"On the face of it" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... morning and every night for the next five years, they think that's all right, and if he had told Naaman to do that he would have done it. But to tell him merely to dip in the river Jordan seven times, why, it seemed absurd on the face of it! But this servant suggested to him that he had better go down to the Jordan and try ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody
... women who spent as much time as they could in visiting his theatre and rejoicing in the sight of his brave gestures and the sound of his vibrant voice. It was even said that they had a badge by which they could know each other; although on the face of it, judging by what sparse scraps of information concerning the nature of woman I have been able painfully to collect, I should say that segregation would be, in such a case as this, more ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... two years ago by some emotional journalists in want of special copy had rankled ever since in his breast. It was perfectly legal to arrest that man on the barest suspicion. It was legal and expedient on the face of it. His two former chiefs would have seen the point at once; whereas this one, without saying either yes or no, sat there, as if lost in a dream. Moreover, besides being legal and expedient, the arrest of Michaelis solved a little personal difficulty ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... credit system,"—of the practice of making money out of that which is only a promise to pay money,—out of that which purports to have a real equivalent in some vault, when no such equivalent exists, and is, therefore, a fraud on the face of it,—and which, deluging the community, raises the price of everything, begets speculation, stimulates an excessive and factitious trade, and is then suddenly withdrawn from the system, at the height ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... diploma," argued Midshipman Dalzell, "the faculty of the Naval Academy will testify on the face of it that you're a competent midshipman and on your way to being fit to hold an ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... It is obvious on the face of it that this could be no proper criterion for so important a decision as to qualifications; special crammers studied the examiners, their questions, and their teachings, and luck had a great deal to do with success. While some men never did themselves justice in examinations, others ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... defective, in virtue of omitting to deal with the various classes of evidence which had been brought to light since his time. Moreover his one suggestion as to the cause of the gradual modification of species—effort excited by change of conditions—was, on the face of it, inapplicable to the whole vegetable world. I do not think that any impartial judge who reads the 'Philosophie Zoologique' now, and who afterwards takes up Lyell's trenchant and effectual criticism (published as far back as 1830), will be disposed to allot ...
— The Reception of the 'Origin of Species' • Thomas Henry Huxley
... to nature that you say you learned at college before I was born, permit me to point out that on the face of it you cannot have learned anything since. Socialism has no more to do with the state of nature than has differential calculus with a Bible class. I have called your class stupid when outside the realm of business. You, sir, have ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... M alike in Macedon and Monmouth, so Thomas Carew and I have a common grievance—that our names are constantly mispronounced. It is their own fault, of course; on the face of it they ought to rhyme with "few" and "vouch." And if it be urged (impolitely but with a fair amount of plausibility) that what my name may or may not rhyme with is of no concern to anybody, I have only to reply that, until a month or so back, I cheerfully shared ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... how one can attempt to explain a fact of such importance so superficially. With naive unconcern there appears on the face of it the acknowledgement that Darwinism has really not been based on actual observation but has been enunciated for the sake of the doctrine of Descent. Come what may, this must be vindicated. Other means are now said ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... slightest difficulty, up to the present moment, in classifying them, neatly and logically; but there was no space in his mental files for a woman such as Lydia Orr was representing herself to be. It was inconceivable, on the face of it! All women demanded admiration, courtship, love. They always had; they always would. The literature of the ages attested it. He had been too precipitate—too hasty. He must give her time to recover from the shock she must have experienced from hearing ...
— An Alabaster Box • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and Florence Morse Kingsley
... be free to attend to the more pleasant or profitable matters. Hunter was then a journeyman, but was on the point of starting on his own account, when Rushton offered him a constant job as foreman, two pounds a week, and two and a half per cent of the profits of all work done. On the face of it this appeared a generous offer. Hunter closed with it, gave up the idea of starting for himself, and threw himself heart and mind into the business. When an estimate was to be prepared it was Hunter who measured up the work and laboriously figured out ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... Allan had admitted that he had known of the deficit for fifteen months, and yet he had not, till he was himself in trouble, thought of making it known to the proper authorities. Before his examination, which of course followed, could be concluded, Allan committed suicide. Now, does it not, on the face of it, seem of the highest probability that this man was the real delinquent, and that knowing that Hook had all the responsibility, and having taken fair precautions against his own detection, he had anticipated a discovery of the affair by a ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... being but a matter of a quarter-mile from the castle door. It is wooded to the very nose, almost, except for the precipitous sgornach or scaur, that, seen from a distance, looks like a red wound on the face of it The fort, a square tower of extraordinarily stout masonry, with an eminent roof, had a sconce with escarpment round it, placed on the very edge of the summit. Immediately behind Dunchuach is Duntorvil, its twin peak, that, at less distance than a shout will carry, ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... of the Dutch judicial system that in every place where there is a Court of Justice, higher or lower, there exists a Consultation Bureau where people without means may obtain gratuitous advice in legal matters. Unless a charge laid before this Consultation Bureau appears on the face of it to be unsustainable, the Bureau appoints one of its members to act as legal adviser and counsellor to the applicant free of cost. In criminal cases the President of the Court concerned appoints a legal adviser for the accused, though ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... are not a cattle thief," she protested. "You have only to explain who you are; no one would for a moment believe that Lawrence Knight could be guilty of stealing; it's ridiculous on the face of it!" ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright
... confidence in promises. The note in the bank is a written evidence of the promise. The note says on the face of it "I promise to pay." The Government of the United States issues bank notes on the face ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... this life shall I discover—how rumour operates in Troy, how it arrives or is spread. Early in August a rumour, incredible on the face of it, reached me that Kirris-vean intended a Regatta! . . . For a week I disbelieved it; for almost another week I forgot it; and then lo! Sir Felix himself called ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... dark, steady eyes. There was nothing then, nothing too vile that, in the public's eyes, could not logically be associated with the Gray Seal—even this! A series of the most cold-blooded, callous murders and robberies, the work, on the face of it, of a well-organized band of thugs, brutal, insensate, little better than fiends, though clever enough so far to have evaded capture, clever enough, indeed, to have kept the police still staggering and gasping after a clew for one murder—while another was in the very act of being ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... when he left for the last time the American Province was placed under the direct control of the General Directing Board in Germany, the American and German finances were mixed, the accounts became hopelessly confused, and American affairs were mismanaged. It is obvious, on the face of it, that a Directing Board with its seat in Germany was incapable of managing efficiently a difficult work four thousand miles away; and yet that was the system pursued for nearly a ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... gentleman enough. Everything with him was to be exactly in all its parts what it appeared on the face of it, and everything was to go on doing exactly what it had been doing hitherto. If a thing looked solid, it was to be very solid; if hollow, very hollow; nothing was to be half and half, and nothing was to change unless he had himself already become ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... appear well enough on the face of it, and many patentees have been misled, supposing that under the assignment the proceeds from the patent should be divided pro rata, according to the several interests. This, however, is not the case in such ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... furniture vans A transparent untruth used for transporting on the face of it. If only wounded to the hospitals one train came into Potsdam at Potsdam and other why use furniture vans at cities have proved a great all? The furniture vans success. These vans, are used for purposes of moreover, ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... unconsciously, love sometimes works out the work of a lifetime, touches the key-note of an anthem of everlasting praise,—does it with as little ostentation as the son of science draws yellow gold from the quartz rock which tells no tale on the face of it concerning its "hid treasure." So, wisely and without ostentation, work the true agents, the apostles ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... It appears to be genuine, too, on the face of it. If you will allow me I should like my ward to see it. It ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... about the best thing we have struck," said George; "we had better make the most of this." Which was good advice, on the face of it. ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... those other contingencies later if necessary," he said, "but on the face of it I am inclined to back the lorries. They supply the tied houses in Hull, which would seem the obvious places for the brandy to go, and, besides, railway transit is too well looked after to attract the gang. I think we'll follow this lorry ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... bottom of my heart, I wished a nearer view of the sea and ships. You are to remember I had lived all my life in the inland hills, and just two days before had my first sight of the firth lying like a blue floor, and the sailed ships moving on the face of it, no bigger than toys. One thing with another, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... solution of the questions which kept Austria and Hungary at variance in a compromise which bears some analogy to the arrangement by which Home Rulers propose at once to loosen and to maintain the connection between England and Ireland. In the case of Austria-Hungary, the union which exists is not, on the face of it at least, a step towards unity, but rather the surrender of the endeavour to mould the two parts of the monarchy into a united empire. The Dual system is therefore the instance of the blessings attending ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... be incredible that this man could be sane and sensible to make such a proposition as he had put forward; and doubtless it was done to clothe piracy in a more seemly garb than it usually wears. It was simply ridiculous on the face of it, with no imaginable foundation for the ...
— Asiatic Breezes - Students on The Wing • Oliver Optic
... succeeded in taking and holding the farm of Champenois, but all further attempts, by isolated battalions or companies, to force their way on against the broad and compact centre of the French were, on the face of it, futile. Thus, by about five o'clock, the infantry ceased fire, and the artillery only fired an occasional shot. Fatigue on both sides caused an almost total suspension of hostilities in this ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... among novelists who write of bandits, in all my experience with bandits—and I have known a thousand, most of 'em in Wall Street—I have never known it done, and I challenge those who write of South European highway-robbers to produce any evidence to prove that the habit is prevalent. The idea is, on the face of it, invalid. The ears of mankind, despite certain differences which are acknowledged, are, after all, very much alike. The point that differentiates one ear from another is the angle at which it is set from the head. The angle, according to the most scientific students ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... income-tax returns models of self-sacrifice, he was patriotic and civic, he belonged to the Welfare League and the Citizens' Union, and—I hesitate to confess it—he subscribed to the annual deficit of the Society for the Suppression of Sin. On the face of it, he was the kind of man the district attorney tries to select as foreman of a jury when he has to prosecute a woman who had kidnaped her own child ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... what, on the face of it, it claims to be, then the question of authenticity is for ever settled. As we have no doubt on this point, the corrections and variations between this manuscript, as collated by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald and the Lucas version, have been noted ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... custom of sale, that on the face of it was harsh and barbarous, some slight mitigation of the cruelty of the system had come; for the practice had grown up of permitting parents to buy back their own children—nominally thereafter holding them as slaves—and so to save them at a single stroke ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... spinsters of good family subject to spasms; gouty retired generals. Can anybody tell me how many men in the British Army go to a general? Somebody once assured me it was five thousand, but that is absurd, on the face of it. The British Army, in that case, would have to be counted by millions. There are a goodish few American colonels still knocking about. The American colonel is still to be met with here and there by the curious ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the Irish members at Westminster is on the face of it a gross and patent injustice to Great Britain. It is absurd, it is monstrous, that while the Irish Parliament and the Irish Parliament alone settle whether Mr. Healy, Mr. M'Carthy, Mr. Redmond, or Mr. Davitt is to be head of the ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... it right to notice that in the first edition of T. Mozley's Reminiscences (1882), i. 111, there appeared an anecdote of my father in his official capacity which was preposterous on the face of it. It was completely demolished in a letter written by my brother which appeared in the Times of July 6, 1882, and ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... received a grant of the lands of Kintail from Alexander II. for services rendered to that monarch in 1222, and he is again on record as their possessor in 1234, four years after the latest date on which the reputed charter to Colin Fitzgerald, keeping in view the witnesses whose names appear on the face of it, could possibly have been a genuine document. Even the most prominent of the clan historians who have so stoutly maintained the Fitzgerald theory felt bound to admit that, "it cannot be disputed that the Earl of Ross was the Lord paramount under Alexander II., by whom Farquhard ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... married an out-and-out rascal, she ought to be willing to spend the remainder of her life quietly. So she was left to herself, which seemed, on the face of it, to be about what she wanted. She tended Eben's house, drove the one cow to pasture, and sang to little Juliet from morning till night the songs she remembered from her ...
— Autumn • Robert Nathan
... On the face of it, then, it would seem that we, as compared with men of Glacial times, have decidedly 'progressed'. But it is not so easy to say off-hand in what ...
— Progress and History • Various
... door, and to see how large a bundle of letters he delivered at each. At Mrs. Overtheway's he delivered one, a big one, and an odd curiosity about this letter took possession of Ida. She wished she knew what it was about, and from whom it came, though, on the face of it, it was not likely she would be much the wiser if she did. She was still at the window when the door of the opposite house was opened, and the little old lady came hurriedly out. She had only her cap upon her head, and she held an open letter in her hand; the letter, it was evident. ...
— Mrs. Overtheway's Remembrances • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... same; that all his good sides, minus his evil sides, remained forever. Logically stated, this means that man's goal is the world; this world meaning earth carried to a state higher and with elimination of its evils is the state they call heaven. This theory, on the face of it, is absurd and puerile because it cannot be. There cannot be good without evil, or evil without good. To live in a world where there is all good and no evil, is what Sanskrit logicians call a 'dream ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... it, you didn't say anything. But I am wondering about this request to go to New York. I can't help thinking there is something in this request that doesn't appear on the face of it." He turned to Professor Brierly: "What are you going to do, sir?" Professor Brierly looked mutely at Norah. ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... ghost! the money was offered!" cried Jim. "It won't do, Loudon; it's nonsense, on the face of it! I don't say but what you and Nares did your best; I'm sure, of course, you did; but I do say, you got fooled. I say the stuff is in that ship to-day, and I say ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... answered ominously. Then, turning to the bewildered attorney, 'For you, sir,' he continued, 'if you have anything to say, be good enough to speak. On the face of it, this is a dirty trick ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... not, on the face of it, come into the reckoning. Thus I might have asked the reader to assist at the digging out of a cave, say, one of the famous caves at Mentone, on the Italian Riviera, just beyond the south-eastern corner of France. These caves were inhabited by man during an immense stretch of time, ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... actually sure, myself, that there is. For, as I remember it now, it deals almost exclusively with imaginary or worse than imaginary quantities. I remember distinctly that i with the acute accent meant the square root of minus one—and stood for 'imaginary' on the face of it. That was right at the start, and the farther you went the farther from reality you found yourself. But I don't remember anything of the subject—only the name—I wouldn't dream of being so ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... another son who was spirited away in childhood by the gypsies. That will explain this visit, which on the face of it is an impertinence. It will explain why I have entered this house without knocking, and have invited myself to luncheon. You see, sir, all this"—and again he made the sudden, ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... knew. But she was firmly convinced that if anyone could get to a Misfit planet, they would be welcomed. There were no Classes among the Misfits, she said. (The Guesser dismissed that completely; a Classless society was ridiculous on the face of it.) ...
— But, I Don't Think • Gordon Randall Garrett
... Sage, impatiently. "What childish questions you ask! The thing was a folly on the face of it; but, as I said before, he was a man—and the Cockatoo belonged to ...
— The Damsel and the Sage - A Woman's Whimsies • Elinor Glyn
... nobody likes to play the compulsorily generous role of scab. It is a bad business proposition on the face of it. And it is patent that there would be no capitalist scabs if there were not more capital than there is work for capital to do. When there are enough factories in existence to supply, with occasional stoppages, a certain commodity, the building of new factories by a rival concern, for the production ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... for the most part following the courses of rivers, and forming a step from the high ground, of which the country generally consists, to the river level. Thus almost the whole of France, though, on the face of it, flat, is raised from 300 to 500 feet above the level of the sea, and is traversed by valleys either formed by, or directing, the course of its great rivers. In these valleys lie all its principal towns, surrounded, ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... of it not yet awakened, is a tragic spectacle. Men in the rapidest motion and self-motion; restless, with convulsive energy, as if driven by Galvanism, as if possessed by a Devil; tearing asunder mountains,—to no purpose, for Mammonism is always Midas-eared! This is sad, on the face of it. Yet courage: the beneficent Destinies, kind in their sternness, are apprising us that this cannot continue. Labour is not a devil, even while encased in Mammonism; Labour is ever an imprisoned god, writhing ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... On the face of it, then, the Book is a compilation from several sources; and perhaps we ought to translate the opening clause of its title not as in our versions "The Words of Jeremiah," but "The History of Jeremiah," as has been legitimately done by ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... the size of a crown-octavo volume, in brown paper, carefully fastened up with gum, and on the face of it was a white label inscribed: "For Iris, to be opened on her twenty-first birthday." Everybody in turn took it, weighed it, so to speak, looked at it curiously, and read the legend. Then they returned it to ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... well-known lines about the fifth of November. The 'Daily Pulpit,' on the other hand, declared that Lord Randolph Church-hill had set the Thames on fire with native genius and a lighted fusee, which, on the face of it, seemed so extremely probable, that all of the British public that was not cheering the Army's arrival rushed to the bridges to investigate the river. Delegates from the 'Holywell Street Gazette,' in the meantime, were madly interviewing ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... the other hand, that the Germans should imitate Frederick the Great, which is not so preposterous as appears on the face of it, because of comparatively easy means of transportation, and should be able to make successive victorious dashes, first in the east and then in the west, backward and forward; leadership would be hers, and France would be a minor power ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... received orders, countersigned by Napoleon himself, that Flinders should be liberated, Decaen came to a decision that on the face of it seems extremely perplexing. We have seen that in August, 1805, Flinders, well informed by persons who had conversed with Decaen, believed that the General "would be very glad to get handsomely clear of me," and that ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... universal. As early as 1826 Alvan Lamson had defended the proposition that miracles are merely local in their nature, and that attention should be chiefly given to the tendency, spirit, and object of Christianity. He claimed that it bore on the face of it the marks of its heavenly origin, and that, when these are fully accepted, no other form of evidence is required.[7] In 1834 James Walker, in writing on The Philosophy of Man's Spiritual Nature in regard to the Foundations of Faith, had taken what was essentially the transcendentalist ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... this argument on contemporary theories, may to some appear a merit, to others a blemish. To make the dying John refute Strauss or Renan, handling their propositions with admirable dialectical skill, is certainly, on the face of it, somewhat hazardous. But I can see no real incongruity in imputing to the seer of Patmos a prophetic insight into the future—no real inconsequence in imagining the opponent of Cerinthus spending his last breath in the defence of Christian truth against ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Fyodorovitch had come amongst us I remember asking myself at the time with a certain uneasiness. This fateful visit, which was the first step leading to so many consequences, I never fully explained to myself. It seemed strange on the face of it that a young man so learned, so proud, and apparently so cautious, should suddenly visit such an infamous house and a father who had ignored him all his life, hardly knew him, never thought of him, and would not under any circumstances ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Paris for a name for one of his characters. I assure you I scoured England for William Arbuthnot Blain—'identified with the movement for improving the dwellings of the labouring classes'—or is that Richard Farrant, Esq.? In any case, what more likely, on the face of it? 'Frederick Wills, Esq., of the well-known tobacco firm of Bristol'—the public swallows that readily: and yet it never buys a packet of their Westward Ho! Mixture (which I smoke myself) without reading that the Wills's of Bristol ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... forth under his breath in the blackness, "commend me to you, Roy Prescott. If you'd thought it over before you started—looked before you leaped—this would never have happened. Anybody but a chump could have seen that, on the face of it, the whole thing was a scheme to entice you away. Oh, you bonehead! ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... least of his purposes, and I had put it into his power to offer a very ready explanation of suspicious circumstances. Indeed, how was I to know that what he said was not true? There was nothing whatever on the face of it unlikely, and if he told such a story to Captain Marmaduke, why, it was ten chances to one that Captain Marmaduke would implicitly believe in him. For there was no doubt about it, Captain Marmaduke had a great ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... higher and of more value than anything in Nature. Still, that does not mean that Nature has to be discarded or condemned before the potencies of his own being can develop. Nature is not a mere blind machine; it has produced all—including man and his potencies—that is to be found on the face of it. It is therefore not entirely meaningless, and the meaning it possesses is a necessary element in the evolution of personal spiritual life. Man must enter into some relation with Nature. But such a relation produces even more than all this. When viewed ...
— An Interpretation of Rudolf Eucken's Philosophy • W. Tudor Jones
... original ethical aspect and sanction. Why matters went thus in Israel and not elsewhere we know not, except that such was the will of God in the mysterious education of the world. How mysterious that education has been is best known to all who have studied the political and social results of Totemism. On the face of it a perfectly crazy and degrading belief—on the face of it meant for nothing but to make the family a hell of internecine hatred—Totemism rendered possible—nay, inevitable—the union of hostile groups into large and relatively ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... battle, they would ask to take the auspices, which they did by observing the behaviour of fowls. If the fowls pecked, the engagement was begun with a favourable omen. If they refused, battle was declined. Nevertheless, when it was plain on the face of it that a certain course had to be taken, they take it at all hazards, even though the auspices were adverse; contriving, however, to manage matters so adroitly as not to appear to throw any slight on religion; as was ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... pale cheeks reddened with satisfaction at the phrase; it assured him soothingly of what he was pleased to consider his triumph. But he allowed a slight expression of surprise to mingle with his air of complacency, and Lagardere hastened to give the reason for what was on the face of it a sufficiently strange request. ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... got nothing to do with it, Mawruss," Abe retorted. "And furthermore, Mawruss, any motor-cycle policeman which has got the nerve to swear that he could tell inside of two miles an hour how fast somebody is driving, understand me, is guilty of perjury on the face of it, which I told the judge. 'Judge, your Honor,' I says, 'I admit I was ...
— Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things • Montague Glass
... information that the weird relic of Peruvian civilization had been stolen from his father. Apparently fate was not inclined to let the matter of the lost mummy drop, and was working round to a denouement, which would possibly include the solution of the mystery of Sidney Bolton's death. Yet, on the face of it, there appeared to be no chance of the truth ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... so sure of that, Professor Schaefer," said Hugo Raeder. "I was in Germany when that law was passed. It aroused a great deal of interest. I have not looked into it myself, but on the face of it I should say it possesses ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... hearing—the other, how vague, shadowy, problematical! Could its so limited probabilities be worth taking into account in any practical question as to the rejecting or receiving [49] of what was indeed so real, and, on the face of it, so desirable? ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... he was entered "De Balzac" on the register of his birth is on the face of it untrue, as he was born on the 2nd Prairial of the year VII., a time when all titles were proscribed; so that the omission of the "de" means nothing, while his contention that he dropped the "de" in 1826, because he ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... architecture, and from the lie of the ground. The testimony derived from the lie of the ground is more important than any other, for several reasons. First, an historical document may be false, or inexact; for instance, the invention of a Brutus, son of AEneas, is false and absurd on the face of it. Or a document may be wrongly interpreted. Thus, a fragment of architecture may through ignorance be ascribed to the Roman, when it belongs to the Norman, period—one needs to be a profound student of architecture before an opinion of value can be pronounced upon the age of any monument: ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... must judge in its case. The federal government has no power to create or establish; more palpably still, it has no power to destroy property. Do you pay taxes to an agent that he may destroy your property? Do you support him for that purpose? It is an absurdity on the face of it. To ask the question is to answer it. The government is instituted to protect, not to destroy property. In abundance of caution, your fathers provided that the federal government should not take private property, even for its own use, unless by making due compensation ...
— Speeches of the Honorable Jefferson Davis 1858 • Hon. Jefferson Davis
... have excited our wonder, sometimes roused our indignation, that, after all, India was four millions still in debt to them? India in debt to them! For what? Every debt, for which an equivalent of some kind or other is not given, is, on the face of it, a fraud. What is the equivalent they have given? What equivalent had they to give? What are the articles of commerce, or the branches of manufacture, which those gentlemen have carried hence to enrich India? What are the sciences they beamed out to enlighten it? What are the arts they introduced ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... when he was still at Pignerol, the name of Mattioli, freely used before, never occurs in the correspondence. But we still often hear of 'l'ancien prisonnier,' 'the old prisoner.' He was, on the face of it, Dauger, by far the oldest prisoner. In 1688, Saint-Mars, having only one prisoner (Dauger), calls him merely 'my prisoner.' In 1691, when Saint-Mars had several prisoners, Barbezieux styles Dauger 'your prisoner of twenty years' standing.' When, in 1696-1698, ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... "On the face of it, this letter does not seem suspicious. But if you gentlemen will recall the times of Prince Charles' insurrections, periods whenever intrigues were going on, you will remember that in communications of this sort a government ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... this," remonstrated the other. "That young man's people are very influential, you know, and it looks bad enough on the face of it. The general had to take notice of their complaint at once. I don't think he means to be over-severe with you. It is best for you to be kept out ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... Laura, with a long sigh of relief. "You must not think of minding what Mr. Spurling says. Why, it is absurd on the face of it! Everybody knows that there are dozens of men all over the country who would have been ruined and turned out of their houses if you had not stood their friend. How could they be the worse for having known you? I wonder that Mr. Spurling ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... whole situation lay in the fact that my earnings both as teacher and as story writer were as yet hardly more than enough to pay my own carefully estimated expenses, and I saw no way of immediately increasing my income. On the face of it, my plain duty was to remain on the farm, and yet I could not bring myself to sacrifice my Boston life. In spite of my pitiful gains thus far, I held a vital hope of soon,—very soon—being in condition to bring my mother and my sister east. I argued, selfishly of course, "It must be ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... as one finds it, of course," said the big doctor, looking down at the unpromising face on the pillow, and shaking his head. "Yes, yes, yes, one must do what's right, on the face of it, come what will. There's no getting around that!" He glanced at me, a shadow in his kind gray eyes. "But there are times, my friend, when I wonder! Now, this morning I had to tell a working man his wife's got to die. There's no help ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... replied the artist, "and give me a board and I'll put half a dozen woods on the face of it." ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... in Daphne's confidence," I answered. "I don't know how she feels. But, on the face of it, I think I can venture to assure you that at least she won't ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... exempting Literature from Censorship, put forward by unreflecting persons: That it would require too many Censors—besides being unworthy, is, on the face of it, erroneous. Special tests have never been thought necessary in appointing Examiners of Plays. They would, indeed, not only be unnecessary, but positively dangerous, seeing that the essential function of ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of sellers—in other words, demand in excess of supply," Wade responded. "That's on the face of it. Probably not half a dozen men know the inside. Orders may have been issued to support the stock—that is, to buy all offered in order to keep the price from declining farther. It's hard to say, at this distance. It's possible that the depressing rumours may have originated with the very ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... be resorted to, as I understand it,' he replied. 'The resolution will remain in the book; black lines will be drawn around it, and across it from right angles, and the word "expunged," will be written on the face of it. It will, to all intents and purposes, still stand on the face of the book. There are precedents in parliamentary journalism for the guidance of the Senate, and I suppose they will ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... do nothing to help himself. That was clear on the face of it. Old and apparently ill, he ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... stock? Well, by the horn-spoon—how much did your mother borrow? Eight—hundred? Eight hundred dollars? Well, that is enough, on the face of it—but never mind, I will recover the stock. It is certainly a revelation of human nature. The moment I am reported dead, these vultures strip my family of ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge
... never pass away. And yet what would Science demand of a perfect correspondence that is not met by this, THE KNOWING OF GOD? There is no other correspondence which could satisfy one at least of the conditions. Not one could be named which would not bear on the face of it the mark and pledge of its mortality. But this, to know God, stands alone. ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... present taxation had been supplied entirely by the proceeds of bonds. In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the government issued currency to a large amount, which was made legal tender and which on the face of it was ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... In the seats of authority counsels were much divided, and, in view of such division, it was difficult, if not impossible, to take any decided action against Simone and his friends. Moreover, there was, or so at least it seemed to many who were not necessarily on Messer Simone's side, on the face of it, not a little to be said for Bull-face of the Bardi. The daughter of Folco Portinari was indeed his wife, and it seemed to those that were sticklers for the solemnity of the married state, however brought ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... may be asked, "How does it happen that there is such a large and growing excess of imports over exports? Surely that is a bad sign." On the face of it, why should it be? It only means that we are, apparently, getting more than we give, and most people do not in their private relations regard that as a hardship. There are, however, people to be found who, seeing ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... word like that to him. I couldn't. The nearest I got to it was I said, 'Well, but time's getting on, you know, old man. It's a—a funny position on the face of it. What do you suppose your wife's thinking ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... this sweeping statement might have made Ortensia smile at any other time. But she was staggered by it now, and forgot the speech she had prepared. On the face of it, to tell anything to a man who knew everything was superfluous. She reflected a moment, and he took advantage of her silence to speak again ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... is the best known and the best conceived. Hypatia was written in 1853 in the prime of his manhood and was on the face of it a controversial work. Its sub-title was—New Foes with an Old Face,—its preface elaborates the moral and spiritual ideas that it teaches, the very titles of the chapters bear biblical phrases and classical moralising as their style. I should be sorry to ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... on the face of things. The reason, perhaps, the most on the face of it is to be found in my wife's gown, and in my coat." This Mr Crawley said very gravely, looking neither to the right nor to the left nor at the face of any of them, nor at his own garment, nor at hers, ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... remarked Eileen suddenly, during a lull in what had been a desultory, flippant, bantering sort of conversation, "I can't explain how it is and I know it is ridiculous on the face of it; but sometimes I have the feeling that I ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... that of the average Negro, and as it seems plausible that the greater the central nervous system, the higher will be the faculty of the race, and the greater its aptitude for mental achievements, the conclusion that the European is superior in this respect seems on the face of it to be well grounded. There are, however, certain relevant facts which qualify this inference, and these ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... our placing the Weimar drawings in the same category as those here reproduced. The mode of grouping in the Weimar drawings is of itself sufficient to indicate that they were not executed before the picture was painted, but, on the contrary, afterwards, and it is, on the face of it, incredible that so great a master should thus have copied from ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... Nevertheless, he permits me to publish them anonymously, being, indeed, a little curious to ascertain what would have been the public verdict as to his sanity, had he given his personal imprimatur to a narrative on the face of it so incredible. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... moonlit gallery before I could find a word of expostulation. Yoshio of course. I was naturally startled and angry in consequence. I demanded an explanation and after a great deal of hesitation he muttered something about Barry wanting him—which is ridiculous on the face of it. If Barry had really wanted him he would have been inside the room, not crouched outside on the door mat. He seemed very upset and kept begging me to say nothing about it. I don't remember how he put it but he certainly conveyed the impression that it would not be good for Barry to know. I don't ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... so foolishly, then, gone to sleep? And what, at the final analysis, could we have stolen but bales of hay, sacks of guano, and plowshares? All of them too unwieldy to carry away unless we had other conveyance than our backs. It was absurd, on the face of it. ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... for it is now the twentieth year since he went thither and left my country. Yet even so I will tell thee as I see him in spirit. Goodly Odysseus wore a thick purple mantle, twofold, which had a brooch fashioned in gold, with two sheathes for the pins, and on the face of it was a curious device: a hound in his forepaws held a dappled fawn and gazed on it as it writhed. And all men marvelled at the workmanship, how, wrought as they were in gold, the hound was gazing on the fawn and strangling it, and the fawn was writhing with ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I shall be—we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it sounds very reasonable. Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety, than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the matter—that is, if he is free. And yet—" He turned and frowned thoughtfully ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... in her tie to make sure that it was straight, wriggled round before the glass to see that belt and bodice were immaculately connected, put a clean handkerchief in her pocket, nicked the clothes-brush over her skirt, and, what could one do more? It seemed on the face of it that one could do nothing, but the other girls had accomplished a great deal more than this. Rhoda never forgot the shock of dismay which she experienced on first stepping forth, and beholding them. It was surely a room full of boys, not girls, for skirts had disappeared, and knickerbockers ...
— Tom and Some Other Girls - A Public School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... part, although each was innocent enough in itself. At school, and later on at the 'Varsity, he had consistently and steadily suppressed a truth from friend and foe alike—namely, that he was in his own country a prince. No great crime on the face of it; but a constant suppression of a very small truth is as burdensome as any suggestion of falsehood. It makes one afraid of contemptible foes, and doubtful of the value ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... "On the face of it, none," he said; "but I wouldn't have come afore you only to say I disapproved, because you'd say my opinion didn't matter a damn. So I've come because I'm wishful to be in it and let you know my right so to ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... you has reached me, which indeed carries such an improbability on the face of it that you may perhaps wonder at my giving it a thought; and at first I did not, but finding it repeated from different quarters, it seems to me worth contradicting for the sake of your character. Some Oxford undergraduates, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... moment's pause in the room. On the face of it, Alice's proposal was excellent. Everybody felt it ought to be carried out, but many shared Hetty's motive in objecting to it. It was Lennie Chapman who saved ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... was regular is shewn by the pleas by which it was afterwards sought to reverse it.[10] When Cicero was recalled the question came before the pontifices, who decided that the consecration was not valid unless it had been done by the "order of the people." It could not be denied on the face of it that there had been such an order. Cicero was obliged to resort to the plea that Clodius's adoption had been irregular and invalid, that therefore he was not legally a tribune, and could not take an order of the people. Finally, the senate seems to have decided that its restoration ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... any public official listening to a miscreant who told the story of a stevedores' row, to which he himself had been a party, and seriously believing that the threats, however extravagant and bellicose, of a verbose old sailor could be a national danger, is, on the face of it, so ludicrous that the English reader may easily doubt the accuracy of such an incident; ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... A tract of country unaltered from that sinister condition which made Caesar anxious every year to get clear of its glooms before the autumnal equinox, a kind of landscape and weather which leads travellers from the South to describe our island as Homer's Cimmerian land, was not, on the face of it, friendly ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... the heart of a child, that I remember as my father, with murder, forgery, or any other crime. And yet, according to Glanville and the old newspapers he showed me, Richard Bridges was one of the most unscrupulous ruffians in South Africa. In my heart of hearts I know he didn't do it, and though on the face of it there's no doubt, I'm going to try and clear his name. I am sailing for South Africa ...
— Uncanny Tales • Various
... Julien asked coldly, "that you should be so mysterious? After all, you know, the thing, on the face of it, is impossible. Madame probably does not know of my existence, and why should you take it for granted that ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the inductive and experimental methods. They investigated Nature by studying their own minds, by considering the meanings of words, rather than by studying things and recording phenomena. This wrong (though by no means, on the face of it, absurd) method was not pursued exclusively, else would their science have been valueless, but the influence it had was such as materially to detract from the value of their speculations and discoveries. For when truth and falsehood are inextricably woven into a statement, the truth ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... figure, figure; present to the view; show &c. (make manifest) 525. Adj. apparent, seeming, ostensible; on view. Adv. apparently; to all seeming, to all appearance; ostensibly, seemingly, as it seems, on the face of it, prima facie [Lat]; at the first blush, at first sight; in the eyes of; to the eye. Phr. editio ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... to say, even in the absence of all external or traditional testimony, that it seems to me not pardonable merely nor permissible, but simply logical and reasonable, to set down this poem, a young man's work on the face of it, as the possible work of no man's ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... course we are a long way from making it wrong. But that is what it is coming to, I believe. Divorce will be against the law some day! No divorce on ANY GROUNDS! It cannot be reconciled to law; it defies law. Right on the face of it, it is breaking a contract. Are any other contracts to be broken with public approval? We will see the return of the old, simple law, then we will wonder at ourselves! I am not a woman who takes naturally ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... Mrs. Vandemeyer had worried me when Julius told me about it. On the face of it, it seemed that he or Sir James must have done the trick. But I didn't know which. Finding that photograph in the drawer, after that story of how it had been got from him by Inspector Brown, made me suspect Julius. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... Villafranca was only signed in the July of that year.) Occupation as hospital-man-nurse was, to my mind, occupation so utterly at variance with Oscar's temperament and character, that I persisted in considering the intelligence thus received of him to be on the face of it false. ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... dependence upon the Muse? We have been using the name Muse in this essay merely as a figure of speech, and is this not the poet's usage when he addresses her? The casual reader is inclined to say, yes, that a belief in the Muse is indeed dead. It would be absurd on the face of it, he might say, to expect a belief in this pagan figure to persist after all the rest of the Greek theogony has become a mere literary device to us. This may not be a reliable supposition, since as ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... 1st.—That Hebrew should be one of the official languages of Palestine seems, on the face of it, not unreasonable. But, according to Lord TREOWEN, to compel the average Palestinian Jew, who speaks either Spanish or Yiddish, to use classical Hebrew, will be like obliging a user of pidgin English to adopt the language ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, December 8, 1920 • Various
... grandmother was more than a Creole in the strict sense of the term, that of a person born of white parents in the West Indies, and that an unmistakable dash of dark blood passed from her to her son and grandson. Such an occurrence was, on the face of it, not impossible, and would be absolutely unimportant to my mind, and, I think I may add, to that of Mr. Browning's sister and son. The poet and his father were what we know them, and if negro blood had any part in their composition, it was no worse for them, and so much the better for the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... On the face of it, his father's death was exceedingly suspicious. He had left his home in the country and gone to town upon pretence. Why? That a woman was connected with his journey was now apparent. Hugh had ascertained certain facts which he had resolved to ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... press a report reaches us which certainly bears the impress of truth on the face of it. It declares that the CROWN PRINCE has been shot for looting by a short-sighted brother-officer who did not recognise the son of God's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 18, 1914 • Various
... afraid, was she afraid for herself or for her friends? And to what degree was her dread of a catastrophe intensified by the sense of being fatally involved in it? The burden of offence lying manifestly with Mrs. Dorset, this conjecture seemed on the face of it gratuitously unkind; but Selden knew that in the most one-sided matrimonial quarrel there are generally counter-charges to be brought, and that they are brought with the greater audacity where the original grievance is so emphatic. Mrs. Fisher had not hesitated to suggest the likelihood ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... the Major, shrewdly scrutinizing the letter, which he had taken from Patsy's hands. "It surely looks genuine enough, on the face of it. I've seen the bank letter-head before, and this is no forgery, you can take my word. Get your things on, Patsy. Instead of walking in the park we'll hunt up Willing Square, and we'll take the ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces • Edith Van Dyne
... a beginning, was, on the face of it, disconcerting. Peter looked about at the rows of books, at the thick, soft carpet and the leather-covered furniture, and at the rings on Mrs. Dassonville's hand. If Mr. Dassonville ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... what art were they chosen!" exclaims M. Blaze de Bury. "A number of theologians, the elite of the time, had been named to represent France at the council of Bale; of these Cauchon chose the flower." This does not seem on the face of it to be a fact against, but rather in favour of, the tribunal, which the reader naturally supposes must have been the better, the more just, for being chosen among the flower of learning in France. They were not men who could be imagined to be the ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... bears on the face of it more appearance of folly, ignorance, and impertinence, than any attempt to diminish the honor of those to whom the assent of many generations has assigned a throne; for the truly great of later times have, almost without exception, fostered in others the veneration ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... an ambitious woman like Lady Macbeth, and then with a hundred more characters hardly less distinctive than these. It means that he could contrive the coincidence so absolutely as to leave no loophole for the introduction, into the several dramatic utterances, of any sentiment that should not be on the face of it adapted by right of nature to the speakers' idiosyncracies. That was Shakespeare's power. It is a power of which the effects are far easier to recognise than the causes ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... of the monotype machine, piano or typewriter were not located permanently in the same relative position. Consider the loss of time in not being able to use habits in finding each key. Such an arrangement sounds ridiculous on the face of it, yet it is a common practice for many operators, especially of monotype machines, to make a complete mental decision as to the muscles and fingers with which they will strike ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... you are sick," he returned. "I should be if any one had done to me what we did to you and Foster this afternoon. It looks pretty rotten on the face of it, and I am as sorry as blazes that you had to have a row ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... considered the subject for a couple of hours he went back to one of his first points, relating to the fitness and capacity of Corny to accomplish the task he had undertaken. It was evident enough on the face of it that his cousin, even if he had been a veteran naval officer, could not carry out the plan alone. He must have confederates, in the double sense, on board of the Vernon. In the early stages of the war, men who had served in the navy as officers were coming home from ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... on the spirits of the others, some of whom greeted him by the name Jim, others ignoring him entirely. Among these latter was the black-haired man who had given Lambert his title and elevated him to the nobility of the Bad Lands. On the face of it there was a crow ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... back room in No. 13, Birket Street, Limehouse. The treasure, of course, was given in the first place to Thorndyke, but transferred by him to my wife on the pretence that but for my suggestion of shell-dust the robber would never have been traced. Which is, on the face of it, preposterous. ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... nonsensical on the face of it," was his response. "Mrs. Frostwinch can't build churches, let alone temples, if ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... from Mr. Cobbett, said to have been addressed to a person of the name of Wright. In this letter, written, I believe, ten years previous to this epoch, Mr. Cobbett grossly abused me, and represented me as a sad fellow, and recommended to the Westminster committee to have nothing to do with me. As on the face of it this epistle appeared to have been written some years before I knew Mr. Cobbett, I felt no anger or resentment against him; although it certainly showed that he possessed a bad heart, to be capable ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... him that there had once been a murder in one of these flats. He did not believe it. If any of these white-corpuscled clams ever swatted a fly, it was much as they could do. The thing was ridiculous on the face of it. If they were capable of murder, they would have murdered ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... limb from limb, you will almost certainly be subjected to the utmost rigour of the law, and you will be lucky if you escape a heavy fine of five or ten shillings, exclusive of the costs of the case. Now, this is not right on the face of it. It is even wrong. The law should take into account the extreme provocation which led to the action. Punish if you will the man who travels second-class with a third-class ticket, or who borrows a pencil and forgets ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... surprise that, though most respectably dressed, she had nevertheless described herself as being "in distress." She had expressed the deepest contrition, but had persisted in giving a name which was on the face of it a false one; in telling a commonplace story, which was manifestly an invention; and in refusing to the last to furnish any clew to her friends. A lady connected with a charitable institution ("interested by her extreme elegance and beauty") had volunteered to take ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... suspicious, on the face of it," continued Mitchington, who was obviously much upset. "As you'll acknowledge when you hear them. I got my information from the next-door neighbour, Mrs. Batts. Mrs. Batts says that when Ransford—who'd been fetched by Mrs. ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher |
