"Uninitiated" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the author does not attempt to drill the uninitiated player in the intricacies of the game. The rudiments can be learned far more satisfactorily by watching a rubber, or by receiving the kindly instruction ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... To the uninitiated or uninterested observer, all small, dull-colored birds are "common sparrows." The closer scrutiny of the trained eye quickly differentiates, and picks out not only the Song, the Canada, and the Fox Sparrows, but finds a dozen other ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... and position of objects, and is usually found, when admitted into a rifle club, to equal, without previous practice, its second-rate shots. He only falls short of its first-rate ones, because, uninitiated by the experience of his profession in the mystery of the parabolic curve, he fails, in taking aim, to make the proper allowance for it. The mason is almost always a silent man: the strain on his respiration ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... Miss G. serves to unravel what, to one uninitiated, seems quite a mystery: i.e. the frequency with which, in the advertisements of runaway slaves published in southern papers, they are described as having one or two front teeth out. Scores of such advertisements are in southern papers now on our table. We will furnish the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... "shelling" is usually quite harmless, except when the guns are served by skilled artillerists, and under favorable circumstances. Unless the shell is exploded at the proper distance and altitude in front of a line, it is not likely to do any injury. A cannonade which, to the uninitiated, would seem sufficient to destroy every thing before it, will be faced with the utmost equanimity by veteran troops, if the artillerist have the range too "long." It is always very annoying, however, as there is no telling when a shell may prove a little "short," and distribute ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride
... twenty-five feet in diameter, and carried surprising loads—sometimes sheep and cattle alone—sometimes men and women—often both indiscriminately mingled. Propelling a gufa was an art in itself, for in the hands of the uninitiated it merely spun around without advancing a foot in the desired direction. The natives used long round-bladed paddles, and made good time across the river. Crossing over in one was a democratic affair, especially ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... of terminating a money trick is to pass the marked coin into the center of a large ball of Berlin wool or worsted, the whole of which has to be unwound before the coin can be reached. The modus operandi, though perplexing to the uninitiated, is absurdly simple when the secret is revealed. The only apparatus necessary over and above the wool (of which you must have enough for a good-sized ball), is a flat tin tube, three to four inches in length, and just large ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... name to the novice, indicative of the change from youth to manhood. While the teeth are being knocked out an instrument known as a bull-roarer, which consists of a flat piece of wood with serrated edges tied to the end of a string, is swung round so as to produce a loud humming noise. The uninitiated are not allowed to see this instrument. Women are forbidden to witness the ceremonies under pain of death. It is given out that the youths are each met in turn by a mythical being, called Thuremlin (more commonly known as Daramulun) who takes the youth ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to this plant. Very few of them would touch it, and it was known to us by the two bad names, "haughty-man's plaything," and "pick your mother's heart out." In Hanover, as well as in the Swiss canton of St. Gall, the same plant is offered to uninitiated persons with a request to pluck one of the pods. Should he do so the others exclaim, "You have stolen a purse of gold from your father and mother."" "It is interesting to find," writes Mr. Britten in the "Folk-lore Record" (i. 159), "that a common tropical ...
— The Folk-lore of Plants • T. F. Thiselton-Dyer
... present time, thigh-rubbing is not infrequent among the girl scholars; the proportion mentioned in one school was about ten per cent, of the girls over eleven; the thigh-rubbing is done more or less openly and is interpreted by the uninitiated as due merely to a desire to relieve the bladder. It is found in female infants. Thus, Townsend records the case of an infant, 8 months old, who would cross her right thigh over the left, close her eyes and clench her fists; after a minute or two there would be complete relaxation, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the causes of accidents from the engine, many of which cannot be understood by the uninitiated. As we read them over, and see in how many ways an engine can go wrong, we wonder that a train ever arrives at its journey's end in safety. At the conclusion of this formidable list, the author confesses that it is incomplete, and ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... yet generally understood—naturally enough, considering the wretched performances we have so far been obliged to endure. The opera has one great advantage over concerts: it is more attractive to the uninitiated. It appeals to the eye as well as the ear. The scenic splendors will attract many unmusical and semi-musical people who shun the purely intellectual atmosphere of a classical concert as a great bore; and while ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... little note from Lufa, concerning a point in rhythm which perplexed her. She had a good ear, and was conscientious in her mechanics. There was not a cockney-rhyme from beginning to end of her poem, which is more than the uninitiated will give its weight to. But she understood nothing of the broken music which a master of verse will turn to such high service. There are lines in Milton which Walter, who knew far more than she, could not read until long after, when Dante ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... of this map which is always puzzling to the uninitiated is a series of small pins with streamers attached. These streamers are marked with green dots. One streamer will have one green dot, another two green dots, another three, etc., while others will have ...
— Night Bombing with the Bedouins • Robert Henry Reece
... right! Nothing is to be seen!" he muttered to himself. "The White Lady will yet be able often to walk here!" He burst into loud laughter and left the imperial apartments to return to his own rooms, which were situated on the ground-floor. "I will now put away my dear treasures, that no uninitiated eye may behold them," he said, carefully locking the door. "Come, my mysterious treasures! Come!" He drew from his bed a long white dress, a small cloak trimmed with fur, and a long black veil, [Footnote: These articles, belonging to the toilet of the White Lady, were found in Schluter's ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... experienced the intoxication of color which seizes the uninitiated at the door of a picture-gallery? So many staring hues impinge upon the eyes, so many ideas take confused shape and struggle together in the brain, that the eyes grow weary and the brain harassed. It hovers undecided like an ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... supposed by the uninitiated that these few persons in any way represent the central directive administration of the Catholic Church. On the contrary, the only one of them who is occupied in that larger field is Cardinal Rampolla, the Secretary of State. ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 2 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... beginning of the war some, especially the uninitiated, dreaded nothing more than a war council. To such it was a body of men invested with unlimited power, a council that could pronounce sentence of death on whomsoever they wished. To appear before this august assembly meant almost certain death. Now sometimes it meant that, ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... of superb scorn, calculated to convince the uninitiated that he himself had never been a Venetian ragamuffin, gave three long strokes of the oar, which sent the gondola far out upon the Canal, well beyond the reach ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... consisting of oranges, melons, pine-apples, guavas, citrons, bananas, peaches, strawberries, apples, pears, and indeed of almost every fruit which can be found in the whole world, all of which appear to naturalise themselves at Madeira. It was now supposed by the uninitiated that the dinner was over; but not so; the dessert was cleared away, and on came an husteron proteron medley of pies and puddings, in all their varieties, smoking hot, boiled and baked, custards and sweetmeats, ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... wheeling is encountered toward the bottom of the pass, and then comes an area of wet salt-flats, interspersed with saline rivulets—those innocent-looking little streamlets the deceptive clearness of which tempts the thirsty and uninitiated wayfarer to drink. Few travellers in desert countries but have been deceived by these innocuous-looking streamlets once, and equally few are the people who suffer themselves to be deceived by their smooth, pellucid ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... very evident except to the practised eye. Between an ordinary Dutch rabbit and a winner, or between the comb of a Hamburgh that is fit to show and one that is not, the differences are not very apparent to the uninitiated. Whether Mendelism will assist the breeder in the production of these finer points is at present doubtful. It may be that these small differences are heritable, such as those that form the basis of Johannsen's pure lines. In this case the breeder's outlook ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett
... upon the shoulders of some reluctant prisoner; amid all the confusion the bursts of musical laughter or noisier applause, then the oaths, in the liquid Spanish tongue sounding sweetly to the ear of the uninitiated. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... has ever held an allurement for the lay reader, the general public, and the uninitiated, so to speak, and Mr. Brebner has chosen this background for the setting of his story, and has woven around Olive Vaughan, scenes and incidents showing the temptations to which every aspirant for theatrical ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor
... two—one inside the enclosure, where the brute had jumped in a vain effort to reach the frantic donkeys. We stumbled over the carcass of the other as we made our way toward the gate-gap, and dragged it in ignominiously by the tail (not such an easy task as the uninitiated ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Nosey Browne's, for it so happened that Nosey had managed to walk into his books for groceries and kitchen-stuff to the tune of fourteen pounds, a large sum to a man in a small way of business; and to be entertaining friends so soon after his composition, seemed curious to Ballenger's uninitiated ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... Whispering groups in the dingy corridor of the old schoolhouse, or in that sacred spot, the senior's corner, a cluster of seats in the northwest corner of the assembly-room devoted by tradition to secret conclaves, though not distinguishable from the rest of the seats in the room to uninitiated eyes, drew her in without question, slipping ...
— The Wishing Moon • Louise Elizabeth Dutton
... In that uninitiated observation of the great spectacle of English life upon which I have touched, it might be supposed that Newman passed a great many dull days. But the dullness of his days pleased him; his melancholy, which was settling into a secondary stage, like a healing wound, had in it a certain ...
— The American • Henry James
... real name was Clegg, having become an adept in the art of coining, acquired during his residence abroad, and likewise having arrived at the knowledge of many chemical secrets long hidden from the vulgar and uninitiated, had leagued himself with one of the like sort, together with his own son, a handsome well-favoured youth (whose mother he had rescued from a Spanish convent), for the purpose of carrying on a most extensive manufacture and issue of counterfeit ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... allowed for its execution. Such essays may serve the hour fairly, but can seldom be of high worth ultroneously.' 'The extent and variety of the labours called for at the hands of those actively engaged on modern cheap periodicals can scarcely be conceived by the uninitiated public. If their eyes were opened on the subject, they would certainly wonder less why it is that the literary talent of the current generation does not tend to display itself by striking isolated efforts: they would also ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... small task to enjoy a large exhibit like ours and to preserve one's peace of mind. The purpose of these pages is to assist in guiding the uninitiated, in his visit and in retrospect, without depriving him of the pleasure of personal observation and investigation. It is not to be expected that all pictures exhibited should be of a superior kind. If so, we should never be able ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... meeting on the landing was one of determined, almost aggressive smartness. The men wore bright overcoats with bands round the waist, the women those imitation furs which to the uninitiated eye appear so much more expensive than the real thing. Everybody looked very dashing and very young, except about the eyes. Most of the eyes that glanced at Jill were weary. The women were nearly all blondes, blondness having been decided upon in the theatre as the color that ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... of grief was far-reaching. The captain and his devoted officers made a great noise at me; they asked with passionate emotion why I didn't let my body fall instead—"there would have been less mischief done," said they! Of course they did not mean that exactly, though to the uninitiated it would have seemed uncommonly like it. The indications of combined grief and fearful swearing might have meant anything of a violent nature. I could not be disrated, as I was only a cabin-boy, but a substitutionary penalty was ...
— Windjammers and Sea Tramps • Walter Runciman
... uninitiated, stunt night at the Institute is without rime or reason, but not to those in charge who are looking ahead to Sunday. They know that the converging and cumulative psychic forces which the Institute invariably produces must be tempered, along about ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... reporting everything to the Chief of the community makes it certain that he was supplied with such current information as made his knowledge of public and private affairs appear miraculous to the uninitiated. Even those who supplied that information had firm faith in his supernatural power to kill or cure, and believed with equal ardour in the charms which he taught them to make ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray
... standardised two-seater biplanes manned by pilots and observers, whose training was superior to that afforded by any other nation, while the machines themselves were better equipped and fitted with accessories. All the early German aeroplanes were designated Taube by the uninitiated, and were formed with swept-back, curved wings very much resembling the wings of a bird. These had obvious disadvantages, but the standardisation of design and mass production of the German factories kept them in the field for ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... of Lord Lytton's Indian Administration was necessarily based upon the views—pro and con—expressed by the daily newspaper writers of the period, who wrote, of course, uninitiated in political affairs as a rule, and without those full expositions now embodied in many notable recent publications, official and other, foremost among which we would cite Lady Betty Balfour's History of his Indian Administration, published in ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... command. Within four minutes there was a line of battle on the western edge of the grove, and a charging column was in the road leading to the west, down which the patrols were galloping at a headlong pace. Pickets were rushing in, firing as they came. To the uninitiated it might have seemed a scene of dire confusion. In fact, it was one of perfect order and discipline. Even in the darkness each man knew just what to do and where to go, as he heard the bugle calls and the stern, brief, supplementary orders of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... time they had previously agreed among one another, that each guinea should stand for a shilling, or each hundred guineas for one: so that in fact two modes of calculation were used for the initiated and uninitiated; and this exoteric practice goes on continually to this hour, among literary performers in the intellectual, as well as among courtiers in ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... to attempt to relate the history of Elisabeth Farringdon without telling in some measure what her school-days did for her; and it would be equally futile to endeavour to convey to the uninitiated any idea of what that particular school meant—and still means—to all ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... yet another byway of book-collecting which we must study before we may graduate in book-lore. To the uninitiated the word 'bibliography' conveys little more than a mere writing about books. But it is a vast study, and, if we are to become proficient in it, one that will occupy us ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... we know, by superstition of a lower grade, the dread of having money of the murdered, a thought she never breathed to any but her husband; and to poor uninitiated Grace (who had not heard a word of Ben's adventure), her answer about Mrs. Quarles and Mr. Jennings in the dawn of the crock's first blessing, had been entirely unintelligible: Mary, then, said never a word, but looked on dreadingly ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... some time or other, by most American matrons, the world would wonder at their fortitude and perseverance. Not that difficulties like those of our friend, Mrs. Taylor, are of constant duration, but they occur oftener than the uninitiated are aware of. Yet even obstacles like these seem never to interfere with that constant intercourse, from tea-parties to visits of weeks, which are exchanged between all American families and their friends. But then no people in the world are more ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Professor Koken, of Tuebingen, in a learned pamphlet, lays it down that these flints of Gafsa belong to the Mesvinian, Strepyian, Praechellean—to say nothing of the Mousterian, Aurignacian, Solutrean, Magdalenian, and other types. So be it. He further says, what is more intelligible to the uninitiated, that a bed of hard conglomerate which crops up at Gafsa on either side of the Oued Baiesh, has been raised in days of yore; it was raised so slowly that the river found time to carve itself a bed through ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... to declare (though doubtless actuated by the basest motives of envy and jealousy) had been paid for out of the funds of the said Society; and which, notwithstanding such malicious assertions, waxed stronger as it grew. There was one noticeable feature of affairs at this juncture, that the uninitiated were at a loss to account for, and that was the studied neutrality maintained by the oracle of the village, who had been wont to utter his momentous decisions, upon the current topics of the day, through the medium of that "valuable" ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... him to tell a sympathetic lie. Would that the writers and speakers of plain English, and of their mother-tongue in every vernacular, might take example from the conscientious creator, who would not put a particle of cant into the crooked marks and ruled bars which are such a mystery to the uninitiated, blot with one demi-semi-quaver of falsehood his papers, or leave aught but truth of the heavenly sphere at a single point on any line! Then our sternest utterance with each other would be concord, our common questions and answers more melodiously ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... the benefit of the uninitiated, be it known that there is a certain curse employed by the Irish and by no other race on earth. Whenever you hear an Irishman employ it, you know instantly— provided, of course, you are Irish yourself—just what kind of Irish that Irishman is. You cannot mistake it. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... It is a common custom in the lower tribes to keep the sexes separate and to distinguish between the initiated and the uninitiated. There are often men's houses in which the young unmarried males are required to live.[880] Women and boys are forbidden to be present at ceremonies of initiation when, as in some instances, the secrets of the tribe are involved. Thus there arise frequently secret ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... most interesting country to the professor of the natural sciences. Great mineral treasures will certainly be one day discovered here; the number and diversity of its stones is striking even to the most uninitiated. It abounds in hot and salutary springs. To the botanist it offers great varieties of plants, little if at all known; and the zoologist would find here, amongst the animal tribes deserving his attention, besides several kinds of bears, wolves and foxes, the celebrated sable whose skin is ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... condition of affairs at some of our universities, colleges, and larger schools. The secret societies and student-organizations, with their initiations, feasts, and extravagant demonstrations, their harassing of the uninitiated, their despisal of municipal, collegiate, even parental authority, and their oftentime contempt and disregard of all social order, their not infrequent excesses and debauches, carry us back to their analogues in the ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... old men, but greatly conducive to the good appearance of Hiram's charity. On passing through this portal, never closed to anyone from 6 A.M. till 10 P.M., and never open afterwards, except on application to a huge, intricately hung mediaeval bell, the handle of which no uninitiated intruder can possibly find, the six doors of the old men's abodes are seen, and beyond them is a slight iron screen, through which the more happy portion of the Barchester elite pass into the Elysium ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... of the ships themselves, quick as a docile and intelligent animal to respond to the master's call, inspired affection and intensified professional enthusiasm. The exercises of sails and spars, under the varying exigencies of service, bewildering as they may have seemed to the uninitiated, to the appreciative possessed fascination, and were their own sufficient reward for the care lavished upon them. In their mute yet exact response was some compensation for external neglect; they were, so to say, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... as contributors to the literature of the nursery; and as for Bopp, Pott, Zeuss, Lassen, Diefenbach, and the rest, men who look upon the curse of Babel as the luckiest event in human annals, their names and works are terrors to the uninitiated. They are the giants of these latter days, of whom all we know is that they now and then snatch up some unhappy friend of ours and imprison him in their terrible castle of Nongtongpaw, whence, if he ever escape, he comes back to us emaciated, unintelligible, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... this kindly, genial lover, in an hour, into a coarse, inconsiderate drunkard. Confined for a week in their state-room on the steamer home with her husband, now a beast in drink, this poor, pure, uninitiated wife realized purgatory. Dark days were those next three years for them both. When sober, he was self-abased by the knowledge of the suffering of this woman he so truly loved, or was restlessly striving against desires which only alcohol could sate; while she was alternately fearing the ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... politeness that they punctiliously observed in other affairs of life. A running fire of contemptuous remarks and aggressive satire accompanied each move, and the mere record of the conversation would have given an uninitiated onlooker the puzzling impression that an easy and crushing victory was assured to ...
— When William Came • Saki
... known by these three letters, long a mystery to the uninitiated, but which, filled out and interpreted, signify that philosophy is the guide of life, is one of long standing, the annual meetings of which have called forth the best efforts of many distinguished scholars and thinkers. Rarely has any one of the annual addresses been listened to with such profound ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... mysteries to the uninitiated commits impiety The hierophant divulged the mysteries to the uninitiated The ...
— A Little Book of Stoicism • St George Stock
... For the uninitiated I have only to add, that "skip" is the Trinity College appellation for servant, which was therefore employed by Mr. Cudmore, on this occasion, as expressing more contemptuously his sense of the degradation of the office attempted to ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... slight a nature to warrant independent chapters, so the hero who indulges in the luxury of a 'knock-out' is more or less of a thief, and this company is, essentially, a very proper place in which to find him. A 'knock-out,' it may be briefly explained to the uninitiated, is a system by which two or more booksellers—or, for the matter of that, any other tradesmen—combine to procure certain books at a lower than normal auction value. An American paper stated, some time ago, and among many other remarkable things, that 'a private buyer ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... week in Brigade Reserve. Though the Battalion only got into billets at 1 a.m., after a four mile march, a working party had to be found at 8-30 a.m. for work on a Divisional show ground, which was a place where model trenches were dug to show the uninitiated how things ought to be done. Tasks like these were regarded as onerous by the men, who were led to expect some period of rest when not in ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... stranger's presence, nor does he suffer it either—unless the stranger is properly vouched for. The best theaters in Vienna are small, exclusive affairs, privately supported, and with seating capacity for a few chosen patrons. Once he has quit the public cafe with its fine music and its bad waiters the uninitiated traveler has a pretty lonesome time of it in Vienna. Until all hours he may roam the principal streets seeking that fillip of wickedness which will give zest to life and provide him with something to brag about when he gets back among the home folks again. He does ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... expects the same arts to win among city girls. This system of easy victory and of yearning for other worlds to conquer, instead of making him fit himself capably for a larger field, has, on account of this absurd fault of irresistibleness, only made him superficial. His crudeness is, to the uninitiated, almost pitiful. Having never been obliged to work for pre-eminence, he descries exertion, and never admits that he has to try hard to win anything. His cheap little accomplishments of singing—badly—possibly ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... they had to settle the haunts she was to revisit at Beauchastel. An invitation thither was the ostensible cause of the rapid break-up from the House Beautiful; but the truth was not so veiled but that there were many surmises among the uninitiated. Jane had caught something from my young Lord's demeanour which certified her, and made her so exceedingly proud and grand, that, though she was too honourable to breathe a word of her discovery, she walked ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... benignant expectancy. His white apron merely accentuated the obvious fact that he had come in a limousine. I have since decided that he mistook me for an eccentric peer. It seems that eccentric peers and struggling journalists are apt to provide the same air of sartorial abandon to the eye of the uninitiated. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, February 4, 1920 • Various
... lose you" he said, with a sudden gravity, and with eyes which, to the uninitiated, would undoubtedly have conveyed the impression that she was the whole world to him. "Besides," he added, as an after-thought, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... revelation. Itself is its own authority. The ultra-spiritualist contains within himself the fulness of the Godhead. He allows of nothing external, unless it be brother spirits like himself. He has abolished nature, and to the uninitiated seems to have abolished GOD himself, although I am charitable enough to believe that he has full faith in GOD, after his own fashion. He claims to be inspired; to be equal to JESUS; nay superior; for one of them lately said: 'Greater is the container than the contained, ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... By the uninitiated it may be regarded simply as fun and pastime to climb a mountain whose summit soars into cloudland; in reality it is serious business, not necessarily accompanied with great danger, but always accomplished by laborious effort. ...
— Birds of the Rockies • Leander Sylvester Keyser
... brother officer's opinion; and now began the terrible task of dragging out the closely fitted-in lading of the ship, so as to work right down to where the poor wretch had concealed himself. It seemed to Mark's uninitiated eyes to be a task which would take days, but the men set-to with willing hands under the first-mate's guidance, and package after package was hauled out by main force, and sent on to the deck above, till quite a cutting was ...
— Mother Carey's Chicken - Her Voyage to the Unknown Isle • George Manville Fenn
... To the uninitiated, words are powerless to reveal the torments of the imprisoned in a modern steel inquisition, rocking and pitching at the mercy of mighty torrents in a mid-ocean cyclone. Mephistopheles, seeking severest punishment for the damned, displayed tenderness in not adopting the ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... "Pentland," the one remaining "hired house," in which the Freshmen have their home with Dr. Mary Samuel, the Indian member of the staff, as their house mother. Just behind it is the thatched shed, carefully walled in, which serves as the dissecting room. To the uninitiated it is a place of gruesome smells and sights, for cadavers, whole or in fragments, litter the tables. The casual visitor sympathizes with the Hindu student who confides to you that during her first days of work in the dissecting ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... the necessary responses. Gregory sanctions the baptism of infants only where there is imminent danger of death. "It is better that they should be sanctified without their own sense of it than that they pass away unsealed and uninitiated." And he justifies his view by this, that circumcision, which foreshadowed the Christian seal ([Greek: sphragis]), was imposed on the eighth day on those who as yet had no use of reason. He also ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... as yet uninitiated into the elementary principia of the languages; well—the honor is still before you. ...
— The Poor Scholar - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... we again reached the steamer. We found her prepared for action, having been much annoyed during the night by the continued Dyak war-yells—sounds, to uninitiated ears, as unpleasant as those of musketry. Having driven away the two principal instigators and abettors of all the piracies committed along the coast of Borneo and elsewhere, and destroyed their strongholds, it now remained for us to punish the pirates themselves as far as lay in our power. ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... cultivate his acquaintance, and, on the following day, sent him a card of invitation. Lyttelton was an adept in the artifices of fashionable intrigue. He plainly perceived that both Mr. Robinson and myself were uninitiated in its mysteries; he knew that to undermine a wife's honour he must become master of the husband's confidence, and Mr. Robinson was too much pleased with the society of a man whose wit was only equalled by his profligacy, to shrink ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... general effect of the whole, we must own that we have many lessons to learn of our neighbours. Now in this quality Gibbon is a Frenchman. Not Voltaire himself is more perspicuous than Gibbon. Everything is in its place, and disposed in such apparently natural sequence that the uninitiated are apt to think the matter could not have been managed otherwise. It is a case, if there ever was one, of consummate art concealing every trace, not only of art, but even of effort. Of course the grasp and penetrating insight which are implied here, were part of ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... Her thin white feet in toeless stockings and sabots, well-worn woollen petticoat, black stuff jacket, headgear of an old black silk handkerchief, would have suggested anything but the truth to the uninitiated. Here also the unwary stranger might have fumbled for a spare coin. She had a kindly, intelligent face, and spoke volubly in patois, having very little command of French. It was, indeed, necessary for me to converse by the medium ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... re-writing, however, much of his work in the margin of the manuscript, and also adding to, and polishing, each chapter in proof, for no writer pays more attention to style and chiselled form than the man who has been called the French Dickens, and whose compositions, to the uninitiated, would seem to be ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... to Lucy. It so happened that the squire's carriage was the last to arrive; for the coachman, long uninitiated among the shades of Warlock into the dissipation of fashionable life, entered on his debut at Bath, with all the vigorous heat of matured passions for the first time released, into the festivities of the ale-house, and having a milder master than most of ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... quote from books as easily accessible as Green Bays; but is there a branch of the famous "Omar Khayyam Club" in Manchester? If there be, to it I offer this delicious morsel, only apologizing to the uninitiated reader for the pregnant allusiveness, which none but a ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... to the uninitiated despatch rider. Behind the two guns was a brigade of artillery in column of route on an exceedingly steep and narrow road. Guns firing in the open can be seen. If the Germans were to spot us, we shuddered to think what would become of the column ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... nightly, to the uninitiated, A peril—not indeed like Love or Marriage, But not the less for this to be depreciated: It is—I meant and mean not to disparage The show of Virtue even in the vitiated— It adds an outward grace unto their carriage— But to denounce the amphibious sort of harlot, Couleur ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... For the uninitiated man the question immediately presents itself: "What are you talking about? Why is mankind an organism, or similar to ...
— What To Do? - thoughts evoked by the census of Moscow • Count Lyof N. Tolstoi
... where she ate her dinner on market days. Of course she had been to the Metropole at Folkestone—whatever place Joanna visited, whether Brodnyx or Folkestone, she went to the best hotel—so she was not uninitiated in the mysteries of hotel menus and lifts and hall porters, and other phenomena that alarm the simple-minded; but that was many years ago, and it was more years still since she had slept away from Ansdore, out of her own big bed with its feather mattress and flowered curtains, ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... who will say, "What a fine fellow this is! we know what horrors he has endured, yet see, how little he makes of all his difficulties and hardships." Others have gone to the opposite extreme. I do not know that there is any use in trying to make a -18 deg. temperature appear formidable to an uninitiated reader by calling it fifty degrees of frost. I want to do neither of these things. I am not going to pretend that this was anything but a ghastly journey, made bearable and even pleasant to look back upon by the qualities of my two companions who ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... which is as yet not eradicated from his system, causes him, at times, days of the most excruciating pains all over the back and side of his head, and it is scarcely surprising that at such moments the emperor should act in a way which astonishes the uninitiated. Indeed, William II. displays extraordinary force of character in suppressing physical agony, when the duties he owes to the state force him to come forward when unfit for anything else but ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... Basque language is, in some respects, the most perfect that exists, from the unity of the verb which it preserves: its system of conjugation alone were enough, in his opinion, to make it an object worthy of study and admiration to all grammarians. To the uninitiated, the very opposite opinions of M. Mazure and M. Pierquin are somewhat amusing: the former insists that the Basque has nothing to do with Hebrew or Phoenician, but inclines to think it a lost African dialect, ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... trapping for beaver is no child's play. A person unaccustomed to it may possibly look upon it as no very difficult task. A single trial is usually sufficient to satisfy the uninitiated on this point; for, the beaver, above all other wild animals of America is endowed with an extraordinary amount of instinct. His handiwork ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... clothes. She was now a fashionable young woman, about whose dresses there was no question, who wore everything as those do who are at the fountain-head, no matter what it was she wore. Mrs. Dennistoun's eyes caught this difference at once, which is also indescribable to the uninitiated, and a sensation of pride came into her mind. Elinor was improved, too, in so many ways. Her mother had never thought of calling her anything more, even in her inmost thoughts, than very pretty, very sweet; but it seemed to ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... the fall campaign of 1845, the party fell back upon the old issues of the year before. To the astonishment of the Hunkers, however, the legislative session opened in January, 1846, with two Radicals to one Conservative. It looked to the uninitiated as if the policy of canal improvement had fallen into disfavour; but Croswell, and other Hunkers in the inner political circle, understood that a change, long foreseen by them, was rapidly approaching. The people of New York felt profound interest in the conflict between slavery ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... regarding the Boers and South Africa will be found interspersed in this study, which will be found of use to the uninitiated and to intending emigrants to that sub-continent. As the reader proceeds with the examination of this book it will suggest comparisons and even analogies which may commend themselves as singularly apposite and instructive in relation ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... left their last abode in a hurry. Even Miss Peyton's features might have been called untidy, if such a term could be used in connection with a countenance whose every line was aristocratic. As a rule that lady was able so to control her emotions that the uninitiated were ignorant of the fact that she had emotions. She gave one the impression on that morning in June of having packed her emotions hurriedly, as she had her clothes, and they were darting from her flashing eyes as ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... not a more fertile disease distributor, particularly in a new country, than water. The uninitiated generally take it for granted that so long as water looks clear it is necessarily pure and wholesome; as a matter of fact the contrary is more usually the case, except in very well watered countries, and such, as a rule, are not those in which gold is most plentifully got by the average ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... subjects past or present, such as would have occupied him even without the exigencies of his profession. They seemed to talk, not church, but shop, as if they did not look beyond proximate ecclesiastical details, which they discussed in technical terms startling to the uninitiated; and yet Felix trusted that Clement's soul was a good deal deeper and wider than his tongue, and that Ferdinand's, if narrow, was thoroughly resolute, finding in his enthusiasm for these details a counterpoise for the temptations ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... outward world believed her happy; many silly maidens, in moments of vanity, deemed they could have gained heaven if they were possessed of Madeleine's wealth, her jewels, her carriages, her dresses; but were the veils that shroud the hypocrisy of human joy raised for the warning of the uninitiated, many a noble heart like Madeleine's would show the blight of disappointment, with the thorns thick and sharp under the flowers that are strewn on their path. The sympathy of manhood, ever flung over the couch of suffering beauty, must hover in sighs of regret over the ill-fated Madeleine, ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... thrown wide open, and chilly linoleum to replace warm carpets, were rather a trial to the uninitiated, early in January, with deep snow on the ground and fires none too plentiful. In addition to these drawbacks I had another personal one. Coming in the middle of the winter, it was naturally Hobson's ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... remembered that this gulf-weed has not, as some of the uninitiated fancy from its name, anything to do with the Gulf Stream, along the southern edge of which we were steaming. Thrust away to the south by that great ocean-river, it lies in a vast eddy, or central pool of the Atlantic, between the Gulf Stream and the equatorial current, unmoved save by ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... letter today, as I returned from an extended trip through the west. I'm glad to hear that Marian is not suffering from Mekstrom's Disease. I am told that it is fatal to the—uninitiated. ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... totally unacquainted with elementary electrical principles can understand, and should therefore especially appeal to the lay reader. Especial interest attaches to the chapter on wireless telegraphy, a subject which is apt to 'floor' the uninitiated. The author reduces the subject to its simplest aspect, and describes the fundamental principles underlying the action of the coherer in language so simple that anyone ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... with our pretty captain, Miss Murray, and one of her attendant cavaliers, decided to pass away the time by playing a game—no trivial game, however; neither "consequences" nor fortune-telling, but an eminently scientific one entitled "Twenty Questions." For the benefit of the uninitiated I will remark that the oracle chooses a subject (silently), and the others are allowed to put twenty questions to him to enable them to divine it—usually commencing with "Is the object that you have in your mind to be found in the ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... order, method or punctuality, forgetfulness or carelessness—even hesitation of voice and manner—drove him mad; his temperament was like a fuse which a touch will explode, but the bomb did not kill, it hurt the uninitiated but it consumed its own sparks. My papa had no self- control, no possibility of learning it: it was an unknown science, like geometry or algebra, to him; and he had very little imagination. It was this combination—want of self-control and want ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... same way the first Bonaparte renewed his profession of faith in the Revolution at every convenient opportunity; and the second follows the precedent of his uncle, though the uninitiated fail to see any logical sequence from 1789 to 1815 or 1860. If Mr. Bell loves the Constitution, Mr. Breckinridge is equally fond; that Egeria of our statesmen could be "happy with either, were t' other dear charmer away." ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... believe that the Almighty has imbued many of His creatures, both animate and inanimate, with a subtle power for good or evil, and that it is given to some men to evoke that power and to bring about results which it is impossible for the uninitiated to foresee ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... signal to start just then, and we moved out. Hilda was standing in her doorway when we passed, and I thought she looked rather forlorn. She blew kisses to us, but Mr. Burton only saluted stiffly and looked away. I have often considered that to the uninitiated the ways of love ...
— More Tish • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... of the cruiser to make and shorten sail, since a ship manned by one or two hundred men may safely profit by the breeze to the last moment, while one manned by a dozen often loses hours of a favorable wind, from the weakness of her crew. This explanation will enable the otherwise uninitiated reader to understand the reason why Ludlow had hoped the coming squall would aid his ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... To the uninitiated regarding the "grousing" of camels, I should explain that it is a peculiar noise which comes from their long funnel necks early or late, and for what reason it is difficult to tell. Sometimes the sound is not ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... this transaction may seem to the uninitiated, it will appear quite clear to those who know. Manipulative tricks have always been worked in connection with stocks of which one man or one set of men has had complete control. It was no different from what subsequently was done with Erie, Standard Oil, Copper, ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... back-stays—which, for the benefit of the uninitiated, I may explain, were simply extra ropes intended to take a portion of the strain and so relieve the ordinary back-stays whenever it became necessary to carry a very heavy press of canvas—were already cut and fitted; all ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... logical sense and a large suite of specimens, who has not undergone pangs of the sort described in this vigorous paragraph, which might, with advantage, be printed on the title-page of every systematic monograph as a warning to the uninitiated?] were of no less importance to the author of the "Origin of Species" than was the bearing of the Cirripede work upon "the principles of a natural classification." (I. p. 81.) No one, as Darwin justly observes, has a "right to examine the question of ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... meet temporarily the spiritual needs of the uninitiated, preached a doctrine concerning good or bad Karma as the cause, and its retribution as the effect, in the three existences (of the past, the present, and the future). That is, one who commits the ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... cross-barred in gold, with little flowers and arabesques, &c. precisely resemble those in the MS. of Mr. Hibbert.[16] Such a white, snowy page, as the one just in part described, can scarcely be imagined by the uninitiated in ancient illuminated MSS. The binding, in boards covered with leather, has the original ornaments, of the time of Corvinus, which are now much faded. The fore-edges of the leaves preserve their former gilt-stamped ornaments. Upon the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... But, among the Yao of Central Africa, the initiator, observes Mr. Macdonald, "is said to give much good advice. His lectures condemn selfishness, and a selfish person is called mwisichana, that is, 'uninitiated.'" {74a} ...
— The Homeric Hymns - A New Prose Translation; and Essays, Literary and Mythological • Andrew Lang
... grew upon me that there was about it something quite out of the common way; that its four walls held within themselves some grim secret, the rites appertaining to which were gone through when I and the rest of the uninitiated were supposed to be in bed and asleep. I cannot tell what it was that first made me suspect the existence of this secret. Certainly not the midnight walks of Lady Chillington. Perhaps a certain impalpable atmosphere of mystery, which, striking keenly ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 2, February, 1891 • Various
... a dark curtain, though not long before the partitioned fields and colours of its upper slopes were clear as a mosaic; so insidiously, to the uninitiated, do the moods of this bay change. Our lady was at this moment bending solicitously towards her husband, whose head was in his hands. But he shook her off, turning away with a face not quite so proud as it had been, for its complexion had become that of a green canary's. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... he insisted that if he was to do anything he must question the robbed man and search his room at once. Oakley protested, but the detective was adamant. Even now the presence in the room of a man uninitiated into the mysteries of criminal methods might be destroying the last vestige of a really important clue. The master of the house had no alternative save to yield. Together they went to the artist's room. A light shone out through the crack ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... is called generically, of an Oxford college (his specific appellation varies almost with every college— principal, provost, master, rector, warden, etc.), is a greater man than the uninitiated suppose. His situation is generally felt as conferring a degree of rank not much less than episcopal; and, in fact, the head of Brazennose at that time, who happened to be the Bishop of Bangor, was not held to rank much ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... skillfully fixed the pack in place—adjusting the saddle with careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top, and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their march, also, would place Croesus first; which position—the novelist, again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight—is held by all who value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... be, and usually is, brimming with sympathy, but if he were to feel too deeply for all his patients, he would soon fail and die. He goes about his work. He puts through a half-dozen operations in a way that would send cold shivers down the back of the uninitiated. And yet he is accurate and sure as a machine. If he were to take each case upon his mind in a heavy, consequential way, if he were to give deep concern to each ligature he ties, and if he were to be constantly afraid of causing pain, he would be a poor surgeon. His work, instead ...
— The Untroubled Mind • Herbert J. Hall
... peculiar to themselves. Democracy, carried to its furthest limits, is therefore prejudicial to the art of government; and for this reason it is better adapted to a people already versed in the conduct of an administration than to a nation which is uninitiated in ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... within the beam itself, the solid figure of a man. It was not the first time that the apparition, under similar circumstances, had been seen by the rest of the household, but for him it bore a message of deeper mystery than for these uninitiated spiritualists; although in man's clothes, his observant eye recognised the face of the spirit; terrible and suggestive truth, it was the face of the vestal Virgin, who, far off in Calcutta, had fluidified in ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... wary walking." It is a trying course, this method, for the uninitiated. How it strains the mind by the very limitations it imposes on its outlook! How mysterious is this very sharp, and well-defined separation from all mystery! How giddy is this path that leads always so close over the unknowable! Giddy as that ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... uninitiated this might have been taken as a tribute to one of the boys, Westley, perhaps; but the Trainer was not even thinking of them. They were of no moment. It was the wine-red bay, The Dutchman, cantering with gentle, lazy grace, that had drawn forth this encomium. His head, somewhat ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... pupils were in almost unanimous opposition, because Mr. McNanly's unheralded advent at any one's house resulted frequently in the discovery that some favorite child had been playing "hookey," which means (I will say to the uninitiated, if any such there be) absenting one's self from school without permission, to go on a fishing or a swimming frolic. Such at least was my experience more than once, for Mr. McNanly particularly favored ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... upon the art of delivering and teaching of knowledge, the author lays down, in the most impressive terms, the necessity of a style which shall serve as a veil of tradition, imperceptible or impenetrable to the uninitiated, and admitting 'only such as have by the help of a master, attained to the interpretation of dark sayings, or are able by their own genius to enter within the veil'; and after having distributed under many heads, the secret of this method of scientific communication, he asserts distinctly ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... nescient; unknowing, unaware, unacquainted, unapprised, unapprized[obs3], unwitting, unweeting|, unconscious; witless, weetless[obs3]; a stranger to; unconversant[obs3]. uninformed, uncultivated, unversed, uninstructed, untaught, uninitiated, untutored, unschooled, misguided, unenlightened; Philistine; behind the age. shallow, superficial, green, rude, empty, half-learned, illiterate; unread, uninformed, uneducated, unlearned, unlettered, unbookish; empty- headed, dizzy, wooly-headed; pedantic; in the dark; benighted, belated; blinded, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... always been the evident implication of idealism; but the idealists, when confronted with this consequence, which is dialectically inconvenient, have never been troubled at heart by it, for at heart they accept it. To the uninitiated they have merely murmured, with a pitying smile and a wave of the hand: What! are you still troubled by that? Or if compelled to be so scholastic as to labour the point they have explained, as usual, that oneself cannot be the absolute because the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... are a few, and only a very few, we have the comfortable assurance that a meaning does lie in the passage, and may by industry be got at; that a faithful editor's industry had already got at it before passing on. A compendious useful Glossary is given; nearly adequate to help the uninitiated through: sometimes one wishes it had been a trifle larger; but, with a Spelman and Ducange at your elbow, how easy to have made it far too large! Notes are added, generally brief; sufficiently explanatory of most points. Lastly, a copious correct Index; which no such Book should want, and which ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... be remembered that hunting, unlike other forms of sport, has no written rules of its own for the guidance of the uninitiated. Every indulgence should therefore be shown to the hunting tyro who innocently commits errors; for in nine cases out of ten it is probable she does so, from ignorance of the unwritten laws which govern the ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... likewise a puzzle to the uninitiated. To Westerns, the brahmans[33] are best known as the priests of the Hindus; more correctly, however, the name brahman signifies not the performer of priestly duties, but the caste that possesses a monopoly of the performance. The brahman caste is the Hindu Tribe of Levi. ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... fellow ogled and gazed violently to be sure), but it was dumb in the presence of third parties; and so much the better, for of all the talk which takes place in this world, that of love-makers is surely, to the uninitiated, the most silly. It is the vocabulary without the key; it is the lamp without the flame. Let the respected reader look or think over some old love-letters that he (or she) has had and forgotten, and try them over again. How blank and meaningless they ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... uninitiated," said Cardinal Bernis, laughing; "some divinity may have taken a seat there, or perhaps it is a sphinx which will from thence give us the solution of her enigma. But let us see what belated guests are ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... an extent that the poor brute grunted and groaned under the apparently painful operation, and when fastened he seemed to be cut in two. This always appeared to be the very acme of cruelty to the uninitiated, but it is the secret of successful packing; the firmer the saddle, the more comfortably the mule can travel, with less risk of being chafed and bruised. The aparejo is furnished with a huge crupper, and this appendage is really the most cruel of all, for it is almost sure to ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... drippings, even for court bouillon—in fact for any liquid appertaining to or derived from a certain dish or food material. Now, if Apicius prescribes liquamen for the preparation of a meat or a vegetable, it is by no means clear to the uninitiated what he has in mind. In fact, in each case the term liquamen is subject to the interpretation of the experienced practitioner. Others than he would at once be confronted with an unsurmountable difficulty. ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... the Vedic sacrifices as well as we know the performance of our own sacred rites. If we placed the English Prayer-book in the hands of a stranger who had never assisted at an English service, we should find that, in spite of the simplicity and plainness of its language, it failed to convey to the uninitiated a clear idea of what he ought and what he ought not to do in church. The ancient Indian ceremonial, however, is one of the most artificial and complicated forms of worship that can well be imagined; and though its details are, no doubt, most minutely ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... important than the will was involved; indeed, if anything was clear, from the ambiguous sentence and the precaution that Ashiel had taken that though it fell into the hands of his enemies it should convey nothing to them, it was that he considered the mystification of the uninitiated a matter of transcendental importance. It was plain he contemplated the possibility of the Nihilists knowing where to look for his message; and at the thought Gimblet shifted uneasily in his chair, remembering his first encounter ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... of them lay a huddle of white, with darker stains splashed here and there on it. The body lay in an impossible posture—a posture which Nature neither intends nor permits. It told its own dreadful story, to the most uninitiated of the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... the members of which masquerade in petticoats of leaves and tall headdresses of wickerwork shaped like candle extinguishers, which descend to the shoulders of the wearers, completely concealing their faces. Thus disguised they dance about to the awe and terror, real or assumed, of the women and uninitiated, who take, or pretend to take, them for spirits. When lads are being initiated into the secrets of this august society, the adepts cut down some very large and heavy bamboos, one for each lad, and ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... life of the ploughman is familiar to our author, the work he has to do, and the mode of doing it well, and the reason why it should be done one way here, and another way there, are no less so. The uninitiated have no idea of the complicated patterns which the ploughman works, according to the nature of the soil and the season of the year in which he labours. He may be "gathering up—crown-and-furrow ploughing—casting, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... hand, our conviction is that human beings can develop their potential spiritual powers; that, if they do, no phenomenon will be impossible for their liberated wills, and that they will perform what, in the eyes of the uninitiated, will be much more wondrous than the materialized forms of the spiritualists. If proper training can render the muscular strength ten times greater, as in the cases of renowned athletes, I do not see why proper training should fail in the case of moral capacities. We have also good grounds ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... buy those heads of Lavender when he chose to paint them. He had achieved a great reputation by them. The good people liked to have a genius in their own set whom they had discovered, and who was only to be appreciated by persons of exceptional taste and penetration. Lavender, the uninitiated were assured, was a most cultivated and brilliant young man. He had composed some charming songs. He had written, from time to time, some quite delightful little poems, over which fair eyes had grown full and liquid. Who had not heard ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... nothing to the uninitiated, though Albinia detected a feverish restlessness and covert impatience, and judged that her sleep had been little. Genevieve's had perhaps been less, for she was very sallow, with sunken eyes, and her ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of John Sewell's epic history sit lightly on paper; easy words for Sewell, once the collection of data was over, to write; not very significant words for the uninitiated and casual reader who does not see the irresistible forces beneath them. But consider the full meaning of these words, and glance for a moment at the two figures conjured up by them. We see Hawk Carse, a man slender ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... followers. A current bit of slang in Memphis may be unintelligible in Pittsburg. A colloquial ephemeralism in a city may be undecipherable in the country districts twenty-five miles away. A large percentage of the athletic jargon of the sporting club and field is enigmatical to the uninitiated. And since a newspaper man writes for the world at large rather than for any specific class or group, he cannot afford to take chances on muddying his sentences by the use of slang. The best test of a good journalist ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... the box was an elaborate device in hieroglyphic characters, which could be readily understood when properly explained by the young designers, detailing the leading incidents of a celebrated picnic in the woods which once occurred; although, possibly the uninitiated might experience some little difficulty at first in discriminating between what were meant for the figures of the principal personages of the story and the objects of still life depicted in the drawing, though otherwise it was an ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... dancing is voted a bore by the handsomest couple in the room, and they sit apart, and the uninitiated think they are making love. And they talk so confidentially, and look so amused; they seem delighted with each other. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... first ice we saw, it soon appeared that the training of the uninitiated, like puppies, was to be a very formal and lengthy piece of business. Thanks to an immense deal of water, and very little ice, the steamers eventually towed the "Resolute" and the transport (a lively specimen ...
— Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal; • Sherard Osborn
... our fathers guarded in silence, averse from curious meddling and inquisitive investigation, having learned the lesson that the reverence of the mysteries is best preserved in silence? How was it proper to parade in public the teaching of those things which it was not permitted the uninitiated to look at? ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... canvas with the expedition of scene-painters, had classes, lectures, receptions, and exhibitions, made models of each other, and rendered their walls hideous with bad likenesses of all their friends. Their conversation ceased to be intelligible to the uninitiated, and they prattled prettily of "chiaro oscuro, French sauce, refraction of the angle of the eye, seventh spinus process, depth and juiciness of color, tender touch, and a good tone." Even in dress the artistic disorder was visible; ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... all the others, were certainly in connection with either the Phoenician or Egyptian systems, perhaps with both. Hence the old Cabeiric powers were soon made to answer to the corresponding popular divinities; and the lower triad was called by the uninitiated, Ceres, Vulcan or Pluto, and Proserpine, and the 'Cadmilos' became Mercury. It is not without ground that I direct your attention, under these circumstances, to the probable derivation of some portion of this most remarkable system from patriarchal ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge |
