"Observation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Hill. He thought, relieved, "She is the embodiment of common sense." At the end of the vista of white tables the restaurant opened out to the left. In a far corner they were comfortably secure from observation. They sat down. A waiter beamed his flatteries upon them. G.J. was serenely aware of his own skilled faculty for ordering a dinner. He looked over the menu card at Christine. Nobody could possibly tell that she was a professed enemy of society. "These French ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... cultivated, was he devoid of an eye for the curious in nature. On directing his attention, one morning, to a well-marked impression of lepidodendron, which delicately fretted with its lozenge-shaped network one of the planes of the stone before me, he began to describe, with a minuteness of observation not common among working men, certain strange forms which had attracted his notice when employed among the grey flagstones of Forfarshire. I long after recognised in his description that strange crustacean of the Middle Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, the Pterygotus—an organism which was ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... reach of the surgeons already landed." Dr. Munson was the adjutant of Colonel Pope, chief surgeon of the Fifth Army-Corps, and he probably knew a good deal more about the state of affairs at Siboney after the battle of Guasimas than Dr. Appel did. Be that, however, as it may; I know from my own observation and experience that there was a lack of medical and hospital supplies at Siboney, not only when we arrived there, but for weeks afterward. Dr. Frank Donaldson, surgeon of the Rough Riders, in a letter from Siboney, published in the Philadelphia "Medical ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... the regulations before and after 1864, let us consider the differences we may ascertain by examining the balance sheets. Unfortunately, the exactness of our observation is lessened on account of the very diversity of the field ...
— A Brief History of Panics • Clement Juglar
... Though Majendie was, as he expressed it, "up to her designs upon his unhappy soul," he remained unconscious of the part to be played by Mrs. Eliott and her circle in the scheme of his salvation. From his observation of the aristocracy of Thurston Square, it would never have occurred to him that they were people who could count, whichever way ...
— The Helpmate • May Sinclair
... after the conclusion of the trial of Dr. Webster, his wife and daughters visited Fayal, where they remained some considerable time, and where they doubtless hoped to and did for a while escape from all obtrusive notice and observation. However, they were soon known, and the sympathies of the people of Horta were much enlisted in their behalf. The daughters were highly cultivated and quite beautiful, and attracted considerable attention, out of sympathy at ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... pure nature seem to be so little known as yet, that it is generally supposed that complete pleasure of this kind, permeating one's very flesh and bones, unfits the student for scientific pursuits in which cool judgment and observation are required. But the effect is just the opposite. Instead of producing a dissipated condition, the mind is fertilized and stimulated and developed like sun-fed plants. All that we have seen here enables ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... present discrimination in favor of the productions of American artists abroad is not likely to result, as they themselves seem very generally to believe it may, in the practical exclusion of our painters and sculptors from the rich fields for observation, study, and labor which ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Chester A. Arthur • Chester A. Arthur
... inaction of the pyramids in the formation of the registers. In the lower thick register there is, as a rule, a small triangular space between them which gets gradually smaller as the tones ascend, until it is quite closed in the upper thick. Dr. Merkel, also, has made the same observation. So far, therefore, we are agreed. But even of this I can find no trace in the thin register, where I have always noticed that the pyramids are quite close together. On this point, my assertion is borne out by Dr. Merkel, who insists ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... years," that the turning points in the sun's yearly course, the solstices, would naturally become periods of worship. That the Summer solstice was an important religious period is rendered probable from the following curious observation concerning Stonehenge, which appeared in the Notes and Queries portion of the Scotsman newspaper for July 31, 1875. The Scotsman's correspondent states that "a party of Americans went on midsummer morning this year to see the ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... compelling the other couples to stand still for a minute at a time, besides the more regular repose afforded by the intervals of the dance itself, gave the best possible openings for a word or two spoken in season, and without being liable to observation. ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... great square-end flatboats, and the heavy planking for overlaying them. We hear that the Potomac above here is flooded, and are wondering whether Lee will be able to get back across again, or whether Meade will indeed break him to pieces. The cavalry camp on the hill is a ceaseless field of observation for me. This forenoon there stand the horses, tether'd together, dripping, steaming, chewing their hay. The men emerge from their tents, dripping also. The fires ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... the Sabbath. The holy rest of this ever-memorable day is a barrier which is always broken down before men become giants in sin. Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, remarks that "a corruption of morals usually follows a profanation of the Sabbath." It is an observation of Lord Chief Justice Hale, that "of all the persons who were convicted of capital crimes, while he was on the bench, he found a few only who would not confess that they began their career of wickedness by a neglect of the duties of ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... snores smote his ears. "They slape a heap harder than they worruk, bedad!" he observed, grinning. "Nothin' c'ud trouble a ginney's conscience, annyway," he scoffed. "But, accordin' to that they must be a heap on me own!" Which observation sent his thoughts to Corrigan. "Begob, there's a man! A domned rogue, ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... human embodiment of the blossoming period of the year. Her low wide brow and her neck were snowy white, and no pink petal on the trees above her could surpass the bloom on her cheeks. Her large, dark, lustrous eyes were brimming over with fun, and unconscious of observation, she moved with the natural, unstudied grace of ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... inhabitants that have had the luxury of electric lights for years, and have as yet no gas or water-works! Miraculously, also, the smaller the town the cheaper is the cost of electricity. This is not a cut-and-dried statement, but an observation from personal experience. The little town's electricity is usually a byproduct of some manufacturing plant, and current is often sold at so much per light per month, instead of being measured by meter. It is pleasant to think that many homes have bridged the smelly ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... want to be away from me; used to sit and read, when I was so hungry for his caresses and love. I have heard that this is the experience of many other young married women. They are so disappointed that their husbands change so after marriage. With my observation and experience I believe that men have it in their power to keep the love of ninety-nine women out of a hundred. Why do women lose love for their husbands? I find it is mostly due to indifference on the part of the husband. I often ...
— The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation • Carry A. Nation
... of the look and the bloom of the child—a look that was only intensified by the strange force of expression that was added to the face whenever the lids so constantly dropped over the eyes were raised. For one saw in it a mingling at once of sharp observation and of distrust; it seemed to spring from some fiery source of personality, which at the very moment it revealed itself, yet warned the spectator back, and stood, half proudly, half sullenly, on the defensive. Such a ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not entirely new with Professor Marsh, nor is it any suggestion that would be protected by copyright. In finding the winds, birds, quadrupeds, and other assumed agencies of distribution improbable, he seeks, with Dr. Dwight, for "the seeds of an ancient vegetation," and, finding none by actual observation, concludes that nature has some occult, and thoroughly surreptitious, method of hiding them away, even in soils below the last glacial drift, where no microscope can possibly reach them. As the accounts of seeds taken from the mummy-cases of Egypt may answer the purposes of those ...
— Life: Its True Genesis • R. W. Wright
... saw in Hades I should—save for his pitiable effort to escape observation—have passed unnoticed. His pitfall in life had been love of approbation, which was so strong that he was never happy except in perpetually endeavoring to pass himself off for that which he knew he was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... affairs, was vast and miscellaneous. She was acquainted with the traditions of every regiment, with its war record, with its peace-time politics, its nicknames, its scandals, even with the earnings of each company- canteen. At Fort Crockett, which lay under her immediate observation, she knew more of what was going forward than did the regimental adjutant, more even than did the colonel's wife. If Trumpeter Tyler flatted on church call, if Mrs. Stickney applied to the quartermaster for three feet of ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... entirely different direction," Lieutenant Mackinson told them, as he looked up from the map he had been studying. "We go to the north and east and as close to the observation trenches as possible." ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... her methods were in a slovenly or only half determined condition, we might expect to find it here. But it is not so. Know accurately what you are doing, use the precautions absolutely essential, and through years of the closest observation it will be seen that the vegetative and vital processes generally, of the very simplest and lowliest life forms, are as much directed and controlled by immutable laws as the most ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... furniture of that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous. They could see nothing remarkable about it, except two candlesticks of antique pattern which stood on the chimney-piece and appeared to be silver, "for they were hall-marked," an observation full of the type of wit ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... setting forth the purpose of the deposit, its exact location, and the nature of its contents. Among such records not the least valuable would be deeply cut polyglot inscriptions on natural cliffs in different parts of the world, observation having shown that such records may remain to challenge human curiosity for ages after all other records of their time ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXXVI., No. 8, February 24, 1877 • Various
... you able to say from your own observation whether men who are so much in your debt deal more at your shop than others?-With some of the men who fish for me, the greatest difficulty I have is to prevent them from dealing,-not to get them to buy goods, but to get them not to buy them. Of course ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... all!" and Villiers, warming with his subject, walked up and down the room excitedly ... "Nor am I judging by the narrow observation of any particular 'set' or circle. I look at the expressive visible outcome of the whole,—the plainly manifest signs of the threatening future. Of course there are ever so many good people,—earnest people,—thinking people,—but they are a mere ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... anticipated by twenty centuries the disclosures of the telescope. The invention of this invaluable appliance we have regarded as marking a great modern epoch; and what is usually written on the moon is mainly a summary of results obtained through telescopic observation, aided by other apparatus, and conducted by learned men. We now purpose to go back to the ages when there were neither reflectors nor refractors in existence; and to travel beyond the bounds of ascertained fact into the regions of fiction, where abide the shades of superstition and the dreamy forms ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... After many years of observation and of contact with almost every class of men and some different races, I come to the conclusion that there is nothing quite so interesting to the people as religion. People will go in crowds to hear a man like Gypsy Smith talk to them about their every day problems and will hear respectfully ...
— The Demand and the Supply of Increased Efficiency in the Negro Ministry - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 13 • Jesse E. Moorland
... of passengers would be discussed by drivers, and it more than once happened I have heard of the peculiarities of certain passengers at places hundreds of miles from where they came under observation. ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... corner of my nature. It has aroused all the old ardent dreams of youth and springtime puissance. I cannot lay it down, and I cannot shorten it, for story, character, soul and reflection, imagination, observation are dragging me along after them. . . . This novel will make me or break me—prove me human and an artist, or an affected literary bore. If you want it you must take the risk. But, my dear Alden, you ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Proportions of Genius to the Mediocre. Eugenics. Euthenics and Eudemics. Only Men in Lists of Geniuses. Social Need to Learn What Children Are. "Charting Parents." New "Observation Records" for Children. What to Do with the Specially Gifted Child. Genius Universal in Nature. Genius Its Own School-master. Varieties of ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... were revolving at their utmost velocity, and at a speed of nearly a hundred miles an hour, she took the Isle of Wight in a leap. She slowed down rapidly over Freshwater Bay. Captain Frenkel took a careful observation of the position and course of the squadron, dropped into the water, folded his wings and crept round the Needles with his conning-tower just awash, and lay in wait for his prey about two miles ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... temporarily constant while the salt is freezing. The length of time during which the temperature is stationary depends on the size of the bath and the rate of cooling, and is not a factor in the calibration. The melting point of salt is 1,472 deg.F., and the needed correction for the instrument under observation ...
— The Working of Steel - Annealing, Heat Treating and Hardening of Carbon and Alloy Steel • Fred H. Colvin
... own. It is another example of that curiously topsy-turvy condition of things in which rhyme was a mark of the classic, and blank verse of the romantic. For Milton is the most truly classical of English poets; and yet, from the angle of observation at which the eighteenth century viewed him, he appeared a romantic. It was upon his romantic side, at all events, that the new school of poets apprehended ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... at his doubts. Opening the folds still wider, she raised the centre of the silk to the light, pointed to certain letters that had been wrought into the fabric, so ingeniously as to escape ordinary observation, and yet so plainly as to be distinctly legible when the attention was once drawn to them. The major took the sash into his own hands altogether, held it opened before the candles, and read the words "Maud Meredith" ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... after prolonged observation, "I can't say I do ... save that they are not denizens ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... on now?" inquired Sir Walter, as if he had had her under close observation for a ...
— The Admiral's Caravan • Charles E. Carryl
... So far as we have had opportunity for observation, the Officers and Soldiers appear to ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... held it up to the light and studied the impressions. Then there was more confusion. Everyone talked at once and the pompous one in purple made use of the radiovision, holding the square of glass near its disc for observation by the person he had called. The identification number was repeated aloud, a string of figures and letters that were a meaningless jumble to Karl. The room became quiet while the police captain thumbed the pages of a huge book he had taken ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, December 1930 • Various
... under my observation not only produced such misery as to entail a loss of rest and of appetite, but even induced such a disturbance of assimilation and nutrition that the resulting hypochondriacal condition that developed from these enervating causes ran the patient into a low condition, ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... merely been to write down my first impressions, unpremeditatedly and faithfully, of what I saw, and what I felt and did while there. Such a short residence in the colony, and such a limited experience as mine was, could not have enabled me—no matter what my faculty of observation, which is but moderate—to convey any adequate idea of the magnitude of the colony or its resources. To pretend to write an account of Victoria and Victorian life from the little I saw, were as absurd as it would ...
— A Boy's Voyage Round the World • The Son of Samuel Smiles
... discontents: saving that sometimes, ne quid mentiar, as Diogenes went into the city, and Democritus to the haven to see fashions, I did for my recreation now and then walk abroad, look into the world, and could not choose but make some little observation, non tam sagax observator ac simplex recitator, [45] not as they did, to scoff or laugh at all, but with a ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... important chiefly for its effects, is more important therefore than we are apt to realize. "As a man thinketh in his heart, so he is." The scientific study of psychology has emphasized the fact, which is open to everyday observation, that even secret thoughts and moods influence inevitably a man's outward acts. What we do depends upon what we have been thinking and imagining and feeling. The Great Teacher was right when he bade men ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... labours; God did give of his extraordinary grace of the gospel to our author, Bunyan, and it is worthy our observation, for thereby God may have due honour, his people comfort, and adversaries confuted in their several corrupt notions, especially that of only them that have school education are fitly qualified for ministers of the glorious ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... good blood to its ancestral isle. He had become deeply interested in Iola before he had heard her story, but after it had been revealed to him he tried to banish her from his mind; but his constant observation of her only increased his interest and admiration. The deep pathos of her story, the tenderness of her ministrations, bestowed alike on black and white, and the sad loneliness of her condition, awakened within him a desire to defend and protect ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... one may do to his system through the practice of masturbation may not be very serious, in many cases that have come under the author's observation in which the habit has reached extreme limits, very serious, sometimes irretrievable damage has been done, yet the encouraging feature of this whole matter is, that if the adolescent youth, who ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... crashing flight of some timorous beast surprised by their swift and noiseless approach. Arriving near the hollow under the ledge, they sank flat and wormed their way forward like weasels till they had gained the post of observation ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts
... a great deal from Considine, and even more from Gabrielle. Still, if Considine objected to his wife being consulted, she was prepared to accept his decision. The only course that remained open to her was to make enquiries for herself, and determine, by observation, what women were possibly available for ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... superior as he spoke, therefore he did not see the start which the latter gave at this innocent observation, nor the horrified glare at the soaked boots. But he could not help noticing ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... kennel doors to a long string of safe prizes by refusing to exhibit a second time some hound who, on a first showing, has won golden opinions and high awards. But these refusals were never whimsical. They were due always to the Colonel's decision, based upon close and sympathetic observation, that, for the particular hound in question, exhibition represented ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... to understand the importance attached at the time to Herschel's observation of this very remote and seemingly petty world, we must remember that up to that date all the planets which circle round our own sun had been familiarly known to everybody from time immemorial. To suggest that there was yet another ...
— Biographies of Working Men • Grant Allen
... alga or a flowering plant passes, under natural conditions, through a series of developmental stages characteristic of each species, and these consist in a regular sequence of definite forms. It is impossible to form an opinion from mere observation and description as to what inner changes are essential for the production of the several forms. We must endeavour to influence the inner factors by known external conditions in such a way that the individual stages in development are separately controlled ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... not lend themselves to observation while at work so readily as bayas do. The birds in question are the ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... This observation on the part of the youthful secretary seemed to be regarded by the governor as presumptuous. It elicited from him a frown of reproof. His look became cold and haughty. Whereupon ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens
... trades the three balls of the pawnbroker, the golden fleece of the dry-goods man, the mortar and pestle of the druggist, and others are well known. Examples of these and others are given in the illustration but any wideawake Woodcraft Girl will be able to find many others by careful observation. ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts
... The observation with which I concluded my last letter, might explain why the votaries of Thalia gain so little augmentation to their number; while those of Melpomene are daily increasing. I shall now proceed to investigate the merits of the former, at the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present observation. I called to mind the great variety of buoyant matter that strewed the coast of Lofoden, having been absorbed and then thrown forth by the Moskoe-strom. By far the greater number of the articles were shattered in the most ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... he continued. "We will talk no more. Monsieur desires my address? It is here,"—scribbling on a piece of paper. "But monsieur may be warned," he added, with a lightning-like flash in his eyes as he became conscious of the observation of some passers-by. "I will not dance in England. I will not leave Monte Carlo before May. Half that sum—three hundred louis, mind—must come to me on trust; the other three hundred afterwards. Never fear but that I will give satisfaction. ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... footprints were to be seen in the garden; and it was impossible that Tricksy could have escaped observation had she been in the ruins or ...
— The Adventure League • Hilda T. Skae
... clergy." Any fault found with the clergy was in Mr. Gresley's eyes an attack upon the Church, nay, upon religion itself. That a protest against a certain class of the clergy might be the result of a close observation of the causes that bring ecclesiastical Christianity into disrepute could find no admission to Mr. Gresley's mind. Yet a protest against the ignorance or inefficiency of some of our soldiers he would have seen without ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... Butterfield into supposing, and informing Sedgwick, as he did, that the Fredericksburg heights had been abandoned, was a balloon observation of Early's march to join Lee under the mistaken orders above alluded to. The enemy was found to be alert wherever Sedgwick tapped him, and his familiarity with every inch of the ground enabled him to magnify his own forces, and make every man tell; while Sedgwick ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... phenomenon of conical refraction which had been predicted by Sir William Hamilton. He was responsible for the erection of the Magnetic Observatory in Dublin, and the instruments used in it were constructed under his observation and sometimes from his designs or modifications. He was also ...
— The Glories of Ireland • Edited by Joseph Dunn and P.J. Lennox
... no reply to this discouraging observation. There are times when speech is worse than useless. He stood by the window, looking over at that shrunken figure on the groat old-fashioned four-post bed, with its voluminous drab damask curtains, its cords, fringes, tassels, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... and we could, with our glasses, discover great numbers of infantry at the base of the hills, half hidden by the low growth of pines. The main body of our army still remained in camp; only our Sixth corps had moved. Evidently the enemy concluded that the advance was rather one of observation than attack, and quietly awaited our movements. Some firing was for a time kept up on the skirmish line, and now and then a shell would come crashing through some of the houses at the right, where our pickets were concealed; but at length, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... the pursuit of pleasure with an eagerness to which they sacrifice their fortunes and often their lives. They possess keen penetration, and a remarkable facility of conceiving and expressing their ideas with force and clearness, together with a happy talent of observation, combined with all those qualities of mind and character, which render men capable of conceiving and executing the greatest enterprises, especially when ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... dined. Nothing overlooked his windows, and he was sufficiently away from the village not to be easily observed, still less so from the inn; so that on approaching his lodgings from the sands he was almost as safe from observation as if he had lived in a lonely house far distant from any other. I am thus particular in describing his lodgings, as the advantages of the situation afterwards induced us to turn them to a profitable use. Our friend's name was MacCallum, James MacCallum, ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... yourself equal or superior to the enemy, with a force in men so much less than I had deemed necessary, there will be a great deal expected from you by your country, and I trust they will not be disappointed in the high expectations formed of your gallantry and judgment. I will barely make an observation, which was impressed upon my mind by an old soldier; that is, 'Never despise ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... only, and the first Politicks we learn from Observation—I have known a Curtezan grown infamous, despis'd, decay'd, and ruin'd, in the Possession of you witty Men, who when she had the luck to break her Chains, and cast her Net for Fools, has liv'd in state, finer than Brides ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... lie of the ground, the Earl of Argyll immediately comprehended the importance of occupying this village, and, turning to Lord Seyton, he ordered him to gallop off and try to arrive there before the enemy, who doubtless, having made the same observation as the commander of the royal forces, was setting in motion at that very moment a considerable body ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... youngster, that you know pretty well as much as I do, for I cannot do more than fudge an observation. How on earth did you learn all this? I thought you were a fisher-boy ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... opinion; but she changed the conversation, saying that dinner was ready—an announcement which generally gave a new course to Buvat's ideas. Buvat gave back the drawings to Bathilde without further observation, and entered the little sitting-room, singing the inevitable, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... nodded. He had every intention of looking around. He felt, in fact, entitled to any knowledge which his closest observation might bring him. But the tent was almost empty. That at least proved that the tent belonged to Spence. He was a man with an actual talent for bareness and spareness in his sleeping quarters. Even his room ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... thousand minute touches in his descriptions, which are evidently drawn from the life, and which betoken a habit of close and accurate observation of the ways and manners of children. In reading his books, you hardly believe that it is not your own little Charles or Henry, whose doings and sayings he is reporting. It is this truth and freshness in minute touches that constitutes picturesqueness in writing; ...
— Rollo's Museum • Jacob Abbott
... lasting fame and influence built on such a slender amount of work and on so brief a period of productivity. But within this limited range Ludwig must be recognized as a writer of unusual powers of observation and sympathy, of imagination and embodying execution. Truthful to himself and to the ideals of his art, uninfluenced by the popular demands of the day or by any desire for gain or fame, free from everything that smacks of sham ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... "transcendental prejudice" has forced its way into philosophy, a phase of thought for which Kant himself was responsible by his anxiety to demonstrate everything. That a priori forms of knowledge exist cannot be proved by speculation, but only by empirical methods, and discovered by inner observation; they are given facts of reason, of which we become conscious by reflection or psychological analysis. The a priori element cannot be demonstrated nor deduced, but only shown actually present. The question ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... One more observation on these Italian historians. All of them represent man in his darkest colours; their drama is terrific; the actors are monsters of perfidy, of inhumanity, and inventors of crimes which seem to want a name! They were all "princes of darkness;" and the age seemed to afford a triumph of Manicheism! ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... repulsively, by an imputation of neglect of duty, on the other classes who are called upon to look at the spectacle. There is, besides, but little power of arresting the attention in a description of familiar matter of fact, plain to every one's observation. Yet ought it not to be so much the better, when we are pleading for a certain mode of benevolent exertion, that every one can see, and that no one can deny, the sad reality of all that forms the object, and imposes the duty, of ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... with beings possessed of reason to understand it, of power to obey it, and of free will to determine whether they will obey it or not. When these three conditions are absent law can have no existence. But the result of perfect law, perfectly obeyed, would be perfect order. Hence the observation of perfect order leads, by a reversed process, to the supposition of some law of which that order is the result. Hence arose in the first instance the term "natural laws," or "laws of nature." Events were found to follow each other in a uniform way, and this uniformity ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... long been entertained by me. In 1845, in the House of Representatives, and afterwards, in 1860, in the Senate of the United States, I submitted substantially the same propositions as those to which the attention of Congress is herein invited. Time, observation, and experience have confirmed these convictions; and, as a matter of public duty and a deep sense of my constitutional obligation "to recommend to the consideration of Congress such measures as I deem necessary and expedient," I submit the accompanying propositions, and urge their adoption ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... of the reasoning faculty, intrenches itself behind comparisons. But, just as reflection and reason are subsequent to spontaneity, observation to sensation, and experience to instinct, so property is subsequent to communism. Communism—or association in a simple form—is the necessary object and original aspiration of the social nature, the spontaneous movement by which it manifests and establishes itself. ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... people; a courteous desire to be, or at least to seem, interested in their concerns; and a recollection that even the most patient hearers (among whom the present writer reckons himself) may sometimes wish to be speakers. To these gifts he adds a keen sense of humour, a habit of close observation, and a sub-acid vein of sarcasm which resembles the dash of Tarragon in a successful salad. In a word, Lord Rosebery is one of the most agreeable talkers of the day; and even if it is true that il s'ecoute quand ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... great inclosure, a group of officers were standing near the centre of the arena, in busy converse, and a heavy artillery team was being put through its paces, while nearer our place of observation several cavalrymen were leading their horses up and down. The officers evidently were discussing and arranging some matter of importance. But while I noted this, I also noted that one of them who stood facing toward us lifted his hand ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity." This is equivalent to telling the individual who treads too nicely and fears a shock that he had pleased us better had he pleased us less, which is the subtle observation of Mr. Price Collier writing in the North American Review: "It is perhaps more often true of women than of men that they conceive affability as a concession. At any rate, it is not unusual to find a hostess busying herself with attempts to agree with all that is said, with the idea that ...
— Conversation - What to Say and How to Say it • Mary Greer Conklin
... first place, concerning the observation of the Lord's Easter, we have determined that it be observed on one day and at one time throughout the world by us, and that you send letters according to custom ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... Armed Forces of the United States have lost their lives while battling the evils of terrorism around the world. (3) Personnel of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) charged with the responsibility of covert observation of terrorists around the world are often put in harm's way during their service to the United States. (4) Personnel of the Central Intelligence Agency have also lost their lives while battling the evils of terrorism ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... ill-temper.... While I stay in this government I will take care that neither heresy, schism, nor rebellion be preached among you, nor vice and profanity be encouraged. You seem to take the power into your own hands and set up for everything." This last observation was probably not devoid of truth; nor was a subsequent one, "There are none of you but what are big with the privileges of Englishmen and Magna Charta." That well describes the colonist of the period, whether in New York or elsewhere. It ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the Central Park! Such music as made the flowering thicket, covered with late May blossoms, thrill in the soft air and glow out more richly from the sweet disturbance. It was a glorious afternoon, the lawns were as green as an English meadow, and my observation of beautiful things has no higher comparison. All the irregular hills, ravines, and rocky projections were so broken up with trailing vines and sweet masses of spring-flowers, that every corner and nook your eye turned upon, was like ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... blackbird. Probably in a modern city the man who can distinguish between a thrush's and a blackbird's song is the exception. It is not that we have not seen the birds. It is simply that we have not noticed them. We have been surrounded by birds all our lives, yet so feeble is our observation that many of us could not tell whether or not the chaffinch sings, or the colour of the cuckoo. We argue like small boys as to whether the cuckoo always sings as he flies or sometimes in the branches of a tree—whether ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... and the second employed in the interior to prevent the Poles from aiding the same cause. I do not believe that any country was ever more wretchedly governed than Gallicia was at that time, at least under political considerations; and it was apparently to conceal this spectacle from general observation that so many difficulties were made in allowing a stranger to reside in, or even to pass ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... Your observation respecting the political state of South Carolina is more flattering to me than I merit. My offering for senator is out of the question; but I am not, neither shall I be inactive on that occasion. I shall always feel happy in ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the characters of the lesions, the disposition to grouping, the absence of tendency to form solid sheets of eruption (as in eczema), the intense itching, history, chronicity and course. In doubtful cases, an observation of several weeks will always suffice to distinguish it from eczema, erythema multiforme, herpes iris and pemphigus, diseases to which it at ...
— Essentials of Diseases of the Skin • Henry Weightman Stelwagon
... their gray days, when in the autumn the glory of their plumage and song has diminished. At this time few of their human admirers intrude upon them and the birds themselves are only too glad to escape observation. Collectors of skins disdain to ply their trade, as the ragged, pin-feathery coats of the birds now make sorry-looking specimens. But we can find something of interest in birddom, even in ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... reality.... The same may be said of every single sentence found in any of the Apostolical Fathers, which, on first sight, might be thought to be a decided quotation from one of the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. It is impossible to deny the truth of this observation; for we see it confirmed by the fact that the Apostolical Fathers do actually quote Moses, and other old Testament writers, by name—'Moses hath said,' 'but Moses says,' etc.—in numerous passages. But we nowhere meet with the words, 'Matthew hath said in his Gospel,' 'John hath said,' ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... long and tedious in setting out this; but I want to bring home to others what every new observation of society brings more and more freshly to myself—that this unconscious imitation and encouragement of appreciated character, and this equally unconscious shrinking from and persecution of disliked character, is the main force which moulds ...
— Physics and Politics, or, Thoughts on the application of the principles of "natural selection" and "inheritance" to political society • Walter Bagehot
... be readily detected by the yellowish-green colour they give when moistened with hydrochloric acid and heated in the Bunsenflame, or by observation of their spectra, when two characteristic green lines are seen. In solution, barium salts may be detected by the immediate precipitate they give on the addition of calcium sulphate (this serves to distinguish barium salts from calcium salts), ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the pupils' thoughts and style are somewhat toned up by the preceding exercises, it may he well to let them write similar descriptions drawn from their reading, their observation, ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg
... Kozaks, qu' Orlow commandait, souffrit de la maniere la plus cruelle: elle attaqua a maintes reprises, fut souvent repoussee, et perdit les deux tiers de son monde (c'est ici le lieu de placer une observation, que nous prenons dans les memoires qui nous guident; elle fait remarquer combien il est raal vu de donner beaucoup de cartouches aux soldats qui doivent emporter un poste de vive force, et par consequent ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... reconcile them, he had delayed; and because that circumstance had consumed that day, that on the morrow he would transact the business which he had determined on. They say that he did not make even that observation without a remark from Turnus; "that no controversy was shorter than one between a father and son, and that it might be decided in a few words,—unless he submitted to his father, that ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases. To this must be added industriously select reading, steady observation, insight into all seemly and generous arts and affairs—till which in some measure be compassed at mine own peril and cost, I refuse not to sustain this expectation from as many as are not loth to hazard so much credulity upon the best pledges that ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... lay their safety. But those who had escaped would not be likely to view with any friendly glance a representative of each despoiling factor, as exemplified in these two. So they avoided villages, which was easy enough by careful observation ahead. What was less easy, however, ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... is a valuable acquisition to American history. It brings to the public observation many most interesting incidents in the life of the third President; and the times and men of the republic's beginnings are here portrayed in a glowing and genial light. The author, in referring to the death-scenes of Jefferson, reports ...
— Publisher's Advertising (1872) • Anonymous
... curiosity, climbed the tree, and gained a point from which he could see the castle, undefended on this side, and without sentinels. Having taken a close observation, he descended, carefully examining every point as he went. He now hastened to the tent of Marius, recounted to him his exploit, and offered to guide a party up ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Chicot, as he installed himself as comfortably as he could on his gutter, which was his usual place of observation; "it is true that the young man pretends he is expecting a visit, and that the visit is from a lady; in these days, ladies are wealthy, and allow themselves an indulgence in fancies of all kinds. Ernanton is handsome, young, ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas |
