"Inconspicuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... simplicity of the English nature; and they seem to be of a better class. One day when I was sitting in a penny chair in Green Park, the agent of the company came and collected the rent of me. I thought it a hardship, for I had purposely chosen an inconspicuous situation where I should not be found, and it was long past the end of the season, when no company should have had the heart to collect rent for its chairs. But I met my fate without murmuring, and as the young man who sold me a ticket good for the whole day at a penny, was obviously not pressed ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... indunas, in obedience to which the regiment divided itself into two, one half riding to the left and the other to the right, and stringing themselves out, single file, close in under the shadows of the overhanging cliffs, where they quickly became so inconspicuous as to be practically invisible. Then, accompanied by a body of twenty picked men, who spread themselves out in open order in our rear, the king and I advanced toward the buffalo at a ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... most commendable regularity, began to develop alarming eccentricities of behavior. Mr. Pelgram became gradually less certain in his attendance, and finally his struggle with the refractory liver ended in the victory of that inconspicuous but important organ, and he passed peacefully away at a German spa in the course of taking a cure which would very likely have killed him even had he been ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... blood! The weapon must still have been there. Some weapon with a short and inconspicuous handle. I think they said there were flowers over and around ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... reputation of being the most gun-shy and bullet-proof of social lions. At thirty he was a handsome, well-groomed, rather bored personage, with sleekly-brushed blond hair and a short mustache. He looked important, and one suspected that he must have been at some pains to keep his waist line so inconspicuous. For the rest, he was as really cultivated and pleasing a pagan as one may find, and so wittily ironical he might have been mistaken for ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... inopportune times. The half-hour which followed Captain Polkington's coming down-stairs was a trying one. The Captain went to the back door to look out; Mr. Gillat followed him, though scarcely like his shadow; he was not inconspicuous, and neither he nor his motive were easy to overlook. The Captain said something approbious about the weather and the high wind and occasional heavy swishes of rain; then he went to the sitting-room which lay behind the kitchen, and near ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... Labour Reform convention to assemble at Syracuse on July 25. This sudden extension of the movement attracted widespread attention, and although the convention was marked by great turbulence and guided by inconspicuous leaders, it seemed as if by magic to take possession of a popular issue which gathered about its standard thousands of earnest men. Gideon J. Tucker, a former Democratic secretary of state, who had led the Americans in 1859, was nominated for judge of the Court of Appeals. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... reckless notions. But another part pointed out that they couldn't be much worse off financially than they were right now. So what if they arrived in Manon dead-broke instead of practically? Besides, there was the problem of remaining inconspicuous till they got there. On the Dawn City no one whose wardrobe was limited to one Automatic Sales dress was going to remain ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... sincere nature-lover, and gives a soft hint to which the soul of the spectator can add its own emotion. To Hugh it was much a matter of mood. He would go to a gallery of ancient or modern art, and find that there many pictures had no message or voice for him; and then some inconspicuous picture would suddenly appeal to him with a mysterious force—the pathetic glance of childish eyes, or an old face worn by toil and transfigured by some inner light of hopefulness; or a woodland scene, tree-trunks rising amid a copse; ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... squadron of Rhodesian Light Horse cantered up to the bullet-torn stockade, their arrival being hailed with three cheers by the undaunted patrol and a deafening clamour from the natives, who had played no inconspicuous part in the defence of the kraal. Twenty minutes later the Waffs marched in, followed by an Indian battalion, which bivouacked ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... particular growth, being as it was a product of the unchanging human mind, there were notes, doubtless, of Homer and of AEschylus, of Solomon the son of David and of Jesus the son of Sirach. But the constituents of the mixture were newly grouped; elements which had in the past been inconspicuous or dormant assumed prominence and activity; and ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... was inconspicuous and made no demands upon a shabby traveller sans luggage, more ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... insignificant compared with that from a cross with a distinct plant, and especially with one of a fresh stock. Should this suspicion be hereafter verified, it would throw light, as we shall see in the next chapter, on the existence of plants bearing small and inconspicuous flowers which are rarely visited by insects, and ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... Some of the soldiers killed themselves beside the pyre, not because they had harmed Vitellius or feared reprisals, but from love of their emperor, and to follow his noble example. Similar suicides became common afterwards at Bedriacum and Placentia, and in other encampments.[323] An inconspicuous tomb was built for Otho, as being less likely to be disturbed: and thus he ended his ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... riding-boots under our chairs, to avoid marking the contrast with our host's resplendent jack-boots of patent-leather, and buttoning up our coat collars, we endeavoured to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible in this brilliant assembly. But in spite of our tramp-like garb, we ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... from the pack toward him, and, if it shifted, he meant to shift with it, but meanwhile he made himself as inconspicuous as possible, finding a small depression in which he stretched his body, thus being hidden from any eye except the keenest. Although the night was far advanced, it retained its quality of silky or luminous brightness, the whole world still swimming in the silver ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... is truly wonderful how inconspicuous our khaki is amidst rocks or grass. Riding along on Monday last I almost rode slap over some Guardsmen who were halted and lying or sitting in the grass. I only became aware of their presence when about ten yards from them. And they all ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... their rude inconspicuous flints, and the accumulated remains of their feasts in the 'mirnyongs,' or native shell-mounds, along our coasts, which only have significance to the careful observer, we have no other visible evidence of their ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... the choir plays a less conspicuous role than in the Church of England, its members not being regarded as ministers of the church, and non-Catholics are allowed to sing in it. The singers at Mass or other solemn services are usually placed in a gallery or some other inconspicuous place. The word "choir," indeed, formerly applied to all the clergy taking part in services of the church, and the restriction of the term to the singing men and boys, who were in their origin no more than the representatives (vicars) of the clergy, is a comparatively late development. The ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... comes, and the tiny form falls in its tracks, how small an object it is to detect in the great world of outdoors! A little bundle of dusty garments in a ditch, in a wayside hollow, in tall grass, or among the tufts and hummocks of a marsh—how easy it is for so inconspicuous an object to escape the eye of the most zealous searcher! A young animal lost cries incessantly; the lost child cries out his pitiful little cry, finds itself lifted to no tender bosom, soothed by no gentle voice, and in the end wanders and ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... in the proportions of the tableau. They stood, a drooped and huddled group, cowering beneath the tree, in nude dejection, in the suggestion of a wary crouch, uncertain whether to flee precipitously, or freeze to make themselves as small and inconspicuous as possible. ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... lady; the radius of her circle was rapidly increasing, and her "day" drew crowds. The lamps were not yet lit, and as Anne entered the room, it was dim to her after the daylight of the open air. She had counted on an inconspicuous entrance, and was astonished to find that the announcement of her name caused a curious disturbance and division in the assembly. A finer ear than Anne's might have detected an ominous sound, something like the rustling of leaves before a storm. But Anne's self-possession rendered her at ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the Human ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... these suggestions, Esmeralda, you will be inconspicuous, and that is the general aim of the true lady's riding dress, with the exception of those worn by German princesses, when, at a review, they lead the regiments which they command. Then, their habits may be frogged and braided with gold, or ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... the gag back into position with ungentle paw, kicked the unresisting form in the side to show his displeasure, and rose. Hilary's heart pounded; the guard had not seen the inconspicuous disk under the tunic. He was in an agony of expectation. Had his comrades caught his message? Could they rescue him even if they had? Questions that ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... the more inconspicuous victims lay for hours in whatever spot they happened to be killed; but the court required ocular demonstration that the leaders of the Huguenots who had been most prominent in the late wars were really dead. Accordingly ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... Shepherd's Path, had ascended it for a short distance, had turned round, and returned, still walking backwards, to the face of the cliff near the corpse, and there the tracks vanished altogether. On the sand at this spot were some small, inconspicuous marks which might have been made by the end of a rope, and there were also a few small fragments which had fallen from the cliff above. Observing these, I examined the surface of the cliff, and at one spot, about six feet above the beach, I found a freshly rubbed spot ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... will be taught the value and use of money, and the relative value of character, education, and other things, which money cannot buy. She will be taught the care and cleanliness of the body, simplicity of wearing apparel and appropriate becoming inconspicuous costumes for church, school, street ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley
... has let her broom rest. She is thin and inconspicuous. Her jacket hangs from her shoulders as from a valise. Her face is like cardboard, stiff and without expression. She looks at us and hesitates, then grudgingly leads the way into a very dark little place, made of beaten earth and piled with ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... kept passing men as we went along; and sometimes as we looked from a high perch over the interior of one of the great sheds, we would be vaguely conscious of men scattered about the place. But they were very small and gray and inconspicuous dots upon the surface of great things going on—going on, seemingly by themselves, with a sort of mad, ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... she required an attentive eye. The modelling of the features, of the brow, the cheeks, the throat, was singularly refined, though without a touch of severity; her hands, with their very long and slender fingers, conveyed the same impression. Her dress, though dainty, was simple and inconspicuous, and her movements, light, graceful, self-controlled, seemed to show a person of equable temperament, without any strong emotions. In her light cheerfulness, her perpetual interest in the things about her, she might have reminded a spectator of some ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... a momentary lull in the amiable siege of which he was the distressed object, he whispered tragically to me: "Can't we get out of this?—Do you know the way to the back door?" I said I did, and led him through an inconspicuous doorway into a comparatively deserted corridor behind the staircase. I procured for him, through the strategic employment of a passing servant, something to eat, and we staid in concealment there until the function had come to an end, and his wife had begun to search for him. He ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... one place and then in another; but in each position the picture predominated and asserted itself so markedly, that Stuart gave up the idea of keeping it inconspicuous, and placed it prominently over the fireplace, where it reigned supreme above every other object in the room. It was not only the most conspicuous object there, but the living quality which it possessed in so marked a degree, and which was due to its naturalness of pose and the excellence ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... this pretty slender herb is seldom more than five or six inches high, and its blossoms are so inconspicuous as to be often overlooked. The flowers droop gracefully before expansion. In country places it is often called Mill Mountain, and its infusion is an old remedy for rheumatism. If bruised, and applied externally, it reddens ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... presented the form of an armored mushroom, thrust upward from a mound by subterranean machinery. The elevation of the cupola in action disclosed no more of its surface than was necessary for the firing of the guns. The mounds were turfed and so inconspicuous that in times of peace sheep grazed over them. In Brialmont's original plan each fort was to be connected by infantry trenches with sunken emplacements for light artillery, but this important part of his design was relegated to the dangerous hour of a threatening enemy. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... rarely, and with peculiar reluctance, the rock-crystal tower from which I watch the world, myself unavoidable and unattainable. My arrows penetrate every disguise, every species of physical and spiritual armour, but they are not turned against my own heart. I have always been graceful and inconspicuous in my attitudes. The image of Eros, with contorted shoulders and projected elbows, aiming a shaft at himself, is one which the Muse of Sculpture would ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... American general said that coffee shared with bread and bacon the distinction of being one of the three nutritive essentials that helped win the World War for the Allies. So this symbol of human brotherhood has played a not inconspicuous part in "making the world safe for democracy." The new age, ushered in by the Peace of Versailles and the Washington Conference, has for its hand-maidens temperance and self-control. It is to be a world democracy of right-living ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... and buff; anemones in many shapes, some like spikes of lavender, and irritant and repellent to the touch; some platter-shaped and cobalt-blue; some as living vases with the opalescent tints of Venetian glass, which, abhorring the hand of man, retreat into the sand until only an inconspicuous fringe of neutral tint is visible. Sea-slugs in almost endless form and variety of hue, and many other strange sea things, were among the inhabitants of the reef—a closely packed arena of ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... had made himself as inconspicuous as possible while in Okar, waiting for the train, and he was certain that none of ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... good-by with affection, you know there was amusement in the little smile with which you watched me go. I, a modest citizen, accustomed to shrink from publicity, was exposed in broad day in a badly fitting uniform, in color inconspicuous, to be sure, but in pattern evidently military and aggressive. What a guy I felt myself, and how every smile or laugh upon the street seemed to mean Me! The way to the railroad station had never seemed so long, nor so thronged with curious folk. ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... there was a view of the plain of Mont-rouge and the road to Orleans, which led also to Balzac's beloved Tours. The principal staircase was outside, because Balzac, in designing the house, found that a staircase seriously interfered with the symmetry of the rooms. Therefore he placed it in an inconspicuous position in a special construction at the back, and owing to the extremely steep slope the visitor entered by the top floor, and made his way down instead of up. There were three stories, the lowest containing the drawing-room and ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... experiment, so that detail there had become a mark of distinction. He had been as surprised as pleased at his summons from Sorsogon, a poor, colorless province where he had spent seven months in uneventful, and as he thought, inconspicuous service. ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... been a time when I had walked alone from Shainsa to the Polar Colony. I had known how to melt into this kind of night, shabby and inconspicuous, a worn shirtcloak hunched round my shoulders, weaponless except for the razor-sharp skean in the clasp of the cloak; walking on the balls of my feet like a Dry-towner, not looking or sounding or ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... du Grand Pluvier. (New York Colonial Documents, IX. 47.) The anonymous author of this document adds a ninth clan, that of the Potato, meaning the wild Indian potato, Glycine apios. This clan, if it existed, was very inconspicuous, ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... plant, the Mandrake is often grown, but more for its curiosity than its beauty; the leaves appear early in the spring, followed very soon by its dull and almost inconspicuous flowers, and then by its Apple-like fruit. This is the Spring Mandrake (Mandragora vernalis), but the Autumn Mandrake (M. autumnalis or microcarpa) may be grown as an ornamental plant. The leaves appear in the ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... as in the case of Territorial and New Army Divisions. My object is that all who served with the Division for any period between 1914-1919 may have a record to show that they belonged to a Division which played no inconspicuous part ...
— A Short History of the 6th Division - Aug. 1914-March 1919 • Thomas Owen Marden
... as the fact that bright colours in flowers do not attract insects in many cases, but much more inconspicuous flowers if they have a scent (mignonette, for example) do; passing over such a fact as that afforded by the violet, which (as some may not be aware) has two kinds of flower, one scented and of a beautiful colour, the other green and inconspicuous, and it is the latter, not the ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... least, it is a point of prudent good manners to treat these reputations tenderly, as if they were merited. But the sad realist knows these fellows at a glance, and they know him; as when in Paris the chief of the police enters a ballroom, so many diamonded pretenders shrink and make themselves as inconspicuous as they can, or give him a supplicating look as they pass. "I had received," said a sybil, "I had received at birth the fatal gift of penetration:"—and these Cassandras ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... like manner a place amongst this blessed company, and it is surely a trace of his hand that his place should seem so humble. Any other but himself would certainly have put James and John in their natural place beside Peter. It must have been himself who slipped himself and his brother into so inconspicuous a position in the list, and further veiled his personality under the patronymic, 'the sons ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... ascent had been, but at last they reached the foot and now, from this lower viewpoint they could catch a glimpse of the wood interior on the opposite shore. There were several log cabins harmonizing in color with the surrounding forest and, therefore, inconspicuous. Farther from the shore the boys glimpsed another and larger structure and at the water's edge they now ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... are masculine or feminine. They are so merely by association. The modern costuming of man the world over, if he appear in European dress (we except court regalia), is confined to cloth, linen or cotton, in black, white and inconspicuous colours; a prescribed and simple type of neckwear, footwear, hat, stick, ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... all along been a thoroughly serviceable but inconspicuous member of the crew—began to shed ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... we see a butte in the form of a fallen cross. It is several miles away, but it presents no inconspicuous figure on the landscape and must be many hundreds of feet high, probably more than 2,000. We note its position on our map and name it "The ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... that the group of orchids was abundant, but a large proportion of the species had small inconspicuous flowers. Some, however, had large clusters of yellow flowers which had a very ornamental effect on the sombre forest. But, although the exceptions were striking, he found that in Borneo, as elsewhere, ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... soul-strengthening and comforting cordial. It is the same case with the Edinburgh bailie and the miller of the Canonmills, worthy man! and with that public character, Hugh the Under-Clerk, and more than all, with Sir Archibald, the physician, who recorded arms. And I am reduced to a family of inconspicuous maltsters in what was then the clean and handsome little city on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the book. I had not noticed that. But no matter; the bird was a blue grosbeak, for the sufficient reason that it could not be anything else. A black line between the almost black beak and the dark-blue head would be inconspicuous at the best, and quite naturally would escape a glimpse so hasty as mine had been. And yet, while I reasoned in this way, I foresaw plainly enough that, as time passed, doubt would get the better of assurance, as it always does, and I should never be certain that I had not ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... agent. They are, therefore, an absolute guarantee on the part of the ship, to deliver the goods to the holder of the bill of lading. Unfortunately, this obligation is frequently restricted by the insertion of certain inconspicuous clauses. The "custody bills of lading" are signed by a shipping agent, they acknowledge receipt of the goods, and promise the forwarding in due course. In order to obtain equal value with the "port bill of lading," they should, later ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer
... you, my friend?" asked the Night-Violet [Footnote: An inconspicuous flower which in Denmark is very fragrant in the evening, the "night-smelling rocket" (Hesperis triatto).], who stood there giving forth fragrance just ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... so conspicuous are thus frequent, how very general must be the smaller, and inconspicuous injuries! To one case where positive illness is traceable to over-application, there are probably at least half-a-dozen cases where the evil is unobtrusive and slowly accumulating—cases where there ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... say, for instance, a certain township, in which the minerals occur. And if they do succeed in finding this, it is seldom that the portion in which the mineral occurs, which is generally some small inconspicuous vein or fissure, is found; and even in this it is generally difficult to recognize and isolate the mineral from the extraneous matter holding it. As an instance of this I might cite thus: Dana, in his text book on mineralogy, will mention the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... the rancher went toward the house, shoulders low, making himself as inconspicuous as possible. The distance between the house and where Dick was waiting was not far, but it was all open, and with the moon lighting up the scene almost like day, a person ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... CHEVALLIER.—An inconspicuous object enclosed by slightly curved ridges. It includes a deep bright crater. On the N. is a low square formation and a long ridge running N. from it. Just beyond the N.E. wall is the fine large crater, Atlas A, with a much smaller but equally conspicuous crater ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... that which does the least, which leaves local matters in the hands of localities, and personal matters in the hands of persons, and which is modestly inconspicuous. Good government establishes, or recognizes, conditions which are stable, reliable, and that may be counted on for more than two years, or four years, at a time. It has continuity, it preserves tradition, and it follows custom and common law. Such a government is neither hectic in ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... the revival of ancient art which arose with Winckelmann towards the close of the last century, a gospel of esthetics was preached. Its apostles were chiefly Germans, and among them Schiller and Goethe are not inconspicuous names. The latter, before his long life was closed, began to see the emptiness of such teachings, and the violence perpetrated on the mind by forcing on the religious sentiment the food fit only ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... the spring of this year, with the usual rank given to graduates, second lieutenant, and was immediately assigned to duty under Miles. He had an inconspicuous part in the capture. But the next year in the special maneuvers he was personally complimented by the General for "marching his troops with a pack train of 140 mules in 46 hours and bringing in every animal in good condition." Doubtless his ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... lights. All the outside incandescents of dome, porte-cochre, and vestibules had been extinguished. The inside lights were limited to those in the corridors and the lobbies. The great building on Capitol Hill seemed like a cowardly giant, clumsily intent on being inconspicuous. ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... and his hat, buttoning the former loosely about the pump, which it almost concealed, and hanging the latter upon the summit of the structure. The handle of the pump, when depressed, curved outwardly between the coat-skirts, singularly like a tail, but with this inconspicuous exception, any unprejudiced observer would have pronounced the thing Mr. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... as the cap expands and finally torn so that it clings either as an annulus around the stem, or fragments cling around the margin of the cap. Since the annulus is so frail it shrivels as the plant ages and becomes quite inconspicuous or ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... the calm wisdom and quiet restrained humor of these women, with only that blessed Jeff and my inconspicuous self to compare with, Terry did stand out ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... opening where the gangway had been several men, including the excited passenger, were gathered. The rail had been drawn across the space, and the ship was already a dozen feet or so from the wharf. Tom and Archer paused in the background, wisely inconspicuous. ...
— Tom Slade with the Colors • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... Should this disease really fasten itself upon him, his condition would be very critical indeed. That Mr. Barslow, the hero of the occasion, was uninjured. And I am ashamed to say that such student of history will find in an inconspicuous part of the same news-story, as if by reason of its lack of importance, the statement that O. Hegvold, fireman, and J. J. Corcoran, conductor of the wrecked train, escaped with slight injuries. And that Julius Schwartz, the engineer, living at 2714 May Street, and the oldest engineer on the ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... genteel! I'll work in The Hub or any place first!" Una declared. While she trudged home—a pleasant, inconspicuous, fluffy-haired young woman, undramatic as a field daisy—a cataract of protest poured through her. All the rest of her life she would have to meet that doddering old Mr. Mosely, who was unavoidably bearing down on her now, and be held by ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... was the redoubtable Tom himself, who, stretched upon the slippery black leather lounge, hoarse as a frog from much addressing of obdurate electors, was endeavoring to sing "Just Before the Battle, Mother," hitting the tune only in the most inconspicuous places! ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... become an artist's model, then had learned to sing and dance, and at length her reputation as a beauty had made her name famous. A marquis had married her, and when his heart was broken and his money spent, had obligingly killed himself in an inconspicuous and gentlemanly manner. After that his widow had achieved an even greater popular success, and had attracted the attention of ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... left and the Mount of Olives on their right. From the bottom of the valley he saw the place where the Temple had been, but no Temple was there now—only the dome of the Muhammedan mosque. Of the Holy Sepulchre there was nothing visible, for it lay within the City and was inconspicuous. He came to Gethsemane, where Christ had suffered, and he climbed the Mount of Olives, from whence he could look over Jerusalem. He did so, and wept. After he had paid his devotions in the ruins of the Church of the Resurrection, he went on northwards round ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... flowers have passed away the foliage will remain as an ornament. To put in single roots is useless; it is far better to plant a few large patches than to fritter away the flower in a number of small and inconspicuous groups. ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... which were played by Jullien's Band in 1853. Also a "Grand Symphony" in 1855 and "The Pilgrims' Cantata" by C. C. Perkins, were performed in Boston, and we have record of an oratorio, "The Cities of the Plains," by Dawley, in 1855. Apart from these efforts the American composer seems to have been inconspicuous. In fact there were no facilities for the study of music or for the hearing of music which could be compared, as a training school for composers, with the musical centres of Europe, so that the efforts of ...
— Annals of Music in America - A Chronological Record of Significant Musical Events • Henry Charles Lahee
... again struck up he declined to dance, preferring to remain with Higgins in their inconspicuous corner. ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... and the German lines, it was covered from all except air observation. The two armored cars, containing guns, were hidden away amongst the shattered ruins of a little hamlet; their armor-plated bodies, already rendered as inconspicuous as possible by erratic daubs of bright colors laid on after the most approved Futurist style, were further hidden by untidy wisps of straw, a few casual beams, and any other of the broken rubbish which had once been a village. The men had their ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... ring for her tea. Elizabeth Twitcher brought it to her, and from her Olivia learned that only Mr. Manley had asked for her. She realized that, after all, thanks to her dead husband, she was but an inconspicuous person in the Castle. No one had been used to consult her in any matter. She was glad of it. At the moment all she desired was freedom of action, freedom to be with Antony; and the fact that the life of the Castle moved smoothly along in the capable hands of Mrs. Carruthers ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... trailing strings of shoes and empty milk-tins, stood at the end of a corridor formed by two face-to-face ranks of BSG Officer-Candidates. The OCS-men wore dress greens and Academy helmets, and about the waist of each hung a saber. Consumers stood gray and inconspicuous behind the two rows of uniformed men, silent, unsmiling, like onlookers at an accident. Captain Winfree looked over this civilian crowd. Each person wore, pinned to a lapel, perched in a hatbrim, or worn like a corsage, ...
— The Great Potlatch Riots • Allen Kim Lang
... describes his people in a way that shows that he has them in the eye of his imagination; as in this portrait of a Mrs. Tappelmine: "With face, hair, eyes, and garments of the same color, the color itself being neutral; small, thin, faded, inconspicuous, poorly clad, bent with labors which had yielded no return, as dead to the world as saints strive to be, yet remaining in the world for the sake of those whom she had often wished out of it," etc. The book ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... C.I.A. men was saying urgently, "So we're going to send you in as a tourist. As inconspicuous a tourist as we can make you. For fifteen years the Russkies have boomed their tourist trade—all for propaganda, of course. Now they're in no position to turn this tourist flood off. If the aliens got wind of it, ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... seeking an invisible blue; and the range of their experiments is proved by the extraordinary variety of shades of blue, ranging from a sort of greyish robin's-egg to the darkest navy, in which the army is clothed. The result attained is the conviction that no blue is really inconspicuous, and that some of the harsh new slaty tints are no less striking than the deeper shades they have superseded. But to this scale of experimental blues, other colours must be added: the poppy-red of the Spahis' tunics, and various other less familiar colours—grey, and a certain ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... thing staring at you whichever way you turn. 'T is the easiest thing in the world to have too much of a good thing. Sometimes the better the thing the worse the repetition. This general effect which we must have is well secured by a small, inconspicuous figure, or by those vine-like patterns, so delicate and wandering that you don't attempt to follow them. Better than either are the plain tints, which give you, in fact, all you require; a modification of the cold white wall, and the most effective background for pictures and other furnishing. ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... to incubation; and that what happens in the course of the latter process is no addition of new parts, "alias post alias natas," as Harvey puts it, but a simple expansion, or unfolding, of the organs which already exist, though they are too small and inconspicuous to be discovered. The weight of Malpighi's observations therefore fell into the scale of that doctrine which Harvey terms metamorphosis, in ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... spoke to her was a quietly dressed young person, quite inconspicuous, with a keen eye that seemed to take in everything within a radius of a ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... first cargo of silks and teas. Thereafter, until the decline of American shipping, the Baltimore clippers led in the Chinese trade. These clippers in model were the outcome of forty years of effort to evade hostile cruisers, privateers, and pirates on the lawless seas. To be swift, inconspicuous, quick in maneuvering, and to offer a small target to the guns of the enemy, were the fundamental considerations involved in their design. Mr. Henry Hall, who, as special agent for the United States census, made in 1880 an inquiry into the history ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... angles, they are a wonderful, but not a graceful or pleasing sight. At a little distance they look like huge maggots, and their slow, ungainly motions upon the land do not lessen this resemblance. Swimming in the ocean, at a distance from the land, they are inconspicuous objects, as nothing but the head shows above water, and that only at intervals. But when the vast surf which breaks in mountain waves against the weather side of the Farallones with a force which would in a single ...
— Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands • Charles Nordhoff
... displayed an empty sleeve. "I, alas, have nothing. The benefits I have in mind are of a subtler and more priceless kind. At Yu-ping my office will be that of the keeper of the doors of the yamen, including that of the prison-house. Thus I shall doubtless be able to render you frequent service of an inconspicuous kind. Do not forget the ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... Mrs. Carr, with a small and inconspicuous basket in her hand, had set out on her Sunday visit to the Old Ladies' Home, and Marthy, attired in an apron with an embroidered bib, had taken the jelly and syllabub upstairs to Miss Jemima, Gabriella sat down in her mother's rocking-chair by the window, and tried desperately ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... straight, slim, with rigid head and the two hands hanging lightly clasped in front—only now a small sunshade was dangling from them. I saw something fateful in that deliberate pacing towards the inconspicuous door with the words Hotel ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... attitude was evident to us, and our hearts beat with a painful anxiety while the light flickered around. The body was scarcely five hundred yards out; but though perfectly visible from our position, it must have been inconspicuous to the horsemen below; for as soon as it darkened, we heard them, to our great relief, ride back toward the front—Ijurra reiterating his doubts ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... he left before Elly Precious woke. With remarkable presence of mind, Miss Theodosia had darkened the room to make the difference between herself and Evangeline or Stefana as inconspicuous as possible. It helped. Elly Precious, even busy with his measles, might have vigorously refused this strange new ministering. But in the darkness he accepted it with a measure of resignation. He appeared to be looking inward at ...
— Miss Theodosia's Heartstrings • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... acceptation of the word. There are superb flowers in Borneo, among them the finest in existence, orchids, begonias, etc., but on account of the character of their habitats, within a dense jungle, it is generally difficult to see them. The vast majority of orchids are small and inconspicuous, and in hunting for magnificent ones the best plan is to take natives along who will climb or cut down the trees ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... shop, with an inconspicuous sign down in one corner of the window that said only, "KRUMBEIN—watches," and was probably the most famous shop of its kind in the world. Every spaceman landing on Terra left his watch to be checked by the ...
— Native Son • T. D. Hamm
... fearing nothing but feared by all; the same was true in the pantenales. Where the interlocking branches of the trees formed a canopy that shut out the moonlight he moved like a specter in the blackness. In the open country his shadowy form was equally inconspicuous. Quick and terrible were his attacks. Like an avalanche he descended upon his victims, seemingly from nowhere, but with a violence and ferocity that bore down and crushed and rent all at the same time, and with a suddenness that prevented ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... destination no matter how difficult the going. When others passed him he let them go, and plodded on after them with solemn assurance, his gait so leisurely that rapid travelers had the habit of regarding his conservatism with undisguised contempt. And yet his perseverance, though inconspicuous, was singularly effective. He had won his way into the sanctorum of a big corporation and his advice, though never brilliant, was always sane and peculiarly reliable. He did not mind rebuffs and was so indifferent to indignities ...
— Madcap • George Gibbs
... grew tired of imitating comedians with noisy clashing of spades and death-blows, Ulysses and the other active lads would propose the game of "Bandits and Bailiffs." But thieves could not go clad in such rich cloths; their attire ought to be inconspicuous. And so they overturned some mountains of dull-colored stuffs that appeared like mere sacking in whose dull woven designs could be dimly discerned legs, arms, heads, and branching ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... are rendered more or less inconspicuous by resembling the colours of the surfaces on which they habitually rest. Such, for example, are grouse, partridges, rabbits, &c. Moreover, there are many cases in which, if the needs of the creature be such that it ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... of all their men, and lately he took upon himself to test it. Captain after captain, upon being asked to name a selected man, had to confess ignorance; not so my skipper. He knew them all. "What is that man's name?" asked the Brigadier, indicating an inconspicuous and rather terrified private, just that sort of man whose name one would never know or want to know. (It was something rather like Postlethwaite, I believe). "Two paces forward, Private Johnson," ordered my skipper emphatically, fixing an hypnotic eye on the youth, and adding, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... voice that was vaguely felt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that was in her erect bearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight into their own—a strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings and those shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye in time covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was beyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother alone talked at first, and the others, even Loretta, said ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... in. broad or less, irregular, grouped at end of stem, and upheld by long leaf-like bracts. Calyx of 3 unequal sepals; 3 petals, 1 inconspicuous, 2 showy, rounded. Perfect stamens 3; the anther of 1 incurved stamen largest; 3 insignificant and sterile stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Fleshy, smooth, branched, mucilaginous. Leaves: Lance-shaped, 3 to 5 in. long, sheathing the stem at base; upper leaves in a spathe-like ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... crimson of which their clothes were fashioned, and as for white, the memory of recent acres of field daisies made it too common, so they changed their minds and proceeded to grow steadily for two months. When they were pinched in on top, they simply expanded sidewise; ordinary and inconspicuous staking failed to restrain them, and they even pulled away at different angles from poles of silver birch with stout rope between, like a festive company of bacchantes eluding the embraces of the police. A heavy wind storm in late September snapped and twisted their hollow trunks ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright
... also avoiding these places. The meetings of the two were taking place in accordance with what she had read in the love stories of Paris. She was going in search of Julio, fearing to be recognized, tremulous with emotion, selecting her most inconspicuous suit, and covering her face with a close veil—"the veil of adultery," as her friends called it. They had their trysts in the least-frequented squares of the district, frequently changing the places, like timid birds ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the stimulus is sufficient to produce a conscious impression, the degree of the feeling may not represent the degree of the stimulus. To take a very inconspicuous case, it is found by Fechner that a given increase of force in the stimulus produces a less amount of difference in the resulting sensations when the original stimulus is a powerful one than when it is a feeble one. It follows from this, that differences in the degree of our sensations do not ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... order-pad might have been seen some hours later going as if from the kitchen to the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. And the same waiter, a few minutes later, was escorting a guest from a rear service-door to an inconspicuous car parked nearby. The waiter slipped behind ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... jungle reeds, his noiseless approach learnt from nature in countless millions of lessons of success and failure, his perfectly powerful claws and execution methods; and, living in the same jungle, and with him as one of the conditions of life, are small deer, alert, swift, light of build, inconspicuous of colour, sharp of hearing, keen-eyed, keen-scented— because any downward variation from these attributes means swift and certain death. To capture the deer is a condition, of the tiger's life, to escape the tiger a condition of the deer's; and they play a great contest ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells
... over steep rocky slopes, and broad shelf-like flats; many more plants grew here than I had expected, in inconspicuous scattered tufts.* [Besides those before mentioned, there were Fescue-grass (Festuca ovina of Scotland), a strong-scented silky wormwood (Artemisia), and round tufts of Oxytropis chiliophylla, a kind of Astralagus that inhabits eastern and western ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... New York in 1776, the part played by the British Navy, owing to the nature of the campaign in general and of the enemy's force in particular, was of that inconspicuous character which obscures the fact that without the Navy the operations could not have been undertaken at all, and that the Navy played to them the part of the base of operations and line of communications. Like the foundations of a building, these lie ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... slowly, as I looked back over a life of inconspicuous failure, "I don't think it has. It was his right ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Ghost Stories • Various
... occurred to me that she might have been decoyed into Daly's. And yet I knew it was not that sort of place; indeed, Daly's chief desire was to remain as inconspicuous as possible. It was very difficult ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... the Lewis gun, being light and inconspicuous, can be carried by advancing troops and used effectively in the attack without its operators suffering excessively, and at the same time it has been demonstrated that the true machine gun, of the heavier type, mounted on its firm base, can effectively cooperate ...
— The Emma Gees • Herbert Wes McBride
... remarkable for their brilliant plumage, which, however, undergoes great changes twice a year, Females different from males, being dull and inconspicuous. Birds of the tropics, two species only finding their way north, and the summer tanager rarely found north of Pennsylvania. Shy inhabitants of woods. Though they may nest low in trees, they choose high perches when singing ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... herself by the window, put her right hand on the sill, above which my head and shoulders protruded, and began to speak, turning her head in such a way that I saw now her profile, with the inconspicuous but firm lines of her nose, mouth, and chin, and the heavy braids of her lustrous hair about her neck, now her full face beaming upon me; then, however, I forgot all her other, beauty, in contemplation of the incomprehensibly reposeful and unsullied blue of her eye. I was never in love with her; ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the hurly-burly of the London season. And if further inducement were needed, it was to be found in the fact that Lady Arabella herself constituted the most desirable of chaperons, remaining considerately inconspicuous until the moment when her ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... all three stood safely on the dazzlingly white beach of coral sand that stretched for about a mile in either direction from the spot where they had landed. From here the hull of the brig looked little more than a small inconspicuous spot against the snow-white cloud of surf that broke eternally upon the outer edge of the barrier reef; and Leslie made a mental note to pull off aboard again betimes in the afternoon, for it would be ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... was an ambitious woman, though one with definite limitations. Among different surroundings and in an atmosphere less sordidly striving and commonplace, she was fitted to have become, with some encouragement, an admirable and utterly inconspicuous wife and mother. But here, in this narrow, money-getting environment, many things prevented; among them, primarily, the way in which she had been brought up. For her father, too, had been driven by this lust for riches; and though he had ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... times to the door, waiting for his luggage, and when at last it arrived he was on the point of using the telephone. He feed the linen-coated porters and dismissed them as rapidly as possible. Then he ransacked the trunks until he found, amidst a pile of fashionable clothing, a quiet and inconspicuous suit of dark grey. In the bathroom he hastily changed his clothes, selected an ordinary Homburg hat, and filled a small leather case with various papers. He was on the point of leaving the room when his eyes fell upon the cable. He hesitated ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... form. The flowers are frequently large and showy, and are generally attractive from their high colouring. In one group, represented by Cereus, they consist of a tube, more or less elongated, on the outer surface of which, towards the base, are developed small and at first inconspicuous scales, which gradually increase in size upwards, and at length become crowded, numerous and petaloid, forming a funnel-shaped blossom, the beauty of which is much enhanced by the multitude of conspicuous stamens which with the pistil ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... priggishness, though it is closely akin to it; it no doubt exists in the minds of many really successful people, and if it is not flagrantly betrayed, it is often an important constituent of their success. But the happy part of it is that the dramatic sense is often freely bestowed upon the most inconspicuous and unintelligent persons, and fills their lives with a consciousness of romance and joy. It concerns itself mostly with public appearances, upon however minute a scale, and thus it is a rich source of consolation and self-congratulation. Even if it falls upon one who has ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... must avoid incongruities in dress. Tan shoes are inadmissible with formal afternoon dress. They do not accompany a silk hat. A lawn tie is never worn save with evening clothes, nor a turn-down collar with them. Gloves should be inconspicuous. A man's hands encased in bright tan gloves make ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Her work has been mainly inconspicuous contributions signed only with initials. Stuff like that counts up amazingly in the long run. She is a better critic though not so original as Miss Brett. For my part I think the editor-in-chief ought to be ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... village, and from a sense of delicacy it left her alone. The small gaieties of the summer were on, dinners, dances and picnics, but her mourning made her absence inconspicuous. She could not, however, avoid Mrs. Sayre. She tried to, at first, but that lady's insistence and her own apathy made it easier to accept than to refuse. Then, after a time, she found the house rather a refuge. She seldom saw Wallie, and ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... not harmful. Odd as it may seem, these are matters which are not without significance for the physical well-being of a prospective mother. Neat and comfortable clothing will help her to overcome a natural inclination to become a "stay-at-home," and on this account an inconspicuous way of dressing is often more valuable than medicine. So long as they do not attract attention, most prospective mothers go out in the day time, mingle with their acquaintances, and attend public places of amusement. Deference to fashion, ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... religion a persistent though inconspicuous current of non-theistic thought. It does not deny the existence of spirits but it treats them as being, like men, subject to natural laws, though able, like men, to influence events. The ultimate truth ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... path from this side of the town, which entered an inconspicuous little street at the end of which was a barber shop. It was the barber shop which he must reach first He was glad that it was early in the day when he came to the street an hour later, for he would meet few people. The street had changed considerably. Long, open spaces had filled in with houses, ...
— The River's End • James Oliver Curwood
... harmonious relations between the different strata of society; then Vigeland will express the hope that this new undertaking may not disturb the sound moral basis upon which our community stands; and I propose, in a few suitable words, to refer to the ladies, whose work for the community, though more inconspicuous, is far from being without its importance. But you are ...
— Pillars of Society • Henrik Ibsen
... with a pair of glazing beady eyes and a surprisingly small mouth. When Ed pressed on the muscles at the base of the skull, the mouth gaped roundly and a two-inch long spine slid smoothly out of an inconspicuous ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... bid us strike for our rights are the counsellors of a pacific policy. Their aim is the same, survival, but our part in the struggle must be, they say, a humble, or at least, an inconspicuous one. We should stoop to conquer, one tells us; while another, phrasing technically the same thought, says, we must march along ...
— A Comparative Study of the Negro Problem - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 4 • Charles C. Cook
... tanned, that one thought of the swimming, dancing, tennis-playing city men of good summer resorts, an impression enhanced by his sleek corn-silk hair and small, pale mustache. His clothes came from London, his watch-chain was a thin line of platinum and gold, his cigarette-case of silver engraved in inconspicuous bands—a modest and sophisticated cigarette-case, which he had possessed long enough to forget that he had it. He was apparently too much the easy, well-bred, rather inexperienced Yale or Princeton man (not Harvard; there was a tiny twang in his voice, and he sometimes ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... is at least three hundred yards west of the point indicated on the map as the site of Socapa, and it cannot be seen at all from the channel, or even from the highest parapet of Morro. Unless Socapa Castle, therefore, is so small and inconspicuous as to have escaped my notice, it must have fallen into ruins or been destroyed. There is no castle on the western side of the entrance now that can be seen from the water, from the Estrella battery, or ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... suddenly dropped to earth. A man's figure was stumbling along the little path which led diagonally from the back of the Birch premises through a gateway and off toward a back street, the route by which Lanse was accustomed to take an inconspicuous short cut toward the locomotive ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... the other; he had a small black bag which he placed on the floor by his side. Hilda's diffidence was extreme. Throughout lunch she had scarcely spoken; but as there had been eight people at the table, and George Cannon had chatted with all of them, her taciturnity had passed inconspicuous. Now she would be obliged to talk. And the sensations which she had experienced on first meeting George Cannon in the dining-room were renewed in a ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... archway. Strange, tense scene. I saw Anita at once. Her robed figure lurked in an inconspicuous corner; her eyes were upon me as Moa and I entered, but she did not move. The thirty-odd passengers were huddled in a group. Solemn, white-faced men, frightened women. Some of them were sobbing. One Earth-woman—a young widow—sat holding her little girl, and wailing with uncontrolled ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... Italian, necessarily un-English, in his face—he would have struck you, I think, as a pleasant, shrewd old parson of the scholarly—earnest type, mildly donnish, with a fondness for gentle mirth. What, however, you would scarcely have divined—unless you had chanced to notice, inconspicuous in this sober light, the red sash round his waist, or the amethyst on the third finger of his right hand—was his rank in the Roman hierarchy. I have the honour of presenting his Eminence Egidio Maria Cardinal Udeschini, ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... no reply. I saw him stare at her, and then I saw his glance take me in. I sat in a corner as inconspicuous as I could make myself. I wondered whether I was a sempstress or a tutor, and whether either of these functionaries were introduced, and whether they shook hands or ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... potently Acid Liquor, which by its Incisive power might undo the work of the Oyl of Tartar, and disperse again those Particles, which the other had by Precipitation associated, into such minute Corpuscles as were before singly Inconspicuous, they would become Inconspicuous again, and consequently leave the Liquor as Colourless as before the ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle
... was in the street before the Lodge Hall, and their number was steadily increased by men from the surrounding farms. The brethren of the opposite faith, the Catholics—more often called "Dogans" or "Papists"—were wisely inconspicuous. Had it been their day, their friends, assembled from far places, would have given them numbers enough for safety and confidence; but now the boys in green were, for the most part, staying at home and seeking ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of the same rule, in the dusky colours of mice, rats, bats, and moles, and in the soft mottled plumage of owls and goatsuckers which, while almost equally inconspicuous in the twilight, are such as to favour their concealment in ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... superintendent muttered an oath under his breath and nodded to the loitering policeman. The constable immediately sprang into the roadway with arm outstretched, and the cab, which was just gathering way, was pulled up with a jerk. The blue uniform is more useful in some cases than the inconspicuous ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... are scarce intended for defence; a man, if he were strong, might easily pluck down the palisade; he need not be specially active to leap from the beach upon the terrace. There is no parade of guards, soldiers, or weapons; the armoury is under lock and key; and the only sentinels are certain inconspicuous old women lurking day and night before the gates. By day, these crones were often engaged in boiling syrup or the like household occupation; by night, they lay ambushed in the shadow or crouched along the palisade, filling the office of eunuchs to this harem, sole guards ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... rooms—I first inquired if the black cloak lined with gray did not offer a solution to some of my previous difficulties. It was a long cloak, enveloping her completely. When worn with the black side out, she would present an inconspicuous appearance, but with the gray side out and the effect of this heightened by a long gray veil flung over her hat, she would look like the gray lady I had first seen. Now, a cloak can be turned in an instant, and if she had chosen to do this in flitting through my door I would naturally ...
— The Gray Madam - 1899 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... quarter of old New York called Greenwich Village stands Jefferson Market Court. Almost concealed behind the towering structure of the Sixth Avenue Elevated, the building by day is rather inconspicuous. But when night falls, swallowing up the neighborhood of tangled streets and obscure alleyways, Jefferson Market assumes prominence. High up in the square brick tower an illuminated clock seems perpetually to be hurrying its pointing hands toward midnight. From many windows, ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... exotic. It was like an Anglo-Indian magnate who returns to find himself of no importance in his native land, and who but for the flavour of his curries and perhaps a black servant or two would be utterly inconspicuous. He tries to fit in with the new conditions of his readopted country, but he remains an exotic and is regarded by his neighbours as one to whom the lesson must be taught that he is no longer of importance. What had been the cause of this breach in the Roman Catholic ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... by taxi to his club. The visit, he reflected, would serve the secondary purpose of an inconspicuous re-entry into club-life after absence ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... house-fronts, and by dint of address and perseverance slipped through, somehow. The fold of black lace that half concealed her fair hair and small, pale face, the sober gown that enveloped her slight form, made her an inconspicuous object among the throng; she went her way unnoticed by the by-passers, and nothing ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Carolina, 1714. A rarely seen, deciduous climber, bearing rather inconspicuous greenish-yellow flowers, succeeded by attractive, violet-tinted berries. The foliage is neat and pretty, the individual leaves being ovate in shape and slightly undulated or wavy. It is a twining shrub that in this ...
— Hardy Ornamental Flowering Trees and Shrubs • A. D. Webster
... by MRS. TERENCE. He is an entirely inconspicuous man of fifty, dressed in tweeds: his suavity hides ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... lying to the north of Greece, for a long time had been an inconspicuous part of the ancient world. Its people, though only partially civilized, were Greeks in blood and language. No doubt they formed an offshoot of those northern invaders who had entered the Balkan peninsula before the dawn of history. The Macedonian kings, from the era of the Persian wars, seized ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... drew bridles in the yellowing October forest. Their smart drab uniforms touched with purple blended harmoniously with the autumn woods. They were as inconspicuous as two deer in the dappled shadow. There was a sunny clearing just ahead. The wood road they had been travelling entered it. Beyond ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... sunset all Puntal promenades. It was only when a detachment of soldiers in the familiar opera-bouffe uniform went clanking by to change the guard at the Palace gates that he remembered he was to have remained inconspicuous. With a sense of chagrin for his indiscretion, he turned into a side street which sloped upward toward his hotel. This street was so little used that between its cobble stones tender sprigs of grass made the way as green ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... yet at the same time there is something almost great in this ravenous thirst for knowledge, combined with incredulity of all tradition. It is a model such as this that the poets should have had for their naive characters. In Goethe's Roman Elegies, the Roman woman's figure is very inconspicuous; she is not drawn as a genuine woman of the people, she is not naive. He knew a Faustina, but one feels that he afterwards slipped a German model into her place. Filomena has the uncompromising honesty and straightforwardness of an unspoilt soul. Her glance is not ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... to illustrate any modern theory of the origin of genius. Born in 1809 of a Lincolnshire family, long connected with the soil but inconspicuous in history, Tennyson had nothing Celtic in his blood, as far as pedigrees prove. This is unfortunate for one school of theorists. His mother (genius is presumed to be derived from mothers) had a genius merely for ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... splashed with pinkish brown or brownish pink. The markings, in most eggs, everywhere very fine, are often considerably more dense at the large end, where they are not unusually more or less underlaid by a pinkish cloud, with which they form an irregular ill-defined and inconspicuous cap. ...
— The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds, Volume 1 • Allan O. Hume
... Iliad, Book X., in the account of the hasty arraying of two spies in the night of terror after the defeat and retreat to the ships. The Trojan spy, Dolon, also wears a leather cap. The three spies put on no corslets, as far as we can affirm, their object being to remain inconspicuous and unburdened with glittering bronze greaves and corslets. The Trojan camp was brilliantly lit up with fires, and there may have been a moon, so the less bronze the better. In these circumstances alone the heroes of the Iliad are unequipped, certainly, ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... to trial. Public attention demands it. He may know him to be insane, but he must still prosecute him. The jury declare him insane. After years he is released from the asylum, the public thinks it a miscarriage of justice, forgetting in the meanwhile the inconspicuous poor man who unnoticed has gone through the same experience, and been ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells
... 24-28). This acknowledged "lack of recognized evidence" is indeed the weakest feature in the case, though Mr. Spencer would fain attribute this lack of direct proof to insufficient investigation and to the inconspicuous nature of the inheritance of the modification. But there is an almost endless abundance of conspicuous examples of the effects of use and disuse in the individual. How is it that the subsequent ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... something happens. Something is dropped into the gear, and it's usually done by the last man you'd expect to do it. The fellows who are tending the machine are too busy watching that part of the crowd they think is dangerous, and then the inconspicuous chap ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... lay No Man's Land in utter desolation, but each little detail, each inconspicuous bit of wreckage left from earlier struggles, stood boldly outlined in the calcium glare. This was the stretch of ground he would be searching when the curtain lifted—except that its surface would then be strewn with men; some drawn up in pain, some ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... Avenue, were lost with a different life. She saw, however, the open door to another room full of clear light, and her self-possession rapidly returned. Judith—as she had threatened—at once deserted her; and Linda found an inconspicuous corner of ...
— Linda Condon • Joseph Hergesheimer
... questions, and before long had a crowd about him—as if he were some sort of government commissioner, conducting an investigation. It was an all day job, apparently; I hung round, trying to keep myself inconspicuous. ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair
... I was back at the Crawford house and found the large library, where the inquest was to be held, already well filled with people. I took an inconspicuous seat, and turned my attention first to the group that comprised, without a doubt, the members of ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells |
