"Observant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in many branches, of Tolpatch nature) are cast athwart each other; and make, both to Friedrich and Prince Karl, an enigmatic business of it for the next two days. Tuesday, 15th, Friedrich marching along, vigilantly observant on both hands, some fifteen miles space, came that evening to a Village called Podhorzan, with Height near by; [Stille, pp. 60, 61.] Height which he judged unattackable, and on the side of which he pitches his camp accordingly,—himself mounting the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... wind that blows but bears with it Some rainbow promise:—Not a moment flies But puts its sickle in the fields of life, And mows its thousands, with their joys and cares. 'T is but as yesterday since on yon stars, Which now I view, the Chaldee shepherd[3] gazed In his mid watch observant, and disposed The twinkling hosts as fancy gave them shape. Yet in the interim what mighty shocks Have buffeted mankind—whole nations razed— Cities made desolate—the polish'd sunk To barbarism, and once barbaric states Swaying the wand of science and of arts; Illustrious ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... upon its own imperishable altars, which from its essence must survive all the error of the earth. It is then that calumny, crushed like the devouring snail by the careful gardener, ceases to besmear the character of an honest man, while its venomous slime, glazed by the sun, enables the observant spectator to trace the filthy progress ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... the servants were hired after the same fashion, and the horses jobbed. Lady Eustace was already sufficiently intimate with her accounts to know that she would save two hundred pounds by not remaining another month or three weeks in London, and sufficiently observant of her own affairs to have perceived that such saving was needed. And then it appeared to her that her battle with Lord Fawn could be better fought from a distance than at close quarters. London, too, was becoming absolutely distasteful to her. There were many things there that tended to make ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... The observant trio had noticed an additional cause for uneasiness. More than one of the party were surveying the three horses and mule with admiring eyes. Some of them spoke to one another in low tones, and there could be no doubt they looked with envy upon the animals, which, ...
— A Waif of the Mountains • Edward S. Ellis
... description be given even with mediocre accuracy, a very large section of readers will admire its truth, and cherish its melancholy. Few authors of second or third rate genius can either record or invent a probable conversation in ordinary life; but few, on the other hand, are so destitute of observant faculty as to be unable to chronicle the broken syllables and languid movements of an invalid. The easily rendered, and too surely recognized, image of familiar suffering is felt at once to be real where all else had been false; and the historian of the gestures of fever and ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... your mother," said Arabella. "You are not yet a Swiss peasant. Pending your metamorphosis, be a little more observant of the conventions and courtesies of ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... natural reflections which youthful ebullitions of animal spirits and instinctive feelings inspire, will enter the world with warm and erroneous expectations. But this appears to be the course of nature; and in morals, as well as in works of taste, we should be observant of her sacred indications, and not presume to lead when ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... was sensitive and imaginative on dress, but she was not imaginative or even very observant with regard to anything else. She understood Dora's protest to refer to an actual engagement between Dr. Harry Ironside ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... service, and went away again. A few minutes ended it all. When the undertaker and his men had also departed, she sat down on a bench near to watch the sexton filling up the grave—Tom's grave. She was very quiet, and none but a closely observant person watching her face could have penetrated into the truth of what your impulsive characters, always in the extremes of mirth or misery, never understand about quiet people, that ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)
... standing face to face on the brown earth of the clearing—the Englishman's ruddy countenance, light auburn hair and whiskers, and well-opened bold blue eyes, contrasting with the pale complexion, the keenly-observant look, the dark closely-cut hair, and the delicately-lined face of the American. It was only for a moment: I had barely time to feel uneasy before they controlled themselves and led us back to the carriage, talking as pleasantly as if nothing had happened. ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... eight, the two Miss Mees entered the breakfast room; they kissed Mavis on the cheek before sitting down to the meal. They asked each other and Mavis how they had slept, as was their invariable custom; but the sensitive, observant girl could not help noticing that the greetings of her employers were a trifle less cordial than was their wont. Mavis put down this comparative coldness to their pride at the ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... now imagine that gradually, by becoming more closely observant than they had been, by combining together to make more complete observations, and above all by preserving the records of observations made by successive generations, these creatures began to obtain clearer ideas respecting their world and the surrounding regions of space. They would ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... of good recitations, strict observance of rules, lady-like behavior in all places and at all times, than a prayer-meeting in your room every night in the week. Now it is late; go back, and if you do not wish to tell me what is wrong with Susan, I must be all the more observant of her ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... related to any other, or of many facts not known as having any mutual relations or as comprehended under any general law, does not reach the meaning of science; science is knowledge reduced to law and embodied in system. The knowledge of various countries gathered by an observant traveler may be a heterogeneous medley of facts, which gain real value only when coordinated and arranged by the man of science. Art always relates to something to be done, science to something to be known. Not only must art be discriminated from science, but art in ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... who, Indian like, was wise and observant, only said, "Wait a minute or two and I will show you." Then she quickly hurried back into a swampy place and soon returned with a thick juicy leaf, to the under side of which several mosquitoes were still clinging, with their bodies ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young
... supply of life-giving oxygen. This causes paleness of the skin, often noticed in the face of the young smoker. Palpitation of the heart is also a common result, followed by permanent weakness, so that the whole system is enfeebled, and mental vigor is impaired as well as physical strength. Observant teachers can usually tell which of the boys under their care are addicted to smoking, simply by the comparative inferiority of their appearance, and by their intellectual and bodily indolence and feebleness. After full maturity is attained the evil ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... animation towards the path, beheld Aunt Victoria, wonderful and queen-like in a white dress, a parasol, like a great rose, over her stately blond head, attended by Sylvia adoring; Mrs. Marshall quiet and observant; Mr. Rollins, the tutor, thin, agitated, and unhappily responsible; and Professor Marshall smiling delightedly at ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... gravity, when he was proposing some colossal impossibility, the observant novelist would naturally seize on, for Dickens was always on the lookout for exaggerations in human language and conduct. It was at Procter's table I heard Dickens describe a scene which transpired after ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... for with her troubled feelings, she could better answer talking girls than parry the remarks of her shrewd, observant brother. ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... loved her, and that very dearly, was patent to the most superficial observer. Maude, who was not very observant of others, used to notice how his eyes followed her wherever she went, brightened at the sound of her step, and kindled eagerly when she spoke. The Dowager saw it too, with considerable disapproval; and thought it desirable to turn her observations ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... prisoner both when I entered the witness-box and when I left it. The lowering brutality of his face was unchanged, but his faculties seemed to be more alive and observant than they were at the police-office. A frightful blue change passed over his face, and he drew his breath so heavily that the gasps were distinctly audible while I mentioned Mary by name and described the mark or the blow on her temple. When they asked me if ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... good Recommendation from my Countrymen, I was admitted to ride among 'em. But here I had a fresh Difficulty to struggle with. My Countrymen finding me pretty flush of Money, and that I was very generous, was as observant as a Spaniel, and so very Officious both early and late, that I found it impracticable to steal an Hour of Privacy to recollect my self, in order to model my Conduct after the best Precedents I ...
— Memoirs of Major Alexander Ramkins (1718) • Daniel Defoe
... by the Chouans, they flung themselves headlong into the road with fixed bayonets and made the battle even for a few moments. Both sides fought with a stubbornness intensified by the cruelty and fury of the partisan spirit which made this war exceptional. Each man, observant of danger, was silent. The scene was gloomy and cold as death itself. Nothing was heard through the clash of arms and the grinding of the sand under foot but the moans and exclamations of those who fell, either dead or badly ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... she would show him whether it was a triumph. He had destroyed for ever her faith in David Gemmell. The quiet, observant doctor, who had such an eye for the false, had been deceived as easily as all the others, and it made her feel very lonely. But never mind; Tommy should find out, and that within the hour, that there was one whom he could not cheat. Her first impulse, always her first impulse, ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... such a world as this, health and leisure and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate? Shall Ambition and Avarice never sleep? Shall they never want objects on which to fasten? Shall they be so observant to discover, so acute to discern, so eager, so patient to pursue, and shall the Benevolence of Christians ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... travel in wild places is too arduous for one so young; and Elias has little acquaintance with the desert ways, and that little disastrous, he and all his party having been captured and held to ransom by the Bedu, because he forgot to pay the tribes their proper dues. Be cautious and observant. In sh' Allah we shall all ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... our party at The Grange, and were fostered by the lovely calm of nature, which is so observable on Sunday in the country, where the very animals seem to know that they are included within the merciful commandment of rest. Mr. Wyndham was religiously observant of the day, but exceedingly disliked the gloom by which many worthy people think it a duty to lessen their own happiness, and to throw a chill and constraint upon that of others on this joyful festival. He thought that the weekly commemoration of ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... lawyer by profession, and, if I was not greatly mistaken, was first cousin to the wife of my host. I knew also that he was a man eminently "well-to-do," both as regarded his professional and private means. The Jelfs entertained him with that sort of observant courtesy which falls to the lot of the rich relation, the children made much of him, and the old butler, albeit somewhat surly "to the general," treated him with deference. I thought, observing him by the vague mixture of lamplight and twilight, that ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... found it. We swabbed the decks so thoroughly before leaving Bridgeboro. One of our boys might have dropped some change and never known it But how did the key happen to be there? We know how it happened in Alfred's pocket, but how did it happen on the deck? We scouts claim to be observant, and yet that key was right on the deck from Bridgeboro all the way down to St. George. That's ...
— Roy Blakeley's Adventures in Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... through this and the cornfields which had been the scene of Hooker's and Mansfield's fierce fighting. We visited the Dunker Church and then returned to camp by Bloody Lane and the central stone bridge. The President was observant and keenly interested in the field of battle, but made no display of sentiment. On another day he reviewed the troops which were most accessible from headquarters. As my own corps was among the first on the list, I did not join the escort of the President at the general's ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... par mes mains! C'est peu qu'il ait sur moi remport la victoire; Malheureux, j'ai servi de hraut sa gloire. Le tratre! Il insultait ma confusion; 850 Et tout le peuple mme avec drision, Observant la rougeur qui couvrait mon visage, De ma chute certaine en tirait le prsage. Roi cruel! ce sont l les jeux o tu te plais. Tu ne m'as prodigu tes perfides bienfaits 855 Que pour me faire mieux sentir ta tyrannie, Et m'accabler ...
— Esther • Jean Racine
... was no relation of the diplomat of the same name attached to the Austrian chancellery. He was of the Reformed religion, very faithful in the performance of his religious duties; and I can assert that I never knew a man with more simple tastes, or who was more observant of his duties as a man and a magistrate. I would not like to risk saying what were his inmost thoughts concerning the Emperor; for he rarely spoke of him, and if he had anything unpleasant to say it may be readily understood that he would not have chosen me as his confidant. One ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... discovered by them; but there was another at Chetwynde Castle who very quickly discovered all, one who was led to this perhaps by the sympathy of his own feelings. There was that secret within his own heart which made him watchful and attentive and observant. No change in her face and manner, however slight, could fail to be noticed by this man, who treasured up every varying expression of hers within his heart. And this change which had come over her was one which affected ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Gifford observed, new and original, and though, by his own admission, Byron was indebted to Vathek (or rather S. Henley's notes to Vathek) and to D'Herbelot's Bibliotheque Orientale for allusions and details, the "atmosphere" could only have been reproduced by the creative fancy of an observant and enthusiastic traveller who had lived under Eastern skies, and had come within ken ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... acquainted with social pageants might have been in the first instant quite evidenced by her comportment here. Many eyes turned toward her as she approached the head of the line. She was unconscious of all, lazily, half-insolently observant, yet wholly unconcerned. Some observers choked back a sudden exclamation. A hush fell in the great room, then followed a low buzzing of curious or interested, wise ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... a charity as this may be reasonably supposed to have walked through life with a steady pace, and an observant eye, neglecting no opportunity of assisting those who were not possessed of the experience necessary for their own guidance. In supposing his efforts directed to the benefit of a young nobleman, misguided by the aristocratic haughtiness of his own time, and the prevailing ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... recalling the fervid style and thought of the Nouvelle Hlose. They are substantial letters, concise and interesting, such as a good husband might write after ten years of marriage, but not at all a lover's letters. Josephine, who was quite observant, must have noticed the difference, but she had enough tact and prudence to avoid complaint. 1805 was not 1796; Napoleon still loved Josephine, but from habit, gratitude, and a sense of duty, not with mad passion. He paid her much attention, ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... It was remarkable how observant of passengers the drivers would be, while the passenger all the time laboured under the impression that the driver's time was taken up with ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... in Barnstaple, went up and down Boutport Street, the old street that half encircles the town, running "about the port," that he acted here, lodged here, if only for a week or two, talked in the tavern and walked in the old town, with that observant inner eye which noted the veriest detail of life, the swing of a flower, the swallow under the eaves, the idiosyncrasy of dress or gesture in the passers-by, and at the same time comprehended and recorded the springs of action, the fumbling thoughts, the consciences, the strivings, and the ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... happiness, and whose neat and nimble fingers turned out quantities of daily work. There was a considerable section of the blind, who were systematically treated, and had a library of their own. In one of the rooms were two dying men, one already past consciousness, the other still observant and even lively, but not expected to survive the night. Amongst so many and such aged people this sight was too familiar to greatly disturb the others. One of these was understood to be related to an English ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... property, as he had treated John of Cappadocia. All those who held this office during his reign became wealthy to an extraordinary degree, and suddenly, with two exceptions. One of these was Phocas, of whom I have spoken in my previous writings—a man in the highest degree observant of integrity and honesty; who, during his tenure of office, was free from all suspicion of illegal gain. The other was Bassus, who was appointed later. Neither of them enjoyed their dignity for a year. At the end of a few months they were deprived of it as being ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... Shatter'd the bone, and prone to earth he fell. The warlike Menelaus aim'd his spear Where Thoas' breast, unguarded by his shield, Was left expos'd; and slack'd his limbs in death. Phyleus' brave son, as rush'd Amphiclus on, Stood firm, with eye observant; then th' attack Preventing, through his thigh, high up, where lie The strongest muscles, smote; the weapon's point Sever'd the tendons; darkness clos'd his eyes. Of Nestor's sons, Antilochus, the first, Atymnius wounded, driving through his flank He brazen spear; prone on his ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... conception, because they have no experience. It is evident that the remark proceeds in most cases from the speaker's own consciousness of the unoccupied monotony of an ocean passage, in which, unless exceptionally observant, he has not even detected the many small but essential functions discharged by the officers of the ship, whom he sees moving about, but the aim of whose movements he does not understand. The passenger, as regards ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... the criminal. Let us take up these two points, and first of all ask ourselves how the murder of the Marquise de Langrune ought to be 'classified' in the technical sense. The first conclusion which must be impressed upon the mind of any observant person who has visited the scene of the crime and examined the corpse of the victim is, that this murder must be placed in the category of crapulous crimes. The murderer seems to have left the implicit mark of his character ...
— Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... his own accord, or else become the object of such violent hatreds that the Home Government would feel compelled to recall him. Thus they would be rid of the presence of a personage possessed of a sufficient energy to oppose them, and they would no longer need to fear his observant eyes. Sir Alfred Milner saw himself surrounded by all sorts of difficulties, and every attempt he made to bring forward his own plans for the settlement of the South African question crumbled to the ground almost before he could ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... the United States she turned to good account, examining with a keen observant eye the manners and customs of the people. She made the acquaintance of Channing and Emerson; she went from town to town, and village to village; she investigated the character and influence of American institutions; ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams
... The observant physician could, after this paroxysm, remark that his patient's mind was chiefly occupied in computing the passage of the time, and anticipating the period when the return of her husband—if husband he was—might be expected. She consulted almanacks, enquired concerning distances, ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... made a desperate effort to seem calm, for the servant's observant eye warned him that he was not acting himself. "Will you please ask Miss Lee to favor me with a few ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... a moment looking steadily at her with that cold, observant glance, as if he would have this last picture of her this way to cut away all tender memories that might cause pain in the future. Then he turned as if to One who stood by his side. Not looking back again, he ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... 'prentice-fashion. Many a journeyman has broken up his narrative and skipped about and rambled around, but he did it for a purpose, for an advantage; there was art in it, and points to be scored by it; the observant reader perceived the game, and enjoyed it and respected it, if it was well played. But Mrs. Eddy's performance was without intention, and destitute of art. She could score no points by it on those terms, and almost ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Observant of the way she told So much of what was true, No vanity could long withhold Regard that was her due: She spared him the familiar guile, So easily achieved, That only made a man to smile And ...
— The Three Taverns • Edwin Arlington Robinson
... her mind no observant person could fail to see, and Estelle was not unprepared to hear her say as she did on the third morning at breakfast, after fidgeting a moment ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... chagrin, offended vanity, acute disappointment, all blended with a dull heartache to which he was a stranger. He was a dangerous man in a dangerous mood, and so Wolf Struve was likely to discover. But the convict was not an observant man. His loose upper lip lifted in the ugly sneer ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... The observant reader has doubtless wondered before this, that Mr. Sandford did not, in his emergency, apply to his old clerk, Fletcher, for the money in exchange for the peculiar obligation of which mention has been made. It is presuming too much upon Mr. Sandford's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... The observant physician begins to gather information about a patient from the moment he enters the sick-room or the patient steps into his consulting-room; and the value of the information obtained in the first thirty seconds, before a word has been spoken, is sometimes ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... on this raiment are clothed with humility; they readily perceive the excellence of other believers, but can only discern their own in the glass of God's Word. At the same time, they become very observant of their own defects, and severe in condemning them, but proportionally candid to their brethren; and thus they learn the hard lesson of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fresh eye, without preconceptions. While his lack of larger vision held him down as an artist, it contributed to his feeling for natural textures and story-telling detail. His approach to illustration, therefore, was the spontaneous expression of an observant but unimaginative nature, coated with a bitter-sweet sentiment. It was this quality, so homely and common and yet so charged with integrity, that delivered the shock of ...
— Why Bewick Succeeded - A Note in the History of Wood Engraving • Jacob Kainen
... us into our talk about the White People. He said he did not think he was exactly an observant person in some respects. Remembering his books, which seemed to me the work of a man who saw and understood everything in the world, I could not comprehend his thinking that, and I told him so. But he replied that what I had said about my White People ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... unusually observant," answered Copplestone. "I seem to see things—all at once, don't you know. I saw that since we made her acquaintance—and were unceremoniously bundled off her—the Pike has got a new and quite different coat of ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... to visit her face "from the right or from the left" when her portrait was a-painting. She was an observant woman, and liked to be lighted from the front. It is a light from the right or from the left that marks an elderly face with minute shadows. And you must place a child in such a light, in order to see the finishing and parting caress that infancy has given to his face. The down will then ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... individuality is readily believed when the date of his birth is recalled, the period when the excitement over the discovery of Gabriel Prosser's plot was at its height. Nat's mind was very restless and active, inquisitive and observant. He learned to read and write with no apparent difficulty. This ability gave him opportunity to confirm impressions as to knowledge of subjects in which he had received no instruction. When not working for his master, he was engaged in prayer or in making sundry experiments. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... to the choristers' chamber at the east end of the College hall, "a dark nasty room, very unfit for such a purpose, which made the scholars often complaine, but in vaine." From this time onward Wood, a clever and observant boy, kept both his ears and eyes open, and accumulated from all quarters materials for his narrative which covers fifty years, the most interesting and important half century in ...
— The Life and Times of John Wilkins • Patrick A. Wright-Henderson
... Mr. Hardyman was at the stables, Lady Lydiard gave the servant her card. "Take that to your master, and say I won't detain him five minutes." With these words, her Ladyship sauntered into the grounds. She looked about her with observant eyes; not only noticing the tent which had been set up on the grass to accommodate the expected guests, but entering it, and looking at the waiters who were engaged in placing the luncheon on the table. ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... Elizabeth's time understood her better than her courtiers did. To Drake she was still the keen-minded woman who, like the jeweled silent birds he had seen in tropical jungles, sat in her palace, with enemies all about her alert and observant, and ready to seize her if she came within their grasp. He knew her waywardness to be half assumed, since to let an enemy know what he can count on is fatal. He had not much doubt of her action, but he must wait for her to give ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... after information. Frankly, I was somewhat disappointed with Chester. I had imagined its quaintness that of a genuine old country town and was not prepared for the modern city that surrounds its show-places. In the words of an observant English writer: "It seems a trifle self-conscious—its famous old rows carry a suspicion of being swept and garnished for the dollar-distributing visitor from over the Atlantic, and of being less genuine than they really are. ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy
... has the grave revealed its secrets to observant men? Dr. Donne sauntered about among graves, and saw a sexton turn up a skull. He examined it, found a nail in it, identified the skull, and had the murderess hung. She was safe from the sexton and the rest of the ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... went to church, leading her young companion by the hand; both were in deep mourning, and yet the very least observant of the congregation remarked, that they had never seen Miss Bond look so happy as when, coming out after service, and finding that the wind had changed to the north-east, she took off her scarf in the church ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... leaves asked of the wind," he answered. "An observant eye is better than a yearning ear, and ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... to which it appealed. In the first place, no effort was made to prevent the recurrence of the disaster; in the second place, philanthropy of this type attempts to sweep back the tide of miseries created by unrestricted propagation, with the feeble broom of sentiment. As one of the most observant and impartial of authorities on the Far East, J. O. P. Bland, has pointed out: "So long as China maintains a birth-rate that is estimated at fifty-five per thousand or more, the only possible alternative to these visitations would be emigration ...
— The Pivot of Civilization • Margaret Sanger
... climbing the fence, mounted the levee and stood upon the brink of a wide and muddy river. Taking off his hat, the old man wiped the sweat from his face, then turned an observant eye upon the river, whose muddy waters were already lapping the boughs of the overhanging trees, and with a long-drawn breath exclaimed, ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... and authority and unity upon the letters of his country, and who so closed the epoch with which I have been dealing, was singularly suited to his task. Observant, something of a stoic, uninspired; courageous, witty, a soldier; lucid, critical of method only, he corresponded to the movement which, all around him, was ushering in the Bourbons: the hardening of Goujon's ...
— Avril - Being Essays on the Poetry of the French Renaissance • H. Belloc
... rural France, and she had undertaken the journey purely as a lover of nature and art, not at all as a student of political economy, agriculture, or statistics. Peasant property was no more in her way than the Impressionist school of modern art in mine. But being keenly observant, and feeling, as any other member of the propertied class must do, aghast at the condition of rural affairs in England—vast tracts of cultivated land deteriorating into waste, agricultural wages lowered to nine shillings a week, vagrancy ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of Graham Spencer, all had gone fairly well. But with his installment in the mill, Rudolph's relations with Anna had changed. She had grown prettier—Rudolph was not observant enough to mark what made the change, but he knew that he was madder about her than ever. And she had assumed toward him an attitude of almost scornful indifference. The effect on his undisciplined ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... whether he is or is not. Unfortunate as we are, we have a thread in one, known as Jaratkaru. The unfortunate one has gone through the Vedas and their branches and is practising asceticism alone. He being one with soul under complete control, desires set high, observant of vows, deeply engaged in ascetic penances, and free from greed for the merits or asceticism, we have been reduced to this deplorable state. He hath no wife, no son, no relatives. Therefore, do we hang in this hole, our consciousness lost, like men having none to take care of them. If thou meetest ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... feeling, which dictated to the Christian knight a bold, blunt, and somewhat careless bearing, as one too conscious of his own importance to be anxious about the opinions of others, appeared to prescribe to the Saracen a style of courtesy more studiously and formally observant of ceremony. Both were courteous; but the courtesy of the Christian seemed to flow rather from a good humoured sense of what was due to others; that of the Moslem, from a high feeling of what was to be expected ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... admiral, smiling. "I'm not an observant man over such matters; in fact, I woke up only three months ago to find how blind I could be; but in your case I did have a few suspicions; for you ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... can be overdone. A great meeting, attended by five thousand people, was recently held in London to deal with the White Slave question. And I was greatly struck by the fact that one of the most experienced and observant of the speakers—the Rev. J. Ernest Rattenbury, of the West London Mission—declared with deep emotion and impressive emphasis that 'it is the girls who come from the sheltered homes who stand in the greatest peril.' Perhaps I shall render ...
— Mushrooms on the Moor • Frank Boreham
... everything—to being present in the fields, at the threshing-floor, at the kilns, at the wharf, at the freighting of barges and rafts, and at their conveyance down the river: wherefore even the lazy hands began to look to themselves. But this did not last long. The peasant is an observant individual, and Tientietnikov's muzhiks soon scented the fact that, though energetic and desirous of doing much, the barin had no notion how to do it, nor even how to set about it—that, in short, he spoke by the book rather than out of his personal knowledge. Consequently things ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... her in the first illustration, with a young woman in it, which they discover in the window. The one noticeable peculiarity in Mrs. Glenarm's purely commonplace and purely material beauty, which would have struck an observant and a cultivated man, was the curious girlishness of her look and manner. No stranger speaking to this woman—who had been a wife at twenty, and who was now a widow at twenty-four—would ever have thought of addressing ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... who were secretly endeavouring to make political capital of that new and immense motive power, that not yet available, and not very easily organised political power which was already beginning to move the masses here then, and already threatening, to the observant eye, with its portentous movement, the foundations of tyranny, the fact, too, that these men were understood to have made use of the stage unsuccessfully as a means of immediate political effect, are facts which lie on the surface ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... sovereign's curious eye, Parents and children, fine, fat, hopeful sprigs, All snuffling, squinting, grunting in their style, Appeared the brewer's tribe of handsome pigs: On which the observant man, who fills a throne, Declared the pigs were ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... this of Dickens, for all the Diplomatists, and a discerning public generally, are much struck with the Event at Custrin; and take to writing of it as news;—and "Mr. Ginkel," Dutch Ambassador here, an ingenious, honest and observant man, well enough known to us, has been out to sup with the Prince, next day; and thus reports of him to Dickens: "Mr. Ginkel, who supped with the Prince on Thursday last," day after the Interview, "tells me that his Royal Highness is ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. VIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his dark head towered above other heads in the throne room, it was observed even by those not usually observant, that never ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... mankind had their origin in prehistoric times, many of them existing then with little essential difference. Any one of them affords a lesson in the gradual elaboration of the simple. A step minute in itself leads on and on, and so all the practical arts are built up, a readier and more observant mind imitating and adapting the work of predecessors, as we imagined the first man making his first flint axe. The history of the plough goes back to the elongation of a bent stick. The wheel would arise from cutting out the middle of a trunk used as a roller. House architecture ...
— Progress and History • Various
... her eager criticism, shrewd, observant, often strangely to the point, aroused the attention of some of the bystanders; they smiled as the pretty child and the beautiful girl walked slowly by together. Judy's intelligent face was commented on; the pathetic, eager, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade
... and sits down with admiration on your hat. He protects his mamma when he goes out with her, and scolds the dog, although he is very much afraid of him; all to be like papa. Have you caught him at meals with his large observant eyes fixed on you, studying your face with open mouth and spoon in hand, and imitating his model with an expression of astonishment and respect. Listen to his long gossips, wandering as his little ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... for themselves—those elegant guests;—they jested and sipped rich wines;—they pledged, and hoped, and loved, and promised, with never a thought of the morrow, on the night of the tenth of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-six. Observant parents were there, planning for the future bliss of their nearest and dearest;—mothers and fathers of handsome lads, lithe and elegant as young pines, and fresh from the polish of foreign university training;—mothers and fathers of splendid ...
— Chita: A Memory of Last Island • Lafcadio Hearn
... own patrol saw you down there a week ago, Hervey; saw you run out of a candy store to follow a runaway horse. You know, Hervey, horses' tracks aren't the kind you're after. Those boys were observant. They were on their way to the post office. I heard them telling ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... often advisable for the author writing in the third person to restrict his point of view still further, and, foregoing absolutely the prerogative of omniscience, to limit himself to an attitude merely observant and entirely external to all the characters. In such a case the author wears, as it were, an invisible cap like that of Fortunatus, which permits him to move unnoticed among his characters; and he reports to us externally their looks, their actions, and their ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... said than done. Clambering from rock to rook, always observant and watchful, the resolute youth pursued his way. Suddenly, however, he stood still, and threw himself ...
— Harper's Young People, November 25, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... he noticed something in Whittemore's face he had not observed before, a tenseness about the muscles of his mouth, a restlessness in his eyes, rigidity of jaw, an air of suppressed emotion which puzzled him. He was keenly observant of details, and knew that these things had been missing a short time before. The pleasure of their meeting that afternoon, after a separation of nearly two years, had dispelled for a time the trouble which he now saw ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... had said about me to Edmee; but it seemed to me that he might have insisted somewhat more on the good side of mine to which he had given a merely passing word, and which could not have escaped the notice of a man so observant as himself. I had determined, therefore, to be very cold and very proud in my bearing towards him. To this end I judged with a certain show of logic, that I ought to display great docility as long as the lesson lasted, and that immediately afterwards I ought to leave him with a very curt expression ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... than might have been expected. The action of political conventions, State and National, has been significant. If the articles on suffrage are vague as to principle, they are striking as the record of the conclusions of observant politicians in respect to the currents and tendencies of the public mind. They felt the need of saying something, and if they did it reluctantly, it is all the more significant. While then I can not be with you personally, I am with ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of State, which was laid before Parliament in due course. Few documents more thoroughly unofficial have ever appeared in a Blue Book. The excellence of the paper as a literary essay is conspicuous. But its chief value lies in the impression produced by South African politics upon a penetrating and observant mind trained under wholly different conditions. Froude would not have been a true disciple of Carlyle if he had felt or expressed much sympathy with the native race. He wanted them to be comfortable. For freedom he did not consider them fit. It was the Boers who really ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... loses much in the translation, I have given rather fully, as it shows an observant mind. The policy recommended was wise, and the deaths of the "senoga" and of the two men he had named, added to the destruction of their village, having all happened soon after, it is not wonderful that Sebituane followed implicitly the warning voice. ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... the accumulation of their hard industry, or their patient self-denial, can be distinguished at a glance from those who are receiving the proceeds of unexpected and unearned legacies. The first have a faded, anxious, almost disappointed look, while the second are sprightly, laughing, and observant of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... whole situation, some indefinite sympathy which unconsciously sought for an outlet—made her smile. Jacinth's smile was charming. Already to her thin young face it gave the roundness and bloom it wanted—every feature softened and the clear observant eyes grew sweet. ...
— Robin Redbreast - A Story for Girls • Mary Louisa Molesworth
... between men consists, in great measure, in the intelligence of their observation. The Russian proverb says of the non-observant man, "He goes through the forest and ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... of classification," Dennis explained. "In any case his overcoat was made in the States; the cut of the lapels is quite unmistakable. I knew an American who tried everywhere to get a coat cut like that over here, and failed. As to his being observant, you seem to have overlooked one important fact. There the man stands, apparently half asleep. Occasionally he displays a certain amount of life—tucks his papers more tightly under his arms, and so on. Now, the man ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... When Dingley Dell took their turn at the wickets their champions were Mr. Luffey and Mr. Struggles. The latter made a magnificent off-drive, and invited his colleague to "come along," with the result that the observant spectators applauded them for what was supposed to have been three sharp runs. But the umpires declared that there had been two short runs at each end—four in all. To what extent, if any, did this manoeuvre increase Mr. ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... way. I have decided to see the servants, and to search their thoughts and actions, Mr. Betteredge, instead of searching their wardrobes. Before I begin, however, I want to ask you a question or two. You are an observant man—did you notice anything strange in any of the servants (making due allowance, of course, for fright and fluster), after the loss of the Diamond was found out? Any particular quarrel among them? Any one of them not in his or her usual spirits? Unexpectedly out of temper, for instance? ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... my doubts." Then, explosively, "On my word, for three moderately intelligent boys you aren't very observant. I suppose you were too busy making things warm for your house-master to see what lay under your noses when you were in the ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... Lucindy, observant and sullen, kept herself informed of all their movements, and was continually having the blush brought to her cheek and the bitterness of comparison to her heart, as she noted the wide difference there was between herself and them. It never ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... leaves of a kind of hemp that grows in the hot climates. It is prepared, and I believe used, in all parts of the east, from Morocco to China. In Europe it is found to act very differently on different constitutions. Some it elevates in the extreme; others it renders torpid, and scarcely observant of any evil that may befal them. In Barbary it is always taken, if it can be procured, by criminals condemned to suffer amputation, and it is said, to enable those miserables to bear the rough operations of an unfeeling executioner, more than we Europeans can the keen knife of our most ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... out of your lap, and go away shaking your head, and looking so!—" and here the observant little creature attempted a childish imitation of the sad action and the strange, moody gestures with which he had put her down when he was retiring from the room—gestures and looks which the less quick eyes of her mother had failed ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... said Pen; "my companion here went through all that I did. He was keenly observant, and would be of great assistance to me if at any ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... I meet them now, half as interesting or as well educated. The older girls, who helped to break up the wild sod, learned so much from life, from poverty, from their mothers and grandmothers; they had all, like Antonia, been early awakened and made observant by coming at a tender age from an old country to a new. I can remember a score of these country girls who were in service in Black Hawk during the few years I lived there, and I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost ...
— My Antonia • Willa Sibert Cather
... down, and tell me, he that knows, Why this same strict and most observant watch So nightly toils the subject of the land; And why such daily cast of brazen cannon, And foreign mart for implements of war; Why such impress of shipwrights, whose sore task Does not divide the Sunday from the week; What ...
— Hamlet, Prince of Denmark • William Shakespeare [Collins edition] |
