"Obtrusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... recognized position in the family,—I say recognized, because after he became known he was always inquired for by visitors, and in the letters to the other members of the family he always received a message. Although the least obtrusive of beings, his individuality always made ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... moment the overwhelming majority of women are indoors: prove that they all wish to come out, and you shall come." On the contrary, she comes forth at her own sweet will: the policeman helps her tenderly across the street, and waves back with imperial gesture the obtrusive coal-cart. Some of us claim for each individual woman, in the same way, not merely the right to go shopping, but to go voting; not merely to show her face, but to ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... that Marget gave way and scandalized Drumtochty, which held that obtrusive prosperity was an irresistible provocation to the higher powers, and that a skilful depreciation of our children ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... all, the footman should be obtrusive to none; he should give nothing but on a waiter, and always hand it with the left hand and on the left side of the person he serves, and hold it so that the guest may take it with ease. In lifting dishes from the table, he should use both hands, and remove them ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... after musical effects, as well as his untimely death, prevented the full fruitage of his admirable genius. Many of the poems that he has left us are lacking in spontaneity and artistic finish. Alliterative effects are sometimes obtrusive. His poetic theories, as presented in The Science of English Verse, often outstripped his execution. But, after all these abatements are made, it remains true that in a few pieces he has reached a trembling height of poetic and musical rapture that is unsurpassed in the whole ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... this came of your being at that hospital;' and a burning blush spread over the pale cheek, and made Tom shrink, start, and feel guilty of having touched the chord of obligation, connected with that obtrusive pledge of his. Above all, however, to repress emotion was his prime object; and he calmly answered, 'It was a good Providence that brought any one there ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the warmest welcome in an inn, are very natural and tender—as most of his compositions are, when he was at all in earnest. For our own part, we cannot complain of ever meeting any other welcome than a warm one, go where we may; for we are not obtrusive, and where we are not either liked, or loved, or esteemed, or admired (that last is a strong word, yet we all have our admirers), we are exceeding chary of the light of our countenance. But at an inn, the only kind of welcome that is ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... surges on the breeze that sways the golden corn on a sunny Sabbath, when our pathway lies through the undulating fields, already "white unto the harvest;" where the pleasant rustling of the ripened grain, as it is stirred by the soft wind, is sweet and soothing; and the gay poppy, and other less obtrusive, though not less beautiful wild-flowers, bloom at our loitering feet. In the power of exciting such feeling, what can equal our old English ballads? There is an inexpressible charm in these, and we would almost give our fingers to be able to describe that indescribable something, which constitutes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... comrades dislike in him—some exaggerated, exotic love of women. He was unshakably, unto sacredness or folly, convinced that he was irresistibly splendid of person; that all men envied him, all women were in love with him, while husbands were jealous ... This self-conceited, obtrusive dangling after women did not forsake him for a minute, probably not even in his sleep. Walking along the street he would every minute nudge Lichonin, Soloviev or some other companion with his elbow, and would say, smacking his lips and jerking ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... all things, and is the cause of all things, quasi diaion going through—the letter kappa being inserted for the sake of euphony. This is a great mystery which has been confided to me; but when I ask for an explanation I am thought obtrusive, and another derivation is proposed to me. Justice is said to be o kaion, or the sun; and when I joyfully repeat this beautiful notion, I am answered, 'What, is there no justice when the sun is down?' And when I entreat my questioner to tell me his own opinion, he replies, ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... The nurse standing by the doctor is a figure of the same gray-white as the bed. Within the pattern of the velvety-blacks there are as many subtle gradations as in the pattern of the gray-whites. The tableau is a satisfying scheme in black and gray, with practically one non-obtrusive ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... stared at them both in profound astonishment. They had heard that he had married in Sydney, and from their past knowledge of his character expected to see a loudly-attired Melbourne or Sydney barmaid with peroxided hair, and person profusely adorned with obtrusive jewelry. Instead of this they beheld a tall, ladylike girl with a cold, refined face, and an equally cold ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... the humble daughter of St. Benedict or St. Dominic leaves her cell to sing the praises of the Lord, and offer Him the day with its duties consecrated without reserve to His glory. When heavy curtains screen her restless slumber from the sun's obtrusive light, the pious daughter of St. Vincent de Paul descends into the folds of her own heart in meditation, and enkindles in the fire of divine love the charity with which she must cheer the poor or sick whom she is destined to ...
— Serious Hours of a Young Lady • Charles Sainte-Foi
... gleams of her former great beauty, the gracious and agreeable hostess; again, her condition was that of sheer indifference and semi-torpor. And who was the officious and familiar ayah, her attendant and shadow, an obtrusive creature with bold black eyes and a resolute mouth? Why did she speak so authoritatively to her mistress? Why did she wear such handsome jewellery and expensive silk saris, heavily fringed with gold, and strut about with such ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... to the Ocean shore, or the Continent, To escape from a lot accurst; But here, by my own parole, I'm a prisoner pent! I must find a Company first That doesn't resort to obtrusive advertisement— And the Railway ones are ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various
... character of the emotion he wishes to excite, and thus form an appropriate accompaniment or preparation for its direct indulgence or display. The former of those methods has perhaps been most frequently employed, and certainly has most attracted attention. But the latter, though less obtrusive, and perhaps less frequently resorted to of set purpose, is, we are inclined to think, the most natural and efficacious of the two; and it is often adopted, we believe unconsciously, by poets of the highest order;—the predominant emotion of their minds overflowing spontaneously on all the ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... busy. Their delight seemed to be to seize on all the youngsters they could by any pretext lay hands on and hale them to appear before him. By this means they imagined they were making his authority known and dealing a serious blow at the less obtrusive ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... dragon-myth astronomical factors played a very obtrusive part: but I have deliberately refrained from entering into a detailed discussion of them, because they were not primarily the real causal agents in the origin of the myth. When the conception of a sky-world or a heaven became ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... horror-thrilled, I gazed At her, the Abominable, the Ogreish Thing; The soul-revolting, sense-degrading She, Who swayed and sickened, scourged and scarified The unwilling slaves of fashion and discomfort A quarter of a century since! She sat, A spectral, scraggy, beet-nosed, ankle-less, Obtrusive-panted, splay-foot, slattern-shape, Of grim Medusa-faced Immodesty, Caged cumbrously in a stiff, swaying, swollen, Shin-scarifying, hose-revealing frame Of wide-meshed metal, like a monster mousetrap— Hideous, indecent, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 21, 1893 • Various
... greatest aids. Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of the landscapes of Titian, of Salvator, and of Claude, says: "Even their skies seem to sympathise with their subjects." I have often been advised to consider my sky as "a white sheet thrown behind the objects." Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse; it must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, the standard ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... difficulty in concealing her curiosity. But his face betrayed nothing. It always seemed to her that his very dark and straight eyebrows, so obtrusive and unusual as compared with the delicacy of the features, of the fair skin and light brown curls, made it easy for him to wear any mask he pleased. By their mere physical emphasis they drew attention away from the subtler and more revealing ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in the chapel are very bright and gaudy, contrasting unfavourably with the older tiles elsewhere in the building. The arrangement of the tiles on the risers of the steps is very monotonous and unpleasing. Plain stone steps would have been far less obtrusive. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... porch and stared for a moment at the half-legal official parochial notices posted on the oaken door,—his first obtrusive intimation of the combination of church and state,—and hesitated. He was not prepared to find that this last resting-place of his people had something to do with taxes and tithes, and that a certain material respectability and security attended his votive sigh. God and the reigning ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... statecraft, bent every faculty to inspire confidence in the new Administration. Mrs. Davis herself was not the least of the factors that made the President's policy the creed of the land. There was no elaboration of costume—no obtrusive jewels. The most richly dressed dame in the company was a Madame Gannat, the deity of the most charming drawing-room at the capital. At her house society was always sure to meet the European noblemen traveling in the country, the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... was already following. And I told myself that in a few minutes' walking, Bow-street runner or not, I should have him at my mercy. And then reflection came to me in time. Of all things, one was out of the question. Upon no account must this obtrusive fellow see the cart. Until I had killed or shook him off, I was quite divorced from my companions—alone, in the midst of England, on a frosty by-way leading whither I knew not, with a sleuth-hound at my heels, and never a friend ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... must have been written by some one who has been on the spot, and I wish him, and he deserves, success. Will you apologise to the author for the liberties I have taken with his MS.? Had I been less awake to, and interested in, his theme, I had been less obtrusive; but you know I always take this in good part, and I hope he will. It is difficult to say what will succeed, and still more to pronounce what will not. I am at this moment in that uncertainty (on our own ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... act as a drag; hang like a millstone round one's neck. Adj. hindering &c. v.; obstructive, obstruent[obs3]; impeditive[obs3], impedient[obs3]; intercipient|; prophylactic &c. (remedial) 662; impedimentary. in the way of, unfavorable; onerous, burdensome; cumbrous, cumbersome; obtrusive. hindered &c v.; windbound[obs3], waterlogged, heavy laden; hard pressed. unassisted &c. (see assist &c. 707); single-handed, alone; deserted &c. 624. Phr. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... earnest meditation. I looked on in silence and wonderment. Heliobas spoke not another word, and together we watched the pensive figure in the chair, so absorbed in serious thought. Some minutes passed. The gentle tick of the clock in the outer hall grew almost obtrusive, so loud did it seem in the utter stillness that surrounded us. I longed to speak—to ask questions—to proffer sympathy—but dared not move or utter a syllable. Suddenly the Prince rose; his manner was calm and dignified, yet touched with a ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... Karl look at him that evening once or twice, and I trembled lest the blundering, good-natured fellow should make the mistake of asking some question. But he did not; I need not have feared. People were not in the habit of putting obtrusive questions to Eugen Courvoisier. The danger was somehow quietly tided over, the delicate ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... side, or the unreligious side in talk (or in doings, such as not going to Church) is the easier side to take. It seems obtrusive to show what you feel to be right; and very often the one who takes the religious side is narrow-minded and tiresome compared to the others. Goodness is very often tiresome, and non-religion broad-minded and ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... the progress of the gay and rich, around whose footsteps avarice had gathered an eager and jostling crowd. Rude contact with, and unsavoury odours from, the unclean multitude shocked their nervous sensibility, as they made their way to their hotels amidst obtrusive obsequiousness, while the lone outlaw's pathway lay free through the open street and uncontaminated air. But a wretched exterior has its disadvantages also. I dared not present myself at a hotel, and many ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... thoughts with her tender chatter. She is not an obtrusive child, and, though bright, has grave moods and strange spells of thought. She is delighted to be so high up and able to ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... freemen has she reared beneath her shielding care to people her own vast territory and that of many other States, no one of which has ever failed in truthfulness to the great principles in which she was born. Always more solid than noisy, and more reserved than obtrusive, she has ever served as the great balance-wheel in the mighty engine of our national organization. Her life, commingled with other lives attempered to her own, now pulsates from ocean to ocean and from the frozen lakes to the warm Gulf waters, all glad and ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... against her if she chose to exert herself? She glanced about, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gryce; but her eyes lit instead on the glossy countenance of Mr. Rosedale, who was slipping through the crowd with an air half obsequious, half obtrusive, as though, the moment his presence was recognized, it would swell to the dimensions of ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... and that Revolution itself, which modified society so extensively, scarcely modified the legal supremacy of the husband at all, even in France under the Code Napoleon and still less anywhere else. Interwoven with all the new developments, and however less obtrusive it may have become, the old tradition still continues among us. Since, also, the husband is, conventionally and in large measure really, the economic support of the home,—the work of the wife and even actual financial contributions brought by her not being supposed to affect ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... landed at the man-of-war steps, close to Government House, where a large crowd had assembled to give us another welcome. They formed a little lane for us to pass through, cheering lustily, and smiling and nodding as if they were glad to see us. There was nothing formal or obtrusive about their welcome. It was, in truth, a real, warm, honest greeting from friends across the sea, and it touched both Tom and myself deeply. All such demonstrations invariably give me a choking sensation in my throat, and I was not altogether sorry when we had made our way through the ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... courteous to all, in his homely way; but he showed no anxiety to become further acquainted with these obtrusive persons. The simplicity of his manners and the plainness of his dress caused much surprise; and the public interest concerning him sensibly quickened when whispers floated forth of the giving up of his berth to the invalid passenger, and of his charitable ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... of men sitting inside and looking almost as cheerful as a beanfeast in Epping Forest. They make facetious gestures. They have a subdued sing-song going on. But one of them looks a little sick, and then I notice not very obtrusive bandages. "Sitting-up cases," my ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... vase, evidently gathered that morning; and, what seemed still more remarkable, the pitchers and ewers were freshly filled with water. This obliged Miss Milly to notice another singular fact, namely, that the house was free from dust, the one most obtrusive and penetrating visitor of Five Forks. The floors and carpets had been recently swept, the chairs and furniture carefully wiped and dusted. If the house WAS haunted, it was possessed by a spirit who had none of the usual indifference to decay and mould. And yet the beds had evidently ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... study of his creation. But in reading the creation itself you never need this knowledge; it never forces itself on you. The hundreds, and almost thousands, of persons who form the company of the Comedie—their frequently recurring parts adjusted with extraordinary, though by no means obtrusive or offensive, consistency to the enormous world of detail and scenery and general "surroundings" in which their parts are played—are never interfered with by the pointing-stick or the prompter. They are there; they can't help being there, and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... worn grey one. This she shook out and examined with approving nods, as if it were the finest fabric that ever had issued from the looms of Cashmere. Tying her luxuriant hair into a tight knot behind, and smoothing it down on each side of her face, and well back so as not to be obtrusive, she flung the old shawl over her head, induced a series of wrinkles to corrugate her fair brow; drew in her lips so as to conceal her teeth, and, by the same action, to give an aquiline turn to her nose; bowed her back, and, in short, ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... deceive himself. I will not say that he did not continue ignorant and bigoted, but he was no longer conceited and malicious. I will not say that he never showed himself dogmatic and ill-informed, but he was no longer obtrusive and uncharitable. His life was better than his dogmas, and the sincerity of his good intentions counteracted and nullified the ill effects of a narrow and unwholesome creed. There were no farther inconsistencies in his conduct, and he showed firmly, yet modestly, the line he meant to ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... obtrusive, I fear, to enter into this sort of personal details; but, without some few words of explanation, such passages as ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... life was of a kind I now experienced for the first time, and might have become of great importance had I been favoured with more frequent and intimate intercourse. But it was less her position as wife of the general director than her constant ill-health and my own peculiar unwillingness to appear obtrusive, that hindered our meeting, except at rare intervals. My recollections of her merge somewhat, in my memory, with those of my own sister Rosalie. I remember the tender ambition which inspired me to win the encouraging sympathy of this sensitive woman, who was painfully ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... affairs, asked her whether she had mended his clothes and ordered the coals. She knew that these things were not what was upon his mind, and she answered him in despairing tones, which showed how much she felt the obtrusive condescension to her level. I greatly pitied her, and sometimes, in fact, my emotion at the sight of her struggles with her limitations almost overcame me and I was obliged to get up and go. She was childishly affectionate. If M'Kay came in and happened to go up to her and kiss her, her face ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... sun, in the mirrors, the waxed or varnished wainscoting, with the same fidelity with which the poplars bowing gracefully to each other, and the swans, placidly swimming, were reproduced on the mirror-like surface of the ponds. The frame was so beautiful, the general outlook so superb, that the obtrusive, tasteless luxury melted away, disappeared even ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet
... insolent radiance of the fair beauties, or the tragic splendour of the dark ones. Besides, great beauty has disadvantages; it attracts attention at the wrong moment, it makes travelling troublesome, it is obtrusive and hinders a woman from doing exactly what she pleases. It is celebrity, and therefore a target for every photographing ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... men think, and feel, though I believe many a man, who with every other feeling absorbed in overpowering interest, could look unshrinking upon a real scene of cruelty and blood, would shrink away disgusted and sickened from the cold, obtrusive, painted representation of the same object; for the truth of this I appeal to men. I can only see with woman's eyes, and think and feel as I believe every woman must, whatever may be her love for the arts. I remember that ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... maintain against him the contrary proposition 'No poets are bad logicians.' This would certainly be a more emphatic contradiction, but, logically considered, it would not be as sound a one as the less obtrusive contradictory, 'Some poets are not bad logicians,' which it would be ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... the door flew open and the storm burst in. And we may remark that Mr Merryboy's stormy nature was, if possible, a little more obtrusive than it used to be, for whereas in former days his toes and heels did most of the rattling-thunder business, the stick now came into play as a prominent creator of din—not only when flourished by hand, but often on its own account ...
— Dusty Diamonds Cut and Polished - A Tale of City Arab Life and Adventure • R.M. Ballantyne
... release him for a brief walk in the open air. I applied the next morning for a fresh cell, and was duly accommodated. My new apartment was very much lighter, but the change was in other respects a disadvantage. The closet was fouler, and as the lid was a remarkably bad fit, it emitted a more obtrusive smell. The copper basin also was filled with dirty water, which would not flow away, as the waste-pipe was stopped up. To remedy these defects they brought the engineer, who strenuously exercised his intellect ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... position of those he meets, an Englishman prudently avoids all contact with them. Men are afraid, lest some slight service rendered should draw them into an unsuitable acquaintance; they dread civilities, and they avoid the obtrusive gratitude of a stranger, ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... chord. It was not obtrusive, it had no hint of pity; it was simply that one who had been hurt fully understood the hurt of another. Ralph ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... had also taught him that in an age of sophistication the poet should not hide his personality wholly behind the veil. There is a pleasing self-consciousness in the poet's reflections—never too obtrusive—that reminds one of Catullus. It implies that poetry is recognized in its great role of a criticism of life. But most of all there is revealed in the Ciris an epic poet's first timid probing into the depths of human emotions, a striving to understand the riddles behind the impulsive body. One ...
— Vergil - A Biography • Tenney Frank
... Shepherd's Companion. Some of you call it Rickety Dick, or Willy Wagtail." Turning to the Kangaroo especially, it continued. "If you can bring yourself to speak to anything so obtrusive and gossiping, without any ancestry or manners whatever, you will be able to learn all you need from that bird. Humans and Wagtails ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... combining as he did the work of composer, reviser, and adaptor of plays with that of actor and working partner. We are thus dealing with a temperament or mentality not at all obviously original or masterly, not at all conspicuous at the outset for intellectual depth or seriousness, not at all obtrusive of its "mission;" but exhibiting simply a gift for acting, an abundant faculty of rhythmical speech, and a power of minute observation, joined with a thoroughly practical or commercial handling of the problem of life, in a calling not usually taken-to by commercially-minded men. What emerges ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... whose historic name is as significant as his experience, that he made use of a specific means to discover what kind of mind a person had. He used to tell his subjects the following story: "A gentleman, carrying a small peculiarly-formed casket, entered a steam car, where an obtrusive commercial traveler asked him at once what was contained in the casket. 'My Mungo is inside!' 'Mungo? What is that?' 'Well, you know that I suffer from delirium tremens, and when I see the frightful images and figures, I let my Mungo out and he eats them ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden
... much admiration from the other sex. This she did not attribute so much to anything as to her own superiority; it really wanted a great deal of courage for an average mortal to propose to her. Her unconscious egotism had something rather grand in it; it was rarely obtrusive, but it was always there. Her mind was naturally a vigorous one, but it had moved in a narrow channel, and whatever was out of her own groove, she ignored. She appreciated whatever Jane Melville knew that she was ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... space Judge Menefee felt crushed, humiliated, relegated. Second place galled him. Why had this blatant, obtrusive, unpolished man of windmills been selected by Fate instead of himself to discover the sensational apple? He could have made of the act a scene, a function, a setting for some impromptu, fanciful discourse or piece of comedy—and have retained the role ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... dance on hot plowshares like a Turk dervise, But, unable to pay proper duty where owing it, Was reduced to that pitiful method of showing it: For though the moment I began setting His saddle on my own nag of Berold's begetting, 755 (Not that I meant to be obtrusive) She stopped me, while his rug was shifting, By a single rapid finger's lifting, And, with a gesture kind but conclusive, And a little shake of the head, refused me— 760 I say, although she never used me, Yet when she was mounted, the gypsy behind her, And I ventured to remind ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... to most of them—to the aristocrat a plebeian pedagogue to whom he must defer, just as, when he is a little older and sports a scarlet tunic, he must submit to the unlettered sergeant-major who teaches him his goose-step; to the rich parvenu more intolerable still, as the pruner of his obtrusive vulgarities of speech and manner, the index of his social inferiority and the standing menace to his innate rudeness, that is only intensified by his consciousness of wealth; to the poor man's son essentially a "schoolmaster"—a wielder of the ferule and a bloodless automaton, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... theory, but it requires to be taken in a critical spirit. It leads us to think of "warning colours," which are the very opposite of the disguises which we are now studying. Some creatures like skunks, magpies, coral-snakes, cobras, brightly coloured tree-frogs are obtrusive rather than elusive, and the theory of Alfred Russel Wallace was that the flaunting conspicuousness serves as a useful advertisement, impressing itself on the memories of inexperienced enemies, who soon ...
— The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) - A Plain Story Simply Told • J. Arthur Thomson
... all this time, but I had observed that his more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive emotion of the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious gaze fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively together. His pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful experience which had befallen his family, and his dark eyes seemed to reflect ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... and wrong in the ceremonial side of life than by telling you that when he felt an irrepressible sneeze forming he trotted out of the room and sneezed outside. When Peter played, too, he played gently, and did not disturb his elders by obtrusive attentions. He never required to be told twice to do a thing. Once was enough for Peter. Then again in the matter of breakages he was as virtuous a kitten as ever lived. I had thirty precious blue china vases on my sideboard, and through ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... have justified you for faults of which you are innocent; she has boasted of a liberty which she does not possess, in order to clear you of the wrong which you have done in denying that liberty. The deafening rattle which your wife shakes will follow you everywhere with its obtrusive din. Your darling will stun you, will torture you, meanwhile arming herself by making you feel only the thorns of married life. She will greet you with a radiant smile in public, and will be sullen at home. She will be dull when you ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... the general and to his secretary, that the Relation does not differ substantially from other contemporary accounts, and that the attempt to varnish over the exceptionable passages in the conduct of the Conquerors is not obtrusive. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... a high-class hotel that seedy-looking persons seldom dared to put a foot within the palatial entrance. The porter, unused to dealing with the obtrusive impecunious type to which he believed Mr. Kemp to belong, made the mistake of trying ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... was a self-tormented monk without relief; he suffered all that Saint Paul suffered at Tarsus. In some respects this monastic pietism resembled the pharisaism of Saul, in the schools of Tarsus,—a technical, rigid, and painful adherence to rules, fastings, obtrusive prayers, and petty ritualisms, which form the essence and substance of all pharisaism and all monastic life; based on the enormous error that man deserves heaven by external practices, in which, however, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... look to the left, opposite,—and observe, placed in a recess—a PULPIT ... which, from top to bottom, is completely covered with gold. And yet, there is nothing gaudy, or tasteless, or glaringly obtrusive, in this extraordinary clerical rostrum. The whole is in the most perfect taste; and perhaps more judgment was required to manage such an ornament, or appendage,—consistently with the splendid style of decoration ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Davoust exercised a sort of independent sovereignty, that the violence and injustice of the Napoleonic commercial system was seen in its most repulsive form; in the greater part of the Empire it was felt more in the general decline of trade and in a multitude of annoying privations than in acts of obtrusive cruelty. [166] The French were themselves compelled to extract sugar from beetroot, and to substitute chicory for coffee; the Germans, less favoured by nature, and less rapid in adaptation, thirsted and sulked. Even in such torpid communities as Saxony political discontent ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... most universal religious toleration; to preserve the rights of all by causing each to respect those of the other; to carry forward every social improvement to the uttermost limit of human perfectibility, by the free action of mind upon mind, not by the obtrusive intervention of misapplied force; to uphold the integrity and guard the limitations of our organic law; to preserve sacred from all touch of usurpation, as the very palladium of our political salvation, the reserved rights and ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... part M. Emanuel's likewise), and to dine with them at the Hotel Crecy. He declined dinner, for he was a man always somewhat shy at meeting the advances of the wealthy: there was a strength of sturdy independence in the stringing of his sinews—not obtrusive, but pleasant enough to discover as one advanced in knowledge of his character; he promised, however, to step in with his friend, M. A——, a French Academician, in the course of ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... of friendly consideration; and I stand just in that relation to my new neighbours. To certain extent I am ignorant of the ways and means appertaining to the locality; and can only get enlightened through an intercourse with the older residents. But I have no right to be obtrusive, or to expect too much concession to a mere stranger. Until I am better known, I will only ask the sojourner's kindness—not the confidence one ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... certain number of the parcels carried in the hand, choosing a seat in the car, selecting and engaging a hand on arriving at the place of destination. Commit such things to his charge only so fast as you can really intrust him with power to act, and then, with slight and not obtrusive supervision on your part, leave the responsibility with him, noticing encouragingly whatever of fidelity and success you observe, and taking little notice—generally in fact, none at all—of such errors and failures as result simply from ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... things With brighter hues resplendent, and portray'd With features nobler far than e'er adorn'd Their genuine objects. Hence the fever'd heart Pants with delirious hope for tinsel charms; Hence oft obtrusive on the eye of scorn, Untimely zeal her witless pride betrays! 160 And serious manhood from the towering aim Of wisdom, stoops to emulate the boast Of childish toil. Behold yon mystic form Bedeck'd with feathers, insects, weeds, and shells! Not with intenser view the ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... managed as I proposed. (See list, on p. 337, of part of the Order Anseres, printed on sage-green cards.) This is, I contend, a great advance on the old system of labelling, which has this defect, that the labels, even if small, are "spotty" and obtrusive near the eye, and if placed 10 ft. from the floor, as they must be in many instances, it is impossible to read them unless both label and type be very large, which is an absurdity in a pictorially-mounted collection. [Footnote: When I first came to Leicester ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... in those days and a very passionate one. He hated Etheridge—the obtrusive mentor who came ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... therefore, at the obtrusive impertinence of these two fellows, and when next he passed them, he surveyed them from head to foot with a haughty and indignant stare. The moment after he heard them burst into a laugh, and ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... him? If Harold had presented me with a white elephant I could hardly have been more embarrassed than I was at the apparition of this urbane and magnificent Hindoo prince. He was young; he was handsome; he was slim, for a rajah; he wore European costume, save for the huge white turban with its obtrusive diamond; and he spoke English much better than a great many Englishmen. Yet what place could he fill in my life and Elsie's? For once, I felt almost angry with Harold. Why couldn't he have allowed us to go quietly ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... American's quiet drawl are heard everywhere as he strolls round the tables; Roumanian boyards, Parisian swindlers, Austrian soldiers, Hungarian plutocrats, flashy and foolish young Englishmen—all gather in a motley crowd; and the British bookmaker's interesting presence is obtrusive. His very accent—strident, coarse, impudent, unspeakably low—gives a kind of ground-note to the hum of talk that rises in all places of public resort, and he recruits his delicate health in anticipation of the time when he will be able to howl ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... the facts as they are. It may be that the courtesies of polite intercourse are not easy to observe in war. Certainly they were not obtrusive in Belgium. In extenuation it may be said that the Brussels postmen had struck about this time; but, on the other hand, through the forbidden shutters I saw fully fifty German Boy Scouts marshaled in the ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... was possessed of an invincible loyalty of principle, and that, asking no sentimental affection, and indeed yielding none, he was, without presuming on his relationship, devoted to his cousin's interest. It seemed that from being a glancing ray of sunshine in the house, evasive but never obtrusive, he had become a daily necessity of comfort ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... accounted me their equal, and actually patronised me in a sort of good-humoured fashion. What in particular excited in me this feeling was their feet, their dirty nails and fingers, a particularly long talon on Operoff's obtrusive little finger, their red shirts, their dickeys, the chaff which they good-naturedly threw at one another, the dirty room, a habit which Zuchin had of continually snuffling and pressing a finger to his nose, and, above ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... different natures. The elaborateness of the German prince—an elaborateness which has been justly and happily compared with that of Goethe—was wholly alien to the half-Irish, half-English, statesman. The somewhat boisterous courage in minor dangers, and the obtrusive use of an always effectual but not always refined, commonplace, which are Lord Palmerston's defects, doubtless grated on Prince Albert, who had a scholar's caution and a scholar's courage. The facts will be known to our ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... blacks and reds and yellows, and gave them depth by glazing over with the same; and we are pretty much of Wilson's mind, who, when told of a new brown, said "I am sorry for it." Very many of our modern pictures are ruined by the violent contrasts of the asphaltum and similar browns with less obtrusive pigments. The very transparency is, in our eyes, an objection. Asphaltum, for instance, besides that it is a changeable and never thoroughly drying pigment, is too transparent for depth. It was a mistake of Gainsborough when he said that with asphaltum ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... despatched to Milovka to organize a local self-defence corps. He carried as many pistols as could be stowed away in a violin-case, which, with a music-roll holding cartridges, was an obtrusive feature of his luggage. The winter was just beginning, but mildly. The sun shone over the broad plains, and as David's train carried him towards Milovka, his heart swelled with thoughts of the Maccabean deeds to be wrought there by a regenerated Young Israel. But the journey was long. Towards ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... not bring herself to be agreeable to the obtrusive cavalier with the rich lace cravat and perfumed hair, both assumed ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... commented on the extent to which the nobler qualities and conquering energy of the English character are hidden, not only from foreigners, but from ourselves, by the "detestable lay figure" of John Bull. In like manner, the obtrusive type of the "canny Scot" is apt to make critics forget the hot heart that has marked the early annals of the country, from the Hebrides to the Borders, with so much violence, and at the same time has been the source of so much strong feeling and persistent purpose. Of late years, ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... it was, that looked as if it might be hundreds of years old; he turned the lock with it and stepped in, walking down the small brick aisle, observing the ancient oaken seats, the quaint pulpit, and strange brasses; till, white, staring, obtrusive, and all out of taste, he saw in the chancel what he had come to look for, a great white marble monument, on the south side; four fluttering cherubs with short wings that appeared to hold up a marble slab, while two weeping figures knelt below. First was recorded on the slab the death of Augustus ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... their place numerous villages, and fields of white Indian corn, doura, and sugar-cane. The tribes inhabiting the region seemed excited and hostile; they manifested more anger than adoration, and evidently saw in the aeronauts only obtrusive strangers, and not condescending deities. It appeared as though, in approaching the sources of the Nile, these men came to rob them of something, and so the Victoria had to keep out of ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... semblance of an Oxford Bear, with a cognomen thereto appended, as foreign to his family nomenclature "as he to Hercules." In the morning the dames are wailing the loss of their polished knockers; and the barber-surgeon mourns the absence of his obtrusive pole. The optician's glasses have been removed to the door of some prying domine; and the large tin cocked hat has been seized by some midnight giant, who has also claimed old Crispin's three-leagued boot. The golden fish has leaped into the Thames. The landlord ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... or resting against the slope of the mountain, so that, from one side, you may step upon the roof. That is the chalet. When well grouped, running along a slope of mountain side, these huts produce a very pleasing effect, being never obtrusive (owing to the prevailing grayness of their tone), uniting well with surrounding objects, and bestowing at once ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... simply annihilation on both sides. After ten years' absence, and in spite of radical changes, the elegant, exquisitely kept town of Nancy appears little altered to me. The ancient capital of Lorraine is now one of the largest garrisons on the eastern frontier, but the military aspect is not too obtrusive. Except for the perpetual roll of the heavy artillery waggons and perpetual sight of the red pantalon, we are apt to forget the present position of Nancy from ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... titles of nobility, dwelling on the peculiar pleasure he experienced from our visit; another, an old man of a very venerable appearance, called our attention to a dirty stone which he held in his hand, affirming it to be a piece of Henri Quatre's identical foot: but none were troublesome or obtrusive, and most appeared to be deriving as much enjoyment from their own little vagaries as their melancholy state would admit of.[30] Their apartments, built round the square, are neat and airy, each furnished with a bed, dressing table, and a few plain utensils. In one large room ...
— Itinerary of Provence and the Rhone - Made During the Year 1819 • John Hughes
... barking of dogs, with occasional jangling of discordant church bells and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day. In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, were two men. Besides the two men, a notched and disfigured bench, immovable from the wall, with a draught-board rudely hacked upon ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... sheaves that he stacks, or examines the lawn to see what kinds of grass are thriving. About all such matters his talk is the talk of an experienced man habitually interested in his subject, and yet it is never obtrusive. The remarks fall from him casually; you feel, too, that while he is telling you something that he noticed yesterday or years ago his eyes are alert to seize any new detail that may seem worthy of attention. Details are always really his subject, for the generalizations ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... looked out of the windows with distaste—agreed that the outskirts of Frankfort were hideous with their obtrusive and insistent collection of factory chimneys; and shuddered at the distant and beautiful background of mountain and forest, to us so teeming with painful memories. We exclaimed at the unsightliness of the huge skeleton lettering ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... upon the men was remarkable. Never obtrusive or professional in her treatment of religious subjects, she exhibited rare tact and ability in bringing those who were in the possession of their reason and consciousness to converse on their spiritual condition, and in pointing them affectionately to ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... increased always in volume and majesty. The fine qualities which might so easily have deteriorated remained unscathed. His keen sense of justice and honor, his inborn candor and generosity, his fervent love of virtue and goodness in their simplest and least obtrusive exhibitions, his cordial admiration of true greatness,—these and kindred traits never lost their freshness or force. Above all, he retained throughout life that deep and exquisite tenderness of feeling which formed the supreme ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... worthy of their traditions until the cockney visitors, with their tips and their hunger for longshore lies, ruined the nature of many of our beach folk. But with FitzGerald, that kind, solicitous gentleman who never asserted the claims of his station in life before an inferior, the obtrusive display of this spirit of independence was as unnecessary as it was cruel. And I think Posh understands this now. He certainly never meant to hurt the feelings of his old governor. But he chafed at ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... beauty; she could not blind herself to it. She felt she must admire it because it was so apparent, so glowing, so obtrusive; and because she did admire it, she felt that she hated the owner ...
— The Imaginary Marriage • Henry St. John Cooper
... Saturday evening, and must therefore make his arrangements to leave by noon on that day. The significance was apparent. Had he come down to breakfast with "Now or Never!" stamped in fiery letters across his brow, it would have been more obtrusive, indeed, but not a whit plainer. We all looked down at our plates, except Jack Ives. He flung one glance (I saw it out of the corner of my left eye) at Newhaven, another at Trix; then ...
— Comedies of Courtship • Anthony Hope
... a dim sort of kinship with the more vigorous hero of 'Jane Eyre,' has been succeeded by well-bred young gentlemen who never smoke in the presence of their female relatives, though they are master hands at sailing a boat and knocking down obtrusive foreigners, Mr. Black has not since 'A Daughter of Heth' done so dramatic a piece of writing as the story of the Earl's death and Coquette's flight. The "Daughter of Heth," with her friendly simplicity and innocent wiles, and Madcap Violet, the laughter-loving, deserve ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 5 • Various
... tourist men and boys moved about with a decision that indicated the having of particular business on hand; tourist women and girls were busily engaged with baskets and botanical boxes, or flitted hither and thither in climbing costume with obtrusive alpenstocks, as though a general attack on Mont Blanc and all his ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... of the people, not their masters. Not only is their time and labor due to the Government, but they should scrupulously avoid in their political action, as well as in the discharge of their official duty, offending by a display of obtrusive partisanship their neighbors who have relations with them ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... available for settlement have contributed, not only to the abundance of American prosperity, but also to the formation of American character and institutions; and undoubtedly many of the economic and political evils which are now becoming offensively obtrusive are directly or indirectly derived from the gradual monopolization of certain important economic opportunities. Nevertheless, these opportunities could never have been converted so quickly into substantial benefits had it not been for our more democratic political and social forms. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... least obtrusive of chaperones, had been peacefully napping for a good half-hour in her low rocker under the reading-lamp, and the pictures in a thick quarto of Gulf Coast views had pleasantly filled the interval ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... to learn the multiplication table or to talk philosophy? He was not afraid of them. He laughed at Willis, and flung Longfellow's lie in his teeth, the lie the rest of the world was twenty years in finding. He scorned the obtrusive learning of the transcendentalists and he disliked their hard talkative women. He left them and went back to his dream women, his Berenice, his Ligeia, his Marchesa Aphrodite, pale and cold as the mist maidens of the North, sad as the Norns who ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... power and delicacy, and a certain confident but not obtrusive manner, which will go far, with his abilities, to place him in a high rank among our pianists. He gave much satisfaction; his performance of Liszt's fantasie on themes from Verdi's 'Rigoletto' showing great skill in mastering the difficult technicalities ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... and wholly unprovoked changes give cause for reflection. When my geranium-flowers were devastated, how had the obtrusive Bee, untroubled by the profound dissimilarity between the petals, snow-white here, bright scarlet there, how had she learnt her trade? Nothing tells us that she herself was not for the first time exploiting the plant from the Cape; and, if she really did have predecessors, ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... and windy debate. I question very much if I have occupied the time of the Senate during the six years as some gentlemen have during six weeks, or even six days. I hope, therefore, that I shall not be thought obtrusive, or charged with taking up time with abolition petitions. I hope, Mr. President, to hear no more about agitating this slave question here. Who has began the agitation now? The Senator from Kentucky [Mr. Clay.] Who has responded to that agitation, and congratulated the Senate and the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... subjects connected with their own interests, in their own fields, and 'under their own fig-trees', with their landlords and Government functionaries of all kinds and degrees, prevents their ever feeling or appearing impudent or obtrusive; though it certainly tends to give them stentorian voices, that often startle us when they come into our houses to discuss the same points ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... terrible. A great ormolu clock in the room, one of the Holy Father's "Jubilee" gifts, ticked the minutes slowly away with a jewel-studded pendulum, which in its regular movements to and fro sounded insolently obtrusive in such a stillness. Gherardi abstractedly raised his eyes to a great ivory crucifix which was displayed upon the wall against a background of rich purple velvet,—Manuel was standing immediately in front ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... two yards, with one wing which shut like a door, enclosing a small space fitted up like a miniature scullery, with a curious and elaborate collection of pots and pans and kitchen utensils, all hung in orderly rows, but every article with marks of service on it, and more recent and obtrusive trace of ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... made Luther a reformer at once. He started to purge his order of Pharisaism, and the university of the dross of Aristotle. Soon he was called upon to protest against one of the most obtrusive of the "good works" recommended by the church, the purchase of indulgences. Albert of Hohenzollern was elected, through political influence and at an early age, to the archiepiscopal sees of Magdeburg and Mayence, this last carrying with it an electorate and the primacy of Germany. For ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... straight home, neither speaking to nor seeing a soul. From that hour a change seemed to come over him. He had ever possessed a full share of self-consciousness; he had been readily piqued, had shown an unusual dread of being personally obtrusive. But now his sense of self, as an individual provoking opinion, appeared to leave him. When, therefore, after a day or two of seclusion, he came forth again, and the few acquaintances he had formed in the town condoled with him on what had happened, and pitied his haggard looks, ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... sensitive eye subjects every picture from whatsoever creed or camp it comes is balance or equipoise, judgment being rendered without thought of the law. After the picture has been left as finished, why does an artist often feel impelled to create an accent on this side or weaken an obtrusive one on the other side of his canvas if not working under ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... summer afternoon Dr. Leslie was waked from an unusually long after-dinner nap by Marilla's footsteps along the hall. She remained standing in the doorway, looking at him for a provoking length of time, and finally sneezed in her most obtrusive and violent manner. At this he sat up quickly and demanded to be told what was the matter, adding that he had been out half the night before, which was no news ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... fat fellow (he had an obtrusive, hairy double chin) in a blue woollen shirt and roomy breeches pulled up very high, even to the level of his breastbone, by a pair of braces quite exposed to public view. As where he stood there was no bulwark, but only a rail and stanchions, I was ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... wanted to know the reason of this injustice and kept asking the question of himself and me. At last he suggested that the name of the bird must have injured its reputation. I suppose the real reason is that the thrush sings for a longer period of the year than the blackbird and is a more obtrusive singer, and that so few people have sufficient feeling about bird ...
— Recreation • Edward Grey
... often restless and fretful; and with a constitutional melancholy, the clouds of which darkened the brightness of his fancy, and gave a gloomy cast to his whole course of thinking: we, therefore, ought not to wonder at his sallies of impatience and passion at any time; especially when provoked by obtrusive ignorance, or presuming petulance; and allowance must be made for his uttering hasty and satirical sallies even against his best friends. And, surely, when it is considered, that, 'amidst sickness and sorrow[1292],'he exerted his faculties in so many works for the benefit of mankind, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... proximity of several newly erected villas and lodging-houses, it ought here to be stated to the visitor, that the true character of the place is in consequence greatly injured: for the garish and obtrusive habitations of genteel life but ill accord with that solitary and impressive magnificence which constitutes the very interest—the sublimity and peculiarity of a silent and cheerless scene, such as formerly were ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... self-assertive, unmellowed, angular. They disappear entirely when he expatiates in the regions of exalted fancy, as in the introductory discourse of the Spirit, and the invocation to Sabrina. They recur when he moralizes; and his morality is too interwoven with the texture of his piece to be other than obtrusive. He fatigues with virtue, as Lucan fatigues with liberty; in both instances the scarcely avoidable error of a young preacher. What glorious morality it is no one need be told; nor is there any poem in the language where ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... somewhat opaque Indian yellow. A gorgeous and durable substitute for that fugitive pigment is produced by compounding the orient with aureolin, or by using the latter as a glaze. Being more transparent than cadmiums and less obtrusive, the new yellow is adapted for mellow sunset and sunrise clouds, or for sunshine on distant mountains. With French blue it affords a beautiful sea green; and, mixed with aureolin, gives fine foliage tints. It is also ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... resignedly. She did not want to listen just then. She wanted to be quiet and think out the very obtrusive financial and moral problem of getting away. She felt like Lot when he knew of the destruction to come upon the cities of the Plain. But she felt one couldn't walk out of things as Lot had walked. Only—she had to do her worrying with placid face, giving lip-service ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... He had not reckoned upon the ravages of a long illness. The long, loose folds of her white gown had been especially designed to conceal the sharp outlines of her emaciated body, but the stamp of her disease was there; simple and ugly and obtrusive, a pitiless fact that could not be disguised or evaded. The splendid shoulders were stooped, there was a swaying unevenness in her gait, her arms seemed disproportionately long, and her hands were transparently white and cold to the touch. The changes in her face were less obvious; ...
— The Troll Garden and Selected Stories • Willa Cather
... literary pursuits; as their tastes and characters, in these respects differed like those of other men. Being, also, men of busy lives, with great objects requiring action constantly before them, their attainments in letters did not become showy or obtrusive. Yet I would hazard the opinion, that, if we could now ascertain all the causes which gave them eminence, and distinction in the midst of the great men with whom they acted, we should find not among the least their early acquisitions in literature, the ...
— Thomas Jefferson • Edward S. Ellis et. al.
... hats and Meddlechip's coat and hung them up, then waited respectfully for M. Vandeloup to give his orders. A portly looking waiter he was, with a white waistcoat, a white shirt, which bulged out in a most obtrusive manner, and a large white cravat, which was tied round an equally large white collar. When he walked he rolled along like a white-crested wave, and with his napkin under his arm, the heel of one foot in the hollow of the other, and his large red ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... but one servant, or does her own work, is dependent upon circumstances. She certainly shouldn't follow her hostess all over the house with offers of help: "Can't I do this?" "Shan't I do that?" Let her quickly and unostentatiously render such small services as are helpful without being obtrusive. She may care for her own room; she may fill the vases with flowers; she may tell stories to the children or take them for a walk, but she must carefully respect the hostess's privacy and not intrude in the rear regions where the domestic ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... But, though I dimly perceived his form drawn up in the empty space at the left of the door, it was not until she had passed him and flung herself into a chair, that I thought to look in his direction. Then it was too late, for he had turned his face aside and was gazing with rather an obtrusive curiosity at the old-fashioned room, murmuring, as he did so, some such commonplaces to his ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... Monkwell-street,) resided many years in the Lower-street, Islington. One day, when he got into the stage to come to London, he met with two ladies of his acquaintance, and a loquacious young Irishman, who was very obtrusive with his "would-be wit" to the females. The coachman soon stopped to take up another passenger, who, Dutchman-like, was "slow to make haste." A young dog, being confined in the neighbourhood, bewailed ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... patient experiment and investigation necessary for the procuring of the real substance; and Hippocrates, not knowing how to advance to a theory by rational experiment, and too honest to invent one, assumes the traditional theories, founded on the vaguest and most obtrusive generalizations. Those which his experience taught him to reject, were adopted and maintained by Galen and all who followed him for centuries, the chief instance of progress being only the substitution by the Arabians of some of the milder medicines now in use, ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... like a composer,' is often used to hint that the technic was not that of a virtuoso. In this sense MacDowell did not play like a composer; his technical skill was equal to everything he played, though never obtrusive. In another sense he did play 'like a composer,' especially when interpreting his own pieces; that is, he played with an insight, a subtlety of expression, which only a creative performer has at his command. ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... an insignificant portion of the year remained, yet the affairs of Lee Sing were in no more prosperous a condition than before, nor had he found an opportunity to set aside any store of taels. Each day the unsupportable Pe-tsing became more and more obtrusive and self-conceited, even to the extent of throwing far into the air coins of insignificant value whenever he chanced to pass Lee in the street, at the same time urging him to leap after them and thereby secure ...
— The Wallet of Kai Lung • Ernest Bramah
... "rebel," "principle," and "little." If that troublesome word "separate" were from the beginning rightly pronounced, it would probably be less often wrongly spelled. One should hasten to say, however, that over-nicety in enunciation, pedantic exactness, obtrusive "elocutionary" excellence, or any sort of labored or affected effort should be carefully guarded against. The line of distinction between what is perfect and what is slightly strained is a fine one. Very often, for example, ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... to do a great deal of good among young and neglected people of that class. He is considered one of the best conversationists at present in society: it may very well be so; his style of talking being very simple and natural, anything but obtrusive, so that you might enjoy its agreeableness without suspecting it. He introduced me to his wife (a daughter of Lord Crewe), with whom and himself I had a good deal of talk. Mr. Milnes told me that he owns the land in Yorkshire, whence some of the pilgrims of the Mayflower emigrated ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I stood myself a bottle of beer before I went to bed yesterday. And as for tobacco, I have fifteen sticks of it.' That was fairly successful indeed; yet a man of his superiority, and with a less obtrusive policy, might, who knows? have got the length of half a crown. A man who prides himself upon persuasion should learn the persuasive faculty of silence, above all as to his own misdeeds. It is only in the farce and for dramatic purposes that Scapin enlarges on ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... itself; and he complained that nature everywhere was too much alike. No locality seemed to him sufficiently a stranger to his experience, and in the deserted places, where the desperate restlessness of his heart impelled him, he imagined the reappearance of the obtrusive witnesses of his past joys, and of the misfortune by which they were ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... by attending ten performances, much as Mozart had pirated the ancient exclusive music of St. Peter's in Rome. He was at this period a thriving literary craftsman, and the author of a series of popular plays in which the critics of the time had just begun to note and resent an obtrusive democratic tendency. ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford |
