"Perceptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... case of several other animals already mentioned, even when no injury is perceptible from moderately close interbreeding, yet, to quote the words of Mr. Coate, a most successful breeder (who five times won the annual gold medal of the Smithfield Club Show for the best pen of pigs), "Crosses answer well for profit to the farmer, as you get more constitution and quicker ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... scarcely perceptible smile; but Tullius Senecio, who till that moment was occupied in conversing with Vestinius, or rather in reviling dreams, while Vestinius believed in them, turned to Petronius, and though he had not the least idea touching that of which they were talking, he said,—"Thou ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... your pardon, my dears, I ought to have said my gold." With this she kissed Edward tenderly on the brow, and drew an embrace and a little grunt of resignation from him. "Take the dear boy and show him our purchases, love!" said Mrs. Dodd, with a little gentle accent of half reproach, scarce perceptible to ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... flight; the bullet makes electrical connection resulting in a spark which illuminates the bullet when opposite the eye. The electrical spark exists only for the millionth of a second, and as the bullet in that time has no perceptible movement it is seen standing absolutely still with all marks upon it quite visible to the eye. When Sight perception is increased up to the rate at which time may be said to flow for any particular object we apparently ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... telescope, so as to look minutely at the progress of the waves and trace their breach upon the Bell Rock; but the height to which the cross-running waves rose in sprays when they met each other was truly grand, and the continued roar and noise of the sea was very perceptible to the ear. To estimate the height of the sprays at forty or fifty feet would surely be within the mark. Those of the workmen who were not much afflicted with sea-sickness came upon deck, and the wetness below being dried up, the cabins were again brought into a habitable ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a scarcely perceptible yet significant gesture, motioned towards Lord Lackington. Mr. Montresor started. The eyes of both men travelled across the table, then ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... within the fortress, and a parley—this dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in it—suddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... world shows that civilized communities may lose their enlightenment, and sink to a condition of barbarism; but the degraded descendants of a civilized people usually retain traditional recollections of their ancestors, or some traces of the lost civilization, perceptible in their customs and their legendary lore. The barbarism of the wild Indians of North America had nothing of this kind. It was original barbarism. There was nothing to indicate that either the Indians inhabiting our ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... George Harvey, Young E. Allison, William Allen White, George Ade, Ex-Senator Beveridge and Senator Kern. That night Riley smiled his most wonderful smile, his dimpled boyish smile, and when he rose to speak it was with a perceptible quaver in his voice that he said: "Everywhere the faces of friends, a beautiful throng ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... Springfield, and perhaps at Springfield we should find the enemy. Surely if they did not oppose the passage they would blow up the bridge. Tiny patrols—beetles on a green baize carpet—scoured the plain, and before we reached the crease—scarcely perceptible at a mile's distance, in which the Little Tugela flows—word was brought that no Dutchmen were anywhere to be seen. Captain Gough, it appeared, with one man had ridden over the bridge in safety; more than that, had ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... influence is very perceptible, more especially in the last quotation; and traces of the same will be found in "The ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... with a perceptible shiver as the keen north wind smote him in the face, but answered, with a look ...
— On Picket Duty and Other Tales • Louisa May Alcott
... new family at Cloomber Hall had no perceptible effect in relieving the monotony of our secluded district, for instead of entering into such simple pleasures as the country had to offer, or interesting themselves, as we had hoped, in our attempts to improve the lot of our poor crofters and fisherfolk, ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... motioned to Forrest to bend towards me, and when his ear was level with my mouth, I asked him to throw everything which could be got rid of overboard, in order to lighten the car. He took my meaning at once, and away went the cushions and rugs. The difference was slight, but still there was a perceptible difference. At the pace we were now travelling the car rocked from side to side of the road, and Forrest had to brace himself stiffly against the foot-board to prevent himself being thrown out. But we were gaining foot by foot on the ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... northward, and their sloping stems are a little deeper in the earth than they were in the first instance. This should be done during fine weather in November, and if the plants flag a little they should have one good watering at the roots. In the course of about ten days it will be scarcely perceptible that they have been operated on. They may be lifted and replanted with their heads to the north, but this is apt to check them too much. In exceptionally cold seasons cover the plot with straw or bracken, but this must be removed ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... is perceptible at Obidos, four hundred and fifty miles above Para, and Bates observed it up the Tapajos, five hundred and thirty miles distant. The tide, however, does not flow up; there is only a rising and falling of the waters—the momentary check of the great river ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... that a rocket sent up by night, or three calls of the bugle given sharply without any perceptible interval, will bring help from us; but ask him if any steps can be taken to help ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... Evolution, on the contrary, prefers to begin with the distant past, to postulate formations, even if they have left no traces, and to speak of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past became the perceptible present, as not only necessary, but as real. Perhaps the difference is of no importance, but the historical method seems certainly the more accurate, and the more satisfactory from a purely ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... moor, or appearing by a cradle-side; supernatural, yet fraught with a nameless beauty. She was dressed with the utmost care, in white, with blue ribands; and her lovely hair was arranged so as to hide, as much as possible, the defect, which, alas! was even then only too perceptible. It was not a hump-back, nor yet a twisted spine; it was an elevation of the shoulders, shortening the neck, and giving the appearance of a perpetual stoop. There was nothing disgusting or painful in it, but still it was an imperfection, causing ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... substitutes. Our anthracite deposits are circumscribed, but bid fair to last until the virtually untouched seams of bituminous and semibituminous coal shall be made amply accessible to every point of consumption. We are not yet in the slightest perceptible danger of the coal-famine that threatens ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... against such active opponents as the Tartars they would only engage when superiority of numbers promised success. They were easily seized with a panic, and the celerity and dash of Chinese troops only became perceptible when their backs were turned to the foe. So evident had these faults become that more than one emperor had endeavored to recruit from among the Tartar tribes, and to oppose the national enemy with troops ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... A high starched handkerchief formed a complete breast work, on which, amid a large bouquet of truly artificial roses, reposed a miniature of Sir Sampson, a la militaire. A small fly cap of antique lace was scarcely perceptible on the summit of a stupendous frizzled toupee, hemmed in on each side by large curls. The muff and stick had been relinquished for a large fan, something resembling an Indian screen, which she waved to and fro in one hand, while ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... at length began to make itself heard, and several hot sulphurous gusts of wind came down out of the north; the blocks overhead creaked, the cordage rattled, and in the heavy silence weird noises made themselves perceptible. Roger and Harry were standing on the poop, exchanging comments on the weather, and Cavendish and his chief officer, Richard Leigh, were in close conversation on the main-deck just below them, glancing anxiously ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... shooting along at fifty miles an hour over a mile above the earth. The cabin broke the force of the wind, and there was really little discomfort. The Abaris sailed so steadily that there was scarcely a perceptible motion. Larry made some notes for a story on which he was engaged. He wrote it in his best style, and then enclosed the "copy" in ...
— Dick Hamilton's Airship - or, A Young Millionaire in the Clouds • Howard R. Garis
... reveal what went on in those parts of the world to which God's presence did not extend; and we should be able to compare their geological and other records with those of the rest of the world. No doubt some striking differences would be perceptible. ...
— Bible Romances - First Series • George W. Foote
... struggle, with choking coughs and dark blood flowing from his nostrils, and the brandy was spilt on his face and smarting in his eyes. He spent days dying, and more rapid and more feeble grew his pulse, and many times the nurse said there was none perceptible, and then the life would flicker up again. One morning early a bugle sounded outside. He said, "I am on outpost duty to-day; I must get up at once." He half lifted himself in the bed, repeating, "I tell you I am on outpost duty." The nurse pressed ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... water where there was no perceptible current, the blood from the dead bull soon spread all about so that when the herd, following their leader, began to arrive they were much alarmed. Indeed, the first of them on winding or tasting it, turned and tried ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... the better market, yet it may be difficult to transport them in such quantities as to bring their price nearly to a level in both. If the countries are near, the difference will be smaller, and may sometimes be scarce perceptible; because in this case the transportation will be easy. China is a much richer country than any part of Europe, and the difference between the price of subsistence in China and in Europe is very great. Rice in China is much cheaper than wheat is any where ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... Nick of the Woods. It was then remarked that his headpiece possessed the magic property of rendering the person who wore it—fairy or human—invisible to mortal eyes. Nor was this all; It had also the power of making the sights and sounds of Fairyland as clearly perceptible to the senses of the mortal who should chance to get it as to the fairies themselves, whether the wee folks were willing or not, he ...
— The Red Moccasins - A Story • Morrison Heady
... made a difference, a perceptible difference, in my position in Denboro. I noticed it each time I went up to the village. I saw the groups at the post-office and at the depot turn to watch me as I approached and as I went away. Captain Jedediah did not mention the Lane again—at least for some time—but he always ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... reached the richly furnished conservatory in which a splendid snow-white dahlia with a scarce perceptible rosy tinge in its innermost petals was just then beginning to bloom. It was a great rarity in Europe at that time. Rudolf thought this specimen very beautiful, and maintained that only at Schoenbrunn was a more beautiful ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... bells the ship was abreast of the last island, and she began to pitch and roll a little, though the motion was hardly perceptible, until she was well off from the land. Professor Paradyme was the first victim of seasickness, and the boys all laughed when they saw the woe-begone expression on the face of the learned man; but some of those who laughed the loudest ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... creating and maintaining, in the form of customs-duties, obstacles to commerce and free circulation, that it is considered probable that the railway will have to be continued some fifty miles to the southward, as far as the British port of Carwar, before any perceptible increase in the export of produce can be looked for. The line to Goa is now nearly completed, and will, it is hoped, be opened after the rains. Mr. Donaldson kindly proposed a tempting trip over it to the summit of the Sahyadri ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... waited for him to reach the end of the page or chapter. But his father read on with a slow perceptible movement of ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen
... drip of water that was the only sound. Suddenly his heart leapt . . . was it the only sound? What was that other, if it could be called a sound? It was a sense rather, an indefinable blending of senses of hearing and feel and touch—a faint, barely perceptible 'thump, thump,' like the beat of a man's heart in his breast. He snapped off the light of his electric lamp and crouched breathless in the darkness, straining his ears to hear. He was soon satisfied. He had not lived these days past with the sound of digging in his ears ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... glowworm is included), and the greater number of specimens were of Lampyris occidentalis. [4] I found that this insect emitted the most brilliant flashes when irritated: in the intervals, the abdominal rings were obscured. The flash was almost co-instantaneous in the two rings, but it was just perceptible first in the anterior one. The shining matter was fluid and very adhesive: little spots, where the skin had been torn, continued bright with a slight scintillation, whilst the uninjured parts were obscured. When the insect was decapitated the rings remained uninterruptedly ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... the northern horizon a rosy glow, fading to the west and deepening to the east, marked the unseen dip of the midnight sun. The gloaming and the dawn were so commingled that there was no night,—simply a wedding of day with day, a scarcely perceptible blending of two circles of the sun. A kildee timidly chirped good-night; the full, rich throat of a robin proclaimed good-morrow. From an island on the breast of the Yukon a colony of wild fowl voiced its interminable wrongs, while a loon ...
— The God of His Fathers • Jack London
... can not touch one without affecting all. It is a familiar truth that no law was ever passed that did not have unforeseen results; but of these results, by far the greater number are never recognized as of its creation. The best that can be said of any "measure" is, that the sum of its perceptible benefits seems so to exceed the sum of its perceptible evils as to constitute a balance of advantage. Yet the magnificent innocence of the statesman or philosopher to whose understanding "the whole matter lies in a nutshell"—who thinks he can formulate a practical political or ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... lighter obliquely, heeling her over till she was half swamped, starting some of her timbers, and swinging her head parallel to her own course with the force of the blow. The shock of it on board of her was hardly perceptible. All the violence of that collision was, as usual, felt only on board the smaller craft. Even Nostromo himself thought that this was perhaps the end of his desperate adventure. He, too, had been flung ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... mountains. He was cited as a wonderful shot with the rifle, since not only could he split a bullet on a knife-blade, but he could divide it into two such equal parts that, upon weighing them, scarcely any difference would be perceptible. ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... sensible of change in the tenor of their intercourse, sensible of a just perceptible hardness in his bearing and aspect. For some cause, the nature of which she failed to divine though she registered the fact of its existence, he no longer had complete faith in her, was no longer wholly at one with her in sympathy ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... wriggle past that contraction in the middle, I should be safe. And if I stuck fast midway! But the more I measured the width with my eye, the less the narrowing seemed to be. To be so slightly perceptible, it could hardly be enough to make much difference. Caution whispered that it might be enough to make the difference between life and death. But already my choice of those two august alternatives was so limited as hardly to be called a choice. On ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... purposes. At first, this pertinacity provoked the crowd, which believed he was going wrong; but a few words from Crowsfeather, the principal chief, caused the commotion to cease. In a few more minutes le Bourdon stopped, near the place of his destination. As a fresh scent of whiskey was very perceptible here, a murmur of admiration, not unmixed with ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... was a tremor or a change of color perceptible, and though the missiles continued to fly through the broken sashes, and the hootings and yellings increased outside, so powerfully did her words and tones hold that vast audience, that, imminent as seemed their peril, scarcely a man or woman moved ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... heart-numbing slowness. From time to time his elbow made a little gurgle and splash in the water. Try as he might, he could not prevent this. It got to be like the hollow roar of a rapid filling his ears with mocking sound. There was a perceptible current out in the river, and it hindered straight advancement. Inch by inch he crept on, expecting to hear the bang of rifles, the spattering of bullets. He tried not to look backward, but failed. The fire appeared a little dimmer, the moving ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... extemporary prayer was originally introduced, is no longer admitted. The Minister formerly, in the effusion of his prayer, expected immediate, and perhaps perceptible inspiration, and therefore thought it his duty not to think before what he should say. It is now universally confessed, that men pray as they speak on other occasions, according to the general measure of their abilities and attainments. Whatever each may think of a form prescribed ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... went, Abellino marching between two of them. Frequent were the looks of suspicion which he cast around him; but no ill design was perceptible in the banditti. They guided him onwards, till they reached a canal, loosened a gondola, placed themselves in it, and rowed till they had gained the most remote quarter of Venice. They landed, threaded several by-streets, and at length knocked at the door of a house of inviting appearance. ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... costly draperies. In most of these customs an assumption is implied that the object of worship is pleased by the same things as please its worshippers; and here we find the germ of the anthropomorphic idea. It was probably the desire to make the offerings and prayers of the worshippers perceptible to the power within that first led to the addition of human features to the shapeless block. Just as the early Greeks painted eyes upon the prows of their ships, to enable them to find their way through the water, so they carved a head, with eyes and ears, out of the sacred stone or stock, or ...
— Religion and Art in Ancient Greece • Ernest Arthur Gardner
... on richly caparisoned horses, told her that they were come to make the Grey Lady a queen, Annora would have been fully satisfied. But here the heavenly chariot was invisible, and had come noiselessly; the white and glistering raiment of the angels had shone with no perceptible lustre, had swept by with no audible ...
— The Well in the Desert - An Old Legend of the House of Arundel • Emily Sarah Holt
... on him was not perceptible. He had not seated himself, and, with a smile that was actually satirical, he bowed, uttered a few words of greeting, and went out ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the beautiful city of the Chedis, a Brahmana named Sudeva, during the time of the king's prayers, saw the princess of Vidarbha in the palace of the king, seated with Sunanda. And her incomparable beauty was slightly perceptible, like the brightness of a fire enveloped in curls of smoke. And beholding that lady of large eyes, soiled and emaciated he decided her to be Damayanti, coming to that conclusion from various reasons. And Sudeva said, 'As I saw her before, this damsel is even so at present. O, I am ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... William's, and went up his sleeve, which I am told their German interpreters say is the worst sign they can give. My father suggested that the different degrees of dryness or moisture in the hands cause the emotions of these sensitive fish, but after drying our best, no change was perceptible. I thought the pulse was the cause of their motion, but this does not hold, because my pulse is slow, and my father's very quick. It was ingenious to make them in the shape of fish, because their motions exactly ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... the rest of the heavens something of the same metallic clearness reigned, so that the stars were pale, and a gray hue lay over the sea, and over the island, the white bays, the black rocks and the valleys, in which lay a scarcely perceptible mist. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... province of Friesland it is 13.15. Further, no one can doubt that in such densely populated districts as North and South Holland and Gelderland the Catholics, who number more than 25 per cent, of the inhabitants, exercise a perceptible influence in raising the birth figures for the whole kingdom. The results would be very different if the entire ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... remained reasonably pure, probably because a vent had been left somewhere in the choked drift, but there were moments when the odor of gas was perceptible, thus causing Sam to believe efforts were still being made to reach them ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis
... partly round the interior, looking through the deep arches, overhung with verdure, and regretting the patches here and there too perceptible of modern masonry, and still more the ridiculous attempt, by the introduction of some contemptible pictures, or altar pieces, in the arena, to christianise the old heathen structure. They then ascended to the summit to enjoy the prospect ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... violent deaths," replied the duchess; and with a perceptible frown she added: "And are you aware that Madame de Brissac, of whom you speak so ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... so rapidly in Russia as in America or in British colonies. Among the German colonists in Russia the process of assimilation is hardly perceptible. Though their fathers and grandfathers may have been born in the new country, they would consider it an insult to be called Russians. They look down upon the Russian peasantry as poor, ignorant, lazy, and dishonest, ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... taken from the mounted detachment and whose scabbard and spurs clattered and jingled, hour after hour, as he walked. The sound produced something half rhythmical, like a broken tune in search of itself, and the change of sentinels made no perceptible difference in the regular ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... town and being probably the only man of superior intellect interested in the internal affairs of the community, was the proper and most effectual mediator between the people and their temporal rulers. Hence arose that important influence of the bishops which was to have so perceptible an effect on the subsequent development of the principles of ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... Breulh, but now he would have esteemed it a precious boon had he been allowed to choose Andre as Sabine's husband. But Henri de Croisenois stood in the way, and as this idea flashed across the Count's mind he gave a perceptible start. He was sure from the excessive calmness of the young man that he must be well acquainted with all recent events. He asked the question, and Andre, in the most open manner, told him all he knew. The generosity of M. de Breulh, the kindness of Madame ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... of Sir Francis Varney's countenance was perceptible, and Charles Holland was about to speak again, when, striking him upon the breast with his clinched hand, the ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... have loved, et cetera, as aforesaid, will comprehend the anxiety with which Otto henceforth consulted his ring. He was continually adjusting it to his finger in a manner, as he fancied, to render the anticipated puncture more perceptible when it should come at last. He would have worn it on all his fingers in succession had the conformation of his robust hand admitted of its being placed on any but the slenderest. Thousands of times he could have sworn that he felt the admonitory ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... of the Irish people had been treated by the state as hostile. That notion, however, had been gradually abandoned: the penal laws had either been removed, or were in the course of removal, although traces of them were still perceptible, and operating most noxiously in their interference with the education of the people. Sir James Graham next proceeded to discuss what was the best mode of educating the people of Ireland, contending that it consisted in the absence of all religious ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... republic, would not have been tolerated. And she was merely a slave from accidental circumstances—being free born, and having, but a month before, been the pride and ornament of a respectable though lowly family. Once let her liberty be restored, and the scarcely perceptible taint of a few weeks' serfdom be removed from her, and she would be, in all social respects, fully the equal of the poor, trembling maid of Ostia, to whom, a few years before, the patrician had ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... of linguistic instruction; the forcing of students into learned historical paths, instead of giving them a practical training; the connection of certain practices, encouraged in the public schools, with the objectionable spirit of our journalistic publicity—all these easily perceptible phenomena of the teaching of German led to the painful certainty that the most beneficial of those forces which have come down to us from classical antiquity are not yet known in our public schools: forces which would ...
— On the Future of our Educational Institutions • Friedrich Nietzsche
... he would put off the commencement of his wild career until the evening after he had seen Joe again. The ravages of drink would not be perceptible so soon, after all. He changed his tie for one of a darker hue, ate sparingly of a beefsteak, and went back to ...
— An American Politician • F. Marion Crawford
... Ladyship's ample chest was perceptible. Yards of blond lace, which might be compared to a foam of the sea, were agitated at the same moment, and by the same mighty emotion. The river of diamonds which flowed round her Ladyship's neck, seemed to swell and to shine more than ever. The tall plumes on her ambrosial head bowed down beneath ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... solemn resolutions to themselves that they will stop in next Christmas Eve; while lady spectres are contradictory and snappish, and liable to burst into tears and leave the room hurriedly on being spoken to, for no perceptible cause whatever. ...
— Told After Supper • Jerome K. Jerome
... intellectual development, the faculty of distinguishing in speculation ideas which are blended in practice. We have indications not to be mistaken of a state of social affairs in which Conveyances and Contracts were practically confounded; nor did the discrepance of the conceptions become perceptible till men had begun to adopt a distinct ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... that ever had his neck wrung in modern Europe might have passed for a paragon of clemency in Persia or Morocco. Our Indian subjects submit patiently to a monopoly of salt. We tried a stamp duty, a duty so light as to be scarcely perceptible, on the fierce breed of the old Puritans; and we lost an empire. The Government of Louis the Sixteenth was certainly a much better and milder Government than that of Louis the Fourteenth; yet Louis the Fourteenth ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... bit of character," said Lady Mabel, with a faintly perceptible sneer. "Worthy of ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon
... who, in winter, studied painting with the commendable intention of making her own living by art, passed the summers at all the watering-places of France and those of neighboring countries, without any perceptible motive. ...
— Jacqueline, v1 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... and must confess that, for a moment, I too was startled. There was a perceptible moment of time during which it seemed as if no possible philosophy could explain what appeared in sight. Not that any object showed itself within the great drawing-room, but I distinctly saw—across the apartment, and through the opposite ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... brighter by perceptible degrees; and Paul, looking toward the speaker, now was able to discern him as a shadowy bulk, without definite outline, but impressive, pagan—as a granite god, or one of those broken pillars of Medinet Habu. Either because Jules Thessaly had moved ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... "There are thoughts that never emerge into consciousness, which yet make their influence felt among the perceptible mental currents, just as the unseen planets sway the movements of those that are watched and ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... it is working to the same end. That fall in the birth-rate which has been so marked a feature in the social development of all modern states has become much more perceptible since the war began to tell upon domestic comfort. There is a full-cradle agitation going on in Germany to check this decline; German mothers are being urged not to leave the Crown Prince of 1930 or 1940 ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... be very different from this," and Brand smiled slightly, a winning, deprecating smile, as with the least perceptible motion of his head he indicated the company that filled his spacious drawing room. "But a man doesn't want his relaxations to be all alike, any more than he wants all flowers to ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... its perceptible drops, just as though its setting was a matter of notches. A little cool breeze came up to meet them from the creek bottom as ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... she wasnt hearing me. She sat down in the only empty chair and drummed her fingers against big white teeth. "Even under a microscope," she muttered, "no perceptible reaction for fortyeight hours. Laboratory conditions? Or my own idiocy? But I approximated ..." Her voice trailed off and for a full minute the absolute silence of the kitchen was broken only by the melodramatic ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... postponed by the circumstance that Miss Regina van Tromp was dead. The helpless, inarticulate life, which for three years had served as a bond to hold more active existences together, had failed suddenly, leaving in the little group a curious impression of collapse. It became perceptible that the hushed sick-room, where Miss Lucilla and Mrs. Eveleth were the only ministrants, had in reality been a centre for those who never entered it. Now that the living presence was withdrawn, there came the consciousness of dispersing interests, inseparable ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,—such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume; but the thoughts of years were all concentrated ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... to New York and become a landscape architect," said his host with a perceptible dryness. "Women in these days are apt to be everything except what the ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... sat down beside him. He turned his round glasses to the newcomer with a slight expression of recognition which was not perceptible at all in the gloom, and then he looked at the stage again, without a word. The tenor had heard somebody moving in the house, and he stuck a single glass in his eye and peered over the footlights into the abyss, thinking the last comer might be a woman, in which case he would perhaps have ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... side of the entrance; but not without wading a quarter of a mile in the mud. We saw from thence, that this inlet, though presenting the appearance of a respectable river when the tide was in, had no perceptible breadth at five miles within the land, that it was almost wholly dry at low water, and that the shores were covered with mangroves to a great extent; even the cliffy head where we stood, was surrounded with mangroves, and appeared to be insulated ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... the sights and sounds of summer beauty were united in that solitary greensward; and for the first time in my life I felt a regret pass over me that the grandeur of my family had decayed, and a faint fluttering became perceptible to me, round my heart, of a wish to restore our fortunes. But the intense appreciation of my own deficiencies in which I had been educated, soon dispelled any pleasing illusions that the self-love of twenty years of age might have excited; and I fell into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... thirty-five miles, but it decreases greatly at each end, and in some parts is not above ten miles broad. Its greatest length is forty-nine miles from north to south, measured from Bab-Baha to a point a trifle to the S.W.1/4W. of the spot where the Nile, after flowing through the lake with an ever perceptible current, bends towards Dara in the Allata territory. In the dry season, from October to March, the lake decreases greatly; but when the rains have swollen the rivers, which unite at this place like the spokes of a wheel at the nave, the lake rises, and overflows a portion ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... Vishnu and the first appearance of Civa. Here brahma, which in the Rik has the meaning 'prayer' alone, is no longer mere prayer, but, as in later literature, holiness. In short, before the Br[a]hmanas are reached they are perceptible in the near distance, in the Veda of Formulae, the Yajus;[4] for between the Yajur Veda and the Br[a]hmanas there is no essential difference. The latter consist of explanations of the sacrificial liturgy, interspersed with legends, bits of history, philosophical explanations, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... there is a perceptible equality between the theoretic curve and the curve of the fast boat; but, starting from 16 kilometers, the stress diminishes. The greater does the speed become, the more considerable is the diminution ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... To christen a baby like that was, in a manner, a challenge to public attention; the faint relaxation about the lips of Dr Drummond—the best of the Liberals himself, though he made a great show of keeping it out of the pulpit—recognized this, and the just perceptible stir of the congregation proved it. Sonorously he said it. "Oliver Mowat, I baptize thee in the Name of the Father—" The compliment should have all the impressiveness the rite could give it, while the Murchison brothers and sisters, a-row in ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the same instant, almost as if hearing her cry before she uttered it; and for a perceptible space of time he and she studied each other, like adversaries watching for an advantage, across the space between her chair ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 2 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... I had better go to bed. I had to ascend a ladder, which I pulled up after me. When I had shut the door I looked out of window. Before me lay London and the dull glare of its lights. There was no distinct noise perceptible; but a deadened roar came up to me. Over in the south-west was the house of the friend I had left, always a warm home for me when I was in town. Then there fell upon me what was the beginning of a trouble which has lasted all my life. The next afternoon ...
— The Early Life of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... here, though I have been retrograding a little, and I think I stand excitement and fatigue hardly better than in old days, and this keeps me from coming to London. My cirripedial task is an eternal one; I make no perceptible progress. I am sure that they belong to the hour-hand, and I groan ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... us towards the land, for the trees gradually rose higher and higher above the water, and at length we could see them from the deck, while the white line of surf breaking on the reef became more and more distinct. At the same time a slowly moving, at first scarcely perceptible swell, which Fanny called the breathing of the ocean, passed ever and anon under the vessel, lifting her so gently that the sails remained as motionless as before. It was difficult indeed to discover ...
— The Cruise of the Dainty - Rovings in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... and insignificant. His music says something with each note, and when it has no more to say, is silent. He is concise and direct. The Symphony, for instance, is an unbroken curve, an orderly progression by gentle and scarcely perceptible stages from the darkness of an aching, gnawing introduction into the clarity of a healthy, exuberant close. And whereas Saint-Saens' style is over-smooth and glacial, a sort of musical counterpart of the sculpture of a Canova or a Thorwaldsen, Franck's is subtle, mottled, rich, full of the ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... closed, and so were the lower windows, but in one of the upper casements a movement was perceptible, and in another instant there came into view a woman and man, supporting between them the impassive form of Agatha's husband. Holding him up in plain sight of the almost breathless throng below, the ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... There may be consolation for the novelist in the reflection that the fund from which these Memoirs are drawn must soon be running low, whereas the resources of fiction are comparatively inexhaustible. In the meantime one result, already perceptible, will be that the novel will tend more and more to imitate the personal memoir, by reverting to the autobiographical form which, since Defoe's day, has always been fiction's most effective disguise, permitting the author to efface himself completely, while it gives the whole composition ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... transcendentalist, Emerson, prophesied a rise of Orientalism in England, and he lived to see his words come true. But in the days when Warren Hastings was striving to make his way in London as an author, the influence of the East upon literature, upon scholarship, upon thought, was scarcely perceptible. People read indeed the "Arabian Nights" in M. Galland's delightful version; read the Persian tales of Petit de la Croix; read all the translations of the many sham Oriental tales which the popularity ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... events appears to pass through the avenue of our senses; and the more perceptive the senses are of difference, the larger is the field upon which our judgment and intelligence can act. Sensation mounts through a series of grades of "just perceptible differences." It starts from the zero of consciousness, and it becomes more intense as the stimulus increases (though at a slower rate) up to the point when the stimulus is so strong as to begin to damage the nerve apparatus. It then yields place to pain, which is another ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... time gradually increasing the pace, till we arrived at the short digs, when clinging closely to her, my hands pressed up her bottom till we could scarcely move, as the spurts of our semen mingled in her womb, and I felt her receive it with the same peculiar and perceptible shudder of delight which warned my aunt to use her ...
— Forbidden Fruit • Anonymous
... duration. In the tropics, owing to the comparatively slight difference in the obliquity of the Sun's rays, one season is, as regards temperature, not much different from the other; but in the temperate regions of the Earth the vicissitudes of the seasons are more perceptible and can be best distinguished by the growth of vegetation, and the changes observable in the foliage of shrubs and trees. In spring there is the budding, in summer the blossom, in autumn the fruit-bearing, and in winter the ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... others extremely fluctuating. We have noticed however, that at full moon and new moon, the tides change once a day for eight or ten days, while during the remainder of the time there is hardly any change perceptible. The currents set almost invariably in one direction, namely toward Lake Michigan, and they almost invariably set against the wind, sometimes with ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... order to turn his son's whole force on the study of languages, put out of the lad's reach all books treating his favorite subject. Thus shut up to his own resources, the masterful little fellow, about his eighth year, drawing charcoal diagrams on the floor, made perceptible progress in working out geometry for himself. At sixteen he produced a treatise on conic sections that excited the wonder and incredulity of Descartes. Later, he experimented in barometry, and pursued investigations in mechanics. Later still, he ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... into some chronometers. I have long remarked that, in ordinary good chronometers, the freedom from irregularities depending on mechanical causes is most remarkable; but that, after all the efforts of the most judicious makers, there is in nearly every case a perceptible defect of thermal compensation. There is great difficulty in correcting the residual fault, not only because an inconceivably small movement of the weights on the balance-curve is required, but also because it endangers the equilibrium of the balance. ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... the moral sense and the aesthetical sense began to be corrupt. This modification in the manner of feeling is exceedingly striking in Euripides, for example, if compared with his predecessors, especially Aeschylus; and yet Euripides was the favorite poet of his time. The same revolution is perceptible in the ancient historians. Horace, the poet of a cultivated and corrupt epoch, praises, under the shady groves of Tibur, the calm and happiness of the country, and he might be termed the true founder of this sentimental poetry, of which he has remained the unsurpassed ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... been able to detect the presence of this panel only by my sense of touch and by means of a faint draught which blew through it; now it suddenly became clearly perceptible. I found myself looking into what was evidently the principal room of the house—a dreary apartment with tatters of paper hanging from the walls and litter of all sorts lying about upon the floor and in ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... rounded out above, after the Moorish style of architecture. Under heavy, dark eyebrows were eyes deep-set and full of light, marvellous in range of expression, with black eyelashes. All seemed well with me when I met their look. The straight, rather salient nose had a perceptible cleft at the tip, which, I was told, was a sign of good lineage; muddy-mettled rascals lacked it; so that I was much distressed by the smooth, plebeian bluntness, at that time, of my own little snub. The mouth, then unshaded by a mustache, had a slight upward ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... no perceptible movement in his chair. What change there was showed merely in the lines of his face, and particularly in the light that dwelt in the gray, straightforward eyes. "Don't finish it," ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... year came upon the country. A sudden rumor of war alarmed the German borderers in the east, and our province among the rest. The fearful consequences of a national panic were soon perceptible. Trade stood still; the price of goods fell. Every one was anxious to realize and withdraw from business, and large sums embarked in mercantile speculations became endangered. No one had heart for new ventures. Hundreds ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... it is the "old Triton blowing his wreathed horn," so lovingly described by Wordsworth; and some wags assert that it is the proprietor of the ship blowing his own trumpet. The huge bulk of the Atlantic was more perceptible by contrast with the steamer—none of the smallest—that was now alongside; for though the latter was large enough to accommodate about four hundred people on deck, yet its funnel scarcely reached as high ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... forward and aft, to be put in operation, and the motor moving the twin screws was turned on. At once there was a perceptible increase to the ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... responsive to impulses coming from the herd but he will treat the herd as his normal environment. The impulse to be in and always to remain with the herd will have the strongest instinctive weight. Anything which tends to separate him from his fellows, as soon as it becomes perceptible as such, will ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... I stammer very badly. In an ordinary conversation it is scarcely perceptible, but it is almost impossible for me to make an explanation or relate an incident or tell an anecdote. I began to stammer when I was about seven years of age—I am twenty-nine now—and continued until I was seventeen, ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg
... had made a perceptible change in the personnel of his intimates. A bachelor captain appeals to a different world. He was still a great favourite ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... not come voluntarily, to make their homes with us and their labor productive of general prosperity, but come under contracts with headmen, who own them almost absolutely. In a worse form does this apply to Chinese women. Hardly a perceptible percentage of them perform any honorable labor, but they are brought for shameful purposes, to the disgrace of the communities where settled and to the great demoralization of the youth of those localities. If this evil practice can be legislated ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... scattering crystals, which had come fluttering about as if uncertain about reaching earth at all, had given place to a dense, swift, driving storm. Without much wind perceptible yet, the snowfall came with a steady straight drift which spoke of an impelling force somewhere, might it be only the weight of the cloud reservoirs from which it came. It came in a way that could no longer ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... repeated Hozier, who discovered a bluff honesty, not to say candor, in the statement, not perceptible ...
— The Stowaway Girl • Louis Tracy
... glancing cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... just a bay and it isn't worth while to take time to explore it. The river comes in up here at the end of the lake. They all said it was at the end of the lake." And we said, "Yes, it is at the end of the lake; they all said so," and went on, for that was before we knew—Hubbard never knew. A perceptible current, a questioning word, the turn of a paddle would have set us right. No current was noticed, no word was spoken, and the paddle sent us straight toward those blue hills yonder, where Suffering and Starvation ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... strong word 'see' in any measure express the vividness, the directness, the certainty of our realisation of our Master's presence? Is Jesus Christ as clear, as perceptible, as sure to us as the men round us are? Which are the shadows and which are the realities to us? The things which are seen, which the senses crown as 'real,' or the things which cannot be seen because they are so great, and tower above us, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren
... of wholly different characters. Thus, in themselves and apart from their aims, our bodily movements are never interesting except inasmuch as requiring new and difficult adjustments, or again as producing perceptible repercussions in our circulatory, breathing and balancing apparatus: a waltz, or a dive or a gallop may indeed be highly exciting, thanks to its resultant organic perturbations and its concomitants of overcome difficulty ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... parents; I was thankless and peevish, and ah, some little of this still remains! Nevertheless, it was during this very time that, under the influence of my husband, the true beauty and reality of life became more and more perceptible to my soul. Married life and family ties, one's country and the world, revealed their true relationships, and their holy signification to my mind. Ernst was my teacher; I looked up to him with ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... joined," writes Mr. Ellis; "an amusing person; somewhat boyish in his manner, but very original." The young barristers had in common an insatiable love of the classics; and similarity of character, not very perceptible on the surface, soon brought about an intimacy which ripened into an attachment as important to the happiness of both concerned as ever united two men through every stage of life and vicissitude of fortune. ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... was perceptible next morning again, flitting about in the background of a glad and loving adventuress, a pre-occupied Amanda who had put her head down while the real Amanda flung her chin up and contemplated things on the Asiatic scale, and who was apparently engaged in disentangling ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... denial, and by assertions of innocence. This, however, I did, and with such energy and earnestness—for horror and despair inspired me with both courage and eloquence—that a favourable impression was perceptible in the court. The circumstantial statement of Digby, however, with all its strong probabilities, was not to be overturned by my bare assertions; and the result was, that I was remanded to prison to stand trial at the ensuing assizes, Mr. Wallscourt ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... am sensitive, I inspire love, I reciprocate, I remain virtuous, my mind is superior, and my courage indomitable. I am philosopher, statesman, and writer, worthy of the highest success," is constantly in her mind, and always perceptible in her phraseology. Real modesty never shows itself. On the contrary, many indecorous things are said and done by her from bravado, and to set herself above her sex. Cf. the "Memoirs of Mirs. Hutchinson," which present a great contrast. Madame Roland ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... we were in the air, was barely perceptible, at any rate it was not sufficient to affect the taking of my scenes. In case any moisture collected on my lens, I had brought a soft silk pad, to wipe it with occasionally. ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... they reached a clump of three willows. Two had their roots in the stream; the third was set a little backward. Their trunks, rotten and crumbling with age, were crowned with the bright foliage of youth. The shadow they cast was so slight as scarcely to be perceptible upon the sunlit bank. Yet here the water, which, both above and below, was so unruffled, showed a transient quiver, a rippling of its surface, as though it were surprised to find even this light veil cast over it. Between the three willows the meadow-land sloped down ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... the parson, in the strenuously sanguine tones of a man who got his living by discovering a bright side in things where it was not very perceptible to other people. 'But it should not be given with quite so extreme an accent; or we may be called affected by other parishes. And, Nathaniel Chapman, there's a jauntiness in your manner of singing which is not quite becoming. Why don't you sing ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... Heredity, 1909, p. 288): 'Mendelism provides no fresh clue to the problem of adaptation except in so far as it is easier to believe that a definite integral change in attributes can make a perceptible difference to the prospect of success, than that an indefinite and impalpable change should entail such consequences.' Here the distinction between adaptive and non-adaptive characters is recognised, but both are emphatically attributed ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham
... a scarcely perceptible glance towards the watchful old man, whose eyes seemed to gleam out of the gloom in the back of the store. "Well, about two pounds and a half," he ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... imagined that to open the mouth wide will do the same for the throat. If one is well versed in the art, one can open the throat perfectly without a perceptible opening of the mouth, merely by the power ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... dance up from the direction of Horsell, a red glow and a thin veil of smoke driving across the stars, and thought that nothing more serious than a heath fire was happening. It was only round the edge of the common that any disturbance was perceptible. There were half a dozen villas burning on the Woking border. There were lights in all the houses on the common side of the three villages, and the people there kept awake ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... close among the greyish rocks, with nothing of military insignia about their dress or their round grey wool caps to differentiate them from sportsmen—wary stalkers of chamois or red deer—except that under their unbelted tunics automatics and cartridge belts made perceptible bunches. ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... some signs discernible either by the eyes or the olfactory nerves are perceptible by which the pursuers may be guided, but the gallant seamen had only hope on this occasion to lead them on. That, however, was enough. The scenery of this branch was as monotonous as that of the other. Mangrove ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... fifty-two goblets of claret, and was emptying his glass as fast as filled, although by no means neglecting the beer, the quality of which he had tested the night before at the Half-moon. Yet there seemed to be no perceptible effect produced upon him, save perhaps that he grew a shade more grave and dignified with each succeeding draught. For while the banquet proceeded in this very genial manner business was by no ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... what he was in such a hurry for, complained of the noise last night in the servants' hall. Margaret looked intently at the butler. He, as a handsome young man, was faintly attractive to her as a woman—an attraction so faint as scarcely to be perceptible, yet the skies would have fallen if she had ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... labors was very humble. But Nicholas Rubinstein, who himself taught for nine hours daily, soon came to appreciate the conscientious work of his subordinate, clearly perceptible in the excellently trained classes who came up to him for their monthly competition. And this satisfaction was soon substantially expressed. Upon the formal opening of the new building of the Conservatoire in December, Ivan found ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... bushmen who sleep with the warm earth for a bed will tell of this strange wakening moment, of that faint touch of half-consciousness, that whispering stir, strangely enough, only perceptible to the sleeping children of the bush one of the mysteries of nature that no man can fathom, one of the delicate threads with which the Wizard of Never-Never weaves his spells. "Is all well my children?" ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... mental suffering had wrought in the Conde de Villabuena. His form was bowed and emaciated, his cheek had lost its healthful tinge; his hair, in which, but a short three months previously, only a few silver threads were perceptible, telling of the decline of life rather than of its decay, now fell in grey locks around his sunken temples. For himself individually, the Count grieved not; he had done what he deemed his duty, and his conscience ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... powerfully agitated by the reflection that our recent relation, founded on a common love for a nobler mental cultivation, would be so soon dissolved, and that I should never again see those together who were then assembled around me. A general emotion was perceptible, excited by so much that I could not say, but respecting which our hearts understood each other. In the mental dominion of thought and poetry, inaccessible to worldly power, the Germans, who are separated in so many ways from ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... very bad symptom. Wherever he went he seemed looking for somebody. It may have been perceptible only to those who were sufficiently interested in him to study his movements; but those who saw it once saw it always. He never passed an open door or gate but he glanced in; and often, where it stood but slightly ajar, you might see him give it a gentle push ...
— Madame Delphine • George W. Cable |
