"Clear-cut" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... many in number and often discordant in character, who partake of the nature and even of the frailty of man, though their might is greater than his, and their life far exceeds the span of his ephemeral existence. Their sharply-marked individualities, their clear-cut outlines have not yet begun, under the powerful solvent of philosophy, to melt and coalesce into that single unknown substratum of phenomena which, according to the qualities with which our imagination invests it, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... These are days of loose thought, wild words, catchy phrases, especially in social and religious matters. Words and phrases are passed off as ideas, and fragments of an idea as the whole idea. Let ideas always be clear-cut, with a sharp, definite relief. Hazy notions are of no constructive value, and always full of danger, particularly in times of intellectual ferment, such as we are now going through. They are on the great sea of Truth as the smoke-screens, behind ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... known test of conduct and economics, their attitude in the matter is entirely right. Men work to all given points in straight, clear-cut, logical lines only to find women at the point of results waiting for them, with unforeseen culminations, which would have been ...
— The Tinder-Box • Maria Thompson Daviess
... appeal cannot be enforced by some definite incentive to action; but usually there is no such incentive advanced. There is no doubt or hesitation as to the positive part of salvation; but as to the negative part of it there is no clear-cut deliverance. ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... Thayer family well," declared Mr. Barkworth, "but I had met young Thayer, a clear-cut chap, and his father on the trip. The lad and I struggled in the water for several hours endeavoring to hold afloat by grabbing to the sides and end of an overturned life-boat. Now and again we lost our grip and fell back into the water. I did not recognize ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... the room was extraordinarily vivid and clear-cut. It was true that the firelight still wavered and sank again in billows of soft color about the shadowed walls, but the changing light was no more an interruption to the action of that steady medium through which he perceived than the movement of ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... were inclined to be definite and clear-cut to the point of hardness. She did not know the meaning of over-wrought nerves, nor the difficulties of a nature more imaginative than her own. She had found her will-power sufficient to meet all the emergencies of her ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... and clear-cut sentence we find in the 4th measure an effect of surprise and suspense; for the chord on the first beat is an inverted position of the dominant chord in the dominant key. Both the endings are masculine, i.e., the chords which end the phrases ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... impression of a womanly personal interest in the person upon whom they were fixed. They were eyes that haunted one like a remembered strain of music. The lips were full, and the mouth was drawn in such exquisite lines that it needed the clear-cut and emphasized chin to give firmness to its beauty. The broad forehead, with arching eyebrows, gave an intellectual cast to a face the special stamp of which was purity. The nose, with thin open nostrils, a little too strong ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... the roadside margin of deep shadow crept the figure of a man with a rifle in his hand. It was a starlit night with a sickle of new moon, neither bright nor yet densely dark, so that shapes were opaquely visible but not clear-cut ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... face towards him, and he saw her clear-cut profile sharply outlined against the glowing water as he looked down at her. Although the young man struggled against the emotion, which is usually experienced by any man in his position, yet he felt reasonably sure of the answer to his question. She had come with him out ...
— In a Steamer Chair And Other Stories • Robert Barr
... they should make as little rustle as possible as she swooped quickly down the stairs. Another instant, and she was at his side, her eyes gleaming like fiery coals, her face burning, her lips firm, set, and determined. He was too much startled to speak. It was she who broke the silence, in words clear-cut and distinct yet ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... descriptive, reminiscent, and half-historic papers on Portsmouth,—'An Old Town by the Sea'; with a second volume of short stories entitled 'Two Bites at a Cherry.' The character-drawing in his fiction is clear-cut and effective, often sympathetic, and nearly always suffused with an agreeable coloring of humor. There are notes of pathos, too, in some of his tales; and it is the blending of these qualities, through the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... "Pleasure," he said, "pleasure?"—he took his hat and went out. It was pitch dark in the street outside, all the lights having been out on account of an air-raid. Before his mind there flowered the fine clear-cut face of a boy of sixteen, with its warm pale skin and dark soft eyes, the curling hair, the mobile, smiling mouth, the tone of the sweet voice—Bertin, as he was when they first met at about the same age. Their long evening talks, the tender confidences, the discussions, the dreams ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... the doorway, then paused and looked back at them. Sudden illumination came to her as she scanned their faces, the man's clear-cut, determined, eager—Carol's shy, and scared, and—hopeful. She turned quickly back toward her sister, pain darkening her eyes. Carol was the last of all the girls,—it would leave her alone,—and he was too old for her. Her lips quivered a little, ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... was behind what he said—the active, eager, questioning mind, determined to master all facts that gave true knowledge, and when this was done, when all facts were noted and weighed, coming to a conclusion which was both clear-cut and unalterable. He was most tolerant of the views of others, and never overwhelmed with greater knowledge; but all that he had in him he gave freely and without stint. The talks I recollect best are either on industrial ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... the grate, is a round, smoothly developed Italian head, with that rather tumid outline of features which one often sees in a Roman in middle life, when easy living and habits of sensual indulgence begin to reveal their signs in the countenance, and to broaden and confuse the clear-cut, statuesque lines of early youth. Evidently, that is the head of an easy-going, pleasure-loving man, who has waxed warm with good living, and performs the duties of his office with an unctuous grace as something becoming and decorous to be gone through with. Evidently, he is puzzled ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... presents them with a gigantic natural barometer. In fine settled weather a soft haze invariably lies over the sea, so that Capri is only faintly visible from the shores of Parthenope, save at sunrise and sunset, when for a short time the graceful form of the islet looms out clear-cut like a jagged amethyst upon a sapphire bed; but before rain or storm it yields up its inmost secrets to the public gaze of Naples. The northern Marina, the towns of Capri and Ana-Capri, even the little ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... some of this time by following the trail for an hour when the moon was at its highest, and then pitched his tent. He was up again the next morning and breaking camp before it was light. Scarcely had he traveled an hour over the clear-cut trail ahead of him when he suddenly halted his dogs with a loud cry of command and astonishment. In a small open the trails of the two sledges separated. One continued straight east, toward Churchill, while the other turned almost at right angles into the south. For a few moments ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood
... for the space of a few seconds the two men looked into one another's face, eyes to eyes—and suddenly Chauvelin felt an icy sweat coursing down his spine. The eyes into which he gazed had a strange, ironical twinkle in them, a kind of good-humoured arrogance, whilst through the firm, clear-cut lips, half hidden by a dirty and ill-kempt beard, there came the sound—oh! a mere echo—of a quaint and ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... to be no atmosphere on the moon; or, at any rate, such an excessively rare one, as to be quite inappreciable. Of this there are several proofs. For instance, in a solar eclipse the moon's disc always stands out quite clear-cut against that of the sun. Again during occultations, stars disappear behind the moon with a suddenness, which could not be the case were there any appreciable atmosphere. Lastly, we see no traces of twilight upon the lunar surface, nor any softening at the edges of shadows; both which effects ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... facing him; and as he looked at her clear-cut aquiline face, her steady eyes, her resolute mouth, her carriage, masterly in its self- possessed poise, he saw that there was no further hope for him. There was ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... not the clear-cut blunder of which I spoke. The real blunder is this. Mr. Wells deserves a tiara of crowns and a garland of medals for all kinds of reasons. But if I were restricted, on grounds of public economy, to giving Mr. Wells only one medal ob cives servatos, I would ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... Southland airs, The summer landscape basks in utter peace: In lazy streams the lazy clouds are seen; Low hills, broad meadows, and large, clear-cut squares Of ripening corn-fields, rippled by the breeze, With shifting shade ...
— The Poems of Emma Lazarus - Vol. I (of II.), Narrative, Lyric, and Dramatic • Emma Lazarus
... innocent. I have noticed this since boyhood, the phenomenon being most conspicuous when I was least deserving; whereas, with Alb, it is the other way round. His darkly handsome face, with its severely clear-cut features, his black hair and brows, his somber eyes, are the legitimate qualifications of the stage villain. Even the well-known cigarette is seldom lacking; therefore, if I wished for revenge, I have often had it. When ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... eldest son, Lord Westholt, sauntered together smoking their after-dinner cigars on the broad-turfed terrace overlooking park and gardens which seemed to sweep without boundary line into the purplish land beyond. The grey mass of the castle stood clear-cut against the blue of a sky whose twilight was still almost daylight, though in the purity of its evening stillness a star already hung, here and there, and a young moon swung low. The great spaces about them held a silence whose ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... strong as he looks squarely into the eyes of the venerable priest and honors him for the gathering tears he sees there; no wonder his own turn proudly, fondly, down on her as her soft hand is placed in his nervous palm, and Blake sets his teeth to repel the gasp of delight with which he hears the clear-cut enunciation of every word of his solemn troth. For the life of him he cannot help thinking how many a time he has heard that voice in the wild days on the frontier, in Indian battle or in garrison debate, and marked the same ring of determination ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... for the plot that Lucan's epic is read. It has won immortality by the brilliance of its rhetoric, its unsurpassed epigrams, its clear-cut summaries of character, its biting satire, and its outbursts of lofty political enthusiasm. These features stand out pre-eminent and atone for its astounding errors of taste, its strained hyperbole, ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... my gloomy musings a sound intruded—the ringing of my door bell. I rose from my chair with a weary sigh, went to the door, and opened it. An aged Oriental stood without. He was tall and straight, had a snow-white beard and clear-cut, handsome features. He wore well-cut European garments and a green turban. As I stood staring ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... conveying the comforting assurance that her guest was at least a gentleman. There was more than that. She was immediately conscious of that charm of personality which drew the liking of most people who came in contact with Colwyn. In the strong clear-cut face of the great criminologist, there was the abiding quality of sympathy with the sufferings which spring from human passions and the tragedy of life. But, if his serenity of expression suggested ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees
... which took place at Sandhurst Church, a mile or two away, to which we walked by the pine-clad hill of Edgebarrow and the heathery moorland known as Cock-a-Dobbie. Mr. Parsons was the clergyman—a little handsome old man, like an abbe, with a clear-cut face and thick white hair. I am afraid that the ceremony had no religious significance for me at that time, but I was deeply interested, thought it rather cruel, and was shocked at Hugh's indecorous outcry. He was called Robert, an old family name, and Hugh, ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Army had a clear-cut plan for the overseas employment of both black service and combat units. In May 1942 the War Department directed the Army Air Forces, Ground Forces, and Service Forces to make sure that black troops were ordered overseas ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... at the extraordinary transformation throughout the field of war in France, one thing stands out clear-cut and distinct. Having been thwarted in their purpose to walk through the western way to Paris by the enormous forces massed on their flanks, the Germans have adopted an entirely new plan of campaign ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... real artistic portrayal meant. In voice, manner, action, in each minute detail of face and figure, she was truly the very woman she represented. It was an art so fine as to make the auditors forget the artist, forget even themselves. Her perfect workmanship, clear-cut, rounded, complete, stood forth like a delicate cameo beside the rude buffoonery of T. Macready Lane, the coarse villany of Albrecht, and the stiff mannerisms of the remainder of the cast. They were automatons as compared with a figure instinct ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... every plant and flower that they attempted demonstrated to Miss Hartwell that the real science of botany was not wholly dependent upon forceps and scalpel. Another demonstration was to the effect that the first and hardest step in drawing, if not in painting, was a clear-cut conception of the object to be delineated. Elise knew her object. From the first downy ball that pushed its way into the opening spring, to the unfolding of the perfect flower, every shade and variety of ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... some fragments of the grandiose but shadowy Ossian which first stirred the imitative impulse in this poet of trenchant and clear-cut form. "The first composition I ever was guilty of," he wrote to Elizabeth Barrett (Aug. 25, 1846), "was something in imitation of Ossian, whom I had not read, but conceived through two or three scraps in other books." And long afterwards ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... hands. They were well shaped, and, though not small, there was a look of refinement about them; he had a way of touching things delicately, a little lingeringly, she noticed. There was an air of distinction about his clear-cut, clean-shaven face, possibly intensified by contrast with Drayton's blurred features; and it was, perhaps, also by contrast with the gray cuffs that showed beneath John's ill-cut drab suit that the linen Broomhurst wore seemed to her ...
— Stories by English Authors: Orient • Various
... velvet with diamonds shining through; eyes like black wells, with mirrored stars in their unfathomed depths; eyes of wild deer; eyes of fierce Saracens; eyes of baby saints, all set in small bronze faces clear-cut as the profiles on ...
— Rosemary in Search of a Father • C. N. Williamson
... Mahomet was my personal boy. He was a Somali from the Northwest coast, dusky brown, with the regular clear-cut features of a Greek marble god. His dress was of neat khaki, and he looked down on savages; but, also, as with all the dark-skinned races, up to his white master. Mahomet was with me during all my African stay, and tested out nobly. As yet, of course, ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... appearance and also from his pronunciation it was self-evident that he was a Frenchman. Moreover, he revealed a certain intellectual distinction typically French. Monsieur Georges Duval was of middle age with clear-cut, aristocratic features, keen dark eyes and iron-gray hair. In comparison with him Mrs. Burton looked ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... was believed by the people of Italy to have entered the Inferno of Fire—had actually descended into the opposite Inferno of Frost, and done unprecedented battle with the demons of that realm. Dr. Kane was slight, delicately framed, lean, with sharp, clear-cut features, of quivering mobility and fineness of texture, having the aspect rather of an artist than an explorer,—not at all the personage to whom most judges would assign great power of endurance. And as one follows him through those thrice Herculean toils,—sees him not only ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... taller, fertile ones do not appear until late in June. Where there are no fruit-dots the hairs on the upper surface of the fronds will help to distinguish it from specimens of the Marsh fern tribe, which it somewhat resembles. The regular rows of nearly straight, clear-cut sori of the fertile fronds are very attractive, and the lower ones, as well as those at the slender tips of the pinnae, ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton
... figure straightened also, and swiftly muffling the lantern in a fold of her skirt, she exclaimed, audibly only to him, though in words clear-cut as musical notes, "Oh, Arthur Winslow, has it ...
— Bylow Hill • George Washington Cable
... Caesarion's clear-cut but pallid face, whose every feature resembled that of his father, the great Caesar, bent towards them from the opening above the door, as he greeted both with a formal bend of the head and a patronizing glance. His eyes had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to Maria Dolores. Her face (clear-cut, with its dark hair, against the red background of her sunshade) was white and drawn with pain. But she smiled, rather wanly, as her gaze met his, and said, in a weak voice, "Oh, I am so glad you came. I can't tell you how she was frightening me." And all at once ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... regained my momentarily disturbed composure, and was studying the face of the man before me. It was a fine face, clear-cut, that of a clean liver, unmarked by sensuality, unharmed by wine, keen of intelligence, resolute of will. I could no longer deem him a madman. But I saw I had to do with one so filled with fanaticism that he could look upon murder as religion, plan it without misgiving, execute it ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... natural and healthful, Greek simplicity and moderation are of the very essence of good art in all ages. We can no more revive the exact conditions under which art arose than we can import into England the clear air, the bright sun, the clear-cut shadows of the Greek landscape. But we can still look up to the philosophy, the poetry, and the art of Greece as classical, as a revelation of what is most pleasing and most enduring in human nature. And if we neglect them and reject them from the ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... travels through life certain pictures remain vividly clear-cut in the memory. The evenings in that shooting-camp are amongst these. I can still imagine myself strolling with an extremely comely lady along the stretches of natural lawn that crowned the bluff above the river, the gurgle and ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... had gone before might explain why she was learning to love him, and be sufficient reason for this affection, but a woman's love, even that quiet phase developing in Helen's heart, is not like a man's conviction, for which he can give his clear-cut reasons. It is a tenderness for its object—a wish to serve and give all in return for ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... credit to himself, the community, and the nation at large. He was a broad and profound speculative thinker, and the papers which he occasionally wrote, and which appeared now and then in the more prominent magazines, never failed to attract general and wide-spread attention. His intelligence, clear-cut and vividly operating, instead of leading him into the quicksands of scepticism, had never left the hard rock of earnest religious belief inherited from ten generations of Puritan ancestors. Nevertheless, though his feet never strayed from that rock, his was too active and living a soul to ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... Mrs. Feversham. "You must." And, looking round for the necessary escort, she saw a new arrival coming up the stairs. "The very man!" she said to herself, but fortunately not aloud, as "Mr. Rendel!" was announced. A young man of apparently a little over thirty, with deep-set, far-apart eyes and clear-cut features, came up and took her outstretched hand with a little air of formal politeness refreshing after the ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... in mine The eyes of Vivian Dangerfield. A flash Shot from their depths:—a sudden blaze of light Like that swift followed by the thunder's crash, Which said, "Suspicion is confirmed by sight," As they fell on the pleasant door-way scene. Then o'er his clear-cut face, a cold white look Crept, like the pallid moonlight o'er a brook, And, with a slight, proud bending of the head, He stepped toward us haughtily and said, "Please pardon my intrusion, Miss Maurine: I called to ask Miss Trevor for a book She spoke ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... One is apt to exaggerate things on a workaday Saturday afternoon. She looked more like a pretty bisque figurine; slim and clear-cut, and a little neglected, perhaps, by its owners, and dressed in working clothes instead of the pretty draperies it should have had; but needing only a touch or so, a little dusting, so to speak, to be as ...
— The Rose Garden Husband • Margaret Widdemer
... place is perishing. Savannah and the larger towns have been looked after first—as is natural and right," added the physician, in a business-like tone. She had a quick and clear-cut, but ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... up during the singing of the first psalm, many aged eyes noted with loving eagerness certain resemblances in voice and gesture to their hero. His face was handsome and clear-cut and lit by a pair of kindly, frank, blue eyes, a face which betokened a generous and amiable disposition. And the way he held up his fine head and straightened his broad shoulders was so like the first John ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... opened the door for me. A sheet covered my father from feet to chin, and above it his head lay back on the pillow, his features, clear-cut and aquiline, keeping that massive repose which, though it might seem to be deeper now in the shade of the darkened room, had always cowed me while he lived. It seemed to me that my father's death, though I ought to feel it more keenly, made ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of a different calibre. Still apparently in the early thirties, tall, and with clear-cut aristocratic features, he was decidedly good to look upon. His face, fair as that of a woman, was perhaps slightly marred by the expression of weakness which lurked round the finely-moulded lips; but for all that it was stamped with the latent nobility which characterised ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... of these corporations, and also of various other miscellaneous kinds of companies, no clear-cut principles serve to guide. The result is "a chaos in ...
— Modern Economic Problems - Economics Vol. II • Frank Albert Fetter
... course of the Notes, the editor has indicated such corrections as are necessary to prevent the student from thinking that in reading Defoe he is drinking from a "well of English undefiled." The art of writing an English prose at once scholarly, clear-cut, and vigorous, was well understood by Defoe's great contemporaries, Dryden, Swift, and Congreve; it does not seem to have occurred to Defoe that he could learn anything from their practice. He has his reward. ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... low hill far out across the valley. It looked as though it rose sheer out of the forest below, but the watching man knew full well that it was only a spur of the giant that backed it. It was the summit of this clear-cut hill, and what was visible upon it, that held his fascinated attention. Suddenly a half-whispered word escaped him and Ralph was beside him ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... of the masses from above; the crashing din was deadening to his ears. They were safe—and his eyes were upon a savage figure, black and tall, that stared and stared, silently, across a sea of yellow sand. He watched it, clear-cut, motionless—until it vanished beneath ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... among whom Candace reigned chief. The presence of these tropical specimens of humanity, with their wide, joyous, rich physical abundance of nature and their hearty abandon of outward expression, was a relief to the still clear-cut lines in which the picture of New England life was drawn, which an ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... murmured. Sweet she looked in her gay green hat and her long seal-skin coat. Beneath this, the green of a skirt above the slim silk stockings and the bright shoes. Gloves and bag on the seat by her side. The face was eager, clear-cut, its features regular. But only the great eyes mattered. Perhaps, also, ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... she sat with hands loosely clasped in her lap; there was an inscrutable look upon her delicate face, upon the clear-cut features so attractively framed by her thick dark hair, brown in some ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... apostles, and not to the world of mankind. It specifically states that "the world cannot receive" this Comforter. That kills it as a proof-text that the world "must receive it" before it can believe. Those who affirm a direct operation of the Spirit on "the world" make a clear-cut issue ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... look, and you stand in the heart of a valley and beyond signs of habitation. The southern slope is beautifully wooded, showing every range and variety of green, from the light vivid green of larches to the dull brownish tone of the oaks. The northern slope rises brown and rocky, the edges clear-cut against the brilliant sky; there is a great sound of birds, and always the noise of ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... west seemed to draw nearer, the contrast between the deepening blue of the water and the clear azure of the contracting dome more sharply defined. The sky that had been cloudless for days still remained barren, but the sailor knew what lay beyond the clear-cut rim of the world. The man of the sea could look far beyond the horizon. He could see the ugly clouds that were even now speeding down from the north, invisible as yet but soon to creep into view; he could see the mighty billows on the other side of that distant ...
— West Wind Drift • George Barr McCutcheon
... her with a little ache in his throat. The moonlight was full on her partly averted face; her profile, clear-cut, delicate, was like ...
— Penny of Top Hill Trail • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... as he turned sheet after sheet of the papers the man handed him, seeming to absorb the pages at a glance, while a running fire of quick questions, short answers, terse comments and clear-cut instructions accompanied the examination. ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... warrior with clear-cut visage and flashing eye, his face written all over with battle lines, his voice running the entire gamut from rage to mirth, and you have a mental picture of Chief Runs-the-Enemy, a tall, wiry Teton Sioux whose more than sixty-four years of life have ...
— The Vanishing Race • Dr. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
... memory my pseudo-sister had been something bright and clear-cut and rather small; seen now, she was something that one could not look at for glow. She moved toward me, smiling and radiant, as a ship moves beneath towers of shining canvas. I was simply overwhelmed. I don't know what she said, what I said, what she did or I. I have an idea that we ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... Sundays. Then he wore a dark suit that showed the lithe movement of his body. There was a clean, clear-cut look about him. He went on with his thinking to her. Suddenly he reached for a Bible. Miriam liked the way he reached up—so sharp, straight to the mark. He turned the pages quickly, and read her a chapter of St. John. ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... his mind emerged from a mist, and every detail of his surroundings stood out sharp and clear-cut. The street was insufficiently illuminated, but the light of a full moon cut across the buildings on one side, half way between roof and sidewalk. Cavendish perceived, with a kind of dull surprise, that the pavements were thronged, and that almost every window framed a figure or two. A hoarse ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... books, bloody red, grassy green and brown, like Autumn woods, with edges of gold when the sunlight struck them. They made the walls like a great jewelled cabinet, lined from floor to ceiling: here and there a niche of polished wood held a white, clear-cut head. From the ceiling great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass chains; they swayed ever so slightly when one ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... shall never forget his face—I saw him so distinctly." She then proceeded to describe in detail the very clear-cut features and bushy eyebrows of Carrie Waverly's father, giving also his colouring, which was very distinctive. I suggested trying to find out what he wanted to say to his daughter, but this distressed Mrs Peters so much that I was sorry ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... quickly, and are withered like dried-up apples as soon as the later years come upon them. But Secotan, although his hair was gray, had still the clear-cut face with its arched nose and heavy brows of a younger man. Only his eyes, deep, piercing, and very wise, seemed to show how long he had lived and ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... the long-hidden thought "sprang full-statured in an hour." She saw how love and beauty and freedom lay floating vaguely and aimlessly in a million minds till the poet came and crystallized them into clear-cut, prismatic words, tinged for each with the color of his own fancy, and wrought into a perfect mosaic, not for an age, but for all time. Led by a strong hand, she trod with reverent awe down the dim aisles of the Past, and saw how the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... there was a frankness and a directness about her almost boyishly clear-cut face which inspired confidence, and the girls who brought their difficulties to her found in her a wise and sympathetic counsellor. Eleanor was not beautiful like Catherine, not brilliant like Patricia—in fact it was with difficulty that she held her place in ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... but she was not the less charming to look at. Such was the unspoken reflection of a man who was well able to be a judge in such matters. His name was Hubert Marien. He was a great painter, and was now watching the clear-cut, somewhat Arab—like profile of this girl—a profile brought out distinctly against the dark-red silk background of a screen, much as we see a cameo stand out in sharp relief from the glittering stone from which the artist has fashioned it. ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... had been discussed, I had stated to her my hopes of accomplishing certain things. A remark she made in reply seemed to have burned into my brain. Her words were, "To do that you must make money and lots of it." That was in clear-cut words the task before me. I "must make money and lots of it." It drove from my mind thoughts of prudence and safety. I took no account of the risk of my business. I thought only ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... promptly, looking at her clear-cut face with its frame of red hair under her sailor hat, and at the well-made ...
— A Tar-Heel Baron • Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
... had in it so much imperiousness and so little obeisance, he walked backward a few paces in the full lustre of the set sun's after-glow, which intensified the vivid red of his costume and lit up all the ornaments of clear-cut amber that glittered against his swarthy skin,—then turning, he descended the hillock so swiftly that he seemed to have melted out of sight as utterly as a dark ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... forward in his chair and threw out his arms, and his dark eyes flashed and a smile of conscious rectitude overspread his clear-cut features. ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... of patient toil that Watson unmistakably heard Mr. Bell say one day, 'Mr. Watson, please come here, I want you.' The message was a very ordinary, untheatrical one for a moment so significant but neither of the enthusiasts heeded that. The thrilling fact was that the words had come clear-cut over ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... in the view of the State Department, as a "clear-cut" violation of Germany's pledges to the United States. Her gun was not used, and no opportunity was afforded for using it. The "presumption" on the part of a German submarine commander that a vessel was a transport was a favorite defense of Germany's and disregarded ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... clasping the bowl of a shaded lamp—the only light in the room. Her face, always calm in life's wisdom, but agitated now by the tide of deep things coming swiftly in toward her, rested clear-cut upon ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... on killing or hurting some other living creature. The face, too, had a certain dignity about it, a little of the dignity of justice; it was the face of one who feels that if his action has been precipitate and severe, it has at any rate been virtuous. The full but clear-cut lips also had their own expression on them, half serious, half comical; humour, contempt, and even pity were blended in it. Altogether Philip Caresfoot's appearance in the moment of boyish vengeance was ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... than the form doth seem to be Which we with eyes of ours perceive. For all The far removed objects of our gaze Seem through much air confused in their look Ere minished in their bigness. Wherefore, moon, Since she presents bright look and clear-cut form, May there on high by us on earth be seen Just as she is with extreme bounds defined, And just of the size. And lastly, whatso fires Of ether thou from earth beholdest, these Thou mayst consider as possibly ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... career falls into two clear-cut parts, almost as if it had been specially arranged for the biographer; there is the probationary period in Korea, and the executive in North China. The first is important only because of the moulding-power which early influences ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... daughter in this drawing-room (the eldest daughter of the family was married and in India) had not much nervousness about her. She was a handsome, tall, blonde girl of the clear-cut English type, cold and even proud in manner, strict in the performance of all her duties, and not very charitable in her criticism of others. She had a good figure; she dressed well; clear health shone in her pale fair face and bright ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... in his well-set-up, well-poised body. It showed in the expression of his clear-cut bronzed features. It showed in every little shift of pose, every little turn of his well-shaped head, as he stood, leaning gracefully against the ledge of the bay window, talking with Blake; for Mrs. ...
— A Fool There Was • Porter Emerson Browne
... both ladies, as they looked up, to find standing in the doorway a handsome girl, with clear-cut patrician features, and an erect carriage which gave her ...
— Wanted—A Match Maker • Paul Leicester Ford
... agreement upon policies. To careful observers it became clear that there could be no effective revival of Liberalism until the war in South Africa should have been terminated and the larger imperial problems involved in it solved. For a time the only clear-cut parliamentary opposition offered the Government was that ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... the hearer. But interpretation includes more than this reproduction, essential though it may be. If the expression of the intention of poet and composer fulfilled the sum total of interpretation, one performance would differ little from another. A clear-cut, automatic precision would be the result, perhaps as perfect as the repetition given out by a music-box and certainly no more interesting. Another element enters into interpretation. The meaning of the poem and its accompanying music must be displayed ...
— The Renaissance of the Vocal Art • Edmund Myer
... worst. Not that negotiations would fail—but—not until the originals were in his hands and personally done away with would he feel secure. He recalled Mrs. Marteen's graceful and sumptuously clad figure, her clear-cut, beautiful head, the power of her unwavering sapphire eyes, the gentle elegance of her voice. ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... mean, however, that he must confine himself to plain statement of fact, with no manifestation of feeling or earnestness. Men are still influenced and persuaded by impassioned speech. There is nothing incompatible between deep feeling and clear-cut speech. A man having profound convictions upon any subject of importance will always speak on it with fervor ...
— The Training of a Public Speaker • Grenville Kleiser
... culture. Yet the sort of linguistic development that parallels the historic growth of culture and which, in its later stages, we associate with literature is, at best, but a superficial thing. The fundamental groundwork of language—the development of a clear-cut phonetic system, the specific association of speech elements with concepts, and the delicate provision for the formal expression of all manner of relations—all this meets us rigidly perfected and systematized ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... companion must die, let me die first." Now I made this request for the following reason. In my right hand, the line of life broke abruptly halfway in its length, indicating a sudden and violent death. But the point at which it broke was terminated by a perfectly marked square, extraordinarily clear-cut and distinct. Such a square, occurring at the end of a broken line means rescue, salvation. I had long been aware of this strange figuration in my hand, and had often wondered what it presaged. But now, as once more I looked at it, it came upon me ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... complimented Dunn, coming up to me, and patting me on the back ... Gregory, I'm for you. I'm so glad you've come out a clean, fine, clear-cut Christian." ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... functional disorder means only a disturbance of its action. In a purely nervous disorder there seems to be no trouble with what the nerves and organs are, but only with what they do; it is behavior and not tissue that is at fault. Of course, in real life, things are seldom as clear-cut as they are in books, and so it happens that often there is a combination of organic and functional disease that is puzzling even to a skilled diagnostician. The first essential is a diagnosis as to whether it be an organic disease, with accompanying ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... tightly clasped, watched the tall figure mount the platform. Lord Glyncraig, with his clear-cut features, iron-grey hair, and commanding air, looked a born leader of men, and well fitted to take his share in swaying a nation's destiny. She could picture him a power in Parliament. It was good of him to come this afternoon to speak at a girls' school. Lady Glyncraig, handsome, ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... of heliotrope as she crossed the room. She was still a handsome woman; she once had been beautiful, but too obviously beautiful to be really beautiful; there was nothing personal or distinguished in her face; it was made of too well-known shapes—the long, ordinary, clear-cut nose, and the eyes, forehead, cheeks, and chin proportioned according to the formula of the casts in vestibules. That she was slightly declassee was clear in the first glance. And she represented all that the word could be made to mean—liaisons, familiarity with fashionable ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... think that dependence would have suited your book," was John's comment as he took in the lines of her clear-cut face. ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... was slender and almost wizened, the thin shoulders round with an habitual stoop, the lean shanks were encased in a pair of much-darned, coarse black stockings. It was the figure of an old man, with a gentle, clear-cut face furrowed by a forest of wrinkles, and surmounted by scanty white locks above a smooth forehead which looked yellow and polished like an ancient piece ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... a man be a Christian and succeed in business, though old, is still asked every day. There are yet a great many who regard religion and business as conflicting pursuits, and they attempt a compromise by the clear-cut division of time into business hours and church time. Others are answering this question in the negative. "Look at me," they say. "I have always been pious and honest, and therefore I have failed to make money or achieve ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... along towards her destination with a masculine stride and in as great a hurry as though she had entered herself for a Marathon race. It was a warm, misty day, and the pale August sunshine radiated faintly through the smoky atmosphere. Nothing was clear-cut and nothing was distinct, so hazy was the outlook. The hedges were losing their greenery and had blossomed forth into myriad bunches of ruddy hips and haws, and the usually hard road was soft underfoot because of the penetrating quality of the moist air. There ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... totally dissimilar expressions embody those varying attitudes of mind which the child may successively assume in any critical experience of its young life. The clear-cut profile of the lower face at the left suggests the face of the child in the Age of Innocence who first confronts the problem of life. The one just above has the thoughtful poise of the little girl Simplicity, pondering ...
— Child-life in Art • Estelle M. Hurll
... reached the highest point, and shading her eyes looked out to sea. On the opposite side of the cove a huge rock, formed into an island by a narrow shaft of water, which in the strife of ages had cleared its way between it and the rocky coast, frowned dark and solemn in the shadow, its steep and clear-cut sides giving it a character of power and imperturbability that crowned it a king among islands. The sea beyond was glittering in the morning sun, but there was deep purple shadow in the cove, and under the rocks ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... about 200,000 soldiers; unfavorable weather conditions; the shortness of the time allowed for the campaign, and, chief of all, the organized opposition of the foreign-born and negro voters. The Texas suffragists won a clear-cut victory January 28 when the State Supreme Court upheld the decisions of the lower courts that the ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... Grace's clear-cut face flushed. "I think we are talking at cross purposes," she said quietly. "The room you are using belongs to my friend Anne Pierson and to me. During our freshman year it was ours, and when we left here last June it was ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... and a rope, from which they are to choose the method of their doom. This, then, was the occupant of the mysterious palanquin, which now was opened as we drew up before the village caravansary. Out stepped a man, tall and portly, with beard and hair of venerable gray. His keen eye, clear-cut features, and dignified bearing, bespoke for him respect even in his downfall, while his stooped shoulders and haggard countenance betrayed the weight of sorrow and sleepless nights with which he was going to ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... at last while a periscope of super-sensitiveness was thrust cautiously above the water. It brought in a panoramic view of the shoreline ahead, amplified it and projected the picture in clear-cut detail upon a screen. If Lieutenant McGuire had stood on the wet deck above and looked directly at the island the sight could have been no clearer. The colors of torn and blasted tree-growths showed in all their pale shades, and there was ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... woman's wit— Yet here my wife is wiser than her wont. I miss your Bishop: grandly countenanced he, Save for that mole. He shuns our revel:—ay! Monastic virtue never feels secure Save when it skulks in corners!' As he spake, Despite that varnish on his brow clear-cut, Stung by remembrance, from the tutored eye Forth flashed the fire barbaric: race and heart A moment stood confessed. Old Mellitus, That night how fared he? In a fragile tent Facing that church expectant, ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... blows throughout their experience at the front, but in the name of other battalions that had endured the remorseless grind of the Ypres salient they were to strike the blows of retribution. The answer as to how they would charge was written in faces clear-cut by the same climate that ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... a letter, that is, ending a letter with a participial phrase, weakens the entire effect of the letter. This is particularly true of a business letter. Close with a clear-cut idea. The following endings will illustrate ...
— How to Write Letters (Formerly The Book of Letters) - A Complete Guide to Correct Business and Personal Correspondence • Mary Owens Crowther
... Norwich cloth and his assured bearing marked him as a man of position, while the sombre hue of his clothes and the absence of all ornament contrasted with the flash and glitter which had marked the king's retinue. By his side walked a woman, tall and slight and dark, with lithe, graceful figure and clear-cut, composed features. Her jet-black hair was gathered back under a light pink coif, her head poised proudly upon her neck, and her step long and springy, like that of some wild, tireless woodland creature. She held her left hand in front of her, covered with a red velvet glove, and on the wrist ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... under his feet, and grasses tangling in the clasps of his walking shoes, the sunlight conquered, the sky cleared, and the last of the storm drifted and spread and vanished in a bath of dazzling blue. Birds began to circle in brief flights; cloud shadows fell clear-cut on the west, dark flank of the mountain; and in the saturated marshy spots, where a scummy green growth already was spread over the crystal pools of the little hillside springs, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... product of his own imagination. His fancy had played upon her so extravagantly that he feared he would not know her if ever they came face to face. His mental picture of her had lost all distinctness; her face was no longer clear-cut before his mind's eye, but so blurred and hazy that even to himself he could not describe her with ...
— The Ne'er-Do-Well • Rex Beach
... sitting in the delicate shadow of the lime-tree. Outside, the lawn was drenched with light, light that ran quivering into the little inlets and pools among the shadows. The cropped grass shone clear as emerald, and all the garden showed clear-cut and solid and stable in its ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... slaughter! So is it with yonder company!" His finger sank until it indicated the little camp seated toy-like in the green meadow four hundred feet below them, with every man and horse, and the very camp-kettle, clear-cut and visible, though diminished by distance to fairy-like proportions. "So it is with yonder company!" he repeated sternly. "They play and are merry, and one fishes and another sleeps! But at the end of the journey is death. Death for their victims, ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... this—you might find—that melody?" he stammered in a low voice. The next moment he was gone, having left in Billy's fingers a paper upon which was written in a clear-cut, masculine ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... inflexible nobleman, not a feature in whose clear-cut, nobly moulded, soldierly face ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... before me now, clear-cut and prominent, its outlines distinct against the background of blue water or green plains. In that early day the Fort was a fairly typical outpost of the border, like scores of others scattered at wide and irregular intervals from the Carolina ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... and the lights had been turned on in the little ochre den where the billiard-table stood, St. George emerged—a well-made figure, his buoyant, clear-cut face accurately bespeaking both health and cleverness. Of a family represented by the gentle old bishop and his own exquisite mother, himself university-bred and fresh from two years' hard, hand-to-hand fighting to earn an honourable livelihood, St. George, of sound body and fine intelligence, ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... be heard from one of these days," was the unanimous verdict of those who listened to his clear-cut and finished sentences, and noted the maturity ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... was exquisitely fair, with the fairness of a little child, soft pale-gold, fair. Her face had, indeed, no strictly sculptural beauty; her long flax-coloured eyes were not large, her nose had no special character; only her sensitive and clear-cut nostrils gave the pretty face its suggestion of ancient lineage. Her mouth was a little large, and her full red lips opened on singularly white teeth as even as almonds; while a low Grecian forehead and a neck graceful in every curve gave Esperance a total effect of aristocratic distinction that ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... faithfully to his father's clear-cut lessons. He asked questions which only made his father sigh; for they had little to do with the economy of working costs. All his suggestions were extravagant; they would contribute to the joy of the employees, but not to profit. And other questions made his father ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... some startling experience, George Eliot by the slow development of the mind through all the stages of growth. He is impersonal, but she is always present to make comments and to expound the causes of growth. Yet her characters are as clear-cut, as individual, as his. His analysis is the more rapid, subtle and complete in immediate expression; hers is the more penetrating, vigorous and interesting. His lightning flash sees the soul through and through in the present moment; her calmer and intenser gaze penetrates the long succession of ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... digestion; the loins should be short—that is, the space should be short between the last rib and the point of the hip; the head and neck should be well molded, without superfluous or useless tissue; this gives a clear-cut throat. The ears, eyes, and face should have an expression of alertness and good breeding. The muscular development should be good; the shoulders, forearms, croup, and thighs must have the appearance of strength. The withers are sharp, which means that they are not loaded ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... stranger's face. She had known other men as well as she had known her husband, except for the brief while when she had promised to marry him. She took stock of his features; the straight, clearly marked black brows under the mark the cap made on his forehead; the rather high cheekbones, the clear-cut nose and chin, the little line of black mustache that did not hide his hard-set and yet sensitive lips; the square, rather long jaw—"He'll have deep lines at the sides of his mouth in a few more years," she thought, and—"He's much darker than ...
— I've Married Marjorie • Margaret Widdemer
... his father had too many children, real children and grown up children, in the Mission to be able to spend much time with his son; and the teaching of Sunday morning, the clear-cut uncompromising statement of hard religious facts in which the Missioner delighted, was considerably toned down by his ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... solution of his problem with respect to suitability, the commander may have considered his assigned objective before studying his situation. If so, he may now desire to modify his earlier statement of that objective, before incorporating it in the formulation of his mission, to the end that a more clear-cut and concise expression ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... its Clear-cut Editorials; Special Articles by Men of the Hour; Exclusive Photographs and Correspondence on all Important News Events of the World; Fiction by the Most Noted Writers and the Exclusive ...
— Wholesale Price List of Newspapers and Periodicals • D. D. Cottrell's Subscription Agency
... woman, moving with graceful flirts of ruffling skirts; her clear-cut, nervous face, as delicately tinted as a shell, looked brightly from the plumy brim of a black hat at Mrs. Emerson in the window. Mrs. Emerson was glad to see her coming. She returned the greeting with enthusiasm, then rose hurriedly, ran into the cold parlour and brought out one of ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman |
