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noun
Essence  n.  
1.
The constituent elementary notions which constitute a complex notion, and must be enumerated to define it; sometimes called the nominal essence.
2.
The constituent quality or qualities which belong to any object, or class of objects, or on which they depend for being what they are (distinguished as real essence); the real being, divested of all logical accidents; that quality which constitutes or marks the true nature of anything; distinctive character; hence, virtue or quality of a thing, separated from its grosser parts. "The laws are at present, both in form and essence, the greatest curse that society labors under." "Gifts and alms are the expressions, not the essence of this virtue (charity)." "The essence of Addison's humor is irony."
3.
Constituent substance. "And uncompounded is their essence pure."
4.
A being; esp., a purely spiritual being. "As far as gods and heavenly essences Can perish." "He had been indulging in fanciful speculations on spiritual essences, until... he had and ideal world of his own around him."
5.
The predominant qualities or virtues of a plant or drug, extracted and refined from grosser matter; or, more strictly, the solution in spirits of wine of a volatile or essential oil; as, the essence of mint, and the like. "The... word essence... scarcely underwent a more complete transformation when from being the abstract of the verb "to be," it came to denote something sufficiently concrete to be inclosed in a glass bottle."
6.
Perfume; odor; scent; or the volatile matter constituting perfume. "Nor let the essences exhale."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Essence" Quotes from Famous Books



... conclusion, "is the home which God has given us. All that He—the One—has created is penetrated with His own essence, and bears witness to His Goodness. He who knows how to find Him sees Him everywhere, and lives at every instant in the enjoyment of His glory. Seek Him, and when ye have found Him fall down and sing praises before Him. But praise the Highest, not only in gratitude ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... over the blue beflowered walls and rust-red doors; through the dusty closeness of this dismantled room a rank scent of musk and violets rose, as though a cheap essence had been scattered as libation. A small empty scent-bottle ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... duty as gentlemen to visit them. We carried our politeness still further, and showed our good breeding in endeavouring to accommodate ourselves to the tastes and habits of those we were about to visit. "Do at Rome as the Romans do," is the essence of all politeness. As our friends were accustomed to be in naturalibus—vulgice, stark naked, we adopted their Adamite fashion, and, undressing, in we plunged. Our success was greater with the finny, than was that of any exquisite ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard

... than that of the An; beside the beautiful conformation of its lower limbs, its flanks and shoulders the majority of the Ana in that day were almost deformed, and certainly ill-shaped. Again, the Frog had the power to live alike on land and in water—a mighty privilege, partaking of a spiritual essence denied to the An, since the disuse of his swimming-bladder clearly proves his degeneration from a higher development of species. Again, the earlier races of the Ana seem to have been covered with hair, and, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... she will be off. She has friends in Italy, it appears, and will probably spend some time near them, but even I am only to have an official address, from which letters are to be forwarded. She warns me that I may hear very seldom, since when a "dark mood" is on, the very essence of a cure seems to be to hide herself in ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... and as the modifications which successive generations of the holders undergo do not destroy the original type, but only disguise and refine it, so the accompanying alterations of belief, however much they purify, leave behind the essence of ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer

... right. Any other interpretation of the language would be absurd. We cannot conceive of a case where a party could vote without knowledge of the fact of voting, and to apply the term "knowingly" to the more act of voting, would make nonsense of the statute. This word was inserted as defining the essence of the offence, and it limits the criminality to cases where the voting is not only without right, but where it is done wilfully, with a knowledge that it is without right. Short of that there is no offence within the statute. This would ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... a quality which belongs to a subject but not as part of its essence (in Aristotelian language kata sumbebekos, the scholastic per accidens). Essential attributes are necessarily, or causally, connected with the subject, e.g. the sum of the angles of a triangle; accidents are not deducible from ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... prose stories are presented in the language of the masters themselves. There is no diluting of their fine literary style. Careful abridgments have been made by well-known literary critics, but the essence of these masterpieces has been retained. This is important: our young people should know the great, not only about them. The poems ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... is not the first to try this way out. It would be misleading, no doubt, to identify him with the members of the Scottish School of a hundred years ago or with Jacobi; he reaches his conclusion in another way, and that conclusion is differently framed; nevertheless, in essence there is a similarity, and Hegel's comments[Footnote: Smaller Logic, Wallace's translation, c. v.] on Bergson's forerunners will often be found to have point with reference ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... domineered in the ensuing month, nobody outside the limits of the Congreve knew. He appalled the timid and maddened the courageous. He was up all night for half a week together, seeming to live with a teaspoon in one hand and a tin of some nutritive meat essence in the other, and always administering doses to himself as if he were a patient ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray

... those filigree balls of gold wrought into openwork, about the size of a walnut, that fine ladies used to wear swung from a chain or ribbon and call a pomander. The toy held a chosen perfume or essence supposed to be reviving in case miladi felt a swoon or megrim about to overwhelm her; as ladies did in past centuries and do ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram

... essence be as ours, We have replied in telling thee the thing Mortals call death hath naught to do ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt

... of your love," so brawn, you must taste it, ere to you it will seem to have any taste at all. But 'tis nuts to the adept,—those that will send out their tongues and feelers to find it out. It will be wooed, and not unsought be won. Now, ham-essence, lobsters, turtle, such popular minions, absolutely court you, lay themselves out to strike you at first smack, like one of David's pictures (they call him Darveed), compared with the plain russet-coated wealth of a Titian or a Correggio, as I illustrated ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... peaks, since he is familiar with facts which only occur at a height of ten thousand feet or more above the sea—mountain-sickness and its accompaniments—of which his imaginary comrade Solinus tries to cure him with a sponge dipped in essence. The ascents of Parnassus and Olympus, of which he speaks, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... noiselessly upon his track, and he stands with ears thrown forward, tail erect, trunk thrown high in the air, with its distended tip pointed to the spot from which he winds the silent but approaching danger. Perfectly motionless does he stand, like a statue in ebony, the very essence of attention, every nerve of scent and hearing stretched to its cracking point; not a muscle moves, not a sound of a rustling branch against his rough sides; he is a mute figure of wild and fierce eagerness. Meanwhile, the wary tracker ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... and I know you too well to think that you will consider as trivial or out of place anything in which his real nature displayed itself, and your own sense of humor as a master and central power of the human soul, playing about the very essence of the man, will do more than forgive anything of this kind which may crop out here and there, like the smile of wild-flowers in ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown

... plan altogether, and after much and careful reflection determined to execute one more within my control, and the boldness of which, though trying to the nerves, was its very essence for success. It was to bring the King and Queen into Havre itself before anybody could suspect such a dangerous intention, and have everything ready for their embarkation to a minute. To carry out the plan, I wanted vigilant, intelligent, and firm agents, and I found them ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... going again, Bob, I don't mind singing a song." And Hopkins, incited thereto by tumultuous applause, plunged himself at once into "The King, God Bless Him," which he sang as loud as he could, to a novel air, compounded to the "Bay of Biscay," and "A Frog He Would." The chorus was the essence of the song, and, as each gentleman sang it to the tune he knew best, the effect was very ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VI (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland IV • Various

... laid it down as a fundamental that the essence of good-breeding is to contribute as much as possible to the ease and happiness of mankind, so will it be the business of our well-bred man to endeavour to lessen this imperfection to his utmost, and to bring society as near to a level at least as ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... beings, also representative. The objects of representation are merely representing subjects; the monad A represents the monads from B to Z, while these in turn do nothing more than represent one another. The monad mirrors mirrors—where is the thing that is mirrored? The essence of substance consists in being related to others, which themselves are only points of relation; amid mere relativities we never reach a real. That which prevented Leibnitz himself from recognizing this empty formalism was, no doubt, the fact that for him the mere form of representation ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... may venture to criticize fearlessly, knowing that it will bear the test,—especially at present, when one needs be as chary of trying any book fairly as Don Quixote was of proving his unlucky helmet. And an additional satisfaction is caused by the fact, that the book, not only in origin, but in essence, is American from cover ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... like her. It was evident that this woman, who was yet so agreeable, must in her youth have been most attractive. She yet had what the people (the language of which is so expressive) call the seed of beauty, that prestige, that ray, that star, that essence, that indescribable something, which attracts, charms, and enslaves us. When she saw me, her embarrassment and blushes enabled me to contemplate her calmly and to feel myself at once at ease with her. I ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various

... with a respondent beam on his countenance, "did you draw the ethereal essence that animates your frame? You toil for us—watch for us, and yet you never seem fatigued, never discomposed! How is this? What does ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... development of the play, and, finally, the outcome. The melodies are of two sorts conforming to the two parties into which the personages of the play can be divided; and, like those parties, the melodies are broadly distinguished by external physiognomy and emotional essence. Most easily recognized are the two broad march tunes typical of the mastersingers and their pageantry. One of them has already been ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel

... Henrica, called her, shook her and sprinkled her with perfumed water from the large shell, set in gold, which hung as an essence bottle from her belt. When her niece only muttered incoherent words, she ordered the maid to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... delicious perfume, and at the centre of each flower was a viscous liquid, the colour of honey. "If this tastes as well as it looks," said Bearwarden, "it will come in well for dessert"; saying which he thrust his finger into the recesses of the flower, intending to taste the essence. Quietly, but like a flash, the flower closed, his hand being nearly caught and badly scratched by the long, sharp thorns that now appeared at the edges. "Ha!" he exclaimed, "a sensitive and you may almost say a man-eating plant. This doubtless has been the fate ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor

... portion of the divine essence that lives, and moves, and has its being in those vast ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid

... be the logos of Heraclitus with the superadded authority of the Hebrew high priest. You may recall the fact that I greatly admire the Essenes and their system. My deity is a pure essence; not Jehovah the protector or avenger. The logos, or mediator, I have borrowed from the writings of the Greek philosophers. This logos returns to the bosom of God after the sacrifice. Greek philosophy combined with Hebraic moral principles! ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... That was the essence of his vision—which was all rank folly, if one would, while he was out of the house and otherwise occupied, but which took on the last verisimilitude as soon as he was placed and posted. He knew what he ...
— The Jolly Corner • Henry James

... been stored, there is a certain portion which even in extreme cold will never freeze, while all the remainder is frozen: this is the spirit and fluid secretion of wine.[6] If this is drunk, the essence will penetrate into a man's armpits, and he will die. Wine kept for two or three years develops great poison." For a detailed history of grape-wine in China, see ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... is therefore distinguished by this, that by observation, therefore by study and reflection, it is only to be attained through a special talent which as an intellectual instinct understands how to extract from the phenomena of life only the essence or spirit, as bees do the honey from the flowers; and that it is also to be gained by experience of life as well as by study and reflection. Life will never bring forth a Newton or an Euler by its rich ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz

... subconscious self asserted itself, it would have boldly proclaimed its absolute superiority over other women of such make as poor Joyce Lauzoon. Not merely in the other's shocking lack of moral sense—but in very essence. ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... in its essence. The succession is the same, the sequences identical. Whether you are thinking of the unfolding of consciousness in the universe, or in the human race, or in the individual, you can study the laws of the whole, and in Yoga you learn ...
— An Introduction to Yoga • Annie Besant

... a bee for honey, not, like Coleridge, a browsing ox. To him the essence of delight was choice; and choice, with him, was readier when the prize was far-fetched and dear bought: a rarity of manners, books, pictures, or whatever was human or touched humanity. 'Opinion,' he said, 'is a species of property; and though I am always desirous to share with my friends to a certain ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... is the sinner himself. In the case of the "woman that was a sinner," the two declarations are coupled: "Thy sins are forgiven.... Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."[320] This "faith" is the up-welling in man of his own divine essence, seeking the divine ocean of like essence, and when this breaks through the lower nature that holds it in—as the water-spring breaks through the encumbering earth-clods—the power thus liberated works on the ...
— Esoteric Christianity, or The Lesser Mysteries • Annie Besant

... spiritual existence, already insisted on at some length. And you will see more and more clearly as we proceed, that the deliberate and intellectually commanded conception is not idolatrous in any evil sense whatever, but is one of the grandest and wholesomest functions of the human soul; and that the essence of evil idolatry begins only in the idea or belief of a real presence of any kind, in a thing in which there ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin

... my life, if only for an hour. Teach me to submit. Show me, beyond all dread of contradiction that vows, truly made, hold good even in that mysterious world beyond the grave. Show me that though the body—dear home and vehicle of love—may die, yet love in its essence remains everlastingly conscious, faithful and complete. Bend my will to harmony with Thine, O Lord, and cleanse me of self-seeking. Ah! but still let me see his face once again, once again, oh, my God—and I will rebel no more. Let me look on him, once again, if only for a moment, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... Coghlans' door another idea struck him. "The essence of a present lies not in its value but its appropriateness. A few crepes on Mardi Gras would be a novel acknowledgment to the Sergeant-Major of his liberality in the way of cigarettes. At ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various

... to insure the duration of this home; on its other needs, M. Taine, with his knowledge of man and of his history, had given a good deal of thought to fundamental ideas analogous to those which he has consecrated to the classic spirit, to the origin of honor and conscience, to the essence of local society, so many stones, as it were, shaped by him from time to time and deeply implanted as the foundations of his criticism of institutions. Having set forth the proper character and permanent wants of the Family he was able to study the legislation affecting it, and, first, "the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... lifted up his stature vast, and stood, Still without intermission speaking thus: "Now ye are flames, I'll tell you how to burn, And purge the ether of our enemies; How to feed fierce the crooked stings of fire, And singe away the swollen clouds of Jove, 330 Stifling that puny essence in its tent. O let him feel the evil he hath done; For though I scorn Oceanus's lore, Much pain have I for more than loss of realms: The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled; Those days, all innocent of scathing war, When all the fair Existences of heaven Came open-eyed to guess what ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats

... not finish this letter tonight; it will be sent with as much of the First Symphony as makes a worthy essence when it goes. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but there is a place (perhaps not in life, but somewhere) for the imperfect, for the incomplete. The great and small alike achieve fulfillment, satisfaction—must this be a ruthless ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... trials greater than they could bear; but of Marcia, scarce a waking thought. Surely the man he now was had never reclined in peaceful halls where women plied the distaff and talked about love, and of how Rabuleius, the perfume-maker of the Suburra, had just received a new essence from Arabia! That old life was all a dream, perhaps the memory of a former existence, as the sage of Croton had taught. There was nothing real in the world, in these days, but fear and suffering and humiliation and revenge. Even duty had ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne

... might think that Francis was about to join the ranks of those to whom submission to ecclesiastical authority is the very essence of religion. But no; even here his true feeling is not wholly effaced, he mingles his words with parentheses and illustrations, timid, indeed, but revealing his deepest thought; always ending by enthroning the individual conscience as judge ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... with them but to understand and learn from them. Such sympathy as he had was either purely sensuous, as for youth and beauty and all kinds of comeliness; or purely intellectual, as for intelligence, artificiality, servility, meanness. And as his essence was satirical, as he was naturally irreverent and contemptuous, it follows that he is best and strongest in the act of punishment not of reward. His passion for youth was beautiful, but it did not make him strong. His scorn for things contemptible, his ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley

... Emaciated by the most cruel privations, the least agreeable feeling was to us a happiness supreme. Thus we sought with avidity a small empty phial which one of us possessed, and in which had once been some essence of roses; and every one as he got hold of it respired with delight the odour it exhaled, which imparted to his senses the most soothing impressions. Many of us kept our ration of wine in a small tin cup, and sucked it out with ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... must be used in producing a realistic effect," remarked Holmes. "This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid perhaps upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various

... miracle. It is only that we are accustomed to one, and not to the other, that makes the astral senses seem more wonderful than the physical. Nature's workings are all wonderful—none more so than the other. All are beyond our absolute conception, when we get down to their real essence. So let us keep ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi

... looking at things without regard to consequences, of feeling devoutly about whatever seems to us true, and of realizing that individual preferences do not alter the laws of the universe; isn't that the essence of Puritanism?" ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates

... cannot shun Thy presence, For through its veil of flesh Thy piercing eye Looketh upon my spirit's unsoiled essence, As through the pure transparence of the sky; Let not the oppressor clap his bloody hands, As o'er my ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... Beethoven was right in calling him his friend. It is as follows:—"This mighty work, teeming with German grandeur and depth of feeling, having been given under my direction at Prague, had enabled me to acquire the most enthusiastic and instructive knowledge of its inner essence, by means of which I hope to produce it before the public here with full effect, provided as I am with all possible accessories for the purpose. Each performance will be a festival to me, permitting me to pay that homage to your mighty spirit which dwells ...
— Beethoven's Letters 1790-1826 Vol. 2 • Lady Wallace

... Obedience? It is compliance with everything that is required by authority—it is the mainspring, the very soul and essence of all military duty. It is said a famous general once remarked every soldier should know three things—"First, ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... might have taken a hint for the management of their sons from her. She found no fault with cigars or latch-keys. She was the essence of all that was kind, yet, at the same time, she was so animated, so bright, so witty, that the time spent with her passed quickly as a dream. Lord Chandos did not even like to think of parting ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay

... It is more precious than, diamonds or rubies. The old miser said to his sons: "Get money; get it honestly, if you can, but get money." This advice was not only atrociously wicked, but it was the very essence of stupidity. It was as much as to say, "if you find it difficult to obtain money honestly, you can easily get it dishonestly. Get it in that way." Poor fool! Not to know that the most difficult thing in life is ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... upstairs wid yo' Mammy, honey. Dis ain't no place for us, I reckon." Her words were the essence of endearment. And yet, while she pronounced them, she glared unceasingly at the intruders. "Oh, de good Lawd'll burn ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... as a sentinel dismissed from his post. Unaided by revelation, it cannot be hoped that mere earthly reason should be able to form any rational or precise conjecture concerning the destination of the soul when parted from the body; but the conviction that such an indestructible essence exists, the belief expressed by the poet in a different sense, Non omnis moriar must infer the existence of many millions of spirits who have not been annihilated, though they have become invisible to mortals who still see, hear, and perceive, only by means of the imperfect organs of humanity. ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... in former days, but it had passed into another's occupancy. The fire threw its blaze on the furniture. There were the little ornaments on the large dressing-table, as they used to be in her time; and the cut glass of crystal essence-bottles was glittering in the firelight. On the sofa lay a shawl and a book, and on the bed a silk dress, as thrown there after being taken off. No, those rooms were not for her now, and she followed Joyce up the other staircase. The ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... good paymaster,'" said Sancho; "I mean to lay on in such a way as without killing myself to hurt myself, for in that, no doubt, lies the essence of this miracle." ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester

... effort to get away from it now, and you yield all the more because of this misleading hope that some day you will be touched by a supernatural hand, and will rise up to a regenerate life. And yet our reason tells us that all this is the very essence of self-deceit, and that such dreams and hopes are the devil's most subtle temptation. This kind of vain hope is based on a complete misconception of the nature of our conflict with sin, and the way to escape from it. To think thus of spiritual gifts and the growth of the spiritual life, ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival

... She is Protectresse of her honor too: May she giue that? Iago. Her honor is an Essence that's not seene, They haue it very oft, that haue it not. But ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Becketts that they would get no automobile, no essence, and no chauffeur. Yet they got all three, as magically as Cinderella got her coach and four. The French authorities played fairy godmother, and waved a wand. Why not, when in return so much was to ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... give the essence of Mr. Greenwood's words {13a} concerning the nom de plume of the "concealed poet," whoever ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang

... Majesty: pleasant gossipy Letters, with an easy respectfulness not going into sycophancy anywhere; which keep the campaigning King well abreast of the Berlin news and rumors: something like the essence of an Old Newspaper; not without worth in our present Enterprise. One specimen, if ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... of the thicket, and as he went he felt as though all the vivid dreams and fervid imaginings about lions that had ever passed through his mind from earliest infancy were rushing upon him in a concentrated essence! Yet there was no outward indication of the burning thoughts within, save in the sparkle of his dark brown eye, and the flush of his brown cheek. As he wore a brown shooting-coat, he may be said to have been at that ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne

... Aristotle but his doctors, the irrefragable, the angelic or eagle-eyed, the subtile, the illuminated, and many more had their peaceful folios vainly disturbed by my researches, and my determination to understand what, alas, in its essence was unintelligible. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... Will—as indeed is the case. A spare, dry, shrivelled man, with a mouth full of determination and acuteness, and a habit of measuring his words as though they were for sale, he is in everything but height the essence of every Scotchman ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... to work out her first definite philosophy of existence. In essence it was not so very different from the blatant optimism of Mr. S. Herbert ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis

... Egypt, had ventured to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity. When he had elevated his mind to the sublime contemplation of the first self-existent, necessary cause of the universe, the Athenian sage was incapable of conceiving how the simple unity of his essence could admit the infinite variety of distinct and successive ideas which compose the model of the intellectual world; how a Being purely incorporeal could execute that perfect model, and mould with a plastic hand the rude and independent chaos. The vain hope of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon

... Friedrich Wilhelm carries it through every fibre and cranny of Prussian Business, and so far as possible, of Prussian Life; so that Prussia is all a drilled phalanx, ready to the word of command; and what we see in the Army is but the last consummate essence of what exists in the Nation everywhere. That was Friedrich Wilhelm's function, made ready for him, laid to his hand by his Hohenzollern foregoers; and indeed it proved a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume IV. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Friedrich's Apprenticeship, First Stage—1713-1728 • Thomas Carlyle

... irrevocable Constitution of the Empire" was revoked on February 26, 1861, when Schmerling succeeded Goluchowski, and the so-called "February Constitution" was introduced by an arbitrary decree which in essence was still more dualistic than the October Diploma and gave undue representation to the nobility. The Czechs strongly opposed it and sent a delegation on April 14 to the emperor, who assured them on his royal honour of his desire to be ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... before he undertakes to deal with this subject at all, should be conscious of fully perceiving the fundamental distinction between responsibility as merely legal and as also moral; otherwise he cannot but miss the very essence of the question in debate. No one questions the patent fact of responsibility as legal; the only question is touching responsibility as moral. Yet the principal bulk of literature on Free Will and Necessity arises from disputants on ...
— Thoughts on Religion • George John Romanes

... away out to the horizon lie the treacherous quicksands. Narrowness is sometimes safety. If the road is narrow it is the better guide, and they who travel along it travel safely. Restrictions and limitations are of the essence of all nobleness and virtue. 'So did not I because of the fear of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... acts have a common root, and the whole is matted together like the green growth on a stagnant pond, so that, by whatever filament it is grasped, the whole mass is drawn towards you. And a profound insight into the essence and character of sin lies in the accumulated synonyms. It is "transgression," or, as the word might be rendered, "rebellion"—not the mere breach of an impersonal law, not merely an infraction of "the constitution of our nature"—but ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren

... career in which it seemed certain that if he would follow in his father's steps he might hope for more than his father's fortunes. If Charles Fox had been quite cankered by his father's care, if the essence of his genius had been corruptible, he might have given the King's friends a leader as far removed from them as Lucifer from his satellites, and contrived perhaps—though that indeed would have been difficult—to amass almost ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... embroidered linen gown, then her two sons, likely enough boys, and then Anne Wellington with Prince Koltsoff. She almost touched Armitage as she passed; the skirt of her lingerie frock swished against his ankles and behind she left, not perfume, but an intangible essence suggestive, somehow, of the very personality of the cool, beautiful, lithe young woman. As Armitage turned in response to Thornton's prod in the ribs, he met her eyes in full. But she gave no sign of recognition, and of course Armitage ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... this is the case. Now the characteristic mark of a species, next, if not equal in importance to its sterility when crossed with another species, and indeed almost the only other character (without we beg the question and affirm the essence of a species, is its not having descended from a parent common to any other form), is the similarity of the individuals composing the species, or in the language of agriculturalists ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin

... aid Imploring storms, her essence is the spur. His cry to heaven is a cry to her ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... unconscious? We can't leave a woman in that condition, gentlemen. Conductor, take Master Edouard." Placing the boy in Jerome's arms, he turned to one of his companions: "Man of precautions," said he, "haven't you smelling salts or a bottle of essence ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere

... egg, 2 tablespoonfuls of cold water, Sifted confectioner's sugar, 1/2 teaspoonful of essence of peppermint or a few drops of oil of peppermint, 1 or 2 squares of Baker's Chocolate, Green ...
— Chocolate and Cocoa Recipes and Home Made Candy Recipes • Miss Parloa

... in Europe; and we can see how temptations and abuses without number might and did often arise from this very fact. Ambition, the desire of wealth, the mere love of ease, led many to profess a religious life who had never passed through that transformation of will and understanding which is the essence of religion. The very purpose of religion was forgotten, or allowed to be hidden away under things excellent in themselves, yet not essential; and difference of view about these unessential things led to fierce ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston

... heart burst the bounds imposed by the strong will. She placed before her the little Madonna, from which she never parted, and fell on her knees. She prayed till noon, and her prayer continued still; it was not simply a woman's supplication: her whole essence was poured out before the Holy Mother, who was the object of her special adoration. This girl had never known evil: for nineteen years her mind had rippled on, sparkling with good deeds, little bright thoughts, gentle inspirations sweetly obeyed; then first streamed in ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous

... is called by the learned, but it needs a stronger name. It is more than an instinct. It is the very essence ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout

... Father had been waiting. He had nineteen large batteries concealed in ambush. And he fired them. He fixed Harris with a glance that was the condensed essence of all the fathers-in-law in the world. "Young man," he snorted, "I don't discuss my business affairs. But I don't mind saying that I am partner in one of the most flourishing mercantile concerns in the State. I knew that Lulu and you would never believe that the poor old folks could actually ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis

... inherent and immutable absurdities in an actual existence. In regard to the doing of such things, or rather of such absurd and inconceivable nothings, omnipotence itself possesses no advantage over weakness. Power, from its very nature and essence, is confined to the accomplishment of such things as are possible, or imply no contradiction. Hence it is beyond the reach of almighty power itself to break up and confound the immutable foundations of reason and ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... which inevitably attends the entrance of a stranger into a room full of people much at their ease, and all launched upon sentences. At the same time, it seemed to Mr. Denham as if a thousand softly padded doors had closed between him and the street outside. A fine mist, the etherealized essence of the fog, hung visibly in the wide and rather empty space of the drawing-room, all silver where the candles were grouped on the tea-table, and ruddy again in the firelight. With the omnibuses and cabs still running in his head, and his body still tingling with his quick walk along the streets ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... most refined judges of art in aftertimes, such as Cicero, Caesar, and Quinctilian, assigned the palm to him among all the Roman poets of the republican age. In so far it is perhaps justifiable to date a new era in Roman literature—the real essence of which lay not in the development of Latin poetry, but in the development of the Latin language—from the comedies of Terence as the first artistically pure imitation of Hellenic works of art. The modern comedy made its way amidst the most determined literary warfare. The Plautine style of composing ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... which had contained soups; the labels, although dirty and tarnished, were much admired by the natives, one of whom strutted proudly about for some days wearing an empty tin on his head, bearing four labels of "concentrated essence of meat." ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne

... out (in thought I mean) every instance of this kind. If the number of these fancied erasures did not startle him, or if he continued to deem the work improved by their total omission, he must advance reasons of no ordinary strength and evidence, reasons grounded in the essence of human nature. Otherwise, I should not hesitate to consider him as a man not so much proof against all authority, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various

... the ethics of a love that rose purely above physical attraction—environment—temperament; a love that grew and strengthened and absorbed until it ceased to be a part of life and became life itself—the main issue, the fundamental essence? ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... yodel and the solemn church bells. And after these have passed away, another train of thought succeeds, of those who have been brave and true, of kind hearts and bold deeds, of courtesies received from strangers' hands, trifles in themselves but expressive of that good-will which is the essence of charity." ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan

... smooth and exhaled a delicious odor of lilacs. During the exercises Selina had been getting ready the clothes for the day—everything fresh throughout, and everything delicately redolent of the same essence of lilacs with which Selina had rubbed her from hair to tips of fingers and feet. The clothes were put on slowly, for Margaret delighted in the feeling of soft silks and laces being drawn over her skin. She let Selina do every ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips

... (1816-1874).—Journalist and novelist, b. in London, began life in a solicitor's office. He early, however, took to literature, and contributed to various periodicals. In 1851 he joined the staff of Punch, to which he contributed "Essence of Parliament," and on the death of Mark Lemon (q.v.) he succeeded him as editor. He pub. a few novels, including Aspen Court and ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... of imposture."—Shaftesbury, Characteristics, p. 11, vol. I. "The very essence of gravity is design, and consequently deceit; a taught trick to gain credit with the world for more sense and knowledge than a man was worth, and that with all its pretensions it was no better, but often worse, than what a French wit had long ago defined it—a mysterious ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

... surprise at this mode of putting things, but simply asks: "What is that instruction, sir?" The father then proceeds to give an explanation of what in these days is called "Monism," that is, the absolute singleness of ultimate Being, and traces all that is, or seems to be, up to one ultimate Essence. Now, whether in the form given by Uddalaka to his exposition, his theory can properly be called Pantheism, according to the definition of it assumed above, is perhaps questionable. But that it was intended to be Pantheism there can be no doubt. "In the beginning," says ...
— Pantheism, Its Story and Significance - Religions Ancient And Modern • J. Allanson Picton

... these sciences were we thoroughly acquainted with the extent and force of human understanding, and could explain the nature of the ideas we employ and of the operations we perform in our reasonings.... To me it seems evident that the essence of mind being equally unknown to us with that of external bodies, it must be equally impossible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise than from careful and exact experiments, and the observation of those ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley

... light of sunset fell on ilex and olive, on mountain snows, on valleys billowing between vine-mantled hills, on creamy marble walls, on columned campaniles; and standing there, I seemed verily to absorb, to become saturated as it were, with the reigning essence of beauty. I walked on, a few steps, lifted a worn, frayed leather curtain, and looked into a small gray, dingy church, where a mist of incense blurred the lights on the ancient altar, and the muffled roll of an organ broke into sonorous waves, like reverberations of far-away thunder; and why ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... And what of it? There are artifices and artifices, and some are better than others. The automobile is a more cunning artifice than the ox-cart, the subway than a palanquin. Devices come and devices go. Change is the essence of progress. All is development. The end of rapes and romances is the same—perpetuation. There may be head love as well as heart love. And in the time to come, when the brain ceases to be the servant of the belly, the head ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London

... have been altogether wide of its author's aim. Swift's Gulliver is one example. As Mr. Birrell put it the other day, "Swift's gospel of hatred, his testament of woe—his Gulliver, upon which he expended the treasures of his wit, and into which he instilled the concentrated essence of his rage—has become a child's book, and has been read with wonder and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... talk and dispute about evil, very few people know what evil essentially is. Now, there are some things, the mere doing of which by the most involuntary agent would at once stamp his soul with the conviction of ineffable sin. He would have touched the essence of evil. And if a wise man has done that, he has had in his hand the key ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... liver in Unyamwezi. Then another cheese was seen, but this was all eaten up—it was hollow and a fraud. The third box contained nothing but two sugar loaves; the fourth, candles; the fifth, bottles of salt, Harvey, Worcester, and Reading sauces, essence of anchovies, pepper, and mustard. Bless me! what food were these for the revivifying of a moribund such as I was! The sixth box contained four shirts, two pairs of stout shoes, some stockings and shoe-strings, which delighted ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... next to impossible for the first-rate horses to win; otherwise, the owners of the inferior animals, seeing that they had no chance, would prefer to pay forfeit, and the harmony, as it were, of the contest—the even balancing of chances, which is of the very essence of the handicap—would be lacking. On the other hand, the handicapper cannot bring the chances of the really bad horses up to the mean average, no matter how much he may favor them in the weights, and thus it nearly always ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... haughty silence. He needed no advice. But alas! When at night he reached his beloved's house—it seemed to be redolent with the very perfume of her, as if the furniture, the curtains, the very walls about her had absorbed the essence of her spirit—he felt the strain of that insistent gossip, of the persecution of an entire city that had fixed its ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... Chapel of S. Cristofano, saying that they were worthless, because in making them he had imitated the ancient works in marble, from which it is not possible to learn painting perfectly, for the reason that stone is ever from its very essence hard, and never has that tender softness that is found in flesh and in things of nature, which are pliant and move in various ways; adding that Andrea would have made those figures much better, and that they would have been more perfect, if he had given them ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari

... considering everything in its practical essence. Idealism only means that we should consider a poker in reference to poking before we discuss its suitability for wife-beating; that we should ask if an egg is good enough for practical poultry-rearing before we decide ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton

... its essence, yet organized in all its minutest parts—cannot attain its full stature unless it receives immortal food. The aliments of mere sensual life are for the body, and the mind's lowest constituents of being; and they who ...
— The Hand But Not the Heart - or, The Life-Trials of Jessie Loring • T. S. Arthur

... of treading in the footsteps of Cicero and the Caesars in Rome, of Pericles and Socrates in Athens, for the very soil of the Forum and the stones of the citadel of Pallas seem impregnated with the very essence of history. But this is far from being the case at Pompeii, where long careful study of details and a grasp of hard facts are really of more avail than a poetic imagination in reclothing with flesh the dry bones of the past, for the importance of the Campanian city is almost purely ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... but costly cabinet of malachite marble, exquisitely mounted in silver, and had been a present to the count from a Russian despot. In the inner part was fixed a mirror, encircled by a large frame of silver, and on the projecting slab stood open essence-bottles of pure crystal, in silver frames, emitting various perfumes. As she continued to look at this novelty—the marble called malachite was even more rare and costly in those days than it is in ours—she perceived, lying ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... he, "I fail to see your point. If it were certain that the man was alive, it would be impossible to presume that he was dead; and if it were certain that he was dead, presumption of death would still be impossible. You do not presume a certainty. The uncertainty is of the essence of ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman

... him pray once, or preach once, or even select a psalm for public or for family worship; even if I heard him say grace at a dinner-table, or reprove his son, or scold his servant. Presumptuous sin has so much of the venom and essence of sin in it that, forgiven or unforgiven, even a little of it never leaves the sinner as it found him. Even if his fetters are knocked off, there is always a piece of the poisonous iron left in his flesh; there is always a fang of his fetters left in the broken bone. The presumptuous ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte

... are busy watching each other. Britain is detaching herself from them, understanding that she is an oceanic, colonizing, and world power, much more than a European state. The United States and Britain are the two Powers, one in essence, cradled in freedom, that have a great future before them. According to the last census, the first has a population of some fifty-four millions of whites. The census of next April will show that the other has nearly forty millions in the home islands and ten millions in the self-governing ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... apprehension not so entirely unsupported by appearances, as to be pronounced chimerical. With a blind infatuation, which treated reason as a criminal, immense numbers applauded a furious despotism, trampling on every right, and sporting with life, as the essence of liberty; and the few who conceived freedom to be a plant which did not flourish the better for being nourished with human blood, and who ventured to disapprove the ravages of the guillotine, were execrated as the tools of the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... Hugh saw in a flash that the essence of the Gospel itself was like that. When he read the sacred record in the light of Plato, it seemed to him as if it must in some subtle way be pervaded by the same bright intuitions as those which lit up the Greek ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson



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