"Intrusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mid-summer dawdles along in trailing greeneries, and the day is like some jocund pagan, all flushed and asleep, with dripping beard rosy in a wine bowl of fat vine leaves. Yet, in this languorous time there may befall a brisker night, cool and lively as an intrusive boy—a night made for dancing. On such a night a hasty thought might put it as desirable that all the world should be twenty-two years old and in love, ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... school days are over, the last composition shall have been given at the examination, will not the disused faculties revenge themselves by rusting? If I could say it without being officious and intrusive, I would say to some who are about to graduate this year, do not feel that your education is finished, when the diploma of your institution is in your hands. Look upon the knowledge you have gained only as a stepping stone to a future, which you ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... furniture of wood and cane, are not only altogether fitting but as well altogether necessary. Our glass windows would only serve to increase heat and shut out air. As some barrier is necessary to keep passers, even Americans, from intrusive entrance by the windows whose bottoms are at floor level, the system of iron bars or elaborate grille work is adopted. Few Americans see much, if anything, of Cuban home life except as they see it through these barriers as they pass. It is not the custom ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... confess it would be more than painful to me if this personage were to be made free of your house. How superfluous, how intrusive, he would be, if he were to ...
— Hedda Gabler - Play In Four Acts • Henrik Ibsen
... while Pauline ran to fetch the water, "I am dying of something else-of hunger, to tell the truth. Monsieur le Cure—I know that I am going to be dreadfully intrusive; I see your cloth is laid—could you ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... The morning seems bathed in happy peace, and a heavenly fragrance rises from mountain and shore; it is as though a benediction were laid upon us. No vulgar intrusive noise disturbs the religious quiet of the scene. One might believe one's self in a church—a vast temple in which every being and every natural beauty has its place. I dare not breathe for fear of putting the dream to flight—a ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... paleness thrown Along the governed aspect, speak alone Of deeper passions; and to judge their mien, He, who would see, must be himself unseen. Then—with the hurried tread, the upward eye, The clenched hand, the pause of agony, That listens, starting, lest the step too near Approach intrusive on that mood of fear: Then—with each feature working from the heart, With feelings, loosed to strengthen—not depart, 240 That rise—convulse—contend—that freeze or glow,[hp] Flush in the cheek, or damp upon the brow; ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... that her great love for the little chap had crowded everything else out of her mind; that living up there in those snowy acres of trees away from the world, she was so calmly contented and happy that she feared an intrusive breath of any sort. And she did ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Browning knew and loved was well within sight of humanity, and it was commonly brought nearer by some intrusive vestiges of man's work; the crescent moon drifting in the purple twilight, or "lamping" between the cypresses, is seen over Fiesole or Samminiato; the "Alpine gorge" above Lucca has its ruined chapel and its mill; the Roman Campagna has its tombs—"Rome's ghost since her decease"; the Etrurian ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... to see at very long intervals, supposed him to have some sort of office employment, and saw nothing in his demeanour to make them anxious about him. As for Norbert Franks, why, he was very busy, and came not oftener than once a month to his friend's obscure lodgings; he asked no intrusive questions, and, like the Pomfrets, could only suppose that Warburton had found a clerkship somewhere. They were not quite on the old terms, for each had gone through a crisis of life, and was not altogether the same as before; but their mutual liking subsisted. Obliged to retrench ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... fact in face of the judge's almost frenzied disclaimer, she thought she saw the hair move on his forehead. Bela a traitor, and in the interests of the woman who had fronted him from the other end of the room at the moment consciousness had left him! Evidently this intrusive little body did not know ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... superciliously to disapprove them. She moved with indignation. A dull murmur, as of single voices, disturbed the air somewhere behind the rustling attendant: and when the doors were quickly opened Emmy saw beyond the darkness and the intrusive flash of light caused by the opening doors a square of brilliance and a dashing figure upon the stage talking staccato. Those of the audience who were sitting near the doors turned angrily and with curiosity to view the new-comers; and the voice that Emmy had distinguished ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... qualifications which, according to his partial biographer, recommended the Cardinal of Geneva, were rather those of a successor to John Hawkwood or to a duke of Milan, than of the apostles. Extraordinary activity of body and endurance of fatigue, courage which would hazard his life to put down the intrusive pope, sagacity and experience in the temporal affairs of the Church; high birth, through which he was allied with most of the royal and princely houses of Europe; of austerity, devotion, learning, holiness, charity, not a word. He took the name ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... in the conversation, received from their masters the relics of the entertainment, and devoured them as they stood behind the backs of the company. Jesters, dwarfs, and minstrels were there in unusual numbers, and more noisy and intrusive than they were permitted to be in better regulated society. As they were allowed to share freely in the wine, which flowed round in large quantities, their licensed tumult was ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... to this kind of mutual attentiveness travels under two guises: one is the possibility of being offensively nosy and intrusive; the other is the fear of really violating the privacy of other people. Certainly, privacy should be respected, and we should not force ourselves upon others, but attentiveness is not intrusiveness. Every human being wants to be known and to know as a person, and in ways ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... interest. Curiosity, a liking to witness, or to experience, emotion, the pleasure of being able to tell what has been seen and heard, to find out new facts and repeat them again to others, joined to a sort of vague, commonplace, almost intrusive pity, are sentiments, which sometimes in hours of great disaster, produce what appears to wear the look of sympathy. A fortnight after M. de Nailles's death, between the acts of Scylla and Charybdis, the principal parts in which were taken by ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... proper functions of government, almost all economic conditions were regulated by the government to a degree quite unknown before. In the early part of the period this regulation was more minute, more intrusive, more evidently directed to the immediate advantage of government; but by the close of Elizabeth's reign a systematic regulation was established, which, while not controlling every detail of industrial life, yet laid down the general lines along which most of industrial life must run. Some parts ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... began, "if I am unwarrantably intrusive, but I must say this. Affairs are so changed now, that new dangers and troubles may arise for you. If I can help you in any way, will you let me do so? Will you confide in me and trust me, and will you remember that in so doing you are not putting ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... criteria of empirical truth, which enable us to distinguish experience from mere visionary dreaming, would almost entirely disappear. In proximity with such a lawless faculty of freedom, a system of nature is hardly cogitable; for the laws of the latter would be continually subject to the intrusive influences of the former, and the course of phenomena, which would otherwise proceed regularly and uniformly, would become thereby ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... rude Visigothic conquerors who broke down the old civilisation of Iberian and Romanised Hispania. And so on throughout. All over Europe, if you care to look close, you will find the aristocrat was the son of the intrusive barbarian; the democrat was the son of the old civilised and educated ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... am sure there is something on your mind. Pray do not think me intrusive or impertinent for saying so; but I ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... and Grimshaw. Of these two, the former had not set eyes on the lad whose raft they had stolen; but the latter had caught a glimpse of him, and now, as he noted Winn's startled glance into the interior of the "shanty," it flashed into his mind who this intrusive boy was. ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... seams set full of leather fringes, and sometimes marked by lines of delicate embroidery in white quills. There were those who said that Dandy Steve had an Indian wife somewhere on the Upper Saranac, but nobody knew; and it would have been a bold man who asked an intrusive question of Dandy Steve, or ventured on any impertinent jesting about his private affairs. Certain it was that none but Indian hands embroidered the fine buckskins he wore; but, then, there were such ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... intelligence which, instead of regarding things as simply owning entity, should regard chiefly their background as affected by the holes which things are making in it. Even so, the paper-maker might see your picture as intrusive!" ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend; Eternity mourns that. 'Tis an ill cure For life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them. Where sorrow's held intrusive, and turned out, There wisdom, will not enter, nor true power, Nor aught ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the mark, a propos de bottes [Fr.]; aside from the purpose, away from the purpose, foreign to the purpose, beside the purpose, beside the question, beside the transaction, beside the point; misplaced &c (intrusive) 24; traveling out of the record. remote, far-fetched, out of the way, forced, neither here nor there, quite another thing; detached, segregate; disquiparant^. multifarious; discordant &c 24. incidental, parenthetical, obiter dicta, episodic. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... the widow of the late Sir William de Clare." The lady bowed. "You will excuse me, madam, but I have most important reasons for asking you a few questions, which otherwise may appear to be intrusive. Are you aware of the death of his ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... detected fragments of the charcoal itself, which, hermetically locked up in the rock, had retained all its original carbon. These last reminded me of specimens not unfrequent among the trap-rocks of the Carboniferous and Oolitic systems. From an intrusive overlying wacke in the neighborhood of Linlithgow I have derived for my collection pieces of carbonized wood in so complete a state of keeping, that under the microscope they exhibit unbroken ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... abused than the bow. In order not to appear intrusive, ribbons require the most delicate handling. The only excuse for a ribbon as an ornament is when it makes a pretense of tying. When used as a sash where folds or gathers are confined, the tone of the ribbon should, in general, vary scarcely ...
— Textiles and Clothing • Kate Heintz Watson
... humour; but then Lamb's flight is short and uncertain. De Quincey's passages of splendid rhetoric are too often succeeded by dead levels of verbosity and laboured puerilities which make annoyance alternate with enthusiasm. Hazlitt is often spasmodic, and his intrusive egotism is pettish and undignified. But so far at least as his style is concerned, Landor's unruffled abundant stream of continuous harmony excites one's admiration the more the longer one reads. Hardly anyone who has written so much has kept so uniformly to a high level, and ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... Courant's back was toward her. He had purposely set his face away, but he could hear the furtive whisperings of the stirred calico. He was full of the consciousness of her, and this sound, which carried a picture of her drooped head and moving hands, came with a stealing unquiet, urgently intrusive and persistent. He tried to hold his mind on his work, but his movements slackened, grew intermittent, his ear attentive for the low rustling that crept toward him at intervals like the effervescent approach of waves. Each time ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... bore profitably for water in the Colony till the districts are defined over which the water-bearing basins are spread. Nothing arrests the escape of water in its course through the rocks more efficiently than intrusive sheets of igneous rock which rise to the surface, but until the distribution of these dykes is systematically recorded it will not be possible to open out all the water which is preserved underground. There is no doubt that by utilising geological facts of this nature, a ...
— A Winter Tour in South Africa • Frederick Young
... of St. Canice, Kilkenny, are two monuments placed there during the rule of the Confederate Catholics, viz., that of James Cleere, "Protonotarius et Rector ecclesiae D. Joannis Dioecesis oporiensis," who died A.D. 1643, Nov. 14; and David Rothe, intrusive Roman Catholic Bishop of Ossery, who died some years after—on both of which the arms of the individual are surmounted by a cardinal's hat. It is quite certain that neither of these ecclesiastics had a right to this distinction as cardinals. For the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 70, March 1, 1851 • Various
... had made a mistake. Like Louis Bassett, the very unlikeliness of Jud Clark being connected with the domestic atmosphere and quiet respectability of the old house made him feel intrusive and absurd. He was about to apologize and turn away, when he thought ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... was implied, for Mr. Tennyson had the reputation of not being always gracious. However, we had learned from himself that nothing short of rudeness could keep his intrusive admirers at a distance, so as to allow him some privacy. He told us of a man who so dogged his steps that he was afraid of going out of his own garden gates, for even in front of those locked gates the ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... adversity are now eating goulasch and Kartoffelsalad instead of the spaghetti and tripe a la mode de Caen of their old haunts. I do not know them, and if I did, I should not hand them over to the mercies of the intrusive young men from the studios and the bachelors' chambers. I wish them good digestion of their goulasch: for those that are to climb, I wish that they may keep the generous and faithful spirit of friendly poverty; for those that are to go on to the ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... restless, like a leopard, and seemed full of electrical currents which found no discharge except in the flicker of her eyes. Leaving the group of settles by the fireplace where these simple families felt more at home and least intrusive on the grandeur of the hall, she put herself on a distant chair with her face turned from them. This gave the women a chance to backbite her, to note her roused mood, and to accuse her among themselves of wishing evil to the fort and consequently to ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... an invalid and a prisoner! It will be said in the village that the fever has affected his brain, and his unpopularity, arising from the fact that he has always shunned and scorned the village folk, will insure them against intrusive investigators. Auntie, they ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... songs have been sung and the hundred rumors of the day discussed, at ten the intrusive drums and scolding fifes get together and stir up a concert, always premature, called tattoo. The Seventh Regiment begins to peel for bed: at all events, Private W. does; for said W. takes, when he can, precious good care of his cuticle, and never yields to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... familiar rheumatism, as he put his foot out of bed, taught him that he must not reckon too confidently upon even a day's respite from the intrusive family of aches and infirmities, which, with their proverbial fidelity to attachments once formed, had long been the closest acquaintances that the poor old gentleman had in the world. Nevertheless, he fancied the twinge a little less ...
— The Dolliver Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... pleasant one. Ellen, who had not been to a party for years, found it very pleasant. All the guests had been members of her old set and there was no intrusive youth to spoil the flavour, for the only son of the bride and groom was far away at college and could not be present. Norman Douglas had been there and they had met socially for the first time in years, though she had seen him once or twice ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... thing needed is to get away entirely from all such preconceptions, to recognize that the "natural" order of society, based on the "natural" liberty, does not correspond with real justice and real liberty at all, but works injustice at every turn. And at every turn intrusive social legislation must seek to ...
— The Unsolved Riddle of Social Justice • Stephen Leacock
... smell of the smoking food was more to him than far greater good which he could only appreciate by an effort. A sixpence held close to the eye can shut out the sun. Resolute effort is needed to prevent the small, intrusive present from blotting out the transcendent greatness of the final future. And for lack of such effort men by the thousand fling ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... night who foremost came Was not enroll'd, nor known his name; A youth he was of manly mould, Gentle as lamb, as lion bold; But his fair face, and forehead high, Glow'd with intrusive modesty. 'Twas said by bank of southland stream Glided his youth in soothing dream; The harp he loved, and wont to stray Far to the wilds and woods away, And sing to brooks that gurgled by Of maiden's form ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... cutting through the border at a wide angle, suddenly turns towards the S.E., and descends the slope of the glacis in a more attenuated form. Another but shorter valley is traceable at sunrise on the W. On the N.W., the rampart is visibly dislocated, and the gap occupied by an intrusive mountain mass. This dislocation is not confined to the wall, but, under favourable conditions, may be traced across the floor to the broken S.E. border. It is probably a true "fault." On the N.E., the inner slope of the wall is very broad, and affords ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... their presence in the neighbourhood known to the Earl and Lady. Instead they had visited Valley House with a crowd of tourists on a public day, expressing the opinion to a representative of the Messenger that it would be "intrusive" to present themselves to Lord and Lady Annesley-Seton. They were spending their honeymoon in Devonshire, and might find, during their motor tours, a suitable country place ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... objector does, 'Morea' from a Slavonic word 'more,' the sea, he finds in this derivation a support for his favourite notion that the modern population of Greece is not descended from the ancient, but consists in far the larger proportion of intrusive Slavonic races. Two mountains near Dublin, which we, keeping in the grocery line, have called the Great and the Little Sugarloaf, are named in ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... that you find our poor company intrusive, since we have forced you to become one of us?" she said, toying with her fork, and thereby displaying a white ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... returned, with the new residence announced; but a call is due to the parents or relatives who have given the reception. When no wedding cards are sent you, nor the card of the bridegroom, you cannot call without being considered intrusive. One month after the birth of a child the call of congratulation ...
— Our Deportment - Or the Manners, Conduct and Dress of the Most Refined Society • John H. Young
... figure, with rustic simplicity and dignity about him, and a vivacious strength looking through him, which might have suited one of those old steel-gray markgrafs whom Henry the Fowler set up towards the 'marches' and do battle with the intrusive heathen in ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... inhabitants of Amiens. I have seen no town in France so remarkable for a rude and unfeeling behaviour, and it is not fanciful to conjecture that the multitude of poor may tend in part to occasion it. The constant view of a sort of misery that excites little compassion, of an intrusive necessity which one is more desirous to repulse than to relieve, cannot but render the heart callous, and the manners harsh. The avarice of commerce, which is here unaccompanied by its liberality, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... the house! Oh, those self-righteous Ingrams! What mischief they did! His impulse was to dart into his treasure-cave, lock himself in, and hug the radiant chalice. He dared not. He must endure instead the fastidious conscience and probing tongue of an intrusive maid-servant! ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... swings his napkin with convulsions of mirth at your good stories. He tells you the history of his life while you are breaking your egg, and lays the story of his loves before you with your coffee. Yet he is not intrusive. He will chatter on without waiting for a reply, and when you are tired of him you can shut him off with a word. There are few Spanish servants so uninteresting but that you can find in them from time to time some sparks of that ineffable light which shines ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... creature, and lived a life so really isolated from any ordinary companionship that her simple little talks with Jane and Mrs. Cupp were a pleasure to her. The Cupps were neither gossiping nor intrusive, and she felt as if they were her friends. Once when she had been ill for a week she remembered suddenly realising that she had no intimates at all, and that if she died Mrs. Cupp's and Jane's would certainly be the ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the ways of these strange beings whom fate has so kindly sent to amuse them. The rest-house attendant does not approve of these manners, so he slips out of a side-door with a basin of water in his hand and pitches it straight over the little crew as if they were a flock of intrusive chickens; they fly, shrieking with delight, and return in thicker swarms than ever inside ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... an "escalera," or stone staircase. It is flat and quite firm, being covered with a cement that is proof against rain. It is enclosed by a parapet running all round it—of such a height as not to hinder the view of the surrounding country, while it protects those occupying it from the intrusive gaze of persons passing below. When the sun is down, or behind a cloud, the azotea is a most agreeable promenade; and to render it still more so, that over the house of Don Ambrosio had been arranged so as to resemble a flower-garden. Richly japanned pots, containing rare flowers, were placed ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... the spot from whence the drops of rain issue. Once more I awake under the same moistening influence. A fresh gotera has arisen over my dry place of repose. Again I shift my ground, and use an empty pail for the accommodation of the intrusive element; but fresh goteras appear wherever I pitch my catre, until, having circumnavigated all the safe coasts of my tempestuous apartment and exhausted every receptacle for water, I take up my bed and deposit ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... lighted and furnished with luxurious and elegant plenty, as many people send for suppers to their box, and entertain a knot of friends there with infinite convenience and splendour. A silk curtain, the colour of your hangings, defends the closet from intrusive eyes, if you think proper to drop it; and when drawn up, gives gaiety and show to the general appearance of the whole: while across the corridor leading to these boxes, another small chamber, numbered like that it belongs to, is appropriated to the use of ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... all this don't signify that I forgive you in the least for coming between her and me. I'm willing to call a truce because falling out is horrid inconvenient, and looks silly. But your intrusive existence has turned love's young dream into a farce, and this suggestion of yours can only make things worse. I never bargained for being a sort of Siamese twin, but that's how it comes out. The unfortunate girl will never be ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier
... disagreeable, not to say revolting, to all human beings whose good opinion is worth the possessing. And though any one who is not a fool will generally make himself agreeable to people of ordinary temper and nervous system, if he wishes to do so, it is to be remembered that too intrusive attempts to be agreeable often make a man very disagreeable; and likewise, that a man is the reverse of agreeable, if you see that he is trying, by managing and humoring you, to make himself agreeable to you,—I mean, if you can see that he is smoothing you down, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... Chicago or St. Louis. The dream is to do nothing and get rich. Land sharks, speculators, usurers and politicians who aspire to a notoriety they will never win—a station they will never occupy—swarm over the West thicker than frogs in Egypt, and more intrusive than were these squatting, crawling, jumping pests, when evoked from the river's slime by ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... afternoon and the western sun thrust bars of light across the dim chamber which the fresh young voice of the speaker had hushed into silence. Ida had sent a bunch of flowers to his desk and upon that bouquet the intrusive sun-ray fell, like something wild that loved the rose, but as the speaker went on it clambered up his stalwart side and rested at last upon his head as though ...
— A Spoil of Office - A Story of the Modern West • Hamlin Garland
... merchant's book-keeper) stepped up to the door, took off his hat, and said in a frank way: 'Mr. Dickens, I should very much like to have the honour of shaking hands with you'—and, that done, presented two others. Nothing could be more quiet or less intrusive. In the railway cars, if I see anybody who clearly wants to speak to me, I usually anticipate the wish by speaking myself. If I am standing on the brake outside (to avoid the intolerable stove), people getting down will say with a smile: 'As I am taking my departure, Mr. Dickens, and can't trouble ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... timid desire to be at her best on the return of Brother Seabright, and to show him, with a new performance, that the "heavenly gift" had not been neglected. She opened the chapel with the key she always carried, "swished" away an intrusive squirrel, left the door and window open for a moment, until the beating of frightened wings against the rafters had ceased, and, after carefully examining the floor for spiders, mice, and other ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... at Waldau, keeping guard, forlorn but resolute, against the intrusive Russian-Austrian deluges, Friedrich stands painfully vigilant and expectant,—still for about a fortnight more. With bad news coming to him latterly, as we shall hear. He is in those old moorland Wusterhausen Countries, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... admirer, one of the head-waiters at the inn at Salt Hill. He also was not without pretensions to urbane superiority, such as he learnt from gentlemen's servants and waiting-maids, who initiating him in all the slang of high life below stairs, rendered his arrogant temper ten times more intrusive. Lucy did not disclaim him—she was incapable of that feeling; but she was sorry when she saw him approach, and quietly resisted all his endeavours to establish an intimacy. The fellow soon discovered that his rival was preferred to him; and this changed what was at first a chance ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... sitting on a little stool at her mother's feet, touched her father's hand lightly with her hair from time to time, as she gave him a caress into which she strove to put the thoughts which, in such crises, the voice seems to render intrusive. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... instants she felt exultant at the idea of announcing her marriage and defying general opinion. At another her heart misgave her, and she was tormented by a fear lest Swithin should some day accuse her of having hampered his deliberately-shaped plan of life by her intrusive romanticism. That was often the trick of men who had sealed by marriage, in their inexperienced youth, a love for those whom their maturer judgment would have rejected as too obviously ...
— Two on a Tower • Thomas Hardy
... them without being too intrusive," assented Collins, who, since the success of his stratagem of the afternoon before, had been ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... doctrine was mysterious; their profession was a discipline, beginning in a formal initiation, manifested in an association, and exercised in privation and pain. They were from the nature of the case proselytizing societies, for they were rising into power; nor were they local, but vagrant, restless, intrusive, and encroaching. Their pretensions to supernatural knowledge brought them into easy connection with magic and astrology, which are as attractive to the wealthy and luxurious as the more vulgar ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... contradicted earnestly. "You've been very hard hit over this business, and I happen to know he wants to meet you, only that he is afraid of appearing intrusive. At ten o'clock at the arrival platform. May I say good-bye now? God bless you. I haven't much influence with Him, but I—I hope He'll be good ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... bettered fortunes, and they came up to speak to her with more or less seriousness, as befitted the occasion. She looked at me with great curiosity, but Mrs. Down told her who I was, and I had a sudden instinct to say how sorry I was for her, but I was afraid it might appear intrusive on so short an acquaintance. She was a thin old soul who looked as if she had had a good deal of trouble in her day, and as if she had been very poor and very anxious. "Yes," said she to some one who had come from a distance, "it does come hard to go off. Home is home, ...
— An Arrow in a Sunbeam - and Other Tales • Various
... the theory that I have to propose for the origin of the Igorot, that he is an old, thoroughly fused mixture of the aboriginal Negritos, who still survive in a few spots of the cordillera, and an intrusive, Malayan race, who, by preference or by press of foes behind them, scaled the high mountains and on their bleak and cold summits and canyon slopes laboriously built themselves rock-walled fields and homes, in which they have long been acclimated. ...
— The Negrito and Allied Types in the Philippines and The Ilongot or Ibilao of Luzon • David P. Barrows
... I had no alternative but to pass the night with these suspicious-looking creatures, who, feeling themselves beyond the control of their cruel masters, soon gave way to their own vile passions, and became most impertinent and intrusive—taking every advantage of my loneliness to indulge their ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... up very haughtily, in part, I presume, to hide her tremor.—She was always a little haughty with me, I must acknowledge. Could there have been anything in my address, however unconscious of it I was, that made her fear I was ready to become intrusive? Or might it not be that, hearing of my footing with my parishioners generally, she was prepared to resent any assumption of clerical familiarity with her; and so, in my behaviour, any poor innocent "bush was supposed a bear." ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... heart-shaking delights. If you stand close to the gate to peer past the bulky shape of the warder he is likely to turn and give you a cold look. Further, he is averse to light conversation, being always morosely absorbed—yet with an eye ever alert for intrusive outlanders—in his evening paper. He never reads a morning paper, but has some means of obtaining at an early hour each morning a pink or green evening paper that shrieks with crimson headlines. Such has been his reading through all time, and this may ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... English garments hurtled through the air in an elegant curve. When he came down, which seemed to be not for some time, it was into a shady clump of wild raspberries—and only those who know the Victorian wild raspberry know how clinging and intrusive are its hooked thorns. Two legs kicked wildly. There ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... Spaniards, which is so great that discreet and Christian people have remarked it. What makes me fear much, Sire, is not what I have told of, but what I shall now tell your Majesty—although I know that your Majesty will say that I am unreasonable, and will feel much aggrieved that I am so intrusive. The first matter is the continual sodomy which the Chinese practice in these islands to so great an extent, and communicate to the Indians—which is the worse, for the Indians were formerly most clean in this ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... keep wholly to himself any possession that may be useful to the publick, I hope you will not think me unreasonably intrusive, if I have recourse to you for such information as you are more able to give me than ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... accustomed to evade, but a hybrid of these two. If you figure this owner of the Voice as sitting, a little nervously, a little modestly, on a stage, with table, glass of water and all complete, and myself as the intrusive chairman insisting with a bland ruthlessness upon his "few words" of introduction before he recedes into the wings, and if furthermore you figure a sheet behind our friend on which moving pictures intermittently appear, and if finally ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... they had been before we received the news brought by Mr. Finch, however innocent these people might be of the murder of his men. I did not therefore invite their approach, and they were too cautious to be intrusive. The wheels being repaired at three P.M. we turned our faces homewards, and exactly at sunset we reached the ponds where I ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... air The Author rose to accompany me, casting a withering look upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who despised The Author for a bungling and intrusive idiot, and let his glance convey the fact. He was sorry for me, with a compassionate understanding of what I had been through. But I wanted neither his sorrow nor his compassion. He had punished The Author, but he hadn't ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... with you, Father Dan," he replied, assuming a sudden warmth, "I have. But I don't like to be intrusive." ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... intrusive, autumnal thoughts in this book of simple youth, and our young people knew them not. They were far indeed from Esther's mind as she talked with Dot of the future one afternoon. Instead, her words were full of impatience with the slow march of events, and the enforced inactivity ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... answered, and certainly not returned, should the answer be a refusal; unless, indeed, when, from a previous repulse, or some other particular and special circumstances, such an offer may be regarded by the lady or her relatives as presumptuous and intrusive. Under such circumstances, the letter may be placed by the lady in the hands of her parents or guardian, to be dealt with by them as ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... not an intrusive crowd that came; neither did they approach offensively near, or stare with vulgar curiosity. It's component members—three or four handsome young mule-drivers, princely in shabbiness; an elderly tiller of the soil, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... other! So ran my thoughts in the solitude and stillness of the night—a solitude and stillness so profound that the gentle push of the water against the sides of the yacht, almost noiseless as it was, sounded rough and intrusive. My port-hole was open, and I could see the sinking moon showing through it like a white face in sorrow. Just then I heard a low splash as of oars. I started up and went to the sofa, where, by kneeling on the cushions. I could ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... of pity, of loyal valour? Could featherheaded young ensigns do other than, by white Bourbon Cockades, handed them from fair fingers; by waving of swords, drawn to pledge the Queen's health; by trampling of National Cockades; by scaling the Boxes, whence intrusive murmurs may come; by vociferation, tripudiation, sound, fury and distraction, within doors and without,—testify what tempest-tost state of vacuity they are in? Till champagne and tripudiation do their work; and all lie silent, horizontal; passively ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... unmodified. The o—e alternation was welcome in so far as it roughly distinguished the singular from the plural. The dative singular fet, however, though justified historically, was soon felt to be an intrusive feature. The analogy of simpler and more numerously represented paradigms created the form fote (compare, e.g., fisc "fish," dative singular fisce). Fet as a dative becomes obsolete. The singular now had o throughout. But this very ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... trade with private purchasers, in which they realize considerable profit. The inquiry into traders' profits was not prosecuted in a more searching way, by examining themselves and their knitters at length upon invoices and specimens of goods, because the sufficiently intrusive inquiry which was made, and which stands in various parts of the printed evidence, seemed clearly enough to show that the truth as to this collateral question is as I have ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... will not think it intrusive on my part to thank you heartily for the pleasure which I have derived from reading your admirably written 'Creed of Science,' though I have not yet quite finished it, as now that I am old I read very slowly. It is a very long time since any other book has interested ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... and it appears that they are grown at the same time as in the north. Yet this variety now dwells in the tropics south of the equator, where the spring, and the breeding season for most birds, comes at the time of the northern fall in September, October, and November. That the deer is an intrusive immigrant, and that it has not yet been in South America long enough to change its mating season in accordance with the climate, as the birds—geologically doubtless very old residents—have changed their breeding season, is rendered probable by the fact ...
— Through the Brazilian Wilderness • Theodore Roosevelt
... establishment of a Royal Humane Society for the resuscitation of flies apparently drowned or suffocated. Can it possibly be imagined by the man who has succeeded after infinite pains in rescuing a greedy and intrusive insect from a gin-and-watery grave in his own vile potations, that he has thereby consulted the happiness of his fellow creatures, or promoted the cause of decency, cleanliness, good order, and domestic comfort? Let him watch the career of the mischievous little demon which he has thus been the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... the bank near her, his roving eyes full of bold curiosity bent on her from time to time, his idle fingers plaiting a little wreath out of long-stemmed clover and boutons d'or, he appeared merely an intrusive, irresponsible young fellow willing to amuse himself with a few moments' rustic courtship here before he continued on ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... her superstition, pursuing, 'Surely, my love, 'tis a cheap riddance of a pestilent, intrusive jaloux. Whip it into his hands ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... knew that she loved that rambling, cornery house of his, with the gable festooned with the real ivy that Bruce Marshall's great-grandmother had brought with her from England. Judith thought contrastingly of Eben King's staring, primrose-colored house in all its bare, intrusive grandeur. She gave a little shrug ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... must say that, in this point at least, the poor are more philosophic than the rich—that they show a more ready and cheerful submission to what they consider as irremediable evils or irreparable losses. Whenever I saw occasion, or could do it without appearing to be intrusive, I joined their parties, and gave my opinion upon the matter in discussion, which, if not always judicious, was always received indulgently. If wages were a little higher or expected to be so, or the quartern loaf a little lower, or it was reported that onions ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... advance as one who was bent upon holding her ground. Her tiny head was thrown back, and her large blue eyes were full of mingled wonder and defiance. As we entered the little witch flapped her kerchief at us, and shooed as though we were two of the intrusive fowl whom she was wont to chevy out of the house. Reuben and I stood on the threshold, uncertain, and awkward, like a pair of overgrown school lads, looking down at this fairy queen whose realms we had invaded, in two minds whether ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... saddlebags of all sizes, the horjin, in cloth, in sacking, in expensive leather, in carpeting, of all prices, with an ingenious device of a succession of loops fastening the one into the other, the last with a padlock, to secure the contents of the bag from intrusive hands. ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... more liberal Plymouth and Connecticut, the "watch and ward" over one's fellows, which the early colonial church insisted upon, was extended only over church members, and even over them was less rigorous, less intrusive. Something of the development of the great authority of the State over the churches and of its attitude and theirs towards synods may be gleaned from the earliest pages of Massachusetts ecclesiastical history. The starting-point of precedent for the elders of ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... three minutes, just feeling the place, then scurried hastily away like two timorous hares; and as I have since lost a much prized little fern-leaf plucked within the enclosure, I think Mr. Tennyson should agree that this intrusive American has been quite severely enough punished, and that much ought to be forgiven one who ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various
... shewn into the untidiest room that he had ever seen, filled in equal measure with the priceless and the worthless. The bindings of Riviere rubbed shoulders with tattered paper-backs; a cabinet of Japanese porcelain was outraged by foolish, intrusive china cats; there was a shelf of Waterford glass with a dynasty of blown-glass pigs, descending from the ten-inch-high parent to the thumb-nail baby of the litter—gravely and ridiculously arranged in a serpentine procession. ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... the lady and her eyes filled with tears, "I'm asking a sacrifice! I am insolent, I am intrusive, but be magnanimous. To-morrow I'm leaving for Kazan and I should like to know your opinion to-day. Grant me half an hour of your attention . . . only one half-hour . ...
— The Schoolmaster and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... former mate, hadn't that humble coin in his pocket; whilst purse-pride hinted that I had four sovereigns and some loose silver in mine—not to speak of 8 6s. 8d. waiting for me in Hay. If I had allowed my mind to dwell on these two intrusive intimations, they would have seemed to fit each other like tenon and mortice; though when the opportunity of making the joint had existed, a sort of moral laziness, together with our artificial, ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... ALMORAN already enslaved him to the punctilios of state; and the most trifling circumstances involved him in perplexity, or fired him with resentment: the friendship and fidelity of OMAR stung him with rage, as insolent and intrusive; and though it determined him to an immediate interview with his brother, yet he was embarrassed how to procure it. At first he rose, and was about to go to him; but he stopped short with disdain, upon reflecting, that it was ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... gave them greater pleasure or more genuine education.... Perhaps one reason why some American children are aggressive and lacking in respect is the frivolity of the talk that goes on in some American families. If children are in the right atmosphere they will not be intrusive or impertinent. Make place for their interests, their questions, the problems of their experience; for there are young as well as old perplexities. Encourage them to talk, and meet them more than half-way by the utmost hospitality to ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... truth to nature, makes an essential part of the value of what is offered us; as where a man undertakes to narrate personal experience or to enforce a dogma. This is particularly true as respects sentimentalists, because of their intrusive self-consciousness; for there is no more universal characteristic of human nature than the instinct of men to apologize to themselves for themselves, and to justify personal failings by generalizing them into universal laws. A man would ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... Spurius, a man whom no slight can chill nor, even insult, cause to abate the least of his intrusive familiarity—a familiarity which he covets, too, only for the sake of disputation and satire. To me, however, he is never other than a source of amusement. He is a variety of the species I love ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... tears. She bent nearer him and spoke still lower. There was something so intimate and private in their bearing, in their soft tones, that Redwood—Redwood who had thought for two whole days of nothing but his son—felt himself intrusive there. Abruptly he was checked. For the first time in his life perhaps he realised how much more a son may be to his father than a father can ever be to a son; he realised the full predominance of the future over the past. ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... Father Corraine like a prison wall. And this shadow crept stealthily on and invaded the whole circle, until, where the radiance had been, there was one continuous wall of gloom, rising are upon are to invasion of the zenith, and pierced only by some intrusive wandering stars. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... how can he help it, is installed in the Tabagie; glides into pleasant conversation there. A captivating talker; solid for religion, for the rights of Germany against intrusive French and others: such insight, orthodoxy, sense and ingenuity; pleasant to hear; and all with the due quantity of oil, though he "both snuffles and lisps;" and has privately, in case of need, a capacity of lying,—for he curiously distils you any lie, in his religious alembics, ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... be; and for the hair, the black tail of a horse, half-covered and confined by the great plumed bonnet, with its crest dropping backward, is a disguise not to be detected. The proud savage doffs his eagle plumes to no living man; and even the most intrusive Mormon would not dare to scrutinise too closely the coiffure of an Indian warrior. The plan was rendered further practicable, by a new and able ally enlisting himself into our ranks. This was the trapper, Archilete, who, from a hint given him ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... home of many women in the middle of a farm of two hundred acres, lying upon a beautiful plateau, so that pure air, unobstructed sunshine, good sewerage, an abundant water supply, quiet, freedom from intrusive observation in out-door sports or employments, and varied encouragements for active and healthful recreation, were all made possible. He was careful that the provision for the heating and lighting of the building should be generous, and ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... see my little fellow-traveller, who, in her modest reluctance to be intrusive, held back during the rough greetings between John and me. But in proper time she felt it due to herself to come forward and assert her presence; so, setting her tail bolt upright like a standard, she began pacing softly backwards and forwards, purring affectionately, and rubbing herself against ...
— Cat and Dog - Memoirs of Puss and the Captain • Julia Charlotte Maitland
... gave us pathos skilfully reserved in her clever study of an old, old countrywoman turned trousers-maker; and little DINKA STARACE showed quite astonishing aptitude (or the most wonderful training) in the part of her granddaughter. Miss BABS FARREN also did well with her rather intrusive ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... your bag. Not that I think you are even acquainted with him, and there are probably a great many of them there; but your coming from the same city and all does seem a little queer, and I hope you won't think me intrusive in speaking to you, because if you should happen, by the thousandth of a chance, to be the right one, I should ...
— The Sleeping Car - A Farce • William D. Howells
... most promptly posted. Then other matters were put in line to make the reopening of Deerhurst the most memorable event in its history. Servants were ordered thither, disused rooms were aired and fitted for occupancy, every scrap of fallen leaf or intrusive weed removed from its driveways and paths, and in all the glory of its early-autumn beauty the fine old place awaited the coming of its mistress and ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond
... small and retreating, his hair sandy and short-cropped. Add to these two small, dull, gray eyes, and you have features not easily described. Nevertheless, there are moments when his countenance wears an expression of mildness-one in which the quick eye may read a character more inoffensive than intrusive. A swallow-tail blue coat, of ample skirts, and brass buttons; a bright-colored waistcoat, opening an avalanche of shirt-bosom, blossoming with cheap jewelry; a broad, rolling shirt-collar, tied carelessly with ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... its shipping. From Capel Cerig down the justly celebrated vale of Nant Gwynant to Bethgelart. In this vale are two small lakes, the higher of which is the only Welsh lake which has any pretensions to compare with our own; and it has one great advantage over them, that it remains wholly free from intrusive objects. We saw it early in the morning; and with the greenness of the meadows at its head, the steep rocks on one of its shores, and the bold mountains at both extremities, a feature almost peculiar to itself, it appeared to us truly enchanting. The village of Bethgelart ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... you! I must fight my own battles. As a matter of fact, it's more temper than anything else. I have a most intrusive temper. It is ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... made no plans. The man Marlow and I came together in the casual manner of those health-resort acquaintances which sometimes ripen into friendships. This one has ripened. For all his assertiveness in matters of opinion he is not an intrusive person. He haunts my hours of solitude, when, in silence, we lay our heads together in great comfort and harmony; but as we part at the end of a tale I am never sure that it may not be for the last time. Yet I don't think that either of us would care much to survive ...
— Notes on My Books • Joseph Conrad
... earth at the same time was cleft with great cracks or fissures, which reached down through many miles of the planet's crust to the central fires and released the boiling rocks imprisoned in its bosom, and these poured to the surface, as igneous, intrusive, or trap-rocks. Where the great breaks were not deep enough to reach the central fires, they left mighty fissures in the surface, which, in the Scandinavian regions, are known as fiords, and which constitute a striking feature of the scenery of these northern lands; they are great canals—hewn, ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... without a moment's hesitation flew with all despatch possible to prevent the enemy's making any impression upon the continent before my arrival there." The protestation of disinterestedness here is somewhat intrusive, and being wholly unnecessary excites ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... recently closed among us has not been anywhere reopened; foreign intervention has ceased to excite alarm or apprehension; intrusive pestilence has been benignly mitigated; domestic tranquillity has improved, sentiments of conciliation have largely prevailed, and affections of loyalty and patriotism have been widely renewed; our fields have yielded quite abundantly, our mining industry has been richly rewarded, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... peeping out between two gleaming coils was so horribly real, that he awoke. It was the moment before dawn: pitch-black branches barred the sky; with every jolt of the wheels the gleams from the lamps danced, fantastic and intrusive, round ferns and tree-stems, into the cold heart of the forest. For an hour or more Scorrier tried to feign sleep, and hide from the stillness, and overmastering gloom of these great woods. Then softly ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... him to whom it was given, for this small, non-intrusive personage was no less a man than Francis Marion, then but little known, but destined to become the Robin Hood of partisan warriors, the celebrated "Swamp-Fox" of historical romance and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... know himself that he could talk. He found himself performing acts of gallantry which astounded him after the performance: he found himself looking blankly in the glass at the crow's feet round his eyes, and at some streaks of white in his hair, and some intrusive silver bristles in his grim, blue beard. He found himself looking at the young bucks at the bath—at the bland, tight-waisted Germans—at the capering Frenchmen, with their lacquered mustachios and trim ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray |
