"Focused" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enchantress with a sweep to her manner. Her beauty was an exaggeration. Exaggerated contours, colors, features that needed perspective to set them off. Diluted by distance and bathed by the footlights she focused prettily into a Manon, a Thais, an Isolde. But in the room drinking tea she had the effect of a too startling close-up—a rococo ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... of white on the bulkhead behind the spacemonk. He didn't remember that. He got up and walked over to it, peering to see in the dimness. Then he remembered his flashlight and focused ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin
... clock could not have worked more smoothly. The sentry's thoughts were focused on what was taking place out there in the fog, and he was all unconscious of the peril that menaced ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman
... fungi of the deep; or going on a little way again I stopped before a giant porthole and discovered a devil-fish and his nest in the deep and said that nothing like to it had been heard or told of. Here lies a great basin scooped out of the coral rock, and the green water is focused in it until it looks like a prism, and everywhere, in nook and crevice, the deadly tentacles, the frightful eyes of these unnameable creatures seem to twist and stare, and threaten us. Such fish we counted, hundreds of them, at the windows of the second cavern we entered; and, drawing back ...
— The House Under the Sea - A Romance • Sir Max Pemberton
... here of historians, but may appropriately give a little space to an account of that wonderful acre or two of ground at Westminster, where for so many centuries the history of the English-speaking race has been to such an extent focused. ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... fabulous as Hercules'; or else, those being true, what was thrown in about his geniality is but garnish. In short, if ever there was such a man as Moredock, he, in my way of thinking, was either misanthrope or nothing; and his misanthropy the more intense from being focused on one race of men. Though, like suicide, man-hatred would seem peculiarly a Roman and a Grecian passion—that is, Pagan; yet, the annals of neither Rome nor Greece can produce the equal in man-hatred of Colonel Moredock, as the ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... from her eyes as she focused on me. She took her time deciding; but from the way she snuggled up to Konnel to whisper in his ear, it looked as if she might really be stuck on him. He ...
— Fee of the Frontier • Horace Brown Fyfe
... less intent, he might have noticed many things, the changing conformation of the clouds, the far flight of a gull, the new perfume and texture of the wind that flowed over his hot temples. But as it was, the sea took him by surprise. Coming over a little rise, his eyes focused for another long, dun fold of the plain, it seemed for an instant as if he had lost his balance over a void; for a wink he felt the passing of a strange sickness. He went off a little way to the side of the road and sat down on a ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... propelling force, it is necessary first to test its freedom. This may be done by taking the humming tone and bringing to bear upon it a strong pressure of energy. If the tone sharpens under the strain it is not perfectly focused. If it remains mellow one may venture upon the next step, which is to practise various vowel sounds and elements of speech with concentrated energy. The sense of bearing on to the voice, or endeavoring to push the tone by any pressure whatever, should be absolutely avoided. ...
— Expressive Voice Culture - Including the Emerson System • Jessie Eldridge Southwick
... Attention thus focused upon her, Libbie crawled from under the seat where she had dived, following an ostrich-like impulse to hide her head from coming danger. Her confusion was increased by the tactless comment of the operator who, seeing her "full view" for the first ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... "Just wait till you see her. She will be focused by every eye-glass in Brighton when she takes the children out ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... vouchsafed. We are often greeted by the enthusiastic comments of German critics, which run riot in elaborate analyses of plot and character and inform us that we are reading Meisterwerke of comic drama.[3] Our perplexity has perhaps become focused upon two leading questions; first: "What manner of drama is this after all? Is it comedy, farce, opera bouffe or mere extravaganza?" Second: "How was it done? What was the technique of acting employed to represent in ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... interest of what a very delightful thing it is to be for a little while so quiet that we can hear a pin drop. The second time something interferes, and the third time the children have become so well focused on listening that the little delicate sound is heard distinctly, and they beg mother to try and see if they cannot hear it again. By this time the dust is laid in the nursery, and by changing the games a little, or telling them a story first, the mother ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... thoughts were not at all clear, he was confessing to himself; in spite of his assumed indifference, he was embarrassed by the focused stares of Dow and Mac Tavish. He wondered what sudden, devil-may-care whimsy was this that was galloping him away from business and politics and every other sane subject! He was conscious that there was in him a freakish and juvenile hankering to astonish ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... deck with the sentries. It was noticed that he begged permission to "monkey" with the electric-light signalling apparatus aft on the poop. When we began the sail drill the following day, the attention of every man on the ship was focused on the captain of the foretop, and at the order—"Away aloft!" he sprang at the rigging like a cat. We stood from under. There was a breathless hush as the second order was given—"Bear out on the yard-arm!" ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... called 'miraculous' by the ignorant," said Aselzion— "And it is nothing more than the physical force of the magnetic light-rays within you, which, being focused in a single effort, draw the roses down pliantly to your will. No more miracle is there in this than that of the common magnet which has been vainly trying to teach us lessons about ourselves these many ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... plant should be studied as a living, active organism. The attention of the pupils should be focused upon activities; for these appeal to the child nature and afford the best means for securing interest and attention. What does this animal do? How does it do it? How is it fitted for doing this? How does this plant grow? What fits ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... huts, timbers now and then rudely carved with an axe—clinging like swallows' nests against the steeps, huddled on tiny flats half-way down a three-thousand-foot glissade; jammed into a corner between cliffs that funnelled and focused every wandering blast; or, for the sake of summer pasture, cowering down on a neck that in winter would be ten feet deep in snow. And the people—the sallow, greasy, duffle-clad people, with short bare legs and faces almost Esquimaux—would flock out and adore. The Plains—kindly and gentle—had ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... At first the name scarcely reached his consciousness, but in some strange way it focused his disquiet. It was as though for a long time past he too had been indefinitely ill, and now at an exasperating touch the poisoned blood rushed to a head of pain. He felt Cosgrave plucking at his sleeve, fretfully like a sick child, ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... by her younger sisters, Aphrodite close beside her, and, entering the great receiving-hall, stood still, her clear eyes focused ...
— Iole • Robert W. Chambers
... cautiously to the top of the divide, keeping in the coulees as much as possible, for we knew that other field-glasses would be focused on the hills. Once over the crest, we halted and watched for riders coming our way. But none appeared. Once I thought I glimpsed a moving speck on the farther bank of Lost River. MacRae brought the glasses to bear, and said it was two Policemen jogging toward camp. Then we ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... The image blinked, focused—and a great damn pyramid swam into view. I cursed and wheeled the eye in circles, scanning the surrounding country. It was flat, marshy bottom land without a bump. The only thing in a ten-mile circle was this pyramid—and that ...
— The Repairman • Harry Harrison
... open, Dick nodded Graham up beside him. At first bewilderment was all she betrayed, then her eyes focused first on Dick's face, then on Graham's, and, with recognition, her lips parted in a ...
— The Little Lady of the Big House • Jack London
... the gleam of the satin seemed repeated in her blue-black hair. Her cheek was unwontedly pale. A monotone she appeared, half-within and half-without the zone of the firelight; but the individuality of her could not be thus subdued. It found expression in the concentration of light and color focused in the splendid rings which sparkled on the long, brown fingers of ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... gloved hands, looked from one to the other, his inquiring eyes returning and focused ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... is energy enough in less than fifty acres of sunshine to run all the machinery in the world, if it could be concentrated. But the sun might blaze out upon the earth forever without setting anything on fire; although these rays focused by a burning-glass would melt solid granite, or even change a diamond into vapor. There are plenty of men who have ability enough; the rays of their faculties, taken separately, are all right, but they are powerless to collect them, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... of iodine is the unique distinctive fact in its chemistry. Discovered by Baumann in 1895, the presence of the element has focused the intelligence of chemists upon the gland, with the consequent demonstration of arsenic also in it. It was soon manifest that the secretion of the gland was dependent upon the iodine content for its activity. ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... to think of the small boat, or the Whim, but struggling to raise my head I stared through the inky space eagerly awaiting the next flash. It came almost at once, bringing into image the Cove as if a million green calcium lights were focused there. This was but for an instant, yet such is the peculiar effect of lightning that in the following blackness each detail of the scene remained photographed upon my retinae. I saw the turbulent waters apparently sweeping, ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... of being alive; and of being young, alas! there is no hint in these youthful effusions, except inasmuch as this unrelieved gloom, this ignorance of "values," so to speak, is a sign of youth, common especially among gifted persons of acute and premature sensibilities, whose imagination, not yet focused by reality, overreached the mark. With Emma Lazarus, however, this sombre streak has a deeper root; something of birth and temperament is in it—the stamp and heritage of a race born to suffer. But dominant and fundamental though it was, Hebraism was ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... significantly in his best Chessy-cat manner and, swooping down upon the gifts, gathered them unto himself. As he was about to take smiling possession of a large, flat package an indignant, "Let me see that package, Mr. Harlowe," from Nora O'Malley caused all eyes to be focused upon it. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... For some time he focused his gaze at the Notch, from which the road sprang and flowed in slow undulations to a vanishing point in the blank spaces of the west. His pony, Gray Leg, head up and nostrils working, twitched back one ear as Lorry spoke: "You see ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... if you have ever thought what a rare thing flame must be in the absence of man and in a temperate climate. The sun's heat is rarely strong enough to burn, even when it is focused by dewdrops, as is sometimes the case in more tropical districts. Lightning may blast and blacken, but it rarely gives rise to widespread fire. Decaying vegetation may occasionally smoulder with the heat of its fermentation, but this rarely results in flame. In this decadence, ...
— The Time Machine • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... give up the "Ghost Dance" at the bidding of the authorities, the growing suspicion and alarm focused upon Sitting Bull, who in spirit had never been any too submissive, and it was determined to order his arrest. At the special request of Major McLaughlin, agent at Standing Rock, forty of his Indian police were sent out to Sitting Bull's home on Grand River to secure his person (followed ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... rivalry were felt for Monterey by her sister towns, nor was her right to the sceptre ever contested. From the time that Sebastian Vizcaino placed her on his map in 1602 and glowingly described her beautiful harbor, noble forests and majestic hills, Spain focused her attention on Monterey, and when her Port was at last found by Portola, and the stout old ship San Antonio under the command of Captain Juan Perez entered her harbor on May 31st, 1770, without any discussion or preamble she was made the ...
— Chimes of Mission Bells • Maria Antonia Field
... by their expression of strain. They seemed to glare with a hard, unnatural brilliance, as though the man's vision were focused upon some terrible inner presentment. She laid a detaining hand on his sleeve, but he appeared quite unconscious of her touch and she gave his ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... Christ dealt with this subject is proof conclusive that it is important, for He never dealt with trivial things. When Christ focused attention upon a theme it was because it was worthy of consideration—and Christ weighed the soul. He presented the subject, too, with surpassing force; no one will ever add to what He said. Christ used the question to give emphasis ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... park," said Miss Wollaston brightly, responding to the little thrill you always felt when Paula focused her attention upon you. "He was sitting on a bench when I drove by just after lunch. I don't know why I noticed him but I did and when I came back hours later, he was still sitting there on the same ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... dusty and arid. This grove of green timber held out a hope that within it might be found what we wanted. Eyesight is as variable as men, but Ramrod's was known to be reliable for five miles with the naked eye, and ten with the aid of a good glass. He dismounted at the sergeant's request, and focused the glass on this oasis, and after sweeping the field for a minute or so, remarked languidly, "There must be water there. I can see a band of antelope grazing out from the grove. Hold your mules! ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... young people were focused as in a limelight, and were not only visible from the car, but visible for ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... from the base of the flame is focused at the same time as the light from the point; so what really happens is that which is illustrated in Figure 74. In this diagram, we have drawn unbroken lines to show the light from the point of the candle flame and dotted lines to show the light from the base of the flame. This is so ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... the colonel. "Cream, no sugar. And bring a second cup as soon as I've finished with the first." Only a part of his attention was given to the waiter; the rest was focused on the instructions he was receiving. The instructions kept coming until after the coffee had been brought. Then ...
— The Unnecessary Man • Gordon Randall Garrett
... rising and falling with the lazy heave of the swell. In that mine-strewn sea the smallest and least conspicuous floating object demanded one's instant and most careful attention, and whipping my binoculars out of the case, strapped to the bridge rail, I quickly focused them upon it. Through the glasses it looked very like the top of a ship's galley funnel, though not quite so stout, and it was moving as though to cross our hawse, for with the help of the glasses I could see ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... again, lifted one hand to her head. Her eyes were half open, and still he could not be sure whether they focused on him and ...
— The Defiant Agents • Andre Alice Norton
... is focused, just like the light that passes through a camera lens. The photographic lens, using light rays, picks up a picture and reproduces it again on the plate—just the same as the Express Ray picks up an object and sets it down on the other side of ...
— The Cosmic Express • John Stewart Williamson
... felt a slackening of the muscles of Mueller's hands—his gaze faltered. Again he struggled frantically. She resolved to hazard everything, trusting entirely in her strange power. She bent slowly downwards, all the force of her will focused in her eyes. She felt as though each eye held a dagger wherewith she could stab her enemy's very consciousness. Another moment and the man's hands relaxed entirely and fell limp and inert from her wrists. She sprang ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... made him quick to scent a story. He was not sure, of course, but the situation appeared to him at least suggestive. With the end of the play he wandered out with the crowd, edging his way close to the man and girl who had focused Gregory's attention, and following them into the street. He saw only a tall man with a certain quiet distinction of bearing, and a young and pretty girl, still flushed and excited, who went up the street a short distance and got into ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... on the outside telescope, and the image on its screen was more incredible than the voices and the existence of the fleet itself. The scope focused first on a bulging, monster, antiquated freighter of a design that had not been built for a hundred years. The second view was of a passenger liner with the elaborate ornamentation that in past generations was considered suitable for space. There was a bulk-cargo ship, with no emergency ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... His attention was focused upon Mrs. Neifkins, whom he had last seen in a wrapper and slat sunbonnet, when a lull in the hubbub that became a hush caused him to look up. His eyes followed the gaze of every other pair of eyes to the head of ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... essential principles are very simple. The eye is made on the principle of a photographer's camera. The retina corresponds to the sensitive plate of the camera. The light coming from objects toward which the eyes are directed is focused on the retina, forming there an image of the object. The light thus focused on the retina sets up a chemical change in the delicate nerve tissue; this excitation is transmitted through the optic nerve to the occipital (back) part of the brain, and sets up brain action there. Then ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... ardent, unconventional temperament made it easy to understand why the attention should be focused upon her during this single scene. Besides, she had one long speech ...
— The Camp Fire Girls in the Outside World • Margaret Vandercook
... showed a corresponding shift in interest at home. The discovery of the University had focused attention on the dead past of Mars; now the public was interested in Mars as a possible home for humanity. It was Tony Lattimer who brought archaeology back into the activities of the expedition and the news ...
— Omnilingual • H. Beam Piper
... Secretly he was somewhat embarrassed at finding himself in the midst of so many people. He had not yet mastered the art of feeling at home in his own house. At meals he did not fear his wife's guests so much. Their attention was in a manner distributed at such times, instead of being, as now, focused upon himself. He stood there square and massive, outwardly the picture of all that was rugged and independent, looking about him for a friendly face. To offer a general remark, or to go boldly and sit down beside one of those dazzling ...
— The Gem Collector • P. G. Wodehouse
... incredibly brief space of time. One moment, it seemed to George, he was the centre of a nasty row in one of the most public spots in London; the next, the focus had shifted; he had ceased to matter; and the entire attention of the metropolis was focused on his late assailant, as, urged by the arm of the Law, he made that journey to Vine Street Police Station which so many a better ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... very act of returning. Here is a tube (Fig. 14) exhausted to a pressure of 0.001 millimeter or 1.3 M. In the middle of the tube is a thin glass diaphragm, C, pierced with two holes, D and E. At one part of the tube a concave pole, A', is focused on the upper hole, D, in the diaphragm. Behind the upper hole and in front of the lower one are movable vanes, F and G, capable of rotation by the slightest current of gas through ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... of development here sketched, the inquiry has of necessity been focused on two main points: Sophistic and the Hellenistic Age. Now it is of peculiar interest to note what small traces of pure atheism can after all be found here, in spite of all criticism of the popular faith. We have surmised its presence ...
— Atheism in Pagan Antiquity • A. B. Drachmann
... best brain work of the most eminent men is focused on efforts to create new lethal weapons, or to make the old ones more deadly. For one of the arts in which cultured nations have made most progress is warfare. The noblest efforts of the greatest thinkers are wasted on inventions to destroy ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... clouds, on to the zenith; whence, gently inflected by some shadowy mass, it slants again downward to a mass still deeper, and still to another, and another, until it falls into the darkness of some massive tree,—focused like midnight in the brightest noon: there stops the eye, instinctively closing, and giving place to the Soul, there to repose and to dream her dreams ...
— Lectures on Art • Washington Allston
... the men is focused on the contests, they are not worth while. To make them successful the firm under consideration ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... acting upon the child's mind can clearly be traced. Once his attention is focused upon the particular movement by unwise emphasis on the part of the parents, he loses the power to control its occurrence. This trio of common neuroses—refusal of food, refusal of sleep, and habitual involuntary movement—grows only in an atmosphere of unrest and apprehension. ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... miniature anvils in a tinkling, jingling chorus of musical clinks and taps. Golden eyes focused like lenses over winking jewels and gimcracks. Busy ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... summer-time when the sun rose early, to dispense with the clock-controlled bed machinery, and make use of sunbeams instead. This I did simply by taking a lens out of my small spy-glass, fixing it on a frame on the sill of my bedroom window, and pointing it to the sunrise; the sunbeams focused on a thread burned it through, allowing the bed machinery to put me on my feet. When I wished to arise at any given time after sunrise, I had only to turn the pivoted frame that held the lens the requisite number of degrees or minutes. Thus I took Emerson's advice and hitched my dumping-wagon bed ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir
... was not satisfactory to most of the members, who preserved a silence of indecision, with the single exception of Ruth, who uttered an enthusiastic affirmative vote, as a matter of course, only to shrink back perplexedly when she found angry eyes focused on her from every side. But Cicily nonchalantly announced the motion as having been carried, without troubling to ...
— Making People Happy • Thompson Buchanan
... true artist, in the crystal mirror of whose mind the universal harmony is focused and reflected, this secret of the cause and source of rhythm—that it dwells in a correlation of parts based on an ultimate simplicity—is instinctively apprehended. A knowledge of it formed part of the equipment of the painters who made glorious the golden noon ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... before he found himself overtaking a magnificent vessel whose decks were crowded with passengers. He dropped down some distance, to enable him to see these people more plainly, and while he hovered near he could hear the excited exclamations of the passengers, who focused dozens of marine glasses upon his floating form. This inspection somewhat embarrassed him, and having no mind to be stared at he put on additional speed and soon left the steamer ...
— The Master Key - An Electrical Fairy Tale • L. Frank Baum
... the shaving mirror which still hung upon the tent wall above the table; but his sight was focused far beyond. And then a reflection moved within the polished surface of the tiny glass, the man's eyes shot back out of space to the mirror's face, and in it he saw reflected the grim visage of Achmet Zek, framed in the flaps of the ...
— Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... alike. Our attention must be drawn now here, now there, if we want to bind together that which is scattered in the space before us. Everything must be shaded by attention and inattention. Whatever is focused by our attention wins emphasis and irradiates meaning over the course of events. In practical life we discriminate between voluntary and involuntary attention. We call it voluntary if we approach the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... point of all about these schools of ours, is that the aspect of the place and the tone of the dwellers in it does not vary appreciably on days of festival and on working days. The beauty of it is a little focused and smartened, but that is all. There is no covering up of deficiencies or hiding desolation out of sight. If one goes down to a public-school on an ordinary day, one finds the same brave life, the same unembarrassed courtesy prevailing. There is no sense of being ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... attendants. The three arrivals were at once hustled away to a distant part of the board and there cleaned from end to end. I found that the focal length of my 8-diameter lens was just out of reach of the ants, so I focused carefully on one of the soldiers and watched the entire process. The small ants scrubbed and scraped him with their jaws, licking him and removing every particle of dirt. One even crawled under ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... content to St. Thomas Aquinas. But the whole resultant unity is less the product of great personalities than of a common instinct and a common conviction. Men saw the world sub specie unitatis; and its kaleidoscopic variety was insensibly focused into a single scheme under the stress of their vision. The heavens showed forth the glory of God, and the firmament declared His handiwork. Zoology became, like everything else, a willing servant of Christianity; and bestiaria moralizata ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... composite of all these concepts to which all nations will subscribe; and it must be possible to discover some fundamental principles that will constitute a focal point toward which the thinking of all nations can be directed. Once this focal point is determined and the thinking of the world focused upon it, the work of reconstruction ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... to judge what a man or a woman might have been under slightly altered conditions. But for some single circumstance that converged and focused their talent, many a hero would have died unknown and unsuspected. The key that unlocks the treasure house of the soul is not always found, and its wealth is often scattered on unseen shores. But it is clear ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... focused watchfully on Roberts. The sallow man squirted tobacco at a knot in the floor and rubbed his bristly chin with the ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... life depends, and thereby becomes suicide on a minor scale. Space prevents further discussion, but all the ten deadly sins mentioned by Manu and Buddha can be satisfactorily dealt with in the light sought to be focused here. ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... city, and at night. But as it happened, there had been a number of buildings razed in the vicinity of the Landmark structure, and there was a large, vacant level space. Also several of the city's fire department searchlights were focused around the burning structure, and when it became evident that an airship was going to land—though as yet none guessed whose it was—the searchlights were turned on the vacant spot and Tom was able to make a good landing, his ...
— Tom Swift among the Fire Fighters - or, Battling with Flames from the Air • Victor Appleton
... as to the quality of his product and he needs an artificial light-source for testing it. In such a case the white flame-arc is serving satisfactorily, but it is not difficult to obtain effects with other light-sources in a short time if an image of the light-source is focused upon the material by means of a lens. In fact, a darkening of lithopone may be obtained in a minute by focusing upon it the image of a quartz mercury-arc by means of a quartz lens. In special cases of this sort the use of a focused image is far superior to the ordinary ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... eyes jumped about searching her out. "There! now! Hold still!" cried Simpkins as they focused on the chair. ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... His eyes focused insensibly upon a void of darkness beneath him,— night made visible by street lamps; and he found himself suddenly and acutely sensible of the wonder and mystery of the City: the City whose secret life ran fluent upon the hot, hard pavements below, whose voice throbbed, ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... thought that these quips and fancies of Wilson's were neatly turned and cute; so he carried a handful of them around one day, and read them to some of the chief citizens. But irony was not for those people; their mental vision was not focused for it. They read those playful trifles in the solidest terms, and decided without hesitancy that if there had ever been any doubt that Dave Wilson was a pudd'nhead—which there hadn't—this revelation ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Ferguson, observing that Kent's glance remained focused on the blood-stained, raised letter "B" and the carving back of it. "In fact, don't touch any part of the casket, I'm trying to get ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... possible that had Concha awaited Rezanov in St. Petersburg her attraction would have focused his desires irresistibly; but his mind had resigned itself to the prospect of separation for a definite period, and while it had not relegated her image to the background, her part in his life had been settled there among many future ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... breathed upon her fingers, rubbing the circulation back into them, and began to shuffle the cards. Slipping them into the box, the girl settled herself in her chair and looked up into a circle of grinning faces. Before her level gaze eyes that had been focused queerly upon her fell. The case-keeper's lips were twitching, but he bit down upon ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... ran to the huge telescope and rapidly focused it where the new planet should be. Five hundred million miles beyond Neptune was a flaming path like the beam of a giant searchlight that extended exactly to the eighth solar planet. Phobar gasped. He could hardly credit the testimony ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... our old friends, the eagles that had a nest up there, and gave me such a warm time when we first reached the top." Andy cried, as he focused his glasses on a sweeping pair of huge birds that were heading their way, as if meaning to investigate, and find out what manner of rival this could be, invading their ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... lenses of television cameras were focused on Him from every part of the balcony at the rear of the hall. The microphones were ready. Weaver walked forward as the congregation knelt, and waited an impressive moment before He spread His hands in the gesture that meant, "Rise, my children." Simon, previously ...
— The Worshippers • Damon Francis Knight
... Whitebread was an active contributor to the literature of the health field in various periodicals, as well as in pamphlets issued by the Museum and other governmental agencies (see bibliography). His literary contributions, guided by the exhibits he designed and the collections he acquired, were focused on the Division's collections, such as primitive and psychic medicine and warnings against reliance on magic and superstitions in treatment, medical oddities, and the utilization of drugs of animal origin, both past ...
— History of the Division of Medical Sciences • Sami Khalaf Hamarneh
... change about her which he had to sense. "You're hungry, all right, aren't you?" he said. He almost tossed her the can, but realized in time that she would run. He considered for a moment and then held it out to her. She focused her eyes on the can and for a moment Nelson might have been able to reach her before she turned and ran; but he had better sense ...
— The Happy Man • Gerald Wilburn Page
... smiled nor sneered she knew he was amused at her, with a bitterness in his amusement. In an instant she saw her transformation as it must appear to him. She had spent his money recklessly, and made herself look ridiculous. All the many kinds of shame she had ever known focused on her now, making her a glowing brand of humiliations. She stood helpless. Hans Andersen dropped to the floor with a soft thud. Nevertheless, it was ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... "I focused it before it got over the trees," said he. "I won't undertake to say what it was, but I'll risk my reputation as a sportsman that it wasn't any bird that ever I clapped eyes ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the light shone on the wall safe, Craig unwrapped the package he had brought and disclosed a camera. He placed it on a writing-desk opposite the safe, in such a way that it was not at all conspicuous, and focused ...
— The Poisoned Pen • Arthur B. Reeve
... is made up of cotton waste, saturated with oil, and a focused idea causes spontaneous combustion. Let a fire occur in almost any New York State village, and the town turns wrecker, and loot looms large in the limited brain of the villager. Civilization is ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... Seth, whose eyes were suddenly focused on the ground, and then he dismounted quickly. "It's a man, Master Richard, and by the ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... heavy black clouds were spurting into the air below Boiselle, just behind the hill's shoulder. The crash, crash, crash, crash of four heavy shells, one following another almost as quickly as you would read the words, focused all one's attention on that point. The fire on it was growing. The Germans were shooting down a valley, almost a funnel, invisible to us. But we could see that the fire was increasing every minute; 4.2's were joining in, and field guns; the lighter guns firing shrapnel, the heavier guns ...
— Letters from France • C. E. W. Bean
... vibration—and still at last to the perceptive limitations of our own earthly five senses. Just stop and consider how limited we are! Only five senses—why, even insects have six. Then consider that all matter, when we get to the bottom of it, is differentiated and condensed ether, focused into various mathematical arrangements, as numberless as the particles of the universe. Of these our five senses pick out a very small ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... illustrated or otherwise. Find the line on which the attention is focused and measure its distance from the top and bottom. Test ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... lurched heavily against him. The flyer had taken note of the tense, attentive attitude of the one in scarlet; the man was leaning forward, his eyes focused directly upon the scientist's face; he seemed absorbing both ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... intensity of the streams is, of course, considerably increased when they are focused upon a small surface. This may be ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... end of Death Trail... Donald gave over the reckoning of time then. He recked nought of minutes or hours, nought of day or of night. Subconsciously, he still paused often to make sure that the east lay straight before him; but the activities of his mind now were become focused on the ceaseless counting of the matches that measured his span of life. And, as one after another served his need of warmth in the kindling of a fire, so his high courage dwindled steadily, until, when but a single splinter of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... own name, Clare took her eyes from Farvel and turned them upon Mrs. Milo—turned them slowly, as a sick person might—with effort, and an almost feeble lifting of the head. Her look once focused, she began, little by little, to straighten, to stand more firmly on her feet; she even reached to flatten the starched collar, which had ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... alley. There is a childish credulity which clings to imaginative people through life. I had accepted the blue man and the woman with floating hair in the way which they chose to present themselves. But I began to feel like one who sees a distinctly focused picture shimmering to a dissolving view. The intrusion of an accident to a stranger at another hotel continued this morning, for as I took the long way around the bay before turning back to Clementine's alley I met the open island hearse, looking like a relic of provincial France, and ...
— The Blue Man - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... clarity of desert stars, and to the south and west shot through with the beams of great searchlights. Flying at a lofty altitude to avoid contact with drifting globes or betrayal of their coming with no lights showing aboard their craft save those carefully screened and focused on the instrument board, it was hard to realize that the fate of America, perhaps of the world, hung on the efforts of two ...
— The Seed of the Toc-Toc Birds • Francis Flagg
... to their tired feet, every muscle protesting, and before dark Stubbs learned how little the body counts, how little anything counts, before the will of a man who has focused the might of his soul upon a single thing. They moved down ever towards the blue lake which blinked back at the sun like a blue-eyed babe. Their rifles pressed upon their shoulders like bars of lead; their heavy feet were numb; their eyes bulged from ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... distinctive radiation-pattern of her contragravity-field showed clearly, and there was a speck that marked her position on the radar-screen. The same position was marked with a pin-point of light on the vision-screen—some device on the Sky-Spy, synchronized with the detectors, kept it focused there. The Company ships and contragravity vehicles all were carrying topside lights, visible only from above, which flashed alternate red ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... rush and a flutter of the heart, he knew that it was close beside him in the tent; and, when he turned over for a better hearing, it focused itself unmistakably not two feet away. It was a sound of weeping; Defago upon his bed of branches was sobbing in the darkness as though his heart would break, the blankets evidently stuffed against his ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... attack our problem with vim. The current in our stream of consciousness is moving too slowly. We do not gather up all our mental forces and mass them on the subject before us in a way that means victory. Our thoughts may be sufficiently focused, but they fail to "set fire." It is like focusing the sun's rays while an eclipse is on. They lack energy. They will not kindle the paper after they have passed through the lens. This kind of attention means mental dawdling. It means inefficiency. For the ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... cook-house attire—tunicless, his hat well back on his head, shirt-sleeves rolled to the elbow, hands deep in his breeches pockets, a cigarette between his lips. Regardless of the critical eyes which were focused upon him, he sauntered leisurely towards the officers, and when in line with them he nodded and said 'Good-day.' The officers stopped, and one of them peremptorily inquired, 'Aren't you a soldier?' 'Oh, no,' he replied; 'I'm D Company's cook!' His reply so amused the officers ...
— Over the Top With the Third Australian Division • G. P. Cuttriss
... backslider who would not plant another nut tree even though it bore ten dollar bills. Four years after planting, nineteen of the twenty chestnuts, all hican, three Persian walnuts and ten black walnuts were dead. Of the remaining seven trees only one could be called healthy. Examination soon focused the picture. Most of the trees had been planted on an eroded hillside deficient in humus. In addition, many of them were planted from three to ten inches too deep. The only thriving walnut was planted at the proper depth and in a pocket of top ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Eighth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... of August, 1869, he had noted the passage, across his telescope, of several bright flakes resembling thistleblows, floating in the sunlight. But the telescope was so focused that, if these things were distinct, they must have been so far away from this earth that the difficulties of orthodoxy remain as great, one way or another, no matter ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... watch for any possible pursuit. This cowboy, wise in his generation, had caught sight of a large body of riders bearing down from the north. He knew by the way they rode that they meant business. He knew also that they were too many for the Olla men. He focused his glass on them, got one good look, and calmly turned his horse and rode along the line fence to an arroyo, where he dismounted and waited until the visiting gentlemen had got well onto the Olla territory. Then he mounted and took his leisurely way toward space. He knew that the ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... focused everyone's admiration on himself by telling them all about Switzerland, that wonderful country, that model for all small countries of the world. What social conditions, what a referendum, what planning in the exploitation of the country's natural wonders! ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun
... street for some sign of a lurking figure, and once saw a man walk past under the light of a street lamp and melt into the shadow of a doorway on the opposite side of the road. He went into his bedroom and brought back a pair of night glasses, and focused ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... since that night when he had been called from his sleep to find Harry Goldenburg dead. Was there some point he had overlooked? He knew how fatal it was in the work of criminal investigation to take anything for granted. Although the main work of the explorer was now focused on Grell, it was not entirely certain that he was the murderer. Indeed, strange as his proceedings had been, there might be some explanation that would account for them. It might be that after Grell was found the whole investigation would have to begin again with the scent grown cold. ...
— The Grell Mystery • Frank Froest
... more. He had been pacing the room, and now, while Hayes's perspiring attention was focused imploringly on Wong and McGinnis, he ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... thoroughly knew his verb "to dig." I followed the hole down through hardpan to a depth of three feet, and back for over ten feet, where at last I found Mrs. Owl sitting on her nest of fresh eggs. Here I took her picture while her large round eyes followed my every move as I focused and snapped her. It was while investigating this subject that I also exploded a somewhat common belief that prairie dogs, owls, and rattlesnakes live together in the same quarters in perfect amity. This is not the case. ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various
... Frederick C. Howe of Cleveland, O., The City for the People. He reviewed the mismanagement and political corruption of the large cities, "controlled by great financial interests and yet filled with eager, energetic people, struggling to organize a good democratic movement of humanity focused on a democratic ideal." In voicing the hope for ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... had focused his glasses, Madden made out two fighting tops—steel baskets circling steel masts, thrust up menacingly over the ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... book, being a guide to what passes for ordinary vegetable gardening these days, assumed the availability of plenty of water. The varieties I recommended in [i]Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades[i] were largely modern ones, and the seed companies I praised most highly focused on top-quality commercial varieties. But, looking at gardening through the filter of limited irrigation, other, less modern varieties are often far better adapted and other seed companies sometimes more ...
— Gardening Without Irrigation: or without much, anyway • Steve Solomon
... permissible to say so, absolutely without restraint. I beg him to take into consideration also that the present moment might really be for her one of those in which all the essence of life, of all the past and all the present, perhaps, too, all the future, is concentrated, as it were, focused. I must briefly recall, too, the anonymous letter of which she had spoken to Praskovya Ivanovna with so much irritation, though I think she said nothing of the latter part of it. Yet it perhaps contained the explanation of the possibility of the terrible question with which ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Rome he stood there In that high, historic clearness, And his eye the mountain-ridges Followed toward the red of evening,— Then all beams of longing focused In a blessed intuition, And — he saw a church before him Greater far than that of nature, And he felt a peace descending, Larger ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... a minute," responded the young cattleman. He rode up alongside one of the animals and focused on its rump the gleam from an electric flash light. Bud carried one of these mighty handy pocket articles, which are much more effective than matches for making observations at night. In the bright gleam of the little light the boy ranchers saw, plainly branded in the hide of the animal, a large ...
— The Boy Ranchers - or Solving the Mystery at Diamond X • Willard F. Baker
... the Apes opened his eyes. He was conscious of a pain in his head, and at first that was about all. A moment later grotesque shadows, rising and falling, focused his arousing perceptions. Presently he saw that he was in a cave. A dozen Waz-don warriors squatted about, talking. A rude stone cresset containing burning oil lighted the interior and as the flame rose and fell the exaggerated shadows of the warriors ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... you talking about?" The young man's wavering attention focused itself on her now with swift completeness. He had hardly heard her, until a few moments before, when her conversation had first drifted to that ever fascinating feminine topic of foreign lords and American heiresses, then narrowed down, ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... He would find it directly, and it was invariably the word needed. Most writers employ, now and again, phrases that do not sharply present the idea—that blur the picture like a poor opera-glass. Mark Twain's English always focused exactly. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Africa and Mesopotamia, while the German offensive was carrying all before it in Galicia. The first great disillusionment of the war was at hand, and its promised beginning in May looked uncommonly like a repetition of the previous August. Popular discontent focused itself on the lack of munitions, and especially of high-explosives, which "The Times" military correspondent declared on 14 May to have been a fatal bar to our success. "Some truth there was, but brewed and dashed with lies," as Dryden remarked of Titus Oates' plot. There were other bars as fatal, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... you're right. Wait a minute." Andy disappeared, to return a moment later with a pair of powerful glasses. He focused the binoculars on the object trailing behind the sailing craft. Then he uttered ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... his friend faded from his face, and a look of rapt wonder took its place, as of a lover listening to the voice of his beloved. His mouth parted slightly, showing the white line of teeth, and his eyes looked out and out till they seemed to Darcy to be focused on things beyond the vision of man. Then something perhaps startled the bird, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various
... warming the house, and half the pay of a teacher. Examining, after this, her shrunk and meager resources, she discovered she had promised far beyond her means. She was then seventy-three years old, but an ageless valor sprang up in her to meet the new emergency. She focused her acumen to the burning point and saw that the only way out of her situation was to earn some money—an impossible thing at her age. Without an instant's pause, "How shall I do it?" she asked herself, and sat frowning into space for ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... Tom. "I wonder—" From his valise he took a small but powerful telescope. In the fast-fading light he focused it on the two ox carts. The next moment he uttered an ...
— Tom Swift in the City of Gold, or, Marvelous Adventures Underground • Victor Appleton
... formed part of the suite. The wires were carried down the leg of the table and under the carpets to a small closet; there Anna installed a small table, a pocket electric light and her stenographer's notebook. A small camera was hidden in one of the window curtains. It was focused so as to take in the space surrounding the table in the reception room. When one of the curtains was raised the plate was automatically exposed and the raising of the curtain at the same time let enough light into the room to ...
— Little Lost Sister • Virginia Brooks
... explosion,—a revolution." Therefore in this time of intellectual ferment, the continued affirmation of truth, and the persistent statement of principles are in themselves a highly valuable service, which we are bound to give to the world. The thought of the human mind, like rays of sun-light, focused on one point, acquires the ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... eyes focused on future trade that the businessmen who composed the London Company contributed the huge sums that were required to finance the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. Agriculture was not of prime importance. At that time England was ...
— Agriculture in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Lyman Carrier
... horizon suddenly expanded to take in the city and the vague picture of the reservation to the north. She realized that the eyes of the whole community were focused on her dearest friend. Up on the quiet, shaded college campus—the newspapers told her—they spoke of him contemptuously. He was a cheap politician, full of unsound economic principles, with a history of dishonest land deals behind him. It would be a shame to the community to be represented ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... from the huddled bulk of buildings. Like leaping, fantastic shadows, they scampered toward the mounds of deep shadow beneath the ridge. The route took them away from Denver, making aim difficult. He fired twice, hurriedly. Missed. But near misses because he had not focused for such range. ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... customs, novels based on an isolated society, books of history and fiction going back to provincial simplicity will go on being written and published. But I do not believe it possible that a good one will henceforth come from a mind that does not in outlook transcend the region on which it is focused. That is not to imply that the processes of evolution have brought all parts of the world into such interrelationships that a writer cannot depict the manners and morals of a community up Owl Hoot Creek without enmeshing them with the complexities of the Atlantic Pact. Awareness of other times and ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... out to familiarize herself with their surroundings and also to try to shoot some game, for the party needed fresh meat. She had gone only a short distance when, her gaze focused on a yucca tree ahead. Fastened to the tree was a sheet of paper, evidently recently put there, and on this was a crudely drawn heart with a bullet hole through it. Beneath the heart were ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders on the Great American Desert • Jessie Graham Flower |
