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More "Casual" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shifted the gun and smiled. That fetched him. Without a word he passed them over and turned his toes toward the fence, but no longer casual and careless was his carriage, I nor did he stoop to pick the occasional poppy by the way. That was the last of the "Repeater." I could see by his eyes that he did not like me, and his back reproached me all the way down the ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... proceeded to make a fool of himself. A bashful young earl tried his maiden oratory on the good citizens of London, and having evidently got every word by heart, (even including, however he managed it, the most seemingly casual improvisations of the moment,) he really spoke like a book, and made incomparably the smoothest speech I ever ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... few things more remarkable, or to reasoning minds more inexplicable, than the readiness with which men undertook in old times, and even now undertake, to interpret omens and assign prophetic significance to casual events. One can understand that foolish persons should believe in omens, and act upon the ideas suggested by their superstitions. The difficulty is to comprehend how these superstitions came into existence. For instance, who first conceived the idea that a particular line ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... of Copyright shall be printed on heavy paper or other durable material in type at least 18 points in size, and shall be displayed prominently, in such manner and location as to be clearly visible, legible, and comprehensible to a casual observer within the immediate vicinity of the ...
— Reproduction of Copyrighted Works By Educators and Librarians • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.
... however, settled down a good deal in the sand, and had canted at a sharp angle to port. Her galleries, fuselage, and wings were heavily laden with sand that materially increased her weight; and to the casual eye she gave the impression of a bird which never again would soar on ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... called a mass meeting to-night, I understand," he remarked in the same casual way. "The man's a demagogue, and mad as a loon. I believe he sent back one of our passes once, didn't he? I suppose Bass has come in to get Hartington to work up the meeting. They'll be laughed out of the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... To the casual observer the native appears dull and heavy, so much so that at first it would seem hopeless to get any intelligent information out of him; but on better acquaintance it will be found that their faces, like those of Mexican Indians in general, have ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... to rush away instantly, but was glad he had not, when his father said in a kind voice, 'Are you coming with us, Cecil?' Though he answered, of course, in the negative, his heart felt lighter for that kind tone and those few casual words. It was his own sulkiness which had made great part of his misery before, and he could see that plainly now that he was beginning to get ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... he himself was haunted by forebodings of an early death. To be snatched away without a warning, to come in a moment from the seductions of this World to the presence of Eternity— his most ordinary actions, the most casual remarks, served to keep him in remembrance of that dreadful possibility. When one of his little boys clapped his hands at the thought of the approaching holidays, the Doctor gently checked him, and repeated the story of his own early childhood; how his own father ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... of Russia, but to outsiders the city is probably better known as the early cradle of Nihilistic notions. Although quite a handsome city, with fine streets and remarkably good shops, Kharkoff has nothing special to attract the casual visitor, and in ordinary times a few hours are more than sufficient to get a fair ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... class with unostentatious ease. I am afraid that I may have done my orphaned cousin seeming injustice in former chapters of this autobiography. Her temper was even, and her nature was finer than her prim, priggish ways would have led the casual acquaintance to suppose. She was ultra-conscientious, and naturally so exemplary that her good behavior was a snare. She could not sympathize with my temptations to naughtiness and many falls from good-girlhood. I mention this to introduce ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... he spoke, Gay saw across the room the face she had been watching for. A tall man had come into the doorway and stood casting a casual but comprehensive eye about him. He was not in evening dress, but wore a loose grey lounge suit of rather careless aspect, and his short, fairish, curly hair was ruffled as though he had been running his fingers through it. Accompanying ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... however, who commented on what they called her superiority—the young men who appeared in the evening. A number of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner parties or more casual, tried to engage her sympathies in their persons and prospects. It was a society of early maturity. But, without apparent effort, she discouraged them, principally by her serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental part of her understanding of things that younger men were unprofitable; ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... owned to it if her accent had not found her out. It would have been pleasanter to befriend another person, but the little Westerner suffered a veritable persecution, and that was enough to make Grace her friend. Shortly after she returned home from school she married, in that casual and tentative fashion in which so many marriages seem made. Grace had heard of her as travelling in Europe with her husband, from whom she was now separated. She reported that he had known Mr. Libby in his bachelor days, and that Mr. Libby ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... battle-field; infinite female tact, rare philosophic hardihood, inimitable bon-mots, exquisite millinery, consummate generalship, holy fortitude, refined profligacy, and intoxicating sentiment,—Ude, Napoleon, Madame Rcamier, Pascal, Ninon de I'Enclos, and Rousseau. Casual associations and desultory reading thus predispose us to recognize something half comical and half enchanting in French life; and it depends on accident, when we first visit Paris, which view is confirmed. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of the letters were missing, for the name of the inquirer was not mentioned; there was a casual reference to "this handsome-featured aristocratic gentleman," as if the reader and the writer were accustomed to speak of him and knew ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 2. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... life, and hoping ultimately to gain a foothold on land; unfortunate people, who are making a fresh start; men regularly employed in riverside factories and mills; invalids, who, at small expense, are trying the fresh-air cure; others, who drift up and down the Ohio, seeking casual work; and legitimate fishermen, who find it convenient to be near their nets, and to move about according to the needs of their calling. But a goodly proportion of these boats are inhabited by the lowest class of the population,—poor "crackers" who have managed to scrape ...
— Afloat on the Ohio - An Historical Pilgrimage of a Thousand Miles in a Skiff, from Redstone to Cairo • Reuben Gold Thwaites
... shells was a person above suspicion. Thus it was that two days later, after a casual checking of the bearded man's references, he invited Travail to move ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... influence a life: a man whose opinion I esteemed, made of me the casual and trite remark, that 'my nature was one of which it was impossible to augur evil or good: it might be extreme in either.' This observation roused me into thought: could I indeed be all that was good ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... The other casual inmate of Mr. Campbell's camp was Mr. Nathaniel Wyeth; the self-same leader of the band of New England salmon fishers, with whom we parted company in the valley of Pierre's Hole, after the battle with the Blackfeet. A few days after that affair, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... beer-garden; among the rhododendron trees Madame Blavatzky, Colonel Olcott and Mr. Sinnett move mysteriously in the performance of their wonders; and the wealthy tourist from America, the botanist from Berlin, and the casual peer from Great Britain, are not wanting to complete the motley crowd. There are no roads in Simla proper where it is possible to drive, excepting one narrow way, reserved when I was there, and probably still set apart, ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... chief actors in the Bakewell Comedy, Master Ripton Thompson awaited the fearful morning which was to decide Tom's fate, in dolefullest mood, and suffered the gravest mental terrors. Adrian, on parting with him, had taken casual occasion to speak of the position of the criminal in modern Europe, assuring him that International Treaty now did what Universal Empire had aforetime done, and that among Atlantic barbarians now, as among the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of these vermin. "God willing we shall not be stung," they say, and, rolling themselves in their ponchos on the bare floor in a corner of the habitation, they are soon asleep. But sleep does not visit me so easily. An uncomfortable impression remains, which has not been lessened by the casual remark of the owner of the hut regarding the habits of the scorpions. "Very knowing creatures, senor," he says, as he obsequiously helps to arrange my couch in the middle of the floor—a position chosen by myself—"they have a habit of dropping from the ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... by a Memoir. It were a shame to us if one so radiantly lofty in intellect, so devoted to human liberty and well-being, so ready to dare and to endure for the upraising of her sex and her race, should perish from among us, and leave no memento less imperfect and casual than those we now have. We trust the more immediate relatives of our departed friend will lose no time in selecting the fittest person to prepare a Memoir, with a selection from her writings, for ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... it was hard for him to go through with it. He longed for her so! He must have her help. He had asked for the pictures before telling her just because he knew it would be unbearable for them both, if she did know. It would need to be done in that casual way or not at all. It was strange how he felt he must see them. It was his longing to keep close to her. He could not bear the thought that his blindness might make him to her as something apart from life, even though the dearest thing of ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... quite another matter and whips our indifference into action. Only the workers in the darkest places of our great cities know how large illegitimacy looms as a factor in the social disintegration that leads to the prison, to the mad-house, to the hospitals, to the casual wards, and to the streets. Only the eye of the scientist can vision in the relation of the unhonored child to its mother the seed of that evil which one day shall become the dishonor ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... casual observer, Jack had altered very little since the day when he knocked Master Raymond Fosberton into the laurel bush; yet there was a change. He had broadened, and grown to look older, and more of a man, though ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... technical skill in combining adaptability, utility, and beauty that have accomplished wonders. The buildings are satisfactory in every particular to every one who has seen them, and even the most casual observer is impressed with the effect of beauty. This was accomplished without elaboration of material, expressive carving or finish. The ornamentation is purely structural and is obtained by a handling of the materials of construction which also yielded the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 799, April 25, 1891 • Various
... was, in a sense, a safeguard in streets where the travelling Englishman, easily recognised, has not always found a welcome. His clothes and his walk were studiously French. Indeed, no one, passing by with a casual glance, would have turned to look a second time at a figure so ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... rulers such as Justin McCarthy; Thomas Burt, the labor leader; Herbert Burrows, the Socialist, and Tom Mann, representing all phases of the Labor party, are cooperating with conservatives like Sir T. Eldon Gorst. But the real strength of this committee is not visible to the casual observer. As a matter of fact it represents many of the leading and most powerful British journals. A.E. Fletcher is editor of the London Daily Chronicle; P.W. Clayden is prominent in the counsels of the London Daily News; ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... grounds from the incurious wayfarer; or of such carp and tench as, having escaped the treacherous toils of the nightly plunderer, gasp and tumble on its surface, delighting to display their golden pride in the mid-day sun, before the gaze of lawful possession. Nor shall the casual reader be led carelessly and wearily to note the many sweet memorials of private friendship, records of the living and the dead, which, standing forth from amid the lightsome glades and leafy shadows around, make the place sacred to many a strong ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, No. 577 - Volume 20, Number 577, Saturday, November 24, 1832 • Various
... superiority which shone in his simple and hidden life. I must add the cardinal fact that there was an excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of men, which showed him the material world as a means and symbol. This discovery, which sometimes yields to poets a certain casual and interrupted light, serving for the ornament of their writing, was in him an unsleeping insight; and whatever faults or obstructions of temperament might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. In his youth he said one day, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... back to him, however, that several times his wife's casual references to the past, and particularly regarding her parents, had not dove-tailed, but that he had dismissed the impression; attributing it to some lapse in his own attention. He had a bad habit of listening and thinking out a knotty business ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... concept. This latter was the view adopted by Plato. Gersonides finds the reality in the thoughts of the Active Intellect, agreeing in this with the views of Philo and Augustine, substituting only the Active Intellect for their Logos. Maimonides does not discuss the question, but it is clear from a casual statement that like Aristotle he does not believe in the independent reality of the universal (Guide ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... Fontanges, and overthrown by Madame de Maintenon; but her haughtiness, her caprices, had already alienated the King. He had not, however, such rivals as mine; it is true, their baseness is my security. I have, in general, little to fear but casual infidelities, and the chance that they may not all be sufficiently transitory for my safety. The King likes variety, but he is also bound by habit; he fears eclats, and detests manoeuvring women. The little Marechale (de Mirepoig) one day said to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 1 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... less he liked these rich people naturally the more familiar his resolution to be successfully intimate made him. He put down the names and brief characteristics of their sons and daughters in a little note-book and consulted it before every visit so as to get his most casual enquiries right. And he invited himself to the Garstein Fellows house on this occasion ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... doctors, three or four lawyers, some professional singers, an editor, a lieutenant in the United States army spending his furlough in the city, and others in various polite callings; these were colored, though most of them would not have attracted even a casual glance because of any marked difference from white people. Most of the ladies were in evening costume, and dress coats and dancing-pumps were the rule among the men. A band of string music, stationed in an alcove behind a row of palms, played popular airs while ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... such exclamations as Ay! que buenos ojos! Que bonita eres! [Oh! what fine eyes! How pretty you are!] are only too common. The woman thus characterized will modify her conduct according to the necessities of the situation; and if her casual admirer happens to be young and good-looking and she herself is not averse to flattery, she will reward him with a quick smile. In any case, the whole matter is treated as an ordinary occurrence, as it is, and no insult is felt where none is intended. Such remarks ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... is old, mangy, toothless and deserving of nothing better, my dear father," replied the fair young man, and his glances at the white beard, scanty locks and mumbling mouth of the ancient gentleman had an unpleasantly personal quality. To the casual on-looker it would have seemed that an impudent boy deliberately insulted a harmless benevolent old gentleman. To the fair young man, however, it was well known that the old gentleman's name was famous across ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... this purpose in the presence of Violet, so as to accustom that emotional young woman to the idea of their separation. But Violet, absorbed in her grief for the dead, paid but little attention to Corona's casual remarks. ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... difficulties which are severally felt by each reader in succession. Or again, that no book can convey the special spirit and delicate peculiarities of its subject with that rapidity and certainty which attend on the sympathy of mind with mind, through the eyes, the look, the accent, and the manner, in casual expressions thrown off at the moment, and the unstudied turns of familiar conversation. But I am already dwelling too long on what is but an incidental portion of my main subject. Whatever be the cause, the fact is undeniable. The general principles of any study you may learn by ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the impressions that a casual reader will derive is the interesting fact, just as in detective mystery stories, so in ghost stories, styles change. Each age, each period has the ghost story peculiar to itself. To-day, there is a new style of ghost story ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... happened was regarded as only an episode. In fact, however, I doubt if there are any episodes in our lives, any asides, that do not permanently affect our entire career. Are not the episodes, the casual thoughts, the fortuitous, unplanned meetings, the brief and maybe at the moment unnoted events, those which exercise the most influence on our destiny? To all observation the career of Lyon, and not of Margaret, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... has, at least, one accidental resemblance: Hudibras wants a plan, because it is left imperfect; Alma is imperfect, because it seems never to have had a plan. Prior appears not to have proposed to himself any drift or design, but to have written the casual ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... had, as it were, retired within himself. He lived his life apart, with them but not of them, daily carrying through the arduous work he set himself with a dogged determination in which there was no pleasure. Yet, beyond a certain gravity, to the casual observer there was in him no great change. He entertained frequently and was a popular host, interesting and appearing interested. Only Miss Craven and Peters, more intimate, saw the effort that he made. To Miss Craven it seemed ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... sold to casual visitors was harmless, Inspector. But I strongly suspect that regular clients were supplied with something quite different. You see, I know no fewer than thirty unfortunate women in the West End of London alone who are simply helpless slaves to various drugs, and I think ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... intercourse with these elders or personal disciples of the Lord had not been great. It was probably confined to the earlier part of his life, before he had any thought of writing his book; and the information thence derived was in consequence casual and fragmentary. When he set himself to collect traditions for this special purpose, he was dependent on secondary evidence, on the information collected from scholars and followers ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... of God, that He may give the right word at the right moment; and a willingness to open the conversation by some manifestation of the humble, loving disposition begotten by the Holy Spirit, which is infinitely attractive and beautiful to the most casual passer-by. ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... own efforts have been crowned with such signal success. . . . Were the revered author not, in fact what he is, a Jesuit missionary of acknowledged excellence and wide fame, the value of his advice would be none the less evident on a thoughtful perusal of his book. . . . Even a mere casual reading would send the young student away with a clear realization of the steps he must take to secure that in his mind or personality there shall be nothing to make any man, however critical, however captious, think less of that Living Word whose mouthpiece ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... supposed to have smiled internally, when the border and highland champions bled and died in the savage sports of chivalry, by which his nuptials were solemnized. Upon the waxing power of Angus he kept a wary eye; and, embracing the occasion of a casual slaughter, he compelled that earl, and his son, to exchange the lordship of Liddisdale and the castle of Hermitage, for the castle and lordship of Bothwell[4]. By this policy, he prevented the house of Angus, mighty as it was, from rising to the height, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... shall have frequent occasion to insist on the necessity of this heartfelt love of, and unqualified submission to, the teaching of nature, it will be no less incumbent upon me to reprobate the careless rendering of casual impression, and the mechanical copyism of unimportant subject, which are too frequently visible in our modern school.[O] Their lightness and desultoriness of intention, their meaningless multiplication of unstudied composition, ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... the point of the injury, the part being warm, swollen, and painful. What further proof is necessary? Is it not evident that a fracture has occurred, first superficial—a mere split in the bony structure, which, fortunately, has been discovered before some extra exertion or a casual misstep had developed it into one of the complete kind, possibly with complications? What other inference can such a series of symptoms thus ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... pathos of this scene, though designed and interpreted with a very sensitive restraint, was comparatively obvious—a commonplace, indeed, of these heart-rending days. There was a far more subtle and original note of pathos in the contrast between the brusque humour of the man's casual acceptance of the situation and the timorous, adoring, dog-like devotion of the woman. Here tears and laughter were ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... their preeminence. What an example, what an inspiration, what a grand symphony of concentrated harmony! Germany was the source of Protestantism and therefore of modern morals—honest, uncompromising morals. German discipline would have a bracing, solidifying effect on a typically casual, slack American youth like Gard, whose latent capabilities were never likely to be fully called upon in the comparatively hit-and-miss organization of ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... in the room was thinning. There were vacant chairs here and there now. A carter sauntered past and sat down unconcernedly at the table occupied by the old man whose face Carmichael had not yet seen. The two exchanged not even so much as a casual nod. A little later a butcher approached the same table and seated himself after the manner of the carter. It was only when the dusty baker came along and repeated this procedure, preserving the same silence, that Carmichael's curiosity was enlivened. This curiosity, however, ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... letters are transparently natural. It has been said more than once that the Journal, by the nature of the case, contains no full-length portraits, and hardly any sketches. Swift mentions the people he met, but rarely stops to draw a picture of them. But though this is true, the casual remarks which he makes often give a vivid impression of what he thought of the person of whom he is speaking, and in many cases those few words form a chief part of our general estimate of the man. There are but few people of note at the time who are not mentioned ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... renewed my application for receiving aid from the Casual and Territorial Revenue of Upper Canada. In reply, I was assured that the Lieutenant-Governor would be directed to bring the claims of the Academy before the notice of the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... with his dog, and he quietly arose and opened the door without making any observation to his companions. He was, indeed, astonished at perceiving Barbara, who put her finger on her lip to enjoin silence. He immediately led her to the back of the house, where none of the casual visiters could see them, and she communicated her lady's message quickly but distinctly. She would have enlarged upon the danger, and expatiated on the interest she took in the cause of the Cavalier, had Robin permitted her, but she saw he was too much distressed ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... these voyages for the discovery of the North Pole and a passage round the northern coast of America to the Pacific Ocean. For this coast was totally unknown at this time. Information was collected from casual travellers, whale-fishers, and others, with the result that England equipped two ships for a voyage of discovery to the disputed regions. These were the Isabella (385 tons) and the Alexander (252 tons), Commander Ross being appointed to one and ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... apparent disregard of what is commonly called realism, and with its occasional, but quite unblushing, use of methods generally held superseded—such as the casual introduction of characters at whatever moment they happen to be needed on the stage—it has, from the start, been among the most frequently played and most enthusiastically received of Strindberg's later dramas. At Stockholm it was first taken ...
— Plays by August Strindberg, Second series • August Strindberg
... Here it was that Senator Hanway held his conferences; it was here he laid his plans and brooded them. When Senator Hanway desired to meet a gentleman and preferred to keep the meeting dark, this study was the scene of that secrecy. In such event, the blinds were drawn to baffle what prying or casual eye might come marching up the street; for in Washington, to see two men conversing, is to know nine times in ten precisely what the conversation is about. Commonly, however, the blinds were thrown wide, as though the study's pure ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... this re-appearance may prove to be, we may now with truth assert that our deceased friend has attained to one object of his pursuits, one hour's separate existence gives a dead man clearer notions of metaphysics than all the treatises which in his state of casual entanglement the least immersed spirit can out-spin. It is good to leave such subjects to that period when we shall have no Heads to ache, no brains to distort, no faces to lengthen, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... new friend. The least disrespect shown to Posh by any one less appreciative of his merits FitzGerald would treat as an insult personal to himself. On one occasion when he was walking with Posh on the pier some stranger hazarded a casual word or two to the fisherman. "Mr. Fletcher is my guest," said FitzGerald at once, and drew away his "guest" ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... good-byes that came hardest; those would be said later in the dear, dismantled rooms or at the station, for very close friends would arrange to meet again there. But the close friendships would be kept up in letters and visits, whereas these casual acquaintances might ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... tradition of a golden age that had passed away. Their forms were no longer seen, their voices no longer heard. In these later and more degenerate times the recognized modes of divine communication with men were by oracles, and by casual and unusual sights and sounds, as thunder and lightning, a sudden tempest, an eclipse, a flight of birds,—particularly of birds that mount to a great height, as these were supposed to know the secrets of the heavens,—the appearance or action of the sacrificial victims, or any strange coincidence. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... corner. She expected that he would address her at once, but that was not Carter's way. He went to the soda counter and ordered something to drink, his eyes all the while studying his surroundings. Presently he pretended to discover her sitting there. To all appearances it might have been an entirely casual ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... came, "all the daughters of music were brought low" and the feeble, bent, stricken man piped and wheezed and stammered his confused answers to the young man's questions, and stood paralyzed with unspeakable horror while the inspector glanced at the Carnine note and asked some casual question about it. When the bank closed that night, General Hendricks tried to write to his son and tell him the truth, but he sat weeping before his desk and could not put down the words he longed to write. Bob Hendricks found that tear-stained ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... Amelia's mother burst into tears, for she thought the poor child was still raving with fever. But the doctor smiled pleasantly, and said—"Ay, ay, to be sure," with a little nod, as one should say, "We know all about it;" and laid two fingers in a casual manner ...
— The Brownies and Other Tales • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... be conducted on a very irregular plan, for it appeared that the casual afternoon caller always meant tea and sometimes dinner. This is all very well if the people happen to be agreeable and the food holds out, but even I, the least conservative of the three women, am conservative about invitations to guests, ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... later come for them. Meanwhile we had arranged quarters for them, trying to do everything in a manner that would be in harmony with the Turkish convenances. When the wives were escorted forth to be turned back to their countrymen, they were all weeping bitterly. Whether it was that the Turk in his casual manner decided that one day was as good as another, or whether he felt that he had no particular use for these particular women, we never knew, but at all events twenty-four hours later one of our patrols came upon the prisoners still forlornly waiting. ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... pricked her that night, or more probably, being rather a casual and careless young woman, a gentle hint from Dinah ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... into an expeditionary campaign; and so there we were, bearing, as proof of our good faith and professional intentions, only our American passports, our passes issued by General von Jarotzky, at Brussels, and—most potent of all for winning confidence from the casual eye—a little frayed silk American flag, with a hole burned in it by a careless cigar butt, which was knotted to the front rail of our ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... greengrocers in this "happy land" earnestly invite the ladies to "pull away" at the mountains of cabbages which their sheds display, while little boys on the pavement offer what they playfully designate "a plummy ha'p'orth," of onions to the casual passenger. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... depth; for I felt His eye upon me as I spoke. Once, while my wife and all of us were gazing at ourselves, in the mirror left by the tide in a hollow of the sand, I pointed to the pictured heaven below, and bade her observe how religion was strewn everywhere in our path; since even a casual pool of water recalled the idea of that home whither we were travelling, to rest forever with our children. Suddenly, your image, Susan, and all the little faces made up of yours and mine, seemed to fade away and vanish around me, leaving a pale visage like my own of former days within the ...
— The Village Uncle (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... C., as her most efficient and reliable maid-servant. She had been at her mistress' beck and call as seamstress, dressing-maid, nurse in the sickroom, etc., etc., under circumstances that might appear to the casual observer uncommonly favorable for a slave. Indeed, on his first interview with her, the Committee man was so forcibly impressed with the belief, that her condition in Virginia had been favorable, that he hesitated to ask her if she did not ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the rooms not wanted by the Hofbauer from Ascension, he had to wipe his forehead again before he answered. And then he spoke just like a Herr Curat: 'This is no lodging-house, where any one can be quartered, my Herrschaft. Nor believe that those who occupy my spare rooms are casual visitors. Oh no! They are particular friends of mine. This old place stands at their disposal: I wish them to be free to come or to stay away, but I desire no other faces here.' And then," continues Fanni, "out they slunk, quite sheepish, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various
... looked as if she might be dreaming a maiden's dream of love. He hazarded a tentative remark. Her eyes moved, touched him indifferently, and passed back to the sky, and an unformed murmur, interrogation, acquiescence, casual response, anything he pleased to think it, escaped her lips. He watched her as he could when she was not looking at him. A loosened strand of her hair lay among the lupine roots, one of her hands rested, brown and upcurled, on a ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... but that, too, was no use. What made his depression so vexatious and irritating was that it had a kind of casual, external character—he felt that. Some person or thing seemed to be standing out somewhere, just as something will sometimes obtrude itself upon the eye, and though one may be so busy with work or conversation that for a long time one does not notice it, yet it irritates ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... of their peculiar trade. For, note it down—the bonnet mania has not mounted upwards from the lower to the higher ranks of society; on the contrary, it has been a regular plant, sown as a trifling casual seed in the hotbed of some silly creature's brain, and then sending down its roots into many an inferior class. Any one who has crossed the British Channel, knows that the bonnet—as we understand the word in England—is ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... man coming toward us?" said Evelyn, nodding in the direction of a tall, spare young fellow, who, with his shock of black hair, long, aquiline nose, and sensitive, thin-lipped mouth, looked decidedly temperamental, even to the most casual observer. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... and fro in his daily work, striking the rocks here and there by the way-side with his bright steel hammer, eliciting a shower of sparks from each, and then on to the next. It is not the serious business of his life, but its casual and almost careless experiments. He does not wait to watch effects. You may gather up the brushwood and build yourself a fire, if you like. His part of the affair is but a touch and go,— partly for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... human language,—this last being the most universal and most appropriate instrument by which man's dormant powers are actually awakened,—may not be a more effective method of attaining the end than any of man's devising, whether instinctive or artificial; or than the casual influences of external nature, well or ill deciphered;—all this is another question. But some such external apparatus—applied to the faculties of men—is essential, whether it be in the Volume of Nature, or in the "Bible" or in ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... irregular. His independent temper, and the seeming maturity of his mind, supplied another excuse for the imprudent confidence which left him to his own resources. Yet the perils of the situation were great indeed. A youth of less concentrated purpose, more at the mercy of casual allurement, would probably have gone to ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... period, as in the old days of Bunker Hill, and Saratoga, and Yorktown. The general not only took a prominent part at all public meetings, but was ever ready for the informal discussion of political affairs at all places of casual resort, where—in accordance with the custom of the time and country—the minds of men were made to operate effectually upon each other. Franklin Pierce was a frequent auditor of these controversies. The intentness with which he watched the old general, and listened to ...
— Sketches and Studies • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the boys hurried off together to the swimming hole, their casual shouts stealing after them down the road. Mr. Jeminy, lying on his back in the grass, listened to them sadly. As the voices grew fainter and fainter, it seemed to him as if they were saying: "School is over, school is over." And he thought: "They are counting the seasons. But to the ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... of the house came twelve faint, silvery tones. The kitchen clock struck next, with short, quick strokes, followed immediately by a casual record of the hour from the clock on the mantel beneath Uncle Ebeneezer's portrait. Then the grandfather's clock in the hall boomed out twelve, solemn funereal chimes. Afterward, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... to," he replied. "That is the other point concerning which I wish to speak to you. You may think it very extraordinary, and I offer no explanation, but I do not wish it known to—say, Mr. Crawshay, or any other casual enquirer, that I have any acquaintance with or interest ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... believe in presentiments. They attribute that curious feeling that something unpleasant is going to happen to such mundane causes as liver or a chill or the weather. For my own part, I think there is more in the matter than the casual observer might imagine. ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... and evinced no curiosity about his world. She had touched it on the extreme edge, and she was content with that, satisfied probably that this unexpected renewal of their connection was most casual—too fortunate to happen again. So she took him into a perfectly easy intimacy; it was the nearness that comes between two people when there is slight probability ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... flare up in spasmodic flames and then die down again, but burn with an accumulating ardor which can be checked and extinguished only by removing the grievances, and abolishing the unacceptable institutions which are its fuel. Casual discontent can be allayed, but agitation fixed upon conviction cannot be. To fight it is merely to augment its force. It burns irrepressibly in every public assembly; quiet it there, and it gathers head at street corners; drive it thence, and it smolders in private dwellings, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... the same as ours—same general style, but many little differences of fashion. I had the impression that it was the costume of a less formal and conservative society than ours and a more casual way of life. It could be the sort of costume into which ours would evolve in another thirty or so years. There was another odd thing. I'd noticed him looking curiously at both the waiter and the porter, as though something about them surprised ...
— Crossroads of Destiny • Henry Beam Piper
... long and serious observation for the gay-hearted Derry to make, but he shrewdly fathomed the pastoral duty underlying the seemingly casual remark. ...
— Amarilly of Clothes-line Alley • Belle K. Maniates
... came up for general discussion was his extraordinary, unbelievable, colossal meanness. This so eclipsed every other passion in the man, and loomed so bulkily and insistently in the foreground, that had he cherished a second vice no one would have observed it, and if he really did possess a casual virtue, it could scarcely have reared its ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of calling the boy "Diavolo" in a casual way, as if he had forgotten the dispute, as early as possible after this, and found that Lady Adeline was right. Diavolo showed not the slightest sign of having heard, but he got out his books at once, and did his lessons ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... circle. Perhaps, also, a vague desire to placate the "powers that be" had made him pay unusual attention to his face and nails and hair. He was very well groomed—for Teddy—and he tried to assume a perfectly casual air, as he came ...
— The Rushton Boys at Rally Hall - Or, Great Days in School and Out • Spencer Davenport
... just stated, three) of the odes relate to the Olympian festival; two to the Pythian; three to the Isthmian; three to the Nemean; and one to a Thessalian festival called the [Greek: Petraia]. This comes last. The order in which the MS. arranges the other epinikia seems to be casual; at least it does not follow (1) the alphabetical sequence of the victors' names, or of the names of their cities; nor (2) chronological sequence; nor (3) classification by contests; nor (4) classification by festivals—except that the four great festivals ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... fatal scourge; and though the scene is itself the chamber of death, we cannot but feel a melancholy satisfaction in contemplating it for a while. An ecclesiastic, who was present in the camp, and in attendance on his royal master, records the anecdote in the most casual manner,[117] without a word of admiration or remark to call our attention to it, as though he were relating a circumstance of no unusual occurrence, and such merely as those who knew his master might hear of without surprise; whilst few pages of history bear to any monarch more beautiful and ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... but their duties are so similar to those of the freeborn that it is impossible for the casual observer to pick out the members of ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... men are tested in various crucibles. In a smoothly-moving world human paths diverge and the grooves are often widened by indifference. In times of stress, the diverse threads of commonplace existence may merge into a single strand. Then it is that casual acquaintances become friends, when man rubs elbow with man and hearts beat together in ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... smallest of all—comprises those who may almost be said to drift into literary work and literary fame, whose first production is not merely tentative and unoriginal, but, so to speak, accidental, who do not discover their real faculty for literary work till after a pretty long course of casual literary play. ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... when he came to the seat he had formerly occupied. He did not immediately look at the woman across the aisle. He did not want her to suspect that he had come back for that purpose. When his eyes did seek her in a casual sort of way ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... was that Preston Eustace, exactly on time as was his habit, had been waiting some ten minutes on Nancy's hearth-rug when Betty, delayed by the eccentricities of a casual motor-bus engine, and frantic with anxiety for her friend, burst in upon him. So full was she of the most hectic speculations concerning Nancy's sudden appeal to her that she scarcely noticed who was waiting there to greet her, and when she ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... Laird, or proprietor of land, he began thus: 'Sir, the superiority of a country-gentleman over the people upon his estate is very agreeable; and he who says he does not feel it to be agreeable, lies; for it must be agreeable to have a casual superiority over those who are by nature equal with us.' BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, we see great proprietors of land who prefer living in London.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the pleasure of living in London, the intellectual ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... There was a casual detachment of discharged soldiers numbering one hundred and thirty-eight on board, two hundred and forty-one officers and privates of the Twenty-third Regiment, sixty prisoners and twenty-one passengers, a total of four hundred and ...
— A Soldier in the Philippines • Needom N. Freeman
... entered most extensively and effectively in the fur trade of the Pacific, were the Russians. Instead of making casual voyages, in transient ships, they established regular trading houses in the high latitudes, along the northwest coast of America, and upon the chain of the Aleutian Islands between Kamtschatka ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... other policemen, who dragged along the unhappy Howard. The dead man still lay where he had fallen. Captain Clinton stooped down, but made no attempt to touch the corpse, merely satisfying himself that Underwood was dead. Then, after a casual survey of the room, he ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... an Undergraduate, his years were scarce nineteen; Discretion's years and wisdom's teeth he plainly ne'er had seen; For his step was light and jaunty, and around him wide and far He puffed the fragrant odours of a casual cigar. ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... which, we may safely venture to assert, is new to at least nine-tenths of the residents of this great city. And if people, to the manner born, are unacquainted with the form and manifestations of this particular phase of crime, how much more ignorant must be those casual visitors, who only, at long intervals, are called by business, or impelled by anticipations of pleasure, to visit ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... dear good angel of the spring,' it is not she but her creator who is exhibiting a familiarity with the classics. In this and similar cases the fact of borrowing in no wise affects the question of dramatic propriety. Certain incongruities must then be admitted, but they lie rather in casual passages than in any necessary portion of the play; while in so far as they appear in the presentation of any character, the contrast seems to lie rather between Aeglamour and the rest of the shepherds than between these and the less ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... the memorandum has in mind may be gathered from his casual remark that the Jews, who maintain their separatism, are rightly afraid of reforms: "for is not the religion of the Cross the purest symbol of universal citizenship?" This, however, Uvarov cautiously adds, should not be made public, for "it would have no ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... a good vocational school. The average boy who leaves school at 15 spends a year or two loafing or working at odd jobs before he can obtain employment that offers any promise of future advancement. These years are often more than wasted, as he not only learns nothing of value from such casual jobs, but misses the healthy discipline of steady, orderly work, which is of so great importance during these ...
— Wage Earning and Education • R. R. Lutz
... perfectly at home—sat down and had tea, and talked in the most casual, friendly way. Mr. Carruthers appeared to freeze up, Mr. Barton got more banal, and the whole thing entertained ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... of all the valley. When he reached the first of these places the rider looked back and down and saw the posse skirting rapidly on his side of the river, behind him and close to the cliff. They rode at an easy lope, and he could see that their heads were bent to watch the ground. Even at this casual gait they would reach the point at which he and the gray must swing onto the floor of the valley before him unless he urged Molly to top speed. He must get there at a sufficient distance from them to escape close rifle fire, and certainly beyond point-blank revolver ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... his head, with his fingers through the leaves of the book he had been reading. He tried to speak in a casual way, but they both had a disagreeable consciousness that the occasion was momentous. Alec's mind assumed the cautious attitude of a schoolboy whispering "Cave". He supposed that the other hoped now to achieve by gentleness what ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... see the blossoms in bud and fully expanded. The plant was received from Honduras through the favour of Mrs. MacDonald, and was planted at the back of the old Cactus-house, and trained against a wall. It first showed symptoms of blossoming in July, 1851. A casual observer might have passed the plant as an unusually large form of the 'night-blooming Cereus' (C. grandiflorus), but the slightest inspection of the stems and flowers, the latter 14 in. in diameter by 14 in. long, shows this to be a ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... 'Miscellaneous,' in which the draughtsman's skill has attended to multifarious practical details, and made provision for all manner of contingencies, many of which the layman might never have thought of or foreseen. Travelling expenses for Council, Boards, and Committees, casual vacancies thereon, a short title for the Act, and a seal for the Department, definitions, which show how little we know of our own language, and a host of kindred matters are included. In this miscellany ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... whether of the shadows or lights of our variegated existence, Lord Byron owed his personal fascination. His social intercourse was perfectly charming, because whoever was with him occupied for the moment all his thoughts and feelings. Even with the casual acquaintance of the hour his heart was on his lips, ready to give away every secret of ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... York several days before the Gorhams left Washington. To the casual observer, who might meet him even daily, no change would have been apparent in the smoothly working accurate human machine which found its exercise through his personality. His face never showed an emotion other than that which he wished to have seen there; the mouth, ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... to look askance at the casual comer, received him with open arms. Especially was he a favorite with the women. As a promoter of pleasures and an organizer of amusements he took the lead, and it quickly came to pass that no function was complete without him. Not only did he come to help in the theatricals, but insensibly, ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... was thought better to await the attack." The Boer commander so fully realised the advantage of reserved fire, that, giving effect to a telegram from General Piet Joubert,[223] he had issued stringent orders to ensure that his men indulged in no casual shots. He made no reply whatever to a heavy bombardment maintained by the British Naval guns during the 13th and 14th December, intended to compel him to disclose his dispositions. The same system of silence was to be adopted when the real attack was delivered. Not a shot was to be fired against ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... mind as open questions urgently in need of answers. But I do not hope much from the answers of adults,—from the deaf and blind writers to the hearing and seeing children. The answers must come from the children themselves. We must listen to children's speech, to their casual everyday expressions. We must gather children's stories. Mothers and teachers everywhere should be making these precious records. We must study them not merely as showing what a child is thinking, but the way he is thinking and the ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... instinctive. During months of study of the reaction-time of the frog I was constantly impressed with the uniformity of action and surprised at the absence of evidences of profiting by experience. In order to supplement the casual observations on the associations of the green frog made in the course of reaction-time experiments, the tests described in this paper were made. They do not give a complete view of the associative processes, but rather such a ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... active healthy mind over the body in | | sickness and in health; it teaches how to train up your mind even to | | supernal powers. This is backed up by every medical writer, by every | | science, by every casual observer; and last but not the least: it is | | the ultima thule of the ever blessed Bible, the word of the Lord. | | | | It teaches how to quit the use of tobacco without the desire for using | | ...
— Vanity, All Is Vanity - A Lecture on Tobacco and its effects • Anonymous
... with a tightening of his jaw muscles, of the casual way in which Dalis had destroyed Sarka the First, of his forcing his people to undergo the terrors of the lake of white flames without telling them the simple secret; of his betrayal of the Earth in his swift alliance with Luar; or Luar herself when, as Lunar, a strange waif ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... impotent Chief Magistrate needed strengthening. The merest glance at this man's burly thick set body, his big leonine head with its shock of heavy black hair, long and curling, his huge grizzly beard and full resolute lips, was enough to convince the most casual observer that he could be a dangerous enemy ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... of like it happened, a little while after me," he said, speaking in low voice behind his hand. He rose, stretching and yawning as if to give his movements a casual appearance, stood a little while on the edge of the sidewalk, went into the hotel. Morgan followed him in a few minutes, to find him apparently busy with his ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... question, and I have not the pluck—being a law-abiding citizen—to try for myself. But I do so want to know. I ask everyone. I ask my partners at dinner (when any dinner comes my way). I ask casual acquaintances. I would ask the officials themselves, only they are so preoccupied. But the words certainly set up a very engrossing problem, and upon this problem many minor problems depend, clustering round it like chickens ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 28, 1917 • Various
... lot, all over the world," he explained in a casual way during a talk they had had on the night of their marriage, at the first stopping-place to which their motor brought them. "My mother died when I was a small boy, died in a terrible way I don't want to talk about, and losing her broke up my father and me for a while. He never got over it ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... men were not actually manning the guns in action, they were digging gun pits for reserve positions which they could occupy if the enemy happened to get the proper range of the old positions. In this casual counter battery work our artillery adopted a system by which many lives ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... the interests of Protestantism in the duchies against the infatuation of James in regard to Spain, and he was too well aware of the Spanish marriage delusion, which was the key to the King's whole policy, to put much faith in these casual outbursts of eternal friendship with the States. He contented himself therefore with cautioning Caron to pause before committing himself to any such projects. He had frequently instructed him, however, to bring the disputed questions ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... however, authorised by the circumstances of its arrival to regard the Mazapil fragment of cosmic metal as a specimen torn from Biela's comet. In this, as in the preceding case, the coincidence of the fall with the shower may have been purely casual, since no hint is given of any sort of agreement between the tracks followed by the sample provided for curious study, and the swarming meteors consumed in the ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... hood of it, it being a fleece, To match or those of Sicily or Greece. His scene is Sherwood, and his play a tale Of Robin Hood's inviting from the vale Of Belvoir, all the shepherds to a feast; Where, by the casual absence of one guest, The mirth is troubled much, and in one man As much of sadness ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... great length on particular points of ethics, for the banker had by now seriously set to work on his magnum opus. Two or three times Helen ran in to see him at tea-time, and did her best to amuse him. The mere reflection that Ingram must suppose he was but the most casual acquaintance of Helen's was sufficient for that; so that she had not a very difficult task, and expressed herself highly pleased at the agreeable mood in which she was now finding him. She chatted quite freely about Ingram and the latest developments of his courtship ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... passing through; she could not refrain from weeping, and to avoid the observation of passersby, she walked through secluded streets, giving vent to her emotion; and she afterwards repeatedly expressed her belief that there was, in this apparently casual incident, a divine interposition and guidance; "for," said she, "every word of that hymn appeared as if purposely written to describe my case, so that I could scarcely read it from the many tears I shed over it. It ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... rose early and spent his long days sitting upon the front porch, smoking an old briar pipe and reading the Richmond papers. Occasionally he would ride at a jogging pace round the fields, giving casual directions to the workers, but as his weight increased he found it difficult to mount into the saddle, and, at last, desisted from the attempt. He preferred to sit in peace in his cane rocking chair, looking down ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... did not wish to meet Mrs. Socrates again, so I held aloof until Boswell should have served his sentence. I was no longer afraid of the woman, but I do fear the good fellow of the weaker sex, and I deemed it just as well to keep out of any and all disputes that might arise from a casual conversation with a creature of that sort. An agreement with a real good fellow, even when it ends in a row, is more or less diverting; but a disputation with a female good fellow places a man at a disadvantage. The argumentum ad hominem is not an easy thing with men, but with women it is impossible. ...
— The Enchanted Typewriter • John Kendrick Bangs
... she aroused from her reverie and prepared her father's supper. How weary he looked, she thought, as she sat and watched him, and listened to his casual talk about his afternoon visit and the auction in the morning. A feeling of resentment filled her heart as she recalled what Farrington had said. To think that he should say such things about her father, who was always so patient ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... in the second hour, and grew well acquainted. To the eye or ear of any casual visitor it was the simplest and most natural affair, calculated to "elevate labor" and to make ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... cannot be indicated, save in the above imperfect manner, without the aid of a phonetic alphabet. He is dressed in somebody else's very second best as a coast-guardsman, and gives himself the airs of a stage tar with sufficient success to pass as a possible fish porter of bad character in casual employment during busy times at Billingsgate. His manner shows an earnest disposition to ingratiate himself with the missionary, probably ...
— Captain Brassbound's Conversion • George Bernard Shaw
... of independence, a wretched November evening, very much like this one. I had wandered about all day, but my efforts had not been rewarded by a single coin. My fiddle was old and warped, and injured by the rain; its whining was even more repugnant to my own sensitive ear, than to that of the casual passer-by. I was in despair. How I hated all the few well-dressed, well-to-do people who were but on the Boulevards, on that inclement night. I wandered up and down hoping against hope, until I was too tired to stand, and then I crawled under the shelter of a covered passage, and flung ...
— The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson • Ernest Dowson et al
... These casual comments did not seem to arouse any burning curiosity among the young men, and up to the day of Kalora's nineteenth anniversary they had not had the effect of bringing to the father any of those guarded inquiries ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What sighs have been wafted after that ship! what prayers offered up at the deserted fireside of home! How often has the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep! How has expectation darkened into anxiety—anxiety into dread—and dread into despair! Alas! not one memento may ever return for love to cherish. All that may ever be known, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... all over London in search of work,—work of any kind would have been welcome, so long as it would have enabled me to keep body and soul together. And I had trudged in vain. Now I had been refused admittance as a casual,—how easy is the descent! But I did not tell the man lying on the bed all this. He did not wish to hear,— had he wished he would ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... did break out it had no foreign aid, and a casual origin. In the south-west Turner commanded but seventy soldiers, scattered all about the country. On November 14 some of them mishandled an old man in the clachan of Dalry, on the Ken. A soldier was shot in revenge (Mackenzie speaks ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... experience we amounted to, I thought; how much we are, how little we transmit. Each one of us was but a variation, an experiment upon the Stratton theme. All that I had now under my hands was but the merest hints and vestiges, moving and surprising indeed, but casual and fragmentary, of those obliterated repetitions. Man is a creature becoming articulate, and why should those men have left so much of the tale untold—to be lost and forgotten? Why must we all repeat things done, and come again very bitterly to wisdom our fathers ...
— The Passionate Friends • Herbert George Wells
... for looking over some sheep, Nic walked about a mile out of his way going back, and had just finished his casual inspection when he came upon Brookes, gun on shoulder, who immediately stood his piece against a bush and began to examine some of the flock, throwing so much energy into the task that Nic felt suspicious, and a chill ran through him as he thought ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... solve the problem, but how it was to be solved no one knew. There was, indeed, great speculation as to what might happen should another landing be attempted, but month after month passed without any indication of this, and the little population had settled down to a dull monotony. Except for a casual reference to the stirring times, the smugglers and their emissaries were apparently all but forgotten. The Preventive men were secretly as much on the alert as when the smugglers were most active. They purposely adopted an apparent ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... be to the bronze statue of Lamartine, which is the principal monument of the place, and which, re- presenting the poet in a frogged overcoat and top- boots, improvising in a high wind, struck me as even less casual in its attitude than monumental sculpture usually succeeds in being. It is true that in its pre- sent position I thought better of this work of art, which is from the hand of M. Falquiere, than when I had seen it through the factitious ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... hear you are absent in the country. That is unfortunate. But as soon as you receive this, lose no time in calling at the Hennikers' and making casual inquiries regarding Miss Mivart. Something has happened, but what it is I have failed to discover. You stand a better chance. Go at once. I must leave for Bath to-night. Address me at the Royal Hotel, G. ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... more than realized his master's project, and in his immortal work (which, with all its faults, is a magnificent, and as yet unrivalled, trophy of his genius, and will serve as a landmark to future enquirers when its puny critics are not known enough to be despised) he has extracted from a chaos of casual observations, detached hints—from the principles concealed in the intricate system of Roman jurisprudence, or exposed in the rules which barely held together the barbarous tribes of Gaul and Germany—from the manners ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... experience, could not be as prudent and far-seeing as a man all his life acquainted with business. Mr. Murray had been a loser in the mines himself, but to a comparatively slight extent, and as he was an exceedingly rich man, he only regarded the matter as one of the casual losses incurred in business. But his old friend's losses troubled him deeply, and he resolved to do everything in his power to repair the effects of his well-meant, ...
— Little Folks (Septemeber 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... ar'n't you?" As he spoke he laid his hand affectionately on the boy's shoulder. "Didn't I tell you it would be a corker? Out of sight, isn't it? Everything is out of sight around our office." This last remark was directed to Peter in the same casual way. ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... as the slightest incident in the daytime causes our dreams at night, but is itself clean forgotten, so the name, so the look of the visitor, might have sufficed but to influence a vision, as remote from its casual suggester as what we call real life is from that life much more real, that we imagine, or remember, in the haunted chambers of the brain. For what is real life? How little the things actually doing around us affect the springs of our sorrow ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... except among the two or three who daily and nightly haunted the card-room at the trader's store; but to hear Gleason talk one would fancy him to be on terms of intimacy with every "solid" man of the regiment, and the casual visitor at the garrison would be more than apt to leave it with the impression that Gleason was the figure-head of the commissioned element. He had fair manners; his appearance was prepossessing; he was bland and insinuating among daily associates, confidential and ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... new attempt. His shelves were full. The old standards were scope enough for his ambition. He ranged in them absolute, and 'fair in Otway, full in Shakspeare shone.' He succeeded to the old lawful thrones, and did not care to adventure bottomry with a Sir Edward Mortimer, or any casual speculator ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... lunar surface may be said to have been confined, in this country at any rate, to a very limited number of observers, and, except in rare instances, those who possessed astronomical telescopes only directed them to the moon as a show object to excite the wonder of casual visitors. The publication of Webb's "Celestial Objects" in 1859, the supposed physical change in the crater Linne, announced in 1866, and the appearance of an unrecorded black spot near Hyginus some ten years later, ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... long-range torpedo at one transport, and ducked before she could judge results. She apologises for this on the grounds that one of her periscopes had been damaged—not, as one would expect, by the gentleman leaning out of the little steamboat, but by some casual shot—calibre not specified—the day before. "And so," says E14, "I could not risk my remaining one being bent." However, she heard a thud, and the depth-gauges—those great clock-hands on the white-faced circles—"flicked," which is another sign of dreadful certainty down under. ...
— Sea Warfare • Rudyard Kipling
... it was with no eye to natural beauty that Mr. Hannaford had chosen this abode; such considerations left him untouched. He wanted a cheap house not far from London, where his wife's uncertain health might receive benefit, and where the simplicity of the surroundings would offer no temptations to casual expense. For his own part, he was a good deal from home, coming and going as it suited him; a very small income from capital, and occasional earnings by contribution to scientific journalism, left slender resources to Mrs. Hannaford and her daughter ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... this Thomas Young, a Scotchman, and one of the authors of the Smectymnuus. This, however, is a misreading of Milton's mind—a mind which was an organic whole—"whose seed was in itself," self-determined; not one whose opinions can be accounted for by contagion or casual impact. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... put the question the tall figure of Bakahenzie stalked slowly into the courtyard. The warrior rose and fled at a command from Zalu Zako. Bakahenzie greeted him gravely and very elaborately took snuff in order to show how casual the matter was. When he had meticulously restored the cork of ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... manner that had been prescribed in his previous orders. Some eight or ten of the best marksmen of the garrison now took possession of the stand, and began to fire in succession. Among them were officers and men indiscriminately placed, nor were the casual visitors in the fort excluded from ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... would fall in with each other and from the fierce conflicts which generally followed these casual rencounters, the country had been known among them by the name of 'the dark ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... by thousands of physicians today, with but a casual acquaintance with their action, are bound by their nature to produce evils worse than ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... part of the house came twelve faint, silvery tones. The kitchen clock struck next, with short, quick strokes, followed immediately by a casual record of the hour from the clock on the mantel beneath Uncle Ebeneezer's portrait. Then the grandfather's clock in the hall boomed out twelve, solemn funereal chimes. Afterward, ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... occasions the Emperor at the close of each person's audience rang his little bell for the admission of the next in order as they arrived in the waiting-room; yet when anything important was under consideration, a list was given us in the morning of the names to be presented in rotation, which no casual circumstance was ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... not till the close of the Middle Ages that lycanthropy was recognized as a disease; but it is one which has so much that is ghastly and revolting in its form, and it is so remote from all our ordinary experience, that it is not surprising that the casual observer should leave the consideration of it, as a subject isolated and perplexing, and be disposed to regard as a myth that which the feared investigation might ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... the Cantankerous Old Lady would go off in a fit of apoplexy. She grew purple in the face with indignation and astonishment, that a casual outsider should venture to address her; so much so, indeed, that for a second I almost regretted my well-meant interposition. Then she scanned me up and down, as if I were a girl in a mantle shop, and she contemplated buying ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... likely that two forms of flying machines, a sporting type and an exploration type, will be gradually evolved within one or two generations, but the evolution will be costly and slow, and must be carried on by well-equipped and thoroughly informed scientific men; for the casual inventor, who relies upon one or two happy inspirations, will have no chance ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... that was full wise, The newe love out chaseth oft the old, And upon new case lieth new advice; Think eke thy life to save thou art hold;* *bound Such fire *by process shall of kinde cold;* *shall grow cold by For, since it is but casual pleasance, process of nature* Some case* shall put ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... mastered his weakness and boldly thrust his hand into his breast, withdrew it, and burst out into a wild hysterical laugh as he gave a casual glance at his hand before passing it cautiously into his left breast-pocket and bringing out, bit by bit, the fragments of the bottle of preparation which the doctor had dispensed, and that it had been ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... dream, and why should the dream move him still, shattered as it was by the torturing realities of the truth? Why must he needs bring tribute to her powers, flatter her ascendency in his life, by faltering before her casual presence? He rallied all his forces. He silently swore a mighty oath that he at least would take note of his own dignity, that he would deport himself with a due sense of his meed of self-respect. ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... of a manuscript often throw light upon the history of the text contained in the manuscript. And the palaeographer knows that any scratch or scribbling, any probatio pennae or casual entry, may become important in tracing the wanderings ...
— A Sixth-Century Fragment of the Letters of Pliny the Younger • Elias Avery Lowe and Edward Kennard Rand
... and jangling of spurs and spur-chains strode over to him. They grouped before him in a semicircle, trying bashfully to wedge their shoulders, one behind another's, their faces a-grin and apologetic, and at the same time expressing a casual and unconscious democraticness. In truth, to them Hardman Pool was more than mere chief. He was elder brother, or father, or patriarch; and to all of them he was related, in one way or another, according to Hawaiian custom, through his wife and through ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... must, if we value our historic freedoms, keep within the traditional framework of our Federal system with powers divided between the national and state governments. The uniqueness of this system may confound the casual observer, but it has worked effectively for ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... meant for mankind. The consequence is, that his fame is as durable as his principles, as lasting as truth and virtue themselves. While the hundreds whom party excitement, and temporary circumstances, and casual combinations, have raised into transient notoriety, sink again, like thin bubbles, bursting and dissolving into the great ocean, Washington's fame is like the rock which bounds that ocean, and at whose feet its billows are destined to ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... where the downs end and the clouds begin, so softly have they blended together, those grey clouds, those white and purple downs. No, the downs are not monotonous to those who look with careful eyes, at least, though the casual observer may see nothing in them but multitudes of sheep. Unique they may be, unlike the rest of England they certainly are, but not monotonous. And then the dales, with the villages nestling in the bottom, are so picturesque, and the green pastures, separated ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 355, October 16, 1886 • Various
... why it had never occurred to me before that I might be mistaken for Rakhal. There was no close resemblance between us, but a casual description would apply equally well to me or to Rakhal. My height is unusual for a Terran—within an inch of Rakhal's own—and we had roughly the same build, the same coloring. I had copied his walk, imitated his mannerisms, since we ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... Smith was "quite familiar." "Who shall we have to dinner?" he would ask. Rogers observed in him no sign of absence of mind,[356] and felt that as compared with Robertson, Smith was far more of a man who had seen much of the world. His communicativeness impressed itself also upon other casual visitors, because his first appearance sometimes gave them the opposite suggestion of reserve. "He was extremely communicative," says the anonymous writer who sent the first letter of reminiscences to the editor ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... Luke Byles, who piqued himself on his reading, and was in the habit of asking casual acquaintances if they knew anything of Hobbes; 'it is right enough that the lower orders should be instructed. But this sectarianism within the Church ought to be put down. In point of fact, these Evangelicals are not Churchmen at all; they're ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... earth is progressing by excessively slow changes toward the solar and nebulous condition. Its history is a repetition of the solar, and a time must arrive when the surface, becoming incandescent, will be obscured only by casual dark pits in a brilliant atmosphere, a souvenir of the present darkness of the crust; yet during a certain period, within fixed limits of gravitating force and heat of mass, the human race may continue to exist; progressing, we may suppose, in force and fineness of organization. ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... of a time getting trucks," said Reedy, speaking in a low, casual tone. "But I got 'em—twenty. Be unloaded to-morrow or the next day. I've arranged to take care of the duty. They are to be sold, you understand, with an actual bill of sale to each of the twenty ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... the way to Bradfield. The carriage in which I was travelling contained a party of three, at whom I took the most casual of glances before settling down to the daily paper. There was an elderly lady, with a bright rosy face, gold spectacles, and a dash of red velvet in her bonnet. With her were two younger people, who I took to be her son and her daughter—the one a quiet, gentle-looking girl of twenty ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... to thank him kindly. What his soul needed was to be alone with his Emir, to throw himself at his feet, and win his true forgiveness. The casual kind word with a fee was worse than nothing in the realm of love. But Elias, as if of fixed intent to thwart him, stood always in the way, annihilating the unhappy youth with condescension, bidding him cheer up and amuse his Honour. Iskender heard his rattle ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... which is for ever renewing the earth and the stars. It is humility, and not duty, which preserves the stars from wrong, from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation; it is through humility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong. The curse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency to be weary of wonders. If we saw the sun for the first time it would be the most fearful ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... bow when the door opened and a man came in. He was tall, erect, and good-looking. Both air and manner were youthful, although perhaps with a trace of artifice; he would pass for thirty-five on a casual glance, but not ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... in the paper. But the Retreat Stafford had in his mind was not quite of the common kind. It had been founded by one of the leaders of his party, and was intended to serve the function of a spiritual casual ward, whither those who were for the moment at a loss might resort and find refuge until they had time to turn round. It was not a permanent home for any one. After his stay, the visitor returned to the world if he would; if he were finally disabled he ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... imagination frames a comparison, ... a sense of the truth of the likeness from the moment that it is perceived grows—and continues to grow—upon the mind; the resemblance depending less upon outline of form and feature than upon expression and effect, less upon casual and outstanding than ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... year, he attended the governor's reception to the legislators. He came in late, and after paying his respects to the governor and his wife, wandered rather helplessly toward the hall, seeing many whom he knew, but finding little pleasure in their casual greetings. ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... of level, dry turf Will faced his big antagonist. Baizley was heavy of build, strong of arm, and not without some knowledge of the pugilistic art. He was also a little taller than Will. To the casual glance the latter appeared no match for him. Fair-skinned, slender, and with something of a studious stoop to his shoulders, Will's appearance gave small indication of the strength that lurked in his well-corded sinews. Under his pale skin ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... the little that appears, still less is his own. His praise must be derived from the easy sweetness of his diction: in his verses there is more happiness than pains; he is sprightly without effort, and always delights, though he never ravishes; everything is proper, yet everything seems casual. If there is some appearance of elaboration in "The Hermit," the narrative, as it is less airy, is less pleasing. Of his other compositions it is impossible to say whether they are the productions of nature, so excellent as not to want the help of art, or of art ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... that mattered. One came to welcome the night on, for the attendant work was not very strenuous and the eight hours' quietude gave the watchman a chance to write up a neglected diary, to wash clothes, work out observations, and perhaps make contributions to the "South Polar Times" undisturbed by casual well-wishers who were not meant to see the article in question until the day of publication. We were allowed to choose from the stores more or less what we liked for consumption in the stillness of the night watch. I always ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... preparing luncheon, and a procession of men and boys, bearing teapots and billies, came and went about a huge copper, steaming over a fire, where the racing club dispensed hot water free of charge, a generosity chiefly intended to prevent the casual lighting of fires by the picnickers. All over the paddock people were hastening through the business of the midday meal; the men anxious to get it over before the real excitement of the day began with the racing, the women equally keen to feed their hungry belongings and then settle ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Monday, August 15th.—Lords met to-day in charmingly casual way. Since they were last here, Government been defeated; the MARKISS out, Mr. G. in, and all that means or portends. Not many present, but the MARKISS in his place smiling in unaffected joyousness, just as Prince ARTHUR did in Commons ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... his opponent Stephen Radi['c] are, both of them, by the grace of God, of a humorous disposition. Outwardly, there is not much resemblance between them: Pa[vs]i['c], the picture of a benevolent patriarch, letting fall in his deep voice a few casual words which bring down his critics' case, hopelessly down like a wounded aeroplane, and Radi['c] the fervid little orator, the learned man, whose life has been devoted to the Croat peasants and who is said to find it difficult to make a speech that is under eight hours in length. Last ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... "speaking pieces;" hated the burden of learning them, dreaded the danger of breaking down in them. Miss Dearborn commonly went home with a headache, and never left her bed during the rest of the afternoon or evening; and the casual female parent who attended the exercises sat on a front bench with beads of cold sweat on her forehead, listening to the all-too-familiar halts and stammers. Sometimes a bellowing infant who had clean forgotten his verse would cast himself bodily on the maternal ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... thereabouts would be raised, and the sum being devoted to the relief of the orphans would be "a good introduction to request a further assistance from the parliament." The charges of municipal government must be met with the residue of the "casual profits" of the Chamber. If parliament (the report went on to say) would be pleased to assist by granting a duty on coals and allowing the City to tax hackney coachmen at 5s. a head, the whole debt, or at least ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... length became a roaring torrent, passing through a narrow gorge between perpendicular cliffs, with a tremendous current. In some places the great river was pent up between rocks, which confined it to a width of about 120 yards, through such channels the rush of water was terrific, but to a casual observer approaching from the north, the volume of the Nile would have been underrated, unless calculated by the velocity of ...
— The Albert N'Yanza, Great Basin of the Nile • Sir Samuel White Baker
... knows I had nothing to 'come into,' save the bare birthday, and yet I esteemed it as a great possession. I now and then paved the way to my state of dignity, by beginning a proposition with the casual words, 'say that a man of twenty-one,' or by the incidental assumption of a fact that could not sanely be disputed, as, 'for when a fellow comes to be a man of twenty-one.' I gave a party on the occasion. She was there. It is unnecessary to name Her, more ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... Martin, "here; all down this road-casual labour, criminals, loafers, drunkards, consumps. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... government cannot encroach on the domain of another without danger. The safety of our institutions depends in no small degree on a strict observance of this salutary rule." And this is exactly what happened. The judiciary here assumed the function of the legislative department. Not even a casual reader on examining these laws and the Constitution can feel that the court in this case felt such a clear and strong conviction as to the invalidity of this constitutional legislation when that tribunal, as its records show, had under ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... Simon mechanically; but my thoughts were far from Palissy and his enameled ware, although I, like him, was seeking in the dark a great discovery. This casual mention of the spiritualist, Madame Vulpes, set me on a new track. What if, through communication with more subtle organisms than my own, I could reach at a single bound the goal which perhaps a life, of agonizing mental toil would never enable ...
— The Diamond Lens • Fitz-James O'brien
... doubt as to which of the two sorts of people—the easy and graceful, or the stiff and awkward—it is most agreeable to meet, either in business, in society, or in the casual intercourse of life. Which make the fastest friends, the truest men of their word, the most conscientious performers of their duty, is ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... a Zoological Garden. Most of them have seen no more than the dirt and ugliness—their vision noted no other aspect—of the old-world port. The life that has not altered for centuries, the things that make it worth living to all the folk we leave behind,—these are matters in which casual visitors to Morocco have no concern. They resent suggestion that the affairs of "niggers" can call for serious consideration, far less for appreciation or interest of ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... the embarrassed Mr. Barrett. "I shall go and see all my old friends in their turn; casual-like. You might let 'em hear that I've been to see you before seeing them, and then, if they're thinking any nonsense, it'll be a hint. I'm stopping in town while the house is being decorated; next time I come down I'll call and see ...
— Deep Waters, The Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... "The traffic in whiskey for Indian property was one of the most infernal practices ever entered into by man. Let the most casual thinker sit down and figure up the profits on a forty-gallon cask of alcohol, and he will be thunderstruck, or rather whiskey-struck. When it was to be disposed of, four gallons of water were added to each gallon of alcohol. In two hundred gallons there are sixteen hundred pints, ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... mournful sound—the most mournful of all the sounds that fill the great forests of the Congo. It is so casual, so tearful. One might fancy it the sound of the forest weeping to itself in ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... Actors; and it was a miracle that he escaped the attractions of the sock and buskin. Pity that the song, "When we were boys, Merry merry boys, When we were boys together," had not been arranged as a trio for them. JOHNNIE was in his best form; very detached, casual, and uncommonly funny. Lord ROSEBERY apologised by letter for not being able to be in Scotland and London at the same time; and the Wicked Abbe BANCROFT in replying to the toast of the Drama, pathetically represented his hard ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, February 22nd, 1890 • Various
... support—situated also upon an eminence which may be said to look frowningly down over a vast sweep of country—the Citadel of Nuremberg should seem to have bid defiance, in former times, to every assault of the most desperate and enterprising foe. It is now visited only by the casual traveler—who is frequently startled at the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume V (of X) • Various
... interview did not prove as prolific of results as Winston confidently expected. Miss Norvell evidently considered such casual conversation no foundation for future friendship, and although she greeted him when they again met, much as she acknowledged acquaintanceship with the others of the troupe, there remained a quiet reserve about her manner, which effectually barred ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... walls is a vast expanse of cultivated land, unbroken by any vestige of antiquity; yet the soil is thick with tile and potsherd, and in hot summers the unevenly growing corn reveals the remains of streets beneath the surface. Casual excavations were made here in 1744 and 1833; more systematic ones intermittently between 1864 and 1884 by the Rev. J.G. Joyce and others; finally, in May 1890, the complete uncovering of the whole site was begun by Mr G.E. Fox and others. The work was carried on with splendid ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... in four ways. First, it may serve as an appetizer. Even the casual reading of good literature has a tendency to create a demand for more. Second, it may be made the basis for discussion and comparison. By using these stories, the works of recognized authors, as standards, the student may determine the value of such stories as come into his home. Third, these ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... after all, a simple thing, this meeting with my cousin-brother that I had so dreaded. Save for the fact that he took both my hands in his, any observer of our meeting would have thought that it was but a casual one, instead of being a reunion after ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... name but "Bunker Bean!" Often he wrote good ones on casual slips of paper and fancied them his; names like Trevellyan or Montressor or Delancey, with musical prefixes; or a good, short, beautiful, but dignified name like "Gordon Dane." He liked that one. It suggested something. But Bean! And Bunker ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... the sky. She looked as if she might be dreaming a maiden's dream of love. He hazarded a tentative remark. Her eyes moved, touched him indifferently, and passed back to the sky, and an unformed murmur, interrogation, acquiescence, casual response, anything he pleased to think it, escaped her lips. He watched her as he could when she was not looking at him. A loosened strand of her hair lay among the lupine roots, one of her hands rested, ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... worth consideration; it cannot be an object of competition to any reasonable person; but in early education nothing must be thought beneath our attention. A child does not retain much affection, it is true, for every casual visiter by whom he is flattered and caressed. The individuals are here to-day and gone to-morrow; variety prevents the impression from sinking into the mind, it may be said; but the general impression remains, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... paragraph, or single observation of these sacrosanct decretals, how wonderfully, I say, do you not perceive to kindle in your hearts a furnace of divine love, charity towards your neighbour (provided he be no heretic), bold contempt of all casual and sublunary things, firm content in all your affections, and ecstatic elevation of soul even ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... branches of knowledge are probably much more nearly balanced than many may be disposed to admit: for in estimating them we are very apt to forget how large an amount of our present physiological knowledge respecting the functions of these organs has been the immediate result of casual observations made on the effects of disease." William James expressed the same thought some decades later, when he emphasized that the abnormal was but the normal exaggerated and magnified, played upon by the limelight, and therefore the best teacher and indicator of the exact definition ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... Mr. Brumley's observant and speculative faculties were thus active, his voice was busily engaged. With the accumulated artistry of years he was developing his pose. He did it almost subconsciously. He flung out hint and impulsive confidence and casual statement with the careless assurance of the accustomed performer, until by nearly imperceptible degrees that finished picture of the two young lovers, happy, artistic, a little Bohemian and one of them doomed to die, making their home together in an atmosphere of sunny gaiety, came into ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... less than railway and industrial questions. Indeed, in his first message to Congress he placed the conservation of natural resources among "the most vital internal problems" of the age, and forcibly emphasized an issue that had been discussed in a casual way since Cleveland's first administration. The suggestion evoked an immediate response in Congress. Under the leadership of Senator Newlands, of Nevada, the Reclamation Act of 1902 was passed, providing for the redemption of the desert ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... though summoned by some purely casual flicker of the Superintendent's thin fingers another ...
— The White Linen Nurse • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the settlement had reached this stage when, on a certain evening, after all hands had knocked off for the day, Miss Hartley came to my side as we were leaving the large shed in which all meals were served, and, after a few casual remarks that gave us time to get out of earshot of ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... the subject or not, is very characteristic of the writer: "If my ear does not deceive me, the metre of this line was meant to express that sort of mild philosophic contempt, characterizing Brutus even in his first casual speech."—/soothsayer./ By derivation, ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... began for me in tremendous earnest. Let the reader imagine such a paper as the London Illustrated News with one editor and one assistant! Three men could not have read our exchanges, and I was expected to do that and all the minor casual writing for cuts, or cutting down and occasional outside work. And yet even Mr. Barnum, who should have had more sense, one day, on coming in, expressed his amazement on seeing about a cartload of country exchanges which I had not opened. ...
— Memoirs • Charles Godfrey Leland
... that to him, who makes but a casual study of any historic period, matters will appear fresh that to the master of it are well-worn inferences and generalizations, and while therefore I can pretend to offer only a shallow experience, I ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... also, in that week of casual talk among the Ferraras, certain things said, statements made that suggested a possibility which never seemed to have ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... well as from the gloomy blankness of its walls, gave the idea of a neglected fortress. It had, in fact, been a convent of great size, and like most of the religious houses in this part of the world, had been made strong enough for opposing an inert resistance to any mere casual band of assailants who might be unprovided with regular means of attack: this was the dwelling-place of the Chatham’s ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised how badly the Note was worded," remarked Count Rostopchin in the casual tone of a man dealing with a subject ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... quite honest and fair for this writer to set down here several acts of frightfulness that came under his own personal observation merely as casual illustrations of that which is going on ...
— Flash-lights from the Seven Seas • William L. Stidger
... except how we should escape from that green mountain once we had got upon it. This was apparently in the hands of Le ffacase, a realization, remembering his grisly conversation, making me no easier in my mind. Nor did I relish the pilot's casual description of myself as part of a "load"—to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... weakness and boldly thrust his hand into his breast, withdrew it, and burst out into a wild hysterical laugh as he gave a casual glance at his hand before passing it cautiously into his left breast-pocket and bringing out, bit by bit, the fragments of the bottle of preparation which the doctor had dispensed, and that it had been his ...
— The Weathercock - Being the Adventures of a Boy with a Bias • George Manville Fenn
... boy of eleven or twelve devolve always, in a new country, certain responsibilities not unconnected with the great fuel question,—the keeping of the wood-box full,—and these duties, in the absorption of the novel, the youth neglected shamefully. A casual allusion or two, followed by a direct announcement of what must come, had been entirely lost upon him, and, one day, as he was lying by the unreplenished fire, deep in the pages of the book, the volume was lifted gently from his hands, and, to his ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... level-headedness, and us boys, Uncle Ike, have decided that Dewey shall be the next President. If any person has got anything to say why he should not be President, let him speak now, or forever after hold his peace. It is up to you, Uncle Ike, and this assemblage would like to hear a few casual remarks from you, before breakfast, on this subject. Now, boys, hurrah for Uncle Ike, the jolliest old scrapper in the business. Now, give the yell, 'Who are we! who are we! we are the kids for old Dewe-e—siz! boom! yah!'" ...
— Peck's Uncle Ike and The Red Headed Boy - 1899 • George W. Peck
... it was a miserable thing to have this awful forbidden ground of discourse; to guess at each other's thoughts, when eyes were averted, and cheeks blanched, and words stood still, arrested in their flow by some casual allusion. ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... others,—"surely my happiness is based on sand, since the transient breath of others can shake it from its foundation. If it depended on myself, I would guard every look, word, and action, with never sleeping vigilance;—but how can I be secured against the casual sayings of others, words unmeaning as a child's, and as devoid of harm? I might as well make cables of water and walls of foam, as build up a fabric of domestic felicity without confidence ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... The Agent's manner was casual enough, but the minister's face was grave. The former endeavored to pass lightly over the matter of ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... are both bad, is a truism. Of the two, however, the last is the worst. As writes a high authority, "the effects of casual repletion are less prejudicial, and more easily corrected, than those of inanition."[1] Besides, where there has been no injudicious interference, repletion seldom occurs. "Excess is the vice rather of adults than of the young, who are rarely ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... may be measurably preserved in its passage through the gizzard, and, resuming its oval shape in the thinner pulpy mass contained in the upper portion of the intestine, present the appearance of seed in the cloacal discharges, and thus deceive the casual observer. But the use of a spatula and a small piece of polished stone slab will show that the entire discharge is excrementitious matter, with the single exception of this silicious ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... the hinge of great revolutions, even if all were done that is said to have been done, form no example. If they have any effect in argument, they make an exception to prove the rule. None of your own liberties could stand a moment, if the casual deviations from them at such times were suffered to be used as proofs of their nullity. By the lucrative amount of such casual breaches in the Constitution, judge what the stated and fixed rule of ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... these was the settlement of the Revenue, in regard to which Hyde had again to mediate between two extremes. There were, doubtless, some who wished that the complete supremacy of Parliament should be secured by making the Crown depend entirely upon casual and arbitrary Parliamentary grants. In Hyde's view this was inconsistent with the dignity of the Crown, was certain to lead to friction, and would inevitably make Parliament the sole sovereign power in the State. But just as little did he wish to fix a Revenue which would have made ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... By this time we had entered the watch-house, where I perceived the awful representative of justice seated in an arm chair, with a good blazing fire, smoking his pipe in consequential ease. A crowd of Charleys, with broken lanterns, broken heads, and other symptoms of a row, together with several casual spectators, had gained admittance, when Jarvis entered, declaring—By G——he wouldn't be choused by any wh——re or cull in Christendom, and he would make 'em come down pretty handsomely, or he'd know the reason why: "And so please ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Life of Jefferson at Monticello' is too ambitious a title for a little work of 138 pages, octavo though they be. It is, however, an extremely valuable and interesting collection of anecdotes, fac-simile documents, and casual reminiscences of Thomas Jefferson, as preserved by Captain Edmund Bacon, now a wealthy and aged citizen of Kentucky, and who was for twenty years the chief overseer and business-manager of Jefferson's estate at Monticello. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... advantage of the absence of any person from the vicinity of the foremast, he adroitly curled himself up in the folds of the foresail, which was brailed up to the mast. He had his head in such a position that he could see without being seen by any casual passer-by. ...
— On The Blockade - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray Afloat • Oliver Optic
... streets. I, not being a member of the Delegation, felt less obligation than my companions did to attend at propaganda meetings where one knew the speeches by heart beforehand. In this way, I was able, by the help of neutral interpreters, mostly English or American, to have many conversations with casual people whom I met in the streets or on village greens, and to find out how the whole system appears to the ordinary non-political man and woman. The first five days we spent in Petrograd, the next eleven in Moscow. During this time we were living in daily contact with ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... noiselessly, each man looking to see where he planed his foot, so that no cracking of dry bushes should give warning of our approach. In fact, so well had the men improved under Fred's hints and observations, that they would have passed for old Indian hunters to a casual observer. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... pledges are soon violated, and in wedlock he will become indifferent and cold to his wife and children, and he will go through life without ambition, encouragement or success. He will be a failure. True love speaks for itself, and the casual observer can read its proclamations. True love does not speak in a whisper, it always makes itself heard. The follies of flirting develops into many unhappy marriages, and blight many a life. Man happily married has superior advantages both social ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols
... drawn to Lady Arthur Castletown's charming and witty romance of modern life. Alp called to Alp, and deep to deep, throughout Satan's invisible world; "Kathleen's Sweethearts" was dragged in (apparently with ten men pushing behind) for casual allusion in "Our Weekly Note-book;" Lady Arthur's smart sayings were quoted in the gossip attached to this or that monthly magazine; the correspondent of a country journal would hasten to say that it was not necessary to inform his readers that Lady Arthur Castletown was, in reality, Lady Adela ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... women and two men! Two others were in a listless fashion leaning their shoulders against the boat itself. With the last 'Heave-ho!' at the shortened tackle the women laid hold of the nets, and with casual male assistance laid them out on the shingle, removed any fragments of fish, and generally prepared them for stowing in the ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... afternoon, chairs were taken out into the shadow of the Castle walls, and there the three sat conversing. Someone drew near, a man, whom the careless glance of Helen's cousin took for a casual tourist about to view the ruins. Helen herself, and in the same moment, Irene, recognised Piers Otway. It seemed as though Mrs. Borisoff would not rise to welcome him; her smile was dubious, half surprised. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... that certainly may, for some readers, justify the publishers' epithet. You will understand therefore that I experience a little natural hesitation about suggesting the intrigue. It is certainly of the simplest—a mere question as to whether Edward and Vivian, casual acquaintances of a restaurant, shall or shall not spend a sequence of week-ends together. The lady is described as on the stage, but she might as well belong to a guild of art-needlework. Edward is the only question of importance, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 13, 1920 • Various
... his nose and walked slowly out of the house. There was no one in the room who had not been moved deeply by the something poignant in Ernest's face, even though his voice was so sedulously casual. Before any one else had opportunity to speak however, Papa Wolf ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... clearly elicited by casual conversation is this—that the more closely you engage in a battle, the less you know about its progress. This ship is full of officers and men who were in the thick of things for perhaps forty-eight hours on end, but who are quite likely to be utterly ignorant of what was going ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... of great logs in front of it. He was just opening the first letters he had got from home since the battle of Chickamauga in September, and these had been a long time on the way, for they had gone to Chattanooga and had come by casual conveyance from there. His statements fully agreed with the reports I had got from the Twenty-third Corps officers in regard to the condition of the troops. It was the same with all. They would not suffer greatly if they could remain in the forest encampments till shoes ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... her sagacity and knowledge set at naught as it were. She had been accustomed to see her niece admired far beyond the usual lot of women; she had gradually learned to feel it only natural that she should inspire quite a strong sentiment even in casual acquaintances. She had felt the delicate power of her fascination herself, but never at her best and brightest had she found her more charming or quicker of wit and fancy than ...
— Lodusky • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... a start. Then he reflected for a moment. Evidently, the condition seemed to him a very hard one. "Do you want all the victims for yourself and her, then?" he asked, with a casual nod ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... this letter is also quaintly original, and the sensitive mind of this man again caused his nerve-muscular action—his gesture—to harmonize with his mood. Points of this kind, which the handwriting of Dickens illustrates so well, have a deeper meaning for the observant than for the casual reader of a magazine article; they indicate that these little human acts, which have been so long overlooked by intelligent men, do really give us valuable data for the study of ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... true," said he. "I have met men qualified to lead a Forlorn Hope; but never before a woman. Allow me to express my regret that it is such a forlorn one." Then, with a twinkle in his eye which bespoke a lighter mood, he remarked in a curiously casual tone. ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... the next evening at eight o'clock, and it was not until six that the cook remarked, in the most casual manner, that his sister was coming down to see him off. She arrived half an hour late, and, so far from wanting to see the cabin again, discovered an inconvenient love of fresh air. She came down at last, at the instance ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... society; exactly what I like," said Evergreen, who thereupon, taking the hint, launched forth on several little bits of his own family history, with which he was fond of entertaining any casual acquaintance. ...
— Fred Markham in Russia - The Boy Travellers in the Land of the Czar • W. H. G. Kingston
... of the church by way of a parting salute. Without any formal demission of the ministry, he retired to his literary seclusion at Concord, from which he brought forth in books and lectures the oracular utterances which caught more and more the ear of a wide public, and in which, in casual-seeming parentheses and obiter dicta, Christianity and all practical religion were condemned by sly innuendo and half-respectful allusion by which he might "without sneering teach the rest to sneer." In 1838 he was still so far recognized in the ministry as to be ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... his most casual, most uninterested voice. And yet she detected an undertone of anxiety. He did not want his sisters to be there when Miss Holland came. She had spent three years in studying his inflections ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... altogether, and as for the poor dear old Treasury, not only was that Department of State treated with scorn, but the Lords Commissioners were not even informed, when our delegates were retrieved from the Gay City, that a casual sort of agreement, which inter alia involved appreciable financial obligations, had been entered into with our friends on the other side of the Channel. No determinate Convention of any kind or sort was drawn up or signed, what had been provisionally promised remained for ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... station," instead of being some such ramshackle structure as might have been deduced from the Lensman's casual terminology, was in fact a fully-equipped observatory. Its staff was not large—eight men worked in three staggered eight-hour shifts of two men each—but the instruments! To develop them had required hundreds of man-years of time ...
— The Vortex Blaster • Edward Elmer Smith
... fresh and strong. And the colt is still in his prime, Without lameness or fault. Why should you not use the colt's strength To replace your sick legs? Why should you not use my song to gladden your casual cup? Need you in one morning send both away, Send them away never to return? This is what Su would say to you before she goes, And this is what your horse meant also When he neighed at the gate. Seeing my distress, who am a woman, And hearing its cries, that is but a horse, Shall our master ...
— More Translations from the Chinese • Various
... To a casual writer like myself the mass of conflicting detail found on examining ancient bows and the records of their use is extremely disconcerting. The practised scientist, however, surveys such things with calmness, for ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... together, and the minister and his wife engaged Mrs. Ellsworth in conversation, leaving the pair of lovers free to mingle with the gay crowd of young and old strolling beneath the trees. They spoke little to the casual acquaintances they met, preferring to enjoy ...
— Dainty's Cruel Rivals - The Fatal Birthday • Mrs. Alex McVeigh Miller
... neither deep nor broad, but perhaps the reverse, though singularly high. Indeed, it is quite uncommon to see a scull so round and tower-like in the formation, though I have met with them in individuals not at all distinguished for talents. I do not think a casual observer would find anything unusual in the exterior of Sir Walter Scott, beyond his physical force, which is great, without being at all extraordinary. His eye, however, is certainly remarkable. Grey, small, and without lustre, in his graver moments it appears to look inward, instead of ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... is responsible for this piece of impudence, but shall be lucky if we succeed in recovering the saddle." Deane saw humour in the situation, but was evidently rather sceptical about the ways of law. These examples of wit could be multiplied readily from what to the casual student seem to be dry annual reports. In reality these same reports pulsate with life. But it is often only found between the lines by the reader who knows the history of ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... rich in money, I might have built a house, or set up in business, during my fortnight's stay at Milwaukie, matters move on there at so rapid a rate. But, being only rich in curiosity, I was obliged to walk the streets and pick up what I could in casual intercourse. When I left the street, indeed, and walked on the bluffs, or sat beside the lake in their shadow, my mind was rich in dreams congenial to the scene, some time to be ...
— Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 • S.M. Fuller
... in the civil law of his native State, speaking French and Spanish, soon plunged in the vexatious land litigation of his generation. Mere casual occupancy gave little color of title to the commoner Mexicans. Now, the great grant owners are, one by one, cited into court to prove their holdings; many are ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... She would have liked to mention Miss Julia Gardiner, but she felt a restraining delicacy in speaking of what had come to her knowledge in such a casual way, and more than ever ashamed of her own ridiculous mistake. Suddenly she broke out with an odd query, at the same moment clapping her hands to her traitorous cheeks: "Do you ever blush at your own foolish fancies? Oh, how tiresome it is to have a trick of blushing! ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... of passersby gave her idle imagination something to play with, but mostly because it was difficult otherwise to seem unconscious of the stares that converged toward her from every table occupied by a masculine patron, whether regular or casual—unless the patron happened to be accompanied by a lady, in which unhappy event he had to content himself with furtive, sidelong glances, not always furtive ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... sufficiently accurate from the archaeological point of view to furnish a trustworthy record of the building in its past and present condition, and not too technical in its language for the occasional use of the casual visitor. Brief biographical accounts of the bishops and other notable men connected with the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely • W. D. Sweeting
... and, after a journey to Leeson Butte to consult his partner, these matters were put in hand. He no longer worked single-handed. His establishment was increased by the advent of a bartender, a Chinese cook, and a livery stable keeper. These, and some casual labor from among the loafers, supplied him with all the help he so far ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... up the intervals of work. They hate physical exercise; more than that, they despise it as fit only for the ignorant and low. Yet they have not supplied its place with anything intellectual, and the most casual observer cannot fail to notice that China has no national game. Fencing, rowing, and cricket, are alike unknown; and archery, such as it is, claims the attention chiefly of candidates for official honours. Within ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... prosecution meant to prove against the seventeen I. W. Ws. First, Peter told what he himself had seen and heard—not very much, but a beginning, a hook to hang his story upon. The I. W. W. hall was the meeting place for the casual and homeless labor of the country, the "bindle-stiffs" who took the hardest of the world's hard knocks, and sometimes returned them. There was no kind of injustice these fellows hadn't experienced, and now and then they ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... building harbors some mural decorations by Miss Florence Lundborg which the male part of the population can enjoy only by special invitation. I regret that they are not placed somewhere where the casual Exposition stroller can see them, because they are deserving of more attention than they are apt to receive. Miss Lundborg's artistic contributions have for many years been along the lines of decorations and in this big, well-composed figural scheme ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... the many bewilderments of botany is that plants of one family exhibit characteristics and habits so divergent that the casual observer fails to recognise the least signs of relationship. Similar confusion arises in the case of plants of the same species producing foliage of varied form. One of the figs (FICUS OPPOSITA) displays such remarkable inconsistency that until reassured by many ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... as it were, an outer chamber to the mind, in which, when a man is occupied centrally with the most momentous question of his life, casual and trifling thoughts are just allowed to wander softly for an interval, before being banished altogether. Thus, amid his concentration did Manston receive perceptions of the individuals about him in the lively thoroughfare of the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... learn to swim without describing his sensations to every casual acquaintance or hunting up the natatorial columns in the newspapers. One may enjoy riding a horse and yet go about his ordinary business with an equal mind. One learns to play golf and still remains a peaceful citizen who can discuss politics with interest. But the cyclist, man ...
— Different Girls • Various
... From a casual glance at the giraffe, its fore legs would appear nearly twice as long as the hind ones, but such is not the case. This difference of appearance is caused by the great depth of shoulder, compared ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... little system likewise. He was, however, so much taken up with his own that he had no time or inclination to propound any questions as to ours; and when he got out at Nice he never suspected that, so far as play was concerned, we were more than casual triflers. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... confessedly musical. Mrs. Bundy, the earnest proprietress of No. 3, who considered her "parlours" (they were a dozen feet square), even more attractive, if possible, than the second floor with which Baron had had to content himself—Mrs. Bundy, who reserved the drawing-room for a casual dressmaking business, had threshed out the subject of the new lodger in advance with our young man, reminding him that her affection for his own person was a proof that, other things being equal, she positively preferred tenants who ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion. His cousin's face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab with a piece of burnt cork ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... Montespan's empire was shaken by Madame de Fontanges, and overthrown by Madame de Maintenon; but her haughtiness, her caprices, had already alienated the King. He had not, however, such rivals as mine; it is true, their baseness is my security. I have, in general, little to fear but casual infidelities, and the chance that they may not all be sufficiently transitory for my safety. The King likes variety, but he is also bound by habit; he fears eclats, and detests manoeuvring women. The ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... said good-night to her he told her that he would probably come and see her soon. She went away in a flutter, for his words, though casual, had had a sharply significant sound; besides, he had very nearly kissed her; if she had been more truthful, she ...
— The Dark Tower • Phyllis Bottome
... In a somewhat casual way, and without going into their natural history, the last two chapters have indicated the method of making an acquaintance with new species and of studying the habits of a few wild birds. A few chapters will now be devoted to a fuller ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... skeleton, Leslie next proceeded to carefully examine a great pile of small cases, packages, and casks that had already come under his casual notice while engaged in lighting up the cave. He took these as they came most conveniently to his hand, the casks first claiming his attention. With the assistance of a small axe that he had taken the precaution to bring ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... between black-fringed lids, dwelt musingly on the sky. She looked as if she might be dreaming a maiden's dream of love. He hazarded a tentative remark. Her eyes moved, touched him indifferently, and passed back to the sky, and an unformed murmur, interrogation, acquiescence, casual response, anything he pleased to think it, escaped her lips. He watched her as he could when she was not looking at him. A loosened strand of her hair lay among the lupine roots, one of her hands rested, brown and upcurled, on ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... away for a moment. He had not yet come to that stage when he could speak of her lightly as a casual friend. ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... These "signs" were not always found together; but instead, they each could exist separately and thus would arouse the hunter's suspicions of the game near by. The little twig, as it floated down the stream, half denuded of its bark, would go unheeded by the casual observer, but, to the experienced trapper, it was a prize to be obtained; for, by its freshness, it indicated to his mind how near he was to the chance of obtaining and adding another pound or so of valuable fur to his stock on hand. To him, this small event, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... a casual conversation," I continued, "Miss Fraenkel mentioned to me the fact that letters pass between them. In a way, I suppose, she shouldn't do it. A post-mistress is in a delicate position. And yet why not? One may say without prejudice that a certain man writes to his wife. We might even ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... restaurants are generally on the second story. A casual inquiry attests it. I know of one, it is true, on the ground level, yet here I suspect a special economy. The place had formerly been a German restaurant, with Teuton scrolls, "Ich Dien," and heraldries on its walls. A frugal brush changed the decoration. From the heart of ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks
... at the expression of his face she sat up, alarmed. It told her that no ordinary, small, casual mishap had befallen, but something vital, something which might ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... object of this paper, which is simply to throw together a few casual hints, connected with the period. I would beg my reader's attention, in the first place, to an odd superstition, countenanced by Shakspeare, and which, if he happens to lie awake some night, (say with the tooth-ache—what better?—for that purpose I mean,) he will have an opportunity of ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... with casual servants, querulous, sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere they resent, can hardly comprehend the friendliness and sympathy that existed between the master and the slave. He cannot understand how the negro stood in slavery ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... scrupulously observed on both sides, and from early dawn to late at night the whole population thoroughly enjoyed themselves. The relieved expression on the faces of all could not fail to be apparent to even a casual observer. Pale women and children emerged from their laager, put on their finery, sunned themselves, and did their shopping. The black ladies went in a body to the veldt to collect firewood with all their natural gaiety and light-heartedness, ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... sciences. The habits of thought which characterize the life of the class run on the personal relation of dominance, and on the derivative, invidious concepts of honor, worth, merit, character, and the like. The casual sequence which makes up the subject matter of science is not visible from this point of view. Neither does good repute attach to knowledge of facts that are vulgarly useful. Hence it should appear probable that the interest of the invidious comparison with respect to pecuniary ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... foreman porter? And then a ticket collector? And then the inspector? And then a casual post-man? And then did you come across your original porter and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... hands on any of her folks; it was all done with the hands—what wasn't done with the tongue! Basil could see that Doctor Prance was irritated; that this extreme candour of allusion to her neighbour was probably not habitual to her, as a member of a society in which the casual expression of strong opinion generally produced waves of silence. But he blessed her irritation, for him it was so illuminating; and to draw further profit from it he asked her who the young lady was with the red hair—the pretty one, whom he had only noticed during ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... much the sensation that one experiences upon looking into a clear pool whose depth it is impossible to guess from merely looking, though one feels instinctively that it is much deeper, and may prove more dangerous than a casual glance would lead one ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... Hall's in a state of great content, which increased when, in answer to his casual inquiry, the managing man informed him that not a man of his college was about the place. So he ordered a skiff with as much dignity and coolness as he could command, and hastened up stairs to dress. He appeared again, carrying his boating ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... information, and in a few moments dismissed the letter from his mind. Events seemed for him to have moved rapidly within the last few days, and the world of roadside inns and casual acquaintance into which he had stepped on his arrival in Spain was quite another from that in which Estella ...
— In Kedar's Tents • Henry Seton Merriman
... charming blunders of the past have been set to rights. Highways are no longer the casual folderols of adventure, but the reposeful and efficient arteries of traffic. The roofs of the town are no longer a rumble of idiotic hats cocked at a devil-may-care angle. Windows no longer wink lopsidedly at one another. Doorways and chimneys, railings and lanterns have changed. Cobblestones ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... to be a varying aptitude to experience the sexual organism, or any voluptuous sensations before puberty. I find, on eliciting the recollections of normal persons, that in some cases there have been voluptuous sensations from casual contact with the sexual organs at a very early age; in other cases there has been occasional slight excitement from early years; in yet other cases complete sexual anaesthesia until the age of puberty. That the latter condition is not due to mere ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... with the customary habits and movements of the noon hour. He knew that the men in the main guardroom were reduced to a shift of two while the others went to their dinners; the two men were in the habit of giving the deserted yard only indifferent attention. But Mr. Wagg had provided against even casual glances. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... prepare a work that would afford more instruction and interest to me than a detailed history of the operations of the so-called "UNDERGROUND RAILROAD." I am delighted at the casual examination I have been permitted to give it. Thousands will rise up to call you blessed for your faithful record of our "legalized crime," and its graphic terrible consequences set forth by you in such true pictures ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... which, Colonel Prince Leopold, though not expressly mentioned in the Books, may very possibly have been permitted, for a day or two, to form part, for Mamma's behoof and his own; and may have made his casual observation, at some well-chosen moment, with the effect intended. In which case, Leopold was by no means futile, but proved, after all, to be the saving clause ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... volume in the fascinating series entitled "Our European Neighbours" ought to be of special interest to Americans, as it describes faithfully, and at the same time in a picturesque style, the social life of a people who have been much maligned by the casual globe-trotter. Spain has sunk from the proud position which she held during the Middle Ages, but much of the force and energy which charged the old-time Spaniard still remains, and there is to-day a determined upward movement out of the abyss into ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... the people are free and self-governed; and if, under propitious skies, the burdens either of the private home or of the state are heavy and crushing, it is because of mismanagement and not of necessity. To a casual observer, therefore, it would seem as if nowhere in the same space were gathered more elements of wealth, prosperity, and happiness ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... thinking of that grey-haired man, His sire: then oftentimes the white-armed child Of thunder-bearing Jove, young Thebe, comes And droops above him with her short sweet sighs For Love distraught—for dear Love's faded sake That weeps and sings and weeps itself to death Because of casual eyes, and lips of frost, And careless mutterings, ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... was ignorant of theology, as a direct and separate branch of study, the points are so many at which theology inosculates with philosophy, and with endless casual and random suggestions of the self- prompted reason, that inevitably from that same moment in which I began to find a motive for directing my thoughts to this new subject, I wanted not something to say that might have perplexed an antagonist, or (in default of such a vicious ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... violent electrical phenomena, were something more than coincident, more than a casual connection. Here we observe a ...
— New and Original Theories of the Great Physical Forces • Henry Raymond Rogers
... wood that had been spreading since morning. He seemed aggrieved—yet humorously aggrieved—as he noted its noble dimensions. He cast away the axe and retrieved some outflung sticks, which he cunningly adjusted to the main pile to make it appear still larger to the casual eye. ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... Assyrian and Babylonian kings when compared with the historical books of the Old Testament. For some centuries the inhabitants of Palestine were subject to periodical attacks from the warlike inhabitants of Mesopotamia, as even the most casual reader of the Bible is aware. When it became known that the accounts of these invasions formed a part of the records preserved in the Assyrian libraries, historian and theologian alike waited with breathless interest for the exact revelations ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... perhaps could find room for him at her table. Already she had given shelter to a most estimable woman, a widow like herself, a woman of many sorrows, whom he had well known during the troublous days in New Orleans, a gentlewoman, he might say, whose birth and breeding were apparent to the most casual observer, a Mrs. Fletcher, who had come to him for advice, and who, through his recommendation gladly given, had recently gone to a good position—a lucrative position—and a home at Gate City. Loring was politely interested, but could the rector direct him to the ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... indignation. Skilled workmen have been almost driven to strike, not from want of patriotism, nor from desire for profit out of the War, but because of the unfairness of leaving their wage at a level often below that of the unskilled and even of casual importations. The fatal delays which were sometimes quite unnecessary, in dealing with complaints have added to the feeling of unrest. Suspicions were even aroused sometimes ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... bit of level, dry turf Will faced his big antagonist. Baizley was heavy of build, strong of arm, and not without some knowledge of the pugilistic art. He was also a little taller than Will. To the casual glance the latter appeared no match for him. Fair-skinned, slender, and with something of a studious stoop to his shoulders, Will's appearance gave small indication of the strength that lurked in his well-corded sinews. Under his pale skin he concealed almost as much sheer ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... loss of the whale-boat, we made the peaks of the Andes, a very few degrees to the southward of the equator. From some casual remarks made by the French, and which I had overheard, I had been led to believe they intended to run for Guayaquil, or its vicinity; and I aimed at reaching the coast near the same point. We had been in, ourselves, at several bays and roadsteads, moreover, on this part of the shore, ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... made her first deliberate attempt to avoid him, an attempt that was so far successful that for the next hour she saw nothing of him beyond casual glimpses. She did not join her husband, for he resented ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... She had moments of terrible indecision as to how to do her hair, and I am certain it was not a matter of indifference to her that she should make a good impression upon the head butler. Also, she hesitated about examining the mounted Guardsman on duty at Whitehall, preferring to walk past with a casual glance, as if she were accustomed to see things quite as wonderful every day at home, whereas nothing to approach it has ever existed in America, except in the imagination of Mr. Barnum, and he is dead. And shopwalkers patronised her. I congratulated ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... from wishing to organize the states-general, sought to annul them. It preferred the casual resistance of the great bodies of the nation, to sharing authority with a permanent assembly. The separation of the orders favoured its views; it reckoned on fomenting their differences, and thus preventing ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... had become much too large, as may be readily understood, though it did not seem at a casual glance that the members had become deformed. The hands were dry and angular, but the nails, although a little bent inward toward the root, had preserved all their freshness. The only very noticeable change was the excessive depression ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... I have long loved you. Let me tell you a secret. I am not as bilious as I look. If you like, I will cut my hair. There is more innocent fun within me than a casual spectator would imagine. You have never seen me frolicsome. Be a good girl — a very good girl — and one day you shall. If you are fond of touch-and-go jocularity — this is the shop ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... must be taken to express the absolute truth. And so grew the anti-Galilean fanatics. Out of similar notions have risen the absurdities of a polemic Bible chronology, &c. [Footnote: The Bible cosmology stands upon another footing. That is not gathered from a casual expression, shaped to meet popular comprehension, but is delivered directly, formally, and elaborately, as a natural preface to the history of man and his habitation. Here, accordingly, there is no instance of accommodation to vulgar ignorance; and the persuasion gains ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... columns of our daily newspaper. He saw in them the latest authentic news of the God who made them, for he carried everywhere that vision washed clear with tears which detects the meaning under the mask, and, beneath the casual and transitory, the eternal keeping its sleepless watch. The secret of Dante's power is not far to seek. Whoever can express himself with the full force of unconscious sincerity will be found to have uttered something ideal and universal. Dante intended a didactic ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... see, Lantee?" The question was painfully casual, but a note in it, almost a reaching for reassurance, cut for the first time through the wall which had stood between them from their chance meeting ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... herself, before she discovered, by a casual glance over the prospect, and at some distance, a youth, who seemed to advance with hasty steps towards the castle. At first she was tempted to turn away her eye with carelessness and inattention. There was however something in his figure, that led ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... Emily, hurrying on with a casual air which had a good deal of tact in it. "And black makes you so wonderfully fair and aerial. You scarcely look quite real in it; you might float away. But you ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... organ. Each has, so to speak, its congenial rate of vibration and gives its stimuli a varying welcome. Little as we may attend to these instinctive hospitalities of sense, they betray themselves in unjustified likes and dislikes felt for casual persons and things, in the je ne sais quoi that makes instinctive sympathy. Voice, manner, aspect, hints of congenial tastes and judgments, a jest in the right key, a gesture marking the right aversions, all these trifles leave behind a pervasive impression. We reject a vision we find ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... 'not void of hopes I came, For who so fond as youthful bards of fame? But few, alas! the casual blessing boast, So hard to gain, so easy to be lost. How vain that second life in others' breath, The estate which wits inherit after death! Ease, health, and life, for this they must resign, (Unsure the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... woman long hid amid packs of years, She might have been living or dead; she was lost to my sight, And the deed that had nigh drawn tears Was done in a casual clearance of life's arrears; But I felt as if I had put her to death that night! . ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... for a crying and a growing evil is so simple that some may doubt its practical efficacy. Yet the most casual thinker must see the strength as well as the simplicity of a plan which would make skill and fidelity in service the only road to success. Self-interest, if nothing else, would stimulate our Katies and Bridgets, our Dinahs and our Gretchens, to keep a place, if it were not so ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... man, who had a few moments before entered the cottage, walked into the garden from the back door. His eye was one that the casual observer would describe as 'full of mischief;' but behind the sunny brightness was a pensive cast. He walked softly towards the arbour, and stood for several seconds looking at its beautiful occupant. Then, in moving his foot, the dry branch of a rose-bush snapped, and the ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... Lady Jane, Dorothy passed into the courtyard and into the open air for the first time in nearly a week. She felt like a bird with clipped wings. The most casual inspection convinced her that there was no possible chance of escape from the walled quadrangle, in the center of which loomed the immense, weather-painted castle. The wall was high and its strength was as unbroken as in its ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
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