"Isolation" Quotes from Famous Books
... impossible that he could ever lounge or slouch, and that made Hawthorne speak of him as "cast-iron," and immediately he began to talk in the strain so familiar to his friends. It was a staccato style of speech, every word coming separately and distinctly, as if preserving the same cool isolation in the sentence that the speaker did in society; but the words were singularly apt and choice, and Thoreau had always something to say. His knowledge was original. He was a Fine-ear and a Sharp-eye in the woods and fields; and he added to his knowledge of nature the wisdom of ... — From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... critical opinion, but various influential critics dissent. Thus, Dr. Ferdinand Bierfisch, of the Hochschule fuer Musik at Dresden, insists that it is the theme of "the elevated mood produced by the spiritual isolation and low barometric pressure of the mountains," while Prof. B. Moll, of Frankfurt a/M., calls it the motive of prowling. Kraus himself, when asked by Dr. Fritz Bratsche, of the Berlin Volkszeitung, shrugged his shoulders and answered in his native Hamburg dialect, "So gehts im ... — A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... independent brain and tongue. But in their household there was no older woman to illumine their confused guessing with an occasional word now and then, even if an unusually wholesome out-of-door life had not distracted their attention from the problems raised in books, and their isolation had not protected them from the careless talk of other girls of ... — Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... never wished to travel,—some people who had been to France preferred Paris to Madrid; as if that were an inexplicable insanity by which their wanderings had been punished. The indolent incuriousness of the Spaniard accepts the utter isolation of his city as rather an advantage. It saves him the trouble of making up his mind where to go. Vamonos al Prado! or, ... — Castilian Days • John Hay
... and gone. Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction. For had it occurred whilst we were at a station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Count's sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the ... — Dracula • Bram Stoker
... Christmas holidays! Isolation for the victim for days, even weeks; the risk of infection for others; the terrible, unthinkable possibility of "missing a term"! Mrs Vernon came nobly to the rescue, and invited Darsie to spend the remainder of the holidays under her roof, ... — A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the antipathy of his kind, even as a normal person prospers upon the love of his fellows. The scowls of his comrades were accepted by the sergeant as a form of tribute, so curiously may a certain type of mind be warped by the influence of isolation. ... — Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... buried treasure, not a birch-twig for the castigation of offenders. It has therefore been my aim in the following pages to direct attention to the best, not to forage for the worst—the small faults which acquire prominence only by isolation—of the poet with whose writings I am concerned. I wish also to give information, more or less detailed, about each of Mr. Browning's works; information sufficient to the purpose I have in view, which is to induce those who have hitherto deprived themselves of a stimulating pleasure to ... — An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... of the main-land beyond, covering a valuable well; but still there was no occupation in force of any but Government property. The creation of a new military department, to the command of which a major-general was assigned, was soon to terminate this isolation. On the 13th of May the First Vermont Regiment arrived, on the 24th the Second New York, and two weeks later our forces ... — Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... Ernestine's isolation alone, the something childish in the brilliant face would have enlisted a less sympathetic observer. A single moment's wavering and the lady made for the place where the besiegers massed less thick. She was near enough now to call out over ... — The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... the American section by Holland and Sweden, a series of galleries are in grave danger of being overlooked. Undoubtedly, to offset this apparent isolation, some of the most alluring paintings can be found ... — The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... setting of life is construed in these terms, there is but one natural and appropriate manner of life. Once believing in the isolation and insignificance of life, one is sceptical of all worth save such as may be tasted in the moment of its purchase. If one's ideas and experiences are no concern of the world's, but incidents of a purely local and transient interest, they will realize most ... — The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... wayward disposition found, however, no satisfaction in the Jewish fold. He came into conflict with the authorities of the synagogue and was excommunicated. Unlike Spinoza (who was about fifteen at the time of Acosta's death), Acosta was not strong enough to stand alone. Wearied by his melancholy isolation, he was driven to seek a return to the Jewish communion. Having recanted his heresies, he was readmitted after an excommunication of fifteen years, but was soon excommunicated a second time. After seven ... — Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... by her daughter Margaret, and published by Messrs. Isbister in 1889.] Mary declares that it is impossible for her to give an adequate idea of the stillness and isolation of her childish life. So intense was the silence of the Quaker household, that, at four years old, Anna had to be sent to a dame's school in order that she might learn to talk; while even after both children had attained the use of speech, their ignorance of the right names for ... — Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... to see a woman about the place. He has felt our isolation—Good evening, Abram. Let this young lady have a spray of your sweetest honeysuckle. And, Abram, before you go, how is ... — The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... fever, a more complex financial structure, a business politics which shaded into open corruption, and a closer touch with the outside world. The general substitution of steam for sail on the Atlantic during this period aided further in lessening the isolation of what had been backwoods provinces and in bringing them into closer relation with the ... — The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... not always a fairyland, I am told. Once it was much like other lands, except it was shut in by a dreadful desert of sandy wastes that lay all around it, thus preventing its people from all contact with the rest of the world. Seeing this isolation, the fairy band of Queen Lurline, passing over Oz while on a journey, enchanted the country and so made it a Fairyland. And Queen Lurline left one of her fairies to rule this enchanted Land of Oz, and then passed on and forgot all ... — The Tin Woodman of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... mainly in the production of religious books, had invested the quite conspicuous proceeds in three per cent. consols. By this act he had at once assumed an isolated position, no other Forsyte being content with less than four per cent. for his money; and this isolation had slowly and surely undermined a spirit perhaps better than commonly endowed with caution. He had become almost a myth—a kind of incarnation of security haunting the background of the Forsyte universe. He had never committed the imprudence of marrying, or encumbering himself ... — Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... to its demands; and we may count the dull and the distressed by myriads;—and among the docile, many of the best intellects we possess. The few who have sense and strength to assert their own place and supremacy, are driven into discouraged disease by their isolation, like Turner and Blake; the one abandoning the design of his 'Liber Studiorum' after imperfectly and sadly, against total public neglect, carrying it forward to what it is,—monumental, nevertheless, in landscape engraving; ... — Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... synonymous with some kind of separation from common life; it dwells in palaces, not in cottages; it inheres in culture, but is inconceivable in narrow knowledge; and to the great mass of men it is, alas! the attribute of wealth, of fine raiment, of social isolation. But we have not learned even the alphabet of Christ's gospel unless we have come to see that the only true indignity in human life is sin, meanness, malevolence, and small-heartedness; and that all life is dignified where there are love, ... — The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... with any human being after so many years of isolation was in itself sufficient to raise the boys to the greatest state of excitement; but that this being should be one so handsome, so gay, so perfectly charming, seemed completely to have turned their heads; and when I gave the sign ... — Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... and to whom she extended thought and sympathy. The blow of the gun-stock bruised my back, yet it was with a smile and a light heart that I descended the ladder, deeply conscious of a friend on board—one totally unable to serve me, perhaps, yet nevertheless a friend. Even in our isolation, guarded in those narrow quarters, much of the ship gossip managed in some way to reach our ears. How it drifted in was often a mystery, yet there was little going on aboard we failed to hear. Much of it came to us through those detailed to serve food, while ... — Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... handle this thing themselves, there were those in the big world of below who could—that there were men of the Secret Service who could find that gun no matter where Courtrey or Ellen hid it, that Lost Valley, no matter what its isolation or its history, was yet in the U. S. A., ... — Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... Agriculture provides the economic base. The major export earners are fruit, copra, and clothing. Manufacturing activities are limited to a fruit-processing plant and several clothing factories. Economic development is hindered by the isolation of the islands from foreign markets and a lack of natural resources and good transportation links. A large trade deficit is annually made up for by remittances from emigrants and from foreign aid. Current economic development plans call for exploiting the ... — The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... has been said, that barbarism is a principle, not of society, but of isolation; he who will not submit even to himself, is not likely to volunteer a subjection to others; and this is more or less the price which, from the nature of the case, the members of society pay individually for the security of that which they ... — Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... applied to the door posts, lintels, and other parts of his house, to the planting sticks of the woman, to the rattan frame of his deer-hide rain-hat, etc. But except for this there seems little that is not an inheritance from the two above strains or a development due to isolation in these mountainous forests that have ... — The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... time to think out what I shall do. One thing is very evident—you have rebelled against my rule, Aleck, and are struggling to get away to think and act, sir, for yourself. I have done my best for you, but in my isolation I have doubtless been blind and narrow. It is the natural result of our solitary life here—the young ... — The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn
... all," he thought, but with a great pang of disappointment rather than relief. He judged such proceedings from the rustic standpoint. Always in Upham, when a girl expected a young man to come to spend an evening with her, she lighted the best parlor and entertained him there in isolation from the rest of her family. He did not know how different a training in such respects Lucina had had. She never thought, since he was not her avowed lover, of sequestering herself with him in the best parlor. She would have been too proudly and ... — Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... admiration. He held me on his knee while I examined his watch, and he made it strike for me. He understood my signs, and I knew it and loved him at once. But I did not dream that that interview would be the door through which I should pass from darkness into light, from isolation ... — Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... being able to play cricket in a manner to please connoisseurs. I hated the game from the very beginning, and it was pure slavery to me, and I never had the faintest desire to excel in it or even to learn it. This dislike was a misfortune, as not to love cricket is a cause of isolation for an ... — Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... When Sidney went to Cambridge, Lettice had entreated that she might be sent to Girton or Newnham; but the young Scholar of Trinity had fought shy of the notion, and it was dropped at once. That, indeed, was the beginning of Lettice's isolation—the beginning of a kind of mental estrangement from her brother, which the lapse of time was to ... — Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... "Isolation and particularism are the negative of that ideal, and operate like a piece of iron or wood in the human body which produces ulceration and gangrene. All our institutions should therefore be calculated to encourage assimilation. If we adopt the opposite policy, we inevitably alienate the privileged ... — The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... much in relations, so that he becomes a stranger to the resources of his own nature, he falls, after a while, into a distraction, or imbecility, from which he can only be cured by a time of isolation, which gives the renovating fountains time to rise up. With a society it is the same. Many minds, deprived of the traditionary or instinctive means of passing a cheerful existence, must find help in self-impulse, or perish. It is therefore that, while any elevation, in the view ... — Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Eastern men there are especial forms for "making brotherhood." The "Munhbola-bhai" (mouth-named brother) of India is well-known. The intense "associativeness" of these races renders isolation terrible to them, and being defenceless in a wild state of society has special horrors. Hence the origin of Caste for which see Pilgrimage (i. 52). Moslems, however, cannot practise the African rite of drinking a few drops of each other's blood. This, by the by, was also affected in ... — The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... directly at first, but through an attack on some Central or South American State to which it would be at least as difficult for us to send troops as for Germany. And what if this powerful nation, vowed to war, were once firmly established in South or Central America? What of our boasted isolation then? ... — My Four Years in Germany • James W. Gerard
... enough,—not for the blows; they were nothing. The plan was not alone to humiliate him beyond all measure, but to scourge his soul, ravage the sanctuary of his mother there, rend him asunder, and cast him into an unthinkable hell of isolation; for she was the bond that held him to the world, she was the human comfort and ... — The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... to prove to the world that a rolling stone is capable at times of gathering as much moss as a stationary one, and how it is possible for the rock with St. Vitus dance to become more coated than the one that is confined to perpetual isolation. Like most iconoclasts he was of humble birth, and had no foundation upon which to rest the cornerstone of his castle, which was becoming too heavy for his ... — Skookum Chuck Fables - Bits of History, Through the Microscope • Skookum Chuck (pseud for R.D. Cumming)
... prairie, almost of the keen air of the canons. Captain Sarrasin always professed that he found the illimitable spaces of the West too tranquillising for him. The sight of those great, endless fields, the isolation of those majestic mountains, suggested to him a recluse-like calm which never suited his quick-moving temper. So he did not very often visit his brother in Hampstead, and the brother in Hampstead, deeply engrossed in the grave cares of comparative folk-lore, seldom dropped from his ... — The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... officers' deck the picture of embarkation appeared in outline rather than in detail. The constant movement of people far below, the orderly disorder, the shouts and cries of officers and stevedores, the waving arms of cranes and the general excitement produced in a mere onlooker a strange sense of isolation. One felt like Gulliver observing the Liliputians in some great effort of maritime preparation, and the longer one looked the smaller and more like toy soldiers seemed the men. Such an endless stream of them poured from the dock shed ... — The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... into a compulsory isolation utterly foreign to her temperament, debarred the fulfilment of her womanhood which her spontaneous, impetuous nature craved, had drooped and pined, gradually losing both her buoyant spirit ... — The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... fleeting sense of his isolation as he drew back a shade and pressed his face to the pane. The house stood at the edge of the summer colony and a considerable distance from its nearest neighbor. The landward horizon still brightened at intervals with a languid mockery of lightning, dimmed by the fog that was ... — Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... in the afternoon. The steady sound of the mattock in a neighbouring field was the only token of the common bustling world that lay close around the curious isolation of the hour. ... — The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... alone, and he could do what he pleased with the eight hundred thousand francs* or so which were at his disposal every year. He would complete the gigantic works destined to make the Basilica a self-supporting centre, and assist in embellishing the new town in order to increase the isolation of the old one and seclude it behind its rock, like an insignificant parish submerged beneath the splendour of its all-powerful neighbour. All the money, all the sovereignty, would be his; he ... — The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... course of her education proceeded, many striking peculiarities became developed in Madonna's disposition, which seemed to be all more or less produced by the necessary influence of her affliction on the formation of her character. The social isolation to which that affliction condemned her, the solitude of thought and feeling into which it forced her, tended from an early period to make her mind remarkably self-reliant, for so young a girl. Her first impression of strangers seemed invariably to decide her opinion of them ... — Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... little, to where a tiny cleft showed in the precipice. Plutina guessed that this marked the entrance to a cavern. Despite the bravery of her changed mood, the eerie retreat daunted her by its desolate isolation. Then, Hodges climbed upon the ledge, and she heard his shout, coming faintly to her ears above the roar of the cascade which fell just beyond the ... — Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... the voyage reads like the journal of a quiet family at home, it is so peaceful and uneventful. It tells no tales of hardships and privations, no sickness or suffering from the isolation. ... — The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 56, December 2, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... to the palace together, but, as he basely deserted me for Jeanne, I was left to wander about alone. I was, however, by no means depressed by my isolation. The lights, the music, the beauty of the ladies, and the handsome uniforms of the men, all filled me with the liveliest pleasure, and two hours ... — For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... burst she out passionately, 'do not by the greater power of your intellect seek the mastery over mine. Let the loneliness and isolation of my life here rather appeal to you to pity than suggest the thought of influencing ... — Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... remote districts of Britain reveals the fact that our provincials, whenever they have the chance, are a studious and thoughtful race. The isolation and monotony of life in many parts are bound to drive men to study and reflection if the means for these are at hand. Sisyphus himself had hardly less variety of occupation than some of our shepherds whose work on the hills involves ... — Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... child's life is an integral, a total one. He passes quickly and readily from one topic to another, as from one spot to another, but is not conscious of transition or break. There is no conscious isolation, hardly conscious distinction. The things that occupy him are held together by the unity of the personal and social interests which his life carries along. Whatever is uppermost in his mind constitutes to him, for the time being, the whole universe. ... — The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... whose organization was there believed to be inimitable and where the principle of mechanism was, as it were, stored up in tins and in some places was obviously getting mouldy. In the matter of Freedom, however, the other peoples were ahead of us, and to the political isolation of Prussia spiritual ... — The New Society • Walther Rathenau
... (1/2 mile S. from King's Langley Station, L.&N.W.R.) is a hamlet. The Booksellers' Provident Retreat is here. It is also the name of a hill between Hertford and Ware, on which stands the Joint Isolation ... — Hertfordshire • Herbert W Tompkins
... Catalan, and held fast to all the little habits and fashions of their insular life. If anything more had been needed to show me that I was entering upon untrodden territory, it was supplied by the joyous surprise of the steward when I gave him a fee. This fact reconciled me to my isolation on board, and its ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 • Various
... cowboy was brave has come to be axiomatic. If his life of isolation made him taciturn, it at the same time created a spirit of hospitality, primitive and hearty as that found in the mead-halls of Beowulf. He faced the wind and the rain, the snow of winter, the fearful dust-storms of alkali desert wastes, with ... — Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... it understood). They prefer isolated apartments, Anglo-Saxons even going as far as to prefer houses of from six to eight rooms, in which the family, or an agglomeration of friends, can live apart. Sometimes a phalanstery is a necessity, but it would be hateful, were it the general rule. Isolation, alternating with time spent in society, is the normal desire of human nature. This is why one of the greatest tortures in prison is the impossibility of isolation, much as solitary confinement becomes torture in its turn, when not alternated with ... — The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... go into isolation, my brother? Wouldst thou seek the way unto thyself? Tarry yet a little and ... — Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... the subjects which are to be discussed and acted on at the meeting. The selectmen also lay out highways, grant licenses, and impanel jurors; they may act as health officers and issue orders regarding sewerage, the abatement of nuisances, or the isolation of contagious diseases; in many cases they act as assessors of taxes, and as overseers of the poor. They are the proper persons to listen to complaints if anything goes wrong in the town. In county matters ... — Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... affection, and good will bound them together at once in the social tie, and the union for defence. Like the gregarious tenants of the air in their annual migrations, they brought their true home, that is to say their charities with them. In their state of extreme isolation from the world they had left, the kindly social propensities were found to grow more strong in the wilderness. The current of human affections in fact naturally flows in a deeper and more vigorous tide, in proportion as it is diverted into ... — The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... seems to lose itself among the mountains, but plunges for good and all straight into the shining Nirvana of the sea, a strangely shaped promontory makes out from the land. It is the province of Noto, standing alone in peninsular isolation. ... — Noto, An Unexplored Corner of Japan • Percival Lowell
... my dear father, I know no drawbacks which cannot be surmounted. Let us see what these drawbacks are. First, hard labour; occasional privation; a log-hut, till we can get a better; severe winter; isolation from the world; occasional danger, even from wild beasts and savages. I grant these are but sorry exchanges for such a splendid mansion as this—fine furniture, excellent cooking, polished society, and the interest one feels for what is going on in our own country, which is daily communicated ... — The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... the invader. Pitt's gold had called into existence a third coalition (England, Russia. Austria, and Sweden), only to see Napoleon hurl it to the ground on the field of Austerlitz (December, 1805). England's isolation seemed as complete as the Emperor's victory. Russia, Austria, and Prussia made humiliating peace with the victor, who carved his conquests into new states and kingdoms. Pitt, who, at the news of Austerlitz, had pointed to the map of Europe with the words "Roll ... — Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... The practical isolation of the earthquake of 1886 left its trace on the character of the investigation. Not only were the observers untrained, but the investigators themselves were unprepared. For instance, the scale of intensity used in drawing the isoseismal lines was not adopted until after ... — A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... from her book at a screw head in the panel about two feet above John's head, with a fixed thoughtful glance that saw nothing else; and John blushed. Her dreamy brown eyes spoke of a shackled or slumbering soul, voluntarily enduring the isolation of cultured spinsterhood, in search for the higher life. He felt the cold, bony hand of death reach out and crush his dream of love. After another hour of observation, the sun came through the window and shed its bright warm rays upon her hair and he revived a bit when he discovered ... — Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... be interrupted or bothered by little things," he told Mr. Robbins, earnestly. "I must have perfect isolation or I cannot ... — Kit of Greenacre Farm • Izola Forrester
... to tell her to leave him alone. But he thought of coming isolation in the studio, and refrained. Bending down, ... — The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... His very obstinacy and egoism now enabled him, blind, comparatively poor, and the representative of a lost cause, to maintain his proud and patient dignity in the midst of the triumph of all that was most hateful to him, and, as he believed, to God. His isolation, indeed, was in many respects extreme, though now as always he found the few sympathetic friends on whom his nature was quite dependent. His religious beliefs had become what would at present be called Unitarian, and he did not associate with any of the ... — A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... satisfaction of our self esteem. "I have only a blind, consuming passion of ideas. And this blind passion of ideas drove me and hounded me till I had to tear loose from everything human to follow it. For two years I lived in savage isolation. I thought myself strong enough to live alone and think alone, but I am not. What writes itself in me is too intense for the light weight American magazines. My last story took me months to write and I had to ruin it by tacking on to it a happy ... — The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... captives, but only after inflicting heavy loss upon the assailants. The place was untenable against superior naval appliances, and quite men enough had been sacrificed in view of the impossibility of preventing its isolation by Federal fleets. ... — School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... it for him, and the two arranged themselves for this purpose, the curtain of damp woolliness seeming to thicken on them. There was a moon somewhere, and the darkness was not total, but the dreariness and isolation were the more felt from the absence of all outlines being manifest. They even lost sight of their own hands if they stretched out their arms, and their light summer garments were already saturated with damp ... — Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... created a longing for companionship that was pathetic in its eagerness, and the yearning had not been modified by the isolation and monotony of her present life. To dance, to be merry, to have the opportunity to please, seemed the most important thing in the world to the girl and now she seemed to realize, in mutinous despair, that ... — The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... lawyer shook his head. 'A separate Jewish party! No, no! That would be putting back the clock of history. The non-isolation of the Jew is an unconditional historic necessity. Our emancipation must be worked out ... — Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... to rent her two best rooms to this charming stranger, the old lady protected the secret gallantly. It was all much more simple than Rachael had feared it would be. Nobody questioned her, nobody indeed paid attention to her; she wandered about in a blissful isolation as good for her tired soul as was the primitive life she led for ... — The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... crowd puts them in possession of a sort of collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation. There are certain ideas and feelings which do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into acts except in the case of individuals forming a crowd. The psychological crowd is a provisional being formed of heterogeneous elements, which for a moment are combined, exactly ... — The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... close enough. The passion is infinite, the hearts are finite. The deepest love must suffer this doom of isolation: plunged as they may be in one another, body and soul, in the very rapture is the sentence. The good minute goes. It shall be theirs again—again they shall trust it, again the thread be ... — Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... hold his own against so unscientific a leader as the fighting old hussar, had it not been for the terrible rainstorm that began on the night of the 25th of August. The swelling of the rivers, some of them deep and rapid, led to the isolation of the French divisions, while the rain was so severe as to prevent them from using their muskets. Animated by the most ardent hatred, the new Prussian levies, few of whom had been in service half as long as our volunteers, and many of whom were but mere boys, rushed upon their enemies, butchering ... — Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... had a very intelligent and well-informed man to deal with. He had conceived a liking for the grand old man, and desired, with all his good and kindly heart, to help this noble family in its distress and isolation from the civilized world. So he said ... — Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... sound outside, except an occasional rustle of the night wind through the bare willow-branches—deep night and not a creature awake but herself, sitting in the heart of that intense and throbbing silence. Somehow there was a kind of pleasure to Nettie in the isolation which was so impossible to her at other hours. She sat rapt in that laborious quiet as if her busy ... — The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... For the foe swarmed there, refusing to stay "hurled back." True he was here also, and not merely by scores as battle captives, but alarmingly near, in arms and by thousands. Terrible Ship Island, occupied by the boys in gray and fortified, anathematized for its horrid isolation and torrid sands, had at length been evacuated, and on New Year's Day twenty-four of the enemy's ships were there disembarking bluecoats on its gleaming white dunes. Fair Carrollton was fortified (on those lines laid out by Hilary), and down ... — Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... she understand? In his world was only one fact, in his mind only one tremendous thought: the fact of their position, the thought of their isolation and peril. In her treatment of Louis she had seemed to show knowledge and a comprehension as wide as his own. But if she knew all, could she be as calm as she was? Could she go about her daily tasks? Could she cut and lay and ... — The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... diplomacy in the Mediterranean, with the exception of Joseph Autran, that oriental poet who refuses to quit his native region because he prefers his natural elements to glory, I knew but few persons at Marseilles. I wished to make no acquaintances and sought isolation and leisure, leisure and study. I wrote the history of one revolution, without a suspicion that the spirit of another convulsion looked over my shoulder, hurrying me from the half finished page, to participate ... — International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... unreasonably. Mulcher had a way of breathing aloud through his coarse lips that chafed Hogan's temper. For hours at a time the Irishman would stare at those flabby spewing lips, filled with a desire to maul them. Yet before this isolation, he had never observed that Mulcher ... — The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... fearful and indescribable horrors were occurring in the Chinese city, thousands of Chinese Christians were cruelly tortured and killed. Reports came in daily of the murder of missionaries, of railway stations destroyed, and the gradual isolation of Pekin. Missionaries and their families and native Christians took refuge in the legations, and rescue parties were sent out to bring in others, and these reported the most terrible scenes of massacre ... — Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... always been a very self- satisfied and exclusive people. They have jealously excluded foreigners and outside influence from their country. The Great Wall with which they have hedged in their country on the north, is the symbol of their policy of isolation. Doubtless this characteristic of the Chinese has been fostered by their geographical isolation; for great mountain barriers and wide deserts cut the country off from communication with the rest of the Asiatic continent. And then their reverence for antiquity has rendered them intolerant of innovation ... — A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... of morning the isolation of the inn is more apparent than at night. A compact group of stable buildings and barns stands on the opposite side of the road, and there are two or three lonely-looking cottages, but everywhere else ... — Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... Brenton had his hours when he too doubted the fact of his own humanity. An active brain and an almost automatic body trained to supple service: these by themselves, he realized, do not go far towards making a human thing of life. Contacts are necessary for that, not total isolation; and contact was the one thing denied him. Now and then he had his hours of wishing that those other boys, boys whose talk was full of reference to unfamiliar ways of life: of wishing that they would treat him a little ... — The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... Mary-Clare just now done. After asking him about the letters, she had withdrawn, but in the isolation where Larry was left he could almost hear the terrific truths he guiltily knew he deserved, hurled at him, but which his wife did not utter. Well, two could play ... — At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... Constitutions in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, and all the Australasian Colonies similarly honoured in the nineteenth century, were placed in direct relation to the British Crown and in isolation from one another. Upper Canada had no political ties with Lower Canada, Nova Scotia none with New Brunswick, Victoria none with Tasmania. Several abortive schemes were proposed at one time or another ... — The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... left us unmoved. But the sight of the starveling little fir tree reminded us that in the school hospital lay two sick boys whose roseate dreams of London and holidays had suddenly changed to the knowledge that weeks of isolation and imprisonment behind the window-blind with the red cross lay before them. If we could not give them the longed-for home Christmas, we could at least ... — A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... it? As they had ridden all round us by now, well out of range, they must know all about us and our isolation. ... — The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... been cloistered like a Trappist for six weeks, with nothing from the outside world but notes and flowers and disquieting morning papers, Kitty told Miles Creedon that she could not endure complete isolation ... — Youth and the Bright Medusa • Willa Cather
... caused the isolation of Lake George and altered the watershed of the whole country to ... — Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... the teacher in the end, and there are ten thousand of them in our big city.[39] To them, too, a day of deliverance has come. Half the machine teaching, the wooden output of our public schools in the past, I believe was due to the practical isolation of the teachers between the tyranny of politics and the distrust of those who had good cause to fear the politician and his work. There was never a more saddening sight than that of the teachers standing together in an almost solid body to resist reform of the school system as an attack upon ... — The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... that of the "knock, call, cry," and the pang and rapture of the visionary meeting. Certainly one of the effects of his loss was to accentuate the mood of savage isolation which lurked beneath Browning's genial sociality. The world from which his saint had been snatched looked very common, sordid, and mean, and he resented its intrusiveness on occasion with startling violence. When proposals were made in 1863 in various quarters ... — Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... stead privileges in our ports which the Administration was unwilling to concede. To make its refusal acceptable to a public which sympathized with France, the Cabinet of General Washington exaggerated the principle into a theory tending to national isolation. ... — A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Ulysses S. Grant • James D. Richardson
... he said to Flaxman one afternoon, 'from a Broad Church clergyman in the Midlands, who imagines me to be still militant in London, protesting against the "absurd and wasteful isolation" of the New Brotherhood. He asks me why instead of leaving the Church I did not join the Church Reform Union, why I did not attempt to widen the Church from within, and why we in Elgood Street are not now in organic connection with the new Broad Church settlement in East ... — Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... baffling rage at the mystery of his personality. The long silences between them grew from hour to hour. She could see that he was restless now at the isolation of their sand-island home. The queer lights and shadows that played in his cold blue eyes told only too plainly that his mind was back again in the world of battle. He ... — The Foolish Virgin • Thomas Dixon
... their only agreement is the tacit one, that each keep to his own side of the pavement, so as not to delay the opposing streams of the crowd, while it occurs to no man to honour another with so much as a glance. The brutal indifference, the unfeeling isolation of each in his private interest becomes the more repellant and offensive, the more these individuals are crowded together, within a limited space. And, however much one may be aware that this isolation of the individual, this narrow self-seeking is the fundamental principle of our ... — The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... the death kingdoms, through frozen rain, sound of subterranean torrents, leaden-coloured air"; and in the retrospect of the Reminiscences touchingly refers to his thirteen years of rarely relieved isolation. "A desperate dead-lift pull all that time; my whole strength devoted to it ... withdrawn from all the world." He received few visitors and had few correspondents, but kept his life vigorous by riding on his horse Fritz (the gift of the Marshalls), "during that book, some 30,000 miles, much ... — Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... is its moral isolation. It stands condemned by the judgment of the civilized world. No physical power it can exercise can compensate for this loss of moral power. Even success will be too dearly bought at such a price. There are things which succeed better than ... — The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... Matterhorn stands black and naked and forbidding, the year round, or merely powdered or streaked with white in places, for its sides are so steep that the snow cannot stay there. Its strange form, its august isolation, and its majestic unkinship with its own kind, make it—so to speak—the Napoleon of the mountain world. "Grand, gloomy, and peculiar," is a phrase which fits it as aptly as it fitted the ... — Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... man whom no woman could really love. After dinner, when Liszt sat down at the piano, young Marie Wittgenstein noticed that I had withdrawn silently and rather sadly from the rest of the company; this was due partly to my headache, and partly to the feeling of isolation that came over me in these surroundings. I was touched by her sympathy and evident ... — My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... did not feel any too optimistic. Holding down Hynds House was no easy task, and the town was not disposed to make it easier for us. While we had been busy renovating, while our hands were so full of work that every minute was occupied, we hadn't felt our isolation. It was only when we had time to pause and look around us, that the stubborn, quiet hostility of the town's attitude to the new owner of Hynds House ... — A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... regions in this country have suffered the disadvantages of isolation, the people have dwelt far distant from one another and from markets, they have had little to stimulate them intellectually or socially. Strong and peculiar individuals and families were often developed at the expense of a friendly community ... — Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... Mess, etc.; and regularly at one o'clock just as we were sitting at Mess, Sergeant Brown would appear (though we never saw more of him than his legs) at the aperture that served as our door, and would call out diffidently in his high squeaky voice: "Isolation, when you're ready, Miss," and as regularly the whole Mess would go off into fits! This formula when translated meant that he was ready for me to take the rations to the Isolation hospital up the canal. Hastily grabbing some cheese I would crank up ... — Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... waiting for strength, he was attended tenderly by Mrs. Stilwell, and sometimes of an afternoon, when Violet came in from the hot, dry range, she would play for him on her new piano. She played a great deal better than he had any reason to expect of her, self-taught in her isolation on the banks of ... — Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... of instinct, the meeting, instead of immediately dispersing, remained seated, while Pledge rose, and moved to the door. He had got half-way there before he noticed his isolation, and a sudden flush of scarlet in his cheeks betrayed his emotion at the discovery. It was too late to retreat to his seat, and too late to pretend not to notice his position. With a pitiful attempt at a swagger, he ... — Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... the carriage and looked out at the exterior gaiety of the open-air life of Paris, my mind naturally turned in contrast to the war at home and the terrible death harvest of Antietam, news of which had lately reached Europe. The sense of isolation in a land of hostile opinion often oppressed me, and rarely was as despotic as on this afternoon. I turned for relief to speculative thought of the numberless dramas of the lives of the busy multitude among which I drove. I wondered how many lived simple and uneventful days, ... — A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... been prevented by the use of a fender thrown over the side at the proper moment. Politeness is like this. It is the finest shock absorber in the world, as essential from an economic point of view as it is pleasant from a social one. In business there is no royal isolation. We are all ferry boats. We need our shock absorbers ... — The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... sympathy with them in her present stage. It is her loss, not theirs. At forty she will be in sympathy with them, and appreciate them as I do; but that is another story. She has been working at this new book all winter with a fervor and concentration which her isolation has helped to bring about. She owes a debt of gratitude to her surroundings, and some day ... — Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... might be as you say. But, oh, mademoiselle—" I ceased abruptly. Fool! I had almost fallen a prey to the seductions that the time afforded me. The balmy, languorous eventide, the broad, smooth river down which we glided, the foliage, the shadows on the water, her presence, and our isolation amid such surroundings, had almost blotted out the matter of the wager and ... — Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... were modified by the depth of the drifts he must struggle through, in order to discourse on eternal torment while gazing at earthly paradise. Janice became convinced that the powers of darkness no longer had singled her out as their particular prey, and in the peaceful isolation of the winter her woes, when she thought of them, underwent a change of grammatical tense which suggested that they had become things of ... — Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... fixed her large deep eyes on that improvised mother, who pressed her so tenderly to her heart, she seemed to implore her not to put her down, and to carry her away from the mourning that troubled her mind and the isolation that froze ... — Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... "native here, and to the manner born," are accustomed to exhibit. We had just passed Isabella Street, and were rapidly nearing Charles Street, when I noticed on my right hand a large, dilapidated frame building, standing in solitary isolation a few feet back from the highway, and presenting the appearance of ... — The Gerrard Street Mystery and Other Weird Tales • John Charles Dent
... tulips, red and yellow; sometimes a tall, imperial iris; here and there little white nodding companies of jonquils. Here and there, too, the dusty-green reaches were pointed by the dark spire of a cypress, alone, in a kind of glooming isolation; here and there a blossoming peach or almond, gaily pink, sent an inexpressible little thrill of gladness to one's heart. The air was sweetened by many incense-breathing things besides the violets,—by ... — My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... speaks in him. It is inexplicable that he should not have met with startling success, since he is voluptuous, bright, happy and learned without heaviness. One has to attribute his relative isolation to the violence of the controversies, and particularly to the dignity of a poet gently disdainful of public opinion and paying attention solely to painting, his great and only love. Manet has been a fighter whose works have created scandal. ... — The French Impressionists (1860-1900) • Camille Mauclair
... night, and I am still awake, and at this hour my soul is sadder than ever in its great isolation (insolamende); I look on my past love and your dear image. Too much I love you and (illegible) ... — Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... what felt like an actual wrench of the muscles, dragged his own eyes from the sight to scan the other countenances about the table; but not one revealed the least consciousness of what he saw, and a sense of mortal isolation ... — The Triumph Of Night - 1916 • Edith Wharton
... pronounced him the greatest psychologist of the century; M. Zola, doing violence to facts, claimed him as a literary ancestor; M. Bourget discovered in him the author of a nineteenth-century Bible and a founder of cosmopolitanism in letters. During his lifetime Beyle was isolated, and had a pride in isolation. Born at Grenoble in 1783, he had learnt, during an unhappy childhood, to conceal his natural sensibility; in later years this reserve was pushed to affectation. He served under Napoleon with coolness and energy; he hated ... — A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... derived this pleasant practice. There were very few battle-pieces, though many of duels, and men running and wrestling, and from this fact I am led to believe that this people were not much subject to attack by exterior foes, either on account of the isolation of their position or because of their great strength. Between the pictures were columns of stone characters of a formation absolutely new to me; at any rate, they were neither Greek nor Egyptian, nor Hebrew, ... — She • H. Rider Haggard
... neglect, our isolation in the depths of this cell, I was afraid to guess at how long it might last. Little by little, hopes I had entertained after our interview with the ship's commander were fading away. The gentleness of the man's ... — 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... are alone held to be ample justification for such an anthology as that here presented. Moreover these "Rhymes and Songs", gathered from up and down the years, exhibit, en masse, points of interest to the student and scholar that, in isolation, were either wanting altogether, or were buried and lost sight of midst a mass of more ... — Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... woman who had loved him and chosen him when he had nothing to offer her but his hopes for the future. Josephine, who, with smiling courage and brave fidelity, had stood at his side in the times of want and humiliation, was now to be banished from his side into the isolation of a glittering widowhood. Napoleon had the courage to determine that this should be done, but he lacked the courage to break it to Josephine, and to pronounce the word of separation himself. He was determined to sacrifice to his ambition the woman he had so long called ... — Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... came late, but during the winter it lay deep and heavy on the ground, making the roads almost impassable and their isolation more complete. Both husband and wife began to feel an almost uncontrollable depression amid these bleak surroundings, aggravated as they were by many deaths among the patients. As spring approached Mrs. ... — The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... strangely reminded her of Duerer's portrait of himself. As she did so there was carried to her memory, and imprinted on it, the picture of a wistful and lonely man, his countenance touched, for all its open Irish smile, with some wordless sorrow, some pensive isolation of soul, lean and gaunt with some undefined hunger, a little furtive and covert with some ... — Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... rich in one inestimable possession, such as money cannot purchase—even in the love of a pure devoted heart, which for him, and for his dear sake, bravely endured the life-long loneliness and isolation which their peculiar circumstances induced. Paul did not see Bessie grow old and gray: in his eyes, she never changed; she was to him still beautiful, graceful, and enchanting; she was his betrothed, and he came forth into the world, from his books, and his arduous ... — Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... jointly with G.R. Kirchhoff, of spectrum analysis, which has put a new weapon of extraordinary power into the hands both of chemists and astronomers. It led Bunsen himself almost immediately to the isolation of two new elements of the alkali group, caesium and rubidium. Having noticed some unknown lines in the spectra of certain salts he was examining, he set to work to obtain the substance or substances to which these were due. To this end he evaporated ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... which surprised me was her lack of timidity and fear. The terrible sea, the frail boat, the storms, the suffering, the strangeness and isolation of the situation,—all that should have frightened a robust woman,—seemed to make no impression upon her who had known life only in its most sheltered and consummately artificial aspects, and who was herself all fire and ... — The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... broken remnants of these two pediment-groups, and the key to the interpretation of much that we do possess is lost. We cannot then fully appreciate the intention of the great artist who conceived these works. Yet even in their ruin and their isolation the pediment-figures of the Parthenon are the sublimest creations of Greek ... — A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell
... latest development has been in the direction of killing hand to hand or taking prisoners. We found it necessary to distinguish between an isolated force and a force that was merely a projecting part of a larger force. We made a definition of isolation. After a considerable amount of trials we decided that a man or a detachment shall be considered to be isolated when there is less than half its number of its own side within a move of it. Now, in actual civilised warfare small ... — Little Wars; a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books • H. G. Wells
... as a flash of lightning impresses itself upon the sight, and was instantly succeeded by a rush of most extraordinary and tumultuous emotion at the young queen's extreme distress. An overwhelming sense of her utter isolation and friendlessness, a sudden realisation of her as the centre and victim of a thousand ambitious plots by unscrupulous nobles like Sachar, and of her bitter need of a strong arm and a cool head to ... — In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... seized the keys and rifled the stores.[15] But the company's chief trouble was with its own factors. The climate and conditions were so trying that illness was frequent and insanity and suicide occasional; and the isolation encouraged fraudulent practices. It was usually impossible to tell the false from the true in the reports of the loss of goods by fire and flood, theft and rapine, mildew and white ants, or the loss of slaves by death or mutiny. The ... — American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... M. de Faremont tried the effect of isolation. When, by means of dry glass, he isolated the child's feet and the chair on which she sat, the chair ceased to move, and she remained perfectly quiet. M. Olivier, government engineer, tried a similar experiment, with the same results.[8] A week later, ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... curtains had been drawn with careful hands. The heavy door had been securely closed. The French-windows which led out on to the balcony had been almost barricaded. The four men who were seated around the oval table had certainly secured for themselves what seemed to be a complete and absolute isolation. Yet there was, nevertheless, a sense of uneasiness, an indescribable air of tension in the atmosphere. The quartette had somehow the appearance of conspirators who had not settled down to their work. It was the last arrival, the man who sat at Mr. Grex's right hand, ... — Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was in her many early protests. Sometimes these protests were supported by one or two followers; more often they were solitary protests. Perhaps it is because of their isolation that they stand out so strong and beautiful in a turbulent time in our history when all those about her ... — Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... Details, if studied in isolation, are uninteresting to Form I pupils. Detailed study should be based upon the animal's habits, movements, and instincts, and each detail should be studied as an answer to questions such as: How is the animal able to perform ... — Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Nature Study • Ontario Ministry of Education
... reply. Peggy slowed down the engine. The Golden Butterfly now seemed to be gliding silently through lonely billows of white sea fog. It was an uncanny feeling. The occupants of the machine felt a chilling sense of complete isolation. ... — The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... them all to say heartily, "Bert Weyburn, I don't believe it of you." It wasn't the fault of any of these cold comfort bringers that the milk of human kindness didn't turn to vinegar in me that day, or that I did not drink the cup of bitterness and isolation to ... — Branded • Francis Lynde
... upon this peculiar isolation experienced by the Alpine traveller, it may be conjectured, that, when the boy, Auguste, drew my bridle through his arm, I felt very much as Robinson Crusoe did when he was joined by his man Friday. Auguste and I soon became friends. He was a large, round-faced, mild-eyed ... — The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 • Various
... we are told that the population is divided horizontally by caste and vertically by religion; but in America the race spirit serves both as horizontal and vertical separations. The Negro is segregated and shut in to himself in all social and semi-social relations of life. This isolation necessitates separate ministrative agencies from the lowest to the highest rounds of the ladder of service. During the days of slavery the interests of the master demanded that he should direct the general social and moral ... — The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... of substance is incapable of existing apart from the substance of which it is a mode. Ramanuga points out, however, that some of the Sutras in this book give it clearly to be understood that the freed soul can exist in isolation and in ... — The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... produces in his soul the idea that older people strike small children, when small children cry. This is not an ethical idea. But when the crying child is immediately isolated, and it is explained to him at the same time that whoever annoys others must not be with them; if this isolation is the absolute result, and cannot be avoided, in the child's mind a basis is laid for the experience that one must be alone when one makes oneself unpleasant or disagreeable. In both cases the child is silenced by interfering with his comfort; but one type of discomfort is the exercise ... — The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... right and taught him to respect Sahibs. It happened thus. Horace lay idly gazing at the ever-shifting scene of the platform in lordly detachment and splendid isolation, when, just as the train was starting, a little fat man, dressed in a little red turban like a cotton bowler, a white coat with a white sash over the shoulder, a white apron tucked up behind, pink silk socks, and patent leather shoes, told his servant to open the door. Ere the stupefied ... — Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... he was keeping on himself and she admired him. Nevertheless she knew, young though she was, that if she let him go now she was losing him for ever. The strangest pang of loneliness and isolation seized her. If Paul left her and Martin wasn't there, she was lonely indeed. She saw quite clearly how his laziness would come to his aid. He would summon first his virtue and his religion, and twenty years of abstinence would soon reassert their sway; then he would slip back ... — The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... left to itself in Chinese isolation, there is no saying how long this state of things might have endured. But, happily, it was not left to itself. Even earlier than the thirteenth century, the development of Moorish civilisation in Spain and the great movement of the Crusades had introduced the leaven which, from that day to ... — Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... solitude than that of any other "lone fisher on the lonely sea"! Yet all such things are comparative; and while the others contrast that wave-tossed isolation with the cheeriness of home, his home is silent too. He has a wife and children; they all speak, but he hears not their prattle or their complaints. He summons them with his fingers, as he summons ... — Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... head from one to another, growing pale and red by turns. There was a certain surprise in her look, as she found herself thus at bay. The triumph of having got the better of their opposition was lost in the sense of isolation with which the girl, so long the first object of everybody about her, felt herself thus placed alone. And the tears were very ready to start, but were kept back by jealous pride which rose to her help. Well! if they put her outside the circle ... — The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... DIRA IV is so fearful present no danger to the galaxy. Their corporeal weakness, the poverty of their minds, the incredible isolation of each form, physically and mentally, from others of its kind, and, most strikingly, their mortality, point to the inadequacy of such beings in a contest of any dimension. This is no problem for the Colonial Board. It is a domestic concern. ... — The Demi-Urge • Thomas Michael Disch
... one could n't tell at first—a bird was singing. Many birds were singing, innumerable birds were chirruping, all about. But this bird's song soared clear above the others, distinct from them, away from them, creating for itself a kind of airy isolation. It was an exquisitely sweet, liquid song, it was jocund, joyous, and it was sustained for an astonishing length of time. It went on and on and on, never faltering, never pausing, in soft trills and gay roulades, shrill skirls or flute-like warblings, a continuous outpour, ... — The Lady Paramount • Henry Harland
... and standing with the tall boy in his "Tux" the girl in her butterfly gown made quite a charming little picture. Their isolation at the moment, standing well out on the floor almost alone at the end of the "first half," gave them somewhat undue prominence, but it also gave everyone a splendid opportunity of seeing Ted and of admiring Sally's ... — Jane Allen: Junior • Edith Bancroft
... no friends remain to me! I am the last of my race, and to all whom I have known I have long been as are the dead.— But to return to yourselves. Solitude, isolation, are painful things, and beyond human endurance. I die of having thought it possible to live alone! You should, therefore, dare all in the attempt to leave Lincoln Island, and see once more the land of your birth. I ... — The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... communicating to each other any suspicions which they might chance to entertain. Such seclusion, so far as related to the ladies of the royal family, was not unusual after the death of a king, and Smerdis did not deviate from the ordinary custom, except to make the isolation and confinement of the princesses and queens more rigorous and strict than common. By means of this policy he was enabled to go on for some months without detection, living all the while in the greatest luxury and splendor, but ... — Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... Penda" in Ealing: fortunately not on any large scale. What that prince believed or disbelieved it is now impossible and perhaps unnecessary to discover; but this last stand of his central kingdom is not insignificant. The isolation of the Mercian was perhaps due to the fact that Christianity grew from the eastern and western coasts. The eastern growth was, of course, the Augustinian mission, which had already made Canterbury the spiritual capital of the island. The western ... — A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... lyric glory was denied him, and his ugliness, coupled with his supposed poverty, kept him from getting married. The pleasures of a gourmand replaced those of the lover; he likewise found some consolation for his isolation in his friendship with Schmucke. Pons suffered from his taste for high living; he grew old, like a parasitic plant, outside the circle of his family, only tolerated by his distant cousins, the Camusot de ... — Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... detritus now seen on the first inland cliff, the old submarine slope of the island. The occurrence of such a series of Tertiary deposits appears to be unknown elsewhere. The whole series was evidently deposited in shallow water on the summit of a submarine volcano standing in its present isolation, and round which the ocean floor has probably altered but a few hundred feet since the Eocene age. Thus although the rocks of the southern coast of Java in their general character and succession resemble those of Christmas ... — Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... traditions about deluges and destructions of mankind, and the preservation of a remnant? 'Every one believes in them.' Then let us suppose the world to have been destroyed by a deluge. The survivors would be hill-shepherds, small sparks of the human race, dwelling in isolation, and unacquainted with the arts and vices of civilization. We may further suppose that the cities on the plain and on the coast have been swept away, and that all inventions, and every sort of knowledge, have perished. ... — Laws • Plato
... Socialist-Revolutionists, who refused to consider such co-operation, and pointed to the fact that provocateurs in large numbers associated themselves with the latter in their organizations and preached the same doctrine of absolute isolation and exclusiveness. ... — Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... and his friends did not hesitate to close with this piece of good fortune, which opened an honourable passage from a position of comparative isolation to one of triumph and power. The Healyites, whose quarrel appeared to be wholly with Mr Dillon, to whom Mr Healy in sardonic mood had attached the sobriquet of "a melancholy humbug," made no difficulty about falling in with ... — Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... importance or in possession of a perfectly similar independence; there were certain ties uniting them to other states, resulting in certain reciprocal obligations which became the basis, or, one might say, the constitution of the feudal community; but their prevailing feature was, nevertheless, isolation, personal existence. They were really petty states begotten from the dismemberment of a great territory; those local governments were formed at the expense of ... — A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... news came from the land of their destination of an event already referred to—news which for many a long day checked every thought of adventure thither, and had the effect of throwing New Zealand back into its old position of isolation and aloofness. The ship Boyd, which had sailed from Sydney not many months previously, had been surprised by the Maoris in the harbour of Whangaroa, and with four exceptions all its white crew, to the number of about 70 persons, ... — A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... their occupation. The hut consisted of a mere square box, made by piling logs on top of one another, the spaces between being filled with mud, while the roof was formed of loose stone slabs. Huts of that sort are everywhere common among the isolation of the American backwoods; and isolated indeed they were, for the Garfields' nearest neighbours, when they first set up house, lived as far as seven miles away, across ... — Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... North Syria, France declining to take part in the conference on the subject. An Anglo-Austrian army undertook to eject him, St Jean d'Acre was stormed, and France thrust into a position of unwilling isolation. Thiers, who had been made Minister, expected that Mehemet would be able to retain his conquests, and for a time it looked as though France would interfere to protect him. Ultimately, in spite of some ostentatious preparations in France, peaceful counsels prevailed, and Thiers found it advisable ... — The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... day the pioneers were keenly conscious of their isolation. The emptiness of the land seemed to press upon their breasts, hindering free breathing. Moreover, their nerves were still jangling as a ... — The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... terrible guest [Trouble] brings for us, if we will accept it, the boon of fortitude, patience, self-control, wisdom, sympathy, faith. If we reject that, then we find in our hands the other gift,—cowardice, weakness, isolation, despair. If your trouble seems to have in it no other possibility of good, at least set yourself to bear it like a man. Let none of its weight come on other shoulders. Try to carry it so that no one shall even see it. Though your heart be sad within, let cheer go out from you to others. Meet ... — Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston |