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Desirability   /dɪzˌaɪrəbˈɪlɪti/   Listen
Desirability

noun
1.
The quality of being worthy of desiring.  Synonym: desirableness.
2.
Attractiveness to the opposite sex.  Synonyms: desirableness, oomph, sex appeal.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Desirability" Quotes from Famous Books



... who was most warmly received, said in he first place he must tender his hearty thanks to the Chairman for the very kind manner in which he had introduced him. The attention of the audience this evening would be directed to the desirability of promoting the unity of the British Empire. Before commencing his address, he wished to emphasize what the Chairman had already expressed with regard to the rules of the association on political subjects. In connection with ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young

... collective presentation they spoke of the desirability of making further concessions to Bulgaria, and in the special note to Bulgaria they stated that it was probable that the causes of friction would be removed and a union brought about. Bulgaria, however, was not satisfied, and Radoslavov, the Premier, in an interview to an American correspondent, ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... of putting the true reasons for or against a policy, before those who, whether from want of education or from lack of training in the subordination of feeling to thought, are not likely to understand or to listen to them. Nor, if we grant the genuineness of Demosthenes' conviction as to the desirability of the end for which he contended, can many statesmen be pointed out, who have not been at least as guilty as he in their choice of means. That he did not solve the problem, how to lead a democracy by wholly honest means, ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes

... to Miss Livingstone, as it will to everybody else who knows or cares," he said; "I mean chiefly Laura's tremendous desirability. Her beauty would go for something anywhere, but I don't want to insist on that. What marks her even more is the wonderful purity and transparency of her mind; one doesn't find it often now, women's souls ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... bloodshed, was organized in Vienna at the beginning of November. At Prague, Graz and other towns, demonstrations and collisions with the police were frequent. The premier, Baron Gautsch, who had previously discountenanced universal suffrage while admitting the desirability of a restricted reform, then changed attitude and permitted an enormous Socialist demonstration, in support of universal suffrage, to take place (November 28) in the Vienna Ringstrasse. Traffic was suspended for five hours while an orderly ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... came to be more and more polarized by the rise of English sea-power. Even under Charles, when France had been the chief enemy, {432} [Sidenote: Spain vs. England] the Hapsburgs saw the desirability of winning England as a strategic point for their universal empire. This policy was pursued by alternating alliance with hostility. For six years of his boyhood Charles had been betrothed to Mary Tudor, ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... inside is a space varying in width as above, and cut up by little islands and detached reefs. Now to get to India from Sydney, ships must go either inside or outside the Great Barrier. The inside passage has been called the Inner Route in consequence of its desirability for steamers, and our business has been to mark out this Inner Route safely and clearly among the labyrinth-like islands and reefs within the Barrier. And a parlous dull business it was for those who, like myself, had no necessary and constant ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley

... out and away the king of the romantics. THE LADY OF THE LAKE has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the inherent fitness and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story as a man would make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through just such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm dwells undefinable among these slovenly verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the mountains with his note; ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the desirability of this kind of defense: "If I had killed him, I should have done well; but I did not kill him." Where is the occasion, say they, for the first proposition if the second be true? They run counter ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser

... answering. Danger undoubtedly threatened Petrograd and the question of defending the capital loomed before us in all its terrible significance. But after the Korniloff experience, after Rodzyanko's words concerning the desirability of the German occupation, whence should we take the assurance that Petrograd would not be maliciously given up to the Germans in punishment for its seditious spirit? The Executive Committee refused to affix its seal blindly to the order to transfer two-thirds of the garrison. It was necessary ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky

... in the future, and thinks it not worth while to seek for something better. Confined to two varieties, a more satisfactory selection could scarcely be made. But you want six or seven, either being, I think, about the right number for the home garden. I will give them in the order of desirability according to my judgment— Cumberland, Charles Downing, Duchess, Mount ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... for war went on apace in every direction. Following up the war teachings of Nietzsche and Treitschke and others, General Von Bernhardi issued book after book defining in clear language the alleged national beneficence, biological desirability and inevitability of war, which, when it came, would be "fought to conquer for Germany the rank of a world-power;" the universities and schools and press teemed with militarist ideals and practices; the army charges ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall

... were admitted to Mr Simpson's private room; to those who did not he proved himself an almost insuperable obstacle. Unfortunately Borrow's standards were those of the physiognomist rather than the lawyer; he inverted the whole fabric of professional desirability by admitting the goats and refusing the sheep. He turned away a knight, or a baronet, and admitted a poet, until at last the distressed old gentleman in black, with the philanthropical head, his master, was forced to expostulate and ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins

... The desirability of teaching children, boys especially, to write with such a pen as they will use in after life will be recognized by every ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 33, June 24, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... by the advice of his two uncles, Kikkawa and Kohayakawa, both men of profound insight. They fully admitted the desirability of peace, since Hideyoshi's army effectually commanded the communications between the eastern and western parts of Chugoku, but they resolutely rejected the notion of sacrificing the life of Shimizu on the altar of any compact. When the priest carried this answer to Hideyoshi, the latter suggested, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... interested in cotton manufacture were seeking for fresh fields in which to establish the growth of the plant. Frank Gregory was then in London, and advantage was taken of his presence to urge upon the Home Government and the Royal Geographical Society the desirability of fitting out an expedition to proceed direct to the north-west coast of Australia, accompanied by a large body of Asiatic labourers, and all the necessary appliances for ...
— The Explorers of Australia and their Life-work • Ernest Favenc

... several anticipatory surveys of their farms, doubling up the sextants, bundling the surveying parties out of their freeholds, and very peremptorily informing Mr. Governor M'Dougall, just arrived from Canada, that his presence was by no means of the least desirability to Red River or its inhabitants. The man who, with remarkable energy and perseverance, had worked up his fellow-citizens to this pitch of resistance, organizing and directing the whole movement, was a young French ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... gentle smile; "but I daresay you can understand yourself the object of my visit. I could have wished to come in a more authorised way; but I've been in correspondence with Miss Moore for some time past as to the desirability of reopening the inquiry with regard to your father's unfortunate death; and I thought the time might now have arrived when it would be possible to put a few questions to you personally upon that unhappy subject. Miss Moore ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... away a long time," remarked Dick; "gramfer here and I were seriously discussing the desirability of starting out to look for you. Have you found ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood

... on their desirability as immigrants. Brandenburg: Imported Americans, IV, XII, XX. Hall: ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose

... lists have been excluded all species regarding the authenticity of which reasonable doubts could be entertained[1], and of some of them, a very few have been printed in italics, in order to denote the desirability of more minute comparison with well-determined specimens in the great national depositories before finally incorporating them ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... that Israelites began to speak the language of the country, and to accept Hungarian names. To her credit be it said that no such shameful sale was made as disgraced the time of Joseph II., when surnames were sold, according to their attractiveness or desirability, to the highest bidder. ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various

... acceptable draftsman, and under the tutelage of Professor Robert Weir he made progress. West Point does not teach such a soft and feminine thing as picture-painting—it draws plans of redoubts and fortifications, makes maps, and figures on the desirability of tunnels, pontoons and hidden mines. Robert Weir taught all these things, and on Saturdays painted pictures for his own amusement. In the rotunda of the Capitol at Washington is a taste of his quality—the large panel entitled, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard

... always been the policy of the Government to invite and induce the purchase and settlement of its public lands; and as the existence of game thereon and in their localities adds to the desirability of the lands, and is a well-known inducement to their purchase, it may well be considered whether, for this purpose alone, and without reference to the protection of the lands from trespass, Congress may not, on its own lands, prohibit ...
— American Big Game in Its Haunts • Various

... its head, for his lucubrations were received with favour. That entitled, "How to Live Cheerfully on Forty Pounds a Year," created a sensation among the unemployed. "Education: Its Aims, Objects, Purposes, and Desirability," gained him the respect of the shallow-minded. As for his celebrated essay on "Life Insurance Regarded in its Relation to the Masses," read before the Working Men's Mutual Improvement Society, Isle of Dogs, it was received with a "literal ovation" ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... shown by his morose air and the silent drooping of his head that he accepted this statement, wild and improbable as it seemed. Mr. Fox, whose mind without doubt had been engaged in a debate from the first, as to the desirability of challenging the testimony of this young girl, whose faculties had so lately recovered from a condition of great shock and avowed forgetfulness that no word as yet had come to him of her restored health, started to arise at her words; but ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green

... a degree no closer than that of first cousins, are neither to be condemned nor praised indiscriminately. Their desirability depends on the ancestry of the two persons involved; each case should therefore be ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson

... Interior suggesting an examination of Casa Grande with a view of its further protection 344 IV. Letter of the Acting Secretary of the Interior to the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology approving the suggestion that Casa Grande be visited with a view of determining the desirability of its further protection 347 V. Letter of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Interior regarding the examination of Casa Grande by Mr W J McGee 347 VI. Report of the Director of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary ...
— The Repair Of Casa Grande Ruin, Arizona, in 1891 • Cosmos Mindeleff

... American problem is the social problem partly because the social problem is the democratic problem. American political and social leaders will find that in a democracy the problem cannot be evaded. The American people have no irremediable political grievances. No good American denies the desirability of popular sovereignty and of a government which should somehow represent the popular will. While our national institutions may not be a perfect embodiment of these doctrines, a decisive and a resolute popular majority has ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly

... in engineering science, and the report is without question a most valuable document. The President, in his address to the members of the Board on September 11, 1905, outlined his views with regard to the desirability of a sea-level canal, if such a one could be constructed at a reasonable cost within a ...
— The American Type of Isthmian Canal - Speech by Hon. John Fairfield Dryden in the Senate of the - United States, June 14, 1906 • John Fairfield Dryden

... the distance three times. Twice to bow and exchange smiles. The other time she didn't see me. Seeing her meant two or three days of torture; then her image and desirability would begin to fade once more. But at least no other woman interested ...
— We Three • Gouverneur Morris

... branch of industry requires in a single year is not constant, and, in some cases, is subject to great fluctuations; yet there are few or no statistics available for the guidance of those who are specially concerned with that branch, or who are considering the desirability of entering it. The establishment of Employment Exchanges is a tacit admission of the need of such statistics, and—though less certainly—of the duty of the Government to provide them. Yet even if they were provided it seems beyond dispute that, in the absence of strong ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... among the tribes dwelling in the Mississippi valley; yet among these people the desirability and value of peace were recognized. Honors won in a defensive fight gave the warrior higher rank than those gained in wars of aggression. Rituals belonging to religious ceremonies, and also to war rites, taught that the first duty of the warrior was to protect the women and children, the fields ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher

... Pacific. The explorers were carefully instructed to report upon the geography, physical characteristics, and zoology of the region traversed, as well as upon its wild human denizens. Jefferson was fond of science, and in appreciation of the desirability of non-remunerative scientific observation and investigation he stood honorably distinguished among the public men of the day. To him justly belongs the credit of originating this first exploring expedition ever undertaken by the United ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt

... had indulged in occasional day-dreams of an ideal state of social equality, but his wildest flights of fancy had never located it nearer than heaven, and he had felt some misgivings about its practical working even there. Its desirability he had never doubted, and the speech of the evening before had given a local habitation and a name to the forms his imagination had bodied forth. Giving full rein to his fancy, he saw in the North a land flowing with milk and honey,—a land peopled by noble men and beautiful ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... this letter with that to Poole of 6th May 1796; it will be seen that Coleridge thus carried out his project of three years before. He had been able to convince the Wedgwoods of the desirability of introducing a knowledge of the German philosophy into England to refute the philosophy of Hume and expose the shallowness of the metaphysics of Locke and the Paley School of Theology. Tom Wedgwood was himself a philosopher, and saw in ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull

... of his diocese towards the north suggested to Rochfort the desirability of having for his headquarters a more central place than Clonard. So in 1202 he translated the see to Newtown, near Trim,[68] and began to call himself Bishop of Meath. Ten years later, as we know, this "impudent bishop" captured the diocese of Kells.[69] The bishop of ...
— St. Bernard of Clairvaux's Life of St. Malachy of Armagh • H. J. Lawlor

... chance to urge the desirability of his plan. At his first rather loud-spoken remonstrance Carmena flung back at him a curt gesture for silence and led on at a quickened pace. Her swift ascent slackened only at the twists of the narrowing canon; at these she would swing in close to the inner ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet

... the right of Secession had now long been taught, and had become a part of the Southern Slave-holders' Democratic creed, as fully as had the desirability of Slavery and Free-Trade—and even many of the Northern Democrats, and some Republicans as well, were not much inclined to dispute, although they cared not to canvass, ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... explained, may also be used to marinate salads before mayonnaise or other dressing is mixed with them. A point that should always be remembered in the making of this dressing or any other dressing containing oil is that the flavor of the oil has much to do with the desirability ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... Annual Meeting of the Curates' Augmentation Fund, Archdeacon KAYE, of Lincoln, urged the desirability of imposing some limitation to the number ordained to the Ministry of the Church of England, as three-fifths of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, June 25, 1892 • Various

... them with the cordiality bestowed on the proverbial long-lost friend. Local news interests readers because it concerns people and places immediately around them. Every newspaper man understands the desirability of increasing the attractiveness of a news event that happens elsewhere by rinding "local ends," or by giving it "a local turn." For special feature stories in newspapers, local phases are no less important. But whether the article ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer

... side of venereal diseases, especially the masterly writings of the eminent physician and chief organizer of the American movement for sex-education, the late Dr. Prince A. Morrow, of New York City; and one notes that the medical facts have bearings in two directions. First, they indicate the desirability of morality as a protection of personal health; and second, they teach that the pathological results of the individual's immoral living may be passed on later to innocent wives and children. The first is as clearly personal hygiene as teaching that impure water may cause typhoid; ...
— Sex-education - A series of lectures concerning knowledge of sex in its - relation to human life • Maurice Alpheus Bigelow

... Britishers was too tempting to be declined, and led to a result which might not have been reached had the question been nothing more than one of art and art-education. Competition supplied the stimulus which should have been furnished by a sense of the desirability of securing a collection so rich and in every way, historically and artistically, so valuable. The New York public, again, was never really interested in the Castellani collection. It grudged the additional entrance-fee of twenty-five ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... M'Douall Stuart, after two unsuccessful efforts, managed to cross the continent from Adelaide to Van Diemen's Gulf. Along the route which he then took, the people of South Australia resolved to construct a telegraph line. A gentleman named Charles Todd had frequently urged the desirability of such a line, and in 1869 his representations led to the formation of the British Australian Telegraph Company, which engaged to lay a submarine cable from Singapore to Van Diemen's Gulf, whilst the South Australian Government pledged itself to connect Port Darwin ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland

... for taking such precautions to prevent its getting to their enemies, but it placed the United States in a humiliating position and if we had not been in sympathy with their side it would have aroused more resentment than it did. But it made evident the desirability of having at least part of our supply under our own control and, if possible, within our own country. Rubber is not rare in nature, for it is contained in almost every milky juice. Every country boy knows that he can ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... it condenses the maximum amount of water with the minimum of loss of heat. If the supply of water at D be carefully regulated, it will be found that a continuous current will be passing into the still at a temperature of about 180 deg. F., or, if practice suggest the desirability of running in the water at intervals, this can be easily arranged. It is necessary that the level at A should be two inches or thereabout higher than the level of the bend at C, otherwise there may not be sufficient head to force a free current of water ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... talk and write so glibly as to the desirability of artists devoting themselves to the representation of the naked human form, only knew a tithe of the degradation enacted before the model is sufficiently hardened to her shameful calling, they would for ever hold their tongues and pens in supporting the practice. ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... else in reducing wages. So long as immigration is free to any race or nationality, there is no such thing as "protection to home laborers"; the only protection to them—not that I am urging the desirability of such measures—can come solely from forces which limit the number of workmen who enter into competition with them. Any other protection to laboring-men than the prohibition of immigration—which no one ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill

... The substance of Man's Place in Nature, one of the most successful and popular of his writings, and of his Crayfish, perhaps the most perfect zooelogical treatise ever published, was first communicated to them. In one of the last communications I had with him, I asked his views as to the desirability of discontinuing the workmen's lectures at Jermyn Street, since the development of workmen's colleges and institutes was regarded by some as rendering their continuance unnecessary. He replied, almost with indignation, 'With our central situation and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... MUST have!" she said—"otherwise I could not live. It is a necessary muscle. But what YOU call 'heart'—and what the dear elusive poets write about, is simply brain,—that is to say, an impulsive movement of the brain, suggesting the desirability of a particular person's companionship—and we elect to call that 'love'! On ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli

... politically weak; and the trading arrangements they had made among themselves became insecure. Strong nationalities were impatient of the claims of privilege made by foreigners settled or habitually trading in their cities; the interests of their own international policy often indicated the desirability of either favoring or opposing bodies of merchants, which in the time of their weakness the governments had treated with exactly the opposite policy; finally, the desire of their own citizens for the advantages of their ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... conference could and should also discuss in a pertinent way the question of disarmament. This question has to-day reached a stage much beyond that of mere desirability. It is now a question of commanding necessity, one can justly say of life and death of the reached stage of civilisation. Not pious wishes or theoretical expositions will in regard to it now suffice. We must have practical proposals, ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... strongly the desirability of avoiding every form of alcoholic liquor, from the very commencement of the disease, as affording the best chance for a speedy and safe recovery. The highest authorities are agreed on this point, but there is a lingering practice which ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen

... of course lose the opportunity to impress upon so influential a person as the Senator the desirability of improving the navigation of Columbus river. He and Mr. Brierly took the Senator over to Napoleon and opened to him their plan. It was a plan that the Senator could understand without a great deal of explanation, for he seemed to be familiar with the like ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 3. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner

... have been expected to unite herself with an outworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly felt than any association with her. True, the question of love on her own part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to Grandcourt. The desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other feeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom the advances depended. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt's way of being enamored before she had had that glimpse of his past, ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... before, and of this school he often bragged as the acme of desirability and wickedness. He was always telling boys what they did at "his old school," and he quite inflamed the minds of such as fell under his influence by marvellous tales of the wild and wilful things which he and his former school-fellows had done. Many and many a scheme of sin and mischief ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar

... 1804. He was himself doubtful about the desirability of a second tenure, but the appearance at the moment of a series of particularly foul attacks upon his private character made him feel that to retire would amount to something like a plea of guilty. Perhaps it would have served his permanent fame better ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton

... is given in the story of Naaman. The spirit of the world whispered to him of the desirability of knowing that the waters of Israel possessed curative properties, before he committed himself absolutely to the prophet's directions; and if he had waited to know before bathing in them, he would have remained a ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer

... desirability for planting I would make a list about as follows: Niblack, Major, Greenriver, Busseron, Indiana. I list the Niblack as first choice because it seems to be about as productive as any of the other varieties, and because of its excellence as a cracking nut and the quality of ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association

... inclined to emphasise this caution because I once had a rather embarrassing and pointed proof of its desirability,—which I relate for the enlightening ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant

... believed the whole western world to be alike concerned. To these ends I caused to be addressed to the several powers occupying territory and maintaining spheres of influence in China the circular proposals of 1899, inviting from them declarations of their intentions and views as to the desirability of the adoption of measures insuring the benefits of equality of treatment of all foreign ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley

... committee;[IC] and bill and report were referred to the whole House on the state of the Union. Later the views of the minority were filed.[IC] On January 23 a message from President Roosevelt in behalf of the measure was received. The president particularly urged the "great desirability of enacting legislation to help American shipping and American trade by encouraging the building and running of lines of large and swift steamers to South America and the Orient." As striking evidence ...
— Manual of Ship Subsidies • Edwin M. Bacon

... accepted its task in a purely administrative spirit. It declared distinctly that it considered it was not compulsory for them to give an opinion as to the suitability or desirability[21:2] of the arrangement, or of the political importance that might be assigned to the same. This limitation of the duty of the Committee is of importance in order to understand the terms of its conclusions; it was meant ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund

... funds at his disposal, was able to meet calls for financial help that were frequent and pressing, and recognizing the desirability of experienced and competent assistance in making the necessarily intimate inquiries, to determine if applicants for relief were worthy, he applied to Mr. Robert W. DeForest, President of The Charity Organization Society, for expert advice in the matter, and was referred by Mr. ...
— The New York Stock Exchange in the Crisis of 1914 • Henry George Stebbins Noble

... demands for better means of communication. The Government was straining to what seemed the breaking point, their credit and resources to carry on the war and as a Government enterprise the building of a Pacific Railway was out of the question. All were convinced of not only the desirability of such a line but of the absolute necessity thereof, and it had resolved itself into a question of ways and means. Previous discussions had thrashed out the chaff and it now remained for Congress to winnow the wheat. Government surveys ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey

... Grosvenor Green apartment in the background of his mind as something that he could return to as altogether more suitable. He conducted some simultaneous negotiation for a furnished house, which enhanced still more the desirability of the Grosvenor Green apartment. Toward evening he went off at a tangent far up-town, so as to be able to tell his wife how utterly preposterous the best there would be as compared even with this ridiculous Grosvenor Green gimcrackery. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... formerly Robert Street, running out of the King's Road on the north side. Here stands St. Luke's Church. The foundation-stone of this building was laid in 1820, and it was consecrated in 1824. For many years previously a discussion concerning the desirability of further church accommodation had been going on. The church was built on the old burial-ground, and the tombstones which were removed in the course of erection are placed in long rows round a low wall. The building is of ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... small need for the quarter-breed's parting injunction. The four Indian canoemen evidently keenly alive to the desirability of placing distance between themselves and MacNair's retainers, bent to their paddles with a unanimity of purpose that fairly lifted the big canoe through the water and sent the white foam curling from its bow in ...
— The Gun-Brand • James B. Hendryx

... hearts, and was eagerly anxious that the desire of them should be fulfilled. This was the good fairy Harriet Fisher. Without the strenuous exertion of her influence on her mother and Mr. Garrow, the object would hardly have been accomplished. Of course the plea put forward was the great desirability of taking advantage of such an opportunity of ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... grips hold of it, and the way he makes it grip hold of other people—practically anybody almost, who is standing by. Even if they are merely going by in automobiles, sometimes they catch some. I do not imagine that his worst enemies, however seriously they may question the general desirability or safety of having so much goodness roosevelting around, would fail to admit his own real enthusiasm about goodness anywhere he finds it indiscriminately, whether it is his own or other people's. He grips hold of it, and grips ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee

... thus set upon an object, his reason is soon convinced of its innocence, even of its desirability, and a kindly fate will generally contrive to give him the opportunity of ruin which he so ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... Fields, which was not regularly advertising its offerings.) The author also emphasizes the propriety, before the approaching Fast Day of January 19, 1704, of noting once more the Impiety of the stage and the desirability of either suppressing it wholly or suspending its operations for a considerable period. Apparently the author hoped to arouse in religious persons a renewed zeal for closing the theaters, for the tract ...
— Representation of the Impiety and Immorality of the English Stage (1704); Some Thoughts Concerning the Stage in a Letter to a Lady (1704) • Anonymous

... into the garden, and Geoffrey went upstairs. It was the custom in Mellstock and its vicinity to discuss matters of pleasure and ordinary business inside the house, and to reserve the garden for very important affairs: a custom which, as is supposed, originated in the desirability of getting away at such times from the other members of the family when there was only one room for living in, though it was now quite as frequently practised by those who suffered from no such limitation to ...
— Under the Greenwood Tree • Thomas Hardy

... underlies the nine tenths of our population is obstructed and embarrassed, and one man prompted to look with distrust upon another, although both may entertain precisely the same sentiments in relation to the desirability of throwing off the British yoke. As to how the army stands, Nick here can tell you more about that ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh

... While the desirability of particular soils is related in a broad way to the character of the parent rocks, and while by geologic knowledge certain territories can be predicated in advance as being more favorable than others to the development of good soils, so many other factors enter ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith

... did not appear particularly interested in these domestic reminiscences, and seemed as if he wanted to be left alone, Mrs. Sampson, with a final crackle, went down stairs and talked with a neighbour in the kitchen, as to the desirability of drawing her money out of the Savings Bank, in case the Russians should surprise and capture Melbourne. Brian, left alone, stared out of the window at the dusty road and the black shadows cast by the tall poplars ...
— The Mystery of a Hansom Cab • Fergus Hume

... who had a vague notion of the greatness of her uncle's Menike friends, Teddy and Gotali, and of the desirability of an alliance with one of their tribe, approached me softly and rubbed my back in a circle the while she crooned a broken song of the whaling days, concerning the "rolling Mississippi" and the "Black ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... that Ethics treats of what ought to be. The ideal must not be one which simply floats in the air. It must be an ideal which is possible, and, therefore, as such, obligatory. It is useless to feel the worth of a certain idea, or even to speak of the desirability of it, if we do not feel also that it ought to be realised. Moral judgments imply an 'ought,' and that 'ought' implies a norm or standard, in the light of which, as a criterion, all obligation must be tested, and according to which all ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... certain species, it is so extremely variable in others as to lead to the suspicion that it is responsible in some cases for the multiplication and confusion of species. At the same time, the occurrence of some of these forms at certain seasons of the year suggests the desirability of prolonged and careful study of fresh material, and the search for additional evidence of the unity of these forms, or of ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson

... committee on rifle practice in public schools be approved and the thanks of the board be tendered Generals Wingate and Critchfield for their valuable paper; that the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice recommend to the various educational authorities the desirability of interesting school boys over 13 years of age in the subject ...
— A report on the feasibility and advisability of some policy to inaugurate a system of rifle practice throughout the public schools of the country • George W. Wingate

... questions by which it is surrounded and in the consideration of which it is bound to be connected and concerned. Therefore, without going further, prematurely, into a discussion of the merits of the proposition itself or its desirability, I say that it should take the usual course which the practice and laws of this body have given to grave public questions. Let it go to the Committee on the Judiciary, and let them, under their sense of duty, deal with it according ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... those who called and they asked the boys to visit their towns, some of which were not many miles away, to trade. As all of those Indians traversed the Portage trail or path, the boys were reminded almost daily of the desirability of securing land for a trading post, at the junction of the trail and the river. As they talked the matter over and looked into the future, more and more did they regret that the violent conduct of Big Buffalo had prevented their prolonging their bargaining with Capt. Pipe on the ...
— Far Past the Frontier • James A. Braden

... The guests talked and laughed, ate and promenaded. They crowded the porch to watch the fireworks on the mountain; they swept over the smooth space and the roadway in front of the Inn, looking up at it and remarking upon the quaint charm of it, the desirability of its location, its attractiveness as a resort. Tom heard one pretty girl planning a luncheon here next week; he heard a group of men talking about entertaining a visiting delegation of bankers up here at ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond

... these respects. My experiments tend to show that the natural order of nominative, verb, object, is usually preferable; and as a rule I find that adverbs and adverbial phrases fall best between nominative and verb. Still, the desirability of tying each period to its predecessor, as does the rhyme of the fourth and fifth lines of a sonnet, will modify arrangement. In reading another author, where such precaution as I name is neglected, a word misplaced in its relation to the others of the sentence runs my mind off the track, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... limit of possible attainment. The man desires to catch a train, to run that he may attain that end; his mind is little occupied with the desire to fly, nor does his longing center upon the carpet of Solomon. To the desirability of dismissing from the mind futile desires current ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton

... and timid, shunning active exercises, and though at the time of his marriage (1558) he was too young to have been actively engaged in the vices of the outwardly devout court, he appears to have been fully alive to the desirability of his bride. Mary was precocious and ambitious; she was surrounded by profligates, male and female, and, though she can hardly have been in love with her young husband, she appears to have been fully ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... being often strongest when the adornment is most minute, others have no such repugnance or are quite indifferent whether or not their aprons are accurately adjusted. The mere presence or possession of the article gives the required sense of self-respect, of human dignity, of sexual desirability. Thus it is that to unclothe a person, is to humiliate him; this was so even in Homeric times, for we may recall the threat of Ulysses to ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... renewed enthusiasm into his old occupation. His observation of northern agriculture and conversations with other farmers had broadened his views and he was more than ever progressive. He was now thoroughly convinced of the great desirability of grass and stock for conserving the soil and he was also wide awake to the need of better tools and methods and wished to make his estate ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth

... there is talk in the House about payment of members. A private member has placed on the paper a resolution affirming the desirability of adopting the principle, and it is even said—(which I take leave to doubt)—that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has a card up his sleeve intended to win this game. It would be rash to predict stubborn resistance on the part of a body ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 28, April 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... they knew that the expenses of the king could not be regulated by his receipts, but that his receipts must be governed by his expenses, he spoke a half-truth; yet it had probably not occurred to him that there was any difference between the necessity of keeping up an efficient army, and the desirability of having hounds, coaches, and palaces. He had not reflected that it might be essential to the honor of France to feed the old soldiers in the Hotel des Invalides, and quite superfluous to pay large sums to generals who had ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell

... were strangely unanimous as to the desirability of going through in some less risky manner (we accused each other of "funking" afterwards), and accordingly sought the aid of a man, a boy, and a wheelbarrow, and in this unconventional manner conveyed our goods and chattels overland to the other end ...
— Through Canal-Land in a Canadian Canoe • Vincent Hughes

... moment the possibility and desirability of freedom from the depressing passions has been a reality to me, it took me some months to feel absolute security in my new position; but, as the usual occasions for worry and anger have presented themselves ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... tea, corned beef, catsup, mustard,—to last twenty men five or six months? How could he be expected to think of each item of a list of two hundred, the lack of which meant measureless bother, and the desirability of which suggested itself only when the necessity arose? It is easy, when the mind is occupied with multitudinous detail, to forget simple things, like brooms or iron shovels. With Tim Shearer to help his inexperience, he felt easy. He knew he could attend to advantageous buying, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White

... expect to gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles, as to secure a desirable disposition out of undesirable moods. A sunny disposition never comes from gloomy moods, nor a hopeful one out of the "blues." And it is our disposition, more than the power of our reason, which, after all, determines our desirability as friends ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... alteration during the war, and it was also difficult under the hour to hour stress of war to rearrange all the duties of the Naval Staff in the manner most convenient to the conduct of Staff business, although its desirability was recognized during 1917. ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe

... put in an application to the Bureau stating that they want to wed, and the Board of Managers can consider the desirability of issuing a permit," said the Idiot. "And they should be compelled to show cause why they should not be restrained from getting married. It is only in such a way that the state can reasonably guarantee the permanence of a contract ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... should expect, the desirability of modifying the system of descent and inheritance through females is felt first in connection with situations of honor and profit. At the time of the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands the government was a brutal despotism, presenting many of the features ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas

... community, they may be restrained by the legal machinery of the state, such as courts, police, and prisons, but when a whole community or state rises against another, the civil law becomes powerless and a state of war ensues. It is not proposed here to discuss the ethics of this question, nor the desirability of providing a suitable court of nations for settling all international difficulties without war. The great advantage of such a system of avoiding war is admitted by all intelligent people. We notice ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various

... injured eye was all but healed; an abounding confidence in himself,—which he had earned the right to feel. That was all. Ambition for place, power, wealth, he did not feel as an imperative urge. He perceived the value and desirability of these things. Only he saw no short straight road to any ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... "children-eating Prussians" might perhaps forego their craving for one evening. Therefore the chef did his best, encouraged by a group of hysterical maids who had suddenly become keenly alive to their own plumpness and possible desirability for ragouts. ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers

... the masses, and they did not appeal to them for bringing about the changes which they thought necessary. They put their faith, on the contrary, into some great ruler, some Socialist Napoleon. He would understand the new revelation; he would be convinced of its desirability by the successful experiments of their phalansteries, or associations; and he would peacefully accomplish by his own authority the revolution which would bring well-being and happiness to mankind. A military genius, Napoleon, had just been ruling Europe. Why should not ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin

... be of considerable inconvenience occasionally," admitted Ling, "yet none the less the sage remark of Huai Mei-shan, 'When actually in the embrace of a voracious and powerful wild animal, the desirability of leaving a limb is not a matter to be subjected to lengthy consideration,' is undoubtedly a valuable guide for general conduct. This person has endured many misfortunes and suffered many injustices; he has known the wolf-gnawings of great hopes, ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah

... anything could be done; somebody who would provide ships and men and money and provisions. Altogether rather a large order; for it was not an unusual thing in those days for master mariners, tired of the shore, to suggest to some grandee or other the desirability of fitting out a ship or two to go in search of the isle of St. Brandon, or to look up Antilia, or the island of the Seven Cities. It was very hard to get an audience even for such a reasonable scheme as that; but to suggest taking ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... his daughter's house, and to have 'a little talk' on geology. Greatly was I surprised at the vigour which he showed on that afternoon, for, contrary to his usual practice, he did not interrupt the conversation to retire and rest for a time, though I suggested the desirability of his doing so, and offered to stay. His brightness and animation, which were perhaps a little forced, struck me as so unusual that I laughingly suggested that he was 'renewing his youth.' Then a slight shade passed over his countenance—but only for a moment—as he told ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd

... and decisive scale in regard to the value of the different foods taken by man and the question of the desirability of cooked meat as part of his diet have never been carried out, nor has the use of alcohol been studied by direct experimental method on a large scale. Inasmuch as the feeding of our Army and Navy, of prisoners, lunatics, and paupers, is the business of the State, it ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... to know in what part of the mountains his a-ni'-to will dwell, because some one of his ancestors is known to inhabit a particular place, and where one ancestor is there the children go to be with him. This does not refer to desirability of location, but simply to physical location — as in the mountain north of Bontoc, or in one to the ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks

... Navy, even less could be expected, for he seems to have had absolutely no experience to qualify him for the post. Senator Crawford intimated that in instructing his naval officers Hamilton impressed upon them the desirability of keeping their superiors supplied with pineapples and other tropical fruits—an ill-natured comment which, true or not, gives us the measure of the man. Both Monroe and Gallatin shared the prevailing estimate ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson

... a suitable costume, as their present style of dress is quite inappropriate to any kind of mechanical labour, and must be radically changed before they can compete with men upon their own ground. As to the question of desirability, M. Sarcey refuses to speak. 'I shall not see the end of this revolution,' he remarks, 'and I am glad of it.' But, as is pointed out in a very sensible article in the Daily News, there is no doubt that M. Sarcey has reason and common-sense on his side with regard to the absolute ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde

... transferred from one to the other in a mode less expensive than was afforded by the sea route between Adelaide and the Swan River. Eyre did not believe in the possibility of establishing a practicable route, but urged, through the press, the desirability of exploring the vast regions to the north, which he anticipated would afford a good and profitable field for adventurous enterprise. He offered to lead an expedition which should explore the country around the great salt lake lying ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest

... to the desirability of amusements in the library, I own that I am somewhat sceptical. The library has its own division of labor in the work of education, and that division is the training of the people to the use and appreciation of books and literature. An argument in favor ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine

... to-day a considerable measure of agreement upon a practicable ideal of industrial society. To put the matter more expressly, if half of the community sincerely believed in a policy of the greatest possible freedom of individual enterprise, and the other half were ardent believers in the desirability of a socialist state, the hope of the adoption of a policy of wage settlement would ...
— The Settlement of Wage Disputes • Herbert Feis

... utter failure. That of Talleyrand, on the other hand, achieved its purpose, mainly because Pitt and Grenville never had any other desire than to remain strictly neutral. It was therefore superfluous for Talleyrand to hint delicately at the desirability of the friendship of France for England, in view of the war with Tippoo Sahib in India, and the increasing ferment ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... It was impossible to entrust the control of the new Port to the largest interest only, and accordingly he proposed that "in prescribing the manner in which votes are to be recorded, the Board of Trade shall have regard to the desirability of votes being so recorded, whether by allowing the voter to record a vote for a number of candidates in order of preference or otherwise, as to secure that so far as possible the several interests concerned shall be adequately represented on the Port ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys

... are given passes for their families and their friends. Shippers are given advantages in rates over their competitors; in fact, every legislator disposed to barter his vote away receives for it compensation which combines the maximum of desirability with the minimum of violence ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... been present at Gyp's birth, was in a queer state. The obvious desirability of such events to one of motherly type defrauded by fate of children was terribly impinged on by that old memory, and a solicitude for her "pretty" far exceeding what she would have had for a daughter of her own. What a peony regards as a natural ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... hand, the roots do not run freely but are actually in danger of being poisoned; but when the plant is fairly formed, and has entered upon the fruiting stage, the roots may ramify in rich soil to advantage. Hence the desirability of growing Peas in ground that was heavily manured and frequently stirred in the previous year, and of putting a coat of rotten manure between the two spits in trenching. As regards the last-named operation, it should be remarked that ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons

... smoke afterward? Or is one compelled to relinquish the table as soon as one is finished, to make place for later comers? These last are standing menacingly near by, gazing bitterly upon us as we look over the card and debate the desirability of having some tapioca pudding. But our presiding Juno has already settled the matter, and made courtesy a matter of necessity. "These gentlemen will be through in a moment," she says to the new candidates. Our ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... to the tailor; I like this restful atmosphere, in which unborn suits of clothes contentedly await creation in rolls of cloth, and the styles of the season are exhibited by pictures of gentlemen whose completely vacuous countenances comfortably repudiate the desirability of being 'leaders of men.' On the table the Geographical Magazine invites to unexciting wonder at the way other people dress. From the next room one hears the voice of the tailor, leisurely reporting to his assistant as ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... course M. de Nailles found plenty of other reasons for his choice, which he gave to the world and to himself to justify his second marriage—but this was the true reason and the only one. His friends, however, all of whom had urged on him the desirability of taking another wife, in consideration of the age of Jacqueline, raised many objections as soon as he announced his intention of espousing Mademoiselle Clotilde Hecker, eldest daughter of a man ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... as it was of old, an honourable Difference, until some abatement of honour has been associated with its presence under special circumstances. But the stereotyped use of the bordure wavy in England with a set meaning, gives to the wavy variety a lack of desirability. Marks of illegitimacy are intended to remain upon a shield for all time, although in a few historic cases their use has been discarded. And precisely the same words may be applied to any other charge that has been employed, or may ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell

... to the art of war as set forth in the manuals; whereas latterly the somewhat profligate excesses of the government of occupation—decently covered with diplomatic parables on benevolence and legality—have been dictated by military convenience, particularly by the need of forced labor and the desirability of a reduced population in the acquired territory. So also the "personally conducted" dealings with the Armenians by use of the Turks should probably also best be explained as an endeavour to reduce the numbers of an undesirable population beforehand, without incurring ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen

... the Doubleday Military Commission of Washington was convened at Baltimore, and before the day was over Newcomb had confessed and Ferry tried to, but he so falsified his statement that it did not merit consideration. The desirability for haste to make public the fraud was because the country had been flooded with these fraudulent papers, which could not be intercepted, except by publicity through the channel of the newspapers; therefore after the 27th of October the ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... always to begin by saying what he does not dispute. Beyond stating what he proposes to prove he should always state what he does not propose to prove. The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader, is this desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have desired. If a man says that extinction is better than existence or blank existence better than variety and adventure, then ...
— Orthodoxy • G. K. Chesterton

... themselves not to collapse if the external bracing wires should give way. The practice, more common in monoplanes than biplanes, of carrying important bracing wires from the wings to the undercarriage was condemned owing to the liability of damage from frequent landings. They also pointed out the desirability of duplicating all main wires and their attachments, and of using stranded cable for control wires. Owing to the suspicion that one accident at least had been caused through the tearing of the fabric away from the wing, it was recommended that fabric should be more securely fastened to ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... union with any possible husband, or by her death. It may have been that it was Henry's own wish to act directly on this view, and to declare his marriage null, arbitrarily, on the ground of public expediency. But whatever were Wolsey's views on expediency, and on the desirability of nullifying the marriage, such a course would have been too flagrant a violation of the universally accepted belief in the sanctity of the marriage tie to meet with his support. Moreover the offspring of a new marriage contracted under such conditions ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... is not perfect. It is one of the best rules of the ancients, showing the desirability of reciprocity, but it does not demand that our desires be always just, nor does it insure that what we want done to ourselves will always be what others most need. It would be consistent with the Golden Rule for a convivial man ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd

... is inapposite to urge that we do not want fevers or shaken houses. Wishes are provided no place in our meaning of good. Goodness merely assists, promotes, is conducive to any result whatever. It marks the functional character, without regard to the desirability of that which the function effects. But this is unsatisfactory and may well set us on a ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer

... difficult to see. The inexperienced sportsman cannot invariably discern one when it is pointed out to him, and the bush deer very seldom stand silhouetted against the sky. Their pale tinting blends with that of the fir trunks and the tall fern, and they seem to recognize the desirability of always having something near them that breaks their continuity of outline. Besides, to hunt in the thick bush needs the keenest powers of observation of both ear and eye, and an infinite patience, of which a worn-out, famishing white man is very rarely capable. When one steps ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... important respect to lead frustrated lives. Mr Beerbohm recently said that he has never known a man of genius whose life was not marred by some obvious defect. People have talked for two thousand years of the desirability of mens sana in corpore sano, but if everybody possessed this—possessed it from birth and without effort—there would probably soon be a shortage of genius. The sanity of genius is not the sanity of the healthy minded athlete: it is the sanity of the human spirit ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd

... to get a chance to do something that amounted to more than settling small family fusses," Creed said in a discouraged tone. "I hoped to have the opportunity to talk to many a gathering of our folks about the desirability of good citizenship in a general way. This thing of blockaded stills keeps us forever torn up with a bad name in the ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan

... ever before the minds of the settlers the desirability of laying this land under tribute, of forcing it to yield a livelihood. Franklin had no wish to depart from his original plans. He looked to see all the ways of the civilization he had left behind come duly hither to search him out. He was not satisfied to abandon his law books for ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough

... the last few days been fairly thoroughly discussed in the New York papers, which particularly dwell on the words 'a peace guaranteeing our existence and future,' and agree unanimously as to the urgent desirability of a further and more exact formulation of the ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... a matter of days before I yielded. Common sense told me it was futile, even foolhardy, to gaze again on the vision of perfect desirability. I fought against the hunger, but I fought hopelessly, and was not at all surprised to find myself one evening rapping on van Manderpootz's door in the University Club. He wasn't there; I'd been hoping he wouldn't be, since it gave me an excuse to seek him in his laboratory ...
— The Ideal • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum

... dogs, sleds and boats, was truly a great honor and not to be lightly considered. She would soon be in a position high above that of any of the Eskimo women of her acquaintance, and she began to feel the importance and desirability of her station. ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan

... very advisable to have the meaning of those other doubtful sections of the Act cleared up, and as C. P. R. counsel went more fully into the matter the desirability of it for both sides became ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse

... To illustrate the desirability and possibility of concentration, I must tell you a story of my little six-year-old daughter. The governess had been teaching her about the reindeer, and, as the custom was, she related it to the family. She reduced the history ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... discussion between Mr. Julius Bradshaw and Miss Laetitia Wilson, who was anxious to transfer her position of first violin to that young gentleman. We regret to have to report that Miss Sally's agreement with her friend about the desirability had been sotto voce'd in these terms: "Yes, Tishy dear! Do make the shop-boy play the last movement." And Miss Wilson had then suggested it, saying there was a bit she knew she couldn't play. "And you expect me to!" said the owner of the Strad, "when I haven't so much as looked ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... of the article concerned itself with the lessons taught by the war, the folly of pacifism, the need for preparedness if righteousness is not to be sacrificed for peace, the worthlessness of treaties unsanctioned by force, and the desirability of an association of nations for the prevention of war. On this last ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland

... Administration to ensure the co-operation of a tribe that with its far reaching influence might have proved a dangerous element in an unsettled district, shared in his inmost heart the sentiments of his heir, but with a larger and more discriminating wisdom saw the desirability of associating at least one of his family with the Government he was obliged, though grudgingly and half contemptuously, to acknowledge. He had hovered long between prejudice and policy before he reluctantly gave his consent for Said ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... fleet in question had entered the Bay of Yedo. It was under command of Commodore Matthew C. Perry, who bore a letter from the President of the United States to the Emperor of Japan, suggesting the desirability of commercial relations between the two countries, requesting the supply of American vessels with coal and provisions, and demanding the kind treatment and prompt return of shipwrecked mariners. This letter, splendidly engrossed, was enclosed ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... avoided instinctively all that interfered with bodily well-being. When she was cool and well-fed and not thirsty, and surrounded by a proper degree of feminine daintiness, then she was ready to amuse herself. But she could not understand the desirability of those pleasures for which a certain price in discomfort must be paid. As for firearms, she confessed herself frankly afraid of them. That was the point at which her ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White

... to observe how St. Augustine, who was as familiar with classic as with Christian life and thought, perpetually dwells on the boundless misery of war and the supreme desirability of peace as a point at which pagan and Christian are at one; "Nihil gratius soleat audiri, nihil desiderabilius concupisci, nihil postremo possit melius inveniri ... Sicut nemo est qui gaudere nolit, ita nemo est qui pacem habere nolit" (City of ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis

... by Miss Jenkyns, was endorsed, "Letter of pious congratulation and exhortation from my venerable grandfather to my beloved mother, on occasion of my own birth. Also some practical remarks on the desirability of keeping warm the extremities of infants, ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... realized the desirability of leaving Europe and of raising funds. She ordered the car, and we went to the office of the Holland American Line to try and secure the Imperial Suite, but without avail: no passages were to be had. Then we drove to five banks, ...
— An Account of Our Arresting Experiences • Conway Evans

... practices relating to the ability to continue to communicate and to provide and maintain interoperable emergency communications in the event of natural disasters, acts of terrorism, or other man-made disasters; and (A) an evaluation of the feasibility and desirability of the Department developing, on its own or in conjunction with the Department of Defense, a mobile communications capability, modeled on the Army Signal Corps, that could be deployed to support emergency communications at the site of natural disasters, acts ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives

... favour of putting him at the head of a central department for prisoners of war. I agreed with von Jagow that in such case all would go smoothly and humanely. Naturally, von Jagow could only mildly hint at the desirability of this appointment. A prince, heir to one of the thrones of Germany, with the rank of General in the army, he seemed ideally fitted for such a position, but unfortunately the opposition of the army and, particularly, of the representative corps ...
— My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard

... collector of facts and traditions, but no more able to grapple hard with problems of philosophy or theology than any other Roman of his time. The life of the average wealthy man was too comfortable, too changeable, to suggest the desirability of real mental exertion. ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... greater desirability of another world merely shift their desires from the earth to the skies. It remains to be seen how high their gushing fountain will play, and for how long. But this much is certain: women were not created for these ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore

... improved modification of the old sod method, known as the sod "mulch" system, has attracted much attention because of the success with which a few men have practiced it. For a correct understanding of these practices and of the relative desirability of these systems we must again turn to underlying principles ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt

... Arthur to Mr. Galloway's, Tom and Charles to the cloisters, that famous playground of the college school. Stolen pleasures, it is said, are sweetest; and, just because there had been a stir lately amongst the cathedral clergy, touching the desirability of forbidding the cloisters to the boys for play, so much the more eager were they to ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... environment and ensuing tendencies of the birds, hold true of the entire grouse family. Wherever found, the grouse are considered good game birds. Were their good works in the destruction of weeds and insects as well known as is their desirability for the table or for targets for the sportsmen, they would be regarded as one of the most valuable among ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... chosen the lesser good, is a valuable help to the community and to one's own integrity of conduct. Too often the people perish for lack of vision; an understanding of the naturalness and enormous desirability of morality, together with an appreciation of its main injunctions, would enlist upon its side many restless spirits who now chafe under a sense of needless restraint and seek some delusory freedom which leads to pain and death. Morality is simply the best way of living; and the more ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... stood to his accomplice in the relation of a burglar to his mate, where the burglar has both the boodle and the secret in his possession. An illustration of this occurred during their first trip to Missouri. Rigdon and Smith did not agree about the desirability of western Missouri as a permanent abiding-place for the church. The Rev. Ezra Booth, after leaving the Mormons, contributed a series of letters on his experience with Smith to the Ohio Star of Ravenna.* In the first of these he said: "On ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... formation. This line was an enterprise of Russell, Majors & Waddell. Mr. Russell met in Washington the Senator from California. This gentleman knew that the Western firm of contractors was running a daily stagecoach from the Missouri River to Sacramento, and he urged upon Mr. Russell the desirability of operating a pony express line along the same route. There was already a line known as the "Butterfield Route," but this was circuitous; the fastest time ever made on it was ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore

... (a) old men, (b) young men, (c) women the desirability of men's giving up their seats in street cars to women. (Also modify the question by requiring only young men to give up their seats, and then only to old people of either sex, to sick people, or to people ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor

... For nobody to whom money was a concern could possibly afford to live in a place like this. If Croesus and the Count of Monte Cristo had applied for lodging there, the authorities would probably have looked on them a little doubtfully at first and hinted at the desirability of a month's ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse



Words linked to "Desirability" :   undesirability, sultriness, desirable, goodness, attractiveness, desirableness, good, sex appeal



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