"Observable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... has invented a new and convenient name "Dysteleology," for the study of the "purposelessnesses" which are observable in living organisms—such as the multitudinous cases of rudimentary and apparently useless structures. I confess, however, that it has often appeared to me that the facts of Dysteleology cut two ways. If we are to assume, as evolutionists in general do, that useless organs atrophy, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... line, had during the millennium so accumulated (at the rate apparently of, roughly, sixty days in 360,000, or, say, three half-seconds a day) that the Chou dynasty found it necessary to call the Hia eleventh moon the first and the Hia first moon the third of the year. A parallel distinction is observable in modern times when the Russian year (until a few years ago twelve days later than ours), was declared thirteen days later; and when we ourselves in 1900 (and in three-fourths of all future years making up a net hundred), omit the intercalary day of the 29th February, which otherwise occurs every ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... only listen—you shall decide. At least you shall listen, in order that you may forgive my intrusion, my selfishness in compromising you as I have done." He hesitated, and for the first time color came into the drawn cheeks; a softening echo was observable in her own. "If you find me guilty, when I tell you, I'll—well—I'll take that door or ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... involved her fine person, a modest grace was observable in its every turn. Her exquisitely moulded arm, rather veiled than concealed by the muslin sleeve that covered it, was extended in the gentle energy of her vindication. Her lucid eyes shone with a sincere benevolence, and her lips seemed to breathe balm while she spoke. His soul ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... mother's acquaintance, were now more coarse, and so was his language; and the neatness and cleanliness of person which he was obliged to maintain while performing the duties of a coxswain to a married captain were not so observable. Besides which, being no longer under discipline, he was almost every night intoxicated; and, being so, was more self-willed and regardless of his wife's injunctions. The consequences were that having received from my father ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat
... pervades the universe and associates all things together in mutual intercourse and harmony." This influence, he said, was particularly exercised on the nervous system, and produced two states which he called intension and remission, which seemed to him to account for the different periodical revolutions observable in several maladies. When in after-life he met with Father Hell, he was confirmed by that person's observations in the truth of many of his own ideas. Having caused Hell to make him some magnetic plates, he determined to try experiments with them ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... from the contagion of the Small-pox, he was inoculated the 1st of July following with variolous matter, immediately taken from a pustule. Several slight punctures and incisions were made on both his arms, and the matter was carefully inserted, but no disease followed. The same appearances were observable on the arms as we commonly see when a patient has had variolous matter applied, after having either the Cow-pox or the Small-pox. Several months afterwards, he was again inoculated with variolous matter, but no sensible effect was produced on ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... the table with as scrupulous care as usual; and, except that there was no display of flowers, no change was observable. ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... Their mission was to overrun other nations, and to prevent them from indulging in internecine warfare. To them mankind are therefore indebted for the preservation of whatever civilization was then extant, and for stopping the retrogressive course of the human race. This was particularly observable in their conquest of Greece and the kingdoms of Asia Minor, where incessant quarrels between rival cities and principalities had checked the progress of the arts, sciences, and literature. Content to conquer in battle, and, as ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... as the Court House clock was tolling the appointed hour Mr. Manning, alias Mr. Hartsell, walked into the office. He was, as Katherine had once described him to Old Hosie, a quiet, reserved man with that confidence-inspiring amplitude in the equatorial regions commonly observable in bank presidents ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... However, when the inward frame of man is considered as any guide in morals, the utmost caution must be used that none make peculiarities in their own temper, or anything which is the effect of particular customs, though observable in several, the standard of what is common to the species; and above all, that the highest principle be not forgot or excluded, that to which belongs the adjustment and correction of all other inward movements and affections; which principle will of course have some influence, but which ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... and one of the daughters, Agrippina the younger, by her marriage with a Roman nobleman, became the mother of the Emperor Nero. Hence it appears that Tiberius was uncle to Claudius, Claudius was uncle to Caligula, Caligula was uncle to Nero. But it is observable, that Nero and Caligula stood in another degree of consanguinity to each other through their grandmothers, who were both daughters of Mark Anthony the triumvir; for the elder Antonia married the grandfather of Nero; the younger Antonia (as we have stated, above) married Drusus, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... the Villare, is found. When he stood candidate for his fellowship, five years afterwards, he was registered again by himself as of Middlesex. The last record ought to be preferred, because it was made upon oath. It is observable, that, as a native of Winborne, he is styled filius Georgii Prior, generosi; not consistently with the common account of the meanness of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... replied the boys began to collect again from their ignominious flight, and it was observable that they were all laughing at one another in an accusatory manner, each feeling full of contempt for the pusillanimous behaviour of the others, while the looks of Morris might have given the whole party a ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn
... observable that the trivial services of social life are best performed, and the lesser particles of domestic happiness are most skilfully organized, by the deepest and the fairest heart. It is an error to suppose that homely minds are the best administrators ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... this part of them which would appear "hoary" in the reflection in the brook. The same sort of intuitive power, the same faculty of bringing every object in nature, whether present or absent, before the mind's eye, is observable in the speech of Cleopatra, when conjecturing what were the employments of Antony in his absence:— "He's speaking now, or murmuring, where's my serpent of old Nile?" How fine to make Cleopatra have this consciousness ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... observable, was softened in one particular, after the first edition[401]; for the conclusion of Mr. George Grenville's character stood thus: 'Let him not, however, be depreciated in his grave. He had powers not universally possessed: could he have enforced payment of the Manilla ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... not disguised their vices and their weaknesses,—he has not endowed them with incompatible virtues; but, just favouring them charitably, so as to take off the edge of our dislike, has exhibited them nearly as they must necessarily have been. The same discretion is observable in his impersonation of those equivocal characters in humble life which he has invested with an interest hitherto unknown. Meg Merrilies, Madge Wildfire, Ratclifte, and the Smuggler in Redgauntlet, are characters in whom are found redeeming traits of the best feeling, and which, therefore, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... construct their own toys and appliances. With increasing maturity, activity which does not give back results of tangible and visible achievement loses its interest. Play then changes to fooling and if habitually indulged in is demoralizing. Observable results are necessary to enable persons to get a sense and a measure of their own powers. When make-believe is recognized to be make-believe, the device of making objects in fancy alone is too easy to stimulate intense action. One has only to observe the countenance ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... of the same State took advantage of a similar occasion to comment with severity on those who had opposed the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. Jealousy had done much to poison their minds, he said, "for it is observable that throughout the whole of the United States a majority of the leaders of the opposition to our newly adopted government are not natives of our soil; hence this pernicious quality of the mind displays itself more widely in America."[Footnote: "American Museum," ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... the effect of climate on vegetation, we find that as we proceed from the north towards the south, the number and luxuriance of plants increase in a remarkable degree, and the same result is observable in altitude as in latitude. 'Step by step,' writes Mr Henfrey, 'as the land rises in any mountain region, the vegetation assumes, more and more, a polar character; and in the mountains of the tropics, a succession ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... indeed, if you read in the Biographie des Hommes du Jour, article "Soult," you will fancy that, with the exception of the disaster at Vittoria, the campaigns in Spain and Portugal were a series of triumphs. Only, by looking at a map, it is observable that Vimeiro is a mortal long way from Toulouse, where, at the end of certain years of victories, we somehow find the honest Marshal. And what then?—he went to Toulouse for the purpose of beating the English there, to be sure;—a known ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... pride and ambition have spread their desolations far and wide; but such practices are not therefore humane and just. That many nations have encouraged slavery, and that the remains of it are still observable among the freest of them, are argument which none will plead for their honour and credit. That species of servitude which still remains in Britain among the labourers in the coal mines, &c. is very ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... town resumed its habitual phlegm, and became apparently Flemish as before, it was observable that, at bottom, the character and temperament of the people changed little by little. One might have truly said, with Dominique Custos, the doctor, that "their ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... them in connection with their local distribution over the heavens. If indeed we confine ourselves to the three or four brightest classes, we shall find them distributed with a considerable approach to impartiality over the sphere; a marked preference, however, being observable, especially in the southern hemisphere, to a zone or belt passing through epsilon Orionis and alpha Crucis. But if we take in the whole amount visible to the naked eye we shall perceive a great increase of numbers ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... the alteration in the manner of the Portuguese Commandant, who had the highest respect for nobility, was most marked. He treated Philip with a respect, which was observable to all in the fort; and which was, until Krantz had explained the cause, a source of astonishment to Philip himself. The Commandant often introduced the subject to Krantz, and sounded him as to whether his conduct towards Philip had been such, as to have made a favourable ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... of accession and acceptation on the part of the Emperor and Empress, relative to the neutral confederation, were exchanged here a few days after the date of my last letter to the President. A want of connexion is observable among the powers who have adopted this system; they are divided into three parties, the Empress standing at the head of each. First, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Holland; next, Russia and Prussia; and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... while boys of ten or twelve years beget offspring. And in their sixteenth year, men are overtaken with decrepitude and decay and the period of life itself is soon outrun. And O king, when men become so short-lived, more youths act like the aged; while all that is observable in youth may be noticed in the old. And women given to impropriety of conduct and marked by evil manners, deceive even the best of husbands and forget themselves with menials and slaves and even with animals. And O king, even women that are wives of heroes seek the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... And it is observable, that it was our Saviours will that his four Fishermen Apostles should have a prioritie of nomination in the catalogue of his twelve Apostles, as namely first, S. Peter, Andrew, James [Mat. 10.] and John, and then the ...
— The Complete Angler 1653 • Isaak Walton
... shrivelled-looking man slowly and deliberately raised his head from the account-book, and surveyed me for a moment or two; not the slightest emotion was observable in his countenance. It appeared to me, however, that I could detect a droll twinkle in his eye: his curiosity, if he had any, was soon gratified; he made me a kind of bow, pulled out a snuff-box, took a pinch of snuff, and again bent ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... we returned to our inn, and the next morning after breakfast we set out on our journey to Bruxelles. The road is exactly similar to that between Bruges and Gand, but the country appears to be richer and more diversified, and many country houses were observable on the road side. We passed thus several neat villages. At one o'clock we stopped at Alost to refresh our horses and dine. At the table d'hote were a number of French officers belonging to the Gardes du Corps. On entering into conversation with one of them, I found that he ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... soul-selling planter a thorn in the flesh of Puritan morality. The Yankee is to the Southerner a synonym for all that is low and base and cunning, and the Southerner is to the Yankee the embodiment of all worthlessness and crime. The same spirit is observable in those Northern States which were settled by a mixed emigration from both portions of the country, and the fact is well known that even in those loyal Western States where the Southern element most predominates, is found the bitterest hatred and denunciation of the Yankee; so that he is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... in the strictest sense of the word a thorough and earnest Christian. But in any case he was well armed against that numerous class of Deistical objections which rested upon an exclusively literal interpretation of Scripture. This is eminently observable in regard of theories of inspiration. To Quakers, as to mystical writers in general, biblical infallibility has never seemed to be a doctrine worth contending for. They have always felt that an admixture of human error is perfectly ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... slow Nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden Nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection Nearest to the opinions of those with whom they have to do Negligent garb, which is yet observable amongst the young men Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other Neither continency nor virtue where there are no opposing desire Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell Neither the courage to die nor the heart to live Never any man knew so much, and spake so little ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne
... Bathurst is said to be a very healthy climate; wonders are told of the climate of New South Wales generally, and yet we are informed that "the cheeks of the children beyond the mountains have a rosy tint, which is seldom observable in the lowlands of the colony." However, notwithstanding all that may be said, disease and death can find out their victims even in ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Father Vianney bore those years of bitterness. His zeal never relaxed for a day, and the interior agony which he suffered was not observable in any of his pastoral duties. At that time he frequently repeated those memorable and beautiful words: "We can do more for God when we perform our duties faithfully, without interior gladness and a ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... these variable features were not consciously manipulated by the author; and, even when a general drift in a certain direction is clearly observable in his practice with regard to them, it is not to be assumed that his progress was perfectly regular, without leaps forward and occasional returns to an earlier usage. It is to be noted also that the subject and atmosphere of a particular play might ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... entrance to this harbor, which in the narrowest part is some hundred yards wide, that a pilot is hardly necessary, though foreign vessels generally take one. There is little or no tide on this part of the coast, the variations never exceeding two feet. No regular ebb and flow is therefore observable, but when the land breeze rises there is a very slight tide-way setting out of the harbor. No country in the world of the size of this island has so many large and fine harbors. They number twenty-nine on its northern side and twenty-eight ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... pointed out that games in particular afforded indications of mental sexual differentiation. Many games, indeed, may even be regarded as direct manifestations of the sexual impulse, and I must therefore now return to the consideration of this topic; but I shall confine myself to certain phenomena observable in the animal world, since the games of animals are, in this connexion, so much simpler than those of children. Play constitutes a major part of the activities of young animals; think, for instance, of a kitten playing with a hanging tassel or ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... time, however, he was aware that it was quite useless to press his interrogatory further, his knowledge of women being that there is no measuring the length, breadth, and depth of woman's secretiveness. He therefore consulted M. Belmont. From him he learned that an observable change for the worse in Pauline's manner was coincident with the young American officer's departure from his house, and even dated back from the latter days of his convalescence, when his departure was understood to be ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... brightest cobalt blue stretched before a many-towered and terraced town, which was relieved by a background of luxuriant foliage and emerald-green mountains; on his left arose a rugged mountain, which he was surprised to see was snow-capped, albeit a tunnel was observable midway of its height, and a train just issuing from it. Almost regretting that he had not continued on his journey, as he was fully sensible that it was in some way connected with the railway he had quitted, presently his attention was directed to ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... eagle builds, year after year, for a long series of years. When both male and female have been shot from the nest, another pair has soon after taken possession. The nest is large, being added to and repaired every season, until it becomes a black prominent mass, observable at a considerable distance. It is formed of large sticks, sods, earthy rubbish, hay, moss, &c. Many have stated to me that the female lays first a single egg, and that, after having sat on it for some time, she ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 494. • Various
... children; by his third, who was the daughter of king James, by the countess of Dorchester, and the widow of the earl of Anglesey, he had, besides other children that died early, a son born in 1716, who died in 1735, and put an end to the line of Sheffield. It is observable, that the duke's three wives were all widows. The dutchess died ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... is observable even in the signs or notices along the streets. Instead of "Lodging," "Lodging," as with us, one sees "Beds," "Beds," which has a very homely sound; and in place of "gentlemen's" this, that, or the other, about public places, the word "men's" ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... extent, progressive; that is to say, a word already explained in a foregoing ballad is not always explained again; and to the best of my ability I have freed the notes from the grotesque blunders observable in most modern editions ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick
... violently bombarded than others, this being due to the unevenly distributed electric density, necessitated, of course, by sharp projections, or, generally speaking, irregularities of the electrode. But the luminous patches are constantly changing in position, which is especially well observable if one manages to produce very few, and this indicates that the configuration of the electrode is ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla
... might seem his lack of fitting preparation, his best would be adequate to the occasion. The habit has led many to fancy that he believed himself divinely chosen, and therefore sure of infallible guidance; but it is observable far back, almost from the beginning of his life; it was a trait of mind and character, nothing else. The letter closes with a broad general theory concerning the war, wrought out by that careful process of thinking whereby he was wont to make his way to the big, simple, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... which I had drawn from the library, and I pondered upon it as much as I did upon what the teacher said to me. In introducing Swartboy to his readers he made use of this expression: "No visible change was observable in Swartboy's countenance." Now, it occurred to me that if a man of his education could make such a blunder as that and still write a book, I ought to be able to do it, too. I went home that very day and began a story, "The Old Guide's Narrative," which was sent to the New York ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... matters examinational, which she seemed thoroughly to understand; with Miss Lord she talked of wider subjects, in a tone not unpleasing to Nancy, seeing that it presumed, on her part, some knowledge of the polite world. It was observable that Mr. Vawdrey's daughters had benefited by the superintendence of this lady; they no longer gossiped loudly about murders and scandals, but demeaned themselves more as became ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... and important of the vegetable productions, mention has already been made; and they are nearly the same in all the districts through which I passed. It is observable, however, that although many species of the edible roots which grow in the West India Islands are found in Africa, yet I never saw, in any part of my journey, either the sugar-cane, the coffee, or the cocoa-tree; nor could I learn, on ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... himself "an Irish potato seasoned with Attic salt"—wrote largely for English periodicals, and spent most of their lives out of Ireland. In the writings of all three an element of the grotesque is observable, tempered, however, in the case of Mahony, with a vein of tender pathos which emerges in his delightful "Bells of Shandon." Maginn was a wit, Mahony was the hedge-schoolmaster in excelsis, and Carleton was the first realist in Irish peasant fiction. ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... read these extracts," said another exponent of public opinion, "turn to any poet you will, and compare the texture of the composition,—it is a severe test, but you will find that Alexander Smith bears it well." It was observable, however, that all this praise was lavished on what were styled "beauties." Passages and single lines, bricks from the edifice, were extravagantly eulogized; but on turning to the poems, it was found that the poetical lines and passages were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... had not yet been spoken. There was something lacking in the so-called civilized man's economy—a lack which his philosophy failed to account for, but which was not observable among animals and primitive men. There, the economy of the infinite cosmic mechanism which binds and holds all manifestations of life in one harmonious whole was too apparent to even suggest the detachment of a single form of life ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... (1609). This last, the best known of Dekker's work, is an Englishing of the no less famous Grobianus of Frederick Dedekind, and the same skill of adaptation which was noticed in The Bachelor's Banquet is observable here. The spirit of these works seems to have been so popular that Dekker kept it up in The Dead Term [long vacation], Work for Armourers (which, however, is less particular and connects itself with Nash's sententious work), The Raven's Almanack, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... explaining to the mind of primitive man how things came to be as they are. This tendency to adopt what are to educated minds fanciful explanations of all that is beyond their understanding is easily observable in the way children explain the unknown. It seems fairly clear, on the other hand, that fairy stories were told by the folk as matter of entertainment. They did not believe that pigs actually talked, that a princess could sleep a hundred years, that a bean-stalk ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... concludes with the Presents made by the King to the Champion according to the Custom of the Greeks and Romans in such Cases; only his tumbling thro' the Queen's Ring is observable, and may serve to give some Light into the Original of that ingenious Exercise so much practis'd by the Moderns, of tumbling thro' ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... not now possible to know; there is no trace in literary history of any particular intimacy between them. The name of Congreve appears in the Letters among those of his other friends, but without any observable distinction or consequence. To his latter works, however, he took care to annex names dignified with titles, but was not very happy in his choice; for, except Lord Bathurst, none of his noble friends were such as that a good man ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... she found him gone, and she stooped lower to the glass, to mark if the recent agitation were observable under her eyes. There, looking at herself, her heart dropped heavily in her bosom. She ran to the door and hurried swiftly after Evan, pulling ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the great city were of a very slight and external kind. He had few acquaintances, and spent his time mainly in rambling about the streets. His descriptions of this phase of his life have little interest. There is some flatness in an enumeration of the nationalities observable in a London crowd, ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... of caricaturing the contrast often observable between "what is said" and "what is thought" by the speaker. To catch the full meaning of the duel of words which now took place between the priest and the lady, it is necessary to unveil the thoughts that each hid from the other under spoken sentences of apparent insignificance. ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... remainder of the work. The composition of the Catalogue, whensoever it may have taken place, necessarily presumes its author's acquaintance with a previously existing Iliad. It were impossible otherwise to account for the harmony observable in the recurrence of so vast a number of proper names, most of them historically unimportant, and not a few altogether fictitious: or of so many geographical and genealogical details as are condensed in these few hundred lines, and incidentally ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... that the full maturity of wisdom was seen. The emperors greatly increased the severity of punishments, as probably necessary in a corrupt state of society. After the decemviral laws fell into disuse, the Romans, in the days of the republic, passed from extreme rigor to great lenity, as is observable in the transition from the Puritan regime to our times in the United States. Capital punishment for several centuries was exceedingly rare, and this was prevented by voluntary exile. Under the empire, public executions were frequent ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... turning his cheek first one way and then another, apparently to ascertain the doubtful direction of the wind, which, from a lively western breeze, had within the last hour lulled down into those small, fluctuating puffs usually observable when counter-currents are springing up, balancing, and beginning to strive for the mastery. After a while he moved slowly towards the house, continuing his observations as he went, till he came near the open window at which ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... operas are as numberless as sands on the sea-shore and rather less valuable. That young women should not make a practice of marrying old men, that illicit passions and intrigues may bring on disaster, that it is madness to make love to another man's wife in a garden, observable by all, that it is greater madness still to keep on when a maidservant is screaming that some one is coming—these rules of conduct are very well in their way and might commend themselves to the denizens of Clapham; but, again, I hardly think Wagner would have constructed ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... literary productions previous to the time of Chaucer were designed only for a limited audience. Neither comprehensive observation of society nor a wish to instruct or please a wide circle of readers was observable before this period. Chaucer was indeed a national poet, an active and enlightened teacher of all classes of men who were susceptible of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... of heart or sapwood does not influence the mechanical properties of the wood and there is usually no difference in structure observable under the microscope, nevertheless sapwood is generally decidedly different from heartwood in its physical properties. It dries better and more easily than heartwood, usually with less shrinkage and little checking or honeycombing. This is especially the ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record
... done out of his Patrimony in a little Time, the Estate being not in the least incumbred. But the Death of his good Father gave a loose to the Extravagancy of his Inclinations, which till then was hardly observable. The first Discovery he made of his Humour, was in the extraordinary rich Equipage he prepar'd for his Journey to London, which was much greater than his fair and plentiful Fortune cou'd maintain, nor were his Expences any way inferior ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... reply negatively. The common Bavarian beer has but about half the strength of the average malt liquors of our country, and seldom produces real intoxication except upon novices. It may stupefy, though this is by no means observable in the mental action of learned Bavarians. The charge of dulness, so sarcastically made against them, could be retorted with about as much show of reason against Prussians, Hanoverians, Saxons, or, indeed, any other people. The students, after their Kneips, have what they call Katzenjammer,—cat-sickness,—the ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... then would have been called quaint. It was a man of about sixty-six or sixty-seven years old, of a rather solid frame, wearing a Talma, as a short cloak of the time was called, that hung from the shoulders, and low shoes, neatly tied, which were observable at a time when boots were generally worn. The head was slightly declined to one side, the face was smoothly shaven, and the eyes twinkled with kindly humor and shrewdness. There was a chirping, cheery, old-school air ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... for the sudden termination of its flowing lines, which occasionally gives to the carving of the epoch an appearance of having been suddenly broken, or chopped off, in parts. At Nuremberg this peculiarity is very observable; our specimen is selected from the church at Rottweil, in the Black Forest, which bears the date of 1340. The French (Fig. 44) is a favourable example of the Flamboyant style, which gave freedom to the mediaeval rigidity of the Gothic, and paved the way for ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... into court. Mr. Justice Best came first, bending nearly double under a painful infirmity, and was received by a cold and ceremonious rising of the bar. To him succeeded his brother Holroyd, a learned but not a very brilliant lawyer, and another partial acknowledgment of the counsel was observable. Then entered the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Abbot, with more of dignity in his carriage than either of the preceding, and a countenance finely expressive of serenity and comprehensive faculties: his welcome was of a more general, and, I may add, genial nature; ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... was observable in the brooding figure of Mr. Allison, and no diminution in the red glare which now filled the room above him. To see him sitting there so much at his ease, and to behold at the same moment the destruction going on so rapidly over his head, affected me more than I can tell, and casting ...
— The Hermit Of ——— Street - 1898 • Anna Katharine Green (Mrs. Charles Rohlfs)
... saying what advantages railway communication may confer upon a country. But for the Granddiddle Junction, ——shire never would have had a steeple-chase—an 'Aristocratic,' at least—for it is observable that the more snobbish a thing is, the more certain they are to call it aristocratic. When it is too bad for anything, they call it 'Grand.' Well, as we said before, but for the Granddiddle Junction, ——shire would never have had a 'Grand Aristocratic Steeple-Chase.' ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... Magdalen's mother; "I must consider it in all its bearings." He tucked the umbrella under his arm, crossed his hands behind him, and lowered himself gently into the abyss of his own reflections. The order and propriety observable in the captain's shabby garments accurately typified the order and propriety which distinguished the operations of the captain's mind. It was his habit always to see his way before him through a neat succession of alternatives—and so he ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... is common to the coral and the plumage of birds, and to how large a part of animate and inanimate nature. The same independence of law on matter is observable in many other instances, as in the natural rhymes, when some animal form, color, or odor, has its counterpart in some vegetable. As, indeed, all rhymes imply an eternal melody, ...
— Excursions • Henry D. Thoreau
... materials allows scope for wealth and female coquetry to show themselves. Thus the invariable mode de Broons, with its trifling difference in form, which in the eye of the inhabitants made it as different as light from darkness from the mode de St. Jouan,' was equally observable in the coarse linen coiffe of the maid, and the richly-laced and beautifully 'got up' head-dress of the daughter ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position—is, that while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original nature, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... It is rich and mellow in color, and better we think than many of Mr. FLAGG'S recent works. No. 208, 'The Widow,' is a popular picture; pleasing in expression, and possessing more refinement of character than is observable in many of his other portraits. No. 102, 'Bianca Visconti,' ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... beautiful after the storm. It was not until then that the Camp Girls realized what a narrow escape Harriet Burrell and the three other girls had had. There was nothing to be seen of the tent save here and there a white patch of canvas observable under the mass of limbs and foliage. Jasper was at work stoically chopping away, both for the sake of clearing up the mess and providing some excellent wood for the campfire. After dinner enough of the wreckage was cleared away so that ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls Under Canvas • Janet Aldridge
... careful study of biological data, and he must therefore leave these to the specialists in scientific enquiry, but he is by no means precluded from using his own common-sense in drawing conclusions from the ordinary plain facts of life observable around him. It is when we come to consider this most important question in its bearing upon the mental side of the human being that the ordinary layman feels himself to be no less competent to form an opinion than the ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... morning gave it a preliminary trial to see that everything was in order. The "hands" came in at six, and the machine was set to work. It was no doubt a very small order, but the piston was executed perfectly and satisfactorily. The result of its easier action, through reduced friction, was soon observable in the smaller consumption of coal. Mr. Tootal and his brother were highly pleased at my prompt and careful attention to their little order, and it was the forerunner ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... in the following words: "Never, then, speak of God or of religion for form's sake, or to make conversation, but always with attention and devotion. I tell you this, that you may not be guilty of an extraordinary sort of vanity, which is observable in many who profess to be devout. These people, on all possible occasions, throw in expressions of piety and fervour without the least thought of what they are saying, and, having uttered these phrases, imagine that they ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... bottoms for miles on each side of its channel, and would continue capable of carrying large steamers until late in August. Since that time it has rarely been out of its banks, and navigation of its waters has entirely ceased. The same phenomenon is observable in relation to many of our lakes. Hundreds of the smaller ones have entirely dried up, and most of the larger ones have become reduced in depth several feet. The rainfall has not been lessened, but, if anything, has increased. My explanation of the change is, that in the advance ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... when his silence was observable, Willis said that he supposed that persons who were not Catholics could not tell what were corruptions and what not. Here the subject dropped again; for Willis did not seem in humour—perhaps he was ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... adopted to guide him in his Classification was the following: 'All observable phenomena may be included within a very few natural categories, so arranged as that the study of each category may be grounded on the principal laws of the preceding, and serve as the basis of the next ensuing. This order ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... delightful phenomena which are observable at the commencement of the rainy season, (immediately following that of the withering hot winds,) the joy displayed by the peacocks is one of the most pleasing. These birds assemble in groups upon some retired spot ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various
... beginning the facts are carefully examined to see precisely where the difficulty lies; at the end they are again examined to see whether an idea, an entertained hypothesis, a suggested solution, can be verified in actual observable results. ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... prevalent in the bulk of nominal Christians, to form a religious system for themselves, instead of taking it from the word of God, is strikingly observable in their scarcely admitting, except in the most vague and general sense, the doctrine of the influence of the Holy Spirit. If we look into the Scriptures for information on this particular, we learn a very different lesson. We are in them distinctly taught, that "of ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... those who would allege the fifty-six various readings of the first line of the "Orlando Furioso." Compositions so produced are to poetry what mosaic is to painting. This instinct and intuition of the poetical faculty is still more observable in the plastic and pictorial arts; a great statue or picture grows under the power of the artist as a child in the mother's womb; and the very mind which directs the hands in formation is incapable of accounting to itself ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... suffered from my silence, he would only have suffered from the sorrows of his own solitude. If I were not too old to travel, I would go to Berlin and introduce the etiquette of my own table, which tallies with the etiquette observable at other royal tables. I would say, "Invite me again, your Majesty, and give me a chance"; then I would courteously waive rank and do all the talking myself. I thank his Majesty for his kind message, and am proud to have it and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... savoury, our looks composed and weighty, and our whole deportment very observable. True it is, that this retired and strict sort of life, from the liberty of the conversation of the world, exposed us to the censures of many, as humourists, conceited and self-righteous persons, ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn
... wont to cover the leaves with their white threads, a thing observable by husbandmen, change their forms into that of the deadly moth.[41] Mud contains seed that generate green frogs; and it produces them deprived of feet;[42] soon it gives them legs adapted for swimming; and that the same may be fitted for long leaps, the length of the hinder ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... cows, a swelling of the body is observable a short time after having been spayed, attributable to the introduction of cold air into the abdomen during the operation; but this derangement generally ceases within twenty-four hours. Should the contrary occur, administer one or two sudorific draughts, such as wine, warm cider, ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... that is observable in the persons of the Erees, through all the other islands, is found also here. Those whom we saw were, without exception, perfectly well formed; whereas the lower sort, besides their general inferiority, are subject to all the variety ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... merely personal, egotistical, instinctive life, and as unconscious of the tendencies of the age, the revenges of the future, the new truths and the great social questions, as if she had been a mere bundle of dress-trimmings, which she very nearly was. It was perfectly observable that she had no conscience, and it irritated Olive deeply to see how much trouble a woman was spared when she was constructed on that system. Adeline's "affairs," as I have intimated, her social relations, ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... fact, generally observable in the instances of the soeurs de charite, that in the performance of their duties towards the sick, during the first three or four months, they display all that tender solicitude and devotedness, which romance ascribes to them as constant and habitual. After the first feelings have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various
... observable that men of the first rank spelt very ill in the last century. In the first of these letters I have preserved the original ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... carelessness; even the writing itself is artistic in its delicacy and finish. He received countless letters, and he preserved them all by pasting them into scrapbooks kept for the purpose. The same scrupulous care is observable in the writing of his musical manuscripts, and no fewer than forty-four volumes of these works, constructed by his own hands, are preserved in the Imperial Library at Berlin. His talent for drawing was considerable, and his love for the pursuit ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... kingdom of Old Castile, and more especially in its mountainous portions and the districts adjacent to the Ebro, an extraordinary bustle and agitation were observable during the first days of October 1833. There was great furbishing of rusty muskets, an eager search for cartridges, much dusting of old uniforms that had long served but as hiding-places for moths, and which were now donned by men, many of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... who should lead in the warfare, and bestow the strength which should be necessary for maintaining it. Anything beyond this we are not even entitled to expect at the first beginnings of the human race; a gradual progress is observable in the kingdom of grace, as well ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... supporting the cabinet. Encircling his brow are corn ears and wine cups, together with barley, wheat, grapes, and hops, the whole of which are most elaborately and finely chiselled. The hand of Maturity points downward to Old Age. The furrowed brow, the sunken cheek, the dim and glassy eye observable in this figure, conveys the mournful intelligence that the sand of life is fast approaching its last little grain. The bent form and the thoughtful brow tell that Time, the consumer of all things, has also ravaged a once erect and powerful frame. ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... and I was not able to leave my bed the next day. The others were in the same condition. But for this, one or another of us might have had the good luck that fell to the Paladin's share that day; but it is observable that God in His compassion sends the good luck to such as are ill equipped with gifts, as compensation for their defect, but requires such as are more fortunately endowed to get by labor and talent what those others get by chance. ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... to deny that there is a certain observable movement and gradual procession in the history of life which is exactly consistent with what is most likely to have happened, supposing the Divine designs of life-forms were first declared in successive order at short intervals ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell
... met Matthew on the street, and been gratified with his deferential bow. His bulk, to which, as a rotund lady, she had taken an antipathy, seemed to dwindle down as it was looked at. Matthew, whose ideal was a delicate woman with observable shoulder blades, had also, by repeated sights of Mrs. Frump, become reconciled to her ample proportions. Meantime, they had heard much, incidentally, of each other through Marcus Wilkeson. Matthew had come to esteem Mrs. Frump for her affectionate devotion ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the mould, and now all was complete, and I had nothing to do but to go on watering them daily. This I did, and recollecting what Jackson had said about the guano, I got a bag of it, and put some to each plant. The good effect of this was soon observable, and before the birds came, my garden was in a ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Marryat
... using the big turbo-linear accelerator to project fast micropositos down an evacuated tube one kilometer in length, and clocking them with light, the velocity of which has been established almost absolutely. I will say that with respect to the light, there were no observable inaccuracies at any time, and until the micropositos were accelerated to 16.067543333-1/3 times light-speed, they registered much as expected. Beyond that velocity, however, the target for the micropositos ...
— Ministry of Disturbance • Henry Beam Piper
... with a little spark of hope in some, even physicians, upon a lightening that showed itself before death as it proved, his Majesty giving up the ghost this morning between four and five of the clock, witnessed immediately by all the bells in the town; this being somewhat observable in my opinion, that neither his Majesty's sickness, nor his death, was concealed one moment from the people. Some care is taken that the news thereof shall not be sent out of these kingdoms till it hath first gone by their own Correos, stopping ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... looking very well,' said Mrs. Frothingham, with manifest pride and affection. Of Alma she always spoke thus; nothing of the step-mother was ever observable. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... connected with the hidden premises behind—premises, as was afterwards discovered, held under a separate tenancy—by an easily-shifted ladder. It was in these hidden premises, approached by the maze of courts and the stable-yard, that the main evidences of Mayes's way of life were observable. The passage where my wrist had been locked to the wall, and the room or cellar in which Plummer had been confined, were the only parts of the lower premises fitted for the detention of prisoners, with the exception ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison
... thus far in their preparations, when two men, armed with muskets, were seen to approach, leading a negro girl between them. As they drew nearer, it was observable that the girl had a brass ring round her neck, to which a rope ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... the variety observable in Christ's method of communicating supernatural blessing were, probably, too closely connected with unrecorded differences in the spiritual conditions of the recipients to be distinctly traceable by ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren
... sixteen years successively, without the aid of any kind of manure. It must, however, be owned, that a very slovenly system of farming has been generally pursued throughout the colony; and, in fact, is commonly observable in all colonies. The settlers are not only apt to rely too much upon the natural productiveness of the soil, but they are in general men whose attention has only lately been turned to agriculture, and who are almost entirely ignorant of practical ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... experience and my now settled convictions, my purpose required whetting. The indescribable charm, the extreme refinement and nobility of manner observable in both Mr. Grey and his daughter were producing their effect. I felt guilty; constrained. whatever my convictions, the impetus to act was leaving me. How could I recover it? By thinking of Anson Durand and his ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... and putting spurs to his broncho, tore through the high bunch grass, above which only his head was now observable. In a short time he was back with the green stuff piled high on the saddle in front of him, with a large bundle tied to the ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... to France, from a territory on the Russian frontier belonging to Count Georges Mniszech and his father. He was anxious that M. Surville should undertake the matter, as, after abstruse and careful calculations—which have the puzzling veneer of practicality always observable in Balzac's mad schemes—he considered that 1,200,000 francs might be made out of the affair, and that of course the engineer who arranged the transport would reap some of the benefit. The blocks of wood would be fifteen inches in diameter at the base, and ten at the top. They would first be conveyed ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... surprised me, since the elevation of my husband has afforded me the opportunity of knowing many persons, and particularly those employed in important affairs, is the universal mediocrity which exists. It surpasses all that the imagination can conceive, and it is observable in all ranks, from the clerk to the minister. Without this experience I never could have believed my species ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... made up my mind to remain over-night with the hospitable people of Assababad; but at the solicitation of a Persian traveller who comes along, I conclude to accompany him to a building observable in the distance ahead which he explains is a small but comfortable serai. The good villagers seem very loath to let me, go so soon, and one young man kneels down and kisses my dusty geivehs and begs me to take him with me to Hindostan—strange, unsophisticated ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... young monk, so strikingly suggestive of the being most sacred in the estimation of the Princess, was at the moment less curious to her than a certain habit observable in him. The look of brightness attendant upon the thought he was putting into form would, when the utterance was through, suffer a lapse which, for want of strictly definite words, may be described as a sombering of the eyes when they were widest ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... morning was like the one that had preceded it; noon poured down the same exhaustless rays, and night condensed in its shadow the scattered heat which the ensuing day would again bequeath to the succeeding night. The wind, now scarcely observable, was rather a gasp than a breath, and the morning could almost be foreseen when even that gasp ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... royal and imposing prince I have ever seen. His stature, rising nearly two inches over the tallest of those around him, perhaps added to the effect of a mien remarkable for dignity, composure, and self-confidence. The predominant and most immediately observable expression of his face was one of serene calm and command. A closer inspection and a longer experience explained why, notwithstanding, my first conception of his character (and it was a true one) ascribed to him quite ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... those whom they accounted the enemies of God and man. We have already seen that even the conviction that a woman was innocent of the crime of witchcraft did not induce a worthy clergyman to use any effort to withdraw her from the stake; and in the same collection[75] there occur some observable passages of God's providence to a godly minister in giving him "full clearness" concerning Bessie Grahame, suspected of witchcraft. The whole detail is a curious illustration of the spirit of credulity ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... not produce those innumerable arguments, by which the scriptures have stood the test of ages, but advert to a single fact. It is an universal law, observable throughout the whole creation, that if two animals of a different species propagate, their offspring is unable to continue its own species. By this admirable law, the different species are preserved distinct; every possibility of confusion is prevented, ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson |
