"Ocular" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... well as the Secretary, who opens and reads the letters, what a set is made at the man marked by a stroke of notoriety. Oh the varieties of dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for the gold dust of the Golden Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected with half-crowns, forty-two parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings, seven-and-twenty organs ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... her thoughtfully as she gathered the torn pieces of manuscript and tucked them into the pocket of her jacket—ocular evidence of the success of her mission. She reminded him of Lizzie Connolly, though there was less of fire and gorgeous flaunting life in her than in that other girl of the working class whom he had seen twice. But they were on a par, the pair of them, in dress and carriage, and he smiled ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... they expose the articles contained in their Mid[-e]/ sacks and explain and expatiate upon the merits and properties of each of the magic objects. The candidate for the first time learns of the manner of preparing effigies, etc., with which to present to the incredulous ocular demonstration of the genuineness and divine origin of the Mid[-e]/wiwin, or, as it is ...
— The Mide'wiwin or "Grand Medicine Society" of the Ojibwa • Walter James Hoffman
... The execution of this idea is said by Mr. Guyot to have been attempted by Father Cassel without much success. If this should be again attempted, there is another curious coincidence between sounds and colours, discovered by Dr. Darwin of Shrewsbury, and explained in a paper on what he calls Ocular Spectra, in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. LXXVI. which might much facilitate the execution of it. In this treatise the Doctor has demonstrated, that we see certain colours, not only with greater ease ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... be done? If a continuous field of ice lay 150 miles off the southern coast of Spitzbergen, what would be the chance of getting to the land by going further north? Now that we had received ocular proof of the veracity of the Hammerfest skipper in this first particular, was it likely that we should have the luck to find the remainder of his story untrue? According to the track he had jotted down for me on the chart, the ice ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... received in the past year. Every town, village, and suburb was supposed to be specially cared for by its patron Saint, and when circumstances permitted it there was a religious procession, which was intended to impress on the minds of the faithful the virtue of the intercessors by ocular demonstration. Vast sums of money were expended from time to time in adornment of the images, the adoration of which seemed to be tinctured with pantheistic feeling, as if these symbols were part of ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... somewhere that Scotsmen and Chinamen understand each other better than any other nationalities on the globe do, but this was the first time he had had a first-hand ocular demonstration that the Chinaman appreciated the Doric of Robbie Burns, when delivered with ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... Devil into a quandary; but of this anon. Your prince shall be for the present a thoroughly honest fellow. I will tell you nothing of the result of the observations I have made upon him; for, from what I have learnt at the minister's, there is something going forward which will soon give you ocular demonstration of his worth; till then keep the idea you have formed of him in your bosom, and tell me what is your opinion of Count C., ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... cause of it, and getting an exact information of the trades, characters, families, and circumstances of the unhappy sufferers, he immediately assumed the person and name of one of them; and burning some part of his coat and hat, as an ocular demonstration of his narrow escape, he made the best of his way to places at some distance, and there passed for one who had been burnt out; and to gain credit, showed a paper signed with the names ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... good-naturedly agreed; and though troubled with a shortness of breathing, laboured up a long flight of steps, till we came to the place where the wonderous chest stood. 'THERE, (said Cateot, with a bouncing confident credulity,) THERE is the very chest itself.' After this OCULAR DEMONSTRATION, there was no more to be said. He brought to my recollection a Scotch Highlander, a man of learning too, and who had seen the world, attesting, and at the same time giving his reasons for the authenticity of Fingal:—'I have heard all that poem when I was young.'—'Have you, ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... of his fortune." Upon the whole, I was sadly vexed and puzzled, but, at length, I concluded to make a virtue of necessity—to dig with a good will, and thus the sooner to convince the visionary, by ocular demonstration, of the fallacy of ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... 370). In the cervical vertebrae the transverse processes represent the ribs. The skull consists of four vertebrae, the occipital, the parietal, the frontal and the nasal, or, named after the sense with which each is associated, the auditory, the lingual, the ocular and the olfactory. The "bodies" of these vertebrae are the body of the occipital (basioccipital), the two bodies of the sphenoid (basi- and pre-sphenoid), and the vomer. The transverse processes of each are the condyles of ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... eve of the day when Babalatchi's suspicions were confirmed by ocular demonstration, Dain and Nina had remained longer than usual in their shady retreat. Only Almayer's heavy step on the verandah and his querulous clamour for food decided Mrs. Almayer to lift a warning cry. Maroola leaped lightly over the low bamboo fence, and made his way stealthily through ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... track to regain the beach, they still observed caution,—though perhaps not to such a degree as when approaching the camp. Their desire to put space between themselves and the barbarous denizens of the Desert,—of whose barbarity they had now obtained both ocular and auricular proof,—had very naturally deprived them of that prudent coolness which the occasion required. For all that, they did not retreat with reckless rashness; and all three arrived at the bottom of the sloping sand-ridge, without having any reason ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... another look at the contents of the bag, hoping that he had been deceived by some ocular delusion, but the second examination brought him no comfort. He sank back, feeling in a state of mental and ...
— The Young Miner - or Tom Nelson in California • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... by Parallax the same morning was creditable to his ingenuity. Nothing better, perhaps, was ever devised to deceive people, apparently by ocular evidence, into the belief that the earth is flat—nor is there any clearer evidence of the largeness of the earth's globe compared with our ordinary measures. On the Hoe, some ninety or a hundred feet above the sea-level, he had a mirror suspended in a vertical position facing ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... satisfy me,' said Darsie; 'I must see my friend instantly; he is here, and he is here endangered on my account only—I have heard violent exclamations—the clash of swords. You will gain no point with me unless I have ocular demonstration of ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... (a) Ocular Inspection.—Blood-stains on dark-coloured materials, which in daylight might be easily overlooked, may be readily detected by the use of artificial light, as that of a candle, brought near the cloth. Blood-spots when recent are of a bright ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson
... nevertheless, insisted, and the capture of two quarter-pounders with a red palmer, and several short rises, rewarded my efforts in his interests. If he has not received my counsel, and laid it to heart, it will not be because he did not have ocular demonstration of the virtues of fly-fishing. I was not surprised to hear that these club fish were not free risers at the fly, for both ponds were swarming with half-inch and one-inch fry, as tempting ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... those very gentlemen—who well know that the path of this army from Whitemarsh to Valley Forge might have been tracked by the blood of footprints, and that not a boot or shoe had since been issued by the commissaries: who are well apprised of the nakedness of the troops from ocular demonstration; whom I myself informed of the fact that some brigades had been four days without meat, and were unsupplied with the very straw to save them from sleeping on the bare earth floors of the huts, so that one-third of this army should be ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... otherwise endowed. So "a poet is born, not made." So persons of feeble frame, stimulated by disease or frenzied by passion, have put forth preternatural and prodigious muscular strength. By what we call "clairvoyant" power life calls up in intelligent perception things going on far beyond ocular vision. By what we call "telepathic" power life communicates intelligence with life separated by miles of space. Such are some of the powers that have been discovered, and fully attested, but not explained, ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... is this!" continued Dudley, throwing up the robe of the captive, and giving his companions the ocular evidence which had so satisfactorily removed all his own doubts. "Though the color of the skin may not be proof positive, like that named by our neighbor Ergot, it is still something, in helping a man of little learning to make up an opinion in such ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... cheers. What with that and the consequent noise of breaking up the meeting, you'd thought the inhabitants of the infernal regions had broke loose. For my part, I went contentedly home and finished my tea, but was soon informed what was going forward. Not crediting it without ocular demonstration, I went and was satisfied. They mustered, I'm told, upon Fort Hill, to the number of about two hundred, and proceeded, two by two, to Griffin's wharf, where Hall, Bruce and Coffin lay.... The latter arrived at the wharf only the day ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... microscope on the kitchen table and plugged in the substage illumination. Then, while the others watched, he selected a well slide, took his pipette, and captured a drop from the jar of pool water. The drop went into the well slide. He put on a cover glass, then applied his eye to the ocular. ...
— The Blue Ghost Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... little party, consisting of Maria Lobbs and her cousin Kate, and three or four romping, good-humoured, rosy-cheeked girls. Nathaniel Pipkin had ocular demonstration of the fact, that the rumours of old Lobbs's treasures were not exaggerated. There were the real solid silver teapot, cream-ewer, and sugar-basin, on the table, and real silver spoons to stir the tea with, and real china cups to drink it ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... say that capital sets toward the most profitable trades, and that it rapidly leaves the less profitable and non-paying trades. But in ordinary countries this is a slow process, and some persons, who want to have ocular demonstrations of abstract truths, have been inclined to doubt it because they could not see it. The process would be visible enough if you could only see the books of the bill-brokers and the bankers. If the iron-trade ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... the common stories of phantoms by attributing them to ocular illusion, aided or not aided by the imagination or by particular conditions of the bodily or mental health. The eye, of course, is never quite proof against deception, but there needs some little material for it; and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... practice, the increased valuation would probably not be made by the assessor in the manner just described. Instead of determining the rate of growth scientifically and applying it annually, he now makes an ocular reappraisement at considerable intervals. In most cases there is no increased value, for the land does not reforest but is continually reburned. Where it accidentally does reforest, he makes a rough calculation of the value of the second growth, based ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... before himself in this and in all his other studies: 'We are not magisterial in opinions, nor have we dictator-like obtruded our conceptions: but, in the humility of inquiries or disquisitions, have only proposed them to more ocular discerners. And we shall so far encourage contradiction as to promise no disturbance, or re- oppose any pen, that shall fallaciously or captiously refute us. And shall only take notice of such whose experimental and judicious knowledge shall be employed, not to traduce ...
— Sir Thomas Browne and his 'Religio Medici' - an Appreciation • Alexander Whyte
... the fertility of the queen to 200, or at most 400 eggs per day, the rapid replenishing of the hive after swarming, must ever be a problem incapable of solution; but to those who have ocular demonstration that she can lay from one to three thousand eggs a day, it is no mystery at all. A sufficient number of bees is always left behind, to carry on the domestic operations of the hive, and as the old queen departs only when the population of the hive is super-abundant; and when thousands ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... The final ocular demonstration of the passage of the blood from the arteries to the veins was not to be made until four years after Harvey's death. This process, which can be observed easily in the web of a frog's foot by the aid of a low-power lens, was first demonstrated by Marcello ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Egyptians were far from being in the same high state of civilization as their forefathers had been in earlier times. The history and monuments of ancient Egypt have many accounts and representations of musical instruments, and remains of these have lately been discovered, so that we have ocular demonstration both ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... most kindly undertaken for me this investigation with the aid of the many ingenious mechanisms of modern science, and has published the results.[15] He shows that during violent expiration the external, the intra-ocular, and the retro-ocular vessels of the eye are all affected in two ways, namely by the increased pressure of the blood in the arteries, and by the return of the blood in the veins being impeded. It is, therefore, certain ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... I was astonished when I understood this circumstance. I could not trust to the evidence of my own senses, and should have still believed her innocent, in spite of ocular demonstration, had not she, in the terrors of being tried for felony, promised to make a very material discovery to the Countess, provided she would take such measures ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... than one writer of reputation had lately begun to turn their attention; though dramas not designed for the stage seem to most readers defective in their very conception, as lacking the stimulus which the intention of submitting them to the extemporaneous ocular judgement of the public can alone impart. Among such works, however, "The Mysterious Mother" is admitted to rank high for vigorous description and poetic imagery. A greater popularity, which even at the present day has not wholly passed ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... a strong, opaque, fibrous membrane, which, in a great measure, maintains the form of the eyeball and protects the more delicate structures within it. Its interior portion, which is covered by the ocular conjunctiva, is commonly known as the "white of the eye." In form it is bell-shaped, and the optic nerve pierces it behind like a handle, the perforation being a little to its inner side. In front, the rim of the bell becomes continuous ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... Philip, I believe," replied Krantz; "for I too have had ocular proof of the correctness of a part of your history. Remember how often I have seen this Phantom Ship—and if your father is permitted to range over the seas, why should you not be selected and permitted to reverse his doom? I fully believe every word that you have ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... sight, optics, eyesight. view, look, espial[obs3], glance, ken, coup d'oeil[Fr]; glimpse, glint, peep; gaze, stare, leer; perlustration[obs3], contemplation; conspection|, conspectuity|; regard, survey;introspection; reconnaissance, speculation, watch, espionage, espionnage[Fr], autopsy; ocular inspection, ocular demonstration; sight-seeing. point of view; gazebo, loophole, belvedere, watchtower. field of view; theater, amphitheater, arena, vista, horizon; commanding view, bird's eye view; periscope. visual organ, organ of vision; eye; naked eye, unassisted eye; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... was his committal to absolutely solitary confinement and the withdrawal of his servants. The King of Navarre vainly asked to have his brother's custody confided to him; he obtained nothing but a coarse refusal; and he himself, separated from his escort, was kept under ocular supervision ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... satisfy him that it had been safely packed; and after he had been assured on this head, he felt a solemn presentiment, first, that the red bag was mislaid, and next, that the striped bag had been stolen, and then that the brown-paper parcel had become untied. At length when he had received ocular demonstration of the groundless nature of each and every one of these suspicions, he consented to climb up to the roof of the coach, observing that now he had taken everything off his mind he ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... dimness before history, this chap's ancestors had begun to fish off these rocks with a bent wire and a piece of crab meat. Century after century they had sat there unchanging. Sat there all day long, and had been lucky to catch half as many fish as I had done in fifteen minutes. And glaring ocular demonstration did not shake his faith in the methods of his ancestors. I began to understand the hopeless discouragement with which my host talks of the "Native Question." The Arabs are starving off because the French have stolen their land. But the fact remains that most of the natives ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... personal identity. But the filling up and the concealment of the old apertures in the nunnery, by the order of the Roman Priests are scarcely less powerful corroborative proof of Maria Monk's delineations, than ocular and ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... month and if he is pleased, will keep them all the season. It became sufficiently clear to Ruggiero during the first interview that his future employer did not know the difference between a barge and a felucca, and he has had ocular demonstration that the Count cannot swim, for he has seen him in the water by the bathing-houses—a thorough landsman at all points. But there are two kinds of landsmen, those who are afraid, and those who are not, as Ruggiero well knows. The first kind are amusing and the sailors ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... Tickit how long a space of time she supposed there might have been between the two sets of ocular quiverings she had experienced? Mrs Tickit, though minutely circumstantial in her reply, had no settled opinion between five seconds and ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and believes about any animal against the bad things that he actually sees. The man who witnesses the theft of his cherries by robin or catbird, or the killing of a quail by a marsh hawk, feels that here he has ocular proof of harm done by the birds, while as to the insects or the field mice destroyed, and the crops saved, he has only the testimony of some unknown and distant witness. It is only natural that the observer ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [June, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... burglar solar cedar jugular scholar calendar secular dollar grammar tabular poplar pillar sugar jocular globular mortar lunar vulgar popular insular Templar ocular muscular nectar similar ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... Indian camp, and arrived at dawn of day. I met with a very friendly reception, and had the good fortune to prevail upon the Indians to deliver me their furs upon the spot, which formed a very heavy load for both myself and men. We met our opponents in returning; but though they had ocular proof of my success, they nevertheless went ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... the author of the second of these works was scarcely made a secret by his family after he went to Italy. Indeed, for some time previously, it was well known to myself from what passed at this house, where he was a frequent visitor, and where I should at any time be happy to give S. T. D. ocular demonstration of it, by the production of the letters addressed to the {277} "Anonymous Author of the Pursuits of Literature," accompanied in some cases with his ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... slow in perceiving that he does not know the way into the heavens, and is merely bent that I should admire his skill to rise like a fowl or a flying fish, a little way from the ground or the water; but the all-piercing, all-feeding, and ocular air of heaven that man shall never inhabit. I tumble down again soon into my old nooks, and lead the life of exaggerations as before, and have lost my faith in the possibility of any guide who can lead me thither ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... things on which the eye rests. But don't let us let the eye rest. Why should the eye be so lazy? Let us exercise the eye until it learns to see startling facts that run across the landscape as plain as a painted fence. Let us be ocular athletes. Let us learn to write essays on a stray cat or a coloured cloud. I have attempted some such thing in what follows; but anyone else may do it better, if anyone else ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... sent to Heliopolis, where flourished, in the great "Hall of the Ancients," the most celebrated medical faculty of the whole country, whence they returned to Thebes, endowed with the highest honors in surgery, in ocular treatment, or in any other branch of their profession, and became physicians to the king or made a living by imparting their learning and by being called in to consult ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of my own invention, instead of the genuine costume of the East, almost every traveller I met who had extended his route beyond what was anciently called "The Grand Tour," had acquired a right, by ocular inspection, to chastise me for my presumption. Every member of the Travellers' Club who could pretend to have thrown his shoe over Edom was, by having done so, constituted my lawful critic and corrector. It occurred, therefore, that where the author of Anastasius, as well as he of Hadji ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... by following the relation attributed to Tonti, has fallen into some obvious errors respecting La Salle's expedition to the Illinois River. Hennepin, an ocular witness, is assuredly the best authority, corroborated, as his narration is, by the relation and letters of Pere ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... I shall venture to state, as were I to give an accurate description it must appear an exaggeration, having met with several Englishmen who with myself have declared they never could have believed, had they not had ocular demonstration, that a horse could have been taught to do that which the animal in question has nightly exhibited at Franconi's. When the owner did return, he claimed the half of the value the horse had fetched, but ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... write again, "Coleridge is dead," at the end of a line, and tamely come in with "to his friends" at the beginning of another. Love is quicker, and fear from love, than the transition ocular from ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... same instant the roving eyes of the Senora seemed to catch sight of him. He came over and spoke to the de Moches, standing with them several minutes. I fancied that not for an instant did she allow the gaze of any one else to distract her in the projection of whatever weird ocular power nature had endowed her with. If it were a battle of eyes, I recollected the strange look that I had noted about those of both Whitney and Lockwood. That, however, was different from the impression one got of the Senora's. I felt that she would have to ...
— The Gold of the Gods • Arthur B. Reeve
... high terms, that if this affair concerned you, he would not listen to it. I attempted to remonstrate upon this injustice, when he passionately broke forth into new and horrible charges against you, affirming that he had them from authority as indisputable as ocular demonstration. I was then certain of some ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... divine logic. According to the Seer, the inhabitants of Jupiter will not cultivate the sciences, which they call darkness; those of Mercury abhor the expression of ideas by speech, which seems to them too material,—their language is ocular; those of Saturn are continually tempted by evil spirits; those of the Moon are as small as six-year-old children, their voices issue from the abdomen, on which they crawl; those of Venus are gigantic in height, but stupid, and live by robbery,—although ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... a little trip to the Alps, I find the copies of the libretto of "Lohengrin" which you have kindly sent to me, and have every reason to rejoice heartily at the remarkable care with which you have had it done. This is another ocular proof of the sympathy with which you have gone to work in everything concerning my last opera, and I must not omit to express my warmest thanks to you. Your last letter, in which you kindly enclosed the honorarium for my "Lohengrin," tells ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... do not regard the eyes of the Crustacea as limbs, and therefore admit no ocular segment; on the other hand I count in the median piece of the tail, to which the character of a segment is often denied. In opposition to its interpretation as a segment of the body, only the want of limbs can be cited; in its favour we have the relation of the intestine, ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... commander, who seemed by expression of his visage to be always on the look-out for something in the extremest distance' and to have no ocular knowledge of anything within ten miles, made no ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... witness is receaved in France in any causes whither civil or criminal: only wt this difference that for one man their most be 2 women, id est, wheir 2 men being ocular witnesses of a murder wil condemne a man, their most be 4 women, under which ...
— Publications of the Scottish History Society, Vol. 36 • Sir John Lauder
... spring bloomed into summer. Gammon had paid several visits to the china shop, where all was going very well indeed. Minnie Clover now spent her evenings almost invariably with the young man interested in ceramic art, but it never disturbed Gammon to have ocular evidence of the fact. With Mrs. Clover he conversed in the respectfully familiar tone of an old friend, now and then reporting little matters which concerned his own welfare, such as his growing conviction that at Quodlings' he had found a "permanency," and his decision ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... childhood, which exceed in the distinctness of their images those which come in later life. It shows itself, too, in the frequency with which, even when awake, the active organs perceive unreal sounds, or in the dark, at night, conjure up ocular spectra; and then not merely colours, but distinct shapes, which pass in long procession before the eyes. This power fades away with advancing life; except under some conditions of disease, the occasional appearance of luminous objects in the ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... him thither. But the only thing about him that could be fixed upon as remarkable was his staff, which bore the likeness of a great black snake, so curiously wrought that it might almost be seen to twist and wriggle itself like a living serpent. This, of course, must have been an ocular deception, assisted ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... blinded, and whose ears have been deafened against truth, by the clamours of sinister conspirators against the monarchy instead of the monarchs; if all these circumstances, I repeat, do not completely acquit the Queen, argument, or even ocular demonstration itself, would be thrown away. Posterity will judge impartially, and with impartial judges the integrity of Marie Antoinette needs ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... have seen ghosts. They not only have appeared to me, but were as real to my ocular vision as any other external physical object which I saw ...
— The Spectre In The Cart - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... we must not, I think, deny migration in general; because migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demonstration, for many weeks together, both spring and fall; during which periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse the straits from north to south, and from south to north, according to the season. And ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... through, where lands had been supposed to exist. In tracing the route of the Resolution and Adventure, throughout the South Atlantic, the South Indian, and the South Pacific Oceans that environ the globe, and combining it with the route of the Endeavour, we receive what may be called ocular demonstration, that Captain Cook, in his persevering researches, sailed over many an extensive continent, which, though supposed to have been seen by former navigators, at the approach of his ships, sunk into the bosom of the ocean, and, "like the baseless fabric of a vision, left ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... Then he proceeded to ocular demonstration. As we walked on for half an hour or so, principally along roads bordered by the umbrageous gardens of villa residences, we counted all the hairpins we could see. There were about four dozen. And he was careful to point out that we had chiefly followed ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Everything will be said not only to confirm the patient's fears, but to increase them. A pretended examination of urine will be made, and he will be gravely told that the quack's worst fears are confirmed, ocular demonstration being offered the dupe. The effect of this ordeal may be imagined. The unfortunate victim believes that he has received "confirmation, strong as proof of holy writ," of his dangerous condition. Glibly the quack discourses on the consequences of neglecting the terrible symptoms, and ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... thickest unbaked custard. This is so extraordinary that I scarcely expect to be believed; and I would not have related it upon my own single testimony, but Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, and most of the other gentlemen have had ocular demonstration of its truth, and know that I ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... look at it is this," said Simon Basset one night in the village store. He raised the index-finger of his right hand, pointed it at the company, shook it authoritatively as he spoke, as if to call ocular attention also to his words. "Ef Abel Edwards did make 'way with himself any other way than by jumping into the Dead Hole, what did he do with his remains? He couldn't bury himself nohow." Simon ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... moon and spoon; breeze and cheese and sneeze; Jove and stove; hope and soap; all of which it might be difficult to bring together harmoniously.' Our correspondent thinks that this decree was issued without due reflection; and he proceeds to substantiate his position by 'the ocular proof:' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... Neapolitans permit even foreigners to contribute to the good cause, is desirous that they should do him the honour of accepting a thousand louis, which he takes the liberty of offering. Having already, not long since, been an ocular witness of the despotism of the Barbarians in the States occupied by them in Italy, he sees, with the enthusiasm natural to a cultivated man, the generous determination of the Neapolitans to assert their well-won independence. As a member of the English House of Peers, he would be a traitor to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... accented by sculpture;' on the other hand, in solid colored statues,—Dresden china figures, for example,—we have pretty sculpture accented by painting; the mental purpose in both kinds of art being to obtain the utmost degree of realization possible, and the ocular impression being the same, whether the delineation is obtained by engraving or painting. For, as I pointed out to you in my Fifth Lecture, everything is seen by the eye as patches of color, and of color only;—a fact which the Greeks knew well; ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... things about them. Even speech has a living grace and power, by the play of the voice and eye, and by the billowy flushes of the countenance. Mental energy culminates in its modulations, while the finest physical features combine to make them a consummate work of art. But all the musical, ocular, and facial beauties are absent from writing. The savage knows, or could quickly guess, the use of the brush or chisel, the shuttle or locomotive, but not of the pen. Writing is the only dead art, the only institute of either gods or men so artificial that the natural ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... No such expectation could soothe the friend, and some might be thinking misleader, of Ambrose Mallard, before he had ocular proof that the body lay underground. His promise was given to follow it to the grave, a grave in consecrated earth. Ambrose died of the accidental shot of a pocket-pistol he customarily carried ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Mr. Gilman intruded. Mr. Gilman looked from one to the other. Perhaps the thought in his mind was that if they added their ages together they could not equal his age. Perhaps it was not. He continued to look from one to the other, and this needed some ocular effort, for they were as far apart as two persons in such a situation usually get when they are surprised. Then he caught sight of the hat, stick and gloves ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Annie Donaldson. Yet instead of one hour, Annie generously allowed Mr. Arlington nearly to triple the time. How he was occupied during all this time, I cannot tell, though that he did not spend all of it in drawing I had ocular demonstration. ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... to notice them because our attention is directed to something else. But at a subsequent period, when the mind is in a passive state, these impressions may suddenly revive owing to the phenomenon of recurrence. This observation may afford an explanation of some of the phenomena connected with ocular phantoms and hallucinations not traceable to any disease. In these cases the psychical effects produced appear to have no objective cause. Bearing in mind the numerous visual impressions which are being unconsciously made on the retina, it is not at all unlikely that many of these ...
— Response in the Living and Non-Living • Jagadis Chunder Bose
... longer: I do not pretend to be so handsome as some others; but as for the defects that villain charges me with, I dare say, my dear Hobart, there is no woman more free from them: we are alone, and I am almost inclined to convince you by ocular demonstration." Miss Hobart was too complaisant to oppose this motion; but, although she soothed her mind by extolling all her beauties, in opposition to Lord Rochester's song, Miss Temple was almost driven to distraction by rage and astonishment, ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... seeing us on the steps of the hotel, halted to make inquiries. One man assured us that he had been half an hour looking for the next street. The better to convince myself of the density of the mist, I extended my arm to its full length and tried to count my fingers. From ocular evidence alone, I certainly could not have told whether I ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2 No 4, October, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... during the entertainment he took all opportunities of being particular with his eyes, through which he conveyed a thousand tender protestations. She saw and inwardly rejoiced at the humility of his looks; but, far from rewarding it with one approving glance, she industriously avoided this ocular intercourse, and rather coquetted with a young gentleman that ogled her from the opposite box. Peregrine's penetration easily detected her sentiments, and he was nettled at her dissimulation, which served to confirm him in his unwarrantable designs upon her person. He persisted ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... wrong there, as it has been on some other questions. Toad-in-the-hole might be sleeping, but dead he was not; and of that we soon had ocular proof. One morning in 1812, an amateur surprised us with the news that he had seen Toad-in-the-hole brushing with hasty steps the dews away to meet the postman by the conduit side. Even that was something: how much more, to hear that he had shaved his beard—had laid aside his ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... the more inconspicuous victims lay for hours in whatever spot they happened to be killed; but the court required ocular demonstration that the leaders of the Huguenots who had been most prominent in the late wars were really dead. Accordingly the naked corpses of Soubise, of Guerchy, of Beaudine, d'Acier's brother, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the tube length distance from the end of the nosepiece to the eyeglass of the ocular. This is the measurement referred to in speaking of ...
— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre
... said she. "But I need not ask. You have come to satisfy yourself by ocular demonstration that your prisoner has not flown up the chimney. You need not trouble ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... There was ocular evidence of this last, for they had followed in a road well rutted from loaded wagons. But Bill invested in no real estate, notwithstanding the positive assurance that Hazleton was on the ragged edge ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... facilities being ample, and the inducements abundant. Intelligently and successfully to consummate such a purpose is an education in itself. The tourist will find all previous study enhanced in value by ocular demonstration, which imparts life and warmth to the cold facts of the chroniclers, besides which a vast store-house of positive information is created which time cannot exhaust. Perhaps the majority of travelers see only that which comes clearly before them; but this they do most faithfully, ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... no one would have accused you of the crime. By the by," she continued, "have you any recollection-" and here I fancied that a blush, even through the gloom of the apartment, became distinctly visible upon her cheek—"have you any recollection, mon cher ami of this little ocular assistant, which now ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... list,—adding, 'it has done more,—it has given us the probable prospect of the discovery of another. We see it as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain. Its movements have been felt, trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis, with a certainty hardly inferior to that of ocular demonstration.'—These expressions are not reported in any of the papers which profess to give an account of the proceedings, but I appeal to all present whether they were ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... apparatus on its sides and bottom, when they are hidden from sight. I answer, that we might determine the fact theoretically from certain known conditions respecting the conformation of the glacier; to which I shall allude presently; but we need not resort to this kind of evidence, since we have ocular demonstration of the truth. Here and there on the sides of the glacier it is possible to penetrate between the walls and the ice to a great depth, and even to follow such a gap to the very bottom of the valley, and everywhere do we find the surface of the ice fretted ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... personally I knew, living at the moment, during the absence of her husband, with a few servants in a very solitary house, never rested until she had placed eighteen doors (so she told me, and, indeed, satisfied me by ocular proof), each secured by ponderous bolts, and bars, and chains, between her own bedroom and any intruder of human build. To reach her, even in her drawing-room, was like going, as a flag of truce, into a beleaguered ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... us reiterate and reiterate: you cannot mingle and confuse the various modes of dynamic love. If you try, you produce horrors. You cannot plant the heart below the diaphragm or put an ocular eye in the navel. No more can you transfer parent love into friend love or adult love. Parent love is established at the great primary centers, where man is father and child, playmate and brother, but where he cannot be comrade or lover. Comrade and lover, this is ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... Mrs. Chump had not participated in the fact presented by ocular demonstration. She turned about comfortably to greet Wilfrid, uttering the inspired remark: "Ye look ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of this "permanent life of tissues" that caused such a furor in Paris last summer, and several eminent scientists to demand ocular demonstration, because "the discovery, if true, constituted the greatest scientific advance of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... [the commentator for the passengers], with his antarctic experience, was completely deceived. The fact that not one of the five persons on the flight deck ever identified the rising terrain confirms the totality of this weird and dangerous ocular illusion as it existed on the approach to Mt. Erebus at 12.50 p.m. on 28 ...
— Judgments of the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on Proceedings to Review Aspects of the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Mount Erebus Aircraft Disaster • Sir Owen Woodhouse, R. B. Cooke, Ivor L. M. Richardson, Duncan
... judged of by the palate, and not by the eye. So Lady Mabel made a strong effort to try the rabbits by the latter test—having had ocular proof that they were not cats in disguise. But, after persevering through two or three mouthfuls, the garlic, red pepper, and rancid oil, and the fact of having witnessed the whole process of cooking and ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... night before was an ocular delusion of my fancy sporting with the dark outlines of our cupboard, and if its horrid eyes were nothing but a pair of inverted teacups, I had, at all events, the satisfaction of having launched the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... chapter of family history. So here Sir John Chillington has remained since his death, and here he will stay till the last of the twenty years has become a thing of the past. Two or three times every year Mr. Winter, Sir Mark's lawyer, comes over to Deepley Walls to satisfy himself by ocular proof that Sir John's instructions are being duly carried out. This he has a legal right to do in the interests of his client. Sometimes he is conducted to this room by Lady Chillington, sometimes by me; but even in his case her ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... lady in the front of her house, or in the front-room, wide open to the street, sitting in a tub washing herself. I never saw a place where the cleanliness of the fair sex was established on such unimpeachable ocular evidence. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... and enter Dr. Kennedy's gate. "It will be mighty mean, though, if she does array herself against my wife, for Madam Kelsey is quoted everywhere, and even Mrs. Lane, who lives just opposite, dare not open her parlor blinds until assured by ocular demonstration that Mrs. Kelsey's are open too. Oh, fashion, fashion, what fools you make of your votaries! I am glad that I for one dare break your chain and marry whom I please," and feeling more amiably disposed toward J.C. De Vere than he had felt for many a day, ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... cherished belief, the Sarsen Trilithons were erected first, followed by the foreign stones. The building of the group was continuous and no gap separates the Trilithon from the foreign upright. Of this abundant ocular proof was forthcoming in 1901, when the foundations of the great Trilithon were laid bare, and the leaning upright restored to its original perpendicular position. When the ground was opened it was found that each upright had been differently ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... it rouses him to an activity aiming at the direct perception, by means of his senses, of what the thing before him really is. Having at first started back in fear of the imagined snake, he now proceeds to ascertain by means of ocular perception the true nature of the thing, and having accomplished this is freed from fear. It would not be correct to say that in this case words (viz. of the person informing) produce this perceptional knowledge; for words are not a ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... and stand back! What do ye think o' that, ey?" said the sportsman—levelling his gun, throwing back his head, closing his sinister ocular, and stretching out his legs after the manner of the Colossus of Rhodes—"Don't you ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... book to any reader of its pages who brings acuteness and passion, but no patience nor calm accuracy of meditation? Objects of thought and observation far simpler, more free from all blinding and distorting elements, more accessible to direct and ocular inspection, are by rational consent reserved for the calmest and most austere moods and methods of human intelligence. Nor is denunciation of the conditions of a problem the quickest step towards solving it. Vituperation of the fact that supply and demand ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... decorum; and beer was drunk with reverence, as it ought to be. Into the principal parlour of this place entered two strangers, who found themselves, as is always the case in such hostels, the object, not of fluttered curiosity or pert inquiry, but of steady, ceaseless, devouring ocular study. They had long coats down to their heels, and carried under each coat something that looked like a stick. One was tall and dark, the other short and red-haired. They ordered ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... vision of genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected the forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of accretion, built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest grandeur, or in those of the most airy and delicious beauty—so minutely and distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the attention which was yielded to him was ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... which is supposed to dim the eye, seemed to improve the ocular views of Joel Newschool amazingly, for he had been enabled in his late years to see that a vast difference of caste existed between those that tilled the soil, wielded the sledge hammer, or drove the jack-plane, and those ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... not one of them had a chance. With the thought, she sped across the space between her and Marquis, who—I really cannot say WHICH concerning such a dog—was fortunately not very far from the door. Feeling him a little safer now that she stood by his side, she resumed her ocular search for the panther, or any further sign of his proximity, but with one hand on the dog's collar, ready in an instant to seize it ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... form and colour of flowers, there appears to me a striking analogy to the character of human beauty. They afford an ocular demonstration, in the pleasure with which we contemplate their particular forms, that the pleasure, we receive from the beauty of the human form, originates from mental character: witness the charm of the infant, innocence ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Taste, and of the Origin of - our Ideas of Beauty, etc. • Frances Reynolds
... side of the tunnel that appears to be stationary, and the framework of the window through which the prospect is presented that seems to be receding; of course, the uniformity of the objects visible, and the faint light in which they are beheld, materially assist this ocular deception; but the hint thus thrown out may serve as a convenient peg on which passengers may hang a theory of their own, and thus beguile the tedium of their journey in default of more ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... not a natural, knowledge; it is not a human science, but a divine light, by means of which we see things which, in the natural order, art invisible to us. If we try to teach it as human sciences are taught, by ocular demonstrations and by natural evidence, we deceive ourselves; Faith is not to be found where human reason tries only to support itself by ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... Pandora riding upon her anchor, and we thought we could distinguish the cabins and barracoons of King Dingo Bingo, peeping out from among the green trees. The barque looked no larger than a little boat, and although she appeared very near the river's mouth, that was also an ocular deception, for we knew that she was more ...
— Ran Away to Sea • Mayne Reid
... together in schools: insufficiency of light, the over-small type common in school-books, the frequent use of the blackboard, on which the teacher is not always careful to make the size of the characters he traces proportionate to the distance at which they have to be read, are so many causes of ocular fatigue. The visual keenness of a given eye, says Doctor Leprince, decreases rapidly when the intensity of the light falls below a certain limit. The pupil, working with insufficient light, repairs the ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... suppose it was the information generally in circulation through the South) was that Lee was driving us from the State in the most demoralized condition and that in the South-west our troops were but little better than prisoners of war. Seeing our troops moving south was ocular proof that a part of her information was incorrect, and she asked me if my news from Sherman was true. I assured her that there was no doubt about it. I left a guard to protect the house from intrusion until the troops should have all ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... relation given him of such and such features by an acquaintance or a friend, without the nice touches, which give the best resemblance, and make the graces of the picture. Every artist is apt enough to flatter himself (and I amongst the rest) that their own ocular observations would have discovered more perfections, at least others, than have been delivered to them: though I have received mine from the best hands, that is, from persons who neither want a just understanding of my lady's ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... [Footnote] *Arago's ocular micrometer, a happy improvement upon Rochon's prismatic or double-refraction micrometer. See M. Mathieu's note in Delambre's 'Histoire de l'Astronomie ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... human nature that Natt should resist the temptation to show his cronies by ocular demonstration what a knowing young dog he could be if he liked. Natt never ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... observed their friend, "it can boast of three things—its heroic defence against the Spaniards, of which I will give you an account by-and-by as we walk round the ramparts; of its cleanliness, of which you have ocular proof; and of the vast amount of excellent cheese which it exports; indeed, it is said to do more business in cheese than any other town in the world. There are also two or three quaint and curious buildings which are worthy of ...
— Voyages and Travels of Count Funnibos and Baron Stilkin • William H. G. Kingston
... with the luxurious abandonment of genius to its spell, be it what it may. He does not care what it ends in. One of Fred's theories is, that the imagination, by constant and intense exercise, may so project the image it conceives, as to make it the subject of ocular contemplation and imitation. Why not? All objects of sight are painted on a flat surface, and it is by experience, comparison, nay, in some measure by the will, that we get our ideas of their shape and distance. Poor Blake's insane painting of imaginary heads, which he saw ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... closed the window with an undignified bang, and retired into the depths of his chamber, where he remained until after the election. Owing to a dimness of vision, resulting from the eggs-cruciating condition of his ocular organs, the occupation of the Eye-witness was from that moment gone. And to this fact must be attributed his inability to state, with any certainty, whether the Right Party has succeeded in putting the Right Man in the Right Place; but he ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... Proclamation of the Governor of the State of New York, to prevent sending provisions to the enemy. The accounts I have recently received on that subject from the States of Jersey and Connecticut, give me more pain than I can express. They are positive, and from people who had ocular demonstration; they prove, that the enemy's fleet could not have quitted New York for some time, if they had not received immense quantities of provisions, living and dead. This commerce is carried on regularly and openly, as if it were peace, or as if the cattle were for your army. Your ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... can afford to wear one dress: her father's worth millions, and everybody knows it. Everybody knows she can have a dozen new dresses for every day of the year. But we poor folks have got to give ocular demonstration of our ability to have new dresses, or nobody will ever believe that we can. Everybody knows that I wear that white muslin because I can't afford any other, I do wish I could have a new dress for Mrs. Alderson's: it will be a dreadfully select party. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... "I don't require ocular evidence, alma mater. I have always been able to read you with my ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... a narrow canal, so congested with boats that there are innumerable delays. Even when the boats reach the waters of the bay, the remaining channel is shallow for lack of dredging, and launch-progress is very slow. We had ocular proof of this latter evil; but we at ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... advise you to keep that for the Marines. Sir,"—Miss Gabriel turned to the Lord Proprietor—"this petty insult of the scarecrow is the smallest part of our complaint against Major Vigoureux. We have reason to believe—we have ocular proof—that the Major is at this moment and by stealth entertaining a most ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... able to analyse or separate the glow into visible elementary intermitting discharges (1427. 1433.), nor to obtain the other evidence of intermitting action, namely an audible sound (1431.). The want of success, as respects trials made by ocular means, may depend upon the large size of the glow preventing the separation of the visible images: and, indeed, if it does intermit, it is not likely that all parts intermit at ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... by those who only know a little; but by those who are well informed, you probably would be. The fact is from a too ready credulity, we have now turned to almost a total scepticism, unless we have ocular demonstration. In the times of Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and others,—say in the fifteenth century, when there were but few travellers and but little education, a traveller might assert almost anything, and gain ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that I entered upon this treasure-hunt hampered by a very strong feeling of doubt. Of course I had ocular evidence of the existence of such a place as Barber had described as that where the treasure was to be found, for there it was, visibly before me. I was also prepared to lend credence to the story of the stranded hulk, strange as that story might seem, for I actually had personal knowledge ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... feel that the revolver covered him, and none would make the attempt, for they had ocular demonstration before them of the deadly aim of the eye ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham
... lopping of trees and shrubs. It was an edifice built in times when human constitutions were damp-proof, when shelter from the boisterous was all that men thought of in choosing a dwelling-place, the insidious being beneath their notice; and its hollow site was an ocular reminder, by its unfitness for modern lives, of the fragility to which these have declined. The highest architectural cunning could have done nothing to make Hintock House dry and salubrious; and ruthless ignorance ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... had no means. And I preferred to spend whatever I could procure in advancing the business rather than in despatching a messenger to you. And also, on account of the reverence due to you, I determined to make no report of expenses before sending to you something which might please you, and by ocular proof should give witness to its cost. On account, then, of all these things, so great a delay ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... Dawson, or any one else, who captivated the English king. Some such way seems dramatic, and speaks to the Eye. The audience will enter into the Friend's surprise, and into the perplexity of his situation. These Ocular Scenes are so many great landmarks, rememberable headlands and lighthouses in the voyage. Macbeth's witch has a good advice to a magic [? tragic] writer, what to do with ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... imagined, that as you must have seen the Dona with Mr. Smith, any communication from me on the subject must be superfluous. And now that I have taken up my pen in compliance with your wish, what can I tell you that you have not perhaps conveyed to yourself by ocular inspection, and better than I ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton
... anniversary of his death, all his subjects struck out one of their front teeth; and the whole nation have in consequence acquired a sort of whistle in speaking. Chinau had even had the above words tattooed on his tongue, of which he gave me ocular demonstration; nor was he singular in this mode of testifying his attachment. It is surprising that an operation so painful, and which occasions a considerable swelling, should not be attended ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... him, and likewise to convince him that the study of the fine arts, though not absolutely necessary, were not incompatible with the character of a Christian divine. He shook his head, and wondered how I could call them fine arts—hoped I did not mean to convince him by any ocular demonstration, and at length reluctantly condescended to sleep with me, and let the lass and wife sleep together for one night. I believe he would have declined it had it not been some hints from his wife, stating that it was a good arrangement, by which I understood ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... sensation, excites a most disagreeable one when strewing or staining an animal's skin, because it implies a decline and deadening of the vital and healthy power of the skin. But all reasoning about this impression is rendered difficult, by the host of associated ideas connected with it; for the ocular sense of impurity connected with corruption is infinitely enhanced by the offending of other senses and by the grief and horror of it in its own nature, as the special punishment and evidence of sin, and on the other hand, the ocular delight in purity is mingled, as I before ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... wax enjoys the best of opportunities for learning Botany, both analytically and synthetically. A series of models in wax would make the ocular study of botany possible throughout the year. The taste for wax flowers is becoming widely extended, and high prices are brought by the finest specimens of the art. Humanity should heartily welcome an employment which enables many to escape ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... have had an ocular demonstration of the operation of this law on the widest scale possible. I don't claim that nonviolence has penetrated the 360,000,000 people in India, but I do claim it has penetrated deeper than any other doctrine in an incredibly ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... hearing them always express themselves in the most affectionate manner of its mistress, whilst the parents added their encomiums to those of their children, I was tempted to pay Madame Loiseau a visit, that I might be empowered to recommend her establishment, by having the advantage of ocular demonstration added to that of ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... of which our travellers were the recipients may be imagined. The Frenchmen, and they alone, having had ocular proof of the accomplishment of the daring project, naturally became Dr. Ferguson's witnesses. Hence the doctor at once asked them to give their official testimony of his arrival ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... at his comrade; and twisting out one more look—a kind of ocular screw—under the influence of which the blind man feigned to undergo great anguish and torture, bade him, in a softened tone, approach, and ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... without turning her head. Her back seemed to be endowed with a sensitiveness to ocular beams—even her clothing—so alive was she to a fancied gaze which might be resting upon her from the outside of that barn. All the way along to this point her heart had been heavy with an inactive ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... labourer has all along regarded the Creamery side of co-operation with absolute dislike. He declares that it is fast denuding the land of labour, that it tends to decrease tillage, and is one of the most active causes of emigration. They say, and there is ocular evidence of the fact, that a donkey and a little boy or girl to drive him to the Creamery now do the work of dairymaids and farm hands. But, whilst this is a criticism justified by existing conditions, it does not mean that co-operation ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... finally made admissions by which he implicated Charles V. and his two generals, Antonio di Leyva and Ferdinando di Gonzago. No affair was ever more solemnly debated. Here is what the king did, in the words of an ocular witness:— ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... to give you an ocular demonstration—is equally genuine," he sneered. "I don't sport a false nose, or I should have procured myself a more desirable one, and my teeth"—with a disagreeable grin—"are my own. Have I convinced you that I have not tampered with Nature's ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... social droves With him that solitary roves, And man of all the chief; Fair on whose face, and stately frame, Did God impress his hallowed name, For ocular belief. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... he said, "in the month of August, I fell in love." Here the girls glanced at each other. The idea of Uncle Cornie in love, and in the very same century in which they were now listening to the confession, was too astonishing to pass without ocular remark; but, if he observed it, he took no notice of it; he did not even pause. "In the month of September, I was refused. Consequently, in the month of October, I was ready to fall in love again. Take particular care of ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... improve the standard which I celebrate, to greater and more speedy exaltation? Bud your laurel on the black-cherry stock to what height you please: This I had from an ocular testimony, who was more than somewhat doubtful of such alliances; though something like it in Palladius speaks it not ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... prepare for eight or ten friends, more than sufficient for twenty or thirty visiters? "Enough is as good as a feast," and a prudent provider, who sensibly takes measure of the stomachic, instead of the SILLY ocular, appetite of his guests, may entertain his friends, three times as often, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... the pipe down on the table as though he were tired of holding it—"that, to my thinking, such remarks are not appropriate. At the same time what you have told us is, I am bound to allow, a little curious. But of course what I require is ocular demonstration. I haven't seen the ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... I think, deny migration in general; because migration certainly does subsist in some places, as my brother in Andalusia has fully informed me. Of the motions of these birds he has ocular demonstration for many weeks together, both spring and fall: during which periods myriads of the swallow kind traverse the Straits from north to south, and from south to north, according to the season. And these vast migrations consist ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... craft over it in safety, and just in time too, for the north-west wind rushed down upon us, as if to dispute our right to intrude on its dominion. Hastily securing the tents, we hurried in to change our boots, and to see whether our feet were frost-bitten or not; for it was only by ocular proof that one could be satisfied of their safety, sensation having apparently long ceased. I shall not easily forget my painful feelings, when one gallant fellow of my party, the captain of the sledge, exclaimed, "Both feet gone, sir!" and sure enough they were, white as two lumps of ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... but it is too good to be lost, especially as it bears upon the fate of a poor old friend of mine in past days who was fatally a victim to total abstinence. The story goes that a teetotal lecturer, in order to give his audience ocular proof of the poisonous character of alcohol, first magnifies the horrible denizens of stagnant water by his microscope, and then triumphantly kills them all by a drop or two of brandy! As if this did not prove the wholesomeness of eau de vie in such cases. If, ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... him to see what the Italian naturalist Malpighi showed only seven years later, in 1664, when he demonstrated, in a living frog, the actual passage of the blood from the ultimate ramifications of the arteries into the veins. But that absolute ocular demonstration of the truth of the views he had maintained throughout his life it was not granted to Harvey to see. What he did experience was this: that on the publication of his doctrines, they were met with the greatest possible opposition; and I have no doubt savage things were ...
— William Harvey And The Discovery Of The Circulation Of The Blood • Thomas H. Huxley
... eleven. Good Heavens! The post will be here at twelve. I had better wait for it." On waking his first thoughts were for his letters, and almost before he had finished reading them he had begun to think of what the mid-day delivery would bring him. To see the boy pass and so have ocular proof that there was nothing for him seemed to lighten his disappointment. He saw him waste his time with the doctor's horse and then with the maid-servant, and if the old ladies were not about he would stand talking many ...
— Spring Days • George Moore
... reading Baker's book to see how such cases as his were treated, not dreaming of an ocular demonstration so near at hand. At ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... sufficient and competent authority that these things are so. We know that we live in a material universe, but our knowledge does not extend to the manner in which the universe came into being. That is a matter of belief. "Through faith"—not by ocular or logical proof, but on testimony—"we understand that the worlds were framed by ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... separating the fibrine from the blood in a basin of water by his side, and exhibiting it, pretends that he has extracted something more than blood. He can thus explain the rationale of the cure by his own art, and the ocular demonstration given ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... rock from its base, and, flying with it full two hundred miles, buried it fathoms below the surface of the Atlantic, at the Rip Raps, near Hampton Roads; and thus it happens that I cannot vouch the ocular proof of the Cave to certify the legend I am ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various
... needle to the twig, from the twig to the branch, from the branch to the bough and from the bough, by a no less angular path, to go back home. It is useless to rely upon sight as a guide on this long and erratic journey. The Processionary, it is true, has five ocular specks on either side of his head, but they are so infinitesimal, so difficult to make out through the magnifying-glass, that we cannot attribute to them any great power of vision. Besides, what good would those short-sighted lenses be in the absence ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... in past years, in the dyeing department of the Yorkshire College, where it has been our custom to expose to light and other influences the patterns dyed by our students. Further, I wish to give you an ocular demonstration of the action of light or dyed colors, by means of these silk, wool, and cotton patterns, portions of which have been exposed for 34 days and nights on the sea coast near Bombay, during the month ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 810, July 11, 1891 • Various
... done more—it has given us the probable prospect of another. We see it as Columbus saw America from the shores of Spain. Its movements have been felt trembling along the far-reaching line of our analysis with a certainty hardly inferior to ocular demonstration." ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Robert was therefore again singled out for royal vengeance: his library was put under sequestration; and the owner forbidden to enter it. It was in vain that his complete innocence was vindicated. To deprive such a man as COTTON of the ocular and manual comforts of his library—to suppose that he could be happy in the most splendid drawing room in Europe, without his books—is to suppose what our experience of virtuous bibliomaniacs will not permit us to accede to. In consequence, Sir Robert declared to his friends, "that ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Princess. It was my first good view of her since the day I had acted as substitute groom. For the bad few minutes lately passed had been given over to labial and mental sensations to the exclusion of the ocular. Now I had more leisure while those ranking and senior to Courtney made their ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott
... have passages to quote from a book or other document, have the book on the table beside you; its appearance will add substance to your point, and the audience will have ocular proof that you ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... alone, or in association with one or two others, the Epistle to Charles II. which bears Ulac's name. Of this your own name 'ALEXANDER MORUS,' subscribed to some copies of that Epistle, has been too clear and ocular proof to many witnesses of the fact for you to be able to deny the charge or to get rid of it.... There are several who have heard yourself either admit, on interrogation, that that Epistle is yours, or declare the fact spontaneously.... If you ask on what evidence I, at ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson |
