"Observant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Flaming Flint), a title explained by the frontispiece, which represents a flinty heart glowing under the lightning stroke of God's call. Vaughan's chief traits are a very fine and calm philosophic-religious spirit and a carefully observant love of external Nature, in which he sees mystic revelations of God. In both respects he is closely akin to the later and greater Wordsworth, and his 'Retreat' has the same theme as Wordsworth's famous 'Ode on Intimations of Immortality,' the idea namely that children ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... good beginning is often made, and a habit initiated, which, if persevered in, very shortly exercises a most salutary influence on the entire domestic condition of the family. The observant mother is quick to observe the effects of this new practice upon the happiness of the home, and in course of time, as the younger children grow up and earn money, she encourages them to follow the elder boy's example. She herself takes them by the hand, leads them to the Penny Bank, and accustoms ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... task as soon as possible; but always to hold the other's attention, to permit his brain no chance to wander from the subject to any other. But the fellow seemed now to have become as tractable as before he had been sullen, stubborn; gave his version in his own vernacular, always keenly attentive, observant of the other's every motion. His strength had apparently returned; he seemed little the worse for his late encounter. At length came an interval; just for an instant John Steele's eyes shut; the fingers that had held the pen closed on the edge of the table. A quick passing ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... the world of to-day owes to that fore-world, in which man by skill, valour, and well-directed strength first replenished and subdued the earth. Our prehistoric fathers may have been savages, but they were clever and observant ones. They founded agriculture by the discovery and development of seeds whose origin is now unknown. They tamed and harnessed their animal antagonists, and sent them down to us as ministers, instead of rivals in the fight for life. Later on, when the claims of luxury added themselves to those ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... into those we hate, because annoyance fixes our thought on them to probe. We cannot keep our minds off them. "Why do they do it?" we snarl, and wondering why, we find out their character. Gourlay was not an observant man, but every man is in any man somewhere, and hate to-night driving his mind into Wilson, helped him to read him like an open book. He recognized with a vague uneasiness—not with fear, for Gourlay did not know what it meant, but with ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... one direction her wisdom proved scant. She presumed too much on her insignificance. She was a "study," the gossiping circle at Frowenfeld's used to say; and any observant hearer of her odd aphorisms could see that she herself had made a life-study of herself and her conditions; but she little thought that others—some with wits and some with none—young hare-brained Grandissimes, Mandarins ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... he shows his handsome dark eyes and his saucy smile. The men like him as much as the women do, he has such a ready, amusing tongue, and he never says a spiteful word; so that more than one of the keen, observant poultry-sellers standing beside their baskets near Marie's stall have commented on the scowl with which for full five minutes Leon Roussel has regarded Nicolas. Leon Roussel is a middle-sized, in no way remarkable-looking person, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... soaring lines; the great organ, the rich stall-work, and the beautiful fields with their great elms—all this gave him a dim delight. He was taken to school by his father, who was full of affection, hope, and anxiety. But it seemed to Hugh, with the curiously observant power that he already possessed, though he could not have put it into words, that his father, rather than himself, was experiencing the emotion that it would have been appropriate for him to have felt. His father was disappointed that Hugh did not seem more conscious of membership, of the dignity ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... while Giuditta held it open for her, and in the passage she was met by the one-eyed woman. But she was more unnerved and less observant than Bosio had been, and she did not notice the extraordinary resemblance between the colour of the woman's one eye and that of Giuditta's two. She descended the stairs slowly, feeling dizzy at the turnings, but steadying herself as ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... back and sides of his head; his forehead was so large it seemed to overbalance the rest of his face, which had, indeed, lost its natural contour by the absence of all the teeth. The eyes absolutely gleamed with intelligence; so keen, so observant, you felt as if they were almost wizard-like. Indeed, the whole room looked not unlike a wizard's dwelling. Instead of pictures were hung rude wooden frames of impaled insects; the little table was covered with cabalistic books; and beside them lay a case of mysterious instruments, one of which ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... visited by as many as three grave doctors—they used to assemble downstairs, and come up together—and the room was so quiet, and Paul was so observant of them (though he never asked of anybody what they said), that he even knew the difference in the sound of their watches. But his interest centred in Sir Parker Peps, who always took his seat on the side of the bed. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... these closing words of his, the affable doctor's seeming good-nature would have completely won Raphael over; but he was too profoundly observant not to understand the meaning of the tone, the look and gesture that accompanied that mild sarcasm, not to see that the little man had been sent on this errand, no doubt, by a flock of his rejoicing patients. The florid-looking idlers, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... towards the tennis-court in which he was standing. The three Professors left their places and stood at one end of the net, Messrs Hartley and Van Huysman indulging in audible growls of baffled scepticism, and Franklin Marmion silently observant, divided between interest and amusement. He could not help imagining what would happen if he were to stand in the middle of the circle and remove himself to the Higher Plane, and then go round shaking ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... things at their proper value; which is low, for they have little to do with life itself. His work was tiring in the extreme—merely having to remain upright on his hind legs for such long hours WAS an ordeal—but it did not penetrate to the secret observant self of which he was always aware. This was advantageous. If you have no intellect, or only just enough to get along with, it does not much matter what you do. But if you really have a mind—by which is meant that rare and curious power of reason, of imagination, and of emotion; very different ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley
... now followed the career of Lincoln throughout. It is fitting that this book should conclude with a record of what some observant men have said about him. Accordingly this, the last, chapter is willingly given up to these testimonies. Of course such a list could easily be extended indefinitely, but the quotations here given are deemed sufficient for ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... imagine that gradually, by becoming more closely observant than they had been, by combining together to make more complete observations, and above all by preserving the records of observations made by successive generations, these creatures began to obtain clearer ideas respecting their world and the surrounding regions of space. They would ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... character to be at large. Likewise an ode to the nettle, or to the autumn splendor of the poison-sumac, which ignored its venom would scarcely be a wise botanical guide for indiscriminate circulation among the innocents. Think, then, of a poetic eulogium on a bird of which the observant Gilbert could ...
— My Studio Neighbors • William Hamilton Gibson
... pleasure. They were nearly of the same age, and possessed equal external advantages; but their characters were very different. Sarah Corbin, who was a few months older than her friend and almost constant companion, Harriet Wieland, was quiet, thoughtful, and observant; while Harriet, who had great personal attractions, never appeared to look beneath the surface. She believed every thing to be true that bore the semblance of truth, to her all that glittered was gold. ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur
... Observant Travellers of every time! Ye Quartos published upon every clime! 0 say, shall dull Romaika's heavy round, Fandango's wriggle, or Bolero's bound; Can Egypt's Almas [13]—tantalising group— Columbia's caperers to the warlike Whoop— Can aught from cold Kamschatka to Cape Horn With ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron
... this character are revealed but too clearly by the story. In the first place, Othello's mind, for all its poetry, is very simple. He is not observant. His nature tends outward. He is quite free from introspection, and is not given to reflection. Emotion excites his imagination, but it confuses and dulls his intellect. On this side he is the very opposite of Hamlet, with whom, however, he shares a great openness and trustfulness of nature. In ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... descriptions of Nature in the Casentino, and of life in the streets of Florence. And every piece of description is so filled with the character of the 'Italian person of quality' who describes them—a petulant, humorous, easily angered, happy, observant, ignorant, poor gentleman—that Browning entirely disappears. The poem retains for us in its verse, and indeed in its light rhythm, the childlikeness, the naivete, the simple pleasures, the ignorance and the honest boredom with ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... a knife and a six-shooter but no rifle. Nels actually lost his dignity in enthusiasm for the excursion, and they were miles away from a village and hours deep in an apparently leisurely journey before he subsided into that observant calm ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... affection—touching, because real. His handsome face, so like Amelie's, was peculiarly so when it expressed the emotions habitual to her; and the pleasure both felt in the presence of Pierre brought out resemblances that flashed fresh on the quick, observant eye of Pierre. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and about three o'clock Buck held up an empty cartridge belt to the gaze of the curious Hopalong. That observant worthy nodded and threw a double handful of cartridges, one by one, to the patient and unrelenting Buck, who filled his gun and piled the few remaining ones up at his side. "Th' lives of mice and men gang aft all wrong," he remarked ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... even with images and thoughts. What we are told of the poem of the 'Beggars' might be said of I know not how many more. 'The sister's eye was ever on the watch to provide for the poet's pen.' He had a most observant eye, and she also for him; and his poems are sometimes little more than poetic versions of her descriptions of the objects which she had seen; and which he treated as seen by himself. Look at the poem on the 'Daffodils' ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... Neither observant man nor woman would have passed her, even in a crowd, without a second glance. There was a cheerful light in her eye and a humorous curve to her not too-full lips that promised an uplifting spirit within ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... before, but he obeyed, slinking sidewise a reluctant pace or two, and then springing to the back of the stallion with a single bound. There he crouched, still snarling softly until his master raised a significant forefinger. At that he lowered his head and maintained a fiercely observant silence. ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... him. "I examine all my personages closely," said he—"watch their mouth, eyes, and ears constantly." And what he heard and saw he noted down with extraordinary vividness and dash. Acute, keen, and observant, he pierced the masks of the courtiers, and detected their secrets. The ardour with which he prosecuted his favourite study of character seemed insatiable, and even cruel. "The eager anatomist," says Sainte-Beuve, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... of such violent hatreds that the Home Government would feel compelled to recall him. Thus they would be rid of the presence of a personage possessed of a sufficient energy to oppose them, and they would no longer need to fear his observant eyes. Sir Alfred Milner saw himself surrounded by all sorts of difficulties, and every attempt he made to bring forward his own plans for the settlement of the South African question crumbled to the ground almost before he could begin to work at it. Small wonder, therefore, ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... was no one left for him to talk to, Trenholme grew more observant. He remarked the sweetness and sense in the face of the house-mother as she bestowed their suppers upon the children. She was still comparatively young, but there was no beauty of youth about her, only the appearance of strength that is produced by toil ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... directed with great accuracy (a) at the Atlas Building; (b) at this city and some of its immediate suburbs. The peculiarity of this can not but strike an observant mind. How is this man able, at forty or fifty miles distance, to concentrate his efforts on one comparatively small objective? We can only surmise some system of insulating screens or focal mirrors. I might remark ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... to the adventure, he went forward with cool courage and an observant eye, to spy out, if possible, the secret upon which ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... lessening their employment. The politician who wishes to know the effect on agricultural life of that wise and just measure, may find it in Mr. Grey of Dilston's answers to the queries of the French Government. The country parson will not need to seek so far. He will see it (if he be an observant man) in the faces and figures of his school- children. He will see a rosier, fatter, bigger-boned race growing up, which bids fair to surpass in bulk the puny and ill-fed generation of 1815-45, and equal, perhaps, in thew and sinew, to the men who saved Europe ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... of the European powers was generally observant of the requirements of neutrality in so far as governmental action could be proved. The frequent charges which Great Britain made that the Transvaal was recruiting forces in Europe were not proved against the States from ...
— Neutral Rights and Obligations in the Anglo-Boer War • Robert Granville Campbell
... through the streets with a hasty step, but a quick and observant eye. Every now and then he exchanged a significant glance, a slight sign, with some passenger, whose garb usually betokened the wearer to belong to the humbler classes; for Christianity was in this the type of all other and less mighty revolutions—the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... us, entirely occupied with her own affairs, and quite regardless of our presence. Hence it is with bird-songs as it is with so many other things in nature—they are what we make them; the ear that hears them must be half creative. I am always disturbed when persons not especially observant of birds ask me to take them where they can hear a particular bird, in whose song they have become interested through a description in some book. As I listen with them, I feel like apologizing for the bird: it has a bad cold, ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... at all events that he was thus on terms with illustrious spirits, and also that—yes, distinctly—he hadn't in the least swaggered about it. Our friend hadn't come there only for this figure of Abel Newsome's son, but that presence threatened to affect the observant mind as positively central. Gloriani indeed, remembering something and excusing himself, pursued Chad to speak to him, and Strether was left musing on many things. One of them was the question of whether, since he had been tested, he had ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... could mistake this face for other than that of a physician, and an earnest and attentive one as well, as evidenced by the signs of "natural physician" in the cheek-bones, in the attitude of the head and neck, and by the thoughtful, observant expression of the eye. The combination of systems in this subject is such as is most frequently observed among physicians, viz., the supremacy of the osseous and brain systems. The muscular, thoracic, and vegetative ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... week by week appeared,—fresh to-day from Massachusetts with its Lawrence race issues of a different character, I feel a sense of satisfaction in discussing here in South Carolina this question and issue in a spirit the reverse of dogmatic, a spirit purely scientific, observant and sympathetic. And in this connection let me say I well remember repeatedly discussing it with your fellow-citizen and my friend, Colonel Alexander Haskell, to whom I have already made reference. Rarely have I been more impressed by a conclusion reached ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... let himself and the pearl-stringer in with his latch-key, regretted that he had done so. He did not want to see Beverley alone just then. It would be better to have her summoned by a servant. Miss Blackburne was too observant of tiny details not to notice that he stepped back and pushed the electric bell outside the door, which he had not yet closed. And when he said to the butler: "Please tell Mrs. Sands that I have been able to bring back Miss Blackburne," ...
— The Lion's Mouse • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... not then so wonderful that this wise and holy woman should have faced the problems presented by the apparent discord between the truths of faith and the facts of human life—a discord which is felt in every age by the observant and thoughtful, but which in our age is a commonplace on the lips of even the most superficial. But an age takes its tone from the many who are the children of the past, rather than from the few who are the parents of the future. Mother ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... his wanderings so much abject, repulsive misery among human beings in the most heathen lands, as that which startles him in his civilized Christian home, for nowhere are the extremes of wealth and poverty so painfully presented. He will learn, too, if he be observant, that very little is required after all to make mankind happy, and that the prizes of life worth contending for are, generally speaking, within the reach of ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... It is a wearying life, away from all I love, but I hope that the time will soon begin to spin away. Among the many changes that I find here is the comfortable change that the people are in general extremely considerate, and very observant of my privacy. Even in this place, I am really almost as much my own master as if I were in an English country town. Generally, they are very good audiences indeed. They do not (I think) perceive touches of art ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... on guard from ten till twelve. As we have seen, he was sharply observant of everything that lay before him. But there was one point of the horizon to which his eye more assiduously turned. It was the high road leading from Levis over the table-land of the Beauce back to the forests. ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... of the observant Dartie his two guests did not appear to be making much running, standing there close together, without a word. Bosinney was a hungry-looking creature—not much ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... put me out of your lap, and go away shaking your head, and looking so!—" and here the observant little creature attempted a childish imitation of the sad action and the strange, moody gestures with which he had put her down when he was retiring from the room—gestures and looks which the less quick eyes of her mother had ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... this of Dickens, for all the Diplomatists, and a discerning public generally, are much struck with the Event at Custrin; and take to writing of it as news;—and "Mr. Ginkel," Dutch Ambassador here, an ingenious, honest and observant man, well enough known to us, has been out to sup with the Prince, next day; and thus reports of him to Dickens: "Mr. Ginkel, who supped with the Prince on Thursday last," day after the Interview, "tells me that his Royal Highness is extremely improved since he had seen him; being grown much ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... has been described might advance no farther. Conscious he might be, observant of everything going on within him and without; occupied too with inducing the very changes he observes, and yet with no aim to enlarge himself or improve the world through any of the changes so induced. Complete within himself at the beginning, ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... she saw a girl standing before an easel. She had laid down her palette and brushes, and with bold sure strokes of the pencil was sketching against time, leaning a little backwards, with her head in a critically observant pose. The voice reasserted itself in ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... Boutport Street, the old street that half encircles the town, running "about the port," that he acted here, lodged here, if only for a week or two, talked in the tavern and walked in the old town, with that observant inner eye which noted the veriest detail of life, the swing of a flower, the swallow under the eaves, the idiosyncrasy of dress or gesture in the passers-by, and at the same time comprehended and recorded the springs of action, the fumbling thoughts, the consciences, the strivings, and ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... fuller knowledge—an artist whose development was a negation. The great thing in art is charm, and the great thing in charm is spontaneity. Domenichino, having talent, is here and there an excellent model—he was devoted, conscientious, observant, industrious; but now that we've seen pretty well what can simply be learned do its best, these things help him little with us, because his imagination was cold. It loved nothing, it lost itself in nothing, its efforts never gave it the heartache. It ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... a matter that has long been suspected among the observant. Unfortunately, the Ruby Buttons of the past mistakenly formulated that the essence of continuous existence was imparted to a burial robe through the hands of a young maiden—hence so many deplorable experiences. The proper person to be so employed is undoubtedly ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... up before Rockford the next morning, and went out into the bright sunlight. He looked hopefully for Alonzo, not wanting to be seen mailing the letter in person. Rockford, despite his drunken stupors, could be shrewdly observant and he might deduce the contents of the letter before ...
— —And Devious the Line of Duty • Tom Godwin
... Hawtrey had found it almost impossible to sustain a conversation. It was a relief to the girl to be able to sit silent and observant beside the man whom she had promised to marry. The string-patched trace still held, and the wagon pole was a new one. The white grass was tussocky and long, and the trail here and there had been churned into quagmire. Hawtrey had packed ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... expected? And although on the other side there be an infinite number of bad husbands (I should rail downright against some of them), able to discourage any women; yet there be some good ones again, and those most observant of marriage rites. An honest country fellow (as Fulgosus relates it) in the kingdom of Naples, [5943]at plough by the seaside, saw his wife carried away by Mauritanian pirates, he ran after in all haste, up to the chin first, and when he could wade no longer, swam, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... luckier ones are quite happy and ineffably comfortable. If a sunny day breaks, then the pallid battalions in the steerage come up to the air, and the ship's deck is like a long animated street. A thousand souls, we said? True! Now let some quiet observant man of the sailorly sort go round at night and count the boats. Twelve, and the gig aft makes thirteen! Allowing a tremendously large average, this set of boats might actually carry six hundred persons; but the six hundred would need to sit very carefully ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... servile amiability. The long, wiry white hair of his neck fell flat; he wagged his bushy white tail; he pawed the snow and playfully tossed his long, pointed nose as he crept near. But had Jimmie Grimm been more observant, more knowing, he would have perceived that the light in the lanky pup's ...
— Billy Topsail & Company - A Story for Boys • Norman Duncan
... all," answered the American. "There are thousands of Jews in America as observant of the ordinances as the most pious in Kief. Yet it seems to me that a Jew can remain a Jew even if he neglect some of those ceremonials which have very little to do with Judaism pure and simple. Some are remnants of an oriental symbolism, others comparatively recent additions to the creed, ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... blood flowing from the warrior's shoulder, was stuck a large eagle feather, the insignia of a chief. At his feet, where he had crumpled down under the enemy's bullets, lay the Indian lad in a huddled heap. It did not need the tiny eagle feather in the diminutive turban to convince Charley's observant eye that it was a case of father and son, a chief and son ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... letter book as he spoke and there was no doubt he noticed something now. Indeed, the haggard look on Simon's face and a bead of perspiration on his forehead were so striking, and so singular in the case of such a tough customer, that the least observant—or the most circumspect—must have stared. Carrington's stare lasted only for the fraction of a second, and then he was polishing his eyeglass with his handkerchief in ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... November, after the departure of the train that was to convey poor Lily, her husband and her children to their ship at Liverpool. It had been good for her to regale; she was very conscious of that; she was very observant, as we know, of what was good for her, and her effort was constantly to find something that was good enough. To profit by the present advantage till the latest moment she had made the journey from Paris with the unenvied travellers. She ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... no event at the Old Homestead. Uncle Nathan stationed his easy-chair by the kitchen fire, but insisted on resigning it to Isabel whenever she came down to sit with the family. Aunt Hannah became more and more lonesome, but was always keenly observant, and towards the young girls her kindness was exhibited in a thousand noiseless ways, that filled their warm hearts with gratitude. Young Farnham had been to the city, and it was only two evenings before his ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... when I came thither, for it was not much above seven years since they had fetched these five savage ladies over; they had all children, more or less: the mothers were all a good sort of well-governed, quiet, laborious women, modest and decent, helpful to one another, mighty observant, and subject to their masters (I cannot call them husbands), and lacked nothing but to be well instructed in the Christian religion, and to be legally married; both of which were happily brought about afterwards by my means, or at least in consequence ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... us stood the defendant, Sweeny, a tall elderly man, with a long, composed, shaven face, and an all-observant grey eye: Irish in type, Irish in expression, intensely Irish in the self-possession in which he stood, playing to perfection the part of calm rectitude and ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... great pride in his work, pointing out a thousand particulars in which his foresight had been displayed—but, to everybody's astonishment, he uttered no more warnings, and made no appeals. On the contrary, as some observant persons noticed, he seemed to avoid any reference to the fate of those who should not be ...
— The Second Deluge • Garrett P. Serviss
... deftly concealed a pellet about the size of a five-grain allopathic pill. It was the erratic behavior of this tiny ball, its mysterious comings and goings, that had summoned Mr. Broad's audience and now held its observant interest. This audience, composed of roughly dressed men, listened attentively to the seductive monologue which accompanied the dealer's deft manipulations, and was greatly entertained thereby. "Three tiny tepees in a row and a little black medicine-man ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... face of the young smoker. Palpitation of the heart is also a common result, followed by permanent weakness, so that the whole system is enfeebled, and mental vigor is impaired as well as physical strength. Observant teachers can usually tell which of the boys under their care are addicted to smoking, simply by the comparative inferiority of their appearance, and by their intellectual and bodily indolence and feebleness. After full maturity is attained the evil effects of ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... of Bass's letters to his mother is a misfortune which the student of Australian history must deplore. He was observant, shrewd, an untiring traveller, and an entertaining correspondent. He probably related to his mother, to whom he wrote frequently, the story of his excursions and experiences, and the historical value of all that he wrote would be very great. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the crowd that followed, although they did not join in the cheers, not because they lacked faith, but because all three were thoughtful. Dick had soon discovered that Whitley, despite his lack of education, was an exceedingly observant man, with a clear ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... taboos, the American shows an extraordinary timorousness in all his dealings with fundamentals, and the fact that many of these taboos are self-imposed only adds to their rigour. What every observant foreigner first notices, canvassing the intellectual life of the land, is the shy and gingery manner in which all the larger problems of existence are dealt with. We have, for example, positive laws which make it practically impossible to ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... very critical and observant, and let no weakness pass without sarcastic comment; yet their jokes are rarely offensive, and in the end the victim usually joins in the general laughter. On the whole, the best policy is one of politeness, ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... ill-founded confidence that he could play as successful a game with a close-penetrating tyrant, as he had done with a generous inexperienced King, he thought an air of inexorable cruelty to the royalists must remove, or at least lull the suspicions of the serpent, who lay wrapped round in observant coil, ready to spring upon him. As to the feelings of those whom he persecuted, for the sake of prolonging his own worthless life and preserving his ill-acquired fortunes, he either entirely forgot that they had any, or considered that self-preservation ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... surface was smooth, there was much beneath to disquiet an observant governor. It was not only that the Ministry was so weak, and so conscious of its weakness, as to be incapable even of proposing any measures of importance. This evil might be remedied by a change of administration. But there was no real political ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... just here, I am not accused of being flagrantly and outrageously pious; but no open-minded, observant man, even if he were an infidel, could make a trip through Asia without seeing what a tremendously uplifting influence is the religion to which the majority of Americans adhere as compared with the other faiths, and how tremendously in Christian lands it has bettered and ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... was Hanson's satisfaction at this news that he had difficulty in concealing it, but Mrs. Gallito was not an observant person, fortunately, and, hastily changing the subject, he again ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... hung in straight folds to her feet, being innocent alike of trimming and the then prevailing fashion of crinoline. Further, she wore a little, round matador's hat, three black pompons planted audaciously upstanding above the left ear. Her eyes, long in shape and set under straight, observant brows, appeared at first sight of the same clear, light, warm brown as her hair. Her nose was straight, rather short, and delicately square at the tip. While her face, unlined, serenely, indeed triumphantly ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... swallowed up in the sink of politics, and though noblemen smiled, and ladies of rank nodded their jewelled heads in approbation of every new song he sung and every witty sally he uttered, they reckoned any further notice or care superfluous: the poet, an observant man, saw all this; but hope was the cordial of his heart, he said, and he hoped and lingered on. Too active a genius to remain idle, he addressed himself to the twofold business of love and verse. Repulsed by the stately Beauty of the Devon, he sought consolation in the society ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... privileged artistic faculty of the present day, will be, however critics may try to narrow its scope, as varied in its excellence as humanity itself reflecting on the facts of its latest experience—an instrument of many stops, meditative, observant, descriptive, eloquent, analytic, plaintive, fervid. Its beauties will be not exclusively "pedestrian": it will exert, in due measure, all the varied charms of poetry, down to the rhythm which, as in Cicero, [12] or Michelet, or Newman, at their best, gives ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... youth thus reared in penury extreme, Could scarcely read or write ere he attained eighteen, And yet, by the observant force of a self-guided brain, He lived to benefit a world, and gain ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... These lines the observant student of nursery literature will perceive are satirical. Was there ever a poet who was not satirical? How could he be a genius and not be able to point out the folly he sees around him and comment upon it. ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 23, September 3, 1870 • Various
... or the best that I have read, appears to me to couple strange extravagance with wondrous excellence), yet she has a grasp of mind, which, if I cannot fully comprehend, I can very deeply respect; she is sagacious and profound;—Miss Austen is only shrewd and observant. ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... platforms, and stretching away far into a dim and distant background; but even they could not record the impressive stillness of the vast multitude, its orderliness, which required the presence of not a single policeman, its spirit of almost religious solemnity which struck every observant onlooker. No profusion of superlative adjectives can avail to reproduce such scenes, any more than words, no matter how skilfully chosen, can convey the tone of a violin in the hands of a master. Even ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... note: The observant reader will have noted there is no Letter V. The original text did not contain one, and we have chosen to let the letters retain their original ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... Boston we know and love, than either of the others: and it perplexed her more than it need, even if it had not been mere phantasm. It made her suspicious of Mr. Arbuton's behavior towards her, and observant of little things that might very well have otherwise escaped her. The bantering humor, the light-hearted trust and self-reliance with which she had once met him deserted her, and only returned fitfully when some accident called ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Labour is indeed, from one point of view, little else than the correlative of what has been happening to the more prosperous classes in the community. They have lost their self-discipline, their gravity, their sense of high aims, they have become the victims of their advantages and Labour, grown observant and intelligent, has discovered itself and declares itself no longer subordinate. Just what powers of recovery and reconstruction our system may have under these circumstances the decades immediately before us ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... held enough decision to satisfy the driver, and he took the turn she had indicated, where the glint of the weeping white birch on the opposite side of the street had caught her observant eye. But on the cross-road no dark green auto was ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... inward conviction that you're not doing it because you think Brookville is such a pleasant place to live in," he went on, keenly observant of the sudden color fluttering in her cheeks, revealed by the light of Mrs. Solomon Black's parlor lamp which stood on a stand just inside the carefully screened window. "It looks," he finished, "as if you—well; it may be a queer thing ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... the floor had been diligently stained all over with some coffee-coloured preparation, for the second time in the evening his lordship swore. He was, in fact, in some dudgeon about to replace the lamp, when the torn edge of paper, showing between two boards, caught his observant eye.... ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... sounds at first rather an absurdity, and a mere popular superstition. Galileo chaffed Kepler for believing it. Who it was that discovered the connection between moon and tides we know not—probably it is a thing which has been several times rediscovered by observant sailors or coast-dwellers—and it is certainly a very ancient piece ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... companionship of common usage, however, it is exactly the costume which comes closest to us, and bad taste in that is most jarring and least easily forgiven. There is a certain stage in an observant person's experience of the heedlessness, indolence, and native folly of men and women—and if his observation be conducted in a catholic spirit, he will probably see something of this not merely in others—when the ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... result, in preserving to the future tourist the noblest monuments of the past. The abbeys and castles and tombs of England and Scotland are now so well cared for, that, ruins though they be, they will last for centuries. And yet the observant traveller can note, year by year, little changes, trifling alterations, which, though without great importance, are not destitute of interest; for he who has once visited Melrose, will be interested to learn that even one more stone ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... been observant enough of sea-going rules to recognize that this reason was final, and that it was equally futile to demand an interview with the captain when that gentleman was not visibly on duty. He turned angrily ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... and turning to the left, we soon come (past a hat shop which offers "Rooswelts" at 2.45 each), to the Goldoni Theatre. Leaving San Salvatore by the same door and turning to the right, we come to Goldoni himself, in bronze, in the midst of the Campo S. Bartolommeo: the little brisk observant satirist upon whom Browning wrote the admirably critical sonnet which I ...
— A Wanderer in Venice • E.V. Lucas
... journal of the things he saw in that wild country; and, among other matters, he made the following note about the habits of those curious animals the beavers, which I think is most likely to be correct, as Indians are very observant of the habits of wild animals. He says,—"The country here is marshy, covered with low evergreens. Here begins an extensive beaver settlement; it continues up the river for sixty miles. When travelling with a row-boat, the ...
— Lady Mary and her Nurse • Catharine Parr Traill
... girl's adoration of him, her wild beauty, her strange winning personality—as rare and as independent of birth and circumstances as genius—had soon made that phenomenon plain. And now what was to be done? The girl was quick, observant, imitative, docile, and in the presence of strangers, her gravity of manner gave the impression of uncanny self-possession. It really seemed as though anything might be possible. At Helen's suggestion, then, the three stayed where they were for a week, for June's wardrobe was sadly in need ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... presented to his regard a series of scenes well calculated to arouse a thoughtful mind to consideration of the deepest problems, both of politics and religion. What must have been the "long, long thoughts" of a youth, naturally reflective and acutely observant, as he witnessed the break-up of the old order in '48 and the years that followed. In the most impressionable age of life he was driven to contemplate a Europe in solution; the crash of the kingdoms; the Pope a Liberal, an exile, and a reactionary; the ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... opposite Findlater's church. He was in a black sweater and had a hurley stick. Asked me was it true I was going away and why. Told him the shortest way to Tara was VIA Holyhead. Just then my father came up. Introduction. Father polite and observant. Asked Davin if he might offer him some refreshment. Davin could not, was going to a meeting. When we came away father told me he had a good honest eye. Asked me why I did not join a rowing club. I pretended to think it over. ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... gratifying result of Seela's upturned hand, began to hold up their little hands with the same silent expectancy, till all round the table small hands were raised in perfect silence, by hopeful infants of observant habits and ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... the formation and growth of the poor discalced Augustinians, the first provincial [i.e., Fray Joan de San Geronimo] gave a heroic end by beginning the very observant province of San Nicolas [26] de Tolentino, in the islands adjacent to Asia which we commonly ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... broad-mouthed laughter of the Dutch negroes at Communipaw, who, like most other negroes, are famous for their risible powers. This is peculiarly the case on Sunday evenings, when, it is remarked by an ingenious and observant philosopher, who has made great discoveries in the neighborhood of this city, that they always laugh loudest, which he attributes to the circumstance of their ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... began our return journey, passing many more groups of skeletons which now we scarcely troubled to look at, perhaps because the heavy air filled with dust that once had been the flesh of men, was telling on our energies. Only I noticed, or rather the observant Quick called my attention to the fact, that as we went the kings in their chairs were surrounded by fewer and fewer attendants and women, and that the offerings placed at their feet were of an ever-lessening value. ...
— Queen Sheba's Ring • H. Rider Haggard
... not see Miss Moore's contemptuous smile, or Mrs. Davis's grave glance. One of the pitiful things about jealous people is that they don't know how amusing—or else boring—or else irritating—they are to an observant and entirely unsympathetic world! Eleanor had no idea that the whole tableful of people knew she was jealous, and found her ridiculous. She only knew that Maurice seemed to like them—which meant that her society "wasn't enough for him "! So she tried to make it enough for him. At ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... The observant reader has doubtless wondered before this, that Mr. Sandford did not, in his emergency, apply to his old clerk, Fletcher, for the money in exchange for the peculiar obligation of which mention has been made. It is presuming too much upon Mr. Sandford's stupidity to suppose that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... South-West Coast, at Loando, the Lower Congo and Gaboon, but it is said not to have appeared in the Rivers until 1881, and then to have spread along the West Coast. My learned friend, Dr. Plehn, doubts this, and says people were less observant in those days, but the symptoms of this fever are so distinct, that I must think it also totally impossible for it not to have been differentiated from the usual remittent or intermittent by the old West Coasters if it had occurred there in former times with anything like the frequency ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... and solemn shade of those dark avenues, where one might fondly hope to find some Druidess lingering beneath the shelter of the oaks, there is excitement of no common order to be found in the miniature watering-place of Foretdechene; and the reflective and observant traveller, on a modern sentimental journey, has only to enter the stately white building with the glittering plate-glass windows in order to behold the master-passions or the human breast unveiled for his pleasure ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... had come to live in her "possession" on the mountain side. He further recollected that the house had been pointed out to him—a long, low dwelling of the dull red stone quarried in this part of Catalonia. Being of an observant habit, he remembered that the house was overgrown by a huge wisteria, and faced eastward. He turned his head painfully, and now saw that his windows were surrounded by mauve fronds of wisteria. His room was, therefore, situated in the front of ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... OF DETROIT.—A shrewd and observant correspondent writes: "John R. Williams has been elected mayor, after a close election, disputed by Chapin. The enemy practised a good thing on him. During one of the delegate elections, when his ambition seemed to tower higher than it now does, he published a sort of memorabilia, like that of Dr. ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... putting down his feet with such a firm tread. There were doubtless those among the crowd who saw in the tired face the indications of a life-story not without interest, for the crowd was not, nor ever is, in Munich, lacking in intelligent and observant persons. But in all the multitude there was not one man or woman who knew the name of the individual to whom the face belonged, and there were few who would have risked the respectability of their social position by making the acquaintance of a man so evidently poor, even ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford
... a slip for which he could be held responsible. It was a wire from the chief office of the Transcontinental in New York, a telegram inspired by sundry leakages from Pacific Southwestern sources, that gave him a silent and observant follower in all of his dodgings. Of this, however, he was in blissful ignorance. Twice, indeed, he sat in the same Pullman section with his "shadow," quite without suspecting it; and once he was saved ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... Pervaded with remembrance of the Hadwins; of the agonies which they had already endured; of the despair which would overwhelm the unhappy Susan when the death of her lover should be ascertained; observant of the lonely condition of this house, whence I could only infer that the sick had been denied suitable attendance; and reminded, by the symptoms that appeared, that this being was struggling with the agonies of death; a sickness of the heart, more insupportable ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... out quite suddenly. The doctor's observant eyes lost nothing of the change, although the sunshine on the dancing waters seemed to absorb his ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... to this conversation with an air of shrewd, observant gravity; and she still kept her lips tightly compressed, as if determined fully to ascertain her longitude and position, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... protestant side, 266, was less by ten, the result being a majority of six for the motion. A similar resolution was lost in the house of lords, as a matter of course; but the language held by the new lord chancellor, Lyndhurst, and by Wellington himself, as prime minister, prepared observant men for an impending change of policy. Then followed the Clare election, which revealed nothing which might not have been foreseen, but which had the same effect in precipitating the removal of catholic disabilities as the Irish famine afterwards had in precipitating the repeal ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... the young man, feeling that the conversation set somewhat in his direction, did not desist indeed from his savoury viands, but helped himself generously to a piece of bread. Socrates was all-observant, and added: Keep an eye on our friend yonder, you others next him, and see fair play between the ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon
... the place was present at the moment and he was acting as bartender. Oscar staggered up to the bar, his eyes rolling in his head, but as they rolled, under their seemingly drunken glare shot forth a keen, observant glance. ...
— Cad Metti, The Female Detective Strategist - Dudie Dunne Again in the Field • Harlan Page Halsey
... admitted the superiority of the East: the last word has yet to be said. Few observant people will deny that there are signs of an awakening in Europe. The times are great with the birth of some new thing. A spiritual renaissance may be at hand. Meanwhile, we are not suffered to ignore the huge strides in material progress that are the chief glory ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... Tom was the most observant of the two, and in that respect resembled George, and as they moved through the forest and over the table land, he would frequently stop and look around, and finally went to the Professor and said: "This part of the island looks very familiar to me." Then calling to Tom, he continued: ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Tribesmen • Roger Finlay
... wrote to her, of course, and so did her uncle once or twice, but they did not tell her much of what she wanted to know. Bessie's letters were, it is true, full of allusions to what Captain Niel was doing, but she did not go beyond that. Her reticence, however, told her observant sister more than her words. Why was she so reticent? No doubt because things still hung in the balance. Then Jess would think of what it all meant for her, and now and again give way to an outburst of passionate jealousy which would have been painful enough to witness if anybody had ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... apt to neglect the objects their parents had in view in sending them to the capital. Having finished his studies in London, Dr. Garnett, in 1789, returned to his parents. At the time he left London, he had lost none of his ardour; still he continued indefatigable and observant. He had been flattered and respected by his fellow students, and praised by his seniors; and his previous success animated him with the strongest expectation of future advancement. At this time, it is supposed, he wrote the justly admired Treatise on Optics, which is in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... boy is himself again; but while it lasts, the disease will draw its sustenance from all manner of things—things, it may be, in themselves quite innocent. I avoid particularizing for many reasons; but any observant doctor will confirm what I have said. Now the moderately affluent boy who reads five-shilling stories of adventure has many advantages at this period over the poor boy who reads Penny Dreadfuls. To begin with, the crisis has a tendency to ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... that they became fully conscious of their plight. German intrigue and subterranean scheming, under the mask of sympathy—now for the autocracy, now for socialism—had effected far-reaching changes in the Empire, which few even among observant politicians appear to have realized. These innovations were embodied in the thraldom of Russian banks to German financial institutions; in the splendid organization which kept old German colonies that were scattered ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... keyed my interest to breaking point. But if you think that I tore open those envelopes and greedily absorbed their contents the moment they were put into my hands, you have never been a conductor or even an observant passenger on a "pleasure yacht." When the letters arrived I was engaged in persuading breakfast-lingerers (they of the eggs-and-bacon habit, who ought never to leave their peaceful English homes) that it would give them more real pleasure to be ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... overturned table, and the rattle of pans and pots upon the floor. But the eyes, they were gone-no, they were close upon the floor, and coming toward them. Tom could not deny that he felt a creeping feeling, and poor Jackie, always observant of the goings on, was simply overcome with fright, and buried his head in Tom's side to shut out ...
— The Dare Boys of 1776 • Stephen Angus Cox
... business to be observant, and although many thousands of passersby must have cast their eyes in the same direction that day, there is small matter for wonder in the fact that Bristol alone took the trouble to inquire into the mystery—for his trained eye told him that ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... private; for he knew no fear. With him there was no need for writing which might fall into the hands of the enemy. If he died on the way the message would die with him. He had also the gift of getting at the sense of any situation and an observant eye. He was distinctly one of those men from whom trustworthy information can be obtained by the leaders of great enterprises. Lingard did put several questions to him, but in this instance, of course, Jaffir could have only very little to say. ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... with his hands on the bulwark, and looked down at the tug, his head askew like an observant fowl. ...
— Isle o' Dreams • Frederick F. Moore
... in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, looking at her with an observant smile, "as she ever will be. In other words, quite well of course. Have you ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... Censure, blame of this Work of Mr. Hare's was naturally far from my thoughts. A work which distinguishes itself by human piety and candid intelligence; which, in all details, is careful, lucid, exact; and which offers, as we say, to the observant reader that will interpret facts, many traits of Sterling besides his heterodoxy. Censure of it, from me especially, is not the thing due; from me a far other thing ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... nature is singularly simple and frank, and who are as prompt to detail their own affairs as they are curious to know those of their fellows—a little play carried on during the passage opens to the observant gambler the habits of his prey, chiefly the planters of the up-country. These planters arrive in New Orleans or some other entrepot, settle with their agent or broker, and often receive very large sums in balance of the crop of the past season, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... act of surrender was to set them free. Henceforth Manin was undisputed lord of the city. It is strange how, all at once, a man who was only slightly known to the world should have been chosen as spokesman and ruler. It did not, however, happen by chance. The people in Italy are observant; the Venetians had observed Manin, and they trusted him. The power of inspiring trust was what gave this Jewish lawyer his ascendancy, not the talents which usually appeal to the masses. He had not the advantage of ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... to watch the wayfarer, whose quick step and the look in her eyes of being fixed on objects beyond their owner's immediate ken, might have suggested to the observant, inward perturbation. The lissom, swiftly moving figure was almost out of sight before the old man slowly wheeled round and continued on his way towards the hamlet of Craddock Dene, that lay in the valley about a mile further on. Meanwhile the young woman was speeding ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... artillery was encamped. The dragoman became involved in all sorts of discussions with other Greeks, but Coleman stuck to his elbow and stifled all aimless oration. The Wainwright party waited for them in the rear in an observant but patient group. ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... into Hammerton's eye. Varney, watching that observant feature, knew that no detail of his story, or of his manner in telling it, would escape a ...
— Captivating Mary Carstairs • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... cars. On arriving at the city station, he took a coach and drove to one of the great hotels. Thither drove also a sagacious-looking, middle-aged man, who entered his name as "W. Thompson" in the book at the office immediately after that of "R. Venner." Mr, "Thompson" kept a carelessly observant eye upon Mr. Venner during his stay at the hotel, and followed him to the cars when he left, looking over his shoulder when he bought his ticket at the station, and seeing him fairly off without obtruding himself in any offensive way upon his attention. Mr. Thompson, known in other ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... and I had noted with some awe my naval friend's scorn of the ill-provided in the course of the evening. He had described how a Belgian he had shared a room with, lacked certain accessories of civilization. So I was in the mood now to feel my own deficiency. But the censor was not so very observant, and he seemed sleepy. Soon ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... The least observant of the party could not fail to notice Madame d'Argeles's hesitation and confusion; but even the shrewdest were deceived. They supposed that she had seen the act committed, and had tried to induce the culprit to make his escape, in order to avoid ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... him into thinking me a scarecrow, companion to those adorning the "patch" at that moment. I sat motionless, not using my glass, but looking him squarely in the eyes. This seemed to impress him; he ceased squawking, and hopped a twig nearer, stopped, turned one calmly observant eye on me, then quickly changed to the other, as if to see if the first had not deceived him. Still I did not move, and he was plainly puzzled to make me out. He came nearer and nearer, and I moved only my eyes to keep them ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... education. No education can make a gentleman of a man who is not a gentleman at heart, for whether his station in life be that of a ploughboy or an Earl, the gentleman, like the poet, is born and not made. But it can and does if he be of an observant nature, give him a certain insight into the habits of thought and probable course of action of the members of that class to which he outwardly, and by repute, belongs. Such an insight Edward Cossey possessed, and at the present moment its possession was troubling him ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... on the principle of 'tinieo Danaos' etc., I instantly smelt a ruse, not that I dreamt that I was to be decoyed into captivity; but if there was anything here which we two might discover in the few hours left to us, it was an ingenious plan to remove the most observant of the two till the hour ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... who have not had babies. The only way to get acquainted with her is to have a baby. She assumes that a motherless woman has a motherless mind. The idea that a rich and bountiful womanhood, which is saving its motherhood up, which is free from the absorption and the haste, keenly observant and sympathetic, may come to a kind of motherly insight, distinctly the result of not being experienced, does not occur to her. The art of getting the result—the spirit of experience, without paying all the cost of the experience itself—needs ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... neutrality and indifferency in this cause; so that few are found valiant for the truth upon the earth. What strange laxness and Laodicean indifference has there appeared in this cause, through the whole conduct of affairs in church and state, since the revolution; whereby many discover to every observant eye that they are satisfied if they obtain a peaceful enjoyment of their own things, and liberty to dwell in their ceiled houses—albeit the Lord's house (in a great measure) lies waste? Where are there any acts of Assemblies, or proceedings of the church, which discover any due concern or zeal ...
— The Auchensaugh Renovation of the National Covenant and • The Reformed Presbytery
... disposition of the French might be, Robert Dinwiddie, a Scot, governor of Virginia, selected a trustworthy envoy to proceed to the French commanders in the disputed districts and ask their purposes. His choice fell upon George Washington, a young man of blameless character, steady, courageous and observant, wise in judgment and of mature mind, though he was but one and twenty years of age. He was the son of a Virginia planter, had had such schooling as his neighborhood afforded until he was sixteen, and had then begun life as a surveyor—a good calling in a country whose inhabitants were daily ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... and sultry, and, arriving at Hoag about five o'clock, I feel that I have done sufficient hillclimbing for one day. I have been wheeling through Austrian territory since 10.30 this morning, and, with observant eyes the whole distance, I have yet to see the first native, male or female, possessing in the least degree either a graceful figure or a prepossessing face. There has been a great horse-fair at Hoag to-day; the business of the day is concluded, and the principal occupation of the men, apart ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... approaching; I dropped my head to avoid meeting their glance, for my few minutes of contact with my dreadful nephews had made me feel inexpressibly un-neat. The carriage stopped. I heard my own name spoken. There, erect, fresh, neat, bright-eyed, fair-faced, smiling, and observant, sat Miss Alice Mayton, a lady who for about a year I had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... observant woman long to discover that the outlook for the comfort of "her folks" was even less by daylight than it had seemed the night before. Her heart sank, though she lost no time in useless regrets, and she did most cordially thank that "guardian ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... a properly lighted room, I took a more careful look at the former steward of Hathercleugh. He was a well-preserved, shrewd-looking man of between sixty and seventy: quiet and observant, the sort of man that you could see would think a lot without saying much. He smiled a little as he put his hands together on the table and glanced at our expectant faces—it was just the smile of a man who knows what he is ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... habill par mes mains! C'est peu qu'il ait sur moi remport la victoire; Malheureux, j'ai servi de hraut sa gloire. Le tratre! Il insultait ma confusion; 850 Et tout le peuple mme avec drision, Observant la rougeur qui couvrait mon visage, De ma chute certaine en tirait le prsage. Roi cruel! ce sont l les jeux o tu te plais. Tu ne m'as prodigu tes perfides bienfaits 855 Que pour me faire mieux sentir ta tyrannie, Et ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... and took the newspaper from his pocket. Mr. Albany Todd suddenly advanced to Harry Luttrell. He had been no less observant than Martin Hillyard. ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... record the complete satisfaction with which I heard the substantial whack on the drum so descriptive of Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan's heavy fall "at the ropes." This last effect, being as novel as it is effective, attracted the attention of the wily and observant DRURIOLANUS, who mentally booked the effect as something startlingly new and original for his next Pantomime. The combat between the Saxon Slogger, very much out of training, and the Norman Nobbler, rather over-trained as the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... about that," remarked an observant old settler, who had been silently regarding the different portents to which we have alluded. "I don't know about the ice staying here twenty hours, or even one. This has been no common thaw, that we have had for the last six or eight hours, let ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... lad was overwhelmed with embarrassment that amounted to fear. He never knew just what he said at first, but when he recovered sufficiently to realise that the faces turned toward him were kindly, and the smiles were encouraging, his self-possession returned. Observant always, and quick to see the right thing to do, William hoped that "Mister Watson and his wife would live happy ever after, and," he concluded, with a smile that was full of confidence, "I nearly snickered once when the marriage was on. That was when the minister says something ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... character as it appears in the Memoirs—sincere, intelligent, self-contained, and yet dependent; methodical, observant. Sometimes as one reads of her in early life one is reminded of some of the personal characteristics of the writer who perhaps of all writers least resembles Miss Edgeworth in her art—of Charlotte Bronte, ...
— A Book of Sibyls - Miss Barbauld, Miss Edgeworth, Mrs Opie, Miss Austen • Anne Thackeray (Mrs. Richmond Ritchie) |
