"Looker-on" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... plenty of fun? That was the question. That Mueller had had plenty of flirting and plenty of fun was a fact beyond the reach of doubt. But a flirtation, after all, unless in a one-act comedy, is not entertaining to the mere looker-on; and oh! must not those bridesmaids who sometimes accompany a happy couple in their wedding-tour, have a ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... agreeable to make the first experiment in a marl-pit, on my father's farm, than on the lake. Accordingly, after three days' fasting, and praying for the power of not sinking in the water, I slipped very quietly down to the pit, and after reconnoitering the premises, to be sure there was no looker-on, I approached the brink. At this moment my heart beat high with emotion, my soul was wrapt up to a most enthusiastic pitch of faith, and my whole spirit absorbed in feelings, where hope—doubt—gleams of uncertainty—visions ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... from the owner. His affectionate friend with the pronounced tendency to embonpoint, tried to persuade himself that his head was really covered, although Guy's hat, to do its most generous, could never shield more than the extreme top of his hair. Snatches of their conversation only reassure the looker-on of the absurdity of the situation. The good-natured looking companion, whose name was Morrison Jones, said in the most usual tone ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... things lie on the knees of the gods. I dare say you wonder, Mr. Hamel, why a poor useless creature like myself should take the slightest interest in passing events? It is just the fascination of the looker-on. I want your opinion about that champagne. Florence dear, you must join us. We will drink to Mr. Hamel's health. We will perhaps couple that toast in our minds with the sentiment which I am sure is not very far from ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... thank you?" says the young man, fervently, his whole face transformed. He seizes her hands and presses his lips to them in what seems to the looker-on at the other end of the room an impassioned manner. "You have managed ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... father—how, even in the most tranquil times of his life—the time she could remember best, the peaceful years in Merleville, he had given himself no rest, but watched for souls as one who must give account. Yes, life was a warfare. Not always with outward foes. The struggle need not be one that a looker-on could measure or see, but the warfare must be maintained—the struggle must only cease with life. It had been so with her father, she knew; and through his experience, Graeme caught a glimpse of that wonderful paradox of the life that is hid with Christ in God,—constant ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... of "cemetery" is not the common American one.) He is surely better as a looker-on at life than when he tries to present the surging passions of an actor-in-chief. Then his art is full of sound and fury, and instead of being thrilled, we are, as Stevenson said of Whitman's poorer poems, somewhat ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... given us a bit of art criticism, haven't they? One of the most pictorial notes in this composition of Maybeck's is the use of these figures. But it's also eccentric and it puzzles the average looker-on who is always searching after meanings, according to the literary habit of the day, the result of universal reading. Perhaps the effect would have been, less bewildering if those urns were filled with flowers as Maybeck intended they should be. Then the women would have seemed ...
— The City of Domes • John D. Barry
... listen reverently to this good and holy man expostulating with heathen foes. And thus the first resolution of the Budget got quietly through, which was exactly what the Chancellor of the Exchequer wanted; whereupon there might have been observed, perhaps, by a close looker-on, a sinking of one of Sir William's eyelids, which might have suggested in a lesser mortal the wink of the man who takes off the mask when the comedy is over. Sir ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... occupants of the chamber produced a shock of surprise, which manifested itself in so sudden a change of manner and bearing in the two young men, that it would have been ludicrous to any looker-on. The two hats came down from the two heads with a spring-like suddenness and quickness; and both ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... of Issy will cease to be a fort. The batteries at Meudon appeared to-day to be of opinion that its guns were effectually silenced; shells fell thick and fast on the bastions at Point-du-Jour; and so well aimed were they, that between the bastions a looker-on was in comparative safety. The noise, however, of the duel between the bastions and the batteries was so deafening, that it was literally impossible for two persons to hear each other speak at a few ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... patient looker-on; Judge not the play before the play is done: Her plot hath many changes; every day Speaks a new scene; the last ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... of the day seems light to them, looking forward to the hour when they sit together in John's old shabby dining-room above the counting-house. Yet a looker-on might imagine such times dull to them; for they are strangely shy of one another, strangely sparing of words—fearful of opening the flood-gates of speech, feeling the ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... things that none but she can do, she is great also in some that she may be said to share with other novelists; the drawing of minor characters, for instance. Lockwood may be a little indistinct, but he is properly so, for he is not a character, he is a mere impersonal looker-on. But Nelly Dean, the chief teller of the story, preserves her rich individuality through all the tortuous windings of the tale. Joseph, the old farm-servant, the bitter, ranting Calvinist, is a masterpiece. ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... the cemetery on the evening of the "Day of the Dead" was one calculated to make an impression not to be readily forgotten by any mere looker-on who witnessed it. Nor was that presented by the road from the gate to the cemetery less remarkable in its way. It is an ugly, disagreeable bit of road, between high walls, deep with mud in wet, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... deep in his eyes only; his lips remained sober. One would have said that he had not recognized the thrust. "I shall only remain myself," he replied. "I am allowed to be a looker-on ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck
... sprung aside with an oath, forced from him by his terror; and from every looker-on there broke a groan. They all shrunk away and stood staring with blanched faces. Such a piteous sight as it was, lying doubled up, with the rope pinioning the miserable limbs, the teeth locked, and the ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... little bag that contained only one reload for the breech-loaders, and no powder flask or shells for the half-pounders. I had now the annoyance of witnessing the difficult ascent of the elephants in single file, exposing their flanks in succession to the shoulder-shot, while I remained a helpless looker-on. ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... could not have given them water for their parched throats but he could have given them to drink of the waters of understanding; he could have relieved the drought in their wrung young hearts. He would have seen, as only a looker-on could see, what was happening to them. He would have yearned over Honor, fronting the bright face of danger so gallantly but stunned and crushed by the change in Jimsy, over Jimsy himself, setting out to do an incredibly stupid, incredibly noble deed, absolutely ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell
... paramount importance in the scene, and made a blank in it, ridiculously disproportionate in its extent, when he retired. The gambols of a piece of cloth upon the dyer's pole had far more interest for the moment than all the changing motion of the crowd. Yet even while the looker-on felt angry with himself for this, and wondered how it was, the tumult swelled into a roar; the hosts of objects seemed to thicken and expand a hundredfold, and after gazing round him, quite scared, he turned into Todgers's ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... of Bessie's engagement with Grey she went at once to congratulate her, and insisted upon her being one of her bridemaids. But Bessie declined; she was too much a stranger to take so conspicuous a place, she said, and would rather be a quiet looker-on. ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... were going with you to Yankee Land, not to do any lecturing, God forbid! but to be a quiet spectator in a corner of the enthusiastic audiences. I am as lazy as a dog, and the role of looker-on would just suit me. However, I have a good piece of work to do in organising my ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... instinct won't tell you what to do far better than I ever could! Besides, you understand men; you know how to deal with them by nature—I never could. I see through them too well. I merely wanted to warn you—being myself a cool looker-on—to be prudent, not to say or do anything irrevocable. If you find you can't help making a scene, well, make one. It can't do much harm. It's only that making oneself unpleasant is apt to destroy one's influence. Naturally, people won't stand being bullied ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... the words. They were a revelation to Dot, the almost silent looker-on. It was as if a flashlight had given her a sudden glimpse of this man's soul, showing her bitter enmity—a black and cruel hatred—an implacable yearning for revenge. She felt as if she had looked down into the seething heart of ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... least," retorted the friar; and then he blamed the duke for leaving the cause of Isabel in the hands of him she had accused, and spoke so freely of many corrupt practices he had observed while, as he said, he had been a looker-on in Vienna, that, Escalus threatened, him with the torture for speaking words against the state and for censuring the conduct of the duke, and ordered him to be taken away to prison. Then, to the amazement of all present, and to the utter ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... And there was one looker-on, who remained with eyes fixed upon the spot where the carriage had disappeared, long after it was many miles away; for, behind the white curtain which had shrouded her from view when Harry raised his eyes towards the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... by inducing Mrs. Gladstone to write for him. Bok knew that Mrs. Gladstone had helped her husband in his literary work, that she was a woman who had lived a full-rounded life, and after a day's visit and persuasion, with Mr. Gladstone as an amused looker-on, the editor closed a contract with Mrs. Gladstone for a series of reminiscent articles ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... Shallum's group. Poor Peter's state was betrayed by the irascibility which wreaked itself on a jostling waiter, and found cause for loud remonstrance in the coldness of the coffee and the badness of the cigars; and Bowen, with something more than the curiosity of the looker-on, wondered whether this were the real clue to Undine's conduct. He had always smiled at Mrs. Fairford's fears for Ralph's domestic peace. He thought Undine too clear-headed to forfeit the advantages of her marriage; but it now struck him that she ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... squirming up, there was sure to be one squirming down, for a principal part of the time seemed to be devoted to journeys below and aloft, besides elaborate contrivances for slinging boards and tools to the climbers' backs; indeed, to a looker-on, this seemed to be the ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... exclaimed Lawrence. "The curse of the age. Oh, there's no doubt she was clever. She played her cards so well that she succeeded in deceiving the principal looker-on as ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... toys, were scrambling up with bags and loads of faggots, their ant-like activity as orderly and untroubled as if the two armies had not lain trench to trench a few yards away. It was one of those strange and contradictory scenes of war that bring home to the bewildered looker-on the utter impossibility of picturing how ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... Curiously enough, Captain Jonathan Wellsby had been forgotten. He was left alone to handle the ship while the pirate helmsmen stood by the great tiller. To forsake it meant to let the vessel run wild and perhaps turn turtle in the swollen seas. And so the doughty skipper was, for the time, a looker-on. ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... once and ride away after his pale-face friends, with the strongest assurances that the Nez Perces regarded them as so many brothers. Long Bear also sent a handsome cougar-skin to Sile, as a proper acknowledgment of the fact that he had been a looker-on at the rescue of the quadrupeds from the misguiding leadership of the bad old mule. Two Arrows rode gladly away upon his errand, and some of the braves set out at once after the "left baggage." All whom they left behind them ...
— Two Arrows - A Story of Red and White • William O. Stoddard
... is to resign. It is the only chance of long life. Let him not be afraid of ennui from idleness. He has a great love of the country and country pursuits, and that is all-sufficient. Age cannot wither it, nor custom stale its infinite variety. And it is so much better to be a looker-on than an actor in life. Aristotle, in the last chapter of his 'Nicomachean Ethics,' sets himself to consider what can be the happiness of the gods; and he finds nothing in which he can put it but in contemplation. And it might be so, if it were still ...
— Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Henry Reeve, C.B., D.C.L. - In Two Volumes. VOL. II. • John Knox Laughton
... by the mere look of rolls of napoleons pushed from one colour to another, or of gold raked about in little heaps, there is something very difficult to understand in the spell which a gaming-table exercises. Roulette is a little more amusing, as it is more intelligible to the looker-on. The stakes are smaller, the company changes oftener, and is socially more varied. There is not such a dead, heavy earnestness about these riskers of five-franc pieces as about the more desperate gamblers ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... hand and welcomed him with a few kind words. As the boy and girl stood there, no two cousins could have appeared more externally unlike, and yet never were two more alike in their highest tastes and deepest feelings. But an ordinary looker-on would only see the boy so small, and quiet, and weary, and the girl so tall, and active, and healthy, abounding in lively spirits, in the full enjoyment of her young life, with the mother she adored, thinking nothing could be more beautiful than her picturesque ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... When the looker-on wonders idly at the strength of ties such as those which bound together these two, and the length of their duration, he has never considered their nature—the similarity of tastes, similarity of pursuits, and the crowning fact of the mutual ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... their mid-day meal, and the birds had hidden themselves away from the sunbeams. The great heart of Nature was pulsating with a joy like that of the lovers, too great for utterance. There was something in the appearance of this youthful pair which would have convinced a looker-on that there was a mystery of some sort surrounding the romance of their love. For the one was in the garb of a nun, her head concealed by a coif, and her person enveloped in a long white veil; while the other was attired in a splendid Spanish dress. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... general impression to the contrary, I am inclined to believe, after a good deal of inquiry, that Paris has acquitted itself better than London. The French, certainly, are less disposed, as a rule, to "hide their light under a bushel," than most other people; but, on the spot and a looker-on, my respect for their feelings and philanthropy has been greatly raised by their conduct during ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... a mere looker-on; seldom an unmoved, and sometimes an angry spectator, but still a spectator only, of the pursuits of mankind. I felt how little my opinion was valued by those engaged in the busy turmoil, yet I exercised it with the profusion of an old lawyer retired from ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... and except Tatine, none Of all the Greeks went with the Christian host; O sin, O shame, O Greece accurst alone! Did not this fatal war affront thy coast? Yet safest thou an idle looker-on, And glad attendest which side won or lost: Now if thou be a bondslave vile become, No wrong is that, but God's most ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... anyhow," said the artist. That was his gentle way of intimating that Claude was not invited to be a looker-on. ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... was audible. The wind did not move the leaves. The swallows skimmed along he ground one after another without a cry, and their silent flight made a sad impression upon the heart of the looker-on. "Here I am, then, at the bottom of the river," again thought Lavretsky. "And here life is always sluggish and still; whoever enters its circle must resign himself to his fate. Here there is no use in agitating oneself, no reason why one should give oneself trouble. He only ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... European—white as myself. His countenance seemed full of thought and meaning. He is a native of Fez, and has lived long in Algiers. He has served in the war against the French under Abd-el-Kader, and has only been two years in Bornou and in Kuka, and once in Zinder. He is here as the nather, "looker-on;" one who watches over the interests of the country, particularly in its foreign relations. To speak plainly, he is a spy of the Sheikh of Bornou over the authorities of Zinder, including the Governor. All the people say, "Without the Shereef nothing can be done in Zinder;" and well they ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... to the ball merely as a looker-on, and perhaps you might smile at me as you pass by with your different partners, so that people would say I was an acquaintance ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... that the pieces are moved secretly and the player sees most of the game. But the looker-on has one incomparable advantage: he is not ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... solitary scenes, the little miniatures upon the chimney-piece, and the drawing of home;—at that token of his emulation, perhaps, in some sort, of his personal attachment too, the framed engraving of himself, the looker-on. The time had been, only yesterday, when not one of these objects, in its remotest association of interest with the living figure before him, would have been lost on Redlaw. Now, they were but objects; or, if any gleam of such connexion shot upon him, it perplexed, ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... British citizen soldier, who, hating war as he hated hell, flocked to the colours to have his whack at the apostles of blood and iron, is translated to cold and permanent print. Here is the great war reduced to grim and gruesome absurdity. It is not fun poked by a mere looker-on, it is the fun felt in the war by one who has ...
— Fragments From France • Captain Bruce Bairnsfather
... this same Somebody was no such obscurity as, let us say, the Monk John of Glastonbury, who told the excavators just where to look for the buried chapel of Edgar, king and saint. I suspect that my informant was some one who knew more about Elfrida than any mere looker-on, monk or nun, and gossip-gatherer of her own distant day; and this suspicion or surmise was ...
— Dead Man's Plack and an Old Thorn • William Henry Hudson
... no doubt that it was most terribly unpleasant to the rider, painful, probably; but to a looker-on it was one of the most ludicrous of sights, and in spite of heat, weariness, and a tendency to low spirits, I laughed till the tears ran down my cheeks, while Tom grinned with pain and held on with both ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... habitually says nothing, must be content if he be regarded as having nothing to say, and it is only a lack of grace on his part which precludes the confession. In this broad 'Vienna' of human effort, the mere 'looker-on' cannot be tolerated. It is part of our duty to be nonsensical and ridiculous at times, for the entertainment of the rest of the world. If we are never to open our mouths until the unsealing of the aperture is to give evidence of a present Solomon, and to add something ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... were easy for a looker-on To counsel peace between a man and wife, But were he in the broil himself involved, Philosophy were physic all too weak To cure the wounds made by a rasping tongue, Which time doth canker as the cancer grows Until at last the surgeon with his knife Alone can ...
— 'A Comedy of Errors' in Seven Acts • Spokeshave (AKA Old Fogy)
... philosophic vision? Nature gives no reply, for both points of view, being equally real, are equally natural; and no one natural reality per se is any more emphatic than any other. Accentuation, foreground, and background are created solely by the interested attention of the looker-on; and if the small difference between the genius and his tribe interests me most, while the large one between that tribe and another tribe interests Mr. Allen, our controversy cannot be ended until a complete ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... could they let that rabble enter! Mow down four or five hundred of them with cannons and the rest would run away." On August 10, when the tocsin sounds, he regards the people and the king with equal contempt; he rushes to a friend's house on the Carrousel and there, still as a looker-on, views at his ease all the occurrences of the day.[1124] Finally, the chateau is forced and he strolls through the Tuileries, looks in at the neighboring cafes, and that is all: he is not disposed to take sides, he has no Jacobin or royalist inclination. His ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... sudden brilliant and dazzling flash, that must have been as fierce as the display of lightning when the bolt hits close at hand. And while those at the fire were schooled to repress their natural alarm, evidently the same could not be said of a looker-on not counted in the bill; for there was a hoarse cry of alarm from the bushes across the way, and the sound of crashing seemed to tell of ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... devotion of each active member of the community to money-making, the prevailing manners and customs, the iniquitous pursuits of the desperate and dangerous classes, and the readiness of their too willing victims! It is the solitary looker-on who sees more than the actors in the great drama of every-day life. Above all, it is most curious to observe how the lines of barbarism and civilization intersect ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... were buried, being from henceforth converted to board-wages;" and there I learn, that "since this dissolving of house-keeping, his majesty is but slenderly attended." Another writer, who describes himself to be only a looker-on, regrets, that while the men of the law spent ten thousand pounds on a single masque, they did not rather make the king rich; and adds, "I see a rich commonwealth, a rich people, and the crown poor!" This ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... turned in vain from side to side in the burning bedclothes, yielded almost immediately to sleep as soon as she was seated. Her head drooped a little toward her right shoulder, being supported by the back of her chair, and the silk remaining in her motionless hands, a looker-on would have thought she was still embroidering. White as snow, perfectly calm, she slept under the light of the lamp in the chamber, still and quiet as a tomb. The faded, rosy draperies of the great royal couch were paler than ever in their shady corner, and the ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... fashion of the clown, a bladder swinging on the end of a stick, or ladle; in some parts, even to-day, he is observing custom if he has a cow's tail on the other end: this to be used also to whack the unsuspecting looker-on. ...
— The Morris Book • Cecil J. Sharp
... the young ladies who came there, Marie Forstberg was the one who had the best chance, and who indeed best deserved to be the young lieutenant's bride; and although she tried to believe that she was merely a resigned looker-on herself, she seemed to feel every Sunday, when Marie Forstberg came, that a certain disagreeable impression had grown up in her mind about her during the week which it took some time to thaw. When it did thaw, however, which ...
— The Pilot and his Wife • Jonas Lie
... the exotics, the waltz-music, the common contact, the emulation of dress, the unseasonable hours, the twice-breathed air, the everlasting drams. "I saw Florimonde going the round of her half dozen parties the other night," wrote a "looker-on in Venice" toward the close of the last season. "What a resplendent creature she was, the hazel-eyed beauty, with the faintest tinge of sunset hues on her oval cheeks! Her dress was of that peculiar tarnished shade of pink—like yellow sunshine suffusing a pale rose—which made the white ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... some charter. Perhaps this care was born of professional habit, or due to a natural craving for exactness, but in either case it is a voucher for the work, which is meant for all comers—for the passer-by, for the indifferent, and even for my country's foes. My wish is that the veriest looker-on, idly turning these pages, may be confronted only with documents whose authenticity will be self-evident, if he is willing to see, and whose ignominious tale will reach his heart, if ye ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... prostrated Mrs. Ravenswing, whose singing at the Philharmonic, previous to her appearance at the 'T.R——,' excited so much applause, has destroyed the lady's voice for ever. We luckily need no other prima donna, when that place, as nightly thousands acknowledge, is held by Miss Ligonier." The Looker-on said, "That although some well-informed contemporaries had declared Mrs. W. Ravenswing's complaint to be a quinsy, others, on whose authority they could equally rely, had pronounced it to be a consumption. At all events, she was in an exceedingly dangerous state; ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Geoffrey he is bound to bring you over to see America. I'll think about you on your marriage-day, but I don't know as I'm sorry to do the thinking at a distance. Wedding-days aren't the liveliest occasions in the world for the looker-on. I guess I'd feel pretty 'left,' when you drove off from the gates, and I found myself all by my lonesome with the two old girls. ... I've wired to Liverpool about berths, and may have to start off at a day's notice, so we've got to make the most of the time. Aunt Soph ...
— Flaming June • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... six, and was called to the queen soon after seven. Only Mrs. Schwellenberg was with her, and again she made me a mere looker-on; and the obligation I felt to her sent me somewhat ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... past atchievements. The accumulation of knowledge has been so great, that we are lost in wonder at the height it has reached, instead of attempting to climb or add to it; while the variety of objects distracts and dazzles the looker-on. What niche remains unoccupied? What path untried? What is the use of doing anything, unless we could do better than all those who have gone before us? What hope is there of this? We are like those who have been to see some noble monument of art, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... with a smile. "So don't blame me, Miss Slade. I was merely a looker-on, a passive spectator—until the right moment arrived. Do I gather that the right moment had ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... into a hoss larff—for these Upper Ten folks, Samivel,—betwixt you and me and the pump, my boy,—ain't got no more manners than hogs. The child was voted an ongfong terriblee—but it wor a fack. I had went down into the sink room, as a mere looker-on in Veneer, and I seen one of my employees a making such botchwork of openin', hagglin' up his hands, and misusin' the oysters, than I off coat, tucked up sleeves, and went to work, and rolled 'em off amazin'—I tell you. The past ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... Really it was absurdly laughable. Life in this wonderful valley was something in the nature of a tragic farce. The worst thing was that the farce of it all could only be detected by the looker-on. There was no real farce in these people, only tragedy—a ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... the murder was accomplished by means of a hammer. The examination was continued on August 31 and September 13; and finally both prisoners were discharged for want of sufficient evidence. Sewell declared that he had only been a looker-on, and his accusations against Tyler were so full of prevarications that they were not held sufficient to incriminate him. The inquiry was again resumed on February 11, 1830, and Sewell, Tyler, and a man named ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... most common are the street theatricals, in which two, three, or four trained boys and girls do some very creditable acting, chiefly in comedy. Raree shows, in which the looker-on sees the inside splendors of the nobles' homes, or the heroic acts of Japanese warriors, or some famous natural scenery, are very common. The showman, as he pulls the wires that change the scenes, entertains the spectators with songs. The outside ...
— Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories • Mrs. M. Chaplin Ayrton
... the grain. To use the language of a gratified looker-on, an old and experienced farmer, ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... suitably travestied and occupied, men, women and children wearing the costumes of the period represented. Among the corporations figured the Peintres-verriers, or painters on stained glass, their car proving especially attractive to one small looker-on. ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... That request alone is commonly sufficient to condemn any paper, and prevent its having any chance of a hearing; but the Secretary was not hardened enough yet for that kind of martial law in dealing with manuscripts. The looker-on might have seen her take up the paper, cast one flashing glance at its title, read the first sentence and the last, dip at a venture into two or three pages, and decide as swiftly as the lightning calculator would add up a column of figures ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... druggists in certain no-license towns—offences not only against the liquor laws, but also against the laws of decency and humanity—brought before the board of pharmacy, would appall the public if they were known. The Looker-On has seen the record of several of these druggists as transcribed from the police courts and they are very black records. One druggist after selling liquor over and over again to one customer, and several ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... enormous head of curled red hair not only presented a central parting on top and a very much one-sided parting and puffing-out behind, but actually covered both his ears; while his ruddy semi-circle of beard curled inward, instead of out, and greatly surprised, if it did not positively alarm, the looker-on, by appearing to remain perfectly motionless, no matter how actively the stranger moved his jaws. This ball of improbable inflammatory hair and totally independent face rested in a basin of shirt collar; which, in its turn, was supported by a rusty black necktie and a very loose ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... swarm of colors, noise and screaming, Music and sights, past any dreaming, The rattle of wheels going late and early,— All draw the looker-on ...
— O. T. - A Danish Romance • Hans Christian Andersen
... measures against his own countrymen; but my only wish is to arm myself against a foreign invader, whose great object I am told is to enslave after having conquered the people of my native land. All reasoning with me was consequently in vain. I had made up my mind not to stand idle and be a looker-on in such times; the fervour of my youth had been worked upon by the delusion of the day, and it would not admit of this restraint; therefore, without farther ceremony, in spite of my father's expostulations, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... The looker-on can easily spy an error in the actor. If a fault is committed, we are glad it was done by another; besides, it is no new thing for the outs to complain of the ins. It will plead strongly in excuse, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... seething, intensely concentrated mass in its emphatic tendency to one point is the same, in the utter disregard of mental and physical welfare. The momentary triumphs of transitory possessions impress a casual looker-on with the same fearful idea—that the human race, after all, is savage to the core, and cultivates its savagery in an inflated happiness at own nearness ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore
... heartily respond. He, too, had solicited Helen as a partner when the dancing first commenced, and her quiet refusal had disappointed him a little, for Mark was fond of dancing, and though as a general thing he disapproved of waltzes and polkas when he was the looker-on, he felt that there would be something vastly agreeable and exhilarating in clasping Helen in his arm and whirling her about the room just as Juno was being whirled by a young cadet, a friend of Lieutenant Bob's. But when ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... avails herself of the excuse afforded her by a fan to administer a couple of raps. While Ch'un Ling traces, in a absent frame of mind, the outlines of the character Ch'iang, a looker-on appears ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... government which France has established. I view things here as a simple observer. But it strikes me that if I were a Frenchman in your position, I should think myself unworthy my ancestors if I consented to be an insignificant looker-on." ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... almost savage at the sight of the girl's despair, shot a swift glance at his friend. It was a glance which only the white-haired man could have understood. To the looker-on it would have expressed a terrible threat. To the Padre it was the expression of a heart torn to shreds ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... winter-beaten turf,—the knotted grass he cut through. I saw him describe the outline of a grave,—the other standing there, silently looking on. When the grave was marked, the one wielding the spade looked up at the silent looker-on, who bowed his head, as if to say, "It is right." Then he began to strike deeper, to hit the stones under ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... power upon paper. It acts and leaves its mark; it binds fast and overthrows for good. But when, put at its highest, it is confronted with the "giant evil" which it is supposed to be sent into the world to repel, we can only say that, to a looker-on, its failure seems as manifest as the existence of the claim to use it. It no more does its work, in the sense of succeeding and triumphing, than the less magnificent "Establishments" do. It keeps some check—it fails on a large scale and against the real strain and pinch of the mischief; ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... advancing morality of our day has put an extinguisher on this noted festival, which was one of the most noted days in the Mexican calendar. Crowds flocked to it to gamble, to dance, and to adore the most holy Saint Augustine. To a looker-on it was hard to say whether it was the devil or the saint whom the people had come to worship. The chief business of high-born dames seemed to be to make a display of their taste in dress, and to set off the whole contents of their wardrobe; for five times in each day was their entire wardrobe ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... know," he asked, "I came here to-night just to kiss you. Only that! I didn't hope for any more satisfaction, but some day I shall have it. You're not what you think you are. And I'll make you very happy. As a looker-on I've seen a lot of the game called marriage, and I'd know how to make you happy. ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton
... figure of speech. You are never in earnest. You play all day long. You will do it all your life. You never do anything worth mentioning. Other people do the work. You simply skim the surface of things. You are merely a looker-on." ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... would-be-witty sayings which, too often, originating with others, have been attributed to him. But be the author of that remark whosoever he may, one thing now is perfectly apparent—the Negro has reached beyond the "bone" stage. He is no longer content with being a passive observer, a quiet looker-on, while his character and interests are under discussion. He is now disposed to speak for himself, to "take part in the conflict." Any one desiring evidence of this will find it in the following pages of "Twentieth Century ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... appeared quite at home in their parts. The story consisted in the attempts of a young prince to obtain the hand of a young princess; and the dialogue was constantly interrupted by an actor who appeared to be a looker-on, but who made his remarks upon what passed, so as to excite bursts of laughter from the audience. He was the Jack Pudding, or wit of the piece, and several of his jokes were not very delicate. At all events, he was the Liston of the company, for he never spoke ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the rose-coloured life of the place, all made their appeal to him. But it was the Villa des Fleurs which brought him to Aix. Not that he played for anything more than an occasional louis; nor, on the other hand, was he merely a cold looker-on. He had a bank-note or two in his pocket on most evenings at the service of the victims of the tables. But the pleasure to his curious and dilettante mind lay in the spectacle of the battle which was waged night after night between raw ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... You need have no anxiety about it—it is all over. I only mention it because I want you to feel that our creeds of conduct in life are not always our masters, and sometimes ought not to be. Let that comfort you a little. You know that to have been a silent looker-on at the return to slavery of a man to whom we owed so much was impossible. My wonder is that for a moment you could have hesitated. It makes me comprehend more charitably the attitude of the owners of men. Now, dear, we won't ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... There was a looker-on who lived to erect a throne in the place of the one that fell that day, and to be the next sovereign who reigned at the Tuileries. In 1813 Napoleon told Roederer that he had watched the scene from a window on the Carrousel, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... said Mrs Macintyre. 'A game is a game; a charade is a charade. While the acting proceeds no looker-on must interfere except under my intense displeasure. In fact, my dear Leucha, after what I have said, I shall write to your mother asking her to remove you from the school, unless you promise not to make any fuss or show any fear to-night. Go back ...
— Hollyhock - A Spirit of Mischief • L. T. Meade
... as soon as he could get his breath after the last dance, "you'd better eddicate yer heels as well as yer head. It's unnateral fer a colt and a boy not to kick up their heels. You don't never want to be a looker-on at nuthin' excep' from ch'ice. You'd orter be a stand-in on everything that's a-goin' instead of a stand-by. The stand-bys ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... the trunks and bales, and cranes which creak and groan, the shouts and cries, the hurry and confusion of movement, notwithstanding that every day has seen them all for years, have a sort of perennial interest to the looker-on. ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... his force of eloquence, to make The hearers more concern'd than he that spake, Each seem'd to act that part he came to see, And none was more a looker-on than he; So did he move our passions, some were known To wish for the defence, the crime their own. Now private pity strove with public hate, Reason with rage, and eloquence ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... rear sight of his Winchester, tested the magazine, and cleared the breech action. This done, each crept to the place assigned to him. Dan Anderson found himself moving mechanically, dully, with a strange absence of excitement. He almost felt himself looker-on at what ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... being open to being induced to join in such things occasionally in an elderly way, without any attempt to disguise deficiencies. But that is the most that ought to be attempted. Perhaps the best way of all is to subside into the genial and interested looker-on, to be ready to applaud the game you cannot play, and to admire ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... they almost clinched, then flew away to a group of trees, under, over, around, between, through, and beyond they went, never six inches apart, and he singing furiously all the time. At last, just as the looker-on expected to see them grapple, they calmly alighted on a tree eight or ten feet from each other. ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... others, asked, "Master, is it I?" So, to-day, there is real betrayal of the Saviour by some who take His name upon them and before the world profess to be His followers. If Judas had been an outsider and had sold for money the knowledge he had gained as a looker-on his name would not have become, as the name of Judas has, a synonym for all that is base and contemptible; and the Christian world would have been without the benefit of that glaring act of perfidy that has sounded its warning through nineteen centuries. Judas ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... a bit wiser, or bigger, or older than I did then." What an equivalent for not being wise or great, to be always young! What a happiness never to lose or gain any thing in the game of human life, by being never any thing more than a looker-on! ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... be a mere looker-on, and calmly behold his knights die around him in his own cause? Never! here on my native soil with you I will conquer or perish with my people." So saying, he placed himself at ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... now. No! Every step is bearing us to a higher eminence, and thus revealing a broader promise of hope, a brighter prospect of success. Though they who are foremost in this cause must bear obloquy and reproach, and though it may seem to the careless looker-on, that they advance but little or not at all; they know that the instinct which impels them being divine, it can not be that they shall fail. They know that every quality of their nature, every attribute of their Creator, is ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... for good? Who did she want to be with for good? Not Reddin. Edward? But he had not the passion of the greenwood in him, the lust of the earth. He was not of the tremulously ecstatic company of wild, hunted creatures. If Reddin was definitely antagonistic, a hunter, Edward was neutral, a looker-on. They were not her comrades. They did not live her life. She had to live theirs. She wished she had never seen Reddin, never gone to Hunter's Spinney. Edward's house was at ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... had their troubles,—their untoward causes of banishment; you, the looker-on, had 'your wishes and regrets,'—your anxieties, alloying your home happiness and domestic bliss; and the parallel might be pursued further, and still it would be true,—still the same; a thorn in the flesh for each; some burden, ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... stray brushes from the floor, changed the background drapery for the afternoon model, rearranged the easels into afternoon position, and brought out glasses and plates for the ladies, who lunched in the anteroom. And then a looker-on in a Parisian atelier des dames would readily have understood the words, "He's gone, girls!" even were that looker-on deafer than the deafest old woman who ever mistook a thunder-clap for one of her lord's champion snores. In the anteroom conversation ran ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... latter can be but very imperfectly enjoyed in those other games, where the spectator is only feebly a participator. But the parties in whist are spectators and principals too. They are a theatre to themselves, and a looker-on is not wanted. He is rather worse than nothing, and an impertinence. Whist abhors neutrality, or interest beyond its sphere. You glory in some surprising stroke of skill or fortune, not because a cold—or even an interested—by-stander ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... and suffering have produced in our minds the result we have just stated, we are by no means blind to a proper sense of the fun which a looker-on may extract from the amateurs of boating. What can be more amusing than Searle's yard on a fine Sunday morning? It's a Richmond tide, and some dozen boats are preparing for the reception of the parties who have engaged them. Two or three fellows in great rough trousers ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... Afterwards, when I had come to know him, I heard him sum up every person there with extraordinary point and sparkle. Often since then, eager to hear more of my friend, I have asked men who met him casually for a report of him. So often they have said, "He was a looker-on at life. He came in and sat down and looked on. He gave nothing in return. He never talked, he only listened. I never got much out of him. I never got to the real Synge. I was never conscious of what he felt. ...
— John M. Synge: A Few Personal Recollections, with Biographical Notes • John Masefield
... "Indeed I will not have him." Then the slave-dealer looked at her and seeing her fix eyes on the young Damascene, for that in very deed he had fascinated her with his beauty and loveliness, went up to him and said to him, "O my lord, art thou a looker-on or a buyer? Tell me." Quoth Nur al-Din, "I am both looker-on and buyer. Wilt thou sell me yonder slave-girl for sixteen hundred ducats?" And he pulled out the purse of gold. Hereupon the dealer returned, dancing and clapping his hands and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... of missionaries are less exquisite than those of other persons. The pangs they endure are indeed alleviated by soothing considerations drawn from the Gospel; but they are, notwithstanding, deep—deeper than the looker-on ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... anything else, earnestly look into the nature of things; and these men call themselves studious of wisdom, that is, philosophers: and as there it is the most reputable occupation of all to be a looker-on without making any acquisition, so in life, the contemplating things, and acquainting one's self with them, greatly exceeds every other pursuit ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... lounging on the grass in front of this line of watch-boxes, awaiting the moment when work should be cut out for their Sagacities. These were admirably trained to their vocation, as I had an opportunity of judging whilst a looker-on here. On the occasion of a small flight, a couple of long shots were made, and a duck winged slightly: it made a good downward slant, and fell forty yards from the shore into the Seneca: at the same moment in dashed four dogs after it, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... nature of Anne of Austria yielded neither to the wishes of a sulky boy nor to the plea of a sprained ankle. "Nay, your Majesty," she said, "I pray you let my desire rule. For, by my word, if the fair Princess of England must remain a simple looker-on at this, my ball, to-night, then, too, shall the King ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... danced, diced together, but like strangers who cross hands at a veglione. Once or twice he fancied the Duchess was for unmasking; but her impulses came and went like fireflies in the dusk, and it suited his humour to remain a looker-on. ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... pretend," he said, "that he was there by accident; but I maintain that he was there simply in the capacity of a looker-on. He stands, in fact, precisely in the same position that any member of the general public might do, who had been present as a spectator at any sort of riot. It is unquestionably a very unwise action on the part of any individual ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... shoulders, stood close to the entrance of one of the principal playhouses along this Great White Way. He had kept his place since the doors were opened, his hat-brim, pulled over his brow, his keen eye searching every face that passed. To all appearances he was but an idle looker-on, attracted by the beauty of the women, and yet during all that time he had not moved, nor had he been in the way, nor had he been observed even by the door man, the flap of the awning casting its shadow about him. Only once had ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... at least a temporary covert. Hither, then, the old gentleman skipped with extraordinary expedition, and, being somewhat winded and a good deal shaken, here he lay down in a convenient grove and was presently overwhelmed by slumber. The way of fate is often highly entertaining to the looker-on, and it is certainly a pleasant circumstance, that while Morris and John were delving in the sand to conceal the body of a total stranger, their uncle lay in dreamless sleep a few hundred ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... never or rarely take shape in words is, to the unbiassed looker-on, only an exasperating feature in their tyranny. While it saves the conscience of the tyrant,—if such tyrants have any,—it makes doubly sure the success of their tyranny. And probably nothing short of revelation from Heaven, in shape of blinding light, would ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... preaching to the people, not with that intent I ought, but, as it were, trying his eloquence, whether it answered the fame thereof, or flowed fuller or lower than was reported; and I hung on his words attentively; but of the matter I was as a careless and scornful looker-on; and I was delighted with the sweetness of his discourse, more recondite, yet in manner less winning and harmonious, than that of Faustus. Of the matter, however, there was no comparison; for the one was wandering amid Manichaean ...
— The Confessions of Saint Augustine • Saint Augustine
... quite aware of all this, Captain Rowley, but I have thought your kindness to me was so great as to permit me to be a looker-on. I may be of some service to the wounded, if to nothing else; and I hope you think me too much of an officer to ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... the mixed assembly with a half smile, not wanting a certain superciliousness which in other circumstances would have provoked instant observation. Now, however, the full swing of common enjoyment rendered every one blind to what the looker-on took no trouble to conceal. Nor did he at all lower his disdainful regard, when a veteran clad in a sort of military undress, arose from the opposite side of the tables, and waving a wine-cup in his hand, drew ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray
... character, explicable enough; but why should this stranger have taken her place as his counselor and friend? The idea of some personal advantage was, of course, at the bottom of it; but it was clear, not only to sage Mrs. Basil, but even to Harry—since even a moderately skillful looker-on sees more of the game than the best player—that in any contest of wits Solomon would have small chance with his new friend. The opinion of Mrs. Basil was, that some new speculation, in some manner ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... His aim is far above bread-winning, and therefore his probation must be long. He destines for himself no indolent tarrying in the garden of Armida. His is a "mind made and set wholly on the accomplishment of greatest things." He knows that the looker-on will hardly accept his apology for "being late," that it is in order to being "more fit." Yet it is the only apology he can offer. And he is dissatisfied with his own progress. "I am something suspicious of myself, and do take notice of a certain ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... mixture of things within her had unified to fixed purpose, and after it had become quite certain her dreams had not played her false, that the other big change had come. Her mother slipped away from the life which had never held her in the big grip of reality. She had been so long a longing looker-on from the outer circle that the slipping away was the less hard. Ernestine stopped work in order to care for her, reproaching herself with never having been able to give to her mother with the unrestraint and bounteousness she had given to her work. During those ...
— The Glory Of The Conquered • Susan Glaspell
... stay in the village a looker-on while the love affair of Madeline and Cordis progressed to its consummation, was going to be too much for him. Instead of his getting used to the situation, it seemed to grow daily more insufferable. Every evening the thought ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... seen, when this strange idea entered into his head. He hugged it, though he was a man of the world and might have known better, and it produced a kind of elation which would have been a very strange spectacle to any looker-on who knew what it meant. The thing seemed done when he next thought of it ten minutes later, settled as if it had been so for years. Mr. Copperhead would make it all right for him, and after that he would undertake such ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... facetious; the feeling that he had made a handsome morning's work of it put him into spirits, and he let me into some of the secrets of high life, with the air of a looker-on who sees the whole game, and intends to pocket the stakes of the fools on both sides. "Money, Mr Marston," said my hook-nosed and keen-eyed enlightener, "is the true business of man. It is philosophy, science, and patriotism in one; or, at least, without it the whole three are of but ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... thoughtfully, "the looker-on sees most of the game. But I don't think you allow enough for differences of temperament. You are thinking of the best conditions for creative work. You mustn't lose sight of all the active service that ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand
... the talkers a shabby, slouching figure of a man, with longish grizzled hair and a sleepy eye—a strange, remote creature, who seemed to take very little notice of what was passing before him. From various indications, however, in the conversation, David had gathered that this looker-on must be the former prix ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... are some few who, taking no account of anything else, earnestly look into the nature of things: and these men call themselves studious of wisdom, that is, philosophers; and as there it is the most reputable occupation of all to be a looker-on, without making any acquisition, so in life, the contemplating things, and acquainting oneself with them, greatly exceeds every other pursuit ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... disappointed. She had expected to be of some use. Now that she had proved to be a mere looker-on she began to take thought about the lamb's future. There came to her again those words—"The coyotes would get them." She rose at once. A man would carry them back to the corral; why not she? She ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... beginning to think of the origin of the world and the mysteries of being. Writing had added its enduring records to oral tradition, and he was already making roads. Another five or six hundred generations at most bring him to ourselves. We sweep into the field of that looker-on, the momentary incarnations of this sempiternal being, Man. And ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Love to the looker-on may be blind, unwise, unworthily bestowed, a waste, a sacrifice, a crime; yet none the less is love, alone, the one thing that, come weal or woe, is worth the loss of every other thing; the one supreme and perfect gift of ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... reader who takes it with the freshness of a stranger. But if not so keen as this, the current word of French comedy is of the same quality of language. When of the fourteen couples to be married by the mayor, for instance, the deaf clerk has shuffled two, a looker-on pronounces: "Il s'est empetre dans les futurs." But for a reader who has a full sense of the several languages that exist in English at the service of the several ways of human life, there is, from the mere terminology of official France, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... question only to tease Joe; and he did so the more willingly because he had, for a moment, shared the poor lad's hallucinations; but, not finding any thing in them, he had fallen back into the attitude of a strong-minded looker-on, and turned the affair ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... said, "The duke is in us, and we will hear you. Speak justly." "Boldly at least," retorted the friar; and then he blamed the duke for leaving the cause of Isabel in the hands of him she had accused, and spoke so freely of many corrupt practices he had observed, while, as he said, he had been a looker-on in Vienna, that Escalus threatened him with the torture for speaking words against the state, and for censuring the conduct of the duke, and ordered him to be taken away to prison. Then, to the amazement of all present, and to ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... her husband, and he did eat. Sin seldom or never terminates in one person; but the pernicious example of one, doth animate and embolden another; or thus, the beholding of evil in another, doth often allure a stander-by. Adam was the looker-on, he was not in the action as from the serpent: "Adam was not deceived," that is, by having to do with the devil, "but the woman, the woman being deceived, was in the transgression" (1 Tim 2:14). This should exhort all men that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Vigilantes had but to rouse himself and shake his ears, and the whole brawling mob was silenced. I could not but reflect what a strange manner of man this was, to be living unremarked there as a private merchant, and to be so feared by a whole city; and if I was disappointed, in my character of looker-on, to have the matter end ingloriously without the firing of a shot or the hanging of a single millionnaire, philosophy tried to tell me that this sight was truly the more picturesque. In a thousand towns ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... party-givers in one way or another by our masterful uncle Rufus. So, occasionally, very much against my inclination, I leave my little third-story room, with its cozy fire and humble adornments, and sit in the corner of their great rooms, a "looker-on in ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... untaught minds as to why each avenue of livelihood seems more and more barred against them. For the poorest there seems only a helpless, dumb acquiescence in the order of things which they are powerless to change; but the looker-on, who watches the mass of misery crowding London streets or hiding away in attic and cellar, knows that out of such conditions sudden fury and revolt is born, and that, if the prosperous will not heed and help while they may, ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... for the bullet had not touched the brain. Then the vindictive and resolute beast came back to the tree and again reared up against it; this time to receive a bullet that dropped her lifeless. Mr. Whitney then climbed down and walked to where the cub had been sitting as a looker-on. The little animal did not move until he reached out his hand; when it suddenly struck at him like an angry cat, dove into the bushes, and ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... was an idea. It was impossible, of course, that she should say what she did without some movement of the organ in her breast, but how much share this organ had in her utterances I never could make out. How much was due to the interest which she as a looker-on felt in men and women, and how much was due to herself as a woman, was always a mystery ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... teachers in the Sunday school were shocked to learn that they had distributed dime novels with books and tracts. The minister, one morning in the pulpit, solemnly opened his Bible, and unexpectedly beholding a most ludicrous picture, laughed outright, to the great scandal of every looker-on. ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... slightest indication of his being incommoded by the numerous objects about him; no confusion of ideas, no distraction of mind, no mental distress of any kind; but, on the contrary, in the midst of so much to see and to learn, the young looker-on is not only at his ease, but appears to be delighted. The reason of this is, that he is not by any external force compelled to attend to all that he sees; and Nature within directs him to attend to no more than he is able to group, or reiterate ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... no doubt it did," said Father Payne. "Of course I was rescued in time, before the bitterness really sank down into my soul. But I think it prevented my ever being more than a looker-on. I believe I could have done some work worth doing, if I could have tried a few experiments. I don't know! Perhaps I am ungrateful after all. My poverty certainly gave me a wish to help things along, and I doubt if I should have learnt that otherwise. ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... him with, the suddenness of a lightning stroke, and his first feeling was one of stunned amazement, and an almost incredulous resentment. He had gone to and fro in the earth and walked up and down in it, comfortably immune, an amused and ironic looker-on. And now, at thirty, without rhyme or reason he had fallen in love with a red-haired young woman of whom he knew absolutely nothing, beyond the bare fact that she was Jason Vandervelde's ward. A woman who didn't conform to any standard he had ever set for himself, whose mind was ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... with a bottle of some wine, all of which is uncommon fun to every body but the unfortunate victim. Thus the time passes away pleasantly enough, after all, taking into view the variety of incidents and scenes which constantly occupy the attention of a looker-on. I had taken a deck-passage for cheapness, and made out to get through the night by bundling myself up on a pile of baggage, and catching a few cat-naps whenever the noise created by these lively young gentlemen would permit of such ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... where one knows all it has to offer, than a great city where one has no disinterested friend to direct him to the right places to find what he wants. But of course there are some grand magazines which are known all the world over, and which no one should leave London without entering as a looker-on, if not ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... its head threateningly as it advanced. Again the widow's shrieks resounded. This time Holcroft was about to come to the rescue, when the beleaguered woman made a dash for the top of the nearest fence, reminding her amused looker-on of the night of her arrival when she had perched like some strange sort of bird on ...
— He Fell in Love with His Wife • Edward P. Roe
... the trains are due, the basket brigade is reinforced by the carpet-bag battalion; and a crowd of home-coming or out-going travellers is a never-ending source of sympathetic and imaginative study to the leisurely looker-on. What an anachronism that word "carpet-bag" has become, by the way! I saw not long ago on the ferry-boat a genuine and literal specimen, which carried back my thoughts for a generation to the day when bags were really made of carpet and the most fastidious social Bourbon did not disdain to carry ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... of the time, who had been to him not merely a cordial friend, but the realized type of all that was glorious in manhood, and beautiful in character and gifts, his mourning was more than that of a looker-on at a moving instance of the frailty of greatness. It was the poet's sorrow for the poet, who had almost been to him what the elder brother is to the younger. Both now, and in later years, his affection for one who was become ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... fair was this world in which he had no place—even to a mere looker-on. How fair was this mansion, in its setting of April green and bloom, which had once owned him as its young—its future master. Above it Hope stretched her shining wings, but the hope was not for him. For him the closed door and the closed gate ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... West Mary Ellen spoke but little, though never with harshness, and at times almost with wistfulness. Her history had seemed too full of change to be reality. For the future she made no plans. It seemed to her to be her fate ever to be an alien, a looker-on. The roses drooped across her lattice, and the blue grass stood cool and soft and deep beyond her window, and the kind air carried the croon of the wooing mocking bird; yet there persisted in her brain the picture of a wide, gray land, with the sound of an urgent wind ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough |
