"Detect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... nevertheless he was not totally deficient: he knew what was good to eat or drink, for his taste was perfect, his eyes were very sharp, and he could discover in a moment if a peach was ripe on the wall; his hearing was quick, for he was the first in the school to detect the footsteps of his pedagogue; and he could smell anything savoury nearly a mile off, if the wind lay the right way. Moreover, he knew that if he put his fingers in the fire that he would burn himself; that knives cut severely; ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... she had inflicted a mortal wound upon Marie-Anne's heart; but though she watched her closely, she failed to detect the slightest trace ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... suggest, that nine tenths of this author's definitions are bad, or at least susceptible of some amendment. If this can be shown to the satisfaction of the reader, will he hope to find an other English grammar in which the eye of criticism may not detect errors and deficiencies with the same ease? My object is, to enforce attention to the proprieties of speech; and this is the very purpose of all grammar. To exhibit here all Murray's definitions, with criticisms upon them, would ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... took my patronage in good part, although I could detect a faint cock of his eye, denoting sly amusement at my ridiculous assumption of superiority. This he now proceeded to "take down a peg" in ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... book collector should understand something of book-binding and its terms, so that he may be able to give clear directions as to every item involved in binding, repairing, or re-lettering, and to detect imperfect or slighted work. ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... Helena, gazing into his glass eye. (He had a glass eye, but it was so well made, it was impossible to detect it.) ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... Description of Italy, much of what Addison has given us in his Remarks[838]. He said, 'The collection of passages from the Classicks has been made by another Italian: it is, however, impossible to detect a man as a plagiary in such a case, because all who set about making such a collection must find the same passages; but, if you find the same applications in another book, then Addison's learning in his Remarks tumbles down. It is a tedious book; and, if it were ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... of a man at sight. His faults she cannot thoroughly detect till she has been for years his wife. And his faults are so much more serious a matter to her ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... who understands it. There is only one great miracle, and that is the miracle of life. It is said that men adulterate coffee, even to the extent of making the bean or berry so nearly like the natural that it requires an expert to detect the fraud; but do you think an ...
— The Story of the Soil • Cyril G. Hopkins
... twenty-two it costs you for twelve holidays in the year, and this again to the price of your beer and tobacco, and you will have just sixty-one dollars a year that might be saved. A little more careful examination into your expenses, would, no doubt, detect the sum of fourteen dollars that might be as well saved as not, which added to the sixty-one dollars, will make seventy-five dollars a year uselessly spent, the exact sum I am able to put ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... regret that the drama of modern life, of our swiftly evolving modern society, has become absorbingly interesting to so many of the best brains of the time. Although we may detect a serious limitation to literature, a didacticism alien to the disinterested spirit of art, still we cannot fail to see that a new sort of vitality, belonging rather to the moral sense than the intellect or the perceptions, has been ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... heads: (1) general, (2) technical. The general qualifications must be those of a ready speaker, fully master of his subject and able to think quickly and clearly and to clothe an idea in forceful, suitable language on very short notice. The ability to detect a flaw in an opponent's case does not consist merely in cleverness, but will depend upon the thoroughness of your studies ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis
... identical with that which Shakespeare borrowed from some English reciter, and put into the mouth of the mad Ophelia. The beauty of the ballads and the interest they excited led to numerous forgeries and modern interpolations, which it is seldom difficult to detect with certainty. Editors could not resist the temptation to interpolate, to restore, and to improve the fragments that came in their way. The marquis de la Villemarque, who first drew attention to the ballads of Brittany, is not wholly free from this fault. Thus a very general scepticism was ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... men talked to him of per cents., and tenth shares or net receipts, and expected him to comprehend their proportions upon the spot without recourse to pencil and paper, he felt himself grow hot and nervous and red, and was secretly terrified lest the party of the second part should detect that he was tossed upon seas of horrible uncertainty. T. Tembarom in the same situation would probably have said, "This is the place where T. T. sits down a while to take breath and count things up on his fingers. I am not a sharp on ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the dexterity with which with his bullet he would strike the head of a nail, at the distance of many yards. No Indian hunter or warrior could with more sagacity trace his steps through the pathless forest, detect the footsteps of a retreating foe, or search out the hiding place of the panther or the bear. In these hunting excursions the youthful frame of Daniel became inured to privation, hardship, endurance. Taught to rely upon his own resources, he knew not what it was to be lonely, for an hour. In ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... only point, in which they might have attacked him successfully; he was vulnerable there. How was this? Why, in order to have an opportunity of holding up pseudo-critics by the tails, he wilfully spelt various foreign words wrong—Welsh words, and even Italian words—did they detect these misspellings? not one of them, even as he knew they would not, and he now taunts them with ignorance; and the power of taunting them with ignorance is the punishment which he designed for them—a power which they might but for their ignorance have used against him. The writer, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... less with fiction. To distinguish the true from the false in such cases is not so difficult a process as one at first sight might suppose. Men with penetrating minds and retentive memories, who are trained to such work, are swift to detect the chaff amongst the wheat, and although in their winnowing operations they may frequently blow away a few grains of wheat, they seldom or never accept any of ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... the first inhabitant of the cottage who greeted him. "You are quite right. I am the owner of a dog, and you do perfectly right to inquire about him. His nose is singularly unlike yours. He will detect your flavour when I return, and I shall have to allay his jealousy. It is his fault. We are none of us perfect." The dog gave a short bark which might have meant that Adrian had better hold his tongue, as anything he said might ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... admonition did not fall upon them in vain,—for until the receipt of Mr, Osborne's letter from London, not even Jane, with all her vigilance, was able to detect in their looks or manner any change or expression beyond what she had usually noticed. That letter at length arrived, and, as they had expected, filled up the measure of Osborne's dishonor and their affliction. The contents were brief but ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... delicately-organized persons have the power of telling the character of others, who are entire strangers to them, simply by holding in their hands letters written by those strangers, is it not full as much within the scope of belief that there are those who, under certain physical conditions, may detect the purport of an electro-magnetic message,—that message being sent by vibrations of the wire through the nerves to the brain? If all magnetisms are one in essence,—as I am inclined to believe,—and if the nerves, the brain, and the mind ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the natural consequence of a tragic poet being also a Scotch clergyman. Logan had inflicted a wound on the Presbytery, heirs of the genius of old Prynne, whose puritanic fanaticism had never forgiven Home for his "Douglas," and now groaned to detect genius still lurking among them.[60] Logan, it is certain, expressed his contempt for them; they their hatred of him: folly and pride in a poet, to beard Presbyters in a land ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... believe in the goodwill and good faith of this adventurer full of coarse passions, so far as to put his final hopes in him? Augustin knew men very well; he could detect low and hypocritical natures at a distance. How came it that he was ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... bloomed in the bouquet plucked by the bard in Hermann's land; yet my feeble sense could not distinguish all. There was unquestionably a fry,—nay, several; the fumes of coffee soared riotous; I could detect hot biscuits distinctly; the sausage asked a foremost place; pancakes, griddle-cakes, dough-nuts, gravies, and sauces, all struggled for precedence; the land and the sea waged internecine war for place, through their representative fries of steak ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... it is possible that the different qualities of touch are produced by different vibration rates in the atoms of the object we are touching. When we reach the ear, we have the organ which responds to the lowest vibration rate of all, for we can detect a sound made by an object which is vibrating from twenty to thirty times a second. The highest vibration rate which will affect the ear is some ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts
... its difficulty of access; the excellent ladies of the Court admitting few beyond their own immediate connections and nearest friends. One class, to be sure, finds its way there as if by instinct—the poor, who, as the birds of the air detect the grain under the surface in the newly sown ground, are sure to find out the soil where charity lies germinating. Few excepting these constant visitors are admitted. But, besides the powerful introduction of our ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... struck him, indeed, as calm to the confines of cynicism. He gave, but gave of his abundance, royally indifferent to the cost. There was plenty more where all this came from, of knowledge, of initiative and of thought. Only once or twice, during the course of their long talk, did the young man detect any sign of personal feeling. Then for an instant, some veil seemed to be lifted, some curtain drawn aside; while, with dazzling effect, he became cognizant of underlying bitterness, underlying romance—of secret dealings of man with man, of man with woman, and the dealing, arbitrary, immutable, ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... radar-radio-electronic defense screen, which can not only detect the approach of a guided missile, at any velocity whatever, but will automatically capture and redirect same. In case either of your Excellencies doubt this statement, you are invited to aim a rocket at some target in Afghanistan ...
— Operation R.S.V.P. • Henry Beam Piper
... carefully from the knee downward. He knew the thigh was safe enough. It was his ankle-joint, he feared, was broken. The ankle was already swollen and black—badly swollen, but Caspar could detect no evidence of ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... yourself in her place. Think of what she had done, and why she had done it; think of what came of it, and may yet come of it. Then look into your own heart; or, better far, look into the heart of another—you will be quicker to detect the truth and ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... of public health has duties that are of vital importance. Sewerage systems, sanitation, and the water-supply are the chief objects of its inspection. Health officers also have powers which enable them to detect and prohibit the sale of impure foods. The milk-supply should receive its particular attention, for the purity of this product is an important matter. The enforcement of strict health regulations in the crowded tenement ...
— Our Government: Local, State, and National: Idaho Edition • J.A. James
... the Corwin, to talk on numerous occasions to the natives both of the American and Asiatic coasts; but in every instance they were unable to understand the Eskimo, and assured me that they could not detect a single word that bore any resemblance to ...
— The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants • Irving C. Rosse
... received sixty hogsheads of sugar for his share, his secretary twenty, and the pirates the remainder. But as guilt always inspires suspicion, Teach was afraid that some one might arrive in the harbor who might detect the roguery: therefore, upon pretence that she was leaky, and might sink, and so stop up the entrance to the harbor where she lay, they obtained the governor's liberty to drag her into the river, where she was set on fire, and when burnt down to the ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... intense interest. The preacher was an indifferent one; and by as much as he became dull and insipid, by so much did Ned become absorbed in his discourse. And yet it was impossible for the nicest observer to detect anything in his looks or manner, short of the most solemn devotion. The effect which his conduct had upon the congregation, and their subsequent remarks, must be left to the imagination of the reader. I give but one remark: "Bless that good man who came ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... shuddered at intervals, and murmured, in a hoarse, hollow voice: "Both of them! Both of them!" Then he relapsed into his mournful attitude. M. Durocher, approached Camors quickly. "Monsieur," said he, "what can this be? I believe it to be poisoning, but can detect no definite symptoms: otherwise, the parents should know—but they know nothing! A sunstroke, perhaps; but as both were struck at the same time—and then at this season—ah! our profession is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... article is very well written. The general horror of "fragments" [2] makes me tremulous for "The Giaour;" but you would publish it—I presume, by this time, to your repentance. But as I consented, whatever be its fate, I won't now quarrel with you, even though I detect it in my pastry; but I shall not open a pye without apprehension ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... be heedless to these qualities and acts. The king should never be heedless in looking after his own laches, as also after those of his foes. He should act in such a way that his foes may not be able to detect his laches, and he should himself assail them when theirs are visible. This is the way in which Vasava, and Yama, and Varuna, and all the great royal sages have acted. Do thou observe the same conduct. Do thou, O great king, adopt this behaviour which was followed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... children's book—that ascending wave of savagery and satire which overwhelms policy and learning to break against the ultimate citadel of humanity itself. In none of his contemporaries (except perhaps in the sentimentalities of Steele) can one detect the traces of emotion; to read Swift is to be conscious of intense feeling on almost every page. The surface of his style may be smooth and equable but the central fires of passion are never far beneath, and through cracks and fissures come intermittent bursts of flame. Defoe's irony is so measured ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... that he or she is gushing. To be too sympathetic makes discussion, which implies difference of opinion, impossible." Those who try to discover how far conversation is advanced by sympathy and hindered by over-sympathy; those who attempt to detect to what extent wholesome discussion is degraded by acrid controversy, need not be afraid of vigorous intellectual buffeting. Discussion springs from human nature when it is under the influence of strong feeling, and is as much an ingredient of conversation as the vocalizing ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... know the difference. They have not that psychological infallibility which is often attributed to them. They might, indeed, detect a pretence which continued through a whole tale; but that is so seldom necessary that ...
— How to Tell Stories to Children - And Some Stories to Tell • Sara Cone Bryant
... provided with a wire-gauze meat-cover and a curious machine for cleaning rice; these answered capitally as substitutes for sieves, and enabled us, by a thorough examination of the contents of the dredge, to detect some forty-five species of Mollusca and Radiata, some of which were new ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... everywhere; nor were the Jesuits—though a learned body, supported by the civil magistrate and determined enemies to those opinions in whose favour the miracles were said to have been wrought—ever able distinctly to refute or detect them. Where shall we find such a number of circumstances agreeing to the corroboration of one fact? And what have we to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses but the absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the events which they relate? ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... beginning of July in the artificial temperature which takes the place of the sun, so frequently absent in our climate. The countess left the arm of Monte Cristo, and gathered a bunch of Muscatel grapes. "See, count," she said, with a smile so sad in its expression that one could almost detect the tears on her eyelids—"see, our French grapes are not to be compared, I know, with yours of Sicily and Cyprus, but you will make allowance for our northern sun." The count bowed, but stepped back. "Do you refuse?" said Mercedes, in a tremulous voice. ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... that his name indicates his preference for the woods, we have seen this Thrush, in parks and gardens, his brown back and spotted breast making him unmistakable as he hops over the grass for a few yards, and pauses to detect the movement of a worm, seizing ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photography [May, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... him in tears felt it extremely painful within herself to bear the sight; but she was on pins and needles lest the patient should detect their frame of mind, and feel, instead (of benefit), still more sore at heart, which would not, after all, be quite the purpose of her visit; which was to afford her distraction and consolation. "Pao-yue," she therefore exclaimed, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... quantity of material for reflection upstairs with her, then she went to bed, pausing a moment opposite the Guru's door, from inside of which came sounds of breathing so deep that it sounded almost like snoring. But she seemed to detect a timbre of spirituality about it which convinced her that he was holding high communion with the Guides. It was round him that her thoughts centred, he was the tree through the branches of ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... in Type.—A reporter should read his story with painstaking care after it has appeared in print, to detect any errors that may have crept into it since it left his hands and to note what changes have been made at the city desk. It is told of a reporter, now a star man on a leading New York daily, that he used to keep carbon copies of all his stories and compare them word for word with the articles ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... at an ancient university, which he might have exchanged for other employment quite as dignified and far more lucrative. In dealing with a character as bizarre as his, it would be as a rule unprofitable to search deeply for motives of action, but in this instance it is no difficult matter to detect upon the surface several causes which may have swayed him in this decision to remain at Pavia. However firmly he may have set himself to win fame as a physician, he was in no way disposed to put aside those mathematical studies in which he had already made so distinguished ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... to the ontological, and I have, therefore, very little to fear from the argumentative fecundity of the dogmatical defenders of a non-sensuous reason. Without looking upon myself as a remarkably combative person, I shall not decline the challenge to detect the fallacy and destroy the pretensions of every attempt of speculative theology. And yet the hope of better fortune never deserts those who are accustomed to the dogmatical mode of procedure. I shall, therefore, restrict myself to the ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... is a subject in which I think the honor and happiness of my sex concerned. I wish they would more generally espouse their own cause. It would conduce to the public, weal, and to their personal respectability. I rejoice, heartily, that you have had resolution to resist his allurements, to detect and repel his artifices. Resolution in such a ...
— The Coquette - The History of Eliza Wharton • Hannah Webster Foster
... we were cut off from THEM we should never suspect its existence; and if God should keep sending them to us in an unchanged order, miraculously annihilating at a certain moment the substance that supported them, we never could detect the moment, for our experiences themselves would be unaltered. Nominalists accordingly adopt the opinion that substance is a spurious idea due to our inveterate human trick of turning names into things. Phenomena come ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... I know we sometimes pride ourselves on being hard to fool. We congratulate ourselves at times on being able to see more through a key-hole than other folks can see through a wide-open door. We boast of our ability to read character and to see behind the scenes and to detect sham where other folks dreamed there was sincerity. And I am not arguing for blindness or stupidity, but what I do say is this: that the really good men are the men who believe in ...
— Sermons on Biblical Characters • Clovis G. Chappell
... steadily fall. Fifteen years ago you would have started at a theft. Three years back you would have blenched at the name of murder. Is there any crime, is there any cruelty or meanness, from which you still recoil?—five years from now I shall detect you in the fact! Downward, downward, lies your way; nor can anything but death avail ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... himself, very quietly and simply, almost all the way, partly of what he was convinced we were passing,—guessing, I imagine, mainly by a sense of smell, and interpreting it all with astonishing accuracy, though I confess I was often unable even to detect the scents which guided him. We walked thus for half an hour, listening to his quiet talk. Two or three people came up to us. Each time the Vicar checked him, and he held out his hand to be shaken; in each case he recognised the person by the ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... some new and entrancingly interesting idea—say about astronomy! And if she consulted her mere wishes in the matter, apart from all other considerations, she would explore farther in this direction. Whether curiosity or sentiment actuated her, she could not detect. It would certainly be deeply exciting to find out what her own nature really was, and still more so to gain greater insight into his. Was this heartless, cold-blooded? Or was it that she felt a lurking capacity for a feeling stronger than—or at any rate different ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... of disease and delirium. The lettered youth, before he aspired to the prophetic character, must have often exercised, in private life, the arts of reading and writing; and his first converts, of his own family, would have been the first to detect and upbraid his scandalous hypocrisy, (White's Sermons, p. 203, 204, Notes, p. xxxvi.—xxxviii.) * Note: (Academ. des Inscript. I. p. 295) has observed that the text of the seveth Sura implies that Mahomet could read, the tradition alone denies it, and, according ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... button and energize the drive. However, I did not know that a lifeboat had no acceleration compensators, and by the time the drive lever returned to neutral, I was far out in space and thoroughly lost. I could detect no lifeboats in the vicinity nor could I raise any on the radio. I later found that a transistor malfunctioned, but by then I was well out of range, stranded between the stars in the black emptiness of space. After reading the manual on lifeboat operation there was but one course open. ...
— The Issahar Artifacts • Jesse Franklin Bone
... predicament,—youth or age. I have met no Englishman whose manners seemed to me so agreeable, soft, rather than polished, wholly unconventional, the natural growth of a kindly and sensitive disposition without any reference to rule, or else obedient to some rule so subtile that the nicest observer could not detect ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... have been pained, almost against his own will, at finding what feature of his creed it was that had embodied itself in so very material a shape before his little son's imagination. When in after days Mrs. Macaulay was questioned as to how soon she began to detect in the child a promise of the future, she used to say that his sensibilities and affections were remarkably developed at an age which to her hearers appeared next to incredible. He would cry for joy on seeing her after a few ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... wide, spangled sombrero tipped rakishly over one ear, a corn-husk cigarette drooping from his lips. Evidently his presence was inspired by some special motive, for he glanced sharply about, and failing to detect the two girls behind the distant screen of vines, removed his cigarette and whistled thrice, like a quail, then, leaning against the adobe wall, curled his black silken mustaches ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... levied, on one side, to prosecute for perjury the persons on whose evidence the pardon had been granted. On the other hand, those who had interested themselves for the gipsey resolved to support her witnesses, and, if possible, detect the imposture of Canning. Bills of perjury were preferred on both sides. The evidences for Squires were tried and acquitted; at first Canning absconded; but afterwards surrendered to take her trial, and being, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... has grown to cover a vaguer period, and there has been a constant tendency to push the date of its beginning ever backward, as we detect more and more the dimly dawning light amid the darkness of earlier ages. Of late, writers have fallen into the way of calling Dante the "morning star of the Renaissance"; and the period of the great poet's work, the first decade of the fourteenth century, has certainly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of such essential difference has caused the remark, "It is not a little curious that the origin of a work which has been known to Europe and has been studied by many during nearly two centuries, should still be so mysterious, and that students have failed in all attempts to detect the secret." Hence also the chief authorities at once branched off into two directions. One held the work to be practically Persian: the other as persistently declared ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... him from the observation of anyone who might be looking out of the windows of the house. Then he carefully crept along till he came to the gate post, and bending down, he cautiously peeped round to see if he could detect anyone idling, or talking, or smoking. There was no one in sight except old Jack Linden, who was rubbing down the lobby doors with pumice-stone and water. Hunter noiselessly opened the gate and crept quietly along the grass border of the garden path. His idea was to reach the front ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... not difficult to detect the fallacies in this argument of Spencer for religious nescience. His notion of conception is that of a purely sensible image. He assumes that we have no knowledge but sensible knowledge, and then easily infers that we do not know God. We can conceive, he says, ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... they looked like frosted glass; showing, as it passed through the air to fall on the dirty floor, how the breath of life was thick with dust of iron and wood, and films of cotton; amidst which his senses were now too much dulled by custom to detect the exhalations from greasy wheels and overtasked human-kind. Nor could he find comfort in the society of his fellow-labourers. True, it was a kind of comfort to have those near him who could not know of his grief; but there ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... that the 'tares' should be left till the harvest, lest while men plucked up the tares 'they should root up also the wheat with them.' This darnel is easily distinguishable from the wheat and barley when headed out, but when both are less developed, 'the closest scrutiny will often fail to detect it. Even the farmers, who in this country generally weed their fields, do not attempt to separate the one from the other ... The taste is bitter, and, when eaten separately, or even when diffused in ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... in one of its quietest curves among the hills, there was a fat old horse, standing on it, sniffing up the cool air: pure air, it is there, so cool and rare that you can detect even the faint scent of the wild-grape blossoms or the buttercups in it in spring. The wagon to which the horse was fastened had no business there in the cedar-hills or slow-going road; it belonged to town, every inch, from hub to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... still more apparent forms. He arose, and was seen pacing the wide apartment, gradually approaching nearer to the partition which separated the two rooms, evidently prepared to retire beyond the limits of hearing, the moment he should detect any proofs that his uneasiness was without a sufficient cause. Still no sound proceeded from the inner room. The breathless silence which had so shortly before reigned where he was, appeared to be suddenly transferred ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... people you should see," smiled the doctor quietly. "If a man of your imagination sees nothing, what shall a poor exact mind like myself see?" He eyed him keenly a moment. "You really mean that you detect nothing?" ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood
... it difficult to detect much method in the madness, but on more sober occasions the performers can offer intelligible explanations of their behaviour. The account given by an old medicine woman at Niah, and confirmed by the man who conducts the ceremonies at the same ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... be sure that they were men prostrated on their chests crawling towards the entrance to the cattle corral, for they seemed to assimilate with the colour of the earth; and though he strained his eyes, not a trace of motion could he detect. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... culture of the Nicolai school. Utterly unsympathetic, narrow beyond the dreams of the narrowest of modern schoolmasters, they were frankly, virulently hostile to any one in whom they perceived—as they always did perceive with the unerring instinct of stupidity to detect cleverness—the smallest trace of originality of character, thought or outlook on life. As a rule they seem to have been successful in achieving their aim. An old German friend of mine told me he had calculated that the ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... magnifying glass, and often by the naked eye, we may detect the stinger which has been left behind by the greedy guest, and which should be removed by a pair of tweezers. Ice-water compresses will stop the swelling and even an old-fashioned mud dressing, which was used and appreciated ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... tapped for the waiter again. He looked at her admiringly, but felt that she was not a perfect critic. Perhaps she was too perfect to be a critic. Actual life might seem to her so real that she could not detect the union of shadow and adamant that men call poetry. He would even go further and acknowledge that she was not as clever as himself—and he was stupid enough! She did not like discussing anything or reading solid books, and she was ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... distinct so that I attempted to classify them in a crude and bookish way. Character and the moral point of view, with their manifold applications to life, were as yet hidden from me. I judged men and women by their speech, even by their pronunciation, and thought that I could detect the accent of the educated. In short, education became all in all to my mind; the one desirable possession, and its end the writing of books, its reward fame. As was natural I tried to write, but my rude penmanship, my inability to spell the words, which I was ambitious ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... has doubtless, first and last, cost the greatest shedding of innocent blood. Yet no document was ever more clearly dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and especially those who by evil weather destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows, and growing crops. These precepts were based upon various texts of Scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the book of Job; and, to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... secured by doors and bars, but this is a foe from whose grasp no power of divinity can save me! His artifices will ever lay my fame and happiness at his mercy. How shall I counterwork his plots or detect his coadjutor? He has taught some vile and abandoned female to mimic my voice. Pleyel's ears were the witnesses of my dishonor. This is the midnight assignation to which he alluded. Thus is the silence he maintained when attempting to open the door of my chamber, accounted for. He supposed ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... nationalist sentiment. The reconquest of Asiatic Russia has even revived what is essentially an imperialist way of feeling, though this would be indignantly repudiated by many of those in whom I seemed to detect it. Experience of power is inevitably altering Communist theories, and men who control a vast governmental machine can hardly have quite the same outlook on life as they had when they were hunted fugitives. If the Bolsheviks remain in power, it is much to be feared that their Communism ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... inner life. This is so true that any time-worn fragment out of the past when art was a language can usually be assigned to its place and its period, so eloquent is it of a particular people and a particular time. Could we therefore detect and understand the obscure movement of consciousness in the modern world, we might gain some clue to the language it would ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... tasked to discover extraordinary beauty, where there is nothing but extraordinary blemish. Where the shrewd translator had veiled some absurdity or rashness of his author, the more profound reader has been known to detect a meaning and a charm, which "the English language had failed adequately to convey;" and he has, perhaps, shown a sovereign contempt for "the bungling translator," at the very time when that discreet workman had most displayed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 62, No. 384, October 1847 • Various
... from sight we built a tiny fire in the scrub—for it was twilight, at which time keen eyes are needed to detect either smoke or fire, except at close range—and cooked our supper. That done, we smothered what few embers remained and laid us down to sleep. That wasn't much of a success, however. We had got into action again, with more of a chance to bring about certain desired results, and ...
— Raw Gold - A Novel • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... about six and twenty, with black hair and whiskers of the window-brush school, and a face reminding you of the BOURBONS. As, although lighting his lamp, he has, abstractedly, almost covered it with his hat, his room is but imperfectly illuminated, and you can just detect the accordeon on the window-sill, and, above the mantel, an unfinished sketch of a school-girl. (There is no artistic merit in this picture; in which, indeed, a simple triangle on end represents the waist, another and slightly larger ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 11, June 11, 1870 • Various
... darted rapidly away. Ten minutes later he reached the window where he had left Sir John the night before. He listened, not a sound came from within; the huntsman's ear could detect the morning woodland sounds, but no others. Roland climbed through the window with his customary agility, and rushed through ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... angle. Its lifting capacity seemed scarcely one third of the calculated amount. In order to make sure that this was not due to the porosity of the cloth, we constructed two small experimental surfaces of equal size, one of which was air-proofed and the other left in its natural state; but we could detect no difference in their lifting powers. For a time we were led to suspect that the lift of curved surfaces very little exceeded that of planes of the same size, but further investigation and experiment led to the opinion that (1) the ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... the detective's request, explained to Wing why we had sent for him. The Chinaman nodded a grave assent when reminded of the Salter Quick affair—evidently he knew all about it. And—if one really could detect anything at all in so carefully-veiled a countenance—I thought I detected an increased watchfulness in his eyes when Scarterfield began to ask him questions arising out ...
— Ravensdene Court • J. S. (Joseph Smith) Fletcher
... might have attacked him successfully; he was vulnerable there. How was this? Why, in order to have an opportunity of holding up pseudo-critics by the tails, he wilfully spelt various foreign words wrong—Welsh words, and even Italian words—did they detect these mis-spellings? Not one of them, even as he knew they would not, and he now taunts them with ignorance; and the power of taunting them with ignorance is the punishment which he designed for them—a power which they might, but for their ignorance, have used against him. The writer, ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... that they were surprised at Mrs. Brown's allowing it, and that they couldn't bear it, and had no patience with such impertinence. But such is the gentle and forgiving nature of woman, that although we looked very narrowly for it, we could not detect the slightest harshness in the subsequent treatment of Mr. Griggins. Indeed, upon the whole, it struck us that among the ladies he seemed rather more ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... a happier second marriage for Sylvia, with which she had concluded her speech. It roused Alice, however, as effectually as if she had been really a blood relation to Philip; but for a different reason. She was not slow to detect the intentional offensiveness to herself in what had been said; she was indignant at Sylvia for suffering the words spoken to pass unanswered; but in truth they were too much in keeping with Molly Brunton's ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. III • Elizabeth Gaskell
... keeping up, and that although he himself felt thoroughly strong and well, some of his companions were beginning to fail. As was natural with such men not one of them would own that he was exhausted, and in consequence it was only by paying the keenest attention that he could detect those who from sheer incapacity were relaxing their strain on the traces. And his position was not pleasant even when he knew, for to tell any of these brave people that they must turn back was a most ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... thing which you enjoin upon the gods, or rather claim from them as your due; and should acquit a man whom you pray to the gods to destroy utterly—himself, his race and his house. You must not do this. You may leave it to the gods to punish one whom you cannot yourselves detect; but when you have yourselves caught the criminal, you must no longer lay the task of punishing him upon ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... feathers and watched him curiously. The faint cries of the gulls overhead seemed borne downward with a note of mocking derision. Charles Turold stepped back from the door with an uneasy look at the cormorant, as though fearing to detect in its unreflecting beadiness of glance some humanly cynical enjoyment at his loss of self-control. The wave of feeling had spent itself. Not thus was victory to be won. He paused to consider, then tried the knocker again. The knocker ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees
... Louvre. Yes, she is as beautiful as the Venus of Milo; she even surpasses the latter in many respects: she is, for instance, very much younger. The physiognomists who maintain that the voice of man reveals his character most unmistakably would be much at a loss if they were called upon to detect George Sand's extraordinary depth of feeling [Innigkeit] in her voice. The latter is dull and faded, without sonority, but soft and agreeable. The naturalness of her speaking lends it some charm. Of vocal talent she exhibits not a trace! George ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the note to look at it keenly, for he believed himself a judge of handwriting, and he thought that he might detect in hers the indications of any great suffering. The lines ran down a little at the end, but otherwise the large, careful hand was the same as ever, learned in a convent and little changed since, even as the woman herself had changed ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... of Granice's lips increased, communicating itself in a long quiver to his facial muscles. He forced a laugh through his dry throat. "Well—and what did he detect?" ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... returned the man, quick to detect the scorn in her voice; then, with an appeal to the only side of her nature he thought could ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... obtain justice for any injury he may have sustained. It appears to me, however, that a considerable portion of this difficulty might he removed by admitting a certain number of slaves—say three—to constitute one witness. Cross-examination would easily detect either combination or falsehood, and a severe punishment attached to such an offence would act as a powerful antidote to its commission. Until some system is arranged for receiving negro evidence in some shape, he must continue the ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... saying that there was no doubt that he had a right to demand to be proclaimed their king. The spread of his wings was prodigious, he could fearlessly look at the sun, and to whatever height he soared he could detect the slightest movement of ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... that an enterprise so opposed to all the traditions of exploration is doomed to failure. We cannot doubt that the Missing Link possesses a sense of smell keen enough to detect a camel or a Ford car while yet afar off. His regrettable elusiveness is more likely to be established than overcome when he beholds mules and anthropologists, attended by aeroplanes and motor-cars, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... others.—There is a certain stage of society in which people become conscious of their peculiarities and absurdities, affect to disguise what they are, and set up pretensions to what they are not. This gives rise to a corresponding style of comedy, the object of which is to detect the disguises of self-love, and to make reprisals on these preposterous assumptions of vanity, by marking the contrast between the real and the affected character as severely as possible, and denying ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... elect. All this, I say, must be conceded; but it is not unfair; the very object, ostensibly, of the riddle story is to prompt you to sharpen your wits; and as you are yourself the real detective in the case, so you must regard your author as the real criminal whom you are to detect. Credit no statement of his save as supported by the clearest evidence; be continually repeating to yourself, "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,"—nay, never so much as then. But, as I said before, when the game is well set, you have no chance whatever against the dealer; and for my ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... stars in reference to the sun, so that the same star could not do service as heliacal messenger indefinitely; but, on the other hand, these changes are so slow that observations by many generations of astronomers would be required to detect the shifting. It is believed by Lockyer, though the evidence is not quite demonstrative, that the astronomical observations of the Egyptians date back to a period when Sothis, the dog-star, was not in close association with the sun on the morning of the summer solstice. ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... been composed. Therefore, so far as we can obtain some general views of the successive changes in social order which have been gradually and steadily developing themselves throughout the more noisy and conspicuous but comparatively superficial political disturbances, we can detect the true meaning of some general phenomena in which the actors themselves were unconscious of the determining causes. We can see more or less what were the general causes which have led to various forms of associations, ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Tories dear, Whom I detect beside the silvan path Doing your second time on earth this year That I may cull a generous aftermath, Let me divine your reason For thus repullulating ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... hidden partridge brood—though never the nesting hen—nor can a mink do that much either. But keen as the perfume of a bee-tree, and certain as the rank smell of a dog-fox in March—which even a white man can detect—are the odours of the wilderness to him whose only home it is. And even as a lad, and for the sport of it, have I followed and found by its scent alone the great night-butterfly, marked brown and crimson, and larger than a little bat, whose head bears ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... at this hour to enter into any calculations; I will only say that the motion you have seen is the effect of a force of less than one ten-millionth of the weight of a grain, and that with this apparatus I can detect a force two thousand times smaller still. There would be no difficulty even in showing the attraction between ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... as air" in most eyes—suggested to Dr. Young his beautiful theory of "interferences," and led to his discovery relating to the diffraction of light. Although great men are popularly supposed only to deal with great things, men such as Newton and Young were ready to detect the significance of the most familiar and simple facts; their greatness consisting mainly in their ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Popanilla in a few minutes found himself out at sea. Tremendously frightened, he offered to recant all his opinions, and denounce as traitors any individuals whom the Court might select. But his former companions did not exactly detect the utility of his return. His offers, his supplications, were equally fruitless; and the only answer which floated to him on the ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... Davy preferred the most arrant vacant idleness to anything rational. To be sure, Susan sometimes, Bessie and Hal always, would read any book that made no pretensions to be instructive, but even a fact about a lion or an elephant made them detect wisdom in disguise, and throw it aside. She thought, however, she would make the most of Bessie, and asked whether she would like to hear reading, or read ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... closest about 10 minutes past 10. At the time that the broad shining arch through the zenith was at its highest intensity the cumulus clouds in the northwest shone quite white, though we were unable to detect any aurora borealis phenomena in this quarter. The reflection of light on the ice-field was pretty strong at the same time. In the aurora borealis the cumulus clouds appeared of a darker color, almost the gray of wool. The colors of the aurora were yellowish, bluish white, milky ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... that I never could go back. However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. And behold, nothing came of the late struggle! The pale young gentleman was nowhere to be seen, and only in the corner where the combat had taken place could I detect any evidences of his existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I covered them with garden-mould from the eye of men, and breathed ...
— Ten Boys from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser |
