"Superficial" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Worse—surpass all that the author had hitherto produced in depth of conception and brilliancy of execution. The marriage of that delightful, profane old sea-dog, Jacob Worse, with the pious Sara Torvestad, and the attempts of his mother-in-law to convert him, are described not with the merely superficial drollery to which the subject invites, but with a sweet and delicate humor which trembles on the verge of pathos.—From ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... shore is washed by the Caribbean Sea, which is also here and there interspersed with small islands of little importance. One hundred and fifty miles due south lies the British island of Jamaica, with a superficial area of over four thousand square miles. Still further to the eastward, on the other side of Hayti, lies Porto Rico (like Cuba a Spanish possession), and the two groups of islands known as the Leeward and Windward isles. These are of various nationalities, including English, ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... the work of exposition do not fall into foolish and ignorant hands. It must be remembered that there are very few men capable of understanding both the sacred Scriptures and science, and that there are many with a superficial knowledge of the Scriptures and with no knowledge of science who would fain arrogate to themselves the power of decreeing upon all questions of nature. As St. Jerome writes: "The talking old woman, the dotard, the garrulous sophist, all venture upon, lacerate, teach, before ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... not seen directly that we were not relations? but I see how it is; I pity you, poor imperfect being with only two eyes and one mouth, and no trunk," answered the fly. "It is natural that thou hast only a superficial knowledge. This little upstart who devours the sugar as if he did not mean to leave any of it for any one else, this little person, who has but a few minutes ago escaped from his shell, yet hanging ...
— Piccolissima • Eliza Lee Follen
... possible for my pen to consecrate him to never-dying fame, I could undertake no task more grateful to my heart. His judgment was penetrating and manly, totally unmixed with imbecility and confusion, while at the same time there was such an uncontending frankness in his countenance, that a superficial observer would have supposed he must have been the prey of the first plausible knavery that was practised against him. Great reason have I to remember him with affection! He was the most ardent, I had almost said the last, of my friends. ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... we live, admirableness of character is the fundamental essential, and in order to achieve a position of importance, personality is also essential; but for the transient impression that we make at home, abroad, everywhere in public, two superficial attributes are alone indispensable: good ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... all generations, is shallow, superficial, unfruitful? That was a crotchet of the late S. T. Coleridge's; that was a crotchet of the present W. Wordsworth's, but which we will venture to guess that he has now somewhat modified since this generation has become just to himself. No; as to the multitude, in no age can it be other than ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. II (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... recovered and walks with only a slight limp. Hudson, who developed bronchitis and hip disease, was practically well again when the party was rescued. All trace of the severe frost-bites suffered in the boat journey had disappeared, though traces of recent superficial ones remained on some. All were naturally weak when rescued, owing to having been on such scanty rations for so long, but all were alive and very cheerful, ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... heart; and that whenever you analyzed the power that was behind those little groups you have found that it was not the power of public opinion, but some private influence, hardly to be discerned by superficial scrutiny, that had put those men there ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... which, according to our age and inclination, we tell our tales, or draw our pictures, or compose our songs. It is a very great error, and one unknown before our most recent corruptions, that the religious spirit should be so superficial and so self-conscious as to dominate our method of action at special times and to be absent at others. It is better occasionally to travel in one way or another to some beloved place (or to some place ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... You would have enjoyed London if you had had the courage to brave its superficial gloom. Where did you spend ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... that of the senses, the eye is the most superficial, the ear the most arrogant, smell the most voluptuous, taste the most superstitious and fickle, touch the most profound and ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... modern languages in a girl's education does not appear on the surface, and it requires more than a superficial, conversational knowledge to reap the fruit of their study. The social, and at present the commercial values are obvious to every one, and of these the commercial value is growing very loud in its assertions, and appears very exacting in its demands. ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... Superficial Reflexes—Abdominal reflex present. Epigastric reflex absent. Cremasteric reflex, active both sides. No Oppenheim reflex. No Babinski reflex. Plantar reflex: right markedly heightened; ...
— The Attempted Assassination of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt • Oliver Remey
... certain piece of evidence which, being a matter-of-fact man, I should like to explain to the reader, before we get on any farther. In order, however, to do this effectually, I must go back to an earlier period in the history than has been yet called to his attention. I make no doubt, that by the superficial and impatient novel-reader, certain portions of what has gone before, and which could not fail of attracting the attention of long-headed people, as not likely to have been thrown in for nothing, (and therefore requiring to be ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... as Michael, but, nevertheless, he was distinctly good to look at, and the half-brothers, in spite of the fifteen years' difference between their ages, bore a certain superficial resemblance to each other. Wentworth was of middle height, lightly and leanly built, with a high bridge on a rather thin nose, and with narrow, clean grey eyes under light eyelashes. He looked as if he had been made up of different shades of one colour. His light brown ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... if the opportunity I had long looked for and confidently expected had come,—the opportunity of placing Wan Lee under gently restraining influences, of subjecting him to a life and experience that would draw out of him what good my superficial care and ill-regulated kindness could not reach. Wan Lee was placed at the school of a Chinese missionary,—an intelligent and kind-hearted clergyman, who had shown great interest in the boy, and who, better than ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... that I unavoidably knew of more eases of lapse in highly respectable families in one State than ever came to my knowledge at home; and that they were got over with a disgrace far more temporary and superficial than they could have been visited ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... notice; when he describes the specific disease engendered in the atmosphere by which his characters are surrounded; when, to borrow a lawyer's phrase, he condescends to particulars, then it is that close and intimate acquaintance with the scenes and persons he describes is requisite; and that a superficial critic falls, at every step into errors the most glaring and ridiculous. There are many passages of this description in Gil Blas to which we shall presently allude; in the mean time let us follow the advice of Count Hamilton, and begin with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... of to-day, or the stage-struck young person who responds to the glitter and glare, the applause and the superficial charm of the theatrical world, listen to Miss Morris's story of "Life on the Stage," and realize that laurels only crown untiring effort, success only comes after patient labor, and great emotional ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... Europe. They think if they can just come over here and sing for an artist, that fact alone will give them prestige in America. But that gives them quite the opposite reputation over here. American girls are too often looked upon as superficial, because they come over here quite unprepared. I say to all of them, as I say to you: Go home and study; there are plenty of good teachers of voice and piano in your own land. Then, when you can sing, come over ...
— Vocal Mastery - Talks with Master Singers and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... enable them to continue living by that trade—as if they were fixed there by some decree of Providence—is one of the most perverse and difficult to deal with in political economy. The assertion of any principle ruling to the contrary purpose, seems to the multitude of superficial thinkers as a kind of cruelty to the persons, the severity of the natural law being, by an easy slide of thought, laid to the charge of the mere philosopher who detects and announces its operation. In reality, those are the cruel people who would contentedly see a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 445 - Volume 18, New Series, July 10, 1852 • Various
... Lake Moero. Tracing this lake, which is about sixty miles in length, to its southern head, he found a river, called the Luapula, entering it from that direction. Following the Luapula south, he found it issue from the large lake of Bangweolo, which is nearly as large in superficial area as the Tanganika. In exploring for the waters which discharged themselves into the lake, he found that by far the most important of these feeders was the Chambezi; so that he had thus traced the Chambezi from its source to Lake ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... preliminaries to the metamorphosis are completed, when the passage of escape is bored and furnished with its lid of superficial membrane, the female Chalcidian arrives in a busy mood. She inspects the peas, still on the vine, and enclosed in their pods; she auscultates them with her antennae; she discovers, hidden under the general envelope, the weak points ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... Lower California varies from thirty to one hundred and fifty miles in width, a superficial extent almost equal to that of Great Britain; and yet on account of its barrenness, never will, from the products of the soil, maintain five hundred thousand people in a state of comfort, ordinarily found in the civilized condition. Every few years tornadoes sweep ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... events now under narration Felix Babylon had had them newly installed with every device and patent that the ingenuity of two continents could supply. They covered nearly an acre of superficial space. ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... we suffer most acutely, could never be revealed to others; still more could never be understood, if it were revealed; and still more ought never to be repeated, if it could be understood. Therefore, the frankest and fullest biography must necessarily be superficial. ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... person best fitted to expound rules and methods for the carrying on of his particular branch of endeavor. I have rather avoided looking the matter up for fear it might not turn out to be so after all. But doesn't it sound as if it ought to be? And isn't a superficial glance about rather confirmatory? We do not—so far as I know—find that Shakspere or Milton or Tennyson or Whitman ever gave out rules and regulations for the writing of poetry; that Michael Angelo or Raphael was addicted to formulating instructive matter as ...
— How to Write a Play - Letters from Augier, Banville, Dennery, Dumas, Gondinet, - Labiche, Legouve, Pailleron, Sardou, Zola • Various
... turns, his spirit; inserts a syrupy air in the style of Haendel or Mehul in the first act; and jumbles Mozart with modern comic-opera waltzes, Haendel with post-Wagnerian incantations. And like Hofmannsthal's libretto, the score remains a superficial and formless thing. The inner and coherent rhythm, the spiritual beat and swing, the great unity and direction, are wanting. "I have always wanted to write an opera like Mozart's, and now I have done it," Strauss is reported to have said after the first performance of "Der Rosenkavalier." ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... ceded the whole country from Lake Winnipeg to the Rocky Mountains, and from the international boundary to the District of Athabasca. But there remained in native hands still that vast northern anticlinal, which differs almost entirely in its superficial features from the prairies and plains to the south; and it was this region, enormous in extent and rich in economic resources, which, it was decided by Government, should now be placed by treaty at the disposal of the Canadian people. To this end it was determined that at Lesser ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... he gave his entire mind with as perfect oblivion of self as the most heroic sufferer for principle. The faculty which in Gladstone, the statesman, applied to realities and inspired only by the desire to discover the truth and to clothe it in language, assumes, in the minds of superficial observers, the air of casuistry from the nicety of its distinctions and the earnest desire of the speaker to present truth in its finest shades— in Follett, the advocate, applied indiscriminately to the development ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews
... had powerful interests. During his last year at school he came in for an estate of two hundred serfs, and as almost all of us were poor he took up a swaggering tone among us. He was vulgar in the extreme, but at the same time he was a good-natured fellow, even in his swaggering. In spite of superficial, fantastic and sham notions of honour and dignity, all but very few of us positively grovelled before Zverkov, and the more so the more he swaggered. And it was not from any interested motive that they grovelled, but ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... some skill in mining; but their ability to mine was certainly very limited. Gold and silver were collected by washing the sands. We do not know how copper was mined; the probabilities are that this was done in a very superficial way. Whenever, by chance, they discovered a vein of copper, they probably worked it to an easy depth, and then abandoned it. M. Charney speaks of one such locality, discovered in 1873. In this case they had made an opening ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... design and character, by the aid of philosophical studies; so the Venetian masters were equally indebted to the like studies, without which, they would never have reached their admirable system of colouring. If any have conceived otherwise, they have taken a very superficial view of their system. Where is there greater science concerned than in the whole theory of colours? It employed the investigation of Newton; and shall that pass for a common or easy attainment which took up so much of his profound studies? The Venetian masters had been long working ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... Spanish, Portuguese, and French expansion in Asia and the New World, and the relative success of English expansion therein? Was it the mere hazards of war which gave to Great Britain the domination of India and half of the New World? That is surely a superficial reading of history. It was, rather, that the methods and processes of Spain, Portugal, and France were military, while those of the Anglo-Saxon world were commercial and peaceful. Is it not a commonplace that in India, quite as much as in the New ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... hand is apt to cut through the outermost coat of the artery at the wrist (radial) and thus to cause a local weakening of the tube which is gradually followed by dilatation. Also when an artery is wounded and the wound in the skin and superficial structures heals, the blood may escape in to the tissues, displacing them, and by its pressure causing them to condense and form the sac-wall. The coats of an artery, when diseased, may be torn by a severe strain, the blood escaping into the condensed ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... had been gratified, and there was nothing to do but appreciate and enjoy the fact. After all, Harry's father must have more paternal affection than her husband had ever given him credit for; for even on the most superficial acquaintance one could see that any adaptation of his life and tastes to those of a child would have to come with creaking difficulty to the stock broker, and the fact of Jewel's ease with him told an eloquent story of ...
— Jewel's Story Book • Clara Louise Burnham
... attention has been paid to the results connected with the breaking up of the geological winter and the final disappearance of the ice. I believe that the true explanation of the presence of a large part of the superficial deposits lately ascribed to the agency of the sea, during temporary subsidences of the land, will be found in the melting of the ice-fields. To this cause I would refer all those deposits which I have designated in former publications as remodelled drift. When the sheet of ice, extending from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... Sophia observed a fault in the daily conduct of the house, her first impulse was to go to the root of it and cure it, her second was to leave it alone, or to palliate it by some superficial remedy. Unperceived, and yet vaguely suspected by various people, the decline of the Pension Frensham had set in. The tide, having risen to its highest, was receding, but so little that no one could be sure that it had turned. Every ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... an exceedingly well-read person, and that she knew many authors—even poets—with whom he had the slightest acquaintance. Most of the people whom he met talked idle nonsense to him, as though their main object was to pass the time, or else they aired a superficial knowledge of the uppermost thoughts and theories of the day, gleaned as a rule from the cheap primers and magazine articles in which a bustled age is content to study its science, art, economy, politics, and religion. But here was a woman who had been a voracious reader, who had gone to the fountain-head ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... to hire three woodsmen to accompany him. By their help he built a log hut, and established a camp on the land, and then began his explorations, mapping down his survey as he went along, noting the timber, and the lay of the land, and making superficial observations as ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... who had won his spurs in the wholesale coal trade, she was of good seventeenth-century attorney blood, a county family, and distantly related to Aunt Mollie's deceased curate. She was the social leader of Morningside Park, and in her superficial and euphuistic way an extremely kind and pleasant woman. With her lived a Mrs. Pramlay, a sister of the Morningside Park doctor, and a very active and useful member of the Committee of the Impoverished Gentlewomen's Aid Society. Both ladies were on easy and friendly terms with all ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... and anon two intruders are stealing about the floor, with muffled cries when they meet unexpectedly. They find the switch and are revealed as Purdie and his Mabel. Something has happened to them as they emerged from the wood, but it is so superficial that neither notices it: they are again in the evening dress in which they had left the house. But they are still being led by that strange humour of ...
— Dear Brutus • J. M. Barrie
... to appear more and more of a task. Paris must be full of churches; to visit each of them in turn would take weeks at least. Hephzy had given me three days. I must join her at Interlaken in three days or there would be trouble. And how was I to make even the most superficial search ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... a number of houses were completely wrecked, fourteen thousand chimneys were toppled over, and in all the city scarcely a building was left without serious injury. In the vicinity of Charleston railways were twisted and trains derailed. Fissures opened in the loose superficial deposits, and in places spouted water mingled with sand ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... Copperhead members of both the Houses have been very prolific and scientific about the inferiority of race. Pretty specimens of superiority are they, with their sham, superficial, at hap-hazard gathered, unvaluable small information, with their inveterate prejudices, with their opaque, heavy, unlofty minds! Give to any Africo-American equal chances with these props of darkness, and he very speedily will assert over them an unquestionable superiority. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... On a superficial view the most obvious feature of this strenuous period was that all the remaining unexploited regions of the world were either annexed by one or other of the great Western states, or were driven to adopt, with greater or less success, the modes ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... that moment, and the group politely wavered between duty and inclination. Temperley and Miss Du Prel strolled off together, his vast height bent deferentially towards her. This air of deference proved somewhat superficial. Miss Du Prel found that his opinions were of an immovable order, with very defined edges. In some indescribable fashion, those opinions partook of the general elegance of his being. Not for worlds would he have harboured an exaggerated ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... the rank of Augustus among contemporary sovereigns, when we consider merely the superficial extent of the countries placed within the range of his jurisdiction. His subjects probably formed more than one-third of the entire population of the globe, and amounted to about one hundred millions of souls.[Endnote ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... he exclaimed. "It has the same outward effect as an attack of heart-disease would produce, to a superficial examination. Miss Lawton, how did ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... king-maker was, to a superficial observer, such as might gratify to the utmost the ambition and the pride of man. He had driven from the land one of the most gorgeous princes and one of the boldest warriors that ever sat upon a throne. He had changed a dynasty without a blow. In the alliances of his daughters, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must certainly be allowed, that nature has kept us at a great distance from all her secrets, and has afforded us only the knowledge of a few superficial qualities of objects; while she conceals from us those powers and principles on which the influence of those objects entirely depends. Our senses inform us of the colour, weight, and consistence of bread; but neither sense nor reason ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al
... considerable extent from similar marauders, a British commission visited the Russian islands and took testimony of the Russian commandant in a manner grossly unfair. This commandant was an honest man, with good powers of observation and with considerable insight into the superficial facts of seal life, but without adequate scientific training; his knowledge of English was very imperfect, and the commission apparently led him to say and sign just what they wanted. He was somehow made to say just ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... committing myself, mark you, Sir Thomas, to any statement whatever, beyond the observation that these coincidences were noticeable. I add, with superficial irrelevance, that Dr. Herrick ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... the outside a supply of energy in the form of food, and substances formed as the result of the intracellular chemical activity must be removed. In the case of many animals it seems as though the necessity of a fluid environment for living matter did not apply, for the superficial cells of the skin have no fluid around them; these cells, however, are dead, and serve merely a mechanical or protective purpose. All the living cells of the skin and all the cells beneath this have ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... time he was called to see her she was suffering with what was called "green-sickness." The girl had never menstruated regularly or freely. The right mamma was quite well developed, flaccid, the nipple prominent, and the superficial veins larger and more tortuous than usual. The patient stated that the right mamma had always been larger than the left. The areola was large and well marked, and 1/4 inch from its outer edge, immediately under the nipple, there was an ulcer with slightly elevated edges measuring ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... was true. The argument which would have been our salvation did not occur to us at the moment. Hence we make it a rule to attack a counter-argument, even though to all appearances it is true and forcible, in the belief that its truth is only superficial, and that in the course of the dispute another argument will occur to us by which we may upset it, or succeed in confirming the truth of our statement. In this way we are almost compelled to become dishonest; or, at any rate, the ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... if stripped of its superficial aspects, has a certain remarkable quality; it seems steeped in heroic blood. The doctrine of force, which expresses itself in its crudest forms in Europe, has always been in Japan a system of heroic-action so fascinating to humanity at large that until ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... it would only need a procession of fashionable gowns parading the mountains to transform our women, while the sight of swallow-tails and silk hats might do as much for the men, for like the rest of the world we take up the superficial with ease, but"—sobering again—"to give our people a glimpse into the knowledge contained in books, to waken us to life's highest harmonies and open our eyes to nature's beautiful hidden colours, is going to take a long time, and as ...
— The Boy from Hollow Hut - A Story of the Kentucky Mountains • Isla May Mullins
... would be true only in a very superficial and strictly qualified sense. In reality, just as there is eternal conflict between egoism and altruism, so there is conflict between ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... more superficial character were extorted by the severity of the weather from the inmates ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... and the turns were very sharp and awkward. In the last-mentioned year the city ceded to the Societe d'Encouragement the open field at Longchamps, lying between the western limit of the Bois de Boulogne and the river Seine. The ground measures about sixty-six hectares in superficial area, and this ample space has permitted the laying out of several tracks of different lengths and of varying form, and has avoided any necessity for sharp turns. The whole race-course is well sodded, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... woman of the world with such an unworldly man as Mr. Ellenwood was announced soon after Mrs. Dabney's return to her native city. Superficial observers, and deeper ones, seemed to concur in supposing that the lady must have borne no inactive part in arranging the affair; there were considerations of expediency which she would be far more likely ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... I have not forgotten; and I am grateful to you for giving my ideas a trial. But what has been done hitherto is purely superficial." Bessy's eyes clouded, and he added hastily: "Don't think I undervalue it for that reason—heaven knows the surface of life needs improving! But it's like picking flowers and sticking them in the ground to make a garden—unless ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... there under the old trees in the lingering light, and, young and fine and fair as they both were, formed a complete superficial harmony with the peaceful English scene. A near view, however, would have shown that Godfrey Chart hadn't taken so much trouble only to skim the surface. He looked deep into his sister's eyes. "What was it you said that morning to ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... order to fit them for these habits often induces striking resemblances of structure between the two animals, as in the case of whales and fish. But in all such instances it is invariably found that the resemblance is only superficial and apparent: not anatomical or real. In other words, the resemblance does not extend further than it is necessary that it should, if both sets of organs are to be adapted to perform the same functions. Now this, again, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... rejection of Byron's early poems, of "Waverley," of Bloomfield's "Farmer's Boy," and O'Meara's "Napoleon in Exile." He always stoutly maintained his claim to the suggestion of the "Percy Anecdotes." Phillips died in 1840. Superficial as he was, and commercial as were his literary aims, we nevertheless cannot refuse him the praise awarded in his epitaph:—"He advocated civil liberty, general benevolence, ascendancy of justice, and the improvement of ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... processes an axiom of his system of investigation, the prudent psychologist, on the other hand, will investigate the laws of conscious life according to the inductive method, and will hence, as much as the physicist, make the existence of fixed laws his initial assumption. If, again, the most superficial introspection teaches the physiologist that his conscious life is dependent upon the mechanical adjustments of his body, and that inversely his body is subjected with certain limitations to his will, then it only remains for him to make one assumption more, namely, ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... continued he, "all ages, classes, and appetites, may be here suited. The superficial dabbler in, and pretender to every thing, will find collections, selections, beauties, flowers, gems, &c. The man of real knowledge may here purchase the elements, theory, and practice of every art and science, in all the various forms and dimensions, from ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... while resenting the hasty and often superficial judgments of European writers, winced under their satire and took thought about certain particulars in the indictments brought against them. The mass of the people, however, bent on the great experiment, gave little heed to carping ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... to a superficial observer that the thousands of people who are dissatisfied with their climate do not seek a more congenial one—or stop grumbling. The world is so small, and all parts of it are so accessible, it has so many varieties of climate, that one could ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was hers to breathe. Surrounded by all gentle influences, let her be content with the holy and beautiful position assigned to her by her Maker. He did not rise to make a speech. He was urged into it by the desultory, erratic, shallow, superficial reasonings of the gentleman who in one breath invited them to free discussion, and in the next defamed and scandalized the editor of The Times, because he took the liberty to discuss this ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... new view. She had not the horrid perception of difference between the real and the imitation which spoils the lives of many. She was equally delighted with both, and remained in blissful ignorance of the fact that her "deep" conversation was felt to be exhaustingly superficial if by chance she came across the real artist or thinker instead of ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... service of the principles and the political action which he had, undoubtingly, decided the honor and interests of the country demanded. He was among the first of the competent and practical political thinkers of the day, to penetrate the superficial crust which covered the slumbering fires of our politics, and to plan for the guidance of their irrepressible heats so as to save the constituted liberties of the nation, if not from convulsion, at least ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... neighbours were just the people to fancy pride where it was not, especially where the rank was superior to their own. Tall, handsome, and outwardly self-possessed, Miss Arundel did not gain credit, from superficial observers, for shyness, and was looked upon as a very haughty ungracious girl, while it was whispered that Mrs. Lyddell had had a great deal ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Horse districts. In the Yukon there was a serious case of dynamiting dredges which Sergeant Mapley handled with great ability. Patrols and general oversight by these non-commissioned officers and constables may, to the superficial onlooker or reader, seem of no great value, but these men, by tact and firm, friendly dealing with the natives and traders, really introduced a new code of ethics in the Northland. The questions at stake may ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... sense is presented by Wagner with singular fairness. The pilgrims' song is very beautiful, and beautiful is all the music of good in the opera of Tannhaeuser. The Venus-music is certainly equally beautiful; perhaps, to the superficial ear, is a little more beautiful still: the goddess's own Call, penetrating, wonderful; the well-nigh irresistible song of the Sirens. The Bacchic dance, which stands we suppose for the animal element ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... educational anti-climax, for the conviction grows on him that elementary school teaching is on a relatively high plane, that secondary school teaching is not as effective, and that collegiate teaching, with rare exceptions, is ineffective and in urgent need of reform. A superficial survey of educational literature of the last ten years shows that while the problem of the high school is now receiving earnest attention, elementary education continues to absorb the earnest efforts of an army of vitally interested ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... spoken to her in broken tones of love on the day Ian first dined with her after her marriage—that fateful, desperate day. This was a voice which had a cheerless, fretful note, a savage something in it. Presently they two would meet, and she knew how it would be—an outward semblance, a superficial amenity and confidence before their guests; the smile of intimacy, when there was no intimacy, and never, never, could be again; only acting, only make-believe, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Brothers but what had several wounds. But, fortunately, they were superficial ones. They were sore and bruised from being knocked down by the concussion, and by being precipitated into the cellar by the collapse of the mill. But they were still able to travel; though, as Jimmy said, if they remained inactive their ...
— The Khaki Boys Over the Top - Doing and Daring for Uncle Sam • Gordon Bates
... over her those weary longings for something which she had not yet; the something which made her aunt's course daily so clear and calm and bright. What sort of happiness would be Eleanor's when she got back to Ivy Lodge? She asked herself that question sometimes. Her present happiness was superficial. ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner
... lifted his brow. "I am but a superficial student; master only of the rudiments; no graduate of the college of love. Moreover, I've heard the letters you exchanged were—ahem!—well-enough writ. You pressed your suit warmly for one unlearned, ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... that ordinary readers should regard the author of such a book as the most depraved and shameless of human beings. Wise men, however, have always been inclined to look with great suspicion on the angels and daemons of the multitude: and in the present instance, several circumstances have led even superficial observers to question the justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous republican. In the same year in which he composed his manual of King-craft, he suffered imprisonment and torture in the cause of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... be content, certainly, with a merely superficial and external solidarity or the purely practical gregariousness of the shops or the artificial forms of the conventional social life. Society must more and more accomplish results by the social life. Coordination in the performance of a few obvious functions, and enthusiasm ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... patriotism and of France is spoken of as "a creature in the form of a woman." How extraordinary is this evidence of a state of affairs in which it is almost impossible to believe! Paris is France nowadays to many people, though no doubt this is but a superficial judgment; but in the early part of the fifteenth century, she was frankly English, not by compulsion even, but by habit and policy. Perhaps the delays, the hesitation, the terrors of Charles and his counsellors ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... investigation of the original sources, it may not be amiss to cast a glance at the representations of this subject in our former publications during the last quarter of a century, as we have frequently been charged, not indeed by the author of the Plea, but by superficial writers, with self-contradiction and misrepresentation. It would indeed have been in perfect unison with the habit of the best authors of Europe and America, to change our opinions as we extended our investigations, and freely to profess such change. Nor should we feel any reluctance in following ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... between speed and efficiency. During the latter months of the war many of the American troops were put on the battle-line when they were by no means sufficiently trained. Certain draft units were transported and thrown up to the front after experience of a most superficial character; there are instances of men going into action without knowing how to load their rifles or adjust their gas masks properly. But on the whole the training given was surprisingly effective in view of the speed with which it was accomplished. ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... message declares, that this limitation to create no other bank is unconstitutional, because, although Congress may use the discretion vested in them, "they may not limit the discretion of their successors." This reason is almost too superficial to require an answer. Every one at all accustomed to the consideration of such subjects knows that every Congress can bind its successors to the same extent that it can bind itself. The power of Congress is always the same; the authority ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... gradual encroachment on the liberties of the tribes; that the rental received from the surplus pasture lands had a bad tendency on the morals of the Indians, encouraging them in idleness; and that the present system retarded all progress in agriculture and the industrial arts. The report was superficial, religiously concealing the truth, but dealing with broad generalities. Had the report emanated from some philanthropical society, it would have passed unnoticed or been commented on as an advance in the interest of a worthy philanthropy ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... about the things that never ordinarily get into history. If he is told about the charters of the barons, he wishes to hear of the charters of the carpenters. This, he thinks, would make history popular, that word which is always used to denote something rather slight and superficial. He exclaims that the people are ignored, whereas the historian really would not be one at all if he ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... he who is ignorant! a fool he who is wise!)—in other days in relating the story which I am going to tell you to-day I would, without pausing at the place where the first scene of this book occurs, have accorded it but a superficial mention, and traversing the Midi like any other province, have named ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... conquered in spirit, but that they have always been the depositaries of the vital and leading ideas of the time. The book is more soberly written than most of Lady Morgan's works, but it would probably be regarded by the modern reader as dull and superficial. It was generally believed that Sir Charles had assisted in its composition, and few men have ever wielded a heavier pen. The pair only issued one more joint work, The Book Without a Name, which appeared in 1842, and consisted chiefly of articles and sketches that had already been published ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... great genius" may be successfully opposed); and is especially severe on what he terms his affectation in disclaiming the compliments bestowed on his learning by some of his friends. The expressed estimate of his acquirements and works which so offended Lord Macaulay was that "there is nobody so superficial, that, except a little history, a little poetry, a little painting, and some divinity, he knew nothing; he had always lived in the busy world; had always loved pleasure; played loo till two or three in the morning; haunted ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... betting-agents, and applied such cautery as would prevent any similar growth from arising in the place wherefrom we excised them, we should do very little good; for the life-blood of Britain is tainted, and no superficial remedy can cure her now. I shut my eyes on the bookmakers, and I only spare attention for the myriads who make the bookmakers' existence possible—who would evolve new bookmakers from their midst if ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... valley of Tipe visible above the soil. They contained pyrites, carbonated iron-ore, traces of sulphuretted silver (glasserz), and grey copper-ore (fahlerz). The works which had been undertaken, either for extracting the ore, or exploring the nature of its bed, appeared to be very superficial. The earth falling in had filled up those excavations, and we could not judge of the richness of the lode. Notwithstanding the expense incurred under the intendancy of Don Jose Avalo, the great question ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... voyage, except falling out of love. Especially was this the case in the days when the wooden clippers did finely to land you in Sydney or in Melbourne under the four full months. We all saw far too much of each other, unless, indeed, we were to see still more. Our superficial attractions mutually exhausted, we lost heart and patience in the disappointing strata which lie between the surface and the bed-rock of most natures. My own experience was confined to the round voyage of the Lady Jermyn, in the year 1853. It was no common experience, ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... I felt that I had at last found the gift rarely accorded to us here,—the fulfilment of a promise hidden in every heart, but often waited for in vain. Hitherto my all-sufficing self-hood had never been stirred by the mighty touch of Love. I had been amused by trivial and superficial affections, like the gay triflers of whom Rasselas says, 'They fancied they were in love, when in truth they were only idle.' But that sentiment which is never twice inspired, that new ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... breadth, width, latitude, amplitude; diameter, bore, caliber, radius; superficial extent &c. (space) 180. thickness, crassitude[obs3]; corpulence &c. (size) 192; dilation &c. (expansion) 194. V. be broad &c. adj.; become broad, render broad &c. adj.; expand &c. 194; thicken, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... But the next thing which I saw—on the pier-table—caused me such a shock of surprise that I readjusted my glasses upon my nose with both hands at once, and then felt myself over so as to get at least some superficial proof of my own existence. In less than one second there thronged from my mind twenty different conjectures—the most rational of which was that I had suddenly become crazy. It seemed to me absolutely impossible that what I was looking at could exist; yet it was equally ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... description applies to the breadth, depth and reality of his sympathy. In the meagre records of his life there is evidence that he deemed no form of suffering humanity foreign to himself. This was not a mere sentiment, nor was his sympathy superficial, for it constituted the essential characteristic of his personality—"He went about doing good." In him the will of the Father for the redemption of the race was incarnate. This led him into the society of those outcasts who were condemned ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... "We only made a superficial examination down-stairs," he was saying, "but it is evidently a ruptured appendix. If she's living in a couple of hours I may be able to operate. But it's ten to one she dies ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... though in the course of time it had become something characteristically Anglo-Saxon, its origins were Greek and Arabic and Roman and Jewish. But the interdependence of nations today is of an infinitely more vital and insistent kind, and despite superficial setbacks becomes more vital every day. As late as the first quarter of the nineteenth century, for instance, Britain was still practically self-sufficing; her very large foreign trade was a trade in luxuries. She could ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... often been astonished since to hear Crane spoken of as "the reporter in fiction," for the reportorial faculty of superficial reception and quick transference was what he conspicuously lacked. His first newspaper account of his shipwreck on the filibuster "Commodore" off the Florida coast was as lifeless as the "copy" of a police court reporter. It was many months afterwards that the literary product of his terrible experience ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... for the birth of such superficial stuff on the labor question as the book of John Mitchell that has been launched upon the market through loud and vulgar advertisement. Nothing could have disproved the fitness of Mr. Mitchell for a labor leader ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 4, June 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... what he does not know, and I conceive he will be gradually initiated into the largest and truest philosophical views, and will feel nothing but impatience and disgust at the random theories and imposing sophistries and dashing paradoxes, which carry away half-formed and superficial intellects. ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... purely to obviate the prepossession of the art being so frivolous, so unworthy of the attention of the manly and grave, as it is vulgarly, or on a superficial view, imagined. It is not high notions of it that I am so weak as to aim at impressing; all that I wish is to give just ones: it being perhaps as little eligible, for want of consideration, to see less in this art than it really ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... or shadow; but at times, when a stronger gust of the trade winds passed over it, there was a quick slanting impression of the whole surface that was, however, as unlike a billow as itself was unlike a sea. Even when a lighter zephyr played down its long level, the agitation was superficial, and seemed only to momentarily lift a veil of greenish mist that hung above its immovable depths. Occasional puffs of dust alternately rose and fell along an imaginary line across the field, as if a current of air were passing through ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... penetration and general ingenuity; she was at once very quick and very deep—quick especially to perceive and enjoy incongruities, and deep in understanding them; extremely observant, and not in the least superficial. Almost her greatest interest was the study of character; she had an intellectual passion for going below the surface, and finding out the little coins inedits of the soul. She was rather unpractical, but only in execution, and she had the gift of ...
— Bird of Paradise • Ada Leverson
... possess, he can not afford to be careless of his personal appearance. Diamonds in the rough of infinitely greater value than the polished glass of some of those who get positions may, occasionally, be rejected. Applicants whose good appearance helped them to secure a place may often be very superficial in comparison with some who were rejected in their favor and may not have half their merit; but having secured it, they may keep it, though not possessing half the ability of the boy or girl who was ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... the chair, ingeniously woven and built of rye straw and hickory splints. He knew that all this formality and apparent pedantry was superficial. He and Andrew were bosom friends, and as he had often opened his heart to the master of the castle before, so now he had no difficulty in telling him his troubles, scarcely heeding the appropriate quotations ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... unaware that the two men were studying her closely, but if she had known what was going on in their minds she would have had nothing to regret, because both of them found her very attractive, and both of them were wondering how anything so superficial as Eileen could be of the same ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... at his door, Moss could scarcely believe that less than half a year had affected this change in her. He was too keen an observer not to know that part of this was due to a refining taste in hats and gowns, but beneath all these superficial traits she had grown swiftly in the expression of ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... that it is deficient in warmth, and depth, and breadth; that it is always discussing persons instead of principles, and cloaking its want of thought in mimetic dogmas and its want of feeling in superficial raillery; it is not merely that it has neither imagination, nor fancy, nor sentiment, nor feeling, nor knowledge to recommend it; but it appears to me, even as regards manner and expression, inferior in refinement and phraseology; in short, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... in him was the desire of that marriage which she felt was a moral impossibility. But if Brandon possessed the secret of sway, Lucy was scarcely less singularly endowed with the secret of resistance. It may be remembered, in describing her character, that we spoke of her as one who seemed, to the superficial, as of too yielding and soft a temper. But circumstances gave the lie to manner, and proved that she eminently possessed a quiet firmness and latent resolution, which gave to her mind a nobleness and trustworthy power that never would have been suspected ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... botanist evidently sees in this direction scope for the feelings that have wilted a little under my inattention, and he begins that petty intercourse of a word, of a slight civility, of vague enquiries and comparisons that leads at last to associations and confidences. Such superficial confidences, that is to ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... artificiality about her, bright and vivacious of manner, with plenty to say for herself, but at the same time thoroughly sensible. As for Mr Todd, he was, as I have said, a typical Scotsman, but I ought to have added "of the very best sort", for from beneath his superficial businesslike keenness and shrewdness the natural kindliness and geniality of his disposition was constantly peeping through. As an instance of this I may mention that within five minutes of my meeting him he was insisting upon ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... saw a small face peering down over the coping of the roof. It was a face that was very frightened, under a superficial covering of soot. ...
— More William • Richmal Crompton
... Queen, to help Brienne to the Ministry, he did her and her kingdom more injury than their worst foes. Of the Abbe's power over Marie Antoinette there are various opinions; of his capacity there is but one—he was superficial and cunning. On his arrival at Vienna he became the tool of Maria Theresa. While there, he received a salary as the daughter's tutor, and when he returned to France, a much larger one as the mother's spy. He was more ambitious to be ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 3 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... A superficial criticism declares that in the new schools children will study only "what they like." On the contrary, all subjects requisite for a wide culture, as well as for the ability to cope with existence in a highly complex civilization, are insisted upon. It is true, however, that the trained and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... organization, showing that business is going on as usual, that bank clearings have not diminished during the festivities, and that, despite the air of happiness that pervades the town, New Orleans is not really beginning to have such a good time as a stranger might suppose from superficial signs. With such concessions made to solemn visaged ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... (1490-1600) the Japanese empire may be compared to a seething cauldron, the bubbles that unceasingly rose to the surface disappearing almost as soon as they emerged, or uniting into groups with more or less semblance of permanence. To follow in detail these superficial changes would be a task equally interminable and fruitless. They will therefore be traced here in the merest outline, except in cases where large results or national effects are concerned. The group of eight provinces called collectively Kwanto first claims attention as the region where all the ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... subject, he made me read in the same manner Ricardo's admirable pamphlets, written during what was called the Bullion controversy; to these succeeded Adam Smith; and in this reading it was one of my father's main objects to make me apply to Smith's more superficial view of political economy, the superior lights of Ricardo, and detect what was fallacious in Smith's arguments, or erroneous in any of his conclusions. Such a mode of instruction was excellently calculated to form a thinker; but it required to be worked ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... constitutes a prominent characteristic of his animal existence. The economy and order of nature is no less marked in the carnivorous than in the herbivorous mammalia and quadrumana; and although their physical distinctions are not always so marked as to render apparent, to superficial observation, the uses and functions of their entire organism, yet science has been a tolerably faithful interpreter of cause and effect, and has not failed to recognize those organic qualities, and the structural adaptability of the ...
— The Right of American Slavery • True Worthy Hoit
... Constantine but it has been justly observed that the comparison is superficial, for Constantine (more like Kanishka than Asoka) merely recognized and regulated a religion which had already won its way in his empire. He has also been compared with St Paul and in so far as both men transformed a provincial sect into a religion for all mankind the parallel ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... expressed the hope that slavery would in time yield "to the enlargement of the human mind, and its advancement in science," but he confessed also that "where the disease is most deeply seated, there it will be slowest in eradication. In the Northern States it was merely superficial and easily corrected; in the Southern, it is incorporated with the whole system, and requires time, patience and perseverance in the curative process. That it may finally be effected and its progress hastened, will be my last ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... great part of the invention was their own. We showed them some books printed by Aldus, we explained to them the way of making paper, and the mystery of printing; but as we had never practised these arts, we described them in a crude and superficial manner. They seized the hints we gave them, and though at first they could not arrive at perfection, yet by making many essays they at last found out and corrected all their errors, and conquered every difficulty. Before this they only wrote on parchment, on reeds, or on the barks of trees; ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various |
