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More "Observer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Savoy Alps, as Mr. Bakewell has remarked, enormous masses of limestone are cut through so regularly by nearly vertical partings, and these joints are often so much more conspicuous than the seams of stratification, that an inexperienced observer will almost inevitably confound them, and suppose the strata to be perpendicular in places where in fact they are almost horizontal. ...
— The Student's Elements of Geology • Sir Charles Lyell
... beneath the old graybeard poplars out past stretches of velvety lawn, with groups of shrubs and trees casting deep shadows even to the kitchen garden, whose long rows of vegetables, bordered with old-fashioned blooming herbs and savories, led the observer out into the meadows to the Home Farm and beyond to the dim line of Paradise Ridge. "It is different and distinctive ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... known of the modern machines is Edison's, represented in the picture at the head of this article. In it the field magnet—answering to the horseshoe magnet of the magneto-electric machine—is plainly distinguishable to the unskilled observer. It is not even solid, but is made of several pieces bolted together. Its legs are hollowed at the ends to admit closely the armature which turns there. There are valuable peculiarities in its construction, which, while complying ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... a pinch to her waist with her two hands, or raised these members—they were very plump and pretty—to the multifold braids of her hair, with a movement half caressing, half corrective. An attentive observer might have fancied that during these periods of desultory self-inspection her face forgot its melancholy; but as soon as she neared the window again it began to proclaim that she was a very ill-pleased woman. And indeed, in what met her eyes there was little to be pleased ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... the modest diffidence with which a youth usually addresses his seniors. A forward self-confidence, which some found objectionable, was in fact a characteristic of his youth and early manhood which is noticed by more than one observer. He entered a room, we are told, with a bold and confident air; and we have it from another witness that he was d'une suffisance insupportable.[71] Be it remarked, however, that there is equal testimony to the overpowering charm of his ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... perpetuation of the species; and, resolving for the future to view these weakly, big-hipped and slope-shouldered makeshifts of Nature's with larger tolerance, he cocked his hat at a devil-may-carish angle, and strode up the walk, whistling jauntily and having, it must be confessed, to the unprejudiced observer very much the air of a sheep in ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... blood betrays itself in a hundred ways. Particular words and expressions, peculiar pitches of the voice, styles of address, forms of salutations, and special ways of performing certain kinds of work, tell their tale with an emphasis that makes itself understood even to the unscientific observer. The expression of the face and the very ring of the laugh often impressed me with the truth that it was that of a cousin's brother or sister. I often expressed my surprise at these things to those around me, and by a free indulgence in the ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... four certain events—heat, wind, war, and the death of princes. At the same time, not being superstitious, he held aloof from the crazy science of astrology and all the fraud connected with it. Indeed, as an observer of Nature, and still more as a follower and furtherer of the scholastic Aristotelian natural philosophy, he shewed a leaning towards the theory of development, for, according to him, the more highly organized structures proceed from those ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... individual of the party who remained calmly indifferent was Master Jacky. That charming creature, having made up his mind to feed on jam tart, did not feel that there was any need for salt. An attentive observer might have noticed, however, that Jacky's look of supreme indifference suddenly gave place to one of inexpressible glee. He became actually red in the face with hugging himself and endeavouring to suppress all visible signs of emotion. His eye had unexpectedly fallen on the paper ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... prestige and power, as is shown by the fact that the leaders of both political parties were still mainly drawn from the limited class in question. It is shown with even greater clearness by facts more directly presenting themselves to the eye of the ordinary observer. ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... confined, It reaches to the culture of the mind. The mind of man craves rest, and cannot bear, Though next in power to God's, continual care. Genius himself (nor here let Genius frown) Must, to ensure his vigour, be laid down, And fallow'd well: had Churchill known but this, Which the most slight observer scarce could miss, He might have flourish'd twenty years or more, Though now, alas! poor man! worn out in four.'[328] 30 Recover'd from the vanity of youth, I feel, alas! this melancholy truth, Thanks to each cordial, each advising friend, And am, if not too late, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... gorgeous panorama of the Wea plain, or who has glimpsed in the perspective the wooded hills of Warren and Vermilion from the bluffs on the eastern side of the river, it is not hard to understand why the red man loved the Wabash. An observer who saw it in the early part of the last century pens this picture: "Its green banks were lined with the richest verdure. Wild flowers intermingled with the tall grass that nodded in the passing breeze. Nature seemed clothed in her ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... glance of the eye and a movement of the large massy lower jaw, like that which is seen in the jaws of a dog eager to bite, showed that under that dull exterior there were passions strong and quick, and a spirit not so slow and heavy as a casual observer might imagine. ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... seeming security, an attentive observer might discern some symptoms that threatened the church with a more violent persecution than any which she had yet endured. The zeal and rapid progress of the Christians awakened the Polytheists from their supine indifference in the cause of those ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... accident Of my having been the observer Of your secret love, compels you To this valorous aggression, More than it can you concern Me to know, it doth concern me To know you; for to be curious Is far less than to be jealous. Yes, by Heaven! for who is master Of the house have I to learn here, Who it is at such an hour, By this balcony ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... glass-roofed hall, on the left of which was the lift. The figure of the girl who had stepped out first was about to disappear. As the Englishman looked she vanished. But he had time to realize that a gait, the carriage of a head and its movement in turning, can produce on an observer a moral effect. A joyous sanity came to him from this unknown girl and made him feel joyously sane. It seemed to sweep over him, like a cool and fresh breeze of the sea falling through pine woods, to lift from him some of the dust of his journey. He resolved ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... augured badly for our interview. He had a pale, set face, with sandy hair and a steely-blue eye, with something feline in its expression. His frame was tall and muscular, though there was a curious bend in his shoulders, which almost amounted to a deformity. An ordinary observer meeting him in the street might have put him down as a well-developed man, fairly handsome, and of studious habits—even in the hideous uniform of the rottenest convict establishment he imparted a certain refinement ...
— My Friend The Murderer • A. Conan Doyle
... laughing at all the while in his books. No man has impaled snobbery with such a stinging rapier, but he always accused himself of being a snob, past all cure. This I make no doubt was one of his exaggerations, but there was a grain of truth in the remark, which so sharp an observer as himself could not fail to notice, even though the ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... voice went on, "it's just possible that you're better placed at present as an observer of our manners than as a critic of them. I hope I don't exceed the limits of candor which you yourself indicated as allowable in ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... power of speculation, and the presence of a stranger was now sufficient to call it into action. He was clean and properly attired, and he sat—apart from his keeper—conscious of existence. There was good ground, in the absence of all positive proof, for the supposition of the doctor. A common observer would have pronounced him well-born at a glance. Smitten as he was, and unhinged by his sad affliction, there remained still sufficient of the external forms to conduct to such an inference. Gracefulness still hovered about the human ruin, discernible in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... time, things were going on very differently in the keeping-room to what Lois imagined. Faith sat stiller even than usual; her eyes downcast, her words few. A quick observer might have noticed a certain tremulousness about her hands, and an occasional twitching throughout all her frame. But Pastor Nolan was not a keen observer upon this occasion; he was absorbed with his own little wonders and perplexities. His wonder was that of a carnal man—who that pretty ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... equatorial is designed and built for the latitude of the observatory where it is to be used. This is necessary since the hour axis must point to the north pole of the heavens whose elevation above the horizon is equal to the latitude of the observer's station. The final adjustment of an ordinary equatorial is very tedious so that when once set up it is not to be moved. This calls for a suitable house to protect the instrument. It has been the aim of the writer to ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... As his heels struck the horse's flanks, the beast sprang ahead. The rebound jerked back the rider's head and shoulders. While the horse dashed on, Laramie with as little fuss as possible pulled his rifle from its scabbard, trying all the time to get his balance. A careful observer could have noted that the rifle was drawn but held low in the right hand as if the rider could not bring it up. Yet even a close observer could hardly have detected in his convulsive swaying that the wounded man was closely scanning the sides of the narrow road along which his horse was ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... another man, then, involves first, comprehension that he is like every other man in his emotions, and unlike all other men in the way he thinks. To a trained observer his habits of thought are clearly indicated by his muscle structure and muscle action. Exhaustive prolonged analysis is unnecessary. You can learn to read quickly the mental significance of the comparatively ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... outcry of objection. The observers were told that they had been overstraining their eyesight so that they 'saw double,' and also that they had been using telescopes not properly focussed. Such objections seem almost beyond argument, for no practical observer could use an improperly focussed instrument without ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... philosophy of life or moods of nature as they are reflected in human existence; they are merely a reproduction of what the country parson's own eyes beheld—the comedy and tragedy of the commonplace. What a less sensitive observer might have passed in silence—the brown heath, the breakers of the North Sea, the simple heart and life of the peasant—revealed to him the poesy, now merry, now sad, which he renders with so much art and so delicate a sympathy. Behind the believer ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... urged Mr. Smith; and even the closest observer, watching his face, could not have said that he was not absorbedly interested in Miss Flora's ...
— Oh, Money! Money! • Eleanor Hodgman Porter
... long counter in a sort of stall surrounded with brass rails, told her to present it to the teller, and she'd get the money. Having said which the head disappeared; but it might have been noted by a self-possessed observer, that as soon as Mrs Gaff had picked up the cheque, (bursting two buttons off her gown in the act), the head re-appeared, grinning in company with several other heads, all of which grinned and watched the further movements of ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... gleaned, after a great lapse of time. Probability was to be inferred from such materials, as could be procured, and no man better understood the nature of historical evidence than Dr. Johnson; no man was more religiously an observer of truth. If his history is any where defective, it must be imputed to the want of better information, and the ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... mother, and what a help her sympathy had been to him in his studies, and they had spoken of Willie and his troubles, and Archie forgot the sour face that had sent him away from the carriage, and thought only of the boy's crippled fate, so like his own. Like, and yet unlike—to the casual observer there was a vast difference between the forlorn, poverty-stricken, ragged Archie, and the petted, and pampered, and richly-clad Willie; but to the eye of the unwearied watcher who had witnessed the patience and the goodness ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... of family sermons, one of which Sir Pitt was in the habit of administering to his family on Sunday mornings, lay ready on the study table, and awaiting his judicious selection. And by the sermon-book was the Observer newspaper, damp and neatly folded, and for Sir Pitt's own private use. His gentleman alone took the opportunity of perusing the newspaper before he laid it by his master's desk. Before he had brought it into the study that morning, ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... short line of two wires to connect two local battery telephones. Such a line possesses negligible resistance, inductance, and shunt capacity. Its insulation is practically infinite. Let condensers be bridged across the line, one by one, while conversation goes on. The listening observer will notice that the sounds reaching his ear steadily grow less loud as the capacity across the line increases. The speaking observer will notice that the sounds he hears through the receiver in series with the line steadily grow louder as the capacity ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller
... the celebrated veterinary surgeon, for this valuable antidote or remedy for the prevention of the most horrible, heart-rending, and incurable disease known. Mr Youatt had an immense practice among, dogs as well as among horses. He was a keen observer of disease, and a dear lover of his profession, and he had paid great attention to rabies— dog-madness. He and his assistants had been repeatedly bitten by rabid dogs; but knowing that he was in possession of an infallible ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... is a common summer species, known as the solitary hornet—one of them—Odynerus flavipes. The insect is about a half-inch in length, and to the careless observer might suggest a yellow-jacket, though the yellow is here confined to two triangular spots on the front of the thorax and ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... as 1787 an observer at Pittsburgh reported that in six weeks he saw fifty flatboats set off for the downriver settlements; in 1788 forty-five hundred emigrants were said to have passed Fort Harmar between February and June. Most of these people were bound ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... two blades of grass grow where one grew before, for it contains the germinal principle of knowledge. We owe a large debt in this kind to Mr. Olmsted. He tells us much of what he saw, little of what he thought. He has good eyes, and that something behind them that makes a good observer. As respects the South, he has the advantage of being at once native and foreigner, so that what is merely American does not divide his attention with what is local and peculiar. Making entries in his diary ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... answered Chingatok, who had been sitting a silent, but deeply interested observer—so to ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... is a very mysterious one, and of a nature to perplex even the philosophic observer. Certain bodies, such as the metals, convey it, and are called conductors; certain others, such as glass and porcelain, arrest it, and are called insulators. It is for this reason that the wires of the telegraph are supported ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... the afternoon, a stranger in the neighbourhood, for he asked his way. He talked awhile, and with kindly rebuke said it was sad to see a man of my education brought so low, which shows how the outside appearance may mislead the prejudiced observer. "Was it misfortune?" "Nay, the best of ...
— The Roadmender • Michael Fairless
... previously versed in the meaning and right use of the various kinds of words, to attempt the study of methods of philosophizing, would be as if some one should attempt to become an astronomical observer, having never learned to adjust the focal distance of his optical instruments ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... they her. Any honest observer of life knows that the only sincere relation possible between the young and the old (after the babies are weaned) is hostility. We hated our elders, because they got in our way. And they'll hate us as soon as they get the strength to, because we'll be in their way. And we will hate them because they ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... remain together without any danger to either. Lecaillon disbelieves the statement of Romanes (in his Animal Intelligence) that the female eats the male after copulation. But this certainly seems to occur sometimes among insects, as illustrated by the following instance described by so careful an observer of insects ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... pilgrim's habit to that of his putting it off; and this is construed by the stricter professors to take effect from the actual formation of the intent to make the pilgrimage. Haroun er Reshid, though a voluptuary, was (at all events, from time to time) a rigid observer of Muslim ritual. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous
... ally was celebrated with as much enthusiasm as that of our own sovereign; and at night the streets of London were in a blaze with illuminations. Portraits of the Hero of Rosbach, with his cocked hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive observer will, at this day, find in the parlors of old-fashioned inns, and in the portfolios of print-sellers, twenty portraits of Frederic for one of George the Second. The sign-painters were everywhere ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... slender. She was very erect. Her small head with the masses of light brown hair shining beneath the simple hat, was held proudly. Yet there was a matchless simplicity and lack of self-consciousness about Diana that impressed even the careless observer: if there was ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... brilliant as not to be mistaken. On the harlequin snake the colors are bright coral-red, yellow, and black, which alternate in stripes that encircle the body. Its head is always banded with a broad yellow stripe. The coral-snake is much the same in color, and only a close observer would notice the difference. The coral-snake is also ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... the start to his most interested observer—the handsome youth of the first cabin, whose glances sometimes made the daughter's eyes dodge and evade. It added to that young man's growing conviction that the aged man and beautiful young girl were not at all of the same class as their enforced ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... and feelings, and appears as consisting of the energies of seeing and so on. Similarly—to quote an analogous case from ordinary experience—the true nature of a pure crystal, i.e. its transparency and whiteness, is, before the rise of discriminative knowledge (on the part of the observer), non-discriminated as it were from any limiting adjuncts of red or blue colour; while, as soon as through some means of true cognition discriminative knowledge has arisen, it is said to have now accomplished ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... the Arabian astronomers was Mohammed ben Jabir Albategnius, or El-batani, who was born at Batan, in Mesopotamia, about the year 850 A.D., and died in 929. Albategnius was a student of the Ptolemaic astronomy, but he was also a practical observer. He made the important discovery of the motion of the solar apogee. That is to say, he found that the position of the sun among the stars, at the time of its greatest distance from the earth, was not what it had been in the time of Ptolemy. The Greek astronomer ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... usage of his day. He points out a number of instances in which the different sections of the Union were at variance, and some of these characteristics have certainly disappeared. Webster's memoranda may be taken with some confidence, for he was a minute observer, and his ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... delivers it to Private ——, with the necessary instructions. If verbal, it is actually given to Private —— with instructions.) Captain A must in this case make notes of what the message was. In either case, Private —— ceases to be a member of the patrol and joins Captain A as an observer. He should, however, at some later time be required to repeat his message to Captain A, on the assumption that he had reached camp with the same. The message, whether oral or written, should be thoroughly analyzed and discussed. Was it proper to send a message at this time? ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... is generally though silently admitted that, while Charles Cotton came of a school of fishermen renowned for accomplishment even now, his master and friend was not in the modern or Cottonian sense a fisherman at all. There was in him, indeed, a vast deal of the philosopher and the observer of nature and still more, perhaps, of the artist in English; but there was also not a little of the cockney sportsman. He never rose above the low-lived worm and quill; his prey was commonly those fish that are the scorn of the true angler, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... philosophy mixed in, for Fronto had cautioned his pupil always to write out a great thought when it came, for fear he would never have another. Marcus was a sprightly letter-writer, and must have been a quick observer, and Fronto's gentle claims that he made the man are worthy of consideration. As a literary exercise the daily theme, prompted by love, can never be improved upon. The way to learn to write is to write. And Pronto, who resorted to many little tricks in order to get his pupil to express himself, ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... who drink much beer also become fatter than usual, and to an untrained eye sometimes appear as 'magnificent children.' But the fatness of such children is not a recommendation to the more knowing observer; they are extremely prone to die of inflammation of the chest (bronchitis) after a few days' illness from an ordinary cold. They die, very much more frequently than other children, of convulsions and diarrhoea, while cutting their teeth, and they are very liable to die of scrofulous inflammation ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... other places the emphasis on the second half ("that which the understanding perceives—as constituting the essence of substance"). The attributes are more than mere modes of representation—they are real properties, which substance possesses even apart from an observer, nay, in which it consists; in Spinoza, moreover, "must be conceived" is the equivalent of "to be." Although this latter "realistic" party undoubtedly has the advantage over the former, which reads ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... mentioned. The physiognomy, expression, and pose of St. Augustine are well worthy of a sculptor's closest study, but it is rather as a whole than in detail that this exquisite statue delights the ordinary observer. ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of indecision which did not escape so clear-sighted an observer as M. Desmalions. He swayed from side to side, his eyes flickered ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... It did seem a little hard that Ingram should be relegated to Mackenzie and his theories of government; but did he not profess to prefer that? Like most men who have got beyond five-and-thirty, he was rather proud of considering himself an observer of life. He stood aside as a spectator, and let other people, engaged in all manner of eager pursuits, pass before him for review. Toward young folks, indeed, he assumed a good-naturedly paternal air, as if they were but as ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... that, as a portraiture of the man Lincoln, Mr. Herndon's work 'will never be surpassed.' Certainly it has never been equaled yet, and this new edition is all that could be desired."—New York Observer. ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... dropping into the chair by the window, and glancing, as a less preoccupied observer than the doctor would have remarked, with a wistful desire at ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... door which opened from the passage into the quarry. There he halted a moment. He could now breathe more freely, and, moreover, he fancied that he heard distant sounds, and could see flickering lights, like will-o'-the-wisps, on the pillars that supported the roof. An observer might have thought, not distinguishing the face of the silent listener, that he showed hesitation; but the moment his countenance was seen, no one could have mistaken ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... their reading to their own literature; their children must be educated, on their religious side, in their own cult schools and they cannot consistently associate themselves with remedial movements which assume another philosophy as their basis. It is difficult for a detached observer to see how a consistent Christian Scientist reconciles the general conclusions of a modern scientific education with the presuppositions of his cult. That he does this is one more testimony to a power which indeed is exercised in many other fields than the field of Christian Science ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... singular, however, than this contradiction between the public and private man,—a contradiction not unfrequent, and, in some cases, more apparent than real, as depending upon the relative position of the observer,—were those contrarieties and changes not less startling, which his character so often exhibited, as compared with itself. He who, at one moment, was seen intrenched in the most absolute self-will, would, at the very next, be found all ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... action, the garrulous hostess took advantage of the circumstance to deliver a long harangue to the young woman on her new duties, and on the dangers to which youth is exposed in large cities. The girl listened to her with modest thankfulness, but a more minute observer than the good landlady might have seen in the eye and countenance of the girl a quiet firmness of expression, such as might have shown the lecture to be unnecessary. However, the landlady's lecture ended, ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... and therefore communicates, a hearty admiration for sheer manliness. And some of his portraits of great men have therefore a genuine power, and show the deeper insight which comes from true sympathy. He estimates the respectable observer of constitutional proprieties too highly; he is unduly repelled by the external oddities of the truly masculine and noble Johnson; but his enthusiasm for his pet hero, William, or for Chatham or Clive, carries us along with him. And at moments when he is narrating their exploits, ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... acute observer would have detected some difference beneath this outward varnish of similarity. The man at the wheel looked round the horizon more eagerly, and spit into the swirling, unwholesome-looking water with a more dejected air than before. The fishing-lines still hung dangling ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... A casual observer would have said, "What a pleasant bucolic-this little surprise party of welcome!" But Howard with his native ear and eye had no such pleasing illusion. He knew too well these suggestions of despair and bitterness. He knew that, like the smile of the slave, this cheerfulness was ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... the occupant of each carriage can see very plainly the passengers in the other carriages opposite to him. The lamps of the express had been lit at Willesden, so that each compartment was brightly illuminated, and most visible to an observer from outside. ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Art which peopled these apartments with animated designs in which salamanders sparkled among the wreaths, and the palette of the sixteenth century illumined the darkest corners with its brilliant coloring. In this cabinet an observer will still find traces of that taste for gilding which Catherine brought with her from Italy; for the princesses of her house loved, in the words of the author already quoted, to veneer the castles of France with the gold earned by their ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... beam of light which this mirror reflects always goes back, unerring, to its source. It would do so from an aeroplane, so high in the air that it could not be located. The returning beam is invisible to anyone not immediately in the path of the ray, and the ray always goes to the observer. It is simply a matter of pure mathematics practically applied. The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. There is not a variation of a foot in ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... observer of those days will tell you that Mr. Stephens would begin his talk to the jury with calmness and build upon his opening until he warmed up into eloquence; but that Mr. Toombs would plunge immediately into his fierce ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... needs be delicate. Belonging to the race of Scott and Dumas, of the romantic narrators and creators, Stevenson belonged no less to that of Montaigne and the literary egotists.... He was a watchful and ever interested observer of the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... shoulders that her affections are not placed elsewhere. Like Portia to Bassanio before he chooses the casket, she throws out hints, calls them back hastily, half lets fall the word, then breaks off the sentence, laying bare her heart to the most ordinary observer, yet despairing of his understanding her. When at last, from the tempest of desire and uncertainty, she passes into the harbour of his assured love, a rapture of content, such as the divinest music brings, fills her soul. Then the shadows ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... Guatemala, and to report upon them, especially in respect to the condition of their native inhabitants. The memoir now published relates chiefly to the territory comprised in the present Republic of San Salvador. It shows Palacio to have been an intelligent observer, and a kindly, well-disposed man,—not free from the superstitions of his time and race, but less credulous than many of his contemporaries. His report is full of matter of value to the historical inquirer, and of entertainment ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... still, nor think, nor deaden her torment. And when at last she threw herself face downward on her bed it was only to sleep the spent sleep of utter exhaustion. But she was "pluck" to the backbone. Next day, when she had bathed and made her toilet, and descended to the breakfast-room, the closest observer could have read nothing of last night in the fixed calm of her face. The worst that could ever happen had happened; she was ready now to live and ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... the only movements noticeable being around the field kitchens in the rear, which were being removed from the battle line. A half hour later any casual observer, glancing over the deserted fields might have laughed at the intimation that the earth around him was harboring thousands of men armed to their teeth, and that pandemonium of hell would break loose within an hour. Barely a sound ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... Duke of York was entirely different he had the reputation of undaunted courage, an inviolable attachment for his word, great economy in his affairs, hauteur, application, arrogance, each in their turn: a scrupulous observer of the rules of duty and the laws of justice; he was accounted a faithful friend, and an ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... till the wealth of their luxuriant death had carpeted the underwood with a thick deposit of steaming foliage. As we ascended the height, every mile in distance brought changes in the botanical growths, which might have passed unnoticed by the ordinary observer or ignorant pioneer. All were noted and commented on by Brande, whose eye was still as keen as his brain had once been brilliant. His usual staid demeanour changed suddenly. He romped ahead of us like a ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... many curious points concerning the prince's bodily exercises and "house-pastimes." A genuine picture of the customs and manners of the age: our royal author had the eye of an observer, and ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... loving but shrewd observer of the people of her world. Lying on her back she saw them at an unusual angle, almost as if they moved on a plane invisible to persons who go about upright on their legs. The four walls of her room concentrated her vision in bounding it. She ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... sense of defeat; it fell back, however, not in confusion, but in perfect order, and the sparse pink mist left upon his crown gave, by a supreme effort, an effect of arrangement, so that an imaginative observer would have declared that there was a part down the middle. The gentleman's plump face bore a grave and troubled expression, and gravity and trouble were patent in all the lines of his figure and in every gesture; in the way he turned his head; in the uneasy shifting ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... seriously by blunt English wits. One may doubt, for example, whether he was really jealous of a puppet tossing a pike, and unconscious of his absurdity in saying "Pshaw! I could do it better myself!" Boswell, however, was too good an observer to misrepresent at random, and he has, in fact, explained very well the true meaning of his remarks. Goldsmith was an excitable Irishman of genius, who tumbled out whatever came uppermost, and revealed the feelings of the moment with utter want of reserve. His self-controlled companions wondered, ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... Johnson excelled greatly in all his namesake's comedies, then frequently acted. He was of all comedians the chastest and closest observer of nature. Johnson never seemed to know that he was before an audience; he drew his character ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... the greater portion of it has no application to Wiltshire, but, on the contrary, consists of Aubrey's notes, chiefly geological and botanical, on every part of England which he had visited; embracing many of the counties. His observations shew him to have been a minute observer of natural appearances and phenomena, and in scientific knowledge not inferior to many of his contemporaries; but, in the present state of science, some of his remarks would be justly deemed ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey
... woman, who seen at any time and in any place would have drawn, if not held, the eye, but seen in her present attitude and at such a moment of question and suspense, struck the imagination with a force likely to fix her image forever in the mind, if not in the heart, of a sympathetic observer. ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... or any other agency is potent to stir Caracunan officialdom to undue speed. Hence the observer from the heights, supposing that he had a personal interest in the proceedings, might have assured himself of ample time to reach the coast before the formalities could be completed and the ship put forth to sea. Had he presently humped ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... deliberation, he took off his glasses, wiped them and put them back on his nose. Then he lighted a fresh cigar. Even an observer less keen than his son could have detected that the major portion of his mind was still occupied by the cablegrams and dictation that had previously engaged him, and that he anticipated no very vital disclosures from ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... in much admiring comment on his vivid and graphic way of reporting. Later it became known that they were the work of Col. Swinton, who was attached to Gen. French's headquarters in the capacity of "official observer." ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... surprised us by his correct judgment of the character of individuals amongst the traders or of our own party, although his knowledge of their opinions was, in most instances, obtained through the imperfect medium of interpretation. He was an attentive observer, however, of every action, and steadily compared their ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin
... An observer could stand in the center of Hiroshima and get a view of the most of the city; the hills prevented a similar overall view in Nagasaki. Hiroshima impressed itself on one's mind as a vast expanse of desolation; but nothing as vivid was left in one's ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... commercial development of the islands has been made since they were virtually granted full access to our markets three years ago, with every prospect of increasing development and diversified industries. Freed from American control such development is bound to decline. Every observer speaks of the great progress in public works for the benefit of the Filipinos, of harbor improvements, of roads and railways, of irrigation and artesian wells, public buildings, and better means of communication. But large parts of the islands are still unreached, still even unexplored, ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... they are providentially differentiated from, their fellow-beings. Sometimes they put too fine a point upon it and wholly fail to make themselves felt. But then again their superior knowledge of the world is patent to the most careless observer. For instance, when Mrs. Corey pays a visit to Mrs. Lapham she apologizes for the lateness of the hour, explaining that her coachman had never been in that part of Boston before. This naturally casts an ineffaceable stigma upon the respectable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... master-hand may be under obligations to the round peg; or the round peg may be a disagreeable peg, or a hundred things: one doesn't know. I am but a humble observer of human nature, and like not these ungracious cavillings at Master O'Rapley. Let us calmly follow this dream, and endeavour to profit by its lessons without ...
— The Humourous Story of Farmer Bumpkin's Lawsuit • Richard Harris
... Murdock was not quite so young as she looked, she was far from appearing her real age, which was twenty-five. A casual observer at most, would have accorded her twenty. In her case Nature had been unusually kind. Her skin was soft as a new-born infant's, her complexion fresh as the unplucked rose, her expression innocent and unsophisticated. A ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow
... was in that house a nun, who was related to me, now grown old, a great servant of God, and a strict observer of the rule. She too warned me from time to time; but I not only did not listen to her, but was even offended, thinking she was scandalized without cause. I have mentioned this in order that my wickedness and the great goodness ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... serves the villas, and so on till he has fairly epistolised both sides of the way, and vanished round the corner. The vision of his gold band and red collar is anxiously looked for in the morning by many a fair face, which a watchful observer may see furtively peering through the drawing-room window-curtains. After he has departed, and the well-to-do merchants and employers who reside in the villas opposite have had time to look over their correspondence, come sundry neat ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various
... centre,—guided the eye of the observer until it rested on an object just visible above the sheen of the water. The colour of this object rendered it the more easy of being distinguished amidst the blue water that surrounded it; for it was blacker than anything which the sea produces,—unless ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... and habits of parsons and ladies there is much that is antagonistic to hunting, and they who suppress this antagonism do so because they are Nimrods at heart. But the riding of these horsemen under difficulties, horsemen and horsewomen, leaves a strong impression on the casual observer of hunting; for to such an one it seems that the hardest riding is forthcoming exactly where no hard riding should be expected. On the present occasion I will, if you please, confine myself to the lady who rides ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... and racial effects of machinery upon the proletariat, the breeders of the world. Speaking for Great Britain, Dr. Freeman suggests that the omnipresence of machinery tends toward the production of large but inferior populations. Evidences of biological and racial degeneracy are apparent to this observer. "Compared with the African negro," he writes, "the British sub-man is in several respects markedly inferior. He tends to be dull; he is usually quite helpless and unhandy; he has, as a rule, no skill or knowledge of handicraft, or indeed knowledge ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... first impulse was to go to her assistance, but she did not need it, as was proven by the light spring with which she reached the ground. The white-haired man was with her again, but he evidently did not intend to stop, and a close observer might have detected a shade of sadness and anxiety upon his face as Madeline called cheerily out to him: "Good-by, grandpa. Don't fear for me; I hope you have good luck;" then, as he drove away, she ran a step after him and said; "Don't look so ...
— Aikenside • Mary J. Holmes
... might have appeared somewhat grotesque to the strictly impartial observer of human nature. Nevertheless he was deeply and genuinely moved, and possibly human nature could have shown nothing more human than Mr. Povey at the moment when, unable any longer to restrain the paroxysm which had so surprisingly overtaken him, he fled from the parlour, passionately, ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... this instant another door opened, and Lady Jane appeared. Luckily for me, the increased mirth of the party, as Lord Callonby informed them of my blunder, prevented their paying any attention to me, for as I half sprung forward toward her, my agitation would have revealed to any observer, the whole state of my feelings. I took her hand which she extended to me, without speaking, and bowing deeply over it, raised my head and looked into her eyes, as if to read at one glance, my fate, and when I let fall her ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... thing of astonishment. But it faded to insignificance as all at once a far, dazzling sheen burst on the watchers. Up against the sky a wondrous, yellow blaze seemed to be burning. Enormously far away as it still was, it filled the heart of every observer with a strange, quick thrill of wonder, of hope. Something of wild exultation seemed to leap through the Legionaries' veins, at sight ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... development are scarcely visible. The darkness which overcast the letters of Russia before Pushkin disappears not slowly, but the sky is lighted up suddenly by innumerable lights. Stars of the first magnitude stud it, now here, now there, until the bewildered observer beholds not twinkling points but shining luminaries. In scarcely half a century Russia has brought forth Pushkin, Lermontof, Gogol, Dostoyefsky, Turgenef, Tolstoy; and as the institutions of Western Europe became russified by the mere wave of an imperial hand, so ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... by the same acute observer, both of Lord Hervey and of Bubb Dodington, that they were the only two persons he ever knew that were always aiming at wit and never finding it.' And here, it seems, most that can be testified in praise of a heartless, clever ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... things into my life?" The half-emptied glasses were drained. Dickey Savage's eyes met Quentin's in a long look of perplexity. At last an almost imperceptible twinkle, suggestive of either mirth or skepticism, manifested itself in his friend's eyes and the puzzled observer was satisfied. ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... heads, a glorified presentment of the Mayo woman's working dress. Here and there, a touch of realism creditable to the Reverend Mother's talent for stage management, one sat in bare feet—not, of course, dust or mud stained, as bare feet are apt to be in Connaught, but clean. The careful observer of detail might have been led to suppose that the Sisters improved upon the practice of the Holy Father himself, and daily washed ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... matter what the weather was, they dressed up in their best suits and visited the little whitewashed cottage. It would have taken a very keen observer to decide which of the young men she cared the most for, or whether, indeed, she had any tender feeling for either of them. Both were always given a most cordial welcome. If, however, Charlie had been a very close observer—which was unfair to expect at such ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... day-time seem dry, dull, and uninteresting, give place at night to the lurid play of the fire fiend, and the heavens and horizon seem like a furnace. It is a grand, yet awful sight. Cheeks blanch as the wind sweeps its volume towards the observer, or across his track. ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... would meet and talk over the gate as Tite passed and re-passed Chapman's house. And Mattie was sure to meet him at the gate as he passed on his way to New York. And then there would be an affectionate good-bye, and Mattie would watch him until he had disappeared beyond the hill. The ordinary observer would have seen in Tite's blushes and confused manner, whenever he met Mattie, how the current of his love was setting. And when he returned at the end of the week there was something for Mattie, some little token of his affection; a proof that he had cherished her in ...
— The Von Toodleburgs - Or, The History of a Very Distinguished Family • F. Colburn Adams
... aspirations, hopes, and faith,—could at all do justice to the distinguished subject. The present book must, therefore, we are sure, give us Channing's character in its completeness, and true harmony and proportions of parts."—Salem Observer. ...
— Hymns, Songs, and Fables, for Young People • Eliza Lee Follen
... Though next in power to God's, continual care. Genius himself (nor here let Genius frown) Must, to ensure his vigour, be laid down, And fallow'd well: had Churchill known but this, Which the most slight observer scarce could miss, He might have flourish'd twenty years or more, Though now, alas! poor man! worn out in four.'[328] 30 Recover'd from the vanity of youth, I feel, alas! this melancholy truth, Thanks to each cordial, each advising friend, And am, if not too late, resolved ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... various disguises during the last two days. More than one of the barracks within the city were assaulted simultaneously, and for a short time companies of men paraded the streets, shouting their cries of "Viva Garibaldi, Viva la liberta!" A few cried "Viva Vittorio!" and "Viva l'Italia!" But a calm observer—and there were many such in Rome that night—could easily see that the demonstration was rather in favour of an anarchic republic than of the Italian monarchy. On the whole, the population showed no sympathy with the insurrection. It is enough ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford
... of days of constant darkness depends on the latitude of the observer. At the pole the sun is not seen for six months, at the Arctic Circle it is invisible, as I have said, for only one day in December. At North Cape and Nordkyn the sun disappears November 18th, and is not seen again till January 24th. That is the reason ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... chop some wood if you are aching to exercise your muscles," answered the widow, with a twinkle in her eyes. She knew that there was plenty of wood stored in the woodhouse, but she was too shrewd an observer to tell Phil so, realizing, as she did, that the obligation he felt for her kindness was too great ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... to by Mr. Vandernoodt, who apparently thought the acquaintance of such a bridegroom worth cultivating; and an incautious person might have supposed it safe to telegraph secrets in front of him, the common prejudice being that your quick observer is one whose eyes have quick movements. Not at all. If you want a respectable witness who will see nothing inconvenient, choose a vivacious gentleman, very much on the alert, with two eyes wide open, a glass in one of them, and an entire impartiality as to ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... exception. Once establish, by clear and unmistakable demonstration, the life history of an organism, and truly some change must have come over nature as a whole, if that life history be not the same to-morrow as to-day; and the same to one observer, in the same ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... are not familiar with the working of "the peculiar institution," can scarcely imagine any one so totally devoid of all natural affection as to sell his own offspring into returnless bondage. But Shakespeare, that great observer ...
— Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom • William and Ellen Craft
... excess and variety to render him sensible of them. He rises, eats, and goes to bed by the Julian account, long after all others that go by the new style, and keeps the same hours with owls and the antipodes. He is a great observer of the Tartars' customs, and never eats till the great Cham, having dined, makes proclamation that all the world may go to dinner. He does not dwell in his house, but haunts it like an evil spirit that walks all night to disturb the family, and never appears by day. He lives perpetually ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... of the women whose wits are quick in everything they do. That which was proper to her position, complexion, and the hour, surely marked her appearance. Unaccountably this night, the fair fleshly presence over-weighted her intellectual distinction, to an observer bent on vindicating her innocence. Or rather, he saw the hidden in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... farther down the lake Martin Sanders sat busily engaged in putting some water-fowl into the foreground of Margery's sketch. A critical observer might have noticed that he had also made a number of changes in said sketch, all of which added greatly to its merits as a picture of woodland scenery. At a little distance Margery was sitting at her easel making a sketch of ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... Allen. "There probably are signs—only nobody has had the incentive—or the interest, maybe—to hunt for those signs up to this time. Although," he added thoughtfully, "there are many ways of camouflaging the entrance to a mine so that a casual observer, even an interested one, possibly, would be fooled—branches, leaves, a rock ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... and that very dearly, was patent to the most superficial observer. Maude, who was not very observant of others, used to notice how his eyes followed her wherever she went, brightened at the sound of her step, and kindled eagerly when she spoke. The Dowager saw it too, with considerable disapproval; and ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... our days, the Provencal poets, who know the Cigale as Anacreon never did, are scarcely more careful of the truth in celebrating the insect which they have taken for their emblem. A friend of mine, an eager observer and a scrupulous realist, does not deserve this reproach. He gives me permission to take from his pigeon-holes the following Provencal poem, in which the relations between the Cigale and the Ant ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the proceeding hither and yon to the tune of almost any "happy thought," and in the interest of almost any branch of culture or invocation of response that might be more easily improvised than not, could positively strike the observer as excessive, as in fact absurd, for the formation of taste or the enrichment of genius, unless the principle of these values had in a particular connection been subjected in advance to some challenge or some test. Why should it take such a flood of suggestion, such a ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke
... of passengers on board, scattered over the decks or lingering in the cabins, as inclination prompted. The observer of faces and character had field enough for study; but Hartley Emerson was not inclined to read in the book of character on this occasion. One subject occupied his thoughts to the exclusion of all others. There had come a period that was full of interest and ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... been as a fellow-observer, and I will add as a fellow-sufferer, with the members of the Convention, that my judgment of the system of slavery among us has been formed. We have seen it seeking to inaugurate, in many instances all too ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... hardly measurable by a man, who walks voluntarily, with his affairs to think about, and his eyes released, by age, from the custom of perpetual observation. The child, compelled to walk, is the only unresting observer of the asphalt, the pavement, the garden gates and railings, and the tedious people. He is bored as he will never be bored when ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... has the double advantage of infinitely multiplying the intensity of sounds, and of introducing them into the ear without causing the observer the least discomfort. You would never have imagined, dear master, the charm which one feels in perceiving these thousands of imperceptible sounds which are confounded, on a fine summer day, in an immense murmuring. The bumble-bee ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... fall, which she ought not to have felt for an hour, or some business man breaks down in the prime of his years from some trifling over-anxiety, which should have left no trace behind, the popular verdict may be 'Mysterious Providence;' but the wiser observer sees the retribution for the folly of those misspent days which enfeebled the childish constitution instead of ripening it. One of the most striking passages in the report of Dr. Ray, before mentioned, is that in which he explains that, 'though study at school is rarely the immediate cause of insanity, ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... arranged themselves as best suited their inclinations, and not far down the line moved a happy quartette—Marjorie and Malcolm, oblivious to everything but each other, and behind them Sandy McQuarry and the stately Duke; and a glance at the faces of the four would have puzzled an observer to guess which pair was at that moment experiencing more of the joy ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... extravagances, amounting to crime, of a man of genius driving on in pursuit of his darling object; and has depicted, as the title promises, with a good deal of power, the plagues of a wife who has such a husband."—Christian Observer. ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... fire. these extensive planes had been lately birnt and the grass had sprung up and was about three inches high. vast herds of Buffaloe deer Elk and Antilopes were seen feeding in every direction as far as the eye of the observer could reach. ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... her long face had no pretensions to beauty, it was thoughtful and interesting in expression. There was no question which was most charming to look at; but if it had come to choice of a companion, an intelligent observer would certainly have decided in favour of the vicar's daughter. Esther's face was particularly grave at this moment, and her eyes met Peggy's with a reproachful glance. What was the matter with the girl this afternoon? Why did she take up everything that Rosalind said in that hasty, ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... love luminosity; it dominates all else, and marks their canvases with light; they restrain the too bold stroke of the radical Impressionist, but outline with firmness, so that details are more easily imagined by the observer, even when an expected delineation is absent. Even the older men, though still under the influence of earlier tradition, show a distinctiveness of style that sets them well apart from their English, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber
... the general current of feeling; but when you are forced to serve your country in any official capacity, and when your eyes are opened to the state of affairs around you, then I allow that an inexperienced observer might well cry out, as my wife did, 'What will become of the world?' I am not prejudiced myself—unnecessary to say that the foolish scruples of the women do not move me. But the devotion of the community at large to this pursuit of gain-money without any grandeur, and pleasure without any ...
— A Beleaguered City • Mrs. Oliphant
... There was continually before my fevered eyes the strange figure of that Nameless Thing. I had often smiled at tales of haunted folk, —here was I one of them. My feelings were not rendered more agreeable by a strengthening conviction that if I had only retained the normal attitude of a scientific observer I should, in all probability, have solved the mystery of my oriental friend, and that his example of the genus of copridae might have been pinned,—by a very large pin!—on a piece—a monstrous piece!—of cork. It was, galling to reflect that he and I had played together ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... heavier than I be." Martin's smile was happily concealed by the darkness; his wife and her sister had both grown stout steadily as they grew older, but each insisted upon the other's greater magnitude and consequent incapacity for quick movement. A casual observer would not have been persuaded that there was a pound's weight ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... tell us about it, and if we judge you're a-tellin' us the truth, mebbe we'll let her go. Till then—" a pause which was filled with a rapid shuffling of feet. The door flew open and in its lighted oblong the observer saw a huddled figure behind which rose a woman's black and shapely head. "Till then," repeated the deep-toned, ringing voice, "get out!" And the huddled man came on a staggering run which ended in a backward fall on the ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... from the well house beneath the old graybeard poplars out past stretches of velvety lawn, with groups of shrubs and trees casting deep shadows even to the kitchen garden, whose long rows of vegetables, bordered with old-fashioned blooming herbs and savories, led the observer out into the meadows to the Home Farm and beyond to the dim line of Paradise Ridge. "It is different and distinctive and—and ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... volumes consecrated to the ground-life of his father, so full of the holy intimacies of the domestic hearth. Once returned from the abysms of the utter North to that little house upon the outskirts of Meudon, it was not the philosopher, the daring observer, the man of iron energy that imposed himself on his family, but a fat and even plaintive jester, a farceur incarnate and kindly, the co-equal of his children, and, it must be written, not seldom the comic despair of Madame Lavalle, who, as she writes five years after the marriage, ...
— With The Night Mail - A Story of 2000 A.D. (Together with extracts from the - comtemporary magazine in which it appeared) • Rudyard Kipling
... faces that were so typical of our race some years ago, and the intense resignation and patience of which rivalled the sweet innocence of our little Irish children for the admiration of such a keen and sympathetic observer as Dr. Newman. There were a few wrinkles in the pallid cheeks, and one or two lines across the white forehead, crowned with the clean white cap which our Irish mothers wear. She looked, I thought, a little reproachfully ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... theory, upon which there might be a chance of their being led away by sophistical representations, but they were inquiring into the existence of facts only — plain demonstrable facts, which were in their own nature palpable to every observer." ["Introduction to the Study of Animal Magnetism," p. 27.] M. Dupotet might not unreasonably be asked whether the very same arguments ought not to be applied to the unfavourable report drawn up by ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... was the approach of Joceline's lips to Phoebe's pretty though sunburnt cheek, in the estimation of the Independent, who, a little before the object of Joceline's vigilance, had been more lately in his turn the observer of the keeper's demeanour, so soon as the interview betwixt Phoebe and him had become so interesting. And when he remarked the closeness of Joceline's argument, he raised his voice to a pitch of harshness that would have rivalled that of an ungreased and rusty ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... tell you, dear ——, as I told my Vevaisan, that this case is a very fair example of the manner in which, for seven years, I have now been an attentive observer of the unworthy arts used to bring us into disrepute. The power to injure, in order to serve their own selfish views, which old-established and great nations possess over one like our own, is not fully appreciated in America, ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the deed, by whomsoever drawn, had nevertheless been drafted upon principles which at first seemed very foreign to any according to which he was in the habit of drafting deeds himself, as for example, that the draftsman had begun to draft a will as a marriage settlement, and so forth—yet an observer would not, I take it, do either of two things. He would not in the face of the result deny the design, making himself judge rather of the method of procedure than of the achievement. Nor yet after insisting ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler
... some known height above ordnance datum should be set up in the hut, preferably on the top of the tube. At each visit the observer should pull the float wire down a short distance, and allow it to return slowly, thus making a vertical mark on the diagram, and should then measure the actual level of the surface of the water below the bench mark in the hut, so that ...
— The Sewerage of Sea Coast Towns • Henry C. Adams
... and close observer was the banker—"a student of men," he called himself. He had been tried in many a way and proved equal to every occasion. He had risen from the ranks to the summit. He, too, they said in Chicago, was "sheer grit." Moreover, they did not ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... love you? Have you gathered nothing in your boudoir experience but pleasant memories? I tell you that everything in our bachelor life leads to fatal errors in the married man unless he is a profound observer of the human heart. In the happy days of his youth a man, by the caprice of our customs, is always lucky; he triumphs over women who are all ready to be triumphed over and who obey their own desires. One thing ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... utility of the article, including the gratification which the user derives from its contemplation as an object of beauty, would immediately decline by some eighty or ninety per cent, or even more; (3) if the two spoons are, to a fairly close observer, so nearly identical in appearance that the lighter weight of the spurious article alone betrays it, this identity of form and color will scarcely add to the value of the machine-made spoon, nor appreciably enhance the gratification of the user's "sense of beauty" in contemplating it, ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... unlimited omnipotence; because by the abuse of brute force, aided by superiority of inventive genius, humanity has been hitherto led by strong masculine wills, and because the strongest feminine wills have been dominated by the law of the right of the stronger. But the unprejudiced observer is soon obliged to recognize that the directive will of the family is only, in general, represented externally by the master. Man parades his authority much more often than he puts it into practice; he lacks the perseverance, tenacity and elasticity which constitute the true power of will, ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... officer would, search our baggage during the night. A search is a blow to one's self-respect, especially if one has anything dutiable. But as the porter might be an agent of our government in disguise, we preserved an appearance of philosophical indifference in his presence. It takes a sharp observer to tell innocence from assurance. During the night, awaking, I saw a great light. A man, crawling along the aisle of the car, and poking under the seats, had found my traveling-bag ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... due to the change of position of the magnet will therefore be felt in some degree throughout space. In a second and a third of a second it will have reached the moon, and a magnet there will be in some measure affected by it. If there were an observer there with a delicate-enough magnet, he could be witness to its changes once a second for the same reason one in the room could. The only difference would be one of amount of swing. It is therefore theoretically possible to signal to the moon with a swinging ...
— The Machinery of the Universe - Mechanical Conceptions of Physical Phenomena • Amos Emerson Dolbear
... how far talent can go unaccompanied by the divine breath of inspiration. She has perhaps almost too much facility; she has dignity, good taste, an excellent command of a wide variety of metrical effects; she has read ancient and modern authors, she is a keen observer, she is as alert and inquisitive now, as in the days of her youth; and loves to use her abilities in cultivating the fruits of the spirit. I suspect that with the modesty that so frequently accompanies good taste, she understands her own limitations ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... the contrary, he showed such an inclination to trust to chance that a close observer of his looks and actions might have seen cause to suspect that he had also some reliance ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid
... whether the marriage would turn out as satisfactorily as the young man appeared to anticipate. Was there not, when one came to think of it, a melancholy, a pessimism ingrained within the temperament of the complainful hero that would ill assort with those instincts toward frivolity the careful observer could not avoid discerning in the charming yet nevertheless ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... not an accurate observer; he looked at the world from the narrow stand-point of his own temple. Here in New York he could not have truthfully said that all was vanity, for even a more ill-natured satirist than he must have confessed that there was in this new temple ...
— Esther • Henry Adams
... successful operation on January 27, 1917. Owing to the blizzard weather the Germans evidently did not expect an attack, perhaps thinking that the British would remain under shelter as they were doing. No unusual preparation seemed to be going on within the British lines that would suggest to an outside observer that an important military operation was about to be launched. But in the British trenches well prepared and organized troops were waiting the order to attack. Suddenly the British batteries spoke in thunderous tones, showering German ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... 10,000? If that number of persons were gathered together into a single hall or amphitheatre, could an estimate be made by the average onlooker which would approximate with any degree of accuracy the size of the assembly? Or if an observer were stationed at a certain point, and 10,000 persons were to pass him in single file without his counting them as they passed, what sort of an estimate would he make of their number? The truth seems to be that our mental conception of number is much more limited ...
— The Number Concept - Its Origin and Development • Levi Leonard Conant
... newcomer soon became something more than that of a critical observer; he hired out to him, and says with pride, "I made every pin which went ...
— McClure's Magazine December, 1895 • Edited by Ida M. Tarbell
... not been an inattentive observer of the manners of the people among whom he had lived; he conducted himself with the greatest propriety at table, particularly in the observance of those attentions which are chiefly requisite in the presence of women. His dress appeared to be ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... with religious philosophy. What vast revolutions (vast for the individual) within how narrow a circle! What blindness to approaching catastrophes, in the midst of what nearness to the light! And for myself, whom accident had made the silent observer of these changes, was it not likely enough that I also was rushing forward to court and woo some frantic mode of evading an endurance that by patience might have been borne, or by thoughtfulness might have been ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... his mental eye, keen-sighted and far-sighted as it is, overlooks the merciful modifications of the austere code whose pitiless action it so clearly discerns. In his long and patient brooding over the spiritual phenomena of Puritan life, it is apparent, to the least critical observer, that he has imbibed a deep personal antipathy to the Puritanic ideal of character; but it is no less apparent that his intellect and imagination have been strangely fascinated by the Puritanic idea ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... the percepts of common experience are facts for the physicist, and constructions for the philosopher; the same applies to a table of numerical results, for the scholar who is trying to establish a theory, or for the observer and the psychologist. We may then conceive a series in which each term is fact in relation to those which follow it, and constructed in relation to those which precede it. The expression "primitive fact" then determines not so much a final object as a direction of thought, ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... you say?" Muriel's voice sounded curiously strained. Her knitting lay jumbled together in her lap. Her dark face was lifted, and it seemed to Grange, unskilled observer though he was, that he had never seen deeper tragedy in ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... other agency is potent to stir Caracunan officialdom to undue speed. Hence the observer from the heights, supposing that he had a personal interest in the proceedings, might have assured himself of ample time to reach the coast before the formalities could be completed and the ship put forth to sea. Had he presently humped himself to his feet with a sluggish effort, abandoned his ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... introduction of the work itself. Its primary object is not to discuss the obligation of Synods to adopt the doctrinal basis of the Platform. What we felt it a duty to the church to publish on that subject, we have presented in the Lutheran Observer. But the pamphlet of the Rev. Mann, entitled Plea for the Augsburg Confession, having called in question the accuracy of some of the interpretations of that Confession contained in the Definite Synodical Platform, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... political complications which surround us. They are by no means as violent or as many as in Thackeray's day, when the great English author found nine shades of politico-religious differences in the Irish Liverpool. As the impartial observer must, in such a case, necessarily displease eight parties, and probably the whole nine, Thackeray advised a rigid abstinence from all intellectual curiosity. Dr. La Touche says, if we wish to know the north better, it will do us no harm to study the ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... of these terrible events. Of a courageous and energetic disposition, he pursued the duties of his profession with a firm step, and hid his mighty sorrow deep in the recesses of his heart. To the superficial observer, tears, groans, and lamentations are the only proofs of sorrow: and when they subside, the sorrow is said to have passed away also. Thus the captive, immured within the walls of his prison-house, is as one dead to the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... is wisely combined, it constitutes a spiritual reenforcement of incomparable energy. It acts like an emancipation. It gives a sense of freedom and newness. The untrained observer sees it mainly in those cases where the turn has come in some dramatic form and where the contrast between the old and new life is most demonstrable. But the saving force is at work even when it seeps in through ...
— The Social Principles of Jesus • Walter Rauschenbusch
... in the interest of the Indians in the dance, a close observer would have had no difficulty in perceiving that Nelly was preoccupied. She was, indeed, intently listening for the signal. She was afraid to move from among the others lest her absence should be at once detected, but so long as the noise was going on she despaired of being able to hear ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... not but recognise the correlation of structure to function, for this is a fact which imposes itself upon every observer. He recognised also correlation between functions, as when he pointed out the connection between increased respiration and enhanced muscular activity in birds.[125] He interpreted structure at times in terms ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... way in that direction. It looked as if he were wounded; or, still more, as if he were ill. He wavered as he came down the slope and seemed flinging himself into peculiar postures. But it was only when he came within three feet of MacIan's face, that that observer of mankind fully realized that Mr. James ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... so prejudiced an observer as you, Jim. I've looked the facts squarely in the face. You can't realize how much the power of millions means to a woman who chafes at the limitations the world puts on her sex. My imagination has been set on fire by dreams of splendour ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... moving heaven and earth to bring back Pitt to power. But, even in December 1803, when his whole soul was bound up in him, he reproached him with lover-like vehemence for having inspired a derogatory article in the "Accurate Observer." Apparently the wounded friend had no proof whatever that Pitt had sped or barbed ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... said. "I'm placing my career in the balance. If I attempt this, and goof, ship me to the sticks, Major. I'd rather spend the rest of my BSG years as a corporal, a simple Potlatch Observer in a downstate village, than never to have embarked ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... no one ignorant of the fact would ever have suspected that his mind was unsettled as he moved among the guests, talking to one another with that pleasant, courtly manner so natural to him. A very close observer, however, might have seen his eyes dilate and even flash with some sudden emotion when his brother's wife passed him and her brilliant diamonds, his gift, sparkled in the bright gaslight. The setting was rather peculiar, but Mrs. ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... analytical procedure. If left too long, the combined effect of light and dust from the air will cause a reduction of the ferric compounds already formed and a resultant blue will appear which misleads the observer with respect to the ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... more distinguished. His remarks upon the company in general were so apt, so just, so lively, I am almost surprised myself that they did not reanimate me; but, indeed, I was too well convinced of the ridiculous part I had myself played before so nice an observer, to be able to enjoy his pleasantry: so self-compassion gave me feeling for others. Yet I had not the courage to attempt either to defend them or to rally in my turn; but listened ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... peopled. . . . Still—why this curious eagerness, this—it was indecipherable . . . no doubt his lively imagination was playing him tricks. Probably she was merely sympathetic. . . . And then, toward the end of the dinner, her manner changed, although too subtly for any but the detached observer to notice it. To Clavering she seemed to go dead under her still animated face. He saw her eyes wander from Dinwiddie's bald head to Osborne's flattened cheek . . . her lip curled, a look of fierce contempt flashed in her eyes before ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... did not go to Australia—as he was variously importuned—but enough is given to show that, in spite of his literary associations with old London and its institutions, Charles Dickens was, for a fact, a very cosmopolitan observer. ...
— Dickens' London • Francis Miltoun
... time was the simple instrument used to discover the latitude, which it would give to a nice observer to within five or ten miles. Quadrants and sextants were the invention of a much later period. Indeed, considering that they had so little knowledge of navigation and the variation of the compass, ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... she has!" Mrs. Bean leaned further out, her eyes distended with awful curiosity, her fat lips dropping apart. She was not a pleasant object, the hidden observer thought; but she was no worse than the skinny cabbage-stalk which now stretched itself far out from the ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... disbelieve the foolish legend, that the appearance of a comet foretold four certain events—heat, wind, war, and the death of princes. At the same time, not being superstitious, he held aloof from the crazy science of astrology and all the fraud connected with it. Indeed, as an observer of Nature, and still more as a follower and furtherer of the scholastic Aristotelian natural philosophy, he shewed a leaning towards the theory of development, for, according to him, the more highly organized structures proceed from those ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... abstractions and generalities, make it quite too hot for him since they are converged to a burning focus upon his devoted head. Why is it, for example, that the influence of the Boston Recorder and New-York Observer—why is it, that the influence of most of our titled divines—is decidedly hostile to the abolition of slavery? It is not because they are deficient in just general sentiments and principles respecting man's duties to God and his fellow man. It is simply because they stand opposed to the application ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... significance because it escapes our intelligence, to which we may attain by way of one sense only. Deep repose, mysterious refreshment for Swann,—for him whose eyes, although delicate interpreters of painting, whose mind, although an acute observer of manners, must bear for ever the indelible imprint of the barrenness of his life,—to feel himself transformed into a creature foreign to humanity, blinded, deprived of his logical faculty, almost a fantastic unicorn, a chimaera-like creature conscious ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... impresses the close observer who is visiting in the country and in farm homes is that there exists in some rural localities a kind of "leveling down" process. People become accommodated to their rather quiet and unexciting ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... To the ordinary observer there would have been nothing remarkable in the appearance of the little room, save its entirely unexpected air of luxury and refinement. There was a small Chippendale sideboard against the wall, a round, gate-legged table on which stood a blue china bowl filled with ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... removed from Government House, Niagara, to a cavalier bastion at Fort George, for final sepulture. This bastion was selected by Major Glegg, it being the one which Brock's own genius had lately suggested—the one from which the range of an observer's vision covered the principal points of approach—and had just been ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... been clear to any observer, had there been one present, that Mr Maguire had practised his lesson. He could not rid himself of those unmistakable signs of preparation which every speaker shows when he has been guilty of them. But ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... not through any feeling of prejudice, having never been mixed up in the Brann-Baylor trouble, but solely in the interest of the truth. I can understand how an excited observer, seeing Mr. Ward extend his hand to get Davis' pistol and seeing immediately the fire of the same, might have thought that Ward did the shooting, and it was this mistake that caused ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... this arsenal, are arranged in racks, set up for the purpose, along the immense halls, where they stand upright in rows of glittering steel, and so closely resemble the pipes of an organ that the propriety of Longfellow's simile suggests itself at once to every observer:— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... nest of this species, the Black-throated Babbler, but Mr. Gammie, a careful observer, in whose neighbourhood (Rungbee, near Darjeeling) this bird is very abundant, has taken many nests, two of which he has sent me, ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... hear she's a widow," said he. "She—she might strike a casual observer as somewhat young, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... another thing here, viz.: this name suggests that the clear impression made by our conduct and character, as well as by our words, should be that we belong to Jesus Christ. The eye of an outside observer may be unable to penetrate the secret of the deep sweet tie uniting us to Jesus, but there should be no possibility of the most superficial and hasty glance overlooking the fact that we are His. He should manifestly be the centre and the guide, the impulse and the pattern, the strength ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... A careful observer and nature-lover gives us a familiar account of the wonderful lives of the little brook creatures. The insects mentioned in these pages are those of Alameda County, California, but members of the same families will be ...
— A Mother's List of Books for Children • Gertrude Weld Arnold
... disadvantage of all concerned—but take the opportunity to give the continent a general survey, both to keep in view the utilization of the weed, whether or not it could be conquered; and whatever possibilities a lay observer might see as to ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... 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 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Dwight D. Eisenhower • Dwight D. Eisenhower
... same with the walls covered with those barbaric and hieratic figures, the traditional designs for which the Greek monks of Mount Athos have preserved from century to century, and which, in Russia, often deceive the careless observer regarding the age of a building. It is a peculiar sensation to find yourself in these mysterious sanctuaries, where personages familiar to the Roman Catholic cult, mingle with the saints peculiar ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... stealthily from him to the others. No one paid any attention, and for that Bud was rather thankful; he did not want the Little Lost fellows to think that perhaps he had done something which he knew would hang him if it were discovered, which, he decided, was the mildest interpretation a keen observer would be apt to make ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... the earlier part of the period that an observer visiting one church after another would have noticed the great differences in points of order. Such departures from uniformity were slight as compared to what they had been in the reigns of Elizabeth or Charles the First, ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... signal-pole, throwing in touches of Vattel, and otherwise superintending duty, and dispensing opinions. All this time, the cat in the grass does not watch the bird that hops along the ground with keener vigilance than he kept his eye on the Foam. To an ordinary observer, the two ships presented the familiar spectacle of vessels sailing in the same direction, with a very equal rate of speed; and as the course was that necessary to clear the Channel, most of the passengers, and, indeed, the greater ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... coachman, uncurled his bandy legs as soon as the equipage drew up opposite Miss Pinkerton's shining brass plate, and as he pulled the bell at least a score of young heads were seen peering out of the narrow windows of the stately old brick house. Nay, the acute observer might have recognized the little red nose of good-natured Miss Jemima Pinkerton herself, rising over some geranium pots in the window ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... devoted a great deal of time to the arrangement of a system of reflectors, by which he hoped to make it possible to look down into the cylinder of light produced by the Artesian ray without projecting any portion of the body of the observer into the ray. This had been done principally to provide against the possibility of a shock to Margaret, such as he received when he beheld a man with the upper part of his body totally invisible, and a section of the other portion laid bare to the eye of a person standing ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... favoured with windows, of which it has one for every day in the year. I was there in an ordinary year, and saw 365; how they manage in leap-year I do not know. The view from the belvedere of this palace well repays the observer. It takes in the old and new town, the noble river with its two bridges (the ancient venerable-looking stone structure, and the graceful suspension-bridge, six hundred paces long), and the hills round about, clothed with gardens, among ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... opinion, from the very first, went much further, and ascribed this protection to the Sovereign Pontiff likewise when acting alone and unsupported. This is so well known, that even the late Mr. Gladstone, speaking as an outside observer, and as a mere student of history, positively brings it as a charge against the Catholic Church that "the Popes, for well-nigh a thousand years, have kept up, with comparatively little intermission, their claim to dogmatic infallibility" (Vat. p. 28). Still, the point remained ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... upholder of female suffrage—and when some of his admiring critics talk of his "ideals of beauty and power," then I know the game is up—the prophet, the dogmatist, the pedant, not the poet, artist, and witty observer of life, are ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the most remarkable of the famous seven sages. For he was the first of the Greeks to discover the science of geometry, was a most accurate investigator of the laws of nature, and a most skilful observer of the stars. With the help of a few small lines he discovered the most momentous facts: the revolution of the years, the blasts of the winds, the wanderings of the stars, the echoing miracle of thunder, ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... of men be hereafter delegated for this or some similar purpose, I offer them the following extracts from that wise observer on governments DRAGONETTI. "The science" says he "of the politician consists in fixing the true point of happiness and freedom. Those men would deserve the gratitude of ages, who should discover a mode of government that contained the greatest sum of individual happiness, with ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... simply judicial and not legislative powers. Such a contention struck at once at Cromwell's work of restoring the old political forms of English life: and the reappearance of Parliamentary strife threw him at last, says an observer at his court, "into a rage and passion like unto madness." What gave weight to it was the growing strength of the Royalist party, and its hopes of a coming rising. Such a rising had in fact been carefully prepared; ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... lawyer had subsided into the sleek, well-conditioned country gentleman. But there was at times a certain restlessness of the eye, and a nervous twitching at the corners of the mouth, which, to a keen observer, would indicate that he was not always the quiet, self-possessed person that he would have his neighbors to believe. The business on which they had met had been interrupted by the entrance of a servant with a note to Sir Ralph, but, on his leaving the room, the conversation ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... of a town whose bombarding had not been notified. Another Taube caused, through the throwing of a bomb, a fire at the Cathedral of Notre Dame. You cannot, to excuse such an assault, invoke the pretext put forward to excuse the destruction of the Cathedral of Rheims. No observer could have caught sight of a German soldier from the top of ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Englishman whose manners seemed to me so agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the nicest observer could not detect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... was very different. There was a child-like openness and ingenuousness of manner about her which quickly revealed to the observer not only the salient points, but also the finer gradations, of her character and temperament; and I believe that I had a clearer insight into both at the time that I thus hastily offered myself, ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... successive stages of development are scarcely visible. The darkness which overcast the letters of Russia before Pushkin disappears not slowly, but the sky is lighted up suddenly by innumerable lights. Stars of the first magnitude stud it, now here, now there, until the bewildered observer beholds not twinkling points but shining luminaries. In scarcely half a century Russia has brought forth Pushkin, Lermontof, Gogol, Dostoyefsky, Turgenef, Tolstoy; and as the institutions of Western Europe became russified by the mere wave of an imperial ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... bearing a closer analogy to each other than has hitherto been admitted. I do not pretend to assert that they are the same disease, but only that they are so nearly allied, as on some occasion, to lead even an experienced observer into an error of diagnosis. The great difference between them consists in the frequency of the affection of the lymphatic glands in the plague, and its comparative rareness in yellow fever; and in the greater predominance of gastric symptoms in the latter. ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... the nature of human intelligence. The difficulty consists in the fact that these laws and rules, on whose fulfilment beauty depends, are not consciously present in the mind of the artist who creates the work, or of the observer who contemplates it." Nevertheless they are discoverable, and can be formulated, after a fashion. We have only to read aright the lessons everywhere portrayed in the vast picture-books of ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... is a keen observer, and he takes on very clear and vivid impressions of men and affairs. He hates compromises and qualifications, and just lets you have his opinion—"biff!" as ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... seemed to modify papa Ah Chun's lean angles, so that the daughters were willowy without being lathy, round-muscled without being chubby. In every feature of every face were haunting reminiscences of Asia, all manipulated over and disguised by Old England, New England, and South of Europe. No observer, without information, would have guessed, the heavy Chinese strain in their veins; nor could any observer, after being informed, fail to note immediately the ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... the hostile artillery position was important and should have been sent in, provided you think your description of the hostile position was sufficiently clear to be understood by an observer within ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... bushy tail. He had a handsome head, good, muscular limbs, and a beautiful coat of greyish-yellow color, rather dark on the back and head, but much lighter and softer underneath the body and on the insides of the legs. His bright, full eyes changed color repeatedly, but, to a close observer, one dominant expression was always in them—an expression of the ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin
... more than an observer. Orders were sent direct to the right wing or reserve, ignoring me, and advances were made from one line of intrenchments to another without notifying me. My position was so embarrassing in fact that I made several applications during the ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... the less were very clean about the barrels and the locks. At times there were dozens of these guns and rifles to be seen on the wall at Uncle Jim's hotel. The visible supply fluctuated somewhat. Any observer of industrial economics might have discovered it to move up or down in unison with the current amount visible of the ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... the paper-littered table. For another hour and a half they stayed there, and it would have been curious for an observer to see how, in this business, Ronder obtained an absolute mastery. Foster, the fire dead in his eyes, the light gone, followed him blindly, agreeing to everything, wondering at the clearness, order and discipline of his plans. An hour ago, treading the soil of his own country, he had feared ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... wanton baboon, who giggles while he slays, and gambols over the ruin he has accomplished. Such is the actual government to which France is given up, and after eighteen months' experience, the best qualified, most judicious and profoundest observer of the Revolution will find nothing to compare it to but the invasion of the Roman Empire in the fourth century.[1302] "The Huns, the Heruli, the Vandals, and the Goths will come neither from the north nor from the Black Sea; they are ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... The same may be said in regard to the phenomena of libration; the inclination of the moon's axis to the plane of her orbit is really small, but is purposely exaggerated in this apparatus in order to make the results apparent; in the position represented, it is quite obvious that an observer upon the earth can see a little past one pole, and cannot quite see the other, as well as that this condition will be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... or council of state, failed to appease the factious opposition, and are charged by Sir Rutherford with not being really desirous of securing foreigners from injurious treatment even from the hands of their own officials. A candid observer, on reviewing all the circumstances of the case, will absolve the Government of the tycoon from the charge of complicity in the injurious treatment from which foreigners have suffered. It must be admitted that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No 3, September 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... person could reasonably hope for or expect; and more—that its officers and professors are entitled to great credit and much praise, for securing under so much discouragement, that degree of success which is apparent here even to the casual observer; and claim of us, and are entitled to receive at our hands, a proper and just recognition of their valuable services, and the fidelity with which they ...
— Address delivered by Hon. Henry H. Crapo, Governor of Michigan, before the Central Michigan Agricultural Society, at their Sheep-shearing Exhibition held at the Agricultural College Farm, on Thursday, • Henry Howland Crapo
... careless observer—and Jack was not that—would have been struck with the dewy freshness of the grass and shrubbery and the magnificent splendor of the Eastern sky; and Jack, on his way to the barn, drew a deep ...
— Rainbow Hill • Josephine Lawrence
... luminaries. Starting with this belief the priests built up the theory of the close correspondence between occurrences on earth and phenomena in the heavens. The heavens presenting a constant change even to the superficial observer, the conclusion was drawn of a connexion between the changes and the ever-changing movement in the fate of individuals and of nature as well as in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... floating chains often many yards in length. He explained that the word individual covers at least three quite different kinds of conceptions. There is, first, what he described as arbitrary individuality, an individuality which is given by the mind of the observer and does not actually exist in the thing considered. Thus a landscape is in a sense an individual thing, but only so far as it is a particular part of the surface of the earth, isolated for the time in the mind of the person looking at it. If ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... function of something else; in brief, the reign of the slovenly makeshift, shameless, filthy, and picturesque. Edwin himself seemed no tabernacle for that singular flame. He was not merely untidy and dirty—at his age such defects might have excited in a sane observer uneasiness by their absence; but his gestures and his gait were untidy. He did not mind how he walked. All his sprawling limbs were saying: "What does it matter, so long as we get there?" The angle of the slatternly bag across his shoulders was an insult to the flame. And yet the flame ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... immeasurable power and excellence, give us no determinate conception of the thing, nor do they inform us what the thing may be in itself. They merely indicate the relation existing between the magnitude of the object and the observer, who compares it with himself and with his own power of comprehension, and are mere expressions of praise and reverence, by which the object is either magnified, or the observing subject depreciated in relation to the object. Where we have to do with ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
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