"Subtle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would help her to get ahead, for she has not been lucky in obtaining suitable employment. As Mr. Lyons says, a serious principle is involved. He has come out strong against the movement and declares that it is a direct menace to the intelligence of the plain people of the United States and a subtle invasion ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... would have produced the greatest organization of comedians that Europe or America ever saw. I don't suppose there is a comedy scene that he couldn't rehearse and play better than any of the actors who were engaged to play the parts. The subtle touches that he put into 'Lord and Lady Algy' were extraordinary. The same with 'The Counsellor's Wife,' with 'Bohemia,' and again with a play of H. V. Esmond's called 'Imprudence,' which we did. He seemed ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... flower washed clean. Out of the earth rose sweet smells of growing life, the musky fragrance of deep moss and needle-mold, and through the clean air drifted faintly the aroma of cedar and balsam and the subtle tang of unending canopies and glistening tapestries of evergreen breathing into the night. The deep forest seemed to tremble with the presence of an invisible and mysterious life—life that was still, yet wide-awake, breathing, watchful, drinking in ...
— The Country Beyond - A Romance of the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... art of the Greeks, he soon possessed himself of the great principles of classic sculpture. Then he boldly struck out his own path; his was a spirit to lead, not to follow. With the subtle Greek sense of line and form, he united an entirely new motif. In contrast to the ideal of repose which was the leading canon of the Greeks, his chosen ideal was one of action. Moreover, he invariably ...
— Michelangelo - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Master, With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... view because she was so inexperienced. It seemed to her a simple thing to go away, leaving them with the responsibilities of her future on their consciences; and it would not seem other than a simple thing till she saw life more as they did. To bring her to this degree of culture they must be subtle with her, and patient. They mustn't rush things. They mustn't let her rush them. To end the situation in such a way as to make for happiness they must end it at a point where all would be best for all concerned. For Barbara and himself nothing would be ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... this particular element in the present condition of things, because in both its aspects, as the support of our present industrial and economic system and as the efficient moulder of a fluid and unstable public opinion, it is perhaps the strongest and most subtle force of ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... the Sun," have obtained supreme power. The perfect acting of such an assumed character would not prove difficult to her, while their servile worship of the protesting Puritan, whose red hair alone had elevated him to sainthood, proved how easily these savages might be deceived, and led slaves by subtle magic. Yet who was the woman? Whence came she? Why should she ever have chosen ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... and tried colour will give a very soft and subtle daylight effect in a room, but this is, of course, lost in the evening. The expedient of an under colour in curtain linings will sometimes give delightful results in plain or unprinted goods, and sometimes a lining with a strong and bold ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... by this subtle suggestion that he was a natural-born writer, covered sheet after sheet of the paper. Dinville read it, corrected a few minor mistakes here and there, counted the words, and taking some money from ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... Mr. Arnold Bennett's play, The Honeymoon. In a previous chapter I have sketched the opening act of Mr. Carton's Wheels within Wheels, which is a typical example of this style of work. Its charm lies in a subtle, all-pervading improbability, an infusion of fantasy so delicate that, while at no point can one say, "This is impossible," the total effect is far more entertaining than that of any probable sequence ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... the great bulk of land in England after the Norman Conquest. Lastly again there was the crown land, out of which the king got his revenue. As something like this threefold system of land existed before the Conquest, a subtle change to the feudal system was comparatively easy by a mere change ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... manner that it signifies all of them, but that it must be from a meridian where several islands are found. This is the case at the islands of La Sal and Buena Vista. They repeated this with the terms a quo and ad quem, and other subtle phrases, and concluded their long writ by saying that those of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... who painted his sign, to convey into the features of the lordly brute whose effigy it bore, as near a counterpart of his own face as his skill could compass and devise,—was a gentleman almost as quick of apprehension, and of almost as subtle a wit, as the mighty John himself. But the difference between them lay in this: that whereas Mr Willet's extreme sagacity and acuteness were the efforts of unassisted nature, the Lion stood indebted, in no small amount, to beer; of which he swigged ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... little real application, he maintains an appearance of both by impositions and professions, which at a time so averse to inquiry as the present pass for facts. Lord George Germain, though cradled in England, has all the principles of a Scotchman; subtle, proud, tyrannical, and false. In consequence of his patronising the Scots, they have always been his panegyrists and his advocates, and as they are a people indefatigable in all interested pursuits, ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. IX • Various
... fluids, as we know there are, which, conscious of a coming wind, or rain, or frost, will shrink and strive to hide themselves in their glass arteries; may not that subtle liquor of the blood perceive, by properties within itself, that hands are raised to waste and spill it; and in the veins of men run cold and dull as his ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... assist the Taranaki tribe. Their Maori king having no great influence, these were placed under the command of Te Waharoa, a Maori chief of much skill and popularity. Many skirmishes took place, in which the natives, through their quickness and subtle plans, inflicted more injury than they received. But General Pratt having arrived from Sydney with fresh soldiers, and prepared to sap the pahs and blow them up, the Maoris became afraid, and Te Waharoa proposed that peace should be made, which ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... ego of the human race, The subtle serpent's lie No toilsome years can e'er efface, "Ye shall not surely die." Eve still by serpent's word beguiled, The curse on Ham that fell, Poor outcast Hagar's starving child, Cities where Lot ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... accordingly he was now encouraged, nay, enjoined, to marry. For here was an hereditary landed estate equal to the liberal maintenance of a family. And thus did a simple people, obeying its instinct of conquest, not only discover, in its earliest days, the subtle principle of Machiavel—Let war support war; but (which is far more than Machiavel's view) they made each present war support many future wars—by making it support a new offset from the population, bound to ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... in a sense it was so unexpected. Looking steadily across at her as she leaned back amongst the cushions of her chair, her dark eyes watching his face, her attitude and expression alike convincing him in some subtle way of her satisfaction at his presence, he became suddenly conscious that the time which he had dimly anticipated with mingled fear and pleasure was now close at hand. His heart was beating with a quickened ...
— Berenice • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... It brings round you many persons who are ready to say kind words to you. This subtle, potent influence of having lots of friends to help you by their actions and showing their hearts is a great blessing. It is surprising that people know so little of the ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... actions, and spirit, Do give thee five-fold blazon. Not too fast:—soft, soft! Unless the master were the man.—How now? Even so quickly may one catch the plague? Methinks I feel this youth's perfections With an invisible and subtle stealth To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... of the heart are continually intrusted. History and biography show that beautiful women, if true, gentle, and unselfish, have great power with their own sex, and almost unbounded influence over men. Your power, therefore, is subtle, penetrating, and reaches the inner life, the very warp and woof of character. If a beautiful statue can ennoble and refine, a beautiful woman can accomplish infinitely more. She can be a constant inspiration, a suggestion of the perfect life beyond ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... economical administration. Every one is aware of the multiplicity of men in municipal service. Some of these are entirely incompetent, others partly so; the recent appointees may be more efficient, but the majority of them gradually deteriorate under the subtle influence of the prevailing atmosphere, and each new incoming administration places more and more men on the work, without reason or necessity. All these tendencies have made the cost and maintenance ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... thwarted and opposed him more than once, and who was determined at any cost to keep her protegee and pet out of his clutches. And his desires had also two other stout opponents in Cardinal Fleury, his old mentor, and Maurepas, the most subtle and clever of his ministers, each of whom for different reasons was strongly averse to this new and dangerous liaison, which would make him the tool of Richelieu's ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... are having a song and dance without words," Dick was pleased sometimes to say, and felt that he hit it off. The breeze carried the scent of the tobacco in intermittent waves of fragrance, and on the air floated delicately that subtle message of peace, prosperity, and leisure which is part of the mission of a good cigar. The pleasantness of the wide, cool piazza, with its flowers and vines and gay awnings; the charm of the summer morning, not yet dulled by wear and tear of the day; the steady, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... grandson. He accordingly immolated himself at the tomb of the late emperor by way of protesting against the impropriety of leaving him without a direct heir to worship his manes. It is doubtful whether the Western mind is capable of following Wukotu's subtle reasoning; but is it not plain that he felt that he was provoking an ignominious death, and chose rather to die as a hero—the champion of ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... moment no such subtle reflections delayed my inquisitive eager mind from its immediate purpose,—who and what was this creature boasting of a secret through which I might rescue from death the life of her who was my all upon ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the first advances. Or, if he had, they had been too subtle to be observed. What woman, moreover, really believes that a man is ever guilty in the traffic of the sexes? She had, however, been compelled to notice her sister's manoeuvres. They had been ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... encouraging words, and even something more than words, which she had vouchsafed to them. A solution is impossible. The affinities, repulsions, reasons in a nature like that of Miss Leroy's are so secret and so subtle, working towards such incalculable and not-to-be-predicted results, that to attempt to make a major and minor premiss and an inevitable conclusion out of them would be useless. One thing was clear, ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... the sickly season, you may bring me some pork and beans, and some crackers. Bring plenty of crackers, landlord, for I'm uncommon fond of crackers. By absorbing the superfluous moisture in the head, they clear the brain and make it more subtle." ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... He intimates (for all practical purposes) that we do not need to. The stars are coming to us,—are already being woven in us. The author does not say it in so many words, but the general idea seems to be that the more spiritual or subtle body we are going to have, is already started in us—if we live as we should—growing like a kind of ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... power caused Marguerite to look around? What subtle power caused her to hold her breath as if oppressed with some ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... blue Slid down the might of a deceitful dream At Pallas' hest, that so the warrior-maid Might see it, and become a curse to Troy And to herself, when strained her soul to meet; The whirlwind of the battle. In this wise The Trito-born, the subtle-souled, contrived: Stood o'er the maiden's head that baleful dream In likeness of her father, kindling her Fearlessly front to front to meet in fight Fleetfoot Achilles. And she heard the voice, And all her heart ...
— The Fall of Troy • Smyrnaeus Quintus
... no poison, and I am no murderer. See, I will taste it, if thou wilt," and I held forth the subtle drink that has the power to fire the ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... with Mr. Duncan under the stars he spoke of the subtle sense of well-being and ability which came with good clothes. "I don't mind confessing I have always had something like contempt for stylish dressing," he said. "Now I almost feel that ...
— The Cow Puncher • Robert J. C. Stead
... Is the saying of the Master of the Sentences (Sent. ii, D, 3) that "those angels who were created with more subtle natures and of keener intelligence in wisdom, were likewise endowed with greater ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... apparently simple way, but with such a subtle touch of irony that Pierre fancied he could guess the truth. He knew that she really had no religious principles at all, and that she merely followed the rites and ceremonies of the Church in order that she might now and again obtain an hour's freedom; and all at once he ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... Verneuil wept and argued in vain. Jeannin was indeed too subtle an antagonist to afford her one inch of vantage-ground; and he so thoroughly undermined the reasonings which she advanced, that, wearied and discouraged, she at length consented ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... invited M. Bidard to say what amount of intelligence he had found in Helene. M. Bidard declared that he had never seen in any of his servants an intelligence so acute or subtle. He held her to be a phenomenon in hypocrisy. He put forward a fact which he had neglected to mention in his deposition. It might throw light on the character of the accused. Francoise had a dress ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... proudly first In zeal and charms, too well the Impostor nurst Her soul's delirium in whose active flame, Thus lighting up a young, luxuriant frame, He saw more potent sorceries to bind To his dark yoke the spirits of mankind, More subtle chains than hell itself e'er twined. No art was spared, no witchery;—all the skill His demons taught him was employed to fill Her mind with gloom and ecstasy by turns— That gloom, thro' which Frenzy but fiercer burns, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... ours work much mischief against God and His servants? Yet I tell you that I like it not, and cannot see the end. We English are a stiff-necked folk whom you of Spain do not understand and will never break, and Henry is strong and subtle; ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard
... them. I have no need of them. (Exit COLONEL.) (Goes to the crown lying on the table.) What subtle potency lies hidden in this gaudy bauble, the crown,[7] that makes one feel like a god when one wears it? To hold in one's hand this little fiery coloured world, to reach out one's arm to earth's uttermost limit, to girdle ...
— Vera - or, The Nihilists • Oscar Wilde
... entirely without ornaments, and with hair and beard uncombed and sprinkled lightly with ashes. Marcia stared in wonder. Surely this could not be the Carthaginian method of announcing judgment or execution! She caught a flash of subtle lightning from the eyes of Iddilcar, though these had not seemed to neglect for a moment their close scrutiny of the pavement. Then Hannibal stood before her, bowing low and speaking ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... his talk, and started as if he had been stung. Some subtle influence stole over him like the perfumed mist of incense—he leaned back in his chair and half closed his eyes. What was the stealthy, creeping magnetic power that like an invisible hand touched his brain and pulled at his memory, and forced him to see before him a small elf-like figure clad in ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... be about forty, had features of a different cast, yet Italian, and his look was slow, subtle and penetrating; his eyes, of a dark grey, were small, and hollow; his complexion was a sun-burnt brown, and the contour of his face, though inclined to ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... and most exalted feeling. He had the one failing, however, of being easily led—and there are so many persons to lead astray in Ottawa city, and so many places to lead to, that it takes a very strong arm or a very eloquent voice or a very subtle influence to counteract the effect of evil company on one we love. Honor could not encourage thoughts of distrust towards Guy. The memory of their happy friendship always stood between her and her censure of him, but still she could not cancel the thoughts of all he might have ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... his comrades that night Dorn reverted from old habit, and with a passionate eloquence he told all he had seen and heard, and much that he had felt. His influence on these young men, long established, but subtle and unconscious, became in that hour a tangible fact. He stirred them. He felt them thoughtful and sad, and yet more unflinching, stronger and keener for ...
— The Desert of Wheat • Zane Grey
... San Francisco—that city-personality which transcends the opal hills and rare amber sunlight, festivals, and the transplanted Italian hill-town of Telegraph Hill, liners sailing out for Japan, and memories of the Forty-niners. It was too subtle a spirit, too much of it lay in human life with the passion of the Riviera linked to the strength of the North, for them to be able to comprehend its spell.... But regarding their own ambitions to do, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... the monarchy of Alexander. To keep down his ambitious designs, it was important to give him employment at home; and Ptolemy, who knew how to make admirable use of such fiery spirits as the Epirot youth in the prosecution of his subtle policy, not only met the wishes of his consort queen Berenice, but also promoted his own ends, by giving his stepdaughter the princess Antigone in marriage to the young prince, and lending his aid and powerful influence to support the return of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... remarked, "becomes clearer to me. You are either the most ingenuous person I ever met, or the most subtle. Tell me, is it a personal ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... course not. This sort of thing doesn't result in such a manifestation. This is something much more subtle than mere, gross hypnotism." ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... for it. Lady Dauntrey had Mrs. Collis on her hands, and looked sombrely discontented. But she waked up at sight of Mary. The long, pale eyes between black fringes followed the blue and silver-gold figure with silent interest. Then the handsome face became subtle and greedy. ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... warned, while it is yet time; wrap not yourself in these paltry sophistries; look back to your past career; see to what heights you might have climbed, if with those rare gifts and energies, with that subtle sagacity and indomitable courage—your ambition had but chosen the straight, not the crooked, path. Pause! many years may yet, in the course of nature, afford you time to retrace your steps, to atone to thousands the injuries you have inflicted on the few. I know not why I thus address ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... physiologically and psychologically through the common inheritance of the race. If we have abandoned torture and painful punishments for adults, while they are retained for children, it is because we have not yet seen that their soul life so far as a greater and more subtle capacity for suffering is concerned has made the same progress as that of adult mankind. The numerous cases of child suicide in the last decade were often the result of fear of corporal punishment; or have taken place ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... of all this: one of them Nick's general hatred of talking of his private affairs (a reluctance in which he and Peter were well matched); and the other a truth involving more of a confession—the subtle truth that the most definite and even most soothing result of the collapse of his engagement was, as happened, an unprecedented consciousness of freedom. Nick's observation was of a different sort from his cousin's; he noted much less the signs ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... sense to all questions, whether of politics, theology, or philology. Such men as Belknap and Hazard looked with disdain upon him; they felt rather than said that Webster was not one of them. So, when living in Hartford, Webster was not identified with the circle of Hartford wits. His mind was not subtle or graceful; he had not the faculty of creating, nor, so far as I can discover, of appreciating literature; but he had an uncommonly active manufacturing mind, and in his intellectual workshop he made, as he said of his average ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... which, like the fabled "Lorelei," weaves a mystic spell about the wanderer whom she has loved and taken to her heart, while yet he feels it not. And when he would cast her off and return to his own again she knows full well that her subtle charm will ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... seem so. Eyes, mouth, face, instinct with some subtle and thrilling emotion. As gay Tom Russell looked, he involuntarily stretched out his hand, as one would put it between another and some danger of which that other is unaware, and remembered what he had once said in talking ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... the subtle phrasing of the second line this poem is noteworthy because it is cast in the classic form. All the best Limericks are about a young man, or else an old one, who said some short sharp monosyllable in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... addition to the choir and the double-bass players. And not a window was open. At that date it had not occurred to people that fresh air was not a menace to existence. The whole congregation was sweltering, and rather enjoying it; for in some strangely subtle manner perspiration seemed to be a help to religious emotion. Scores of women were fanning themselves; and among these was a very stout peony-faced woman of about forty in a gorgeous yellow dress and a red-and-black bonnet, with a large boy and a small girl under one arm, and a large boy and ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... uncommon on such occasions, one of the parties got a little warm in the course of the discussion, for Deerslayer met all the arguments and prevarication of his subtle opponent with his own cool directness of manner, and unmoved love of truth. What an elephant was he knew little better than the savage, but he perfectly understood that the carved pieces of ivory must have some such value in the eyes of an Iroquois as a bag of gold or a package of beaver ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... softly. Then he made his great effort against this second and far more subtle attack. With the same agony which he had known years earlier, he resolutely summoned a bitter memory, sat nursing once more a broken thing which died in pain he could not ease, aware himself of every moment of that pain. And ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... without forgetting the broad sunlight, nor how to keep habitually close to visible and palpable fact while eagerly addicted to speculation. His contemplations were perhaps somewhat too near the ground; they led him into none of those sublimer regions of subtle feeling where the rarest human spirits have loved to travel; we do not think of his mind among those ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... of the Nuns. I shudder at the idea of young ladies going into a Convent; and also at parents who send their children to be educated in a Nunnery; where their daughters are entrapped by the Nuns into the snare of the Priests, with whom they are accomplices, and for whom the most subtle of them are decoys, whose feigned sanctity is only a cover for the satanic arts of which they are complete mistresses, and by which, through the delusions of the mother of harlots, being buried alive within the walls of a Convent, they 'drink of the wine of her fornication,' until ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... of course, was the basis of a bitter quarrel. The hot-heads would not listen to subtle distinctions; they declared that Norwood was accusing the movement of corruption, he was making out his anti-war opponents to be villains! He was providing the capitalist press with ammunition. For shame! for shame! "He's a stool-pigeon!" ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... not run away from town to avoid him, ... indeed not, ... her pilgrimage was her own affair. And Langham would very quickly divine her pious impulse in coming here.... And he would doubtless respect her for it.... Perhaps have the subtle tact to pack up his traps and leave.... But probably not.... She knew a little about Langham, ... an obstinate and typical man, ... doubtless selfish to the core, ... cheerfully, ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... honorable circumstance of the character of Valentinian, is the firm and temperate impartiality which he uniformly preserved in an age of religious contention. His strong sense, unenlightened, but uncorrupted, by study, declined, with respectful indifference, the subtle questions of theological debate. The government of the Earth claimed his vigilance, and satisfied his ambition; and while he remembered that he was the disciple of the church, he never forgot that he was the sovereign of the clergy. Under ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... impossible for them to hope to sail their vessel into the harbor of Puerto Bello, and to attack the Spanish vice-admiral where he lay in the midst of the armed flota; wherefore, if anything was to be accomplished, it must be undertaken by some subtle design rather than by open-handed boldness. Having so prefaced what he had to say, he now declared that it was his purpose to take one of the ship's boats and to go in that to Puerto Bello, trusting for some opportunity to occur to aid him either in the accomplishment ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... only amid the complexities of such motives as sway a pure heart in trouble was he quite at a loss. This confession of untruthfulness might on the face of it have spoken in Adela's favour; but his very understanding of that made him seek for subtle treachery. She saw he suspected her; was it not good policy to seem perfectly frank, even if such frankness for the moment gave a strengthening to suspicion? What devilish ingenuity might after all be concealed in this woman, whom he had ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... conscription and barracks. Even the noblest series of reprints ever planned (not at all cheap, either, nor heterogeneous in matter), the Tudor Translations, faintly annoys me in the mass. Its appearances in a series seems to me to rob a book of something very delicate and subtle in the aroma of its individuality—something which, it being inexplicable, I ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... rested their greatest hopes on his wisdom, since he had devised the whole of such an achievement with the deepest cunning, and accomplished it with the most astonishing contrivance. Many could have been seen marvelling how he had concealed so subtle a plan over so long ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... chains, because I was changing as I probed deeper into life and thought, and saw my dreams of influencing English Judaism fading in the harsh daylight of fact. And yet at moments the iron links would soften to flowers again. Do you think there is no sweetness in adulation, in prosperity—no subtle cajolery that soothes the conscience and coaxes the soul to take its pleasure in a world of make-believe? Spiritual statesmanship, forsooth!" He made a gesture of resolution. "No, the Judaism of you English weighs upon my spirits. It is so parochial. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... which this animal machine supports. The slightest frailties of conscience are perceptible to him. From the portress Cibot to the Marquise d'Espard, not one of his women has an evil thought that he does not fathom. With what art, comparable to that of Stendhal, or Laclos, or the most subtle analysts, does he note —in The Secrets of a Princess—the transition from comedy to sincerity! He knows when a sentiment is simple and when it is complex, when the heart is a dupe of the mind and when of the senses. And through it all he hears his characters speak, he ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... Gilmore was quickly conscious of the subtle encouragement she extended him. She understood him, she saw into his soul, she divined his passion for her and she was not shocked by it. In his unholy musings he told himself that here was a woman who was dead game—and a lady, too, with all the pretty ways and refinements ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... powers of modern times is the Press; it commands the resources of space and time; it affects in a thousand subtle ways the form of our thoughts. It controls the exchange of news throughout the world. Unfortunately the press is often controlled by exploiters of the "living powers of the dead," and so what is presented as news is ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning in everything, so he frowned and did ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... own work or by the employment of a "Fire Artist." Although seldom presenting it in his recent performances, Ching Ling Foo is a fire-eater of the highest type, refining the effect with the same subtle artistry that marks all ...
— The Miracle Mongers, an Expos • Harry Houdini
... "But how can you," said the principal, "with your superior education and intelligence, reconcile yourself thus to halt between two opinions, and submit to the inconsistency of professing an equal belief in two conflicting religions?" "Do you see," replied the subtle chief, laying his hand on the arm of the other, and directing his attention to a canoe, with a large spar as an outrigger lashed alongside, in which a fisherman was just pushing off upon the lake, "do ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... may be placed CESARE DI RIPA, who is the author of an Italian work, translated into most European languages, the Iconologia; the favourite book of the age, and the fertile parent of the most absurd offspring which Taste has known. Ripa is as darkly subtle as Venius is obvious; and as far-fetched in his conceits as the other is literal. Ripa represents Beauty by a naked lady, with her head in a cloud; because the true idea of beauty is hard to be conceived! Flattery, by a lady with a flute in her hand, and a stag ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... beads, A subtle disputant on creeds, His dotage trifled well: Yet better had he neither known A bigot's shrine nor ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... their families' prosperity on the ruins of the social edifice, on the misery and degradation of thousands? But it is useless to enlarge on this topic: ministers will not allow their judgments to be warped by the subtle representations of this faction. In organizing that new constitution for this colony, of which every motive of humanity and policy conspires to demonstrate the necessity, they will be actuated solely by those principles ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... temporizing. Nick was not a subtle person, and I was ready to follow him at great length in the praise of Antoinette. "I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... bare conjecture, builded on per-haps.[54] In laying thus the blame upon the moon, Thou imitat'st subtle Pythagoras Who, what he would the people should believe, The same he wrote with blood upon a glass, And turn'd it opposite 'gainst the new moon, Whose beams, reflecting on it with full force, Show'd all those ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... extremities. From this it therefore results, that boys procreated by intelligent women will be intelligent, and that girls procreated by fathers of talent will inherit their mental capacity. The mothers of a nation, though unseen and unacknowledged in the halls of legislation, determine in this subtle manner the character of ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... so many doors these days! He was so constant a guest in the houses of relatives and friends that those who had merely shaken him by the hand, those on whom he had smiled, and whom he, still smiling, had passed indulgently by, looked on him with that subtle contempt born of familiarity, shrugged their shoulders at his passage, and envisaged his probable visit on ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... to convince men of the truth, or to lead them to think aright. The subtle human intellect can weave its mists over even the clearest vision. Remember that it is eccentric enough to ask unanimity from a jury; but to ask it from any large number of men on any point of political faith is amazing. You can hardly get two ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... had changed him in certain subtle ways. He had less to say than formerly, did not mention Barber, did not ask after Cis, and jiggled one foot constantly, as if he were on the point of again jumping up and taking flight. Father Pat gone, ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... ANTIQUARIAN, AND PICTURESQUE TOUR." Behold me, therefore, at VIENNA, the capital of Austria: once the abode of mighty monarchs and renowned chieftains: and the scene probably of more political vicissitudes than any other capital in Europe. The ferocious Turk, the subtle Italian, and the impetuous Frenchman, have each claimed Vienna as their place of residence by right of conquest; and its ramparts have been probably battered by more bullets and balls than were ever discharged at ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... that's twice a captive! heart And body both in bonds. But that's the chain, Which balance cannot weigh, rule measure, touch Define the texture of, or eye detect, That's forged by the subtle craft of love! No need to tell you that he wears it. Such The cunning of the hand that plied the loom, You've but to mark the straining of his eye, ...
— The Hunchback • James Sheridan Knowles
... offered chair and exchanged a few words with Claire as she gathered together her possessions, but the subtle change persisted. Claire felt vaguely disturbed, but the next half-hour passed so pleasantly that she had no time to puzzle over the explanation. Captain Fanshawe never left her side; they sat together on the ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... think we might hit on something more subtle," Darsie ruminated, with her eyes on the ceiling. Her reputation of being the Newnham belle remained unchallenged after two separate incursions ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... and Aristophanes, that elder school of comedy, which remains not only unsurpassed, but unapproachable, save by Rabelais alone, as the ideal cloudland of masquerading wisdom, in which the whole universe goes mad—but with a subtle method in its madness. ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... the night, he thought about money, and yet he had escaped the spiritual corruption which the ceaseless pursuit of wealth had produced in the other rich men whom Gabriella met in his house. It was as if some subtle alchemy in his soul had transmuted the baser qualities into the pure gold of character; and sometimes the girl wondered if the fact that he worked not for himself but for others had preserved him from the grosser contamination of money. For he seemed to think of himself so ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... guarded sexual cells—the winged kings and queens, which from time to time, exactly as in isolated organisms, are thrown off to propagate, and to found new nests. They, no less than the workers, are parts of something more subtle than the visible Attas and their material nest. Whether I go to the ant as sluggard, or myrmocologist, or accidentally, via Pterodactyl Pups, a day spent with them invariably leaves me with my ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... this subtle analysis of the royal person, and the learned graduation of the formulas which corresponded to it, could transform the Nome chief, become by conquest suzerain over all other chiefs and king of all Egypt, into a living god here below, the all-powerful son and successor of the gods; but the divine ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the Swallow-Tails is the illustration it affords of the rigidity with which every class or grade in civilization treats its own social conventions, whatever they may be, as final, and as having some subtle but necessary connection with morals. When the Indian squats round the tribal pot in his breech-clout, and eats his dinner with his dirty paw, he is fully satisfied that he is as well equipped, both as regards ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... was to you Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly, And silence, against which you dare not cry, Aches round you like a strong disease and new,— What hope, what help, what music will undo That silence to your sense? Not friendship's sigh, Not reason's subtle count.... Nay, none of these! Speak, Thou availing Christ!—and fill ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... can often, though not always, escape responsibility for their acts by claiming loyalty to the goal—often, no doubt, in all sincerity; for goals, ideals, doctrines, and sentiments, like the human conscience, are generally highly flexible and subtle things. ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... replaced him as minister of general police; and I noticed that his presence at headquarters was a great surprise to every one, as he was thought to be in complete disgrace. Those who seek to explain the causes of the smallest events think that his Majesty's idea was to oppose the subtle expedients of the police under M. Fouche to the then all-powerful police of the Baron de Stein, the armed head of all the secret parties which were forming in every direction, and which were regarded, not without reason, as ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... there are who deem themselves most free When they within this gross and visible sphere Chain down the wingd thought, scoffing ascent, Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat 30 With noisy emptiness of learned phrase, Their subtle fluids, impacts, essences, Self-working tools, uncaused effects, and all Those blind Omniscients, those Almighty Slaves, Untenanting ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge |
