing. And unless a man's mind is satisfied with the reasonableness of faith, he cannot "make believe." Romanes, who certainly wished for fellowship with the Christian God as ardently as any man, confessed: "Even the simplest act of will in regard to religion—that of prayer—has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of a century, simply because ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... seemed to him that he had never talked to anyone who possessed more of that sweetness and wide reasonableness of outlook upon life which ought to be the end of education. He tried to express something of what he felt, but Hope stopped him and turned the ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... for facilitating the acquisition of languages will not be difficult. The first books put into the hands of a pupil should be simple, interesting, and agreeable. By their means, he will perceive a reasonableness and a beauty in the pursuit. If he be endowed by nature with a clear understanding, and the smallest propensity to literature, he will need very little to stimulate him either from ...
— Four Early Pamphlets • William Godwin
... resistless force behind his own soul must sometimes have tempted him, Jeremiah was further guarded by his visions of the Divine working in Nature. He is never more clear or musical than when singing of the regularity, faithfulness and reasonableness of this. With such a Creator, such a Providence, there could ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... portrait is in every way worthy of the master's reputation. If the first essential in a portrait is an exact likeness, this one possesses it to a very high degree. The head, which is admirably painted, expresses the indulgent and wise character, the gentleness and reasonableness, that are so conspicuous in the model; the eyes an expression, affectionate and paternal; the expression of the mouth is most striking; one feels that it can utter only words of ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... in the state of civilization that will give perfection to the revolution of France. Already the conviction that government by representation is the true system of government is spreading itself fast in the world. The reasonableness of it can be seen by all. The justness of it makes itself felt even by its opposers. But when a system of civilization, growing out of that system of government, shall be so organized that not a man or woman born in the Republic but shall inherit some means of beginning the world, and see before ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... divided into two portions, the kingdom to constitute one, and the wealth and treasures the other, and that Numitor should choose which portion he would have. This proposal seemed to have the appearance, at least, of reasonableness and impartiality; and it would have been really very reasonable, if the right to the inheritance thus disposed of, had belonged equally to the younger and to the elder son. But it did not. And thus the offer of Amulius was, in effect, a proposition ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... reply? He had me on the matter of reasonableness. Besides, my head ached. And the funny thing, as I admitted it to myself, was that evolution teaches in no uncertain voice that man did run on all-fours ere he came to walk upright, that astronomy states flatly that the speed of the revolution of the earth on ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... was difficult to resist the request, backed as it was with weight of character and grace of manner, along with its intrinsic reasonableness; and he saw no other way so expedient of getting out ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... his native country. Of the farm, which he himself occupied, the rent had, in twenty-five years, been advanced from five to twenty pounds, which he found himself so little able to pay, that he would be glad to try his fortune in some other place. Yet he owned the reasonableness of raising the Highland rents in a certain degree, and declared himself willing to pay ten pounds for the ground which he had formerly ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... the wrath of the sea began to fail. The racing lop, the eager, fuming crests—a black-and-white confusion beneath the quiet, gray fog—subsided into reasonableness. 'Twas wild enough, wind and sea, beyond the tickle rocks; but still 'twas fishing weather and water ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... upon the masculine character and comfort if this shyness should become general, as it may in a contingency that is already on the horizon? We refer, of course, to the suggestion, coming from various quarters, that women should propose. The reasonableness of this suggestion may not lie on the surface; it may not be deduced from the uniform practice, beginning with the primitive men and women; it may not be inferred from the open nature of the two ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... daily reading in 1826 covers a good deal of miscellaneous ground, including Moliere and Racine, Blair's Sermons ('not very substantial'), Tom Jones, Tomline's Life of Pitt, Waterland's Commentaries, Leslie on Deism, Locke's Defence of The Reasonableness of Christianity, which he finds excellent; Paradise Lost, Milton's Latin Poems and Epitaphium Damonis ('exquisite'), Massinger's Fatal Dowry ('most excellent'), Ben Jonson's Alchemist; Scott, including the Bride of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... His sense of values was impregnated with what he called his 'espagnolisme'—his immense admiration for the noble and the high-sounding in speech or act or character—an admiration which landed him often enough in hysterics and absurdity. Yet this was the soil in which a temperament of caustic reasonableness had somehow implanted itself. The contrast is surprising, because it is so extreme. Other men have been by turns sensible and enthusiastic: but who before or since has combined the emotionalism of a schoolgirl with the cold ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... of the Queensland shearers has afforded opportunity for a display of an equal faculty of logic and reasonableness. The shearers, at loggerheads with the squatters, proposed to arrange their differences by arson. They threatened openly to fire the grass upon those vast northern plains where fire is the thing most to be dreaded amongst many and terrible enemies. They not only threatened but they carried ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... exempt from earthquakes and epidemics because it is under the protection of Saint John the Baptist, and because its provincial councillor is a saintly man.'" Such journalistic plain speaking, such lack of sweet reasonableness, cannot expect to survive in a world governed by compromise, and if the gift of prophecy has not deserted me, I should say that "Co-operation" has by this time ended its useful ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... this morning with solicitors, and with nobody more than my brother, Dr. Freind, who must needs have to get old Dr. Lawrence,(14) the Physician-General, turned out and himself in. He has argued with me so long upon the reasonableness of it, that I am fully convinced it is very unreasonable; and so I would tell the Secretary, if I had not already made him speak to the Queen. Besides, I know not but my friend Dr. Arbuthnot would be content ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... Christianity as being mainly a set of truths—spiritual, moral, intellectual—then, of course, the way to prove Christianity is to show the consistency of that body of truths with one another, their consistency with other truths, their derivation from admitted principles, their reasonableness, their adaptation to men's nature, the refining and elevating effects of their adoption, and so on. If we think of Christianity, on the other hand, as being first a set of historical facts which carry the doctrines, then the way to prove Christianity is not ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... Bloemfontein scheme and of the seven years' franchise of the Volksraad proposals. They remember also how the "Hofmeyr compromise" was proclaimed in the Bond and the ministerial press as affording conclusive evidence of the "sweet reasonableness" of President Krueger and his Executive. And so they remark, "We are sorry not to be able to follow your advice; but we point out that you yourself let it be known that we had your whole approval, if we gave the present franchise ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... section 111(d)(1)(B) may be adjusted to insure that the rates for the additional distant signal equivalents resulting from such carriage are reasonable in the light of the changes effected by the amendment to such rules and regulations. In determining the reasonableness of rates proposed following an amendment of Federal Communications Commission rules and regulations, the copyright arbitration royalty panels shall consider, among other factors, the economic impact on copyright owners ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... the speech of Woodin that the anti-Grant forces had the reasonableness of the argument, but the acceptance of the Utica instructions put delegates in a delicate position. To say that Conkling had "tricked" them into a pledge which the convention had no authority to exact,[1680] did ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... men would have everything their own way and make life intolerable. Fortunately the evil-doers always have the fear of this intangible six-shooter before them; a wholesome feeling, which restrains them more than reasonableness or the law courts, and to which we owe it that the meek are permitted to inherit the earth. But now this quarrel was with a whole nation, though certainly not with a very great one, since the population of the Banda Oriental numbers only ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... whom we beg also to suppose the most ignorant of readers, by way of thus founding a necessity and a case of philosophic reasonableness for the circumstantiality of our own explanations, will be pleased to understand that by ancient traditionary usage the word rhapsodia is the designation technically applied to the several books or cantos of the 'Iliad' ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... half the men in London have gone mad over you," were her first words following the train of her own thoughts, and she liked her visitor none the less, that world-loving little old woman, because she could not but acknowledge the reasonableness of the madness of which she accused her of being ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... of a mere idea, and seldom or never to the realization of practical good." Whatever may be said in praise of culture, of its power to make its possessor at home in the world of the best thought, the purest sentiment, the highest achievements of the race; of the freedom, the mildness, the reasonableness of the temper it begets; of its aim at completeness and perfection,—it is nevertheless true, that if it be sought apart from faith in God and devotion to man, its tendency is to produce an artificial and unsympathetic ...
— Education and the Higher Life • J. L. Spalding
... tiff. All you need in these matters is a little give and take, a bit of reasonableness on both sides. We got together and talked things over. She withdrew my double chin. I conceded her shark. Perfectly simple. All done ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... Marie laughed. It was as if now in the suspicion of the officer she saw a certain reasonableness. "Briand was so long in the Foreign Legion in Algiers," she explained, "where my husband found him, that we have come to think of him as French. As much French as ourselves, ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... organized groups will govern the action of the wage earners, and produce almost the same result under any system of wage payment. The state of industrial relations, the satisfaction the workers feel in their position, the reasonableness shown by the different groups, the intelligence or ignorance of labor leadership—these and similar other factors will, at bottom, govern the effort put forth by the wage earners. These are the matters to which all who realize ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis
... returns Mr. Snagsby; "I was sure you would feel it yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman. You see, the foreign female—which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a native sound I am sure—caught up the word Snagsby that night, being uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... regardless of my mind's wish; perhaps only a joke which diverts me; perchance the "take-for-granted you want to help us out" air; mayhap the story to be read or told; or simply the poise and quiet assurance of the nurse who never questions my reasonableness and acquiescence; perhaps her confidence that this will serve as a means to the end I covet—will result in my gladly taking her advice, and my perfect willingness to wait for new orders, while I indulge in beautiful plans I shall carry ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... century to heaven. We are Intermediatists—but feel a lurking suspicion that we may some day solidify and dogmatize and illiberalize into higher positivists. At present we do not ask whether something be reasonable or preposterous, because we recognize that by reasonableness and preposterousness are meant agreement and disagreement with a standard—which must be a delusion—though not absolutely, of course—and must some day be displaced by a more advanced quasi-delusion. Scientists in the past have taken the positivist attitude—is ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... and to the place, expulsion is a dreaded punishment. Yours is the old system of making laws and enforcing them by penalties, and the superiority of Alton College to other colleges is due, not to any difference of system, but to the comparative reasonableness of its laws and the mildness and judgment with ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... extolled Bristol above her other rivals, it would be said of him that he was a verbose individual, who had called in past years Leeds a beautiful and inspiring city, Liverpool a rising seaport, and Glasgow a town where urbanity and sweet reasonableness prevailed. It might be remembered of him that he had praised the Birmingham man for his childlike humility, and the Edinburgh man for his excessive modesty. It was his first visit to Bristol, and it was presumption on his part to ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs |
