"Spectator" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the wind, but Van Tromp, who had it at the first, kept it with advantage, and drew up his own fleet in a line parallel to that of the English, when, bearing down upon them, he began the battle with so great a fury, that many ships were soon seen dismasted, others sunk, and others on fire. A spectator, who was on board a vessel at a distance, describes the scene: "The two fleets were now enveloped in a cloud of smoke so dense that it was impossible to form a judgment of the fierceness of the battle otherwise than by the horrible noise of the cannon with which the air resounded, and by the mountains ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... Such was the language of her eyes; and it was a language which should have assured Ella that she had a better friend in her mother than she had ever dreamed of. The entrance of the defendant cut short my contemplation of any mere spectator. The change in him was so marked that I was conscious of it before I really saw him. Every eye had reflected it, and it was no surprise to me when I noted the relieved, almost cheerful aspect of his countenance ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... dramatic growth goes on before the spectator's eye. His personages are not gradually built up by successive touches, broad or fine; they do not evolve themselves chiefly by collision with others; in the first act they come on the stage unfolded. ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... Andrew Fletcher, of Saltoun, tells us the opinion of 'a very wise man,' that 'if a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make its laws.' A writer in the Spectator, no. 502, refers to a similar opinion as having been entertained in England earlier than the time of Fletcher. 'I have heard,' he says, 'that a minister of state in the reign of Elizabeth had all manner of books and ballads ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... nothing repulsive in the little plain person of the emancipated woman; but the expression of her face produced a disagreeable effect on the spectator. One felt impelled to ask her, 'What's the matter; are you hungry? Or bored? Or shy? What are you in a fidget about?' Both she and Sitnikov had always the same uneasy air. She was extremely unconstrained, and at the same time awkward; she obviously ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Reitz that the commandos of Vrede, Harrismith, Heilbron and Bethlehem laid down their arms. Accordingly I went there on the 7th of June, and again had to be a spectator of what I fain would never have witnessed. Had I then to go on from commando to commando, to undergo everywhere the martyrdom of beholding ceaseless surrenders? No! I had had enough, and could bear no more. I decided, therefore, ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... with indignant vehemence; "if you were a spectator of that bloody deed, retire from this house; go to Cambus-Kenneth—anywhere; but leave this city before the injured Wallace arrives; blast not his eyes with a second sight of one who could ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... lie level. Next plant the two side-posts F and G (Fig. 145 A) at equal distances from the two front posts and make them a few feet farther apart than are the front posts. The sketch of the framework is drawn in very steep perspective, that is, it is made as if the spectator was on a hill looking down upon it. It is drawn in this manner so as to better show the construction, but the location of the posts may be seen in the small plan. Next set the two back posts, H and K, and place them much closer together, so that the bottom frame ...
— Shelters, Shacks and Shanties • D.C. Beard
... her hands in pretty mimicry of despair, and poured out soothing words, as one might pour oil upon stormy waters. The Seneschal sat in stolid silence, a half-scared spectator of this odd scene, what time the Marquise talked and talked until she had brought Fortunio back to some measure ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... is a great theatre, furnished by the Almighty, with perfect wisdom and goodness, for the entertainment and employment of all mankind. Here every man has a right to accommodate himself as a spectator, and to perform his part as an actor; but without hurt ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... and a dear father murdered, was yet so little moved, that his revenge all this while had seemed to have slept in dull and muddy forgetfulness! and while he meditated on actors and acting, and the powerful effects which a good play, represented to the life, has upon the spectator, he remembered the instance of some murderer, who seeing a murder on the stage, was by the mere force of the scene and resemblance of circumstances so affected, that on the spot he confessed the crime which he had committed. And he determined that these players should play something like ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... never seem quite fair to one brought upon the English notions of "off-side." The concerted cheering of the students of each university, led by a regular fugle-man, marking time with voice and arms, seems odd to the spectator accustomed to the sparse, spontaneous, and independent ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... Greece and Rome, which did admirably well under the climate of Rome or Messina, but are ill adapted for our vent du bize and cloudy atmosphere. A piece of muslin suspended on a gilt rod, is really of no other use but to let a spectator see that he is behind the curtain. It is the same with the imitation tapestry—the walls six inches thick, which neither keep out the heat in summer, nor the cold in winter. All the other parts of modern dress and furniture are comprised in my anathema, and will always ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... lip a little prominent, and the chin firmly rounded. But the smile, though rare, was youth and sweetness itself, and the dark eyes beneath the full mass of richly coloured hair were finely conscious and attentive—disinterested also; so that they won the spectator instead of embarrassing him. She was very lightly and slenderly made, yet so as to convey an impression of strength and physical health. Meynell said to himself that there was something cloistered in her look, like one brought up in a grave atmosphere—an ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of mimetic representation, either as a participant or as a spectator, is an ineradicable instinct of childhood and adolescence. Most of these plays call for a somewhat large number of children. This need not daunt the producer as the chief characters are few and many of the parts have very few lines to speak. Many extra ...
— The White Christmas and other Merry Christmas Plays • Walter Ben Hare
... breathless spectator in the farthest end of the great hall the white pallor of Chet Bullard's face must have been apparent. One hand moved toward the emblem on his blouse, the cherished triple star of a master pilot of the World; then ...
— The Finding of Haldgren • Charles Willard Diffin
... spectacle to behold many of these huge creatures, one set eagerly travelling onwards with outstretched necks, and another set returning, after having drunk their fill. When the tortoise arrives at the spring, quite regardless of any spectator, he buries his head in the water above his eyes, and greedily swallows great mouthfuls, at the rate of about ten in a minute. The inhabitants say each animal stays three or four days in the neighbourhood of the water, and then returns to the lower country; ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... unfastened the straps by which they carried the litter, and were letting their burden glide gently into the open grave. At a few paces distant, the man with the cloak wrapped round him, the only spectator of this melancholy scene, was leaning with his back against a large cypress-tree, and kept his face and person entirely concealed from the grave-diggers and the priests; the corpse was buried in five minutes. The grave having been filled up, ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... conspicuous from a carrot-coloured cloth, and the hand was extended over a pile of folios; but it looked quite unequal to the task of opening them. The other arm was disposed of in some manner satisfactory to the artist, no doubt, but by no means easy for the spectator to discover, since the brick-coloured drapery which formed the back-ground to the whole, certainly encroached on the side where nature had placed it. Such as it was, however, Miss Patsey admired this ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... crane, somewhat smaller in size. On hot, calm days in the region of Lake Winnipeg the cranes soar to an amazing height, flying in circles, till by degrees they are almost out of sight. Yet their loud note sounds so distinct and near that the spectator might fancy they ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... the greatest authority, both on horses and horsemanship, now living in this country. Everything which he writes is lucidly expressed, and no detail is too trivial to be explained."—The Spectator. ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... to-day, which I did, and was entertained regardless of expense, garlands, ottar, paun and all. The old boy is a regular brick, for—now grow green with envy—he has invited me to go a-hunting with him to-morrow. Hawking, he said—by the way, what would not a certain lady give to be a spectator of that most chivalrous of sports?—but oh, my beloved Bob, there's a jheel which I strongly suspect to be the intended scene of our exploits, and if there ain't pig there, call me a Dutchman. Conceive my feelings. If we sight ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... stood looking down into the coals for a long time, while I remained where I was, an awkward, gauche spectator, conscious of having put my clumsiest foot into my mouth every time I opened it and wondering whether I could now safely get it ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... comes flashing in, these April days, and all the world holds its breath to hear the latest messages from Arras and the Vimy ridge, it is natural that in the memory of a woman who, six weeks ago, was a spectator—before the curtain rose—of the actual scene of such events, every incident and figure of that past experience, as she looks back upon it, should gain ...
— Towards The Goal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of placing black patches on the face was introduced towards the close of the reign of Charles I., and the practice is ridiculed in the "Spectator."] ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... entombed, cold, swathed in paper, awaiting the carrier of the morning who should speed them forth to the strange, cold, distant Children's Hospital, where their little failings would all be misunderstood and no one would make allowances. A dreamy spectator, I stood idly by while Harold propped up the lid and the two plunged in their arms and probed and ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... toward me, who had stood a spectator of the tragic scene, the nobles wheeled and fled from the apartment ...
— Warlord of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... observing the precise direction in which she is steering; but, as a matter of fact, a ship, when running before the wind, sails in anything but a straight line, sheering first one way and then another, and it is quite impossible for a spectator to judge with accuracy in which direction she will sheer at a given moment; hence the danger in which we ...
— For Treasure Bound • Harry Collingwood
... inexplicable restraint. She had little to say. Bo was in the highest spirits, teasing the pets, joking with her uncle and Roy, and even poking fun at Dale. The hunter seemed somewhat somber. Roy was his usual dry, genial self. And Auchincloss, who sat near by, was an interested spectator. When Tom put in an appearance, lounging with his feline grace into the camp, as if he knew he was a privileged pet, the rancher could scarcely ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... settle, as the phrase went; though he was settled long ago, and might have married once a year without any impediment from old madam, as Mistress Betty would have been swift to suppose. He perfectly approved of Mr. Spectator's standard of virtue—"Miss Liddy can dance a jig, raise a pasty, write a good hand, keep an account, give a reasonable answer, and do as she is bid;" but then, it only made him yawn. The man was sinking down into an active-bodied, half-learned, half-facetious bachelor. He was mentally cropping ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... faithfulness to their religion. We've travelled a long way since those times: nowadays the Jew is despised only for having a crooked nose, or for being a plutocrat even when he happens to be a pauper." Pity and bitterness abound in these lines, but they are written by a detached spectator. He did not know how much of the Jew there was in him even in this feeling of remoteness from a world which offered him not living reality ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... of the body as of varieties of ideas. Thought, moreover, expressed itself outwardly in proportion to its power over the individual and his time of life. By thus employing bodily gesture to represent feeling and idea, the painter could affect the spectator whom he {xv} placed in the presence of visible emotion. He maintained that art was of slight use unless able to show what its subject had in mind. Painting should aim, therefore, to reproduce the inner mental state ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... reign of Charles II. may be seen in our woodcut. The beautiful Banqueting-house of Inigo Jones was crowded among a heterogeneous mass of ugly buildings connected with the exigencies of the court. Beside the houses, to the spectator's left, was a large garden extending to the river, with fountains and parterres. A small garden also projected into the river in front of the buildings; and here Charles used to view the civic processions of the Lord ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... motions, and yet with plinths only three inches thick, into the basis of the gable; the bold use of the chisel, which wrought the shield, on the freely-held arm, down to a thickness of scarcely three inches; the fineness of the execution even in parts of the work invisible to an ordinary spectator, in the diligent finishing of which the only motive of the artist was to satisfy his own conviction as to the ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... negro; but, of course, I couldn't help him. All I could do was to look on, by no means an uninterested spectator, though keeping cautiously out of sight of Captain ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... the light of these words, have felt any latent infirmity in such a pretension exposed; but as he stood there facing his chances he would have struck a spectator as resting firmly enough on some felt residuum of advantage: whether this were cleverness or luck, the strength of his backing or that of his sincerity. Even with the young woman to whom our friends' ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... again, and brought with him a verdurer or under keeper. This man had seen the whole affair, had seen Drogo pick up Hubert's arrow after the latter was gone, and stand as if musing over it, when a deer came that way, and Drogo let fly the shaft at once. Then he discovered the spectator, and bribed him with all the money he had about him to keep silence, which the fellow did, until he heard of the trial by combat and the accusation of the innocent, whereupon his conscience gave him no rest until he had owned his fault, and bringing ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... delectation of his readers. These tricks resemble those feints of failure common to professional gymnasts and trapezists, purposely perpetrated with the object of magnifying in the mind of the excited spectator the difficulty ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... again. The horse of the trooper who had laughed almost leaped into the air. Only Sergeant Cassidy was communicative; he took a larger circuit in returning to his place, and managed to lean over and whisper hoarsely in the ear of a camp follower spectator, "Tell the young leddy that the torturin' divvils couldn't take the ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... opinion, to the very last trial for murder in London, I have made inquiry, and am assured that the youth now under sentence of death in Newgate for the murder of his master in Drury Lane, was a vigilant spectator of the three last public executions in this City. What effects a daily increasing familiarity with the scaffold, and with death upon it, wrought in France in the Great Revolution, everybody knows. In reference to this very question of Capital Punishment, ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... waist, the flower-like flare of her red hat, and its finials of knotted ribbon; and in the hollyhocks he had recognized a girlishness of bearing, which he evidently hoped would appeal to a fantastic sympathy in the spectator. The piece was called "Hollyhocks"; it might equally well be called "Girls," though when you had called it one or the other, it would be hard to say just what you were to do about it, especially with the impression curiously left by the picture that ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... reader from the beginning through the account of the club) are nearly quiescent. Now and then they are recalled into a momentary notice, but they do not act, or at all modify his pictures of Sir Roger or Will Wimble. They are amiably eccentric; but the Spectator in describing them, takes the station of ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... standing in her room, ready for the party. Before her stood Mrs. Spencer and Amelia Spencer and all the little Spencer girls, in an admiring semi-circle. There was another spectator. Outside, under the lilac bush, Old Lady Lloyd was standing. She could see Sylvia plainly, in her dainty dress, with the pale pink roses Old Lady Lloyd had left at the beech that day for her in her hair. Pink as they were, they were not so pink as her cheeks, ...
— Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... developing, the action continuing to the end instead of stopping short at a climax. Further, the Chorus begins to fall into a more humble position, it exercises but little influence on the great figures of the plot, being content to mirror the opinions of the interested outside spectator. Truly drama is beginning to be master of itself—"the ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... the pride of her mysticism, she had fancied herself above so commonplace a passion as love. It was a curious feature of lower humanity, which she might investigate and analyse harmlessly as a cold scientific spectator; and, in her mingled pride and purity, she used to indulge Lancelot in metaphysical disquisitions about love and beauty, like that first one in their walk home from Minchampstead, from which a less celestially innocent soul would have shrunk. She thought, forsooth, as the old proverb ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... in the character of numerous contrabands of war, and as a people who, individually, yearned for the light and life of liberty. Ages of slavery had reduced them to the lowest ebb of manhood. From that degree of degradation I have been an interested spectator of the marvelously rapid evolution of the down-trodden race. From the commencement of this evolution to the present time I have been more or less in a position to closely observe their progress. At the close of the ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... that a mere spectator, even though he be a pious spectator, should, on such occasions as these, mistake the outward indications of inward feeling. Objections will sometimes arise in persons of cooler temperament or more constitutional apathy to the enthusiasm of younger and more ardent Christians, founded altogether ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... phrase. It seems a Dublin stage manager got up a scenic play with thunder in it perfectly imitated by a diapason of bass drums. A rival got up another scenic play, to which, out of jealous pique, the inventor repaired as a spectator. To his surprise he heard his own invention from behind the scenes. He instantly exclaimed aloud, 'The rascal, he's ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... like a spectator sitting in front of a stage. Of course I have heard the people talk about him. He is a popular idol, except to his mother who seems to be afraid of him. He has moods of sadness, gloom, and Miss Conyngham told me she would wager he left a ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... windows of a great hall, the spectator catches broken glimpses of a festive company. At the head of the table, pouring out the red wine, he sees one like unto the Son of man, upon whom the eyes of all are turned. At the other end of the hall, seated high in a gallery, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... shadowy hair carelessly streaking his forehead. It appears that he spends but little time at his toilet, or he would arrange it with more taste. He seems unconscious that his features are fine, that they have a southern symmetry, clearness, regularity in their chiselling; nor does a spectator become aware of this advantage till he has examined him well, for an anxious countenance and a hollow, somewhat haggard, outline of face disturb the idea of beauty with one of care. His eyes are large, ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... toward the little creature, who looked at him with curious glances. Back and forth resounded the sweet antiphonal, and the bird hopped down a branch or two. Neither of the actors in this woodland drama removed his eyes from the other, and the spectator watched them both ...
— The Redemption of David Corson • Charles Frederic Goss
... the Olympic games is likewise a mark of the humane and peaceable man. Some, however, acquaint us, and among the rest Hermippus, that Lucurgus at first had no communication with Iphitus; but coming that way, and happening to be a spectator, he heard behind him a human voice (as he thought) which expressed some wonder and displeasure that he did not put his countrymen upon resorting to so great an assembly. He turned round immediately, to discover ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... attitude of the Abencerrages and Zegris engaged in the Eastern sport of hurling the JERID, or javelin; and at times sitting down beside her, and caressing her into silence and good humour, when the petulant or timid child chose to become tired of remaining an inactive spectator of his boisterous sport; when, on a sudden, he observed one of the panelled compartments of the leather hangings slide apart, so as to show a fair hand, with its fingers resting upon its edge, prepared, it would seem, to push it still farther back. Julian ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... children if she had been sent out of the room, so she remained; and now it was evident this could not go on. The teacher went to her father, and advised him to remove his daughter from the school, or to allow her to become a Christian. "I cannot any longer be an idle spectator of those beaming eyes, which express such a deep and earnest longing for the words of the gospel," ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... encounters among older boys; and, inasmuch as he had found himself consistently excluded from nearly all other, more peaceful pursuits and interests of these older ones, it was not unnatural that he should feel merely a spectator's interest in their fistic battles also, and that he should look upon them as he would have looked upon any other natural phenomenon—with some excitement, perhaps, but with ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Works; Jane Taylor's Works; Madame de Stael; Johnson's Rasselas; Selections from the Spectator and Rambler. Poems of Milton, Young, Dryden, Cowper, Thomson, Montgomery, ...
— A Practical Directory for Young Christian Females - Being a Series of Letters from a Brother to a Younger Sister • Harvey Newcomb
... chin, in a flowered, low-cut bodice, with blue frills, the style of 1780. The portrait was badly painted, but was probably a good likeness; there was a wonderful look of life and will, something extraordinarily living and resolute, about the face. It was not looking at the spectator; it was, as it were, turning away and not smiling; the curve of the thin nose, the regular but flat lips, the almost unbroken straight line of the thick eyebrows, all showed an imperious, haughty, fiery temper. No great effort was needed to picture that face glowing with ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... rather laughable to hear a cadet, who was expounding the theory of twilight, say, pointing to his figure on the blackboard: "If a spectator should cross this limit of the crepuscular zone he would enter ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... be the spectator of my own life-drama, to be fully conscious of the tragi-comedy of my own destiny; and, more than that, to be in the ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... opera or Der Freischutz might meet the case; for it began to be intimated to me, now that I was sufficiently clairaudient to be able to dispense almost entirely with the pencil, that his Satanic Majesty was no indifferent spectator of the preparation of the man who was about to interfere so signally with his plans and pursuits. Thereupon there began to steal over me ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... is a mere rechauff of the Barber's tale of his Fifth Brother (vol. i. 335). In addition to the authorities there cited I may mention the school reading-lesson in Addison's Spectator derived from Galland's version of "Alnaschar and his basket of Glass," the Persian version of the Hitopadesa or "Anwr-i-Suhayli (Lights of Canopes) by Husayn V'iz; the Foolish Sachali of "Indian Fairy Tales" (Miss Stokes); the allusion ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... it. Let the marriage be held down at Yoxham. Get your uncle and aunt to ask her down. Do you give her away, and let your uncle marry them. If you can put me up for a night in some neighbouring farm-house, I will come and be a spectator. It will be for your honour to treat her after that fashion." The programme was a large one, and the Earl felt that there might be ...
— Lady Anna • Anthony Trollope
... contrary, well caparisoned by their man milliner, well groomed, well curled, were a marked feature of the sparse congregation. The spectator of so many points, all made the most of, unconsciously felt with a sense of oppression that everything that could be done had been done. No ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... of shadow. Shadows of absolutely negative grey, however, may be beautifully used with white, or with gold; but still though the black thus, in subdued strength, becomes spacious, it should always be conspicuous: the spectator should notice this grey neutrality with some wonder, and enjoy, all the more intensely on account of it, the gold colour and the white which it relieves. Of all the great colourists, Velasquez is the greatest master of the black chords: his black is more precious than other people's crimson. ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... that he scarcely splashed up the water around him. Then his dark, dripping head rose in sight, his glittering arm thrust up, and he swam vigorously to shore. He climbed the rock for another dive. These actions he repeated in pure sport and joy in life so often that his little spectator became ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... the provisional governments established in Modena and the Pontifical States, as well as the dictator of Sicily himself, have claimed to be supported by the Sardinian government; and as your majesty's name is still invoked to sanction these iniquitous measures, I can no longer remain a silent spectator of such enormous injustice, but in my quality of supreme head of the order, I feel myself strictly bound to ask for justice and satisfaction, and to protest before God and man, lest the resignation inspired by religious meekness and forbearance ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... traced in the conversion of many within and without the prison; while the memory of their joyful constancy on their way to the place of execution—which rather resembled a triumphal than an ignominious procession—and in the flames, was embalmed in the heart of many a spectator.[588] ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... while others, having been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up for lights in the night time, and thus burned to death. For these spectacles Nero gave his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there the diversions of the circus; sometimes standing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a charioteer; and, at other times, driving a chariot himself; until at length these men, though really criminal, and deserving of exemplary punishment, began to be commiserated, as people who were destroyed, not out ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... most nonchalant manner imaginable, places the ball apparently under one of the thimbles, in plain view of the spectators, and offers to bet any sum that 'it isn't there.' Our friend from the country who is looking on, an interested spectator—is astonished at such a proposition, and looks upon the individual making it as little better than a fool; for didn't he see the ball placed under the thimble, and therefore must it not be there still? His idea on this point is ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... wonders of time. The drama or tragedy of evolution has had many actors, some of them fearful and terrible to look upon, who have played their parts and passed off the stage, as if the sole purpose was the entertainment of some unseen spectator. When we reach human history, what wasted effort, what failures, what blind groping, what futile undertakings!—war, famine, pestilence, delaying progress or bringing to naught the wisdom of generations of men! Those who live in this age are witnessing in the terrible European ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... Ages, have held up the mirror—distorted though it may somewhat be-to the interior of life, reflecting every object, the great and the mean the beautiful and the deformed, with their natural prominence and their vivacity of coloring, to the eye of the spectator. As a work of art, such a production may be thought to be below criticism. But, although it defy the rules of art in its composition, it does not necessarily violate the principles of taste; for it conforms ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... of the throne, occupied one side of the picture. To all these details Belasez paid no attention. The one thing at which she looked was the face of the fainting Queen, which was turned full towards the spectator. It was a very lovely face of a decidedly Jewish type. But what made Belasez glance from it to the brazen mirror fixed to the wall opposite? Was it Anegay of whom Bruno had been thinking when he murmured that she was so like some one? Undoubtedly there was a likeness. ...
— Earl Hubert's Daughter - The Polishing of the Pearl - A Tale of the 13th Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... with his finger and thumb; and I, Nancy, am reading aloud the receipt at the top of my voice, out of a greasy, dog's-eared cookery-book, which, since it came into our hands, has been the innocent father of many a hideous compound. Tou Tou alone, in consideration of her youth, is allowed to be a spectator. She sits on the edge of the table, swinging her thin legs, and kicking her ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... the freedom of conversation. 'Words are more plastic than wax' (Rep.), and may be moulded into any form. He wanders on from one topic to another, careless of the unity of his work, not fearing any 'judge, or spectator, who may recall him to the point' (Theat.), 'whither the argument blows we follow' (Rep.). To have determined beforehand, as in a modern didactic treatise, the nature and limits of the subject, would have been ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... statesmen, painters and writers—all made pilgrimages to them; while these very same stones were seen by Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Joseph, Jacob and Abraham, as well as by thousands who preceded them in history. They are awe-inspiring, and the spectator, do what he may, cannot release ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... with them, that he owns, if they were taken out of him little of himself would remain; and yet this never injured that original turn which the old Gascon has given to his thoughts. I suspect that Addison hardly ever composed a Spectator which was not founded on some quotation, noted in those three folio manuscript volumes which he previously collected; and Addison lasts, while Steele, who always wrote from first impressions and to the times, with perhaps no inferior genius, has passed away, insomuch ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... important for our immediate purposes to note: first, (as aforesaid), that the amount of license allowed author and actor increases immeasurably as we go down the scale; second, that the degree of familiarity with the audience and cognizance of the spectator's existence varies inversely as the degree of dramatic value. Thus, at one end of the scale we have, for instance, Mrs. Fiske, whose fondness for playing to the centre of the stage and ignoring the audience is commented upon as a mannerism; at the other, the ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • William Wallace Blancke
... when some particularly ingenious lie is being produced. In a way, moreover, it may be said to correspond to boxing in English universities, schools, and gymnasia. But, on the whole, the Anglo-Saxon spectator finds it difficult to understand how it can exercise any influence for good on the moral character of a youth, or determine, as the Emperor says it does, a disposition which is cowardly or weak by nature to bravery or strength, save of a momentary and merely physical kind. The Englishman ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... espada sword. espalda shoulder, back. espantar to frighten. espanto terror, horror. espantoso frightful. Espana Spain. espanol, -a Spanish. esparcir to scatter. esparrago asparagus. especialidad f. specialty. especie f. species. espectaculo spectacle. espectador m. spectator. espeler to expel. espera waiting, expectation. esperanza hope. esperanzar to inspire hope. esperar to hope, expect, wait. espeso thick. espesor m. thickness. espiritu m. spirit. espirituoso spirituous. esplendoroso splendid. esposa wife, ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... you read 'To-morrow and To-morrow, etc.' All the Macbeths I have heard took the opportunity to become melancholy when they came to this: and, no doubt, some such change from Fury and Desperation was a relief to the Actor, and perhaps to the Spectator. But I think it should all go in the same Whirlwind of Passion as the rest: Folly!—Stage Play!—Farthing Candle; Idiot, etc. Macready used to drop his Truncheon when he heard of the Queen's Death, and stand with his Mouth open for some ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald
... when it is tempted by the luxury of beauty, or fascinated by the excitement of terror. It ought not, therefore, to be without a respectful admiration that we find the masters of the fourteenth century dwelling on moments of the most subdued and tender feeling, and leaving the spectator to trace the under-currents of thought which link them with future events of mightier interest, and fill with a prophetic power and mystery scenes in themselves so simple as the meeting of a master with his herdsmen among the hills, or the return of a ...
— Giotto and his works in Padua • John Ruskin
... the king said; "have your way then. Attack Paris on all sides, hew down its towers, and make breaches in its walls; for once I will remain a spectator." ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... the world had never heard before or since, save perhaps in the temple-worship at Jerusalem. A chorus now, as you know, merely any number of persons singing in full harmony on any subject. The Chorus was then in tragedy, and indeed in the higher comedy, what Schlegel well calls "the ideal spectator"—a personified reflection on the action going on, the incorporation into the representation itself of the sentiments of the poet, as the spokesman of the whole human race. He goes on to say (and I think truly), "that the Chorus ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... hath introduced Man to be a spectator of Himself and of His works; and not a spectator only, but also an interpreter of them. Wherefore it is a shame for man to begin and to leave off where the brutes do. Rather he should begin there, and leave off where Nature leaves off in us: and that is at contemplation, ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... on purpose to assist in tormenting their enemies. We forbear to mention the various tortures inflicted on such as fell into their merciless fangs: none can be pleased with the relation of such horrid cruelties, but the man who, with a smile of satisfaction, can be the spectator of a Spanish auto de fe, or such savage hearts as are steeled against every emotion of ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... the lids so constantly dropped over the eyes were raised. For one saw in it a mingling at once of sharp observation and of distrust; it seemed to spring from some fiery source of personality, which at the very moment it revealed itself, yet warned the spectator back, and stood, half proudly, half sullenly, on the defensive. Such a look one may often see in the eyes of a poetic ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... horse lent her weight, but together they could do no more than hold their own with the fallen Vulcan. Hanson brought out a clasp-knife from his clothes, opened it and slashed at the rope. He had it almost cut through, when Brenchfield, who had been sitting on his horse an inactive and silent spectator—in response to Pederstone's urgent call, whirled his rope around his head several times and dropped it deftly over Hanson's shoulders, pinning his arms helplessly ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... persistency, and self-reliance of a nation proving that it knows how much dearer greatness is than mere power; and we own that it is impossible for us to conceive the mental and moral condition of the American who does not feel his spirit braced and heightened by being even a spectator of such qualities and achievements. That a steady purpose and a definite aim have been given to the jarring forces which, at the beginning of the war, spent themselves in the discussion of schemes which could only become operative, if at all, after the war was over; that a popular ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... scarcely able to walk; their condition is described as most deplorable. 'The abilities of a painter could rarely, perhaps, have been displayed to more advantage than in the delineation of the two groups of figures which at this time presented themselves to each other. An indifferent spectator (if such could be found) would have been at a loss which most to admire, the eyes of famine sparkling at immediate relief, or the horror of their preservers at the sight of so many spectres, whose ghastly countenances, if the cause had ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... lip raised above the white, small teeth, as though in a young wonder; yet behind its sweetness, what suggestions of a poetic or tragic sensibility! The slender neck carried the little head with girlish dignity; the clear, timid eyes seemed at once to shrink from and trust the spectator. ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... has done a great service in making Michaud's admirable work accessible to the general reader."—The Spectator. ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... many men, my fear increased, and I decided quickly—whether right or wrong—that it would not do for me to remain an idle and unarmed spectator of the retreat; and I thought, too, that it would be very hazardous to attempt to get out of this mass of men by going in a northerly or southerly direction, either of which would be taking them in line, if they could be said to have ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... and some following numbers of the Spectator appeared an advertisement of this plate, which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... of their choice,—the Republic. There was, then, question of an impious war, undertaken by a blind multitude for the profit of a few hidden ambitions: that is to say, a war without grandeur and without interest for a simple spectator. ...
— The Insurrection in Paris • An Englishman: Davy
... published, of a National Convention are always interesting, but lose much of the impression and force of actuality with which an auditor and spectator is affected. The gayety and magnetism of numbers, the scintillations of brain in special advocacy, followed by tumultuous accord. The intensity, the anxiety depicted, while results far-reaching and momentous ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... the difficulty, and presently the jam breaks, and the logs go tumbling into the main, while the vicious-looking berserker of the water runs back to the shore over the logs, safe and sound. It is a marvel to the spectator, that men should manipulate the river so. To him it is a life apart; not belonging to the life he lives -a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... some appearance of equanimity returned; she talked of the scarlet business as one she participated in as a distant spectator. Chillon's chief was hurrying the embarkation of his troops; within ten days the whole expedition would be afloat. She was to post to London for further purchases, he following to take leave of his wife and babe. Curiously, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of pillars [PLATE V. Fig. 3], portions of cornices, and specimens of a sort of diapering which seems to have been applied to screens or thin partitions. The capitals were somewhat heavy in design, and at first sight struck the spectator as barbarous; but they exhibited a good deal of ingenious boldness, an absence of conventionality, and an occasional quaintness of design not unworthy of a Gothic decorator. One especially, which combines the upper ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Many a striking phrase of "Judgment," indeed, is already written down in the paragraphs of "Mearing Stones" as actual talk heard in the roads, and several of the situations of the plays are workings-up of situations of which its author found himself a spectator on the streets of Andara or on the highway between Slieve ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... wilfulness and despised me because I am old. Blind as I am, because of my miserable plight and through paternal affection, I bore it all. I was foolish alter the thoughtless Duryodhana ever growing in folly. Having been a spectator of the riches of the mighty sons of Pandu, my son was derided for his awkwardness while ascending the hall. Unable to bear it all and unable himself to overcome the sons of Pandu in the field, and though a soldier, unwilling yet to obtain good ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to exercises requiring strength of leg and arm. The figures on the tombs represent men in lively and vigorous postures, some in attitude preliminary to leaping, others in the air. This feature of agility would be a novelty in the oriental dances of to-day; the indolent male spectator being satisfied with a slow, voluptuous movement congenial to his disposition. When, on the contrary, the performance of our prehistoric friends was governed and determined by ideas of grace, there were not infrequently from six to eight ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... a bit of the tear about it. Where had been the Nightingale's eyes? It was something at all events very like a bright, unmistakable, beautiful diamond on which the Thrush looked. How it glistened and sparkled; and that too with all the prismatic colours! The spectator could only (what was an effort to any member of the Thrush family) gaze ...
— The Story of a Dewdrop • J. R. Macduff
... picturesque rusticity looked less incongruous and more Arcadian; the young girl had lost some of her restraint with her confidences, and lounging together side by side, without the least consciousness of any sentiment in their words or actions, they nevertheless contrived to impress the spectator with the idea that they were a charming pair of pastoral lovers. So strong was this impression that, as they approached Aunt Chloe's laundry, a pretty rose-covered cottage with an enormous whitewashed barn-like extension in the rear, the black ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... statement of fact, if worded in an unfamiliar manner, will cause considerable perplexity. Here is an example, and it will doubtless puzzle some of my more youthful readers just a little. I happened to be at a motor-car race at Brooklands, when one spectator said to another, while a number of cars were whirling round and ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... suffered to destroy firmness, solidity, or weight; nor strength and weight agility; elegance did not degenerate to effeminacy, nor grandeur swell to hugeness." [Footnote: Fuseli, Lect. I.] His aim was to deceive the eye of the spectator by the semblance of reality. He painted men and things as they really appeared. He also made a great advance in coloring. He invented chiaro-oscuro. Other painters had given attention to the proper gradation of light ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... to speak; he uttered a sentence or two, waved his hand in adieu, and escaped amidst the prevailing confusion. Prentiss meanwhile was at a side window, evidently unconscious of being himself noticed, gazing upon what was passing with all the delight of the humblest spectator. Suddenly his name was announced. He attempted to withdraw from public gaze, but his friends pushed him forward. Again his name was shouted, hats and caps were thrown in the air, and he was finally compelled ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... witnesses. It is very interesting," he pursued, with his scientific smile, "to note how corrupting anything supernatural or mystical is. Such things seem mostly to happen either in the privity of people who are born liars, or else they deprave the spectator so, through his spiritual vanity or his love of the marvelous, that you can't believe a word ...
— Questionable Shapes • William Dean Howells
... lightning; three defamers of honour and reputation; namely, three men-deceiving, lascivious women, each of whom had from the chicanery of her cunning issued the diploma of turmoil to a hundred cities and countries, and in the arts of fraud they accounted Satan as an admiring spectator in the theatre of their stratagems.[FN509] One of them was sitting in the court of justice of the kazi's embrace; the second was the precious gem of the bazaar-master's diadem of compliance; and the third was the beazle and ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... have an original life of Cyprian by the deacon Pontius, the companion of his exile, and the spectator of his death; and we likewise possess the ancient proconsular acts of his martyrdom. These two relations are consistent with each other, and with probability; and what is somewhat remarkable, they are both unsullied by any ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... the stage, whence I could see the actors of my poor piece, and a portion of the audience who condemned me. I suppose the performers gave me a wide berth out of pity for me. I must say that I think I was as little moved as any spectator; and that no one would have judged from my mien that I was the unlucky hero of ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... for adventure to ardent spirits in search of excitement; and, attracted partly by my sympathy with the popular movement, and partly by that simple desire, which gives so much zest to the life of youth, of risking it on all possible occasions, I had taken an active part, chiefly as an officious spectator, in all the principal events of those stirring years. It was in the spring of 1862 that I found matters beginning to settle down to a degree that threatened monotony; and with the termination of the winter gaieties at Naples and the close of the San Carlo, I seriously bethought ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... So far from taking his escape with becoming seriousness, he amused himself by trying to feel as he would have felt if he had actually gone over the cliff. He found that his keenest emotion was a thrill of horror, as he imagined Miss Harden a possible spectator of the ridiculous evolutions performed by his person in ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... partner had changed since he last observed her, not five whole minutes before, he felt himself perfectly safe in leaving her to her own devices for awhile, while he sought more congenial occupation than that of a mere spectator ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... suppose that this wondrous stage of earth was set, and all the myriad actors on it taught to play their parts, without a spectator in view? Do you think that there is anything better for you and me to do, now and then, than to sit down quietly in a humble seat, and watch a few scenes in the drama? Has it not something to say to us, and do we not understand it best when we have ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... is decidedly staid, playing well, but not letting herself go. Emma, the tallest of all, good-natured, and enjoying herself immensely, but taking things easily. Susan, as active as a young goat and full of laughter. We joined for a game, but I was soon glad to take my place again as a spectator. ...
— Three Years in Tristan da Cunha • K. M. Barrow
... humorist takes off the mask from himself and others, and in so far as we can detach ourselves from pride and vanity, we laugh. The one who cannot thus detach himself is "hurt" by humor; the one who somehow has become a spectator of his own strivings can laugh at himself. Thus humor, in addition to becoming a compensation and a form of entertainment, is a form of self-revelation and self-understanding carried on by a peculiar technique. On the whole this technique depends ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Clarence perform there appeared week after week a little, grey, dried-up man, insignificant except for a certain happy choice of language in moments of emotion and an enthusiasm far surpassing that of the ordinary spectator. To the trained eye there are subtle distinctions between football enthusiasts. This man belonged to the comparatively small class of those who have football on ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... in a very short time I began to lift up my head, my seat was no longer uneasy, my eyes were indifferent which way they looked, or what object caught them, and before I was myself aware of the declension of Mr. Burke's powers over my feelings, I found myself a mere spectator in a public place, and looking all around it, with my opera-glass in ...
— Burke • John Morley
... ranks,—no matter, they feel that they can ride down the world: Rupert first clears the hedge,—he is always first,—then comes the captain of his lifeguard, then the whole troop "jumble after them," in a spectator's piquant phrase. The dismounted Puritan dragoons break from the hedges and scatter for their lives, but the cavalry "bear the charge better than they have done since Worcester,"—that is, now they stand it an instant, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... movement, through a whole gamut of modulations inapprehensible by sculpture. All that drapery by its partial concealment of the form it clothes, and landscape by its sympathies with human sentiment, may supply to enhance the passion of the spectator, pertains to painting. This art, therefore, owing to the greater variety of means at its disposal, and its greater adequacy to express emotion, became the ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... Hotten did not have a happy time during this visit. He had reveled in the prospect at first, for he anticipated a large increase to be derived from his purloined property; but suddenly, one morning, he was aghast to find in the Spectator a signed letter from Mark Twain, in which he was repudiated, referred to as "John Camden Hottentot," an unsavory person generally. Hotten also sent a letter to the Spectator, in which he attempted to justify himself, but it was a feeble performance. Clemens ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... nature has thrown the surface; in some parts it is so thick as to appear impenetrable, and secludes all farther view; in others, it breaks into tufts of tall timber, under which cattle feed. Here they open, as if to offer to the spectator the view of the naked lawn; in others close, as if purposely to forbid a more prying examination. Trees of large size and commanding figure form in some places natural arches; the ivy mixing with the branches, and hanging across in festoons of foliage, while on one side the lake ...
— A Tour in Ireland - 1776-1779 • Arthur Young
... cold-blooded fashion, but the matter must, of necessity, be for me something of a spectacle. It's positively exciting. But apart from that I sympathize with you, and I shall be actor, so far as I can, as well as spectator. You are a capital fellow; I believe in you and I back you. The simple fact that you appreciate my sister will serve as the proof I was asking for. All men ...
— The American • Henry James
... sometimes tempted to curse the day that had ever brought him aboard the Minnehaha. To be a silent spectator of gaieties and festivities he could not share; to be condemned to stand aloof while he saw the woman he loved petted and sought after by men of exalted position—what could be imagined more detestable to a lover without hope, without the ...
— Love, The Fiddler • Lloyd Osbourne |
