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Alter   /ˈɔltər/   Listen
Alter

verb
(past & past part. altered; pres. part. altering)
1.
Cause to change; make different; cause a transformation.  Synonyms: change, modify.  "The discussion has changed my thinking about the issue"
2.
Become different in some particular way, without permanently losing one's or its former characteristics or essence.  Synonyms: change, vary.  "The supermarket's selection of vegetables varies according to the season"
3.
Make an alteration to.
4.
Insert words into texts, often falsifying it thereby.  Synonyms: falsify, interpolate.
5.
Remove the ovaries of.  Synonyms: castrate, neuter, spay.



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"Alter" Quotes from Famous Books



... bow to the shore, and gave cloth, medals, etc. to some people who were there. For this treatment they offered to haul the boats over the breakers to the sandy beach, which I thought a friendly offer, but had reason afterwards to alter my opinion. When they found I would not do as they desired, they made signs for us to go down into the bay, which we accordingly did, and they ran along shore abreast of us, their number increasing ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... neither of them as he stood there by the sunlit stream, in which no drop of water retained its place for a moment, and which yet did not alter in appearance at all. He did not heed his elders for the excellent reason that Sylvie de Nointel was about to speak, and he preferred to listen to her. For this girl, he knew, was lovelier than any other person had ever been since Eve first raised just such admiring, innocent, and venturesome ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... shall lend an appropriate Epilogue. "I stand ready," said he (1672), "with a pencil in one hand, and a spunge in the other, to add, alter, insert, efface, enlarge, and delete, according to better information. And if these my pains shall be found worthy to passe a second Impression, my faults I will confess with shame, and amend with thankfulnesse, to such as will contribute ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... revelation has been happily continued in an unbroken succession of vessels from that time to this. But a mysterious law of spiritual economy, whose operation in the history of religion we may deplore though we cannot alter, has decreed that the miracles wrought by the god-man in these degenerate days cannot compare with those which were wrought by his predecessors in days gone by; and it is even reported that the only sign ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... precious manuscript to his bosom friend, Sidney Rigdon, that he might embellish and alter it, as he might think expedient. The publisher now dead, Rigdon allowed this chef-d'oeuvre to remain in his desk, till, reflecting upon his precarious means, and upon his chances of obtaining a future livelihood, a sudden idea struck him. Rigdon ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... all obliged to me," said Belinda. "When I first heard this story, I believed it, as Lady Boucher now does—but I have had reason to alter my opinion, and perhaps the same means of information would have changed hers; once convinced, it is impossible to relapse ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... Great Britain, however, have been advanced, as they certainly have, by the colony trade, it has not been by means of the monopoly of that trade, but in spite of the monopoly. The effect of the monopoly has been, not to augment the quantity, but to alter the quality and shape of a part of the manufactures of Great Britain, and to accommodate to a market, from which the returns are slow and distant, what would otherwise have been accommodated to one from which the returns are frequent and near. Its effect has consequently been, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... was in a condition of excitement that is hard to describe. Grand juries made presentments, county and town meetings passed resolutions, and petitions were sent from hand to hand, and signed by hundreds of people. A State convention, called to alter the constitution, had been chosen to meet in May, 1795, but the members had been chosen at the same time that the members of the corrupt Legislature had been elected; and a majority of them had been ...
— Stories Of Georgia - 1896 • Joel Chandler Harris

... every attempt, even to servility, had been made, in order to induce Emily to alter her determination, but without success; and that a coolness had, in consequence, taken place, and almost an entire interruption of the intimacy between the families. She also added, "I am afraid that your friend is even worse than yourself; for I understand that ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat

... Semyonitch. I know you have always been a sensible man. Such is the mistress's will and there is no changing it. You can't alter that. Whatever you and I might say about it would make ...
— Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... you be enthusiastic over any view of things which you know to have been partly made by yourself, and which is liable to alter during the next minute? How is any heroic devotion to the ideal of truth ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James

... we may as well make bonfires on May day as at midsummer: we'll alter the day in the calendar, and set it ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]

... excellence. Constant out-of-door exercise, riding, hunting, shooting, takes the place of manual labour. All the refinements that money can purchase, travel, education, are here at work. That the culture of the mind can alter the expression of the individual is certain; if continued for many generations, possibly it may leave its mark upon the actual bodily frame. Selection exerts a most powerful influence in these cases. The rich and titled have so wide a range to choose from. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies

... constitutional power for each State to annul, not only any law which the State may deem unconstitutional, but to abolish the Constitution itself as the law of the State. Now, by this Constitution, Carolina granted certain powers to the General Government: may she constitutionally alter or revoke the grant, in a manner repugnant to the provisions of that Constitution? That instrument points out the mode in which it may be changed or abrogated, and by which the several States may assume all or any of the powers granted to the General Government, namely, by the conjoint ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... acquainted for the first time with the causes which have prevented the ratification of the treaty by His Catholic Majesty. It is alleged by the minister of Spain that his Government had attempted to alter one of the principal articles of the treaty by a declaration which the minister of the United States had been ordered to present when he should deliver the ratification by his Government in exchange for that of Spain, and of which he gave notice, explanatory of the sense in ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Monroe • James Monroe

... Festival. That very striking poem, one of the most solid of Ibsen's lyrical performances, had opened in the key of unmitigated defiance to popular opinion at home. It was intended to show Norwegians that they must alter their attitude towards him, as he would never change his behavior towards them. "My countrymen," ...
— Henrik Ibsen • Edmund Gosse

... circulated in the college that something resembling a miracle was occurring, and that success seemed probable for the absent-minded "Mad Monk." I made no attempt to hide the facts of the case. The local professors were powerless to alter the questions, which had been arranged by ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda

... asked why the syndicate had chosen such an unsuitable time of the year to come down from Canada. But Baxter did not know. I continued to growl, but there was no way out of it. I must go to New York. For the sake of perhaps half a million dollars, which would not alter our ordinary manner of living, which would not give us any pleasures, privileges, or advantages of any kind which we did not now possess, we must break up our delightful life at the cot and rill, and go back to the humdrum of ...
— John Gayther's Garden and the Stories Told Therein • Frank R. Stockton

... "with an agony of passion," we are led to suppose that the females which are present are thus charmed. (50. L. Lloyd, 'The Game Birds of Sweden,' etc., 1867, pp. 22, 81.) The voice of the common rook is known to alter during the breeding-season, and is therefore in some way sexual. (51. Jenner, 'Philosophical Transactions,' 1824, p. 20.) But what shall we say about the harsh screams of, for instance, some kinds of macaws; have these birds as bad taste for musical sounds as they apparently have for colour, ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin

... men looked up at the Great Bear, and saw it apparently the same as we see it now; yet for all that length of time the stars composing it have been rushing in this direction and that at an enormous speed, but do not appear to us on the earth to alter their positions in regard to each other. I know of nothing that gives one a more overwhelming sense of the mightiness of the universe and the smallness of ourselves than this fact. From age to age men look ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton

... Philadelphia. I have opened more than three kilometers of good cart road of five to six meters in width, from Piste toward [C]itas; but for reasons that it is out of place to refer to here, and which I have not been able up to the present time to alter, for they do not depend on me, I have seen myself compelled to hurriedly abandon my works on the 6th of the ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... promises to accompany me to the east, although I knew of their conspiracy; and I trusted that by tact and good management I should eventually thwart all their plans, and, although forced out of my intended course, I should be able to alter my route, and to work round from the east to my original plan of operations south. The interpreter given by Koorshid Aga had absconded: this was a great loss, as I had no means of communication with the natives except by casually engaging a Bari in ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker

... afraid that he would alter his mind; and though he might keep his word, he might cause us to be taken up for killing the slave-hunters, or stealing the boat and provisions, or something of that kind. I shall keep out of his way. If we should be arrested, I ...
— Watch and Wait - or The Young Fugitives • Oliver Optic

... steel the foe, and Waterloo to be wiped out like Sedan? A child in arms should be able to see that this idiotic notion of relaxing the military pressure on us by smashing this or that particular Power is like trying to alter the pressure of the ocean by dipping up a bucket of water from the North Sea and pouring it into the Bay ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... system of zetetic astronomy. Why he should call himself Parallax it would be hard to say; unless it be that the verb from which the word is derived signifies primarily to shift about or dodge, and secondarily to alter a little, especially for the worse. His employment of the word zetetic is less doubtful, as he claims for his system that it alone is founded on the true seeking out of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... don't blurt out my opinions in that style, and you hadn't better do it, either. To be consistent I am obliged to say that those Texans had no business to come over the Missouri line, but circumstances alter cases. We are in trouble, we can't stand against the power of the abolition government, and I shall be glad to see ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon

... said—'I woo thee not with gifts: Sequel of guerdon could not alter me To fairer. Judge thou me by what I am, So shalt thou ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... that he can gravely affirm the poison apparatus of the venomous snakes to be "entirely separate from the ordinary laws of animal life, and peculiar to themselves;" of the rudiments of physiology, that he can ask, "what advantage of life could alter the shape of the corpuscles into which the blood can be evaporated?" Nor does the reviewer fail to flavour this outpouring of preposterous incapacity with a little stimulation of the odium theologicum. Some inkling of the history of the conflicts between Astronomy, Geology, ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley

... becomes stabilized. Man and animals affect invasion by the destruction of germules. Both in bare areas and in seral stages the action of rodents and birds is often decisive to the extent of altering the whole course of development. Man and animals operate as marked barriers to ecesis wherever they alter conditions unfavorably to invaders or where they turn the scale in competition by cultivating, grazing, camping, parasitism, etc. The absence of pollinating insects is sometimes a curious barrier to the complete ecesis of species far out of their usual habitat or region. Parasitic fungi ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... one, which the exigencies of the chase compelled them to take originally. They repass each spot which they passed at first; and this is to them a matter of such imperative necessity that no additional fatigue nor even the gravest danger can make them alter ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... instrument is unlike any other musical instrument; it most nearly approaches a reed instrument. The clarionet and the oboe are examples of reed instruments, in which the reed does not alter but by means of stops the length of the column of air in the resonating pipe varies and determines the pitch of the fundamental note. The organ-pipe with the vibrating tongue of metal serving as the reed is perhaps the nearest approach to the vocal organ; ...
— The Brain and the Voice in Speech and Song • F. W. Mott

... our freedom When we submit to women so: Why do we need 'em When, in their best, they work our woe? There is no wisdom Can alter ends by Fate prefixt. O, why is the good of man with evil mixt? Never were days yet called two But ...
— Lyrics from the Song-Books of the Elizabethan Age • Various

... the Geology of the United States Expedition, and I have just read the Coral part. To begin with a modest speech, I AM ASTONISHED AT MY OWN ACCURACY!! If I were to rewrite now my Coral book there is hardly a sentence I should have to alter, except that I ought to have attributed more effect to recent volcanic action in checking growth of coral. When I say all this I ought to add that the CONSEQUENCES of the theory on areas of subsidence are treated in a separate chapter to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin

... chill of death were already on his brow, and spoke with a firmness which seemed beyond his strength. "Cousin Francis," he said, "draw near to me." I approached him as he requested.—"I wish you only to know that the pangs of death do not alter I one iota of my feelings towards you. I hate you!" he said, the expression of rage throwing a hideous glare into the eyes which were soon to be closed for ever—"I hate you with a hatred as intense, now ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... success. Three knights only appeared on the fourth entry, who, avoiding the shields of Bois-Guilbert and Front-de-Boeuf, contented themselves with touching those of the three other knights, who had not altogether manifested the same strength and dexterity. This politic selection did not alter the fortune of the field, the challengers were still successful: one of their antagonists was overthrown, and both the others failed in the "attaint", [18] that is, in striking the helmet and shield of their antagonist firmly and strongly, with the lance held in a direct line, ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... Reduxis de Quero in his "Chronicle of Trevigo,"—"Chronicon Tarvisinum,"— preserved in Muratori's Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (tom. XIX. 829-33). As Bracciolini wrote to his friend Leonardo Bruni, Reduxis de Quero, not venturing to alter a word of what he pilfered, for fear of spoiling his pillage, takes his reader into his confidence and affectionately addresses him in the second person, while pretending, to have the exclusive information and personal ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... ffnete das Fenster und schaute hinaus auf die wogende Strae, auf der sich in der lauen Sommernacht die Leute herumtrieben, klopfte an sein Barometer[2-8] und sah nach, wie viel Uhr[2-9] es darauf geschlagen,[2-10] und klingelte zuletzt. Ein alter rotkpfiger Bedienter in herrschaftlichem Kleide kam herein. James, wir reisen[2-11] morgen um 10 Uhr. Du wirst[2-12] die Koffer packen und nichts vergessen. Den Thee habe ich hier, die Maschine ist dort. Sorge fr alles, alter Junge, und fr Dich selbst. Du weckst mich frh um 6, ...
— Eingeschneit - Eine Studentengeschichte • Emil Frommel

... never falter In the battle for the right; There are ranks which never alter Watching through the darkest night; And the agony of sharing In the fiercest of the strife Only gives a nobler daring, Only ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... room which especially claimed your attention?" Mitchell paused and glanced thoughtfully at his polished shoes. "Let me alter that question," said the coroner hastily. "Did you find any indication in the room that Mr. Spencer expected to return ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... this Government, the machine for making the Union useful and beneficial. Blood, much and precious, was expended to vindicate and to establish community independence, and the great American idea that all governments rest on the consent of the governed, and that the people may at their will alter or abolish their government, however ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis

... not at once make up his mind to marry her? He could do it. There was no doubt of that. It was possible for him to alter the whole manner of his life, to give up his clubs,—to give up even Parliament, if the need to do so was there,—and to live as a married man on the earnings of his profession. There was no need why he should regard himself as a poor man. Two things, no doubt, were against his regarding ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... power to make our heels longer or shorter at will, we should be able, as is the case in a motor cycle, to alter our "speed-gear" according to the needs of the road. With a steep hill in front of us, we should adopt a long, slow, powerful heel; while going down an incline a short one would best suit our needs. ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent

... everything, that nothing is sure. For instance, Mendenhall's wife is a Lutheran. She hasn't a doubt about anything. All is fixed, ordained, immovable. Star-drifts and ice-ages she knows nothing about, and if she did they would not alter in the least her rules of conduct for men and women in this world and in relation to ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London

... Dreux d'Aubray; was civil lieutenant at the Chatelet de Paris. At the age of twenty-eight the marquise was at the height of her beauty: her figure was small but perfectly proportioned; her rounded face was charmingly pretty; her features, so regular that no emotion seemed to alter their beauty, suggested the lines of a statue miraculously endowed with life: it was easy enough to mistake for the repose of a happy conscience the cold, cruel calm which served as ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Circumstances, however, alter cases. How different the feeling—how thin the disguise would have been—had our Capitol fallen, at Harrisburg! Before another Session we trust the proper spirit will move some underpinning there, for the greater good of the Commonwealth. It was formerly said that "Law is law;" but not even a Philadelphia ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... two native trees called pitch pine and white pine respectively? Of course you know 'em. Well, there are pitch-pine Yankees and white-pine Yankees. We don't talk about the inherited differences of men quite as freely, perhaps, as they do in the Old World, but republicanism doesn't alter the laws of physiology. We have a native aristocracy, a superior race, just as plainly marked by nature as of a higher and finer grade than the common run of people as the white pine is marked in its form, its stature, its bark, its ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... parallel, but Collin probably would not insist that his theory accounts for every case. As to Dr. Western's other example of good meter spoiled by corrupt texts, Collin would, no doubt, admit the possibility of the proposed emendations. It would not alter his contention that a pause in the line, like a pause in music, is not necessarily void, but ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud

... this doctrine is a good example of the petitio principii. He assumes, in opposition to the whole spirit and tendency of the Epicurean philosophy, that man has "a free will," and then argues that if man who is nothing but an aggregation of atoms, can "turn aside and alter his own movements," the primary elements, of which his soul is composed, must have some original spontaneity. "If all motion is connected and dependent, and a new movement perpetually arises from a former one in a certain order, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... He is one of the most fearless and ingenious men I have ever known. He can so alter his appearance as ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux

... him that the request could not have come at a more opportune moment, as he had a vacancy to fill and had been on the point of calling a public examination of young men in his district for the purpose of selecting a candidate; but in view of the evident fitness of his nephew, he would alter his plans and offer him the place without further ceremony. He wished only that Sam would do credit to the ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby

... partes of the .24. orders of knaues. [b]There is no pretier medicen for this, nor soner prepared, then boxyng is: iii. or .iiii. tymes well set on, aspan long on bothe the chekes. And although perhaps this will not alter his lubberly condicio{n}s, yet I assure you, it wil for a time chau{n}ge his knauishe complexio{n}, and helpe him of the grene sicknes: and euery man maie practise this, as occasion shall serue ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various

... Bud. A good man could run our stock out of this part of the country and alter the ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor

... Skippy was a very busy young man. He had a reputation to sustain. The reputation was quite unjustified but that did not alter matters. Miss Balou had given it to him and Miss Balou must not be disappointed. In the shifting comedy of life, Skippy was now cast for the part of the Demon Rusher. In those early ambling days before the automobile and the aeroplane had brought ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson

... them, we can send up the letters we prefer to grandmamma; and she can ask all the questions, and pick out the best governess, just as you have arranged already, without leaving ME entirely in the dark, which I consider (don't you, Mr. Armadale?) to be quite inhuman. Let me alter the address, papa; do, ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins

... and deposit Him in homeless night? Or was it, Not when wave or wind assail'd, But in waters dumb and veil'd, That a looming shape uprist Sudden from the Channel mist, And with crashing, rending bows Woke him, in his padded house, To a world of alter'd features? Were these panic-ridden creatures They who, but an hour agone, Ran with biscuit, ran with bone, Ran with meats in lordly dishes, To anticipate his wishes? But an hour agone! And now how Vain ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Surajah," Dick said, as they left one of the villages. "We shall have to alter our story somehow, for the first person we meet, in Seringapatam, will see that we are not natives of Mysore. We must give out that we come from some village far down on the ghauts—one of those which have been handed over to the English by the new treaty. You know the ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty

... kindred. When now they shall plight peace with prosperous marriages (be it so!), when now they shall join in laws and treaties, bid thou not the native Latins change their name of old, nor become Trojans and take the Teucrian name, or change their language, or alter their attire: let Latium be, let Alban kings endure through ages, let Italian valour be potent in the race of Rome. Troy is fallen; let her and her ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil

... Cummings can say," I shut them off, "will alter the fact that I am employed by Captain Worth Gilbert at your recommendation—at your own recommendation—that I have been away more than a week on his business, and have not yet had an opportunity to report to him personally. When I've seen him, I'll be ready ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan

... and of a handsome robe which Cosimo gave him he complained that it spoiled his work. When he was dying his relations affected great concern in the hope of inheriting a farm at Prato, but he told them that he had left it to the peasant who had always toiled there, and he would not alter his will. ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... which the Archbishop presided. He had baptised Henry VIII. and advocated his marriage to Catherine; and to him the King extended the largest share in his confidence. Badoer, the Venetian ambassador, called him "alter rex,"[91] and Carroz, the Spaniard, said Henry trusted him most; but Henry was not blind to the failings of his most intimate councillors, and he warned Carroz that the Bishop of Winchester was, as his name implied, ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard

... other returned pleasantly, "or you would have remembered that there are here first a small wood and then a biggish field, alter which we come to a couple of solitary houses, the further and larger being Christopher's. The other belongs to a doctor—retired, though I believe he has attended our old friend. As it may not be advisable to advertise our call more than we can help, we are going to run the car into the ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell

... respectfully, as containing in symbols the probable key to the natural phenomena. Whether the original course of the Columbia at this place was through a narrow canyon or under an actual roof of rock, the adjacent material has been at no very remote date toppled into it to make the cataract and alter the bed to its present level. Both Hood and St. Helen's are volcanic cones. The latter has been seen to smoke within the last twelve years. It is not unlikely that during the last few centuries some intestine disturbance may have occurred along the axis ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various

... is sound the reason for the social worker's preference for the deserter as material with which to work is not far to seek. With the deserter as described, the problem is chiefly to alter his point of view; with the non-supporter it is, in addition, to stiffen his will and to increase his ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord

... prime. In character he had refined and sobered greatly; and he had more than fulfilled his promise of literary excellence. He had still twenty-six years to live, and was to do much useful service in life and letters; but he could do nothing in that time to alter his reputation; he could merely confirm it. Irving had grown immensely, too, in the favor of his countrymen. He was welcomed back with extravagant effusion by his old friends and by the country at large. He had in ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... satisfied with a very slight covering, but all delighted in ornaments. They dressed their hair in different forms, stained their skins, and fastened bits of gold, or shells, or bright pebbles in their noses and cheeks. They also frequently endeavored to alter their natural form and feature; as soon as an infant was born, it was subjected to some cruel process of compression, by which the bones of the skull while still soft, were squeezed into the shape of a cone, or flattened, or otherwise ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... having intercourse] with his slave-woman, and the son whom she bears may be so cruel that at the death of his father he makes his own mother his slave. Even if, while they are at peace, these points are not cleared up, and the inner tyranny employs external civility, yet, if dissensions alter these relations, and they are divided, the men avail themselves of those rights, and subject their mothers to whatever they choose, and do not allow them to leave their houses. Thus do they come to be served by their mothers at all times. In regard to those who ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin

... in May, 1861. In February I received an order revoking the unexpired portion of my leave and directing me to report for duty in Washington. I replied that my leave was granted with the understanding that I was to resign at its expiration, and as I saw no reason to alter my determination, I offered my resignation. There was no expectation on my part that my future would be any other than such as my position as professor in the University of Alabama ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse

... destroys, and is meant to destroy, every security against the passing of any Home Rule Bill whatever which the present majority of the House of Commons choose to support. This gives an ominous significance to the obstinate refusal of the Government to alter or amend any of the material enactments contained in this ill-starred measure. A Leap in the Dark, combined with a knowledge of the Parliament Bill and the legislative dictatorship with which it invests the existing Coalition, suggests at least four conclusions which must ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey

... instruments. The instruments were taken to the city ticket office, concealed under the counter. Bill and Frank were "stuck." They endeavored to dispose of the horns to Alfred. Alfred joked Bill frequently, advising him to organize a band, and learn to play one of the horns. This "guying" did not alter Bill's attitude towards Alfred's enterprise. He was even more optimistic as to its success. Bill would slap Alfred on the back, saying: "Never mind the salary you are leaving. You'll make more money with this minstrel ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... on the boarder will not want horse from us. I was very fond of the project of getting the passage of the whole armie opened, when I wrote by Mr. E——ne; but since that time, beside that of more men of warr comeing into the Firth, there's another thing I know since, which makes me alter my thoughts about it, at least of doing it soon, were it in my power. Mr. Ogilvie of Boin arrived here from France on the sixth, as perhaps you have heard, with my new commission, of which I send you a copie inclosed, and letters from Lord Bolingbroke; but I know you have accounts of ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson

... Fergus had from time to time exhibited, should have felt damped and astonished at the daring attempt of a body not then exceeding four thousand men, and of whom not above half the number, at the utmost, were armed, to change the fate and alter the dynasty of the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... is gained; the tactics alter: here Pavis brings up Caravan, with extraordinary severity,—the pace round Tattenham corner terrific; Caravan leading, then Phosphorus a little above him, Mahometan next, Hybiscus fourth. Rat-trap looking badly, Wisdom, Benedict and another handy. ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... now, Miss Henley," he said, "but you may alter them in time: you are not called on ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper

... extent of truth and right his neighbour's mind is organised to perceive and to do?—what invisible and forgotten accident, terror of youth, chance or mischance of fortune, may have altered the whole current of life? A grain of sand may alter it, as the flinging of a pebble may end it. Who can weigh circumstances, passions, temptations, that go to our good and evil account, save One, before whose awful wisdom we kneel, and at whose mercy we ask absolution? Here it ends," thought Pen; "this day or to-morrow ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... either in effort or in endurance: for the mind gains consciousness of its strength to undergo only by exercise among materials which admit the impression of its power,—which grow under it, which bend under it,—which resist,—which change under its influence,—which alter either through its might or in its presence, by it or before it. These, during times of tranquillity, are the objects with which, in the studious walks of sequestered life, Genius most loves to hold intercourse; by which it is reared ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... 'The minstrel's song has charmed you: but I must remember what is right, for songs cannot alter justice; and I must be faithful to my name. Alcinous I am called, the man of sturdy sense; and Alcinous I will be.' But for all that Arete besought him, ...
— The Heroes • Charles Kingsley

... francs could alter the laws of optics; he saw in Mariette a neat figure; he did not perceive the pits and seams which virulent smallpox had left on her flat, parched face; to him the crooked mouth was straight; and ever since Savaron, by taking ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac

... its nature largely restricted to the use of symbolism and having at its disposal a vast store of images endlessly susceptible to influences which combine and alter their form, we reach the crucial question, what initiates the dream? This is by no means a mere purposeless thronging of visual images as occasionally happens in the period preceding sleep when ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... relevant to describe somebody as behind the times. That is when the man in question, thinking of some state of affairs that has passed away, is really helping the very things he would like to hinder. The principles cannot alter, but the problems can. Thus, I should call a man behind the times who, in the year 1872, pleaded for the peaceful German peasants against the triumphant militarism of Napoleon. Or I should call a man out of date who, in the year 1892, wished for a stronger Navy to compete with the Navy ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton

... at a time especially when the first transports are so apt to overflow the soul on the sudden news of an unexpected glory. The world knows, from too frequent experience, how strongly the promise and expectation of new dignities raise the spirits, and alter the words, the looks, and the whole carriage of proud men. But Mary is still the same, or rather much more lowly and meek in spirit upon the accession of this unparalleled dignity. She sees no cause to pride herself in her virtues, graces, and privileges, knowing that the glory of all ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... English very well, though her writing is rather too pointed to suit English tastes. But at 16 she has plenty of time to alter it if ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various

... opportunity, the first essential of justice in the body politic, if men and women and children be not shielded in their lives, their very vitality, from the consequences of great industrial and social processes which they cannot alter, control, or singly cope with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, pure-food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which individuals ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson

... graceful, it is lucky when the Circumstances of the Offender place him above any ill Consequences from the Resentment of the Person offended. A Dauphin of France, upon a Review of the Army, and a Command of the King to alter the Posture of it by a March of one of the Wings, gave an improper Order to an Officer at the Head of a Brigade, who told his Highness, he presumed he had not received the last Orders, which were ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been behaving badly. But denials do not alter ...
— The Benefactress • Elizabeth Beauchamp

... Lady Sellingworth had scarcely slept at all. She had got up feeling desperately nervous and almost lightheaded. On looking in the glass she had been shocked at her appearance, but she had managed to alter that considerably, although not so completely as she wished. Depression, following inevitably on insomnia, had fixed its claws in her. She felt deadly, almost terrible, and as if her face must be showing plainly the ugliness of her mental condition. For she seemed to have ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens

... moment of repentance is the moment of initiation. More than that: it is the means by which one alters one's past. The Greeks thought that impossible. They often say in their Gnomic aphorisms, 'Even the Gods cannot alter the past.' Christ showed that the commonest sinner could do it, that it was the one thing he could do. Christ, had he been asked, would have said—I feel quite certain about it—that the moment the prodigal son fell on his knees and wept, he ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde

... could and as long as they could: feelings of zeal against all popular aspirations and in favour of all established institutions whatever their various defects or harshnesses (which, however, I wished to alter slowly and moderately): in a word, the feelings of a scandalised policeman towards a mob breaking windows in the cause of humanity. I should have liked first to fire grapeshot down every street in Paris, till the place ran with blood, and next to try Louis Philippe and those who advised him ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen

... considerable misgivings at least about details in our treatment of this difficult problem. I also agree that the officials of the Press Bureau don't come at all well out of the correspondence which he prints in his preface, and, further, that the Government ought to have had the courage to alter the law allowing absolute exemption rather than stretch it beyond the breaking point. But I emphatically dispute his assumption that the matter was a simple one. It was not the saintly, single-minded and sweet-natured ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various

... States the Convention unanimously made the prohibition of slavery part of that Constitution. There was no likelihood that, with a further influx of settlers of the same sort, this decision of California would alter. Was California to be admitted as a State with this Constitution of its own choice, which the bulk of the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood

... you ten times a slave, it would not obliterate the mark of the omniscient God! It could not alter the beauty of the features or the character. I should be proud of such a sister, even did she wear the shackles. But you! No, no, there is ...
— Hatchie, the Guardian Slave; or, The Heiress of Bellevue • Warren T. Ashton

... advantages of ground or situation, is most agreeably displayed in the royal gardens at Kew. There you find an extent of flat ground, so easily, agreeably, and unaffectedly broken, that you would think it impossible to alter it but to the worse. To pass without any notice the agreeable and the elegant pieces of architecture, which without crowding adorn those delightful gardens; perhaps there is not a physick garden in Europe ...
— Essays on Taste • John Gilbert Cooper, John Armstrong, Ralph Cohen

... heretofore—an increase which is keenly felt. As the people here are serving your Majesty without receiving any salary or pay, it seems expedient and just that they be favored by ordering the viceroy not to alter the regulations hitherto made, and also to allow all those people who desire, to come freely to these lands. From what has been ascertained, it appears that they find it exceedingly difficult and expensive to obtain a license to come; and even the personal effects that they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... to prepare a Directory of Worship, and the subsequent action of the Scottish Church in uniting with the Westminster Divines in the preparation of that Directory, clearly indicate that the Church had changed its attitude since the day in which the Assembly refused to alter any of the prayers in the Book of Common Order. The adoption of the Directory by the Scottish Church was in a measure an endorsation of the views of those who were opposed to the use of prescribed ...
— Presbyterian Worship - Its Spirit, Method and History • Robert Johnston

... comparing the different Circumstances of Persons or Things with each other, and serves to alter the Signification of a Word, either by a gradual Increase, or a gradual Diminution; as long longer longest, ...
— A Short System of English Grammar - For the Use of the Boarding School in Worcester (1759) • Henry Bate

... who had become now, by love, inseparable from his spiritual as well as his outward life. But there is something in beauty—just as there is something in youth—which one fears to disturb, lest a change should alter, or mar, in the faintest degree, the sufficient loveliness, the unconscious charm. Is it not for this cause that many dependent natures find classic perfection cold, superb scenery unsympathetic, and the spectacle of careless happiness embittering? Others, of imaginative temperament, prefer ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... all, when my own aunt comes down to breakfast in a low-cut blouse that would have given her fits even in the evening ten years ago!... And jolly fine too. I'm all for it. The more of it the merrier—that's what I say. And don't any of you high-brows go trying to alter it. If you do I retire, and you can defend your ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... urge her to take a strange course of action far removed from her birth and station and marvelous to think of, telling her that she must alter her way of life, put on armor and become a captain in the wars, for she was chosen by the King of Heaven to save France from its enemies. And they called her "Daughter of God." But Jeanne was filled with fear and grave misgiving, for how was she, a poor, unlettered girl and the daughter of peasants, ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... be brief. The case of the hat is what I stand upon; and, by the way, I am much obliged to you, X., for having stated the question in that shape; it has furnished me with a very manageable formula for recalling the principle at issue. The wages alter from two different causes—in one case, because there is the same quantity of labor at a different rate; in another case, because there is a different quantity at the same rate. In the latter case, it is agreed that the alteration settles upon price; in the ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... so to alter the future occurred when Michael, in no uncertain manner, announced to all and sundry his presence on the Makambo. It was due to Kwaque's carelessness, to commence with, for Kwaque left the stateroom without tight-closing the door. As the Makambo ...
— Michael, Brother of Jerry • Jack London

... at this time on this matter of prime importance I found no after occasion to alter or modify. On the contrary, in passing from the subjective to the objective view, I have seen the doctrine of the union of the two natures greatly confirmed. The truths of geology appear destined to exercise in the future no ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... advised very wisely—so, if you show this to any body, alter the names a little; for I would not have it known for the world.—Believe ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... made it easy at any time to alter their cantonal and federal constitutions,—that is, to change, even radically, the organization of society, the social contract, and thus to permit a peaceful revolution at the will of the majority. They have as well cleared ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan

... Even a rough and ill-natured boy, who has perhaps come to the school with the express determination of attempting to make mischief, will be completely disarmed, by being asked pleasantly to help the teacher fix the fire, or alter the position of his desk. Thus by means of the half hour during which the scholars are coming together, and of the visits made in the preceding evening, as described under the last head, the teacher will find, when he calls upon the children to take their seats, that he has made a ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott

... drive him to accomplish during the time remaining to him—for he will never be the first choice of the Democrats. Therefore, I shall propose this measure to Jay in the course of the next two or three days, unless upon mature deliberation I alter my present opinion that the grave crisis in national affairs justifies it, or I ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... emphasized the fact that, owing to the great financial depression which prevailed at that time, Mr. Smith and the Vails were seriously crippled in their means, and were not able to advance any more money, and Professor Gale had never been called upon to contribute money. This does not alter my main contention, however, for it still remains true that, if it had not been for Morse's dogged persistence during these dark years, the enterprise would, in all probability, have failed. With the others it was merely an incident, with him it had ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... laid too much stress on the accumulation of merely accidental variations;" having said this, he should have summarised the reasons that had made him change his mind, and given a list of the most important cases in which he has seen fit to alter what he had originally written. If Mr. Darwin had dealt thus with us we should have readily condoned all the mistakes he would have been at all likely to have made, for we should have known him as one who was trying to help us, tidy us up, keep us straight, and enable us to use our judgments ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... heart the next morning, for I knew that Jim would be home before long, and that it would be a day of trouble. But how much trouble that day was to bring, or how far it would alter the lives of us, was more than I had ever thought in my darkest moments. But let me tell you it all, just in the ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle

... shot with black, such as she herself had worn when admitted to audience yesterday. Vexed, agitated, embittered as Elizabeth had been by the news brought to her the night before, she had kept her wardrobers and seamstresses at work the whole night to alter a white satin habit to the simplicity and style of that which Angele ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... I am acquainted. Every day and every night, at twelve o'clock precisely, the tide is at the full; and at six o'clock every morning and evening it is ebb. I can speak with much confidence on this singular circumstance, as we took particular note of it, and never found it to alter. Of course, I must admit, we had to guess the hour of twelve midnight, and I think we could do this pretty correctly; but in regard to twelve noon we are quite positive, because we easily found the highest point that the sun reached in the sky by placing ourselves at a certain spot whence ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne

... had definitely to alter our opinion of M. Legrandin. On one-of the Sundays following our meeting with him on the Pont-Vieux, after which my father had been forced to confess himself mistaken, as mass drew to an end, and, with the sunshine and the noise of the outer world, something else ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... her suffer, and she did suffer; but her father's cruelty did not alter the facts of the case, or appeal to her reason as an argument worthy ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... her sex of the present generation, from the sarcasm of Mr Pomney. She had once declared, in one of her warmer moments, 'that now-a-days the gentlemen were all women, and the ladies all men.' She could not alter the debased character of the age. But such being the case, why should she take on herself to cater for the amusement of people of such degraded tastes? This question she asked herself more than once, and she could only answer herself with a sigh. There ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope

... proof. Upon this occasion it may not be improper to observe, that this part of Falstaff is said to have been written originally under the name of Oldcastle; some of that family being then remaining, the Queen was pleas'd to command him to alter it; upon which he made use of Falstaff. The present offence was indeed avoided; but I don't know whether the Author may not have been somewhat to blame in his second choice, since it is certain that Sir John Falstaff, who was ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith

... there in it, and wants a day to discuss the matter. Mr. BONAR LAW did not absolutely refuse, but hoped that when his right hon. friend had examined the Report he would forgo his desire for further information. It may safely be said that the omitted passages, whatever they are, could hardly alter the public verdict on the extraordinary notions of conducting a war which seem to have prevailed in the Cabinet of which Sir CHARLES ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various

... it to you if you will do as follows: dramatize it, if you perceive that you can, and take, for your remuneration, half of the first $6000 which I receive for its representation on the stage. You could alter the plot entirely, if you chose. I could help in the work, most cheerfully, after you had arranged the plot. I have my eye upon two young girls who can play "Tom" and "Huck." I believe a good deal of a drama can be made of it. Come—can't you tackle this in the odd hours ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... can have happened so suddenly to change our relation to each other, or alter, with such sudden cruelty, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... aunt was discreetly silent, too busy taking the youth's measure afresh to talk much; intent on material wherewith to make up her mind concerning him. She had had to alter her idea of him as incapable of providing his own bread and cheese; but as to what reflection of him was henceforth to inhabit the glass of her judgment, she had not yet determined, further than that it should be an ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald

... their help, we have ventured very materially to alter the shape of the confused system which was referred to us preserving the spirit, and, as much as possible, the original words, except where we had to encounter gross ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... of average healthy build are born with almost equal intellectual powers, but education, laws and circumstances alter them relatively. The correctly understood interest of the individual is blended into one with the common or public interest."—Helvetius' "On Man and His Education." Helvetius is right with regard to the large majority ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel

... know you are a true woman,' said curdie. 'I am come to set things right in this house. Not one of the servants knows I am here. Will you tell them tomorrow morning that, if they do not alter their ways, and give over drinking, and lying, and stealing, and unkindness, they shall every one of them be ...
— The Princess and the Curdie • George MacDonald

... he adds a glowing eulogy, which Menedemus, the Greek philosopher, passed on the Jewish faith. The Letter of Aristeas says that the authors of the Septuagint translation uttered an imprecation on any one who should alter a word of their work; Josephus makes them invite correction,[1] adding inconsequently—if our text is correct—that this was a wise action, "so that, when the thing was judged to have been well done, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich

... conditions which have bene taken up by you, which all men are against, and partly in regard of our owne inabillitie to doe any one of those many waightie bussineses you referr to us here. For ye former wherof, wheras Robart Cushman desirs reasons for our dislike, promising therupon to alter ye same, or els saing we should thinke he hath no brains, we desire him to exercise them therin, refering him to our pastors former reasons, and them to ye censure of ye godly wise. But our desires are that you will not entangle your selvs and us in any such unreasonable courses ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... may be doubted: that he lost nothing by it, is certain. Men are not ruined by civility. As soon as she was seated, she said, "I beg, sir, you will waste no more time with me. Mr. Severne, you have behaved to me like a gentleman, and that is very unusual in a man of your age nowadays. I cannot alter my opinion about my niece and you: but I am sorry you are a poor gentleman—much too poor to marry her, and I wish I could make you a rich one; but I cannot. There ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... alter these words they departed swiftly away from the place of oracle. The holy spirits turned their steps (and the Prince of light was their companion) till they beheld high Sodom's city-walls. They saw high halls towering above ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown

... rendered with a schoolboy's carelessness "as he merited," reverses the meaning of another; "jactantia," in the following page, is less harmfully but not less singularly translated "jealousy." We have been obliged to alter several expressions in the following passages, in order to bring them near enough to the original ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... 1237. Among the comprehensive pictures of the situation of the Church in the thirteenth century, there is none more interesting than that left us by the Cardinal Jacques de Vitry in his Historia occidentalis: Libri duo quorum prior Orientalis, alter Occidentalis historiae nomine inscribitur Duaci, 1597, 16mo. ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... joy as soon as he saw that the old gentleman was sufficiently sane to alter his will, which had been made in a moment of passion, and had cut off the inheritance from his daughter; and both seemed relieved of a sore burden when the papers were re-executed and the child was made sure ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith

... youth, from returning to their old intimacy after a lapse of years, during which they have been subjected to widely different influences, inasmuch as they will each have contracted new habits, and have got into new ways, which they do not like now to alter. ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... end to end were provisions; and I saw a chest full of mixed potassic chlorate and black oxide of manganese, with an apparatus for heating it, and producing oxygen—a foolish thing, for additional oxygen could not alter the quantity of breathed carbonic anhydride, which is a direct narcotic poison. Whether the two with cut throats had sacrificed themselves for the others when breathing difficulties commenced, or been killed ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel

... their meeting. As they stood gazing at each other the book-shop vanished, London disappeared, there was nothing but they two on all the earth. Neither could move. The beginning and the end were in this moment. Nothing that they could do could alter it or make the world again as it had been for them.... Consciously neither admitted it, both stubbornly clung to what they ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan

... Const. You'll alter your partial opinion, when I tell you, 'tis not a flash of wit fires me, nor is it a gay out-side can seduce me ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... writers. When we come thus far, 'tis time to look into ourselves, to conform our genius to his, to give his thought either the same turn, if our tongue will bear it, or if not, to vary but the dress, not to alter or destroy the substance."[412] Such faithfulness, according to Dryden, involves the appreciation and the reproduction of the qualities in an author which distinguish him from others, or, to use his own words, "the maintaining ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos

... it wouldn't alter anything. It would be putting off the day when it would all have to be done over again; and then it would be still worse because of the ...
— Kennedy Square • F. Hopkinson Smith

... can see no good reason to alter my rule for excluding such books as Almanacks, Plays, and an infinite number that are daily printed of very unworthy matters—handling such books as one thinks both the Keeper and Under-Keeper should disdain to seek out, to deliver to any man. Haply some plays may be worthy the keeping—but hardly ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell

... for you that you might be delivered from the worm that dieth not, and the fire which is never quenched? And can you be so wicked as not to love Him? My dear nephew, this will not do; it must not do. You must alter your course. But I will stop writing for a moment and kneel down and entreat God's mercy for you. I will endeavor to present the sacrifice of the Redeemer at the Throne of grace, and see if I cannot, for this sacrifice' sake, call down the blessing ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... The land remains, don't it? The rain falls on it, the seeds sprout in it, the trees grow out of it, the houses stand on it, the electric cars run over it. It's paper that business is run on. I lose my paper, or I lose my life, it's all the same; it won't alter one grain of sand in all that land, or twist one ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... moral nature for the moment, and left him at the mercy of bad impulses; but I can believe such impulses were isolated, and any action they led him into was bitterly repented of; and no one will ever make me alter my conviction that I wronged him when I doubted him, ...
— Ideala • Sarah Grand

... "father confessor" were not without some measure of success, several of the Carthusians being induced to alter their opinions as to the king's demands. The seal of doom, however, was fixed on the order by the passing of the Act which called upon its members to renounce the Pope and acknowledge the royal supremacy.(1180) Fisher and More denied ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe

... of compunction, but she knew Undine would forgive her, and find something amusing to fill up the time: she advised her to go back and buy the black hat with the osprey, and try on the crepe de Chine they'd thought so smart: for any one as good-looking as herself the woman would probably alter it for nothing; and they could meet again at the Palace Tea-Rooms at four. She whirled away in a cloud of explanations, and Undine, left alone, sat down on the Promenade des Anglais. She did not believe a word the Princess had said. She had seen in a flash why she was being left, ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... directing men to their duty towards these oppressed people; for though, when they visited this part of the world for their conversion, they never meddled with the political state of things, by recommending it to masters to alter the condition of their slaves, as believing religion could give comfort in the most abject situations in life, yet they uniformly freed those slaves who came ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson

... will never tell her? Ah! Peter, if you knew how I love the little woman, and how she loves me. From no other man can she learn what will alter that love. Don't make my consent bring ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... not drink his toast. When he was gone, I broke his glass by flinging it at my own reflection, in a glass I had bought to mirror her beauty; and before the day was spent, I had destroyed every destructible article in the house whose value or whose prettiness spoke of the attempt I had made to alter my home from a bachelor's abode to the nest I had thought in keeping with the dove I had failed to place there. As I did it I filled the house with mocking laughter; that I should have thought that this or that would please her, who ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green

... may be a trivial consideration, or even worse; for the fashion of your plate, after it has once become obsolete, may count against you for so much loss as something that will cost a good deal of money to alter. Here, then, is another contradiction to the material, and therefore another expression for the trivial: matter, as against vacancy or the privation of matter, yields the antithesis of material or immaterial, substantial and unsubstantial; matter, as against form, yields the antithesis of substance ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey

... than he ran before to give his master warning. He found him sitting in the vestibule of his house, as melancholy as if his father had been but newly dead. He fell down at his feet out of breath, and alter he had kissed the hem of his garment, cried out, "My lord, save yourself immediately." The unfortunate youth lifting up his head, exclaimed, "What news dost thou bring?" "My lord," said he, "there is no time to be lost; the sultan is incensed against you, has sent to ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 1 • Anon.

... October, 1791, this subject was taken up in pursuance of the recommendation of the President, and an amendatory act was passed in May, 1792, in which the whole system was revised, and great pains were taken to alter such parts of it ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... but found to his sorrow that it was a mighty serpent which, in Norse mythology, encircles the world. The Prohibs are warring upon what they foolishly imagine to be frivolous habit of man, but will yet learn that they are running counter to an immutable decree of God—are trying to alter the physical constitution of the human race by means of ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann

... the light did not alter, neither flaring up nor dying down, burning steadily like a lamp. When after two or three minutes he observed this he left the house and walked out into the field, keeping to the shadows when he could, watchful and suspicious. Thus presently he came to see what it was: a lantern ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... as he wheeled his hack round to the Stand and beckoned Cecil down, "look here, Beauty; they're wanting to alter that teaser, make it less awkward, you know; but I wouldn't because I thought it would look as if I lessened it for you, you know. Still it is a cracker and no mistake; Brixworth itself is nothing to it, and if you'd like it toned down I'll ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... credit. The draft being approved by the house, was presented to the king-, who received it graciously. He took this opportunity of saying, that the provision made for gradually discharging the national debts was now become so certain and considerable, that nothing but some unforeseen event could alter or diminish it; a circumstance that afforded the fairest prospect of seeing the old debts discharged without any necessity of incurring ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett

... correction would but render his meaning more ambiguous, and impair the striking originality of his style, I had abandoned the effort, and set about copying it with literal exactness, only venturing to alter here and there a word, such as "I hasten with wilful pleasure to write in reply to your Lordship's well-wishing letter," etc. Whilst I was thus evolving from the depths of my inner consciousness a satisfactory solution to this conundrum in King's ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... peculiar interest, was connected with it, can advocate it only as a matter of abstract metaphysical science. He cannot participate in that feeling of exaltation and mystery which has led many to expatiate upon a necessary and absolute truth which the Divine Power itself cannot alter, which is equally irresistible, equally binding and compulsory, with God as with man. Of this spirit of philosophical enthusiasm Mr Whewell cannot partake. Space and Time, with all their properties and phenomena, are but recognized as the modes of thought ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... manner. For it is not founded upon the holiness of men, but upon the Word of God. And as no saint upon earth, yea, no angel in heaven, can make bread and wine to be the body and blood of Christ, so also can no one change or alter it, even though it be misused. For the Word by which it became a Sacrament and was instituted does not become false because of the person or his unbelief. For He does not say: If you believe or are worthy, you receive My body and blood, but: Take, eat and drink; this is By body and ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... either, because it is the halfe of a monument, whose other part resteth elsewhere: or, for that it meaneth, after the Dutch phrase and their owne measure, a stone and halfe. For, in Dutch, Ander halb, (another halfe) importeth, One and a halfe, as Sesqui alter doth in Latine. It should seeme to be a bound stone: for some of the neighbours obserued to mee, that the [130] same limiteth iust the halfe way, betweene Excester and the lands ende, and is distant full fiftie myles ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... soon as possible inform you of the effect of the purwannahs, which in many parts I am apprehensive it will be found necessary to enforce with military aid; I am not, however, entirely without hopes that the Nabob, when he sees the inefficacy of further opposition, may alter his conduct, and prevent the confusion and disagreeable consequences which would be too likely to result from the prosecution of a measure of such importance without his concurrence. His Excellency talks of going to Fyzabad, for the purpose ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke

... alter his house a little. The two rooms at the back had always seemed crowded up, though Elizabeth preferred a separate one so long as they connected. But he had the memory of the poor drawn face, as he had seen it the morning of her seizure. Wouldn't ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas

... Horace myself, and have the ceremony over again. He couldn't refuse. And all these years it's been like living on a volcano, in the fear of meeting New York people. Out here there never are any, but in England I dye my hair, and alter my complexion.' ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan

... flower on a short stem, and its leaves form squat webs, in order to force its growth on a close-cropped lawn. The experience of the American Army shows us that to cut off opportunity and suggestion of temptation, the incentives to libidinous imagination, is to alter character more than everyone recognizes. When I think of this achievement, gained in so short a time and with so simple means, I confess I lose patience with the opposition raised by the women of this country against every attempt ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley

... way myself. But I know my feeling in the matter don't alter the facts any. How do ...
— Forty-one Thieves - A Tale of California • Angelo Hall

... stigma which is deserved by the drunkard and the thief. So difficult is it to arrange for this proposed valuation of a man's moral qualities that it has been proposed to get rid of all stigma by making it the right and duty of every one to take a pension. That might conceivably alter the praise, but it would surely not alter the praiseworthiness. It must be wrong in me to take money from my neighbours when I don't want it; and, if wrong, it surely ought to be disgraceful. And this seems to indicate the real point. ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen

... a natural propensity for evil, have had their capacities for mischief quickened by the varied knowledge which they acquired. But with the vast majority of Indians, and more especially Hindus, English secular education does not alter their character, and except for the assumption of a few European externals, they remain exactly the same as they were before. Even many of those who go to England, if they do not take up some definite profession on their return, drop back so ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin

... circumstances happened, it would doubtless have been better if he had done so; but probably the admiral, in continuing to stand on the same tack, had calculated that the wind would continue in the same direction, or alter to the northward; in either case he would have weathered the whole of the enemy's fleet, besides giving time to his division to repair damages. The wind veering to the southward immediately after his division had wore, had unfortunately the effect of throwing ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross

... he share it? If money has to be lost, of course he must do the same." Lopez in stating his case omitted to say that whatever capital was now being used belonged to his partner. "But women when they get together talk all manner of nonsense. Is it likely that I shall alter my course of action because you tell me that she tells you that he tells her that he is losing money? He is a half-hearted fellow who quails at every turn against him. And when he is crying drunk I dare say he makes a poor mouth ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope

... a fool, Mary! Till this moment I always thought you a clever girl, above such paltry weakness. When your name is coupled with infamy, and you find yourself an object of contempt to the villain who has betrayed you, I tell you that you will alter your opinion." ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie

... times alter," said I, the second day subsequent to the opening of my establishment, as I stood on the opposite side of the street, leaning against the wall with folded arms, surveying my shop, on the windows of which were painted in large yellow characters, Despacho de la Sociedad Biblica ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... be heard at such a distance; but the ready boy unwound the red sash from his waist and waved it over his head till his arm ached, and, after a pause of terrible anxiety, he at length saw the boat alter her course and stand right ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... than this black stuff dress which I now wear, and which I will put by to wear, in case we should be taken off the island some of these days; for I must dress like other people when I am again among them. The clothes are sufficient to last you for a long while; but I shall only alter two shirts and two pair of trousers to your present size, as you will grow very fast. How old do you ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat



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