They are purely relative and their application in a particular instance has to be determined by a sort of sliding scale.

But I don't know whether Thorndyke has anything definite in view; I only know that the preparations have been on a most portentous scale.

He appealed to human consciousness; but lacking the inspiration and aid which come from a sense of personal divine influence, Buddhism has failed, on the large scale, to raise its votaries to higher planes of ethical accomplishment.

In this state of balance the touch of satire in l. 338 f. ("My mother I will know no more," etc.), and the fact that he speaks immediately after the complete sincerity of Alcestis, conspire to weigh down the scale against Admetus.

Away with our miserable efforts to scale the heavens!

Pongo had assured me, while chatting of the affair on the previous night, that this birthday binge of his was to be on a scale calculated to stagger humanity, and I must say I have participated in less fruity functions.

You would be Mrs. Nobody, you know; but listenhere is the enthusiastic: "MY DEAR ASHLEY: "You are destined for great thingsit is yours to scale the heights of song, and snatch the crown from Ossa's lofty brow.

There have been apprehensions of an attempt to scale the Pigeon House, and a full garrison has been ordered into it, with directions to add to its defences on the seaside so as to protect it from escalade.

The scale of the subsequent Syracusan expedition showed how vigorous Athens still was down to the interruption of the war by the peace of Nicias.

At no time has war against commerce been conducted on a larger scale and with greater results than during this period.

Not to mention other expeditions, considerable enough in themselves, military operations on the largest scale were undertaken, carried on for many months, and brought to a successful termination on a scene so remote that it was two thousand miles from the country of one, and three thousand from that of the other partner in the alliance.

Its outward and visible sign is a navy, strong in the discipline, skill, and courage of a numerous personnel habituated to the sea, in the number and quality of its ships, in the excellence of its matériel, and in the efficiency, scale, security, and geographical position of its arsenals and bases.

No invasion on a large scale occurred; but smaller Carthaginian detachments landed on the Italian coasts and levied contributions on the allies of Rome, and what was worst of all, completely paralyzed the commerce of Rome and her allies.

The same reason led to the new salt-tariff of 550 fixing the scale of prices at which salt was to be sold in the different districts of Italy, as it was no longer possible to furnish salt at one and the same price to the Roman burgesses now scattered throughout the land; but, as the Roman government probably supplied the burgesses with salt at cost price, if not below it, this financial measure yielded no gain to the state.

But these burdensome requirements were in various ways evaded or transgressed; and the crowding of the burgesses of Latin townships to Rome, and the complaints of their magistrates as to the increasing depopulation of the cities and the impossibility under such circumstances of furnishing the fixed contingent, led the Roman government to institute police-ejections from the capital on a large scale (567, 577).

The dispassionate gravity, the noble forgetfulness of self, the tenderness of others, that are there expressed and were practised on so great a scale in the life of its writer, make this book a book quite by itself.

At one time I dwelt much on the idea of compensation; trying to believe that I was all the wiser for my bruised vanity, that I had the higher place in the true spiritual scale, and even that a day might come when some visible triumph would place me in the French heaven of having the laughers on my side.

On the other hand, he made a serious figure in sermons under the name of "Some" or "Others" who had attempted presumptuously to scale eminences too high and arduous for human ability, and had given an example of ignominious failure edifying to the humble Christian.

We are often fallaciously confident in supposing that our friend's state of mind is appropriate to our moderate estimate of his importance: almost as if we imagined the humble mollusc (so useful as an illustration) to have a sense of his own exceeding softness and low place in the scale of being.

If the bad-tempered man wants to apologise he had need to do it on a large public scale, make some beneficent discovery, produce some stimulating work of genius, invent some powerful processprove himself such a good to contemporary multitudes and future generations, as to make the discomfort he causes his friends and acquaintances a vanishing quality, a trifle even in their own estimate.

All which is mirrored in an analogy, namely, that of the Irish, also a servile race, who have rejected Protestantism though it has been repeatedly urged on them by fire and sword and penal laws, and whose place in the moral scale may be judged by our advertisements, where the clause, "No Irish need apply," parallels the sentence which for many polite persons sums up the question of Judaism"I never did like the Jews.

One can hardly credit this fact, just after Garrick had raised the profession of an actor to so great an eminence in the social scale.

Depend upon it, if we were to lower our scale so as to run no risk of offending any good people's delicate feelings, we should soon lower ourselves so as to rival "My Grandmother the British" in want of interest to the world at large, and even (though they would not say so) to the saints themselves.

On instituting a comparison between the Brazils and Europe, both with respect to the impression produced by the whole, as also to the separate advantages and disadvantages of each, we shall, perhaps, at first find the scale incline towards the former country, but only to turn ultimately with greater certainty in favour of the latter.

The germ that Calhoun has planted shall lie long in the earth, perhaps, but when it breaks the surface, it shall grow in one night to maturity, like that in your so famous 'Mother Goose' story of 'Jack and his Bean-stalk,' forming a ladder wherewith to scale the abode of giants and slay them in their drunken sleep of security.