"Theory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... misinterpretations of which I was not conscious at the time. I have no wish to idealise my subject unduly, but it is clear to me, and I hope I have made it clear to others, that Father Payne was a man who had a very definite theory of life and faith, and who at all events lived sincerely and even passionately in the light of his beliefs. Moreover, when he came to put them to the supreme test, the test of death, they did not desert or betray him: he passed on his ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... left hanging, Jim. If I go along with you and assume that Bossard was innocent, then Fisher fouled up just as badly as he would have if he'd fluffed the prosecution of a guilty man. Either a man is guilty, or he's innocent. If, according to your theory, the prosecutor knows he's innocent, then he should exonerate the innocent man! If not, he should do ...
— Hail to the Chief • Gordon Randall Garrett
... in detail a scheme for the interchange of students, for periods of a year at a time, between Italian and British Universities after the war. We then turned to modern history and I noticed that he did not respond as much as I had expected to the name of Garibaldi. He held the historical theory that, broadly speaking, there are no really great men, but only lucky ones. He put forward in support of this view the distribution of death, wounds and decorations in this war. This theory of history has in it larger elements of wholesomeness and truth than has, for ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... might use Persia as her wedge for operating, with some effect, upon the Affghans; who again might be used as the wedge of Persia for operating upon ourselves, either immediately if circumstances should favour, or mediately through the Seiks and the Beloochees. On this theory we may see a justification for Lord Auckland in allowing some weight to the Persian Shah's siege of Herat. Connected with the alleged intrigues of the Russian agent, (since disavowed,) this movement of the Shah did certainly look very like a basis for that joint machinery ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Scoutmaster Ned's theory about camping was to keep open house. If he lacked discipline (which it is to be feared he did) he made up in pep, and the surprises that he was forever springing on the camp were a perpetual joy. I suspect that he was not well versed in his scoutmasters' handbook. He was a sort of human ...
— Pee-wee Harris on the Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... spirit in you that will seek to justify courses which are utterly contrary to our principles. Instead of being a sophist in theory, you will be ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... have a knowledge of the theory of aeroplanes, ball balloons and dirigibles, and must have made a working model of an aeroplane or dirigible that will fly at least twenty-five yards. He must also have a knowledge of the engines ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... must be the bounden duty of the Christian owner not only to keep it wholesome, but also to adorn it, making it fair without, to match the fairness within. Not only in her own person did this dainty gentlewoman carry out her theory, but she looked for it in the persons of her visitors. Theo invariably respected her wishes by appearing ...
— The Captain's Bunk - A Story for Boys • M. B. Manwell
... Theodora was heartily tired of her position as amateur groom. Miss Hulburt, always garrulously confidential, was pouring into the doctor's impatient ears all her theory of Phebe's temper and training. She was absorbed in her subject, but to the others the time crept heavily by. Allyn came around the corner of the ...
— Teddy: Her Book - A Story of Sweet Sixteen • Anna Chapin Ray
... "That murder theory is a new one to me," he said; "but I see now why it originated. The employment of a strolling physician would give color to ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... could do it—we could laugh. Is that not bathos? But Fidele and I have a theory that laughter is ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... Bishop of Norwich accused Stone of being a Jacobite, and the quarrel became hot—so sharp that the bishop entered the schoolroom to have it out with Master Stone. Now I suppose, my dear rector, you would have staked your money on the bishop, on the theory that the church militant should also be ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... of my own conscience. I begged him, on the contrary, to abide by the opinion of the person who had criticised me, confessing, among other matters, as, for example, in my use of the word fortune, in quoting historical poets, in my apology for Julian, in my animadversion on the theory that he who prayed ought to be exempt from vicious inclinations for the time being; item, in my estimate of cruelty, as something beyond simple death; item, in my view that a child ought to be brought up to ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity. But it would be a great error to infer from such irregularities that the English monarchs were, either in theory or in practice, absolute. We live in a highly civilised society, through which intelligence is so rapidly diffused by means of the press and of the post office that any gross act of oppression committed in any part of our island is, in a few hours, discussed by millions. If the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... patient is the same. Anyone who has ever known doctors well enough to hear medical shop talked without reserve knows that they are full of stories about each other's blunders and errors, and that the theory of their omniscience and omnipotence no more holds good among themselves than it did with Moliere and Napoleon. But for this very reason no doctor dare accuse another of malpractice. He is not sure enough of his own opinion ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... proposed to take the whole account of the reign of Joram, son of Ahab, and transfer it to that of Jehoahaz, son of Jehu, and this theory has been approved by several recent critics and historians. On the other hand, some have desired to connect it with the account of the siege of Samaria in Ahab's reign. I fail to see any reasonable argument which can be brought ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... to which the Labrador peninsula belongs; MAJOR STEVENSON HAMILTON, superintendent of the great Government Game Reserves in South Africa; and MR. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, whose original and creative work on the theory of evolution inseparably connects him with his friend Darwin for all time to come, who is now the last of the giants of the Victorian age, and who is the founder and greatest exponent of the science of zoogeography, which has a ...
— Draft of a Plan for Beginning Animal Sanctuaries in Labrador • William Wood
... He made a fine figure there, I must admit; he was a big, fair, handsome young man with a fine tenor voice and an instinct for gallant effect. My eyes were drawn to him at first wholly. He seemed a symbol, a triumphant symbol, of all that the theory of aristocracy claims, of all that filled my soul with resentment. His chauffeur sat crouched together, peering at the crowd under his lordship's arm. But Mitchell showed as a sturdy figure also, and his voice ...
— In the Days of the Comet • H. G. Wells
... than tacit, his behaviour, for the hour, so fell into line that, for many days, he kept postponing the visit he had promised his old friend on the occasion of their talk at the Foreign Office. With regret, none the less, would he have seen it quite extinguished, that theory of their relation as attached pupil and kind instructress in which they had from the first almost equally found a convenience. It had been he, no doubt, who had most put it forward, since his need of knowledge fairly exceeded ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... hair. His melancholy, Bep was assured, was due to two things—the superiority of his wife in the matter of a movable head, and the impossibility of ever getting a pair of trousers that would come near to him in the seat and stay away from him at the ankle. Fom's theory—a hypothesis that enraged Bep—was that Mrs. Guy St. Gerald was the wealthy member of the family, and that her husband basely envied her her good fortune. She had a way, had Fom, of carrying on ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... matter, in plastic and literary art, but had also many venerable and beautiful buildings to show. The Athenian visitor, who is standing now in the central space of Lacedaemon, notes here, as being a trait also of the "Perfect City" of academic theory, that precisely because these people find themselves very susceptible to the [211] influences of form and colour and sound, to external aesthetic influence, but have withal a special purpose, a certain strongly conceived disciplinary or ethic ideal, that therefore a peculiar humour ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... always was so, and I suppose always will be," said he, "however it may be explained. It is true that in the nineteenth century, when there was so little art and so much talk about it, there was a theory that art and imaginative literature ought to deal with contemporary life; but they never did so; for, if there was any pretence of it, the author always took care (as Clara hinted just now) to disguise, or exaggerate, or idealise, and in some way or another make it strange; ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... the sea, by some of those sudden caprices of ever-working nature, the base has again sunk down, leaving the summit of the crater floating on the ocean. Such is our opinion of the formation of this island; and I doubt whether your geologists on the continent would produce a more satisfactory theory." ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... literary attainments of the man at the time of his acceptance by the Directors, he was sent to the institution at Highgate designed to give training suitable for the special requirements of the embryo missionaries. In theory this institution was admirable; in practice Gilmour and others, much as they esteemed the principal, the Rev. J. Wardlaw, found it—or thought they found it—very largely a waste of time. The year 1869 saw the beginning of an ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... have mentioned, that Torone was a temple of the Sun, and also [Greek: phlegraia], by which was meant a place of fire, and a light-house. This is not merely theory: for the very tower may be seen upon coins, where it is represented as a Pharos with a blaze of fire at the top. See vol. 2. ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... of the census. These facts can never be explained by the New England theory. There was an ancient theory, held by men who were righteous in their own eyes, that no good thing could come out of Nazareth. By that theory Christ himself was condemned. It is not wonderful, therefore, that his friends should ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... all, and they were the only ones who put the doctrine to any practical use. It was precisely this discovery of its expediency and its great practical value which caused its downfall. From the practical standpoint the problem was settled once and for all, but as a matter of theory it remained for the next generation, in the person of Varro, to provide a more satisfactory solution, and to effect something of a compromise between the truth of philosophy and the truth ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... anything much more significant than they were. At any rate, it was a long uphill struggle for them, of which many future generations would not witness the conclusion. He had no particular quarrel with the theory that they should be free; he saw no particular reason why the South should not protest vigorously against the destruction of their property and their system. It was too bad that the negroes as slaves should be abused in some instances. He ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... Stephen admitted. "I'm vague about the face, but I'll force myself to recognize it. That's the sort of thing Miss Ray would do. She's got some quaint theory about controlling your subconscious self. Now I'll take a leaf out of her book. By Jove—there's one of the men now. Don't look yet. He doesn't seem to notice us, but who knows? He's standing by the door, under ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... so obstinate that no one could contrive To cure him of a theory that two and two made five And, when they taught him how to spell, he show'd his wicked whims By mutilating Pinnock and mislaying Watts's Hymns. Instead of all such pretty books, (which must improve the mind,) He cultivated volumes of a most improper kind; Directories and almanacks ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... surplus of means and they are poor, make practical contribution, and rejoice that America is bound to all the world by ties of sanguinity as is no other nation. Who can doubt but it is appointed for the evangelization of other lands? What a stirring, melting, gospelizing theory that all the doors of other nations are open toward us, while our windows ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... one theory at least," was his only comment, and then he returned to his self-assumed occupation of fluently cursing the steering wheel. I once heard a pirate swear, but his best efforts would have seemed like those of a tyro alongside of ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... the time when the doors of the prison were closed upon the son, the villainous old father, acting perhaps on the theory that no two shots ever strike in exactly the same place, began also to rob the mails. In due time Mr. Furay again appeared on the scene and took the old reprobate away a prisoner. When the trial came on, a material ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... gesture of resignation. "On condition that you do as much. I am not going to be the only victim, though I fancy you could not crumble that bread in a stamp battery. This meal, and what we have otherwise seen at Somasco, confirms my theory that the folks who make money in the Colonies could save as much, or more, in England if they lived in a ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... of the wound out with cold spring-water. He brought the superficial surfaces together with ten interrupted sutures, and, notwithstanding the patient's age, the man speedily recovered. This emphasizes the fact that the old theory of leaving wounds of this nature open was erroneous. Solly reports the case of a tailor of twenty-two who attempted suicide by cutting through the larynx, entirely severing the epiglottis and three-fourths of the pharynx. No bleeding point was ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... earliest of all his prose works—and was therefore quite able to give the necessary instruction if he found time to do so. It is not the object of this chapter to explain the meaning of rhetoric as the Graeco-Roman world then understood it, or the theory of a rhetorical education; for this the reader must be referred to Professor Wilkins' little book,[298] or, better still, to the main source of our knowledge, the Institutio Oratoris of Quintilian. Something may, however, be ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... even inclined to think that there have been wholly exceptional occasions when a grisly has attacked a man with the deliberate purpose of making a meal of him; when, in other words, it has started on the career of a man-eater. At least, on any other theory I find it difficult to account for an attack which once came to my knowledge. I was at Sand point, on Pend'Oreille Lake, and met some French and Meti trappers, then in town with their bales of beaver, otter, and sable. One ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... the use of the sun-dial into Greece. ANAXIMENES, the third in the series of the Ionian philosophers, lived a little later than Anaximander. He endeavoured, like Thales, to derive the origin of all material things from a single element; and, according to his theory, air was the ...
— A Smaller History of Greece • William Smith
... sentiment for nature were the mistresses of their faculties. Chateaubriand was the promoter of all the literary movement of the nineteenth century, alike in prose and poetry. He was a literary theorist, an epic poet in prose, traveller, polemist, orator. His great literary theory was in The Genius of Christianity, and consisted in supporting that all true poetic beauties lay in Christianity. His epic poems in prose are The Natchez, a picture of the customs of American Indians, The Martyrs, a panorama of the struggle of paganism ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... matter from the point of theory only, we should say that a physician could not be otherwise than melancholy. A merry doctor! Why, one might as well talk of a laughing death's-head,—the cachinnation of a monk's memento mori. This life of ours is sorrowful enough at its best estate; the ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... when the world, in its progress, was ready for it. If the Greeks had had gunpowder, electro-magnetism, the printing press, history would need to be rewritten. Why the inquisitive Greek mind did not find out these things is a mystery upon any other theory than ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... cigar smoke into her face at almost every step. Smokers drive non-smokers out of the gentlemen's cabins on the ferry-boats, and the gentlemen's waiting-rooms in railway stations, monopolizing these rooms as coolly as if only they had any rights in them. I can't explain such phenomena except on the theory that tobacco befogs the moral sense, and ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... the time of emigration we have fixed on next March. In the course of the winter those of us whose bodies, from habits of sedentary study or academic indolence, have not acquired their full tone and strength, intend to learn the theory and practice of agriculture and carpentry, according as situation and circumstances make one ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... mentioned in an earlier chapter. His house and foundry were hard by the churchyard. The wonderful door in the church tower, a miracle of intricate bolts and massive strength, has been attributed to Woodman's mechanical skill; and the theory has been put forward that he made this door for his own strong room, and it was afterwards moved to the church. Another story says that he was imprisoned in the church tower before being taken for trial. Warbleton has the following terse and confident ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... the reader must be warned; the theory, namely, that these biographies were written as religious romances; edifying, but not historical; to be admired, but not believed. There is not the slightest evidence that such was the case. The lives of these, and most other saints (certainly those in this ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... the citizens and impelled their representatives to conservatism. The advocacy of abolition, whether sudden or gradual, was little more than sporadic. The people were not to be stampeded in the cause of inherent rights or any other abstract philosophy. It was a condition and not a theory which confronted them. ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... bones gradually disappeared, and, according to Flora's theory, became leaner and smaller. Jack declared that the way that dog was a picking up, beat all nature! Flora never admitted Towzer at the big gate, and he very soon learned to go round. It was the big gate that opened the way ...
— Baby Pitcher's Trials - Little Pitcher Stories • Mrs. May
... letter, pointing to a passage with his finger. The Colonel took it with, I fear, a somewhat lowered opinion of his client, and a new theory of the case. It was evident that this weak submission to the aunt's conspiracy was only the result of a greater weakness for the niece. Colonel Starbottle had a wholesome distrust of the sex as a business or political factor. He began to look over the letter, but was evidently slurring ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... The theory of all legislation is founded in justice; and, if we could be certain that legislative assemblies could on all occasions act according to the principles of justice, there would be no occasion for those checks and guards which we have seen established under the best systems. ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... in a letter. Imposture is absolutely out of the question, to speak generally; and unless you explain the phenomena by 'a personality unconsciously projected' (which requires explanation of itself), you must admit the spirit theory. As to the simpler forms of the manifestation (it is all one manifestation), the 'turning-tables,' I was convinced long before Faraday's letter that many of the amateur performances were from involuntary muscular ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... through the darkness of theoretical and fanciful errors, and behold the truth that lies behind and beyond. The whole superstructure of the Devil, his oracles, and his schemes of policy and dominion, covers, in this brief familiar epistle, what is, I suppose, the theory most accredited at this day of the origin and traduction of the aboriginal races of America, proceeding from the nearest portions of the ancient continent on the North, and advancing down over the vast spaces towards Central and South America. The letter also foreshadows the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... respective offices, as are also the certifications for appointments. The purpose of the civil-service law was absolutely to exclude any other consideration in connection with appointments under it than that of merit as tested by the examinations. The business proceeds upon the theory that both the examining boards and the appointing officers are absolutely ignorant as to the political views and associations of all persons on the civil-service lists. It is not too much to say, however, that some recent Congressional investigations have somewhat ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... advancing their fortunes, was Ferdinand Magalhaens, now generally known by the name of Magellan. He was a gentleman of good family in Portugal, who had addicted himself from his youth to maritime affairs, and had acquired great skill both in the theory and practice of navigation. He seemed formed by nature for the achievement of great exploits, having all the qualities requisite to compose the character of a truly great man. With a courage which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... of Bagley, he carried away no definite conclusion except that Bagley was an even more detestable animal than he had before supposed. If the man whom Lafferty had traced was really Davenport, then indeed the theory of suicide was shaken. There remained the possibility of murder or flight. The purchases indeed seemed to indicate flight, especially when viewed in association with South Street. South Street? Why, that was Mr. Bud's street. And a hallway? Mr. Bud's room was approached through ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens
... came in, as rams do by going backwards, with the greater strength; and so continued to the last in the Queen's grace.' Nothing, it is certain, ever was farther from Ralegh's thoughts than a wish to be forgotten, whether by enemies or by friends; yet Naunton's theory is true at bottom. The persistency of the shadow at Court was as plain to Ralegh as to others. Its own merits might else have recommended to him the Guiana expedition. But at this especial juncture it was his engine for storming his way back ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... as a copperplate engraver would the ground of an aquatint plate, the relative strength of the different washes might be preserved. He hastened from Acacia Cottage to his printing-office in London, to put his theory into practice, and was rewarded by ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker
... industriously in the breast of man since the creation—AMBITION. Corrupted by the idea that a model republic must have slavery for its basis, knowing that the free States could not much longer tolerate the theory, certain leading individuals decided to dismember the country. They cast their eyes across Texas to the fertile plains of Mexico, and so southward. They indulged in the wildest dreams of conquest ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... of facts of form for which he could not quite find a place in his theory of organic form, facts of form which were not, at first sight at least, facts of function. Thus he was aware of certain facts of "correlation," which could not be explained off-hand as due to correlation of the functions of the parts. ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... intend to head due south and there, I believe, we will find an open polar sea. If we do my theory will be proved and we will have made a ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... of a horse thrown back on his haunches, he stood stock still in the middle of the room, his brilliant eyes staring at the wall, his breathing faster than ever, as he considered the idea that had flashed upon him. The idea grew into a theory. It had never occurred to him before, and yet it was right. It must be. He had it! For the first time, he felt sure of himself, was convinced that he held a ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... "Your theory sounds reasonable," said the stranger; "and yet who knows? That inscription certainly is Hebrew. At least, it is neither English nor German. When one has studied psychic phenomena as long as I have, he comes to a point where he is very chary of saying what is not credible. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... The theory upon which this legislation was based is exploded; enforced, it would have crippled commerce; but it was then, and always had been, a dead letter at Boston. New England was fast getting its share of the carrying trade. London merchants already began to feel the competition ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... strange decisions touching the site of the spectator as in his latest works; lookings down and up into coves and clouds, as defiant of all former theories touching possible perspective, or graceful componence of subject, as, a few years later, his system of color was of the theory of the brown tree. Nor was the step remarkable merely for its magnitude,—for the amount of progress made in a few years. It was much more notable by its direction. The discovery of the true structure of hill banks had to be made by Turner, not merely ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... the ability of the Titanic to remain afloat doubtlessly led many of the passengers to death. The theory that the great ship was unsinkable remained with hundreds who had entrusted themselves to the gigantic hulk, long after the officers knew that the ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... own theory of Laura's attitude. Laura was making (as she herself had once made) the best of a bad job. Rose had the worst opinion of Mr. Prothero's job; the job that sent him into Fleet Street in all weathers and at all hours of the day and night, and was yet compatible with his hanging about at home, ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... Sir Roger de Launay," she said after a pause, "And man- like, you propound any theory which at the moment happens to fit your own particular humour. I am, however, entirely of your opinion that this life is only a term of preparation, and with this conviction I desire to have as little to do with its vile and ugly side as I can. It ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... element, and blending it harmoniously with the best vitalities of the nation. And this consummation would well repay a special and extraordinary effect. Perhaps this expedient would be the most successful of all that remain untried. A single incident will prove that it is more than a mere theory. Here ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... a cigar on a bench at the entrance to Heinz's Pier when the hobo shuffled up. He came down one of the streets from Pacific Avenue, and the direction confirmed me in my theory. It also confirmed me in the opinion that I was all kinds of a fool to let this dirty hobo get a further chance ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... of geometry at twelve years of age,—next inventing the arithmetical machine,—discovering atmospheric pressure, while every philosopher was prating about "Nature's horror of a vacuum,"—inventing the wheelbarrow, to divert his mind from the pains of the toothache, and succeeding,—inventing the theory of probabilities,—establishing the first omnibuses that ever relieved the public,—then writing the "Provinciales,"—dying at thirty-three, leaving behind him two small volumes (you may carry them in your pocket) which are the unchallengeable title-deeds of his immortal fame, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... it was, he made the bold venture of jumping to the conviction of Reginald's innocence; and that theory once started, everything ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... men. Loraine, shuddering, but resolute, had witnessed the ransacking of the hut, had urged the arrest of the hag, and had come away disheartened but satisfied that the woman had told them the truth. Quinnox's theory was accepted by all. He believed that King had fallen into the hands of brigands and that a heavy ransom would be demanded for ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... wished to know whether any member present had formed any theory respecting the fantastic attire, particularly in the matter of head-dresses, affected by the fauna encountered in the more advanced stages of Inebriety. Why, for example, should kangaroos, especially in Piccadilly, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, 19 April 1890 • Various
... busy again with the seal-skin bag, investigating the make of the safety razor and the manufacturer's name on the bronze-green tie. Now, however, he paused and frowned, as though some pet theory had been upset. ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... does not understand religious questions, does not trouble himself about them, knows nothing of the fanaticism that holds the bourgeoisie bound; and if he chances to have any religion, he has it only in name, not even in theory. Practically he lives for this world, and strives to make himself at home in it. All the writers of the bourgeoisie are unanimous on this point, that the workers are not religious, and do not attend church. From the general statement are to be excepted ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... in black were playing some deep game of his own with regard to Marishka? What if, after all, he was no agent of Herr Windt, but represented perhaps the military party of Austria, which had as deep an interest in Marishka's silence as had the Wilhelmstrasse? And yet such a theory was hardly plausible, for if Linke were interested in Marishka's silence he would also be interested in Renwick's, and this being the case, the easiest way out of the business would have been to have dropped Renwick into some deep pool of the Save or the Bosna ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... became implicated in politics without success or credit; he received his marquisate from Louis XVIII. in 1817, when he became President of the French Academy; "LAGRANGE (q. v.) has proved that on Newton's theory of gravitation the planetary system would endure for ever; Laplace, still more cunningly, even guessed that it could not have been made on any other ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... expression he got the clue he was looking for. Fly over! Why not? Flight was no longer a theory, a possibility of the future. It was something definite, that had arrived. Even as he thought of the possibility he looked up and saw, not more than a mile away, two monoplanes of a well-known English army type ...
— Facing the German Foe • Colonel James Fiske
... his medical knowledge as a Licentiate of the Apothecaries' Company, London, his theory as a Mathematician, and his practice as a Working Optician, aided by Smee's Optometer, in the selection of Spectacles suitable to every derangement of vision, so as to preserve the sight ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... the first question in practice," continued Robin. "In theory, of course, any man who is a man—honest, clean, and kind—is a fitting mate for any woman. Don't ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... in theory, my friend," replied Alfred, "but they cannot be put into practice. Sooner can the Mississippi river be drained of its waters than the inexorable Past be obliterated from the mind of man. It must ever remain ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... a theory of man and his relation to God underlying it, which is very unfashionable at present, but which corresponds to the deepest things in human nature, and the deepest mysteries in human history, and that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... so insistently as before. The guide said he had a theory about the cross and the supposed grave, a theory which he proposed to prove or disprove before leaving that ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower
... When your theory is once confirmed by a fact, the question is considered decided, and no further argument is admissible. I had two theories not long ago, the pursuit and investigation of which gave me a good deal of pleasure; they were built upon facts, ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... as a sound view, which, however, carried to its logical sequence, should have evolved, one would imagine, the negro out of the Indian long are this, why may we not, in the way of argument, fairly and legitimately provoked by the theory, look for and consider the converse picture (now that the Indian lives in much the same manner as the ordinary poor husbandman, and now that we have certainly no warrant for imputing to him uncleanly habits) the gradual ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... nurseries. Muff broods over this in silence, then slides off the crowded lap and sits down disconsolate, alone. Tears come, big sad tears, as Muff meditates; and it takes time to explain matters and comfort, without giving in to the one-lap-one-baby theory. ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... the back-string of the instrument has always been an especial theme of wonder and admiration, and, in the opinion of some, could only be accounted for by resorting to the theory of the dungeon, and the supposition that his other strings being worn out, and not having it in his power to supply their places, he had been forced from necessity to take refuge in the string in question; a notion very like that of a person who would assert, that for an opera ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... more hard to understand what happened in there. Take your accidental theory and see where you get to. No instinctive turning of the key now, is there? He's got to open the door to get it, and opening the door means showing his head to anybody in the hall—his cousin, for instance, ...
— The Red House Mystery • A. A. Milne
... evening heard a choir of pins singing "Yankee Doodle" till you would have thought that their heads must ache forever after, I hereby withdraw all my objections, and express my decided opinion that the above-named theory of the future life of pins is fully as accurate as any other with ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various
... This theory of administration eliminates the bureaucracy which has insidiously crept upon the Army, and relegates to their proper ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... transition- feeling its cause, then the lowest member of the scale, in which the loss of self-feeling takes place with mathematical completeness, must be included. That is the hypnotic trance. It is not necessary at this place to emphasize the fact that our theory, if accepted, would constitute a theory and a definition also of hypnotism. Of interest to our inquiry is merely a characteristic mark of the hypnotic state,—its tremendous suggestibility. Why is this? Our theory would answer that all impulses are held in equilibrium, ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... on being produced, proved genuine, the coincidence of the date of the will, April 3, 1348, with a note in Petrarch's handwriting, dated April 6, 1348, which records the death of Laura, would almost establish the truth of the abbe's theory "in the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... reports, scientists deduced the theory that these showers were to be expected every thirty-three years. Hence in 1866 they were watching for a repetition ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... were not repeated that night although the boys laid awake till daylight listening for any repetition. No theory they could advance, although these ranged all the way from cannibals and gorillas to ghosts, had any effect on the solution of the mystery. They finally agreed to trust to solving it in some chance way, and like sensible boys did not continue to ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... the movement was Frithiof's Saga, by Tegner, Geiger's Viking, and Ling's heavy epics of Walhalla warriors. But Geijer and Ling alone had followed out the theory in all its consequences. Their heroes were simply Eddic, of their time, in spirit and in thought. Ling's realism went so far that his Northern gods and warriors, "everlastingly killed but to revive again," were deemed "pork-eating and mead-drinking ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... studied common-law while at college! How sympathetic with my author, when he exclaims—'That a science, which distinguishes the criterions of right and wrong; which teaches to establish the one, and prevent, punish, or redress the other; which employs in its theory the noblest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the cardinal virtues of the heart: a science, which is universal in its use and extent, accommodated to each individual, yet comprehending ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... ignorant, uneducated, neglected Russian workman is perfect and well-prepared soil for such propaganda. He found himself bound hand and foot in the meshes of this professional element, who did not belong to his class and, except in theory, knew nothing of his difficulties. When this professional element had misled, bamboozled and deserted him, in a frenzy of despair he determined to destroy this thing called education, and made the ability to read and write one of the proofs of enmity to his class ...
— With the "Die-Hards" in Siberia • John Ward
... a new country, hitherto untrod by the foot of a white man, is no doubt very interesting in theory, but it becomes dreadfully wearisome in practice. To go on hour after hour with huge gum-trees on every side, the only change being the sight of a kangaroo, a wallaby, a bandicoot, or a jolly ...
— The Young Berringtons - The Boy Explorers • W.H.G. Kingston
... slaves nor land were taxed by the Confederacy, and between the lines he seems to attribute to the planter class the familiar selfishness of massed capital. He forgot that the tax in kind was combined with an income tax. In theory, at least, the slave and the land—even non-farming land—were taxed. However, the dread of a slave-owning Government prevented any effective plan for supplying the army with labor except through the temporary impressment of slaves who were eventually to be returned to their owners. ...
— The Day of the Confederacy - A Chronicle of the Embattled South, Volume 30 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... Thomas Woolston, who was bom in 1669, educated at Sidney College, Cambridge, published, in 1705, The Old Apology for the Truth against the Jews and Gentiles revived, and afterwards was imprisoned and fined for levity in discussing sacred subjects. The text points to a medical theory of intermarriage. There was a Thomas Winston, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, who travelled over the continent, took degrees at Basle and Padua, returned to take his M.D. at Cambridge, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... the gods, or surviving traditionally as incidents in the life of a prophet, e.g. the rain-making of Elijah. In the same way therefore as I have suggested that the resemblances between gods and fetishes are to be explained by the theory that the two go back to a common source, and that neither is developed from the other, so I suggest that the resemblances between the conception of prophet and that of magician point not to the priority of either to the other, but to the derivation or evolution ...
— The Idea of God in Early Religions • F. B. Jevons
... young in Oregon for the final word to have been spoken on this point. The future will undoubtedly add much valuable information as larger experience supplants theory ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... its axis showed the various phases of the luminary that it represented. Between the two circles was a third ball representing the sun, with a fleur-de-lys which pointed to the hours as the sun, according to the ancient theory, daily revolved round the earth; underneath was an inscription relating ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... They had nothing but the cattle aforesaid, and, as he could not find heart to seize, he had no remedy. They keep their cattle on his land, although he has, since then, processed them for trespass. They have already divided the spoils of the Protestants; that is, in theory. They are anticipating the Home Rule Bill in their disposal of the land. They have marked out the patches they will severally claim, and are already disputing the future possession of ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... "friends" which bore the name of Pythagoras. It enjoined the principle that the ruling class should be "honoured like gods," and that the subject class should be "held in subservience like beasts," and by such theory and practice provoked a formidable reaction, which terminated in the annihilation of the Pythagorean "friends" and the renewal of the ancient federal constitution. But frantic party feuds, insurrections en masse of the slaves, social abuses of all sorts, attempts to supply in practice ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... learning is a knowledge of the text itself." [He is evidently the very man who sweeps the house to discover the pearl of great price. (p. 414.)] "He has no delight in the voluminous literature which has overgrown it. He has no theory of Interpretation. A few rules guarding against common errors are enough for him.... He wants to be able to open his eyes, and see or imagine things as they truly are." (p. 338.) [How crooked by the way is all this! "He has no theory of Interpretation[222]?" ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... that I originated this theory?" his mother asked quietly after a silence, during which her long needles moved a little more swiftly than ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... trainfuls of people sneered at their country's institution in a manner which, had it been adopted by a foreigner, would have plunged Europe into war and finally tested the blue-water theory. Undoubtedly the immemorial traditions of English justice came in for very severe handling, simply because Priam would ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... leagues had been passed over, and, unless the land should extend much farther west, according to the theory held by the Admiral, the termination of the channel must be reached. What must have been his joy, when about ten leagues more had been made good, on the 28th of November, 1520, as rounding a point to which he gave the name of Cape Deseado, he saw the vast expanse of the ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... acted like the foolish little kid she is, she was not even armed, and they rushed her here without delay. My theory is that these people live in a dreary world in which there is no pleasure. Their faces seem to show that. Apparently they live a very long time, and have no means of shortening that life. They are not intelligent. ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... that at that time the King was in communication with Fouche, a much more objectionable regicide than Cambaceres; but I was a little surprised that the secret relations caused by pressing emergency did not prevent him from maintaining aloud, and as a general theory, a line of conduct most natural under his circumstances. He was certainly far from foreseeing the disgust that would ensue from his connection with the Duke of Otranto. He dismissed me with some commonplace ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Cartaginem: but some time afterwards, though not very soon, when this grammatical accuracy was wrested from me by the censure of the ear, I resigned the mode of language to the vulgar, and reserved the theory to myself. But we still say, without any hesitation, Orcivios, Matones, Otones, coepiones, sepulcra, coronas, and lacrymas, because the ear allows it. Ennius always uses Burrum, and never Pyrrhum; and the ancient copies of the ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a hollow thing, he knew, but a buckram pretence prevented the world from piercing to his hollowness. The son of his courageous sire (whom he equally admired and feared) had learned to play the game of bluff. A bold front was half the battle. He had worked out his little theory, and it was with a shock of pleasure the timid youngster heard great Allan give it forth. He burned to let him know that ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... directed to this end. At any rate, he did not devote himself at once to the law, but assiduously for two years (1743-45) to a general course of study chosen and directed by himself with a view to the further discipline of his mind and the widening of his information. It was an educational theory with Otis that such an interval of personal and spontaneous application should intervene between a young man's graduation and the beginning of his professional career. Having pursued this course with himself he insisted ...
— James Otis The Pre-Revolutionist • John Clark Ridpath
... did not sleep after all. He sat, wide-eyed, feeding the tiny blaze, trying to develop some new theory on the little girl's sudden disappearance. He had been pondering this for an hour when there came the sound of footsteps stumbling through the sand. He ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... from each other but each with apparently strong Scriptural support. This is only what may happen in any department of study. The strict rule of evidence in any enquiry is that all the facts must be studied and that no theory shall be accepted as entirely trustworthy while any of ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... S. As a railroad officer, interest would prompt me to advocate the opposite theory about this matter, for troops constitute the most profitable, if not the only profitable, part of any transportation by railroads. But I cannot be less a citizen and patriot because I ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... with a gusto and an apprehension which nothing but the old house could have inspired. This, at least, we believed, and our faith in the fancy remains unshaken, now that Mr. Denton, the geologist, has expounded the theory of "Psychometry," which he tells us is the divination of soul through the contact of matter with a psychometrical mind. Had we in those days been better versed in this theory of "the soul of things," we should ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... its myth concerning the sun's personality. Some may have adapted or adopted those of other nations; some may have originated their own theory to explain the origin of the heat and light which come from the apparent ruler of the skies. The myth is preserved through the ages, and the child in the school perceives its beauty, while he understands as well as ...
— Classic Myths • Retold by Mary Catherine Judd
... detriment to accuracy, to command all the interest of an artificial series of facts; that the chain of circumstances which constitute history may be as finely and gracefully woven as any tale of fancy." Acting upon this theory, he has made Canadian history very interesting reading. He is to my mind the only historian, beside Mr. Parkman, who has been able to make Canadian events so dry in detail, ...
— The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... on my theory and I wish to finish the work. I did not know how desperate the men were with whom I have to deal, but in the future I shall be prepared for them. And I wish ...
— The Missing Tin Box - or, The Stolen Railroad Bonds • Arthur M. Winfield
... impossible, however, to reconcile gravitational phenomena with the present conception of the universal aether medium, and a new theory is therefore demanded, before the long-sought-for ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... states, and asserting the right to interpose a veto. In January, 1830, having broken with Jackson and abandoned all hope of later obtaining the presidency by his aid, Calhoun decided to test the theory of nullification upon the national theatre. Accordingly, under his direction, Senator Hayne inserted in his speech on the Foote Resolution on the public lands the defense of what was to be known later as the South Carolina Doctrine,—that, if a State considered ...
— The Battle of Principles - A Study of the Heroism and Eloquence of the Anti-Slavery Conflict • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the Danish type does not appear at all. There are English names among us, of course, such as Gurd, which is Gurth as pronounced by a Norman; but it is understood that we are neolithic chiefly on the distaff side. The theory that each successive wave of invasion demolished the existing inhabitants is absurd. Not even the Germans do that; nor have the Turks succeeded in obliterating the Armenian nation. No—in turn our oncoming hordes, Celts, Romans, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... of the Immaterial Theory, was one morning musing in the cloisters of Dublin College, an acquaintance came up to him, and, seeing him rapt in contemplation, hit him a smart rap on the shoulder with his cane. The dean starting, called out, "What's the matter?" His acquaintance, looking him steadily in the face, ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... country, favorable. Effect of Chivalry on woman. The division of Duties between the sexes, and their Mutual Influence demand separate spheres. Woman should not engage in severe Physical toil. Milton's opinion. Nor in Political life. Plato's theory. Nor in promiscuous public Discussions. Home one part of her sphere. Private Beneficence. The Statue of ivory better than that of brass. Society requires Woman's presence. Lord Halifax's a good view ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Another theory was that it was improbable that the two robbers would overlook a sack containing that large amount of money. Its very weight would have betrayed its presence, and added nearly nineteen pounds to the burden which they carried, and therefore there were still some grounds for entertaining ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... its completion before I was able to avail myself of Mr Martin Hume's Spanish Influence on English Literature. But, though I might have added more had his book been accessible earlier, I was glad to find that his conclusions left the main theory of ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... race. That great leader maintained that the hope for the Negro in the United States and elsewhere lay in the training of his hands. Once those hands were skilled they could be kept out of mischief. I recall having discussed this theory one night with General Smuts at Capetown and he expressed his hearty approval ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... the examination of our Author's theory as tested by the progress of Sculpture, we are still struck by his utter want of attention to physical advantages or difficulties. He seems to have forgotten from the first, that the mountains of Syene are not the ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the consequence, even perhaps better than the prophecy of cause could in the prior case enable him to suspect the consequence. But, in this brief life, and under its disturbing circumstances, there is little likelihood of accomplishing in practice all that the swift mind sees it easy to dream in theory: and if other and wiser pens are at all helped in the good aim to justify the ways of God with man, and to clear the course of truth, by some of the notions broadcast in this treatise, its errand will be ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... one-sided stamp; it is, after a fashion, like that of a man who hurls himself from the top of a mountain or church steeple. The man in question has forgotten to cut off evidence, and, in order to work out a theory, has killed two persons. He has committed a murder, and yet has not known how to take possession of the pelf; what he has taken he has hidden under a stone. The anguish he experienced while hearing knocking at the door and the continued ringing of the ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... public a long purse is synonymous with high position—a theory dear to the heart of the "yellow" press and eagerly fostered in the preposterous social functions of screen drama. It is true that Best Society is comparatively rich; it is true that the hostess ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... not pretend to indorse the theory of Maedler with reference to his central sun. If I did indorse it, it would amount simply to nothing at all, for he needs no indorsement of mine. But it is one of the great unfinished problems of the universe, which remains yet to be solved. Future generations yet are to take it up. ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... captain; "but, as I have often told you, he brings about his purposes by the laws or causes which he himself has established. There may be several causes in operation to form this ocean-stream, though up to this moment learned men have been unable to decide what they are. Now one theory is advanced, now another. The shape of the Gulf Stream may have something to do with it. It appears that it is higher than the rest of the surface, for it is more bulky. Water will always seek its level. It has thus a tendency to flow towards the colder and lower ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston |
