"Obvious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... first offensive action on a large scale, the First Army was organized on August 10 under my personal command. While American units had held different divisional and corps sectors along the western front, there had not been up to this time, for obvious reasons, a distinct American sector; but, in view of the important parts the American forces were now to play, it was necessary to take over a permanent portion of the line. Accordingly, on August 30, the line beginning at Port sur Seille, east of the ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... creatures almost surpasses imagination. At least 100,000 such kinds of insects alone have been described and may be identified in collections, and the number of separable kinds of living things is under-estimated at half a million. Seeing that most of these obvious kinds have their accidental varieties, and that they often shade into others by imperceptible degrees, it may well be imagined that the task of distinguishing between what is permanent and what fleeting, what is a species and what a mere variety, is ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... not considered the subject in that light, and had founded his conclusions on the alleged lunacy of the bull, he allowed himself to be put down for the present. But he sat turning it over in his mind, with such an obvious intention of fixing Mrs Pipchin presently, that even that hardy old lady deemed it prudent to retreat until he should ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... left Adelaide on the return journey to Western Australia I was sent for on board. His Royal Highness asked me to explain to him the position of these men. He strongly objected to the action that had been taken, with the obvious result that the question was adjusted by the Government quite satisfactorily. The chief officials of the Commonwealth had been appointed, namely, the Governor-General, the Prime Minister and the members of the Government. The Members of both Houses of Parliament ...
— The Chronicles of a Gay Gordon • Jose Maria Gordon
... Obvious as these remarks appear, there are many writers on our art, who, not being of the profession, and consequently not knowing what can or what cannot be done, have been very liberal of absurd praises in their descriptions of favourite works. They always find ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... important subject, important both to his domestic circle and to the wider claims of his exalted position. This was none other than a consideration of Gabriel's engagement to the hotelkeeper's daughter, and an argument with himself as to whether or no he should consent to so obvious a mesalliance. The bishop was essentially a fair dealer, and not the man to do things by halves, therefore it occurred to him that, as he had consented to George's marriage with Mab, he was bound in all honour to deliberate on the position of his youngest son with regard to Miss Mosk. To ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume
... seems that Mr. Kilburn, the gentlemanly and affable advance agent of the Nina Saville Dramatic Company, now performing at Andy Hanks' Opera House to big houses, was brutally assaulted by a ruffianly young Englishman, named Beauvoir, for no cause whatever. We say for no cause, as it is obvious that Mr. Kilburn, as the agent of the troupe, could have said nothing against Miss Saville which an outsider, not to say a foreigner like Mr. Beauvoir, had any call to resent. Mr. Kilburn is a gentleman unaccustomed to rough-and-tumble encounters, while his adversary has doubtless associated ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 1 • Various
... renowming of that noble race from which both you and he sprong, and to the eternizing of some of the chiefe of them late deceased.' This poem is written in a tone that had been extremely frequent during Spenser's youth. Its text is that ancient one 'Vanity of Vanities; all is Vanity'—a very obvious text in all ages, but perhaps especially so, as has been hinted, in the sixteenth century, and one very frequently adopted at that time. This text is treated in a manner characteristic of the age. It is exemplified by a series of visions. The poet ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... forget himself and begin to grind out lies like a mill. Don't get impatient —just keep quiet, and let me play him. I will make him lie. It does seem to me that the boys must be blind to overlook such an obvious and simple ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... had remained horizontal, as they were originally deposited, it is obvious that all the valuable ores, minerals, and rocks, which man could not have discovered by direct excavation, must have remained forever unknown to him. Now, man has very seldom penetrated the rocks below the depth of half a mile, and rarely so deep as that; whereas, by the elevations, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... IT is obvious that for many reasons we must be brief upon the political intrigue in which the scheming spirit of Lord Vargrave was employed. It would, indeed, be scarcely possible to preserve the necessary medium between too plain a revelation and too complex ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pocketbook, disclosing a roll of bills. As he did so he hurried to the door and looked up and down the depot platform, as if afraid of being observed. He saw the three boys, and, for a moment, seemed as if he was about to hurry away. Then, with an obvious effort, he remained, but turned into the freight office and ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... to him. There was something smug in the way in which she managed to fling green growing flowering things over the black land. It was obvious the thing could be done and that there was satisfaction in doing it. It was a little like running a business and making money by it. There was a deep seated vulgarity involved in the whole matter. His wife put her hands into the black ...
— Triumph of the Egg and Other Stories • Sherwood Anderson
... and quitting the kitchen proceeded upstairs to his room, and first washing himself with unusual care for a boy of thirteen, put on a clean collar and brushed his hair. He was not going to provide a suspended master-mariner with any obvious reasons for fault-finding. While he was thus occupied the sitting-room bell rang, and Ann, answering it, left Mr. Wilks in the kitchen listening with some trepidation to ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... George was in his father's opinion a sport. Certainly he was no true Silver: that was obvious from his earliest years. He cared nothing for a horse, was a shamefully bad judge of a beast, had no feeling for the fields, never knew the real poetic thrill at the sight and smell of a yard knee deep in muck, and hated mud ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... limit of its altitude is assigned in the side which must be parallel to its base in order to constitute it a parallelogram. In brief, all figuration is limitation. The contradiction in the term infinite line is not quite so obvious, but can readily be made apparent. Objectively, a line is only the termination of a surface, and a surface the termination of a solid; hence a line can not exist apart from an extended quantity, nor an ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... or at all times for advice, with whom he can consult upon the measures to be submitted to the legislature, and in whom he may find instruments within its walls to introduce such amendments in the laws as he may think necessary, or to defend his acts and his policy. It is obvious, therefore, that those who compose this body must be persons whose constant attendance on the governor can be secured; principally, therefore, officers of the government, but, when it may be expedient to introduce others, men holding seats in one or other House, taking a leading ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... being left alone, and yet it always seemed to be my turn to grub about among the bushes or scramble along the slippery banks in the moonlight. The long day's battle with wind and water—such wind and such water!—had tired us both, and an early bed was the obvious program. Yet neither of us made the move for the tent. We lay there, tending the fire, talking in desultory fashion, peering about us into the dense willow bushes, and listening to the thunder of wind and river. The loneliness of the place had entered our very bones, and silence ...
— The Willows • Algernon Blackwood
... the ephemeris gives the position of the heavenly bodies, not at equidistant intervals, but at transit over some meridian. For this purpose the meridian of Washington is chosen for obvious reasons. The astronomical part of our ephemeris, therefore, gives the positions of the principal fixed stars, the sun, moon, and all the larger planets at the moment of ...
— Side-lights on Astronomy and Kindred Fields of Popular Science • Simon Newcomb
... result, the details of our modern civilizations are all wrong. There is an intensive life at a few great political or industrial centres, and wide areas where there is stagnation and decay. Stagnation is most obvious in rural districts. It is so general that it has been often assumed that there was something inherent in rural life which made the countryman slow in mind as his own cattle. But this is not so, as I think can be shown. There is no ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... in mind the obvious fact that the production of seed is the chief end of the act of fertilisation; and that this end can be gained by hermaphrodite plants with incomparably greater certainty by self-fertilisation, than by the union of the sexual elements belonging to two distinct ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... l'Heredite Naturelle,' by Dr. Prosper Lucas, runs to the length of 1562 pages. We must confine ourselves to certain points which have an important bearing on the general subject of variation, both with domestic and natural productions. It is obvious that a variation which is not inherited throws no light on the derivation of species, nor is of any service to man, except in the case of perennial plants, which ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... upon these eroding banks. The water-hole is continually freezing up and has to be continually hewed free of ice, and as the streams dwindle with the progress of winter, new holes must be cut farther and farther out. On the trail, where snow must usually be melted for water, it is obvious that bathing is out of the question; even the water for hands and face is sparingly doled by the cook, and two people will sometimes use the same water rather than resort to the painful though efficient expedient ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... melted away and absorbed in the sanctity of his function, and he stood before God as the individualised nation. Aaron was Israel, and Israel was Aaron, for the purposes of worship. And that was indicated by the fact that here, on the shoulders from which, according to an obvious symbol, all acts of power emanate, and on the heart from which, according to most natural metaphor, all the outgoings of the personal life proceed, were written the names of the tribes. That meant, 'This man standing here is the Israel ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... blades of marsh-loving plants, told that Mr. Bates's nest was rather damp in the best of weather; but he was of opinion that a little external moisture would hurt no man who was not perversely neglectful of that obvious ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... of moving up and down, the lower jaw possesses another less obvious one, by means of which it goes from right to left. This is precisely what naughty children make use of when they grind their teeth: not that I mean this remark for you, for I have a better opinion of you than to suppose you do such things. Those who make such bad ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... should share the throne of Saint Louis. The Emperor started an hour before Her Majesty for Linz, where he will embrace his beloved daughter for the last time. During these last few days it has been very obvious that his feelings as a father have had more weight with him than his position as a sovereign. This monarch's amiable disposition has appeared in the most favorable light on this occasion, and everything promises the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... here is happily not so glaringly obvious to the younger generations of our educated classes as it was forty years ago. In those days, any child who expressed a doubt as to the absolute truth of the Church's teaching, even to the extent of asking why Joshua told ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... they pulled the branches down to them, and tore up the smaller ones by the roots, and so fed on the leaves. The colossal breadth and weight of their hinder quarters, which can hardly be imagined without having been seen, become, on this view, of obvious service, instead of being an encumbrance: their apparent clumsiness disappears. With their great tails and their huge heels firmly fixed like a tripod on the ground, they could freely exert the full force of their most ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... methods in use in supplying water to the arid lands. The first and the one most generally adopted for obvious reasons is the gravity system. The waters are impounded in lakes or artificial reservoirs and carried thence in large main canals, winding about the hills so as to secure a low uniform grade. Once established, no other force is needed ...
— A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 • Ithamar Howell
... Bruce,' answered Edith sedately. She was seated opposite her husband at breakfast in a very new, very small, very white flat in Knightsbridge—exactly like thousands of other new, small, white flats. She was young and pretty, but not obvious. One might suppose that she was more subtle than was shown by her usual expression, which was merely cheerful ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... time sufficiently obvious that this remarkable association of plant and animal is by no means to be termed a case of parasitism. If so, the animals so infested would be weakened, whereas their exceptional success in the struggle for existence is evident. Anthea cereus, which contains most alg, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... construct their works that these might, as a whole and in their various parts, embody the truths, as they believed them, of the Christian religion: thus the cruciform shape of churches, their orientation, etc. The practical value of symbolism in church architecture is obvious. As Mr F. E. HULME remarks, "The sculptured fonts or stained-glass windows in the churches of the Middle Ages were full of teaching to a congregation of whom the greater part could not read, to whom therefore one great avenue of knowledge was closed. The ignorant are especially impressed ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... informed him that he was perfectly aware of the existence of gold, but that he for one should assert the prerogative of the Crown, and prevent any one mining on Crown-lands: as he considered that, were the gold abundant, the effects on the convict population would be eminently disastrous. To which obvious piece of good sense the Doctor bowed his head, and the whole thing passed into oblivion—so much so, that when I heard of Hargreave's discovery in 1851, I had nearly forgotten the Doctor's gold adventure; and I may here state my belief that the knowledge of its existence ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... contemplatively; "you're young and beautiful." The freedom seemed bred, imperceptibly and enjoyably, from the delicate cloud in the air. Alicia flushed ever so little under it, but took it without wincing. She had less than the common palate for flattery of the obvious kind, but this was something quite different—a mere casual and ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... memorize the main topographical features of our route. It was not as difficult as it seemed at first. We were always far larger than normal to our environment. The main distinguishing characteristics of the landscape were obvious—the blind gully, with the round pit, ...
— Astounding Stories, March, 1931 • Various
... to introduce the subject to many readers we could have wished for a little more sympathy of tone than Mr. Goldwin Smith has allowed himself in his otherwise admirable volume. It is hardly necessary, for instance, to insist on the obvious narrowness of Cowper's religion. That the book is too short is a failing on the right side, and chargeable to the plan of the series rather than the writer, whose terse style and excellent arrangement make it full of interest. Cowper's life and poetry are bound together in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... attitude was astonishing in his failure to realize that in the Effinghams he would be supposed to be representing himself and his own family. The intimation was sufficiently obvious. The family returned from residence abroad; the removal to the village of "Templeton," with direct reference to The Pioneers; the story of the Three-Mile Point controversy—the inference seemed to follow from the parallel that the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... quite at a loss to understand why your brother George does not take this very obvious course, and why Valentine potters about in this neighbourhood, when a gold mine is waiting to be exploite ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... the less to blame for it, because he could not help it; but certainly he is not to be praised for his associations with the tragic fact brought to his notice. Nothing could have been more trite or obvious, and he felt his intellectual poverty so keenly that he might almost have believed his discomfort a sympathy for the girl who had drowned herself last Saturday. But of course, this could not be, for he had but lately been thinking ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... in a conscience-stricken silence during that homeward drive. Yet Lady Anne was not angry with her—that was very obvious. She seemed to be enjoying herself, too, judging by the smile that played about her lips. Now and again she cast a humorous glance on Mary. Once she ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... back over what I have written, much of it gives me a queer impression, as if the obvious were set forth so condescendingly that readers might well laugh at my pomposity. It may be, however, that concreteness as radical as ours is not so obvious. The whole originality of pragmatism, the whole point in it, is its use of the concrete way of seeing. ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... Stedman in emphasizing this characteristic of the poet says of Pippa Passes: "The usual fault is present—the characters, whether students, peasants, or soldiers, all talk like sages; Pippa reasons like a Paracelsus in pantalettes." It is, of course, obvious at the first glance that there is a lack of verisimilitude in Pippa's rich and beautiful soliloquies. Certainly no fourteen-year-old mill girl could so describe a sunrise, or play so brilliantly with a sunbeam in a water-basin, or outline so cleverly the ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... in Germany, especially at Nuremberg and Coblenz by French aviators, who according to his statement "had come from Belgium." I answered that I had not the slightest information as to the facts to which he attached so much importance and the improbability of which seemed to me obvious; on my part I asked him if he had read the note which I had addressed to him with regard to the invasion of our territory by detachments of the German army. As the Secretary of State said that he had not yet read this note ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... was farther from your mind! You give me money, you shower your vile kisses on me, but nothing was farther from your mind than the obvious interpretation of such behaviour!' Before coming to Mr Meggs, Miss Pillenger had been secretary to an Indiana novelist. She had learned style from the master. 'Now that you have gone too far, you are frightened at what ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... was that they might waste centuries in attempting to accomplish by themselves what they could now do immediately if Earth's vast resources were made available to them. And the other, of course, was the obvious fact that Earth would not remain indefinitely without a stardrive of its own. If an unfriendly government was in control when it obtained one, the Mars Convicts would be forced either to abandon their newly settled planets and retreat farther into the galaxy or ...
— Oneness • James H. Schmitz
... dyspeptic, John. You were born with a gray beard, and you're not growing younger. He wanted to come to this party, but— I didn't care to have him for obvious reasons, so I told Hammon to refuse him even if he asked. He bet me a thousand dollars that he'd come anyhow, and I've been expecting him to overpower those doormen ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach
... was thirsty, and halted at a roadhouse for a pint of champagne—his favorite wine. Jean had alighted from the car to get it for him, and Viola, recalled to the stand, testified that she had seen her father drink some of the bubbling liquor. It was obvious why she had not spoken of it before, and that point was not pressed. It was known she did not share her father's love ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... case it is too obvious that the first two sentences constitute the bare cable bulletin and that the second paragraph is the beginning ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... Thurlow and his colleagues, I never could find out." We here see an instance of the ignorance in which a high official was content to remain, on a subject which might naturally and fairly excite his curiosity. It is obvious that he wished to keep himself out of the melee and took the best probable way of doing so, by asking no questions. But a dilemma arose out of this resignation to Scott himself. Pitt sent for him, and said, "I have a circumstance to mention to you, which, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... our undertaking the impossible, to the neglect of the obvious and the possible. The basic fact of nationality is a preference for our own ways, customs, and habits over those of other people. If the Chinese and Japanese, the Servians and Albanians, the English and the Germans liked ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... burning house, how Jackson won the respect and friendship of the best men of his age, and how Gully rose to a seat in the first Reformed Parliament. These were the men who set the standard, and their trade carried with it this obvious recommendation, that it is one in which no drunken or foul-living man could long succeed. There were exceptions among them, no doubt—bullies like Hickman and brutes like Berks; in the main, I say again that they were honest men, brave and enduring to an incredible degree, and a credit ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... or a guilty person may be sentenced too severely, mitigating circumstances appearing after sentence is passed. For these and other reasons, there should be power somewhere to grant reprieves, commutations, and pardons. In most of the states this power is vested in the governor. It does not, for obvious reasons, extend to cases of impeachment. Many thoughtful people, including some governors and ex-governors, question very seriously the wisdom of this absolute assignment of the pardoning power. One ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... Charles the danger was in some measure lessened, or at least concealed from public view, by the apparent facility with which he submitted to and observed the laws and customs of his native country. With Philip, the case was far different, and the results too obvious. Uninformed on the Belgian character, despising the state of manners, and ignorant of the language, no sympathy attached him to the people. He brought with him to the throne all the hostile prejudices of a foreigner, without one of the kindly or ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... severity of the symptoms, took one or two packs a day, and the same number of sitz-baths, had wet compresses on his ears and throat, and was kept in bed with very few exceptions, when the nurse would take him on her knees, wrapt in a blanket. The good effect of the sitz-bath was so obvious, that the child's father, who had been informed by telegraph of the critical condition of his son, asked himself for a repetition of it, when he found that neither medicines nor packs produced the slightest change. The child always became quiet and slept after the bath. ...
— Hydriatic treatment of Scarlet Fever in its Different Forms • Charles Munde
... new in the present attack on the Miracles of Scripture. The author disposes of them by a single assertion. "What is alleged," (he says,) "is a case of the supernatural. But no testimony can reach to the supernatural." (p. 107.) The inference is obvious.—Again: "an event may be so incredible intrinsically as to set aside any degree of testimony." (p. 106.) Such an event he declares a Miracle to be; and explains that "from the nature of our antecedent convictions, the probability of some kind of mistake ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... will stand in evidence, as for him, so for me; for I was one of the editors. What I said even as an Anglican, it is not strange that I said when I was not. Indeed I have been milder in my thoughts of the Establishment ever since I have been a Catholic than before, and for an obvious reason:—when I was an Anglican, I viewed it as repressing a higher doctrine than its own; and now I view it as keeping out a lower ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... be trusted to memory, for, once forgotten, the translation of the document written, even by the writer himself, would be absolutely impossible. It occurred to him that as there were six different concentric lines of lettering, each constituting in itself a complete cipher, the obvious way to use the box would be to place the pearls in a given position, write six words, using a different alphabet for each word, and then shift the ring of pearls to a new position, and repeat the operation. This, of course, could be done indefinitely, ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... The obvious intention of hangings in household decoration is to cover bare walls, so as to adorn at once that which was rough or common, without delay or trouble. They were also used as curtains to shut out the cold or the ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... should be addressed to the entire class and, after all have had a moment to think, some one then designated to answer. The reason for this is obvious. If the one who is to answer is designated before the question is asked, the incentive to the rest of the class to think the answer is ...
— The Recitation • George Herbert Betts
... really stirring enthusiasm. Fournier scored a well deserved triumph with a "Scarpia" that was characterized by a touch of really sinister distinction. Hastings, incapable as he was of subtleties or refinements, did as usual all the obvious things pretty well and got the welcome he had so rightly counted upon. But Paula fell unmistakably short of winning the smashing success she ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... is obvious, especially in the ninth and following verses of chap. xvi. of Mark. These verses form a conclusion of the second Gospel, different from the conclusion at xvi. 1-8, with which many manuscripts terminate. In the fourth ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... Patriarchate, or the father-rule. "All the social fabrics of the world are built around women. The first stable society was a mother and her child." The reason why the primitive descent of name and property, and the first fixed stake of home life, was the expression of this maternal relationship is obvious. Motherhood was demonstrated by nature before fatherhood was definitely known. Inheritance of name by the female line was alone possible; and that, as well as the female holding and transmitting of property, was a family or tribal or clan relationship, women always retaining ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... H. T. Tuckerman makes a book of essays on various subjects, and calls it The Optimist; and then devotes several pages of preface to an argument, lexicon in hand, proving that the applicability of the term optimist is 'obvious.' An editor, at intervals of leisure, indulges his true poetic taste for the pleasure of his friends, or the entertainment of an occasional audience. Then his book appears, entitled not Miscellaneous Poems, but Asleep in the Sanctum, by A. A. Hopkins. Sometimes, ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... out of the station and up the country road. It opened with the striking phrase that the Radicals were setting class against class. It went on to remark that nothing had contributed more to make our Empire happy and enviable, to create that obvious list of glories which you can supply for yourself, the prosperity of all classes in our great cities, our populous and growing villages, the success of our rule in Ireland, etc., etc., than the sound Anglo-Saxon readiness of all classes in the State "to work heartily hand-in-hand." It was ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... spoke up thus for Good, I was not blind to the fact that, however natural his behaviour might be, it was obvious that he was being involved in a very awkward and disgraceful complication. A foul and wicked murder had been attempted, and he had let the murderess escape, and thereby, among other things, allowed her to gain a complete ascendency ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... present educational structure are many, and in some cases obvious to all. In the first place, it is said, and with much truth, that there is no systematic coherence between the different parts of our educational machinery, and no thorough-going correlation between the various aims which the separate parts of the system are intended to realise. ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... She was a large, impassive, heavy-featured woman with a stern set expression of mouth. But her telltale eyes were red and glanced at me from between swollen lids. It was she, then, who wept in the night, and if she did so her husband must know it. Yet he had taken the obvious risk of discovery in declaring that it was not so. Why had he done this? And why did she weep so bitterly? Already round this pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded man there was gathering an atmosphere of mystery and of gloom. It was he who had been ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... an unenviable state of mind when he left me. I had an impulse to send for Miss McCoy and ask her if she had understood what Krebs was "driving at," but for reasons that must be fairly obvious I refrained. I read over again that part of Krebs's speech which dealt with the immediate programme of the Citizens Union. After paying a tribute to Greenhalge as a man of common sense and dependability who would make a good mayor, he went on to explain the principle of the new charter they hoped ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... did not interfere. Now, the undertaking being a success, the honor is all yours, for I believe none of us went farther than to acquiesce. And taking the work of General Thomas into the count, as it should be taken, it is, indeed, a great success. Not only does it afford the obvious and immediate military advantages, but in showing to the world that your army could be divided, putting the stronger part to an important new service, and yet leaving enough to vanquish the old opposing force of the whole—Hood's ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... French Escoffion, Scofion (Reine Marguerite) Coeffe (une pellicule, marque de bonheur) Coiffe and Coife, &c.; the Scotch Curch or Coif, opposed to the maiden snood, and, lastly our Sergeant-at-Law's Coif. Littre, the Learned, who in erudition was ne coiffe, has missed this obvious derivation. ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. A list of corrections is found at the end of ...
— The Cookery Blue Book • Society for Christian Work of the First Unitarian Church, San
... else to understand except what was obvious to all the world—a heartless woman jilts a man when a more ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... to our doctors of a reputation for the tenderest humanity is so obvious, and the quantity of benevolent work actually done by them for nothing (a great deal of it from sheer good nature) so large, that at first sight it seems unaccountable that they should not only throw all their credit ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma: Preface on Doctors • George Bernard Shaw
... course all the dishes and knives and forks that have been in use are replaced by fresh ones, and the order and neatness of the table preserved to the end of the supper. We would think it unnecessary to mention this most obvious detail of table decorum, had not several correspondents asked ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... these opinions may appear, there is truth both in the censure and in the praise, though the praise no doubt outweighs the censure; and the general opinion among the later Romans justly declared primus Romana Crispus in historia. It is obvious that it is altogether unjust to say that his introductions are unsuitable, and that the speeches he introduces are inappropriate: for an author must be allowed to write a preface to make an avowal of his own sentiments; and the speeches are inseparably ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... as always, by his slightest wish, had developed a most maternal delight in Dorothy's presence, and was doing all in her power to make the girl's season a most successful one; also, in accord with his obvious desire—her influence was antagonistic to Mahr, his son and his motor car, his house and his flowers, everything that was his; in spite of which, Dorothy's manner toward Teddy Mahr was undoubtedly one of encouragement. Honesty compelled Gard to ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... spoken them. The term "faith," as here used, is perhaps rightly interpreted of confidence in that internal notice by which the apostles were admonished of their power to perform any particular miracle. And this exposition renders the sense of the text more easy. But the words undoubtedly, in their obvious construction, carry with them a difficulty which no writer would have brought ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... An obvious distinction between the classical and mediaeval epochs may be found in the fact that the former produced, whereas the latter failed to produce, a few great thinkers in each generation who were imbued ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... obvious and superficial change in literature is the extreme diversity of its form. There is no standard now, no conventional type, no good "model." It is an age of "Go-as-you-please," and of tous les genres ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Napoleon's most obvious motives were want of money and the certainty of the seizure of the province by England, as the rupture with her was now certain. But there was perhaps another cause. The States had already been on the point of seizing the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... such a plan be supported in opposition to England, possessed of such numerous and victorious armies, which were, at that time at least seemed to be, in entire union with the parliament? The only expedient, it is obvious, which the Scots could embrace, if they scrupled wholly to abandon the king, was immediately to return, fully and cordially, to their allegiance; and, uniting themselves with the royalists in both kingdoms, endeavor, by force ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... squire was talking shortly and abruptly, yet with occasional flashes of shrill ungainly laughter, to Lady Charlotte, who seemed to have no sort of fear of him and to find him good company, and every now and then Robert saw him turn to Catherine on the other side of him, and with an obvious change of manner address some formal ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... be likely to work, and on the results of the operation of such Boards in the Colony of Victoria, where they have existed for more than ten years, and now apply to more than forty industries. The perusal of that evidence would, I feel sure, remove some at least of the most obvious objections to ...
— Constructive Imperialism • Viscount Milner
... looking hard at Mrs. Crittenden's rough clothes and the handful of earth in her fingers, said with an air of enforced patience with obvious unreasonableness, "You're on the wrong track, you know. You're just all off. Of course with you it can't be pose as it looks when other people do it. It must be ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... which we are concerned in any of these forms of lime is calcium. It is the base whose union with the acids destroys the latter. It should be obvious that the addition of water to stone-lime, which adds weight and causes 56 pounds of the stone-lime to become 74 pounds of hydrated lime, adds no calcium. Likewise the change to the air-slaked condition adds no ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... to feel and to say something obvious about Venice. The influence of this sea-city is unique, immediate, and unmistakable. But to express the sober truth of those impressions which remain when the first astonishment of the Venetian revelation has subsided, when the spirit of the place has been harmonised through familiarity with our ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... assembly has always been not the first, but the second. The peers, who are of the most importance, are not the most important in the House of Peers. In theory, the House of Lords is of equal rank with the House of Commons; in practice it is not. The evil of two co-equal houses is obvious. If they disagree, all business is suspended. There ought to be an available decisive authority somewhere. The sovereign power must be comeatable. The English have made it so by the authority of the crown to create new peers. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... difference of opinion we have eliminated all zest from our intercourse. Religion, sex, politics— any subject on which man really thinks, is scrupulously excluded from all polite gatherings. Conversation has become a chorus; or, as a writer wittily expressed it, the pursuit of the obvious to no conclusion. When not occupied with mumbling, 'I quite agree with you'—'As you say'—'That is precisely my opinion'—we sit about and ask each other riddles: 'What did the Pro-Boer?' ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... day in doing this, and the occasion was one of the most delightful and memorable of my life. It was the Fourth of July, and I was dressed in white and rode in a procession. My sister Mary, who also graced the procession, had also been given twenty-five cents; and during the parade, when, for obvious reasons, we were unable to break ranks and spend our wealth, the consciousness of it lay heavily upon us. When we finally began our shopping the first place we visited was a candy store, and I recall distinctly that we forced the weary ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... stir among the crowd, and then an opening was made in it, through which came an elderly man wearing military trappings similar to, but much handsomer than those worn by the two warriors whom we had first encountered; and it was obvious, from the air of deference with which these saluted him, that he was their superior officer. In spite of the dignity of his demeanor it was evident that he was greatly excited by our advent, and his voice quivered and broke a little as he asked us who we were and whence we came. As I repeated ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... For obvious reasons the votaries of window gardening will use those giving off little or no unpleasant odors. Others again make the soil so rich in the first instance that much less of what may be called artificial manures are required during growth. But without some skill in this matter ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 1, January 5, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... thinking, thinking, until his brain went stale. The only fresh clues he had discovered thus far were the marks on finger and thumb, the fact that the girl was a Canadian, and that she had possessed but one mitten instead of two. This last, for obvious reasons, was too trivial to mean anything, and yet in so obscure a case it could not be ignored. The fact that she was a Canadian helped but little, therefore the best point upon which to hang a line of ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... spectators I thought I noted an increasing number of my countrymen and women, so in the passing vehicles I fancied more and more of them in the hired turnouts which cannot long keep their secret from the critical eye. These were as obvious to conjecture as some other turnouts, which I fancied of a decayed ancestrality: cumbrous landaus and victorias, with rubberless tires, which grumbled and grieved in their course for the passati tempi, and expressed a rheumatic scorn for the ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... slide of the wave, no longer cresting the flow, which surged on ahead of him, carrying him no longer. The fact was that he was now at the difficult part of an enterprise which had been so far too easy. At the moment it was not obvious to him what he was to do. James was aware, that was plain; and James had a strong hand—if he knew that too, he had an unassailable hand. But did he? Urquhart thought not. He chuckled grimly to himself as he saw his complacent ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... sympathy with both Guerin and Hurteloup: but it is obvious that they could not be company for him: between him and them there was no great possibility of conversation. The boy Emmanuel took up more of his time: he came now almost every evening. Since their magical talk together a revolution had taken place in the boy. ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... eloquence that the oldest and wisest men may attend to them with pleasure. All your writings are embellished with a sublime and agreeable imagination, which gives elegance to simplicity, and dignity to the most vulgar and obvious truths. I have heard, indeed, that your countrymen are less sensible of the beauty of your genius and style than any of their neighbours. What has so ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... determination to find a cure for it but the cure, if there was one, eluded them. The graves in the cemetery were forty long by forty wide and more were added each day. To all the fact became grimly obvious: they were swiftly dying out and they had yet to face ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin
... tradition, both on account of the merit it possesses, and its being the unquestionable origin of Washington Irving's inimitable Rip Von Winkle. Indeed, the similarity of the story is strikingly obvious. We believe there are several legends on this subject, which, with the present, probably all refer to the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, whose adventures form the source of many a story among the Germans. The original tale is nearly as follows:—It seems the emperor was ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... thought, and told the younger to carry my small sack filled with papers. The latter grunted, "C'est defendu." We went a little farther, and I broke down again. I stopped dead, and said: "I can't go any farther." It was obvious to my escorts that I couldn't, so I didn't trouble to elucidate. Moreover, ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings
... same sentence, in answer to all his arguments in favor of his engagement—arguments which were overwhelming to himself and which it required an effort of patience on his part to go over and recapitulate, so obvious was the conclusion; and then to have the same answer forever, the same ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... mothers of the land, who recognize your duty, towards God and to the State, to rear your children healthy, strong and good to look upon. To all whose keener common-sense looks upon Nature, the Creator, as logically therefore, the healing power also. To all endowed with wit to understand the obvious truth that, not by poisonous drugs is healing wrought, but by such reasonable help as man's intelligence can afford, to second nature's effort to that end; and further, that, in order to achieve success, it is useless to attack, suppress or remove the symptoms of disease by force of drugging ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... possible, and was crawling along with his clutch barely rubbing, when a hansom cab, containing a beautiful but pale young woman, slowly passed. The occupant abruptly rose from her seat and scrutinized the car in obvious excitement. ...
— A Husband by Proxy • Jack Steele
... each flake is usually of a Stellate Form, and of six Angles of exact equal length from the Center. It is like a little Star. A great man speaks of it with admiration, that in a Body so familiar as the Snow is, no Philosopher should for many Ages take notice of a thing so obvious as the Figure of it. The learned Kepler, who lived in this last Age, is acknowledged to be the first that acquainted the world with the Sexangular Figure of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... crater position from the evening of the 18th, and it was obvious that the enemy expected an attack as he searched the whole area with heavy artillery fire at ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... foolish for me to learn to climb?" asked Phonny. In order to see Beechnut while he asked this question, Phonny had to twist his head round in a very unusual position, and look out under his arm. It was obvious that in doing this he was in imminent danger of falling, so unstable was the equilibrium in which he was poised upon ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott
... back at him. "Right. It would be so obvious that he would have been put away very quickly. He would not be just psychopathic, but completely ...
— Nor Iron Bars a Cage.... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... emotion, not a conviction, but an impression of beauty, or horror, or ecstasy. The uncertain outlines are bathed in a vague golden air of imagination, and are shown to us with the magic touch of a Coleridge, a Leopardi—the touch which gives a mood, a scene, with scarce an obvious detail of either mood or scene. We may not understand the purport of the song, we understand the feeling that prompted the song, as, having done with reading 'Kubla Khan,' there remains in our mind, not the pictured ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... religion.'—GENERAL GORDON'S JOURNALS AT KHARTOUM, bk.i. p.13.] Those whose practice it is to regard their own nation as possessing a monopoly of virtue and common-sense, are wont to ascribe every military enterprise of savage peoples to fanaticism. They calmly ignore obvious and legitimate motives. The most rational conduct is considered mad. It has therefore been freely stated, and is to some extent believed, that the revolt in the Soudan was entirely religious. If the worst untruths are those that have some appearance of veracity, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... in the hearty tones of a man who knows that he is sure of carrying a large portion of his audience along with him—"it is obvious that you are all pretty much of one mind as to the principle on which we should act at this time; and my good friend Haldor the Fierce (who seems of late to have changed his nature, and should, methinks, in future, be styled Haldor the Mild) is evidently on the losing side. The only thing that ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... singular variation in the breed of sheep came to be noted, and to have the prominence that it now has. For the present, I mention only these two cases; but the extent of variation in the breed of animals is perfectly obvious to any one who has studied natural history with ordinary attention, or to any person who compares animals with others of the same kind. It is strictly true that there are never any two specimens which are exactly ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... conceal the fact that property and communism have been considered always the only possible forms of society. This deplorable error has been the life of property. The disadvantages of communism are so obvious that its critics never have needed to employ much eloquence to thoroughly disgust men with it. The irreparability of the injustice which it causes, the violence which it does to attractions and repulsions, the yoke of iron which ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... recognition of the salesman, our energetic solicitude for his safety, and our obvious anxiety to dissociate ourselves from the policy of direct action adopted by the terrier, had not only betrayed, but emphasised, the fact that the sailor's arrival was very much to our taste. Clearly, if we did not wish to pay through the nose for what we purchased, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... draw real men and women, or indeed to differentiate his characters at all except by gross caricature or the copying of traditional eccentricities. Sir Tophas and Diogenes we remember as distinct personalities only for their peculiar and very obvious traits: the rest of his characters either stay in our memory solely through the charm of particular scenes in which they take part, or fade from it altogether. As less regrettable faults, because hardly avoidable if euphuism was to bring its ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... man would meet with a surprise. George's abilities are not, as a rule, obvious at first sight. People find them out by accident, ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... dialect: "W'en de punkin roll in de bresh—heap, out jump a rabbit; en soon's de I'shmuns see dat, he take atter de rabbit en holler: 'Kworp, colty! kworp, colty!' but de rabbit, he des flew." The point of this is obvious. ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... from alarm was pretty evident from the peculiar curl of her pretty eyebrows, but that the sounds did not unnerve her was also obvious from the quiet though prompt way in which she gathered up all the loaded firearms, and bore them swiftly to the breastwork in front of the cabin. Arranging the guns in a row at her side, so as to be handy, ...
— The Prairie Chief • R.M. Ballantyne
... the whole house with their songs. Its mistress, it is obvious, has need of living creatures on which to bestow some of her affection; and besides several maid-servants that one would suppose she had selected with care, since it can not be by mere chance that they are all pretty, she has, after the fashion of old maids, various ...
— Pepita Ximenez • Juan Valera
... But my voice was a strange voice, and in it he recognized nothing familiar. The meal went on. I talked a great deal, and enthusiastically, as a hero-worshipper might talk, and it was obvious that he was my hero. I rose to a climax of enthusiasm and worship, and, before he could guess my intention, threw my arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. He held me from him at arm's length and stared about in ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... eye alone, the fox is the lightest and most buoyant creature that runs. His soft wrapping of fur conceals the muscular play and effort that is so obvious in the hound that pursues him, and he comes bounding along precisely as if blown by a gentle wind. His massive tail is carried as if it floated upon the air ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... places in spite of their English names. On the whole it seems likely that the cultivation of the land was not generally interrupted for more than a very few years; hence the convenience of utilizing existing sites of villages would be obvious, even if the buildings themselves ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... chance to restore the colonel's fortunes; and although for obvious reasons he dared not tell him so, it was really the only interest the Englishman had in the scheme ...
— Colonel Carter of Cartersville • F. Hopkinson Smith
... down upon the scene beyond. The opposite brink at this point is ten or twelve feet lower than the spot where Pym and Peters stand, which gives them an excellent view of Lilama and Ahpilus. It is impossible to say just why, but it is obvious that the time which they dread has come. Ahpilus stands looking at the beautiful maiden who crouches in front of him; and as he gazes his powerful form seems to swell, as does that of a wild animal that has determined to ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... Sam and Aunt Chloe there had existed, from ancient times, a sort of chronic feud, or rather a decided coolness; but, as Sam was meditating something in the provision department, as the necessary and obvious foundation of his operations, he determined, on the present occasion, to be eminently conciliatory; for he well knew that although "Missis' orders" would undoubtedly be followed to the letter, yet he should gain a considerable deal by ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of Cicero. Did the critic, asks Macaulay, ever hear any speaking that was less ornamented than that of Demosthenes, or more diffuse than that of Cicero? Yet the critic's remark was not so pointless as Macaulay thought it. Sincerity and intensity are, indeed, to the modern reader, the most obvious characteristics of Demosthenes. His style is, on the whole, singularly free from what we are accustomed to regard as rhetorical embellishment. Where the modern orator would employ a wealth of imagery, or elaborate a picture ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... the obvious astronomical allegory, which lurks in Chaucer's "Complaint of Mars and Venus," has been pointed out, or that any attempt has been made to explain it. In Tyrwhitt's slight notice of that poem, prefixed to his glossary, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 74, March 29, 1851 • Various
... Goncourts and Zola, formed a trio representing Naturalism in fiction. He adopted the watchwords of that school, and by private friendship, no less than by a common profession of faith, was one of them. But the students of the future, while recognizing an obvious affinity between the other two, may be puzzled to find Daudet's name conjoined ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... Greek the most copious, ... Latin the finest,"[194] or the reference in the preface to the Rhemish New Testament to the Vulgate as the translation "of greatest majesty."[195] The prefaces to the Geneva New Testament and the Geneva Bible combine fairly definite linguistic comment with less obvious references to style: "And because the Hebrew and Greek phrases, which are hard to render in other tongues, and also short, should not be so hard, I have sometimes interpreted them without any whit diminishing the grace of the sense, as our language doth use them";[196] "Now as we have ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... representing Europeans and Asiatics, should inhabit the northern hemisphere; the black cards, representing Australians and Africans, the southern; but it is obvious that, in dealing and refilling vacancies, cards will often be found in the wrong hemispheres, and while there they cannot be ...
— Lady Cadogan's Illustrated Games of Solitaire or Patience - New Revised Edition, including American Games • Adelaide Cadogan
... Ivan read this curious note, meditating the while on the reason for the obvious fear in which it was written. Certainly the easiest way to discover her reason, was to talk to her alone. If he went down to the Quarter, could he manage a tete-a-tete?—If not, could he not take her for a walk—out for tea? Any of a hundred little ruses would serve ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... ancient and altogether admirable family had settled there in that part of Concord, unknown to me—to whom the sun was servant. I saw their path, their pleasuring ground through the woods in Spaulding's cranberry meadow. The pines furnished them with gables as they grew. Their house was not obvious to vision, the trees grew through it. They have sons and daughters. They are quite well. The farmer's cart path which leads directly through their hall does not in the least put them out, as the muddy bottom of the pool is sometimes seen through the reflected ...
— Life's Enthusiasms • David Starr Jordan
... mind is chiefly bent; on that his main purpose is fixed. Though the end is last in the order of execution, it is first and foremost in the order of intention. Therefore the end in view enters into morality more deeply than any other element of the action. It is not, however, the most obvious determinant, because it is the last point to be gained; and because, while the means are taken openly, the end is often a secret locked up in the heart of the doer, the same means leading to many ends, as the road to a city leads to many homes and resting-places. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J. |
