Q

“ In sorting pie, or a mixed heap of letters, where the "p" and the "q" are not in connexion with any other letters forming a word, I think it would be almost impossible for an inexperienced person to say which is which upon the instant. "Mind your p's and q's"—I write it thus, and not "Mind your P's and Q's"—has a higher philosophy than mind your toupées and your queues, which are things essentially different, and impossible to be mistaken. ”

“ But what right have we to say this until we know that the feeling of q means to stand for or represent just that SAME other q? Suppose, instead of one q, a number of real q's in the field. If the gun shoots and hits, we can easily see which one of them it hits. But how can we distinguish which one the feeling knows? It knows the one it stands for. ”

“ It gives more than one sound to the letter u, an evil to be deprecated far more than the addition of dozen new characters to the alphabet, each having but one sound. Could you hear the Nez-Perces words, Kui & Qrfs sounded, you would see the impossibility of making ku take the place of Q & still the u retain its own sound—The following english words, Quiet & Kumiss may explain what I mean. ”

“ During the months of my engagement to Violet these communications of mine (you will allow) were frequent enough: since our marriage they have grown shamefully fewer. Possibly I lose alertness while I put on flesh: it is the natural hebetudus of happiness. "Q."—who is never seen now upon London stones—no doubt sends you a plenty of what passes for news in that parish which it is his humour to prefer to the Imperial City. ”

“ We talked a little longer—we had strolled into the morning-room, and sat down there—when Whichelo said suddenly—
“That discovery of a mummy in Sir Charles’ town house is curious, eh? How would you account for that, Ashton? And for the hole in the ceiling?”
“I don’t account for it at all,” I replied quickly, trying to look unconcerned beneath his narrow, scrutinising gaze. “What is your theory with regard to it?”
“Oh, I never theorise in cases of that kind,” he replied. “What is the use of theorising? One is almost certain to be wrong.” ”

“ Quire, kwīr, n. a collection of paper consisting of twenty-four sheets, the twentieth part of a ream, each having a single fold.—v.t. to fold in quires. [O. Fr. quaier (Fr. cahier) , prob. from Low L. quaternum, a set of four sheets,—L. quatuor, four.]
Quire, kwīr, n. old form of choir.—n. Quī′rister, a chorister.
Quirinus, kwi-rī′nus, n. an Italic divinity identified with the deified Romulus.—n. Quirinā′lia, a festival in ancient Rome in honour of Quirinus, on Feb. 17.
Quirites, kwi-rī′tez, n.pl. the citizens of ancient Rome in their civil capacity. ”

“ JOHN QUARLES.
John Quarles, Son to Francis Quarles, Esq; may be said to be born a Poet, and that his Father's Genius was infused into him; nor was he less Loyal in his Principles to his Prince, writing besides several other Works, an Elegy on the Lord Capell, and A Curse against the Enemies of Peace; of which I remember those were the two last lines.
That all the world may hear them hiss and cry,
Who loves no peace, in peace shall never die. ”

“ Queed eyed her with some impatience through his round spectacles.
"You apparently jumble together the theory and what you take to be the application of a science in the attempt to make an impossible unit. Hence your curious confusion. Theory and application are as totally distinct as the poles. The few must discover for the many to use. My own task—since the matter appears to interest you—is to work out the laws of human society for those who come after to practice and apply." ”

“ We have seen that y:, i: frequently take the place of ⅄: especially with the younger people but even J. H. has y: in a number of words such as tyuw, ‘side’, O.Ir. tóib; kryuw, ‘branch’, M.Ir. cróeb, cráeb, gen. sing. kri:və, plur. kry:wαχə) . In the case of aoi great uncertainty prevails. J. H. sometimes has y: in y:ʃ, ‘age’, O.Ir. áis; y:lʹ, gen. sing. of ⅄:l, ‘lime’, O.Ir. áel and frequently in inflected forms like sy:rʹ, gen. sing. of s⅄:r, ‘free, cheap’. But the tendency with the younger generations is to introduce i: everywhere.
(c) The irrational vowel ə. ”

“ There could be no better illustration of the influence and danger of labels and tags; “poetic diction,” and “age of prose and reason” tended to become a sort of critical legend or tradition, by means of which eighteenth century verse, alike at its highest and its lowest levels, could be safely and adequately understood and explained.
Nowadays we are little likely to fall into the error of assuming that any one cut and dried formula, however pregnant and apt, could adequately sum up the literary aspects and characteristics of an entire age ”

“ Quart. And we must pay for your inventions, sir?
Rose. Or you are damn'd:
Good captain, you have sworn to pay this twelvemonth.
Quart. Peace! you loud, bawling cur; do you disgrace me
Before these gallants? See if I don't kill you.
SCENE VI. Enter Bright, Newcut, Timothy, Plotwell.
Bright. Save you, Captain Quartfield, and my brave wit,
My man of Helicon. Salute this gentleman,
He is a city wit.
[Pg 243]
New. A corporation went to the bringing of him forth.
Quart. I embrace him.
Sale. And so do I.
Tim. ”

“ Certain Axioms of Mediate Evidence: as, in Mathematics, 'that magnitudes equal to the same magnitude are equal to one another'; and, in Logic, the Dictum or its material equivalent.
(3) That all Times and all Spaces are commensurable; although in certain relations of space (as π) the unit of measurement must be infinitely small.—If Time really trotted with one man and galloped with another, as it seems to; if space really swelled in places, as De Quincey dreamed that it did; life could not be regulated, experience could not be compared and science would be impossible. ”

“ It is to be feared that, in the course of a century, some gifted man like Paul, some splendid orator, who will be able by his eloquence to attract crowds of the thousands who are ever ready to hear, and be carried away by the sounding brass and tinkling cymbal of sparkling oratory, may command a hearing, may succeed in breathing a new life into this modern Mahometanism, and make the name of the martyred Joseph ring as loud, and stir the souls of men as much, as the mighty name of Christ itself. ”

“ He makes use of the device as freely, and even now and then as mechanically, as the inferior versifiers of his period, but instead of the bloodless abstractions, his genius enabled him to present human qualities and states in almost ethereal form. Into them he has breathed such poetic life and inspiration that in their suggestive beauty and felicity of expression they stand as supreme examples of personification used as a legitimate poetical device, as distinct from a mere rhetorical figure or embellishment. ”

“ In our detailed examination of personification in eighteenth century poetry we have seen that in general it includes three main types. There is first the mere abstraction, whose distinctive sign is the presence of a capital letter; it may be, and often is, qualified by epithets suggestive of human attributes, but there is little or no attempt to give a definite picture or evoke a distinctive image. This is the prevalent type, and it is against these invertebrates that the criticism of Wordsworth and Coleridge was really directed. ”

“ So Philosophy has almost all the say in this matter, until Poetry interjects the fatal question, "I beg your pardon, Madam, but do you happen to be the Almighty, or are you playing Egeria to his Numa? You are constructing admirably comprehensive schemes and systems for His guidance, if your hints will but be taken. But if you address yourself to Man, you will find that his business is not at all to comprehend the Universe ”

“ There seems to be no fixed rule but i: is much more frequent. In words which are in common use i: is perhaps the rule, whilst others which only occur but seldom have ⅄: in order to preserve the connexion with the nominative forms, e.g. mw⅄:r, ‘keeper’, mw⅄:r ·kyLʹuw, Book of Deer máir, gen. sing. mw⅄:rʹ; mwi:lʹi:nʹ, ‘hornless cow’, Di. maoilín < mw⅄:l but mw⅄:Lʹtʹαŋy:, ‘speaking thickly’; ⅄:ʃ ‘age’, O.Ir. ”

“ The movement towards purity and simplicity of expression received its first definite statement in Thomas Sprat’s “History of the Royal Society, 1667.” One section of the History contains an account of the French Academy, and Sprat’s efforts were directed towards the formation of a similar body in England as an arbiter in matters of language and style. The ideal was to be the expression of “so many things [7] almost in an equal number of words.” ”

“ So saying, Mr Quilp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quilp, who was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head in the bed-clothes bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less tender-hearted persons would have mourned a much greater offence; for, in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. ”

“ Quar′termaster-gen′eral, in the British army, a staff-officer of high rank (major-general or colonel) who deals with all questions of transport, marches, quarters, fuel, clothing, &c.; Quar′tern, the fourth part of a peck, a stone, or a pint: the quarter of a pound; Quar′tern-loaf, a loaf weighing, generally, four pounds; Quarteroon′ (see Quadroon) ; Quar′ter-plate, in photography, a size of plate measuring 31⁄4 by 41⁄4 inches: a picture of this size; Quar′ter-round, a moulding having an outline approximating to a quadrant, an ovolo: any tool adapted for making such ”

“ A (one barouche) and B (six hundred thousand besoms) are severally equal in value to C. When, therefore, A doubles its value, I say that it shall command a double quantity of C. Now, mark how I will express the inverted case. When B doubles its value, I say that it shall command a double quantity of C. But these two cases are very reconcilable with each other. A may command a double quantity of C at the same time that B commands a double quantity of C, without involving any absurdity at all. ”

“ If two persons are in separate cells, for instance, and one wishes to communicate with the other, who in all probability is acquainted with the use of the square, he will ask, ‘Who are you?’ by rapping on the wall, thus, 5 raps, a pause, 2 raps, a pause (W) ; 2 raps, a pause, 3 raps, a pause (H) ; 3 raps, a pause, 4 raps, a pause (O) ”

“ But that all warm-blooded creatures are quadrupeds, or, in other words, that the attributes connoted by “warm-blooded” never exist without those connoted by “quadruped,” has not been asserted, and cannot be inferred. In order to reassert, in an inverted form, the whole of what was affirmed in the proposition, All quadrupeds are warm-blooded, we must convert it by contraposition, thus, Nothing which is not warm-blooded is a quadruped. This proposition, and the one from which it is derived, are exactly equivalent, and either of them may be substituted for the other ”

“ Now and then he referred to the small document in the crabbed handwriting, and afterwards examined his diagram, as though to make certain of its correct proportions. Then, resting his chin upon his hands, he sat staring at the paper as it lay upon the blotting-pad within the zone of mellow lamplight.
“It seems quite feasible,” he said at last, speaking aloud. “Would that the suggestion were only true! But unfortunately it is merely a vague and ridiculous idea—a fantastic chimera of the imagination, after all. No,” he added resolutely, “the hope is utterly false and misleading. ”

“ The neo-classical poet, with his eye fixed on the town and on life as lived there, felt no necessity for adding to the descriptive resources of his vocabulary, especially when there was to his hand a whole gradus of accepted and consecrated words and phrases. It is in the apostles of “the return to Nature” that we find, however inadequately, to begin with, a new diction that came into being because these poets had recovered the use of their eyes and could sense the beauty of the world around them. ”

“ The city rises on a gentle incline from the rolling Mississippi, and as you stand near the temple, you may gaze on the picturesque scenery around; at your side is the temple, the wonder of the world; round about, and beneath, you may behold handsome stores, large mansions, and fine cottages, interspersed with varied scenery; at the foot of the town rolls the noble Mississippi, bearing upon its bosom the numerous seaships which are conveying the Mormons from all parts of the world to their home. ”

“ The first means is illustrated by a reference to the art of learning a language—to arithmetic—to surveying, and to the writing of 'themes.' Can any boy, for instance, reconcile himself to the loathsome effort of learning 'Propria quæ maribus' by any [but] the dimmest sense of its future utility? No, we answer with the Experimentalist: and we go farther even than the Experimentalist is disposed to do (p. 98) ; for we deny the existence of any future utility. ”

“ Now whence came the little girl's error and its correction? Following blindly the general analogy of the language, she [Pg 187] formed her plural by adding an s to the singular: afterwards everybody about her became a daily monitor—a living Propria quæ maribus, as she is in her turn to her brother, instructing her that this particular word 'man' swerved, as to this one particular point, from the general analogy of the language. ”

“ Starting from the identical proposition, 'The head of a quadruped is the head of a quadruped,' and being given that 'A horse is a quadruped,' so that whatever is true of 'quadruped' generally we know to be true of 'horse,' we are entitled to substitute the narrower for the wider term, and in this manner we arrive at the proposition,
The head of a horse is the head of a quadruped. ”