"Observation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Parravicin attended by his companions, and Disbrowe accompanied by a military friend, whom he accidentally encountered. Each party taking a coach, they soon reached the ground, a retired spot completely screened from observation by trees. The preliminaries were soon arranged, for neither would admit of delay. The conflict then commenced with great fury on both sides; but Parravicin, in spite of his passion, observed far more caution than his antagonist; ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... said Mr. Clifford. "Springtime and harvest are sure. After over half a century's observation I have noted that, no matter what the weather may have been, Nature always catches up with the season about the middle or ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... a certain man in the Government employ, and went down to a Government building, situated on the Battery near South Ferry. He had gotten himself up as a night-watchman, hoping in that way to escape observation. ...
— The Dock Rats of New York • "Old Sleuth"
... scattered Javelin crew for fire fighting. The attack on the Municipal Building and on Hunters' Hall had been postponed, but it wasn't going to be abandoned. Oscar and Professor Hartzenbosch and Dad and a couple of others were planning some sort of an observation force of a few men for each place, until the fire had been gotten out or under control. Glenn Murell decided he'd go out with me, at least as far as the fire, so we went down to the vehicle port and got the jeep out. Main City Level Broadway was almost deserted; ...
— Four-Day Planet • Henry Beam Piper
... felt a glow of delight in this achievement such as no words can describe. They marched on their way with a swinging stride, as if they stood on air. First they had the keen professional delight of having built up by their own observation a theory which proved true in every particular save one—that the blood found on the scene of the accident had flowed from a cut in the arm, and not in the head. But that was a mere detail; in every item that mattered ...
— The Wolf Patrol - A Tale of Baden-Powell's Boy Scouts • John Finnemore
... grow up, when her mother would accompany her, steer her, help her at every step, must necessarily be brought to nought. And this mother, alas! had been so full of plans; she had so anxiously watched other people and their daughters, so carefully accumulated from her observation the many warnings and the few examples which constitute what is called the teaching of experience. But when the time came the lesson had been learnt in vain. Rachel's eighteenth and nineteenth years were spent in anxious preoccupations about her mother's health, in ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... this interval shouldn't be extended to three-quarters of an hour, and less time occupied on the journey to Paris, I have never yet been able to ascertain. In the not very dim and distant future no doubt it will be so. I record the above observation in italics, in order to attract the attention of all whom it may and does and ought to concern. Perhaps they'll kindly ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 29, 1891 • Various
... attention, and made him the centre of things more effectively than more ordinary manners could have done? In recalling him the girl had an impatient sense of something commanding; of something, moreover, that held herself under observation. "One thinks him shy at first, or awkward—nothing of the sort! He is as proud as Lucifer. Very soon one sees that he is just looking out for ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... carrier, sometimes at a temperature of 2,500 to 2,800 F., is thereby brought into more rapid and forcible contact with the water, steam or water in the spherical condition is washed away from its surface, and by cooling it more rapidly, the duration of the observation is lessened, and errors due to transmission of heat through the walls of the instrument are diminished. The upper part of the agitator stem is of hard rubber, and the brass portion, which terminates at the under side of the cover when the agitator is in its lowest position, suspended by the shoulder ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... he might make a passage into the next pit, which he knew led into others, and thus escape. His success was beyond his expectation; and he regained the open air at a sufficient distance from his late quarters to escape observation. Once able to reflect calmly upon the event of the morning, it required little discrimination to fix upon Robert his real share in it. And now there was no time to lose in returning to Melbourne, and prevent ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... traveling in a direction to meet the file of coaches that we have watched. It stops near the inn, and two men muffled in cloaks alight by the door away from the hostel and towards the church, as if they wished to avoid observation. Their faces are those of NAPOLEON and MURAT, his brother-in-law. Crossing the road through the mud and rain they stand in the church porch, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... one gets while reading, or when intent on something else. But I know not how many times I have raised my head or turned with the certainty that somebody were passing. The other day I found that my wife was equally aware of the spectacle, and that, as likewise agrees with my own observation, it always appears to be entering the yard from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... in all, the observation of moral duties, gentle thoughts, good deeds and kind words, as good will to all and entire oblivion of Self, are the most efficacious means of obtaining knowledge and preparing for ...
— Studies in Occultism; A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky • H. P. Blavatsky
... following Observation cannot well be understood, without giving some Account of Clouds in general. The Atmosphere is supposed to extend itself about five Miles round this Globe of Earth, and within that Space move all kind of Vapours exhaled by the Sun's Force, or ...
— The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to Judge of the Changes of the Weather, Grounded on Forty Years' Experience • John Claridge
... his eyes to look about. He was always quick to discover things that would escape the observation of his companions. It had become a settled habit with Max to always be on the alert in cases like this, so as to pick up valuable information, even from small things. The secrets of the trail he ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... a coral atoll managed as a national wildlife refuge and open to the public for wildlife-related recreation in the form of wildlife observation and photography, sport fishing, snorkeling, and ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... terrace of the tower that the Chinese astronomers had set their instruments, and though few in number they occupied the whole area. But Father Verbiest, the Director of the Observatory, considering them useless for astronomical observation, persuaded the Emperor to let them be removed, to make way for several instruments of his own construction. The instruments set aside by the European astronomers are still in a hall adjoining the tower, buried in dust and oblivion; and we saw them only through a grated window. They appeared ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... observation! Take care!—You are becoming too strictly logical, Monsieur Rouletabille; logic will upset you if you use it indiscriminately. You are right, when you say that Mademoiselle Stangerson fired her revolver, ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... thither under the persecuting period, to the repressing, yea, almost extinguishing, the feuds, thefts and robberies so connatural unto these places and people about the borders, has been worth a singular and serious observation. ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... can make conscious improvements in his condition only through observation, analysis, conclusion and experiment. The community is under the same limitations. Its progress will be intelligent only when it works rationally and purposefully upon the problems with ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... writer who does not solemnly and explicitly assert the reality and frequent employment of this power. In his Second Apology, Justin says: "And now you can learn this from what is under your own observation. For numberless demoniacs throughout the whole world, and in your city, many of our Christian men exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, have healed and do heal, rendering helpless and driving the possessing ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... etre belle.* *From those readers who may understand this chanson in the original, and look somewhat contemptuously on the following version, the translator begs to shelter himself under the well-known observation of Lord Chesterfield, "that everything suffers by translation, but a bishop!" Those to whom such a dilution is necessary will perhaps be contented with the skim-milk as they cannot get the cream.- TRANS. Thy beauty, seductress, leads mortals astray, Over hearts, Lise, how vast and resistless ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... the practice of good works." St. Gregory, St. Bernard, and all the Holy Fathers have always required of prelates, as a primary qualification, that they should greatly edify; which is the more necessary in the superiors of religious communities, as their example is under more immediate observation. ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... was rainy during the night; and although our bunk was in the gunner's room, it leaked in there very much. At sunrise it cleared up a little. We could not obtain any observation, but supposed the latitude was 43 deg. The course was east-southeast, the distance run 100 miles. As it was Saturday evening a hog was killed, there being seven or eight ...
— Journal of Jasper Danckaerts, 1679-1680 • Jasper Danckaerts
... ecclesiastical permission, Therese has several times been under close scientific observation. Dr. Fritz Gerlick, editor of a Protestant German newspaper, went to Konnersreuth to "expose the Catholic fraud," but ended up by reverently ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... critics have made on the subject, without omitting any of their rules in my own favour. You will also find some points reconciled, about which they seem to differ, and a few remarks which, I think, have escaped their observation. ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... figures of rhetoric, but by figures of arithmetic. I am going to be very matter-of-fact and commonplace in my details, and keep ever in view the addition-table. I will instance a case which has occurred under my own observation." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... this: I love, Thou lovest, He loveth, We loven, Ye loven, They loven. Dr. Priestley remarks, (though in my opinion unadvisedly,) that, "Nouns of a plural form, but of a singular signification, require a singular construction; as, mathematicks is a useful study. This observation will likewise," says he, "in some measure, vindicate the grammatical propriety of the famous saying of William of Wykeham, Manners maketh man."—Priestley's Gram., p. 189. I know not what half-way vindication there can be, for any such construction. Manners and mathematics ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... such an importation would be attended with very great advantages to the inhabitants. For the want of such persons has, in numerous instances, been very severely felt by those who have had occasion to come into the courts of law. Many instances have occurred, within my observation, where the persons accused might, by the assistance of a counsel who possessed the ability to penetrate the motives and intentions of the prosecutor, have escaped the punishment which he has been compelled to endure. Evidence is frequently mis-stated and misrepresented ...
— The Present Picture of New South Wales (1811) • David Dickinson Mann
... back your own words; but as the subject interested me much, I recollect well the observation you made, that no traveller had ever satisfied you in his delineation of Asiatic manners; 'for,' said you, 'in in general their mode of treating the subject is by sweeping assertions, which leave ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... animals are said to croak reflexly after this operation whenever the back is stroked; but for some reason I have never been successful in getting the reaction uniformly. In many cases I was able to make normal animals croak by rubbing the back or flanks, and to this sound the animals under observation occasionally responded by taking what looked like an attitude of attention. They straightened up and raised the head as if listening. In no case have other motor responses been noticed; and the above response was so rare that no ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... observation decided Mr Biggs. He sprung up from the boat just as he was, and touched his hat as he passed the first lieutenant. "Perfectly sober, sir, but ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... public instruction a man should have had sufficient sagacity not only to regard the natural sciences as one of the principal subjects of study which ought to be included in a course of education, but further to make the observation of nature the basis of that study, to fix the pupil's attention upon examination of facts, and to impress upon him the necessity of applying his knowledge by studying those practical arts and industries which profit by such applications? ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... letter to his wife. It did not occupy him ten minutes. Some of his clothing was yet very good and fashionable; he packed it in the leather trap which had gone with him to college, and then he sent a little girl for a cab. Without word and without observation he drove away from the scene of so ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... think, my friend," asked the man in question, and he looked amused, "that you really know all the McNeills, or their party? The valley of the South Branch is long and wide, and the families are large. One McNeill has simply escaped your observation." ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... summer, the cold continued so bitter, that many would have taken to their beds had they not been compelled to attend to the working of the ship. During this time also the sky became so overcast with clouds and thick mists, that it was impossible to take an observation. At length they came to the conclusion that there was no passage at all along the north shore of America, or that it was so blocked up with ice as to be impassable. They ran in and dropped anchor in a roadstead, since called ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... thus preserve some foods, others can not be so treated. Much of the rank growth of the farm, like cornstalks, is good food while it is fresh, but is of little value when dried. The farmer has from experience and observation discovered a method of managing bacterial growth which enables him to avoid their ordinary evil effects. This is by the use of the silo. The silo is a large, heavily built box, which is open only at the top. In the silo the green food is packed tightly, and when full all access of air is ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... appreciation of people and events. The mathematician and the poet held alternate sway over him. This di-psychic quality was evidenced by the rapidity with which the expression of his eye would frequently change from cold calculation to a certain rapt observation, as if he looked up from a complicated problem to contemplate a glimpse of blue distance. Thus it was that he appreciated to the full the panorama spread out before him, though his mind was intent upon another subject; or rather, it might be said that the sight gave warmth and ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... open it?" she whispered to Floretta. They were all quite oblivious of the speaker, who moved nervously back and forth in front of them, so screening them somewhat from the observation of the audience. Still Ellen hesitated, looking at the little package and feeling her father's and mother's ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... remarkable and somewhat fantastic monuments. There is a beautiful one in white marble to the memory of a sea-captain's wife, with an exact likeness of himself, in the attitude of taking an observation, on the top. An inscription to himself is likewise upon it, leaving only the date of his death to be added. It is said that, when this poor man returns from a voyage, he spends one whole day in the tomb, ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... medical works that all these cells are closely related, the grounds for sharply separating the lymphocytes from the bone-marrow group may here be shortly summarised, and stress laid on the great importance which this apparently purely theoretical question has for clinical observation. We shall come to most important conclusions upon this point when we consider more closely the share which the various regions of the haematopoietic system take in the formation of the blood, and especially of ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... word or two of his death, Which was as sad as lamentable. He kept a discontented servant, who conceiving his deserts, not soon or well enough rewarded, wounded him mortally; and then (to save the Law a labour) killed himself. Verifying therein the observation, That there is none who never so much despiseth his own life, but yet is master of ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... came. But when the twenty-four hours had passed, the surveyor had taken that same generous—not to say credulous—liking for Mr. Tarbox that we have seen him show for St. Pierre and for Claude. He was about to start on a tour of observation eastward through a series of short canals that span the shaking prairies from bayou to bayou, from Terrebonne to Lafourche, Lafourche to Des Allemands, so through Lake Ouacha into and up Barataria, again across prairie, and at length, leaving Lake Cataouache ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... rendered him more efficient than all was his wonderful power of observation and acute description, which made the information he gave so reliable and valuable to the Duke of Wellington. Nothing escaped him. When amidst a group of persons, he would minutely watch the movement, attitude, and expression of every ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... she was sure she was not: Ah, sir, said she, a man of your observation must know, that the daughters of a decayed family of some note in the world, do not easily get husbands. Men of great fortunes look higher: men of small must look out for wives to enlarge them; and men of genteel businesses are afraid of young women better born ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... gentlemen, you gouty feoffees, in this main point worthy of your observation, how by these means Pantagruel of one angel made two, which was a contingency opposite to the counsel of Charlemagne, who made two devils of one when he transplanted the Saxons into Flanders and the Flemings into ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... across that cruel barrier, trusting that he would not injure himself so severely as to make escape absolutely impossible, when something occurred which caused him quickly to change his mind, and made him shrink back into the shadow of the door, pressing himself up into one of the corners, to avoid observation ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... it may appear, I was influenced in my excited search for clues by the fact that the clock had, after it was re-wound, only struck the hour of twelve. The significance of that deduction lay in the observation—my experience is, admittedly, limited—that clocks which have run down must be patiently made to re-toll the hours they have missed, or they will pick up their last neglected reminders of the time at the point at which they stopped. And from that I inferred an esoteric knowledge of mechanics ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... More attention would be paid to the preservation of health than is at present practicable, and the medical man would then be able to advise with increased effect, because he would be proportionally well understood, and his counsel, in so far, at least, as it was based on accurate observation and a right application of principles, would be perceived to be, not a mere human opinion, but, in reality, an exposition of the will and intentions of a beneficent Creator, and would therefore be felt as carrying with it an ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... gulch, and if seen I would have been at his mercy, as perhaps he was also in touch with other Indians of his tribe. I reasoned that I could not afford to make the mistake of incurring the risk to stake my life on the chance of escaping his observation. I had started out to hunt antelopes, but now I coolly prepared myself to stalk an Indian warrior instead. I went about it as if I were hunting a coyote. First of all, I ascertained the direction of the wind, which was ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... that was to have furnished the swell feed the night before in what two bits would purchase from a generous housewife on a near-by farm, and then, stretching themselves beneath the shade of a tree sufficiently far from the road that they might not attract unnecessary observation, they slept ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... circumstances. She watched him as women often do watch men, waiting till the creature should come to itself again and might be spoken to. The incomprehensibleness of women is an old theory, but what is that to the curious wondering observation with which wives, mothers, and sisters watch the other unreasoning animal in those moments when he has snatched the reins out of their hands, and is not to be spoken to! What he will make of it in those unassisted moments, afflicts the compassionate female ...
— The Rector • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... From this last observation of Don Quixote's, the traveller began to have a suspicion that he was some crazy being, and was waiting him to confirm it by something further; but before they could turn to any new subject Don Quixote begged him to tell ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... white St. Andrew's cross, on which the imperial eagle and the regimental insignia are embroidered in gold. The news that a German flag was being shown spread rapidly, and a large crowd gathered. There were no insulting remarks, merely quiet observation. Among the first to see the trophy were some school-children headed by their master, who explained the significance of the capture. The flag was taken to the Elyse Palace and shown to President ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... Fools (DUCKWORTH). It is a clever tale, almost horridly well told, about the war-time behaviour of the rottenest idle-rich element, in the disorganised and hectic London of 1917-18. Perhaps the observation is superficial; but, just so far as it pretends to go, Lady DOROTHY'S method does undoubtedly get home. Her heroine, Louise, is a detestable little egoist, whose vanity and entire lack of moral render her an easy victim to the vampire crowd into which she drifts. The "sensation" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 30th, 1920 • Various
... and in that time it is probable that these two men did a great deal of talking. The information given was most valuable, and such as could have been furnished only by a man of extraordinary powers of observation. ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... machinery that had guided it in its search for the asteroid, slowly muttering. "The sun robbed me of a second sight of my discovery, yet only at this hour can I hope to get a glimpse of it. The difficulties attending this observation are the tremendous velocity with which it travels, its very small mass, and the rapidity with which, at the hour of sunset, it passes into the shadow of the earth. I will, however, calculate its orbit, and search for ...
— Four Months in a Sneak-Box • Nathaniel H. Bishop
... have said or done nothing that calls for any such observation, Mr Doyle. If there is a vice I detest—or against which my whole public life has been a protest—it is the vice of hypocrisy. I would almost ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... champion the cause of their converts. This is one secret of Rome's great and rapidly growing power in China, and unquestionably, too, it is one of the chief causes of Chinese hostility to missions. After many years of observation, Dr. J. Campbell ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... have relied partly on personal observation, partly on notes and the memory of former journeys; and where needful have used the historical information to be found in cyclopaedias, and ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney
... you, he conducted him to the house, and what discourse passed there in his hearing. The prisoner asked him what countryman he was, and whether he was a brick-maker, and promised him so many acres of land in Carolina. The fellow upon observation and consideration, found himself under a great load, could not eat or sleep quietly, as men that have honest minds are uneasy under such things; falshood and treason, and hypocrisy are a heavy load; ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... a low and mysterious tone, "always tell me all you know about the archduke, and do not conceal any thing from me. I must know all, and count upon your sincerity and talent of observation." ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... if the Jews, with their sacraments, did notwithstanding lose the reality which those sacraments typified, so we should take heed lest we, with our sacraments, should lose it also. The erroneous heading is not given in the Geneva Bible, where we have, on the contrary, the true observation; "the sacraments of the old fathers were all one with ours, for they respected Christ only." It is true that if no more were meant than that "the Jews' sacraments were like ours," there would be no reason ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold
... myself by observing the audience, which consisted, in chief part, of the very elite of the city. Having satisfied myself upon this point, I was about turning my eyes to the prima donna, when they were arrested and riveted by a figure in one of the private boxes which had escaped my observation. ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... must be in my own way, for there's no escape from one's character. I may be a good poet or a bad one—that's not for me to say; but I am a poet of sorts. Now a poet does not observe like a novelist. He does not indeed necessarily observe at all until he feels the need of observation. Then he observes, and intensely. He does not analyse, he does not amass his facts; he concentrates. He wrings out quintessences; and when he has distilled his drops of pure spirit he brews his potion. Something of the kind happens to me now, whether verse or prose be the Muse of my devotion. ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... person. The page visited all the public places for many days, without success; at length, one evening, at the play, he saw a young man and woman, in a box, who attracted his attention. When he saw that they, perceived he was looking at them, and withdrew to the back of the box to avoid his observation, he felt confident that they were the objects of his search. He did not take his eyes from the bog, and watched every movement in it. The instant the performance ended, he was in the passage leading from the boxes to the door, and he remarked that ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... there was suspicion in his observation. He leaned lazily over the counter, while she took out the mail within the little office ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... pupils are divided, according to qualification, into six grades. The lowest grade receives the simplest instruction, such as conversational lessons about common objects, or "object teaching," which is designed to form habits of accurate observation; simple instruction in regard to morals and manners; reading and spelling easy words from the blackboard or chart; counting; and simple addition by the aid of the numerical frame. From this simple, but substantial basis, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... of self-destruction, a determination which had found expression in more than words, for only the day before-the day of her admission—she had swallowed some cleverly hidden, antiseptic tablets. The trained habits of observation of the skilful nurse had saved her from death. Crafty, vindictive, malicious, reckless, heartless! Her care demanded tireless watching— hence this room, void of anything by which she could possibly injure herself or others. Nor was she more attractive than her ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... sincerity of the pacific intentions of this court." She did not begin, say they, yet to "know her real interests." "She did not seek peace with good faith." This, or something to this effect, has been the constant preliminary observation (now grown into a sort of office form) on all our overtures to this power: a perpetual charge on the British government of fraud, evasion, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... her own business." There was also his remark about Marietta and kites, unatoned for as yet. She had not forgotten that she "owed him one," as Madeleine Hollister light-heartedly phrased the connubial balanced relationship which had come under her irreverent and keen observation. A cumulative sharpness from all these causes was in her voice as she remarked, "Didn't I ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... the Red Cloud was lowered in a good but lonely landing place, and securely moored. It was in a valley, well screened from observation, and the craft was not likely to be seen, but, to guard against any damage being done to it by passing hunters or miners, Mr. Parker and Mr. Damon agreed to remain on guard in it, while Tom and Mr. Jenks spent a day or two ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... whole devilish business that just won't fit, won't fit into all the known facts, won't fit into observation and experience; won't fit—" The rest was too low ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... full of superstition that scarce anything sound can be discovered in it; though we judge it should rather be purged than absolutely rejected. Yet if any one shall pretend that this science is founded not in reason and physical contemplations, but in the direct experience and observation of past ages, and therefore not to be examined by physical reasons, as the Chaldaeans boasted, he may at the same time bring back divination, auguries, soothsaying, and give in to all kinds of fables; for these also were said to descend from long experience. But we ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... young friend—then twenty-six years old—the manuscript of "Paradise Lost" to read, his desire could only have been to learn what comprehension of his purpose there would be in a young man sincerely religious, as intelligent as most, and with a taste for verse, though not much of a poet. The observation Ellwood made, of which he is proud because of its consequence, might well cause Milton to be silent for a little while, and then change the conversation. It showed that the whole aim of the poem had been missed. Its crown is in the story of redemption, Paradise Found, the better Eden, the "Paradise ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... that it was a live church that I joined, and after half a century of experience and observation, I can only thank God that I was brought to connect myself with it. It was not merely the marvellous preaching of Mr. Beecher, which I feel helped me greatly; it was the whole atmosphere of aggressive work. The great audiences, crowding the pews so that aisle chairs had to be put in, was in ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... observation prevailed. The judges retired to deliberate with the chancellor. While departing, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... scholar-like idealism, and ignorance of men and motives, and thus she came to self- possession again, and found her true mission. She realized with joy, and a delightful sense of an assured purpose in life, that her faculty of observation and practical insight, though insufficient as "bases for Eternity," would be of value to her lover. And if she now and then fell back into the part of a nineteenth-century Antigone, it was but a momentary relapse into ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... stupefied with grief. Five little children on their knees, the oldest not seven years old, unable, no doubt, to understand what was happening, gazed and listened with the torpid curiosity that characterizes the peasantry, and is really the observation of physical things pushed to its highest limit. Lastly, the poor unmarried sister, imprisoned in the interests of justice, now released, a martyr to fraternal affection, Denise Tascheron, was listening to the priest's words ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... observation caught a certain look of blankness on Travis' face, and his rapid glance noted no vacant chair at table, he gave a ...
— Blix • Frank Norris
... Uncle Robert's Visit should read through the eyes of Susie, Donald, and Frank. The reading, so far as possible, should be accompanied by personal observation, ...
— Uncle Robert's Geography (Uncle Robert's Visit, V.3) • Francis W. Parker and Nellie Lathrop Helm
... understood. At length, one morning when I came on deck to keep my watch, I saw the stars shining brightly overhead—the wind had fallen, the sea was going down, and the schooner, with her squaresail rigged out, was running gaily along. At noon we took an observation, when we found that we were less than a hundred miles from the port of Apia, which we therefore expected to reach the next day, unless the wind ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... watched Paco, as, with extraordinary daring and activity, he climbed its rugged sides, availing himself, with intuitive skill and judgment, of every description of cover, creeping up water-courses and amongst bushes; and when compelled to expose himself to observation from the valley in his rear, bounding and striding along as if insensible alike to fatigue and to the scorching heat of the sun. In half the time that appeared necessary for the painful ascent, he disappeared over the summit of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... duty, yet candor compels us to state that at least ninety per cent. of the causes of all the arrests during the year are directly traceable to the immoderate use of intoxicating liquors, not to speak of the poverty and misery it has caused families which almost daily come under our observation." ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... Are we to suppose that this was a delusion, or that the sensibility of the man was a genuine aid to the actor? Bannister said of John Kemble that he was never pathetic because he had no children. Talma says that when deeply moved he found himself making a rapid and fugitive observation on the alternation of his voice, and on a certain spasmodic vibration which it contracted in tears. Has not the actor who can thus make his feelings a part of his art an advantage over the actor who never feels, but who makes his observations ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... assertion, I will beg leave to state a well known fact; which is, that in proportion as the consumption of malt liquors have increased in our large towns and cities, in that proportion has the health of our fellow citizens improved, and epidemics and intermittents, become less frequent. The same observation holds good as respects the country, where it is well known that those families that brew their own beer, and make a free use of it through the summer are, in general, all healthy, and preserve their colour; whilst their less fortunate neighbours, who do not use beer at all, are ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... "Dr. Syntax" was written to make fun of him. I have a whole set of his works, and am very proud of it, with its gray paper, and open type, and long ff, and orange-juice landscapes. The Pere Gilpin had the kind of science I like in the study of Nature,—a little less observation than White of Selborne, but a little more poetry.—Just think of applying the Linnaean system to an elm! Who cares how many stamens or pistils that little brown flower, which comes out before the leaf, may have to classify it by? What we want is the meaning, the character, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... Indian life and character have long been a favorite study with him, and in these pages he has attempted to describe them, not from an ideal standpoint, but as he knew them in his own boyhood on the Upper Columbia. Many of the incidents related in the story have come under his personal observation; others have been told him by aged pioneers, or gleaned from old books of Northwestern travel. The every-day life of the Indians, their food, their dress, their methods of making their mats, of building their houses, of shaping their canoes, their gambling games, their religious ...
— The Bridge of the Gods - A Romance of Indian Oregon. 19th Edition. • Frederic Homer Balch
... been to get my things from the college," she said—an observation which he was expected to take as an answer, though it was not one. Finding her to be in this evasive mood he felt inclined to give her the ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... enemies which the vultures and the jackals had already polished white. Bawr, the Chief, came last, seeing to it that there were no laggards; and as the tail of the straggling procession left the pass he climbed swiftly to the nearest pinnacle of rock to take observation. He marked Grom and the girl, the tribe strung out dejectedly behind them, winding off to the left along the foot of the bare hills; and a pang of grief, for an instant, twitched his massive features. Then he turned his eyes to the right. Very far off, in a space of open ground by the brookside, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... have I any encouragement to follow too implicitly the example which my mother sets of meekness, and resignedness to the wills of others? Is she not for ever obliged (as she was pleased to hint to me) to be of the forbearing side? In my mother's case, your observation I must own is verified, that those who will bear much, shall have much to bear.** What is it, as she says, that she has not sacrificed to peace?—Yet, has she by her sacrifices always found the ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... author's experiences in the war area. The work traces the cause of the war from the treaty of 1878 through the Balkan situation. It contains many facts drawn from personal observation, for Col. McCormick has had opportunities such as have been given to no other man during the present engagements. He has been at the various headquarters and actually in the trenches. One of the most interesting chapters of the volume is the concluding one dealing ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... beautiful thoughts, in like manner, are the issue of labour, of study, of observation, of research, of diligent elaboration. The noblest poem cannot be elaborated, and send down its undying strains into the future, without steady and painstaking labour. No great work has ever been done "at a heat." It is the result of repeated efforts, ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... real enough," he answered, "no matter how far you look. But, just the same, it won't do any harm to extend our radius of observation. ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... this country, both in rehearsal and in public performance, during a period of some twelve years, and the book represents an attempt to put into simple language and practical form the ideas gathered from this observation. It is hoped that as a result of reading these pages the amateur may not only have become more fully informed concerning those practical phases of conducting about which he has probably been seeking ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... to make some energetic observation to the guide, but Hans, without taking the slightest notice of him, went in front of the horses, and walked ahead with the same imperturbable phlegm he had ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... Guillaume was changed, that the terrible gust of revolutionary contagion sweeping over Paris had transformed him. It had all come from the duality of his nature, the presence of contradictory elements within him. On one side one found a scientist whose whole creed lay in observation and experiment, who, in dealing with nature, evinced the most cautious logic; while on the other side was a social dreamer, haunted by ideas of fraternity, equality and justice, and eager for universal happiness. Thence had first come the theoretical anarchist that he had been, one in whom ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... but before he spoke again, Mr. Parmalee made an observation that decidedly raised that young ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... ever known it. Flint's Pond, a mile eastward, allowing for the disturbance occasioned by its inlets and outlets, and the smaller intermediate ponds also, sympathize with Walden, and recently attained their greatest height at the same time with the latter. The same is true, as far as my observation ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... has sent me, from personal knowledge, an admirable pendant to stones of Scottish child acuteness and shrewd observation. A young lady friend of his, resident in a part of Ayrshire rather remote from any very satisfactory administration of the gospel, is in the habit of collecting the children of the neighbourhood on Sundays at the "big hoose," for religious instruction. On one occasion the ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... Colossus; The former flourishing and present State of Alexandria. A Description of the Holy-Land; of the Jews, and several Sects of Christians living there; of Jerusalem, Sepulchre of Christ, Temple of Solomon; and what else either of Antiquity, or worth observation. Lastly, Italy described, and the Islands adjoining; as Cyprus, Crete, Malta, Sicilia, the olian Islands; Of Rome, Venice, Naples, Syracusa, Mesena, tna, Scylla, and Charybdis; and other places of Note. Illustrated with Fifty ...
— Catalogue of the Books Presented by Edward Capell to the Library of Trinity College in Cambridge • W. W. Greg
... a small town near Paris told me of three instances that came within her personal observation, and expressed no surprise at one or the other. She probably would not have thought them worth mentioning if she had not been asked expressly to meet me and give me certain information. One was of a woman whose husband ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... it now seemed as though they could never weary of it. The sun was high when they awoke the following morning. After breakfast, they held a consultation with respect to what was next to be done. From observation, Boone was satisfied that numbers of Indians, in small parties, were then in the neighborhood. He knew it was idle to suppose that two men, however brave and skilful in the use of their weapons, could survive long in opposition to them. He felt the impolicy ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... returned a sweating, blowing trooper, with a handleless, uncovered, paraffin tin of water. As he stumbled back along the stony beach an enemy battery opened fire without, it appeared, the Turks having precise knowledge of their target, or else their observation was inferior. To them, ignorance was bliss, just as the consistency with which they dropped salvos of four shells about two hundred yards out to sea, was bliss to Mac. Moreover, the paint-brush-like splash of the flying fragments ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... cheerful enough," said Katherine, irritated at the tone in which the observation was made; "and I thought the Temple was rather a ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... a state of things very similar to that which now obtains; but that the likeness of the past to the present would gradually become less and less, in proportion to the remoteness of his period of observation from the present day; that the existing distribution of mountains and plains, of rivers and seas, would show itself to be the product of a slow process of natural change operating upon more and more widely different antecedent conditions of the mineral framework of the earth; until, at length, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... may not be out of place just here for the writer to disclose what he considers, from close observation, to be the attitude of the Negroes on the question of the intermarriage of the races. They do not hold with that group of writers who contend that the Negro is inherently inferior to the whites and that a mixture of the blood ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... were obviously embarrassed. They drew together a little, as if to avoid observation. But the moon shone full on the wall, affording them not ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which owns the seeing eye. There are in Great Britain to-day a dozen writers of fine faculty, trained to observe, trained to give to observation its fullest artistic result; and they are all panting for something new. The something new is under their noses. They see it and touch it every day. If I could find it, my name in a year would sail over the seas, and I should ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... my news was highly welcome, and I did wonder to see the 'Change so full, I believe 200 people; but not a man or merchant of any fashion, but plain men all. And Lord! to see how I did endeavour all I could to talk with as few as I could, there being now no observation of shutting up of houses infected, that to be sure we do converse and meet with people that have the plague upon them. I spent some thoughts upon the occurrences of this day, giving matter for as much content on one hand ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... against the bars where they were let into the rock on the right, I found I could just get a glimpse of the free blue sea rolling and tossing outside, and by dint of observation and much careful watching I learned where ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... does not remember the famous passage in the Essay on Theism where John Stuart Mill explains that "the relation of thought to a material brain is no metaphysical necessity, but simply a constant co-existence within the limits of observation," and concludes that although "experience furnishes us with no example of any series of states of consciousness" without an accompanying brain, "it is as easy to imagine such a series of states without as with this accompaniment." [2] According to Mill—hardly a champion of orthodoxy—there is ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... brilliant and very perfect poem, but in the field of realistic fiction, or in what we used to call the novel of manners, a writer can only produce an inferior book at the outset. For this work he needs experience and observation, not so much of others as of himself, for ultimately his characters will all come out of himself, and he will need to know motive and character with such thoroughness and accuracy as he can acquire only through his ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and cigars upon the other. The latter end of this enterprise, involving (as it did) shipwreck, confiscation, and a lawsuit with the underwriters, was too painful to be dwelt upon at length. "It's proved a disappointment," was as far as my friend would go with me in words; but I knew, from observation, that the fabric of his fortunes tottered. For the rest, it was only by accident I got wind of the transaction; for Pinkerton, after a time, was shy of introducing me to his arcana: the reason you ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... writer on astronomy and mechanics, born at Rothiemay, Banff, son of a labourer; his interest in astronomy was first aroused by his observation of the stars while acting as a "herd laddie," and much of his time among the hills was spent in the construction of mechanical contrivances; compelled by circumstances to betake himself to various ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... Anna, though he saw that her plate was well supplied with the best of everything, and when at one draught she drained her glass of ice-water, he quietly placed another within her reach, standing a little before her and trying evidently to shield her from too critical observation. There were two at least who were glad when the picnic was over, and various were the private opinions of the company with regard to the entertainment. Dr. Bellamy, who had been repeatedly foiled ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... influence on these three educated modern witnesses; could an old piece of folklore, in company with 'expectancy,' so wildly delude them? Can 'high scientific attainments' leave their possessor with such humble powers of observation? But, to be sure, Dr. Carpenter does not tell his readers that there were three witnesses. Dr. Carpenter says that, if we believe Lord Crawford (and his friends), we can 'have no reason for refusing credit to the historical evidence ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang |
