"Observer" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... subject to laws and rules dependent on the nature of human intelligence. The difficulty consists in the fact that these laws and rules, on whose fulfilment beauty depends, are not consciously present in the mind of the artist who creates the work, or of the observer who contemplates it." Nevertheless they are discoverable, and can be formulated, after a fashion. We have only to read aright the lessons everywhere portrayed in the vast picture-books of nature and ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... ordinary observer it would have seemed that the chief characteristic of this pale, still day, was extreme and settled calm. There was not a breath of wind to ruffle the surface of the sea; but there was a slight, glassy swell, and that ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... tradesmen's tables are now the emblems, not of plenty, but of luxury, not of good house-keeping, but of profusion, and that of the highest kind of extravagance; insomuch, that it was the opinion of a gentleman who had been not a traveller only, but a nice observer of such things abroad, that there is at this time more waste of provisions in England than in any other nation in the world, of equal extent of ground; and that England consumes for their whole subsistence more flesh than half ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... bitter partisanship. He hated Walpole, and his political writings are, at bottom, no more than an attempt to generalize his animosity. The Dissertation on Parties (1734) and the Idea of a Patriot King (1738) might have betrayed us, taken alone, into regarding their author as a disinterested observer watching with regret the development of a fatal system; but taken in conjunction with the Letter to Sir W. Windham (1717), which was not published until after his death, and is written with an acrid cynicism fatal to his ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... What interest could he take in inspecting the economy of their establishment? So far, however, from relaxing in their attention after this discovery, their politeness visibly increased, though, perhaps, a scrutinizing observer might have detected a shade of less cordiality ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... thatched sides remained. I cut a hole in one of these with my pocket-knife, and thus obtained a view of the German trenches without committing the error of looking out through the blown-out end, which would have clearly shown an observer that the house was occupied. Looking out through the slit I had made I obtained a panoramic view, more or less, of the German trenches and our own. The view, in short, was this: One saw the backs of our own trenches, then the "No man's land" space ...
— Bullets & Billets • Bruce Bairnsfather
... said I, "to defer what we like" (the itch of the flesh occasion'd this hasty parting, tho' I had been a long time willing to shake off so troublesome an observer of my actions, that I might renew my old ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... persons, they must be seen from the same point of view. In the instance we are now considering, the religious man has his own especial station; the scientific man another, a very different one. It is not for either to demand that his co-observer shall admit that the panorama of facts spread before them is actually such as it appears ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... the law. Such accidents are liable to happen in the most good-humored democracy. When he tries to enforce it there is a burst of angry surprise. He is treated as a revolutionist who is attacking the established order. And yet to the moderately philosophic observer the making of the law and its enforcement belong to the same process. The difficulty is that though united logically they are often ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... all eagerness to take up his traps and go still farther than he who has thus got in advance of him. With such men the desire to emigrate is an irresistible passion. At least so thought that sagacious observer of human nature, M. de Talleyrand, when he travelled ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... that I was leaving Act I, Scene I, of the drama of my life; and yet the scene, or rather the captain's face, lingered for some time in my memory. I was no prophet, as I say; but I was something else: I was an observer; and one thing I knew, I knew when a man was terrified. Captain Trent, of the British brig Flying Scud, had been glib; he had been ready; he had been loud; but in his blue eyes I could detect the ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... stories, the same hallucinations, turned up in the most ancient mythology of India, when not only the character and achievements, but the very names of some of the gods and heroes were found to be the same, then every thoughtful observer saw that there must be a system in that ancient madness, that there must be some order in that strange mob of gods and heroes, and that it must be the task of comparative mythology to find out, what reason there is in all ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... ways this faculty of projecting have exerted itself, and of the various methods, as the genius of the authors has inclined, I have been a diligent observer and, in most, an unconcerned spectator, and perhaps have some advantage from thence more easily to discover the faux pas of the actors. If I have given an essay towards anything new, or made discovery to advantage ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... the youngest on the school staff, and very decidedly the best-looking. He was tall and well made, with black hair and eloquent dark eyes, which had the gift of expressing rather more than a rigid examination would have found inside him—just now, for example, a sentimental observer would have read in their glance round the bare deserted room the passionate protest of a soul conscious of genius against the hard fate which had placed him there, whereas he was in reality merely wondering whose hat that was on the row ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... glasses were drained. Dickey Savage's eyes met Quentin's in a long look of perplexity. At last an almost imperceptible twinkle, suggestive of either mirth or skepticism, manifested itself in his friend's eyes and the puzzled observer ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... and no one ignorant of the fact would ever have suspected that his mind was unsettled as he moved among the guests, talking to one another with that pleasant, courtly manner so natural to him. A very close observer, however, might have seen his eyes dilate and even flash with some sudden emotion when his brother's wife passed him and her brilliant diamonds, his gift, sparkled in the bright gaslight. The setting was rather peculiar, but Mrs. Tracy liked it for the peculiarity, and had never ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... extracts record the impression made by Mr. Newman's preaching on contemporaries well qualified to judge, and standing respectively in very different relations to the movement. This is the judgment of a very close observer, and very independent critic, James Mozley. In an article in the Christian Remembrancer, January 1846 (p. 169), after speaking of the obvious reasons of Mr. Newman's influence, ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... my dear Theo," said he, dipping the fingers of his right hand into the palm of his left, "by more than one acute observer, that the mind of the race whose ...
— The Cockaynes in Paris - 'Gone abroad' • Blanchard Jerrold
... infant that will be remarked by a close observer of Nature is, that while adding to its knowledge by observation, it always confines its attention to one thing at a time, till it has examined it. Before the period when this principle becomes conspicuous in an infant, the eye, and the other senses are in a great measure ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... intermediate forms always remove the difficulty. In very many cases, however, one form is ranked as a variety of another, not because the intermediate links have actually been found, but because analogy leads the observer to suppose either that they do now somewhere exist, or may formerly have existed; and here a wide door for the entry of doubt and conjecture ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... man who had never in his life smiled, yet his face was not an unpleasant face altogether, though there was much in it to give the observer pause. ...
— The Pools of Silence • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... exhibitions of superlative skill, all this would have seemed to an uninitiated observer like Bob an easy task, were it not for the misfortunes of one youth. That boy was about half the time in the water. He could stand upright on a log very well as long as he tried to do nothing else. This partial skill undoubtedly ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... formation were current in his day, and have often been repeated since. But the reader who has given any study to Darwin's array of facts and powerful reasoning will be interested in the ideas of the earlier observer: ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... of the vessel made him pause a moment. The casual observer would have said he stopped to cast an experienced eye on a sky that could not deceive him; but the casual observer does not always know. It is a long distance between the prow and the stern of an ocean liner, when the deck is composed of alternating ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... evidently some years younger, and was neither so tall nor so strongly built as his companion. His countenance was decidedly handsome, and what would be called aristocratic. It was very grave, and, indeed, melancholy in the extreme; and an accurate observer of character might have divined, from the form of his mouth and expression of his eyes, that he was sadly in want of firmness and decision in his actions, which idea, probably, would not have been very far from the truth. ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the ceiling—unstamped—and Spirits used to squatter up and down their staircases all night; but they had never come into contact with kittens. Lone Sahib wrote out the facts, noting the hour and the minute, as every Psychical Observer is bound to do, and appending the Englishman's letter because it was the most mysterious document and might have had a bearing upon anything in this world or the next. An outsider would have translated all the tangle thus: "Look out! You laughed ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... of a modern organ the observer will be struck by the fact that the familiar draw-stop knobs have disappeared, or, if they are still there, he will most likely find in addition a row of ivory tablets, like dominoes, arranged over the upper manual. If the stop-knobs are all gone, he will find an extended row, perhaps two rows of ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... are excellent, and, as they are misrepresented by a treacherous and hypocritical cousin, we sympathize more strongly with the hero of the piece; and all his indiscretions appear, at least, amiable defects. A nice observer[102] of the human heart says, that we are never inclined to to cure ourselves of any defect which makes us agreeable. Frederick's real virtues will not, probably, excite imitation so much as his imaginary ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... entirely unable to explain, and the reason for which I could by no means fathom, was the pertinent enquiry constantly occurring, "why should one cow be given a first prize and another none at all," when the only difference to the mind of a just and impartial observer consisted in the variety of their attitudes or colour. Being thus baffled in my attempts at edification, we adjourned to ...
— Canada for Gentlemen • James Seton Cockburn
... this popular work. On the outside cover, which was dark blue in color, there was a picture of a person whose stomach was sliced four ways, like a twenty-cent pie, and then folded back neatly, thus exposing his entire interior arrangements to the gaze of the casual observer. However, this party, judging by his picture, did not appear to be suffering. He did not even seem to fear that he might catch cold from standing there in his own draught. He was gazing off into space in an absent-minded kind of way, apparently ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb
... control his conduct. This struggle between the forces of good and evil is exceedingly well depicted in Greene's Repentances, under his own or fictitious names; of all the heroes of his tales he is himself the most interesting and the most deeply studied. As a novel writer and an observer of human nature, his own ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... matter, except for the way her face is turned, ye wud never ken whether her buckets were fou or toom" (full or empty), said an admiring observer, as he watched her steady and rapid steps ...
— Allison Bain - By a Way she knew not • Margaret Murray Robertson
... The observer must take into account that among these people there happened to be a good many who, as the war went on, enrolled themselves in the various Volunteer Corps which were formed. These gave the benefit of their experience to the British officers, who relied on the knowledge and perception of ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... followed by three well-washed children, each of whom carried a concertina, now returned and sat down beside a middle-aged lady, who made herself conspicuous by using a gold framed eyeglass so as to convey an impression that she was an exceedingly keen observer. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... breakfast at the "Hotel du Rhin." While we were having breakfast, there was a great noise outside—an English voice was cursing someone else hard and telling him to get on and not make an ass of himself. Then a Flying Pilot was pushed in by an Observer. The Pilot's hand and arm were temporarily bound up, but blood was (p. 021) dropping through. The Observer had his face badly scratched and one of his legs was not quite right. They sat at a table, and the waiter brought them eggs and coffee, which they took ...
— An Onlooker in France 1917-1919 • William Orpen
... strength or military efficiency, or (pace Mr. Benjamin Kidd) relative standards of living, or even the usual material accompaniments of what we call an advanced civilization; it is a question for the trained anthropologist and the craniologist rather than for the casual observer of men and manners. The Japanese people are now much more highly civilized—according to western notions—than they were half a century ago, but it would be ludicrously erroneous to say that they are now a higher race, from the evolutionary point of view, than they were then. Evolution does ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... European trip by a wide-awake, intelligent, and irrepressible American girl. Pictured with a freshness and vivacity that is delightful."—Utica Observer. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... a private hotel with paying guests than an establishment for the retention of the insane, and even to an outside observer the eccentricities of the doctor's family—as he loved to call them—were not more marked than many of the oddities possessed by people at large. Indeed, Jorce was in the habit of saying that "There were more mad people in the world than were kept ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... the same reasoning, to confine all such volcanic action exclusively to this side of the moon. Thus we have the reason for the violently disrupted state which that luminary presents to the telescopic observer, exceeding any analogy to be found upon our globe, as the earth's axial motion has prevented any similar concentrated action upon any particular part of its surface, either from solar or lunar attraction. Another marked effect of the elongation of the moon toward the earth ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... others. There is nothing sadder than that page of the 'Confessions,' in which he relates how he often placed himself at the window to observe the dismission of a school, in order to listen to the conversations of children as a furtive and unseen observer!"[122] ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... there was life and movement. Every little while the surface would be softly broken, and a tiny ripple would set out in widening circles toward the shore, starting from a small dark nose thrust up for a second. The casual observer would have said that these were fish rising for flies; but in fact it was the apprehensive beavers coming up to breathe, afraid to show themselves on account of the Boy. They were all sure that he had not ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... vesica, set within a bevilled fringe of bay-leaves arranged zigzagwise, with their points in contact. Of this Ruskin said in his lecture,[165] "Do you recollect the west window of your own Dunblane Cathedral? It is acknowledged to be beautiful by the most careless observer. And why beautiful? Simply because in its great contours it has the form of a forest leaf, and because in its decoration it has used nothing but forest leaves. He was no common man who designed that cathedral of Dunblane. I know nothing so perfect ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... Sterne,—very human and stomachic, and entirely free from the contempt and superciliousness of most current writers. I did not get one whiff of Dickens anywhere. No doubt it is there in some form or other, but it is not patent, or even appreciable, to the sense of such an observer as I am. ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... live up to their Sunday's lesson. And again and most important, she loves them tenderly, and from love flows wisdom. Usually the mother gives her own children a love far beyond that given by anyone else, and this deeper love sharpens her intellectual faculties and makes her both a keen observer and a good tactician. Giving her children some simple lesson on Sunday afternoon, she finds a hundred opportunities to make the lesson living and vital to them ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... is a blue country; for, a very short distance from the observer, the atmosphere tinges everything blue; and the waters are chiefly of that colour, the sky ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... in a perfect tempest, and he only laughed. The new Roland, the bold and marvelous knight, is already revealed in the letters to be given below. On the 16th he departed on his rounds, carrying, as observer, Lieutenant de Lavalette. His airplane was hit by a shell projectile in the right wing. On the 17th his machine returned with eight wounds, two in the right wing, four in the body, and in addition one strut and one longitudinal spar hit. ...
— Georges Guynemer - Knight of the Air • Henry Bordeaux
... 'chased the frogs into the bogs,' so the redoubtable 0'Mahony has compelled the rebellious Fenians to hide their diminished heads and betake themselves to the recesses of oblivion, where their contortions will be watched by the observer of futurity, as the visitors of Blarney Castle are edified by the gambols of the 'comely eels in the verdant mud.' The brave 0'Mahony has come forth from the contest like gold from the crucible, or whisky from the still, ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 7 • Charles Farrar Browne
... up Regent Street the other day, thinkin what a clever fam'ly I come of, and looking at the gay shop-winders. I've got some new close since you last saw me. I saw them others wouldn't do. They carrid the observer too far back into the dim vister of the past, and I gave 'em to a Orfun Asylum. The close I wear now I bo't of Mr. Moses, in the Commercial Road. They was expressly made, Mr. Moses inforemd me, for a nobleman, but ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 5 • Charles Farrar Browne
... was bombed by Red aeroplanes on September 28 and 30; one of the machines was forced to descend on the latter date some 6 miles to the north of the town. The pilot and observer were taken ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... proceeded, it became evident to the hidden observer that the relations between the conspirators were growing strained. The Cuban seemed to be in taunting mood. The veins on the negro general's bull neck began to swell, and ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... along the walk of life, we working men; so that we want to see a bit of green sward and a flower or two on Sundays. There is a capital gymnasium, and our observation of the young men who disport themselves there would lead an uninitiated observer to form the opinion that the normal condition of humanity was upside down. The way one youthful workman hung by his legs on the trapeze was positively Darwinian to behold. Swings attracted the attention of the ladies; and I regret to say that the particular young lady ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... matter what the weather was, they dressed up in their best suits and visited the little whitewashed cottage. It would have taken a very keen observer to decide which of the young men she cared the most for, or whether, indeed, she had any tender feeling for either of them. Both were always given a most cordial welcome. If, however, Charlie had been a very close observer—which was unfair to expect at such a time—he might, ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... observer telephoned by wireless back to Croydon telling them of our position, and in a few moments we were high over the Channel. At Marquise, on the other side, we again reported, and then following the railway line we sped towards Paris long before the ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... Judy's appearance that her business rather lay with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her brother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone, some little impatience to know when he may be going, and some resentful opinion that it is ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... regular and almost imperceptible degrees. The partiality they conceived for each other was, according to her biographer, "In the most refined style of love. It grew with equal advances in the mind of each. It would have been impossible for the most minute observer to have said who was before, or who after. One sex did not take the priority which long established custom has awarded it, nor the other overstep that delicacy which is so severely imposed. Neither party could ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... they were waits, in which case I might be put to inconvenience. So I took a spade and dug two (or three) large holes in the quadrangle of the inn. Then I carried the bodies to the place in my rug, one at a time, shoved them in, and covered them up. A close observer might have noticed in that part of the quadrangle, for some time after, a small mound, such as might be made by an elbow under the bed-clothes. Nobody, however, seems to have descried it, and yet I see it often even now in ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... the hat-stand in the hall must offend young Hitchcock. The incongruities of the house had never disturbed him. So far as he had noticed them, they accorded well with the simple characters of his host and hostess. In them, as in the house, a keen observer could trace the series of developments that had taken place since they had left Hill's Crossing. Yet the full gray beard with the broad shaved upper lip still gave the Chicago merchant the air of a New England worthy. And Alexander, in contrast with his brother-in-law, ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... at Seymour's, seemed to know Sheen very well, with the exception of Drummond; and those who troubled to think about the matter at all rather wondered what Drummond saw in him. To the superficial observer the two had nothing in common. Drummond was good at games—he was in the first fifteen and the second eleven, and had won the Feather Weights at Aldershot—and seemed to have no interests outside them. Sheen, on the other hand, played fives for the house, and that was all. He was ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... long-continued dry weather and severe cold. In Scandinavia, according to Eisen, and in Scotland, according to Mr. Lindsay Carnagie, the burrows run down to a depth of from 7 to 8 feet; in North Germany, according to Hoffmeister, from 6 to 8 feet, but Hensen says, from 3 to 6 feet. This latter observer has seen worms frozen at a depth of 1.5 feet beneath the surface. I have not myself had many opportunities for observation, but I have often met with worms at depths of 3 to 4 feet. In a bed of fine ...
— The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the action of worms with • Charles Darwin
... outward shows; and amongst the rest, an upright, a comely grace, courtesies, gentle salutations, cringes, a mincing gait, a decent and an affected pace, are most powerful enticers, and which the prophet Isaiah, a courtier himself, and a great observer, objected to the daughters of Zion, iii. 16. "they minced as they went, and made a tinkling with their feet." To say the truth, what can they not effect ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... of Cooper is his descriptive power, his astonishing vigor in depicting forest, sea, prairie,—all the grandeur of wild nature as a background of human heroism. His descriptions are seldom accurate, for he was a careless observer and habitually made blunders; but he painted nature as on a vast canvas whereon details might be ignored, and he reproduced the total impression of nature in a way that few novelists have ever rivaled. It is this sustained power of creating a vast natural stage and peopling it with elemental ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... by the darkness; his wife and her sister had both grown stout steadily as they grew older, but each insisted upon the other's greater magnitude and consequent incapacity for quick movement. A casual observer would not have been persuaded that there was a pound's weight ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... cried the captain. Then, after a minute's silence, during which a superficial observer would have thought him absorbed in the appreciation of the pate, as he had been an instant before in that of the wine, he leaned his two elbows on the table, and looking at D'Harmental with a penetrating glance between his knife ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... that Harborne—the motor-cyclist who had spoken the German language so well when he had accompanied the pretty young girl the day before to watch the testing—was dead, seemed to cause the cable-engineer considerable reflection. He said nothing, but a close observer would have noticed that the report of the murder had had a distinct effect upon him. He was in possession of some fact, and this, as a stranger on that coast, and a foreigner to boot, it was not, after ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... was a good deal of evidence to be detected, by a nice observer, that he found it difficult to put up with the Doctor's coarse peculiarities, whether physical or moral. His animal indulgences of appetite struck him with wonder and horror; his coarse expressions, his free indulgence of wrath, his sordid and unclean habits; the dust, the cobwebs, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... went worse with me; for I still saw the ghosts of the cousins everywhere, and feared, now here, now there, to see one of them step forward. Even the most indifferent glances of men annoyed me. I had lost that unconscious happiness of wandering about unknown and unblamed, and of thinking of no observer, even in the greatest crowds. Now hypochondriacal fancies began to torment me, as if I attracted the attention of the people, as if their eyes were turned on my demeanor, to fix it on their memories, to ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... waiting a good bit?" A keen observer of Flossie's face might have detected in it a faintly triumphant appreciation of the fact. "I'm awfully sorry I got behind-hand and had to ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... effect of correct dressing. He sat in the roomy rear seat beside Nap, leaning an elbow negligently on the arm-rest. He watched Paul shrewdly in certain mysterious preparations for starting the car. An observer would have said that one false move on Paul's part would ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... a sharp observer in his own quiet, unobtrusive way, was struck by two peculiarities in little Mary's behavior during lunch. In the first place, he remarked with some interest and astonishment, that while the clown's wife was, not ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... appreciated to the full the extreme fallibility of the human eye and the ease with which the most careful observer may be deceived by a clever prestidigitator, failed to apply this test to Home; and by so failing laid himself open on the one hand to deception and on the other to the flood of criticism let loose by his scientific colleagues. Thus, ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... together at table, you might, knowing their relationship to each other, have readily detected a certain likeness between them; but it was a likeness of expression rather than of features, and would scarcely have been noticed by any casual observer. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 6, June, 1891 • Various
... said that in the State of Maine, previous to the appearance of the potato disease, and before the soil had become exhausted by continued cropping, potatoes yielded an average of four hundred bushels per acre. Now, every observer is aware that the present average yield of the same vegetable is much less than half what it was formerly. This great deterioration in yield can not be attributed to "running out" of varieties; for varieties are extant which have not yet passed their prime. It can not be wholly due to disease; ...
— The $100 Prize Essay on the Cultivation of the Potato; and How to Cook the Potato • D. H. Compton and Pierre Blot
... afternoon journeyed on to New York. When they went into the diner for supper and the waiter referred to Mary as John's wife, she did not blush, but touched his arm and looked at him with a smile of confidence and love. As he returned the glance a close observer would have ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... of recommending Mr. Stelling to his friend Tulliver without any positive expectation of a solid, definite advantage resulting to himself, notwithstanding the subtle indications to the contrary which might have misled a too-sagacious observer. For there is nothing more widely misleading than sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and sagacity, persuaded that men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a consciously proposed end in view, is certain to waste ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... to a keen and close observer a knowledge of the spirit of St. Francis de Sales for which we cannot be too grateful. Let it be granted that Mgr. Camus had a very prolific imagination; that he had an unconscious tendency to embroider facts; that he read a meaning into words which their speaker had no thought of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... loved some one else more. Colonel Scrappe had long been the most ardent admirer of Mrs. Gushington-Andrews, and Mrs. Constant-Scrappe's devotion to young Harry de Lakwitz had been at least for two seasons evident to any observer with half an eye. Gushington-Andrews had considerately taken himself out of the way by eloping to South Africa with Tottie Dimpleton of the Frivolity Burlesquers, and Harry de Lakwitz's only recorded marriage had been ...
— Mrs. Raffles - Being the Adventures of an Amateur Crackswoman • John Kendrick Bangs
... intended to make science my life-work. I did not, for the simple reason that at that time Harvard, and I suppose our other colleges, utterly ignored the possibilities of the faunal naturalist, the outdoor naturalist and observer of nature. They treated biology as purely a science of the laboratory and the microscope, a science whose adherents were to spend their time in the study of minute forms of marine life, or else in section-cutting and the study of the tissues of the higher organisms under ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... they continued to watch the circling of the lofty observer and map-maker, "that there can be no surprises in this war, because the enemy always knows all about the massing of troops long before an attack can be delivered. An eagle or a hawk, hovering over shallow water, can see every bit of bottom when the surface is still, and so he's able to pounce down ...
— The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields • Lieut. Howard Payson
... est vertu parce qu'elle est bonne en son fonds, et le vice tout au contraire, ce n'est pas les faire connoitre.' For me, if I was to write a novel, I would first make myself an acute, active, and vigilant observer of men and manners. Secondly, I would, after having thus noted effects by action in the world, trace the causes by books, and meditation in my closet. It is then, and not till then, that I would study the lighter ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... could not comply without such a debasement of character as to compel the scorn of all men, not only to themselves, but all those with whom they were united. It could not fail to strike any ordinary observer that materials so incongruous and repulsive were incapable of cohesion; and the consequence must be the distrust of the more ardent of their ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... suggest—that the adjustment of organisms to their surroundings is so severely complete in Nature apart from Man, that diseases are unknown as constant and normal phenomena under those conditions. It is no doubt difficult to investigate this matter, since the presence of Man as an observer itself implies human intervention. But it seems to be a legitimate view that every disease to which animals (and probably plants also) are liable, excepting as a transient and very exceptional occurrence, is due to Man's interference. ...
— Progress and History • Various
... off-hand looking Irishman, with something of dash in his tone and air, which at first view might lead a common observer to pronounce him to be vulgar; but at five minutes after sight, a good judge of men and manners would have discovered in him the power of assuming whatever manner he chose, from the audacity of the ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... they had not the necessary money, they gave up their prisoner, the Duke of Urbino, estimating his worth at 40,000 ducats—nearly all the sum required—and handed him over to Alexander on account; he, a rigid observer of engagements, made his own general, taken prisoner in his service, pay, to himself the ransom he owed ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... carry this agitation to the same triumphant issue as that for Catholic emancipation, in which he had taken a conspicuous part; but the new movement did not, like the old one, appeal immediately and plausibly to the English sense of fair play and natural justice. A competent and not unfriendly observer has remarked that O'Connell's "theory and policy were that Ireland was to be saved by a dictatorship entrusted to himself." Whether any salvation for the unhappy land did lie in such a dictatorship was a point on which ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... almost childlike resumption of hope as they gazed at this conclusive evidence of Nature's bounty. The gold had been there—THEY had only missed it! And if there, more could be found! Was it not a proof of the richness of Heavy Tree Hill? So strongly was this reflected on their faces that a casual observer, contrasting them with the thoughtful countenances of the real owners, would have thought them the lucky ones. It touched Barker's quick sympathies, it puzzled Stacy, it made Demorest more serious, it aroused Steptoe's active contempt. Whiskey Dick alone remained stolid and ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... a keen observer, possessed an excellent but not lofty imagination, and never asserted a philosophy of life. His writings are all interesting, terse, precise, and truthful, but lack the glow that comes with a sympathetic and spiritual outlook ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... distance it must have looked to an observer as if the old man was approaching the boy to hurl the bottles at him with evil intent, for they were high in the air, and over Nort's head. And Snake Purdee must have taken this view of it, for, a moment later, standing in the door of the bunkhouse, ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... not lost on Cleopatra. On the contrary, she registered them every one with the accuracy of a trained observer. And as surely as the cumulative evidence of all she saw began to point with ever greater precision in the direction of her sister's fickleness and mutability, the more her health improved, and the more cheerful she became. ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... the landscape. This pretended physical process itself, quite as much as my conscious perception of the landscape, is a physico-psychical phenomenon; for my cerebral movements are perceived, hypothetically at least, by an observer. This is a perception, consequently it can be decomposed into two things, a consciousness and its object. As a further consequence, when we wish, by a metaphysical effort, to attach the consciousness ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... and send your eyes and ears abroad to see and hear for you. Wherever the electric connection is carried—and there need be no human habitation however remote from social centers, be it the mid-air balloon or mid-ocean float of the weather watchman, or the ice-crusted hut of the polar observer, where it may not reach—it is possible in slippers and dressing gown for the dweller to take his choice of the public entertainments given that day in every city of the earth. And remember, too, although you can not understand it, who have never ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... crop in the surrounding farms alters the expression of the earth from week to week. The succession of native plants in the pastures and roadsides, which makes the silent clock by which time tells the summer hours, will make even the divisions of the day sensible to a keen observer. The tribes of birds and insects, like the plants punctual to their time, follow each other, and the year has room for all. By water-courses, the variety is greater. In July, the blue pontederia or pickerel-weed blooms in large beds in the shallow ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... consequences of such a link of connection would be, are indeed far beyond the reach of the human mind to foresee; but its immediate results stand out apparently to the most common observer. In the first place, Cape Horn (the roughest point to weather in the whole world) would be avoided. In the next, the long passage by the Cape of Good Hope to innumerable places in the Pacific Ocean would become also unnecessary. In both these cases a great amount of time (which in commerce is ...
— A Letter from Major Robert Carmichael-Smyth to His Friend, the Author of 'The Clockmaker' • Robert Carmichael-Smyth
... brought in we caught sight of one of our aeroplanes crashing. Making our way over to it we found that neither the pilot nor the observer was seriously hurt. Flying in Mesopotamia was made unusually difficult by the climatic conditions. The planes were designed for work in France and during the summer months the heat and dryness warped the propeller blades and indeed all the wooden parts. Then, too, ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... the almost habitual twisting of his chestnut-brown mustache attractively self-satisfied. His clothing is handsome, of distinctive materials, and tailored to the day. So much for an observing estimate. The critical observer would note more. He would detect a sluggishness in the responses of the pupils, as the eyes listlessly travel from face to face, producing an effect of haunting dulness. Mumbling movements of the lips, a slightly incoordinate ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... and brave. But he wasted his life and ruined his health in the pursuit of pleasure. His face, as it has come down to us in contemporary paintings, is disagreeable. He was, as with unusual candor a {185} contemporary observer put it, a devil even to the extent of considerably ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... the marked contrast between the neighbouring people of Nova Scotia and New England was quickly discerned by so good an observer as the author proved himself to be, while his national and partisan judgments made his characterization of the Yankee to be a double-edged sword, that cut with equal keenness the Colonist and the Democrat. While he has no liking for the United ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... They represent the story of Mercury. (Frontispiece.) The cartoon is Italian, and so perfect is its drawing, so rich in invention is the exquisite border, that the name of Raphael is half-breathed by the thrilled observer. But if the artist is not yet certainly identified, the name of the weaver is certain, for on the galloon he has left his sign. It is none other than the celebrated ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... show up Gipsy life in some of its brightest aspects, have, unwittingly, no doubt, thoroughly substantiated and backed up the cause of my young clients—i.e., the poor Gipsy children and our roadside arabs—so far as they have gone, as a reperusal of the letters will show the most casual observer of our hedge-bottom heathens of Christendom. At the same time, I would say the tendency of some of the remarks of your correspondents has special reference to the adult Gipsies, roamers and ramblers, and, consequently, ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... love of what was good and pure and noble, his charitable, generous, unenvious disposition, his sweetness of temper, and his gallantry, all of which found expression in face or action, made a character so lovely and so beautiful that every daily observer of them both found him, Iago, hateful ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... A B represents the direct ray, and the line A C D the reflected one. Fig. 3 shows the different geometrical and trigonometrical elements of the curve, which can be read upon the various scales, or to which the instrument may be set. An observer standing at C sights the point B directly and the point A by reflection. A staff being set up at each point, he will see them simultaneously, and in coincidence if the instrument be properly set for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various
... believe that they will feel offended at what I have said of them. Some of our little generals may perhaps take exception to the positions my artist has assigned them, and feel disposed to make war on him. But there will be nothing new in this, inasmuch as any close observer of the war must have seen that these little generals were always more fierce in making war on writers and artists than courageous in facing the enemy. That the Siege of Washington was the most remarkable military event history has any account of, is very well understood among ...
— Siege of Washington, D.C. • F. Colburn Adams
... was well up before a suitable kopje came in sight, one so small that it did not appear likely to contain enemies, but sufficiently elevated to give an observer a good view for miles ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... been found in the line of Christ's example. "The surest way to bring a man to acknowledge his errors," says Bishop Bloomfield, "is to give him full credit for whatever he had learned of the truth."[12] "What should we think," says a keen observer of the work of missions—"what should we think of an engineer who, in attempting to rear a light-house on a sandbar, should fail to acknowledge as a godsend any chance outcropping of solid rock to which he might fasten ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... Alexis de Tocqueville published his Democracy in America, in 1835, had any foreign observer made an equally intimate study of American life, until James Bryce, a young English historian, began a series of visits to the United States in the early seventies. For nearly twenty years Bryce repeated his visits, living at home a full life in his Oxford professorate, ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... their trials. But the room upstairs at the "King's Head" was the centre of their operations. Stack was the indefatigable tipster, Journeyman was the scientific student of public form. His memory was prodigious, and it enabled him to note an advantage in the weights which would escape an ordinary observer. He often picked out horses which, if they did not actually win, nearly always stood at a short price in the betting ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... kind of character in thy life, That to th' observer doth thy history Fully unfold. Thyself and thy belongings 30 Are not thine own so proper, as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... described by Homer existed in his time, and that geographer thought it better to assign a physical change, rather than ignorance in Homer, to account for a difference which he imagined to exist between the Ithaca of his time and that of the poet. But Strabo, who was an uncommonly accurate observer with respect to countries surveyed by himself, appears to have been wretchedly misled by his ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... and perhaps far advanced, and beat her for an unmerciful wretch, until his infant falls a lifeless lump at her feet! Can the Americans escape God Almighty? If they do, can he be to us a God of Justice? God is just, and I know it—for he has convinced me to my satisfaction—I cannot doubt him. My observer may see fathers beating their sons, mothers their daughters, and children their parents, all to pacify the passions of unrelenting tyrants. He may also, see them telling news and lies, making mischief one ...
— Walker's Appeal, with a Brief Sketch of His Life - And Also Garnet's Address to the Slaves of the United States of America • David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet
... be the same as always!" the captain said, banging his fist on his desk. "The area of action, the battle plan may be the same but this time we've got General Fyfe as an observer and Dolliver Wims as a participant and, if I can manage to squeeze the day successfully past that Scylla and Charybdis, I'll promise not to devour any more second lieutenants ...
— I Was a Teen-Age Secret Weapon • Richard Sabia
... undertaken, and continued daily from six in the morning till eight at night, with the intermission only of mealtimes: nor could anything be more lively and interesting than the scene which now presented itself to an observer on the southeast point. The day was beautifully clear, the sea open as far as the eye could stretch to the northward, and the "busy hum" of our people's voices could at times be heard mingling with the cheerful though fantastic songs ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... An observer might have supposed that the baronet peeped at his grandson with the courteous indifference of one who merely wished to compliment the mother of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... area is about equivalent to that of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island united. In considering this with the loyalty of its inhabitants, and in studying 'Cumberland Gap,' the great natural highway of the Alleghany Range, the observer appreciates with pleasure the remark of Secretary Chase, who, in a recent interview with certain eastern capitalists, disclaimed on behalf of the Government and of General M'Clellan any purpose to send the army into winter quarters, ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features, which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might have provoked a smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she administered a large installment to each boy in succession, using for the purpose a common wooden spoon, which might have ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... animal—or so it looked—crawling forward on the far side of the Hindenburg Line. Already it was doing a left incline in accordance with its instructions, so as to enfilade a communication trench which ran back to N——. The German observer had spotted her. Here and there, on each side of her, a column of dirt and snow rose into the air. But the little animal seemed to bear a charmed life. No harm came to her, and she went calmly on her way, for all the world like a giant tortoise at which ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... this reaction hazarded by "a sagacious observer withdrawn from the world, and surveying its movements from a distance," Mr. Alexander Knox. He had said twenty years before the date of my writing: "No Church on earth has more intrinsic excellence than the English Church, yet ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... he looked wholesome; his humour was fitful, sometimes easy, sometimes unaccountably stiff. They called him a Character at home, meaning that he was liable to freakish asides from the common rotted road, and could not be counted on. It was true. He, for his part, called himself an observer of Manvers, which implied that he had rather watch than take a side; but he was both hot-tempered and quick-tempered, and might well find himself in the middle of things before he knew it. His crooked smile, however, seldom deserted him, seldom was exchanged for a crooked scowl; ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... fragrance only needing air and sunlight to diffuse itself. For all the youthfulness, a quality of indolent magic was about her, a soft haze, as it were, woven of matured experience, of detachment from youth's self-absorption, of the observer's kindly, yet ironic, insight. Her figure was supple; her nut-brown hair, splendidly folded at the back of her head, was hardly touched with white; her quickly glancing, deliberately pausing, eyes were as clear, as pensive, as a child's; with almost a child's candor of surprise in the ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... be expected from an observer who did not understand the earth's motion in its orbit, the periods assigned to the inferior planets in this paragraph are all wrong, while those assigned to the superior planets are ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... The calm male observer might marvel at Bessie's elation over the prospect of sitting in Mrs. Anstruthers Leason's box at the performance of "Faust" given by the French Opera Company on tour. But no candid woman will. It could be explained partly by the natural desire to ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... obtayne a greater. He was chosen agayne this Parliament to serve in the same place, and in the beginninge of it, declared himselfe very sharply and sevearely against those exorbitances which had bene most grievous to the State; for he was so rigidd an observer of established Lawes and rules, that he could not indure the least breach or deviation from them, and thought no mischieve so intollerable, as the praesumption of ministers of State, to breake positive rules for reason of State, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... to occupy—and they could, of course, look forward with certainty to the opening of the prison door when a marriage should be arranged for them. They order this matter better in Europe; or, at least, differently, for there, as a discerning observer has pointed out, marriage means always that a woman is taken down from the shelf, while with us, alas, too often! that she is placed upon it, ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... say that in no part of the book has the author consciously done violence to conditions as he has been permitted to view them, amid which conditions he has spent his whole life, up to the present hour, as an intensely absorbed observer. ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... may not be, each in succession. I would try the life of power, ruling men; but that might come later, after I had had long experience of men, and had lived through much history, and had seen, as a disinterested observer, how men might best be influenced for their own good. I would be a great traveller at first; and as a man newly coming into possession of an estate goes over it, and views each separate field and wood-lot, and whatever features it contains, so will I, whose the world is, because ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... ministry. The meeting for business was long and tedious, being protracted four and a half days by an appeal. It was disagreeable in its nature, but was conducted in a way to afford information and instruction to the minute observer of ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... Racey Dawson, sitting on the bed, his knees on a level with his chin, clasped his hands round his bare ankles and accorded the stranger his closest attention. To the casual observer, however, Racey looked uncommonly dull and sleepy, even stupid. But not too stupid. Racey possessed too much native finesse to ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... "Hunter" or Cyrus Dallin's "Indian". Both of these groups lack suggestive quality. They are carried too far. Edward Kemeys' "Buffaloes" lacks a sense of balance. The defeated buffalo, pushed over the cliff, takes the interest of the observer outside of the center of the composition, and a lack of balance is noticeable in this otherwise well ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... philosophical. In this aspect it is very different from the cognate works of Mr. Spencer. Darwin does not speculate on the origin of the universe, on the nature of matter or of force. He is simply a naturalist, a careful and laborious observer, skillful in his descriptions, and singularly candid in dealing with the difficulties in the way of his peculiar doctrine. He set before himself a single problem—namely, How are the fauna and flora of our earth to be accounted for? . . . To account for the existence of matter and life, ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray
... To an observer the Apache appears to be equally without fear and without conscience. The Apache is many degrees more dangerous than his more cowardly cousin, ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... black and violet turned round. He had a good and mild countenance, without expression—a mathematician minus the pride. A certain fire sparkled in the eyes of this personage, a rather sly smile played round his lips; but the observer might soon have remarked that this fire and this smile applied to nothing, enlightened nothing. Vatel laughed like an absent man, and amused himself like a child. At the sound of his master's voice he ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... class; and the more, because it partly forfeits its claim even to such position, by obscuring in twilight and disturbing our minds, in the process of scientific investigation, by sensational effects of afterglow and lunar effulgence, which are disadvantageous, not to the scientific observer only, but to less learned spectators; for when simple persons like myself, greatly susceptible to the influence of the stage lamps and pink side-lights, first catch sight of this striding figure from the other side of the ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... gleam in Mrs. Agar's eyes. A close observer knowing her well could have seen the cunning written on her face, for it was cheap ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... astrolabe used in astronomy ashore, that Columbus chiefly used in getting his solar altitudes. As will be seen from the illustration, its broad principle was that of a metal circle with a graduated circumference and two arms pivoted in the centre. It was made as heavy as possible; and in using it the observer sat on deck with his back against the mainmast and with his left hand held up the instrument by the ring at the top. The long arm was moved round until the two sights fixed upon it were on with the sun. The point where the other arm then cut the circle gave ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... from the ground which seemed to accompany him as he walked along. He saw the same thing later, at Cesena near Bologna. There was some correspondence on the subject (started by Dr. Herbert Snow) in the Observer of December 1915 and January 1916. Many are the graveyards I visited in this country and in others with a view to "satisfying my curiosity," as old Ramage would say, on this point, and all in vain. My usual luck! The fiammelle, on that particular ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... clean as were always the habiliments that clothed his attenuated form, no one could remember having seen the judge's hat smoothly brushed; and although in the course of thirty years it is unlikely that he never became possessed of a new one, even the closest observer, and that was Martha Lacey, could not be certain of the transition period, probably owing to the lingering attachment with which the judge returned spasmodically to the headgear which had accommodated itself to his bumps, and which he was heroically endeavoring ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... man of such power as yourself in the manner which I have planned to do; but I would forever lose my own self-respect, which I state honestly is of far greater value to me than any opinion which you or another may have of me, if at this time I failed to be open with you. I was an unintentional observer of the scene which just occurred between you and Mr. Carmichael—one in which, to my thinking, you ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... puppy under me at the Rocket?" said Durfy, excitedly; "the very man to a T!" And he thereupon launched into a description of Reginald's character in a way which showed that not only was he a shrewd observer of human nature in his way, but, when it served his purpose, could see the good even in a ...
— Reginald Cruden - A Tale of City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... stepped upon the shore, followed by the President, who held his little son by the hand, and Admiral Porter; the officers followed, and six more sailors brought up the rear. The writer of this article was there upon the spot, and, joining the party, became an observer of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... become blunted. At the moment of which I speak, valuable books, dried plants, papers containing the data of scientific observations, concerning the survey of the river Gambia to a considerable distance, were destroyed during the illness of the observer, ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... fell into a long silence: for she was a practised observer of men and things, and the face before her compelled attention. The keynote of the whole was vigour: not mere impetuosity, though that was present also, but a sustained, indwelling vigour, ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... investigations respecting the development of political relations, diplomatic negotiations, finances, &c., but exhibited a visible image of the life and movement of an age prolific of great deeds. Shakspeare, moreover, was a nice observer of nature; he knew the technical language of mechanics and artisans; he seems to have been well travelled in the interior of his own country, while of others he inquired diligently of travelled navigators respecting their peculiarity ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... the American civil war. My strongest feelings were engaged in this struggle, which, I felt from the beginning, was destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the course of human affairs for an indefinite duration. Having been a deeply interested observer of the slavery quarrel in America, during the many years that preceded the open breach, I knew that it was in all its stages an aggressive enterprise of the slave-owners to extend the territory of slavery; under the combined influences of pecuniary interest, domineering temper, and the fanaticism ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... to ride at a great pace, meeting no enemy, and at last reached the creek. He was a good observer and he was confident that he could ride back up it without trouble. He feared nothing but Shepard. A single horseman in the darkness could throw off any pursuit by cavalry, but the terrible spy might turn at once to the creek and the gorge. He had the consolation, though, of knowing ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... on, his beard unshaved, and his countenance pale and haggard. There was a want of firmness in his gait; his brow was overcast, and his whole visage bespoke the deepest melancholy; and it needed but a glance to convince the most careless observer that Napoleon considered himself a doomed man. In this trying hour, however, he lost not his courtesy or presence of mind; instinctively he raised his hat to the guard of marines, when they presented arms as he passed, slightly inclined his head, and even ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... and shape, on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand. For, though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most kinds at least that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... observer the plain looks perfectly flat, but as a matter of fact the slope is rather more pronounced at the foot than at the top near the hills, with the result that from the sangar covering the main road, the upper end of the plain is partially hidden ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... of the best witnesses to the viciousness of this measure is Governor Gillett, surely an unprejudiced observer. In giving his reasons for vetoing the bill, ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... the things which will not fail to impress a careful observer is the beauty of the Corean hand. The generality of Europeans possess bad hands, from an artistic point of view, but the average Corean, even among the lower classes, has them exceedingly well-shaped, with long supple fingers, somewhat ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... must astonish the kindly-disposed observer and vex him a little; that is, the capricious and disproportionate manner in which oaths are paid for, the inequality of the prices that M. Bonaparte places on this commodity. For example, M. Vidocq, if he were still chief of police, would receive six ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... his arm from the other's grasp and turn to stride away. He saw the other raise an arm as if to stay Jack. And he saw the movement flip Jack's low-pulled hat from his head. It was accidental, but to Jack and Bob—the actor and the observer in this little drama—it seemed to be by intent. It is possible Jack still might have saved the day, had he stooped quickly, recovered his hat and clapped it on again before Muller could have ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... of manners in the republic, it is clear that the jealousies and emulation of commerce were not likely to lessen the vice of avarice with which the natives have been reproached. The following is a strong expression of one, who cannot, however, be considered an unprejudiced observer, on occasion of some disputed points between the Dutch and English maritime tribunals—"The decisions of our courts cause much ill-will among these people, whose hearts' blood is their purse."[5] While drunkenness was a vice considered scarcely scandalous, ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Political Problems, 1870, 173. Il n'y a que les Allemands qui sachent etre aussi completement objectifs. Ils se dedoublent, pour ainsi dire, en deux hommes, l'un qui a des principes tres arretes et des passions tres vives, l'autre qui sait voir et observer comme s'il n'en avait point.—LAVELEYE, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1868, i. 431. L'ecrivain qui penche trop dans le sens ou il incline, et qui ne se defie pas de ses qualites presque autant que ses defauts, cet ecrivain tourne a la maniere.—SCHERER, Melanges, 484. ...
— A Lecture on the Study of History • Lord Acton
... occasions been used for a seat as well as a covering. The keen blue eyes under it, and the general contour of the face, ending in a smoothly-shaven chin, revealed a hard-working, frugal, money-saving character, yet honest, sincere, and unselfish. He was, indeed,—what he struck the observer as being,—a prudent counsellor, a true friend, a wisely-generous helper in every good word and work. No man in the settlement was more respected than he—a respect not based on his personal appearance, it was clear; for he had a perfect contempt ...
— The Cabin on the Prairie • C. H. (Charles Henry) Pearson
... Antero de Quental, who died by his own hand. Feeling acutely for the plight of his country on the occasion of the British ultimatum in 1890, he wrote as follows:[66] "An English statesman of the last century, who was also undoubtedly a perspicacious observer and a philosopher, Horace Walpole, said that for those who feel, life is a tragedy, and a comedy for those who think. Very well, then, if we are destined to end tragically, we Portuguese, we who feel, we would far rather prefer this terrible, but noble, destiny, ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... of days and years in the field, and every word he uttered had about it the crisp, clear-cut ring of command. It was safe to bet that no mere company was the extent of this soldiers authority, and Sancho, keen observer, had put him down for a lieutenant-colonel at least. Full colonels were mostly older men, and Arizona had but one in ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... its exact name. It is this capacity for recognizing a plant in a complex order of classification which distinguishes the botanist from the ordinary gardener, and it is exact and scientific language which characterizes the trained observer. ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... go?" he asked, and she was drawing her screen by instinct across her form. An observer, if there had been such, might well have been amused to see an elopement so conducted. There was still no sound in the night, except that the cock crew at intervals over in the cottars. The morning was heavy with dew; the scent of ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... details in the windows, and with the acute angle of the central pitch, which forms the characteristic quality of the late trecento Lombard manner. In its combination of purity and richness it corresponds to the best age of decorated work in English Gothic. What, however, strikes a Northern observer is the strange detachment of this elaborate facade from the main structure of the church. Like a frontispiece cut out of cardboard and pierced with ornamental openings, it shoots far above the low roof of the nave; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds |
