"Observant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... only, the object of my search, was present to my fancy. Pervaded with remembrance of the Hadwins; of the agonies which they had already endured; of the despair which would overwhelm the unhappy Susan when the death of her lover should be ascertained; observant of the lonely condition of this house, whence I could only infer that the sick had been denied suitable attendance; and reminded, by the symptoms that appeared, that this being was struggling with the agonies of death; a sickness of the heart, more insupportable than that which ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... loath, and half consenting to the ill, For royal blood within him struggled still, He thus replied:—And what pretence have I To take up arms for public liberty? My father governs with unquestion'd right, The faith's defender, and mankind's delight; Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws; And Heaven by wonders has espoused his cause. 320 Whom has he wrong'd, in all his peaceful reign? Who sues for justice to his throne in vain? What millions has he pardon'd of his foes, Whom just revenge did to his wrath expose! Mild, easy, humble, studious of our good; Inclined to mercy, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... closed. Thus, in the half-year ending July 1888 there were twelve deaths and but one birth in the district of the Hatiheu. Seven or eight more deaths were to be looked for in the ordinary course; and M. Aussel, the observant gendarme, knew of but one likely birth. At this rate it is no matter of surprise if the population in that part should have declined in forty years from six thousand to less than four hundred; which are, once more on the authority of M. Aussel, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... expect a correct reply at once to all the voluminous questions that he put to me on these occasions, but he meant to make me observant and ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... there drink in long drafts of the cooler air. The pressure of invisible hoops about the great heaving chest would then release itself, the haggard face would regain some touch of color, and the new greaser would go back to his work again. One or two of the more observant toilers about him, experienced in engine-room life, marveled at the newcomer and the sense of mystery which hung over him. One or two of them fell to wondering what inner spirit could stay him through those four-houred ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... must lead a very humdrum sort of life indeed. It is not enough that he should be free from the stains of vice and immorality; that his principles and habits should be those of a gentleman; that he should avoid excesses, and be observant of discipline; this the university would have a right to expect from all who are candidates for her honours and emoluments. But there is a conventional character which he must put on besides this. I say "put on;" because, however natural it may be to some men, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... paragraphs, pages, whole stories even, were written over and over again. He worked upon a principle of elimination. If he wished to describe an automobile turning in at a gate, he made first a long and elaborate description from which there was omitted no detail, which the most observant pair of eyes in Christendom had ever noted with reference to just such a turning. Thereupon he would begin a process of omitting one by one those details which he had been at such pains to recall; and after each omission he would ask ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... was looking after the girl with observant, comprehending eyes. She turned to Holcombe with a smile. "There are a few things you have still to learn, Mr. Holcombe," she said, bowing in her saddle mockingly, and dropping the point of her spear to him as an adversary does in salute. "And perhaps," ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... deeply," explained the observant Burt, "on the reflection of light as shown not only by the color in these flowers, but also in your cheeks ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... of his strongest arguments for this alleged community of descent. Yet what is more certain to every observant field-naturalist than that this alleged uselessness of colouring is one of the greatest protections to the young bird, imperfect in its flight, perching on every spray, sitting unwarily on every bush through which the rays of sunshine dapple every bough to the colour of its own plumage, and ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... way he took the corner by the barrack gate, on one wheel, any criterion; he always did it, just as he never failed to acknowledge the sentry's salute by raising his whip. It needed the observant eyes of Outram's Own to detect the rather strained calmness and the almost ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... people, anyway?" he wondered. Not farmers, certainly. Farmers did not have hands that dented when you pressed them, and farmers' wives did not lift their skirts daintily from behind. Hans had been very observant as his visitors came up the muddy street. No, that was not the way of farmers' wives: they took hold at the sides with both hands, and splashed right through on ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... of brandy to himself and filled his glass again, tossing off the spirit as if it had been water. Then he tried to look Mr. Corbet full in the face, with a stare as pertinacious as he could make it, but very different from the keen observant gaze which was trying ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... submarine vessel which had started to make its way to the north pole under the ice of the arctic regions, had sunk out of sight under the waters, it carried a very quiet and earnestly observant party. Every one seemed anxious to know what would happen next, and all those whose duties would allow them to do so gathered under the great skylight in the upper deck, and gazed upward at the little glass bulb on the surface of the water, which they were towing by means of an ...
— The Great Stone of Sardis • Frank R. Stockton
... besides those connected with wells still survive in the "land o' cakes." The same observant writer says that in the north of Scotland they literally sacrifice a cock to a nameless but secretly acknowledged power, whose propitiation is sought in the cure of epilepsy. On the spot where the patient falls a black cock is buried alive, along with a ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... Agnostic. Atheist. Non-observant Jewish. Neo-pagan. Very commonly, three or more of these are combined in the same person. Conventional faith-holding Christianity is rare ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... Mr. Barlow, who was nobody as yet. The doctor pressed her small hand in his big strong one. Tall—taller than his friend David—was he, with dark hair and beard—at least, they had been dark, but were fast turning grey; his eyes were dark, piercing, and observant, full of fire; still, a kindly face, ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... 'But,' the observant reader may possibly exclaim, 'there is nothing new about this. Woman has ever been man's favourite grumble-vent, from the day when the first man got out of his first scrape by blaming the only available woman!' True enough, age cannot ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... perceiving that the floor had been diligently stained all over with some coffee-coloured preparation, for the second time in the evening his lordship swore. He was, in fact, in some dudgeon about to replace the lamp, when the torn edge of paper, showing between two boards, caught his observant eye.... ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... family life at Lochlea,—'The Cotter's Saturday Night.' He was a student of nature,—his love of which was conspicuous in his poetry, flushing his words with picturesque phrases and flooding his lines with the feeling of outdoor life. He was a student of animal life,—a lover of horses and dogs, observant of their habits and careful of their comfort. He felt for the little mouse which his plowshare turned out of its nest, and he pitied the poor hare which the unskillful fowler could only wound. The commoners of earth and air were dear to him; and the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Some of the notes had undoubtedly been suggested by the song of local birds and by sounds of wild animals. The Bororos were good imitators of sounds, which they could often reproduce to perfection. They were observant with their ears—much more so than with their eyes. Even in conversation the Bororos would often repeat, accurately enough, noises they heard around them, such as the crashing of falling trees, of rushing water, of distant thunder, or foreign words which caught their fancy. ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... their sovereign's curious eye, Parents and children, fine, fat, hopeful sprigs, All snuffling, squinting, grunting in their style, Appeared the brewer's tribe of handsome pigs: On which the observant man, who fills a throne, Declared the pigs ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... et familia viri, ut et circumstantibus risum moveant sibique loquendo laudem comparent, facetiam in sermone plurimam observant; dum vel sales, vel laedoria, nunc levi nunc mordaci, sub aequivocationis vel amphibolae nebula, relatione diversa, transpositione verborum et trajectione, subtiles et dicaces emittunt." And he cites examples of their witticisms. "Descriptio Kambriae," ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... from what was considered an "idle amusement," but it was soon discovered that opposition was unavailing, and the attachment too strong to be checked. It might perhaps have been otherwise, but for some rays of encouragement received from the observant kindness of his first schoolmaster. To watch the direction of the little hand when it wandered from its task, to draw the culprit to him with a smile instead of a reproof, to set him on the high stool beside his desk, and stimulate him, by the loan of his own pen, to a more patient ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the lad, and he stepped quickly over the leaves, to throw himself down close to Archie as if he were asleep, but keeping one half-closed eye fully observant of all ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... there absolutely alone. No one had gone out to the ship to meet him; no one came forward now on the quay-side, and it was evident from his indifference to the bystanders that he expected no one. The more careless of these would have accounted him a complete stranger to the locality, the more observant an absentee who had just returned, for while his looks expressed isolation, one significant gesture proved familiarity with the environments. As his eyes travelled up the tiers of houses and glanced ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... teeth, and unregenerately boasting of the losses of the foe. It was a sore day for Mrs. Weir; she wept and prayed over the infant backslider until my lord was due from Court, and she must resume that air of tremulous composure with which she always greeted him. The judge was that day in an observant mood, and remarked upon ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... reared in penury extreme, Could scarcely read or write ere he attained eighteen, And yet, by the observant force of a self-guided brain, He lived to benefit a world, and ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... did not see Miss Moore's contemptuous smile, or Mrs. Davis's grave glance. One of the pitiful things about jealous people is that they don't know how amusing—or else boring—or else irritating—they are to an observant and entirely unsympathetic world! Eleanor had no idea that the whole tableful of people knew she was jealous, and found her ridiculous. She only knew that Maurice seemed to like them—which meant ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... six for the motion. A similar resolution was lost in the house of lords, as a matter of course; but the language held by the new lord chancellor, Lyndhurst, and by Wellington himself, as prime minister, prepared observant men for an impending change of policy. Then followed the Clare election, which revealed nothing which might not have been foreseen, but which had the same effect in precipitating the removal of catholic disabilities as the Irish famine afterwards had in precipitating the repeal of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... is important to translate as adequately as possible the positive side of Mr. Abbey's activity. None to-day is more charming, and none helps us more to take the large, joyous, observant, various view of the business of art. He has enlarged the idea of illustration, and he plays with it in a hundred spontaneous, ingenious ways. "Truth and poetry" is the motto legibly stamped upon his pencil-case, for if he ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... all of a sudden obliged to change his resolution by some disagreeable letters which he received from London. He had, from his first departure, corresponded with his generous, though inconstant mistress, with a religious exactness and punctuality; nor was she, for some time, less observant of the agreement they had made. Nevertheless, she, by degrees, became so negligent and cold in her expression, and so slack in her correspondence, that he could not help observing and upbraiding her with such indifference; ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... wisdom proved scant. She presumed too much on her insignificance. She was a "study," the gossiping circle at Frowenfeld's used to say; and any observant hearer of her odd aphorisms could see that she herself had made a life-study of herself and her conditions; but she little thought that others—some with wits and some with none—young hare-brained Grandissimes, Mandarins and the like—were silently, and for her ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... smoking a cigar of purest ray and reading sleepily a small verse-looking book in morocco. His occupation, his general air, the furniture of the room, and his title (doubtless equipped with a corresponding salary) might have inspired in an observant cynic the idea that here lay a pet of Fortune, whose position had been the fruit of nepotism, or, mayhap, a successful wooing of some daughter, wife, or widow. Eugene looked competent ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... Junior. He had been elected a student of "the most flourishing college of Europe" and he designed to show his gratitude by writing something that should be worthy of that noble society. He had read much; he was neither rich nor poor; living in studious seclusion, he had been a critically observant spectator of the world's affairs. The philosopher Democritus, who was by nature very melancholy, "averse from company in his latter days and much given to solitariness," spent his closing years in the suburbs of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... And you really cannot strip the external off; you cannot get your stark natural man, jealous, but not jealous about anything in particular, imaginative without any imaginings, proud at large. Emotional dispositions can no more exist without form than a man without air. Only a very observant man who had lived all over the planet Earth, in all sorts of social strata, and with every race and tongue, and who was endowed with great imaginative insight, could hope to understand the possibilities and the limitations of human plasticity in this matter, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... a white-silk pill, soft to the touch and glutinous. Its size is that of an average cherry. An observant eye will notice, running horizontally around the middle, a fold which a needle is able to raise without breaking it. This hem, generally undistinguishable from the rest of the surface, is none other than the edge of the circular mat, drawn over the lower ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... the instrument-box, determined to prove our appreciation of Korak hospitality by eating everything which offered itself. The bowl with its strange-looking contents arrested, of course, the attention of the observant Dodd, and, poking it inquiringly with a long-handled spoon, he turned to Viushin, who, as chef-de-cuisine, was supposed to know all ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... weather, the crops, and the stock; and thence to slide into discussions on the various kinds of fodder and their feeding qualities. Hodge and Giles, after comparing notes over their respective pig-styes, show by their remarks that they have been observant of their masters' beasts and sheep; and of the effects produced on them by this or that kind of treatment. Nor is it only among the rural population that the regulations of the kennel, the stable, the cow-shed, and ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... directly from its Latin or rather Greek name, Daucus Carota, but it once had a prettier name. The Anglo-Saxons called it "bird's-nest," and Gerard gives us the reason, and it is a reason that shows they were more observant of the habits of plants than we generally give them credit for: "The whole tuft (of flowers) is drawn together when the seed is ripe, resembling a bird's nest; whereupon it hath ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... arrived at the same time. Camellia's appearance, as she came up the porch steps, while trim and attractive, gave no hint to the Philosopher's eyes, observant though they were, of what was to be expected. He had failed to note the trunks. This was not strange, for Camellia had a beautiful face, and her ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... clean-cut face, chin beard, and shaved upper lip, I should have taken in the United States for anything from a master workman to a well-to-do farmer. The Carpenter—well, I should have taken him for a carpenter. He looked it, lean and wiry, with shrewd, observant eyes, and hands that had grown twisted to the handles of tools through forty- seven years' work at the trade. The chief difficulty with these men was that they were old, and that their children, instead of growing up to take care of them, had died. Their years had told on them, and they ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... And indeed an observant traveller will be led to think that a great deal of what may most truly be called civilisation has found its way in among the Ballons, whether it travelled thither by the new- fangled railways and ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... to the river, though not in a geographical way distinct, is indicated to the observant eye by a simple feature—namely, the appearance of alluvial terraces, those more or less level heaps of water-borne debris which accumulate along the banks of rivers, which, indeed, constitute the difference ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... height. He can be stiff and upright like a drilled soldier, or loose-jointed and shambling like a tramp. He is a finished artist, and employs the very simplest means. He could, I truly believe, deceive his wife or his mother, but he will never again deceive me. I am not a specially observant man; still one can make a shot at most things when driven to it, and I object to being the subject of Dawson's ribaldry. If you will take my tip, you will be able to spot him as readily ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... girl was alighting. As he went wonderingly to meet her, he saw that she was city-bred. She seemed to be dazed by the illimitable spaces and was blinking from the sunshine. His observant eye noted the smart suitcase and the wardrobe trunk the man was depositing on the porch. There was city shrewdness in having had the amount of the ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... often has the grave revealed its secrets to observant men? Dr. Donne sauntered about among graves, and saw a sexton turn up a skull. He examined it, found a nail in it, identified the skull, and had the murderess hung. She was safe from the sexton and the rest of the parish, but not from a stray observer. Well, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... had been. She had behaved unpardonably. Her penitence showed itself in a shy and deferential solicitude towards Mrs. Fisher which made the observant Briggs think her still more angelic, and wish for a moment that he were an old lady himself in order to be behaved to by Rose Arbuthnot just like that. There was evidently no end, he thought, to the things she could do sweetly. He would even not mind taking medicine, really nasty medicine, if ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... many as three grave doctors—they used to assemble downstairs and come up together—and the room was so quiet and Paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody what they said) that he even knew the difference in the sound ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... thought Rocjean, as the door closed, 'goes 'a patron of art'—and by no means the worst pattern. I hope he will meet with Chapin, and buy an Orphan and an Enterprise statue; once in his house, they will prove to every observant man ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Mr. Burrage looked on at the chess-board, and made remarks on the game languidly. By and by the talk of the two ladies ceased, and the head of Mrs. Burrage came round, and she also studied the chess-players. Her face was observant and critical, Lois thought; ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... came,' he cried. 'Feel here—his skin is fresh and new! He esteemed the salt lozenges, and took milk with greed.' He drew the cloth from the child's face, and it smiled sleepily at Kim. A little knot of Jain priests, silent but all-observant, gathered by the temple door. They knew, and Kim knew that they knew, how the old lama had met his disciple. Being courteous folk, they had not obtruded themselves overnight by presence, word, or gesture. Wherefore Kim repaid them as the ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... have helped seeing what Joan had been doing. By the time she returned, though, the worst of the pain was over, and keeping up her hand to that side of her face, Joan managed to conceal the injured eye, and Betty was too busy with her fire and her kettle to be very observant. ...
— Cornwall's Wonderland • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... he only looked gravely at the young creature, and added no more either of counsel or comfort at that time. He did not stay long, nor talk much while he staid, of anything; but he was thoughtfully observant of Hazel. He gave her a parting shot on ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... face showed foiled malice. "It is a snake that the Owl warms in his bosom," he said, and strode away. The partisan followed him with observant eyes. ...
— The Masters of the Peaks - A Story of the Great North Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... chiefly acted the part of observant listener up to that moment, now assured Mr Rigonda with so much sincerity that what had been told him was true, that he ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... with the bondage of his own countrymen. The "Philosophic Letters" purported to be addressed to the author's friend Theriot; but they would seem to be essays in an epistolary form rather than actual correspondence. Of England and its people, Voltaire was both an observant and an appreciative critic; hosts and guest alike had reason to be pleased with his ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... "How observant you are," said Adela bitterly. "You seem to notice everything. As a matter of fact, it has got six chrysanthemums in its mouth at the ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... he, himself, received from his son, the latter spoke freely of the danger that menaced the throne. There was, indeed, abundant cause of alarm to all thoughtful and observant minds, and especially to men who were living like the Marquis in the heart of the provinces, and who were consequently able to judge understandingly of the imminence of the peril. Of course, no person could then foresee the catastrophes which were to succeed one another so rapidly ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... then, to increase your vocabulary. Of course you must become observant of words and inquisitive about them. For words are like people: they have their own particular characteristics, they do their work well or ill, they are in good odor or bad, and they yield best service to him who loves them and tries to understand them. ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... as Professor Grayling knew, however (and he was as keenly observant of his daughter and her development as he was of scientific matters), there was as yet no such man in sight. Lou had escaped the usual boy-and-girl entanglements which fret the lives of many young folk, because of her association with her ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... morals, and the dignity of his life. Possessed of a patrimonial estate, near Abbeville, which brought him in a modest income of six hundred crowns a year, and a bachelor, he devoted himself to study and to religious matters with independence of mind and with a pious heart. "Most faithfully observant," says Erasmus, "of the ordinances and rites of the church, to wit, prescribed fasts, holy days, forbidden meats, masses, sermons, and, in a word, all, that tends to piety, he strongly reprobated the doctrines of Luther." He was none the less, in 1523, denounced to the Parliament of Paris as being ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... melt! What a cry of agony goes up from her white lips! How pale her cheeks grow as she drops the rein from her nerveless fingers! The observant horse needs no words to check his swift career. The scene of desolation stops him in an instant. He stretches out his head and looks with staring eyes upon the ruin. He snuffs with distended nostrils the smoke that rises ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... whatever she felt, she felt and did as for her life. Allusion has been made to the intensity of her sympathies. The sight or tale of suffering would set her in a tremor of excitement; and in her eagerness to give relief she seemed ready for any sacrifice, however great. This trait arrested the observant eye of her father, and he expressed to Mrs. Payson his fear lest it might some day prove a real misfortune to the child. "She will be in danger of marrying a blind man, or a helpless cripple, out of pure sympathy," he ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... with the old feeling! Perhaps you have some of them yet, and you remember the peculiar expression of the type in which they were printed: the pages look at you with the face of an old friend. If you were then of an observant nature, you will understand how much of the effect of any composition upon the human mind depends upon the printing, upon the placing of the points, even upon the position of the sentences on the page. A grand, high-flown, and sentimental climax ought always ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... Drumtochty was not observant in the matter of health, but they had grown sensitive about Dr. MacLure, and remarked in the kirkyard all summer that he ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... hotel would simply advertise their coming. Warden had seen to that and engaged quarters for them near his own. Thither they were to go at once, and, valises in hand, they followed Warden's lead, McCrea and their guide talking eagerly together, Geordie following, silent and observant. Toward the iron gateway they pressed, jostled and elbowed by ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... particular scenes, events, and conversations are set forth vividly and minutely. The descriptions of natural scenery, and of works of Art, many of which come naturally into the story, show a cultivated and observant eye and a command of judicious language. The characters are well developed, and, with an unimportant exception, there is nothing introduced into the book that is not necessary to the completion of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... the medicines and diet prescribed, and was strong enough to turn in bed without aid, and to sit up to take nourishment. During the earlier days of his illness, though inclined to doze, he was easily aroused, was quite conscious and observant, evidently understood whatever was said to him, and answered questions briefly but intelligently; he was, however, averse to much speaking, generally using monosyllables, as had always been his ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... one of them. He knew that he could not please his father or mother better than by being on the prize list, and so he applied himself to his lessons with a vigour and fidelity that soon brought him to the notice of the observant doctor. ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... the prisoner both when I entered the witness-box and when I left it. The lowering brutality of his face was unchanged, but his faculties seemed to be more alive and observant than they were at the police-office. A frightful blue change passed over his face, and he drew his breath so heavily that the gasps were distinctly audible while I mentioned Mary by name and described the mark or the blow on her temple. When they asked me if I knew anything of the ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... "But possibly observant," finished Carse. "All right—I'll clear them away before descending to the lab. Until ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... one who thinks that I may be in the right, to glance through the lists of useful vegetable products given in Lindley's "Vegetable Kingdom"—a miracle of learning—and see the vast field open still to a thoughtful and observant man, even while on service; and not to forget that such knowledge, if he should hereafter leave the service and settle, as many do, in a distant land, may be a solid help to his future prosperity. So strongly do I feel on this matter, that I should like to see ...
— Scientific Essays and Lectures • Charles Kingsley
... be admitted of this young lady that, sturdy and prepossessing, from a practical point of view, as she might be to the average food-winning cave man, she lacked a certain something which would, to the observant, place her at once in good society. She was an exceedingly hairy young woman. She wore the usual covering of skins, but she would have been well-draped, in moderately temperate weather, had the covering been absent. Either ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... looked wistfully at his master, as though suspecting something wrong or unusual, but he did not attempt to follow him; he lay down with his nose between his paws, his short ears pricked, and his bright eyes keenly observant. Then the two boys set off running down the street together, and were ...
— Our Frank - and other stories • Amy Walton
... a 'pedlar,' both at home and in the United States. His intellectual ability and genius would alone have given sanction to Wordsworth's conception; but as simple matter-of-fact, the class was a peculiarly thoughtful and observant one, as the ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... to wander from the subject to any other. But the fellow seemed now to have become as tractable as before he had been sullen, stubborn; gave his version in his own vernacular, always keenly attentive, observant of the other's every motion. His strength had apparently returned; he seemed little the worse for his late encounter. At length came an interval; just for an instant John Steele's eyes shut; the fingers that had held the pen closed on the edge of the table. A quick ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... their strong jaws. Sometimes, when digging into the burrows, one of these giants has unperceived climbed up my dress, and the first intimation of his presence has been the burying of his jaws in my neck, from which he would not fail to draw blood. The stately observant way in which they stalk about, and their great size, compared with the others, always impressed me with the idea that in their bulky heads lay the brains that directed the community in their various duties. ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... and thought of the Nouvelle Heloise. They are substantial letters, concise and interesting, such as a good husband might write after ten years of marriage, but not at all a lover's letters. Josephine, who was quite observant, must have noticed the difference, but she had enough tact and prudence to avoid complaint. 1805 was not 1796; Napoleon still loved Josephine, but from habit, gratitude, and a sense of duty, not with mad passion. He paid her much attention, held her in ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... more objectionable than the English one, because he is under less restraint, and knows no precincts forbidden to him. Generally intelligent and observant, he is here, there, and everywhere; nothing escapes him, nothing is sacred to him. Of course his further development draws its form and shape from his previous caterpillar condition, and when he comes to take his place in mercantile ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... fashion. She soon began to talk well in her own bright way, and had all the attention a young debutante could desire, but she was always conscious of Houghton's presence, and also aware that he was quietly observant of her. She saw that he met with very little cordiality, and that from but a few. Womanlike, she began to take his part in her thoughts, and to feel the injustice shown him. She had an innate sense of fair play, and she resented the manoeuvring of her chaperon to keep him ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... Puck, the example did not impress itself much on Teddy; for, despite his own previous peril, he was for ever getting himself into disgrace by going down to the river to catch sticklebacks against express injunctions to the contrary, when left alone for any length of time without an observant and controlling eye on his movements. He was also in the habit of joining the village boys at their aquatic pranks in the cattle-pond that occupied a prominent place in the meadows below Endleigh—just where the spur of one of the downs sloped ...
— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson
... He was small and thin, and possessed a pair of extraordinarily bright and intelligent brown eyes, which saw a good deal more of what happened around him than perhaps any other eyes within a radius of a mile from where he sat. He was, in other words, observant to a very high degree; and, what was more remarkable, he knew how to use his powers of observation. There was not a criminal in the length and breadth of the country who did not wonder uneasily whether he had really left the scene of his crime as devoid of clues as he imagined, when he heard that ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... up my own eyes from a task I was poring at—writing some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at once by a sort of stratagem—and seeing Biddy observant of what I was about. I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... wood I fancied that I saw the masked man straighten himself and turn to look after us, but the leaves were beginning to intervene, the distance may have cheated me. And yet I was not indisposed to think the unknown a trifle more observant, and a little less seriously ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... patient will not. That is, the patient will suffer, although neither he nor the inflictor of the injury will attribute it to its real cause. It will not be directly traceable, except by a very careful observant nurse. The patient will often not even mention what has done ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... to make great efforts to overcome this feeling of depression, and partially succeeded in veiling it from all but the observant young king. ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... some old records of the town, and resulted in the discovery of a mysterious disappearance, which, at the time, had been duly noted—the subject being a person whose mode of walking had made him an object of attention, and whose fate, but for the observant eye of the anatomist, must have remained wholly unknown. Similarly, it has been pointed out how skeletons found in mines, in disused wells, in quarries, in the walls of ruins, and various other localities "imply so many social mysteries which probably occasioned in their day a wide-spread ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... resigned. Bharat, his son, refused to reign, Though urged by all the twice-born(29) train. Forth to the woods he fared to meet His brother, fell before his feet, And cried, "Thy claim all men allow: O come, our lord and king be thou." But Rama nobly chose to be Observant of his sire's decree. He placed his sandals(30) in his hand A pledge that he would rule the land: And bade his brother turn again. Then Bharat, finding prayer was vain, The sandals took and went away; Nor in Ayodhya would he stay. But turned to Nandigrama, ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... he had won for the Duke of Buckingham, and which the duke, incapable, like his father, of soiling his hands with coin of any sort, had left lying on the table before him. The king only recovered his attention in some degree at the moment that Monsieur Colbert, who had been narrowly observant for some minutes, approached, and, doubtless, with great respect, yet with much perseverance, whispered a counsel of some sort into the still tingling ears of the king. The king, at the suggestion, listened with renewed attention and immediately looking around him, said, ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... solar disk, and inserted on the top of a thick handle; another, who has been relegated to Turin, appears to be placed between two long staves, each surmounted by an idol, and, to judge from his attitude, seems to have no small idea of his own beauty and importance. The Egyptians were an observant people and inclined to satire, and I have a shrewd suspicion that the sculptors, in giving to such statuettes this character of childlike vanity, yielded to the temptation to be merry at ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... confined in different houses of correction as an incorrigible rogue and vagabond, from one of which he had recently contrived to effect his escape. The officer now bore off his prize in triumph, while Dashall, hitherto "the most observant of all observers," sustained the laugh of his Cousin at the knowing one deceived, with great good humour, and Dashall, adverting to his opinion so confidently expressed, "There can be no deception here," declared that ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... His relations with Phoebe had been purely and entirely of the pecuniary sort. She was a showy, pretty girl, with a smart little figure—but with some undeniably bad lines, which only observant physiognomists remarked, about her eyebrows and her mouth. Amelius was not a physiognomist; but he was in love with Regina, which at his age implied faithful love. It is only men over forty who can ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... forget the schoolroom window,' she said to herself, with a slight blush, as she recalled that fixed look; 'Mr. Ollier generally sat with his back to the window and took no notice—he was as blind as a bat, too—but Mr. Blake is very observant.' ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... more or less artistic nature. To the mother, in her honest narrowness, the son's choice of a calling which she held to be unfitting, was something of a tragedy. She allowed no item of her duty to escape her, and moved about the house as usual, sternly observant of her daily task, but her lips were compressed to a thin line, and her face reflected the anger that burnt in her heart, too deep for speech. In the months that followed, Maurice learnt that the censure hardest to meet is that ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... experienced. I had thought to make a mere morning visit, but found I was not to be let off so lightly. 'You must not think our neighborhood is to be read in a morning like a newspaper,' said Scott; 'it takes several days of study for an observant traveller, that has a relish for auld-world trumpery. After breakfast you shall make your visit to Melrose Abbey; I shall not be able to accompany you, as I have some household affairs to attend to; but I will put you in charge of my son Charles, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Burton and Margaret Ellison, and certainly no one made a fuss over him on account of it. Why should anybody make a hero of a young fellow just because he is not quite sure of himself in crossing the street, and because his mouth twitches? Boy scouts are both observant and patriotic, but they could not see that there was anything missing about Tom. All they had noticed was that in resuming his duties at the office he had seemed to be drifting away from them—from the troop. ...
— Tom Slade at Black Lake • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... tirelessly in the broad and careless spoor of Jake Kloon, his narrow, pointed head alert, and every fear-sharpened instinct tensely observant, the trap-thief ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... the placid yellow face of Shaik Tsin appeared, as if materialized bodily out of the shadows. With folded arms he waited, dispassionately observant. Presently Prince Victor nodded to him over the head of the girl. Immediately the Chinaman moved round her chair and, employing both hands, in one instant switched off the hooded bulb and reilluminated the lamp ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... took another turn across the room before replying; and the observant lawyer saw him, when his back was turned, pass his hand across his brow, with the action of one ill at ease. Then resuming his seat, and motioning the lawyer to ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... child should not be nursed during the night after it is six months old. Solid food is usually given too soon; tea and coffee are often given before the child is a year old, and to these is added "anything on the table." {78} For the children's sake, the visitor should be very observant. It is difficult, at first, to find out how they are fed, bathed, and clothed, and whether they go to bed early, in clean beds and ventilated rooms; but one can learn more by observation than by direct questions. ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond
... the various sums in rents, dividends, and interest to which the young man was entitled after his liberal fees as administrator had been deducted, and even smiled when told of Bradley's reckless and almost criminal escapades. Henley had once remarked in his keenly observant way that Welborne, being the next of kin, would be glad to hear that his nephew had died with his boots on in some one of the lynching affairs to which Bradley was ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben
... inquiry in astonishment. He had never fancied that, in such matters, Munro had been so observant, and for a few moments gave no reply. He evidently winced beneath the inquiry; but he soon recovered himself, however—for, though at times exhibiting the passions of a demoniac, he was too much of a proficient not to be able, in the end, to command ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... nothing to do with anything else; but the young botanist who may grasp this plume of leaves will find that the root leads along under-ground, till suddenly up comes another plant—a tall stem with panicles of purplish flowers. All these freaks or peculiarities become delightful to the observant eye. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... visits to maiden aunts, and passed Mrs. McWhae's shop, turning away their eyes and noses from vanity, and sold to grinding capitalists their tops, marbles, young rabbits, and kites; and "as sure as death" every Monday the silent but observant treasurer received for eight weeks 5L 4s., at the rate of sixpence a head, from 208 boys. They kept their secret like an oyster, and there was not one informer among the 208; but curiosity grew hot, and there were many speculations, ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren |
