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Precise   Listen
adjective
Precise  adj.  
1.
Having determinate limitations; exactly or sharply defined or stated; definite; exact; nice; not vague or equivocal; as, precise rules of morality. "The law in this point is not precise." "For the hour precise Exacts our parting hence."
2.
Strictly adhering or conforming to rule; very nice or exact; punctilious in conduct or ceremony; formal; ceremonious. "He was ever precise in promise-keeping."
Synonyms: Accurate; exact; definite; correct; scrupulous; punctilious; particular; nice; formal. See Accurate.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Precise" Quotes from Famous Books



... the plain ribs of which, diverging from their imposts, instead of crossing each other and spreading into intricate forms, go straight to a longitudinal midline running from west to east, and decorated with coloured figures or flowers where the springers meet it. There is a precise line of separation between this and the more elaborate ceiling of Bishop Hotham's work; being thus brought into contact the two may ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous

... reviewer has seen can boast of the same simplicity. The other point is that absolutely everything concerning sex which could possibly be objectionable has been ruled out. There is not a word or a sentence in the book that a precise maiden lady need hesitate to read to her Sunday School class or at a pink tea. In doing this Dr. Coriat has indeed achieved the impossible as all will readily agree. This book is probably too elementary for the majority of the readers of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology but it is destined to ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... effort was the knowledge that on the second day they were to sail for the Pamarung Islands upon a small schooner which her father had purchased, with a crew of Malays and lascars, and von Horn, who had served in the American navy, in command. The precise point of destination was still undecided—the plan being to search out a suitable location upon one of the many little islets which dot the western shore of ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Irish names shows approximately 21,000 persons. This does not take into account the great number of people who could not be recorded under that head, as it is known there were many thousand Irish "redemptioners" in Maryland prior to the taking of the census, and while no precise data exist to indicate the number of Irish immigrants who settled in Maryland, I estimate that the number of people of Irish descent in the State in 1790 was ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox

... one and Robert Stonehouse was small. At the precise moment, in fact, when he leant out of the upstairs bedroom window, instinctively seeking fresh air, he became eight years old. He did not know this, though he did know that it was his birthday and that a birthday was a great and presumably auspicious occasion. His conception ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie

... be acquiring knowledge, and they wax specially eloquent when they sniff in me a future member of their fraternity. No, no, clericus clericum non decimat. But why be in such a hurry? The Herr Professors are still at Carlsbad, and are sure not to be precise about the very day." "Nay, distinguendum est inter et inter," replied the other; "quod licet Jovi, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various

... a great amount of space, and flood the reader with a vast mass of matter irrelevant to the point before us; we shall therefore insert only so much of each, as will intelligibly set forth the precise point under consideration. In the column under the word "witnesses," will be found the name of the individual, who signs the advertisement, or for whom it is signed, with his or her place of residence, and the name and date of the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the further end of the room. It was as if he had touched off six high explosives. Occasional pauses in the minutely crazy din were accurately punctuated by exploding bowels; to the great amusement of innumerable somebodies, whose precise whereabouts the ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... died since the trial—and the four lying witnesses. They were all shackled together. A notary public was present, and they signed and acknowledged their confessions, that they had been bribed to swear against my father and convict him; and they even acknowledged, in their terror, the precise sums which they had ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... literature, enshrined in endless temple-inscriptions and papyri, if we could but exchange it for some of the royal annals of Egyptian Pharaohs. That historical records of this character were compiled by the Egyptian scribes, and that they were as detailed and precise in their information as those we have recovered from Assyrian sources, is clear from the few extracts from the annals of Thothmes III's wars which are engraved on the walls of the temple at Karnak.(1) As in Babylonia and Assyria, ...
— Legends Of Babylon And Egypt - In Relation To Hebrew Tradition • Leonard W. King

... of a sailor, very precise about his wardrobe, and prided himself greatly upon his seamanship, and entertained some straight-laced, old-fashioned notions about the duties of boys at sea. His hair, whiskers, and cheeks were of a fiery red; and as he wore a red shirt, he was altogether the ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... wonder what precise difference this rousing sermon will make in the conduct of any ...
— Dolly Reforming Herself - A Comedy in Four Acts • Henry Arthur Jones

... Persian coin. Even if we knew, at the present day, its exact value, we could not determine the precise amount denoted by the sum which Pythius named, the value of money being subject to such vast fluctuations in different ages of the world. Scholars who have taken an interest in inquiring into such points as these, have come ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... Hastings House (Warren Hastings' old country house in the suburbs of Calcutta, specially renovated and fitted up for the purpose), and the Viceroy's state carriages are sent to convey them to Government House. Everything in the way of ceremonial in India is done strictly by rule. The precise number of steps the Viceroy will advance to greet visiting Rajahs is all laid down in a little book. The Nizam of Hyderabad is met by the Viceroy with all his staff at the state entrance of Government House, and he is accompanied through all the rooms, both on his arrival and on his departure; but, ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton

... Powells were Cavaliers, and the Parliament's writ would run but lamely in loyal Oxfordshire. Whether Milton went down on this eventful Whitsuntide in the capacity of a creditor cannot now be known; and a like uncertainty envelops the precise manner of the metamorphosis of Mary Powell into Mary Milton. The maiden of seventeen may have charmed him by her contrast to the damsels of the metropolis, she may have shielded him from some peril, such as might easily beset him within five miles of the Royalist ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett

... made slaves real estate by a law passed in 1705. (Beverly's Hist. of Va., p. 98.) I do not find the precise time when this law was repealed, probably when Virginia became the chief slave breeder for the cotton-growing and sugar-planting country, and made young men and women "from fifteen to twenty-five" the main ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... and looked as stern as if he were listening to some narrative of crime. Still, he let them speak on to the end, and though at first he only muttered that it was mere "fancy-work" or "Aye, indeed, if I were the emperor;" he afterwards asked clear and precise questions, to which he received positive and well considered answers. Antonius proved by figures that the profit on the delivery of material for the Caesareum only would cover more than three quarters of the outlay. Then Polykarp began to speak ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... knew it would be impossible to get on either of the main shores, anywhere near the point where we happened to be; and secondly, because, having often seen similar dammings of the waters, he fancied we were still safe. That the distant reader may understand the precise character of the danger we ran, it may be well to give him some ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... would now proceed to state his objections to the clause just read, (section 2, of article 1, clause 3.) His objections were comprised under three heads: 1st, the rule of apportionment is unjust; 2d, there is no precise number fixed on, below which the house shall not be reduced; 3d, it is inadequate. In the first place, the rule of apportionment of the representatives is to be according to the whole number of the white inhabitants, with three-fifths of all ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... liquor undergoes a change, and the impurities contained in it separate into flakes, which increase in size with each drop of lime added, until they become extinct, and the supernatant liquor perfectly transparent; this is the precise point at which the liquor is tempered, and each drop of lime added after this, causes the flakes to diminish rapidly in size, at last entirely to disappear (being re-dissolved), and the liquor to resume its former gummy appearance; it is, therefore, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... and I could have sworn that if he was firmly pressed with a question that could not be evaded he would either refuse to answer or tell the truth. But what had I just heard? No answer to any question. A voluntary statement, precise in terms, that was utterly false. The unimaginable had happened. It was almost as if some one I knew well, in a moment of closest sympathy, had suddenly struck me in the face. The blood rushed to my head, and I stood still on the grass. I stood there until ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley

... regarded him as one of the boldest and best fighting generals in the whole army. His predecessor, General A. S. Williams, the senior division commander present, had commanded the corps well from Atlanta to Goldsboro', and it may have seemed unjust to replace him at that precise moment; but I was resolved to be prepared for a most desperate and, as then expected, a final battle, ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... Bolshevists until such time as it was forced upon them that Bolshevism was not, in point of fact, a democratic system. They and some of their friends still occasionally used that label, in moments rather of after-dinner enthusiasm than of the precise thinking that is done in morning light. For, after all, even Mr. Bertrand Russell, even Mrs. Philip Snowden, might be wrong in their hurried jottings down of the results of a cursory survey of ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... conversing with him freely, and writing of him most fondly. But, in the desire to keep down any conceit, there was certainly in my father a great outward show of repression and depreciation. Then the faults of your uncle were peculiarly those that my father had no patience with. Himself precise in his arrangements, writing a beautiful hand, particular about neatness, very accurate and calm, detesting strong expressions, and remarkably self-controlled; while his eager impetuous boy, careless of his dress, always forgetting to ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... her conduct and appearance had already somewhat jarred upon their limited and precise sense of the fitness of things, what were they to think of the next little act in this tableau vivant? The cabman, red and heavy-jowled, had come back from his labors, and held out his hand for his fare. The ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle

... not one who could tell me what is the meaning and use of an act which he performs a score of times every minute, and whose suspension would involve his immediate death:—I mean the act of breathing—or who could state in precise terms why it is that a confined atmosphere ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell

... these five hundred years," was Mr. Samuel Desborough's summary account afterwards of the state of the country which he had helped to administer under the Protectorate; and Cromwell's own reference to the subject is even more interesting and precise. Acknowledging that the Scots had suffered much, and were in fact "a very ruined nation," yet what had befallen them had introduced, he hinted, a very desirable change in the constitution of Scottish society. It had enfranchised and encouraged the middle ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson

... whose baptism was registered in the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford on April 26, 1564. He was their eldest son, two daughters previously born being already dead. Their other children were Gilbert, Joan, Anna, Richard, and Edmund. The precise day of William's birth is unknown. The monument over his grave states that at his death on April 23, 1616, he was "AEtatis 53," which would seem to indicate that he must have been born at least as early as April 22; and, since ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... presents, was extremely well received; though one speaker reminded him that he had forgotten one important point, inasmuch as he had not told them at what prices they could obtain goods at Cataraqui. Frontenac evaded a precise answer, but promised them that the goods should be as cheap as possible, in view of the great difficulty of transportation. As to the request concerning their children, they said that they could not accede to it till they had talked the matter over in their villages; but it is a striking proof ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman

... midwatch was set and all was quiet," he meant, in the words of his executive officer,(1) slowly to approach the transports, "steam among them with both batteries in action, pouring in a continuous discharge of shell, and sink them as we went." Fortunately Semmes's information, though profuse and precise, was not quite accurate, for it brought him off Galveston on the 13th of January: the wrong port, a month too late. What might have happened is shown by the ease with which he ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... argument or persuasion he doth labour to fasten upon others for their good. Yet this I can say, I was very wary of giving them occasion, by any unseemly action, to make them averse to going on pilgrimage.[73] Yea, for this very thing, they would tell me I was too precise, and that I denied myself of things, for their sakes, in which they saw no evil. Nay, I think I may say, that if what they saw in me did hinder them, it was my great tenderness in sinning against God, or of doing ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... Maitland. Sometimes such a half-sheet may be mated with the other half from which it was torn as accurately as if the act were performed before your eyes. There was no such good fortune in this case, but by measurements made by the vernier micrometer caliper I have found the precise thickness of several samples of paper as compared to that of the suicide note. I need hardly add that in thickness and quality, as well as in the tint of the ribbon, the note points to person as ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve

... down stairs, and, on coming to the landing-place in Mitre-court, he stopped me to observe, that "he thought Mr. C—— a very clever man, with a great command of language, but that he feared he did not always affix very precise ideas to the words he used." After he was gone, we had our laugh out, and went on with the argument on the nature of Reason, the Imagination, and the Will. I wish I could find a publisher for it: it would make a supplement to the Biographia Literaria in ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... caught the echo of a despairing scream. Swiftly he ran, dodging among the catclaw and the prickly pear like a half-back carrying the ball through a broken field. His objective was the place where the arroyo opened to a draw. At this precise spot Steelman had ...
— Gunsight Pass - How Oil Came to the Cattle Country and Brought a New West • William MacLeod Raine

... meant a greater chance of missing a suitable planet unless too much reliance were placed on the already weakened power generators. As it was, the Nipe had been able to use the gravitational field of the gas giant to swing his ship toward the precise spot where the third planet would be when the ship arrived in the third orbit. Moreover, the third planet would be retreating from the Nipe's line of flight, which would make the velocity difference that much ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... probably a natural alloy. In a few cases very simple figures appear to have been shaped from nuggets or masses of the native metals; this, however, is not susceptible of proof. The work is very skillfully done, so that we find it difficult to ascertain the precise methods of manipulation. The general effect in the more pretentious pieces resembles that of our filigree work, in which the parts are produced by hammering and united by soldering; yet there are many evidences of casting, and these must be considered with care. As a rule ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes

... The First Consul, however, did not dare to avenge himself openly; but he watched for every opportunity to remove Bernadotte from his presence, to place him in difficult situations, and to entrust him with missions for which no precise instructions were given, in the hope that hernadotte would commit faults for which the First Consul ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... veritable, true; right, correct; certain &c. 474; substantially true, categorically true, definitively true &c; true to the letter, true as gospel; unimpeachable; veracious &c. 543; unreconfuted[obs3], unconfuted[obs3]; unideal[obs3], unimagined; realistic. exact, accurate, definite, precise, well-defined, just, just so, so; strict, severe; close &c. (similar) 17; literal; rigid, rigorous; scrupulous &c. (conscientious) 939; religiously exact, punctual, mathematical, scientific; faithful, constant, unerring; curious, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... the mournful story from the wife's lips only; the husband never speaks, and is but once present. All we actually see are the moods of nine separate days—spread over what precise period of time we are not clearly shown, but it was certainly a year. These nine revealings show us every stage from the first faint pang of apprehension to the accepted woe; then the battle with that—the hope that love may yet prevail; the clutch ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... in the history of the Grimaldis and that exciting period when Mentone and legend-crusted Roquebrune had been under the rule of tyrannical princes of that name, as well as Hercules's rock, Monaco, still their own. He knew, or pretended to know, the precise date when Napoleon III. filched Nice and Savoy from reluctant Italy as the price of help against the hated Austrians. Altogether, I was so pleased with the way in which he was beginning, that I should have been tempted to raise his wages ...
— My Friend the Chauffeur • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... and the road warm and dry. On either side, the leaves were budding from the hedges, and the cheerful warbling of birds infused a delicious and summer-like feeling into his heart. He had gone out without any precise object, and merely to enjoy a walk in the fresh air—so delightful after long confinement to a sick chamber; but his steps had led him almost involuntarily in the direction of the manse. On reaching the gate, he stopped, loitered on for a few yards, and again ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various

... said, or the precise wording of it, Caleb could never remember. But the staccato sentence or two had the effect of instantly electrifying Mr. Dyckman. Certainly; whatever Mr. Thomas desired should be done. He—Dyckman—had had no notice of the change ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... alteration till about the latter part of the twelfth century, when a singular change began to take place: this was no other than the introduction of the pointed arch, the origin of which has never yet been satisfactorily explained, or the precise period clearly ascertained in which it first appeared; but as the lightness and simplicity of design to which the Early Pointed style was found to be afterwards convertible was in its incipient state unknown, it retained ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam

... be so precise as to reproduce the actual symptoms of the disease described. Medical students engaged in the study of some particular malady frequently develop ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks

... is from this source that Pindar drew, who, of the old Greeks, generally has expressed notions the most precise and minutely distinct of trial and tribulation after death, and the circuits and lustrations of the soul. He assigns the island of the blest as for the everlasting enjoyment of those who, in a triple existence ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier

... control of the northern counties and of their returns. We ordered the returning officers in a certain number of counties to make no returns until they heard from us, and when we had received the votes of all the southern counties and learned the precise number of votes we needed to give us a majority, we telegraphed to our northern returning officers to make the vote of their districts such and such, thereby overbalancing the adverse returns and giving the State to us. This ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams

... interpreter of his design."[62] In point of fact, the engraver has had to "interpret" Mr. du Maurier's drawings far less than those of many of his colleagues, for his line is too delicate, sympathetic, and precise to leave room for anything but the strictest possible facsimile. This was quite as true in the old days when he drew upon the block, as in later times, when, yielding to the stern demands of failing eyesight—which, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... nearly as difficult to realize that Sir Charles is a young man of twenty-six, as it is to feel that his antithesis, the adorable Pepys of the "Diary," was of that precise age. Sir Charles might be borne with good-naturedly for a short time as an old gentleman who had become garrulous from want of contradiction, but in any other aspect he would be shunned conscientiously. Yet Richardson is not content with putting into his mouth lengthy discourses tending chiefly, ...
— Letters on Literature • Andrew Lang

... request that his majesty will not refuse his approval to a measure which the Storthing, after the most mature deliberation, considers beneficial, such measure shall become law even though the king fails to approve it...."[818] In the days of the Swedish union the precise conditions under which the royal veto might be exercised were the subject of interminable controversy. In respect to ordinary legislation the stipulations of the constitution were plain enough, but in respect to measures which in ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg

... brother, "There is something very precise about him; he has a good head-piece, but he does nothing." And on that very account they thought he must ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... least not with real love; and I have never allowed him to hope for such a feeling. Still I shall be most happy to become his wife. Do not expect me to explain to you what is going on within me. I myself hardly understand it as yet. I can give no precise name to that feeling of sympathy which attracts me towards him. I have been captivated by his wit and his kindness; his words have an indescribable charm for me. That is all I can ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... like a very thin fall of snow, drifted by the wind. The strong lights are little heaps of these granules, the middle lights thinner sheets of them; the shades are formed by the dark silver itself, thinly sprinkled only, as the earth shows with a few scattered snow-flakes on its surface. The precise chemical nature of these granules we care less for than their palpable presence, which may be perfectly made out by a microscope magnifying ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various

... came into vogue, "all the boys of adjoining Cossack village communes were 'collected and driven like flocks of sheep to the frontier, whipped at each boundary-stone, and if, in after years two whipped lads, grown into men, disputed as to the precise spot at which they had been castigated, then the oldest inhabitant carrying a sacred picture from the church, led the perambulations, and acted ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain

... thirty-eight years after his death, a statue was raised to the memory of the intrepid Marshal on the precise spot on which ...
— Harper's Young People, January 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... Ritson was active in extinguishing a fire that broke out in the mill two years ago; that he had climbed to the cross-trees with a hatchet; and that within the past month the defendant had described to him the precise locality and shape of the gap made in the roof by the fire. No one could have known so much except himself and the man who stood on the cross-trees. That man was Paul Ritson, and he was there and then recognized by many spectators, among whom ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... Benjamin of Tudela visited, is not interesting, but we must not omit to mention one of them, for his narrative is most precise, and it is useful to follow his route by the maps specially prepared for this purpose by Lelewel. From Otranto to Zeitun, his halting-places were Corfu, the Gulf of Arta, Achelous, an ancient town in AEtolia, Anatolia in Greece, on the Gulf of Patras, Patras, Lepanto, Crissa, at the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... you would expect to see a lady who lives in Ashley Street, Piccadilly. I saw her entering a house in one of the meanest and most disreputable streets in Soho. In fact, I had made an appointment, though not with her, and she was precise ...
— The Great God Pan • Arthur Machen

... general results; and in the few genuine writings which are now extant it is easy to perceive that he has recourse to the simplest language, expresses himself in terms which, though short and pithy, are always precise and perspicuous, and is averse to the introduction of philosophical dogmas. Of the greater part of the writings collected under his name, on the contrary the general character is verboseness, prolixity and a great tendency to speculative opinions. For ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... and, to his German ears, it sounded false:—(and it even seemed to him that the more it aimed at truth the more it showed how little the French language was suited to music: it is too logical, too precise, too definite,—a world perfect in itself, but hermetically sealed).—However, the attempt was interesting, and Christophe gladly sympathized with the spirit of revolt and reaction against the over-emphasis and violence of Wagnerian art. The French composer ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... correspondent (NASO) informs us of the following fact in the history of this widely circulated and influential journal; namely, that it is stated in that the paper of the 12th of March, 1788, that it was printed "Logographically!" We wish our correspondent had furnished us with the precise words of ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 9, Saturday, December 29, 1849 • Various

... me were I to attempt recording the precise language of the orator, but his opinions and precepts are so deeply graven on my recollection that I do not fear misrepresenting them. He commenced with a very proper and eloquent eulogium on the constitution, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper

... As might be supposed, his children were trained with great severity, and educated in the straitest sect of their religion. Collect and catechism were duly committed to memory, prayers regularly read in the family, the Sabbath rigorously observed, a stiff and precise order reigned through the whole household; but it wanted the charm and life of spiritual feeling. As the children grew up to maturity, this state of things was destined to be changed by the introduction of a new and unwelcome element, which seriously disturbed the never too profound tranquillity ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... The precise form under which the intellect, when the religious conception of unknown power first dawns upon it, imagines this unknown, is uncertain. Some have maintained that the earliest religions are animal worships, ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton

... the third volume, the last of the series, the first portion of which was headed, Renewal of the Family. This part I began to examine with some attention, and pretty soon discovered that I had now at last accidentally stumbled upon a perfect mine of information of the precise kind I had so long and so vainly been seeking. Struggling to overcome my agitation I read on, hurrying through page after page with the greatest rapidity; for there was here much matter that had no special interest for me, but incidentally the things which concerned ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson

... manners of the Japanese can, however, be more precise and formal than any I ever witnessed. A wedding reception chanced to be in progress in my Tokio hotel one afternoon, and through the open door I had glimpses of Japanese gentlemen in frock coats bowing to Japanese ladies ...
— Roving East and Roving West • E.V. Lucas

... in her life that she had been called upon to go through this precise torture. She remembered the hour only too well, when first it was made known to her that one in closest relation to herself was suspected of a hideous crime. And now, with her mind cleared towards him and readjusted to new developments, this crushing experience of seeing equal indications ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green

... in the slow, precise way he had of speaking, brought about, perhaps, by his need of being exact in money matters, "a big crowd would be the very thing we should want. But this time we don't—not ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum

... FORMAL, quaint, precise, and trim, You begin your steps demurely— There's a spirit almost prim In the feet that move so surely, So discreetly, to the chime Of the music that so ...
— Dreams and Dust • Don Marquis

... the ears are full of warm and drowsy and monotonous music. And always the eyes see the lines of brown bodies, on the brown river-banks above the brown waters, bending, straightening, bending, straightening, with an exquisitely precise monotony. And always the Loulia seems to be drifting, so quietly she slips up, or ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... mystic, had intended to give him time to control himself by requesting Don Clemente to speak first. He now sprang up excitedly. His words did not flow smoothly, their very impetus causing them to tremble and break, and, broken, they poured from his lips in a torrent, precise, nevertheless, and powerful, with their vigorous ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... enough; it was more than enough—it was vexatiously superfluous. To be dunned for a debt, at the very time when the nerves could best dispense with the application; to be recalled back to the vulgarities of existence, at that precise moment when the imagination was most abstracted from all commercial common-places; to be stopped by a tailor, (and such a tailor!) when the mind was dreaming of a mistress—the bare idea was intolerable! So I thought; and, without further ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 323, July 19, 1828 • Various

... feeds it: if the depth of the well is unfathomable, it must be impossible to know the absolute quantity of water it contains; yet we can with the greatest accuracy measure the number of feet the water has risen or fallen in the well at any time, and consequently know the precise quantity of its increase or diminution, without having the least knowledge of the whole quantity ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet

... gradually the look of life returned to his face, the generous blood welled up under the clear olive skin, the lips parted, and he sighed softly. Animation, as always happens in such cases, began at the precise point at which it had been suspended, and his first movement was to continue his examination of the mouthpiece in his hand. Then he looked up suddenly, and seeing me standing over him, gave a little shake, half turning ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford

... the basis of its relation to human wants and interests. But those wants and interests are, like the laws of the universe, extremely multifarious, and the order of preference among them in all their different gradations (for it varies according to the degree of each) cannot be cast into precise general propositions. M. Comte's subjective synthesis consists only in eliminating from the sciences everything that he deems useless, and presenting as far as possible every theoretical investigation as the solution ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill

... man-servant in Edinburgh, exhibits distinct traces of the negro. Dr. Simpson—afterward Sir James Simpson—whose patient the young woman at one time was, has had no recent opportunities of satisfying himself as to the precise extent to which the negro character prevails in her features; but he recollects being struck with the resemblance, and noticed particularly that the hair had the qualities characteristic of the negro.' ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould

... of the exhibition, for in a moment a second scissorstail, the precise facsimile of the first, appeared from somewhere, and the two flycatchers combined against their enemy. Then for a few minutes there was such a chaos of shrike and scissorstail that we could scarcely tell which was which. By and by the ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... at Santa Lucia, for the protection of the Windward Islands. On the 17th, taking with him a large merchant convoy, he put to sea with the fleet for St. Kitts, where the Leeward Islands "trade" was collecting for England. On the way he received precise information as to the route and force of the Franco-Spanish fleet under de Guichen, of the sickness on board it, and of the dissension between the allies. From St. Kitts the July "trade" was sent home with two ships of the line. Three others, he wrote to the Admiralty, would accompany ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... life followed. Providentially, his first glance was directed at the precise spot where a crouching Sioux made a slight movement with his rifle, which gave the white man an instant's warning of his peril. He ducked his head, and had he not instinctively closed his eyes, would have been blinded by the dust and snow ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis

... information," he said, in precise, business-like tones, "that Neri escaped from Gaeta two months since, and was aided and abetted in his escape by one Andrea Luziani, owner of the coasting brig 'Laura,' journeying for purposes of trade between ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli

... lords and right honourable gentlemen to the new first minister. But the world of high politics had suddenly become so cautious that nothing leaked out. Even gossip was at fault. Lord Marney had not received the Buckhounds, though he never quitted his house for ride or lounge without leaving precise instructions with Captain Grouse as to the identical time he should return home, so that his acceptance should not be delayed. Ireland was not yet governed by the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, and the Earl de Mowbray was still ungartered. These three distinguished ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli

... is precise; Stands at a guard with envy; Scarce confesses That his blood flows, or that his appetite Is more to bread ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis

... but it appeared to me that he thought the time was come when even that cherished principle would have to be surrendered. From the Treasury bench we had a speech from the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and when he sat down it is difficult to say what was the precise impression made upon the House; but I think, on the whole, the impression made on the other side of the House—his own side—was by no means a comfortable one. Now to me it is, and I think to the House it ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright

... Washington Irving, reverting to the Spectator, produced his sketches, and, following the trend of his time, looked forward to a new form and wrote The Spectre Bridegroom and Rip Van Winkle. It is only by a precise definition of short-story that Irving is robbed of the honor of being the founder of the modern short-story. He loved to meander and to fit his materials to his story scheme in a leisurely manner. He did not quite see what ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... are very fine, and her sides are very straight. This causes her to cleave the wave with the minimum of disturbance, and this boat had no desire to cleave anything else. None the less, from time to time, she heard a mine grate, or tinkle, or jar (I could not arrive at the precise note it strikes, but they say it is unpleasant) on her plates. Sometimes she would be free of them for a long while, and began to hope she was clear. At other times they were numerous, but when at last she seemed to have worried out of the danger zone lieutenant and sub together left the ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling

... Because, "by the law of slavery, man, created in the image of God, is divested of his human character and declared to be a mere chattel. That the statement may not seem to be put forward without precise authority, I quote the law of two different slave States." That is the accusation. It is to be proved by the law of slavery itself. It is to be proved beyond "all controversy," by an appeal to "indisputable ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... they cherished in silence the expectation that when their turn should come, they would receive more of the master's money, because they had done more of his work. But the steward, evidently acting on precise orders, gave each of these men also a penny, and no more. No longer able to conceal their disappointment, although they were well aware that they had no legal claim for more than they had received, they broke out into murmurs against their ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... too. I used to argue with him, and though I usually stuck to my opinion, yet, through him, I came gradually to perceive that everything was not clear to me, and I tried to cultivate convictions as definite as possible so that the promptings of my conscience should be precise and have nothing vague about them. Nevertheless, educated and fine as he was, far and away the best man in the town, he was by no means perfect. There was something rather rude and priggish in his ways and in his trick of dragging talk down to discussion, ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff

... a "specimen day." It is early morning, or to be more precise, about eight of the clock, and the white fog is just beginning to curl and drift away from the surface of the river. Sooner than this it would be idle to go out. The preternaturally early bird in his greedy haste may catch the worm; but the salmon never take the fly until the ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke

... she had come from Valenciennes," said Europe in a precise little voice. "I was born there—Perhaps monsieur," she added to Lucien in a pedantic tone, "will be good enough to say what name he ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... it, we see most of the merits and defects of his early poetry. It is a story which is hardly a story at all, told by comment, evasion, and recurrence, by 'little images, recollections, and circumstances of past pleasures' or distresses; with something vague and yet precise, like a dream partially remembered. Here and there is the creation of a mood and moment, almost like Coleridge's in the Ancient Mariner; but these flicker and go out. The style would be laughable in its simplicity if there were not in it some almost awing touch of ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... that inconvenience for me?" he said. "I 'm pretty sure to have my billet where they 're not so precise." ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... seem to have made themselves quite familiar with my intentions, and upon making application for a teskere (Turkish passport) they required me to specify, as far as possible, the precise route I intend traversing from Scutari to Ismidt, Angora, Erzeroum, and beyond, to the Persian frontier. An English gentleman who has lately travelled through Persia and the Caucasus tells me that the Persians are quite agreeable people, their only fault being the one common failing of the East: ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... that the thirty seconds of absolute silence which followed this question seemed like an eternity, and that the agony on the young man's face was Aeschylean. He did not know any precise answer to the question. ...
— Marge Askinforit • Barry Pain

... sure about that, either. Perhaps elsewhere and under more suitable circumstances I may be able to put my thought into words, precise and understandable. It will take time, but that I shall do so some day I ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler

... prevents women—to use the phrase an old boatswain of my acquaintance applied descriptively to his captain—what prevents them from "coming on deck and playing hell with the ship" generally, is that something in them precise and mysterious, acting both as restraint and as inspiration; their femininity in short which they think they can get rid of by trying hard, but can't, and never will. Therefore we may conclude that, for all their enterprises, the world is and remains safe enough. ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad

... precise meaning of Bawsin, I think I may venture to say that there is no older or better authority for rendering it large, than Skinner. ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton

... for a while, by the common advice both of doctors and tutors. Dr. Pennington hopes to prevent any recurrence of the fit. He thinks it looks towards epilepsy, of the horrors of which malady I have a very full and precise idea; and I only pray that God will spare me as respects my faculties, however else it may seem good to him to afflict me. Were I my own master, I know how I should act; but I am tied here by bands which I cannot burst. I know that change of ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... happily with an occasional glad wistful glance toward the door, as the long lashes sank on the white cheeks, for the first sleep the boy had ever taken in a clean, white, soft bed. The prim nurse, softened for once from her precise attention to duties, stood and looked upon the lovely face of the sleeping child, wondered what his life had been, and how the future would be for him. She half pitied him that the ball had not gone nearer to the vital spot and taken him to heaven ere he missed ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill

... the position of our adversaries in terms both poetical and precise, and when I speak of our adversaries, I include that numerous legion of women who still hesitate to ask for the right of suffrage, for reasons which, perhaps, deserve being ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma

... seeking to win him by both word and gesture. If she was not telling him by that cheery, animated, confiding, softly endearing speech of hers, which she poured out incessantly, how much she loved him, what was she saying? She was constantly filled with a desire to perch upon the precise spot where he was sitting, and if he had not moved away I think she would have alighted upon his back. Now and then, when she flitted away from him, he followed her with like gestures and tones and demonstrations of affection, but never with quite the same ardor. The two ...
— Bird Stories from Burroughs - Sketches of Bird Life Taken from the Works of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... not propose to lay bare all the secrets of the flesh, to explore the recesses of the heart, or to perform any miracles, physical or metaphysical. But he claimed to have discovered a new and effective way of dealing with gun-shot wounds: first, by means of electric illumination, he discovered the precise situation of the bullet; next, by means of magnetism, he proposed to extract the bullet, provided always that the bullet contained some portion of steel. Against leaden bullets his system is powerless, and he therefore intended ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 15, February 18, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... do not say, and I cannot say, under what precise form of organization it will be, but I trust and I believe—indeed, I am sure—that the Volunteers will become a permanent, an integral and characteristic part of the defensive forces of ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... was called. The schoolmaster gave out notice, one afternoon, that all the boys and girls were invited to Mr. Marcus Marble's house, the next Wednesday, at "early candlelight," and, to quote the precise language of Mike's invitation—for he had it all written out, and the schoolmaster read it word for word—that business of importance would be brought before the meeting, which would be made known at ...
— Mike Marble - His Crotchets and Oddities. • Uncle Frank

... seemed capable of speech. Tallente's cool, precise manner of telling his story seemed to have an almost ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... —the consequences. The scruples that come of thinking of the event, Hamlet certainly had: that they were craven scruples, that his thinking was too precise, I deny to the face of the noble self-accuser. Is that a craven scruple which, seeing no good to result from the horrid deed, shrinks from its irretrievableness, and demands at least absolute assurance of guilt? or that 'a thinking too ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... enjoyed all the pleasure of self-betrayal, and, from the place where he stood, unable ever to express anything of his own nature in easy speech, he wondered at them, with almost childlike astonishment. Fitzgibbon, garrulous and loose of tongue, Atkins, precise and easily heated to wrath, conscious of some hidden fear that his dignity was not sufficiently respected, and Hartley, who had something to say, but who oversaid it, losing grip because of his very insistence. Not one of them understood ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie

... his exogamic views. The brief sentence, "I laughed and the king laughed," seems to mean that she pleased and amused her father so that he gave way, and immediately told the steward to arrange for her marriage as she desired. I have here abbreviated a few needlessly precise details. We also learn, by the way, that there was a regular registry of births, ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie

... further than to pronounce that the dispensing power, as of late exercised, was illegal. That a certain dispensing power belonged to the Crown was a proposition sanctioned by authorities and precedents of which even Whig lawyers could not speak without respect; but as to the precise extent of this power hardly any two jurists were agreed; and every attempt to frame a definition had failed. At length by the Bill of Rights the anomalous prerogative which had caused so many fierce disputes was absolutely and for ever taken ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... concerning Widdowson made in the bedroom by the girl who fancied her asleep had greatly disturbed her conception of him. He was old, and looked still older to a casual eye. He had a stiff dry way, and already had begun to show how precise and exacting he could be. A year or two ago the image of such a man would have repelled her. She did not think it possible to regard him with warm feelings; yet, if he asked her to marry him—and that seemed likely to happen very soon—almost certainly her answer would ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing

... long ago (the precise date is unessential) the lochs round the island of Lewis were invariably, at the herring season, visited by magnificent shoals of fish, while not a tail was ever seen to twinkle in the spacious waters of Loch Broom. ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes

... Olympiad, or the 747th of Rome; the sixty-seventh of Herod the Great, and the thirty-fifth of his reign; the fourth before the beginning of the Christian era. The hours of the day, by Judean custom, begin with the sun, the first hour being the first after sunrise; so, to be precise; the market at the Joppa Gate during the first hour of the day stated was in full session, and very lively. The massive valves had been wide open since dawn. Business, always aggressive, had pushed through the arched entrance into a narrow lane and court, which, passing by the walls of ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... judgment of the many, it would have been necessary to apologize for its literal exactness. Had I been anxious to gratify false taste with respect to composition, I should doubtless have attended less to the precise meaning of the original, have omitted almost all connective Particles, have divided long periods into a number of short ones, and branched out the strong and deep river of Plato's language into smooth-gliding, shallow, and feeble streams; but as the present work ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... du coeur," a French expression which can scarcely be translated into English; just as "gentleman" has no precise equivalent ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles

... your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise voice, articulating ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... them upon my mind by means of mnemonic formulas. In that way I had learned about 41,500 words, whose meaning is generally, or most frequently, without connection with the word itself, and from 10,000 to 12,000 historical facts, with their precise date. All this existed simultaneously in my mind, always at my disposal when I wanted the meaning of a word or the date of an event. If anyone asked me who was the twenty-fifth king of England, for ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade

... may, then, truly and certainly ascertain his precise attitude, before we directly address him, we shall accurately survey his whole premises. Does he say that he knows the gospel to be false? No, he can not; for he was not in Judea in the days of the evangelical drama. He, therefore, could ...
— The Christian Foundation, May, 1880

... that, although this was Coombe's first experience of one. Miss Philps was not a recluse. Everywhere Mrs. Coombe went, Miss Philps went too. Even Esther was not more assiduous in her attentions. She was not a silent person either, far from it. She bubbled over with precise and cheerful comment, she appeared to talk even more than was absolutely necessary and it was only upon her departure that her entertainers noticed that she had said nothing at all. A very baffling person ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... chamber. I knew what those sounds meant, for they had cost me fuel enough to have lasted a month. I raised the window, and there, as of old, right opposite me, on the north end of that long shed, was an assemblage of all the cats in that part of the town. I won't be precise as to numbers, but it is my honest belief that there was less than three hundred of them; and if one among them all was silent, I did not succeed in discovering which it was. There was that same ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond

... sandy brows in momentary apprehension. "If it turns upon the precise definition of a word," ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic

... guns have, in some instances, the advantage of ours in range, we have the advantage of theirs in mobility, and we should make use of this by not remaining in positions, the precise distance of which from the enemy's batteries has evidently been fixed beforehand. Moreover, it has been proved that the Boers' fire is far less accurate at unknown distances. In taking up positions compact battery formations should be avoided. The ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... the Lyon, and so returned to Bombay. There, in January, 1723, we find her living under Matthews' roof, much to the wrath of the Council and the scandal of her former acquaintances. By this time, the Council had received from Anjengo more precise details as to what was due to the Company from Gyfford's estate. All the cowries, pepper, and cloth that were said to belong to Gyfford had been bought with the Company's money, and the Company's claim ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph

... results undreamed of perhaps by him, we can see how far-sighted his cunning was. To-day it is being followed out by the very combination that deposed him; his aims have been fully justified, and for that precise reason we are right to classify him among the abhorred of mankind. He had an opportunity such as is given to the few, and he made the utmost of it, even as his greater successor on the throne of Turkey for the present, namely Wilhelm II. ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... as to the precise purpose of the Hymn, and some even exclude the invention of the cithara. To myself it seems that the poet chiefly revels in a very familiar subject of savage humour (notably among the Zulus), the extraordinary ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang

... time to say a word or make a sign with head or hand. Behind him, two steps lower, came Chamillard, moving and stopping as the king moved and stopped, and answering the questions which His Majesty put to him in a respectful but formal and precise manner. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... accompany us to the Araguaya, but it was in vain; not a soul could be induced by any amount of wages to go on such an expedition. The reports as to the existence of cedar were very vague. All said that the tree was plentiful somewhere, but no one could fix on the precise locality. I believe that the cedar grows, like all other forest trees, in a scattered way, and not in masses anywhere. The fact of its being the principal tree observed floating down with the current of the Amazons ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... constellation of hope about his head when he set forth in the early morning, Sorel can express, by his "Eh!" and some slight movement, with subtle exactness and with no possibility of being misapprehended, the precise shade of feeling with ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin

... that there was not between them that perfect cordiality which has been generally supposed; but that Russell, Grey, and Hampden, were upon a far more confidential footing with him. It is far easier to determine generally, that he had high schemes of ambition, than to discover what was his precise object; and those who boldly impute to him the intention of succeeding to the crown, seem to pass by several weighty arguments, which make strongly against their hypothesis; such as his connection with the Duchess of Portsmouth, ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox

... generation is a repetition of its predecessor. There is no change in plants and animals from the first; the same materials in the same proportions that were selected by the earliest trees for their composition are chosen now; and in form and function the last animal is a precise copy of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... deferred to adult years. Well, be it so. It follows, that since it is not difficult in years of childhood and youth, all our children should have early and adequate instruction. There should be singing universally in Christian families. And this is the precise point I have endeavored to establish in the present article. How far the neglects and miscarriages of youth may excuse the delinquences of adult years, I dare not presume to decide or conjecture. It may suffice my present purpose to show that according to the Bible all should ...
— Mrs Whittelsey's Magazine for Mothers and Daughters - Volume 3 • Various

... concerning the right of garrisoning Luxemburg; this had hitherto belonged to Prussia, but of course with the dissolution of the German Confederation the right had lapsed. The German nation, which was much excited and thought little of the precise terms of treaties, wished to defend the right; Bismarck knew that in this matter the Prussian claim could not be supported; moreover, even if he had wished to go to war with France he was not ready; ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam

... as if she had been wanting in regard to the memory of her mother, who had been so fond of Mark, and so rejoiced in his happiness; and then that her vexation was treated as mere love of gaiety, whereas it really was disappointment at not seeing Mr. Dutton, that good, grave, precise old friend, who could not be named in the same breath with vanity. Moreover, she could not help suspecting that respect to her mother was after all only a cloak to resentment against Mark ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge

... vingtiemes, the disproportion is less, the precise amounts not being attainable; we may nevertheless assume that the assessment of the privileged class is about one-half of what it should be. "In 1772," says[5249] M. de Calonne, "it was admitted that the vingtiemes were not carried to their full value. False declarations, counterfeit ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... incredible amount. The sees of Toledo, Seville, Santiago, and Valencia, were endowed with much greater revenues than even some of the states in Germany. Great as have been the efforts to investigate and ascertain with exactitude the precise returns of these sees, it has not been found possible to obtain any data worthy to be relied on: and in truth, all years were not equally productive; for those revenues depended in a great measure ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... casting his belief aside and calling "fate into the list." For his wife, he is little more than an agent, a frame of bone and sinew for her fiery spirit to command. The nature of his feeling towards her is rendered with a most precise and delicate touch. He always yields to the woman's fascination; and yet his caresses (and we know how much meaning Salvini can give to a caress) are singularly hard and unloving. Sometimes he lays ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to advance once more to the assault. The old Bible idea of the Commander:—when his hands grew heavy Amalek advanced; when he raised them and willed victory Israel prevailed over the heathen! As regards directions, modifications, orders, counter-orders,—in precise proportion as his preparations and operation orders have been thoroughly conceived and carried out, so will the actual conflict find him leaving the actual handling of the troops to Hunter-Weston as I am bound to do. Old Oyama cooled his brain during the battle of the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... has been imbibing pretty constantly ever since lungs came into fashion. But in another view the universal presence of these gases in the air makes it seem all the more wonderful that they could so long have evaded detection, considering that chemistry has been a precise science for more than a century. During that time thousands of chemists have made millions of experiments in the very midst of these atmospheric gases, yet not one of the experimenters, until recently, suspected their existence. This ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... are met by the wheel plough, and in addition it fulfils the indefinite and indefinable condition of handiness. A machine may be apparently perfect, a boat may seem on paper, and examined on principles, the precise build, and yet when the one is set to work and the other floated they may fail. But the wheel plough, having grown up, as it were, out of the soil, fulfils ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies

... old alliance with England, and uniting their forces with those of the House of Bourbon in defence of the Americans, the Emperor Joseph, who was the only real guardian of the barrier treaty, demanded precise accounts of the revenues of the barrier, and of the sums expended on the fortifications. This demand was accompanied with threats; and the States-general, yielding to necessity, withdrew the Dutch garrisons from the barrier; and Joseph began ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... not think it incumbent on me to give any precise decided opinion upon this question, as to which I believe more than ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... particularly my friends," replied the Count; "nor does my regret for their fate exceed that which I should feel for any other brave and unfortunate men who might lose their lives in the service of his majesty. But their death at this precise conjuncture is most unfortunate. You have heard ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... preparing for his anticipated work, getting acquainted with Indians, their life and character, and as yet uncertain at what precise point to commence his mission, Mr. Denhey, a Moravian missionary, desired to occupy the field upon the St. Clair River, which Mr. Bacon in some measure occupied the year before, and to this Mr. Bacon ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland

... before a rushing blast of wind swept by the spot where they stood, raising the dust in little eddies, in its progress; and then, as if guided by a master hand, it quitted the earth, and mounted to the precise spot on which all eyes were just then riveted. The loosened linen felt its influence and tottered; but regained its poise, and, for a moment, it became tranquil. The cloud of leaves next played in ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... however, ask any one of more serious mind to go back with Monsignore and myself to the era of autochthonous Sicily, when the children of the Cyclops inhabited the land, and Demeter in her search for Proserpina wept on this hill, and Charybdis lay stretched out under these bluffs watching the sea. It is precise enough to say that Taormina began eighty years before the Trojan War. Very dimly, it must be acknowledged, the ancient Sicani are seen arriving and driven, like all doomed races, south and west out ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... essential that the surgeon should depend upon his own diagnosis, upon what he could learn from his sense of touch and from surrounding conditions. With the X-Rays at his disposal he can quite eliminate the personal equation. His pictures are precise and mathematically accurate; he can prove the truth of his diagnosis before he cuts. We can take pictures of fractured bones and from what we learn we can immediately tell how they should be set to attain the very best results. We can actually tell if there is a stone in the kidney before ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume IV. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • Grant Hague

... because she loved yellow she transformed herself into a lovely bird with shining golden feathers such as no one had ever seen before. When the time of her punishment was at an end the beautiful yellow bird flew to Bagdad, and let herself be caught by a Fowler at the precise moment when Badi-al-Zaman was walking up and down outside his magnificent summer palace. This Badi-al-Zaman—whose name means 'Wonder-of-the-World'—was looked upon in Bagdad as the most fortunate creature under the ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various

... the pillows, and lifted the girl with her long, strong arms, then stooping over her a moment she finished her arrangements by softly smoothing the hair from her forehead with a caressing movement most unlike her usual precise business-like proceedings. ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... of a clock-work bell such as he had once heard in the court-house at Rouen; but the fifth and sixth strokes were halting achievements, as, after four o'clock, he often lost count on the strain of the effort for precise imitation. There was a pause after the sixth, then a dubious and reluctant stroke—seven—a longer pause, followed by a final ring with desperate decision—eight! Harkless looked at his watch; it ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... looking at him, her head slightly bent, her lips apart, eyes and ears alert to catch the signal to begin, pointed her little foot at the precise moment, and, holding her dress in the tips of her slender fingers, slid into the movement with a grace and accuracy never to be attained except by vigorous practice, or a temperament as sensitive to time and tune, limbs as supple, and impulses as graceful, ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin

... few fables now-a-days. We might say that it is a lost art, but perhaps the world is too old to be taught in that precise way, and though the story writers are as busy as ever, the story-tellers (alas!) ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... natives. A quick perception of their Point of View, under all conceivable circumstances, a rapid process by which a European places himself in the position of the native, with whom he is dealing, an instinctive and instantaneous apprehension of the precise manner in which he will be affected, and a clear vision of the man, his feelings, his surroundings, his hopes, his desires, and his sorrows,—these, and these alone, mean that complete sympathy, without which the white man among Malays, is but ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... somewhere, and there was no telling when he might kick out of the traces. The crisis at length came. One morning, when the boys were in the washroom, under the charge of the senior teacher, Charlie, with what precise provocation I could never ascertain, drew back his basin of water and threw it full ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart

... own nature and condition; your pride of station, which I have but lately known; your better reason, why; and see if it were either wise or fitting that one like yourself—though of your precise condition I am yet ignorant—should wive with the daughter of a poor but honest tapster. Suffer this plainness; I might be your bauble to-day, and your ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... first place the paper is called a Protocol. The precise reason for the use of this term does not appear; but it is probably due to the fact that the Protocol of Geneva is in a sense supplementary to other international agreements such as the Covenant of the League of Nations and ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller

... correctness of which has been admitted by himself, that the fact of a thing being true in principle cannot give the right of suddenly enthroning it in practice. But his errors are all on the large and generous side. He is too apt to attribute to society the precise convictions and spirit he feels within himself, and so to expect impossibilities, by impossible means. But there is a power of reasoning in Mazzini, an unsullied moral purity, a chivalrous veracity and frankness, an utter abnegation of self, and a courage that has stood the ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various

... that sort of key; I mean, my dear girl, the key—the explanation, as it were; the precise connexion of ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... general family relationship or peculiar affinity between the Iapygians and Hellenes (a recognition, however, which by no means goes so far as to warrant our taking the Iapygian language to be a rude dialect of Greek), investigation must rest content, at least in the meantime, until some more precise and better assured result be attainable.(2) The lack of information, however, is not much felt; for this race, already on the decline at the period when our history begins, comes before us only when it is giving way and disappearing. The character of the Iapygian people, little capable of resistance, ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... yet, on the contrary, you seem to understand me very well. However, I will put my questions in a more precise manner, in order that you may not be able, in the slightest degree, to evade them. Listen to me: Do you love M. de Bragelonne? That is ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... of the whole, and as he took a part in the scene which followed, I will describe him. He was tall and spare, with a swinging, awkward gait, and a wiry, athletic frame. His hair, which he wore almost as long as a woman's, was coarse and black, and his face strongly marked, and of the precise color of two small rivulets of tobacco-juice that escaped from the corners of his mouth. He had an easy, self-possessed manner, and a careless, devil-may-care way about him, that showed he had measured his powers, and was accustomed to 'rough it' with the world. He wore ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... the Esplanade the pall-bearers pause. They face toward the bridge and wait for the procession to form. Then the trio who carry—or to be precise, drag ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... talking? Hugh, I really don't see much art in this. You seem to have been wrought upon rather easily. It never occurred to you, I suppose, to ask for a precise date?' ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... surprised to have come upon no inner line of sentries. Even as he wondered, he emerged from a copse into a field, and received the usual challenge—spoken this time in so quick, machine-like a manner, and accompanied by so prompt and precise a levelling of the musket, that he knew 'twas a British regular ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens

... calculations the local time at any spot can be obtained, and when this is ascertained, at the precise moment that the angular distance of sun and moon is observed, the difference ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... of his day he shows no mercy; for their dogmas of retribution, Messianism, &c., he evinces no respect; nay, he denies all divine revelation and strips the deity itself of every vestige of an attribute. Proud of their precise and exhaustive knowledge of the mysteries of God's nature, the doctors of the Jewish community had drawn up comprehensive formulas for all His methods of dealing with mankind, and anathematised those who ventured to cast doubts upon ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon



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