"Observant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was passed along and each Rider helped herself from platter and pan, and every plate was heaped under the observant eyes that were glaring through the big horn-rimmed spectacles to see that each person helped herself to ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower
... flushed and candid faces of animation towards the path, beheld Aunt Victoria, wonderful and queen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over her stately blond head, attended by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quiet and observant; Mr. Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily responsible; and Professor Marshall smiling ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... the judge, "and it ought to occur the oftenest. Ah! that clearly proves that the meaning had been changed. And now, after a or o, what are the letters which figure oftenest in our language? Let us see," and Judge Jarriquez, with truly remarkable sagacity, which denoted a very observant mind, started on this new quest. In this he was only imitating the American romancer, who, great analyst as he was, had, by simple induction, been able to construct an alphabet corresponding to the signs of the cryptogram and by means of it to eventually ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... accident, when he was all of a sudden obliged to change his resolution by some disagreeable letters which he received from London. He had, from his first departure, corresponded with his generous, though inconstant mistress, with a religious exactness and punctuality; nor was she, for some time, less observant of the agreement they had made. Nevertheless, she, by degrees, became so negligent and cold in her expression, and so slack in her correspondence, that he could not help observing and upbraiding her with such indifference; and her endeavours to palliate it were ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... expedition over the Hellers—God only knows what possessed him to try and take a light plane over those crosswinds. I survived the crash by the merest chance, and lived with the trailmen—so I'm told—until I was thirteen or fourteen. I don't remember much about it. Children aren't particularly observant." ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... so terrible and destructive that he almost rushed for help. But she restrained him. She made him understand that she wanted certain remedies from her own room across the corridor. He went for them. The door of this room had been shut by the observant Dell, who was watching the passage from his own bedroom farther on. When Ashe had opened it he found himself face to face as it were with the foaming stream outside. The window, as he had seen it before, was wide ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of India are particularly observant of character, and intelligent in gauging the capabilities of those who govern them; and it is because the English Government is trusted that a mere handful of Englishmen are able to direct the administration of a country with nearly three hundred millions ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... many as three grave doctors, and the room was so quiet, and Paul was so observant of them, that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches. But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps; for Paul had heard them say long ago that that gentleman had been with his mamma when she clasped Florence in her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... magnificent possibilities of a brilliant life, a competence, for one chance in a thousand at the gambling table;" "for exchange, bright prospects, a brilliant outlook, a cultivated intelligence, a college education, a skilled hand, an observant eye, valuable experience, great tact, all exchanged for rum, for a muddled brain, a bewildered intellect, a shattered nervous system, poisoned blood, a diseased body, for fatty degeneration of the heart, for Bright's disease, for ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden
... obeyed orders and that afternoon Albert and he had the "business talk." Conversation at dinner was somewhat strained. Mr. Fosdick was quietly observant and seemed rather amused about something. His wife was dignified and her manner toward her guest was inclined to be abrupt. Albert's appetite was poor. As for Madeline, she did not come down to ...
— The Portygee • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... said the admiral, smiling. "I'm not an observant man over such matters; in fact, I woke up only three months ago to find how blind I could be; but in your case I did have a few suspicions; for you ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... tend our Persons, to till our Grounds, to hew our Wood, and to draw our Water. Where we admit them to fight for us, they have ever proved valiant; where we admit them to serve us, they are found loving, observant, and faithful. Temptations have come to their Doors and called them forth; the Contagion of Rebellion hath broken out among their Neighbours; they have yet remained quiet, and continued untainted; still loyal to their Sovereign, amenable to Government, and submissive ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... before acquiring the whole of their trade, but not before absorbing most of that which constituted the overflow of their lives. I began to imitate the manners and conversation of men. Ridiculed for this, I retreated into myself and became more observant and more silent. A small, very dim yet new light appeared to me—reflection, silent thoughts at night, and when alone; questionings with no least effort at answers. My new world as yet was not much more ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... overwhelmed with embarrassment that amounted to fear. He never knew just what he said at first, but when he recovered sufficiently to realise that the faces turned toward him were kindly, and the smiles were encouraging, his self-possession returned. Observant always, and quick to see the right thing to do, William hoped that "Mister Watson and his wife would live happy ever after, and," he concluded, with a smile that was full of confidence, "I nearly snickered once when the marriage was on. That was when the minister says something ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... have actuated the criminal. Let us take up these two points, and first of all ask ourselves how the murder of the Marquise de Langrune ought to be 'classified' in the technical sense. The first conclusion which must be impressed upon the mind of any observant person who has visited the scene of the crime and examined the corpse of the victim is, that this murder must be placed in the category of crapulous crimes. The murderer seems to have left the implicit ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... be supposed that she soon inwardly guessed the significance of her friend's strange expression; she was quick and observant, and he was sometimes extremely guileless. But the evenings went on as before, and their conversations were just as poetic and interesting. And behold on one occasion at nightfall, after the most lively and poetical conversation, they parted affectionately, ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pistoles." He was evidently a thrifty lad, and honestly pleased with honest earnings. He was no mere adventurous wanderer, but a man working for results in money, reputation, or some solid value, and while he worked and earned he kept an observant eye upon the wilderness, and bought up when he could the best land for himself and his family, laying the foundations of the great landed estate of which he ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and no one was allowed outside before reveille. Officers and men of Gatacre's division had as usual to sleep in their places lying down in the ranks fully dressed, with their arms beside them, ready to spring to attention. Sentinels and patrols, watchful and observant, moved noiselessly about throughout the whole night. True, there were outside a few of Slatin's most trusted native friends, chiefly Jaalin, set to listen and raise an outcry if the Khalifa's dervishes came down upon us under cover of the inky ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... the whole situation, some indefinite sympathy which unconsciously sought for an outlet—made her smile. Jacinth's smile was charming. Already to her thin young face it gave the roundness and bloom it wanted—every feature softened and the clear observant eyes grew sweet. ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... criticism's worth, and if I have had no more of it, surely I am hardly to blame, who have in more than one instance bored you sufficiently: but not a particle of your article has been rejected or neglected by your observant humble servant, and very proud shall I be if my new work bear in it the marks of the influence under which it was undertaken—and if I prove not a fit compeer of the potter in Horace who anticipated an amphora and produced a porridge-pot. I purposely keep back the subject until you ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... impression, as the wind was somewhat against him, and so his raft at times ground roughly against the side from which he had broken away. However, he was slowly working north, and he was not discouraged. Sam was always an observant lad. When on shipboard he had been interested in watching the sailors shift the sails to catch the changing winds. So now an idea came to him, and he resolved to see what could be done with an improvised sail, even if it were only made out of a large buffalo robe. Lashing one side of the robe ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young
... persuaded will in time be much commended; but I doubt whether they will ever be rewarded. However, I must go on cheerfully in my work of reformation: that being my great design, I am studious to prevent my labours increasing upon me; therefore am particularly observant of the temper and inclinations of childhood and youth, that we may not give vice and folly supplies from the growing generation. It is hardly to be imagined how useful this study is, and what great evils or benefits arise from ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... iii. p. 423, de Magnitud. Romana, l. iii. c. 3) and Isaac Vossius (Observant. Var. p. 26-34) have indulged strange dreams, of four, or eight, or fourteen, millions in Rome. Mr. Hume, (Essays, vol. i. p. 450-457,) with admirable good sense and scepticism betrays some secret disposition to extenuate ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... His mother, finding it almost impossible to teach him to walk, devoted herself faithfully to improving his mind, so that at fourteen years of age he read well and enjoyed books, and was mentally clear, observant, and docile. His speech was almost incomprehensible,—stuttering, thick, and nasal. He stood, swaying in every direction, though not apt to fall, with bent knees, rounded shoulders, every muscle in the extremities rigid, the mouth half-open, the head projected forward, and, upon attempting ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... has the grave revealed its secrets to observant men? Dr. Donne sauntered about among graves, and saw a sexton turn up a skull. He examined it, found a nail in it, identified the skull, and had the murderess hung. She was safe from the sexton and the rest of the parish, but not ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... younger fellows, without knowing what affected them, were moved by the new picture of a girl, as if it had been a frontispiece of a romantic story some day to be read. She looked compelled to look, but consenting and unashamed; at home in submission; just the look that wins observant boys, shrewd as dogs to read by signs, if they are interested in the persons. They read Browny's meaning: that Matey had only to come and snatch her; he was her master, and she was a brave girl, ready to go all over the world with him; had taken to him as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... it seemed that the poor lost lad's life was despaired of, and when it was known that his conduct was such as to render all thoughts of union hopeless, Laura had, with many tears, told her mother a secret with which every observant person who reads this story was acquainted already. Now she never could marry him, was she to be denied the consolation of owning how fondly, how truly, how entirely she had loved him? The mingling tears of the woman appeased the agony of their ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... before the oncoming betrayal; but, instead of refusal, she had met with an instant, happy acquiescence, and it was now surely the climax of irony to see how her mother, for her sake, bore with them. More than for her sake, perhaps. Imogen detected in those seemingly indolent, yet so observant, eyes a keen reading of the Pottses' perturbed condition, and in her manner, so easy and so apt, the sweetest, lightest kindness. She turned corners and drew veils for them, spread a warm haze of interest and serenity about their clumsy and obtruding personalities. Imogen could even ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... and critically observant, wondered if he had not interrupted a second rapid look between father and daughter. He could not be sure, but at all events the girl hastened ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate? Shall Ambition and Avarice never sleep? Shall they never want objects on which to fasten? Shall they be so observant to discover, so acute to discern, so eager, so patient to pursue, and shall the Benevolence of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... belt which marked the morass between us and Holdernesse. Certainly, if the lad had gone homeward, he must have passed this, and he could not pass it without leaving his traces. But no sign of him or the German could be seen. With a darkening face my friend strode along the margin, eagerly observant of every muddy stain upon the mossy surface. Sheep-marks there were in profusion, and at one place, some miles down, cows had left their ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... have occurred to me during a recent trip across the continent: they are written in no spirit of complaint against existing railroad methods, but merely in the hope that they may prove useful to those who travel, like myself, in a spirit of meek, observant ignorance. ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... towards the tennis-court in which he was standing. The three Professors left their places and stood at one end of the net, Messrs Hartley and Van Huysman indulging in audible growls of baffled scepticism, and Franklin Marmion silently observant, divided between interest and amusement. He could not help imagining what would happen if he were to stand in the middle of the circle and remove himself to the Higher Plane, and then go round shaking hands and saying, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... impresses the observant Christian visitor to that land is the triumph and wonderful achievement of missionary effort there during ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... plain living, to her share of which she had been made a thousand times welcome; while by this richer house, of which she was also heir, such rightful trinkets and treasures had been withheld. But at the next minute she could meet Miss Prince's observant eyes without displeasure, and wisely remembered that she herself had not been responsible for the state of affairs, and that possibly her aunt had been as wronged and insulted and beaten back as she complained. So she pushed the newly-brightened cup aside with an almost careless ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... artillery was encamped. The dragoman became involved in all sorts of discussions with other Greeks, but Coleman stuck to his elbow and stifled all aimless oration. The Wainwright party waited for them in the rear in an observant but ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... Indians reported to the Mounted Police that they had seen two white men in the early summer, and that afterwards one man walked alone, and was now at Lesser Slave. An observant Cree boy added, "The dog won't follow that other white fellow any more." Sergeant Anderson, going to their last camp, turned over the ashes and found three hard lumps of flesh and a small piece of skull bone. Convinced that murder had been done, he arrested the suspected ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... this it appears that the good Father was very observant, though his observation, or the information he obtained from the Indians, was not always to be trusted. He goes on to speak of the tribes, whose people and customs he found very different from the Indians of Canada. "They have large public squares, games, and assemblies. They seem mirthful ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 2 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... would seem, the symptoms themselves, attending the convulsions, appeared, to the observant physician, to warrant the propriety of the remedy desired. Montgeron copies a report of a case made to him, and attested by a gentleman of his acquaintance, a Jansenist, who had persuaded his cousin, Dr. M——, at that time a distinguished physician of Paris, and much prejudiced against the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... 'But,' the observant reader may possibly exclaim, 'there is nothing new about this. Woman has ever been man's favourite grumble-vent, from the day when the first man got out of his first scrape by blaming the only available woman!' True enough, age cannot stale the infinite variety ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... the whole world horizon, Phidias, Michael Angelo, and Dante; and then, separated from their great religious thrones only by less fulness and earnestness of Faith, Homer, and Shakspeare; and from these we may go down step by step among the mighty men of every age, securely and certainly observant of diminished lustre in every appearance of restlessness and effort, until the last trace of true inspiration vanishes in the tottering affectations or the tortured insanities of modern times. There is no art, no pursuit, whatsoever, but its results may be classed ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... After all serious duties—could forget The gravity of life to the extent, At times, of kindling much astonishment About him: With a quick, observant eye, And mind and memory, he could supply The tamest incident with liveliest mirth; And at the most unlooked-for times on earth Was wont to break into some travesty On those around him—feats of mimicry Of this one's ...
— A Child-World • James Whitcomb Riley
... those years ought to have made him. He was no longer the merry, impulsive lad, ready on the shortest notice, to take part in anything that promised amusement for the moment, whatever the next might bring. He was quiet and observant now; hardly doing his part in general conversation, holding his own views and opinions with sufficient tenacity when they were assailed, but rather indifferent as to what might be the views and opinions of others; as ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... and the negotiation made no way. It struck the observant tradesman that all was not right. Old Marguerite several times refused to admit him, declaring her master was asleep: there was something mysterious and forbidding in her manner that seemed to Monsieur Ramin very ominous. At length a ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 8 - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 19, 1850 • Various
... keeps retreating backwards when any one attempts to coax it. It is always in a querulous humour, uttering a twittering, complaining noise; its dark, watchful eyes are expressive of distrust, and observant of every movement which takes place near it. When treated kindly, however, as it generally is in the houses of the natives, it becomes very tame and familiar. I once saw one as playful as a kitten, running ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... England whose strength and virtue were so differently manifested. This fair broad land of the lovely villages signifies little save to the antiquary, the poet, the painter. Vainly, indeed, should I show its beauty and its peace to the observant foreigner; he would but smile, and, with a glance at the traction-engine just coming along the road, indicate the ...
— The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft • George Gissing
... one of Governor Tilton's staff. It is said that when the individual referred to first presented himself en militaire to his wife and little daughter, the latter, after gazing at him for a few minutes, turned to her mother, and exclaimed: "Why, Ma, that's not a real soldier—it's Pa!" Equally observant was another youngster, who was sent by his parent to take a letter to the post-office and pay the postage on it. The boy returned highly elated, and said: "Father, I seed a lot of men putting letters ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... meddlesomeness. She was inquisitive after the fashion of a sympathetic arch-angel. It appalled her to see people wrecking their lives by indecision, vacillation, incapacity, by poor judgment and crass stupidity. Her homely wisdom, the fruit of observant years, her native common sense, her strength and discernment were all at the service of the first comer. Responsibility, the bugbear of mankind, was as the ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... thing." Elsie withdrew her observant short-sighted eyes from Mrs. Pendleton's crowning glory, and a smile barely touched the corners of her expressively inexpressive mouth. Mrs. Pendleton glanced up, faintly ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... how much more disagreeable they were to Mr. Lewisham, trudging meditative to the schools. You will understand his slipping out of the laboratory, and betaking himself to the Educational Reading-room, and how it was that the observant Smithers, grinding his lecture notes against the now imminent second examination for the "Forbes," was presently perplexed to the centre of his being by the spectacle of Lewisham intent upon a pile ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... the person of the first-born Louis, had been a value to us, or at any rate to me—for though I was, in common with my elders then, unacquainted with the application of that word as I use it here, what was my incipient sense of persons and things, what were my first stirred observant and imaginative reactions, discriminations and categories, but a vague groping for it? The De Coppets (again as more especially and most impressively interpreted by the subtle Louis) enjoyed the pre-eminence ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... prehistoric times, many of them existing then with little essential difference. Any one of them affords a lesson in the gradual elaboration of the simple. A step minute in itself leads on and on, and so all the practical arts are built up, a readier and more observant mind imitating and adapting the work of predecessors, as we imagined the first man making his first flint axe. The history of the plough goes back to the elongation of a bent stick. The wheel would arise from cutting out the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... Olive bent forward, looked with her merry, twinkling eyes full into Susie Rushworth's face, and said, "Is the dear Fan altogether elated at the thought of her cousins' arrival? I put it to you, Susie, as the most observant of us all. Answer me truthfully, or ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... further than the Empress intended that reprisals for lese-majeste should go. Still, she was curious to see how her strange acquaintance would bear himself under the test. She watched him from the corner of an observant eye. Would he be disconcerted by the brusqueness of the attack? Would he lose his temper? Would he cheapen himself to answer in kind? What ...
— Little Miss Grouch - A Narrative Based on the Log of Alexander Forsyth Smith's - Maiden Transatlantic Voyage • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... through the whining crowd of beggars at the gate of the Campo Santo and went slowly down the hill. The blessed hour of peace and silence was over now, and she must trudge back through the clamorous streets to be with Mamie, to meet the Marchese's horribly observant eyes, and to be everlastingly quiet and complacent and useful. She was ...
— Olive in Italy • Moray Dalton
... the light companionship of common usage, however, it is exactly the costume which comes closest to us, and bad taste in that is most jarring and least easily forgiven. There is a certain stage in an observant person's experience of the heedlessness, indolence, and native folly of men and women—and if his observation be conducted in a catholic spirit, he will probably see something of this not merely in others—when the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... in his every-day clothes, which lost him a point in Mrs. Lunn's observant eyes; but Captain Crowe had paid her the honor of putting on his best coat for this evening visit. She thought at first that he had even changed his shirt, but upon reflection remembered that this could not be taken as a special recognition of her charms, it being Wednesday night. On the wharves, ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... the observant teacher of Crow Hill school. Amanda, seated in the front of the room and placed so she half faced the audience and with one little turn of her head could view the spellers, had seen the cheating ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... the telegram. He nodded his head and smiled, which the observant Dave took to mean that he was friendly towards Mr. Timmins, but knew of some of his business-lapses ...
— Dave Dashaway and his Hydroplane • Roy Rockwood
... missionary work which is being done among the Samoans, Mr. Stevenson was especially interested. He was an observant, shrewd, yet ever generous critic of all our religious and educational organisations. His knowledge of native character and life enabled him to understand missionary difficulties, while his genial contact with all sorts and conditions of men made him keen to detect ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the real Boston we know and love, than either of the others: and it perplexed her more than it need, even if it had not been mere phantasm. It made her suspicious of Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards her, and observant of little things that might very well have otherwise escaped her. The bantering humor, the light-hearted trust and self-reliance with which she had once met him deserted her, and only returned fitfully when some accident called her out of herself, and made ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... the qualities that will loom most largely in his career from this time forward. It is necessary only to read the newspaper letters which he wrote on his Southern trip in 1881 to understand how early his mind seized this new point of view. Many things which now fell under his observant eye in the Southern States greatly irritated him and with his characteristic impulsiveness he pictured these traits in pungent phrase. The atmosphere of shiftlessness that too generally prevailed in some localities; the gangs of tobacco-chewing loafers assembled around railway stations; the ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... of having entered "on her teens," and the struggle between this new importance and her hitherto almost boyish tastes was amusing to watch. She was strong and healthy in the extreme, intelligent though not precocious, observant but rather matter-of-fact, with no undue development of the imagination, nothing that by any kind of misapprehension or exaggeration could have been called "morbid" about her. It was a legend in the family ...
— Four Ghost Stories • Mrs. Molesworth
... this period spent in England. It was written at Concord, and first appeared serially during 1863 in the "Atlantic Monthly." Although "Our Old Home" gave no little offence to English readers, nevertheless it exhibits the author as keenly observant of their characteristics and life. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... each line must have eight syllables—no more, no less. For the trite ideas and hackneyed rhymes, nothing can be recommended save a more observant and discriminating perusal of standard poets. It must be kept in mind that the verse found in current family magazines and popular hymn-books is seldom, if ever, true poetry. The only authors suitable as models, are those whose names are praised ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... Drumtochty was not observant in the matter of health, but they had grown sensitive about Dr. MacLure, and remarked in the kirkyard all summer ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... forbade any light to visit her face "from the right or from the left" when her portrait was a-painting. She was an observant woman, and liked to be lighted from the front. It is a light from the right or from the left that marks an elderly face with minute shadows. And you must place a child in such a light, in order to see the finishing and parting caress that infancy has given to his face. ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... a strange paradox that in traveling, the most observant of all pursuits, one should have to ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... gave a sardonic smile. "As far as other matters are concerned," she insinuated, "her observation isn't worth speaking of; where she's extra-observant is in articles people ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... morrow (which was the seventh day of the week), having heard there was a meeting there. Accordingly, having ordered my horse to be made ready betimes, I got up in the morning and made myself ready also. Yet before I would go (that I might be as observant to my father as possibly I could) I desired my sister to go up to him in his chamber, and acquaint him that I had a mind to go to Oxford, and desired to know if he pleased to command me any service there. He bid her tell me he would not have me go till he had spoken with ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... Neither observant man nor woman would have passed her, even in a crowd, without a second glance. There was a cheerful light in her eye and a humorous curve to her not too-full lips that promised an uplifting spirit within her even in ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... hotels. Thither drove also a sagacious-looking, middle-aged man, who entered his name as "W. Thompson" in the book at the office immediately after that of "R. Venner." Mr, "Thompson" kept a carelessly observant eye upon Mr. Venner during his stay at the hotel, and followed him to the cars when he left, looking over his shoulder when he bought his ticket at the station, and seeing him fairly off without obtruding himself ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... experience they are, however, as unlike as two girls could be. Phene, undeveloped in mind and heart, the easily duped agent of a cruel trick, appeals to us by her slow, incredulous, but eager response to goodness and aspiration, the tremulous opening of her soul to love. But Pippa, with her observant love of nature, her gay, sportive, winsome fancies, her imaginative sympathy with the lives of others, her knowledge of good and evil, her poise, her bright steadiness of soul, carries us into a different and much more highly evolved world of thought and feeling. So we might ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... clearness and a greater distinction of outline than is attained by ordinary people. It is from him that humanity may look for most instruction; for the deepest insight into the most important matters is to be acquired, not by an observant attention to detail, but by a close study of things as a whole. And if his mind reaches maturity, the instruction he gives will be conveyed now in one form, now in another. Thus genius may be defined as an eminently ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer
... confounded by the contradictions of his behavior. Looking deeper into it, I suspected that in his suit of clothing resided at different times two men: the one an agent, the other a principal; the one a reality, the other a disguise. I armed myself and had the duller and less observant of these doubles row me out upon the Delaware on such a night as marked the tragedy he witnessed. When we reached the middle of the river I forced the story of the coincidence from him ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... Him who is the God of battles, Him by whom nations are led to victory and preserved in peace. Be men of resolution and men of energy, pacific in your profession and disinterested in your patriotism, observant of your duty to your queen, your country, and ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... charming knick-knacks appeared from various snug corners, what fascinating toilet-cases and coffee-pots, and how delightfully Varvara Pavlovna herself made the coffee in the morning! Lavretsky, however, was not at that time disposed to be observant; he was blissful, drunk with happiness; he gave himself up to it like a child. Indeed he was as innocent as a child, this young Hercules. Not in vain was the whole personality of his young wife breathing with fascination; not in vain was her promise to the senses ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... Mr. Thackeray knows the value of his writings and his time too well to whittle at verses in the Messenger office, and leave his chips on the floor; and that he is too observant of the laws of fair wit to make a falsification and call it a burlesque. The Sorrows of Werther is not so popular as when known here chiefly by a wretched version of a wretched French version, and many who read these ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... int'rest calls off all her sneaking train, And all th' obliged desert, and all the vain; She waits, or to the scaffold, or the cell, When the last lingering friend has bid farewell. Ev'n now, she shades thy evening walk with bays, (No hireling she, no prostitute of praise) Ev'n now, observant of the parting ray, Eyes the calm sun-set of thy various day; Thro' fortune's cloud ONE truly great can see, Nor fears to ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... confidant was accordingly to live exempt. Service was in other words so easy to render that the whole thing was like court life without the hardships. It came back of course to the question of money, and our observant lady had by this time repeatedly reflected that if one were talking of the "difference," it was just this, this incomparably and nothing else, that when all was said and done most made it. A less vulgarly, a less obviously ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... Three trunks arrived at the same time. Camellia's appearance, as she came up the porch steps, while trim and attractive, gave no hint to the Philosopher's eyes, observant though they were, of what was to be expected. He had failed to note the trunks. This was not strange, for Camellia had a beautiful face, and her ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... with some coffee-coloured preparation, for the second time in the evening his lordship swore. He was, in fact, in some dudgeon about to replace the lamp, when the torn edge of paper, showing between two boards, caught his observant eye.... ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... had her tea, had patted Ellen's hand for bringing it, and had looked about her a little with observant eyes which showed pleasure when they rested on certain familiar objects, she laid her white curls back against the chair and looked up at her granddaughter like a child who asks to be ...
— Mrs. Red Pepper • Grace S. Richmond
... example of such emulation. When the observant doctor entered the school, his attention was directed to the organs of sense, and he found many slightly deaf children among the pupils. Hearing less than the others, they appeared less intelligent, and as a "punishment" they had been ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... comes under the category of 'leaven,' which is proscribed in so many well-known places in the Old Testament. * * * I have recently read the passage in Matthew in which the Paschal Supper is described. There can be no doubt whatever that the wine used upon that occasion was unfermented. Jesus, as an observant Jew, would not only not have drunk fermented wine on the Passover, but would not have celebrated the Passover in any house from which everything fermented had not been removed. I may mention that the wine I use in the service at the synagogue is an infusion of raisins. ...
— Personal Experience of a Physician • John Ellis
... you, let Charlotte;' for with her troubled feelings, she could better answer talking girls than parry the remarks of her shrewd, observant brother. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Heavens with miraculous foul gases and the blackness of darkness;—which, in short, exploded about New-year's time, as the world-famous VOLTAIRE-HIRSCH LAWSUIT, still remembered, though only as a portent and mystery, by observant on-lookers. Of which it is now our sad duty to say something; though nowhere, in the Annals of Jurisprudence, is there a more despicable thing, or a deeper involved in lies and deliriums by current reporters of it, about which the sane mind can be called upon accidentally to speak a ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... presented himself in the comely Dominican habit. The eyes which in their last sad protest against stupidity would mistake, or miss altogether, the image of the Crucified, were to-day, for the most part, kindly observant eyes, registering every detail of that singular company, all the physiognomic lights which come by the way on people, and, through them, on things, the "shadows of ideas" in men's faces (De Umbris Idearum was the title of his discourse), himself pleasantly animated by them, in turn. There ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater
... wanting the close circle of just his old friends to be unbroken when he's home. Where is he to-day?" As she spoke Mrs. Cherry had looked at Caroline Darrah with a glance in which Phoebe detected a slight insolence and at which the major narrowed his observant eyes. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... honour. They met him about six miles from Lyons, and gave him a warm welcome, after which the two princes rode side by side, and had much talk together, for they were cousins and had not met for a long time. Now this Monseigneur de Ligny was a great general, and with his quick, observant eye he soon took notice of young Bayard, who was in the place of honour close to his lord, and he inquired: "Who is that gallant little lad riding his horse so well that it is quite a pleasure to ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... placed me in her service have to blame themselves—who sent me hither, a gentleman trained in the paths of loyalty and honour, when they should have sought out some truckling, cogging, double-dealing knave, who would have been at once the observant page of the Queen, and the obsequious spy of her enemies. Since I must choose betwixt aiding and betraying her, I will decide as becomes her servant and her subject; but Catherine Seyton—Catherine Seyton, ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... half consenting to the ill, For royal blood within him struggled still, He thus replied:—And what pretence have I To take up arms for public liberty? My father governs with unquestion'd right, The faith's defender, and mankind's delight; Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws; And Heaven by wonders has espoused his cause. 320 Whom has he wrong'd, in all his peaceful reign? Who sues for justice to his throne in vain? What millions has he pardon'd of his foes, Whom just revenge did to his wrath expose! Mild, easy, humble, studious of our good; Inclined ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... her window she saw the Robin and him together; and somehow they seemed to her subtle, observant eyes, to be plotting. The very suspicion was fatal to that officer. His discharge was determined on. Meantime she set her spies to watch him, and tell her if ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Bull-Frog are believed by observant naturalists to be strictly temperate, although there is a rumor afloat that he has been seen Over the Bay in New-Jersey. It is suspected, however, that the originators of the story were persons who visited that State to avoid the restrictions of the Sunday liquor-law, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... bodies, and is still maintained under the central executive. The plethora of police in the country is one of the most striking features that meet the eye of anyone visiting it for the first time. The observant foreigner who, after travelling in England, crosses to Ireland and there sees on every wayside station at least two policemen varying the ennui of their unoccupied days by watching the few trains that pass ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the Lord Marquess of Argyle, to move the ruling Elders in Argyle, to be more observant of ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... constrained in its heart to treat them as brethren and to feel toward them as brethren. Its protest against what it regards as their errors and defects is nowise weakened by the most unreserved manifestations of respect and good will as toward fellow-Christians. Thus it comes to pass that the observant traveler from other countries, seeking the distinctive traits of American social life, "notes a kindlier feeling between all denominations, Roman Catholics included, a greater readiness to work together for common charitable aims, than between Catholics and Protestants in France or Germany, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... some of our own precisians have been spinning this coil for us over there, and if the civil authority can be thus countermined, things will go as in Flanders in your time. Pray continue to be observant, discreet, and moderate." ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Mr. Siddle, quietly observant of recent comings and goings, was standing at the door of the shop, and missed no item of this dumb show. He raised both hands in silent condemnation of Elkin's childishness, whereupon the horse-dealer jerked a thumb toward Grant's ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... nature. To the mother, in her honest narrowness, the son's choice of a calling which she held to be unfitting, was something of a tragedy. She allowed no item of her duty to escape her, and moved about the house as usual, sternly observant of her daily task, but her lips were compressed to a thin line, and her face reflected the anger that burnt in her heart, too deep for speech. In the months that followed, Maurice learnt that the censure hardest to meet is ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... a home-thrust. If truth-telling has become a habit, one gets slowly off the mark when the moment arrives for the prudent lie. Quite against my will, I hesitated. Observant Mr MacGinnis perceived ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... of the Corps Diplomatique are not always as observant of court rules as they ought to be, and their decolletage is not always impeccable. If Worth sends a corsage with the fashionable cut—what do they do? They manage, when they stand on their platform en vue, to slip ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... and the alleged race-course being out of the question, the Port-chuck also winking and thrusting his tongue into his cheek, I perceived that I had been trifled with, and the effect has been to make me sensitive and observant respecting this article of dress ever since. Here is an axiom or two ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... this speech of his mother fraught with excellent words and sense, the despair that had overtaken Sanjaya's heart left instantly, although that prince was not gifted with great intelligence. And the son said, "When I have thee that are so observant of my future welfare for my guide, I shall certainly either rescue my paternal kingdom that is sunk in water or perish in the attempt. During thy discourse I was almost a silent listener. Now and then only I interposed a word. It was, however, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... book de Officio pii Viri, relates unto us how he was entered into this course, and conceived this purpose of reconciliation, and tells, that from his youthhood, he was most observant of ecclesiastical ceremonies, yet so, that he abhorred all superstition. And when he had read the writers of that age, who promised some reformation and repurgation of superstitious worships and absurd opinions, he saith, Mire illorum institutum ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... valet, who stood near, discreetly observant. On the instant the man stepped forward with his master's hand luggage, and reached down to grasp Blake's suitcase, which had been left by one of the porters. But Blake was too quick for him. Catching up the suitcase himself, he swung away ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... was dinner in the dining-car not far away, and Mary had opposite her the girl with the queer name. No one else was at the table. At first they did not speak, and Mary remembered the training of her childhood, never to seem observant of strangers; but she could not help looking sometimes at her neighbour. The first thing the latter did on sitting down was to draw off her gloves, and roll them inside out. She then opened a chain bag of platinum and gold, which looked rather ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... five savage ladies over, but they had all been pretty fruitful, for they had all children, more or less: I think the cook's mate's wife was big of her sixth child; and the mothers were all a good sort of well-governed, quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to one another, mighty observant and subject to their masters, I cannot call them husbands; and wanted nothing but to be well instructed in the Christian religion, and to be legally married; both which were happily brought about afterwards by my ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe |
