"Inconspicuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the fellow was trying to make his presence as inconspicuous as possible. He strode stolidly along, close behind them, looking into the shop windows and apparently not noticing the two men at all. Yet I knew that he was talking to them. I could tell by the surprised way with which both Fluette ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... about the gardens two quiet, inconspicuous, rather poorly dressed boys. They looked at the palace, the shrubs, and the flower-beds, as strangers usually did, and they sat on the seats and talked as people were accustomed to seeing boys talk together. It was a sunny day and exceptionally warm, and there were more saunterers ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... CHEVALLIER.—An inconspicuous object enclosed by slightly curved ridges. It includes a deep bright crater. On the N. is a low square formation and a long ridge running N. from it. Just beyond the N.E. wall is the fine large crater, Atlas A, with a much smaller but equally conspicuous crater beyond. ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... of the M2 of the average adult in the series. None of the 23 specimens has a third upper molar. All except one have both third lower molars; one (75233) lacks the third lower molar on both sides of the jaw. Facial stripes vary from conspicuous to inconspicuous, but are evident in each of the 11 skins. The two skins having the darkest pelage are both of males and are the only two skins having open epiphyseal sutures. Five adult males and three adult females are represented by skins. Three of the male skins are ...
— Neotropical Bats from Northern Mexico • Sydney Anderson
... in bottles. From the time of its purchase to the moment of its consignment to the barrel in the cellar or the rapacious wagon of the rag-and-bone man the bottle plays a vital part in our lives. And as with most inconspicuous necessities, but little is known of its history. We assume vaguely that it is blown—ever since we saw the Bohemian Glass Blowers at the World's Fair we have known that glass is blown into whatever shape fancy may dictate—but that ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... seasickness and the other discomforts of ocean travel, so as to introduce a little juvenile fun into this great work of Mr. Harley's—and yet I bow my head meekly and go. Why? Because I feel that, inconspicuous though I shall be, nevertheless I am highly honored that Mr. Harley should select me from among many for the uses of his ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs
... bringing of such a suit means her social ruin no matter what verdict is brought in! Her only salvation has been in remaining inconspicuous; and a sane girl would have realised it. But"—and she made a gesture of despair—"you see what she has done. . . . And Phil—you know what she has done to you—what a mad risk she took in going to your ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... cloudless sky. All the way I had heard, mingled with the roar of the impetuous river, the sound of mill-wheels, and I passed I know not how many manufactories, most of which lie so deep down in the heart of the gorges that they do not spoil the scenery. The ugly blot is hidden, or at least inconspicuous. As I turn back, I have on one side a vast velvety slope, sweeping from mountain to river, terrace upon terrace of golden-green pasture, where a dozen little girls are keeping their kine; on the other steep limestone precipices, all a tangle ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... profound and conquering note which is so potent an ally of the mind in subduing men. I heard Seward's oration at Plymouth in 1855, a worthy effort which may be read in his works, but I do better here to pick up only the straws, not meddling with the heavy-garnered wheat. I recall an inconspicuous figure, of ordinary stature, and a face whose marked feature was the large nose (Emerson called it "corvine"), but that, as some one has said, is the hook which nature makes salient in the case of men whom fortune is to drag forward into leadership. He spoke in the pulpit of my grandfather, who ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... stripped of their crack men for assignment to the southern experiment, so that detail there had become a mark of distinction. He had been as surprised as pleased at his summons from Sorsogon, a poor, colorless province where he had spent seven months in uneventful, and as he thought, inconspicuous service. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... blood! The weapon must still have been there. Some weapon with a short and inconspicuous handle. I think they said there were flowers over and around the place ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... mark of other animals, especially when as often happens he balances cleverly on his hind legs. By means of it also he can, with his body completely concealed, look over the top of ordinary cover and see you long before you have made out his inconspicuous little head. Then he departs. He seems to have a lamentable lack of healthy curiosity about you. In that respect he should take lessons from the kongoni. After that you can follow him as far as you please; you will get only glimpses at three or ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... wretchedness, thinks Rosie's lot quite despicable; but I can tell you, Molly, she is the most utterly comfortable and contented little soul on the face of this earth. She would not change places with a queen." "But Rose is not plain. Rose is the happy medium. And THEY are the lucky ones—the inconspicuous ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... broad or less, irregular, grouped at end of stem, and upheld by long leaf-like bracts. Calyx of 3 unequal sepals; 3 petals, 1 inconspicuous, 2 showy, rounded. Perfect stamens 3; the anther of 1 incurved stamen largest; 3 insignificant and sterile stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Fleshy, smooth, branched, mucilaginous. Leaves: Lance-shaped, ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... Kauffman and his black satchel. For it grew dark early at this time of year, and already the brief twilight was fading. So the girl hastened to her room and exchanged her gray walking suit for a darker one that was inconspicuous and allowed free movement. Then she slipped her little pearl-mounted revolver—her father's gift—into her handbag and decided she was ready for ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... found that this stranger was available for the purpose. He asked many questions, and before long had a crowd about him—as if he were some sort of government commissioner, conducting an investigation. It was an all day job, apparently; I hung round, trying to keep myself inconspicuous. ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... continues to claim, in punning right of his Christian name, a place, however small and inconspicuous, among the 'wills,' the varied forms of will (i.e. lust, stubbornness, and willingness to accept others' attentions), which are the constituent elements of the lady's being. The plural 'wills' is twice used in identical sense by Barnabe Barnes ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... course, and nowhere perhaps had more beer been drunk than at Clovelly, the borough for which Sir Gregory Grogram sat. When it came to be a matter of individual prosecution against one whom they had all known, and who, as a member, had been inconspicuous and therefore inoffensive, against a heavy, rich, useful man who had been in nobody's way, many thought that it would amount to persecution. The idea of putting old Browborough into prison for conduct ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... the rear terrace. Just as he was about to insert the key the door was opened from the outside and Wesley's wooley head was outlined in the moonlight. The spooks darted behind the refreshment table and the three watchers dropped into inconspicuous heaps upon the ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... boundaries of their respective countries. He divides the Macedonian Slavs into pure Slavs, Slavized Bulgars and pure Slavs influenced by Slavized Bulgars: "all three categories," he says, "have been subjected to a strong and often continuous Greek influence, to say nothing of the Turks and the inconspicuous Vlachs," so that in his opinion it is rash to make sharp divisions among a people who have thus acted and reacted on one another. A large proportion of the Macedonians[53] have no knowledge of the race to which ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... so inconspicuous and quiet and lady-like," remarked Billie when some time later they left the motor car in charge of Komatsu and went in to visit Shiba Temple in Shiba Park. These chapels are mostly the tombs of the ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... of the steamship line: and, in the name of Henry Hull, secured a cabin. Then he explained to the clerk that over the telephone he had learned that his friend, Senator Gates, was at another hotel. He regretted that he must follow him. Another taxi was called, and Jimmie drove to an inconspicuous and old-fashioned hotel on the lower East Side, patronized exclusively by gunmen. There, in not finding Senator Gates, he was again disappointed, and now having broken the link that connected him with the suspicious landlord, he drove back to within a block of his original ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... are equally interesting in appearance. They wear broad- brimmed hats with low crowns. Their clothes are so extremely plain that buttons, universally deemed indispensable, are taboo and their place is filled by the inconspicuous hook-and-eye, which style has brought upon them ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... march Nigel observed that the group of orchids was abundant, but a large proportion of the species had small inconspicuous flowers. Some, however, had large clusters of yellow flowers which had a very ornamental effect on the sombre forest. But, although the exceptions were striking, he found that in Borneo, as elsewhere, flowers were scarcer than he had expected in an equatorial forest. There were, however, more than ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... read his book happened to meet him personally, and one or two of this number—clever but inconspicuous people—lucidly apprehended him for what he was: that rare phenomenon, the artist (such he was already calling himself)—the artist whose personality, whose opinions and whose work are in exact accord. The reading public—a body rather ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... never overrated it; but as a result of this self-consciousness he would not brook depreciation, and when, in May, 1868, the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, of which he was a member, had hung some of his pictures in an inconspicuous and detrimental position in its gallery, he resorted to a novel expedient for showing his displeasure. On "varnishing day," prior to the opening of the exhibition to the public, he used a mixture of beer and porter, combined ...
— Thirteen Chapters of American History - represented by the Edward Moran series of Thirteen - Historical Marine Paintings • Theodore Sutro
... social lions. At thirty he was a handsome, well-groomed, rather bored personage, with sleekly-brushed blond hair and a short mustache. He looked important, and one suspected that he must have been at some pains to keep his waist line so inconspicuous. For the rest, he was as really cultivated and pleasing a pagan as one may find, and so wittily ironical he might have been ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... still noting various small items of Holton's raiment—his tan oxford shoes, brilliant socks, and brown derby. A brown derby seemed odd in Montgomery. From the pocket of his sackcoat protruded the cuffs of tan gloves, and he wore an inconspicuous watch chain passed from pocket to pocket of his waistcoat. Not even the most prosperous of the college seniors had ever presented to Phil's eye a variety of adornments so tastefully chosen, a color scheme so effective. The interview seemed to be ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... the Great, one of the oldest and most interesting in London, is reached from Smithfield by an inconspicuous arch, which leads to a narrow walk close beside brick walls. At the further end is the facade of the church, which boasts of having been erected in 1123, by Rahere, who also founded the neighboring Hospital ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... shortly the act of signal folly, as he termed it, was completed. Tongues in the neighborhood wagged energetically for a few days; but presently the birth of twins in the next block distracted the public mind, and Elizabeth was allowed to resume the vocation of an inconspicuous schoolmistress. From the object of her bounty, Mr. Horace Barker, she heard nothing directly; but at least he had the grace to discontinue his persecutions. And parental confidence, which, in spite of scarlet-fever, had never been wholly lost, was manifested in the ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... some twelve years ago, that I first met Dr. Paru. She and I shared the long seat of the small second-class compartment, and in that close neighborliness I soon fell to wondering. From her dress I knew her to be a Hindu, yet her jewels were few and inconspicuous. She was most evidently of good family, yet she ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... experiments is proved by the extraordinary variety of shades of blue, ranging from a sort of greyish robin's-egg to the darkest navy, in which the army is clothed. The result attained is the conviction that no blue is really inconspicuous, and that some of the harsh new slaty tints are no less striking than the deeper shades they have superseded. But to this scale of experimental blues, other colours must be added: the poppy-red of the Spahis' tunics, and various other less ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... 300 acres on each side of the buildings was apparently abandoned. Only the shearwaters moaning in their burrows, the little wingless rail skulking from one grass tussock to another, and the saucy finch remained. It is an excellent example of what Prof. Nutting calls the survival of the inconspicuous. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... sunshine rather than excluding it. The framework of the arbor, as a general thing, is considered secondary to the effect produced by it when the vines we plant about it are developed. But, unlike the Americanized pergola, the arbor is almost always located in a retired or inconspicuous part of the home-grounds, and is seldom found connected with the dwelling. To get the benefit of the arbor, or the summer-house we evolve from it, we must go to it, while the pergola, as adapted by most of us, brings the attractive features of out-door life to the house, thus combining out- and ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... ridge which ran between the position and the German lines, it was covered from all except air observation. The two armored cars, containing guns, were hidden away amongst the shattered ruins of a little hamlet; their armor-plated bodies, already rendered as inconspicuous as possible by erratic daubs of bright colors laid on after the most approved Futurist style, were further hidden by untidy wisps of straw, a few casual beams, and any other of the broken rubbish which had once ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... the lounge archway. Strange, tense scene. I saw Anita at once. Her robed figure lurked in an inconspicuous corner; her eyes were upon me as Moa and I entered, but she did not move. The thirty-odd passengers were huddled in a group. Solemn, white-faced men, frightened women. Some of them were sobbing. One Earth-woman—a young widow—sat ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... just found out about it. Came in in the late morning generalized report-digest; very inconspicuous item, no special urgency symbol or anything. Fortunately, one of the report editors spotted it and messaged Police Terminal for a copy of ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... girls" were furious with her for letting him talk to her so long at his aunt's garden-party, that he awoke to the exiguity of his surroundings; and then it was with a touch of irritation that he noticed Mr. Carstyle's inconspicuous profile bent above a newspaper in one of the lower windows. Vibart had an idea that Mr. Carstyle, while ostensibly reading the paper, had kept count of the number of times that his daughter had led her companion up and down between the syringa-bushes; and for some undefinable reason he resented Mr. ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... the night of terror after the defeat and retreat to the ships. The Trojan spy, Dolon, also wears a leather cap. The three spies put on no corslets, as far as we can affirm, their object being to remain inconspicuous and unburdened with glittering bronze greaves and corslets. The Trojan camp was brilliantly lit up with fires, and there may have been a moon, so the less bronze the better. In these circumstances alone the heroes of the Iliad are unequipped, certainly, with bronze helmets, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... with the inconspicuous inflorescences of the mangos (Mangifera indica). The pipals (Ficus religiosa) are shedding their leaves; the sheshams (Dalbergia sissoo) are assuming ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... our rough riding-boots under our chairs, to avoid marking the contrast with our host's resplendent jack-boots of patent-leather, and buttoning up our coat collars, we endeavoured to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible in this brilliant assembly. But in spite of our tramp-like garb, we were always ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... snow, but will put forth its golden blossoms in the dreariest days of February, and after the flowers have passed away the foliage will remain as an ornament. To put in single roots is useless; it is far better to plant a few large patches than to fritter away the flower in a number of small and inconspicuous groups. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... most men tend to make them silent; and their constant changes of scene, though not touching them very deeply, have really given a certain enlargement to their minds. A quiet demeanor in a seaport town proves nothing; the most inconspicuous man may have the most thrilling career to look back upon. With what a superb familiarity do these men treat this habitable globe! Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope are in their phrase but the West Cape and the East Cape, merely two familiar portals of their ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... went by taxi to his club. The visit, he reflected, would serve the secondary purpose of an inconspicuous re-entry into club-life after ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... corner of the building, he found an inconspicuous door. A brass plate indicated that this was the employees' entrance to the Blue Mountain Mercantile Company's offices. Another plate indicated that the delivery entrance was around the corner. Don shrugged and went into ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... are the natural food for many of the larger undersea creatures, so one of their greatest talents is hiding. Approaching danger, whether from octopus, fish or man, arouses caution in a small mollusk and it becomes as inconspicuous as it can. This can be pretty inconspicuous, as the novice conchologist learns early in ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company
... these discouragements is simple, and generally because they do not know the portion of the locality, say, for instance, a certain township, in which the minerals occur. And if they do succeed in finding this, it is seldom that the portion in which the mineral occurs, which is generally some small inconspicuous vein or fissure, is found; and even in this it is generally difficult to recognize and isolate the mineral from the extraneous matter holding it. As an instance of this I might cite thus: Dana, in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... Church of England, its members not being regarded as ministers of the church, and non-Catholics are allowed to sing in it. The singers at Mass or other solemn services are usually placed in a gallery or some other inconspicuous place. The word "choir," indeed, formerly applied to all the clergy taking part in services of the church, and the restriction of the term to the singing men and boys, who were in their origin no more than the representatives (vicars) of the clergy, is a comparatively ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... earth—Mars's average distance from us is about 235,000,000 miles. In consequence of these great changes in its distance, Mars is sometimes a very conspicuous object in the sky, and at other times inconspicuous. ...
— Other Worlds - Their Nature, Possibilities and Habitability in the Light of the Latest Discoveries • Garrett P. Serviss
... it? Her work has been mainly inconspicuous contributions signed only with initials. Stuff like that counts up amazingly in the long run. She is a better critic though not so original as Miss Brett. For my part I think the editor-in-chief ought to be primarily a critic, ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... now, from this lower viewpoint they could catch a glimpse of the wood interior on the opposite shore. There were several log cabins harmonizing in color with the surrounding forest and, therefore, inconspicuous. Farther from the shore the boys glimpsed another and larger structure and at the water's edge they now saw ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... tut-tutting and shaking its head at such reckless notions. But another part pointed out that they couldn't be much worse off financially than they were right now. So what if they arrived in Manon dead-broke instead of practically? Besides, there was the problem of remaining inconspicuous till they got there. On the Dawn City no one whose wardrobe was limited to one Automatic Sales dress was going to remain ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... Symphony" in 1855 and "The Pilgrims' Cantata" by C. C. Perkins, were performed in Boston, and we have record of an oratorio, "The Cities of the Plains," by Dawley, in 1855. Apart from these efforts the American composer seems to have been inconspicuous. In fact there were no facilities for the study of music or for the hearing of music which could be compared, as a training school for composers, with the musical centres of Europe, so that the efforts of these earlier ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... into shadow of big tree where he remains inconspicuous though dimly visible) I would see this Sun Man and talk ...
— The Acorn-Planter - A California Forest Play (1916) • Jack London
... deck of the guard-ship the historic part of his career came to an end. For forty-two years he continued to serve his country obscurely on the seas, sometimes thanked for inconspicuous and honourable services, but denied any opportunity of serious distinction. He was first two years in the LARNE, Captain Tait, hunting pirates and keeping a watch on the Turkish and Greek squadrons in the Archipelago. Captain Tait was a favourite with ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... soul of the spectator can add its own emotion. To Hugh it was much a matter of mood. He would go to a gallery of ancient or modern art, and find that there many pictures had no message or voice for him; and then some inconspicuous picture would suddenly appeal to him with a mysterious force—the pathetic glance of childish eyes, or an old face worn by toil and transfigured by some inner light of hopefulness; or a woodland scene, tree-trunks rising amid ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... there are others as well, so that we may even speak of metamorphoses between different types of metamorphosis!) they all obey the same basic rule, namely, that before proceeding to the next higher stage of the cycle, the plant sacrifices something already achieved in a preceding one. Behind the inconspicuous sheath of the calyx we see the plant preparing itself for a new creation of an entirely different order. As successor to the leaf, the flower appears to us time and again as a miracle. Nothing in the lower realm of the plant predicts the form, colour, scent and all the other properties ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... prosecutor is bound to bring him to trial. Public attention demands it. He may know him to be insane, but he must still prosecute him. The jury declare him insane. After years he is released from the asylum, the public thinks it a miscarriage of justice, forgetting in the meanwhile the inconspicuous poor man who unnoticed has gone through the same experience, and been released ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... no reply. I saw him stare at her, and then I saw his glance take me in. I sat in a corner as inconspicuous as I could make myself. I wondered whether I was a sempstress or a tutor, and whether either of these functionaries were introduced, and whether they ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... the Negro participated in the exploration and occupation of nearly every important region from New Mexico to Chile. As personal attendants of the Spanish Pioneers, as burden-bearers and drudges connected with exploration and the founding of colonies, they played an indispensable though inconspicuous role in one of the greatest achievements which history records. Such accounts of their service as have been preserved are, for the most part, accidental: only when he performed an act of unusual heroism or connected himself with a strange or humorous occurrence was the Negro's ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... of the war, both in the army and out of it, left no man just as he was before. To "them that were exercised thereby" they brought great promotion in the service of the King. The cases are not few nor inconspicuous of men coming forth from the temptations and the discipline of the military service every way stronger and better Christians than they entered it. The whole church gained higher conceptions of the joy and glory of self-sacrifice, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... stood safely on the dazzlingly white beach of coral sand that stretched for about a mile in either direction from the spot where they had landed. From here the hull of the brig looked little more than a small inconspicuous spot against the snow-white cloud of surf that broke eternally upon the outer edge of the barrier reef; and Leslie made a mental note to pull off aboard again betimes in the afternoon, for it would be practically impossible to hit off her ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... destination no matter how difficult the going. When others passed him he let them go, and plodded on after them with solemn assurance, his gait so leisurely that rapid travelers had the habit of regarding his conservatism with undisguised contempt. And yet his perseverance, though inconspicuous, was singularly effective. He had won his way into the sanctorum of a big corporation and his advice, though never brilliant, was always sane and peculiarly reliable. He did not mind rebuffs and was so indifferent to indignities that people had ceased ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... and the public meetings which ensued, came, in 1890, the formation of the Consumers' League, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell its President. Quiet and inconspicuous as its work has been, the best retail mercantile houses in New York have accepted its prospectus as just, and stand now upon the "White List," which numbers all merchants who seek to deal justly and fairly with their ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... force. Light, which is silent, is mightier than all lightnings. The Spirit, which is the 'Spirit of love,' is therefore 'the Spirit of power.' The true type of Christian character, which the gospel has brought into being, looks modest, inconspicuous and humdrum, by the side of the more brilliant and vulgar beauties of the world's ideals. Just as the iridescent hues on a dove's neck, and the quiet blue of its plumage, look modest and Quaker-like beside gaudy parroquets ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... just. I'm not sure that Daggett was aware of his partner's dishonesty. That isn't what worries me about the lad. It's his utter impossibility. He's as crude as iron-ore. When he's being careful, he may manage to be inconspicuous, but ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... is unlikely there will be any smoke-disgorging steam railway trains in Utopia, they are already doomed on earth, already threatened with that obsolescence that will endear them to the Ruskins of to-morrow, but a thin spider's web of inconspicuous special routes will cover the land of the world, pierce the mountain masses and tunnel under the seas. These may be double railways or monorails or what not—we are no engineers to judge between such devices—but by means of them the ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... nearly related to the Sugar Pine, and, though not half so tall, it constantly suggests its noble relative in the way that it extends its long arms and in general habit. The Mountain Pine is first met on the upper margin of the fir zone, growing singly in a subdued, inconspicuous form, in what appear as chance situations, without making much impression on the general forest. Continuing up through the Two-leaved Pines in the same scattered growth, it begins to show its character, and at an elevation of about 10,000 feet attains its noblest ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... who spoke to her was a quietly dressed young person, quite inconspicuous, with a keen eye that seemed to take in everything within a radius of a ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... avoid incongruities in dress. Tan shoes are inadmissible with formal afternoon dress. They do not accompany a silk hat. A lawn tie is never worn save with evening clothes, nor a turn-down collar with them. Gloves should be inconspicuous. A man's hands encased in bright tan gloves make one think of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... the greater simplicity of the English nature; and they seem to be of a better class. One day when I was sitting in a penny chair in Green Park, the agent of the company came and collected the rent of me. I thought it a hardship, for I had purposely chosen an inconspicuous situation where I should not be found, and it was long past the end of the season, when no company should have had the heart to collect rent for its chairs. But I met my fate without murmuring, and as the young man who sold me a ticket good for the whole day at a penny, ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... when I had walked alone from Shainsa to the Polar Colony. I had known how to melt into this kind of night, shabby and inconspicuous, a worn shirtcloak hunched round my shoulders, weaponless except for the razor-sharp skean in the clasp of the cloak; walking on the balls of my feet like a Dry-towner, not looking or sounding or smelling ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... know what is going on below the surface. They live, moreover, in every country of the globe, and their system of intercommunication is so perfect that even birds and flying things can learn from it. They prove their breeding by their perfect taste in dress, the well-bred ever being inconspicuous; and their simplicity conceals enormous, undecipherable wonder. One daisy out of doors is worth a hundred shelves of text- books in the house. Their mischief, moreover, is not revenge, though some might think it so—but a natural desire to be recognised and ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... a call for a National Greenback Labour Reform convention to assemble at Syracuse on July 25. This sudden extension of the movement attracted widespread attention, and although the convention was marked by great turbulence and guided by inconspicuous leaders, it seemed as if by magic to take possession of a popular issue which gathered about its standard thousands of earnest men. Gideon J. Tucker, a former Democratic secretary of state, who had led the Americans in 1859, was nominated for judge of the Court of Appeals. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... men have in them the germ of a life which has no natural end but absolute completeness. The small seed may grow very slowly in the climate and soil which it finds here, and be only a poor little bit of ragged green, very shabby and inconspicuous by the side of the native flowers of earth flaunting around it, but it has a divine germinant virtue within, and waits but being carried to its own clime and 'planted in the house of the Lord' above, to 'flourish in the courts of our ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... elder, said to herself as she closed the door, "Father, sure enough." The likeness was that of outline, which is always most striking at the first moment; the expression had been wrought into the strongest contrasts by such hidden or inconspicuous differences as can make the genius of a Cromwell within the outward type of a father who was no ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... has been known to cause the more discriminating to draw heavily on the dictionary for adjectives. My face is small and heart-shaped, with features strictly for use and not for ornament, but fortunately inconspicuous. As for my eyes, I think tawny quite the nicest word, though Aunt Jane calls them hazel and I have ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... 442; lose sight of. Adj. invisible, imperceptible; undiscernible^, indiscernible; unapparent, non-apparent; out of sight, not in sight; a perte de vue [Fr.]; behind the scenes, behind the curtain; viewless, sightless; inconspicuous, unconspicuous^; unseen &c (see) &c 441; covert &c (latent) 526; eclipsed, under an eclipse. dim &c (faint) 422; mysterious, dark, obscure, confused; indistinct, indistinguishable; shadowy, indefinite, undefined; ill- defined, ill-marked; blurred, fuzzy, out of focus; misty &c (opaque) 426; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... palisade; he need not be specially active to leap from the beach upon the terrace. There is no parade of guards, soldiers, or weapons; the armoury is under lock and key; and the only sentinels are certain inconspicuous old women lurking day and night before the gates. By day, these crones were often engaged in boiling syrup or the like household occupation; by night, they lay ambushed in the shadow or crouched along the palisade, filling the office ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... I looked back over a life of inconspicuous failure, "I don't think it has. It was his right hand, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... a sad gray dawn, she examined her dress to see how far it needed repair and how far it might be repaired. She had worn away from Forty-third Street her cheapest dress because it happened to be of an inconspicuous blue. It was one of those suits that look fairly well at a glance on the wax figure in the department store window, that lose their bloom as quickly as a country bride, and at the fourth or fifth ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... known povertyand obscurity and indifference. But she gathered that this had been the case, and felt that it formed the miraculous link between them. For through what medium less revealing than that of sharedmisfortune would he ever have perceived so inconspicuous an object as herself? And she recalled now how gently his eyes had rested on her from the first—the gray eyes that might have seemed mocking if they had ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... the redoubtable Tom himself, who, stretched upon the slippery black leather lounge, hoarse as a frog from much addressing of obdurate electors, was endeavoring to sing "Just Before the Battle, Mother," hitting the tune only in the most inconspicuous places! ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... behind that mask of innocence he wore. He did not even remotely guess it as yet, but he was far closer to the truth than he pretended. The girl knew she should leave him and go about her work. Her role was to appear as inconspicuous as possible, but she could not resist the fascination of trying ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... started forth on his own tour of investigation. He went to a small boarding house, in an inconspicuous street, the address of which had been given him by Mr. Barton, and asked ...
— Raspberry Jam • Carolyn Wells
... rightful sequence. She had the inevitable defauts de ses qualites. The sense of duty was as prominent a feature of her soul as a hump on her long straight back would have been, but toleration was inconspicuous. She ran straight herself, and though she could forgive deviations on the part of others, she could not forget them. She was entirely and implacably Protestant, a typical member of that Church that expects friendship from its votaries, but leaves their course of action to their ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... government is that which does the least, which leaves local matters in the hands of localities, and personal matters in the hands of persons, and which is modestly inconspicuous. Good government establishes, or recognizes, conditions which are stable, reliable, and that may be counted on for more than two years, or four years, at a time. It has continuity, it preserves tradition, and it follows custom and common law. Such a government is neither hectic in ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... that completely obscured the rear window, trailing strings of shoes and empty milk-tins, stood at the end of a corridor formed by two face-to-face ranks of BSG Officer-Candidates. The OCS-men wore dress greens and Academy helmets, and about the waist of each hung a saber. Consumers stood gray and inconspicuous behind the two rows of uniformed men, silent, unsmiling, like onlookers at an accident. Captain Winfree looked over this civilian crowd. Each person wore, pinned to a lapel, perched in a hatbrim, or worn like a corsage, a small white ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... prevailing styles are not harmful. Odd as it may seem, these are matters which are not without significance for the physical well-being of a prospective mother. Neat and comfortable clothing will help her to overcome a natural inclination to become a "stay-at-home," and on this account an inconspicuous way of dressing is often more valuable than medicine. So long as they do not attract attention, most prospective mothers go out in the day time, mingle with their acquaintances, and attend public places of amusement. Deference to fashion, therefore, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... the transfer card I took again with me into the foreign Republic in time for the evening train. But he seemed even more anxious than I to attract no attention, and once in Empire requested that we take the shortest and most inconspicuous route to the police station; and ...
— Zone Policeman 88 - A Close Range Study of the Panama Canal and its Workers • Harry A. Franck
... make the outing with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxoriousness was a weakness that the precepts of the Caribs did not countenance. If any of his friends of the track, the billiard cloth or the square circle had wives they had never complained ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... understanding colonial conditions and aspirations, ignorant of the principles and working of representative institutions, and too ready to apply arbitrary methods to the administration of civil affairs. Then they have had men who were suddenly drawn from some inconspicuous position in the parent state, like Sir Francis Bond Head, and allowed by an apathetic or ignorant colonial office to prove their want of discretion, tact, and even common sense at a very critical stage of Canadian affairs. Again there have been governors of the highest rank in the peerage ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... Lewis gun, being light and inconspicuous, can be carried by advancing troops and used effectively in the attack without its operators suffering excessively, and at the same time it has been demonstrated that the true machine gun, of the heavier type, mounted on its firm base, can effectively cooperate with the ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... their career in the fifties of the past century, as I did, and who survive till now, as very many do, have been observant, if inconspicuous, witnesses of one of the most rapid and revolutionary changes that naval science and warfare have ever undergone. It has been aptly said that a naval captain who fought the Invincible Armada would have been more at home in the typical ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... lack scientific accuracy. Be that as it may, this mace has held its own far more steadily than the fame of its alleged detractor, and its transportation through the tea-room is the only manner of announcement that the lecture is about to open in the hall beyond. Indeed, so inconspicuous is the proceeding, and so quietly do the members that choose to attend pass into the lecture-hall, leaving perhaps half the company engaged as before, that the "stranger "—as the non-member is here ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... presented the form of an armored mushroom, thrust upward from a mound by subterranean machinery. The elevation of the cupola in action disclosed no more of its surface than was necessary for the firing of the guns. The mounds were turfed and so inconspicuous that in times of peace sheep grazed over them. In Brialmont's original plan each fort was to be connected by infantry trenches with sunken emplacements for light artillery, but this important part of his design was relegated to the dangerous hour of a threatening enemy. This work ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... and we sail next Saturday on the Jupiter I think. We haven't got our suite, but Mr. Bliss says he is sure he can arrange it for me. If we can't get one on the Jupiter, we'll take some other boat that is just as inconspicuous. You see, I want to go on a ship that isn't likely to be packed with people I know, for it is my intention to travel incog, as they say in the books. No one shall stare at me and say: 'There is that Maud Blithers we were reading about in Town Truth—and ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... led also to Balzac's beloved Tours. The principal staircase was outside, because Balzac, in designing the house, found that a staircase seriously interfered with the symmetry of the rooms. Therefore he placed it in an inconspicuous position in a special construction at the back, and owing to the extremely steep slope the visitor entered by the top floor, and made his way down instead of up. There were three stories, the lowest containing the drawing-room and dining-room, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... it was so uninhibiting that a moment after I had put mine on I had completely forgotten about it. The only other part of the suit that stood out at all was the long, metallic buckle that secured the belt, it having a bowie knife hidden within it in an unnoticeable and inconspicuous manner. Bernibus had put on his as I had put on mine, and as I looked away from the mirror that was opposite the door, I saw him dressed the same as myself, yet because the suit so blended with his fur, it was hard to tell which ...
— The Revolutions of Time • Jonathan Dunn
... to drive back over the neutral territory the rock of Gibraltar suddenly bulked up before us, in a sheer ascent that left the familiar Prudential view in utterly inconspicuous unimpressive-ness. Till one has seen it from this point one has not truly seen it. The vast stone shows like a half from which the other half has been sharply cleft and removed, that the sense of its precipitous ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... particularly declare, I concluded, that if I chose a very potently Acid Liquor, which by its Incisive power might undo the work of the Oyl of Tartar, and disperse again those Particles, which the other had by Precipitation associated, into such minute Corpuscles as were before singly Inconspicuous, they would become Inconspicuous again, and consequently leave the Liquor as Colourless as before the Precipitation ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle |
