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Compact   /kˈɑmpækt/  /kəmpˈækt/   Listen
Compact

adjective
1.
Closely and firmly united or packed together.  "Compact clusters of flowers"
2.
Having a short and solid form or stature.  Synonyms: heavyset, stocky, thick, thickset.  "He was tall and heavyset" , "Stocky legs" , "A thickset young man"
3.
Briefly giving the gist of something.  Synonyms: compendious, succinct, summary.  "A compact style is brief and pithy" , "Succinct comparisons" , "A summary formulation of a wide-ranging subject"



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"Compact" Quotes from Famous Books



... soil, continually covering it with a thin layer of material brought up from below. Consequently the soil containing earthworms always has {56} a fresh clean look. After some time the other soil becomes very compact and is covered with a greenish slimy growth. When this happens carefully turn the pots upside down, knock them so as to detach the soil and lift them off. The soil where the earthworms had lived is full ...
— Lessons on Soil • E. J. Russell

... had this wedding just to her fancy, and it was quite a fine affair. Cary looked very nice, Doris thought, for the sea tan had nearly all bleached out. His figure was compact, and he had a rather soldierly bearing. He was quite a hero, too, to his old college mates, some of whom had not considered him ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas

... couple of dogs fighting, is a crowd masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman, fluttering wildly round the outside, and using her tongue and her hands freely upon the men, as so many "brutes"; it is a crowd annular, compact and mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its heads all bent downward and inward, to ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester

... of our new government," he said, "seemed to be the last great experiment for promoting human happiness by a reasonable compact in civil society. It was to be, in the first instance, in a considerable degree, a government of accommodation as well as a government of laws. Much was to be done by prudence, much by conciliation, much by firmness. Few who are not philosophical spectators can realize the ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge

... "A cruel compact," says Margaret slowly, but with decision. "I think this marriage should not be so much as thought of! That child! and Maurice, who cares nothing for her. Marian"—Miss Knollys turns suddenly to Marian, who has withdrawn behind the ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford

... doing, and were yet not able to say whether it was the indented corner or the full bow? She found herself remembering poetic lines about Grecian Helen, and then recalling herself to New England and the unlikelihood of such bewitchingness. There couldn't be a woman so compact of mystery and unconsidered aloofness, and yet ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... the relationship and reciprocal duties of the King and his subjects. Advancing the doctrine of John Locke as popularized by Richard Bland and other colonial leaders, he contended that government is a conditional compact, composed of mutually dependent agreements 'of which the violation by one party discharged the other'. He bravely argued that the disregard of the pressing wants of the colony was 'an instance of royal misrule', which had thus far dissolved the political ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education

... came to power in 1895, he renewed a compact with Italy and Austria which had been made when Crispi was in office in his first premiership, about 1888, for a common action in all questions concerning the Turkish Empire; and on the occasion of the Armenian massacres he called for the execution of its provisions, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman

... island. It was the largest town in the French West Indies, and was well built and prosperous. It had a population of about 30,000. It was divided into two parts, known as the upper and lower towns. The lower town was compact with narrow streets, and unhealthy. The upper town was cleaner, healthier, and handsomely laid out. There was in the upper town a botanical garden and an old Catholic college, as ...
— Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror • Richard Linthicum

... for the relief of a vacant hour, discovers to his surprise a workable literary gift, of whose scope, however, he is not precisely aware. His sixteen volumes nevertheless range themselves in three compact groups. There are his letters [16] —those Lettres a une Inconnue, and his letters to the librarian Panizzi, revealing him in somewhat close contact with political intrigue. But in this age of novelists, it is as a writer of novels, and of fiction ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... conscience she mistook her moral situation, as my unlearned readers have done perhaps. Though not acquainted with the nice distinctions of the contemporary law, she knew that betrothal was a marriage contract, and could no more be legally broken on either side than any other compact written and witnessed; and that marriage with another party than the betrothed had been formerly annulled both by Church and State and that betrothed couples often came together without any further ceremony, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... they were married; and in that lonely little cottage she would have been bored to death but for the tawdry future that she foresaw. The man's dream of awakening her tenderness was speedily dispelled; he had been accepted as the means to an end, and he was held fast to the compact. She grudged him every hour in which he idled by her side. Driven from her arms by her impatience, old Bourjac would toil patiently in the workroom: planning, failing—surmounting obstacles atom by atom, for the sake of a woman whose sole interest in his existence ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... he said. "In spite of what you say, you are going back on your word. You should have thought to fling dirt before you entered into a compact with me. However, I care nothing for all your threats. As you have said, I want money. Nothing else matters to me. So I will go to Winnipeg ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum

... "We Terrans have had a Trade compact on Darkover for a hundred and fifty-two years. The first outbreak of this 48-year fever killed all but a dozen men out of three hundred. The Darkovans were worse off than we were. The last outbreak wasn't quite so bad, but it was bad enough, I've heard. It has an ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... forbids to own, O dire example of the Demon's power! The father leaves the hymeneal bower For his incestuous son; the guilty spouse With transport mix'd with honour, meets his vows! In mournful converse now, amidst the host, Their compact they bewail'd, and Syria lost! Instant, with eager step, I turn'd aside, And met the double husband, and the bride, And with an earnest voice the first address'd:— A look of dread the spectre's face express'd, ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... compact we parted, and I went down-heartedly from the man who understood me, back to the house where I never could do anything right. How was it that everything seemed natural and sensible to him, which these uncles, vicars, and other grown-up men took for the merest tomfoolery? Well, he would explain ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... an astonishing sight may be witnessed in the midnight of the twenty-third of August. The present settlement vanishes. In its place the Fort appears as it was when the Russians abandoned it in 1841. The quadrilateral stockade of redwood beams, pierced with embrasures for carronades, is compact and formidable once more. The ramparts are paced by watchful sentries; mounted cannon are behind the iron-barred gates and in the graceful bastions. Within the enclosure are the low log buildings occupied by the Governor and his officers, the barracks ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... assistance, perhaps!" Steele once more laughed. "As an old friend!" Captain Forsythe started to speak; the other went on: "Well, we'll keep his secret, as long as he keeps his compact." ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham

... a wonderful difference in the progress of the two animals—the one awkward, and seeming as if running on stilts; the other compact, muscular, and self-contained, evidently possessing double the endurance with an equal speed ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... is the resident, man, a creature compact of wonders that, after centuries of custom, is still wonderful to himself. He inhabits a body which he is continually outliving, discarding and renewing. Food and sleep, by an unknown alchemy, restore his spirits and the freshness of his countenance. Hair grows on him like grass; his eyes, his brain, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson

... eastwards, the shoulders of the swell, catching the glorious reflection of the sun, hurled the splendour along, till all that quarter of the sea looked to be a mass of leaping dazzle. Upon the eastern sea-line lay a range of white clouds, compact as the chalk cliffs of Dover; threads, crescents, feather-shapes of vapour of the daintiest sort, shot with pearly lustre, floated overhead very high. It was in truth a fair and pleasant morning—of an icy coldness indeed, but the air being dry, its shrewdness was endurable. Yet was it a brightness ...
— The Frozen Pirate • W. Clark Russell

... is a difficult one; he is surrounded with the malevolence of enemies. But the priest's chief enemy, is the priest. As a body, they march together, close, compact, disciplined, defending their rights and the honour of the flag, resenting individually the insults offered to all, and all rejoicing at the success of each. As individuals, they spy on one another, are jealous of one another, fight, accuse and judge one another; ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... predominance of three powers exercised in an equal and uncommon degree, and without which no one can stand, as he does, on the loftiest pedestal of literary merit,—sensibility, imagination and judgment, working together like one compact, indivisible faculty. ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... the army that is in France than the men beneath the battle flags. It must be so with us. It is not an army that we must shape and train for war—it is a Nation. To this end our people must draw close in one compact front against a common foe. But this cannot be if each man pursues a private purpose. All must pursue one purpose. The Nation needs all men, but it needs each man, not in the field that will most pleasure him, but in the endeavor ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour

... hastily mapped out, the upsetting of Mr MacGinnis was but a small item, a mere preliminary. There were a number of things which I had wished to do to him, once upset. But it was not to be. Even as I reached for his throat I perceived that the light of the window was undergoing an eclipse. A compact form had wriggled out on to the sill, as I had done, and I heard the grating of his shoes on the wall as he ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse

... wound our way downward, spirally, to find ourselves seated at a round table in a cosy, compact dining-room. Directly opposite, across the corridor, was the kitchen, from which issued a delightful combination of vinous, aromatic odors. The light of a strong, bright lamp made it as brilliant as a ball-room; it was a ball-room which for decoration had rows of shining brass and copper ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... powers is everywhere a form of evil. For how can there be largeness of organization where there is little to organize? Or what is the use of organization except as a mode of furnishing the smoothest and most compact expression to powers? Wealth and order are accordingly everywhere the double traits of goodness, and a chief test of the worth of any organism will be the diversity of the powers it includes. Throughout my discussion I have tried to help the reader to keep this twofold ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer

... reconciled and have promised friendship, and thus have obtained pardon for their acts. And in the year just past this was done with greater formality and more solemn assurances, as appears from the record; but notwithstanding this, breaking the compact of peace, they have since then inflicted other and graver injuries—sallying out as robbers into the public routes by land and by sea, making descents on our settlements and murdering everyone on whom they can lay hands, be they Indians or Spaniards, seculars or ecclesiastics. Indeed, it is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume VIII (of 55), 1591-1593 • Emma Helen Blair

... the meal was served, the kitchen door opened and my housekeeper's inscrutable dull eyes rolled around the walls of the room; then it closed. What had happened? Why on this night had Rachel noticed my arrival? At supper I broke our unspoken compact and addressed her. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various

... open and to the cutting-out camp—a spot where the beaten ground showed that very often before such scenes had been enacted. The bullocks knew it, and huddled there contentedly enough in a compact body, while slowly Mr. Linton and Murty rode about them, singling out the primest. Once marked down, O'Toole would slip between the bullock and his mates and edge him away, where Billy took charge of him, preventing his returning to the mob. With the first ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce

... "Even with all other conditions favorable, it is doubtful if the American Union could have been preserved to the present time without the railroad. Railroads and telegraphs have made our vast country, both for political and for social purposes, more snug and compact than little Switzerland was in the middle ages or New England a century ago." The analogy between the realm of government and of knowledge is not at all complete but it suggests at least the change which is imperatively called for in education. ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... suspension of liberty, is null: the slave, when he plants his foot upon the soil of liberty, at that moment becomes a free man. When society seizes a malefactor and deprives him of his liberty, it is a case of legitimate defence: whoever violates the social compact by the commission of a crime declares himself a public enemy; in attacking the liberty of others, he compels them to take away his own. Liberty is the original condition of man; to renounce liberty ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... herself, but like the stove, she too seemed to have a dull glow. She was no longer young, but she might still have encouraged her youthfulness to linger pleasantly; she was not in the least degree beautiful, but she might have fostered a charm that lurked somewhere about her small, compact body and in her square, dark face. Her hair of a sandy brown was stretched back brutally so that her bright, devoted eyes—gray and honest eyes, very deep-set beneath their brows—lacked the usual softness and mystery of women's ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt

... times had marked the limits of the Persian Gulf; from here the boundary was formed on the left side of the Tigris by one of its tributaries, either the Lower Zab or the Badanu. The territory thus enclosed formed a compact and healthy district: it was free from extremes of temperature arising from height or latitude, and the relative character and fertility of its soil depended on the absence or presence of rivers. The eastern part of Assyria was well watered by the streams ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... Fortuna is altogether of a different shape and pattern, occupying more space. It is not compact, but extended over the floor, in the form of five tables, large as if for billiards; though not one of them is of this kind. Billiards would be too slow a game for the frequenters of "El Dorado." These could not patiently wait for the scoring of ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... although I have not said everything. To complete my study of this picture we should have to examine that smooth, clean, supple painting of such delicate and yet such a compact tissue; we should have to study that simple expressive modelling; we should have to consider the resources of that palette, reduced almost to a monochrome and yet so full of colour. I stop, for I think I have said enough to rouse if not to fully awaken ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore

... in 1526, as an independent State, consisting of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, we joined with Austria and Hungary in a defensive union against the Turkish danger. We have never voluntarily surrendered our rights as an independent State in this confederation. The Hapsburgs broke their compact with our nation by illegally transgressing our rights and violating the Constitution of our State, which they had pledged themselves to uphold, and we therefore refuse longer to remain a part of Austria-Hungary ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... chambers and galleries—had too many attractions; for they were presently discovered filling the air over the garden, and whirling excitedly around. Gradually they began to drift over the street; a moment more, and they had become separated from the other bees, and, drawing together in a more compact mass or cloud, away they went, a humming, flying vortex of bees, the queen in the centre, and the swarm revolving around her as a pivot,—over meadows, across creeks and swamps, straight for the heart of the mountain, about a mile ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... London of those long-ago days of the Commonwealth, before the Great Fire, was a much more compact city than the gigantic, overgrown London of to-day. Instead of 'sprawling over five or six counties,'[21] and containing six or seven million inhabitants, London was then a comparatively small place, its population, though rapidly increasing, did ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin

... competition all along the line, and grant to each handler of the goods between producer and consumer an abnormal profit. An excellent example of this is found in the sugar trade. The wholesale Grocers' Guild of Canada, which includes 96 per cent. of the Dominion's wholesale traders, entered into a compact with the Canadian sugar refiners, who agreed that dealers outside of the guild should be charged 30 cents per 100 pounds more for sugar than those who were in the guild. In November, 1887, fourteen members of the guild were expelled and were compelled to pay the higher price. The executive committee ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker

... the iron pyrites which it contains. It abounds in selenite or sulphate of lime, and in nodules which often contain organic remains. Fossil wood with Teredo antenautae is also met with, and pyritous casts of univalve and bivalve shells. Lower down the stratum becomes more compact and is of a bluish or blackish colour, and its fossil contents are in a fine state of preservation. During the last summer, while examining the London Clay in the vicinity of Highgate in search of fossils, my attention was directed to certain appearances in it which I could ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various

... Werve's residence was a compact mass of citizens who seemed impatient at the delay. Through a sentiment of respect, they were perfectly quiet, speaking in very low tones, and making way to afford a passage through the crowd every time that a cavalier or any notable personage ...
— The Amulet • Hendrik Conscience

... or social group is small enough and compact enough to be effectually reached by common notoriety alone that is to say, so long as the human environment to which the individual is required to adapt himself in respect of reputability is comprised within his sphere of personal acquaintance and neighborhood ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... should be defined, was presented; an opposition petition of the minority was offered. Hereupon, the deliberations of the minority were forbidden, and their publications prohibited. And, though the Curia had provided a compact majority, it was found expedient to issue an order that to carry any proposition it was not necessary that the vote should be near unanimity, a simple majority sufficed. The remonstrances of the minority ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper

... at a cost and in a quantity to stimulate the development of concrete construction, engineers began with rough broken stone and sand as the constituents of what they call the aggregate, but some one soon "discovered" that the use of smooth natural gravel made more compact concrete and "gravel concrete" became the last word in engineering practice. But it was older even than Varro. A Chicago business man visiting Mycenae picked up and brought home a bit of rubbish from Schliemann's excavations of the ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... Moreno's daughter—clipping after clipping printed in Castilian or South American Spanish; columns of the clear, close print of English papers; paragraphs on the coarse, thin paper of the French and Italian press; compact masses of Gothic characters, which troubled Rafael's eyes, and unintelligible Russian letters, that, to him, looked like whimsical scrawls of a childish hand. And all in praise of Leonora, one universal tribute to the talent of that woman, who was looked upon so scornfully by the citified ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... a little vexed cry and a great many tosses of her head.) "But it is not impossible that you are a Pig!" retorted Madame Bouclet, a compact little woman of thirty-five or so. "See then,—look there,—read! 'On the second floor Monsieur L'Anglais.' ...
— Somebody's Luggage • Charles Dickens

... he dashed on the nearest group, followed by all his men, who formed a compact mass; round which the three corps of royal troops closed. Then there was everywhere a hand-to-hand battle there was no time to load and fire; swords flashed and fell, bayonets stabbed, the royals and the Camisards took each other by the throat and hair. For ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... heiress, as he had no other children. She did not, however, trust Antonina's character, and feared lest, after her own death, Antonina might prove unfaithful to her house, although she had found her so helpful in emergencies, and might break the compact. These considerations prompted her to a most abominable act. She made the boy and girl live together without any marriage ceremony, in violation of the laws. It is said that the girl was unwilling to cohabit with him, and that the Empress had her ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius

... with extreme and undivided interest the progress of the cloud, stood many of the sons of the forest. Wonder and astonishment had seized their souls, at the strange and hitherto unheard-of sight of a low, compact, dark cloud, moving rapidly against a strong wind. They saw that it was of unusual shape, and that there were other circumstances connected with it, such as are not usual with the spirit-mists of the air. Rightly deeming it a cloud from some very ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health," runs the marriage covenant. The covenant in all true friendship is the same. We pledge our friend faithfulness, with all that faithfulness includes. We know not what demands upon us this sacred compact may make in years to come. Misfortune may befall our friend, and he may require our aid in many ways. Instead of being a help he may become a burden. But friendship must not fail, whatever its cost ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... Talk not to me of compacts; as 'tween men And lions no firm concord can exist, Nor wolves and lambs in harmony unite, But ceaseless enmity between them dwells: So not in friendly terms, nor compact firm, Can thou and I unite, till one of us Glut with his blood the mail-clad warrior Mars. Mind thee of all thy fence; behoves thee now To prove a spearman skill'd, and warrior brave. For thee escape is none; now, by my spear, Hath Pallas doom'd thy ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... shade of the coulee wall, he undressed deliberately, folding each garment methodically as he took it off. When the pile was complete to socks and boots, he rolled it into a compact bundle and tied it firmly upon his saddle. Stranger, his horse, was a good swimmer, and always swam high out of water. He hoped the things would not get very wet; still, the current was strong, and ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower

... interesting in all that," said the old minister thoughtfully. "The situation used to be figured under the old idea of a compact with the devil. His debtor was always on the point of escaping, as you say, but I recollect no instance in which he did not pay at last. The myth must have arisen from man's recognition of the inexorable sequence of cause from effect, in the moral world, which ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells

... cheer then; let the compact stand thus: "Kisses for the beautiful, and for the good a rain of kisses." So now teach us the art ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... with silver linings. The demand for hardened steel projectiles, nickel-steel plates, and light and almost unbreakable machinery, was a great incentive to improvement in metallurgy while the necessity for compact and safely carried ammunition greatly stimulated chemical research, and led to the discovery of explosives whose powers no obstacle can resist, and incidentally to other more ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor

... the engineer-in-chief, "has said no more about his motive than usual. You know, he doesn't talk. But we all here know his motive, and he has only one—the safety of the San Tome mine with the preservation of the Gould Concession in the spirit of his compact with Holroyd. Holroyd is another uncommon man. They understand each other's imaginative side. One is thirty, the other nearly sixty, and they have been made for each other. To be a millionaire, and such a millionaire as Holroyd, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... them, sprang out, flushed and imperious, to wave the Votaress. One of her guards was still rubbing along the steamer beside her, but before the pair could dash aboard this other boat and half across her deck, a gap had opened, impossible to leap. They halted in rage as the more compact youth on the moving steamer's roof, catching their attention, pointed a good two miles up the river front. Yet what he said they would not have known had not her mate repeated from ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable

... to tell their wives. There are few things more touching in the matrimonial compact than the superb frankness with which each confides to each the various irregularities of their friends. It is upon these sacred confidences that the firm foundations ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... crystals of prismatic habit with angles very nearly the same as those of childrenite. Unlike childrenite, it has a distinct cleavage in one direction, and often occurs in compact masses as well as in crystals. The colour is sometimes yellowish-white, but usually rose-pink, and on this account the mineral was named from [Greek: eosphoros], dawn-bearer. Hardness 5; specific gravity 3.11-3.145. It was discovered in 1878 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... elsewhere, it may be feared that the other world will seem too desperately far away to be waited for when hungry ruin has him in the wind, and the chance on earth is so temptingly near. Hence the notion of a transfer of allegiance from God to Satan, sometimes by a written compact, sometimes with the ceremony by which homage is done to a ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... general discord, so right about face!' And if Booty did not understand this harangue, he certainly acted up to the spirit of it, for he pattered cheerfully after his master to the schoolroom, and curled himself up into a compact brown ball at his feet, to doze away the morning in ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... That—never mind how things have come to pass, And let who loves have loved a thousand times— All the same he now loves her only, loves Her ever! if by "won" you just mean "sold," That's quite another compact. Well, this scamp, Continuing descent from bad to worse, Must leave his fine and fashionable prey (Who—fathered, brothered, husbanded,—are hedged About with thorny danger) and apply His arts to this poor country ignorance Who sees forthwith in the first rag of man ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... most lovely Egypt," he said; "are the sands of Nile compact of gold, that thou canst, night by night, thus squander the ransom of a King upon a single feast? Whence ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... making right, and the conqueror trampling down all the rest. The civil laws, he declares, are the only standards of good or evil. The sovereign, he asserts, possesses absolute power, and is not bound by any compact with the people (who pay him as their head servant). Nothing he does can be wrong. The sovereign has the right of interpreting Scripture; and he thinks that Christians are bound to obey the laws of an infidel king, even in matters of religion. He sneers at the belief ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury

... compact, slightly vesicular, olive gray, basaltic rock. I have seen a few additional examples of this figure, and from the identity in type and detail conclude that the personage represented was probably an important one in the mythology of the Chiriquians. In general style there is a ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... sensations which increased to marked chills; there was also nausea, eructation and vomiting, first of food and then of bilious mucus; a little later tenesmus appeared, the patient first voiding small, compact feces, followed by scant, thin dejecta. Within a few hours the abdomen had become tympanitic, the pains continued with exacerbations upon motion, after eruetations, and on talking; the entire ...
— Appendicitis: The Etiology, Hygenic and Dietetic Treatment • John H. Tilden, M.D.

... ploughing as a primal necessity, and insists upon the use of the roller for rendering the surface of wheatlands compact, and so retaining the moisture; nor does he attempt to reconcile this declaration with the Tull theory of constant trituration. A great many excellent Scotch farmers still hold to the views of his Lordship, and believe in "keeping ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various

... Moravia and Silesia, we joined with Austria and Hungary in a defensive union against the Turkish danger. We have never voluntarily surrendered our rights as an independent state in this confederation. The Habsburgs broke their compact with our nation by illegally transgressing our rights and violating the constitution of our state, which they had pledged themselves to uphold, and we therefore refuse any longer to remain a part of Austria-Hungary ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... is making a compact with the devil. He is frightened of that tall spirit in the black mask, and is coming to terms with him. Maybe he will offer his house and his servants, his wife even, to be himself released from the terror of that ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... constructed of Questions relating to "the Plot" for over-aweing peaceful law-abiding Ulster. Startling things have happened since the Friday afternoon when Members went off for well-earned week-end holiday. There had actually been a plot in Ulster, a real one, not compact of circumstantial imaginings—a skilfully planned scheme successfully carried out in the dead of the night, when honest citizens, including the police and the military, were sound asleep. Telegraphic and telephonic communications were ruthlessly ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, May 6, 1914 • Various

... taciturn squire whom she had drafted had climbed to the cliffs above the gorge in order to behold the first fruits of the compact which had been concluded with Craig and the Comas. Latisan went with her to the cliff because she had asked him to show her the way. His manner with her was not exactly shyness; she had been studying him, trying anxiously to penetrate his thoughts. He was reserved, but awkwardly so; ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day

... of a very delicate nature present themselves on this occasion:—1. On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it? 2. What relation is to subsist between the nine or more States ratifying the Constitution, and the remaining few who do not ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden

... The latter levied the taxes due to the King of Aragon. In Burgundy they cultivated the vines, which was rather singular, for the Jews generally preferred towns where they could form groups more compact, and more capable of mutual assistance. The name of Sabath, given to a vineyard in the neighbourhood of Macon, still points out the position of their synagogue. The hamlet of Mouys, a dependency of the communes of Prissey, owes its name to a rich Israelite, Moses, who had received that ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix

... industry, now a small source of foreign exchange employing less than 10% of the labor force, remains the best hope for future added income. The islands have few natural resources, and imports far exceed exports. Under the terms of the Amended Compact of Free Association, the US will provide millions of dollars per year to the Marshall Islands (RMI) through 2023, at which time a Trust Fund made up of US and RMI contributions will begin perpetual annual payouts. Government downsizing, ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States

... present day a new form of literature has sprung up; that dialogue (the easiest form of writing) is overdone, and description dispenses with any need for thinking on the part of the author or reader. You bring up the fiction of Voltaire, Diderot, Sterne, and Le Sage, so trenchant, so compact of the stuff of life; and turn from them to the modern novel, composed of scenery and word-pictures and metaphor and the dramatic situations, of which Scott is full. Invention may be displayed in such work, but there is no room for anything else. 'The romance ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... Master George, screwing his mouth and giving his head a very learned attitude. "Directly, sir!—the Federal Government is acquiescing in every abolition scheme that is put forward by that intriguing Northern compact for the establishment of new governments in the territories. She is granting unconstitutional privileges to designing politicians, whose chief aim is to uproot our domestic institution and destroy the allegiance ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams

... because some predominant and divine cause has implanted this power in them, or whether it is accidental. We see those things which the earth produces preserved in vigour by their bark and roots, which happens to animals by the arrangement of their senses, and a certain compact conformation of limb. And with reference to this subject, although I agree with those men who think that all these things are regulated by nature, and that if nature neglected to regulate them, the animals ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero

... and experiences of numerous students in this and other lands. They are written in the clear, strong, concise English and in the entertaining style which characterize the author. The volumes are compact, uniform in style, clearly printed, and illustrated as the subject demands. They are of convenient shape for the pocket, and are substantially bound in flexible ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter

... quotation of their own words, that the framers of the Constitution regarded that document as a compact between the several States. He shows that three of the States (Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island) joined in this compact conditionally, with the clear purpose of resuming their independent sovereignty as States, should the general government use its power for the oppression of the States; that up to the time of the Mexican War the New England States contended for, not against, the ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street

... must have been struck with the surpassing grace, strength, and vigour of the Game-cock, with its bold and confident air, its long, yet firm neck, compact body, powerful and closely pressed wings, muscular thighs, strong beak massive at the base, dense and sharp spurs set low on the legs for delivering the fatal blow, and its compact, glossy, and mail-like plumage serving as a defence. Now the English game-cock has not only been ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin

... authorities of all levels of government and support therefore by alert and informed citizens and citizen groups. The Governors of the Basin States and the District of Columbia have proposed a Federal-Interstate Compact for the Potomac and arranged to have a draft prepared by the Potomac River Basin Advisory Committee. The Water Resources Council will continue to work with the States in this effort—anticipating that proposals will emerge which merit both State ...
— The Nation's River - The Department of the Interior Official Report on the Potomac • United States Department of the Interior

... half of what you ask. I, as king of Egypt, am most willing to grant you a faithful compact for a sound and lasting peace; as regards this maiden, you must treat with my children, first with my daughter Bent-Anat, one of whose ladies she is, and then with your released prisoner there, who wishes ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... told they would find better quarters; and there they had stayed two or three days. It was one of the miniature Italian cities with a high church, a pretentious piazza, a few narrow streets and little palaces, perched all compact and complete, on the top of a mountain, within an enclosure of walls hardly larger than an English kitchen garden. But it was full of life and noise, echoing all day and all night with the sounds ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith

... of the Society. A more interesting volume on the subject, or one better calculated to give such a knowledge of it, as is essential to any thing like a just appreciation of the peculiar characteristics of our church architecture, could scarcely have been produced, while its compact size and numerous illustrations fit it to ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various

... had to rest content. It solaced her sorrow vastly; and even though Rosalind, to whom she confided the compact under a pledge of secrecy, scolded and laughed at her alternately, she felt a new prospect open before her, and set herself resolutely to the task of ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... differences among the seven States in the basin over their relative water rights and among different groups as to methods. In an attempt to settle the primary difficulty of the water rights, Congress authorized the Colorado River Commission which agreed on November 24, 1922, upon an interstate compact to settle these rights, subject to the ratification of the State legislatures and Congress. All seven States except Arizona at one time ratified, the Arizona Legislature making certain reservations which failed to meet the approval of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... times before—I came to a reckless conclusion and went into a venture the end of which was mighty misty! I suddenly turned to the lathlike Yankee and told him that I would take up with his offer, and we shook hands upon the compact. ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster

... wrote his famous book on French finances, he suggested a universal compact of nations to suppress the slave trade. The exertions of England alone have since nearly realized his generous plan, though avarice and cunning do still manage to elude her vigilance and power. She has obtained from Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, and Denmark, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child

... lawyers, and ingenious political economists, who daily teach their fellow creatures how to give practical illustrations of the mandates of the Bible, how to discriminate in vexed questions arising from the national compact, and how to manage their private affairs in such a way as to escape the quicksands that have wrecked ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper

... suffrage club was formed at Kasson. Its three originators[434] entered into a solemn compact with each other that while they lived in that city there should always be an active suffrage society until the ballot for women should be obtained. Their secretary, Mrs. H. ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... if from things we take away the void, All things are then condensed, and out of all One body made, which has no power to dart Swiftly from out itself not anything— As throws the fire its light and warmth around, Giving thee proof its parts are not compact. But if perhaps they think, in other wise, Fires through their combinations can be quenched And change their substance, very well: behold, If fire shall spare to do so in no part, Then heat will perish utterly ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... high-spiked walls. It had once been a town house of the reigning family of the Kennedys of Cassillis. They used to spend some time there by the waterside during the summer after the long winter months at Maybole, and, indeed, their doing so counted for much in the early history of the compact little town at the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... letter—to yours 'tis an answer— To-morrow be with me, as soon as you can, sir, All ready and dressed for proceeding to spunge on (According to compact) the wit in the dungeon—[26] Pray Phoebus at length our political malice May not get us lodgings within the same palace! I suppose that to-night you're engaged with some codgers, And for Sotheby's Blues[27] have deserted Sam Rogers; And I, though with ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Vol. 7. - Poetry • George Gordon Byron

... lieutenant, sternly; to the men, who were closing around them in compact circle; "away with you to your stations, and see all clear for stays." The dense mass of heads dissolved, at this order, like the water of one of the waves commingling with the ocean, and the lieutenant and his companions were ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper

... my thoughts," said Stanbury, "and now I am on my way to the Daily R., 250, Fleet Street. It is my custom of an afternoon. I am prepared to instruct the British public of to-morrow on any subject, as per order, from the downfall of a European compact to the price of a ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... that the industry confers on its finest exhibits. Coral sells for as much as 500 francs per kilogram, and in this locality the liquid strata hid enough to make the fortunes of a whole host of coral fishermen. This valuable substance often merges with other polyparies, forming compact, hopelessly tangled units known as "macciota," and I noted some wonderful pink ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... the open road, between fences only slightly burned. No mark of fire was upon them; they lay there as if asleep. This phenomenon seems to explain the fact that so many were killed in compact masses. They seemed to have huddled together, in what were evidently regarded at the moment as the safest places, far away from buildings, trees, or other inflammable material, and ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly

... business. (2) Tut! tut! You don't say so! and (3) Credo in Unum Deum Patrem Omnipotentem, Factorem omnium visibilium atque invisibilium; in which last there is a power of synthesis that can jam all their analytical dust-heap into such a fine, tight, and compact body as would make them stare to see. I understand that they need six months' holiday a year. Had I my way they should take twelve, and an extra ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... business would grow tiresome. I never thought the day would come when I'd call you Taborley, however. As for myself, plain Braithwaite's a little reminiscent—— Still, we'll consider that part of our compact settled. And now, what?" ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson

... be found: the soil of the island was sandy, and all the rain had soaked into it and disappeared. The damper having been exposed to the weather was saturated with water. There was in the boat a large three-legged iron pot, half filled with fat, a hard and compact dainty not liable to be spilled or wasted, and in it had been stewed many a savoury meal of sandpipers, parrots, rats, and quail. This pot had been fortunately left upright and uncoveredduring the night, and the abundant rain had filled it with fresh water. ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale

... hard, compact, black-green wood, obtained from 'Guaiacum offcinale', from which pestles, ship-blocks, rollers, castors, ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... him in his weakness, but she would never think of him in his strength. The whimsical fate pleased him. The last meeting on that grey autumn afternoon at the Broken Bridge had heartened him for his travellings. It had been a compact between them; and now he was redeeming the promise of the tryst. And she would never know it, would only know that somewhere and somehow he had ceased to struggle with an inborn weakness. Well-a-day! It was no ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan

... was nothing of aimlessness, idleness, or lack of vigour in Mrs. Mallathorpe. She was a woman of character, energy, of brains—Collingwood saw all that at one glance. A little, neat-figured, compact sort of woman, still very good-looking, still on the right side of fifty, with quick movements and sharp glances out of a pair of shrewd eyes: this, he thought, was one of those women who will readily undertake the control and management of big affairs. He felt, as Mrs. ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher

... down the Corso towards the Palazzo Buongiovanni. They had the greatest difficulty to reach its entrance, for carriages were coming up in serried files, and the inquisitive crowd of on-lookers, who pressed even into the roadway, in spite of the injunctions of the police, was growing so compact that even the horses could no longer approach. The ten lofty windows on the first floor of the long monumental facade shone with an intense white radiance, the radiance of electric lamps, which illumined the street like ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... greatest achievements of the human mind.[125] In the history of Mysticism he holds a more undisputed place than Plato; for some of the most characteristic doctrines of Mysticism, which in Plato are only thrown out tentatively, are in Plotinus welded into a compact whole. Among the doctrines which first receive a clear exposition in his writings are, his theory of the Absolute, whom he calls the One, or the Good; and his theory of the Ideas, which differs from Plato's; ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge

... The modern witch was a very different character, and joined to her pretended power of foretelling future events that of working evil upon the life, limbs, and possessions of mankind. This power was only to be acquired by an express compact, signed in blood, with the devil himself, by which the wizard or witch renounced baptism, and sold his or her immortal soul to the evil one, without any saving clause ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... of these quaint and rude people. A few poles stuck in the ground, clapboarded with cedar-boughs and cornstalks, and supporting a roof of the same, gave shelter to a rickety one-horse wagon and some farm implements. Near this there was a large, compact tent, made entirely of cornstalks, with, for door, a bundle of the same, in the dry, warm, nest-like interior of which the husking of the corn crop seemed to have taken place. A few rods farther on, we passed through another humble dooryard, musical with dogs and ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... upon the doctor, Donaldson drew a breath of relief. Thank God he had resisted his impulse. He would keep true to his compact. He must remain true to himself. That was all that was now left. There must be no shirking—no flinching. If he had played the fool, he must not play the coward. The subtle tempter had suggested the girl, but he realized that he had better not come ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... take to itself all the praise deserved by this perfect little poem, a model for all of its kind. Compact, expressive, serene, solemn, musical, in four brief stanzas it tells the story of the past, records the commemorative act of the passing day, and invokes the higher Power that governs the future to protect the Memorial-stone sacred ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... thief brags of his own attaint? 'Tis double wrong, to truant with your bed And let her read it in thy looks at board:— Shame hath a bastard fame, well managed; Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word. Alas, poor women! make us but believe, Being compact of credit, that you love us: Though others have the arm, show us the sleeve; We in your motion turn, and you may move us. Then, gentle brother, get you in again; Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife: 'Tis holy sport to be a little vain When the sweet ...
— The Comedy of Errors • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]

... among the heights between them and the reservation, there went suddenly aloft—one, two, three—compact little puffs of bluish smoke. Someone was answering signals flashed from the rocky point—someone who, though ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... the rescue of me, body and soul. I know not whether to ask of your goodness to make the same endeavour again. My father declares that nothing shall induce him again to let me go abroad with my uncle, and persists in declaring that the compact has been broken by our visits to Papist lands, nor will aught that I can say persuade him that the Muscovite abhors the Pope quite as much as he can. He likewise deems that having unfortunately become his heir, I must needs remain at home to thin the ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge

... from one bird to another was measured exactly by the span of their wings, not a single fish could break through the circle of menacing beaks. Indeed, the pelicans enclosed the fish with their united wings in a regular line as close and compact as a trawl or drag-net. As the circle gradually contracted, the fish began to jump into the air, and to dart about in all directions, leaving many a muddy streak to mark ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston

... the minds companioned, and the spirits made one by the whole-natured conjunction. In Booth, a happy prospect for the sons and daughters of Earth, divinely indicating more than happiness: the speeding of us, compact of what we are, between the ascetic rocks and the sensual whirlpools, to the creation of certain nobler races, now ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... they're "depressing," And if you can give them a dressing. With logic compact, Firmly founded on fact, Sober sense will bestow ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 26, 1891 • Various

... Bob Cochrane, "I hope your aunt will feel encouraged to return before long. What was the compact, Peter? She was to come back and be burnt as a ...
— Queensland Cousins • Eleanor Luisa Haverfield

... poor-seeming room, in fact Is of marvels all compact, So disguised by common daylight By its disenchanting gray light, Only eyes that see by shining, Inside pierce to its live lining. Loftiest observatory Ne'er unveiled such hidden glory; Never sage's furnace-kitchen Magic wonders was so rich in; Never ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... horse, and then rode slowly forward through the deep forest. The others rode with him, never breaking their compact formation, and preserving the utmost silence. Dick did not ask another question. Talk and fellowship were over. Everything before him now ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... fierce, defiant kind of pride he had heard often in Thea's voice. He looked down wonderingly at his old friend and patient. After all, one never knew people to the core. Did she, within her, hide some of that still passion of which her daughter was all-compact? ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather

... lateral door which opened on the west side of the cloister, through which it was his custom to pass, a stream of persons detached itself from the flood which obstructed the great portals, and poured through the side aisle around the old lord and his party. The mass was too compact to allow him to retrace his steps, and he and his wife were therefore pushed onward to the door by the pressure of the multitude behind them. The husband tried to pass out first, dragging the lady by the arm, but at that instant he was pulled vigorously into the street, and his wife was torn from ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac

... ground, or attached to other stakes laid transversely across the wall; the intermediate space is then filled with sand and mud, and beat down with large wooden mallets, (as they beat the terraces) till it becomes hard and compact; the cases are left on for a day or two; they then take them off, and move them higher up, repeating this operation ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... Anthropoids,"—says Professor Huxley; and to omit the continuance of this social fact and law in sociology is worse than talking pre-Copernican astronomy. That should be left to our metaphysical anarchists, who chatter as if man was a solitarily created "Adam," defying the social "compact" of Rousseau, or dickering as to the terms upon which he will ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various

... and brain, with further development of the higher sense-organs, we have the advance that the Craniota made beyond their skull-less ancestors. Other organs also attained a higher development; they acquired a compact centralised heart with valves and a more advanced liver and kidneys, and made progress in other ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel

... is compact and cushion-like, and the brilliant spiny balls are well set off on the bed of fern-like but sombre foliage. During August it is one of the most effective plants in the rock garden, where I find it to do well in ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood

... the Adirondacks, impatient and inquisitive as usual; a few weeks later, on the Potomac, I was greeted by the same hardy little busybody. Does he travel by easy stages from bush to bush and from wood to wood? or has that compact little body force and courage to brave the night and the upper air, and so achieve ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... he helped the Norwegians to clear the devastation of battle and to take possession of the various viking ships that had been either deserted by their crews or whose fighting men had all been slain. But he had no intention to abide by his compact. In the general confusion he contrived to get on board his own disabled dragonship. There he exchanged his tattered armour for a good suit of seaman's clothes, with a large cloak, a sword, and a bag of gold. He remained on board until nightfall, and then, dropping ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... who employed him asked questions, referred intelligently from answer to answer, and at last had in hand a compact body of information. He bade Gil good night. Ways of banditti in any age or place were much ...
— Foes • Mary Johnston

... Warsaw, so in Koenigsberg the bells rang, and trumpets and drums sent forth triumphant sounds. The roar of cannon announced to Koenigsberg and all Prussia that to-day the Duke and his States were joined in a compact of ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach

... the practical wisdom of Rome, and adaptation to Western customs; and it combines simplicity with completeness, strictness with gentleness, humility with courage, and gives the whole cloister life a fixed unity and compact organization, which, like the episcopate, possessed an unlimited versatility and power of expansion. It made every cloister an ecclesiola in ecclesia, reflecting the relation of the bishop to his charge, the monarchical ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various



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