"Superficial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... truth and the error in this view. The arguments for the contention that time is unreal and that the world of sense is illusory must, I think, be regarded as fallacious. Nevertheless there is some sense—easier to feel than to state—in which time is an unimportant and superficial characteristic of reality. Past and future must be acknowledged to be as real as the present, and a certain emancipation from slavery to time is essential to philosophic thought. The importance of time is rather practical than theoretical, rather in relation to our desires ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... himself and saying sarcastic things about the entire human race, until he achieves a local reputation as a cynic. When in this state of mind there is no use in telling him that he is not the only original possessor of a bona fide broken ideal. He'll show you a little superficial scratch and say in husky tones, 'see this great wound it has made in my constitution, it will never heal. Happiness is an iridescent dream. Go and leave me to my fate! 'Then he'll heave a sigh which he thinks comes from a broken heart, but which really emanates from a dyspeptic condition, caused ...
— Said the Observer • Louis J. Stellman
... slurred over. It was a downright challenge! The matter must be thrashed out. For four months he poured over books on surgery and anatomy. Then, having acquired a knowledge of the subject—adequate, though necessarily superficial—he applied to the ecclesiastical authorities for permission to view the relic. It was politely refused. The saintly object, they declared, could only be exhibited to persons profession the Roman Catholic Faith, and armed with a ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... that animals communicate their impressions by an inarticulate voice. Common sense and the most superficial observations are opposed to the negative of this proposition. But when a canary bird warbles till it stuns us, or a nightingale sings in the shadows on the fine nights of June, can we follow and discover the significance of those modulations—now sharply ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... Hunter would award this distinction to the wolf; supposing also that the jackal is the same animal a step further advanced towards civilization, or perhaps the dog returned to its wild state. As the affinity between wolf, jackal, fox, and dog, cannot fail to attract the notice of the most superficial observer; so he may ask if they do not all really belong to one species, modified by varieties of climate, food, and education? If answered in the negative, he would want to know what constitutes a species, little thinking that this question, apparently so simple, ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... lateral leaflets are seen to execute pulsating movements which are apparently uncaused, and are not unlike the rhythmic movement of the heart to which we shall see later that their resemblance is more than superficial. ...
— Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose - His Life and Speeches • Sir Jagadis Chunder Bose
... these social experiences, many of them sufficiently frivolous, and all of them superficial in so far as their interest related to individuals, Oxford provided me with others which went to the very roots of life. Of these deeper experiences the first was due to Jowett, though its results, so far as I was concerned, were neither intended, understood, ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock
... custom is dictated by our canons of Politeness; but many superficial writers on Japan, have dismissed it by simply attributing it to the general topsy-turvyness of the nation. Every foreigner who has observed it will confess the awkwardness he felt in making proper reply upon ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... Jesus is infused into the soul, and acts in the life of man, we know that sin, in its various forms of sensuality, oppression, and bloodshed, must disappear. All reforms, which are not based on this corner-stone, are superficial; and, however goodly their proportions may appear to the eye of man, they want that firm foundation which will secure them against being undermined or overthrown by the force of adverse circumstances. "Other foundation ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... consider such innocent recreations as science and literature are able to furnish will be a very fit occupation of the thoughts and the leisure of young persons, and may be made the means of keeping them from bad employments and bad companions. Moreover, as to that superficial acquaintance with chemistry, and geology, and astronomy, and political economy, and modern history, and biography, and other branches of knowledge, which periodical literature and occasional lectures and scientific institutions diffuse through the community, I think ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... in any section of society where hired service can be had, mothers give more than a superficial personal superintendence to nursery or school-room—a superintendence about as thorough as their housekeeping, and as efficient. The one set of duties is quite as unfashionable as the other, and money is held to relieve from the service ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... has been possible in the present case would certainly be added to the list. A complete history of the organization would also give a large place to the association of its veterans formed shortly after the war, whose frequent gatherings have more than a superficial likeness to the reunions of college classes. Memorable among these meetings was the one held on October 21, 1896, the occasion being the dedication of the regiment's monument in the National Cemetery at Arlington, with a pilgrimage also to the scenes ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... think; yet all have opinions. Hence men's opinions are superficial and confused. It is nothing strange that tenets which in themselves are ever so different, should nevertheless be confounded with each other, by those who do not consider them attentively. I shall not therefore be surprised if some men imagine that I run into the enthusiasm of Malebranche; ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... is a social wet blanket, a goblin shadow at the domestic hearth. By no means. Nature has gifted him with that vein of humor and that impulse to friendly joviality which are frequent developments in sad-natured men, and often deceive superficial observers as to their real character. He who laughs well and makes you laugh is often called a man of cheerful disposition, yet in many cases nothing can be further from it than precisely this kind ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... monographs on Cicero and Thackeray. His novels are light of touch, pleasant, amusing, and thoroughly healthy. They make no attempt to sound the depths of character or either to propound or solve problems. Outside of fiction his work was generally superficial and unsatisfactory. But he had the merit of providing a whole generation with wholesome amusement, and enjoyed a great deal of popularity. He is said to have received L70,000 ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... brown hair, and so blue were her eyes, so straight the little features, so soft the curves of the rosy lips. It is true those blue eyes had an expression in them which never in this world could Mrs. Ogilvie understand, nevertheless, the child's beauty was apparent to the most superficial observer; and Mrs. Ogilvie turned and accompanied Lord Grayleigh in the direction of the merry ...
— Daddy's Girl • L. T. Meade
... spiritual being, than the existence of a stick without two ends? Is the notion of an infinitely good and powerful being, who causes or permits an infinity of evils, less absurd or impossible, than that of a square triangle? Let us conclude then, that religious scepticism can result only from a superficial examination of theological principles, which are in perpetual contradiction with the most clear and ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... Clinker. If all the admirers of these two books would but bestir themselves and look into the matter, I am sure that Sterne's only too clever assault would be relegated to its proper place and assessed at its right value as a mere boutade. The borrowed contempt of Horace Walpole and the coterie of superficial dilettanti, from which Smollett's book has somehow never wholly recovered, could then easily be outflanked and the Travels might well be in reasonable expectation of ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... age when the mind is maturing, and fondly clings to general ideas,[3339] they embraced the theory and aimed at a reconstruction of society according to abstract principles. They have accordingly set to work as pure logicians, rigorously applying the superficial and false system of analysis then in vogue.[3340] They have formed for themselves an idea of man in general, the same in all times and ages, an extract or minimum of man; they have pondered over several thousands of or millions of these abstract mortals, erected their imaginary wills into ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... made no other response. At that moment it would have been impossible for him to have expressed the thoughts passing through his fierce mind. Sunny, however, was more superficial. Words were bursting from his lips. And when he spoke his first remark was a ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... and make life indeed a dreary struggle. In the splendor of large cities, amid the glitter and magnificence of palaces and churches, the varied paraphernalia of aristocracy and wealth, and all the excitements, allurements, and novelties apparent to the superficial eye, the real condition of the masses is not perceptible. They must be seen in the country—in their far-off villages and homes throughout the broad land; there you find no disguise to cover the horrible deformities of their bruised and crushed life; ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... of this discontent is apparent. There is something in the commonplaces of fashionable life which turns woman from the real to the unreal, from the substantial to the superficial, which smothers all originality of thought, and makes her a simple reproduction in appearance, if not in disposition, of the "Anonyma," with her meretricious beauty and dashing toilets. Is it well for woman to subject herself to be criticised as follows? "The girl of the ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... remarkable linguist, and an untiring letter writer. He had been on intimate terms with the leading politicians of several countries. But nothing sensational was discovered among the documents which filled his drawers. As to his relations with women, they appeared to have been promiscuous but superficial. He had many acquaintances among them, but few friends, and no one whom he loved. His habits were regular, his conduct inoffensive. His death was an absolute mystery and likely to ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Strength and manliness, and a blithe, cheery spirit, were ever the badges of the Teuton. But though originally gross and rough, he was capable of a smoother polish, of a glossier enamel, than a more superficial, trivial nature. He was ever deeply thoughtful, and capable of profounder moods of meditation than the lightly-moved children of the South. Sighs, as from the boughs of Yggdrasil, ever breathed through his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... committing needless errors. She wrote and spoke with a wit and sarcasm which charmed all but those at whom it was directed. Her bitter rebuffs and severe trials were mainly of her own making. For the most part she wrote with superficial feeling and without real soul. During the Napoleonic regime, time was a creeping horror to her, but she found pleasure in the thought that it was a torture to her suffering heart. George Eliot knew and used her extraordinary power; ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... Gospel as divine. And even Max Mueller testifies that, while making every allowance for whatever is good in the ethnic faiths, he has been the more fully convinced of the great superiority of Christianity. Really, those are in danger who receive only the superficial and misleading representations of heathenism which one is sure to meet in our magazine literature, or in works like "Robert Elsmere" and "The ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... Vimalakirtti-nirdeca-sutra[FN117], Lankavatara-sutra, and other sutras, in which he compared Hinayanism with Mahayanism, and described the latter in glowing terms as a deep and perfect Law, whilst he set forth the former at naught as a superficial and imperfect one. Thus he showed his disciples the inferiority of Hinayanism, and caused them to desire for Mahayanism. This is said to be the third period, which lasted some ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... of the masses, his mind used the pious formula from the superficial force of habit, but with a deep-seated sincerity. The popular mind is incapable of scepticism; and that incapacity delivers their helpless strength to the wiles of swindlers and to the pitiless enthusiasms of leaders inspired by visions of a high destiny. She was dead. But would God consent ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... only great man he had ever seen who looked all his greatness. Tall, strongly built, with thick gray hair, a short gray beard, clipped closely, ruddy complexion and blue eyes, he was as careful in dress as Jackson had been careless. He spoke with a uniform politeness, not superficial, but from the heart, and his glance was ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... show us how a congregate education by clubs may be the way. But just now the method is a little crude, and lays us open to the charge—which every intelligent person of this scientific age will repudiate—of being content with the superficial; for instance, of trusting wholly to others for our immortal furnishing, as many are satisfied with the review of a book for the book itself, or—a refinement on that—with a review of the reviews. The method is still crude. Perhaps we may expect a further ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... fates—a foreboding stranger than that which falls as a shadow to all ecstatic youthful hope and joy. Other faults—as evident, undoubtedly, to her and to her advisers, as to us—are for the most part superficial, and will disappear in a little further experience. A first appearance, coupled with so much merit and youth, may ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... property of the crown. Coals prohibited to be worked by individuals, but to be procured by government at ten shillings per ton, and cedar at three halfpence per superficial foot, exclusive of other duties and fines; viz. Licence 2s. clearance 1s. harbour-dues at Sydney at established rates, entrance in and clearance from the river 2s. entrance at Sydney 1s. King's ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... more, perhaps, than is generally noticed, and more than Miss Austen herself sometimes gave, as, for instance, in Mansfield Park. It is even rather artfully worked out—the selfish gabble of John Thorpe, who may look to superficial observers like a mere outsider, playing an important part twice in the evolution. There is not lavish but amply sufficient description and scenery—the Bath vignettes, especially the Beechencliff prospect; the sketch of the Abbey itself and of Henry's parsonage, ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... in his thirty-sixth year, and was remarkable for those superficial graces which please the multitude and fit a man to lead in a popular cause. He was young, well-spoken, witty, and skilled in all martial and manly exercises. On his progress in the West he had not thought it beneath him to kiss the village maidens, to offer prizes at the ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... angle between which and the prism faces is 77deg 6'; the angles between these three cleavages thus approximate to the angles (74deg 55') between the three cleavages of calcite, and there are other points of superficial resemblance between these two minerals. Chemically, barytocalcite is a double salt of barium and calcium carbonates, BaCa(CO3)2, thus differing from the orthorhombic bromlite (q.v.) which is an isomorphous mixture of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... any loss of time, his meal was sent to him in his little apartment. Law, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese, chemistry, astronomy, electricity, drawing, music, and mechanics, by turns engaged his attention; and though his acquirements in some of those studies were very superficial, his proficiency in many of them was far from contemptible. His papers on law evince so much industry, that had that subject alone occupied his leisure hours, his diligence would have been commendable. He was ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... unconditionally and for its own sake, while all the other philosophers make a happy life—vita beata—the aim of all virtue; and it is acquired through the medium of moral behaviour. Christianity released European humanity from its superficial and crude absorption in an ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... salt, as all the shores are of mud instead of sand, they pare off in summer the superficial part of this mud, which has been overflowed by the sea-water, and lay it up in heaps, to be used in the following manner: Having first dried it in the sun, and rubbed it into a fine powder, they dig a pit, the bottom ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... ashes and ruins and smouldering brands; here and there the flame still blazed up among the ruins, but the fire was everywhere mastered, and there was no further threatening of danger. It is to be regretted that we no longer sufficiently discern in the superficial accounts handed down to us the causes of this sudden revolution. While undoubtedly the dexterous leadership of Strabo and still more of Sulla, and especially the more energetic concentration of the Roman forces, and their more rapid offensive contributed materially ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... suffer me to forget: he was endowed with a clear head and a warm heart; his innate benevolence had assuaged the spirit of the church; he was rational, because he was moderate: in the course of his studies he had acquired a just though superficial knowledge of most branches of literature; by long practice, he was skilled in the arts of teaching; and he laboured with assiduous patience to know the character, gain the affection, and open the mind of his English pupil. As soon ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... artificiality and theatricality. In using the word theatrical I do not mean there is any return to, for instance, the Rienzi style: the music is theatrical in Wagner's own later way: it seems to fit the situation, but the appearance is an appearance only: the stuff is superficial: the feeling of the moment is not expressed—the music, in a word, is essentially the same as that of many inferior but clever opera composers, only, of course, the Wagner idiom is always there. The Waltraute scene is fine, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... before" you have the facts. Never judge till after you have the facts. Nothing is so utterly devoid of reason as a passionate hatred of any race or class. All men are much the same when you come to know them. Class or race faults are superficial. The human qualities ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... you of what I told you a little after the beginning of this essay, touching the blue and red and yellow that may be produced upon a piece of tempered steel; for these colours, though they be very vivid, yet if you break the steel they adorn, they will appear to be but superficial.' He then describes, in phraseology which shows the delight he took in his work, the following ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... to speak of extremes meeting; but it is wonderfully apt. Many have adopted Nietzsche's mannerisms and word-coinages, who had nothing in common with him beyond the ideas and "business" they plagiarised; but the superficial observer and a large portion of the public, not knowing of these things,—not knowing perhaps that there are iconoclasts who destroy out of love and are therefore creators, and that there are others who destroy out of resentment and revengefulness ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... columns devoted by the press to the doings of the polite world; and Adrian Bond kept between the covers of his two or three thin little books—a confinement richly deserved by a writer so futile, superficial and insincere; but Leverett Whyland was less easily evaded by anybody who "banged about town" and who happened to be interested in public matters. Abner came against him at one of the sessions of the Tax Commission, a body that ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... from the surplus pasture lands had a bad tendency on the morals of the Indians, encouraging them in idleness; and that the present system retarded all progress in agriculture and the industrial arts. The report was superficial, religiously concealing the truth, but dealing with broad generalities. Had the report emanated from some philanthropical society, it would have passed unnoticed or been commented on as an advance in the interest of a worthy philanthropy ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... to be regretted that Rob's knowledge of geography was so superficial; for, as he had intended to reach Cuba, he should have taken a course almost southwest from Boston, instead of southeast. The sad result of his ignorance you will presently learn, for during the entire day he continued to travel over a boundless waste of ocean, without ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... Edward, the heir-apparent. This form had been devised by the heads of the faction to conceal their real views from the people; and was so contrived that they retained in their own hands the sovereign authority, while to the superficial observer they seemed to have resigned it to the King and his council. It was enacted that Henry should delegate the power of choosing his counsellors to a committee of three persons, whose proceedings should be valid, provided they were attested by the signatures ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... programs of reform upon which the whole country had set its heart; and that whenever you analyzed the power that was behind those little groups you have found that it was not the power of public opinion, but some private influence, hardly to be discerned by superficial scrutiny, that had put those men there to ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... in. The latter was thin and dark; his face was rather inscrutable, but he had a superficial urbanity. Jim wondered what lay beneath this, and imagined it might be long before he found out. Until he got down from the train, they had not met since Mordaunt came to the telegraph shack, and Jim did not know if he liked the fellow or not. After a ...
— Partners of the Out-Trail • Harold Bindloss
... constitutes a prominent characteristic of his animal existence. The economy and order of nature is no less marked in the carnivorous than in the herbivorous mammalia and quadrumana; and although their physical distinctions are not always so marked as to render apparent, to superficial observation, the uses and functions of their entire organism, yet science has been a tolerably faithful interpreter of cause and effect, and has not failed to recognize those organic qualities, and the structural adaptability of the African race, which qualify ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... though in some cases it may have died out. From this type the varieties are derived, and the way of this derivation is usually quite manifest to the botanist. It is ordinarily [14] by the disappearance of some superficial character that a variety is distinguished from its species, as by the lack of color in the flowers, of hairs on stems and foliage, of the spines and thorns, &c. Such varieties are, strictly speaking, not to be treated in the same ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... general nature of which cannot be misinterpreted, of the kinds of things that have lived upon the surface of the earth during the time that is registered by this great thickness of stratified rocks. But even a superficial study of these fossils shows us that the animals and plants which live at the present time have had only a temporary duration; for the remains of such modern forms of life are met with, for the most part, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... from genuine passion, very little modified by particular forms, their pleasures and vexations are communicable to all times and to all places; they are natural, and therefore durable; the adventitious peculiarities of personal habits, are only superficial dies, bright and pleasing for a little while, yet soon fading to a dim tinct, without any remains of former lustre; but the discriminations of true passion are the colours of nature; they pervade the whole mass, and can only perish with the body that exhibits ...
— Preface to Shakespeare • Samuel Johnson
... when I was ... able to identify the charming little eyebright, the strange-looking cow-wheat and louse-wort, the handsome mullein and the pretty creeping toad-flax, and to find that all of them, as well as the lordly foxglove, formed parts of one great natural order, and that under all their superficial diversity of form was a similarity of structure which, when once clearly understood, enabled me to locate each fresh species with greater ease." This, however, was not sufficient, and the last step was ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... was pretty certain to be in the wrong. He assumed that, during those few years in Paris, she had learned it all in one big lesson only. The time had been too short to confirm all this sudden instruction into a reasoned and assimilated way of life; by no means had that superficial miscellany been rubbed into the warp and woof of her being. The Parisian top-dressing would be removed and the essential ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... months of his long absence, and none the less poignant because it was involuntary. The wide, cool, shadowy halls of his mother's house, always aglow with blossoms and haunted with their odors, all the superficial lotus-charm of Southern life—and he had lived it superficially enough to catch all its poetry rose before him. It caught away his breath and choked sudden tears into his eyes. Came and went like a flash—for ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and the bullet had not lodged in him. The doctor was relieved to find that the bayonet had not penetrated deeply but had only glanced along a rib, tearing the intercostal muscles and inflicting a long, jagged but superficial wound which bled freely. Indeed, the most serious matter was the great loss of blood, which had ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... have mercy upon me; Christ, have mercy upon me; Lord, have mercy upon me". But do I never want—does God never want—anything more than this? The soul is not always satisfied with such an easy method of going to Confession. It needs at times something more impressive, something perhaps less superficial, less easy going. It demands more time for {147} deepening thought, and greater knowledge of what it has done, before sin's deadly hurt cuts deep enough to produce real repentance, and to prevent repetition. At such times, it cries for something more ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... or it may be immersed in a solution of 1 part of phosphorus in 15 parts of bisulphide of carbon, 1 part of bees-wax, 1 part of spirits of turpentine, 1 part of asphaltum, and 1/8 part of caoutchouc dissolved in bisulphide of carbon. This leaves a superficial film which is metallised by dipping in a solution of 20 grains of nitrate of silver to a pint of water. On this metallic film a thicker layer of gold and silver in different shades can be deposited by the current, and the silver surface may also be "oxidised" ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... follow out in some detail those changes in the form, structure, and relations of animals and plants which are effected in short periods of time, geologically speaking, and which are now going on around us. We may expect it to explain satisfactorily most of the lesser and superficial differences which distinguish one species from another. We may expect it to throw light on the mutual relations of the animals and plants which live together in any one country, and to give some rational account of the phenomena presented by their distribution in different parts of the world. ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... which the faith is apprehended, the distinction does and must exist, not only in religion but in every department of belief, as long as there are different levels of culture in the same body of believers. It is, after all, a much more superficial difference than it sounds—a difference of language and symbolism for the same realities. Where language fits close, as it does to things measurable by our senses, divergency makes the difference between truth and error; but where it is question of the substitution ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... on the yard, where the Ghost vanished and went to rest, and was not again troubled. He got up early and went his way, but, before long, he returned to Ty Felin accompanied by a policeman, whom he requested to dig in the place where his mark was. This was done, and, underneath a superficial covering, a deep well was discovered, and in it a corpse. On examining the tenant of the house, he confessed that a travelling Jew, selling jewelry, etc., once lodged with him, and that he had murdered him, and cast his body ...
— Welsh Folk-Lore - a Collection of the Folk-Tales and Legends of North Wales • Elias Owen
... putting the date of the Channel 'towards the close of the Glacial epoch.' What does Austen make the date of the Channel?—ante or post Glacial?" The changes in level and other questions are dealt with in a paper by R.A.C. Austen (afterwards Godwin-Austen), "On the Superficial Accumulations of the Coasts of the English Channel and the Changes they indicate." "Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc." VII., 1851, page 118. Obit. notice by Prof. Bonney in the "Proc. Geol. ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... intellectual pursuits,—a man of fine powers of mind, but not fully progressed in thought. As far as he knew, at the time of this writing, he was appreciative of your suggestions, and of scientific progress. He was a cool-headed man,—not a light or superficial thinker, but thought on deep subjects. He was a brain worker; it makes my brain tired. I think he published books—poems. I think he was more a poet than a prose writer. He was not like Tom Moore—there was nothing light or superficial—his poetry was grand, solid, deep, ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... Treasurer's, whither, I told him, I was going. I believe he had a mind to discourse of some Navy businesses, but Sir Thomas Clifford coming into the coach to us, we were prevented; which I was sorry for, for I had a mind to begin an acquaintance with him. He speaks well, and hath pretty slight superficial parts, I believe. He, in our going, talked much of the plain habit of the Spaniards; how the King and Lords themselves wear but a cloak of Colchester bayze, and the ladies mantles, in cold weather, of white flannell: ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... he is conscious that he is not a subject, but a citizen of the empire. Yet he will not infer from the English King's use of the term in formal utterances that an Englishman is a churl, a "servant of his King." That would be a superficial political conception. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... of good fables,—pithy wisdom, ingenious moral instances, homely illustrations, easy colloquial dialogue; and the ethical teaching has a striking superficial likeness to the common-sense morality of prudence and content, which fables, like proverbs, habitually expound. "Cultivate your garden, don't trouble your head about insoluble riddles, accept your ignorance and your limitations, ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... Head, a Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, a retired half-pay Major, an Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner for one of the Kentish districts, and the author of several entertaining but exceedingly superficial books of travel. To no one was the appointment a greater surprise than to Sir Francis himself. He must have felt the utter absurdity of the thing—that he had no claim to such a post, and was disqualified from filling it with credit. He neither knew nor cared ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... The superficial inquirer into the history of English charity-schools will be told that the honour of the first erecting such, and caring for destitute children, is popularly considered due to the parishes of St. Botulph, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... sister colony in New York, there are no show places in Limehouse. The visitor sees nothing but mean streets and dark doorways. The superficial inquirer comes away convinced that the romance of the Asiatic district has no existence outside the imaginations of writers of fiction. Yet here lies a secret quarter, as secret and as strange, in its smaller way, as its parent in China which is called ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... friend. But the next thing which I saw—on the pier-table—caused me such a shock of surprise that I readjusted my glasses upon my nose with both hands at once, and then felt myself over so as to get at least some superficial proof of my own existence. In less than one second there thronged from my mind twenty different conjectures—the most rational of which was that I had suddenly become crazy. It seemed to me absolutely impossible that what I was looking at could exist; ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... literary merit in these Letters. He does not deprecate nor seek to disarm criticism; he only asks that his sketches be taken for what they profess and strive to be, and for nothing else. That they are superficial, their title proclaims; that they were hurriedly written, with no thought of style nor of enduring interest, all whom they are likely to interest or to reach must already know. A journalist traveling in foreign lands, especially those which have been once the homes ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... outgrown the scheme of life based on status that the relation of personal subservience is no longer felt to be the sole "natural" human relation; there the ancient habit of purposeful activity will begin to assert itself in the less conformable individuals against the more recent, relatively superficial, relatively ephemeral habits and views which the predatory and the pecuniary culture have contributed to our scheme of life. These habits and views begin to lose their coercive force for the community or the class in question so soon as the habit of ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... the strange notions and false opinions that swayed his actions at that time, that he may wonder at them, so should society, for its edification, look back to the opinions which governed the ages fled. He is but a superficial thinker who would despise and refuse to hear of them merely because they are absurd. No man is so wise but that he may learn some wisdom from his past errors, either of thought or action, and no society has made such advances as to be ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... was made to bury the remains of Elksfoot, inasmuch as our adventurers had no tools fit for such a purpose, and any merely superficial interment would have been a sort of invitation to the wolves to ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... conceivably think the moon to be made of green cheese, so philosophy in its childhood thinks here of all things as made of water. Water was a well-known substance, possessing well-known predicates. To define all nature in terms of it, was to maintain that in spite of superficial differences, all things have these predicates in common. They are the predicates which qualify for reality, and compose a community of nature from which all the individual objects and events of nature arise. The successors of Thales were evidently dissatisfied with his fundamental conception, ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... spark ready to fall into it, he walked about the gilded saloon with a smile upon his lips so perfectly natural and pleasant, that one would have said he was as vacant of any aim, except a sort of superficial good-matured disposition to be amused, as the blankest-eyed simpleton who had tied himself up in a white cravat and come to ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... reversed case. The self-fertilised and crossed seeds thus obtained were allowed to germinate in the same glass vessel on damp sand; and as the seeds successively germinated, they were planted in pairs on opposite sides of the same pot, with a superficial partition between them, and were placed so as to be equally exposed to the light. In other cases the self-fertilised and crossed seeds were simply sown on opposite sides of the same small pot. I have, in short, followed different plans, but in every case ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... quickly became lost in feelings of a deeper and stronger nature as Buck passed out into the open. His was not a nature to dwell unnecessarily upon the clashings of every-day life. Such pinpricks were generally superficial, to be brushed aside and treated without undue consideration until such time as some resulting fester might gather and drastic action become necessary. The fester had not yet gathered, therefore he set his quarrel aside for the time when he could give ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... a little volume, with an uncommonly attractive exterior, entitled Chanticleer, a Thanksgiving Story, consisting of quiet descriptions of American country life and manners, set forth in the framework of a superficial and not very skillfully managed narrative. It contains some passages of considerable beauty, but as a whole, it has hardly sufficient freshness and fervor to ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... into a nest of bees. And, even though individually and singly the Germans were all innocent and merely led astray, they would be none the less guilty in the mass. This is the guilt that counts, that alone is actual and real, because it lays bare, underneath their superficial innocence, ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... Were a superficial observer suddenly transported from one of the reedy ponds of Europe to this water-hole in Suttor Creek, he would not be able to detect the change of his locality, except by the presence of Casuarinas and ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... other hand, faith without repentance is not possible, in any deep sense. But in so far as it is possible, it produces a superficial Christianity which vaguely trusts to Christ without knowing exactly what it is trusting Him for, or why it needs Him; and which has a great deal to say about what I may call the less important parts of the Christian system, and nothing to say about its vital centre; which preaches ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... England from Mesopotamia, reaches the vast table-lands of the Far West and inspects their interesting fauna of antelopes and buffaloes, red Indians and Mormons. In a journey of this sort one gets a very superficial view of the peculiarities, physical and social, which characterize the different portions of our country; and in this there is nothing to complain of, since the knowledge gained in a vacation-journey cannot well be expected to ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... readily granted. Mrs. Travilla was an inimitable story-teller, and Lucy, whose knowledge of Scripture history was but superficial, listened to the narrative with almost as much interest and ...
— Elsie's children • Martha Finley
... concern for what might become of me. Bitter were the tears, but it roused me. I determined to rely upon myself. My father had been a thorough scholar, and I was educated according to his system. There was nothing superficial, and the extent of my reading, both in English and the classics, was far more than the course usually prescribed for ladies. I also inherited a talent for music which had been carefully cultivated, so that I was well able to teach any branch that might be desired. Through ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... this time had learned, however, that William forgot nothing and never failed to carry out his plans, and his pulse beat quicker when the Prince requested him to be in attendance one afternoon, and to accompany him alone to Whitehall, where the Duke of York was in residence. There was a certain superficial likeness in character between the Prince and his father-in-law, for both appeared unfeeling and unsympathetic men, but what in James was obstinacy, in William was power, and what in James was superstitious, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... their secret political services, so that the efforts of its agents cannot be ascribed to cupidity. Also it must be admitted that the kingdom of Serbia, with its capital Belgrade, thanks to the internal chaos and dynastic scandals of the previous forty years, resulting in superficial dilapidation, intellectual stagnation, and general poverty, lacked the material as well as the moral glamour which a successful Piedmont should possess. Nobody could deny, for instance, that, with all its natural advantages, Belgrade ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... his pupil, when Queen, to help Brienne to the Ministry, he did her and her kingdom more injury than their worst foes. Of the Abbe's power over Marie Antoinette there are various opinions; of his capacity there is but one—he was superficial and cunning. On his arrival at Vienna he became the tool of Maria Theresa. While there, he received a salary as the daughter's tutor, and when he returned to France, a much larger one as the mother's spy. He was more ambitious to be thought a great man, in his power over his ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... is too highly organized, too sensitive, too knit together by memories and prevision for you to leave behind you anything that has really entered into your life. It is a shoddy and superficial nature that passes easily from experience to experience, and when you look at such you can see how shallower still it becomes. It is the deeper and the loftier nature that cannot enter into any human relationship and then pass away from ...
— Sex And Common-Sense • A. Maude Royden
... R. W. Hegner, 'Experiments with Chrysomelid Beetles,' III., Biological Bulletin, vol. xx. 1910-11.] for example, found that in the egg of the beetle Leptinotarsa, which is an elongated oval in shape, there is at the posterior end in the superficial cytoplasm a disc-shaped mass of darkly staining granules, while the fertilised nucleus is in the middle of the egg. When the protoplasm containing these granules was killed with a hot needle, development in some cases took place and an embryo was formed, but the embryo contained no germ cells. Here ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... requisite for a truly perfect adaptation, namely, a real analysis of the vocational demands with reference to the desirable personal qualities, is so far not in existence. The young people generally see some superficial traits of the careers which seem to stand open, and, besides, perhaps they notice the great rewards of the most successful. The inner labor, the inner values, and the inner difficulties and frictions are too often unknown to those who decide for a vocation, and ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... woman of the world with such an unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs. Dabney's return to her native city. Superficial observers, and deeper ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must have borne no inactive part in arranging the affair; there were considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely to appreciate ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... and at his Return the Relation of it was drawn-up, from his own Mouth, by Friar William of Solanga, in 1330. Ramusio has inserted it in Italian, in the second Volume of his Collection; as Hakluyt, in his Navigations, has done the Latin, with an English Translation. This is a most superficial Relation, and full of Lies; such as People with the Heads of Beasts, and Valleys haunted with Spirits: In one of which he pretends to have entered, protected by the Sign of the Cross; yet fled for Fear, at the Sight of a Face that grinned at him. In short, though he relates some ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... self-confidence, a sweetly smiling determination to have her own way, and go her own course, though the skies fell, and all creation conspired to prevent her—these were the characteristics of Miss Cornelia Briskett most apparent on a superficial acquaintance. On the morning after her arrival, when Mary the housemaid carried the cup of early morning tea to her bedside, she found the young lady leaning back against the pillows, enveloped in a garment which suggested a garden party, rather than a night-gown, ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... Having no other business in hand, Barney devoted himself to that business which ran like a core through all his businesses—paying court to Maggie. And when Barney wished to be a courtier, there were few of his class who could give a better superficial interpretation of the role; and in this particular instance he was at the advantage of being in earnest. He forced the most expensive tidbits announced by the dinner card upon Maggie; he gallantly and very gracefully put on and removed, as required by circumstances, the green ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... beloved Husband REAL and solid happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses CAN change; it could not have lasted long as it was then, for after all, kind and excellent as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was but in Society that I had amusement, and I was only living on that superficial resource, which I THEN FANCIED was happiness! Thank God! for ME and others, this is changed, and I KNOW WHAT REAL HAPPINESS IS—V. R." How did she know? What is the distinction between happiness that is real and happiness that is felt? So a philosopher—Lord M. himself perhaps—might have inquired. ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... which give notice of approaching danger; there are courses of action which have uniformly produced the same results; and the wise politicians are those who have learnt from experience the real tendencies of things, unmisled by superficial differences, who can shun the rocks where others have been wrecked, or from foresight of what is coming can be cool when the ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... not know what I should do in that case. I attach very slight importance to such trifles. I merely consider what is suitable for myself, and should be very sorry to judge of others by the superficial information afforded ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... United of what is now the Symphony Literary Service. We are rather at a loss to divine Mr. Macauley's precise notion of amateur journalism. He speaks of it as a "tarn", but we cannot believe he would have it so stagnant a thing as that name implies. Surely, the United is something greater than a superficial fraternal order composed of mediocre and unambitious dabblers. Progress leads toward the outside world of letters, and to cavil at work such as Mrs. Renshaw's is to set obstacles in the path of progress. Professional literary success on the part of amateur journalists can never ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... twenty thousand, nearly four thousand attended school, at least during the winter months. However, it will be seen that the real work of education was not in so satisfactory a condition as the above statement, in a superficial point of view, might imply. To show this we will descend to details as to the schools, their kind, structure, fittings, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... perception miles below that of the Psalmist, who saw man, to all appearance a negligible speck, yet in reality made by the Almighty little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and honour. Neither need we combat at length the strangely superficial notion that such questions as unemployment, the Budget, etc., have little or no relation to that of saving the individual soul, as commonly understood. If they have no relation to that subject, they are hardly worth considering; but ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... his way into the smoke-filled passageway and across to the other cabin. They found Stubbs lying on the floor unconscious. A superficial examination revealed no serious wound and so, urged on by the increasing noise above, they left him and hurried to the deck. They found the second mate pushing the stubborn group nearer and nearer their own quarters. ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... merely giving vent to his delight at being under canvas. He said the same thing every year, and he said it often. But it more or less expressed the superficial feelings of us all. And when, a little later, he turned to compliment his wife on the fried potatoes, and discovered that she was snoring, with her back against a tree, he grunted with content at the ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... served me for an excuse. However, after some time, I began to look into his charts and books; and, as I could write a tolerable hand, understood some Latin, and began to have a little smattering of the Portuguese tongue, so I began to get a superficial knowledge of navigation, but not such as was likely to be sufficient to carry me through a life of adventure, as mine was to be. In short, I learned several material things in this voyage among the Portuguese; I learned particularly to be an arrant thief and a bad sailor; and I think I may say ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... good Stuff in Bagehot's Essays, in spite of his name, which is simply 'Bagot,' as men call it. Also, I find Hayward's Select Essays so agreeable that I suppose they are very superficial. ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... moon. It cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It makes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost it you won't smile.... People say sometimes that Beauty is only superficial. That may be so. But at least it is not so superficial as Thought is. To me, Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde |
