"Magnifying glass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1879.—Letter from——. This kind friend of mine has no pity.... I have been trying to quiet his over-delicate susceptibilities.... It is difficult to write perfectly easy letters when one finds them studied with a magnifying glass, and treated like monumental inscriptions, in which each character has been deliberately engraved with a view to an eternity of life. Such disproportion between the word and its commentary, between the playfulness of the writer and the analytical temper of the reader, is not favorable to ease ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... fact that the lock on the temple of the first-born twined itself into a perfect curl. The lock on the left temple of the second son remained brown, and not a sign of grey could be discovered even with a magnifying glass. The heart of the young mother was filled with alarm, and she called the old nurse who had taken care of her dead husband when he was a baby, to ask her what had happened at his baptism, and the old woman burst into tears, and ended by betraying the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 'twas mamma. She couldn't bear dirty things. Auntie used to say that mamma hunted dust with a magnifying glass. She didn't, though; she only liked to be neat. I guess dust doesn't worry men so much ...
— Cy Whittaker's Place • Joseph C. Lincoln
... can lay in bed till they call you for breakfast, if you want to," was Holmes's reply, piling out of bed and jerking his clothes on as if he were a fireman answering a fire. Then he took out the magnifying glass that he always carried in his pocket, and a microscope out of our suit-case, pulled a chair over to one of the windows, and began to go over the twelve shoes one by one, first with the magnifying glass ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... in the various perfumes in favor among the fair sex, or by any of those complicated, brain fatiguing processes of ratiocination indulged in by our old friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes. There are still, however, genuine detectives, and some of them are to be found upon the New York police force. The magnifying glass is not one of the ordinary tools of the professional sleuth, and if he carries a pistol at all it is because the police rules require it, while those cases may be numbered upon the fingers of two hands where his own hair and whiskers are not entirely sufficient ...
— True Stories of Crime From the District Attorney's Office • Arthur Train
... the stones much as Allen had done, but he went farther. From his pocket he produced a small but powerful magnifying glass. It was one he used, sometimes, in looking at samples of carpet at his office. He put one of the larger stones under ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View - Or, The Box That Was Found in the Sand • Laura Lee Hope
... drawing: take your pen—your finest—and just try to copy the leaves that entangle the nearest cow's head and the head itself; remembering always that the kind of work required here is mere child's play compared to that of fine figure engraving. Nevertheless, take a strong magnifying glass to this—count the dots and lines that gradate the nostrils and the edges of the facial bone; notice how the light is left on the top of the head by the stopping at its outline of the coarse touches which form ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... proceeded to examine the two pieces of metal under a magnifying glass. Then with his geologist's hammer he broke off bits of the metal, through all of which sparkled ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Rockies • Frank Gee Patchin
... coming; only this balance spring is a job that I cannot well leave," replied Nicholas, continuing his vocation in the shop, with a magnifying glass ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat
... highest degree instructive, the harmonious light and shade, the manly simplicity of execution, and the easy, unincumbered fancy, of designs which belonged to the best period of Cruikshank's genius. To make somewhat enlarged copies of them, looking at them through a magnifying glass, and never putting two lines where Cruikshank has put only one, would be an exercise in decision and severe drawing which would leave afterwards little to be learnt in schools, I would gladly also say much in their praise as imaginative designs; but the power of genuine ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... dark. You've got the paper that was round the box. I saw you looking at it, through a magnifying glass, just now." ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Walter Gray, was employed at a watchmaker's of repute. He spent all his working life with a magnifying glass in his eye, peering into the mechanism of watches, adjusting the delicate pivots and springs on which their lives moved. His occupation had perhaps encouraged in him a habit of introspection. Perhaps he found the human machine as worthy of interest as ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... shot the intolerable glare of two yellow eyes. To the gaze of Duke, still blurred by slumber, this monstrosity was all of one piece the bone seemed a living part of it. What he saw was like those interesting insect-faces that the magnifying glass reveals to great M. Fabre. It was impossible for Duke to maintain the philosophic calm of M. Fabre, however; there was no magnifying glass between him and this spined and spiky face. Indeed, Duke was not in a position to think the matter over quietly. If he had been able to do that, he would ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... the door and hung a handkerchief over the keyhole. Next, he inspected the windows, and saw that they were not overlooked from any angle of the main building. Then he carefully examined the trunk, going over it with a magnifying glass. He found it intact: the steel bands were flawless; the whole trunk was compact. After sitting opposite to it for some time, and the shades of evening beginning to melt into darkness, he gave up the task and went to his bedroom, after locking ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... and X. is too much of a man to go in for that.' After quoting Milton's 'Lycidas' and 'Christmas Hymn,' which he always greatly admired, he adds that he is 'thankful that he is not a poet. To see all important things through a magnifying glass of strange brilliant colours, and to have all manner of tunes continually playing in one's head, and I suppose in one's heart too, would make one very wretched.' A good commonplace intellect satisfied with the homely food of law and 'greedily ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... beyond that the yellow desert sands stretched away in the distance. We rode along beside the wall, which on this side faced the west. I was surprised to see that the whole wall was set with mirrors of magnifying glass, now reflecting the gorgeous colors of the sunset as it glowed in between the trees. It would have been beautiful had it not been for the frightful reflections of ourselves and the horses. They loomed ...
— The Enchanted Island • Fannie Louise Apjohn
... breakfast; after which I felt more my own man, and so returned to the Grey Room, and, with Peter's help, and one of the maids, I had everything taken out of the room, except the bed—even the very pictures. I examined the walls, floor and ceiling then, with probe, hammer and magnifying glass; but found nothing suspicious. And I can assure you, I began to realize, in very truth, that some incredible thing had been loose in the room during the past night. I sealed up everything again, and went out, locking and sealing ...
— Carnacki, The Ghost Finder • William Hope Hodgson
... on the shining hat and goes out. Ridgeon begins looking at the pictures. Presently he comes back to the table for a magnifying glass, and scrutinizes a drawing very closely. He sighs; shakes his head, as if constrained to admit the extraordinary fascination and merit of the work; then marks the Secretary's list. Proceeding with his survey, he disappears behind the screen. Jennifer comes back with her book. A look ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • George Bernard Shaw
... of his leather bags there was a magnifying glass, and he assured himself that he was merely curious—most casually curious—as he hunted it out from among his belongings and scanned the almost illegible writing on the back of the cardboard mount. He made out the date quite ...
— The Courage of Marge O'Doone • James Oliver Curwood
... lay a pair of jewelers' tweezers and a magnifying glass, therefore it was apparent that, as a connoisseur of gems, he ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... mineral has been kept at a high red heat for a sufficient length of time to convince one of what it may do, as fuse or not, or on the edges. The first two are evident, as when it fuses it runs into a globule; the last, by inspecting it before and after the heating with a magnifying glass; sometimes it froths up when heated, and is then said to "intumesce;" or, if it flies to fragments, "decrepitates." Upon the first it is further heated; but in the latter case, a new splinter of mineral must be ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... my sister had given the whole blamed show away! I take it you put your magnifying glass back in your pocket after your trip ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... difficulty in keeping from laughing. The smell which had greeted Mr. Rowlands' nostrils was caused by Garston, who was deliberately burning holes with a magnifying glass in the coat of the boy in front of him, who sat all unconscious of what was happening to this ...
— Soldiers of the Queen • Harold Avery
... girl standing beside a pile of breakfast baskets, and the thin, keen morning air resounded with banter and voices. The King's Messenger, freshly shaven and pink of countenance (a woman once likened his face to that of a cherub looked at through a magnifying glass), stood at the door of his carriage and exchanged morning greetings with travellers of his acquaintance. Then the guard's whistle sounded; the noise and laughter redoubled along the platform and a general scramble ensued. Doors slammed down the length ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... valuable manuscripts and illuminated editions of old works. There was a small copy of the four evangelists, written in characters resembling print, but so small that it cannot be read without a magnifying glass. This volume was the labour of a lifetime, and the transcriber completed his useless task upon his deathbed. While Mr. Longfellow was showing me some autographs of American patriots, I remarked that as I was showing some in a Canadian city, a gentleman standing by, on seeing ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... magnifying glass, and often by the naked eye, we may detect the stinger which has been left behind by the greedy guest, and which should be removed by a pair of tweezers. Ice-water compresses will stop the swelling and even an old-fashioned mud dressing, which ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... about to laugh at its small size and gauzy texture, when his eye was caught by something in its corner. He held it nearer to the window. The thing that had caught his eye was a cypher surmounted by a crown, embroidered so minutely as almost to call for a magnifying glass. But without a glass he could see that the cypher was composed of the initials M and D, and that the crown was not a coronet, but a closed crown, of the pattern worn by ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... return he received a letter from a certain G— S—, who wrote from Southampton detailing a number of observations he had made upon the organisms to be seen with a magnifying glass in an infusion of vegetable matter, and as "an ignoramus," apologised for any appearance of conceit in so doing, while asking his advice as to the best means of improving his scientific knowledge. Huxley was much struck by the tone of the letter and the description of the experiments, ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... with their burden. A moment later they returned, carrying, with the help of two other men, the mummy in its big case. Owen also entered, and Marvin, with the joy of an Egyptologist, grasped a magnifying glass and examined ...
— The Perils of Pauline • Charles Goddard
... a magnifying glass to study the little picture; he took it from the frame and examined the frame itself. The statement of Monroe as to its age seemed verified. Certain things in the face were strange, but certain other things were wonderfully like Judithe ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... to understand the general principle of a telescope. A general knowledge of the common magnifying glass may be assumed. Roger Bacon knew about lenses; and the ancients often refer to them, though usually as burning glasses. The magnifying power of globes of water must have been noticed soon after the discovery of glass and the art of ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... ever tried to trace science to its author. When the people were frightened by the "water turning to blood" and overzealous priests cried that it was a sign of the wrath of God, he showed under the magnifying glass the presence of innumerable little animals that gave the water its reddish tinge, and thereby gave offence to some pious souls. But over the door of his lecture room were the words in Latin: "Live guiltless—God sees you!" and in his old age, seeing with prophetic ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... take the fingermarks of each girl. Lightly rub the thumb on blacklead or on paper that is blacked with pencil, then press the thumb on paper and examine with magnifying glass. Show that no ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... foliage, as may be seen by the illustration (Fig. 83) is highly ornamental. In November, the grand half-globular tufts of rigid dark green foliage are delicately furnished with a whitish exudation, which, seen through a magnifying glass, resembles scales, but seen by the naked eye—and it can be clearly seen without stooping—it gives the idea of hoar frost. We have here, then, an interesting and ornamental subject, which, when grown in collections of considerable variety, proves attractive; ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... newspapers for wrapping samples, notebook and pencil, geologist's pick, cold chisel, magnifying glass, compass, heavy gloves, a knife, and a knapsack. Later on, you may want a Geiger counter for spotting ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company
... from his pocket a magnifying glass and a tiny pair of silver callipers such as are used by jewelers for handling ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings
... Henderson glanced at the mysterious message that had so curiously come to them. Some of the writing was very faint, but by the aid of a magnifying glass it was deciphered. Then, amid a deep silence the ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... her, for the moment she had given utterance to her railing words, conscience told her they were false. This conviction, however, did not lessen the rancor and bitterness of her feelings. Hurrying on, she paused in front of the beech tree, and the cyphers glared Upon her as if seen through a magnifying glass—they looked so large and fiery. Opening her pen-knife, she smiled as a moonbeam glared on its keen, blue edge. Had any one seen the expression of her features, as she gazed at that shining, open blade, they would have shuddered, and trembled for ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... larger creatures only, and those that have red blood, but the smaller, and pale-blooded ones also, such as slugs, snails, scallops, shrimps, crabs, crayfish, and many others; nay, even in wasps, hornets, and flies, I have, with the aid of a magnifying glass, and at the upper part of what is called the tail, both seen the heart pulsating myself, and ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... for the bell. It is such an easy matter to deck shrines and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous when they are gone past the place where the echoes of man's praise can reach. It is easier than hearing and obeying the message which they carry. We were given a powerful magnifying glass to inspect the workmanship of the shrine that held the bell, but my thoughts would turn back to the plain common-looking bell itself. Still I did admire the exquisite workmanship of the shrine, which could only be fully appreciated when seen through the magnifying ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall
... endured the heated atmosphere of one of the great days. His eyes took in the most trifling details of the scene,—the cotton-wool in the greffier's ear and a blot of ink on the Deputy Prosecutor's papers. He could see, as through a magnifying glass, the capitals of the pillars sculptured at a time when all knowledge of the classical orders was forgotten and which crowned the Gothic columns with wreaths of nettle and holly. But wherever he looked, his gaze came back again and again to the fatal chair; this was of an ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... in an admirable humor, stepped just outside the tent to look at the fish, and in that little interval his assistant, seized with inquisitiveness, stole up to his table, and picked up the tiny object lying there under the magnifying glass. ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... discuss, and comment upon, a prodigious number of plants, all of which, being in pots or boxes, were conveyed by the youth to the empty stand at the side of the fair invalid. The minute examination with a magnifying glass of corolla, and stamen, and calyx, etcetera, rendered it necessary, of course, that these inquiries into the mysteries of Nature should bring the two heads pretty close together; one consequence being that the seed-plant of sympathy was ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... through a magnifying glass, it has exactly that appearance, and that is how people came to think of using it as a remedy for all sorts of diseases of the chest. Later, when the lichen has gathered enough vegetable soil, the mosses appear; they have quite simple flowers and grow seed. They are not unlike ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg
... because he is not spiteful. Gertrude keeps a recording angel inside her little head, and it is so full of other people's faults, written in large hand and read through a magnifying glass, that there is no room ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... Lady of a thin airy Shape, who was very active in this Solemnity. She carried a magnifying Glass in one of her Hands, and was cloathed in a loose flowing Robe, embroidered with several Figures of Fiends and Spectres, that discovered themselves in a Thousand chimerical Shapes, as her Garment hovered ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... It was evident to all the car that the solution of the mystery was a question of moments. Once he bent forward eagerly and putting the chain on the window-sill, proceeded to go over it with a pocket magnifying glass, only to shake his head in disappointment. All the people around shook their heads too, although they had not the slightest idea what ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... as though a penetrating flood of cold white light were poured upon the music and made it transparent: one perceived every remotest and least significant detail with a vivid distinctness that can only be compared with a page of print seen through a strong magnifying glass, or, perhaps better still, with a photograph seen through a stereoscope. As in a stereoscope, the outlines were defined with a degree of clearness and sharpness that almost hurt the eye; as in a stereoscope, there was neither colour nor suggestiveness. An orchestral virtuoso, ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... her daughter in a magnifying glass,' said Rupert; 'a glorious specimen of what you all may come ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and the Sweat Glands.—On a warm day the skin becomes wet with a salty fluid called sweat or perspiration. This flows from the tiny holes or pores in the skin. A good magnifying glass will show these pores arranged in rows on the ridges in the palm of ...
— Health Lessons - Book 1 • Alvin Davison
... the toad; if, however, the beads are not in strings, but in irregular masses, then they are frogs' eggs. In any case take home a tumblerful, place a few, together with the thick, transparent gelatine, in which they are encased, in a saucer, and examine them carefully under a good magnifying glass, or, better still, through ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... shot the intolerable glare of two yellow eyes. To the gaze of Duke, still blurred by slumber, this monstrosity was all of one piece—the bone seemed a living part of it. What he saw was like those interesting insect-faces which the magnifying glass reveals to great M. Fabre. It was impossible for Duke to maintain the philosophic calm of M. Fabre, however; there was no magnifying glass between him and this spined and spiky face. Indeed, Duke ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... fresh smell of it all, especially after rain. She spent every available moment there, for it was an excellent place for pursuing natural history study. She had many opportunities of observing birds or of catching moths and butterflies, and generally had a net handy. With a magnifying glass she often watched the movements of small insects. She had come in one afternoon for this purpose, and wandered down to a rather wild spot at the bottom of the garden. It was a small piece of rough ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... for Drew to study out later by the aid of his dictionary. Then at the points where the story seemed most important, there would be a crease in the paper that would eliminate an entire line. Other words had faded so completely that the magnifying glass failed to help. ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... ain't a-going anywhere just at present, Lord George?' said that fellow Gager. 'What the devil's that to you?' I asked him. He just laughed and shook his head. I don't doubt but that there's a policeman about waiting till I leave this house;—or looking at me now with a magnifying glass from the windows at the other side. They've photographed me while I'm going about, and published a list of every hair on my face in the 'Hue and Cry.' I dined at the club yesterday, and found a strange waiter. I feel certain that he was a policeman ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... it was handed to Captain Pakenham, who, holding it up against the light, produced a magnifying glass from his pocket, through which ...
— Will Weatherhelm - The Yarn of an Old Sailor • W.H.G. Kingston
... my dear Maurice,' said the voice, and a huge face came quite close to his. It was his own face, as it would have seemed through a magnifying glass. And the voice—oh, horror!—the voice was his own voice—Maurice Basingstoke's voice. Maurice shrank from the voice, and he would have liked to claw the face, but ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... Of course," he answered, producing a magnifying glass. "Can't you? No, I remember; you never were good at anything more than fifty years old. Hullo! this is early Hebrew. Ah! I've got it," ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... step in the examination of a suspected signature is to master thoroughly the various characteristics of the genuine signature. These must be studied in every possible relation, and from as many specimens as can be obtained. The magnifying glass must be in constant use and the eye alert to detect the angle at which the pen is habitually held, the class of pen used, and the degree of pressure and speed employed. These last-named points can only be discovered ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... parts of letters on the corner were made by the hand of the mender. He has imitated the ink and the style of the ancient letters. Take this magnifying glass and you may be able to detect the difference between the hand-made letters in the new part and the printed ones. But to the naked eye ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... powerful Mazda lamp, the better to scan the prepared paper left where an incautious thief would be obliged to rest his hand with some degree of force. Under the powerful light the finger prints stood out distinct and clear. But with eyes starting from his head, Whitney paused to snatch up a magnifying glass, and by its aid examined ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... Brett produced a magnifying glass. Beneath the rust on the blade he thought he could distinguish some Japanese characters in the quaint pictorial script adapted by that singular people from the Chinese system ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... yourself filing a long, tapering point on the end of a wire only one eighteen-hundredths of an inch in diameter, in order to get it through a draw plate that will bring it down to one two-thousandths. My son does that without using a magnifying glass. I cannot say positively what uses this very thin wire is put to, but something in surgery, I believe, either for fastening together portions of bone or for operations. A newly invented instrument has been described to me, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... individual man? An atom, almost invisible without a magnifying glass—a mere speck upon the surface of the immense universe; not a second in time, compared to immeasurable, never-beginning, and never-ending eternity; a drop of water in the great deep, which evaporates and is borne off by the winds; a grain of sand, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume II. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... copper-colored eyes and neither young nor old, this woman had something commanding, imperious, disturbing about her, and I must confess that my heart beat more violently than usual while she looked at the lines in my left hand through a strong magnifying glass, where the mysterious characters of some satanic conjuring look appear, and ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... a sugar cane in two, and examine the interior part of it with a magnifying glass, you perceive the crystals of sugar as distinct and as white as those of double-refined sugar. The object of the operator should be then either to extract those crystals without altering their color, or, if that be found impracticable, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... monotony they found that they had pipes and tobacco, but no matches. While, however, they were dismally bemoaning this unfortunate state of affairs Wilson, who did not smoke, came to the rescue and succeeded in producing fire with a small pocket magnifying glass—a performance which testified not only to Wilson's resource, but also to the power of the sun ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... snatched up from the table a little magnifying glass which he used in studying all the niceties of handwriting. He suddenly felt unnerved. "Whom is it from? This hand is familiar to me, very familiar. I must have often read its tracings, yes, very often. ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... waist. As she sat down close to the table on which I stood, her appearance astonished me not a little. This made me reflect upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass, where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough, and coarse ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... and comparing fingerprints it is necessary to use a magnifying or fingerprint glass. Such instruments can be obtained from various commercial sources. Figure 411 shows the type of magnifying glass used by ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... elaborately decorated. The minute and intricate style of the work is strikingly shown by the fact that, even after prolonged study, some patterns escaped notice and have only lately been discovered. Further, each of the gold lines is made of tiny gold balls, so small as only to be seen by means of a magnifying glass. ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... may have been careless. But you magnify a slight error into a grievous sin; and I do indeed believe that it must be your present bad state of health which acts as the magnifying glass. That ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... immense amount of manuscript, in an inconceivably small space; tales, dramas, poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte, in a hand which it is almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass. No description will give so good an idea of the extreme minuteness of the writing as the annexed facsimile of ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte - Volume 1 • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Flora petrinsularis, and to describe every single plant on the island, in detail enough to occupy me for the rest of my days. In consequence of this fine scheme, every morning after breakfast, which we all took in company, I used to go with a magnifying glass in my hand and my Systema Naturae under my arm, to visit some district of the island. I had divided it for that purpose into small squares, meaning to go through them one after another in each season of the year. At the end of two or three hours I used to return laden with an ample harvest, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... not a word to say, so violent and abrupt was the transition of subject. It was as though she had been gazing down through a powerful magnifying glass, trying to untangle with her eyes a complicated twist of moral fibers, inextricably bound up with each other, the moral fibers that made up her life . . . and in the midst of this, someone had roughly shouted in her ear, "Look up there, at ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... eight one-hundreths of an inch thick; it has at one end a perforated hole for hanging it up, and on the other side six encircling incisions, which give the article the appearance of a screw; it is only by means of a magnifying glass that it is found not to be really a screw. I also found in the same vase two pieces of gold, one of which is one-seventh of an inch, the other above two inches long; each ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... breast pocket of his shirt and handed them over without comment. Steve studied them for long minutes, then went to a table and took a magnifying glass from the table drawer. He placed the pictures directly under a lamp and studied them with the aid ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... of his waistcoat pocket, and waited till Lucilla had fairly exhausted herself with laughing. Then the examination—so cruelly grotesque in itself, so terribly serious in the issues which it involved—resumed its course: Herr Grosse glaring at his patient through his magnifying glass; Lucilla leaning back in the chair, holding ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... it is. But you are making the greatest mistake in imagining that her book was not approved at Rome. It was examined there, like every book of the kind, through a magnifying glass, strained through a sieve, picked over line by line, turned inside out and upside down; but the theologians employed in this pious custom-house service acknowledged and certified that this work, based on ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... then. In his dressing room, he changed from dinner clothes to tweeds; spent a second or so over the contents of a locked drawer in the dresser, from which he selected a very small but serviceable automatic, and a very small but highly powerful magnifying glass whose combination of little round lenses worked on a pivot, and, closed over one another, were of about the compass of ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... don't talk or write that way. The letter's a manifest forgery, as I'll prove by confronting Feisul with it. But there's a little oversight that should convince you it's a forgery. Have you a magnifying glass, doc?" ...
— Affair in Araby • Talbot Mundy
... mission-house; and when the fathers had decorated the interior with highly-coloured pictures of the saints and the glittering regalia of the Church, the red men filled it to overflowing. A striking clock and a magnifying glass, however, were the chief objects of wonderment, and the credulous Indians regarded the priests as the workers of miracles. This awe and respect the fathers turned to good account, gathering the children into the mission-house for daily instruction. ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... weight and chill of them, Clark experienced a peculiar thrill, then, under a magnifying glass he examined each with extreme care, turning them so that the light fell fair on edge and fracture. One after another he scrutinized, while the breed ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... with a single flower or tree or figure of man or bird. One vase exhibited here is covered with butterflies which range from natural size down to figures so small that they can be discerned only under a magnifying glass. Yet, this vase, which represents such an enormous outlay of labor and time, is sold at ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... the "rising generation" expects just as much obedience to orders as they withhold. If you were to hear the young gentleman delivering to me his lectures on health, and dilating upon air, exercise, social intercourse, and gay spirits, you would be forced to seek a magnifying glass to believe that your eyes did not deceive you, but that it was really your nephew haranguing his mother. However, we must pass by the exhorting impetuosity, in favour of the zealous anxiety that fires it ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Brussels there is a painting by Wiertz, most cynical of artists, representing the man of the Future and the things of the Past. A naturalist holds in his right hand a magnifying glass, and in the other a handful of Napoleon and his marshals, guns, and battle-flags,—tiny objects swelling with meaningless glory. He examines these intensely, while a child at his side looks on in open-eyed wonder. She cannot understand ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan
... spiral trace; and by paring off one record after another can be used fifteen times. There are a hundred or more lines of the trace in the width of an inch, and they are hardly visible to the naked eye. Only with a magnifying glass can the undulations caused by the vibrating stylus be distinguished. This tube of wax is filed upon a metal barrel like a sleeve, and the barrel, which forms part of a horizontal spindle, is rotated by means of a silent electro-motor, controlled ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... or whether there was but a beating in mine ears. Even at that moment, all uncertain as I was, I perceived, in the paper whereon I was writing, a little insect that ceased not to carol like very chanticleer, until, taking a magnifying glass, I assiduously observed him. He is about the bigness of a mite, and carries a grey crest, and the head low, bowed over the bosom; as to his crowing noise, it comes of his clashing his wings against each other with an incessant din." Thus far Mentzelius, and more to the same purpose, ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... Eve de Montalais made it possible for Lanyard to examine the safe in her boudoir without exciting comment in the household. He was nearly an hour thus engaged, but brought back to the drawing-room, in addition to the heavy magnifying glass which he had requisitioned to eke out his eyesight, ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... bird, the man of science, with a giant magnifying glass held up to his eye, sped hither and thither on his long, angular limbs, inspecting minutely the drawings and crude attempts at decoration. Already he had out his tape-measure and sketch-book, making observations and recording measurements. Presently, ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... eye of the Englishman took in the lay of the land at a glance, and beckoning Fitz to one side he stooped and picked something from the ground which he examined carefully with a magnifying glass. Then they both disappeared hurriedly ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... engraving, what have you done? You have paid a man for a certain number of hours to sit at a dirty table, in a dirty room, inhaling the fumes of nitric acid, stooping over a steel plate, on which, by the help of a magnifying glass, he is, one by one, laboriously cutting out certain notches and scratches, of which the effect is to be the copy of another man's work. You cannot suppose you have done a very charitable thing in this! On the other hand, ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... she spoke prettily of his career. He was to be the flambeau eveilleur, the awakening torch in the darkness before the daybreak. But he musn't overwork. His health was precious. There was a blot and erasure in the sentence. He took the letter to the light, lover-wise, and looked at it through a magnifying glass—and his pulses thrilled when it told him that she had originally written, "Votre sante m'est precieuse," and had scrabbled out the "m." "Your health is precious to me." That is what her heart had said. ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... Filippino Lippi. And here is a Masaccio. The great Perugino Assumption has all his mellow sunset calm, and never was a landscape more tenderly sympathetic. The same painter's Deposition hangs next, and the custodian brings a magnifying glass that the tears on the Magdalen's cheek may be more closely observed; but the third, No. 53, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, is finer, and here again the landscape and light are perfect. For the rest, there is a Royal Academy Andrea and a ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... Kenwitz unscrewed a magnifying glass from his eye, routed out his parent from a dingy rear room, and abandoned the interior of watches for outdoors. He went with Dan, and they sat on a bench in Washington Square. Dan had not changed much; he was stalwart, and had a dignity that was inclined ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry
... which were heaped with books, like the Chaldaean tablets already described, The number of books in the collection has been estimated at ten thousand. The writing upon some of the tablets is so minute that it cannot be read without the aid of a magnifying glass. We learn from the inscriptions that a librarian had charge of the collection. Catalogues of the books have been found, made out on clay tablets. The library was open to the public, for an inscription says, "I [Asshur-bani-pal] wrote upon the tablets; I placed ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... some, who by his friendship rose To wealth, in concert with his foes Run counter to their former track, Like old Actaeon's horrid pack Of yelling mongrels, in requitals To riot on their master's vitals; And, where they cannot blast his laurels, Attempt to stigmatize his morals; Through Scandal's magnifying glass His foibles view, but virtues pass, And on the ruins of his fame Erect an ignominious name. So vermin foul, of vile extraction, The spawn of dirt and putrefaction, The sounder members traverse o'er, But fix and fatten on a sore. Hence! peace, ye wretches, ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... difficulty in returning. Means must be found, however, to make it possible for each bird to carry many letters. M. Dagron, a clever photographer, discovered this means. He showed how he could photograph a letter and reduce it in size till the writing became unreadable, even under an ordinary magnifying glass. This could be done on films so thin that a roll of twenty of them could be inserted in one quill, each film representing a large number of letters. Having proved to the authorities the success of his invention, M. Dagron ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... bark just enough to come to the first light under coating, which is somewhat moist. With a lead pencil make an outline of the inscription to be burnt on the tree and bring, the rays of a large magnifying glass not quite to a fine focus on the same. The tree will be burnt along the pencil marks, and if the glass is not held in one spot too long, the inscription will be burnt in as evenly as if it had been written. —Contributed by Stewart H. ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... was detailed in the public papers, had its influence upon several members of the House of Commons. But there were others, who had been as it were panic-struck by the statement. These in their fright seemed to have lost the right use of their eyes, or to have looked through a magnifying glass. With these the argument of emancipation, which they would have rejected at another time as ridiculous, obtained now easy credit. The massacres too and the ruin, though only conjectural, they admitted also. Hence some of them deserted our cause wholly, while others, wishing to do justice as far ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... are caused by little, tiny live animals or plants called germs. They are so small that you require a magnifying glass to ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... things, not made in any familiar form. But to see the plain, square, human things as large as that, houses so large and streets so large, and the town itself so large, was like having screwed some devil's magnifying glass into one's eye. It was like seeing a porridge bowl as big as a house, or a mouse-trap ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... investigations of some of the infidel psychologists of the preceding and present century. In him was a sort of Catholic Duranty, but more dogmatic and penetrating, an experienced manipulation of the magnifying glass, a sophisticated engineer of the soul, a skillful watchmaker of the brain, delighting to examine the mechanism of a passion and elucidate it by details ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... entered by the rear door and carried the basket of shells to his bedroom. There he took them out and one by one spread them on the table. He drew a goose-necked lamp down close and from the table drawer took out a powerful ato-magnifying glass. Then he selected one of the larger shells ...
— Made in Tanganyika • Carl Richard Jacobi
... is a species of fungus, or minute vegetable, which may be distinctly seen when examined by a magnifying glass. ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... who sets type develops keenness of vision and manual dexterity. The stoker develops the muscles of his arms and back, the engineer alertness of eye and ear. All sorts of devices have been invented to aid this specialization of particular organs, as well as to correct their imperfections: the magnifying glass, the telescope, the microscope, extend the powers of the eye; the spectacle or an operation on the eye muscles enables the defective eye to do normal work. A man with astigmatism might be a policeman all his life, win promotion, and die ignorant of his defect; ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... that fasting would not help him any; nor would sleeplessness. He ate, therefore, washed his few dishes and went straight to bed. And although he lay for a long while looking at his trouble through the magnifying glass of worry, he did sleep finally—and without one definite plan ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... pictures, believe me, Jack!" he cried, after closely examining the roll of film the other was holding up, after fixing the same, and starting to wash the hypo off. "Why, I warrant you, with a magnifying glass there'll be no trouble at all in identifying that Maurice and his crowd one by one, as they were nearly all facing the camera when you shut it off. And say, you've caught the pyramid of timbers and oil and stones just at its ...
— Jack Winters' Campmates • Mark Overton
... notice the least thing in my conduct that dissatisfies you, if you discover a speck of black on Don Luis Perenna's conscience, examined under the magnifying glass, don't hesitate: collar me with both hands. I authorize you to do it. I order you to do it. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... sitting down, the more conveniently to give suck, and I standing on the table. This made me reflect upon the fair skins of our English ladies, who appear so beautiful to us, only because they are of our own size, and their defects not to be seen but through a magnifying glass; where we find by experiment that the smoothest and whitest skins look rough, and ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... I left Studley Grange. I took with me, without asking leave of any-one, a certain long black cloak, a small electric lamp, and a magnifying glass of considerable power. ...
— The Strand Magazine: Volume VII, Issue 37. January, 1894. - An Illustrated Monthly • Edited by George Newnes
... Equipped with a magnifying glass, he lit a fire of deadwood that was soon crackling merrily. Meanwhile Conseil and I selected the finest artocarpus fruit. Some still weren't ripe enough, and their thick skins covered white, slightly fibrous pulps. But a great many others were ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... making a book beautiful, they lavished much time and loving care to achieve their end. The detail is extraordinarily minute and complicated. "I have counted," writes Professor Westwood, "[with a magnifying glass] in a small space scarcely three-quarters of an inch in length by less than half an inch in width, in the Book of Armagh, no less than 158 interlacements of a slender ribbon pattern formed of white lines edged with black ones." But, this intricacy notwithstanding, the designs ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... handed her one of the beads and a strong magnifying glass. "Look!" he commanded. Beryl obeyed. There, quite plainly, she made out ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... attracted by the newer elements, the strange and the unusual, as in The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Poe followed with a combination of all the romantic materials,—the supernatural, the terrible, and the unusual. Bret Harte applied his magnifying glass to unusual crises in the strange lives of the western pioneers. By a skillful use of light and shadow, Mark Twain heightened the effect of the strange scenes through which he passed in his young ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... I called the child Myndert. He was the seventh of that name; and I used to think, even when he was a toddling little baby, what plans of education would be best suited to develop his talents. I know that a parent's partiality is a magnifying glass of high power; but, to the best of my belief, he was a most precocious child. I think so now, as I look back upon the days ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... Fortunat entered the office of the hotel, a woman, with a crafty looking face, was holding a conference with an elderly gentleman, who had a black velvet skullcap on his head, and a magnifying glass in his hand. They applied their eyes to the glass in turn, and were engaged in examining some very handsome diamonds, which had no doubt been offered in lieu of money by some noble but impecunious foreigner. On hearing M. Fortunat ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... a tape measure and a large round magnifying glass from his pocket. With these two implements he trotted noiselessly about the room, sometimes stopping, occasionally kneeling, and once lying flat upon his face. So engrossed was he with his occupation that he appeared to have forgotten our presence, for he chattered ...
— A Study In Scarlet • Arthur Conan Doyle
... with all the Russian power of the concrete phrase. He would never say, in describing a battle, that the Russians "suffered a severe loss." He would turn a magnifying glass on each man. But, although he is a realist and above all a psychologist, he is also a poet. In the sketch "Silence" there is the very spirit of poetry. The most recent bit of writing by him that I have seen is called a Fantasy*—"Life is so Beautiful to the Resurrected." This ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... a fly through a magnifying glass or under a microscope? If you haven't, try it sometime. You will see that his legs are covered with little hairs; and it is on these little hairs that the germs lodge. They are too small for you to see except with a very powerful glass; but ...
— The Child's Day • Woods Hutchinson
... treatise by Erasmus Bartholine, who published in 1661, "De Figura Nivis Dissertatio," with observations of his brother Thomas on the use of snow in medicine. On examining the flakes of snow with a magnifying glass before they melt, (which may easily be done by making the experiment in the open air,) they will appear composed of fine shining spicula or points, diverging like rays from a centre. As the flakes fall down through the atmosphere, they are joined by more of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... perfectly innocent, stood Noddy, but Jack detected him in the act of slipping into his pocket a magnifying glass, by which he focused the sun's rays on the ...
— The Ocean Wireless Boys And The Naval Code • John Henry Goldfrap, AKA Captain Wilbur Lawton |
