"Significant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... very significant. It shows that nearly 60 per cent of the income taxpayers of India are supported by miscellaneous investments other than securities and joint stock companies. The item includes the names of merchants, individual ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... seldom equal or exceed the men in strength; any superiority, when it exists, being mainly shown in such passive forms of exertion as bearing burdens. In civilisation, even under the influence of careful athletic training, women are unable to compete muscularly with men; and it is a significant fact that on the variety stage there are very few "strong women." It would seem that the difficulty in developing great muscular strength in women is connected with the special adaptation of woman's form and organisation to the maternal ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... reply, accompanied by a very significant wink—"just a very few—I should say we're not entire strangers, though I have never enjoyed the honour of much personal intercourse with him; but I do not so deeply regret that, as, from your account, it seems rather ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... all that, a change had taken place in her—a different one from the indefinable yet significant change which is felt in almost every woman after marriage. There is usually in the young wife's face an expression of fulfilment, of deepened experience—a certain settled, satisfied look. And this was what was lacking in Lady Bridget's face. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... she replied, with a significant curl of her whiskers, "but at home we stood alone; there was no one to compare us with. I fancy that many are thought great personages in their own little village, who would be quite unnoticed elsewhere. I hope that may ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... pulling up what exteriorly appears to be the head of one of the nails of the flooring; by raising this a spring is released and a trap-door opened, revealing a large hole with a narrow ladder leading down into it. When this hiding-place was discovered in 1830, its contents were significant—viz. a crucifix and two ancient petronels. Apartments known as "the chapel" and "the priest's vestry" are still pointed out. The walls throughout the house appear to be intersected with passages and masked spaces, ...
— Secret Chambers and Hiding Places • Allan Fea
... a clean card, printed in red and gold, and opposite No. 74 was a pencilled note. The girl's eyes gleamed as she saw the writing. The words were few but significant. "In the little conservatory beyond the ...
— The Slave of Silence • Fred M. White
... degree of thoughtfulness and desire to be correct, beyond his years," added Lawrence. "The other rules are no less practical and significant." He continued ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... houses, and a bill to give the health authorities summary powers in dealing with tenements was sent to the legislature. The landlords held it up until the last day of the session, when it was forced through by an angered public opinion, shorn of its most significant clause, which proposed the licensing of tenements and so their control and effective repression. However, the landlords had received a real set-back. Many of them got rid of their property, which in a large number of cases they had never seen, and tried to forget the source of their ill-gotten ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... said the surveyor with a significant smile. "I shouldn't be too previous. You have six days to straighten up your business;" and after a brief conference with Harry I departed ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... here, the natives lived only to fight, and the victory was celebrated by a cannibal feast. It is painfully significant to find that the only field in which New Guinea natives have shown much skill and ingenuity is in the manufacture of weapons. One of these is known as a Man-catcher, and was invented by the natives ...
— Adventures in New Guinea • James Chalmers
... gray-black creature that followed at the heels of his horse; and now, at twilight's graying, he saw that a significant and startling change had come over him. He no longer trotted easily behind them. He came stalking, almost as if in the hunt, his ears pointing, his neck hairs bristling, and there were the beginnings of curious, lurid lightnings ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... recently been shown to figure forth, in all likelihood, Jonson's friend, the poet Drayton. Slight and hastily adapted as is "Satiromastix," especially in a comparison with the better wrought and more significant satire of "Poetaster," the town awarded the palm to Dekker, not to Jonson; and Jonson gave over in consequence his practice of "comical satire." Though Jonson was cited to appear before the Lord Chief Justice to answer certain charges to the effect that he had ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... no reply. He gazed with a significant smile at the lovely enthusiast, until she blushed again, and ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... nature nor something without a cause, for this has no reality, but is visible evidence that divine providence is over the least things in human thought and action. As divine providence occurs in these least things which are insignificant and trifling, why should it not in the significant and important matters of peace and war in the world and of salvation and ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... gradually to a whip-lash, trailed out to a distance of nearly fifty feet. As its owner came ashore, this tremendous tail was gathered and curled in a semi-circle at his side—perhaps lest the delicate tip, if left too distant, might fall a prey to some significant but agile marauder. ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... Variants. Mr E. K. Chambers, The Medieval Stage. The Mumming Plays. Description. Characters. Recognized as representing Death and Revival of Vegetation Deity. Dr Jevons, Masks and the Origin of the Greek Drama. Morris Dances. No dramatic element. Costume of character significant. Possible survival of theriomorphic origin. Elaborate character of figures in each group. Symbols employed. The Pentangle. The Chalice. Present form shows dislocation. Probability that three groups were once a combined whole and Symbols united. Evidence strengthens view advanced in last Chapter. ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... looked, and the fact that his face expressed nothing at all was rather significant. One glance at the girl's face he ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... with him. I could after my own fashion make all his speeches, and that more fluently; but I believe that this exchanging one word for another, and his perpetually halting over it, made the words that he finally did choose more significant. For my part, I have written down everything that happened in our short ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... seems unimportant, it is in fact significant that the pseudo-relations of logic, such as C and z, need brackets—unlike real relations. Indeed, the use of brackets with these apparently primitive signs is itself an indication that they are not primitive signs. And surely no one is going to believe brackets ...
— Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus • Ludwig Wittgenstein
... yet no opportunity of talking alone with Jane since we left the carrier. The incident with Tolla was to us wholly inexplicable. But that it was significant of something, we knew—by Jane's tense white face and the furtive glances she gave us. Don and I were ready to seize the first ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... worth while to remember that the real implement of English speech is the word, not the point nor the letter form. Just to the extent that we rely on marks of punctuation and emphasis to convey our meaning we betray our ignorance of the really significant elements of the language. The schoolgirl says she "had a perfectly splendid time" at the dance, when she tells about it in her letter to her dearest friend. If "perfectly splendid" were a proper term to use in such a connection, which it is not, ...
— Capitals - A Primer of Information about Capitalization with some - Practical Typographic Hints as to the Use of Capitals • Frederick W. Hamilton
... Though the most significant, the coif was not the only exterior note of the Serjeant, in contradistinction to the laymen; and, in order to show how he appeared, when in full professional attire, we think we cannot do better than quote from a fifteenth-century lawyer, one of our greatest authorities on such matters—Serjeant ...
— The Customs of Old England • F. J. Snell
... and was once more couched near her footstool, the audacious tutor by one word and gesture fascinated him again. He pricked up his ears at the word; he started erect at the gesture, and came, with head lovingly depressed, to receive the expected caress. As it was given, the significant smile again rippled across ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... and one foot behind the other, and fix upon me a stare more than severe, utterly contemptuous. If I suddenly asked him what he wanted, he would make me no answer, but continue staring at me persistently for some seconds, then, with a peculiar compression of his lips and a most significant air, deliberately turn round and deliberately go back to his room. Two hours later he would come out again and again present himself before me in the same way. It had happened that in my fury I did not even ask him what he wanted, ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... impossible to ascertain the amount of capital at any time floating in Great Britain. We can, therefore, only guess from certain commercial symptoms when it is nearly exhausted. On this point the money articles in the London journals have of late contained many significant hints. The settlements on the Stock Exchange are weekly becoming more difficult, and an enormous per centage is said to be paid at present for temporary accommodation. It is understood, also, that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... province of Quito many of the summits of the Andes bear names which belong neither to the Quichua (the language of Inca) nor to the ancient language of the Paruays, governed by the Conchocando of Lican.) The words Caribs and Cannibals appear significant; they are epithets referring to valour, strength and even superior intelligence.* (* Vespucci says: Charaibi magnae sapientiae viri.) It is worthy of remark that, at the arrival of the Portuguese, the Brazilians gave to their magicians the name of caraibes. ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... significant fact that in the fairly well to do educated district, where newspapers are read by the poorest, where well-being is the rule, poverty the exception, the church is empty on Sunday, and the priest's authority is nil. The priests ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... quiet, all of you! I'm not come to join you: I'm only come to be with you awhile, because I can't bear my own thoughts." And he folded his arms, and leant back in his chair; so we let him be. But I left the glass by him; and, after awhile, Grimsby directed my attention towards it, by a significant wink; and, on turning my head, I saw it was drained to the bottom. He made me a sign to replenish, and quietly pushed up the bottle. I willingly complied; but Lowborough detected the pantomime, and, nettled at the ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... humeri, quid ferre recusent; but which, in general, went far beyond the Greeks in persistency of will, in constantia animi. The schools were at first held publicly in shops; hence the name trivium. Very significant for the Roman is the predicate which he conferred upon theoretical subjects when he called them artes bonae, optimae, liberales, ingenuae, &c., and brought forth the ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... a becoming blush deepened the color in her cheeks; she toyed idly with a rosebud which she held in her hand. Something in her attitude, and the significant smile on her face, made the squire both angry ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... significant fact had been discovered by one of the little company, the intelligence was speedily telegraphed to the rest, and Morton and Lyle soon found themselves the recipients of hearty and affectionate congratulations ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... absurd and false as these charges were, they still indicate the troubled apprehensions which filled the dreams of the ascendency party. The fear of French invasion, of new insurrections, of the resumption of estates, haunted them by night and day. Every sign was to them significant of danger, and every rumour of conspiracy was taken for fact. The report of a strange fleet off the Southern coast, which turned out to be English, threw them all into panic; and the Corpus Christi crosses which the peasantry affixed to their doors, were nothing but ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... had only been later that The Guesser realized that he had an answer. Indeed, that he himself, was a small, but significant ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... heard that they consider the crows their ancestors. It is a curious fact, that the Indians, in talking, make so much use of the palate,—kl and other guttural sounds occurring so often,—and that the crow, in his deep "caw, caw," uses the same organ. It may be significant of some psychological relationship ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... homogeneous and speaking the same language. During the summer of last year this feeling was displayed in a remarkable manner, and it led to the meeting at Frankfort, which has not been hitherto mentioned in reference to these negotiations, but which was in reality a very significant affair. ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... world, although he had had in his few and glorious days experience enough to harden the spirit of any man. He could never, as I think of him, have grown into your swaggering, money-making, bargaining man of Universal Trade. Keen and significant his policy, his ordering of his affairs must ever have been; but the keenness and significance were the outcome, not of any cool eye to the main chance, but of a gay sense of the pure need of logic, not only in letters but ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... his own right, and a woman in hers, sole and untouchable by any canons of authority, or any rule derived from precedent, state-safety, the acts of legislatures, or even from what is called religion, modesty, or art. The radiation of this truth is the key of the most significant doings of our immediately preceding three centuries, and has been the political genesis and life of America. Advancing visibly, it still more advances invisibly. Underneath the fluctuations of the expressions of society, as well as the movements of the politics of the leading nations of the world, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... to the same code, and who expect to live on together in the same circumstances and interests. In this country, where workmen move about frequently and with facility, the unions suffer in their harmony and stability. It was a significant fact that the unions declined during the hard times. It was only when the men were prosperous that they could afford to keep up the unions, as a kind of social luxury. When the time came to use the union it ceased to be. Secondly, the American workman really has such personal independence, ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... in a calm and modest, but triumphant tone, said: "The significant, emphatic word is the only one which has escaped you. It is the conjunction and, whose elliptic sense leaves us in apprehension of that which is about to happen." All owned themselves vanquished, and ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... as if it had never been ruffled at all! In all such cases, the constant tendency is to let the events which have been thus transient in their effects sink into oblivion. But even of those which have been far more significant, (since each future age will teem with fresh events equally significant, all claiming a part in the page of general history,) the importance will be perpetually diminishing in estimate, and still more in interest, from the intenser feeling with which each age will in turn regard the events ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... week. No Soph wanted to miss a sight of a captive bowl-man. Ken felt so callow and fresh in their presence that he scarcely responded to their jokes. Worry Arthur's nickname of "Kid" vied with another the coach conferred on Ken, and that was "Peg." It was significant slang expressing the little baseball man's baseball notion ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... and turned a hill just in time to see Smith take a flower gently from Dora's hand and, with some significant word, lay it with care between the leaves of ...
— 'Me-Smith' • Caroline Lockhart
... hounds broke into cry again, a deep, full-toned, ringing bay, strange, ominous, terribly significant in its power. It caused a cold sweat to ooze out all over Duane's body. He turned from it, and with his uninjured arm outstretched to feel for the willows he groped his way along. As it was impossible to pick out the narrow passages, ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... diary, as its pages show. The drips are already decreasing, and if they represent the whole accumulation of winter moisture it is extraordinarily little, and speaks highly for the design of the hut. There cannot be very much more or the stains would be more significant. ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... or was at least not advancing. Whether it was due to his own hints to Elizabeth, or to Anderson's chivalrous feeling, he did not know. But he wrote every mail to Mrs. Gaddesden, discreetly, yet not without giving her some significant information; he did whatever small services were possible in the case of a man who went about Canada as a Johnny Head-in-air, with his mind in another hemisphere; and it was understood that he was to leave them at Vancouver. In the forced association of their ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... BRANGAENA to Necker's ISOLDE, and the older artist had let her know that she thought she sang it beautifully. It was a bitter disappointment to find that the approval of so honest an artist as Necker could not stand the test of any significant recognition by the management. Madame Necker was forty, and her voice was failing just when her powers were at their height. Every fresh young voice was an enemy, and this one was accompanied by gifts which she could ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... the lower hackles are replaced more slowly in the wild than in the tame bird; but as confinement is known sometimes to affect the masculine plumage, this slight difference cannot be considered of any importance. It is a significant fact that the voice of both the male and female G. bankiva closely resembles, as Mr. Blyth and others have noted, the voice of both sexes of the common domestic fowl; but the last note of the crow of the wild ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... other!" Endicott exclaimed. Each horseman pulled up, hesitated a moment, and rode on. Distance veiled from the eager onlookers the significant detail of the shifted gun arms. But no such preclusion obstructed Bat's vision as he lay flattened upon the rim of the coulee with the barrel of his six-gun resting upon the edge of a rock, and its sights lined low ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx
... famous stone lions, which, even so late as the end of the last century, no Venetian could look on but with terror. There they sat, with open jaws, displaying their fearfully significant superscription, "Denunzie secrete,"—realizing the poet's idea of republics guarded by dragons and lions. The use of these guardian lions the Venetians knew but too well. Accusations dropped by spies and informers into their open mouths, ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... 24-27 the two related prerogatives are presented in their spiritual aspect, while in the later verses of the chapter the resurrection and quickening of the literally dead are dealt with. Mark the significant new term introduced in verse 24, 'He that believeth.' That spiritual resurrection from the death of sin and self is wrought on 'whom He will,' but He wills that it shall be wrought on them who believe. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... Harold Spender, in the Daily News, was calling attention to a very significant fact indeed. The higher education in England, and more particularly the educational process of Oxford and Cambridge, which has been going on continuously since the Middle Ages, is practically in a state of suspense. Oxford and Cambridge have stopped. They ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... forgotten, something big and significant, but his tired brain refused to respond. It was part of the scheme to beat Blount out of his stock, and the royalty from the shipments of ore; and—yes, it had to do with Virginia. It was going to make her rich, and both of them happy; but he could not ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... Africa to the East, the goal of their desire. Year after year they advanced farther, until at last they achieved a momentous result. In 1487, Bartholomew Diaz sailed round the southern point of Africa, which received the significant name of the 'Cape of Good Hope,' and entered the Indian Ocean. Henceforth a water pathway to the Far East was possible. Following Diaz, Vasco da Gama, leaving Lisbon in 1497, sailed round the south of Africa, and, reaching the ports of Hindustan, made the maritime ...
— The Dawn of Canadian History: A Chronicle of Aboriginal Canada • Stephen Leacock
... lady's face brightened up towards Marion; and giving him a very significant look, she said, "Ah ha, general! didn't ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... come home; and every time a fresh detail of the storm was given her, she would tear her hair and renew her screams for the Holy Virgin's help. The fishermen never talked right out to her, but always stopped at the significant shrug of the shoulders. They had seen Pascualo last off the Cabo, drifting before the gale, dismasted. He could not have gotten in. One man had even seen a huge green wave break over him, taking the boat abeam, though he could not swear the ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... thinness glistening on the surface of the world like oil on a clean pond, these occasions being varied, of course, with those in which he thinks himself rather an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Sometimes he had fits of reverie, starting, fearful, agitated; sometimes he broke out into maniacal movements of wrath, invoking some absent person, praying, beseeching, menacing some air-wove phantom; sometimes he slunk into solitary corners, muttering to himself, and with gestures sorrowfully significant, or with tones and fragments of expostulation that moved the most callous to compassion. Still he turned a deaf ear to the only practical counsel that had a chance for reaching his ears. Like a bird under the fascination ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... not significant? Rod was of a contemplative theoretical turn of mind, one of those wide-awake, interesting young fellows who find food for conjecture in almost every incident that occurs, and his suspicions were now aroused to an unusual pitch. A chief fault, however, ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... is the perception of a change produced by ones own activity in all sorts of familiar objects that can be taken hold of in the neighborhood; and the most remarkable day, from a psychogenetic point of view, in any case an extremely significant day in the life of the infant, is the one in which he first experiences the connection of a movement executed by himself with a sense-impression following upon it. The noise that comes from the tearing and crumpling of paper is as yet unknown to the child. He discovers (in the fifth ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... decrees of the goddess, and, at a later stage, the decrees of Nergal as well. Belit-seri, whose name signifies 'mistress of the field,' was originally a goddess of vegetation, some local deity who has been reduced to the rank of an attendant upon a greater one; and it is significant that almost all the members of the nether-world pantheon are in some way connected ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... sickness—whatever it might be—should run its course and fail to yield to my treatment, what then? The reason, so urgently expressed by her, why I must effect a cure—"for your own sake, Dick,"— was significant enough of the direction in which her apprehensions pointed; there was no necessity for me to inquire what she meant. I must cure the king, or it would be so much the worse for me! And how was I to cure him? My knowledge ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... as these the unhappy old man was burnt in recent times. Granger assures us, that in his remembrance a horse that had been taught to tell the spots upon cards, the hour of the day, &c., by significant tokens, was, together with his owner, put into the Inquisition for both of them dealing with the devil! A man of letters declared that, having fallen into their hands, nothing perplexed him so much as the ignorance of the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... foot of this rock, and out of it, grows up standing corn, on which is a label with these words, 'Si non moriatur, non reviviscit,' i.e., if it dieth not, it liveth not again. Underneath this corn, upon the basis, is this significant motto, 'Nos sevit, fovit, lavit, coget, renovabit,' i.e., He hath sown, cherished, washed us, and He shall gather us together, and renew us. Upon the top of this rock standeth an angel; in his left hand a sickle, his right hand pointing up towards the sun shining in his ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... how far up the shank it meets it; whether the shank is barred or looped; the character of the loop. Note particularly the toe, which also forms the link. This is a very significant hand-gesture. It may be low down, making the b literally li, or it may be a horizontal bar, an angle, or a neat semicircle. Its formation offers large scope for variation, and should be very carefully studied. ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... his steps toward the post. Halfway back he espied a tall, dark figure moving toward him, and presently the shape and the step seemed familiar. Then he recognized Nas Ta Bega. Soon they were face to face. Shefford felt that the Indian had been trailing him over the sand, and that this was to be a significant meeting. Remembering Withers's revelation about the Navajo, Shefford scarcely knew how to approach him now. There was no difference to be made out in Nas Ta Bega's dark face and inscrutable eyes, yet there was a difference to be ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... asleep, old fellow," said Paddy, who stood by, making a significant gesture, which the Chinaman seemed to understand fully, for his eyes twinkled more than ever, and he laughed heartily, as if he thought his ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... overpowered. This demigod had brought HER a gift. He had thought about her—insignificant her! True, she had talked with him, had even taken walks with him, but those things had not been significant. It had seemed he merely condescended to the daughter of a martyr to his cause. He had been paying a tribute to her father. But a gift—a personal gift such as any young man might make to a girl whose favor he sought! ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... set of street-sweepers without buttoning up," said Harding, as they went out of the Temple into the Strand. "The glazed shoes I don't mind, but the tie is too painfully significant." ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... season, Mrs. Masterman could scarcely keep count of them. But balls came only once or twice in a winter, and not always so often as that. A ball was a community event. It was an occasion on which to display the fact that the neighborhood could unite in a gathering more socially significant than the mere frolicking of boys and girls. Moreover, it was an opportunity for proving that the higher circles of the village stood on equal terms with those of the city, with the solidarity of true aristocracies all over ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... interpret for you than I am. You of course know that the English attempted to make a landing, but have been defeated, and it is thought probable that they will make another attempt in this direction." He appeared to say this in a very significant manner. The information he gave might or might not be correct, but there was a friendliness in his look and tone which led me to suppose that he knew I was English, and that he wished to warn me of my danger. I ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... room, which was at some distance from mine on the same floor, intending to propose a visit to the sculpture at the Glyptothek. To my surprise I found Ivan the serf standing before the closed door. He looked at me like a mastiff about to spring; and intimated by significant gestures that I was not allowed to enter the room. Concluding that his master was occupied in some way, and desired not to be disturbed, I merely signified by a nod that my visit was of no consequence, and went out. On returning about an hour afterwards ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... combated until they are recognized, simply and frankly, and honestly discussed. It is a significant and even symbolic fact that the bacteria of disease rarely flourish when they are open to the free currents of pure air. Obscurity, disguise, concealment furnish the best conditions for their vigor and diffusion, and these favoring conditions we have for centuries past accorded to venereal diseases. ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... once suggested, timorously, that Braden's place was at the sufferer's bedside, but the smile that the old man bestowed upon her was so significant, so full of understanding, that she shrank within herself and said no more. She knew, however, that he longed for the sustaining hand of his only blood relation, that he looked upon himself as utterly alone in these last few weeks of life; and yet he would not send out the appeal that lay ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... as a man: Phtah at Memphis, Amon at Thebes, Minu at Coptos and at Panopolis. Amon seems rather to have symbolized the productive soil, while Minu reigned over the desert. But these were fine distinctions, not invariably insisted upon, and his worshippers often invested Amon with the most significant attributes of Minu. ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... at length. "Another thing—Barker admits he was shooting pool in Kelly's place last night around midnight; and Kelly's place is only half a block from the Union Station. That sounds significant!" ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... so perfectly a box where thoughts "compacted lie," that no one is moved, in reading his rich poetry, to detach a line, so fine and so significant are its neighbours; nevertheless, it may be well to stop the reader at such a lovely ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... returned from Rome, they told their colleagues that the relations of intimacy among the Roman senators surpassed all conception; that a single set of silver plate sufficed for the whole senate, and had reappeared in every house to which the envoys had been invited. The sneer is a significant token of the difference in the economic ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... The thin skin of a democrat, I drop the title "Mr.," You have talked a lot of bunkum, all mixed up with most terrific cant. But you truly said that "persons are so very insignificant;" And the author of a speech I read, part scum and partly dreggy, Is perhaps the least significant—that windbag named CARNEGIE. But your kindness most appals me, Sir; how really, truly gracious, For one whose home is in the States, free, great, and most capacious, To come to poor old England (where the laws but make the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., September 20, 1890 • Various
... fortnight's provision to take them back to Depot B, they turned their faces homewards on the last day of the year, and it was significant of the terrible condition of the surviving dogs that the turn did not cause the smallest excitement. Many of them were already dead, killed to keep the others alive, but those which remained seemed to guess how poor a chance they had of ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... friction of the clouds and the observed electrical effects generated by the friction of such a substance as amber. To make such a suggestion doubtless would be to fall victim to the old familiar propensity to read into Homer things that Homer never knew. Yet the significant fact remains that Anaxagoras ascribed to thunder and to lightning their true position as strictly natural phenomena. For him it was no god that menaced humanity with thundering voice and the flash of his divine fires from ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... Napoleon dwindled to a spirit of mediocrity and bourgeois smugness under a Napoleon who had inherited nothing great of his predecessor but his name. This change in the time-spirit may help to explain the most significant difference between Flaubert and George Sand. He inherited the tastes and imagination of the great romantic generation; but he inherited none of its social and political enthusiasm. He was disciplined by the romantic writers; yet his reaction ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... luminary of the school and the finest instructor in law of his time. He soon discovered in Sumner a pupil after his own heart, and in spite of the disparity of their ages they became intimate friends. This is the more significant because Phillips was also in the same class, and the more brilliant scholar of the two; but Judge Story soon discovered that Phillips was studying as a means to an end, while Sumner's interest in the law was like ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... the Taylors' in New York, I can recall best the one which was most significant for me, and even fatefully significant. Mr. and Mrs. Fields were there, from Boston, and I renewed all the pleasure of my earlier meetings with them. At the end Fields said, mockingly, "Don't despise Boston!" and I answered, ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... conducted earnestly, but in smothered voices, as if the speakers feared that the dead might overhear them. Judith could not contend with her sister at such a moment, but a significant gesture induced March to lower the body at a little distance from that of his wife; when he withdrew the cords, and the ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... his part, adopted a very lofty tone, with significant phrases and motions of the head, taking everything to himself as was his custom. How could any one suppose that his child, a Chebe, the daughter of an honorable business man known for thirty years on the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... but significant, act of courtesy from the great leader of the Northern Democracy was not lost on the new Chief Magistrate. He could hardly believe what his eyes had seen at first, and then he smiled. Instantly the rugged features were transformed ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... aside from a little more whispering and significant glances exchanged among the pupils, not a ripple disturbed the calm of the study hall. It was therefore a distinct and not altogether pleasant surprise when Miss Thompson walked into the room, dismissed the senior class and requested the ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... passing and repassing hurrying figures that went about their business. Doors opened occasionally, and a man came out; once or twice he saluted an acquaintance. But all the while his attention remained fixed upon the door numbered XI, behind which this quietly significant affair proceeded. The whole place seemed a very temple of stillness. The thick carpet underfoot, the noiseless doors, the admirable system of the place—all contributed to create a ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... significant, a typical scene. These peasants of France, with their honest, unspiritualized faces, are showing their life,—frugal and voiceless; bounded, but rarely pinched; in dusk, but seldom in dark; and with all, contentful, ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... people's faces his ridiculous tin bolts held in white kid-glove hands, and facetiously knocking them on the head. He happened, while talking to a lady, to be right in front of the young Prince. A friend tapped him discreetly on the shoulder, giving him a significant look. "What is the matter?" said Mr. X, in a loud voice, glaring at his friend. A gentle whisper informed him that he had better turn round and face the Prince. "Heavens!" said the ungracious Jupiter. "I can't help it; I'm always treading on ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... increased intercourse with Rome, the more frequent presence of Roman Legates, all tended to increase the papal claims and the deference yielded to them. William refused homage to Gregory; but it is significant that Gregory asked for it. It was a step towards the day when a King of England was glad to offer it. The increased strictness as to the marriage of the clergy tended the same way. Lanfranc did not at once enforce the full rigour of Hildebrand's decrees. Marriage was ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... rustle of the leaves above him, the wild flowers, the frost bloom of the woods,—what were they to him? Insensible, deaf, and blind, in the stupor of a living death, he lay there, literally realizing that most bitterly significant eastern malediction, "May you eat ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... attention to the very significant proviso to the sixth article. What does the word original mean, and what does the whole article mean with that ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... of Thessalonica, and the penance of Theodosius, immortalized by the pencil of Vandyke, is another significant example of the relation between Goth and Roman. One Botheric (a Vandal or other Teuton by his name) was military commandant of that important post. He put in prison a popular charioteer of the circus, for a crime for which the Teutonic language had to borrow a foreign ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... surviving sister, Mrs. Austin, a letter dated the 8th of August, and written from Ecclefechan, in which he was implored not to give up his task of writing the Life, and assured of their perfect reliance upon him. This assurance is the more significant because it was given after the publication of the Reminiscences. It was renewed on James Carlyle' s part through his son after the appearance of Mrs. Carlyle's letters in 1883, and by Mrs. Austin through her daughter upon receiving the final volumes of the biography in 1884. Miss Austin wrote at ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... Wolfe might call in the course of the week; but this Miss Meadows did not know, and she embarked in so many half speeches, and looked so mysterious and significant at her mother, that Albinia began to suspect that some dreadful truth ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the ground now slowly narrowing by the encroachment of this awful march to water, were certain articles to which, in the leader's mind, were coupled no significant associations: an occasional blanket, tightly rolled lengthwise, doubled and the ends bound together with a string; a heavy knapsack here, and there a broken rifle—such things, in short, as are found in the rear of retreating troops, the "spoor" of men flying from their ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... at once as his cousin, which caused significant whispering among the by-standers. They censured Jacob for his demeanor toward her, for since God had sent the deluge upon the world, on account of the immoral life led by men, great chastity had prevailed, especially among the people of the east. The talk of the men reduced Jacob to tears. ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... unadvisedly entered. Denzil's arrival at this juncture seemed to him providential—impossible to find a better man for their purpose. At eight o'clock an informal meeting was held at the office of the Polterham Examiner, with the result that Mr. Hammond, the editor, subsequently penned that significant paragraph which ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... afternoon, regularly. He's out evenings with his fiddle; home at four in the morning, he doesn't do that for nothing. I don't think he tells all he knows," concluded Mrs. Mangenborn with a significant wink of the eye, which brought her fat cheek very close to ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... Then a significant nod, or a melancholy mysterious look, set the imagination of the company at work; or, if this did not succeed, a whisper in plain terms pronounced Mr. Bolingbroke "a sad sort of husband, a very odd-tempered man, and, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... white petticoats with naked shoulders and with half of their stage make-up removed, were strolling about the stage and peeping through the curtain at the public. On noticing some stranger, they would retreat uttering little shrieks, smiling coquettishly, and darting significant glances. ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont
... us loves, he questions the worth of the object of his passion. That established, nothing else is of great importance. There is a grand and noble quality in this, but it misses much. About the other state of affairs—wherein the woman's appurtenances of all kinds, as well as the woman herself, are significant—is a delicate and subtle aura of the higher refinement—the long refinement of the spirit through many generations—which, to an eye accustomed to look for gradations of moral beauty, possesses a peach-blow iridescence ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... civilisation is a disguise as tawdry and deceptive as the costume of a bal masque. She showed that abysses may exist inside a governess and eternities inside a manufacturer; her heroine is the commonplace spinster, with the dress of merino and the soul of flame. It is significant to notice that Charlotte Bronte, following consciously or unconsciously the great trend of her genius, was the first to take away from the heroine not only the artificial gold and diamonds of wealth and fashion, but even the natural gold and diamonds of physical ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... him the gaze of all; nor was there one of those onlookers but was stirred to his soul's depth by him who sat there. (22) Some fell into unwonted silence, while the gestures of the rest were equally significant. ...
— The Symposium • Xenophon
... if Teddy doesn't mind his P's and Q's," said Mollie, with a wickedly significant glance at Betty, which caused that ...
— The Outdoor Girls in Army Service - Doing Their Bit for the Soldier Boys • Laura Lee Hope
... Darrow, was less definable; but, perhaps for that reason, it struck him as more sharply significant. Only—just what did it signify? Owen, like Sophy Viner, had the kind of face which seems less the stage on which emotions move than the very stuff they work in. In moments of excitement his odd irregular features seemed to grow fluid, to ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... savages would attempt to board the boats, crept quietly around in the darkness, collected all the axes, and placed one by the side of each man, leaning the handle against his knee. While performing this significant act she uttered not a word, but returned to her own seat in silence, retaining a ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... and with Socrates that our Western philosophy first became mature, conscious of itself, and it arrived at this consciousness by means of the dialogue, of social conversation. And it is profoundly significant that the doctrine of innate ideas, of the objective and normative value of ideas, of what Scholasticism afterwards knew as Realism, should have formulated itself in dialogues. And these ideas, which constitute reality, are names, as Nominalism showed. Not ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... sound, footsteps as yet far off, at the bottom of the staircase; and he no sooner heard them than he guessed the truth:—some one was coming THERE, to the old woman's on the fourth floor. Whence came this presentiment? What was there so particularly significant in the sound of these footsteps? They were heavy, regular, and rather slow than hurried. HE has now reached the first floor, he still continues to ascend. The sound is becoming plainer and plainer. He pants as though with asthma at each step he takes. He has commenced ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... the festival the youth who had so strongly impressed her; and the moment she entered the rude structure, her eyes eagerly ranged round the assembly until they rested upon the person of her rescuer, who as eagerly returned her significant glance. During the continuance of the feast and frolic, the lovers had many interviews; and before it closed, their faith and vows were exchanged. They were to have been married the month after her capture; and now, since her return and deification, ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... Campaigner also saluted me in a majestic but amicable manner, made no objection even to my entering her apartments and seeing the condition to which they were reduced: this phrase was uttered with particular emphasis and a significant look towards the Colonel, who bowed his meek head and preceded me into the lodgings, which were in truth very homely, pretty, and comfortable. The Campaigner was an excellent manager—restless, bothering, brushing perpetually. Such fugitive gimcracks as they had brought away ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... perhaps your husband—" began the lady dubiously, but with a significant glance at ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... Many words—father, | | soul, ineluctable, for example—have emotional | | associations which stand to the literal meaning somewhat | | like overtones to the fundamental. This tone-quality of | | language is one of the primary and most significant sources | | of poetical effect, but it should never be confused with the | | musical term on which ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... countenance, and concluded that she had for a certainty heard the raillery recently indulged in by Pao-yue and that it had fallen in with her own wishes; and hearing her also suddenly ask the question she did, she answered with a significant laugh: "What I saw was: 'Li Kuei blows up Sung Chiang and subsequently again tenders ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... with the movement of wings. Some influence more swift and secret than the birds of the air carried the matter further, for it finally reached Royal, the Squire's favorite collie, who came sauntering down the alley, pushed his nose twice under Ethel's elbow, and then with a significant look backward, advised the lovers to follow him ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... thousand times since last we parted with the masquerade you devised for me. The world is full of wonder. An old favourite is always reviewed with coldness. . . . 'Pooh,' they say; 'Godwin has worn his pen to the stump!' . . . But let me once be equipped with a significant mask and an unknown character from your masquerade shop, and admitted to figure in with the 'Last Minstrel,' the 'Lady of the Lake,' and 'Guy Mannering' in the Scottish carnival, Gods! how the boys and girls will admire me! ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... inn's best room, guarded against all intrusion. In vain, however, did he listen for a word from either of the gentlemen which might confirm his belief; in their conversation no name or title was used, and no mention made of anything significant. They remained for an hour. When their horses were brought round for them a considerable crowd had gathered before the hotel, and the visitors departed amid a demonstration of exuberant loyalty. On the following day, one or two persons who had been present ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... behold for the mud on him), came spurring at full speed by Callender House, up through the Creole Quarter and across wide Canal Street to the St. Charles. Now even more visibly it betrayed itself, where all through the heart of the town began aides, couriers and frowning adjutants to gallop from one significant point to another. Before long not a cab anywhere waited at its stand. Every one held an officer or two, if only an un-uniformed bank-officer or captain of police, and rattled up or down this street and that, taking corners at breakneck risks. That later the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... forgotten. Had she been engulfed in her own element she could not have been more completely swallowed up than in the changes of that shore she never reached. Whatever interest or hope was still kept alive in solitary breasts the world never knew. By the significant irony of Fate, even the old-time semaphore that should have signaled her ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... significant to note that church figures largely in Beth's recollection of this time, but religion not at all. There was, in fact, no connection between ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand |
