"Background" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... authorities—wrote from the point of view of the Order, and consequently are very unreliable in some matters. The treatment that the Maltese received from the Order is very inadequately dealt with, and none of them can seriously estimate the Mediterranean background to the history of the Knights, and especially their relations with the Barbary pirates. General Porter, whose history is the only English one at all worthy of mention, possesses the same faults. Though his ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... a low coping on the side next the street, and some one had laid a lot of bundles of odds and ends against it; lying down, we could look out between those without any risk of being seen from below, but Goodenough made the Sikhs keep well in the background and only we three peered over the edge. About two hundred yards in front of us the Dome of the Rock glistened in the morning sun above the intervening roofs. The street was almost deserted, although the guards at either end had been removed for ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... it. The old man spoke cheerfully, but they could see before them the tragedy depicted by his simple words. His hearers were all silent when he had concluded, feeling they could say nothing to console him or lighten his burden. Only Wampus, sitting in the background, looked scornfully upon the man who had once been ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John • Edith Van Dyne
... The thousand pounds which he was taking home was more than he had been able to save throughout his life. To him it represented immense things. He would probably not spend a dollar more, or indulge in a single luxury, yet the money was there in the background, a warm, ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rock, and tried to close my eyes; but they would keep opening and staring into the darkness. It was not black darkness—I do not think I could have borne that; a sort of murky half-light seemed reflected from the water, or from somewhere, and glimmered strangely from a background ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... as I shall ever be of anything in my life that she is the only girl for me." Thus he mused after he had left the room rather than listen to his sister's gossip. He was standing on the porch, looking through the trees at the garden beyond, and thinking what an appropriate background it would be for Judith's rare beauty. How he would like to lead her through the box maze and then sit beside her on the marble bench under the syringa bushes! If he could prevail upon the independent girl to listen to him, would his family ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... observed it carefully before he aroused Nadia, who hurried into the control room. Looming large in the shortened range of the plate, their objective hurtled onward in its eternal course, its enormous velocity betrayed only by the rapidity with which it sped past the incredibly brilliant background of infinitely distant stars. Apparently it was a wild jumble of separate fragments; a conglomerate, heterogeneous aggregation of rough and jagged masses varying in size from grains of sand up to enormous chunks, which upon Earth would have weighed millions of tons. Pervading the whole nucleus, ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... shouts, carrying their little bows and arrows. The Indian maidens enter gaily, carrying reeds for weaving. They move silently, swiftly, gracefully. Two of their number begin to grind maize between stones. Two others plait baskets. An old medicine-man, with a bag of herbs, comes from the background, and seats himself near the drum, at left, taking an Indian flute from his deerskin belt, and fingering it lovingly. An Indian woman, arriving later than the others, unstraps from her back a small papoose, and ...
— Patriotic Plays and Pageants for Young People • Constance D'Arcy Mackay
... have a similar dichotomous organisation; but it is either not based on the totem kins or they have fallen into the background. ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... bay. This told Raoul the precise position of his enemy, and he was not sorry to see that he was already to the westward of her; a fact that permitted him to slip round the island again, so near in as to be complete concealed by the background of cliffs. By the aid of an excellent night-glass, too, he was enabled to see the frigate, distant about a league, under everything that would draw, from her royals down, standing toward the mouth of the bay on the larboard tack; having ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... appearance of the place; the foreign settlement, with its goodly array of foreign vessels, occupying the foreground of the picture; the junks and native town lying up the river, and dimly perceptible among the shadows of the background; spacious houses, always well, and often sumptuously, furnished; Europeans, ladies and gentlemen, strolling along the quays; English policemen habited as the London police; and a climate very much resembling that which I had experienced in London exactly twelve months ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... the author it was no longer an important event. Jim Smiley's frog as standard-bearer of his literary procession was not an interesting object, so far as he was concerned—not with that vast, empty hall in the background and the insane undertaking of trying to fill it. The San Francisco venture had been as nothing compared with this. Fuller was working night and day with abounding joy, while the subject of his labor felt as if he were on the brink ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... band nor sees the trees, the grim mediaeval fortifications frown upon the valley, and the time-stained dwellings, great and small, rise in rugged irregularity against the lighter brown of the rocky background and the green of scattered olive groves and chestnuts. Those features, at least, have not changed, and show no disposition to ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... to keep that in the background. I want to forget everything but that you are here and that I'm happy," she whispered, with her arms about his neck. "I want to forget everything else—until it's time ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... then,' I asked, 'that the Princess of Conde is kept utterly in the background in spite of her mother-in-law, and that the Prince publishes ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... inclosure of white, next to that of the king, was seated the Lady of the Tournament, the Princess Louise, and her maids of honor, arrayed all in snowy garb, and, against the garish brilliancy of the general background, a pompous pageantry of colors, the decoration of this dainty nook shone in silvery contrast. A garland of flowers was the only crown the lady wore; no other adornment had her fair shoulders save their own argent beauty, of which ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... itself over soon after midday; when I got into a Cab to Chelsea, for the purpose of seeing Carlyle's Statue on the Embankment, and to take a last look at his old House in Cheyne Row. The Statue very good, I thought, though looking somewhat small for want of a good Background to set it off: but the old House! Shut up—neglected—'To Let'—was sad enough to me. I got back ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... of stories for boys have their background laid either in the city or the country, or possibly on the ocean, and we have read much about the doings of lads both rich and poor ...
— Randy of the River - The Adventures of a Young Deckhand • Horatio Alger Jr.
... legions. We at home have had our own experiences, our deep anxieties, our doubts, our griefs, and always we have been conscious of the might of forces in grapple and the high issues that hung upon the fate of the armies. In the background of all our thoughts at all times has been the solemn consciousness that the destiny of mankind was at work in mighty throes toward an end hidden to our knowledge if not to our faith and hope. We have ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... cathedral, so still and majestic were the woods. Through the dense greenness of the pines there was an occasional flash of a silver birch. The scarlets and yellows of oak and maple trees gleamed here and there, making a rich background for the ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... scale. It is only necessary to keep open house to have the pick of the younger ones as your guests. They will come to entertainments at American houses and bring all their relations, and dance, and dine, and flirt with great good humor and persistency; but if there is not a good solid fortune in the background, in the best of securities, the prettiest American smiles never tempt them beyond flirtation; the season over, they disappear up into their mountain villas to wait for a ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... (1575), representing the collection of Arabian olibanum, and this through his kind intervention I am able to reproduce here. The text (probably after Polo) speaks of the tree as resembling a fir, but in the cut the firs are in the background; the incense trees have some real suggestion of Boswellia, and the whole design ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... there Theodore was born on October 27, 1858. He passed his boyhood amid the most wholesome family life. Besides his brother Elliott and two sisters, as his Uncle Robert lived next door, there were cousins to play with and a numerous kindred to form the background of his young life. He was, fortunately, not precocious, for the infant prodigies of seven, who become the amazing omniscients of twenty-three, are seldom heard of at thirty. He learned very early to read, and his sisters remember that ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... squares. Rinuccini arranged it from the story of Arion. The theater, so we are told, represented a sea dotted with rocks and from many of these spouted springs of living water. At the foot of the mountains in the background floated little ships. Amphitrite entered in a car drawn by two dolphins and accompanied by fourteen tritons and fourteen naiads. Arion arrived in a ship with a crew of forty. When he had precipitated himself into the sea he sang a solo accompanied by a harp, not by a lyre as in the ancient fable. ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... traveller has happened to linger here and there in the outposts of the desert, has seen the British camp at Kantara or the graceful French garden town of Ismalia, he comes to take the desert as a background, and sometimes a beautiful background; a mirror of mighty reflections and changing colours almost as strange as the colours of the sea. But when it is first seen abutting, and as it were, advancing, upon the fields and gardens of humanity, then it looks indeed like an enemy, ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... the tent. The youngster looks upon me and the Professor as ordinary braves, only intended as a background to the camp scene. When he is seated on a box of Sum-wah-tah, with the edge of the table sawing his neck, and his mouth full of beefsteak, Little Bear calls for his name. 'Roy,' says the kid, with a sirloiny sound to it. But when the rest of it and his post-office address ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... complete political convulsions. Who, then, directs? Who commands? The members of the Commune, divided as they are in opinion, do not appear capable, on account of their number and lamentable inexperience, of taking the sole lead in military affairs. Is there not some one either amongst them or in the background, who knows how to think, direct, and act? Is it Bergeret? Is it Cluseret? The future perhaps will unravel the mystery. In the meantime, and in spite of the reverses to which the Federals have had to submit during these last days, the whole of Paris unites in unanimous surprise at the extreme regularity ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... this Antipodean city, looking so white and clean and fair in the morning sunshine, stretching away to right and left, rising in streets and terraces from the shore, cresting the heights with steeples and villa-roofs, and filling up the valleys below. In the far background is the heavy brow of Mount Eden, whose extinct crater we shall explore by-and-by, and whence we shall obtain a splendid view of the entire city, its suburbs, and ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... the large bank, with a few rows of spools, is shown in the extreme background. The two sets of threads, from the two wings of the bank, are seen distinctly, and the machine or frame immediately in front of the bank is where the two kinds of lease are made when desired, i.e. at the beginning and at the end of the warp. Between this leasing frame ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... fuller of matter for thought, wonder and delight. At each new reading, too, the things in him that belonged to his own age, the Biblical literalism, the theological prepossessions, the political partisanship, recede more and more into the background and leave us freer to enjoy the things which belong to all time. And to all peoples. Milton is, indeed, intensely English and could not have been anything but an Englishman. His profound conviction of the greatness of moral issues, and his passionate ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... lay close together in the background, on the slope of the nearest chain of hills; still further back lay a plain celebrated for its fertility and the luxuriance of its verdure: Lebanon, with its wooded peaks, was shut in on the north and south, but on the east the mountain sloped downwards almost to the sea-level, furnishing ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... endeavor there are thousands of people who are forced to remain in the background because they lack self-confidence in speech and manner—the very fundamental of success. For just such people Grenville Kleiser has written his book "How to Develop ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... tail; it is also somewhat smaller than the Rock Ptarmigan. They nest abundantly near the summits of the ranges in Colorado, making their nests among the rocks, and generally lining them with a few grasses. During June, they lay from six to twelve eggs having a creamy background, speckled and blotched with chestnut brown. Size ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... lower ground, and joined their comrades. All now halted and gazed steadfastly in our direction, forming a superb tableau, their beautiful mottled skins glancing like the summer coat of a thoroughbred horse, the orange-colored statues standing out in high relief from a background of ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... and white by the sterilizer, put out a hand to steady herself. So that was it! No wonder Carlotta had hated her. And those whispering voices! What were they saying? How hateful life was, and men and women. Must there always be something hideous in the background? Until now she had only seen life. Now she felt its hot breath ...
— K • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... usually are upon matters of moment, much divided. Some thought it a fair promise of the future intention of the Committee to abolish that phalanx of authors who usurp the stage, to the exclusion of a large assortment of dramatic talent blushing unseen in the background; while others contended that the scheme would prevent men of real eminence from descending into an amphitheatre in which all Grub Street (that is to say, all London and Westminster) would be arrayed against them. The event has proved both parties to be in a ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... holiday came round, to the farm of one Dorman. He was glad of the chance to get to Shropshire. There is something about the country there, with its green fields and miniature rivers, that soothes the wounded spirit and forms a pleasant background for sentimental musings. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... must have remarked, a beautiful human countenance is more beautiful than at any other period, when it acquires, from some accidental circumstance, a temporary and extraordinary degree of loveliness. Sometimes it is the mere disposition of light and shade that produces this effect—the background behind it, the objects that surround it. Sometimes it is that the tone of the mind at the moment gives the peculiar expression which harmonizes best with the lines of the features and the colouring of the complexion, and which is in perfect accord with all those expectations which fine, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... moment when the vision of the cathedral is to appear, the screens marked E E are parted and folded back disclosing the chancel. Perhaps some church nearby has stored in its basement an old stained glass window, which may be borrowed and used as background for the church scene. Such a window was used in a performance of "Much Ado About Nothing" given some years ago at one of the Eastern colleges. It was dimly lit from behind by electric globes and proved very successful in creating a churchly atmosphere. If this can not be done, cover two of the ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... a picturesque place, and I was glad that I had come. The colouring was charming: there was red rock in the background, here and there covered with grass, and ablaze with flowers. Wild roses and poppies, pink-thrift and white daisies, all contributed to make the old rock gay. But the yellow ragwort was all over; great patches of it grew even ...
— Christie, the King's Servant • Mrs. O. F. Walton
... in the background beckoning, and all my dream vanished away. Yet to my mind came the thought that it was to the lady who gave the necklace that Death stood near, rather than to him to whom it was given. For surely death was written in ...
— The Wanderer's Necklace • H. Rider Haggard
... parents who had had little sympathy with the Confederate cause, attempting to carve out his career in the section of his birth and meeting opposition and defeat from the prejudices with which he constantly found himself in conflict. The story found its main theme and background in the fact that the Southern States were so exclusively living in the memories of the Civil War that it was impossible for modern ideas to obtain a foothold. "I have sometimes thought," said the author, and this passage may be taken as embodying the leading point of the narrative, "that many ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick
... looked on also, but that which he saw pleased him but moderately. The grace of every movement, the distinction of face and figure, the charm of that finely-poised, honey-coloured head showing up against the background of gray-blue tapestried wall, were enough, he owned—having a very pretty taste in women as well as in horses—to drive many a man crazy.—"But if the mother's a baggage, the daughter's a vixen," he said to himself. "And, upon my soul if I had to choose ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the same child in a cemetery three miles in the country where I used mounted butterflies from my cases, and potted plants carried from my conservatory, for a graveyard scene. The time was early November, but God granted sunshine that day, and short focus blurred the background. At four o'clock I was at the schoolhouse, and in the best-lighted room with five or six models, I was working on the spelling bee scenes. By six I was in the darkroom developing and drying these plates, ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter
... "White and brown and yellow. Russian and British and French and German and Chinese and Spanish. They were chosen for technical background rather than ...
— Competition • James Causey
... reached. There they tied the horses and climbed on foot to the upland. The grass among the rocks was yellow now, and high gentians seized on the rare moment to flaunt their wondrous blue against that perfect background. A flock of autumn birds rose up and flew on, as the climbers, reaching the Spirit Rock, paused and turned to look out over the golden plains to the east, over the blue hills to the north, and into the ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... hate the village magistrate. He looks like a family portrait by a Flemish artist, he himself weighing down the front of the picture with his portliness and his long brown beard, whilst the faces of his family are arranged in two groups for the background. I think he is angry at our intrusion. He is very republican and self-important. But we eclipse him easily, with the aid of a large black velvet hat, and black furs, and ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... severe as she had expected. For the first time in her life she was not lost in eclipse in the blaze of Daisy's brilliant and mature personality. Under such favourable circumstances Loretta came rapidly to the front, while Mrs. Hemingway modestly and shamelessly retreated into the background. ...
— When God Laughs and Other Stories • Jack London
... but tastefully dressed. The pit was full and the boxes also. The latter were ornamented with mirrors, and on that occasion were all illuminated for some reason or other. It was a magnificent scene, but all this glitter and light put the stage into the background. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... often have watched the evening star as we are watching it now, when he was a boy living in the desert. Later on, when he became the warrior prophet, he must have visualized the heavens as the background of his banner, and taken the evening star and the crescent moon as his symbols—the star and the crescent of Islam." Michael paused. "In the same way, the full rays of the sun became the symbol of Aton, Akhnaton's god ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... into the road dragging his gun after him by the bayonet, and raised his hand for them to halt. His captain followed him from the post-house throwing away a cigarette as he came, and saluted MacWilliams on the box and bowed to the two riders in the background. In his right hand he held one of the long iron rods with which the collectors of the city's taxes were wont to pierce the bundles and packs, and even the carriage cushions of those who entered the city limits from the coast, and who might ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... very heart of the theatrical district. He took a vast pride in his control of it. He even emblazoned the announcement of his London management on the walls of the Empire on Broadway in New York. In his affections it was in England what the Empire was to him in America. It was destined to be the background of his distinguished artistic endeavors, ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... being disturbed, and soon turned back without having been fired at. On the way back, I saw bombs bursting at Douaumont and flew over to get a closer view. There were four or five other German biplanes there; I also noticed several French battleplanes at a distance. I kept in the background and watched our opponents. I saw a Nieuport attack one of our machines, so I went for him and I almost felt I had him; but my speed was too great, and I shot past him. He then made off at great speed; I behind him. Several times I was very near ...
— An Aviator's Field Book - Being the field reports of Oswald Boelcke, from August 1, - 1914 to October 28, 1916 • Oswald Boelcke
... again when, advanced in years, he retraced the journey of his youth that Americans might ever know where led the footsteps of the pioneers. The publication of this book in its Pioneer Life Series carries forward one of the cherished purposes of World Book Company—to supply as a background to the study of American history interesting and authentic narratives based on the personal experiences of brave men and women who helped to push the frontier of our country ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... told a portion of the truth; for there was more in the background, which he did not wish to confide to his friend. Toto Chupin's revolt had disquieted him. Let there be but a single flaw in the axletree, and one day it will snap in twain; and Mascarin wanted to ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its time, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed ...
— The Communist Manifesto • Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
... kind of frozen paleness, the pallor of a marble statue, the outward sign of a sorrow so great that time could never soften its sting. Behind these three stood the friends and kinsfolk of Simone and the friends and kinsfolk of Messer Folco, and made a brave background for the tragedy. So, for a moment, the three stood looking straight into the square before them, and then it was plain that they suddenly became conscious of untoward events, and Messer Simone forgot his triumph, and Messer Folco his pride, and Madonna ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... we not know something of this hidden background of the orchestra? Why should not somebody tell one of the stories that is waiting here? Not I, but some one familiar with this region, who has trodden its paths and shared in its labours; not a mere lover of music, but ...
— The Unknown Quantity - A Book of Romance and Some Half-Told Tales • Henry van Dyke
... whole of the seventeenth, as well as the first half of the eighteenth century, it remained one of the favorite subjects of puppet-shows, popular melodramas, exhibitions of ombres chinoises, and pantomimes. The more the awful event, with its moral lessons, receded into the background of time, the more it lost its serious and impressive character, until it became a mere burlesque, and Hanswurst and Casperle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... family life, of the meannesses of trade, of the flatteries of one class of society by another, of the impediments which the family throws in the way of lofty aims and aspirations. But we are conscious that there are evils and dangers in the background greater still, which are not appreciated, because they are either concealed or suppressed. What a condition of man would that be, in which human passions were controlled by no authority, divine or human, in which there was no shame ...
— The Republic • Plato
... and premonitions of pleasure; a third through social sympathy and moral affinities. Contemplation, sense, and association are none of them the essence nor even the seed of love; but any of them may be its soil and supply it with a propitious background. It would be mere sophistry to pretend, for instance, that love is or should be nothing but a moral bond, the sympathy of two kindred spirits or the union of two lives. For such an effect no passion ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the blood and gold banner of Spain, as the priest clothed in vestments of his office asks the blessings of Almighty God upon the land which Columbus claims in the name of the House of Castile. In the background we see waving palms and dark-skinned men who gaze with awe upon the white discoverers. In another scene we see the cold wintry waves surge and dash around the frail craft fighting its way across dark tempestuous ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... Jane Austen will enjoy Waitstill Baxter.... The solution the reader must find out for himself. It is a triumph of ingenuity. The characters are happy in their background of Puritan village life. The drudgery, the flowers, the strictness in morals and the narrowness of outlook all combine to form ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... changed silver chloride than the collar, but more than the coat, because the face is lighter than the coat, but not so light as the collar. Finally, the silver chloride would be least affected by the dark tie. The wall paper in the background would affect the plate according to the brightness of the light which fell directly upon it and which reflected to the camera. When such a plate has been developed and fixed, as described in Section 121, we have the so-called negative (Fig. ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... before the stores young farm hands and clerks sat on store boxes or on the curbing. They did not pay any attention to Hugh who, when he went to stand near them, remained silent and kept himself in the background. The farm hands talked of their work and boasted of the number of bushels of corn they could pick in a day, or of their skill in plowing. The clerks were intent upon playing practical jokes which pleased ...
— Poor White • Sherwood Anderson
... with machine-made fantasias on faded Italian operas—not, however, faded in his time. He devilled these as does the culinary artist the crab of commerce. He peppered and salted them and then giving for a background a real New Jersey thunderstorm, the concoction was served hot and smoking. Is it any wonder that as Mendelssohn relates, the Liszt audience always stood on the seats to watch him dance through the Lucia fantasia? Now every school girl jigs this fatuous stuff before ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... West Engle, or Mercians, still remained free to conquer and expand on the south of the Humber, as the Englishmen of Deira and Bernicia remained free to the north of that river. It was plain, therefore, that from this moment the growth of these powers would throw their fellow kingdoms into the background, and that with an ever-growing inequality of strength must come a new arrangement of political forces. The greater kingdoms would in the end be drawn to subject and absorb the lesser ones, and to the war between Englishman ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... separated the stream from a belt of forest growth which extended to a hill range, dark with impervious jungle, and cleared here and there for the cultivator's village. Behind it, rose another sub-range, wooded with a lower bush and already blue with air, whilst in the background towered range upon range, here rising abruptly into points and peaks, there ramp-shaped or wall- formed, with sheer descents, and all of light azure hue adorned with glories of silver ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... and her brows had drawn together in an angry frown by the time Gabriel had finished, and Neale, silently watching her from the background, saw her fingers clench themselves. She gave a swift glance at the Earl, and then fixed her eyes steadily ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... town very picturesque. It is so in truth, though some of its picturesqueness is the result of antiquity, dirt and dilapidation. But the fresh green trees lining the quay looked bright and youthful; a contrast with the ancient grey walls that formed their background. Vessels were loading and unloading, people hurried to and fro; many had evidently come down to see the boat in, and not a few were ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... shop the glow shone out on him through the dull gold curtains, and he traced the crooked pine bough sweeping across the thin silk background like the bold free sketch of a Japanese print. When he rang the bell a minute later, the door was opened by Corinna, who was holding ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... in the background, watching the scene. There was something about this child that moved me strangely. True, I tried to pooh-pooh away the sentiment, and said to myself: 'Why bother your head about her? She is one of the "refuse;" she will go down into the ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... imponderable data. Then he took a chair to the window and sat down. She was very real to him, this woman, and compelling, with her silences, her broken phrases. Rarely, very rarely before in his life, had he had this experience of intimacy without foreknowledge, without background—the sense of dealing with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... multiplied, and bitterness been diffused through all His life, by that foresight, so clear and constant, of the certain end! How much more gracious and wonderful His quick sympathy, His patient self forgetfulness, His unwearied toil, show against that dark background! ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... with me the picture that Nickols made as he stood tall and handsome and smiling against the background of the wonderful garden he had helped to create, with the women smiling and clinging to him as he looked up at me with a great laughing light in his face. In some ways he was the handsomest man I had ever seen ...
— The Heart's Kingdom • Maria Thompson Daviess
... background, arched her brows, then with a shrug turned aside and seated herself on the stone seat by which they had been standing. Ruth shrank back as if her brother had ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... I had many interesting talks together. With the cultural background of Europe he might have been a Rousseau or a Phalanisterian. As it was, he ran a "natural life" magazine which, though crude, benefited hundreds of people. What though it showed pictures of stupid men and women revealing, in poses rivalling the contortionist, their physical development ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... devised a little scheme to which she made me a party. There was a young woman in her train, of surpassing beauty, whose name was Liridi, and the queen was sure that Solomon had never seen her, for it was her custom to keep her most beautiful attendants in the background. This maiden the queen caused to be dressed in the richest and most becoming robes, and adorned her, besides, with jewels and golden ornaments, which set off her beauty in an amazing manner. Then, having made many inquiries of me in regard to the habits ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... on together through the dense alleys of vegetation, and finally came to an opening which showed them a sandy plain, and across it the strong white stone walls of the fort, facing the wide river, and behind it the blue background ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... thought his eyes the victims of an illusion; then he looked closer. And he saw that it was true; instead of the familiar starry points of light against a velvet background, the arrangement was just the reverse. Every constellation was in its place, just as Chick remembered it from the earth; but instead of stars there were jet-black spots upon ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... to enumerate the various physical features by which it is distinguished. Thus the highest and most important mountains are Dormitor in the district of Drobniak, on the Montenegrin frontier, and Velesh, which forms a rugged background to the plain of Mostar, the highest point being 6,000 feet above the level of the sea. Besides these, there are many others of nearly equal altitude, viz. Flam, Hergud, Prievolie, Vrau, Hako, Fartar, Belen, Stermoshnik, Bielevoda, ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... become his sole romance; he gave all his leisure time to her, and not only that (for it no longer sufficed to see her at her mother's), they met on the quay! At times a maid-servant walked with them for appearance sake, at others she kept in the background. Sometimes they would go on board a Norwegian ship, sometimes they wandered about or strolled beneath some great trees. When he saw her in her short frock come out of the door, saw her quick movements, and her lively signals to him with parasol ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... made no motion to take my hand from him, but she said, "I think I have met Mr. Strange," and now I saw in the background, sitting on a camp-stool near a long, lank young man stretched in a hammock, a very handsome girl, who hastily ran through a book, and then dropped it at the third mention of my name. I suspected that the book was the Social Register, and that the girl's search ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... there would be something much more modern, of an alert middle-age or wary youth; in every case the lodging-keeper was skilled far beyond the lodging-seeker in the coils of bargaining, and of holding in the background unsurmised charges for electric lights, for candles, for washing, for baths, for boots, and for what-know-I, after the most explicit declaration that the first demand included everything. Nothing definite ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the "Sick-bed" is the Egerton version of "Etain," which is a complete one, and makes a stately romance. It is full of human interest, love being its keynote; it keeps the supernatural element which is an essential to the original legend in the background, and is of quite a different character to the earlier Leabhar na h-Uidhri version, although there is no reason to assume that the latter is really the more ancient in date. In the Leabbar na h-Uidhri version of "Etain," all that relates to the love-story ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... separate shrines, no images, no display of chalice or crucifix on the altar. It was, therefore, a Protestant church upon the Continent. A clergyman, dressed in the Geneva gown and band, stood by the communion-table, and, with the Bible opened before him, and his clerk awaiting in the background, seemed prepared to perform some service of the church ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... dingy, chocolate-colored lobby became suddenly a background to Mr. James Greely, cashier of the Millings National Bank, and the only ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... General received me in a dainty Louis Quinze room done in rose and French gray, and filled incongruously with delicate chairs and heavy brocaded curtains, a background which instantly you felt precisely suited his Excellency. In the English newspapers, which, by the way, are not barred from Berlin cafes, I had read of his Excellency as the "Iron Fist," or the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... the rickety little revolver nearly shook itself to pieces, and Amomma the outcast—because he might blow up at any moment—browsed in the background and wondered why stones were thrown at him. Then they found a balk of timber floating in a pool which was commanded by the seaward slope of Fort Keeling, and they sat down together before ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... forgetting it in the cares of state, let the cake burn, on which the woman struck him. The moment chose is when she is lifting her 'and to deliver the blow. The king receives it with majesty mingled with meekness. In the background the door of the 'ut is open, letting in the royal officers to announce the Danes are defeated. The daylight breaks in at the aperture, signifying the dawning of 'Ope. That story, sir, which I found in my researches in istry, has since become so popular, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 'Locksley Hall,' in order to divert my mind from a state of suspense that I am in concerning the will of a relative that is dead. The will still remains in the mental background as an extremely marginal or ultra-marginal portion of my field of consciousness; but the poem fairly keeps my attention from it, until I come to the line, "I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time." The words 'I, the heir,' immediately make an electric connection with the marginal ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... not understand the real wrong of the Pharisee's attitude, nor of our own, unless we view it against the background of what God says about the human heart. Said Jesus Christ, "From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, ...
— The Calvary Road • Roy Hession
... that her eyes were fixed on the river, followed her gaze. Not more than a score of yards from the shore, moving silently through the mist, were the heads of three Indians. Their profiles stood out clearly against the white background; their shoulders seemed to dissolve into the fog. They passed slowly on up the stream, looking straight ahead, without a twitch of the eyelids, like a vision from ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... once for her husband, and withdrew from the conversation as soon as he appeared, leaving him to make all the "frais." We walked a little around the park before leaving. It was really a lovely little place, with its background of forest and the quiet, sleepy little village in front; very lonely and far from everything, but with a certain charm of its own. Two or three dogs were playing in the court-yard, and one curious little animal who made a rush ...
— Chateau and Country Life in France • Mary King Waddington
... new way. It was somehow different over here, with the thunder of artillery in the near distance, the hovering presence of death not far away, the flashing of signal lights, the hum of the airplanes, the whole background of war. The message of the gospel took on a reality it had never worn before. When this simple girl asked if they would not take Jesus tonight as their Saviour, there were many who raised their hands in the darkness and many more hearts were bowed whose owners could not quite bring ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... English landscape seemed very fair to Clarissa Lovel in that serene light. She watched the shadowy fields flitting past; here and there a still pool, or a glimpse of running water; beyond, the sombre darkness of wooded hills; and above that dark background a calm starry sky. Who shall say what dim poetic thoughts were in her mind that night, as she looked at these things? Life was so new to her, the future such an unknown country—a paradise perhaps, or a drear gloomy waste, across which she must travel ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the "unrest of the age." Much has already been done in the right direction by divines, philosophers, and physicists, and more still, perhaps, by the great poets, who have striven earnestly to see the spiritual background which lies behind the abstractions of materialistic science. But much yet remains to be done. We may agree with Hinton that "Positivism bears a new Platonism in its bosom"; but the child has not yet ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... and crevices of snow. This was perhaps a dozen miles away, but at first no intervening atmosphere diminished in the slightest the minutely detailed brilliancy with which these things glared at us. They stood out clear and dazzling against a background of starry blackness that seemed to our earthly eyes rather a gloriously spangled velvet curtain than the spaciousness ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... —while the background was filled up by the ghastly, hypocritical countenance of Trois Eschelles—whose eyes were cast up towards Heaven, as if he was internally saying his devotions—and the grim drollery of Petit Andre, who amused himself with ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... that you aren't making any sense about this gambling kick you're on, Tex. You should have laughed my teasing off. Who would seriously suggest that you were a psi personality?" she demanded. "And most of all, with my background in psi, do you think I could be ...
— Card Trick • Walter Bupp AKA Randall Garrett
... and familiar in the Kalewala. Departmental divine beings of natural phenomena we find everywhere, or nearly everywhere, in company, of course, with other elements of belief—totemism, worship of spirits, perhaps with monotheism in the background. That is as much our opinion as Mr. Max Muller's. What we are opposing is the theory of disease of language, and the attempt to explain, by philological conjectures, gods and heroes whose obscure names are the only ...
— Modern Mythology • Andrew Lang
... approaching her the hero of her adventure in the coach, the impulsive youth whose former foolishness had won for him the semi-disapproval of our commentator. It seems possible that the gloomy fancies of shadowy things outside lightened a little, and the war ceased to be a background ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... Evidently he had not taken this side of the matter into consideration, and he put up one of his hands to his eyes. Fortunately the bell for the opening of the session broke in upon the conversation, and not only diverted him, but relegated the whole subject to the background for the time being. Nevertheless, the thought of it continued in Mary's mind as she sat listening to the exercises. How could an attractive girl like this take a fancy to such a trickster? It seemed totally incompatible with ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... his orders and instructions, was dining alone in Russell Square, when a telegram was handed to him. He opened it and spread the thin paper out upon the table-cloth. A word from that far, wild country, which seemed so much fitter a background to his simple bulk and strength than the cramped ways of London society—a message from the very heart ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... down completely, and we had now the pleasure of beholding a peculiar spectacle. We were the only spectators. The scene consisted of a beach covered with stones and washed by foaming breakers, the background of the immeasurable ocean, and the actors of thousands of wonderfully-formed animals. A number of old males lay still and motionless, heedless of what was going on around them. Others crept clumsily on their small short legs between the stones of the beach, or swam with incredible ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... room. I had seen Miss Collett, and the mahogany and ormolu dining-room, with its great gilt mirrors, seemed a fitting background for her. ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley
... a free hand in departing from the Accepted Design, and in carrying out his more fully developed conceptions. The well worked out designs of the different parts and details, and the combination of these into one harmonious whole with the dome for a background, ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... be better imagined than described. Questions in frightened voices filled the air against this background of suppressed weeping. Briefly—Joan's silk tent had been torn, and the girl was in a state bordering upon hysterics. Somewhat reassured by our noisy presence, however,—for she was plucky at heart,—she pulled herself together and tried to explain ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... cover Heaven knows what deeps of passion and of knowledge! Little Rose was glowing and simpering, and the two older ladies were giving each other significant glances. Maurice's "fellows," shepherded by their host, shambled speechlessly along in the background. The instant that they saw the bride they had fallen into dumbness. Brown said, under his breath to Hastings, "Gosh!" And Hastings gave Morton a thrust in the ribs, which Morton's dignity refused to notice; later, when ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... become of Miss Valery? said the bride, her eyes wandering restlessly around. Other eyes followed hers—Major Harper's. Incredulously these rested on the silent lady in the background, whose whole mien, figure, and attire, in the plain dark dress, and close morning cap, marked her a woman undeniably and ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... Background: The French annexed various Polynesian island groups during the 19th century. In September 1995, France stirred up widespread protests by resuming nuclear testing on the Mururoa atoll after a three-year moratorium. The tests ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... contains quite a menagerie of most suggestive wild animals, and dozens of angels and demons in friendly intercourse playing upon the surface of a lake and among the entangled branches of trees. In the background a pyrotechnic display of great magnitude is depicted, with rockets shooting up in all directions, while ethereal, large, black-eyed women lie gracefully reclining and unconcerned, upon most unsafe clouds. The result ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... considering the talent of the writer, and his opportunities for personal observation. But he has done enough to render us grateful for his labors. By the vivid delineation of scenes and scenery, as they were presented fresh to his own eyes, he has furnished us with a background to the historic picture, - the landscape, as it were, in which the personages of the time might be more fitly portrayed. It would have been impossible to exhibit the ancient topography of the land so faithfully at a subsequent period, when old things had passed away, ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... is his love of wild nature, which led him to depict many grand or gloomy scenes, partly for their own sake, but largely because they formed a fitting background for human action. Thus, The Talisman opens with a pen picture of a solitary Crusader moving across a sun-scorched desert towards a distant island of green. Every line in that description points to action, to the rush of ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... clutching her excited heart, had not thought of flinging herself upon Momus. She raised herself gradually to watch them as far as she could see, and her fixed and stunned gaze rested with immense homesickness and longing on the taller man radiant against the background of ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... men believe in eternal punishment in the sense of a dark background to the universe, which will always continue, a shadow as permanent as light,—necessary for the full perfection and beauty of an infinite divine creation. Into this shadow man may forever plunge; out of it he may forever emerge: and it will always continue so to be. But this is not the view ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... something compared with which money-making cannot be regarded as a worthy object but must be included in the class of unpleasant necessities, not to say indecencies, which ought to be relegated to the background of life; he will summon up pictures of extreme poverty, where any money received must be expended forthwith to meet urgent needs, as justifying that which in his case is the gratification of shiftless indulgence. Above ...
— Creating Capital - Money-making as an aim in business • Frederick L. Lipman
... neither measles nor chicken-pox, nor any other of the tormenting demons of childhood; and I was assured each time that it was a great piece of good luck that this malady was now past forever. But alas! another again threatened in the background, and advanced. All these things increased my propensity to reflection; and as I had already practised myself in fortitude, in order to remove the torture of impatience, the virtues which I had heard praised in the stoics appeared ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... first chapter we enquired whether there are any religious ideas common to Eastern Asia as a whole and found that they amount to little more than a background of nature worship and ancestor worship almost universally present behind the official creeds. Also the conception of a religious system and its relation to beliefs which do not fall within it are not quite the same in these countries ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... little while, I rambled off to a point where I looked over towards Mont Blanc, and got a most beautiful view of the Glacier de Boisson. Imagine the sky flushed with a rosy light, a background of purple mountains, with darts of sunlight streaming among them, touching point and cliff with gold. Against this background rises the outline of the glacier like a mountain of the clearest white crystals, tinged with blue; and against their snowy whiteness in the foreground ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... clear, warm, and beautiful. The operetta, which was really a spring festival, was to be given in the open-air amphitheater of the school, with the natural scenery of the woods and the lake for a background. The Scouts, in their filmy white and green costumes and flowing hair, looked like the fairy and wood-people they were to represent. Ethel Todd had the leading part; Ruth and Marjorie were merely ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... distinguishable now, the dust of the posse was blending into the landscape and losing itself against a gray background. ...
— The Seventh Man • Max Brand
... and lost. Throughout the saga the Fians are more than mere mortals, even in those very parts which are claimed as historical. They are giants; their story "bristles with the supernatural"; they are the ideal figures of Celtic legend throwing their gigantic shadows upon the dim and misty background of the past. We must therefore be content to assume that whether personages called Fionn, Oisin, Diarmaid, or Conan, ever existed, what we know of ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... figured them in. But it showed my father's body lying dead upon the floor; it showed his poor corpse weltering helpless in its blood; it showed myself, as a girl of eighteen, standing awestruck, gazing on in blank horror at the sight; and in the background, half blurred by the summer evening light, it showed the vague outline of a man's back, getting out of the window. On one side was the door: that formed no part of my mental picture, because it was at my back; but in the photograph it too was indistinct, as if in the very act of being burst ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... sea, disclosing as they passed long tracts of lovely country, bathed in a rich golden glow. The broad Douro, with its transparent current, shone out like a bright-colored ribbon, meandering through the deep garment of fairest green; the darkly shadowed mountains which closed the background loomed even larger than they were; while their summits were tipped with the yellow glory of the morning. The air was calm and still, and the very smoke that arose from the peasant's cot labored as it ascended through ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... length reached the fulness of dramatic energy: in the Idylls we have nothing vague or dreamy to complain of: everything lives and moves, in the royal strength of nature: the fire of Prometheus has fairly caught the clay: every figure stands clear, broad, and sharp before us, as if it had sky for its background: and this of small as well as great, for even the "little novice" is projected on the canvas with the utmost truth and vigour, and with that admirable effect in heightening the great figure of Guinevere, which Patroclus produces for the character of Achilles, and (as some will ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... ruder societies are especially associated with women. Whenever, as in the present great European War, brute force becomes temporarily predominant, the causes associated with Feminism are roughly pushed into the background. It is, indeed, the War which gives a new actuality to this question. War has always been regarded as the special and peculiar province of Man, indeed, the sacred refuge of the masculine spirit and ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... forms in nature defined as flat shapes of colour relieved upon other colours, or flat fields of light on dark, as a white horse is defined upon the green grass of a field, or a black figure upon a background of snow. ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... ethereal object never arrested the glance of admiration. Again his pencil moved, and I knew he was attempting to delineate her features. I was fearful lest she should move and dissolve the charm; but she sat as still as the tree, whose gray trunk formed an artistic background to her slight figure. ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... FELLOW-MINDS Pages 137-160 Another background for current experience may be found in alien minds.—Two usual accounts of this conception criticised: analogy between bodies, and dramatic dialogue in the soul.—Subject and object empirical, not transcendental, terms.—Objects originally ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... are no more. There are yet men of might to fight under the banners streaming with the northern lights of freedom. Douglas, Bell, Sumner, Seward, and Wade are drawing together. Grave-faced Abraham Lincoln moves out of the background of Western woods into the sunrise glow of Liberty's ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... and spars painted dark against the sunset sky; her rigging, to the finest cordage, traced in exquisitely distinct lines upon that shining background—a picture ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... the Naturalist from having been a favourite spot with the celebrated travellers Spix and Martius, during their stay at Barra in 1820. Von Martins was so much impressed by its magical beauty that he commemorated the visit by making a sketch of the scenery serve as background in one of the plates of his great work on ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... the middle of the road, waiting. Nor did he have long to wait. The sound of galloping horses came suddenly out of the darkness below him, and a moment later he discerned the moving blotches of lighter color against the solid background of the night. ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... background wrong,' he said, taking off a yellowish grey with the knife. 'The cloud in the left-hand corner is the deepest dark you have in the picture,' and he prepared a tone. 'What a lovely quality Reynolds has got into the sky! ... This face is not sufficiently foreshortened. ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... in the Adirondacks was open at one end. Here, against a background of big forest trees, a curious medley of substances had been assembled: old chairs, a couple of broken-down airplanes, a large disused dynamo, a heap of discarded clothing, a miscellany of kitchen utensils on a table, a gas stove, and a heap of metal junk of all kinds. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... of convolutions drifted through his mind—a shape, perhaps, and a color. He felt no curiosity, and let the impression drift. As a sunbather drowsing on a crowded beach, hearing the background hum of the crowd and now and then a more clearly spoken phrase, so he caught the edge of this communication. It was not for him. A second mind entered ... was it a mind? Yes, and yet very different. It was strong, but limited—perhaps childlike, in some ways. Alive after a fashion, ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... cradle, and she considered that his widow had outraged his memory, by marrying again so short a time after his death. For this, above all her other provocations, Barbara never heartily forgave her. And a great struggle it was to her to keep her own feelings as much as possible in the background, from the conscientious motive that she ought not to instil into Clare's baby mind the faintest feeling of aversion towards her mother. The idea of the child being permanently sent to Enville Court was intensely distasteful to ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... said. "Our Old World background, where superstition is the rule, old, very old superstition. Frightened by them when we were young. Now those childhood fixations reveal themselves in ...
— Strange Alliance • Bryce Walton
... his principles of foreign policy are at stake; and he was ready to pounce upon the Prime Minister if he had detected any departure from the narrow and straight path which leads to Radical salvation. In the background were the dim forces of Unionism, more eager—perhaps even more reckless—in readiness to attack Mr. Gladstone than his opponents on the opposite benches. And behind them and above them, in all parts of the House, was that countless host ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... myself. Somewhere in the background of my consciousness I had a vague recollection of having heard mention of such a name before, but exactly when and where I could not, for the life of ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... the last, it is natural that Claude Duval should find a certain want of excitement in the next scene, where he appears as a respectable householder in the apartments of his lawful spouse. This lady, leaving a cradle in the background, and advancing to the footlights, proceeds to hover round her husband, after the manner of stage wives, with neck protruded and arms spread out, like a woman who is a little afraid of a wasp or earwig, but wants to catch the creature ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... preparations for the advance were made, Dr. Gray, who understood perhaps more fully than any one else except O'Neil the gravity of the issue and the slender pivot upon which the outcome balanced, had taken his place in the vanguard of the attacking party instead of in the background, as befitted his calling. The first rush had carried him well into the fray, but once there he had shown his good judgment by refusing ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor's shoulder—yes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye—it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... it that she was now and then conscious of a certain dim background of relief in the forced separation from Philip? Surely it was only because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was welcome at ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... upon circumstances. He has better orders than I could give, for I am no hand at scheming. Here we are; or here we stop. Say nothing till I tell you. Pray allow me the honor. You keep in the background, remember, with your veil, or whatever you call it, down. Nobody stops at the very door. Of course that ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... she said, addressing herself. "This is all too good to be true. It will fold up in a minute and move away for the next act, and that will be full of tragedy, with an ugly background." ...
— Daphne, An Autumn Pastoral • Margaret Pollock Sherwood
... forget. It was quite unattractive, I believe, so far as variety of contour was concerned—quite level and commonplace. Right across the road from the house was a half-grown windbreak of golden willow. Against that as a background blazed out row upon row of the most brilliant flowers, graduated down to the edge of the road, and extending as far as half a city block or more. Think what a beautiful surprise for every one that turned that corner. I think the occupants of the ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... all doubt in the very subordination of these other characters to Benassis, and in the skilful grouping of the whole as background and adjunct to him, that the appeal of the book as art consists. From that point of view there are grounds for regarding it as the finest of the author's work in the simple style, the least indebted to super-added ornament ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... sawed-off burnt-offering, you can't see the policy that we must use in handling this matter. This is a delicate play, that can't be managed roughshod on horseback. It has food, shelter, and drink in it for us all, but they must be kept in the background. The main play now is to convince Mr. Seigerman that he has a call to serve his country in the office of sheriff. Bear down heavy on the emergency clause. Then make him think that no other name but Louie Seigerman will satisfy the public clamor. Now, my ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... your mill chances to come into the kitchen and find me in my jupon and camisole preparing dinner (for you know I cannot trust Sarah to cook a single dish), she sneers. If I accept an invitation out to tea, which I have done once or twice, I perceive I am put quite into the background; I have not that attention paid me which decidedly is my due. Of what an excellent family are the Gerards, as we know, and the Moores also! They have a right to claim a certain respect, and to feel wounded when it is withheld from them. In ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... should keep on knowing all the rest of my life about the same sort of people, for the girls who go to college are from the more fortunate classes. There are exceptions, but they are drawn largely from homes that have some cultivation, some sort of background. The experiences of teachers in such institutions are likely to cramp. It's all right later on, but at first, it seems to me better to experiment in the wider circle. Now—" and she broke off with a light laugh, eager ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... sure enough, the dreaded coast of Africa was seen, with a palpable distinctness, within two miles of the vessel. It presented a long broken line of sand-hills, unrelieved by a tree, or by so few as almost to merit this description, and with a hazy background of remote mountains to the north-east. The margin of the actual coast nearest to the ship was indented with bays; and even rocks appeared in places; but the general character of the scene was that of a fierce and burning sterility. On this picture of desolation all stood gazing in ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... her, stood in the background as silent as a bronze statute until the little ceremony was over. If she was impressed by the strangeness of it all, she gave no sign. For so many of the customs of her husband's alien race were strange to her that she had long ago ceased to wonder or desire ...
— The New Land - Stories of Jews Who Had a Part in the Making of Our Country • Elma Ehrlich Levinger
... mean what I say?" Millner glanced past the banker's figure at his rich densely coloured background of Spanish leather and mahogany. He remembered that it was from this very threshold that he had first ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... our box on a table, as the duchess bade us, and I helped M. Etienne to lay out its contents, which done, I retired to the background, well content to leave the brunt of the business to him. It was as he prophesied: they paid me no heed whatever. He was smoothly launched on the third relating of his tale; I trow by this time he almost believed it himself. Certes, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the carriage, and at the wind, till the voice of the Doctor sounded in his ear, ordering him sternly to get out of the carriage and drag it out of the way. He sulkily obeyed, and wound up the string of his kite, and betook himself to the background, trembling lest the Doctor should have ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... after the hour of noon, this tree, covered with thick foliage, quite shadowed the water, rendering it of darkish colour, and somewhat obscure. At this hour the fish could not be so easily seen, even against the background of the ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... moved back, but he indicated a bundle of deerskin articles he thought her business was to sell. Her color was high; he noted the vivid white and pink against the dull background of stained leather. ...
— Lister's Great Adventure • Harold Bindloss
... had travelled upon it trying to strike the Victoria River. If Mr. John Chambers's liberality were known, and the way he had entered into the question of exploration generally were known, his name would be brought into more prominence than it had. He had sat in the background, but he had found ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... dazzlingly white, swim in stately fashion. Beneath an old willow, whose drooping boughs form quite a vault of pale verdure, a squadron of multicolored boats remain fastened to the balustrade of a landing stage. Through an opening in the trees you see in the distance fields of yellow corn, and in the near background, behind a row of poplars, ever moving like a flash of silver lightning, the Oise flows on between its ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... Dollington, by a majority of two, he kicked the crown out of the grave attorney's chimney-pot, and flung his own wide-awake into the river. He did not show much; his official station precluded prominence. He kept in the background, and did his spiriting gently. But Tom Wealdon, it was known—as things are known without evidence—was at the bottom of all the clever dodges, and long-headed manoeuvres. When, therefore, Mr. Larkin heard from the portly and ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... period of demobilization and reconversion is fraught with uncertainties. There are also serious gaps in our statistical information. Certain tendencies are, however, fairly clear and recognition of them should serve as background for the consideration of next year's Federal Program. In general, the outlook for business is good, and it is likely to continue to be good—provided we control inflation and achieve ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... in front of me, listening for the most part silently, or occasionally giving vent to low grunts and interjections of approval. One evening, I remember, a young woman joined the group, though keeping somewhat in the background; she listened intently, and after a time gradually turned her face toward me, unconsciously as it were; and the light of a street-lamp at a little distance revealed a countenance youthful, pale, sad, and exquisitely beautiful. It impressed me as with a vague reminiscence of something ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne
... is an indication of viciousness or perversity. It appears to be an impulse that occurs quite naturally in altogether innocent women. The exciting charm of the risky and dangerous naturally arises on a background of feminine shyness and timidity. We may trace its recognition at a very early stage of history in the story of Eve and the forbidden fruit that has so often been the symbol of the masculine organs of sex. It is on this ground that many ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... length from me on the ground. When I looked again the Indian was gone. I went to the tree. The Indian had had but an instant, but he had secured himself out of reach of my eyesight; had faded into the background as a partridge screens itself behind mottled leaves. If I followed him, a knife would be slipped out at me from behind stump or tree trunk, and the dog might not ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... he walked directly toward the sun, and those who tried to follow him and find out what he did at night in the desert had indelibly imprinted upon their mind's vision the black silhouette of a tall, stout man against the red background of an immense disk. The horrors of the night drove them away, and so they never found out what Lazarus did in the desert; but the image of the black form against the red was burned forever into their ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various |
