"Background" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Had he applied it to the service of the Pendle witches, he would have found still grosser contrarieties, and as great absurdity. But in that case, there was no horror of Popery to sharpen his faculties, or Jesuit in the background to call ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... in the best rooms in the house, and all goes as merrily as it can, while the horrors which they have left behind them hang, like a black background, to all their thoughts. However, both Scoutbush and Campbell send as cheerful reports as they honestly can; and gradually the exceeding beauty of the scenery, and the amusing bustle of the village, make them forget, perhaps, a good deal which ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... spirit. He had fought bulls in Madrid, and the infidel overseas; he had wooed adventure wherever it was to be met, until romance hung about him like an aura. Thus Sophia met him again, a dazzling personality, whose effulgence shone the more brightly against the dull background of that gross Hanoverian court; an accomplished, graceful, self-reliant man of the world, in whom she ...
— The Historical Nights Entertainment, Second Series • Rafael Sabatini
... tell all but the names. I'd best be prudent, for I'm afraid you may get a little fierce you do sometimes when people vex me," began Rose, rather liking the prospect of a confidential chat with Uncle, for he had kept himself a good deal in the background lately. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... ends eastwardly, we perceive a dark background lying up against the mountains. We know it is a pine-forest, but we are at too great a distance to distinguish the trees. Out of this forest the stream appears to issue; and upon its banks, near the border of the woods, we perceive a collection of strange pyramidal structures. They are ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... struggle mightily to gain a laugh or "a hand," neglecting the theme, the message, the spirit of that which they are professing to interpret. If that which we read is worth while, if it has anything vital in it, the effect will be stronger if the skill and personality of the speaker are kept in the background, and the audience is brought face to face with the spirit of that which has been embodied in the lines. As some readers go through their lines they seem to be saying, Listen to my voice, observe my graceful gestures; isn't this a pretty gown I ...
— The Speaker, No. 5: Volume II, Issue 1 - December, 1906. • Various
... always had the rapidity and intensity of a climax, it would be intolerable. Music that is all rushing climaxes is unbearable; a picture must not be a glare of high lights. The quiet passages in music, the grays and low tones in the background of the picture, the slow chapters in a story, are as necessary as their opposites; indeed, climaxes are dependent on contrasts in order to ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... obedient struggles with "isn't." Once, a week later, as a result of this experience, he tried to make some ethical suggestions to Lily. She was displaying her latest triumph—a rosebush, blossoming in February! And Maurice, duly admiring the glowing flower, against its background of soot-speckled snowdrift on the window sill, began upon Jacky's ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... that the blue stone of which it is chiefly composed responds immediately to the purple and violet lights that fall from the great East window. On a summer day the blue of the tomb seems almost opaque as though it were made of blue glass, and the gilt on the background of the screen and the brasses of the groins glitter ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... dense forests or by countless coconuts, the only sound besides the plash of our oars being the cry of water fowl or some night bird, while the light beetles [7] flashed their green lights against the dark background of the forest, looking much like falling stars. There are certain moments in life that have made a lasting impression on me, and that moonlight ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... draft by feudal barons in the days before real law obtained, it was something of a historic place. Parts of the structure are said to be no less than five hundred years old, but time and avarice have relegated history to a rather uncertain background, and unless one is pretty well up in the traditions of the town, he may be taken in nicely by shameless attendants who make no distinction between the old and the new so long as ...
— The Prince of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... is kept perennially fresh by the abundant rains. Seen from rising ground, they enrich the landscape with the beauty of their graceful elevations; from the lower levels of the town, and in contrast to the foliage of palm or bamboo, their sheer height is manifested by the intense blueness of the background they afford. ...
— A Visit to Java - With an Account of the Founding of Singapore • W. Basil Worsfold
... seemed to intend to rather keep out of his way and to practise no delicate allurements. When her tennis-playing was at an end, she sauntered about the lawn and terraces with her companion, tilting her parasol prettily over her shoulder, so that it formed an entrancing background to her face and head. She seemed to be entertaining the young man. His big laugh and the silver music of her own lighter merriment rang ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Jared Ponsonby, Hannibal Hamlin, Master Bobo and Miss Blanche, the poultry, and (aided by mirrors) himself in almost every dress and attitude which it is possible for a man to assume. He must have spent a small fortune in chemicals alone, and all his talk was of light and shadow, background, draperies, foreground, plates, and proofs; every table was strewn with photographs, finished and not finished, mounted or curled ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various
... Out of this background, then, of uncertainty and conjecture emerges, in 1534, Jacques Cartier, a master-pilot in the prime of life, now sworn to the service of His Most Christian Majesty Francis I of France, and about to undertake on behalf of his illustrious ...
— The Mariner of St. Malo: A Chronicle of the Voyages of Jacques Cartier • Stephen Leacock
... shabbily, gave her the end of a smile which had been begun for me. It seemed to relieve her, for what one may call the wild maternal look left her face, and trying to check little gasps of breath, the result of unseemly running, she signed to her confederates to remain in the background, and turned curious eyes on me. Had she spoken as she approached, I am sure her words would have been as flushed as her face, but now her mouth puckered as David's does before he sets forth upon his smile, and I saw that she thought she ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... attached, was a small flag of one of the larger German aerial squadrons. Blaine plucked it forth, jerked the pulley cord, and there unrolled before all eyes the Imperial eagle, with certain other designs, all on a black background, and with a death's head in white at each corner. It was two or three feet square, and as it floated from one of the poles sustaining the biplanes, no one in the clear morning light could ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... eyes half closed and a smile hovering about her lips. The wall was curtained with canaryensis, virginia creeper rich in autumn tints, ivy, and giant nasturtiums. Great sunflowers grew up against it, and a row of single dahlias of every possible hue crowded up close to the sunflowers. They made a background to the girl's ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... homeliness of her face—her general aspect indeed—attracted him greatly. She might know Greek; at heart, he believed, she was a good housewife; and when she incidentally mentioned Dutch relations, he seemed to see her with a background of bright pots and ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the constitutional peerage of his gifts and virtues; all those transcendent qualities which placed him at the summit of Roman intellect and manhood being either withheld from the scene or thrown so far into the background that the proper effect of them ...
— The New Hudson Shakespeare: Julius Caesar • William Shakespeare
... suggested the disbursement of huge sums for rent. The fact that the house had been lent him rent free was kept with some care in the background. Having weakened the man with pathos, he would strike a sterner note. "A little more of this," he would go on, "and I'll close my account. As it is, I think I will remove my patronage to a firm which will treat me civilly. Why, sir, I've ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... those stirring times I would like to mention: and that is Antonia Avellanos—the "beautiful Antonia." Whether she is a possible variation of Latin-American girlhood I wouldn't dare to affirm. But, for me, she is. Always a little in the background by the side of her father (my venerated friend) I hope she has yet relief enough to make intelligible what I am going to say. Of all the people who had seen with me the birth of the Occidental Republic, ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... their own surroundings by the magnificence of that great Cathedral which rose above the low horizon of their roofs, and opened its doors to poor and rich alike. The buildings that have so long outlived their inhabitants may be taken as the background—like the permanent stone scenery in a Greek theatre—to the shifting kaleidoscope of many-coloured life ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... blowing the puffy fringe from its stem, or tests the faith of the fair one, who is dearer to him than ever in this hour of separation, by picking the leaves from the yellow-hearted daisy. Tiny little violets, set in a background of black or dark green moss, adorn the hill-sides, and many flowers unknown to warmer zones come bravely forth to flourish for a few weeks only, and wither in the August winds. Very few of the flowers, so refreshing and charming to the eye, have any perfume. Nearly all smell ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... aggression in her snarl. Indeed, to her mate, there was a hint of appeal in the salutation, which said clearly: "Be careful! Please be careful!" He advanced with extreme caution into the den, and saw his spouse lying full at length on her side, her bushy tail curled round to form a background for the smallest of four sleek puppies, of a yellowish grey colour, whom she was nursing assiduously. Moving with the utmost delicacy and care, Finn sniffed all round his mate, refraining from touching the ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... The edges are, as it were, too much softened off into the background. The figure before Barwood was fresh, distinct, clear-cut,—pre-Raphaelitish, to take a word from painting. In all the details, from the ribbon in her feathery brown hair to the pretty buttoned boot, there was the ineffable aroma of a ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... to the wide spaces of Salisbury Plain. James Warlock, unlike his father and grandfather, was a little sickly man with a narrow chest, no limbs to speak of and a sharp pale face. Martin had a faded daguerreotype of him set against the background of the old Wiltshire kitchen, his black clothes hung upon him like a disguise, his eyes burning even upon that faded picture with the fire of his spirit. For James Warlock was a mystic, a visionary, a prophet. He walked and talked with God; in no jesting ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... grass—well in the foreground. For the background, perhaps a thousand miles away or more than half a decade removed in time, is the American Civil War. In the blue sky a meadow lark's love song, and in the grass the boom of the prairie chicken's wings are the only sounds that break the primeval silence, excepting ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... with a fringe of houses crowning the lower heights; half-mountains rising bare in the background and becoming real mountains as they stretched away in the distance to right and left; a confused mass of buildings coming to the water's edge on the flat; a forest of masts, ships swinging in the stream, and the streaked, yellow, ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... come away from yer own country for, young maister, if ye be so wownded about it?" inquired Christopher Coney, from the background, with the tone of a man who preferred the original subject. "Faith, it wasn't worth your while on our account, for as Maister Billy Wills says, we be bruckle folk here—the best o' us hardly honest sometimes, what with hard winters, and ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... aid of reason in our quest for freedom, we shall be following in the footsteps of mathematicians and theoretical physicists. In their arduous and unflinching search after truth they have attained to a conception of the background of phenomena of far greater breadth and grandeur than that of the average religionist of to-day. As a mathematician once remarked to a neo-theosophist, "Your idea of the ether is a more material one than the materialist's own." Science has, however, imposed upon itself its own limitations, ...
— Four-Dimensional Vistas • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... "Nothing," and having a great repugnance to consider murder as a factor of politics, I dismissed the subject. It fitted with my ethical sense that an act cruel and absurd should be also useless. I had also the vision of a crowd of shadowy Archdukes in the background, out of which one would step forward to take the place of that dead man in the light of the European stage. And then, to speak the whole truth, there was no man capable of forming a judgment who attended so little to the march of events as I did at that time. What for want of a more definite term ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... raging outside, and for a while, the man at the desk was surrounded by a great hall, with a high, vaulted ceiling, through which figures flitted and vanished. For a while, there were vistas of deep forests, always set in the same background of mountains and always under the same blue cirrus-laced sky. There was an interval of flickering blue-white light, of unbearable intensity. Then the man at the desk was surrounded by the interior of vast ...
— Police Operation • H. Beam Piper
... shore of shadow, to be lost in seething and suffocating seas without rest. Her eyes felt dried up with fever, and whenever she shut them, the darkness was filled with a jumble of nauseating squares in blue upon a mustard-coloured background. The smell of beans ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... illusion: only in the remote solitudes with their monstrous old trees is it possible to evoke a mind picture of Robin Hood and his devoted followers. And even in the most secluded places the imagined pageant of these folk suggests the theatre. The loveliness seems unreal—a background devised by some scene-painter ...
— The Dukeries • R. Murray Gilchrist
... 'Aurora' set her course to round a headland visible on the north-western horizon. At midnight the ship came abreast of this point and continued steaming west, keeping within a distance of five miles of the coast. A break in the icy monotony came with a short tract of islets fronting a background of dark rocky coastline similar to that at Cape Denison ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... inclosure of white, next to that of the king, was seated the Lady of the Tournament, the Princess Louise, and her maids of honor, arrayed all in snowy garb, and, against the garish brilliancy of the general background, a pompous pageantry of colors, the decoration of this dainty nook shone in silvery contrast. A garland of flowers was the only crown the lady wore; no other adornment had her fair shoulders save their own argent beauty, of which ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... horses, and ponies, and carts, and cats, and blackbirds, and cocks and hens, and ploughmen, and milkmaids, and beggars, all in the foreground; and coaches, and railroads, and steamboats, and palaces, and canals, in the middle distance; with a glorious background of the mighty sea glittering for ever under the blazing beams of a perpetually setting sun, mingled with the pale rays of an eternally rising moon, and laden with small craft, and whale-ships, and seaweed, and fish, and ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... foreground. The second group is, we say, before the attention, and is not at that moment felt as self; while the first group is vague, undifferentiated, not attended to, but felt. Any element in this background can detach itself and come into the foreground of attention. I become conscious at this moment, for instance, of the weight of my shoulders as they rest on the back of my chair: that sensation, however, belongs to my self no more than does the sensation ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... garden plant it should be in every garden. It flowers early, and then dies down. But it should be planted rather in the background, as the whole plant has an evil smell, especially in sunshine. Yet it should have a close attention, if only to study and admire the beautiful interior of the flower. I know of no other flower that is similarly formed, and it cannot be better described ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... earlier home than Luzon, but there are many accounts of migrations from the coast back into the mountains, after the arrival of the Spaniards and the Christianization of the Ilocano. The fact that there is an historical background for these tales is amply proven by fragments of pottery and the like, which the writer has recovered from the ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... crowded the streets included representatives of all the Asiatic races, the native Babylonians being recognisable by their graceful dress, consisting of a linen tunic falling to the feet, a fringed shawl, round cap, and heavy staff terminating in a knob. From this ever-changing background stood out many novel features calculated to stimulate Greek curiosity, such as the sick persons exposed at street-corners in order that they might beg the passers-by to prescribe for them, the prostitution of her votaries within the courts of the goddess Mylitta, and ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... some people to go away to be missed. There are certain very quiet people in the world, who make no fuss, who think humbly of themselves, who never on any occasion blow their own trumpets, who under all possible circumstances keep in the background, but who yet have a knack of filling odd corners, of smoothing down sharp angles, of shedding the sunshine of kindness and unselfishness over things generally. There are such people, and they are seldom very much missed until ...
— Frances Kane's Fortune • L. T. Meade
... the door a moment later, peering in cautiously, the sunshine casting a rude outline upon the floor, and his figure to those within showing silhouetted against the background of light, beleggined, befringed, and begloved after the fashion of ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... unfailing certainty and precision. Every two or three minutes a floating iron balloon, or a skeleton frame covered with sleeping aquatic birds, would flash into the field of vision ahead, like one of Professor Pepper's patent ghosts, stand out for a moment in brilliant white relief against a background of impenetrable darkness, and then vanish with the swiftness of summer lightning, as the electric beam left it to search for another buoy ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... he makes his entrance into society he knows nothing of its customs, this does not make him shy or timid; if he keeps in the background, it is not because he is embarrassed, but because, if you want to see, you must not be seen; for he scarcely troubles himself at all about what people think of him, and he is not the least afraid of ridicule. Hence he is ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... aimlessly paced the floor once or twice. In the grate a dull fire was burning, and a few fragments of blackened paper lay on the dying coals. Here and there a word stood out in a mouldy grey against a black background. Foyle did not touch the ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... in astonishment at such fine instances of what perseverance could do, and what energy and plodding industry could accomplish, even when surrounded with the difficulties of our ignorance; how much more will they praise this bright example, in the dark background of the historical tableaux, who, without even our means of obtaining knowledge—our libraries or our talent—rose by patient, hard and devoted study, from Brekespere the humble clerk—the rejected of St. Albans—to the proud ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... from the fruit gardens had the golden-brown in their faces, and their plain features were transfigured. They were walking in the dusty road; there was as background a high, dusty hawthorn hedge which had lost the freshness of spring and was browned by the work of caterpillars; they were in rags and jags, their shoes had split, and their feet looked twice as wide in consequence. ...
— The Open Air • Richard Jefferies
... crowded mart, chimes from the quaint belfry, the tragic triumph of vindictive law in the gory heads upon spikes! The veritable and minute history of London Bridge would illustrate the civic and social annals of England; and romance could scarce invent a more effective background for the varied scenes and personages such a chronicle would exhibit than the dim local perspective, when, ere any bridge stood there, the ferryman's daughter founded with the tolls a House of Sisters, subsequently transformed into a college ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... these women we know best that Elizabeth who never lived— Elizabeth Bennet. She is the most real because her inner being is laid open to us by her great creator. I have not dared to touch her save as a shadow picture in the background of the quiet English country-life which now is gone for ever. But her fragrance—stimulating rather than sweet, like lavender and rosemary—could not be forgotten in any picture of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries and among the women whom all the world remembers. They, one ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... and the outer door, against the ardent blue background, stood Sophie Farcinelle—the English faced Sophie—a little heavy, a little slow, but with the large, long profile which is the type of English beauty—docile, healthy, cow-like. Her face, within her sunbonnet, caught the reflected light, and the pink calico of her ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... are," said Sylvestre; "it's a customer come for the background of an engraving. I'll be with you in two minutes. Come in!" As he was speaking he drew the curtain in front of me, and through the thin stuff I could see him going toward the door, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... gentleman to handle; and yet, frank as he was intellectually, he was personally altogether a mystery. His professions, somehow, were all half- professions, and his allusions to his work and circumstances left something dimly ambiguous in the background. He was modest and proud, and never spoke of his domestic matters. He was evidently poor; yet he must have had some slender independence, since he could afford to make so merry over the fact that his culture of ideal beauty had never brought him a penny. His poverty, I supposed, ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... removed and still unconscious, lay on the floor. The emissaries were grouped around her. In the background, dimly ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... gleamed white, her bosom rose and fell in a storm of angry, unuttered sobs. She was dry-eyed and still speechless, but for all that she was a tigress. A strangely-cut silhouette they formed there upon the housetops, with a background of empty sky, their feet sinking in the ...
— The Tempting of Tavernake • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is frequently mentioned in the following pages, it was no part of my task to deal with the general historical associations of the place, with its interesting background of Court life under James I. These belong strictly to local history, and the references to the town and neighbourhood of Royston simply arise from the accidental association with the district of the materials which have come most readily to my hand in glancing back at the life ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... conflict, in which satire and calumny had not been spared, had heated the minds of men. The cry of Dowgate against Leadenhall Street was louder than ever. Caveats were entered; petitions were signed; and in those petitions a doctrine which had hitherto been studiously kept in the background was boldly affirmed. While it was doubtful on which side the royal prerogative would be used, that prerogative had not been questioned. But as soon as it appeared that the Old Company was likely to obtain a regrant ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... he perceived that the far off Sierras were forming a background for a sinuous coil of smoke from the cabin. For some time he watched it curling up into the great arch of sky. It was as if he were hypnotised by it and, in a vague, shadowy way, he had a sense of being connected, somehow, with the little cabin and its recluse. Was this ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... long given way to her imagination—from the first moment of her imprisonment. Inclined to be very musical, her ear had become keen in the silence, and on this background of silence, out of the meagre bits of reality, the footsteps of the guards in the corridors, the ringing of the clock, the rustling of the wind on the iron roof, the creaking of the lantern—it created ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... yellow background the woods resolve into dark patches and the quarries into vast geometric figures. In the valley the Somme zigzags among the poplars; its marshy bed is covered with rushes and aquatic plants; on the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... background, like the images in a camera, were the distinctly outlined and almost life-size figures of two men. Clad in a long gown, with loose sleeves, Gen'l Darrington stood near the hearth, brandishing the brass unicorn in one hand, the other thrown out and clinched; the ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of white hawthorn, which flowers late in Galloway, blue hyacinths and harebells massed together—yellow marigolds and glorious scarlet poppies, of which Jess with her taste of the savage was passionately fond. She had arranged some of these against a pale blue background of bunches of forget-me- nots, with an effect strangely striking in that cool, ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... into use on April 1st, 1868, and are all much alike in design. All values show a profile portrait of Queen Victoria, with head to right, on a background of horizontal lines within a circle, but the ornamentation and disposition of the inscriptions and numerals of value in the surrounding frame is different on each. The Stamp Collector's Magazine for May, 1868, in ...
— The Stamps of Canada • Bertram Poole
... armed with Snider rifles and cutlasses, were eager for their white men to make an assault upon Hayes and the crew of the Leonora. One night they gathered in front of their houses and danced a war-dance, but their white leaders discreetly kept in the background when Hayes appeared coming over toward them. He walked through the throng of natives, and in a very few minutes, although he was unarmed, picked out the biggest man of the lot and gave him a bad mauling about in the presence of every one ...
— Concerning "Bully" Hayes - From "The Strange Adventure Of James Shervinton and Other - Stories" - 1902 • Louis Becke
... woodwork of the demolished church of St.-Gery. Of historical interest, too, is a large Van der Meulen, representing the defeat of Turenne before Valenciennes in 1656, by the Spanish army under Conde. From a bird's-eye view of Valenciennes in the background of this large canvas, we may see how much the city has lost by the gradual destruction ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... all her tapestry and old French furniture, Felicity had a very contemporary air. About everything was the recent look characteristic of the home of a lately married couple. The room looked as if it had been decorated the day before for a twentieth-century Madame de Pompadour. But, if the background was almost archaeological, the atmosphere was absolutely modern. In this incongruity was ...
— The Twelfth Hour • Ada Leverson
... you to a lady who has daughters," said Deronda, immediately. He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched home and cruel friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in the near background. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... of Holland in the seventeenth century found its record; yet there is little or no anecdote. The genre, the representation of a group of people united by some common interest and with an appropriate background, has the same legitimacy, if not the same eminence, as the portrait. It does not possess the rank of the portrait because, since the interest is rather in the action or the situation portrayed, the figures are more merely typical, ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... him both the haunting fetid-sweet reek of the mud flats—the tide being low—and the invigorating tang of the forest and moorland, uprolling there ahead, in purple and umber to the pale northern horizon. Against that sombre background, fair and stately in the tender sunlight as a church of vision or dream, Marychurch Abbey rose above the roofs and chimneys of the ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... bright eyes of Evelyn Kirbet, whose father put up the money for the purposes of publicity and propaganda. The transformation of a hamlet into a seaside resort has been treated as a sort of psychological romance by Mr. OLIVER ONIONS in Mushroom Town, where the human beings are a background as it were for the bricks and mortar; Mr. A.S. NEILL, having chosen to make a farce of it, has provided a hero who believes in humorous advertisements, and has evidently persuaded the author to take him at his own valuation. This is hardly to be wondered at, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... exhausting. But never have my patience and endurance been more severely tested than during the year of Delancey's masterpiece. He finally decided that in the foreground, there was to be the clash of two human souls and in the background, the collision of two worlds—the old (pre-War) and the new. In fact, ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... eyeball is smaller than in the Caucasian, but when we examine the interior we find the same distribution of the blood vessels and same shape of the optic nerves. The pigment deposit in the choroid is excessive and gives, as a background to the retina, a beautiful silvery sheen when examined with the ophthalmoscope. One thing which I noticed particularly was the absence of this excessive deposit of pigment and absence of this watered silk appearance in the half breeds, they taking ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... sure, was daily abroad, toiling with the zest of an Amazon in garden and hay-field. Against the homely background of stubble or brown earth, his sturdy form stood out with the beauty of a Millet painting. But his sisters held themselves aloof, avoiding all possibility of contact with ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... literature of adventure is the grizzly bear. Lewis and Clark were the first white men to give an account of this beast. Many of the Indian lodge-tales to which they had listened rang with the fame of the grizzly, as a background for the greater fame of the narrators. As a matter of course, fact and figment were inextricably blended in these tales; but, while they did not show the animal as it was, they could not exaggerate its untamable ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... of a strange white marble streaked with yellow. The ground is completely covered with carpets of a sombre red. In the vaults, very elaborately wrought, nothing but blacks and gold: a background of black bestrewn with golden roses, and bordered with arabesques like gold lace. And from above hang thousands of gold chains supporting the vigil lamps for the evening prayers. Here and there are people on their knees, little groups in robe and turban, scattered fortuitously upon the red of the ...
— Egypt (La Mort De Philae) • Pierre Loti
... logically, and to express his ideas clearly and effectively—all of which is vital to good special feature writing. In addition, such a course gives a student a knowledge of many subjects that he will find useful for his articles. A liberal education furnishes a background that is invaluable for all kinds of literary work. Universities also offer excellent opportunities for specialization. Intensive study in some one field of knowledge, such as agriculture, banking and finance, home economics, public health, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... recall the experience of any tumultuous emotion as this messenger of hope appeared on our horizon, but we knew that we were safe. How easy it is to write this simple word of four letters! but, to realize it, one must have a background of despair. Since that morning, the words "safe," "safety," "salvation," have always come to me freighted ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... Artists' Exhibition was a winner. Did you see a memory sketch she did for the final exhibition at the League? It was a tall girl in black standing up singing and a beautiful red-headed girl in diaphanous blue playing an accompaniment on a guitar, with a background of holly and a great bunch of mistletoe at one side." Pierce stopped suddenly in the midst of his description of Judy's picture and, gazing intently at Molly, cried out, "By the great jumping jingo, if Miss Brown isn't the red-headed girl ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed
... a reverie. It was now Tuesday; she would reach home in the evening—a very late time they would say; but, as the delay was a pure accident, they would deem her marriage to Mr Heddegan tomorrow still practicable. Then Charles would have to be produced from the background. It was a terrible undertaking to think of, and she almost regretted her temerity in wedding so hastily that morning. The rage of her father would be so crushing; the reproaches of her mother so bitter; and perhaps Charles would answer hotly, ...
— Victorian Short Stories, - Stories Of Successful Marriages • Elizabeth Gaskell, et al.
... of vital force, which gives us a glimpse into the innermost sanctuary of a woman's soul—a revelation of the truth that to a woman there may be a greater thing than the love of a man—the story pictured against a wonderful Southern California background. ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... jump and romping over the goal line with tacklers hanging to him like streamers would have made you want to vote for him for Governor. Ole was the greatest man who ever came to Siwash. Prexy had always been considered some personage by the outside world, but he was only a bump in the background when ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... smiling, "that is, a good friend to your back; and though he chooses to keep himself in the background, depend upon it he'll not forsake you so long as you go on as you have done. Therefore, buy away for ready cash as largely as you please, and ...
— Tales from Blackwood, Volume 7 • Various
... bird neighbors, it is now shy and solitary. An ideal resort for it is a grove of oak or swamp maple near a stream or pond where it can bathe. Evergreen trees, too, are favorites, possibly because the bird knows how exquisitely its bright scarlet coat is set off by their dark background. ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... raise our voice against the almost universal conception that people can be made to laugh only when one of us hides a pin on the seat of grandpa's chair. The burden of an entire nation's humour is more than we can sustain. Thank you, sir," and he retired into the background, giving, as he passed, just one tug at Mary Sparks's hair and ...
— The Patient Observer - And His Friends • Simeon Strunsky
... towards the station. Finding the train was, as usual, indefinitely late, he strolled out again and finally drifted back just as the signals had fallen at last. It was quite dark by this time and the platform lamps were lit, but Mr. Carrington chanced to stand inconspicuously in a background of shadows. As the engine hissed ponderously under the station roof and the carriage doors began to open, he still stood there, the most casual of spectators. A few passengers passed him, and then came a young man in a fur coat, on whom some very curious glances ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... Panaetius of Rhodes, the instructor of Scipio and of all Scipio's intimate friends in the Stoic philosophy, who was constantly in his train and usually attended him even on journeys, knew how to adapt the system to clever men of the world, to keep its speculative side in the background, and to modify in some measure the dryness of the terminology and the insipidity of its moral catechism, more particularly by calling in the aid of the earlier philosophers, among whom Scipio himself had an especial predilection for the Socrates of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... next house, Stella was glad to stand demurely in the background, and this time Molly took her turn at ...
— Marjorie's Vacation • Carolyn Wells
... excited by the traveller. The women know that, sooner or later, he must disappear; and though this is the case with all lovers, they do not like to miss the possibility of delusion. Thus the heroines keep in the background, and the visitor, who is always in a hurry, falls into the net of the ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... for conviction. Indeed it was quite true that he had no faith in other men's ideas for his own use. Yet within sixty seconds of contemplation, this theme had suddenly taken possession of him in a manner joyously well-known. Already the necessary contrast, the shadow-background of Ophelia's silver brightness—the melancholy of her Prince-repudiator, was tingling through him. Could he really relinquish ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... taken refuge with his friend Planus—Sigismond Planus, cashier of the house of Fromont for thirty years—in that little gallery decorated with flowers and hung with a paper representing shrubbery and clambering vines, which forms a sort of background of artificial verdure to Vefour's ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... tense seconds she looked down at us from the top of the lofty column, bending dangerously near its edge. Her form straightened and was stretched to its fullest height; her white, superb body was distinctly outlined against the black background of the upper cavern. Then she stepped backward slowly, without taking ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... the taverns and the talk of the passengers and the steamboat journey through the two lakes and down the river, but behind it all was a dark background. The shadows of my beloved friends fell every day upon my joys. However, I would be nearer Sally. It was a comfort when we were in Albany to reflect that she was somewhere in that noisy, bewildering spread of streets and buildings. I walked a few ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... into the sea a little south of Ajaccio, and the road, for the most part following its course, is generally easy. After leaving Bocagnono, the valley opened. We were among green hills, with the river flowing through a rich plain; the Alpine range, from which we had just descended, making a fine background to this pleasant landscape. Further on, some very picturesque villages, perched as usual on heights, ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Oliver, looking up from where he and Maqueda sat whispering to each other while the fat Joshua glowered at them in the background. "Has Higgs appeared?" ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... Guards, struck up an air which told that the Emperor was coming. Promptly the small group concerned forgot its grievance, in excitement, crowding together so that Virginia was pressed to the front, and only Miss Portman was pushed ruthlessly into the background. ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... fleetingly across their minds. They walked on side by side, happy that Providence had allowed them this delight, and so little desiring any other blessing that even the transitoriness of that they were now enjoying floated away into the background of their thoughts. ...
— The Two Captains • Friedrich de La Motte-Fouque
... stands in memory to this day, Erect, self-poised, a rugged face half seen Against a background of unnatural dark, A witness to the ages as they pass That simple duty ...
— Once Upon A Time In Connecticut • Caroline Clifford Newton
... grey light of a rainy dawn, which would have suited few women as a background, especially after a night journey, the girl's face looked pearly, and Stephen saw that her lashes, darker at the roots, were bright golden at the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... brightness that exists between such objects and the atmosphere. It is a question, then, of giving such difference in intensity its maximum of brightness. To do this, Capt. Gaumet proposes to employ silvered signals upon a black background. He uses the simple letters of the alphabet, but changes their value. His apparatus has the form of a large album glued at the back to a sloping desk. Each silvered letter, glued to a piece of black cloth, is seen ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 508, September 26, 1885 • Various
... intricacy of pattern, and blazing, even into autumn, with varied colour. In the midst of it, a large and absolutely symmetrical cedar "spread its dark green layers of shade," and supplied us in summer with a kind of al fresco sitting-room. The background of the garden was formed by the towering trees of Woburn Park; and close by there were great tracts of woodland, which stretch far into Buckinghamshire, and have the character and ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... expose himself to the boundless aplomb and momentum of this woman of forty-odd who was finding amusement in treating him as a "college boy"? "Boy" indeed she had actually called him: well, perhaps his present position made all this possible. He was not yet out in the world on his own. In the background of "down state" was a father with a purse in his pocket and a hand to open the purse. Though the purse was small and the hand reluctant, he must partly depend on both for another year. If he were only in business—if he were only a broker or even a salesman—he should not find ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... apparent area. He again saw the dark side of the planet in October, 1759, as did Harding at Goettingen, with Herschel's ten-foot reflector, on January 24th, 1806. This latter observer saw it on this occasion stand out against the background of the sky as of a pale ashen green, while on February 28th following, it seemed to him of a pale reddish gray, like the color of the ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... sun was setting over a landscape that realised one's preconceived ideas of the beauty of the country. On one side, low ridges with rows of picturesque pine-trees just as you know them from Japanese prints, while in the background to the west, above the clouds rose the top of Fuji, nearly 4,000 metres above sea-level. We steamed up in absolute calm, while the long twilight was still further prolonged by ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz |
