"Obscure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... friend, he could have forgiven all else, and placed at her service the full force of his professional power,—even though by doing so he might have lowered himself in men's minds. And what reward did he expect? None. He had formed no idea that the woman would become his mistress. All that was as obscure before his mind's eye, as though she had been nineteen ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... lofty hall, with fitful flashes of red light flickering on the walls, as the flame of the wood fire on the hearth rose or fell beneath the efforts of a half distinguishable figure, extended at full length on the floor, and puffing the enormous log with a pair of gigantic bellows. In the palpable obscure, Jane could scarcely make out the persons of the occupants of the apartment; but when the flame burnt up a little more powerfully than usual, she observed the figure of a tall man dressed in black, who shook hands with Reginald, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... so devoutly to be wished," but it is ambitious to be a potent factor in all the tendencies that make for such a condition of life in the heart of the South. So important is this aim and idea of Tuskegee, that it allows no criticism to affect, interfere, or obscure its vision. Tuskegee says to the world that it is determined not only to be a school, but an agent of civilization, a missionary for a better life, that shall stand for a kindlier relationship between ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various
... the amount of differentiation of the parts of the same organic being, in the adult state, as I should be inclined to add, and their specialisation for different functions; or, as Milne Edwards would express it, the completeness of the division of physiological labour. But we shall see how obscure this subject is if we look, for instance, to fishes, among which some naturalists rank those as highest which, like the sharks, approach nearest to amphibians; while other naturalists rank the common bony or teleostean fishes as the ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin
... philosophy, and in the consideration and discussion of a poetical production proceed in a manner that what they intend as an elucidation is only intelligible to philosophers of their own school, while for other people it is far more obscure than the work upon which they intended to throw a light, M. Ampere, on the contrary, shows himself quite practical and popular. Like one who knows his profession thoroughly, he shows the relation between the production and the producer, and judges the different poetical productions as ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... August winds blow from the west, carrying sand and dust across the country, which can obscure visibility ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... in that admirable digest of worldly wisdom, The Characters of La Bruyere.] The date of his birth carries us back towards the middle of the fifteenth century, before the times of Ferdinand and Isabella. He was of obscure parent age, and born, as it is said, at Arevalo. For forty years he served in the Italian wars, under the most illustrious captains of the day, Gonsalvo de Cordova, Navarro, and the Colonnas. He was an ensign at the battle of Ravenna; witnessed the capture of Francis the First at Pavia; and followed ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... spent at Covent Garden, devoted to a thorough examination of this vast establishment, from its extensive catacombs to the leads which overlook the panorama of London; persuaded as we are that the public has but an obscure idea of the capital, labour, and ingenuity expended in the production of what is visible to the eye of the audience. Access to the stage during rehearsal is strictly confined to the performers, although that is the least part of the exhibition; but by special favour, we were taken in charge by ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 443 - Volume 17, New Series, June 26, 1852 • Various
... a well-known authority on this subject, asserts that at this date Shakespeare was still one of the company. It is a shadowy trace enough, but in view of the bare outlines of the life and death of this man, whose name is almost universal and whose history is almost completely obscure, we seize on any tiny fact that may help to bring before us so wonderful a personality. That Shakespeare was in Barnstaple, went up and down Boutport Street, the old street that half encircles the town, running "about the port," that he acted ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... near me, why hadn't he waited to see what I would do, where I would go, instead of taking a compartment, carefully reserving it, and trusting to such an unlikely chance as that I might force myself into it with him? Even if the three men had been in some obscure way playing into each others' hands, I could not see how their game had been arranged ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... hatred to the Catholics is very obscure. You will find all that is known in Dean Milman's History of Latin Christianity. A simple explanation may be found in the fact that the Catholics considered the Arians, and did not conceal their opinion, as all literally and actually doomed to the ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... other passage, especially adapted to quick exit in case of danger from the way of the roof, was about as spacious as the first, but much shorter and steeper. It was crooked, moreover,—for a reason doubtless adequate to the architects, but obscure to mere human observers. The exits of both passages were always in open water, no matter how fierce the frosts of the winter, how thick the armour of ice over the surface of the pond. In the neighbourhood of the house were springs bubbling up through the bottom, ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... obscure. Nilakantha observes that the Vedic text referred to is: 'Do not covet anybody's property.' What Janaka says seems to be this: Thinking of this prohibition about coveting other people's property, I thought how could it be ascertained what belongs ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... pride, and to aggravate their misery. But happiness is exclusively and unalterably attached to the cultivation of the affections,—to the acquisition of moral excellence;—so that it is equally within the reach of every individual, however obscure, or however talented. Few men can be intellectually great,—fewer still can be rich or powerful; but every man may, if he pleases, be good,—and therefore happy. In choosing the subjects and exercises then for the education of the young, ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... wandering rivers; at which Styx, and the horrid seat of detested Taenarus, and the utmost boundary of Atlas were shaken. The Deity is able to make exchange between the highest and the lowest, and diminishes the exalted, bringing to light the obscure; rapacious fortune, with a shrill whizzing, has borne off the plume from one head, and delights in ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... Buchanan's biographers generally attributed the attack to the influence of Cardinal Beaton, the Franciscans, or the Jesuits, and the whole history of Buchanan's residence in Portugal was extremely obscure. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... From his youth he had been schoolmaster at St. Laurent, and it seemed never to have occurred to him that he might claim a more distinguished post. Unconscious of any special self-sacrifice, he told us about his work, heroic through its quiet faithfulness, in that obscure hamlet. He enumerated with pride the various pastors and teachers who had been his scholars—among the former his eldest son, among the latter two of his daughters. Listening to his talk, we understood the intelligence of expression ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... muse does not go about prying into obscure corners, or collecting idle curiosities, but shows her laughing face, and points to her rich treasure—the follies of mankind. She is garlanded and crowned with roses and vine leaves. Her eyes sparkle with delight, and her heart runs ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange
... explanation, apology, appeal, or even terror from his wife would check his rage and weaken his purpose. His perfect knowledge of the house and the security of its inmates would enable him from some obscure landing or gallery to participate in any secret conclave they might hold in the patio—the only place suitable for so numerous a rendezvous. The absence of light in the few external windows pointed to ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... Rabbis to guard their followers from the influences surrounding them, there is frequent reference, open or implied, to Babylonish practices, to the festivals of the Babylonians, to the images of their gods, to their forms of incantations, and other things besides; but these notices are rendered obscure by their indirect character, and require a commentary that can only be furnished by that knowledge of the times which they take for granted. To this difficulty, there must be added the comparatively late date of the notices, which demands an exercise ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... and more than that, the history of this person is given in the Word of God. He is not a divine being, but a creature. His origin, his work and his final destiny are revealed in the Scriptures. Yet it needs to be stated that much in connection with this person is obscure and that certain facts can only be learned by inference. Questions are often asked concerning this being, which no one can answer. We mean these questions "Why God created such a being, if He knew that he would be His enemy and do ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... through which winds a little brook, with pools and tiny waterfalls, over the great roots of trees. The glen is deep and narrow, and filled with trees; so that, in the summer, it is all in dark shadow. Now, the foliage of the trees being almost entirely of a golden yellow, instead of being obscure, the glen is absolutely full of sunshine, and its depths are more brilliant than the open plain or the mountain-tops. The trees are sunshine, and, many of the golden leaves having freshly fallen, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Kipling); a dialogue comedy (Mr. Pett Ridge); a panorama of selected landscape, a vision of the sordid street, a record of heroism, a remote tradition or some old belief vitalized by its bearing on our lives to-day, an analysis of an obscure calling, a glimpse at a forgotten quarter ... but one thing it can never be—it can never be ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... very good, good uncle, save that it seemeth somewhat brief and short, and thereby methinketh somewhat obscure and dark. ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... all the glow of his imagination and all the strength of his judgment to believe it? Let us who are seeing the fulfilment of this vision, utter the fervent prayer that no sullen clouds of coldness or estrangement may ever obscure these fair relations, and that the madness of man may never mar the ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... he left Port Royal for the college of Harcour, at Paris. When he was twenty-one Louis XIV. was married, and invited every versifier in the kingdom to write in honor of the occasion. Racine was an obscure student and was unknown as a poet. He wrote a poem on the marriage, and it was shown to M. Chapelain, who was the poetical critic of Paris at that time. He thought it showed a good deal of promise and suggested a few ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... marriage and loved glory, and being a popular hero, he was forgiven all his amorous sins, which were by many looked upon as being part of his heroism. His laughable efforts to obscure the facts might have satisfied those who wished to rely on Hamilton's benedictory absolution, had not Nelson and Emma, as I have already said, left behind them incriminating letters and documents which leave no doubt as to what they were to each other. The great ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... praise of the style or conception of the Eryxias. It is frequently obscure; like the exercise of a student, it is full of small imitations of Plato:—Phaeax returning from an expedition to Sicily (compare Socrates in the Charmides from the army at Potidaea), the figure of the ...
— Eryxias • An Imitator of Plato
... our useful toil, Our homely joys and destiny obscure, Nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile The short and simple ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... human race. Unhistorical is the attribute applied to peoples that have not yet broken away, or have not departed very far, from the state of primitive savagery, as, for instance, the barbarous races of Asia and Africa who were the prehistoric ancestors of the Europeans, or the obscure, untutored tribes of the present, like the Tartars and the Kirghiz. Unhistorical peoples, then, are ethnic groups of all sorts that are bereft of a distinctive, spiritual individuality, and have failed to display normal, independent capacity ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... principals; the teachers' institutes to which the poor teacher was forced to pay her scanty dollars. There were bulletins, rules, counter-rules. As she talked, Sommers caught the atmosphere of the great engine to which she had given herself. A mere isolated atom, she was set in some obscure corner of this intricate machine, and she was compelled to revolve with the rest, as the rest, in the fear of disgrace and of hunger. The terms "special teachers," "grades of pay," "constructive ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... and imagination on high and hard questions has a right to demand a corresponding closeness of attention, and a right to say with Bishop Butler, in answer to a similar complaint: 'It must be acknowledged that some of the following discourses are very abstruse and difficult, or, if you please, obscure; but I must take leave to add that those alone are judges whether or no, and how far this is a fault, who are judges whether or no, and how far it might have been avoided—those only who will be at the trouble to understand what is here said, ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... not go to the Astor House, notwithstanding the trouble he had taken to ask his way thither. He coasted along the more obscure thoroughfares, seeming to find something congenial in them. Here were people, many of whom had also committed crimes, whose eyes he need not shun to meet, who were his brethren. To be sure, they gave him no ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... more offensive than usual, with reflective eyes as if marking him in order to know him at a future time. As is always the case, it was the smaller officials who were the most offensive—the little Jacks-in-office from the postal administration, the common officers, the hundred obscure civil servants who wear a sword and uniform unworthily in any one of the three European empires. On the other hand, the men in real authority, and notably the officers of the better regiments, sought to conciliate by politeness and a careful retention of themselves ...
— The Vultures • Henry Seton Merriman
... was the usual character of these hybrids; and it has suggested itself to my mind as a possibility, which I have not, at present, sufficient data either to prove or to disprove, that the sterility of hybrids in general (still a somewhat obscure subject) may perhaps be partly due to hybridism having a tendency to ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... future is obscure as in Petersburg. Berlin is now to the front; I do nothing one way or another; as soon as I have my credentials for Paris in my pocket I will dance and sing. At present there is no talk of London, but all may change ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... if we add a proviso to it—a proviso, to be sure, of no small importance. Hazlitt is always the same when he is not different, when his political or personal ails and angers do not obscure his critical judgment. His uniformity of principle extends only to the two subjects of literature and of art; unless a third may be added, to wit, the various good things of this life, as they are commonly called. He was not so great a metaphysician as he thought himself. ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... obscure as the Colonial explanations which preceded it, the reader's remedy is to fall back on the plain English of the Act (Chapter III), which alone has the force of law. Again ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... title of Helarctos. There is no reason whatever for this inundation of generic names. It has served no good purpose; but, on the contrary, renders the study of natural history more complicated and obscure; and to no family of animals do these remarks more pointedly apply, than to that of the bears. So similar are all these quadrupeds to one another— so perfect is the family likeness between them—that to separate them into different genera is ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... even a message of brotherly pity (which costs nothing), I shall know my last hope is gone. And you, in the lap of luxury, counting your thousands, and monarch of all you survey, will be able to breathe again. Either you will hear of my arrest, or, if my courage befriends me, you may read in an obscure corner of the paper of a wretch, hounded to death, who escaped his pursuers after all, and preferred to die by his own hand rather than that of his brother. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... the main roads, and all towns, with suspicious care. But sometimes they paused, for food and rest, at the obscure hostel of some scattered hamlet: though, more often, they loved to spread the simple food they purchased by the way under some thick, tree, or beside a stream through whose limpid waters they could watch the trout glide and play. And they often preferred the chance shelter of ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... had feared for years had happened. Quintana had found him,—Quintana, after all these years, had discovered the identity and dwelling place of the obscure American soldier who had robbed him in the wash-room of a Paris cafe. And Quintana was now in America, here in this very wilderness, tracking the man who ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... The first was that he lacked the moral courage boldly to do either right or wrong. That explained why, in spite of his talents for impressing people both privately and from the platform, he was at the end of his political career. The second weakness was that he was ashamed of his very obscure and humble origin. He knew that his being "wholly self-made" was a matchless political asset, and he used it accordingly. But he looked on it somewhat as the beggar looks on the deformity he exhibits ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... names, the word "culverin" has a metaphorical meaning. It derives from the Latin colubra (snake). Similarly, the light gun called aspide or aspic, meaning "asp-like," was named after the venomous asp. But these digressions should not obscure the fact that both culverins and demiculverins were highly esteemed on account of their range and the effectiveness of fire. They were used for precision shooting such as building demolition, and an expert gunner could cut out a section of stone wall with these ...
— Artillery Through the Ages - A Short Illustrated History of Cannon, Emphasizing Types Used in America • Albert Manucy
... we with them. At times they appear to our eyes to be not quite devoid of life, not entirely deaf to our voice. Not unfrequently the meaning of some sculpture, of some character, of some painting,—till then obscure, unintelligible, puzzling,—all of a sudden becomes clear, easy ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... carried too far, the grotesque imaginings to which great humourists are prone; which lie indeed deep in their nature; and from which they derive their genial sympathy with eccentric characters that enables them to find motives for what to other men is hopelessly obscure, to exalt into types of humanity what the world turns impatiently aside at, and to enshrine in a form for eternal homage and love such whimsical absurdity as Captain Toby Shandy's. But Dickens was too conscious of ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... say," continued the man, "that it is one of the wonders of the world, but that it is the only wonder of the world; since nothing so grand, rich, and magnificent was ever beheld. Certainly you must have come from a great distance, or some obscure corner, not to have heard of it, for it must have been talked of all over the world. Go and see it, and then judge whether I have told you more than the truth." "Forgive my ignorance," replied the African magician; "I arrived here but yesterday, and came from the farthest part of Africa, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... accurately to diagnose a case, there cannot be much doubt as to the appropriateness or not of electrical treatment, and in cases whose origin is obscure, which may be considered practically functional and therefore treated more or less empirically, electricity holds out as much or more hope than any other remedy. Whether electricity should be employed locally or in the form of baths, must depend on the features presented ...
— The Electric Bath • George M. Schweig
... describe how a plain case was, as usual, made obscure by the lawyers, how Acts of Parliament were consulted, how the magistrate doubted, how indignant Alaric's attorney became when it was suggested that some insignificant piece of evidence should be admitted, which, whether admitted or rejected, could ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... concerned, however, viewed the matter in a very different light. To them, this letter, with its obscure half-hints, opened up a chance of solving at last the mystery of their position which had so long oppressed them. They might now perhaps find out who they really were, if only they could follow up this pregnant clue; and the clue ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... intellectual impotence of so-called wise men who think all idealists mere dreamers. Who is the dreamer—the despiser or the upholder of an ideal whose upheavals already have burst through old caste systems, upset old slave systems, wrecked old aristocracies, pushed obscure and forgotten masses of mankind up to rough equality in court and election booth and school, and now are rocking the foundations of old racial and international and economic ideas? The practical applications of this ideal, as, for example, ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... they catch at the first ugly thing they see, and take it for old, because it is new to them, and then usher it pompously into the world, as if they had made a discovery; though they have not yet cleared up a single point that is of the least importance, or that tends to Settle any obscure passage in history. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... aside, in the hope that his fleet pursuers would pass him unseen. A sheer was accordingly given to the boat, and instead of pulling directly toward the land the fugitives inclined to the westward; the sea appearing the most obscure in that direction, on account of the proximity of Capri, This artifice was completely successful. Yelverton was so eager in the chase, that he kept his eyes riveted before him, fancying from time to time that he saw the boat ahead, and he passed within ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... composed of some of the brightest men and most profound thinkers in the State; and it was utterly repudiated and denounced as fallacious and un- Christian in its teachings, and calculated to do inestimable harm. The idea of an obscure woman setting herself up as a reconstructor of the religious faiths of the world! It is simply the height of presumption and absurdity," he concluded, ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... from its depths, circled around the house with a few quick strokes of its wing, and then sped away—a black bolt—in one straight undeviating line towards the paling north. He still gazed into the abyss—half expecting another, even fancying he heard the occasional stir and flutter of obscure life below, and the melancholy call of nightfowl. A long-forgotten fragment of old English verse began ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... prince she heard and saw no more. There were times when she fancied, from oblique and obscure hints, that the Dominican had been aware of Don Juan's disguise and visit. But, if so, that knowledge appeared only to increase the gentleness, almost the respect, which Torquemada manifested towards her. Certainly, since that day, from some cause or ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... comprehended the matter, as after an infinite deal of pains he did, his astonishment knew no bounds. It absolutely struck him speechless, and there he stood in the middle of the little shop, lost to the fact that he was a small grocer on an obscure street. He was the father of Jack, hitherto obliged to go with boys of the neighborhood, not of specially nice families, with manners and aims to match, now—oh, joy!—with a chance for something better, that might ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... hated than Conklin himself was Isaacs. The latter, always fastidious, wore a blue-striped vest, without a coat to obscure it, and about his throat was knotted a flaming vermilion necktie, fastened in place with a diamond stickpin—obviously the spoil of some recent robbery. ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... unknown to him, and instead of a welcome would deserve an unceremonious invitation to betake himself elsewhere forthwith; so, I suppose, in presenting myself before you, my honored Public, it is no more than civil to say something by way of introduction. At least, I have observed from my obscure retreat in the quiet village of Addlebrains, that the fashion in this respect, which has prevailed, certainly, since the time of St. Luke, who commences his Gospel with a preface to Theophilus, has come down to the present day, differing ...
— The Lost Hunter - A Tale of Early Times • John Turvill Adams
... that the divine is in some image in every created thing, but is less and less manifest with the descent over degrees, and still less when a lower degree, parted from the higher by being closed, is also choked with earthy matter. These concepts cannot but seem obscure unless one has read and understood what was shown in the treatise Divine Love and Wisdom about the spiritual sun (nn. 83-172), about degrees (nn. 173-281) and about the creation ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg
... the slightest injury intended, far indeed from that; and so on!—"people are surprised at its brevity; and, studying it as theologians do a passage of Scripture, can make almost nothing of it. Clear as crystal, says one; dexterously obscure ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Fretful), a playwright, whose dramas are mere plagiarisms from "the refuse of obscure volumes." He pretends to be rather pleased with criticism, but is sorely irritated thereby. Richard Cumberland (1732-1811), noted for his vanity and irritability, was the model of this character.—Sheridan, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... inuisible to anie other, except amongst themselues; which may also be possible in my opinion. For if the deuil may forme what kinde of impressiones he pleases in the aire, as I haue said before, speaking of Magie, why may he not far easilier thicken & obscure so the air, that is next about them by contracting it strait together, that the beames of any other mans eyes, cannot pearce thorow the same, to see them? But the third way of their comming to their conuentions, is, that where in I think them deluded: for some of ...
— Daemonologie. • King James I
... all-seeing eye, like that of Providence itself, could equally take in a hemisphere at a glance, or examine the private life of any individual. Her boundless influences enveloped kings in their palaces, and relieved the beggar at the monastery gate. In all Europe there was not a man too obscure, too insignificant, or too desolate for her. Surrounded by her solemnities, every one received his name at her altar; her bells chimed at his marriage, her knell tolled at his funeral. She extorted from him the secrets of his life at her confessionals, and punished ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... to conclusions, as the earlier sociologists used to do. Such a case would require careful analysis. Its very uniqueness would suggest that it may not be due to the ordinary causes of hermaphroditism, but might arise from some obscure and unusual cause such as the fusion of two embryos at a very early stage. The biochemistry involved is so intricate and so little understood that any deduction from the known ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... is a thing so great that those who would not take the pains to seek it if it is obscure, should be deprived of it. What do they complain of, then, if it is such that they could find it by ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... own shortcomings. A strange fatality had marked his friendships. He had been no help to Jim; he had brought no happiness to Susy or Mrs. Peyton, whose disagreement his visit seemed to have accented. Thinking over the mysterious attack upon himself, it now seemed to him possible that, in some obscure way, his presence at the rancho had precipitated the more serious attack on Peyton. If, as it had been said, there was some curse upon his inheritance from his father, he seemed to have made others share it with him. He was riding onward abstractedly, ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... conveyed—an aptitude to be so dazzled by the luminousness with which an idea is set forth as to mistake it for the luminousness of the idea itself. The error is one exactly analogous with that which leads the immature poet to think himself sublime wherever he is obscure, because obscurity is a source of the sublime—thus confounding obscurity of expression with the expression of obscurity. In the case of Macaulay—and we may say, en passant, of our own Channing—we assent to what he says too often because we so ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... a blurred line where the ink had run, with only a letter or two distinct at intervals. Then half a blank line, and then, very much blurred and obscure, more resembling a row of blots ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... other reflex symptoms following the correction of optical defects by glasses." In 1874 and 1876 he wrote two articles that "impressed upon the general profession the grave significance of eye strain." Since that time, "in Philadelphia at least, no study of the rebellious cause of headache or of the obscure nervous diseases has ever been considered complete until a careful examination of the eyes has included them as a possible cause of ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... balked of high endeavour and rich experience, by lack of talent and by adverse circumstances; but in the supreme, the crowning experience, that of death and all which, for joy or sorrow, lies beyond it, even the most obscure, the most uncultured and untravelled ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... Mediterranean lands. The process was extended by state aid. Republics or monarchs founded colonies to extend their power or to house their veterans, and the results were equally towns springing up full-grown in southern Europe and, western Asia and even northern Africa. So too in remoter regions. Obscure evidence from China suggests that there also in early times towns were planted and military colonies were sent to outlying regions on somewhat the same methods as were used by ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... philology, I always answer that it is what I work at."[4] Again, in reference to J. G. Droysen's Precis of the Science of History, a certain critic expressed an opinion which was meant to be, and was, a commonplace: "Generally speaking, treatises of this kind are of necessity both obscure and useless: obscure, because there is nothing more vague than their object; useless, because it is possible to be an historian without troubling oneself about the principles of historical methodology which they claim to exhibit."[5] The ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... which also waved lightly over the gilded looking-glass, and was reflected airily therein. Asparagus plumes waved over all the old pictures also. The whole room from this delicate garnishing, the faded green tone of the furniture covers and carpet, from the wall-paper in obscure arabesques of green and satiny white, appeared full of woodland shadows. Miss Camilla, swaying her feather fan, served to set these shadows slowly eddying with a motion of repose. She had dozed in her chair, and her mind had lapsed into peaceful ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... good one and that there were some extremely witty things in it. The jokes were about bishops in gaiters, about garden-parties, about curates or lovely young ladies or rectors' wives and rustics, about Royal Academicians or esthetic poets. Their humor appealed to him as little and seemed as obscure as his ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... obtained what he considered reliable information that they had proceeded in the direction of the Borders, to be married at Gretna Green, a village celebrated as a place where many distinguished and obscure persons have been married by a blacksmith. As the reader already knows, the offended father went in ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... race, therefore, constitutes one of the most obscure, as well as one of the most interesting, chapters of man's development, for during this period not only did he reach true humanity, but his body underwent the greatest physical changes, while the processes of reproduction ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... June I shall go away to an obscure place where I cannot be reached. My mail will be forwarded to me by a gentleman who knows how I feel in relation to the wants and needs of ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... the good ship Clara had dealt her a heavier blow than she at first realized, for the mind suffers from obscure internal injuries as the body does after a great shock. She understood what bitter tragedies threaten the business man no less than the monarch, the warrior, the poet, and the lover, though there has not been many an AEschylos or Euripides or Dante to make poetry of ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a quest for happiness. She passes through three stages—poverty, wealth and service—and works out a ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... of one of the smallest 'livings' in England,— an obscure, deeply-hidden, but perfectly unspoilt and beautiful relic of mediaeval days, situated in one of the loveliest of woodland counties, and known as the village of St. Rest, sometimes called 'St. Est.' Until quite lately there had been considerable doubt as to the origin of this ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... curious and useful branch of antiquarian research to read the manners and sentiments of an age in its public solemnities and pastimes, we will not leave the church without a wish for a better investigation of an obscure and singular custom, that antient carnival of Leicester, "the riding the George." The horse of this chivalrous saint, which, when the reformation had overthrown the monkish mummeries that so inconsistently blended religion with pastime, was sold for twelve pence, stood at the west end of the ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... of Nemesis in the Agora stood the tanner Anytos chatting with Thrasybulos, a hitherto obscure but ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... courage, and vowing in my heart that all one man could do to defend him I would do, I felt that he was not altogether a lovable man. He spoke with a sort of superiority which I did not admire, while he seemed to think greatly of himself. I know it sounds like presumption for me, an obscure, ignorant man, to write this, especially when I think of the good he has done; nevertheless, such thoughts came into my mind as I watched him. Perhaps his consciousness of his power over the multitudes ...
— The Birthright • Joseph Hocking
... distinct, and that the test of a good style is that it seizes on the essential points in which letters differ, and puts aside the flourishes and ornaments which disguise the simple form, we shall see how much a strong influence was needed to prevent writing from becoming obscure and degraded. That influence was found in Charles ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... irrelevant to the critical exposition of this verse; but the consideration may help to clear up an apparently obscure passage in the New Testament, namely, Matt. xvi. 16-19. When Simon made the declaration in verse 16., "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," he might have thought of or expressed the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various
... to stand in need of them. The part I have acted has been in open day; and to hold out to a conduct which stands in that clear and steady light for all its good and all its evil, to hold out to that conduct the paltry winking tapers of excuses and promises,—I never will do it. They may obscure it with their smoke, but they never can illumine sunshine by such a ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Department seems to have been to make details and bookkeeping a secondary consideration. The names of all, their organizations and officers were faithfully kept, but distinctions between whites and blacks were very obscure. Until the complete historical records of the Government are compiled, it will be impossible to ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... done was to bring the game to a close. His opponent had made his move, and concentrating on the game, Phil saw an obscure move, which, once made, would give his opponent the game. Without further hesitation, he made it, and the other player seized the advantage and won ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle
... hammered, and stethoscoped, and punched, and holding my breath till I was purple, and hopping on one leg, he said I was a very obscure case ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... thinking of a legend," he said. "I don't remember whether I have read it somewhere or heard it, but it is a strange and almost grotesque legend. To begin with, it is somewhat obscure. A thousand years ago a monk, dressed in black, wandered about the desert, somewhere in Syria or Arabia. . . . Some miles from where he was, some fisherman saw another black monk, who was moving slowly over the surface of a lake. ...
— The Lady with the Dog and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... we have made the American people conscious of their interrelationship and their interdependence. They sense a common destiny and a common need of each other. Differences of occupation, geography, race and religion no longer obscure the nation's fundamental unity in thought and ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... hospitality—were all brought to the hammer for payment of a tailor's bill for gewgaws to grace a court pageant; and the nominal inheritor of the wide domains and honours of his lordship's house, is an obscure and useless, though good-natured dependent upon Hebrew usurers and Gentile pettifoggers—a mere cumberer of the ground—a ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... to act as so many persisting and unadjusted stimulus-ideas. These are embodied in the feeling we now have, that a summary should be made of what has gone before concerning the Scratch-Reflex dream and the various methods of interpreting it. Thus, our "unfinished feeling" represents in itself an obscure demand for a resolution of the unadjusted; it corresponds to that inner compulsion which operates upon the imperfect consciousness of the dreamer, or upon the mentality of any person seeking the solution of a problem or "perplex," either asleep, or awake—as I trust ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... said Paul. "Great things grow out of little ones. Such a land as this is sure to have a great population some day and what we five do now, obscure and few as we are, may help to decide what that ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... San Francisco of 1849; very different from that it is to-day, and equally unlike what it was twelve months before the aforesaid date, when the obscure village of Yerba Buena yielded up its name, along with its site, entering on what may be ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... thronged with men who believe in themselves. Of Francis it is far truer to say that the secret of his success was his profound belief in other people, and it is the lack of this that has commonly been the curse of these obscure Napoleons. Francis always assumed that everyone must be just as anxious about their common relative, the water-rat, as he was. He planned a visit to the Emperor to draw his attention to the needs of "his little sisters the larks." He ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... but a limited influence. Again, the poetry of Robert Browning, though less frankly altruistic than that of Cowper or Wordsworth, is inherently ethical, and reveals strong sympathy with sinning and suffering humanity, but it is masked by a manner that is sometimes uncouth and frequently obscure. Owing to these, and other instances, idealism suggests to the world at large a vague sentimentality peculiar to the poets, a bloodless abstraction toyed with by philosophers, which must remain a closed ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... you like, is simply shifting the question. Let it be the medium or myself that discovers the unknown personality in the object or tracks it across time and space: all that we do is to widen the scope of our riddle, while leaving it no less obscure. Nevertheless, there is some interest in knowing whether we have to do with a general faculty latent in all men or an inexplicable privilege reserved to rare individuals. The exceptional should always be eliminated, if possible, and not left to hang over ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... so much flattered at being treated like a reasonable being, and Dr. Downie, who was chief spokesman, played his part so discreetly, without attempting to obscure even the most compromising issues, that though his Majesty made some show of displeasure at first, it was plain that he was heartily enjoying the ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... many men, as we must all know, without the Church, who are doing their best to fight their way to God; and orthodoxy is supposed to pass a cruel condemnation on these, because they have not assented to some obscure theory, their rejection or ignorance of which has plainly stained neither their lives nor hearts. And of orthodoxy under certain forms this is no doubt true; but it is not true of the orthodoxy of Catholicism. There is no point, probably, connected with this question, ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... 1840, those who tried to read its first pages declared they were incomprehensible. It seems that critics in those days had either less intelligence than we have, or were more impatient and less attentive, for not only Sordello but even In Memoriam was said to be exceedingly obscure. ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... content to collect their prey only in obscure and little-known regions, for a chance was seen to commercialize the small birds of the forests and fields. Warblers, Thrushes, Wrens, in fact all those small forms of dainty bird life which come about the home to cheer the hearts of men and women and gladden the eyes of little children, ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... from, cold in the head. It is characterised by early and marked debility and depression; though usually of short duration, attacks must not be disregarded; fatal results often ensue on carelessness. Convalescence is slow, and complications may ensue. The cause of the malady is obscure; sporadic cases always occur, but from time to time great epidemics of this disease have travelled westward over the world. Their movement seems to depend on atmospheric conditions, but is independent of the season of the year and often ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... object of desire to all things, so far it appears to be in a certain respect indigent of the things to which it is related. It has therefore, if it be lawful so to speak, an ultimate vestige of indigence, just as on the contrary matter has an ultimate echo of the unindigent, or a most obscure and debile impression of the one. And language indeed appears to be here subverted. For so far as it is the one, it is also unindigent, since the principle has appeared to subsist according to the most unindigent ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... the queen, "this case is different from that of the adventurer Neal. The rank of her husband would be sufficient to permit us to draw a veil over the obscure birth ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... bones. The deformity sometimes consists in a lateral deviation of the nose, but more frequently in flattening of the bridge—traumatic saddle nose. Within a few hours of the injury the swelling is often so great as to obscure the nature of the deformity and to render the diagnosis difficult. Subcutaneous emphysema is not a common symptom; when it occurs, it is usually due to the patient forcing air into the connective tissue while blowing his nose. The lateral cartilages may be separated from the nasal ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... Bowring's case. She could remember everything and everybody in her life. But her father was not in her memories, and there was a little motionless grey cloud in the place where he should have been. He had been a soldier, and had been killed in an obscure skirmish with black men, in one of England's obscure but expensive little wars. Death is always very much the same thing, and it seems unfair that the guns of Balaclava should still roar "glory" while ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... limitations in spite of their money, must ascribe it privately if not publicly to other potencies than their own. These cathedral tours de force, however, do not, if the truth be told, convince like the miracles of the obscure ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... it, that darkness should so obscure us, that America with all her transcending glory, should be stigmatized with the infamous reproach of oppression, and ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... of wings. Queer glowing balls of yellow connected with obscure, shadowy figures stared at him. The wings winnowed the air, and again he ...
— The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players • Robert Shaler
... glad. In the morning I arose with the lark; and at night I slept where the sunset overtook me.... My first day's journey brought me at evening to a village, whose name I have forgotten, situated about eight leagues from Orleans. It is a small, obscure hamlet, not mentioned in the guide-book, and stands upon the precipitous banks of a deep ravine, through which a noisy brook leaps to turn the ponderous wheel of a thatch-roofed mill. The village inn stands upon the highway; but the village itself ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... drenched victim crawls out. Morning after morning the chief man of the realm visits the boxing-saloon, and learns to batter the faces and ribs of other noble gentlemen. We hear of visits paid by royalty to an obscure Holborn tavern, where, after noisy suppers, the fighting-men were wont to roar their hurricane choruses and talk with many blasphemies of by-gone combats. Think of that succession of ugly and foul sports compared with ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, July 1887 - Volume 1, Number 6 • Various
... Memories, and only memories, weave the web of our dreams. They are "such stuff as dreams are made on." Often we do not recognize them. They may be very old memories, forgotten during waking hours, drawn from the most obscure depths of our past, or memories of objects we have perceived distractedly, almost unconsciously, while awake. They may be fragments of broken memories, composing an incoherent and unrecognizable whole. In a waking state our memories ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... invasion of necessity and of baseness. There are noble and mysterious triumphs, which no eye sees, which no renown rewards, which no flourish of trumpets salutes. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are battle-fields, which have their heroes,—heroes obscure, but sometimes greater than those who become illustrious. The Mason should struggle in the same manner, and with the same bravery, against those invasions of necessity and baseness, which come to nations as well as to men. He should meet them, too, foot to foot, even in the darkness, and protest ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... the issue of his anti-Christian decree at Hakata, Hideyoshi maintained a tolerant demeanour. But in 1597, his forbearance was changed to a mood of uncompromising severity. Various explanations have been given of this change, but the reasons are obscure. "Up to 1593 the Portuguese had possessed a monopoly of religious propagandism and oversea commerce in Japan. The privilege was secured to them by agreement between Spain and Portugal and by a papal bull. But the Spaniards in Manila had long looked with somewhat jealous eyes on this Jesuit ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... blindly led, and others run, And make both haste and speed to be undone; This alters not the Case in any wise, But that a Man sometimes may get a Prize, If some be wanton in obscure Nookes, And Ape the Saint, by framing modest Looks; Deceive the Husband, with her cunning Wiles, And cheat his Senses with her feigned smiles, These (I confess,) are hardships to be born, And worse to think ...
— The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony: Responses from Men • Various
... Espaa maintain in the seas of the Orient, in order to oppose them to the numerous enemies who are trying to overthrow our power in those seas, and have the desire to end it, one would believe that they were directed with especial purpose to weaken and obscure that power, and thereby to extinguish the best and most creditable [finest—MS.] military post that this great monarchy possesses outside of Europa. And inasmuch as the matter pertains not only to the conservation of those vassals, but also to the general subject of your ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... outlet of the lake; and ere it was dark she was running through the narrow channels on her way to the long-sought station. At nine o'clock, however, Cap insisted that they should anchor; for the maze of islands became so complicated and obscure, that he feared, at every opening, the party would find themselves under the guns of a French fort. Jasper consented cheerfully, it being a part of his standing instructions to approach the station under such circumstances as would prevent the men from obtaining any very accurate notions ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... van of a pack, or perhaps merely a few unleashed as scouts to others held in reserve; for no more were seen or heard for sometime. Meanwhile, Mr. Huertis seems to have struck out a brilliant scheme. He collected his whole party into that obscure branch of the cavern, near its entrance, which has been described as a depository of animal bones, and ordering them to sling their rifles at their backs, bade them stand ready with their knives. Almost instantly, they observed a party of ten dismounted natives, in scarlet ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... same time that the horseman left Lieursaint for Paris, the Lyons mail arrived there from Paris, and changed horses. It was about half-past eight, and the night had been obscure for some time. The courier, having charged horses and taken a fresh postilion, set forth to traverse the long forest of Senart. The mail, at this epoch, was very different from what it is at present. It was a simple ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... member of the household who could touch him with impunity, and toward Craven his attitude was a curious mixture of hatred and fear. To Mouston—her only confidant—she whispered now the new projects she had formed during the last two solitary days for a better understanding of the obscure mind that had hitherto baffled her, for a further endeavour to break through the barrier existing between them. To speak, if only to a dog, was relief and she was too engrossed to notice the sound the poodle's quick ears caught directly. ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... acts of another person, since there is no personality. The 'I' that was and the 'I' that is represent in the chain of transitory being aggregations momentarily created by acts and thoughts; and the pain belongs to the aggregates as condition resulting from quality." All this sounds extremely obscure: to understand the real theory we must put away the notion of personality, which is a very difficult thing to do. Successive births do not mean transmigration in the common sense of that word, but only the self-propagation of [226] Karma: the perpetual multiplying of certain ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... number of ladies in blue dresses adorned with large white crosses, who, regardless of the present shortage of nurses, were visiting every home in the place on some mission of invitation whose details remained obscure. So far as I was able to elucidate this project, it was in the nature of a magic incantation; a satisfactory end of the war was to be brought about by convergent prayer and religious assiduities. The mission was shy of dealing with me personally, although as a lapsed ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... black cloud of legitimacy is suspended over the world, save only one bright spot, which breaks out from the political hemisphere of the West, to enlighten and animate and gladden the human heart. Obscure that by the downfall of liberty here, and all mankind are enshrouded in a pall of universal darkness. To you, Mr. Chairman, belongs the high privilege of transmitting, unimpaired, to posterity the fair character ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay
... confined to the genus if the difference be removed, the substance of the genus cannot remain the same: for the same animal nature does not remain, if another kind of soul constitute the animal. Hence it is impossible for the identical knowledge, which was previously obscure, to become clear vision. It is therefore evident that, in heaven, nothing remains of faith, either identically or specifically the same, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... surrounded him with a number of men who, being for the most part of obscure birth, have no sympathy with John of Gaunt's faction, and ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... occasionally did in literature, though in saner moments he felt how impossible this was. Beyond a reference from Mr. Hubbell to some piece of March's which had happened to meet his eye, no one in the management ever gave a sign of consciousness that their service was adorned by an obscure literary man; and Mr. Hubbell himself had the effect of regarding the excursions of March's pen as a sort of joke, and of winking at them; as he might have winked if once in a way he had found him a little ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... most interesting of the archaeological remains are the coins which are found in great abundance on the frontier and all over the Panjab. These take us back through the centuries to times before the invasion of India by Alexander, and for the obscure period intervening between the Greek occupation of the Frontier and the Muhammadan conquest, they are our main source of history. The most ancient of the Indian monetary issues are the so-called punch-marked coins, some of which were undoubtedly in existence ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie
... the limits he had prescribed to himself. His decent lodging alone costs him a great part of his revenue, and obliges him to be strictly parsimonious of the rest. This drives him to associate chiefly with his own countrymen, to dine at obscure coffee-houses, and pay his court to opera-dancers. He sees, indeed, our theatres, our public walks, the outside of our palaces, and the inside of churches: but this gives him no idea of the manners of the people in superior life, or even of easy fortune. Thus he goes home, and asserts to his untravelled ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... Only the name of one obscure epigrammatist has been embalmed for us in the verses of ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... imagined this to myself, and at once there came into my mind people, all people I knew, who had been slowly done to death by their nearest relations. I remembered the tortured dogs, driven mad, the live sparrows plucked naked by boys and flung into the water, and a long, long series of obscure lingering miseries which I had looked on continually from early childhood in that town; and I could not understand what these sixty thousand people lived for, what they read the gospel for, why they prayed, why they read books and magazines. What ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... enemy's calculations; and Selkirk utterly discounted ours by sending his hardy, dare-devil De Meurons across country under the leadership of that prince of braggarts, Captain D'Orsonnens. Indeed, we had only heard the rumor of their coming, when we awakened one morning after an obscure, stormy night to find them encamped at St. James, westward on the Assiniboine River. Day after day the menacing force remained quiet and inoffensive, and we began to look upon these notorious ruffians as harmless. For our part, vigilance was not lacking. ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... in the thirteenth century, obscure and plebeian in the middle of the fourteenth, and wealthy bankers and leaders of the democratic party at its close, culminated in the early part of the fifteenth in the person of Cosmo. The Pater Patriae,—so called, because, having at last absorbed all the authority, he ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... white across the track. They were silent, having, in sooth, very little to say to each other just at this time. Vixen was nursing her wrathful feelings; Rorie felt that his future was confused and obscure. He ought to do something with his life, perhaps, as his mother had so warmly urged. But his soul was stirred by no ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... great, in a way, was still his power over her, that there were moments when she almost believed in the illusion he created. She had committed some grave fault. She was not worthy of his trust. Somewhere, at some time forgotten, in some obscure and secret way, she ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... of retiring, to which I had been looking forward with considerable interest as one likely to bring fresh surprises, arrived at last: it brought only extreme discomfort. I was conducted (without a flat candlestick) along an obscure passage; then, at right angles with the first, a second broader, lighter passage, leading past a great many doors placed near together. These, I ascertained later, were the dormitories, or sleeping-cells, and were placed side by side in a ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... family has grown since 1911 to three members which for lack of better names are now called vitamines "A," "B," and "C." There are now rumors of another arrival and none dare predict the limits of the family. Had these new substances been limited to their relation to an obscure oriental disease they would have of course commanded the medical attention but it is doubtful whether the general public would have found it worth while to concern themselves. It is because on better acquaintance they have compelled us ...
— The Vitamine Manual • Walter H. Eddy
... with is that magical one when South Africa unnoted and obscure was startled from the simplicity of her bucolic life by the discovery of gold and diamonds. This was, of course, some years before the fountains of her boundless potential wealth had become fully unsealed. I was one of that band of light-hearted, haphazard pioneers who, rejoicing in youthful ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... histories of the universe; in the knowledge of which the Atlantians seem to have instructed their brethren the Herculeans. The Grecians, in their accounts, by putting one person for a people, have rendered the history obscure; which otherwise would be very intelligible. There is a passage in Eusebius, which may be rendered very plain, and to the purpose, if we make use of the clue above-mentioned. [208][Greek: Herodotos de legei ton Eraklea mantin kai phusikon genomenon para Atlantos tou Barbarou tou ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... that change is going on, then the way to deliverance is neither difficult nor obscure. It does not lie in the direction of crushing anybody. It lies in the taking of certain determinations, and the embodying of them in ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... were called for. The state of aimlessness in hot perplexity demands a show of action. Whither to go first was as obscure as what to do. Diana said of the Englishman's hat and coat, that she supposed they were to make him a walking presentment of the house he had shut up behind him. A shot of the eye at the glass confirmed the likeness, but with a ruefully wry-faced repudiation ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to him that I take an Interest in him, even though he is the Offspring of an Obscure and Ignorant Workingman, while I am probably the Grandest Thing that ever Swept up the Boulevard. I must go now, but I will Return. Next time I come I hope to hear that your Husband has stopped Drinking and is very Happy. Tell ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... Artillery—he was president of my second court- martial—came up, in company with a lady, and ordered my brother and sister to get up and let him have their camp-stools, and he actually took away the camp-stools and left them standing, while a different kind of a gentleman—an 'obscure citizen,' with no aristocratic West Point dignity to boast of—kindly tendered his ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... terraces diversity its interior slopes; but it is the mysterious bright rays that chiefly surprise us. When the sun rises on Tycho, these streaks are utterly invisible; indeed, the whole object is then so obscure that it requires a practised eye to recognise Tycho amidst its mountainous surroundings. But as soon as the sun has attained a height of about 30 deg. above its horizon, the rays emerge from their obscurity and gradually ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... scaffolding of the tale had been put together. But the question of treatment was as usual more obscure. We had long been at once attracted and repelled by that very modern form of the police novel or mystery story, which consists in beginning your yarn anywhere but at the beginning, and finishing it anywhere but at the end; attracted by its peculiar interest when done, and the peculiar difficulties ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that in this my endeavour to be clear and plain, to follow the threads of every thought to the very ends, and to place the web of every argument clearly and fully before my readers, I have always been successful. Several of the subjects treated in these essays are, no doubt, obscure and difficult: but there is no subject, I believe, in the whole realm of human knowledge, that cannot be rendered clear and intelligible, if we ourselves have perfectly mastered it. And now while the two last volumes of my edition of the Rig-veda are passing through the press, I thought the time ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... and a young man of obscure birth—wholly uneducated, and, generally speaking, a savage, though a harmless one," said the lady, returning to the charge. "Now, Redbud, you cannot fail to perceive that it is impossible for you ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke |
