"Subtle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moralizing, but perhaps a subtle suggestion of this came to him in the thought that an enterprise, a new enterprise, might have seemed easier in May, when the forces of nature were with him, than in October. There was something, at least, that fell in with his mood, a mood of acquiescence in failure, in ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... numbness might be a gradual slipping away from the pleasure-pain guidance of the animal man. It has been proven, I take it, as thoroughly as anything can be proven in this world, that the higher emotions, the moral feelings, even the subtle unselfishness of love, are evolved from the elemental desires and fears of the simple animal: they are the harness in which man's mental freedom goes. And it may be that as death overshadows us, as our possibility of acting diminishes, this complex growth of balanced ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... Narayana, or moving on the waters. From that which is the first cause, not the object of sense existing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male. He framed the heaven above, the earth beneath, and in the midst placed the subtle ether, the light regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters. He framed all creatures. He gave being to time and the divisions of time—to the stars also and the planets. For the sake of distinguishing actions, he made a total difference between right and wrong. He whose powers ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... disciple, an affectionate admirer, allowing herself to be graciously patronised, counselled, encouraged. The repose of manner which so impressed her, the habitual serenity of mood, the unvarying self-confidence—oh, these were excellent qualities when it came to playing the high part of cold and subtle hypocrisy! She knew Sibyl, and could follow the workings of her mind: a woman incapable of love, or of the passion which simulates it; worshipping herself, offering luxuries to her cold flesh as to an idol; scornful of the possibility that she might ever come to lack what she desired; and, at ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... drift was almost a reality, considering that each day was another step towards liberty—freedom from the tyranny of the wind. In a sense, the endless surge of the blizzard was a slow form of torture, and the subtle effect it had on the mind was measurable in the delight with which one greeted a calm, fine morning, or noted some insignificant fact which bespoke the approach of a milder season. Thus in August, although ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... sir," he said, "that you did not bleed when I struck you; it was a great mercy. The sight of blood affects me—ah!" he broke off with a subtle quiver and drew a long breath. "Do you know the sands by Woeful Ness—the Twin ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... alfalfa fields heavy with purple blossom, ripe for cutting; the orchard of old apple trees and thickets of Indian plum run wild; the neglected vineyard that could be made to yield several barrels of red wine—all of these things spoke to him with subtle voices. To trade his heritage for this was to trade hope and hazard for monotonous ease; but with the smell of the yielding earth in his nostrils, he no more thought of this than a man in love thinks of the long restraints and irks of marriage ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson
... he affixed to the jamb a mark with red chalk the better to distinguish it from the others whereon still showed the white. Then tried he back in stealth to his company; but Morgiana on her part also descried the red sign on the entrance and with subtle forethought marked all the others after the same fashion; nor told she any what she had done. Meanwhile the bandit rejoined his band and vauntingly said, "O our Captain, I have found the house and thereon put a mark whereby I shall distinguish it clearly from all its neighbours."—And ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... part, I never try to be clever when I go up against these thimble-riggers; I believe all they tell me, and accept the most insolent gold bricks; and in that way I occasionally catch some of the very ablest of them napping; for they are so subtle that they will sometimes tell you the truth because they think you will suppose it to be a lie. I do not wish to catch them napping, however; I cling to the wisdom of ignorance, and childishly enjoy the way in which things work themselves out— ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... smallest West End restaurants, where they spent what Marie called a dream of an evening. Her languors evaporated in that subtle air, her eyes brightened, her cheeks glowed; she could face right into the teeth of the coming storm, and do no more than laugh at it. How good it was to be alive, and how alive she was! She had two lives. She was that most vital of all creatures, ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... is well suited to persons whose abilities fall below mediocrity; for the obscurity of the distinctions and principles of which they make use enables them to speak of all things with as much confidence as if they really knew them, and to defend all that they say on any subject against the most subtle and skillful, without its being possible for any one to convict them of error. In this they seem to me to be like a blind man, who, in order to fight on equal terms with a person that sees, should have made him descend to the bottom of an intensely dark cave: and I may say that such persons ...
— A Discourse on Method • Rene Descartes
... should prove formidable rivals and deadly foes, since difference in character was far more real than resemblance of mental attainments. Both were fearless and brave, but the one was candid, frank and resolute; the other subtle, crafty and adventurous. Perhaps their only common characteristic was an ungoverned admiration for the charms of women, though, unlike Burr, Hamilton neither bragged of his amours, nor boasted that success attended his pursuit ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... serious. "It's a fact, they are suspicious, frightfully. I have been talking school to them, but they won't have a school as a gift. My Church, the Presbyterian, you know, offers to put up a school for them, since the Government won't do anything, but they are mightily afraid that this is some subtle scheme for extracting money from them. But what can you expect? The only church they know has bled them dry, and they fear and hate the very name ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor
... but continued to rub her fingers. She wore several rings, among which was a brilliant of unusual luster. Warrington, however, had eyes for nothing but her face. For the past six months he had noted a subtle change in her, a growing reserve, a thoughtfulness that was slowly veiling or subduing her natural gaiety. She now evaded him when he suggested one of their old romps in queer little restaurants; she professed illness when he sent for her to join him in some harmless junketing. ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... comedies, all but one in prose. In the history of the drama, he is important for (1) finished style, (2) good dialogue, (3) considerable invention in the way he secured interest, by using classical matter in combination with contemporary life, (4) subtle comedy, and (5) influence on Shakespeare. It is doubtful whether Shakespeare could have produced such good early comedies, if he had not received suggestions from Lyly's work in ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... "Rotten bourgeois art, but an interesting face, eh? I wonder if it's a good portrait. It says in the corner, 'Study of Miss Felicity Berber.' An actress, I expect. Look at the eyes; subtle, aren't they? And the heavy little mouth. I've never seen a face quite like ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale
... twittering forgot to say the humming completed. In the evening, a dreamy vapor exhaled from the garden and enveloped it; a shroud of mist, a calm and celestial sadness covered it; the intoxicating perfume of the honeysuckles and convolvulus poured out from every part of it, like an exquisite and subtle poison; the last appeals of the woodpeckers and the wagtails were audible as they dozed among the branches; one felt the sacred intimacy of the birds and the trees; by day the wings rejoice the leaves, by night the leaves protect ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... as clinging rust Mars the bright mirror, as the womb surrounds The babe unborn, so is the world of things Foiled, soiled, enclosed in this desire of flesh. The wise fall, caught in it; the unresting foe It is of wisdom, wearing countless forms, Fair but deceitful, subtle as a flame. Sense, mind, and reason—these, O Kunti's Son! Are booty for it; in its play with these It maddens man, beguiling, blinding him. Therefore, thou noblest child of Bharata! Govern thy heart! Constrain th' entangled sense! Resist the false, soft sinfulness ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... "A subtle chain of countless rings The next unto the farthest brings; The eye reads omens where it goes, And speaks all languages the rose; And striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... returning always calmly to his discourse with an air of never having moved from his chair. He talked to me of Praxiteles, among other things. What should an Arizona cowboy know of Praxiteles? and why should any one talk to him of that worthy Greek save as a subtle and hidden expression of contempt? That was my feeling. My senses and mental apperceptions were by now ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... kingdom is a school. Supreme he sits; before the awful frown That bends his brows the boldest eye goes down; Not more submissive Israel heard and saw At Sinai's foot the Giver of the Law. Less stern he seems, who sits in equal Mate On the twin throne and shares the empire's weight; Around his lips the subtle life that plays Steals quaintly forth in many a jesting phrase; A lightsome nature, not so hard to chafe, Pleasant when pleased; rough-handled, not so safe; Some tingling memories vaguely I recall, But to forgive ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of Europe received an impulse as marked and beneficent as the physical and social. The scholastic philosophy, with its dry and technical logic, its abstruse formulas, and its subtle refinements, ceased to satisfy the wants of the human mind, now craving light and absolute knowledge in all departments of science and philosophy. Like feudalism, it had once been useful; but like that institution, it had also become corrupted, and an object ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... moment, Geoffrey set his teeth as he met the coldly indifferent gaze of Helen, who came towards them in company with Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Savine. Millicent also saw the three Savines, and, either tempted by jealousy of the girl or by mere vanity, managed to convey a subtle expression of triumph in her smile of greeting. Possibly neither Thomas Savine nor Geoffrey would have understood the meaning of the smile had they seen it, but Helen read it, and it was with the very faintest bend of her head that she acknowledged ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss
... earth is a shipwrecked planet. None of the higher organisms there will ever rise to our level. How can they alter the structure of their bodies, and empty their veins of blood, and fill them with the subtle electricity which serves us as a life force? And the grossness of their blood-fed senses! How can all the fine powers of the immortal soul ever develop along with such degraded ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... be practised, to procure admission for the most evident propositions into understandings frighted by their novelty, or hardened against them by accidental prejudice; it can scarcely be conceived, how frequently, in these extemporaneous controversies, the dull will be subtle, and the acute absurd; how often stupidity will elude the force of argument, by involving itself in its own gloom; and mistaken ingenuity will weave artful fallacies, which reason can scarcely find means ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... quiet as death. Some subtle power of the man over the brute puzzled the leader of the pack. He shook his great head with angry snarls and slunk from side to side to evade the human eye, every hair of his fur bristling. Then he threw up his jaws and uttered a long ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... loose a fox, which the dogs were worrying to death, while the surrounding crowd testified their pleasure at the scene by shouts of approbation. Nor was there any want of the spirituous; pails of punch, guarded by stout negroes, bore witness to their own subtle contents, now by the man who lay curled up under the adjoining hedge, "forgetting and forgot," and again by the drunkard, reeling, cursing, and fighting among ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... summoned her, she turned toward him. Out here in God's wide, beautiful world they could be the same friends, and not fret any one. It might have been dangerous if he had not been so upright a man, with no subtle reasonings, and she ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas
... became painfully acute, and, impelled by a fascination I could not resist, I held my breath and listened. As I did so, I distinctly heard the sound of stealthy respiration. Either the chair or something in it was breathing, breathing with a subtle gentleness. ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... his subtle mind could have come into touch with the negative side of the Southern agitation! It was the other side, the positive side, that was vocal. With immense shrewdness the profiteers of slavery saw and developed their opportunity. They organized the South. They preached on all occasions, in all connections, ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... she spoke the dark shadow fell. The loving eyes grew glassy; the hand she held relaxed its hold, and that "change," so subtle, so fearful, (that all have seen yet none may tell,) flitted ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern
... cleverest potentate in Europe. Splendid exemplar of the war-lord idea, he is really the peer of diplomatists, a ruler whose utterances are to-day weighed and discussed as are those of none other. Understanding the value of words, and a coiner of subtle phrases, an epigram from the Kaiser contrasting the destiny and rights of the "white man" and the "yellow man" would probably have isolated the British as Japan's only sympathizers in the Old World, had it been made ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield
... rate, one of them was a stranger, and the other probably just as much so, they could have met by broad day at a more convenient trysting-place without anybody having the least concern in their doings? There was strange and subtle mystery in all this, and the thinking and pondering it over led me before long to wondering about its first natural consequence—who and what was the man I was now on my way to meet, and where on earth could he be coming from to keep a tryst at a place like ...
— Dead Men's Money • J. S. Fletcher
... fell to me. I attribute it to the suddenness and impetuosity with which I made at times my advances, and the boldness with which I proceeded to baudy extremities. When I was once lanced, I was so strong, so lewd, that I am sure I communicated my lewdness to them by some subtle magnetism, even before I spoke. Then I was a London swell, a relative of the lady of the Manor, there was the pride which women of the humble class have, in being singled out for notice by a London ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... thou art, I know thy doubt; And gladly will I loose the knot, wherein Thy subtle thoughts have bound thee. From this realm Excluded, chalice no entrance here may find, No more shall hunger, thirst, or sorrow can. A law immutable hath establish'd all; Nor is there aught thou seest, that doth not fit, Exactly, ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri
... ride that morning was constrained. Each felt in some subtle way that their pleasant companionship was coming to a crisis. Ahead in that town would be letters, communications from the outside world of friends, people who did not know or care what these two had been through together, and ...
— The Girl from Montana • Grace Livingston Hill
... her white arms and shoulders bare, and glistening with snowy pearls. Her soft unbound hair fell over her neck in a flood of light, and a subtle perfume, like the breath of blooming water-lilies, floated ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... sacrificed in experiments, but no criticism is made because the treatment is administered by those who are within the limits of the "regular" profession. After centuries of professional research, in order to perfect the "art of healing," diseases have steadily grown more subtle and numerous. Combinations, distillations, extracts, and decoctions of almost every known material substance have been experimented with, in order to discover their true bearing upon that ever-receding ideal, the banishment of disease. If materia medica were a science, disease ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891 • Various
... While the subtle Escribano was thus amusing himself at the expense of the governor, he was conducting the trial of the corporal; who, mewed up in a narrow dungeon of the prison, had merely a small grated window at which to show his iron-bound visage, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... subordinate place in international affairs. He dressed in odd, startling colours, and moved awkwardly; his eyes were strangely impenetrable, and he seemed listless and indifferent, even when he was meditating some subtle plan with which ...
— Heroes of Modern Europe • Alice Birkhead
... a proper valuation upon his womankind, at least not until deprived of them. He has no conception of the subtle atmosphere exhaled by the sex feminine, so long as he bathes in it; but let it be withdrawn, and an ever-growing void begins to manifest itself in his existence, and he becomes hungry, in a vague sort of way, ...
— The Son of the Wolf • Jack London
... were devouring the remnants of human bodies; foxes, jackals, and hyenas were disputing over their prey; whilst bears were chewing the livers of children. The space within was peopled by a multitude of fiends. There were the subtle bodies of men that had escaped their grosser frames prowling about the charnel ground, where their corpses had been reduced to ashes, or hovering in the air, waiting till the new bodies which they ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... ask'd about the water's taste, If it was plentiful and sweet? At which the Fox, in rank deceit, "So great the solace of the run, I thought I never should have done. Be quick, my friend, your sorrows drown." This said, the silly Goat comes down. The subtle Fox herself avails, And by his horns the mound she scales, And leaves the Goat in all the mire, To gratify ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... unstudied, with a tendency to adopt a triangular arrangement in the grouping, the apex being formed by the storm scene, to which the eye thus naturally reverts. The figures and the landscape are brought into close relation by this subtle scheme, and the picture becomes, not figures with landscape background, but ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... quite uneasy in her mind about this time, not only because the Torpedo refused to see himself in the light of that other self, and fled whenever he saw her approaching, but also because some subtle instinct told her, that under her very nose, was going on something of which the details were unknown to her, and that listen as she would, could not be ascertained. This good-looking young man, who had so suddenly appeared on Mrs. Simonson's premises who and what was ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... arched Roof Pendent by subtle Magick, many a Row Of Starry Lamps and blazing Crescets, fed With Naphtha and Asphaltus, yielded ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... smaller sampling of gold ores has been dwelt on at considerable length, as befits its importance, in order that the student may be impressed with a sense of its true meaning. Sampling is not a mystery, nor does the art lie in any subtle manner of division. It is, of course, absolutely necessary that the stuff to be sampled shall be well mixed, and the fractions taken, so that each part of the little heap shall contribute its share to the sample. Moreover, it must ...
— A Textbook of Assaying: For the Use of Those Connected with Mines. • Cornelius Beringer and John Jacob Beringer
... Veblen has made a subtle analysis of the way in which conduct is controlled by the individual's conception of his social role in his analysis of "invidious comparison" and ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... opinion one should have of himself, the more one should realize what there remains to be learned. But you make philosophy into a kind of fencing, and consider a man a philosopher if he can warp the truth by subtle distinctions and talk himself out of any opinion; in so doing you incur hatred and bring contempt upon learning, for people imagine that your extraordinary manners are the natural fruits of education. The best advice I can give you is to strive to forget, and to rid your head ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... their minds quickly," he said, in tones of subtle and insulting insinuation. "There is one here who came from their village but three days since, and then they looked not so kindly upon the peace belts. It is well to bring him to this ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... murdered. And I should say," continued the official, with a glance at the two men, "murdered in the same way as the gentleman you have told me of was murdered at Hull—by some subtle, strange, and secret poison." ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... things I dream. The human shape I can get now, almost with ease, so that it is lithe and graceful, or thick and strong; but often there is trouble with the hands and the claws,—painful things, that I dare not shape too freely. But it is in the subtle grafting and reshaping one must needs do to the brain that my trouble lies. The intelligence is often oddly low, with unaccountable blank ends, unexpected gaps. And least satisfactory of all is ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells
... had himself tightly bound by cords to the mast. So whilst the deaf rowers stolidly tugged at their oars, oblivious of the weird unearthly melody around them, the clever King of Ithaca gained the honour of becoming the only mortal who had listened to that subtle song without paying the penalty of a hideous ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... Italians, had given them an opportunity to absorb most of the elements of ancient culture. Having borrowed these products, they were able to combine them and use them in building an empire of learning in Spain. If their own subtle genius was not wanting in the combination of the knowledge of the ancients, and in its use in building up a system, neither lacked they in original conception, and on the early foundation they built up a superstructure of original knowledge. They advanced ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... friend, And none who won that title laid it down, Muse on the tablet that she left behind, Muse,—and give thanks to God for what she was, And what she is;—for every pain hath fled That with a barb'd and subtle weapon stood Between the pilgrim and the promised Land. But the deep anguish of the filial tear We speak not of,—save with the sympathy That wakes our own. And ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... a somewhat similar sense, Mr. Hoover was quite unconsciously "just a progressive"—a belated follower of a pleasant fashion, having lived abroad too long when he made his announcement to note the subtle changes that had taken place in our thinking—the rude shock that Russia ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... sorrow with the same silent fortitude with which she had always met trouble, but a subtle change came over her. While it could not be said that she looked exactly old, yet the youthfulness for which she had been so remarkable seemed suddenly to vanish, and her hair grew rapidly grey. A little child—Frank ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... former, M. Verdier proves, by a long train of reasoning, to be descended from a Calmuck, who, in the year 622, (the year of Mahomet's flight from Mecca) married a Samoyede woman, and, with a party of his countrymen, crossed Behring's Straits to the Western Continent. The exceedingly subtle and plausible process by which he arrived at the exact year in which they crossed, and determined that the emigrants were of two different tribes—again, that the chief was tall and lean, his wife ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... the extreme point. After exerting himself for a long time, he will suddenly find himself possessed of a wide and far-reaching penetration. Then, the qualities of all things, whether external or internal, the subtle or the coarse, will be apprehended, and the mind, in its entire substance and its relations to things, will be perfectly intelligent. This is called the investigation of things. This is called the perfection ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... was a remarkably handsome man, nearer forty than thirty years of age. He was tall and graceful, with golden hair and the profile of a Greek statue; and, in addition to these palpable charms, he possessed the more subtle ones of a musical voice and a fascinating manner. He treated every woman, with whom he was brought into contact, as if she were a compound of a child and a queen; and he had a way of looking at her and speaking to her as if she were the one woman in the world for whom he ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... you go back?" asked Drouet. There was no subtle undercurrent to the question. He imagined that she would have nothing at all of the things ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser
... them eventually, however, when it might have been considered an old story; but it had not become so then in anybody's estimation, nor has it since because of the pity of it which lent the pathetic interest that makes a story deathless and ageless; the subtle something which influences to better moods, and from which the years as they pass do not detract, but rather pay it the tribute of an occasional addition thereto, by which its hope of ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... was coquetting with Anjou and the French marriage, we find in one of those careful lists of the Papists of London kept by her subtle councillors, a Mr. Loe, vintner, of the "Mitre," Cheapside, who married Dr. Boner's sister (Bishop Bonner?). In 1587, the year before the defeat of the Armada, and when Leicester's army was still in Holland, doing little, ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... a certain point in American politics to the Count. As, in doing this, they called upon Mr. Gore to translate every speech they made into Italian, and as Mr. Gore had never offered his services as an interpreter, and as the Italian did not quite catch the subtle meanings of the Americans in Mr. Gore's Tuscan version, and did not in the least wish to understand the things that were explained to him, Mr. Gore and the Italian began to think that the two Americans were bores. ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... first place—although, as he became better acquainted with Rachel's varying moods and aspects, he fell more and more deeply under the charm of her temperament—a temperament at once passionate and childish, crude, and subtle, with many signs, fugitive and surprising, of a deep and tragic reflectiveness; he became also more and more conscious of what seemed to him the lasting effects upon her of her miserable marriage. The nervous effects above all; shown by the vague "fears" of which she had spoken ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and uncle Robert; and as for me, I might have passed for his son. He had the same high forehead, aquiline nose, chestnut curling hair, and dark piercing eyes; but his face lacked the careless, frank, good-nature of my father's, and was totally destitute of the subtle, stern demeanour of my uncle's. The expression was more simple, and less worldly than either. It was a thoughtful, intellectual, benevolent physiognomy, which excited feelings of confidence and affection, at first sight. While looking at him, I thought I had ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... discussion not only tends to diminish our inherited defects, but also, in one case at least, to augment a heritable excellence. It tends to strengthen and increase a subtle quality or combination of qualities singularly useful in practical life-a quality which it is not easy to describe exactly, and the issues of which it would require not a remnant of an essay, but a whole essay to elucidate completely. ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... blazing in his cheeks, the insidious argument, the subtle justification, that had been teeming in Stanton's veins all the week, burst ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... felt love's subtle, potent charm Binding her on that strong right arm; 'T was softer than the cold gray stone, 'T was ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... Feeling my womb o'er-pregnant with the seed of cities unborn. Wild and wide are my borders, stern as death is my sway, And I wait for the men who will win me — and I will not be won in a day; And I will not be won by weaklings, subtle, suave and mild, But by men with the hearts of vikings, and the simple faith of a child; Desperate, strong and resistless, unthrottled by fear or defeat, Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut ...
— The Spell of the Yukon • Robert Service
... the cold,—it is sad to turn from an outward scene of so little comfort and find the same sullen influences brooding within the precincts of my study. Where is that brilliant guest, that quick and subtle spirit, whom Prometheus lured from heaven to civilize mankind and cheer them in their wintry desolation; that comfortable inmate, whose smile, during eight months of the year, was our sufficient consolation for summer's lingering advance and early flight? Alas! blindly inhospitable, grudging the ...
— Fire Worship (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... unwearied industry and amazing ingenuity, new gratifications for body and mind in endless variety, suited to all constitutions, all tempers and dispositions, and to those in all circumstances. Of these, the most rational are the most subtle, and, in the hand of the enemy, the most calculated to keep men ignorant of themselves, their misery, and of the great salvation; and alas, by these he often spoils unwary Christians, who, though heirs of heaven, heirs of God, and ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... (morally) the homosexual tendency. Of this much, however, I am certain, that, even, if it were possible, I would not exchange my inverted nature for a normal one. I suspect that the sexual emotions and even inverted ones have a more subtle significance than is generally attributed to them; but modern moralists either fight shy of transcendental interpretations or see none, and I am ignorant and unable to solve the mystery these ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... as well as this one, which was perpendicularly over my watch. But I'll tell you, it's my opinion that the devil came and bored the hole over it on purpose. Well, as I was saying, my poor watch had lost her speech. I should not have cared much for this, but something worse attended it; the subtle particles of the water with which the case was filled, had by their penetration so overcome the cohesion of the particles of paper, of which my dear picture and watch-paper were composed, that in attempting to take them out to dry them, my cursed fingers ...
— The Youth of Jefferson - A Chronicle of College Scrapes at Williamsburg, in Virginia, A.D. 1764 • Anonymous
... the rest of the school term, after which he left, the slightest sign of recognition; and yet for years after the fields and trees and houses which they had passed on the line were suffused for Hugh with a subtle emotion in the memory of ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... expressed, but therefore only the more binding upon all. Every one's share was different—and yet every one knew perfectly well what his share was, and strove to give a little more. Now, however, since they had come to the new country, all this was changing; it seemed as if there must be some subtle poison in the air that one breathed here—it was affecting all the young men at once. They would come in crowds and fill themselves with a fine dinner, and then sneak off. One would throw another's hat out of the window, and both would go out to get it, and neither ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... but for my own as well, said my conscience; for the subtle hope, which had taken deeper root day by day, that by-and-by the only obstacle between us would be removed. Suppose then that he was dead, and Olivia was free to love me, to become my wife. Would not her very closeness to ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... something distinguished, something aristocratic, about it. The Pension Vauquer was dark, brown, sordid, graisseuse; but this is in quite a different tone, with high, clear, lightly-draped windows, tender, subtle, almost morbid, colours, and furniture in elegant, studied, reed-like lines. Madame de Maisonrouge reminds me of Madame Hulot—do you remember "la belle Madame Hulot?"—in Les Barents Pauvres. She has a great charm; a little artificial, a little fatigued, with ...
— A Bundle of Letters • Henry James
... grace and subtle fire of the South; the docility and affectionateness of the East seemed to us sweet and simple and restful; the vivacious sparkle of the trim and sprightly Parisienne was a pleasant little excitement when we ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... too great a flow of blood towards the brain produces a stupefaction of the mind. Analogous or inverse effects might evidently be produced by a subtle, invisible, imponderable fluid, by a sort of nervous fluid, or magnetic fluid (if this term be preferred), circulating through our organs. And the commissioners took good care not to speak on this subject ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... worn by those who have the care of the sick, in preference to dark-colored apparel; particularly if the disease is of a contagious nature. Experiments have shown that black and other dark colors will absorb more readily the subtle effluvia that emanates from sick persons than ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... "A very subtle dose of poison indeed, my friend. I shall not die, but I have had my little lesson. Here the individual has little chance. We fight against forces that are too many for us. I told you ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... it the subtle, uprising scent of the May-bloom struck him like a blow; a dark flush overspread his brow. ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... new recruits. The two paid dear for their knowledge, it is true, but their knowledge presently began to bear fruit in considerable abundance. Day followed day, and year succeeded year, a long series of horribly anxious nights, violent feelings, mental perturbations, crafty and subtle schemes, a complete cycle of rascalities, an entire science of covering up tracks, and the perpetual shadow of justice, prison, and perhaps the scaffold. Bodlevski, with his obstinate, persistent, and concentrated character, ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... who would bring forward subtle arguments against this law, remember that logic is often in default ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... invited him in person. He knew it, and felt ashamed of himself. What reason had he to expect her to invite him personally, except that she had almost invariably done so heretofore? And back of this was the subtle jealousy of caste. The Westons were "her kind of folks." He was not really one of them. Boyishly he fancied that he would do as a companion when there was no one else available. He was very much in love with Dorothy ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... episode of his meeting with Susy, since he had parted with them. He felt a strange satisfaction in familiarly pouring out his confidences to this superior woman, whom he had always held in awe. There was a new delight in her womanly interest in his trials and adventures, and a subtle pleasure even in her half-motherly criticism and admonition of some passages. I am afraid he forgot Susy, who listened with the complacency of an exhibitor; Mary, whose black eyes dilated alternately with sympathy for the performer and deprecation of Mrs. Peyton's ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... father I was being drawn into such subtle devilish schemes that I felt to draw back must only bring upon my head the vengeance, through fear, of a man who was so entirely unscrupulous and so elusive that the police could ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... things, and soon came to those literary topics in which Miss Churton took so keen an interest. They talked long and earnestly, and Merton Chance neglected no opportunity of saying pretty things with a subtle flattery in them at which the other was far ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... this they consider that the senses of the normal man are susceptible of infinite refinement, and that upon a greater or less degree of acquired acuteness of perception the value of his results must depend. To attain this high degree of sensitiveness, necessary to the perception of very subtle phenomena, the adepts find it necessary to train their faculties, bodily and mental, by a life of rigid abstention from all pleasures or indulgences not indispensable in maintaining the relation between the ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... fearless young woman captured it alone, unaided, may be found in the files of all metropolitan newspapers. Of the brown man who was found hiding in the coat closet of the caboose nothing was said. But the sight of him dismayed Kathlyn as no lion could have done. Any-dark skinned person was now a subtle menace. And when, later, she saw peering into the port-hole of her stateroom, dismay ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... infinitely above himself, incapable of understanding her,—oh, if he could but touch him with the angel's spear, and bid him take his true shape before her whom he was gradually enveloping in the silken meshes of his subtle web! He would make a place for her in the world,—oh yes, doubtless. He would be proud of her in company, would dress her handsomely, and show her off in the best lights. But from the very hour that he felt his power over her firmly established, he would begin to remodel her after his own worldly ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... powerful Nonconformist influence. Crashaw will get hold of him—and work him if we see Purvis first. Purvis always stiffens his neck against any breach of conventional procedure. If Crashaw saw him first, well and good, Purvis would immediately jump to the conclusion that Crashaw intended some subtle attack on the Nonconformist position, ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... subtle motive in this awkward tarrying at the door, and, having no objection to gratifying it, he straightway introduced Mr. Wesley Tiffles to Miss Philomela Wilkeson. Mr. Tiffles put himself into the form of an L, like a professional acrobat; and Miss Wilkeson executed a courtesy ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... as petticoats are lifted by the wind; tricks of language, cleverly disguised audacities; sentences which reveal nude images in covered phrases, which cause the vision of all that may not be said to flit rapidly before the eyes of the mind, and allow well-bred people the enjoyment of a kind of subtle and mysterious love, a species of impure mental contact, due to the simultaneous evocations of secret, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... discrimination in the choice." All this befel because the Locust had no knowledge of the essence which lurketh in the outer semblance of bodies. "As for thee, O my brother (Allah requite thee with weal!), thou wast subtle in device and usedst precaution; but forethought availeth not against Fate, and Fortune foreordained baffleth force of fence. How excellent is the saying of the poet ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... I glimpsed thee thou wert gone, A dream for mortal eyes too proudly coy, Yet in thy place for subtle thought's employ The golden magic clung, a light that shone And filled me with thy joy. Before me like a mist that streamed and fell All names and shapes of antique beauty passed In garlanded procession with the swell Of flutes between the beechen ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... no longer the Rose of Sainte-Colombe who is here beside me. How much of her remains? Her general appearance is transformed by her clothes and the way in which she wears her hair; her voice and gestures are softer; but all this minute and complex change is but the subtle effect of events, the disconcerting effect of an influence that has laid itself upon her nature without altering it in any way. And this is what really causes my uneasiness. She is changed, but she has ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... Alcmene's womb Or Jovian parentage? Behold him stand With lion-hide on loins, and club in hand! Forceful and formidable to all foes, But fatal most especially to those Of Hydra presence and Stymphalian beak, Whose quarry is unseasoned youth, who seek By subtle snares the Infant's steps to trip, And catch the Minor in their harpy grip. To his Twelve Labours, against monsters grim, Who might have lived in safety but for him, To snare, to slay, to humbug, and to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, April 2, 1892 • Various
... of that simplicity, precision, and generality which are necessary to supply the matter or to give the form to a rule of law. Much learning has been employed on the doctrine of indications and presumptions in their books,—far more than is to be found in our law. Very subtle disquisitions were made on all matters of jurisprudence in the times of the classical Civil Law, by the followers of the Stoic school.[42] In the modern school of the same law, the same course was taken by Bartolus, Baldus, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vessel like a font cut in carved stone, also full of pure water. The place was softly lit with lamps formed out of the beautiful vessels of which I have spoken, and the air and curtains were laden with a subtle perfume. Perfume too seemed to emanate from the glorious hair and white-clinging vestments of She herself. I entered the little ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... she said, "seems to me too quiet, too subtle, too retiring." And the Prioress agreed with her, saying ...
— Sister Teresa • George Moore
... bear Alice Ferris away to her home by the lakes, and some subtle influence seemed to have transformed the golden-haired girl into a ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... Nor could such a task be committed to any but superior men. Only such as have abilities that would win them distinction in England, are fit to cope with the difficulties of dealing with intellects quite as argumentative as, and even more subtle than, those of the ordinary level ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... great principles which we stand associated to promote. I for my part rejoice that we belong to a country in which the whole business of government is so difficult. We do not take orders from anybody; it is a universal communication of conviction, the most subtle, delicate, and difficult of processes. There is not a single individual's opinion that is not of some consequence in making up the grand total, and to be in this great cooperative effort is the most stimulating thing in the world. A man standing alone may ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes. "I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that there's ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... subtle," she said, with a sigh. "But I don't like subtlety, you know. It's very horrid, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... bent for dipping into the by-ways of human life. Utterly fearless, resolute, persistent, there was yet in his manner a beautiful simplicity, a gentleness and interest that rarely failed to disarm and win admission where he desired to enter. Added to this equipment were a fine sense of humour, a subtle sympathy, and a passionate tenderness for anyone or anything lonely or neglected or in trouble. So, as only the few ...
— A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador • Mina Benson Hubbard (Mrs. Leonidas Hubbard, Junior)
... had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... subtle difference between time as we know it and time in this subterranean land—its progress there being slower. This, however, is only in accord with the well-known doctrine of relativity, which predicates both space and time as ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... back to the day when he had first looked down upon the little white face on the pillow; when the blue eyes had opened and Mikky had smiled. Michael smiled now, and Endicott became aware at once of the subtle fascination of that smile. And now the thought presented itself. "What if this were my son! how proud I should be ...
— Lo, Michael! • Grace Livingston Hill
... Hush-sh-sh, dear," he added with passionate tenderness, checking the hot protest that at the word "shame" had sprung to her lips, "I cannot explain more fully now. I do not know what may happen. I am only a man, and who knows what subtle devilry those brutes might not devise for bringing the untamed adventurer to his knees. For the next ten days the Dauphin will be on the high roads of France, on his way to safety. Every stage of his journey will be known to me. I can from between these four walls follow him and his escort ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... development, from thwarted instinct, and from the impossibility of realizing an imagined happiness. Envy cannot be cured by preaching; preaching, at the best, will only alter its manifestations and lead it to adopt more subtle forms of concealment. Except in those rare natures in which generosity dominates in spite of circumstances, the only cure for envy is freedom and the joy of life. From populations largely deprived of the simple instinctive pleasures of leisure and love, sunshine and green ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... Investors," which I published in sixty newspapers throughout the country and which daily reached upward of five million people, Sam Ellersly came in. His manner was certainly different from what it had ever been before; a difference so subtle that I couldn't describe it more nearly than to say it made me feel as if he had not until then been treating me as of the same class with himself. I smiled to myself and made an entry in my mental ledger to ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... contingencies against which it must make provision on the instant, it must indeed rank as far the first of the arts of the second order; and next to this great art of killing, medicine being much like war in its stratagems and watchings against its dark and subtle death-enemy. ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... threatens, have to be guarded. The right of every private competitor of a trust to enter a field of business and to call on the law for protection whenever he is in danger of being unfairly clubbed out of it, is what the state has to preserve. It is only protecting property in more subtle and difficult ways than those in which the state has always protected it. The official who restrains the plundering monopoly, preserves honest wealth, and keeps open the field for independent enterprise does on a grand scale something that is akin to the work of the watchman ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... and Dick twigg'd it, and Harry twigg'd it, and so they all twigg'd it." In the mean time the chat went round very briskly, and dram after dram, the brandy, until the tickler was drained to the bottom. And then the subtle spirit of the brandy, ascending into their noddles, worked such wonders, that they all began to feel themselves as big as field officers. Macdonald, for his part, with a face as red as a comet, reined up Selim, and drawing his claymore, began ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... the dread and horror and misery died slowly out of Elizabeth's eyes, and a faint incredulous hope began to grow in them. It was as if she literally drew courage and determination from the eyes looking into hers, and who can tell what subtle spirit message really passed from the strong soul into the ...
— The Torch Bearer - A Camp Fire Girls' Story • I. T. Thurston
... said bitterly, pointing to the valley. "Ah!" she exclaimed, "how he reasons! what subtle distinctions! Faithful hearts are not ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac
... Russians considered a regiment of Cossacks who had been trained worth three regiments untrained. Every thing about these troops is despicable, except the Cossack himself, who is a man of fine person, powerful, adroit, subtle, a good horseman, and indefatigable; he is born on horseback, and bred among civil wars; he is in the field, what the Bedouin is in the desert, or the Barbet in the Alps; he never enters a house, never lies ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... murmured something inconclusive. Sypher triumphed. She went indoors to get her coat and veil. Sypher admiringly watched her retreating figure—a poem of subtle curves—and shrugging himself into his motor coat, which the chauffeur brought him from the car, he turned ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... "BIBLIOGRAPHICAL, ANTIQUARIAN, AND PICTURESQUE TOUR." Behold me, therefore, at VIENNA, the capital of Austria: once the abode of mighty monarchs and renowned chieftains: and the scene probably of more political vicissitudes than any other capital in Europe. The ferocious Turk, the subtle Italian, and the impetuous Frenchman, have each claimed Vienna as their place of residence by right of conquest; and its ramparts have been probably battered by more bullets and balls than were ever discharged at ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Love-Song, The most subtle of all medicines, The most potent spell of magic, Dangerous more than war or hunting! Thus the Love-Song was recorded, ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... of course, was not without its disadvantage. Vaguely he felt that in some subtle way he was gaining the disapproval of his fellows. Men were apt to look at him askance, half doubtful, half-indignant. They tread on his toes in the Elevated. His work, too, was going to pot; he could not stick to his figures. His chief, an old ...
— The Trimming of Goosie • James Hopper
... phantoms, which, eluding the literal text of history, recede to the depths of an unknown past. We do not think of discussing their accuracy: we are absorbed in admiration of this wondrous art, at once subtle and splendid, which makes us dream of lost civilizations and buried empires. Gustave Moreau is more than a painter: he is a magician and his pencil is an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various |
