He was a master of metre, and contributed certain modifications to the laws of Chinese prosody which exist to
the present day.
Lute of Jade
On the absence of intermediate varieties at the present day -- On the nature of extinct intermediate varieties; on their number -- On the vast lapse of time, as inferred from the rate of deposition and of denudation -- On the poorness of our palaeontological collections -- On the intermittence of geological formations -- On the absence of intermediate varieties in any one formation -- On the sudden appearance of groups of species -- On their sudden appearance in the lowest known fossiliferous strata.
I assigned reasons why such links do not commonly occur at the present day, under the circumstances apparently most favourable for their presence, namely on an extensive and continuous area with graduated physical conditions.
The Origin of Species
I do not believe that there was in that genteel Bohemia an intensive culture of chastity, but I do not remember so crude a promiscuity as seems to be practised in
the present day. We did not think it hypocritical to draw over our vagaries the curtain of a decent silence.
Moon and Sixpence
At night, one could distinguish nothing of all that mass of buildings, except the black indentation of the roofs, unrolling their chain of acute angles round the place; for one of the radical differences between the cities of that time, and the cities of
the present day, lay in the façades which looked upon the places and streets, and which were then gables.
Notre Dame de Paris
Within fifty years after Alfred's death, to be sure, his descendants had won back the whole of England from 'Danish' rule (though the 'Danes,' then constituting half the population of the north and east, have remained to
the present day a large element in the English race).
A History of English Literature
It was an admirable artistic exploit, rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of
the present day; inasmuch as this Leviathan was slain at the very first dart.
Moby Dick LXVIII CXXXIV
I have no patience with the pride and perversity of the young women of
the present day.
No Name
From the time of Thales of Miletus, in the fifth century B.C., down to that of Copernicus in the fifteenth and Tycho Brahe in the sixteenth century A.D., observations have been from time to time carried on with more or less correctness, until in
the present day the altitudes of the lunar mountains have been determined with exactitude.
From The Earth To The Moon
l It is given up in the present day, by general consent, as unworthy of the slightest credit.
This intimation has since given rise to a series of inquiries, the knowledge of which is necessary, in the present day, to a full understanding of the true position of Aesop in connection with the writings that bear his name.
Fables
This was so singularly the case that it had presumably much to do with the fact as to which, at
the present day, I am at a loss for a different explanation: I allude to my unnatural composure on the subject of another school for Miles.
Turn Of The Screw
As for the residue of the Pequod's company, be it said, that at
the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers are.
Moby Dick I LXVII
As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of
the present day, a note was brought from Mrs.
Emma
During this performance, the hermit demeaned himself much like a first-rate critic of
the present day at a new opera.
Ivanhoe