"Insidiously" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Now there is something insidiously insistent about the morning post when one is away from all the other corrupting effects of ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... its own times, sir," said Carford insidiously. But the Duke, suffering from disappointed desire, was not to be led to affairs ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... English observer' will, for the season of his sojourning among them, greatly prefer their intercourse to that of their Northern brethren. Moreover, without in the least suspecting it, he will be bribed insidiously and incessantly by the extreme desire and endeavour to please and prepossess him which the whole white population of the slave States will exhibit—as long as he goes only as a 'candid observer,' with a mind not yet made up upon the subject of slavery, and open to conviction ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... ago that it has escaped attention and I am now no longer called upon to render an account of its meaning. Nevertheless, whatever its other merits or defects may be, I can assure my readers that it was not my intention to propound a riddle, or insidiously convey any erudite teaching. The fact of the matter was that a longing had been born within my heart, and, unable to find any other name, I had called the ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... no other way! Again and again, insidiously grappling with his revulsion, with the horror that the impulse to murder inspired, came that other thought—there was no other way. If the man who posed as Henry LaSalle were DEAD! If he were dead! If he were dead! See, now, what would happen if that man were dead! ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... system had gone on; and he, shut off from growth in its midst, was being robbed of strength day by day. And all this was being done, not in the eyes of his people, but secretly, under smooth and respectful formalities, by a Cabinet insidiously bent on acquiring as its own that of which it robbed him. In this unwritten and unnoticed readjustment of the Constitution nothing was being passed on to the people's representatives. They knew nothing ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... indicated by Dr. Westcott, might be withdrawn without at all weakening my position. These objections, I may say, refer solely to details, and only follow side issues, but the attack, if impotent against the main position, has in many cases been insidiously directed against notes and passing references, and a plentiful sprinkling of such words as "misstatements" and "misrepresentations" along the line may have given it a formidable appearance ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... tumult in his soul, Yet fail'd to seek the sure relief of prayer, Went forth,—his course surrendering to the care Of the fierce wind, while midday lightnings prowl Insidiously, untimely thunders growl; While trees, dim-seen, in frenzied numbers tear The lingering remnants of their yellow hair." Mis. Son., Pt. ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... struggle against the spell, telling ourselves that the scope and limits of the present volume will not permit of a glance at the villas of ancient Rome, but they insidiously steal upon us through those of the Renaissance. Particularly is this true of the Villa d'Este and the Villa Albani, magic gateways both leading directly into that earlier, and only ...
— Romance of Roman Villas - (The Renaissance) • Elizabeth W. (Elizbeth Williams) Champney
... Jack agreed to this, and then, after a flourish about the rights of man, tyranny, oppression, and so forth, he walked forward to the forecastle, where he found his friend Mesty, who had heard all that had passed, and who insidiously said to him in ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... they had camped upon began to crumble away, too, for the heat was insidiously melting the ice under the morainial deposit. At the time which should be high noon—when the sun was directly overhead in its course—one end of the patch of soil, forest and all, slumped into the water with a loud crash, and at once the fierce current tore the rubbish apart and carried it onward ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... great anxiety the manifestations of public feeling in the United States while the bloody work of the French Revolution was progressing. He saw with alarm the spirit of that Revolution, so widely different from that which had shaken off the fetters of kingly rule in America, working insidiously into the constitution of the politics of the United States, and passion assuming the control of reason in the minds of his people. This was specially manifested by an outburst of popular feeling when the proclamation of the French republic reached America, and news that French arms ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... vicinity. But who the one to be placed in this trust should be, was the next question to be decided. Gaut Gurley, who had been secretly scheming for this post ever since the arrangement which he saw must necessarily create it was agreed on, and who had been insidiously making interest for it, with all the company, except Phillips and Codman, now proposed that the question should be decided by ballot, and without discussion. And, the proposition being seconded by Tomah ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed; it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... He had been staring at her! An agitation new to him, an emotion to which all others he had ever experienced were childishly mild, filled him as the resistless sweep of the sea at flood tide fills the shallows of the shores. Love did not come to him gently and insidiously, but as with the overwhelming rush of great waters. This, then, must be that "nice, common sort of a woman" staying with the Widow Thatcher, at the other end of the village—this woman clothed with the sun of her red hair, and with the sea in her eyes! A ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... rather from policy than inclination, were often stained with falsehood or meanness; therefore it follows that the measures of the Emperor resembled those of the snake, who twines himself through the grass, with the purpose of stinging insidiously those whom he fears to approach with the step of the bold and generous lion. We are not, however, writing the History of the Crusades, and what we have already said of the Emperor's precautions on the first appearance of Godfrey of Bouillon, and his associates, may suffice for ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... second time since that night on the Irrawaddy, Elsa recorded a disagreeable sensation. It proved to be transitory, but at the time it served to establish a stronger doubt in regard to her independence, so justifiable in her own eyes. It might be insidiously leading her too far away from the stepping-off place. The unspoken words in those hateful eyes! The man knew Warrington, knew him perhaps as a malefactor, and judged his associates accordingly. She thus readily saw the place she occupied in the man's estimation. She experienced a shiver of dread ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... equipage and splendid retinue, the ambassador retreated to his study, and evoked a fiend, in the shape of a huge black horse, mounted upon his back, and forced him to fly through the air towards France. As they crossed the sea, the devil insidiously asked his rider what it was that the old women of Scotland muttered at bedtime. A less experienced wizard might have answered, that it was the Pater Noster, which would have licensed the devil to precipitate him from his back. But Michael sternly replied, 'What is that to thee? Mount, Diabolus, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 492 - Vol. 17, No. 492. Saturday, June 4, 1831 • Various
... garments, diffusing perfume just as her look and manner diffused the aroma of gentle breeding—The image of her was most insidiously alluring; he could not banish it. "And, damn it all, isn't she just a human being? What's become of my common-sense that I treat these foolish trifles as if they ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively, though often covertly and insidiously, directed,—it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... the RETAILER of ardent spirit essentially different. He takes the poison from the distiller, and insidiously deals it out to his fellow-men. It is truly stirring to one's indignation to notice his variety of artifice for rendering it enticing. His occupation is one which the civil authorities have, in some places, with a noble consistency, ceased ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... ocean of God," on the other hand, invests an idea which, nakedly stated, means annihilation pure and simple, with a pseudo-religious air which is far more subtly dangerous. Indeed, of the various expedients for extinguishing men's faith in the life to come, this is probably the most insidiously effective in use to-day; it is the silken handkerchief, drenched with chloroform and held quite gently to the victim's face—a lethal weapon in all but appearance. And there are some who are attracted by the faint, cloying ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... objectively by the hand of man than God—were singular to themselves. Women were quite like spoiled captives to foreign princes, masking, in their apparent complacency, a necessarily secret but insidiously tyrannical control. It wouldn't do, in view of this, to expose ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... historians and teachers alike were regarded as natural enemies from Pinnock to Plato. On the same principle, Savile would never eat Reading biscuits, because he feared that some form of condensed study was being insidiously introduced into the system. Boys had to be on their guard against any treachery of ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... having of money has the effect on most men of insidiously making them more and more dependent on having it. Of course a man will hate to believe that this is true of himself, but sooner or later money affects him as drugs do a dope-fiend. It is not really much joy to him, but it scares him to think of giving it up. When you urge ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... screws. The shorts received peremptory orders to increase their borrowing margins. At the same moment the terms of loans overnight were raised beyond the pitch of ordinary human endurance. Stories were insidiously circulated exciting suspicion of the integrity of the Administration, and strengthening the belief that the National Treasury would bring no help to the wounded Bears. Whispers of an impending lock-up of money were prevalent; and the fact, then shrewdly suspected, and now known, of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... general professions for promises. If the queen, overawed by the power of the congregation, gave such a promise in order to have liberty to proceed to a sentence, how could she expect to have power to execute a sentence so insidiously obtained? And to what purpose ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... there, in the sun, the droning of the bees, the liquid bird-notes, the perfumes in the still soft air, all seemed to melt and become part of his thought of her, rendering it more poignant, more insidiously sweet. ...
— The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... for I was determined upon retaliation. Unfortunately for me, my attorney was a most artful, plausible, cunning fellow; and at the same time that he openly professed to advise me not to go to law, he insidiously held out the most luring baits to draw me into the meshes of his net, in which he was too successful. I was a rare pidgeon, and he never failed to pluck ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt
... against it and made some headway, but never entirely shook it off before his marriage at 26, so deeply rooted was the hold it had on him. Especially at the time between sleeping and waking, or while lying sleepless at night—when the monks prayed 'ne polluantur corpora'—did its attacks come insidiously upon him. He would struggle for weeks and then would come a relapse. On one occasion he slept with a young uncle who amused himself, thinking he was asleep, by playing with his penis until he had an emission. A.N. hailed the occasion with keen joy—he caustically argued that he experienced ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... neither,—as the only man in the Netherlands who could control the rising tide of a national revolt. He took care, said his enemies, that his conduct at Antwerp should have every appearance of loyalty; but they insinuated that he was a traitor from the beginning, who was insidiously fomenting the troubles which he appeared to rebuke. No one doubted his genius, and all felt or affected admiration at its display upon this critical occasion. "The Prince of Orange is doing very great and ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Archbishopric of Sens and rewarded with the rich abbey of Saint Benoit-sur-Loire—insinuated to the queen mother that the misfortunes befalling France were tokens of the Divine displeasure. Had Francis spared no exertions to destroy the first germs of the heresy so insidiously introduced into his kingdom, he would not now, said the churchman, be languishing in the dungeons of Milan or Madrid. Nor could hopes be entertained of his deliverance, and of a return of Heaven's favor, unless ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... that moment; all of Venus. Mars was his; the Hairless Men—savages who had fallen readily to his wiles, had conquered the civilized, ruling Little People. And the Earth, over-run by his spies, deluged by his propaganda which, insidiously as rust will eat away a metal, was eating into the loyalty of our Earth-public—our own great Earth was in a dangerous position. The Earth Council realized it. The Almighty only could know how many of our officials, our ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... How insidiously do the years nibble in! how pussy-footed and how cocksure the crow's-feet! One morning, and the first gray hair, which has been turning from the cradle, arrives. Another, the mirror shows back a sag beneath the eyes. That sag had come now to Mrs. Ross, giving ...
— Gaslight Sonatas • Fannie Hurst
... eyes to see. Another case: A ring upon the finger thins away Along the under side, with years and suns; The drippings from the eaves will scoop the stone; The hooked ploughshare, though of iron, wastes Amid the fields insidiously. We view The rock-paved highways worn by many feet; And at the gates the brazen statues show Their right hands leaner from the frequent touch Of wayfarers innumerable who greet. We see how wearing-down hath minished these, But just what motes depart at any time, The envious nature of vision ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... in his surmise, I am much beholden to the relaxing influences of the night. I have been warned of perils that encompass me: perils that would infest the base and insidiously scale the sides of the most inaccessible tower that man could build on the edge of the Regent's Park. A woman with a Matrimonial Purpose would be quite capable of gaining access by balloon to my turret window. Is it not my ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... Kliment Blagonravov had evidently chosen Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, as the seat of operations in a suspicion that the wave of unrest spreading insidiously throughout the Soviet Complex owed its origins to the West. Thus far, there had been no evidence of this but the suspicion refused to die. If not the West, then who? The Cold War was long over but the battle for men's minds continued even ...
— Freedom • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... his there would be no temporizing with the powers of evil, however insidiously cloaked. Would not dancing be included in the entertainments planned by these self-seeking laymen who now approached him? Would not there be idle sports and vain pastimes calculated to entice the hearts of the populace away from consideration of the welfare of their own souls? Admittedly there ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb
... buckets that they might gasp in the scarcely less hot air on deck. From bad, this state of things came to worse—men succumbed to its influence, the sick list swelled, and, finally, death stalked insidiously in our midst. ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... and happiness. The child at work resents the mis-education received at school and suspects that he has been following false gods. The enemies that cause him trouble come from unexpected sources. He finds it infinitely easier to eschew alcohol and tobacco than to avoid living conditions that insidiously undermine his aversion to stimulants and narcotics. The reasons for avoiding stimulants in the interest of others are more numerous and more cogent than the reasons for avoiding stimulants and narcotics for one's own sake. The altruistic reasons for shunning ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... enemies however was not yet appeased. They determined in some way to entrap her. They had clothed her in a female garb; they insidiously laid in her way the habiliments of a man. The fire smothered in the bosom of the maid, revived at the sight; she was alone; she caught up the garments, and one by one adjusted them to her person. Spies were set upon her to watch for this event; they burst into the apartment. ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... discussion. It hinders uneducated people from saying in the only ways in which they know how to say it, what those who have been brought up differently say, with impunity, far more effectively and far more insidiously. Some of the men who have been imprisoned during the last two years, only uttered in language of deplorable taste views that are expressed more or less politely in books which are in the library of a bishop unless he ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... Affection, loyalty, honor—all bade her trust in her father; the remembrance of his noble character, of his stainless life, his pure and gentle nature, all recurred. In vain. Still the dark suspicion insidiously conveyed by Hilda would obtrude; and, indeed, under such circumstances, Zillah would have been more than human if they had not come forth before her. As it was, she was only human and young and inexperienced. Dark days ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... answer for everything? From Olive's condition during these lamentable weeks there is a certain propriety—a delicacy enjoined by the respect for misfortune—in averting our head. She neither ate nor slept; she could scarcely speak without bursting into tears; she felt so implacably, insidiously baffled. She remembered the magnanimity with which she had declined (the winter before the last) to receive the vow of eternal maidenhood which she had at first demanded and then put by as too crude a test, but which Verena, for a precious ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... art of the most celebrated freethinkers. They recommend themselves to warm and ingenuous minds by lively strokes of wit, and by arguments really strong, against superstition, enthusiasm, and priestcraft; but at the same time they insidiously throw the colours of these upon the fair face of true religion, and dress her out in their garb, with a malignant intention to render her odious or despicable to those who have not penetration enough to discern the impious fraud. Some of them may have thus deceived ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... into the fire; it would be jumping into the fire for fear of the frying-pan. The danger from the alarm is, that the pride and resentment exerted by them may be an overmatch for the dictates of prudence, and favor the project of a Southern Convention, insidiously revived, as promising, by its councils, the best securities against grievances of every sort from ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... citoyen, not at all. He is not the man to joke. He said in these little fellows the National representatives were insidiously mimicked, that in particular one could discover caricatures of Couthon, Saint-Just and Robespierre, and he seized the lot. It is a dead loss to me, to say nothing of the grave risks to which ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... expressionless doors, he was aware of a peculiar something from which his mind drew back. Rising from an invisible source, much as a miasma arises from a marsh, there came a subtle quality—an impression of evil; it seemed to creep by and around him; silently, insidiously, poisonously. ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Criminologist • John T. McIntyre
... art, in itself, should have no moral. It has been further charged that the tendencies of some of Zola's works are hurtful. But, in the books of this master, the aberrations of vice are nowhere made attractive, or insidiously alluring. The shadow of expiation, remorse, punishment, retribution is ever present, like a death's-head at a feast. The day of reckoning comes, and bitterly do the culprits realize that the tortuous game of vice is not worth ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... inexpugnable strength of common sense being insidiously menaced by this gruesome, by this ...
— The Shadow-Line - A Confession • Joseph Conrad
... necessary to take an accurate view of its real nature and form: in order as well to ascertain its true aspect and genuine appearance, as to unmask the disingenuity and expose the fallacy of the counterfeit resemblances which have been so insidiously, as well as industriously, propagated. In the execution of this task, there is no man who would not find it an arduous effort either to behold with moderation, or to treat with seriousness, the devices, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... upon his ear like a spirit of consolation, speaking of peace, of love which needs no reward save its own sweetness, of aspiration which looks forever beyond the thing of the hour to find attainment in that which is eternal. So insidiously did it whisper these things, so delicately did the simple and perfect melodies creep upon the spirit—that Boyce felt no resentment, but from the first listened as one who listens to learn, or as one who, fainting on ...
— The Shape of Fear • Elia W. Peattie
... somewhat insidiously laid a trap for his correspondents, the question put appearing at first so innocent, truly cutting so deep. It is not, indeed, until after some reconnaissance and review that the writer awakes to find himself engaged ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and the dark-brown Latakia tobacco from Oriental shores, stealing insidiously to his brain, brought ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... natural courage, strengthened by the late appeal to their humanity, the awe is strong upon them. Insidiously returning as they took their seats in the boat, it increases as they draw farther from the frigate and nearer to the barque. Less than half-an-hour has elapsed, and they are now within a cable's length of the ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... all this, notwithstanding she was handicapped by negro slavery, insidiously introduced by Dutch traders. And when it was known that Africans had sense enough to set plants and worm tobacco, New England sagacity and enterprise were quick to supply the demand for slaves and to stock the market until Virginia cried, Hold! Enough! Negro slavery held her on the low ...
— The Southern Soldier Boy - A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy • James Carson Elliott
... statements and the "soundness" of their contentions to a tribunal, was entirely beside the point. The representatives of the railways were sure to give such a tribunal to understand, however diplomatically and insidiously, that the unions were without that power, which alone, in the minds of "practical" men, can justify any considerable demand, such as the settlement of all questions through the representatives of the men (the recognition ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... whatever kind be his greatness, has among his friends those who officiously or insidiously quicken his attention to offences, heighten his disgust, and stimulate ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... thought that the dance they had been led by the old prophet, and that still madder dance which the Professor of botany had gravely, but as I believe insidiously, proposed to lead them, would have made the Erewhonians for a long time suspicious of prophets whether they professed to have communications with an unseen power or no; but so engrained in the human heart is the desire to believe that some people really ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... as these, and laid in such a bed, there will be no appeal against him. Think, and speak, and act, for once, like an accountable creature. Is any control put upon your inclinations? Are you forced into this match? Are you insidiously advised or tempted to contract it, by any one? I will not ask by whom; by ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... Symptoms.—It comes on gradually (insidiously). There is loss of weight, progressively developing weakness and pallor, very soon the gums are swollen and look spongy and bleed easily. The teeth may become loose and fall out. The breath is very foul. The tongue is swollen, but it ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... our charges,—and on reflecting upon the character of the poem, which they had read with a dangerous sympathy, not on account of its poetical merit, which is small indeed, but on account of those voluptuous scenes, so dangerous even to a pure imagination, when insidiously painted with the seeming colours of virtue,—they were astounded at their own folly and their own danger, and consigned the wretched volume to that ignominious oblivion, which, in a land of religion and morality, must soon be the doom of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... how completely a slovenly habit will gradually, insidiously fasten itself upon the individual and so change his whole mental attitude as to thwart absolutely his life-purpose, even when he may think he is doing his best to carry ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... Alas! your indignation may be honest, but it is without foundation. Already those earlier symptoms are constantly appearing, which, if not sternly checked, must in time grow into hopeless deformity of character. There is nothing that undermines all virtuous and noble qualities more surely or more insidiously than the indulged vice of envy. Its unresisting victims become, by degrees, capable of every species of detraction, until they lose even the very power of perceiving that which is true. They become, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... way, does Mr. Dudley live out in the country?" he asked insidiously. She flushed and ...
— The Purple Parasol • George Barr McCutcheon
... the brain, and remember only that I had the pulses and senses and blood of a man. It came over me slowly, this phase of rebellious animalism, like a mantle falling over me. Thought followed thought insidiously, imperceptibly, like fold upon fold of a cloth dropped upon me, as I sat in the silent room alone. To take this girl and force back her art upon itself, to mutilate her brain-power and drug it with her roused sensuality, to turn her into ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... speak. She felt as though her whole world had been turned upside down in the last quarter of an hour. This was a new George Emerson, a George at whom it was impossible to laugh, but an insidiously attractive George. Her heart beat quickly. Her mind was not clear; but dimly she realized that he had pulled down her chief barrier of defense and that she was more open to attack than she had ever ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... dawn of a new era; and England owes a deep debt of gratitude to the memory of the gallant prince by whose means our civil and religious liberties have been secured on a basis which can never be undermined unless by our own folly and supineness, although treacherous enemies within are insidiously making the attempt. ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... heavens shrouded in a uniform covering of leaden-coloured clouds, deepening into a livid indigo at the edge of the horizon. The snow, no longer hard and glittering, has become soft and spongy, and the foot slips into a wet and insidiously-yielding mass at every step. From the roof pours down a continuous stream of water, and the branches of the trees collecting the moisture of the reeking atmosphere, shower it upon the earth from every dripping twig. The cheerless and uncomfortable aspect of things ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... lips, whose color mocks the rose, Rich, ripe, and teeming with the dew of bliss,— The flower of love's forbidden fruit, which grows Insidiously to tempt us with a kiss. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... untruthful statements that are made by the vitiated portion of the Jamaica press, of the indolence of the apprentices, their disinclination to work in their own time, and the great increase of crime, are purposely and insidiously put forward to prevent the fact of the industry, and decorum, and deference to the law, of the people, and the prosperous condition of the estates, appearing in too prominent a light, lest the friends of humanity, and the advocates for the equal rights of men, should be encouraged to agitate for ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... state on his stage, which is ceasing to be a state at the moment in which he shows it to us; a state which has the war principle—the principle of conquest within no longer working in it insidiously as government, but developed as war; for it has just overstepped the endurable point in its mastery. It is a revolution that is coming off when the curtain rises. For the government has been gnawing the Roman common-weal at home, with ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... during the last three months of her engagement. It was a "Study and Amusement Club." She gave them short and interesting lessons in arithmetic, in simple dressmaking, in easy and thorough methods of housework. She gave them lists of books, referred them to articles in magazines, insidiously taught them ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... this one also?" claimed Tsae-che, with an internal emotion that something was insidiously changed in which she had ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... atmosphere got sneaky sometimes. It could insinuate itself into places where neither the methane nor the ammonia could get. Someone once called hydrogen the "cockroach element," since, like that antediluvian insect, the molecules of H{2} can insidiously infiltrate themselves into places where they are not only unwelcome, but shouldn't even be able to go. At red heat, the little molecules can squeeze themselves through the crystalline interstices of quartz ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... I cried, springing up from a midnight reverie in my hut. Every selfish argument for my own safety had passed in review before my mind, and something so akin to judicious caution, which we trappers in plain language called "cowardice," was insidiously assailing my better self, I cast logic's sophistries to the winds, and dared death or torture to drive me from my post. Whence comes this sublime, reasonless abandon of imperiled human beings, which casts ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... its movements. At the time of the extinction of the Golden Circle, its members were at once inducted into the Order of American Knights, so that this Order obtained much primary advantage, in point of numerical strength, over its predecessor, for the Golden Circle had already insidiously crept into the very hearts of several Northern cities and states. The American Knights being composed in the outset wholly of men who from experience had discovered whatever defectiveness may have been chargeable upon the Golden Circle, it was sought ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... something flat and round, with a shining milled edge. The scene presented a field of operations commensurate to Chicken's talents and daring. After sweeping the horizon to make sure that no official tug was cruising near, he insidiously accosted his prey. The boy, having been early taught by his household to regard altruistic advances with extreme suspicion, received the ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... system, he was liable to fits of fretfulness and scepticism that, only occasional and transient as they were, told nevertheless with disturbing effect upon his temper. In the same unfortunate direction was the tendency of a habit grown insidiously upon him,—a habit against the damning control of which (as no one better than the writer of this article knows) he wrestled with an earnestness indescribable, resorting to all the remedial expedients which professional skill or ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... strengthened, the soft, velvety, star-lit, blue-black hue paling to an arch of cold, colourless pallor as the dawn asserted itself more emphatically, while the stars dwindled and vanished one by one in the rapidly-growing light. As the pallor of the sky extended itself insidiously north and south along the horizon, a low-lying bank of what at first presented the appearance of dense vapour became visible on the Barracouta's larboard bow; but presently, when the cold whiteness of the coming day became flushed with a delicate tint of purest, palest primrose, ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... of Latin and Greek litherature, in conjunction wid mathematics, but never, until yesterday, has my influence been spurned; never, until yesterday, have sacrilegious hands been laid upon my person; never, until yesterday, have I been kicked—insidiously, ungallantly, and treacherously kicked—by my own subjects. No, gintlemen,—and, whether I ought to bestow that respectable epithet upon you after yesterday's proceedings is a matter which admits of dispute,—never before has the lid of my eye been laid drooping, and that ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... showed that the fire had gained a foothold. Soon a hole appeared, close to the eaves, which gradually enlarged towards the centre of the roof and along the surface of the earth. With blankets the fire was beaten out on the sides, but it crept insidiously along between the timber ...
— Captured by the Navajos • Charles A. Curtis
... spent an afternoon hour at the little Protestant cemetery close to St. Paul's Gate, where the ancient and the modern world are insidiously contrasted. They make between them one of the solemn places of Rome—although indeed when funereal things are so interfused it seems ungrateful to call them sad. Here is a mixture of tears and smiles, of stones and ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... thrown into Halifax gaol. A committee of the Provincial Congress, on April 20, 1776; reported "that Farquhard Campbell disregarding the sacred Obligations he had voluntarily entered into to support the Liberty of America against all usurpations has Traitorously and insidiously endeavored to excite the Inhabitants of this Colony to take arms and levy war in order to assist the avowed enemies thereof. That when a prisoner on his parole of honor he gave intelligence of the force and intention ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... deceit and wicked malice, destroy the community so formed by accident. She mounts up to the nest of the Bird: "Destruction," says she, "is preparing for you, perhaps, too, for wretched me; for as you see, the Sow, digging up the earth every day, is insidiously trying to overthrow the oak, that she may easily seize our progeny on the ground." Having {thus} spread terror, and bewildered {the Eagle's} senses, the Cat creeps down to the lair of the bristly Sow: "In great danger," says she, "are your offspring; for as soon as ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... of liana and creeper, veiling the blackened stone of each decaying shrine. Nature has proved stronger than Art or Creed, in the eternal growth beneath an equatorial sun, of the kingdom over which she reigns in immortal life. Silently and insidiously she undermines man's handiwork, and realisation of his futile conflict with her invincible power enters with disastrous effect into the popular mind, lacking that immutable force without which the spiritual temple ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... were carnation, and her eyes brilliant. She was laughing with rather forced vivacity as he approached. In his opinion she had seldom appeared to more advantage; while to Rupert's eyes she seemed to have altered for the worse. Dangerously, insidiously pretty, she was, indeed; but a vain little thing, no doubt; a finished coquette by the way she talked and lifted her eyes to Hugo's handsome face; possibly even a trifle fast and vulgar. Not the simple child of sixteen whom he had ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... much alive to all the glorious possibilities of the policy of national reconciliation which was taking shape and form before their eyes to brook any of the ill-advised counsels of those who had determined insidiously on the ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... opium consumed in different ways. In England it is either used in a solid state, made into pills, or a tincture in the shape of laudanum. Insidiously it is given to children under a variety of quack forms, such as "Godfrey's cordial," &c. In India the pure opium is either dissolved in water and so used, or rolled into pills. It is there a common practice to give it to children when very ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... treasures, and the destruction of the city. They reminded Guatimotzin of his own martial fame, which would be sullied and disgraced by submission; insisting, that all the offers of Cortes were only insidiously meant to enslave and circumvent; and concluded by repeating the assurances of victory which they had received from their gods. Guatimotzin yielded to these arguments, and declared his resolution to fight to the last: He gave orders, therefore, to husband their provisions with the utmost frugality, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... guarded, and she feels that her love has reached its grand climacteric when she abandons herself, without redemption, to the idol she has set up in the highest place in her soul. This heroic martyrdom is one of the recognizable causes of the immorality that insidiously permeates our ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... and Ireland. With me, therefore, it was a sine qua non to get quit of our dominant Church nuisance in Canada, viewing it as a thing in the way of the prosperity of the people, and therefore as a thing insidiously undermining their loyalty. I am sure that his views were not far removed from mine in this matter, and yet not a particle of enmity to the Church ever affected me, and, I believe, the same thing was true ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... of the mouth frequently originates in the mucous membrane between the frenum of the tongue and the inner aspect of the gum. It develops insidiously, grows slowly, and gradually spreads to the mandible and to the substance of the tongue, tacking it down so that it cannot be protruded. The glands are early involved, and their enlargement not infrequently first draws attention to the condition. It is to be regarded as a particularly ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... to keep watch upon his accuser, that he might know fairly what means he took in preparing the accusation. He that was set upon Cato by Murena, at first followed and observed him strictly, yet never found him dealing any way unfairly or insidiously, but always generously and candidly going on in the just and open methods of proceeding. And he so admired Cato's great spirit, and so entirely trusted to his integrity, that meeting him in the forum, or going to his house, he would ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... over the pleasant paths and trying to make out what bird it was singing somewhere in the trees. We made out an almond-tree in bloom, after some dispute; and, in fact, the climate there was much softer than at the landing, so insidiously soft that it required great force of character to keep from buying the flowers which some tasteful boys gathered from the public beds. There is a mild monument or two in this garden, to what memories I promptly failed to remember afterward; but as there are more military memories ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... which her mother had so passionately warned her. And now a new vista of peril opened before her. She understood that Rosedale was ready to lend her money; and the longing to take advantage of his offer began to haunt her insidiously. It was of course impossible to accept a loan from Rosedale; but proximate possibilities hovered temptingly before her. She was quite sure that he would come and see her again, and almost sure that, if he did, she could bring him to the point ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... but if we do not begin with broad plans, and if we do not take a far look ahead, we shall fail now at a vital point of the social development of man. The result at which we aim is the socialisation of the motives of industry. We make work voluntary by bringing into it persuasively and insidiously deep motives and interests which represent social purposes and ideals. Given these motives and the beginning of a change from the relatively more individualistic to the relatively more social spirit in industry, the actual means of cooeperation would not be far to seek. Work would become ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... had worn a socket, and such socket is sure to be a sore. His friends notwithstanding gave him credit for great imperturbability; but in such willfully undemonstrative men the evil burrows the more insidiously that it is masked ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... Thus insidiously has the power of the emperor made its way into the steppes, fort after fort being built, those in the rear being abandoned as the country became subdued and new forts arose in the south. Cities have risen around some of these forts, of which may be mentioned Kopal and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... concealment could not save her she must seek refuge in flight, since therein lay a sure means of escape. Not daring to delay, she tried to stand upright, but felt a pull on her dress as if a hand were detaining her. It was only a brier, insidiously entangled in a fold of her skirt; but she was rather excited now, and there was little to be gained by excess of caution, for any rapid movement must betray her. Stooping, she caught the thorn-laden branch and tore it out of the ...
— The Strange Case of Mortimer Fenley • Louis Tracy
... time before leaving for China, it became my duty daily to dress the foot of a patient suffering from senile gangrene. The disease commenced, as usual, insidiously, and the patient had little idea that he was a doomed man, and probably had not long to live. I was not the first to attend to him, but when the case was transferred to me, I naturally became very anxious about his soul. The family with whom he lived were Christians, ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... me, something undivined hitherto, called out into life by his presence, could not do without him. This new craving, breakingly wild and sweet, awoke in my blood and cried for him. His presence nourished it in me. Most insidiously it attacked me. It stirred deep down among the roots of my being. It 'threatened my personality' seems the best way I can put it; for, turning a critical analysis upon it, I discovered that it was an undermining ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... armored knights, red in the sun glow and riding huge red horses. Then the colors mixed and faded and a long red bridge for a short time spanned the water, ending at their feet. The gulls hunted the last scrap thrown them and went home. The swallows sought their high cliffs. The insidiously alluring perfume of sand verbena rose like altar incense around them. Gilman spread a blanket, piled the beach fire higher, and sitting beside Eileen, he drew her head to his shoulder and put his arm around her. Possibly he could have been happier in a careless way if ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... mistress whom only he loved and worshiped. To-day a word had swept away all his fondest hopes. Trousseau, the keenest observer in all Paris, formerly his father's friend, now no less his own, had kindly but firmly called his attention to himself, and to the malady that had so imperceptibly and insidiously fastened itself upon him that until the moment he never dreamed of its approach. He had been too full of his work to think of himself. In any other case he would scarcely have dared to dispute the opinion of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... of old; that it had spread beyond the city walls, Ludgate and Newgate having both been reduced to a heap of smoking ruins; that it was spreading northward and westward as fiercely as ever; whilst even in an easterly direction it was creeping slowly and insidiously along, so that men began to whisper that the Tower itself would eventually ...
— The Sign Of The Red Cross • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Mrs. Jeekie never kiss me like that, nor any other female either. She dead nuts on you, Major. Very great compliment! 'Spect when you Mungana, she keep you alive a long time, four or five years perhaps, if no other white man come this way. Pity you can't take it on a bit, Major," he added insidiously, "because then she grow careless and make you chief and we get chance scoop out that gold house and bolt with bally lot. Miss Barbara sensible woman, when she see all that cash she not mind, she say 'Bravo, old boy, quite right spoil Lady Potiphar in land ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... are ennuyee," said I, half pettishly, to provoke a disclaimer if possible. To this insidiously put quere I received, as I deserved, no answer, and again ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... delectability by the potent agency of music? It used to be said that things too silly to be spoken might be sung; is it also true that things too vile, too foul, too nauseating for contemplation may be seen, so they be insidiously and wickedly glorified by the musician's art? As a rule, plays have not been improved by being turned into operas. Always their dramatic movement has been interrupted, their emotional current clogged, ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... gentleman redoubled his attentions, seeing only in her presence a certain meprise, which concerned her more than himself. The niece of his enemy meant nothing more to him than an interesting girl,—to be protected always,—to be feared, never. But even suspicion may be insidiously placed in noble minds. ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte
... kinda calls up old times, ay?" he began insidiously. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought you out for a ride; maybe it brings back painful memories, as ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... illustrious of living English sculptors was the first to propose a substantial memorial to his name. What his nativity and his character thus so eminently contributed to signalize, the offspring of his genius, the manner of his death, solemnly confirmed. By no sudden fever, such as insidiously steals from the Roman marshes and poisons the blood of its victims,—by no violent epidemic, like those which have again and again devastated the cities of Europe,—by no illusive decline, whereby vital power is sapped unconsciously and with mild gradations, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... had lately arrived from England were fraught with the dismal and ill-founded accounts, which through some evil design continued to be insidiously propagated, of the wretched unprofitable soil of New South Wales. It was hoped, however, that when the present appearance and state of the colony should reach England, every attempt to mislead the public would cease; and such encouragement ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... their way to the centre, finding the path blindly, enviously. And again, all was still, as Birkin and Ursula watched. The waters were loud on the shore. He saw the moon regathering itself insidiously, saw the heart of the rose intertwining vigorously and blindly, calling back the scattered fragments, winning home the fragments, in a pulse and in effort ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... come to you because I—must! You ask me to put the—the idea out of my head." She laughed a low laugh of self-scorn and bitterness. "Do you think I have not tried to steel, to harden, my heart against this feeling which has been creeping insidiously over me, creeping, stealing gliding like a cloud until it has enveloped me? I have fought against it as never woman fought against the approach of love. The first day—it was the day he took me on the lake—ah, you don't remember, but I—Shall I ever forget it!—the first day my heart ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... and composing a whole that formed an exquisite picture of female delicacy and loveliness. There might or there might not have been a tinge of slight red in her cheeks, but it varied with each emotion of her bosom, even as she mused in quiet, now seeming to steal insidiously over her glowing temples, and then leaving on her face an almost startling paleness. Her stature, as she reclined, seemed above the medium height of womanhood, and her figure was rather delicate than full, though the little foot that rested on the ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... much pain from the prevalence of Pope's poetical reputation; nor is it without strong reason suspected that by some disingenuous acts he endeavoured to obstruct it; Pope was not the only man whom he insidiously injured, though the only man of whom he could be afraid. His own powers were such as might have satisfied him with conscious excellence. Of very extensive learning he has indeed given no proofs. He seems ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson
... have not the skill to cultivate it—the art to direct through a smiling land, between suggestive shores, a sinuous stream of talk. My affectionate, my pious memory of Mr. Offord contradicts this induction only, I fear, more insidiously to confirm it. The sallow and slightly smoked drawing-room in which he spent so large a portion of the last years of his life certainly deserved the distinguished name; but on the other hand it couldn't be said at all to owe its stamp to any intervention throwing into relief the fact that there ...
— Some Short Stories • Henry James
... a nation of independent producers, the people of the United States have been slowly and insidiously pushed back to a position where more than nine-tenths of the people are the servants of the remaining few. With the changed condition has come a deterioration in the spirit of the masses. They are apathetic, ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... of a certain amount of home protection, that may be a question deserving of consideration; but a very different question from the one-sided suicidal abolition of all protection. It may pass under review hereafter. In the mean time, let us hope that neither Government nor Legislature will be insidiously betrayed, or openly bullied, into any unsafe tampering with, or rash experiments upon, a sound and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Thus prematurely and insidiously divulged, the scheme found some supporters, but a far larger number of opponents; especially among those officers who were jealous of the ascendency of Xenophon. Timasion and Thorax employed it as a means of alarming the Herakleotic and Sinopian traders in ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... for reasons of family, young St. Ledger decided to marry Ethel Manton; and to this end he devoted himself persistently and insidiously, but with the inborn patience and ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... him to take the road to Paris. He sent word to me to follow him, but necessarily some days elapsed before we met; an opportunity of which his enemies and mine were quick to take advantage, and that so insidiously and with so much success as to imperil not my reputation only ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... fully answered without exposing the respondent to personal danger, are not entitled to a fair answer; and yet to say this openly, would in many cases furnish the very advantage which the adversary is insidiously seeking after. Veracity does not consist in saying, but in the intention of communicating, truth; and the philosopher who cannot utter the whole truth without conveying falsehood, and at the same time, perhaps, exciting the most malignant passions, is constrained to express himself ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... pallor of the coming dawn was insidiously extending along the horizon ahead as H.M. gun-brig Shark—the latest addition to the slave-squadron—slowly surged ahead over the almost oil-smooth sea, under the influence of a languid air breathing out from the south-east. She was heading in for the mouth of the Congo, ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or political, are most numerous in both houses, and this advantage is a daily theme of party boast and congratulation. Were the chairmen of the respective committees his political opponents, and did they insidiously endeavour to bring his party into discredit for the purpose of advancing their own? But they were among his most zealous adherents—nay, it may be questioned whether there was a single individual in the United States to whom the president was ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... various parts of the country I instinctively feel that while military occupation by the Great Powers may be possible, not only is China in a sense unconquerable, but that she is eminently a conquering nation, though not by clash of arms. Insidiously, remorselessly and viciously she will subdue apostles of the West who are sent to her, and unless persistently restrained will overflow into adjacent lands and conquer there by cheap ...
— Life and sport in China - Second Edition • Oliver G. Ready
... sounding-board ceased to act? There is not resonance in this Convention; there is, so to speak, a gasp of silence; nay a certain grating of one knows not what!—Lecointre, our old Draper of Versailles, in these questionable circumstances, sees nothing he can do so safe as rise, 'insidiously' or not insidiously, and move, according to established wont, that the Robespierre Speech be 'printed and sent to the Departments.' Hark: gratings, even of dissonance! Honourable Members hint dissonance; Committee-Members, inculpated in the Speech, utter dissonance; demand 'delay ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... across the channel. The Boy noted, with keenest admiration, that these were all laid with the greatest regularity parallel with the flow of the current, butts up stream, brushy tops below. In this way, the current took least hold upon them, and was obstructed gradually and as it were insidiously, without being challenged to any violent test of strength. Already it was lingering in some confusion, backing up, and dividing its force, and stealing away at each side among the bushes. The Boy had heard that the beavers were accustomed to begin their ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... British perfidious, and suspected them of not entertaining any honest intention of concluding a peace. On December 12, after an exceedingly quarrelsome conference, he records his belief that the British have "insidiously kept open" two points, "for the sake of finally breaking off the negotiations and making all their other concessions proofs of their extreme moderation, to put upon us the blame ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... of January, just a week before the fight, that Jimmy, trained now almost to perfection, stepped into the ring to take his usual mauling. For some time past there had been insidiously working its way into his mind a vast contempt for the ...
— The Efficiency Expert • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the name of their favorite paper, and in most instances was correct. They all claimed that they took the paper because it agreed with their political ideas; but I am confident that the reverse is true, the paper having insidiously trained them to adopt its view. Here we see where the power of one man or editor comes in, and worse yet, a nation which acquires this "newspaper habit," this having some one to think for it by machinery, as it were, will lose its mental power, its facility in analysis. ...
— As A Chinaman Saw Us - Passages from his Letters to a Friend at Home • Anonymous
... had been stealing upon her so gradually and insidiously that she had never realized it until this moment,—the moment when it had taken full possession ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... her Cell repairs, Insidiously she weaves her glewy Snares. Sullen, she meditates on Deaths to come, And meliorates the Poison in her Womb. (b) Should hapless Clarion thither take his Flight, He falls her Prey, mindful ...
— Two Poems Against Pope - One Epistle to Mr. A. Pope and the Blatant Beast • Leonard Welsted
... with three powerful currents, which insidiously operate to deflect her from her course. Materialism, which denies or ignores the supernatural, and concentrates its heed on ameliorating the outward conditions of human life; criticism, which is clever at analysis and dissection, but cannot construct a ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... since Dickens has given us the impression of London in all its multitudinous, dismal-gay activities as Mr. Wells gives it us. But it is no longer the London of Dickens. It is a "great, stupid giantess," a "city of Bladesover ... parasitically occupied, insidiously replaced by alien, unsympathetic, and irresponsible elements." It was a chaotic mass of houses built for the middle-class Victorian families. And even while these houses ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... various causes combined to produce the following situation. The reader must remember that the processes which are here compressed into a few pages took place slowly, gradually, insidiously, over a period of about ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... those who demanded from him an explanation of the authority by which he acted, which reply consisted in propounding a question to them, situated between the very difficulties into which they were insidiously endeavouring to draw him. ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... plainly, but wise enough to know the blighting influence of suggestion, Dan talked, insinuated and lied till the nails were driven one by one into poor Job's heart and the pain was almost more than he could bear. Insidiously, indirectly, he gave them all to understand that Jane Reed loved him and again and again by her actions had shown preference for himself. Then down the aisle he passed, while the crowd looked at him in pity, and Job felt as if he must rise and tell of the night at Glacier Point, must vindicate ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... afterwards could always be relied upon to render decisions in their favor. Will the people profit by their experience, or will they be indifferent to the danger which surrounds them, until nothing short of a political upheaval can restore to them these rights of sovereignty, of which they have so insidiously been deprived? ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... terror. She bent over watching the anemone's fleshy petals shrink from the touch of her shadow, and she laughed to think they should be so needlessly fearful. The flowing tide trickled noiselessly among the rocks, widening and deepening insidiously her little pools. Helena retreated towards a large cave round the bend. There the water gurgled under the bladder-wrack of the large stones; the air was cool and clammy. She pursued her way into the gloom, bending, though there was no need, shivering at the coarse feel of the seaweed beneath ...
— The Trespasser • D.H. Lawrence
... still a successful General, but he is denounced by one faction, insulted by another, insidiously praised by a third, and, if he should persevere in serving them, he has more disinterested rectitude than I suspect him of, or than they merit. This is another of that Jacobin ministry which proved so ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... that they were steadily and insidiously influencing mother against me. We were drifting apart. Mother had through them acquired the belief that I was a rude and untrustworthy fellow, and she feared my boatmen companions were weaning me from her. Whereas I kept away from the house because the Downeses ...
— Swept Out to Sea - Clint Webb Among the Whalers • W. Bertram Foster
... you not feel so? We are ever threatened by two contrary faults: both deadly. To sink into what my forefathers would have called 'rank conformity,' and to pour forth cheap replicas, upon the one hand; upon the other, and still more insidiously present, to forget that art is a diversion and a decoration, that no triumph or effort is of value, nor anything worth reaching ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Then, very insidiously and artistically, seeming all the while reluctant and apologetic, the visitor proceeded to plant in Samson's mind an exaggerated and untrue picture of Horton's contempt for him and of Horton's resentment at the favor ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... it cuts new channels for itself, leaving in a few days river towns far in the interior, and suddenly giving a water frontage to some plantation whose owner had for years mourned over his distance from the river bank. Capricious and irresistible, working insidiously night and day, seldom showing the progress of its endeavors until some huge slice of land, acres in extent, crumbles into the flood, or some gully or cut-off all at once appears as the main channel, the Mississippi, even now when the Government is at all ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... appeared to be covered with honourable pride at having approached an unusually large and repulsive-looking tiger so stealthily that had the animal been really alive it would certainly have failed to perceive him, "such accomplishments are by no means to be regarded as conclusive in themselves. To steal insidiously upon a destructively-included wild beast and transfix it with one well-directed blow of a spear is attended by difficulties and emotions which are entirely absent in the case of a wickerwork animal covered with canvas-cloth, no matter how deceptive in appearance ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... common and comes on so insidiously that the sufferers do not realize that they are eating to excess. The resultant discomforts are blamed on other things. Babies are fed every two hours or oftener. They should be fed but three or at most four times a day, and never at night. When able to eat solid foods they get three meals a day ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... driest possible record drawn up of the proceedings, a faithful analysis of the questions and answers; but no trace remains of his insidiously paternal addresses or his captious remonstrances, such as this speech. The judges of the superior courts see the results, but see nothing of the means. Hence, as some experienced persons have thought, ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... should that arise from other causes. It affects the nerves, causing irritability and debility in them. Nervous power becomes impaired, reacting with evil effect upon the ganglionic centres and the brain. Hence the mind must become insidiously affected also. I am quite sure that the character of our colonists is being modified by their practice of excessive tea-drinking, and I cannot believe that the change will be for the better. I believe that ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the morning shone full upon the portrait, and, as I lay awake, my eyes continued to dwell upon it with growing complacency; its beauty crept about my heart insidiously, silencing my scruples one after another; and while I knew that to love such a woman were to sign and seal one's own sentence of degeneration, I still knew that, if she were alive, I should love her. ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson |
