"Focussing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... purely political literature on the Irish problem has been increasing during the past few years, and there is room for a book which aims at focussing attention upon some aspects of it which the mere politician is apt to pass lightly over or to ignore altogether. Like most of Mr Kettle's work, the book bears the impress of his individuality, and, to many ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... had the calculated effect of focussing the attention of the woman exclusively to him, after one swift glance round had shown her a room tenanted only by herself and a cringing thief. And immediately it was made manifest that, whether ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... They were the German trenches. On the crest of the ridge a white house peeped out between the trees. That house seemed an object of peculiar interest to the battery-major at my side. He was stooping behind the "Director" with his eye to the sights as though he was focussing the distant object for a photograph. He fixed the outer clamp, unscrewed the inner clamp, and having got his sights on the house, he reversed the process and swung round the sights to bear on a little ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... hours in the stuffy cabin it was delightful to sit in the sunshine and watch the gray, racing water. Here and there in the distance could occasionally be seen the funnels of far-away steamers, and then there was much excitement and focussing of opera-glasses and telescopes. They wondered if other vessels had been caught in the same storm, and how they had fared, and Dulcie even hoped they might encounter a wreck, and have the privilege of rescuing passengers ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... hand, is like one swallow trying to make a summer. Even the lyrics collected in anthologies are often "mutually repellent particles," requiring through their very brevity and lack of relation with one another, a perpetual re-focussing of the attention, a constant re-creation of lyric atmosphere. These conditions have been emphasized, during the last decade, by that very variety of technical experimentation, that increased range and individualism ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... heard—broken only by the brisk ticking of the cure's watch on the narrow shelf. Occasionally a water-rat would patter over the sunken roof, become inquisitive, and peer in at me through the slit within half a foot of my nose. Once in a while I took down the fat opera-glass, focussing it upon the dim shapes that resembled ducks, but that proved to be bits of floating seaweed or a scurrying shadow as a cloud swept under the moon—all illusions, until my second watch, when, with a rush, ...
— A Village of Vagabonds • F. Berkeley Smith
... long a man so essentially physical as Blake. For two desolate hours, it is true, he wandered about the streets of the city, struggling to medicine his depression of the mind by sheer weariness of the body. Then the habit of a lifetime of activity reasserted itself. He felt the need of focusing his resentment on something tangible and material. And as a comparative clarity of vision returned to him there also came back those tendencies of the instinctive fighter, the innate protest against injustice, ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer
... ghostly in the gloom, they came into a place of ceaseless activity, where there were tables crowded with instruments, coils of glass and metal tubing, and other equipment and supplies. These were the focusing point for ceaseless streams of the Folk. On a platform at the far end, Garin saw the tall son of the Ancient Ones working on a framework of metal ...
— The People of the Crater • Andrew North
... focusing around Fordham spur, there was no doubt of it. That point of the road was a decided point of interest to Ralph every time the Overland Express neared the spur on succeeding trips. He could only conjecture that Zeph and the Canaries and others in whom Zeph was interested, were located ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman
... vanished save in moments of rare exaltation, so Joan's newfound faith took upon itself an aspect of sunshine. Her clouds were made beautiful by the new light; they did not darken it. Mary's gray Cornish mind kept sentiment out of sight. She lived with clear eyes always focusing reality as it appeared to her. Heaven was indeed a pleasanter eternal fact than hell; yet the place of torment existed on Bible authority; and it was idle to suppose it existed for nothing. Grasping eternity as a truth, she ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... our pre-eminence in the peaceful exploration of outer space, focusing on an expedition to the moon in this decade—in cooperation with other powers if possible, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... country life are without number. The surface attractions of the city are most alluring. A focusing of the public mind upon the problem, its pros and cons, will, it is to be hoped, turn the scales without delay in favor of country life and its ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... thought and action. The empathetic is always aware of this constant and silent surge, whether he makes the effort to understand it or not. He is like a man glancing across the open pages of a tableful of books. He can see that the type, words, paragraphs, thoughts are there, even without focusing his attention to understand any ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... Japanese lines, where a naval lookout had been erected, I saw several marines focusing horned telescopes on the besieged forts. As soon as a shell landed one of the men would telephone the exact location to the naval wireless station at Sesheco, which relayed the message to ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... save their supply. "We must be ready to watch the signals from the arctic circle," said Bearwarden. "At midnight, if the calculations are finished, the result will be flashed by the searchlight." It was then ten minutes to twelve, and the earth was already over four hundred thousand miles away. Focusing their glasses upon the region near the north pole, which, being turned from the sun, was towards them and in darkness, they waited. "In this blaze of sunlight," said Cortlandt, "I am afraid we can see nothing." Fortunately, at this moment ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... broad sense. It begins by gratifying her desire for fellowship, her thirst for knowledge; by training her in business and parliamentary methods; and gradually develops in her the power of expressing her own ideas, of concentrating her faculties and focusing them upon the object to be attained, the purpose to be accomplished. At the same time she finds that a more subtle process has been going on in her own mind. An insensible alchemy has been widening ...
— Memories of Jane Cunningham Croly, "Jenny June" • Various
... heard any more welcome sound than the deep roaring and crashing that started in at our rear. It quickly helped to disperse the nervousness caused by the first entering into battle and to restore self control and confidence. Besides, by getting into action, our artillery was now focusing the attention and drawing the fire of the Russian guns, for most of the latter's shells whined harmlessly above us, being aimed at the batteries in our rear. Considerably relieved by this diversion, we resumed our forward movement after about ...
— Four Weeks in the Trenches - The War Story of a Violinist • Fritz Kreisler
... over the prints carefully one by one, telling them which seemed to be under exposed and which over, and which had not been properly developed and printed. Then he went into the question of grouping and centering and focusing, and told them how best to time their exposures. He was interrupted twice by girls who wanted their pictures taken, and then he told them a great deal about the values of lights and shades, and about suitable backgrounds. Then he brought ...
— Out with Gun and Camera • Ralph Bonehill
... over the tumbling ocean, focusing his gaze on a section of the horizon that for want of something more definite than mere hope lay in a direct line with the City ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... soul is not confined within the body, therefore, it is in the nature of a key between the sense-conscious self and the spiritually conscious Self; it is like a central receiving station, and may be "called up," and aroused to consciousness by meditation. Realizing and focusing the light of the spiritual nature upon this part of the head, opens up those unexplored areas of consciousness in which the masters dwell, and the student knows by intuition, which is a higher aspect of reason, many things which were heretofore incomprehensible to ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... germinal... housed in the soul as a seed in the earth... to break forth at spring with the crocuses into young smiles on the mouth. Or glancing off buoyantly, radiate notes in one key with the sparkle of rain-drops on the petal of a cactus flower focusing the ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge
... of which it was capable, yet the super-ship leaped toward the smaller craft at a pace which covered that distance in the twinkling of an eye. So rapidly were the objectives enlarging upon the plates that the automatic focusing devices could scarcely function rapidly enough to keep them in place. Cleveland flinched involuntarily and seized his arm-rests in a spasmodic clutch as he watched this, the first inertialess space-approach; and even Rodebush, who knew better than anyone else what to expect, held ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... but they exist there. Why are they invisible to us now? Because the more powerful light of sense-consciousness has subdued them. If we close the windows and doors of our senses from outside contact and darken the inner chamber of our self, then by focusing the light of consciousness and concentrating the mental rays we shall be able to know and remember our past lives, and all the events and experiences thereof. Those who wish therefore to develop their memory and remember their past should practice Raja Yoga ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda
... shade, so that without it he will pine away and die. Once at a village on the lower Yukon River an explorer had set up his camera to get a picture of the people as they were moving about among their houses. While he was focusing the instrument, the headman of the village came up and insisted on peeping under the cloth. Being allowed to do so, he gazed intently for a minute at the moving figures on the ground glass, then suddenly withdrew his head and bawled ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... regards serums and specifics, the judgment of Dr. Karl F. Meyer, of the Hooper Institute of Medical Research of the University of California, may be accepted as focusing the consensus of unbiased opinion on the subject. It was as follows: "Serums have not yet been introduced which produce immunity from Spanish Influenza. The serums now employed are of no use whatsoever. You have no idea how really and truly helpless we are. ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... however constructed it must be considerably larger than the largest sheet of bromide paper which is to be used, thus allowing for nearly all necessary adjustments of the paper. It is preferably covered with white paper or fine blotter to aid in focusing. The reflector F is considerably larger than the negative-box, and adjusted at an angle which will reflect the light from the sky or sun evenly upon the ground glass. It is best covered with good white blotting paper. G is a hood which I have found useful in sunlight enlarging, especially ...
— Bromide Printing and Enlarging • John A. Tennant
... self-control, in patience, in equanimity, is to grow in strength and power; and you can only thus grow by focusing your consciousness upon a principle. As a child, after making many and vigorous attempts to walk unaided, at last succeeds, after numerous falls, in accomplishing this, so you must enter the way of power by first attempting to stand alone. Break ...
— The Way of Peace • James Allen
... north light, and the winter days were dull. Also the walls of the room were a deep, unreflecting red, and his eyes were getting old. The outlines of that vast bed blending into the luxuriant background, the whole focusing to the striking central figure, remain in my mind to-day—a picture ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine |
