"Observant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... had nothing to do with anything else; but the young botanist who may grasp this plume of leaves will find that the root leads along under-ground, till suddenly up comes another plant—a tall stem with panicles of purplish flowers. All these freaks or peculiarities become delightful to the observant eye. ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... Australians, Bushmen, and Andamanese, are there examples, besides the Zulus, of tribes higher in material culture who seem to have had such notions, but to have partly forgotten or neglected them? Miss Kingsley, a lively, observant, and unprejudiced, though rambling writer, gives this very account of the Bantu races. Oblivion, or neglect, will show itself in leaving the Supreme Being alone, as he needs no propitiation, while devoting sacrifice and ritual to fetishes ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... one observant. You were lunching with him in the Carlton Grill. You came in with him to the club ...
— The Double Traitor • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... to the ill, For royal blood within him struggled still, He thus replied:—And what pretence have I To take up arms for public liberty? My father governs with unquestion'd right, The faith's defender, and mankind's delight; Good, gracious, just, observant of the laws; And Heaven by wonders has espoused his cause. 320 Whom has he wrong'd, in all his peaceful reign? Who sues for justice to his throne in vain? What millions has he pardon'd of his foes, Whom just revenge did to his wrath ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... reason was so universally acknowledged, the offender would either readily yield to the expostulations of authority, or if he resisted, though suffering no personal molestation, he would feel so weary under the unequivocal disapprobation and the observant eye of public judgment as willingly to remove to a society more congenial to his errors." The picture is not so Utopian as it sounds. It is a very fair sketch of the social structure of a Macedonian village community under Turkish rule, ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... to marry," said Duncombe, still intently observant. "Giants like you have no right to remain single in ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... him. He did not appear altogether human, he seemed rather like some perfectly adjusted machine, able to think and plan, yet as unemotional as so much tempered steel. There was no perceptible change passing in that utterly impassive face, no brightening of those cold, observant eyes, no faintest movement of the tightly compressed lips. It was as though he wore a mask completely eclipsing every natural human feeling. Twice Winston, observing closely from his post of vantage slightly to the rear the swift action of those slender white fingers, could have sworn the ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... "What an observant mind you have, Soames!" he said. "So you have perceived that these groves are sacred to our Lady of the Poppies? Well, in part that is true. Here, under the auspices of Mr. Ho-Pin, fretful society seeks the solace of ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... She sate there warming her feet and hands, as much at her ease as if she had been there all her life; not particularly attending to her mother—who, all the time, was studying either her or her dress—measuring Molly and Mr. Gibson with grave observant looks, as if guessing how she should ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... him and keenly observant of every detail—his white silk hood thrown into relief by the black Geneva gown, his fair, flushed face touched with tenderness and reverence, a new accent of affection in his voice as one speaking to his charge, and especially she noted in this Free Kirkman a certain fervour and ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... memory haunted every street and by-lane and even attained to something like apotheosis in the talk of the older inhabitants. They told what an eye he had, as a naturalist, for anything uncommon in the maunds; how he taught them to be observant, alert for any strange fish, and to bring it home alive, if possible; and how he was never so happy as when seated on a bollard near the Quay-head with a drawing-board on his knee, busy—for he was a wonder with pencil and brush—transferring ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... a traveller as well as a writer. He has journeyed as one eager for knowledge, with a "hungry heart" and a keen, observant eye. He tells us what he has seen with his eyes, what he has heard with his ears. He insists that the world is flat, he acknowledges that it is divided into two parts—Europe and Asia; but he can afford to laugh at those who draw maps of the world "without any sense to guide them," ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... the claims of his country to respect and admiration. As I fed my eyes on the loveliness of Nature, or turned to the miracles of Art and Science on every hand, I had always in my mind a secret reference to the effect which a visit to England must produce upon an intelligent and observant foreigner. ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... out,—not going through the narrow passage that led to the offices, but avoiding it by a circuitous route. If it cost him any pain to think why he did it, he showed none in his calm, observant face. Buttoning up his coat as he went: the October sunset looked as if it ought to be warm, but he was deathly cold. On the street the young doctor beset him again, with bows and news: Cox was his name, I believe; the one, you remember, who had such a Talleyrand nose for ferreting out ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 50, December, 1861 • Various
... be said in regard to the mineral structure of a mining district; the course of a metallic vein being often correctly indicated by the shrewd guess of an OBSERVANT workman, when THE SCIENTIFIC REASONING of the mining engineer ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... of the British delegates sat the two Japanese, silent, observant, their features immobile as the Sphinx. It was a bold man who would attempt to guess the thoughts masked by their impassive faces. They waited for the strategic moment when they were to present their special ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... toward Ned. It was not lost by their observant entertainer, who laughed much to the ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... for a week, Mr. Uhler wondering and observant, and Mrs. Uhler finding her own sweet reward, not only in a consciousness of duty, but in seeing a great change in her husband, who was no longer moody and ill-natured, and who had not been absent once at meal time, nor during an evening, since she had striven to be to him a good wife, and to her ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... Edwards was out of sight, turned up Gissing Street with a fluent pace and an observant eye. A small boy cried, "Carry your bag, lady?" and she was about to agree, but then remembered that she was now engaged at ten dollars a week and waved him away. Our readers would feel a justifiable grudge ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... hair and beard, of a swart and terrible, not to say genteelly diabolical aspect, but who had shown himself the mildest of men; and a handsome young Englishwoman, travelling quite alone, who had a proud observant face, and had either withdrawn herself from the rest or been avoided by the rest—nobody, herself excepted perhaps, could have quite decided which. The rest of the party were of the usual materials: travellers on business, and travellers for pleasure; ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... they closed, in perfectly savage single combat. Fire and Water, observant and impartial, stood by like seconds to see the god himself decide the issue, which of the two combatants should be his living representative. The contest was brief but very hard-fought. Tu-Kila-Kila, inspired with the last frenzy of despair, rushed wildly on his opponent with hands and fists, ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... countenance at the moment of the leap was probably mechanical; and he suffered these convulsions in silence; clung to the tree like an infant; and seemed, by his dips, to suppose himself engaged in the pastime of bobbing for apples. A more finely sympathetic mind or a more observant eye might have remarked, a little in front of him on the sand and still quite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with illustrious spirits, and also that—yes, distinctly—he hadn't in the least swaggered about it. Our friend hadn't come there only for this figure of Abel Newsome's son, but that presence threatened to affect the observant mind as positively central. Gloriani indeed, remembering something and excusing himself, pursued Chad to speak to him, and Strether was left musing on many things. One of them was the question of whether, since he had been tested, he had passed. Did the artist drop him from having made out ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... is said that the water of the aqueducts (formae) is being diverted to turn mills and water gardens—a thing which would not be suffered even in the country districts. Even in redressing this wrong we must be observant of law; and therefore if it should be found that those who are doing this can plead thirty years' prescription, they must be bought off, but the misuser must cease. If the diversion is of less ancient date[298], it must of course be at once ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... in as impressively as he presented himself to an audience; and with the glow of pleasure still in her heart, she found her keen and observant mind watching him almost as if he were a stranger. This had been her misfortune always, the ardent heart joined to the critical judgment, the spectator chained eternally to the protagonist. She received a swift impression that he had prepared his words and even his gestures, ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... could see Mt. Rainier, with its reflection in the placid waters of the bay. Theodore Winthrop, the observant traveler who came into these same waters a few months later and wrote of it as Mt. Tacoma, described it as "a giant mountain dome of snow, seeming to fill the aerial spaces as the image displaced the blue deeps of tranquil water." A wondrous ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... are particularly observant of character, and intelligent in gauging the capabilities of those who govern them; and it is because the English Government is trusted that a mere handful of Englishmen are able to direct the administration of a country with nearly three hundred millions of inhabitants, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... so much so that I used often to wonder where the painters came from, and where the brutes of students went to. A similar mystery hangs over the intermediate stages of the medical profession, and must have perplexed the least observant. The ruffian, at least, whom I now carried Pinkerton to visit, was one of the most crapulous in the quarter. He turned out for our delectation a huge "crust" (as we used to call it) of St. Stephen, wallowing in red upon his belly in an exhausted ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and worn again,—the parsimony of one crisis seeking to make up for the wastefulness of another; for when a sharp turn of hard times comes round, everybody takes to economizing. There are older heads and more observant minds than my own, that must remember how these things have worked in bygone years. These have had the experience of a whole lifetime to enable them to judge: I was a mere inquirer on the threshold ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... engineer will be more accurate in his measurements and calculations. The scientific man more keenly observant of facts, better poised in his generalization upon them, and more convincing in his demonstrations. The locomotive engineer will handle his huge machine more skillfully. The road saves money in having a christian hand on the throttle. The lawyer will be more thorough in ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... do no more than sit and look in Guida's face. Carterette was quick of instinct in her way, but yet she had not seen any marked change in her friend during the past few months. She had been so busy thinking of her own particular secret that she was not observant of others. At times she met Ranulph, and then she was uplifted, to be at once cast down again; for she saw that his old cheerfulness was gone, that a sombreness had settled on him. She flattered herself, however, that ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... sigh of relief as her observant glance noted this detail. A dignified butler ushered her into a reception room ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... so common that anyone, who cares to, may easily verify what is here described. It will take nothing but a clear observant eye and a little patience to make out what is suggested. Each of our common insects has one of two clearly defined habits in the matter of food. Either it eats solid food, which must be made fine ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... while, and I took my gun on shore to try and pick up a few of the duck that dotted the waters of the little lakes or jheels which lay flashing amid the hillocks beyond the river banks. The shores of these being perfectly bare and open, it was obviously impossible to escape the keenly observant eyes of the duck, which appeared, unlike all other birds in Kashmir, to retain ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... oaths has sworn, oaths sworn, all falsehoods. He at a time deceived me when he should have been of all oaths most observant." ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... images. And you really cannot strip the external off; you cannot get your stark natural man, jealous, but not jealous about anything in particular, imaginative without any imaginings, proud at large. Emotional dispositions can no more exist without form than a man without air. Only a very observant man who had lived all over the planet Earth, in all sorts of social strata, and with every race and tongue, and who was endowed with great imaginative insight, could hope to understand the possibilities and the limitations of human plasticity in this matter, ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells
... casting longing looks towards the Dead Sea and the Jordan. I took my maid with me in my wanderings, and Suleiman also kept near me like a shadow; but nobody of all our caravan behaved to me with anything but the most observant politeness. The Arabs, taught, I suppose, by other travellers whom they had attended, were very eager to bring me natural curiosities; birds and animals and shells and plants. I had no lack of business and pleasure all that day. I wanted only some ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... arduous labor in the formation and growth of the poor discalced Augustinians, the first provincial [i.e., Fray Joan de San Geronimo] gave a heroic end by beginning the very observant province of San Nicolas [26] de Tolentino, in the islands adjacent to Asia which we ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXI, 1624 • Various
... a kind of hemp that grows in the hot climates. It is prepared, and I believe used, in all parts of the east, from Morocco to China. In Europe it is found to act very differently on different constitutions. Some it elevates in the extreme; others it renders torpid, and scarcely observant of any evil that may befall them. In Barbary it is always taken, if it can be procured, by criminals condemned to suffer amputation, and it is said to enable those miserables to bear the rough operations of an unfeeling executioner more than we Europeans can the ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... and carefully covering him, every moment looking on the face of the deceas'd with abundance of gravity: At the burial their deportment was grave and solemn, seeing the people with their hats off during the service, they were very attentive and observant, and continued so till the burial was over: They have nothing, as I have said before, but a blanket to cover 'em, and the boys and girls are quite naked, notwithstanding we felt it as cold here, as in the hardest frosts in England, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... instead of the genuine man. For my part, the Shakspeare of my mind's eye is henceforth to be a personage of a ruddy English complexion, with a reasonably capacious brow, intelligent and quickly observant eyes, a nose curved slightly outward, a long, queer upper-lip, with the mouth a little unclosed beneath it, and cheeks considerably developed in the lower part and beneath the chin. But when Shakspeare was himself, (for nine-tenths of the time, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... of impatience the girl rose; in the same moment she drew from her belt a gold watch, and deliberately consulted it. Observing this Mrs. Bubb looked towards Mr. Gammon, who, also observant, returned ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... This little Roman cleric has listened to so many confessions (he calls himself "a man who does next to nothing but hear men's real sins," but this seems to be excessive, even for a Roman Catholic) that he is really well acquainted with the human soul. He is also extremely observant. And his greatest friend is Flambeau, whom he once brings to judgment, twice hinders in crime, and thenceforward ...
— G. K. Chesterton, A Critical Study • Julius West
... for an observant mind is thus afforded in a tropical country! The variety and the multitude of living things are so great that a person of only ordinary observation cannot help acquiring a tolerable knowledge of the ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... to be borne, and he put far greater vivacity and wider variety into his letters than Rousseau did, though he was not any less diffuse, and he abounds in repetitions as Rousseau does not. Rousseau was absolutely without humour; that belongs to the keenly observant natures, and to those who love men in the concrete, not only humanity in the abstract. The pleasantries of Julie's cousin, for instance, are heavy and misplaced. Thus the whole book is in one key, without the dramatic changes of Richardson, ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... pitch on his nerves was eased. His eyelids dropped, and when he lifted them, the eyes were quiet and intently observant. ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Experiment (for it being a very good one, I had carefully preserv'd it:) And after having tryed it over and over again; and being not well satisfied of some particulars, I, at last, having put all things in very good order, and being as attentive, and observant, as possibly I could, of every circumstance requisite to be taken notice of, did register my several Observations in this following Table. In the making of which, I did not exactly follow the method that ...
— Micrographia • Robert Hooke
... Patricia Hamilton, an observant young lady, had not failed to notice that every day, at a certain hour, Bones disappeared from view. It was not for a long time ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... prayers, noticing the singularity of my manners, I suppose, and my uncommon intelligence for a child, remarked I had too much sense to be raised, and if I was, I would never be of any service to any one as a slave—To a mind like mine, restless, inquisitive and observant of every thing that was passing, it is easy to suppose that religion was the subject to which it would be directed, and although this subject principally occupied my thoughts—there was nothing that I saw or heard of to which my attention was not directed—The manner in which I learned to read ...
— The Confessions Of Nat Turner • Nat Turner
... account of the structure or geological arrangements of the great islands which you are to coast; nor, indeed, would minute inquiries on these subjects be at all consistent with the true objects of the survey. But, to an observant eye, some facts will unavoidably present themselves, which will be well worth recording, and the medical officers will, no doubt, be anxious to contribute their share to the scientific character ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 1. • J Lort Stokes
... well, in a day or two," said Mr. Woodcourt, with an observant smile, "as she ever will be. Have you heard of her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... on. At every station the attentive guard walked by, turned an observant eye, touched his cap. The old girl was good for two-and-six at the journey's end, perhaps; also, perhaps, she would thank him and give him nothing. A guard can never ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... from the "suck," he wheels in air and strikes his wonderful line for the "gum"? Heaven knows. And by what process does the negro calculate the shortest distance between the point he occupies and the place he would be? That also is a mystery, yet the least observant person familiar with the negro cannot have failed to note his wonderful—we had almost said his preternatural—power to discover, without guide or compass, the shortest possible distance between two given places—to make, as he calls it, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... of the less observant and cautious of them began to indulge in shouts of rage and defiance; but those who placed themselves foremost succeeded in procuring a halt, and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... the Concord and Claremont Railroad from Concord, the observant traveler has doubtless noticed the substantial and comfortable-looking homestead with large and trim front yard, shaded by thickly planted and generous topped maples, on the right-hand side of the road after crossing the ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... rapid pulsations of the engines, as Rod and Hanky Panky got going again. The car must be in sight, coming swinging along, with both men keenly observant of all that was ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... conciliatory and respectable in its character and appearance, and prudent, but decisive in the exercise of its powers over the people; and united with the clergy, who are shrewd, and tolerant, and sincere, and respectable in general conduct, studiously observant of their ecclesiastical duties, and managing with great ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... Diplomatique are not always as observant of court rules as they ought to be, and their decolletage is not always impeccable. If Worth sends a corsage with the fashionable cut—what do they do? They manage, when they stand on their platform en vue, to slip their shoulders out, thereby leaving a tell-tale red mark, ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... natural reflections which youthful ebullitions of animal spirits and instinctive feelings inspire, will enter the world with warm and erroneous expectations. But this appears to be the course of nature; and in morals, as well as in works of taste, we should be observant of her sacred indications, and not presume to lead when we ought obsequiously ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... curling, iron-grey hair which grew round it just above the ears and fell upon his shoulders, giving him the appearance of a tonsured but dishevelled priest. His eyes were blue and watery, his mouth was rather weak, and his cheeks were pale, full and flabby. When the Heer Marais rose, I, being an observant youth, noted that Monsieur Leblanc took the opportunity to stretch out a rather shaky hand and fill up his coffee cup out of a black bottle, which from the smell I ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... industrious, observant, with some power of administration, studies mining engineering, moves to a mining center and expresses his individual and social powers along the lines of his work until he is sixty. The women who impinge against his life may deflect him from the mines in California to those in Australia, ...
— Woman in Modern Society • Earl Barnes
... wine with an amazing greediness. The others made up for his silence, however, that is, Golushkin and Paklin, especially Paklin. Nejdanov was inwardly annoyed, Markelov angry and indignant, just as indignant, though in a different way, as he had been at the Subotchevs'; Solomin was observant. ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... interest if repeated out of its class. They have none of the sagaciousness of the low-born Italian, none of the wit and penetration of the French ouvriere. The Old World generations ago divided itself into classes; the lower class watched the upper and grew observant and appreciative, wise and discriminating, through the study of a master's will. Here in the land of freedom, where no class line is rigid, the precious chance is not to serve but to live for oneself; ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... surprised, then reminded himself that his full name, "John Coxeter," was painted on his portmanteau. Also that Mrs. Archdale had called him "Mr. Coxeter" at least once, when discussing that life-saving toy. Still, sharp, observant fellows, Jews! One should always be on one's guard with ...
— Studies in love and in terror • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... explained by the frontispiece, which represents a flinty heart glowing under the lightning stroke of God's call. Vaughan's chief traits are a very fine and calm philosophic-religious spirit and a carefully observant love of external Nature, in which he sees mystic revelations of God. In both respects he is closely akin to the later and greater Wordsworth, and his 'Retreat' has the same theme as Wordsworth's famous 'Ode on Intimations of Immortality,' the idea namely ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... coming. I never sent for him, but it gives me pleasure to see him. He is an old neighbor of mine; I have never been of much service to him, but I like him very much. Even if I do not say much to him, I have at least full possession of all my faculties, and I even find myself extraordinarily crafty and observant to-day, for I note all his gestures, his every look, the least wrinkling of his face. But the doctor is very cunning, too, and I cannot really tell what he thinks about me. The deep thought of Goethe suddenly comes to my ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... and grand objects of Nature enlarges the human mind. The soldiers of Alexander and the hosts of his camp-followers encountered at every march unexpected and picturesque scenery. Of all men, the Greeks were the most observant, the most readily and profoundly impressed. Here there were interminable sandy plains, there mountains whose peaks were lost above the clouds. In the deserts were mirages, on the hill-sides shadows of fleeting clouds sweeping over the forests. ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... Congregational Church. He accepted the office with some reluctance, being distrustful of himself, but his counsel and service were of great value to the brotherhood. Intent on improving himself in all the qualities of Christian manhood, he was observant of the great movements of society, and deeply interested in the new and enlarged applications of Chistianity. He followed the operations of the American Board, as new fields opened to the missionaries ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... not discovered it in the ordinary course of trade, observant officers in the provinces would have conveyed the news to them. Even in the early years of the eighteenth century the royal governor of New York wrote of the industrious Americans to his home government: "The consequence ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... remarks of my companion. The intelligence of the children among this race is marvellously precocious, perhaps from the habit of having intrusted to them, at so early an age, the toils and responsibilities of middle age. Indeed, in conversing with Taee, I felt as if talking with some superior and observant man of my own years. I asked him if he could form any estimate of the number of communities into which the race of ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... anyway?" he wondered. Not farmers, certainly. Farmers did not have hands that dented when you pressed them, and farmers' wives did not lift their skirts daintily from behind. Hans had been very observant as his visitors came up the muddy street. No, that was not the way of farmers' wives: they took hold at the sides with both hands, and splashed right through on ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... astonishment at the steam-packets that crossed the Atlantic in a fortnight, but they seem to have slid into the habit of travelling by rail almost as a matter of course, much as their descendants have taken to touring in motor-cars. Willis the observant, however, has left on record his sensations during his first ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... remainder (eight and a half degrees) of the ten degrees are to be devoted to impulse. But, understand, if the impulse angle is only seven and a half degrees, and the jewel pin acts in accordance with the rules previously given, do not alter the pallet until you know for certain you will gain by it. An observant workman will, after a little practice, be able to determine ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... summer of 1874, when the reaction which had checked the "Crusade" was recognized as something permanent by the more thoughtful and observant of the women who had been engaged in it, they paused for deliberation, and took counsel together. Great victories had been won in the brief season during which they were masters of the field; and ...
— Grappling with the Monster • T. S. Arthur
... looking out of her window she saw the Robin and him together; and somehow they seemed to her subtle, observant eyes, to be plotting. The very suspicion was fatal to that officer. His discharge was determined on. Meantime she set her spies to watch him, and tell her if they saw ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... Mary Pratt was observant, and of a mind so constituted, that its observations usually led her to safe and accurate deductions. Great was the surprise of all on the Point when it became known that Deacon Pratt had purchased and put into the water, the new ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... forehead, lofty and broad, a well-cut, gently-curving-nose, a slack, thick-lipped mouth, always a little open, a heavy, animal jaw, and the chin of an eagle. His fine, black hair was thin on the temples. His moustache was thin and straggled. His black eyes were as good as his brow, intelligent, observant, and alert. It was plain that had his lips been thinner and his chin larger he would not have been the secretary of Lord Loudwater—or of any one else. He would have been a masterless man. The success of two one-act plays on the stage ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... abundance hanging there, and Baldassarre's eyes discerned what he was more hungry for than for bread. Niccolo himself would probably have refused to sell anything that might serve as a weapon to this man with signs of the prison on him; but the apprentice, less observant and scrupulous, took three grossi for a sharp hunting-knife without any hesitation. It was a conveniently small weapon, which Baldassarre could easily thrust within the breast of his tunic, and he walked ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... both observant and memorious, they would cease, I fancy, to be astonished at coincidences. Rightly regarded, the universe is but one coincidence—only where will has to be developed, there is need for human play, and room for ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... then went below to his stateroom, while observant Joe Dawson noted that Darrin handled the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... Besides, the observant eye of our all-knowing Babu had not failed to remark that a she-buffalo of the Guru's was expecting a calf, and that the Guru was yearning to sell it to Sham Rao. This circumstance was a trump card in the Babu's hand. Let the Guru announce, under the influence of samadhi, that ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... should be ever observant of what he may find to enrich his collection. When in a book-store, or a private or public library, he should make notes of such works seen as are new to him, with any characteristics which their ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... quietly observant of recent comings and goings, was standing at the door of the shop, and missed no item of this dumb show. He raised both hands in silent condemnation of Elkin's childishness, whereupon the horse-dealer jerked a thumb toward Grant's retreating figure, and went through ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... sensitive because they are observant and realize they have been criticized and misunderstood—misclassed as a rare ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... mirth unbent his serious soul, O'er the full banquet, and the sprightly bowl); He then from Ephyre, the fair domain Of Ilus, sprung from Jason's royal strain, Measured a length of seas, a toilsome length, in vain. For, voyaging to learn the direful art To taint with deadly drugs the barbed dart; Observant of the gods, and sternly just, Ilus refused to impart the baneful trust; With friendlier zeal my father's soul was fired, The drugs he knew, and gave the boon desired. Appear'd he now with such heroic port, As then conspicuous at the Taphian court; Soon should ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... nor satire. It is sober earnest, as many observant readers will readily testify. The loss is not only to the individual, it is to society at large, and to the whole world. No one will deny the fact; but to how many will it occur that such anomalies cannot be the outcome of natural development and progress, ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... one and all versions with fierce attention, he repaired to his dinner and consumed it in a silence which his observant wife knew betokened affairs of unusual weight. But it was not until he finished his dessert and pushed back from ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... our theme, the cries of the marchands. It would take a pen like Balzac's, as curiously versatile, as observant, as full of individual ink, to catch all the shades of these odd utterances. You may recollect as you lay in your sweet English bed in London, just as the fog was lifting over the great city early in the morning, the distinct ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various
... times, many of them existing then with little essential difference. Any one of them affords a lesson in the gradual elaboration of the simple. A step minute in itself leads on and on, and so all the practical arts are built up, a readier and more observant mind imitating and adapting the work of predecessors, as we imagined the first man making his first flint axe. The history of the plough goes back to the elongation of a bent stick. The wheel would arise from cutting out the ...
— Progress and History • Various
... lying thin and soft at the back and sides of his head; his forehead was so large it seemed to overbalance the rest of his face, which had, indeed, lost its natural contour by the absence of all the teeth. The eyes absolutely gleamed with intelligence; so keen, so observant, you felt as if they were almost wizard-like. Indeed, the whole room looked not unlike a wizard's dwelling. Instead of pictures were hung rude wooden frames of impaled insects; the little table ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to London was accomplished without mishap. Carl was a good driver; the car sped along at a rapid pace. Jane enjoyed the ride; the scenery was new to her, and she was observant. ...
— The Rider in Khaki - A Novel • Nat Gould
... stretched out, and his slippered feet rested on the edge of the brass fender. A nimbus of smoke surrounded his swarthy features, his shock of black hair, his large, rather morose, dark eyes. He was a man of about twenty-five, with an almost horribly intelligent face, so observant that he tried people, so acute that he frightened them. His intellect was never for a moment at rest, unless in sleep. He devoured himself with his own emotions, and others with his analysis of theirs. His mind was always crouching to spring, except when ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... long it was before the circling observant consciousness, the flow of slow images, the vibration of particular thoughts, ceased and stilled as a pool rocks quietly to peace after the dropped stone has long lain still. But it came at last—that superb tranquillity, possible only when the senses are physically ...
— Lord of the World • Robert Hugh Benson
... the rest of the Europeans led Sotillo on, till, from conjecture to conjecture, he arrived at hinting that in his opinion this was a putup job on the part of Charles Gould, in order to get hold of that immense treasure all to himself. The doctor, observant and self-possessed, muttered, "He is ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... had last month with a young Irishwoman in Meath. She was a young person of twelve, and she took a fancy to me—I think because I went with her in an alleged dangerous canoe she was forbidden to navigate alone. All day the eternal Irish Question had banged about over her observant head. When we were out on the water she suddenly decided to set me right upon a disregarded essential. 'You English,' she said, 'are just a bit disposed to take all this trouble seriously. Don't you fret yourself about it... Half the time ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... well-to-do and independent. For centuries he has battled and disputed every inch of his land with the sea, and it has been pointed out by observant people that the effects of the strife are still marked in his harsh and rugged features and independent ways. It is well known that his cattle are the best in all the country, for the pastures, by reason of the damp polder ground, are ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... present situation. It may be that the worthy Abbe, after thinking over seriously what was intended to be a mere pleasantry, concluded that Madame the Duchess was right, and that he possessed some talent in the direction of love. However that might, have been, it is certain that he had cast an observant and critical eye on Ninon, and he now openly paid her court, not unsuccessfully it should ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... But every observant person must be aware that this tendency has produced its evils as well as its good. There is a general complaint that the minds of young women are becoming un-English; that their foreign reading does not merely supply the deficiencies of their English studies, ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... boy is more objectionable than the English one, because he is under less restraint, and knows no precincts forbidden to him. Generally intelligent and observant, he is here, there, and everywhere; nothing escapes him, nothing is sacred to him. Of course his further development draws its form and shape from his previous caterpillar condition, and when he comes to take his place ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... I would infer that, according to what I have said, there may be two kinds of mentality, or working of the mind—the one under certain conditions as effective or resultant as the other; the first being—as it was in the order of time—Unconscious or Instinctive; the other, conscious and self-observant. ...
— The Mystic Will • Charles Godfrey Leland
... ground floor, and two above, and it was altogether better finished and more comfortable than the ruder dwelling had been. The building of the new house had been a most enjoyable time to James, and it had also been a valuable experience to the observant lad. He turned it over in his mind for several months, and then he told his mother that he thought he might be able to earn some money by working at the carpenter's trade. She said that he had quite enough to do, but she was willing to let ...
— The Story of Garfield - Farm-boy, Soldier, and President • William G. Rutherford
... observer, which has more or less insight into the various manifestations of possibility and quality which may occur. It is well to observe without seeming to do so, for as shy wild creatures fly off before a too observant eye, but may be studied by a naturalist who does not appear to look at them, so the real child takes to flight if it is too narrowly watched, and leaves a self conscious little person to take its place, making off with its true self into ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... arts renown'd, Long exercised in woes, O Muse! resound; Who, when his arms had wrought the destined fall Of sacred Troy, and razed her heaven-built wall, Wandering from clime to clime, observant stray'd, Their manners noted, and their states survey'd, On stormy seas unnumber'd toils he bore, Safe with his friends to gain his natal shore: Vain toils! their impious folly dared to prey On herds ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... with scant clothing, enters the warehouse and waits. "Hello there," calls the observant major—with his Grand Army button—overhauling clothes for the visitor. "But, major, I was a Confederate soldier." "Lord bless your poor suffering soul, what difference does that make? Here, this ...
— A Story of the Red Cross - Glimpses of Field Work • Clara Barton
... Carnival, "For my part, though I pretended to take no interest in the matter, I could have bandied confetti and nosegays as readily and riotously as any urchin there." These few words explain his magnetism. The decorous pretense of his observant calm could not make us forget the bursts of mirth and vigorous abandon which now and then revealed the flame of unstinted life in his heart. And I, watching constantly as I did, saw a riotous throw of the confetti, ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop
... Christians prove very good, and are very devout and observant in their religion; for only the desire for salvation incites them to adopt our religion, so that there are many Christians in Japon. Accordingly they return freely, and without opposition, to their ...
— History of the Philippine Islands Vols 1 and 2 • Antonio de Morga
... the Emperor; "let us only know that he is cool and observant, not confused and fluttered during close battle, as we have sometimes observed in you and other great commanders—and, to speak truth, have even felt in our imperial self on extraordinary occasions. Which difference in man's constitution ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... raised to a higher power. What was to be would be; the unexpected happened; the expected, hoped for, labored for, did not always happen. All around him men stumbled upon mines, while other men, more skilful, more observant, failed. The ...
— The Spirit of Sweetwater • Hamlin Garland
... dangerous. But we soon forget the cold. And the dangers only string us up to meet them, so that we are in a peculiarly alert, observant mood. And we have a secret joy in watching Nature in her most threatening aspects and ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... a day of the same pattern as its predecessors, at eleven o'clock Joe quietly rose from his desk, took his hat, and unostentatiously walked out of the office. He punched the time clock gently so that it would attract the attention of only the most observant of clerks, and hurried away, feeling that this repeated dereliction was bound to bring him some notice, even if the first offense had not. But for some ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... a newsboy, whose all-observant eyes darted about everywhere, the while he absorbed ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... Vanhomrig's, in Suffolk Street, then walk up Pall Mall, through the park, out at Buckingham House, and on to Chelsea, a little beyond the church (5,748 steps), he says, in less than an hour, which was leisurely walking even for the contemplative and observant dean. Smollet laid a scene of his "Humphrey Clinker" in Chelsea, where he lived ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... thinking over my father's behaviour that day. It was evident that he feared attack by making such preparations, and no doubt I should soon see him drilling the work-people he had gathered around him, and I dwelt a good deal, being tolerably observant, upon the fact of his letting Bigley see all his preparations. I was asking myself why he had done this, and what reason he had for it, when Bigley woke up and said that it was time to go and ...
— Devon Boys - A Tale of the North Shore • George Manville Fenn
... approbation and confidence.") The study of theologians more considerable and even more typically conservative than Liddon does not confirm the description of religious intolerance given in good faith, but in serious ignorance, by a disputant so acute, so observant and so candid as Huxley. Something hid from each other's knowledge the devoted pilgrims in two great ways of thought. The truth may be, that naturalists took their view of what creation was from Christian men of science who ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... to dinner—his eldest son, and his son's friend, T. J. Hogg, who have just been sent down from Oxford for a scandalous affair of an aesthetical squib. When the young men arrive at five o'clock, Mr. Shelley receives Hogg, an observant and cool-headed person, with graciousness, and an hour is spent in conversation. Mr. Shelley runs on strangely, "in an odd, unconnected manner, scolding, crying, swearing, and then weeping again." After dinner, his son being out of the room, he expresses his ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... she had been observant of dress and manner among the cultured people she saw, and had applied what she learned to her own dress and conduct. At twenty-six, wishing for larger opportunities than those she could have in personal service, she obtained ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... Should any observant individual pass through Elizabeth, Bleecker, Canal, Hester, Bayard, Dover, Pell, Mott, Baxter, Rose, Chambers streets, and the other localities mentioned, at night, he will see what becomes of the pretty news-girls. But there are instances ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... were hired after the same fashion, and the horses jobbed. Lady Eustace was already sufficiently intimate with her accounts to know that she would save two hundred pounds by not remaining another month or three weeks in London, and sufficiently observant of her own affairs to have perceived that such saving was needed. And then it appeared to her that her battle with Lord Fawn could be better fought from a distance than at close quarters. London, ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... entirely occupied with her own affairs, and quite regardless of our presence. Hence it is with bird-songs as it is with so many other things in nature—they are what we make them; the ear that hears them must be half creative. I am always disturbed when persons not especially observant of birds ask me to take them where they can hear a particular bird, in whose song they have become interested through a description in some book. As I listen with them, I feel like apologizing for the ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... contending on the other side for the rise of Alexander and his successors, who were appointed to punish the backsliding Jews, and thereby to put them in mind of their offences, that they might repent and become more virtuous and more observant of the law revealed. But how far these controversies and appearing enmities of those glorious creatures may be carried; how these oppositions may be best managed, and by what means conducted, is not my business to show or determine: these things must be left to the invention and judgment ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... Mrs. Frank Garrison's features could say that she was a pretty woman. No one who looked merely at the general effect when she was out for conquest could deny it. Colonel Armstrong, placidly observant as usual, was quick to note the glances that shot between the cousins on the rear seat as the little lady came blithely alongside. He knew her, and saw that they were beginning to be as wise as he, for the smiles with which they greeted ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... that clearly proves that the meaning had been changed. And now, after a or o, what are the letters which figure oftenest in our language? Let us see," and Judge Jarriquez, with truly remarkable sagacity, which denoted a very observant mind, started on this new quest. In this he was only imitating the American romancer, who, great analyst as he was, had, by simple induction, been able to construct an alphabet corresponding to the signs of the cryptogram and by means of it to eventually read the pirate's parchment ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... soldier-like letter for a boy of fifteen! Wolfe's own is much longer and full of touches that show how cool and observant he was, even in his first battle and at the age of only sixteen. Here is ...
— The Winning of Canada: A Chronicle of Wolf • William Wood
... Tilton's staff. It is said that when the individual referred to first presented himself en militaire to his wife and little daughter, the latter, after gazing at him for a few minutes, turned to her mother, and exclaimed: "Why, Ma, that's not a real soldier—it's Pa!" Equally observant was another youngster, who was sent by his parent to take a letter to the post-office and pay the postage on it. The boy returned highly elated, and said: "Father, I seed a lot of men putting letters in a little place; and when no one was looking, I slipped yours in for nothing." We hardly ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... iteration. She had not an instant's doubt as to the scene being faithfully reported. She knew how preternaturally acute Henriette's intellect had become in the rarified atmosphere of her mother's drawing-room, how accurate her memory, how sharp her ears, and how observant her eyes. Whatever Henriette reported was likely to be to the very letter and spirit of the scene she had witnessed. And Hyacinth, her sister, had put this shame upon her, had spoken of her in the cruelest phrase as loving ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... Continental town is sufficiently marked to be welcome, while one can have as choice a dinner or supper, with superb wines, in Stamm and Weijns or the Hotel des Indes as in the best restaurants of London and Paris. Not the least noticeable feature of all to the observant visitor will be the punctilio and excellence of the waiting of the Javanese table boys. When one saw the carefulness with which each dish was served, and the superior nature of the side dishes, one thought ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... so conscious of it that he used to break out into perspirations whenever Priscilla was with him in public, and his very perspirations were conspicuous. The strain made his manner oddly nervous when speaking to or of his niece, and he became the subject of much conjecture to the observant Robin. Robin thought that in spite of her caressing ways with her uncle the girl must be privately a dreadful tyrant. It seemed difficult to believe, but Robin prided himself on being ready to believe anything at a moment's notice, especially ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... had learned to read Artois more clearly, more certainly than he realized. Although often impulsive, and seemingly unconscious of the thoughts of others, she could be both sharply observant and subtle, especially with those she loved. She had noticed the difference between his manner when first they spoke of Vere's hidden occupation and his manner when last they spoke of it. In the interval he had found out what it was, and that it was not reading. Of that she was positive. ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... turned into a broader thoroughfare, which, however, was little frequented at this hour. Reardon, his hands thrust into the pockets of a shabby overcoat and his head bent forward, went on at a slow pace, observant of nothing. For a moment or two he delayed reply, then ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... disappointed," said a passenger. But those who knew that Bill had the true fighter's scorn for any purely purposeless conflict were more or less concerned and watchful of him. He would drive steadily for four or five minutes with thoughtfully knitted brows, but eyes still keenly observant under his slouched hat, and then, relaxing his strained attitude, would give way to a movement of impatience. "You aint uneasy about anything, Bill, are you?" asked the Expressman confidentially. Bill lifted his eyes with a slightly ...
— The Idler Magazine, Vol III. May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... lunched there in the garden with him, Hafiz, seated on the bench beside them, politely observant, condescending to receive a morsel ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... next time I play the knight-errant, may God send me a less observant damsel. There's nothing to forgive. The plain truth is that I was frightened, a little bit. But I'm new to this sort of thing, and I hope to improve." Then, after a pause, I met her eyes full with mine and added, ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... with great accuracy (a) at the Atlas Building; (b) at this city and some of its immediate suburbs. The peculiarity of this can not but strike an observant mind. How is this man able, at forty or fifty miles distance, to concentrate his efforts on one comparatively small objective? We can only surmise some system of insulating screens or focal mirrors. I might remark in passing that the existence of this power to direct or focus the more ...
— The Sign at Six • Stewart Edward White
... bridles at the question. The Sadlers, whisper says, are Puritanical, whereas there are those who hold that John Shakespeare and his household, for all they are observant of church matters, have still a Catholic leaning. Fond of genial John Shakespeare as the Sadler household are, they shake their heads over some things, and the players are ...
— A Warwickshire Lad - The Story of the Boyhood of William Shakespeare • George Madden Martin
... were thereafter stopped up, and no one was allowed outside before reveille. Officers and men of Gatacre's division had as usual to sleep in their places lying down in the ranks fully dressed, with their arms beside them, ready to spring to attention. Sentinels and patrols, watchful and observant, moved noiselessly about throughout the whole night. True, there were outside a few of Slatin's most trusted native friends, chiefly Jaalin, set to listen and raise an outcry if the Khalifa's dervishes came down upon us under cover of the inky night. But I had ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... eyes open and bright with intelligence and clear with good health, because the eyes are the windows of the soul. Their eyes should look straight into the eyes of others with their souls shining through. Their eyes must be kind eyes, listening eyes, observant eyes, ...
— The Colored Girl Beautiful • E. Azalia Hackley |
