"Observer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have a new Tschaikowsky,—no longer the subjective poet, but the painter with a certain Oriental luxuriance and grace. It is interesting to study the secret of this effect. The preluding strain lowers the tension of the storm of feeling and brings us to the attitude of the mere observer. The "movement of waltz" now has a new meaning, as of an apparition in gently gliding dance. The step is just sustained in leisurely strings. Above is the simple melodic trip of clarinet, where a ...
— Symphonies and Their Meaning; Third Series, Modern Symphonies • Philip H. Goepp
... observer has doubtless noticed that the front part of a locomotive rests upon the centre of a track, having four small wheels; the back and middle part, he will also remember, is borne upon large spoke wheels,—which are connected with the machinery; upon the size of these ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... speak advisedly. The blenny is altogether a singular, an exceptional fish. It can, and does, look sidewise, upwards and downwards, with its protruding eyes, as knowingly, and with as much vivacity, as if it were a human being. This power in a fish has something of the same awesome effect on an observer that might possibly result were a horse to raise its ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... new Cause, which they believed to be the paramount Cause for the political, economic, and social welfare of. their country. Nearly all of them were Idealists, eager to secure the victory of some special reform. And, no doubt, an impartial observer might have detected among them traces of that "lunatic fringe," which Roosevelt himself had long ago humorously remarked clung to the skirts of every reform. But the whole body, judged without prejudice, probably contained the largest number of disinterested, public-spirited, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... and more widely different antecedent conditions of the mineral framework of the earth; until, at length, in place of that framework, he would behold only a vast nebulous mass, representing the constituents of the sun and of the planetary bodies. Preceding the forms of life which now exist, our observer would see animals and plants not identical with them, but like them: increasing their differences with their antiquity, and at the same time becoming simpler and simpler; until, finally, the world of life would present nothing but that undifferentiated protoplasmic matter ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... Marquis de la Romans was a little swarthy man, of unprepossessing and rather common appearance; but he had a considerable share of talent and information. He had travelled in almost every part of Europe, and as he had been a close observer of all he saw his conversation was exceedingly ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... his surplice, with a pointed chin, and more eyebrows and lashes than most young babies possess, and with dark eyes that looked up at him with a certain intelligence, recognisable even to an unprejudiced observer. ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... seeing that her nervousness was not at all from being asked to sing. They sat quietly, she gazing off at the horizon, he fanning himself and studying her lovely young face. He was somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-five and a close observer would have suspected him of an unusual amount of experience, even for a good-looking, expansive youth ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... still resolute as far as the cigar was concerned. Raish lighted one himself and puffed briskly. To a keen observer he might have appeared a trifle nervous. Galusha was not a particularly keen observer and, moreover, he was nervous himself. If there had been no other reason, close proximity to a Raish Pulcifer cigar was, to a sensitive person, sufficient cause ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the voices faded away, Mallory IV could not move. Hearing the story the second time and, more important, hearing it from the standpoint of an observer, he had been able to identify it for what it really was—an excerpt from Le Morte d'Arthur. The Joseph of Arimathea bit had been an excerpt, too, he realized now, probably lifted word for word from ...
— A Knyght Ther Was • Robert F. Young
... significance could be named. One important character is that of the cranial sutures, which close much earlier in the negro than in higher races, thus checking the development of the brain while the body is still growing. To this many ascribe the mental inferiority of the negro race. A close observer records, as a result of long observation on the plantations of the southern United States, that "the negro children were sharp, intelligent, and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort ...
— Man And His Ancestor - A Study In Evolution • Charles Morris
... angle; and for an object so distant as the moon, the difference caused by the libration would, it is believed, be sufficient for the desired result. In the small pictures, however, the difference of angle is so slight, that to the unpractised observer they appear precisely alike; it is, nevertheless, essential to the effect that the variation, though minute, should exist. With respect to the pseudoscope—which makes the outside of a teacup appear as the inside, and the inside as the outside; which ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 426 - Volume 17, New Series, February 28, 1852 • Various
... had purposely been the last one to arrive at the trysting place, if such it may be termed; but he had been a close observer of the arrival of the others, nevertheless; and he accomplished that by arriving in the vicinity early in the day, and by later climbing among the boughs of one of the trees, from which perch he was enabled to watch the coming ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... the contrary, escaped (almost entirely, I think) the desecrating pen of the analytical or moralizing novelist, and remains one of the half-veiled mysteries of human good fortune, before which the observer passes quickly in shy admiration. The case is this: one of the parents has been unwilling, or disappointed; marriage has meant emptiness, or worse; and a nursery full of children has been, very likely, a mere occasion for ill-will and painful struggle. The poor soul has ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... very rash proceeding," Harry said. "It is true that Bajee has apparent liberty, and can have with him in his camp many of his friends; but a gathering of armed men can scarcely escape the eye of so keen an observer as Balloba." ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... behavior to each other scandalized no observer—not even the foreign maid, warranted against sea-sickness; nor Grandcourt's own experienced valet: still less the picturesque crew, who regarded them as a model couple in high life. Their companionship consisted chiefly in a well-bred silence. Grandcourt had ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... which indeed is the least of all seeds, but when it is grown it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." Any man who looks around him must acknowledge that we are going ahead, but notwithstanding this, every careful observer cannot fail to see that there is growing up in our land a large amount of sham, and hence, as Isaiah tells us, it would be well for us to look more frequently "into the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged." Let us not only ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... discovered who, by one means or another, can push the hardest. Not only in governments and political bodies but in every corporation, club, Dorcas society, base-ball league, church, and grocery store, the superficial observer sees what appears to be harmony and even brotherly unity; it is only the result of preliminary pushing matches by which the equilibrium of offensive and defensive qualities has been ascertained. And much that passes for domestic harmony is nothing but a prudent acquiescence in an arrangement ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... absolutely quiet, the only movements noticeable being around the field kitchens in the rear, which were being removed from the battle line. A half hour later any casual observer, glancing over the deserted fields might have laughed at the intimation that the earth around him was harboring thousands of men armed to their teeth, and that pandemonium of hell would break loose within an hour. Barely a sound was audible, ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... the enjoyment of the change in either case, a certain degree of patience is required from the hearer or observer. In the first case, he must be satisfied to endure with patience the recurrence of the great masses of sound or form, and to seek for entertainment in a careful watchfulness of the minor details. In the second ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... table, in the apartments appropriated to him in his father's house at Knightsbridge, sat Lord L'Estrange, sorting or destroying letters and papers,—an ordinary symptom of change of residence. There are certain trifles by which a shrewd observer may judge of a man's disposition. Thus, ranged on the table, with some elegance, but with soldier-like precision, were sundry little relics of former days, hallowed by some sentiment of memory, or perhaps ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... round, and if coarse the merriment, loud at least was the laugh that rang ever and anon from the old tent; and though, at moments, something in the guest's eye and lip might have seemed, to a very shrewd observer, a little wandering and absent, yet, upon the whole, he was almost as much at ease as the rest, and if he was not quite as talkative he was to ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... stones, were six or seven feet apart at the floor, which was paved with small boulders, but sloped so much toward each other that at the top their distance was less by about two and a half feet. Kirsty was, as I have said, a keen observer, and her power of seeing had been greatly developed through her constant conscientious endeavour to ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... heedful observer of all these passages, saw with alarm, that by the last collocation the armed Latins were interposed between the Immortal Guards and the discontented citizens, which made it most probable that the conspiracy was discovered, and that ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... said Dr. Desprez, 'I told you already you had the vices of philosophy; if you display the virtues also, I must go. I am a student of the blessed laws of health, an observer of plain and temperate nature in her common walks; and I cannot preserve my equanimity in presence of ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... on the stage of the microscope the platinum strip is brought into the field of a 1" objective, protected by a glass slip from the radiant heat. The observer is sheltered from the intense light at high temperatures by a wedge of tinted glass, which further can be used in photometrically estimating the temperature by using it to obtain extinction of the field. Once for all approximate estimations ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... of others carried her out of herself; and she rested not till she had relieved or comforted them. The warmth of her compassion often made her so diligent, that many things occurred to her, which might have escaped a less interested observer. ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... and indescribable emotion, at the sight of every distant cavalier, or at the sound of every horse's hoof upon the road towards the city. The warm blush, the speaking smile, the sparkling eyes, of both the lovely Bianca and the young soldier, would have been sufficient to convince the most casual observer that there existed the most decided case of a serious affection of the heart. Of course old Morelli's eyes had long before seen and made due report to his mind, as to what was the true state of his daughter's and the young nobleman's affection. Ever anxious for Bianca's happiness ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... letters, the surgeons stopped on their busy rounds to speak to the men or to watch for a few minutes the ever-changing panorama of the beach, with its background of patrolling gunboats, its engineers on rest playing football, its occasional aeroplanes, carrying each two men—a pilot and an observer. ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... attached to the wooden shaft. When the actor pretended to swallow this he merely held the stone point firmly between his teeth and forced the upper or plumed shaft down on the lower or wooden shaft. It was an excellent deception, and presented to the ordinary observer all the ...
— The Mountain Chant, A Navajo Ceremony • Washington Matthews
... the story told by one observer, but another—perhaps at a different period of the bombardment—speaks of well-dressed people "loitering in the boulevards as if nothing were going on. The cafes, indeed, were ordered to close their doors at midnight, but behind closed shutters went on gambling, drinking ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... renders it the more remarkable, and the great masters of chiaroscuro are accurate in all such minor points; a vague sense of greater truth results from this correctness, even when it is not in particulars analyzed or noted by the observer. In the small but very valuable Paul Potter in Lord Westminster's collection, the body of one of the sheep under the hedge is for the most part in shadow, but the sunlight touches the extremity of the back. ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... feature. Mrs. Goddard voted her as "a perfect fright," with her eyes concealed behind large, dark-blue glasses. She had been employed through the agent of an intelligence office, and had come highly recommended. A close observer would have noted many oddities about her; and Edith, coming suddenly upon her in her own apartment, had reason to suspect that the housekeeper was not what she seemed—in fact, that ...
— The Masked Bridal • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... fact, Orion Clemens had a keen appreciation of his own shortcomings, and would have enjoyed himself in a play as much as any observer of it. Indeed, it is more than likely that he would have been pleased at the thought of such distinguished dramatization. From the next letter one might almost conclude that he had received a hint of this plan, and was bent upon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... interests or wishes of any of the states conflicted with the interests or wishes of the Union. That the national sentiment could grow at all rapidly, considering the maturity of the communities which composed the Union and the differences of origin, creed, and manners which separated them, no calm observer of human nature would believe ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... night, devoted the most zealous attention. Marie had been made to look much older than she was. A few dark lines carefully traced on her forehead, at the corners of her eyes and mouth, had added many years to her appearance, and she could have passed, except to the closest observer, as the mother of Virginie, whose dress was calculated to make her look even younger than she was. The hands and faces of all three had been slightly tinged with brown to give them a sun-burnt aspect in accordance with their peasant dresses, and so ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty
... questioning. She was brought suddenly to a standstill at this terrible moment, and sat turning her dauntless little face to the new trial before her, pale, but undismayed. Nettie did not deceive herself even in her thoughts. She saw, with the intuitive foresight of a keen observer, her sister's violent momentary grief, her indolent acceptance of the position after a while, the selfish reserve of repining and discontent which Susan would establish in the memory of poor Fred: she saw how, with fuller certainty than ever, because now more ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... nominal power. The ascendant wife seldom tells her husband in so many words that his opinion in the house is to go for nothing; she merely resolves that such shall be the case, and acts accordingly. An observer could not but perceive that in those days Congress was taking upon itself the part, not exactly of an obedient husband, but of a husband vainly attempting to assert his supremacy. "I have got to learn," ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... these diseases as bearing a closer analogy to each other than has hitherto been admitted. I do not pretend to assert that they are the same disease, but only that they are so nearly allied, as on some occasion, to lead even an experienced observer into an error of diagnosis. The great difference between them consists in the frequency of the affection of the lymphatic glands in the plague, and its comparative rareness in yellow fever; and in the greater predominance of gastric symptoms in the ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... observer as Burroughs or Thoreau should not have credited the carrion-flower with being something more intelligent than a mere repellent freak! Like the Purple Trillium, it has deliberately adapted itself to please its benefactors, the little ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... concealed by the darkness; his wife and her sister had both grown stout steadily as they grew older, but each insisted upon the other's greater magnitude and consequent incapacity for quick movement. A casual observer would not have been persuaded that there was a pound's weight ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... this matter is the most competent of judges, intimates that Godkin's foreign education, giving him detachment and perspective, was a distinct advantage. If it will help any one to a better appreciation of the man, let Godkin be regarded as "a chiel amang us takin' notes"; as an observer not so philosophic as Tocqueville, not so genial and sympathetic as Bryce. Yet, whether we look upon him as an Irishman, an Englishman, or an American, let us rejoice that he cast his lot with us, and that we have had the benefit of his illuminating pen. ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... to remember and to take into account the nature of Philip's position at this moment. For neither are his affairs at present in such good order, or in so perfectly satisfactory a state, as might appear to any but a careful observer; nor would he ever have commenced this present war, if he had thought that he would really have to fight. He hoped at first that by his mere advance he would carry all before him; and he has since discovered his mistake. This disappointment, then, is the first thing which ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... error and delusion, and also ignorance. They that dwell in goodness go on high; they that are addicted to passion dwell in the middle; (while) they that are of darkness, being addicted to the lowest quality, go down. When an observer recognises none else to be an agent save the qualities, and knows that which is beyond (the qualities), he attaineth to my nature. The embodied [soul], by transcending these three qualities which constitute the source of all bodies, enjoyeth immortality, being freed from birth, death, decrepitude, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... free from all accidental ornament. So it will be with this Commentary, in which will be seen the facility of the syllables, the propriety of the conditions, and the sweet orations which are made in our Mother Tongue, which a good observer will perceive to be full of most sweet and most amiable beauty. But, since it is most determined in its intention to show the error and the malice of the accuser, I will tell, to the confusion of those who accuse the Italian ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... deeply interested observer of the operations of the young engineers, and her heart had bounded with emotions of joy, in unison with theirs, when she saw the steamer rise to the surface of ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... is of the past, and it seems like a dream of by-gone days. When I visited it on two occasions, in company with friends, it was a quiet place enough; and the casual observer could never have thought or realised that around this romantic spot fortunes made by hard toil of weary months and years had been lost in a few short hours in the saloon and gambling places for which the vicinity was noted, that the worst passions of the human ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... crushed under the weight of the second and third, but upheld by the strong wall of the ground floor. At first sight it would seem as though the piers between the windows, though strengthened by the stone mullions, must give way, but the observer presently perceives that, as in the tower at Bologna, the old bricks and old time-eaten stones of this house persistently preserve their ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... the child is six months old can the observer distinguish between blindness and idiocy. The blind child of course will not fix his eyes upon any object; but the general lassitude and the inability to hold up its head, while seen in idiocy, ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... clusters growing on the branches of the oaks sometimes give the entire forest a yellow hue. In the foot-hills I saw a kind of parasite, whose straight, limber branches of a fresh, dark green colour hang down in bunches over twenty feet in length. Some epiphytes, which most of the year look to the casual observer like so many tufts of hay on the branches, produce at certain seasons extremely ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... an ebb and flood tide, of unusual extent, within half-an-hour. At another, a belt of land, including a burying-ground, was washed away, so that according to the observer "it appeared as if the dead had sought shelter with the living in a neighbouring cocoa-nut garden!" Elsewhere the tides were seen to advance and recede ten or twelve times—in one case ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... decidedly handsome woman. The corpulent lawyer had subsided into the sleek, well-conditioned country gentleman. But there was at times a certain restlessness of the eye, and a nervous twitching at the corners of the mouth, which, to a keen observer, would indicate that he was not always the quiet, self-possessed person that he would have his neighbors to believe. The business on which they had met had been interrupted by the entrance of a servant with a note to Sir Ralph, but, on his leaving ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... judgment, and I do not see that it implies any inferiority on his part. It is not as if he ever aimed at the methods of the precisians and failed, as if it was his desire to be a 'correct' writer, a careful observer of proportion and construction, a producer of artful felicities in metre, rhythm, rhyme, phrase. We may yield to no one in the delight of tracing the exact correspondence of strophe and antistrophe in a Greek chorus, the subtle vowel-music of ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... that the piece which formed the bottom of the frame was indeed detached at both corners and ready to fall away, but he pushed it back into position with his hand till it stuck in its place, and left little damage apparent to a casual observer. ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... Tarrano's beam was curved. It lay over the lake in a huge bow, bending far out to one side. Yet its other end fell upon the hostile house. The white search-ray from the house was submerged, bent outward with Tarrano's beam. From the house, the observer could only gaze along this curved light. He saw the image of the boat—not where the boat really was—but as though ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... retaining a simplicity and freshness of its own: these and other features in the progress of the United States for over a century may be found expressed in its literature from the native standpoint, and not merely from that of the intelligent outside observer. ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... that his writings are more like life than life itself. Of Frank Reynolds, with gently satirical pen and pencil depicting the superficial humours of modern life, it might be said that his drawings, too, are more humanly natural than real flesh and blood. It is the peculiar faculty of the true observer that his eye pierces straight to the heart of what he sees, and his mind, disregarding mere detail, thereby receives and retains a clear perception of the essential, which those of less clear and direct vision fail to grasp more than momentarily, though they hail it with instant recognition ...
— Frank Reynolds, R.I. • A.E. Johnson
... attracted by his looks; and, being a close observer, she soon noted that, though he talked about laboratory matters with Morton, and was ready to joke or sing with Molly and the two older young ladies present, yet every time Sara addressed him, he turned to answer with an eagerly respectful air, different from the rather careless manner ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... receiver. The lens throws a distant image on the exploring disc of the transmitter, through which it acts on a photo-electric cell sensitive to invisible infra-red rays. The receiver amplifies it for the observer. ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... Six persons died on the way, five turned back, fifteen went to California, and those who held their course towards Oregon endured hardships and privations which tasked their fortitude to the uttermost. Mr. Burnett surveyed the scenes of the wilderness with the eye of an intelligent and sympathetic observer. Many of his remarks upon the phenomena of those untrodden plains are of unusual interest, whether he is discoursing upon animate ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton
... graves. Everything was silent except the leaves of the trees, which were gently agitated by the wind; the night was nearly dark, and the scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested observer. The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to cast a shadow, which was felt but not seen, around the ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... read Mrs. Trollope's work on America, or I should have comprehended at once the cause of her indignation; for she was just such a person as would have drawn forth the keen satire of that far-seeing observer of the absurdities of our nature, whose witty exposure of American affectation has done more towards producing a reform in that respect, than would have resulted from a thousand grave ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... tranquilly over the great city, and the rattling of vehicles was heard in some of the streets, where men were going to their places of business. In a large portion of it everything wore its usual air of tranquillity, yet a close observer would notice an uneasiness resting on the countenances of men. Furtive glances were cast down side streets, and people seemed on the watch, as though in expectation of something to come, and the very atmosphere appeared laden with evil omens. Around police head-quarters, ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... introduce you if you said all this to her. How could she? As for me, I am hands off; it is none of my business anyway," she said. "But, if you will pardon a word of warning at the outset from an unprejudiced observer—what makes you expect to win, over Stephen Archdale's head? He is a strong rival and first ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... necessary to enumerate, as accurately as we can, the elementary sounds of the language; and to attend carefully to the manner in which these sounds are enunciated, as well as to the characters by which they are represented. The most unconcerned observer cannot but perceive that there are certain differences in the sounds, as well as in the shapes, of the letters; and yet under what heads they ought severally to be classed, or how many of them will ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... them he first observed it; they proclaimed it with complete humility—his companion was moved to speculate on the mysteries of transmission, the far jumps of heredity. Where his detachment from most of the things they represented had come from was more than an observer could say—it certainly had burrowed under two ...
— The Pupil • Henry James
... watchman's rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks occurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden a man that he seemed to have taken his wooden leg naturally, and rather suggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expected—if his development received no untimely check—to be completely set up with a pair of wooden ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... had remained an amused observer of the whole scene, though the actors in it had apparently forgotten her presence. To remind them of this, she inquired, "Children, will you please tell me how much your ...
— A Sunny Little Lass • Evelyn Raymond
... close to his father, and placed his hand on the pack. Old Mr. Suggs looked in Simon's eye, and Simon returned the look for about three seconds, during which a close observer might have detected a suspicious working of the wrist of the hand on the cards, but the elder Suggs did not ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... as they gazed at this conclusive evidence of Nature's bounty. The gold had been there—THEY had only missed it! And if there, more could be found! Was it not a proof of the richness of Heavy Tree Hill? So strongly was this reflected on their faces that a casual observer, contrasting them with the thoughtful countenances of the real owners, would have thought them the lucky ones. It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, it made Demorest more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt. Whiskey Dick ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... didn't say anything pleasant to her," Ruth rejoined, for she was a keen observer. "I shouldn't wonder if that ...
— Ruth Fielding in the Great Northwest - Or, The Indian Girl Star of the Movies • Alice B. Emerson
... freedom may well congratulate each other on the appearance of the following Narrative. It adds another volume to the rapidly increasing anti-slavery literature of the age. It has been remarked by a close observer of human nature, "Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws;" and it may with equal truth be said, that, among a reading people like our own, their books will at least give character ...
— The Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave • William Wells Brown
... categories:—people whom he likes {91} and people whom he doesn't. The boy of ten has increased these two classes to six or eight. The young man of twenty finds a few more, and begins to suspect that men who act alike may not have the same motives and emotions. But as the keen-eyed observer nears middle age, he begins to realize that no two souls are exact duplicates of each other; and that behind every human eye there lies an undiscovered country, as mysterious, as fascinating, as that which Alice found behind the looking-glass,—a country ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... parties were assembled, to all appearance, with a view, the one to perform in, the other to witness, the active sports we have enumerated, a close observer of the movements of all would hare perceived there was something more important in contemplation, to the enactment of which these exercises were but a prelude. Both officers, and men, and even the participators ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... consider that I was depreciating this man in the estimation of his Sovereign, and thought it was time for me to say something that might be more favorable." He added, therefore, that Dr. Hill was notwithstanding a very curious observer; and if he would have been contented to tell the world no more than he knew, he might have been a very considerable man, and needed not to have recourse to such mean expedients ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... was apparently a passenger from some lately arrived steamboat; but even to the trained eye of so acute an observer as Mr. Sonneschein he presented difficulties in the way of classification. Only temporarily, however. The long-tailed coat and the wide-brimmed, soft felt hat were the insignia of the down-river, back-country planter, and the merchant ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... have been in civilisation, humorous as a clown in a circus; but seeing it here, solitary, exotic, no observer would have laughed. Fear, mortal dogging fear, impersonate, supreme, was in every look, every action. Somewhere back of that curved line where met the earth and sky, lurked death. Nothing else would have been adequate to arouse this ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... other, and the stars would be larger there. The earth is but a point in comparison to the heavens, because the stars appear of the same magnitude and at the same distance inter se, no matter where the observer goes on the earth. It has no motion of translation.... If there were a motion, it would be proportionate to the great mass of the earth and would leave behind animals and objects thrown into the air. This also disproves the suggestion made by some, that the ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... to jot down a few autobiographic odds and ends from such data of record and memory as I may retain. I have been something of a student of life; an observer of men and women and affairs; an appraiser of their character, their conduct, and, on occasion, of their motives. Thus, a kind of instinct, which bred a tendency and grew to a habit, has led me into many and diverse companies, the lowest not always ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... the occasion of her smiles, he cried abruptly, and not without confusion: "Ah! you were the amused observer of my farce in wading across from the ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... group in which we may observe "social control" is in a herd or a flock. The behavior of a herd of cattle is, to be sure, not so uniform nor so simple a matter as it seems to the casual observer, but it may be very properly taken as an illustration of the sort of follow-the-leader uniformity that is more or less characteristic of all social groups. We call the disposition to live in the herd and to move in masses, gregariousness, ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... necessary to their growth; and if they do not find them in the soil, they will not grow. It is now a familiar fact, that, when an old forest of deciduous trees has been felled, evergreens will spring up in their places. The old oaks, hickories, and beeches, as any observer would discover, pass their last years in repose, simply putting out their leaves and bearing a little fruit every year, but making hardly any new wood. An oak may attain to nearly its full size, in spread of branches, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... truth, for which the name Seekerism was invented by himself or others. Though he did not propose that preaching should be abandoned, he had gradually settled in a notion which he thus expresses: "In the poor small span of my life, I desired to have been a diligent and constant observer, and have been myself many ways engaged, in city, in country, in court, in schools, in universities, in churches, in Old and New England, and yet cannot, in the holy presence of God, bring in the result of a satisfying discovery that either the begetting ministry of the apostles ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... looking-glass and carefully surveyed her hair, pulling it out here, tucking it in there, patting it into position with those deft little touches which come naturally to a girl, but which seem so mysterious to a masculine observer. ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... A keen observer of those days will tell you that Mr. Stephens would begin his talk to the jury with calmness and build upon his opening until he warmed up into eloquence; but that Mr. Toombs would plunge immediately ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... more than an observer. Orders were sent direct to the right wing or reserve, ignoring me, and advances were made from one line of intrenchments to another without notifying me. My position was so embarrassing in fact that I made several applications during the siege to ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... The Countess was attached to a very powerful party, not only at Court but scattered throughout the kingdom. Her discontent arose from the circumstance of no longer having to take her orders from the Queen direct, but from her superintendent. Ridiculous as this may seem to an impartial observer, it created one of the most powerful hostilities against which Her ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Sieyes, an experienced observer of such scenes, was still on horseback in the court, and quickly re-assured him. General Augereau came up but a moment afterwards, and said, "You have brought yourself into a pretty situation." "Augereau," answered Napoleon ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... determined, at the same time, not to indulge in a scene. He embraced his sister with tenderness, assured her that she looked as young as ever, softly chided her for not making his house her home, and hoped that they should never part again; and he then turned to his niece. A fine observer, one less interested in the scene than the only witnesses, might have detected in the Earl, notwithstanding his experienced breeding, no ordinary surprise and gratification at the sight of the individual whose relationship he was now to claim for ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... siliceous or sandy material. They are visible only through the microscope, and are so small that thousands of them might be gathered together on the head of a pin. They are so like chemical crystals that it requires a shrewd and careful observer to distinguish them. And yet they are alive, and perform ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... courageous, and vitally intelligent. Nor as his enemies have chronicled him, short, fat and intensely stupid. I will endeavour with a few brief flourishes of the pen, to portray the various intricacies of his character as I see them, clearly and dispassionately with the eyes of a psychological observer, whose hand is uncorrupted by the bribes of ruthless profiteers, grafters and ...
— Terribly Intimate Portraits • Noel Coward
... will regret this multiplication of schemes of juvenile culture, the catholic observer will discern in it a means of ensuring the final establishment of a rational system. Whatever may be thought of theological dissent, it is clear that dissent in education results in facilitating inquiry by the division in labour. ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... and bookseller. There was first Samuel Stephens, who came out in the first ship for the South Australian Company, and married a fellow passenger, Charlotte Hudson Beare, and died two years after, and then Edward, manager of the South Australian Bank, and later, John Stephens who founded The Weekly Observer, and afterwards bought The Register. These all belonged to a ...
— An Autobiography • Catherine Helen Spence
... to his feet, and, to his inexpressible dismay, saw the figure of a tall monk gliding away. Throwing a meaning look at the almost sinking queen, he followed the mysterious observer into the great hall, determined to rid himself of him in some way before he should have time ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... from the shock of these terrible events. Of a courageous and energetic disposition, he pursued the duties of his profession with a firm step, and hid his mighty sorrow deep in the recesses of his heart. To the superficial observer, tears, groans, and lamentations are the only proofs of sorrow: and when they subside, the sorrow is said to have passed away also. Thus the captive, immured within the walls of his prison-house, is as one dead to the outward world, though the gaoler be a daily ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... thither in the neutral territory, on their petit errands. His face was different. It was the well kept face of an English aristocrat with handsome dark eyes and hair beginning to turn gray. Still, shadowed by the brim of the old hat, his face was not likely to attract much attention from the casual observer. The handsome mare he rode was a help in this matter. She took and held the eyes of those who passed him. He went on unchallenged. A little past the hour of the high sun he stopped to drink at a wayside spring and to give his horse some oats out of one of the saddle-bags. It was then that a ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... character of England. Page himself attributed the popularity of his house to his wife. Mrs. Page certainly embodied the traits most desirable in the Ambassadress of a great Republic. A woman of cultivation, a tireless reader, a close observer of people and events and a shrewd commentator upon them, she also had an unobtrusive dignity, a penetrating sympathy, and a capacity for human association, which, while more restrained and more placid than that ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... Gen. Saxton; is already uniformed and armed, and has been actively drilling for the last seven weeks. A letter which we printed on Wednesday from our Special Correspondent, who is usually well qualified to judge of its military proficiency, says of this regiment that no honest-minded, unprejudiced observer could come to any other conclusion than that it had attained a remarkable proficiency in the short period during which it had been drilled. We have in addition from an officer of the regiment, who is thoroughly informed as to its ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... entertain his friends at his apartment in not a very quiet way. He was so happy, and bulbous, and jolly, that he had never thought of marriage. Yet he might easily have been mistaken by the casual observer for a family man. He wore a white vest when it wasn't too cold; his linen was painfully plain. There was not a sign of jewelry about him. He wore low shoes, which he tied with a ribbon. This ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... from Miss Martin's approached the field, the critical observer could mark the difference between these girls and those from the home team. Long hikes, sensible clothing and food, and two weeks at the Scout camp with exposure to all kinds of weather, had hardened Miss Allen's girls and added something almost boyish to their bearing. And in Marjorie ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... to him good and plenty," a sympathetic observer would afterward relate. "I don't know what the fuss was about but I didn't interfere for I'll wager Hal was ...
— Carl and the Cotton Gin • Sara Ware Bassett
... and insensibly, that the pleasure of observing and reasoning was a much higher one than that of skill and sport. That my mind became developed through my pursuits during the voyage is rendered probable by a remark made by my father, who was the most acute observer whom I ever saw, of a sceptical disposition, and far from being a believer in phrenology; for on first seeing me after the voyage, he turned round to my sisters, and exclaimed, "Why, the shape of his head is ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... The corners of his lips were twitching in a curious way. Dr. O'Grady looked at him suspiciously. A casual observer might have supposed that Mr. Billing was ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... for a long time on the cone, the summit of which he wished to reach the next day. The mountain, situated about six miles to the northwest, appeared to him to measure 3,500 feet above the level of the sea. Consequently the gaze of an observer posted on its summit would extend over a radius of at least fifty miles. Therefore it was probable that Harding could easily solve the question of "island or continent," to which he attached so ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne
... received her from her father, without having ever availed to learn who he was, otherwise than as she had heard from himself, was purposed to marry her honourably according to that condition whereof she deemed her. But God, who is a just observer of folk's deserts, knowing her to be of noble birth and to bear, without fault, the penalty of another's sin, ordained otherwise, and fain must we believe that He of His benignity permitted that which came to pass to the end that the gentle damsel might not ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Betty—but I'm not in this one, thank you. Besides, you're mistaken. I'm only an intelligent observer and reporter of events. I've never had the will to ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... madam," said the lawyer, looking Arthur over with the quick glance of a ready observer. Before he could go on to do as he was bidden I found my chance to say, "You will be so good, Mr. Wilson, as to state Mr. Owen Wynne's case, as well as our own, with entire frankness; we have no desire to wrong any, and least of all one ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... dropped the end into the fire and walked back to his seat. The five pairs of eyes again turned as he turned. He stumbled at a crack in the floor, fell against the table with a clatter of his sword, and rolled noisily into his seat. When he sat down a careful observer might have noticed that his pistol was now at ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason
... the heaven, whose host they are, were used by the Hebrew writers to express the superlatives of number, of height, and of expanse. To an observer, watching the heavens at any particular time and place, not more than some two thousand stars are separately visible to the unassisted sight. But it was evident to the Hebrew, as it is to any one to-day, that the stars separately visible do not by any means make up their whole ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... way and nine and a quarter the other, and you will get an idea of the diminutiveness of the Liberator on the day of its birth. The very paper on which it was printed was procured on credit. To the ordinary observer it must have seemed such a weakling as was certain to perish from inanition in the first few months of its struggle for existence in the world of journalism. It was domiciled during successive periods in four different rooms of the Merchant's Hall building, ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... life, we working men; so that we want to see a bit of green sward and a flower or two on Sundays. There is a capital gymnasium, and our observation of the young men who disport themselves there would lead an uninitiated observer to form the opinion that the normal condition of humanity was upside down. The way one youthful workman hung by his legs on the trapeze was positively Darwinian to behold. Swings attracted the attention of the ladies; and I regret to say that the particular young lady I ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... deep-set, earnest grey eyes of his, was silently watching his friend. His hand did not shake, nor did the breath come any quicker from his broad chest. Yet deep down behind the wide brow, behind those same overshadowed eyes, a keen observer would of a surety have detected the signs of a latent volcano of passions, all the more strong and virile as they were kept in perfect control. It was he who presently broke the silence, and his voice ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... words followed, in which hatred or prejudice on the one side and wholesale, undiscriminating laudation on the other, alike tended to obscure the truth. It is now almost impossible to see the real Poe, just as he appeared to an ordinary, unprejudiced observer of his own time. Only by the most careful, thoughtful, and sympathetic study can we hope to approximate such ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... of those countries, to convince us that our court was always little respected by its ill choice of this ambassador. His character is hit off by one master-stroke from the pencil of Hume: "He had," says this penetrating observer of men, "English familiarity and French levity;" so that he was in full possession of two of the most offensive ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... which he played off, because he knew he could do so without detection. The basis, however, of his character was shrewd humor and good sense; and even at the stage of life which we have just described, it might have been evident to a close observer that, when a proper knowledge of his own powers, joined to a further acquaintance with the world, should enable him to cast off the boyish assumption of pedantry, a man of a keen, ready intellect and ...
— Going To Maynooth - Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of - William Carleton, Volume Three • William Carleton
... I do," retorted the unabashed Marlow. "You make it your business to know them—don't you? You go about a lot amongst all sorts of people. You are a tolerably honest observer. Well, just try to remember how many instances of compunction you have seen. I am ready to take your bare word for it. Compunction! Have you ever seen as much as its shadow? Have you ever? Just a shadow—a passing shadow! ...
— Chance • Joseph Conrad
... Christian writers scarcely ever rises beyond the level of a sensual passion,[3] becomes transfigured into a profound emotion touching the deepest roots of a man's nature, and acting as an incentive to noble conduct; and, closely connected with this, the influence of external nature upon the observer begins for the first time to be recognised and to form a subject for poetical treatment.[4] Horace has several charming descriptions of the sights and sounds of spring; but they suggest to him merely that life is short, or that he is thirsty, and in either case ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... astronomical chronograph is an instrument whereby an observer is enabled to register the time of transit of a star on a sheet of paper attached to a revolving cylinder. A metal cylinder covered with a sheet of paper is rotated by clockwork controlled by a conical pendulum, or by a centrifugal clock governor such as is used for driving ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... it may be that only 4 out of 10 persons, instead of 7, will discover the substitution, while if we take 4 cards instead of 6, perhaps 9 persons out of 10 will recognize the difference under these otherwise equal conditions. Only an especially careless observer will overlook it. But instead of changing the number of objects, we may change the periods of exposure. If we show the 6 cards only for 2 seconds instead of 5 seconds, the number of those who recognize the difference may sink from 7 to 5 or 4, and if we make the time considerably ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... the garden a mirthful ecstasy ran through all the blood of her culprit observer and he drank to her only with his eyes. Against the window's brightness her dark outline showed true, and every smallest strand of her hair that played along the contours of brow and head changed his merriment to reverence and bade his heart recognize how infinitely distant from his ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... war wonder. The solid practical accomplishments have been lost sight of in the weird or the spectacular. People who marveled when a British plane climbed up nearly six miles into the air, or 30,000 feet, where its engine refused to run and its observer fainted, failed generally to analyze what the invasion of this new element would mean in ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... surrounding trees, there to whistle and indulge in a "shiveree," such as is dear to the heart of the excitable, social starling. And our thrush was standing motionless in the middle of the swept circle on the lawn almost at once. No one saw him go there. Indeed, unless the observer looked closely, no one saw him at all, for even then he was, unless he moved, difficult to see, and, whatever had been his custom before, in those days he ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... the welfare and progress of the Philippines, may be that here and there we have gone too rapidly in giving them local self-government. It is on this side that our error, if any, has been committed. No competent observer, sincerely desirous of finding out the facts and influenced only by a desire for the welfare of the natives, can assert that we have not gone far enough. We have gone to the very verge of safety in hastening ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... THAT ORDINARY RULES OF EVIDENCE APPLY.—What I am going to say in this section is closely related to what has been said just above. To the disinterested observer it may seem rather amusing that one should think it worth while to try to show that we have not the right to use a special set of weights and measures when we are dealing with things philosophical. There was a time when men held that a given doctrine could be philosophically ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... just arrived," he announced, and he stood fidgeting, standing first on one foot, then on the other, and running his hand through his mane of gray hair. His large features were pale, and any close observer would have detected the quiver ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... frequent talker, rarely silent. Too much devoted to divination, so much so as in this particular to equal the emperor Adrian. He was rather a superstitious than a legitimate observer of sacred rites, sacrificing countless numbers of victims; so that it was reckoned that if he had returned from the Parthians there would have been a scarcity of cattle. Like the celebrated case of Marcus ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... void of blood. Here, too, Odytes, the next in rank among the followers of Cepheus, after the king, lies prostrate under the sword of Clymenus; Hypseus kills Protenor, {and} Lyncides Hypseus. There is, too, among them the aged Emathion, an observer of justice, and a fearer of the Gods; as his years prevent him from fighting, he engages by talking, and he condemns and utters imprecations against their accursed arms. As he clings to the altars[11] with trembling hands, Chromis cuts off his head with his sword, which straightway falls upon ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... her intuitions to be correct. You must not think, from this statement, that Mary Louise was prone to suspect everyone she met; it was only on rare occasions she instinctively felt there was more beneath the surface of an occurrence than appeared to the casual observer, and then, if a wrong might be righted or a misunderstanding removed—but only in such event—she eagerly essayed to discover the truth. It was in this manner that she had once been of great service to her friend Alora Jones, and to others ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)
... of course, only one language spoken in Quaker Hill. Indeed only one or two persons have any other than English as their native tongue.[35] And very few have acquired any other as a matter of culture. The vocabulary used is limited. An intelligent observer says: "The vocabulary of the native community is the meagerest I have ever known, except that of the immigrant." There are, however, very few illiterates; none, indeed, in the literal meaning of ...
— Quaker Hill - A Sociological Study • Warren H. Wilson
... thus has the double advantage of infinitely multiplying the intensity of sounds, and of introducing them into the ear without causing the observer the least discomfort. You would never have imagined, dear master, the charm which one feels in perceiving these thousands of imperceptible sounds which are confounded, on a fine summer day, in an immense murmuring. The bumble-bee has his song as well as the nightingale, ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... something ulterior that Thoreau sought in nature. "The other world," he wrote, "is all my art: my pencils will draw no other: my jackknife will cut nothing else." Thoreau did not scorn, however, like Emerson, to "examine too microscopically the universal tablet." He was a close observer and accurate reporter of the ways of birds and plants and the minuter aspects of nature. He has had many followers, who have produced much pleasant literature on out-door {462} life. But in none of them is there that unique combination ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... he abandoned the art of painting and launched on the career of an author, contributing under the name of Gustave Z.... to 'La Vie Parisienne'. His articles found great favor, he showed himself an exquisite raconteur, a sharp observer of intimate family life, and a most penetrating analyst. The very gallant sketches, later reunited in 'Monsieur, Madame, et Bebe' (1866), and crowned by the Academy, have gone through many editions. 'Entre nous' (1867) and 'Une Femme genante', are written in the same ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... minute, there the next—now congratulating the President, then complimenting Mrs. Lincoln, bowing and scraping, and shaking hands, and smiling, laughing, yarning and saluting the crowd of people whom he knew." More soberly, this same observer added, "He has already done a great deal of good to the administration."[965] It is impossible to find the soured and discomfited rival in ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... the thoughtful observer that we need more children nearly so much as we need better children, and a higher value set upon all human life. In this day of war, when men are counted of less value than cattle, it is a doubtful favor to the child to bring it into life under any circumstances, ...
— In Times Like These • Nellie L. McClung
... though he were some Vulcan perpetually forging swords for other men to use; and certainly I always thought of C..., a fine classical scholar, a pale and seemingly gentle man, as our chief swordsman and bravo. When Henley founded his weekly newspaper, first the 'Scots,' afterwards 'The National Observer,' this young man wrote articles and reviews notorious for savage wit; and years afterwards when 'The National Observer' was dead, Henley dying & our cavern of outlaws empty, I met him in Paris very sad and I think very poor. 'Nobody will employ me now,' he said. 'Your master is gone,' I answered, ...
— Four Years • William Butler Yeats
... constellations blazed with a splendour inconceivable to an observer on Earth, but ahead of them gaped the vast, black void which sailors call "the Coal Hole," and in which the most powerful telescopes have only discovered a few faintly luminous bodies. Suddenly, out of the midst of this infinity ...
— A Honeymoon in Space • George Griffith
... knowledge and the extent of mental cultivation which the broker displayed as their conversation went on. They talked of the hills and valleys, and ravines and water-courses around them, and Harrison compared this place with others in a way that showed a ready observer of the beauties of nature. They talked of Italy, and Harrison had at his fingers' ends the principal palaces in every city, and the best pictures in every palace. They talked of Greece, and Harrison quoted Plato. They talked of England and France, and Harrison displayed ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... movement articulated as we wish, and that it is always the same movement. We thus obtain a series of absurdities that all express the same fundamental absurdity. But the possibility of applying the movement to the line traversed exists only for an observer who keeping outside the movement and seeing at every instant the possibility of a stop, tries to reconstruct the real movement with these possible immobilities. The absurdity vanishes as soon as we adopt by thought the continuity of the real movement, a continuity ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... of hurricanes are well understood. The approach of a hurricane is usually indicated by a long swell on the ocean, propagated to great distances, and forewarning the observer by two or three days. A faint rise in the barometer occurs before the gradual fall, which becomes very pronounced at the center. Fine wisps of cirrus-clouds are first seen, which surround the center to a distance of 200 miles; the air is calm and sultry, but this ...
— The History of Puerto Rico - From the Spanish Discovery to the American Occupation • R.A. Van Middeldyk
... The keen observer hesitates in view of all these conditions to advise any young man to invest in real estate for a home beyond a sum which he can afford to lose if need arises to move. These changes carry a need for mobilization ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... himself describes it,—one vast fog, with here and there a rock protruding; also, an occasional sandy barrenness, like his beloved Cape Cod. In truth, he never quite completed the transition from the observer to the artist. With the power of constructing sentences as perfectly graceful as a hemlock-bough, he yet displays the most wayward aptitude for literary caterpillars'-nests and all manner of disfigurements. The same want of artistic habit appears also in his wilful disregard ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... observer could have seen a shade of disappointment on Olive's face, he would also have seen it instantly suppressed. The young girl closed "Comus" with the drawing inside, and came to sit down again, looking up into the eyes of her "beautiful mamma." And even the commonplace question ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... at the glass, but look only every five minutes for the signal to make ready. The telescopes are Dolland's Achromatics, at which one would wonder, if every thing done for governments were not converted into a job. The intention should have been to enable the observer to see the greatest number of hours; consequently the light should be intercepted by the smallest quantity of glass. Dollond's achromatics contain, however, six lenses, and possess no recommendation but their enlarged field, and their freedom from ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... scene in the darkness of that great stone-floored echoing place, where an observer who watched would have seen a round glass eye shedding a bright light on a particular part of the big dirty door, and in the golden ring the bull's-eye made, a pair of large white hands busy at work fixing, turning ...
— Patience Wins - War in the Works • George Manville Fenn
... without betraying any consciousness that this was a great thing to do. He reminds one of Wellington in the combination of lucid and practical common-sense with aggressive bull-dog courage. Some telling lines, developing his traits as he appeared to a critical observer, are found in a dispatch of General David Hunter to the Secretary of War, giving a report of his visit to Chattanooga where he was sent to inspect the army. Hunter was one of the oldest of the regular officers in service, knew thoroughly Grant's history and early army reputation, and ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... experience," he said. "But I wish you success, Hanson; on this undertaking, and on many others. Supplies are on their way now; the crew will return from leave within the hour. A young Zenian, name of Dival, I believe, is detailed to accompany you as scientific observer—purely unofficial capacity, of course. He has been ordered to report to you at once. You are to depart as soon as feasible: you know what that means. I believe that's all—Oh, yes! I ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... were again face to face. Eleven o'clock was striking. The father and son preserved a profound silence towards each other, where an intelligent observer would have expected cries and tears. But these two men were of such a nature that all emotion following their final resolutions plunged itself so deep into their hearts that it was lost forever. They passed, then, silently and almost breathlessly, the hour that ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... far-sighted as it is, overlooks the merciful modifications of the austere code whose pitiless action it so clearly discerns. In his long and patient brooding over the spiritual phenomena of Puritan life, it is apparent, to the least critical observer, that he has imbibed a deep personal antipathy to the Puritanic ideal of character; but it is no less apparent that his intellect and imagination have been strangely fascinated by the Puritanic idea of justice. His brain has been subtly infected by the Puritanic perception of Law, without ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... though silently admitted that, while Charles Cotton came of a school of fishermen renowned for accomplishment even now, his master and friend was not in the modern or Cottonian sense a fisherman at all. There was in him, indeed, a vast deal of the philosopher and the observer of nature and still more, perhaps, of the artist in English; but there was also not a little of the cockney sportsman. He never rose above the low-lived worm and quill; his prey was commonly those fish that are the scorn of the true ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... sense organ. It merely puts this capacity to better use. So the blind adult does not suddenly come into possession of wonderful powers, but, in time, his "acquired sense perception" enables him to do many things hitherto considered impossible of accomplishment. But to the casual observer, anything done without eyesight is considered little short of marvelous. The adult soon learns to recognize voices and footsteps, to measure distance with a fair degree of accuracy, and, in many cases, to go about alone, with only the friendly cane for company. Many of the blind have what is defined ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... until now an oversea ship could not find anchorage. A few industries, like cement making and silk winding, are carried on in the outskirts of the colony, and a suspiciously large amount of prepared opium is shipped, although the closest observer can detect not a poppy under cultivation ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield |
