"Detect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... spoke he gave himself as he was. This unusual sincerity in Rosamund's eyes was a great attraction. She often said that she could never feel at home with pretense even if the intention behind it was kindly. Perhaps, however, she did not always detect it, although she possessed the great gift of ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... whole company of rats asked. 'I won't,' explained the young rat, 'follow their example, and go straight to work and steal, but by simply shaking my body, and transforming myself, I shall metamorphose myself into a taro, and roll myself among the heap of taros, so that people will not be able to detect me, and to hear me; whereupon I shall stealthily, by means of the magic art of dividing my body into many, begin the removal, and little by little transfer the whole lot away, and will not this be far more ingenious ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... a lichen. I saw it painted on the pines and oaks. Their attics were in the tops of the trees. They are of no politics. There was no noise of labor. I did not perceive that they were weaving or spinning. Yet I did detect, when the wind lulled and hearing was done away, the finest imaginable sweet musical hum,—as of a distant hive in May, which perchance was the sound of their thinking. They had no idle thoughts, and no one without ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... make up a party and he is sure to forget that Mrs. B. was engaged to C. before she married D., and that Mrs. C. is aware of the fact, and that the D.s and E.s have long been at daggers drawn, and he will have no eyes to detect the designs of Mrs. H. On the other hand, a woman gets nervous and fatigued with the constant effort to keep the ball rolling, and fails just where a man would succeed. What is wanted is a division of labor, and if this were ...
— Cupology - How to Be Entertaining • Clara
... Mr. Thiselton Dyer, Professor Ray Lankester, or Mr. Romanes, insist on their pound of flesh in the matter of irrefragable demonstration. They complain of us for not bringing forward some one who has been able to detect the movement of the hour-hand of a watch during a second of time, and when we fail to do so, declare triumphantly that we have no evidence that there is any connection between the beating of a second and the movement of the hour-hand. When we say that rain comes from the condensation ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... differ from those they would occupy if observed from its centre by the amount of parallax, the due application of which is an important element. The stars are so distant that their positions are the same from whatever part of the earth they are seen; but attempts have been made to detect the amount of variation in their places, when observed from opposite points of the earth's orbit, the minute result of which is termed the annual parallax; and the former effect, due to the observer's station on our globe, ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... filled with amazement at this marvellous man who could hear in his sleep and could detect a trail when the very tree-trunks were invisible to ordinary eyes. Du Lhut halted a little to watch the canoes, and then turned his back to the river, and plunged into the woods once more. They had gone a mile or two when suddenly he came to a ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in a more indirect and adroit fashion, as the wayward and life-loving Lady Boxspur. She shuddered a little, as she recalled that foolish mistake, and pictured the perils into which it might have led her. She could detect more clearly now the odor of brandy on his quickening breath. His face, death-like in its pallor, flashed before and above her like a semaphoric sign of imminent danger. Action of some sort, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... is passed, why should I so distress myself about what remains? The most brilliant fortune does not deserve all the trouble I take, the pettiness I detect in myself, or the humiliations and shame I endure; thirty years will destroy those giants of power which can be seen only by raising the head; we shall disappear, I who am so petty, and those whom I regard so eagerly, from ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... be not," whispered the other, in a voice which, although low, I could still detect, "why should we, give ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... appearance affected them, and they at once withdrew, leaving me alone with her."—Beaulieu, "Essais," I. 108. (Regarding the two Abbaye butchers he meets in the house of Journiac-de-Saint-Meard, and who chat with him while issuing him with a safe-conduct): "What struck me was to detect generous sentiments through their ferocity, those of men determined to protect any one ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... silver crown. This extraordinary creature had no fins so far as could be seen, but propelled itself solely by its tail, which it moved with such wonderful rapidity as rendered it utterly impossible to detect the shape of it. The creature was evidently an air-breather, for it had no sooner completely cleared the fleet, which it did in about one minute, the distance travelled in that time being fully three miles, than it rose once more to the surface, remaining there ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the bird in conjunction with the plant life associated with its home and habits. The bird is treated with a full understanding of its life, and flowers are studied with such a comprehension of their essential structure that a botanist can readily detect the characteristics typical of a species, despite the simplifications which an artist always imposes ...
— Chinese Painters - A Critical Study • Raphael Petrucci
... drawing his sword, "but the moment in which I detect the least sign of treachery, thy head and body are three ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... felt it imperative to make these remarks, that my countrymen may understand why they so constantly find the strongest symptoms of hostility to England in a certain class of American writers. Even in the text-books for children, you can detect the same animus working. Miss Willard, in her History of the United States, narrates that six Indian chiefs came to Colonel Washington, the grandfather of the founder of the Republic, to treat for peace. The ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... types. It is cherished where all aristocracies flourish best,—in the "rural districts." There is a style and a class of words and phrases belonging to country newspapers, and to the city weeklies which have the largest bucolic circulation, which you detect in the Congressional eloquence of the honorable member for the Fifteenth District, Mass., and in the Common-School Reports of Boston Corner,—a style and words that remind us of the country gentry whose titles date back to the Plantagenets. They look so strangely beside the brisk, dapper ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... think her pretty?" asked Bessie Dasher. One could detect a slight tone of dissatisfaction in her voice, and she ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson
... keeping close to the point, a good deal more respect for his powers than she had hitherto entertained. That dry way of his was rather overwhelming. When it came to the children themselves, Rachel watched, not without a hope that the clear masculine intellect would detect Fanny in a more frightened woman's fancy, and bring the F. U. E. E. ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... with nobles, kings, and emperors, Full of great fears, great hopes, great enterprises. This other trades with men of mean condition: His projects small, small hopes, and dangers little. This gorgeous-broider'd with rich sentences: That fair and purfled round with merriments. Both vice detect and virtue beautify, By being death's mirror, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... his eyes to catch the amused quirk on the lips of Pink and Irish, and the laughing glance they exchanged. Possibly if he could have looked in all directions at the same time he would have been able to detect signs of mirth on the faces of the others as well; for Slim's grievances never seemed to be taken seriously by his companions—which is the price which one must pay for having a body shaped like Santa Claus and a face copied after our old ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... wit, one of the triangular back fins, which had been gliding here and there about the coop on the far side of the boat, was seen to be coming round her bows, and the next thing seemed to be that the monster would detect the position of the midshipman, and then all would be over. In imagination Syd saw the voracious creature gliding rapidly toward Roylance, dive down, turn over showing its white under-parts, and then there was the blood-stained ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... was again the Gnome who had first leaped upon Jaska to examine her curiously. Now, watching the lidless eyes of this being, Sarka fancied he could detect a hint of some expression. The Gnome was excited at some prospect, some climax which they were approaching. What? On and on they moved. The blue flames from the abyss, roaring in a way that neither of the prisoners had ever experienced, reached upward in searing tongues ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various
... her manner, her smart chatter, her exquisite chic, all revealed good breeding and a high station in life. There was no touch of cheap shabbiness—or at least I could not detect it. ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... been weakened or vitiated to any appreciable degree. No Igorot attended the school which the Spaniards had in Bontoc; to-day not ten Igorot of the pueblo can make themselves understood in Spanish about the commonest things around them. I fail to detect any occupation, method, or device of the Igorot which the Spaniards' influence improved; and the Igorot ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... as a children's book—that ascending wave of savagery and satire which overwhelms policy and learning to break against the ultimate citadel of humanity itself. In none of his contemporaries (except perhaps in the sentimentalities of Steele) can one detect the traces of emotion; to read Swift is to be conscious of intense feeling on almost every page. The surface of his style may be smooth and equable but the central fires of passion are never far beneath, and through cracks and fissures come intermittent bursts of flame. Defoe's irony is so ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... studies, also, under a traveling sage who united the mysteries of medicine with magic and legerdemain. His mind, therefore, had become stored with all kinds of mystic lore; he had dabbled a little in astrology, alchemy, divination;[2] knew how to detect stolen money, and to tell where springs of water lay hidden; in a word, by the dark nature of his knowledge he had acquired the name of the "High German Doctor," which is pretty nearly equivalent to that of ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... seemed not to hear. Paganel fancied he could detect an ironical smile already on the lips of the Major, and determined to carry the day, was about to recommence his geographical illustrations, when the Indian stopped him by a gesture, ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... apparently stepping in one another's tracks. Well for the boys that Paul had felt his impulse to leave the vicinity of the besieged tree, because the course of the warriors would carry them very near it, and they could not fail to detect the alien presence. But no such suspicion seemed to enter their minds now, and, like the wolves, they were traveling fast, ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... laurels near the sarcophagus! All was now annihilated in abominable mourning, in a death-like silence, amidst which the two last Boccaneras must wait, in savage grandeur, till their palace should fall about their heads. Pierre could only just detect a faint sound, the gnawing of a mouse perhaps, unless it were caused by Abbe Paparelli attacking the walls of some out-of-the-way rooms, preying on the old edifice down below, so as to ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of our jails are double men. Behind the imposing facade of their physical aspect we detect an uneasy, hurried, shrewdly contriving little creature, quite incommensurate with the material bodily structure built up for his concealment and protection. He will not come out in the open, but seeks some advantage, plans to get behind us and execute some cunning ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... by, and still Ben's sharp eyes could not detect the land. We had been steering by the stars, and though they had for some time been obscured, we had reason to believe that the wind had not changed, and therefore, being directly before it, that we had ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... intensely still, black, impenetrable. It seemed as though no human being could inhabit that desolate region. I lifted my head to listen for the slightest sound of life, and strained my eyes to detect the distant glimmer of a light in any direction. Nothing rewarded the effort. Yet surely along here on this long-settled west bank of the Mississippi I could not be far removed from those of my race, for I knew ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... knowledge is acquired by our senses; but these are liable to deceive us, and we learn to detect these deceptions by comparing the ideas presented to us by one sense with those presented by another. Thus when we first view a cylinder, it appears to the eye as a flat surface with different shades on it, till we correct this idea by the sense of touch, and find its surface to be circular; that ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... stick, whip, or other weapon, and recount his martial deeds. This ceremony is termed striking the post, and whatever is then said, may be relied upon as rigid truth, being delivered in the presence of many a jealous warrior and witness, who could easily detect, and would immediately disgrace the striker for exaggeration or falsehood. This is called the beggar's dance—during which, some presents are always expected by the performers; as tobacco, whiskey, or trinkets. But on this occasion, as none ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... muscles relaxed. Very slowly it approached, and with as swift a motion as I could achieve, I grasped at the vampire. I felt a touch of fur and I gripped a struggling, skinny wing; there came a single nip of teeth, and the wing-tip slipped through my fingers. I could detect no trace of blood by feeling, so turned over and went to sleep. In the morning I found a tiny scratch, with the skin barely broken; and, heartily disappointed, I realized that my tickling and tingling had been the preliminary symptoms ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... majesty's privy council to take exact trial of their care and diligence herein; and if the sheriffs, stewarts, and bailiffs, be negligent in their duties, or if the magistrates within burghs shall be negligent in their utmost diligence, to detect and delate to the council all conventicles within their burghs, that the council inflict such censures and punishments upon them as they shall think fit. And the lords of his majesty's privy council are hereby required to be careful in the trial of all ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... could go back. However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. And behold, nothing came of the late struggle! The pale young gentleman was nowhere to be seen, and only in the corner where the combat had taken place could I detect any evidences of his existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with garden-mould from the eye of men, ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... not," said Harrington, laughing, "I am afraid there are very few of us deeply versed enough in history to detect his delinquencies, or even to say whether they have been committed. There may be, for aught I know, some cases (of infinite importance of course) in which he has represented an event as having taken place on the 20th ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... times and the countries, and yet, the moral issues involved never change; for, right is eternal. To detect this ethical element amid the ever restless waves of human activities has ever been the noble and constant effort of true leaders. Like the pilot they are ever watching for the lighted buoy on ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... Only the well- tried old steersman of many years' experience could hope to reach to this position, and when once it was obtained unceasing vigilance was the price paid for the retention of the post. One mistake in running the rapids, or a single neglect to detect the coming of the storm in time to get to shore and the furs securely covered over with the heavy tarpaulins, with which each boat was supplied, was quite sufficient to cause him to lose the much coveted position. About the only liberty taken with him was, if possible, when the boats were crossing ...
— Three Boys in the Wild North Land • Egerton Ryerson Young
... common knowledge, and its enemies were alert and vigilant. None are so blind as those who will not see, and not a few, unacquainted with the spirit of Masonry, or unable to grasp its principle of liberality and tolerance, affected to detect in its secrecy some dark political design; and this despite the noble charge in the Book of Constitutions enjoining politics from entering the lodge—a charge hardly less memorable than the article defining its attitude toward ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... essential weakness of Lord Ashburton's despatches with the force and sagacity which characterized Macaulay's assault on the treaty. Indeed, a rhetorician and critic less skilful than Macaulay can easily detect that "America" is represented fully in Webster's despatches, while "Britannia" has a very amiable, but not very forcible, representative in Lord Ashburton. Had Palmerston been the British plenipotentiary, we can easily imagine how different would have been the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... is no one to inform it that sarsaparilla has been exhaustively studied by pharmacologists, employing every means of observation and experiment in their power, and that none of them have yet been able to detect its capacity to modify the body or any function of the body in any degree at all whether in health or disease. This is only one of many instances that might be named; every preparation of which the composition is not stated is suspect. Men are paying for these things at this moment under the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Planet Heleb has been eliminated. Occupation force on the ground. No further danger to Galactic peace expected from this source. Reason for operation: Rediscovery & Re-education—after two years on the planet—failed to detect signs of militancy. The major indications were: 1) a ruling caste restricted to women, and 2) disparity between numbers of males and females far beyond the Lutig norm! Senior Field Agent Lewis Orne found that the ruling caste was controlling the sex of offspring at conception (see attached ...
— Operation Haystack • Frank Patrick Herbert
... bearing no resemblance to the living hand; you would be compelled to have recourse to the chisel of a sculptor who, without making an exact copy, would represent for you its movement and its life. We must detect the spirit, the informing soul in the appearances of things and beings. Effects! What are effects but the accidents of life, not life itself? A hand, since I have taken that example, is not only a part of a body, it is the expression ...
— The Unknown Masterpiece - 1845 • Honore De Balzac
... and trails were left on all sides—ragged edges, rough-hewn corners; in short, the job was botched, artistic completeness unattained. To the vulgar, my feats might seem marvellous—the average man is mystified to grasp how you detect the letter 'e' in a simple cryptogram—to myself they were as commonplace as the crimes they unveiled. To me now, with my lifelong study of the science of evidence, it seemed possible to commit not merely one but a thousand crimes that should be absolutely undiscoverable. And yet criminals ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... been slow to detect in that rider with the flowing locks and gaudy tie, in his dress of velvet and of gold, the master spirit that he proved to be. That garb, fantastic as at first sight it appeared to be, was to be the distinguishing mark which, during all ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... perceptible to the unskilled observer. A thorough knowledge of the conditions that exist in health is of the highest importance, because it is only by a knowledge of what is right that one can surely detect a wrong condition. A knowledge of anatomy, or of the structure of the body, and of physiology, or the functions and activities of the body, lie at the bottom of accuracy of diagnosis. It is important to remember that animals of different ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... I can now detect the beginnings of a dozen of my stories, a score of my poems. No other of my trips was ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... which grows abundantly in most parts of Great Britain. According to the evidence of Dr Chinston, the deceased had died from serous apoplexy, and from all the post-mortem appearances this was the case. But they must remember that it was almost impossible to detect certain vegetable poisons, such as aconite and atropia, without minute chemical analysis. They would remember a case which startled London some years ago, in which the poisoner had poisoned his brother-in-law by means of aconite, ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... hidden, the queen was able to open certain panels known to her alone, behind which, sunk in the wall, were hiding-places, oblong like the panels, and more or less deep. It is difficult, even in these days of dilapidation, for the best-trained eye to detect which of those panels is thus hinged; but when the eye was distracted by colors and gilding, cleverly used to conceal the joints, we can readily conceive that to find one or two such panels among two hundred was almost an ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac
... already made experiments which fully illustrate this point. He found that the brush generally had a sensible duration, but that with his highest capabilities he could not detect any such effect in the spark[A]. I repeated his experiment on the brush, though with more imperfect means, to ascertain whether I could distinguish a longer duration in the stem or root of the brush than in the extremities, and the appearances ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... when Pete and Jack, in their Scout uniforms, hard to detect at any distance, even in broad daylight, and making them almost invisible at night, took up their vigil. The place seemed to be as silent and deserted as a tomb. Lights were few and far between, but each of them carried an electric ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... day, and induced him to take the easier way home via Fluelen. When, early in August, my young friend, who was always calm and very deliberate in his manner, set out on his return journey to Dresden, I could detect no signs of exhaustion about him. He was hoping on his arrival to lighten the heavy burden of life a little by undertaking the conductorship of the entr'acte music at the theatre, which he proposed to organise artistically, and thus set himself free from the oppressive and demoralising ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... flounder forward. Then, still some distance from the river, he fell upon his face, and did not rise again. I saw his arms beating feebler and feebler as he sank till at last the oily slime closed over him, and I could detect nothing but a faint heaving underneath the mud. And after a time even ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... indeed, that's twice a captive! heart And body both in bonds. But that's the chain, Which balance cannot weigh, rule measure, touch Define the texture of, or eye detect, That's forged by the subtle craft of love! No need to tell you that he wears it. Such The cunning of the hand that plied the loom, You've but to mark the straining of his eye, To feel the ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... against the garden fence. The high evergreens that grew inside still concealed him from the observation of anyone who might be looking out of the windows of the house. Then he carefully crept along till he came to the gate post, and bending down, he cautiously peeped round to see if he could detect anyone idling, or talking, or smoking. There was no one in sight except old Jack Linden, who was rubbing down the lobby doors with pumice-stone and water. Hunter noiselessly opened the gate and crept ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... "Doesn't it strike you that you're urging conflicting reasons? First you declare that Fuller was drunk, and then that he was able to detect clever players at cheating. Your argument contradicts ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... was closed, Cerizet peeped through the key-hole, trying to catch sight of la Peyrade's face. But the Provencal had turned back to meet Thuillier, and his distrustful associate could not detect ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... say, most of the tea-kettles in the Vale of Wrington, North Somersetshire, are filled by Rabdomancy.' Mr. Baring-Gould also quotes the case of a friend of his own who was personally acquainted with a Scotch lady who could detect hidden springs with a twig, which was inactive in the hands of others who tried it on ...
— Storyology - Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore • Benjamin Taylor
... almost stiffened by long kneeling, walked round and round the enclosure at a quick pace to put his blood into circulation. As the hour of midnight was tolled forth by the neighbouring churches, he heard footsteps, and could just detect a figure ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... many of these quietly leave your path to right and left, allowing you to pass, while they glide away, unseen, unknown. It is easily seen that a sharp-sensed, light bodied denizen of the woods can detect the approach of a heavy, bifurcated, booted animal, a long way ahead and ...
— Woodcraft • George W. Sears
... soul enter heaven at the very same moment? Is heaven in the atmosphere? He who asserts it is a very bold speculator. Is it out in the ether? If so, where? And how is it our telescopes cannot detect it? If heaven is a place, as it must be if it exists at all, it cannot very well be within the astronomical universe. Now the farthest stars are inconceivably remote. Our sun is more than 90,000,000 miles distant, and Sirius is more than 200,000 times ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (First Series) • George W. Foote
... Cholera infantum and pneumonia claim so many of our little ones each year, and in many cases snatch them away within a few hours of the first noticeable symptoms that we must advise you to call a physician as soon as you suspect it is serious. Cases vary and only a trained eye can detect the little symptoms and changes that may weigh in the balance ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... turned in that night I lay restlessly tossing upon my bed, wondering—wondering whether Van Ryn's questioning of Billy was the natural result of pure, unadulterated inquisitiveness, or whether it had a deeper significance. The conversation appeared to have arisen naturally enough. I could not detect in the relation of it any indication of a deliberate attempt on the part of the man to lead up to the subject of Billy's educational acquirements; what reason, indeed, could he have for doing so, apart from ...
— The Strange Adventures of Eric Blackburn • Harry Collingwood
... fire." I was conscious only of a joyous exhilaration, my limbs seemingly heeding their own business, without any discomfort or confusion; so much so, that without previous knowledge my experience on this occasion would not have led me to detect anything peculiar. In calm weather, however, the sustaining power of the water might probably be more marked. This was by far the most exciting and effective wave excursion I ever made this side of the Rocky Mountains; and when at its close I was heaved ashore among the ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... saying that she was the mother of Sylvia, one of her son's pupils, and described the beauty of their place, I thought that she gave a little start, and that I heard her speak the initials S. L. under her breath; but when I looked up, I could detect nothing but a slight quiver of ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... usual in dispersing. When all were gone, Miss Barfoot listened for a footstep in the other room. As she could detect no sound, she went to see if ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... the main depot is reached. This is done because the various protective and law and order organizations have watchers at the main railroad stations who are trained to the work of "spotting," and quickly detect a girl in the hands of one of these human beasts of prey. Generally these watchers are women and wear the badges of ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... and the press accordingly keeps its spies everywhere on the lookout for trifles that become important by being later than the last. And yet this minuteness of triviality has its value also. Our sensitive sheet gives us every morning the photograph of yesterday, and enables us to detect and to study at leisure that fleeting expression of the time which betrays its character, and which might altogether escape us in the idealized historical portrait. We cannot estimate the value of the items in our daily newspaper, because the world to which ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... author, the author of "Con Cregan," was coming to eclipse him. In short, he eclipsed himself, and he did not like it. His right hand was jealous of what his left hand did. It seems odd that any human being, however dull and envious, failed to detect Lever in the rapid and vivacious adventures of his Irish "Gil Blas," hero of one of the very best among his books, a piece not unworthy of Dumas. "Con" was written after midnight, "The Daltons" in the morning; and there ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... it difficult to detect much method in the madness, but on more sober occasions the performers can offer intelligible explanations of their behaviour. The account given by an old medicine woman at Niah, and confirmed by the man who conducts the ceremonies ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... my blood into my face with mentioning that traitor. She durst not have the confidence. I sent her to negotiate an affair, in which if I'm detected I'm undone. If that wheedling villain has wrought upon Foible to detect me, I'm ruined. O my dear friend, I'm a wretch of wretches ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... perceiving my face covered with blushes, told me, how he was confirmed in his opinion. "Look ye, Random," said he, "I have divined your plan, and am confident it will never succeed. You are too honest and too ignorant of the town to practise the necessary cheats of your profession, and detect the conspiracies that will be formed against you. Besides, you are downright bashful. What the devil! set up for a fortune hunter before you have conquered the sense of shame! Perhaps you are entitled by your merit, and I believe you are, to a richer and a better ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... complained of for maintaining a nuisance, was terribly put out at the charge and explained to the court: "Your honor, the odors complained of can not exist!" "But here are twenty complaints." "Yes, but I have worked in my factory for the last fifteen years, and I'll take my oath I can not detect any smells." "As a rule, prisoner," replied the judge, as he sharpened his spectacles on his bootleg, "the best noses are on the outside of soap factories. You are fined $25 and costs." Moral: Where a soap factory and ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... Jasper's face deliberately. It is strange how much more readily women read the thoughts of men than men detect those of women. "You know where the ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... for the purposes of his education, from this world-famous teaching of a very great master. In the heat of passion at the moment, one drew some harsh moral conclusions: Were they incorrect? Posed bluntly as rules of conduct, they led to the worst possible practices. As morals, one could detect no shade of difference between Gladstone and Napoleon except to the advantage of Napoleon. The private secretary saw none; he accepted the teacher in that sense; he took his lesson of political morality as learned, his notice ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... of them I wished to speak with you. I have been angry with you, but 't is passed. For when I hear your footsteps come or go, See in your features your dead mother's face, And in your voice detect some tone of hers, All anger vanishes, and I remember The days that are no more, and come no more, When as a child you sat upon my knee, And prattled of your playthings, and the games You played among the pear trees ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... that in the Fairy mythology Puck, or Hobgoblin, was the trusty servant of Oberon, and always employed to watch or detect the intrigues of Queen Mab, called by Shakespeare Titania. For in Drayton's Nynphidia, the same fairies are engaged in the sane business. Mab has an amour with Pigwiggen; Oberon being jealous, sends Hobgoblin to catch them, and one of Mab's nymphs ...
— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson
... Edgeworthstown. Mrs. Theresa Tattle, again, in "The Mimic," is a type which requires but little to fit it for a subordinate part in a novel, as is also Lady Diana Sweepstakes in "Waste not, Want not." In more than one case, we seem to detect an actual portrait. Mr. Somerville of Somerville ("The White Pigeon"), to whom that "little town" belonged,—who had done so much "to inspire his tenantry with a taste for order and domestic happiness, and took every means in his power to encourage industrious, ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... desist; evidently something more than a man's firm hand was needed to deal with the case. Latimer slipped out of bed in search of a weapon of dissuasion. There was sufficient light in the room to enable the pig to detect this manoeuvre, and the vile temper, inherited from the drowned mother, found full play. Latimer bounded back into bed, and his conqueror, after a few threatening snorts and champings of its jaws, resumed its massage operations with renewed zeal. During the long wakeful hours ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... but little harm with the experienced driver, and I ventured the ride, taking in a poor crippled man on the way, who was just coming into camp. He was clad in a few cotton rags that he had patched with old stocking-tops and bits of old tent-cloth, to hold them together, and it was impossible to detect the original fabric. In passing down the "Paradise Road" to the camp in Natchez-under-the-Hill, the unruly mule pranced, kicked, and reared, until both of them became unmanageable, and the dust rolled up a thick cloud, hiding the way before us, as well ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... as to who his employers were, it was currently stated that he had gone daffy over the detective business. His tone of voice indicated that he thought others were similarly afflicted. He allowed that no detective could detect until he had ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... intimate friends. They must have talked over La-lage's future together many times. I knew what Miss Pettigrew's views were and I suspect that my mother was in full agreement with them. Owing to the emotional strain to which I had been subjected I may have been in a hypersensitive condition. I seemed to detect in my mother's confident prophecy an allusion to Miss Pettigrew's plans. Women, even women like my mother, are greatly wanting in delicacy. I was so much afraid of her saying something more on the subject that I bade Miss Battersby good-bye, ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... which are cultivated for their flowers alone at any great length. Many of our favourite kinds in their present state are the descendants of two or more species crossed and commingled together, and this circumstance alone would render it difficult to detect the differences due to variation. For instance, our Roses, Petunias, Calceolarias, Fuchsias, Verbenas, Gladioli, Pelargoniums, &c., certainly have had a multiple origin. A botanist well acquainted with the parent-forms would probably detect some curious structural differences in their ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... bridle; two porters following with food and baggage; the precipice below; the forest above; the morning sun just risen over all. On a sudden, Ali held his breath and listened. His practised ear had caught a sound that mine could not detect. He seized my rein—forced my horse back upon his haunches—drew his hunting knife, and ran forward to reconnoitre. The turn of the road hid him for a moment from my sight. The next instant, I had sprung from the saddle, pistol in hand, and run after him to share the sport or the danger. ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... him "underneath." He scratched his head and announced that he was sent to look for it. His qualifications consisted apparently in his having coal-mined. But he seemed confident of detecting the quicker combustion sort, until he asked for necessary impedimenta. It seems that no good collier can detect an H.E. or any sort of mine without a pail of water, and a hole about 2,000 feet deep, and a pulley, and a rope ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 15, 1916 • Various
... fallacies which only experience can detect, there are some, of which scarcely experience itself can destroy the influence; some which, by a captivating show of indubitable certainty, are perpetually gaining upon the human mind; and which, though every trial ends in disappointment, obtain new credit as the sense of miscarriage wears gradually ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... them and all other existing intelligences that have not eternally existed; and it is simply impossible that creative intelligence, whose creatures owe to it whatever intelligence they possess, should on any occasion have exhibited a want of intelligence which they are competent to detect. ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... never married. This may have been due to that shade of indifference to the female character of which we detect traces here and there in his writings. In one passage he complains that women seemed to think of nothing but admiration and getting married; and, in another, he observes, almost with a sneer, that the Roman ladies were fond of ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... eyes trained to detect police agents at sight, however well disguised, failed to espy one sign of any sort of espionage upon this ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... voice is said to be joined. The soprano also has to contend with a similar difficulty. It often requires many months of constant and unremitting practice to overcome this natural defect of the vocal organ, and in some voices it is never entirely conquered. An acute ear might often detect the faulty joining of the voice, in both the Grisis, when executing a distant descending interval. This obstacle meets the student at the very threshold of his career; but we have met with many English taught ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... exceedingly free from those degrading vices to which Mr. Covey was constantly addicted. The one was open and frank, and we always knew where to find him. The other was a most artful deceiver, and could be understood only by such as were skilful enough to detect his cunningly-devised frauds. Another advantage I gained in my new master was, he made no pretensions to, or profession of, religion; and this, in my opinion, was truly a great advantage. I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass
... tibial fracture is readily recognised by detecting an irregularity on running the fingers along the crest of the shin, and at this point abnormal mobility, tenderness, and crepitus can usually be elicited. It is often difficult to detect the fibular fracture, and it is not always advisable to attempt to do so, especially if the manipulations cause pain or tend to increase the displacement. The condition of the fibula is usually to be inferred by noting the amount of displacement ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... of a whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest,—two elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. My foot was within a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. I wondered what a sharp eye would detect curious or characteristic in the ways of the bird, so I came to the place many times and had a look. It was always a task to separate the bird from her surroundings though I stood within a few feet of her, and knew exactly ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... through my porthole, I found that this was so, and that the weather had cleared. The sea, now a deep sapphire blue, had gone down very considerably, the sky was clear of clouds, and upon looking more closely at the water I was able to detect the shadow of the ship upon it, and thereby determine that she was under her three topsails, courses, fore-topmast staysail, and spanker. And by the swirl of yeast past my port I estimated that she must be reeling off ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... volumes are sure of a place in your marvellous library I trust that with your unrivalled knowledge of the various editions of Wilde you may not detect any grievous error whether of taste or type, of omission or commission. But should you do so you must blame the editor, and not those who so patiently assisted him, the proof readers, the printers, or the publishers. Some day, however, I look forward to your bibliography ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... myself well, I hurried along at top speed, but guess my surprise to discover that nowhere could I find one of my companions. Down one walk I scampered, up another, across a third, but all was still and silent; not a sound, not a breath, could I detect. There was still one part of the garden unexplored; it was a small open space before a little pond which usually contained the gold fish the Emperor was so fond of. Thither I bent my steps, and had not gone far when in the pale moonlight ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... to the brightness of their home, and even more indispensable to the success of their little shop; for Grannie had a natural turn for business, and if her eyes were the kindest in all the world, they were also the sharpest to detect the least thing not perfectly straight in those with whom she had to deal. So the shop, started on thoroughly business principles, flourished well. And the young pair were happy, and the other children by and by made a good start in the ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... particular ideas. The whole thing is a song,—a song of emotions and thoughts not human, and therefore humanly unimaginable. But other dogs know what it means, and make answer over the miles of the night,—sometimes from so far away that only by straining my hearing to the uttermost can I detect the faint response. The words—(if I may call them words)—are very few; yet, to judge by their emotional effect, they must signify a great deal. Possibly they mean things myriads of years old,—things relating to odors, ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... hill-foot, that has been built of it. It is a soft, coarse-grained, mouldering stone, ill fitted for the purposes of the architect; and more nearly resembles the New Red Sandstone of England and Dumfriesshire, than any other rock I have yet seen in the north of Scotland. I failed to detect in it ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... attraction? But then the alternative is even worse, if I encourage expectations and nurture hopes never to be realized. Well, we meet to-night, after a long and eventful absence; let my future fate be ruled by the results of this meeting. If Lucy Dashwood does care for me, if I can detect in her manner enough to show me that my affection may meet a return, the whole effort of my life shall be to make her mine; if not, if my own feelings be all that I have to depend upon to extort a reciprocal affection, then shall I take ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... scout's ear, started and his heart beat faster at every trifling stir outside. Then, as they realized that darkness must have fallen, they became more alert for sounds and a little apprehensive. They knew Florette would come quietly, but Tom believed he could detect her approach. ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... the actual historical course of the centralisation of the cultus, and such the three stadia which can be distinguished. The question now presents itself, whether it is possible to detect a correspondence between the phases of the actual course of events and those of the legislation relating to this subject. All three portions of the legislation contain ordinances on the subject of sacrificial places and offerings. It may be taken for granted that in some way or other ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... in Sissy's voice that deceived her sister. In the perennial game of "bluff" these two played, each was alert to detect a weakness in the other; and Irene thought she had found one now. Ignoring her professor, she placed "In Sweet Dreams" on the rack before her, and gaily and loudly, and ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... be in truth a German spy, bent on taking them prisoner for some mysterious reason or other? Rod felt sure this could not be, for he had failed to detect a sign of the Teutonic guttural in the voice of the other. In fact, Rod was inclined to suspect him of being of French origin, for when speaking he had all the shrugs and grimaces which so often mark the natives of France, especially when ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... day they spent in a fruitless effort to detect the footprints of Petawanaquat, either among the tracks made by the band of Indians or among those diverging from the main line of march. In so doing they wandered far from the camp at the lakelet, and even lost sight of each other. The only result was that Ian and Rollin returned ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... translation, and has so far complied with the taste of the age, that his whole book is overrun with texts of Scripture, and the notion of pre-existence, supposed to be stolen from two verses of the prophets." The sincere believer is usually the first to detect and be disgusted with the sham one; and Addison was always a sincere believer, but he had also that happy nature in which disgust is carried quickly and easily off through the ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... eyes, threw back his head, dropt his under jaw, and surrendered himself to the most intense interest. The preacher was an indifferent one; and by as much as he became dull and insipid, by so much did Ned become absorbed in his discourse. And yet it was impossible for the nicest observer to detect anything in his looks or manner, short of the most solemn devotion. The effect which his conduct had upon the congregation, and their subsequent remarks, must be left to the imagination of the reader. ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... threw away the stump and, taking up the lantern, sailed away under the verandah for the night. As soon as the door was closed, absolute darkness fell upon the house; Francis might try his eyesight as much as he pleased, he could not detect so much as a single chink of light below a blind; and he concluded, with great good sense, that the bed-chambers were ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the latter would take most learning, and were to be our chief concern, because they were the 'through-routes'—the connecting links between the estuaries. You can always detect them on the chart by rows of little Y-shaped strokes denoting 'booms', that is to say, poles or saplings fixed in the sand to mark the passage. The strokes, of course, are only conventional signs, and do not correspond in the least to individual 'booms', which ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... is, I had expected to see a cousin german to Don Quixote; I had thought to detect signs and gleams of wildness, however slight—something a little "off." One glance of that kindly and humorous eye told me such expectation had been nonsense. Odd he might have been—Gadzooks! he looked it—but "queer"? Never. The fact that Miss Apperthwaite ...
— Beasley's Christmas Party • Booth Tarkington
... the Lord is with you at Aldershot, for we have realized His presence there. But He is here in wonderful power. We had a conversion last night on the hatchway. A man came along and listened, and in the dark we did not detect him till he spoke; so we have to report progress. We are to meet every night for prayer, reading and praise. It would melt a heart of cast steel to have been in our little meeting to-night, as one after ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... it happens that an increasing number of intellects can find solace in these theories no longer; it happens that the liberty of free thought (which is the only liberty man may claim) will not longer be bound with these puny chains. Many detect no just argument for a future life; they admit that adequate estimate of abstract Justice is beyond them; they suspect that Justice is a human conceit; and they see no cause why its attributes should be credited to the Creator in His dealings with the created, ...
— Children of the Mist • Eden Phillpotts
... have nought but a scrap-book, a parterre filled with flowers and weeds strangling each other in their wild redundancy; we shall have a cento of rags and tatters, which will require little acuteness to detect. ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... forms of slander. It drops from tongue to tongue; goes from house to house, in such ways and degrees, that it would sometimes be difficult to take it up and detect the falsehood. You could not evaporate the truth in the slow process of the crucible, and then show the residuum of falsehood glittering and visible. You could not fasten upon any word or sentence, and say that it was calumny; for in order to ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... and of the foes of their master. The kingdom has its root in the counsels of policy that flow from ministers, and its growth proceeds from the same source. Ministers should act in such a way that the enemies of their master may not be able to detect his laches. On the other hand, when their laches become visible, they should then be assailed. Like the tortoise protecting its limbs by withdrawing them within its shell, ministers should protect their own counsels. They should, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... breakfast-table, the hours of the morning passed quickly over, and it was already beyond noon. I was startled from my revery by sounds which I could scarcely trust my ears to believe real. I listened again, and thought I could detect them distinctly. It seemed as though some one were rapidly running over the keys of a pianoforte, essaying with the voice to follow the notes, and sometimes striking two or three bold and successive ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... home, we sat down to supper. Marya Sergeyevna, laughing, regaled us with our purchases, and I thought that she certainly had wonderful hair and that her smile was unlike any other woman's. I watched her, and I wanted to detect in every look and movement that she did not love her husband, and I fancied that ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... by what I have heard, and my visits are none the less frequent because of the friendly admonitions which I have received. I do not provide myself with the talismans which the sereno has recommended; but I watch the old lady's ways more narrowly than I have before done, till I begin at last to detect something like a malignant expression in her ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... deal ever since I can remember. It has been a great comfort to me,' she said simply, and half-turned to him smiling. 'When did you first detect music in me? Oh, of course: I was at the opera. But that wouldn't prove ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... enable you to detect the insolent changes in the design of Giovanni made by the modern Academy-student in so far as they relate to form absolute. I must farther, for a few moments, request your attention to the alterations made in the light ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... a patron, or sported away the reputation of innocence. My delight was only in petty mischief, and momentary vexations, and my acuteness was employed not upon fraud and oppression, which it had been meritorious to detect, but upon harmless ignorance or absurdity, prejudice ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... which actuated the soldiers. Sindercome had undertaken to murder him; and by the most unaccountable accidents, had often been prevented from executing his bloody purpose. His design was discovered; but the protector could never find the bottom of the enterprise, nor detect any of his accomplices. He was tried by a jury; and, notwithstanding the general odium attending that crime, notwithstanding the clear and full proof of his guilt, so little conviction prevailed of the protector's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... adopted in order to deceive; but it is inconceivable that, under these appearances, a man should pass himself off as a husband; there are a thousand differences in a relationship such as this which a wife could easily detect. The marvellous effects of Thessalian magic have at all times been renowned; but I have always looked upon as idle tales the famous stories everyone talks of. It would be a hard fate if I, after so glorious a victory elsewhere, should be compelled to believe ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... evidence is always taken with considerable doubt, but it is part of his business to look out for erasures and alterations. It is quite possible Brander may have removed that blot, and that he has done it so well that neither you nor I could detect it; but whether he did it with a knife or chemicals you may be sure that Cooper will be able to spot it, whichever he used. I have very little doubt that your suspicions are correct and those parchments were really the pretended ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... and we have the results of his meditations in "Sartor Resartus." We have an uneasy sense that he may be making fun of us—in fact, we are almost sure that he is; for, if you look at his summary of the doctrines put forth in "Pelham," you can hardly fail to detect a kind of sub-acid sneer. Instead of being impressed by the dainty musings of the learned Bulwer, that grim vulturine sage chose to curl his fierce lips and turn the whole thing to a laughing-stock. We must at ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman |
