"Obtrusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... violent antipathy to Englishmen, as I feared that, in consequence of it, my presence could never be otherwise than exceedingly disagreeable to him, but that during my enforced sojourn aboard La Mouette I would strive to render my nationality as little obtrusive as possible, and that I trusted we might very soon be fortunate enough to fall in with a craft of some sort into which he could transfer me. To which he replied that he fervently hoped so too, for both our sakes; then directing ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... visitor with a taste for natural history became obtrusive and sought close investigation. It was part of Nickie's duty to fill such visitors with a proper respect for Missing Links, but ninety-nine out of every hundred accepted Mahdi in good faith. It is an axiom in the show business that the people who can't be deceived are ...
— The Missing Link • Edward Dyson
... and pity for Maxwell, as she adventured this assertion from no previous experience of reporters. It was shocking to feel that it was her father who had not been the gentleman. "You—you might have been a little kinder, papa; he wasn't at all obtrusive; and he only asked you whether you would ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... it was, that looked as if it might be hundreds of years old; he turned the lock with it and stepped in, walking down the small brick aisle, observing the ancient oaken seats, the quaint pulpit, and strange brasses; till, white, staring, obtrusive, and all out of taste, he saw in the chancel what he had come to look for, a great white marble monument, on the south side; four fluttering cherubs with short wings that appeared to hold up a marble slab, while two weeping figures knelt ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... came of your being at that hospital;' and a burning blush spread over the pale cheek, and made Tom shrink, start, and feel guilty of having touched the chord of obligation, connected with that obtrusive pledge of his. Above all, however, to repress emotion was his prime object; and he calmly answered, 'It was a good Providence that brought any one there who knew ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hand of taste was conspicuous though not obtrusive, and formed a contrast with another abode in the same neighbourhood, on which much money had been lavished; where Italian colonnades were placed to excite the wonder of the rude crags, and a stone staircase, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... while, amongst the good-humoured crowd, he surged upstairs with them—many stairs they were, and steep—and got a good place close to the chandelier. The warmth and light from it were rather too obtrusive, but did not prevent his taking an interest in the performance, which was shared by his neighbours in the most intense and hearty fashion. The women sobbed at the pathetic parts, while the men set their teeth and turned white ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... Fanny Carr arrived, and Ethel had a feeling at once of a shrewd strong personality. A woman of about medium height, still young but rather over-developed, artificial and overdressed, with a full bust and thick red lips and lustrous eyes of greenish grey—her beauty was of the obtrusive type that is made to catch the eye on the street and in noisy crowded rooms. When Fanny kissed her, Ethel shrank. "I mustn't do that!" she exclaimed to herself. But the other woman had noticed it and shot ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole
... Their coachman had not driven them! Some one who knew the country had been their companion. They were not acquainted in the neighborhood, and there could not be a shadow of a doubt that it was that obtrusive Barker who had indecently thrust himself upon them on the very next day after their arrival, and had thus snatched from me this last interview upon which I ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... silence prevailing was painful—almost terrible. A great ormolu clock in the room, one of the Holy Father's "Jubilee" gifts, ticked the minutes slowly away with a jewel-studded pendulum, which in its regular movements to and fro sounded insolently obtrusive in such a stillness. Gherardi abstractedly raised his eyes to a great ivory crucifix which was displayed upon the wall against a background of rich purple velvet,—Manuel was standing immediately in front of it, and the tortured ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... answer this well. She had a gentle, sweet face; her manners were neither rude nor obtrusive, and when she spoke, though her tones were low, half fearful and trembling, still were her words as kind and polite, if not kinder and politer, than those of the ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... Nella, she had been first struck by the beautiful 'E' over a crown on the sleeves of his linen, and by the signet ring on his pale, emaciated hand. After all, these trifling outward signs are at least as effective as others of deeper but less obtrusive significance. The Racksoles, too, duly marked the attitude of Prince Aribert to his nephew: it was at once paternal and reverential; it disclosed clearly that Prince Aribert continued, in spite of everything, to regard his nephew as his sovereign lord and master, ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... stain and a drop of powerful scent into a large tank of distilled water, you change the superficial character of the water, make it seem to be other than what it is. But it remains essentially a tank full of water, now containing an obtrusive trifle of alien matter in addition to the hydrogen and oxygen that decide its most significant properties. That is what the Challon did to Homer—he released the potential, then accidentally but indelibly stained it ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... another source of exasperation against the Duc d'Orleans; and the great cause of a new and, though less obtrusive, yet perhaps an equally dangerous foe under all the circumstances, in Madame de Genlis. The anonymous slander of the one was circulated through all France by the other; and spleen and disappointment feathered ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... one of his greatest aids. Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of the landscapes of Titian, of Salvator, and of Claude, says: "Even their skies seem to sympathise with their subjects." I have often been advised to consider my sky as "a white sheet thrown behind the objects." Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse; it must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a class of landscape ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... received by her with much cordiality, and I had an opportunity to survey the whole concourse and continue my observations. Brought up as I had been for the last few years, I found my own people markedly foreign,—not so much in any obtrusive respect as in that general atmosphere to which we ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... instant his servant brought in his supper, and he went no further. My own meal was before me a minute later, and we both devoted ourselves in angry silence to our food. I was still full of resentment at his obtrusive scorn of myself and my religious party, and I could see that he felt himself mightily outraged at my retorts. From the rapid, heedless way in which he ate, I fancied his mind was busy with all sorts of ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... arrival of man in the archipelago the whole population, animal and vegetable, consisted entirely of these waifs and strays, blown out to sea from Europe or Africa, and modified more or less on the spot in accordance with the varying needs of their new home. But the advent of the obtrusive human species spoilt the game at once for an independent observer. Man immediately introduced oranges, bananas, sweet potatoes, grapes, plums, almonds, and many other trees or shrubs, in which, for selfish reasons, he was personally ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... on a small, obtrusive, self- important scale, sat in his favoured cafe in the world-wise Habsburg capital, confronted with the Neue Freie Presse and the cup of cream- topped coffee and attendant glass of water that a sleek-headed piccolo had just brought him. For years longer than a dog's lifetime sleek-headed ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... please him as well as humbler and less obtrusive places. But it was all one,—Delmonico's, the Bellevue, a stool in the Twelfth Street Market, or a German cafe on Van Buren Street. The humors of certain eating-houses gave him infinite delight. He went frequently to the Diner's Own Home, the proprietor of which, being both cook and Christian, ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... curse, half gasp, travelled round the crowded room and out of the open doors to the swarms buzzing and chirping in the paddocks and the trees, and Gleeson, with obtrusive calm, paused to chalk ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... preserve the rights of all by causing each to respect those of the other; to carry forward every social improvement to the uttermost limit of human perfectibility, by the free action of mind upon mind, not by the obtrusive intervention of misapplied force; to uphold the integrity and guard the limitations of our organic law; to preserve sacred from all touch of usurpation, as the very palladium of our political salvation, the reserved rights and powers ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... gave a notice of this donation, being unfortunate enough to confound Humboldt's copy with that of Lord Kingsborough, not having seen the work himself. Ebert, in the Dresden Anzeiger, May 5, made an angry rejoinder to this "hasty and obtrusive notice."[TN-1] Boettiger, whom we mentioned above and who till then was a close friend of Ebert, on May 12, in the last named journal, defended the anonymous writer (who perhaps was himself) in an extremely violent tone. Ebert's replies in the same journal became ...
— Aids to the Study of the Maya Codices • Cyrus Thomas
... assistance to the ladies, and find amusement for their weary hours. His outward air and appearance were of the kind which win confidence and awake affection. A youth in the full sense of the word, well-formed, tall, perhaps a little too stout; modest without being timid, and easy without being obtrusive, there was no work and no trouble which he was not delighted to take upon himself; and as he could keep accounts with great facility, the whole economy of the household soon was no secret to him, and everywhere his salutary ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... or a word at the outset is enough to ruin a newcomer. It is the principal merit of fine manners and the highest breeding that they produce the effect of a harmonious whole, in which every element is so blended that nothing is startling or obtrusive. Even those who break the laws of this science, either through ignorance or carried away by some impulse, must comprehend that it is with social intercourse as with music, a single discordant note is a complete ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... as I can expect," she said, in her quiet, sad manner. The sadness was not obtrusive, not on the surface; it was only the ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner
... champagne. Perhaps I shall do well to say that on questions of right and wrong he had a will of iron. All his life he moved resolutely in whichever direction his conscience pointed; and, although that ever present and never obtrusive conscience of his made mistakes of judgment now and then, as must all consciences, I think it can never once have tricked him into any action that was impure or unclean. Some critics maintain that the heroes and heroines of his books ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... paroquet was a splendid creature, with a brilliant orange throat darkly spotted. He flew from tree to tree, chattering gayly, and had a really pretty song. Evidently he was in the best of spirits, notwithstanding the rather obtrusive attentions of a crowd of house sparrows, who appeared to look upon such a wearer of the green as badly out of place in this new England of theirs. But for all his vivacity, I feared he would not be long in coming to grief. If he escaped ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... deluded long By Fancy's dazzling optics, these behold The images of some peculiar things With brighter hues resplendent, and portray'd With features nobler far than e'er adorn'd Their genuine objects. Hence the fever'd heart Pants with delirious hope for tinsel charms; Hence oft obtrusive on the eye of scorn, Untimely zeal her witless pride betrays! 160 And serious manhood from the towering aim Of wisdom, stoops to emulate the boast Of childish toil. Behold yon mystic form Bedeck'd ...
— Poetical Works of Akenside - [Edited by George Gilfillan] • Mark Akenside
... is less notable in detail, and in general effect is more spoiled by obtrusive blues. There is, however, one young man of wholly Lionardesque loveliness, whose divine innocence of adolescence, unalloyed by serious thought, unstirred by passions, almost forces a comparison with Sodoma. The only painter who approaches ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... civil guard was drawn up under the gallery with loaded rifles. Eight hundred convicts attended service; some of them were penitent; most of them were trying to make a high profession of contrition as a bid for the good graces of the chaplain. The obtrusive reverence of one sinister gray-head near at hand attracted Hugh Ritson's especial attention. He knelt with his face to the gallery in which the choir sat. Beside him was a youth fresh from Millbank. The hoary sinner was evidently initiating the green hand into the mysteries of his ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... non-existent. Mr. Churchill was debarred from a similar dictatorship at the Admiralty mainly because he was not a seaman and had Lord Fisher as his professional mentor; while Mr. Asquith busied himself with keeping the peace between his two obtrusive colleagues, neither of whom expressed the considered views of the Services ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... men are to be turned from evils, and brought to repent and reform, those only should interfere who are most loved and respected, and who have the best right to approach the offender. While on the other hand, rebuke from those who are deemed obtrusive and inimical, or even indifferent, will do more ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... wing which shut like a door, enclosing a small space fitted up like a miniature scullery, with a curious and elaborate collection of pots and pans and kitchen utensils, all hung in orderly rows, but every article with marks of service on it, and more recent and obtrusive trace ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... about the room, stared for a second in blank amazement at the intruders. They were certainly unlike any other visitors who had ever come to Pendlemere. The speaker was a little, short, wiry man, in a slack-fitting, brown tweed suit, with a rather obtrusive striped tie. His raggy, grey beard straggled under his chin and up to his ears; his eyes twinkled through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles; in defiance of European etiquette, he wore his hat over a crop of rough, grey hair. Clinging ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Judge Menefee felt crushed, humiliated, relegated. Second place galled him. Why had this blatant, obtrusive, unpolished man of windmills been selected by Fate instead of himself to discover the sensational apple? He could have made of the act a scene, a function, a setting for some impromptu, fanciful discourse or piece of comedy—and have retained the role of cynosure. ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... of the delicate bond of rhyme, which enlivens musical cadence with sweet reiteration. Rhyme was then a new element in verse, a modern aesthetic creation; and it is a help and an added beauty, if it be not obtrusive and too self-conscious, and if it be not a target at which the line aims; for then it becomes a clog to freedom of movement, and the pivot of factitious pauses, that are offensive both to sense and to ear. Like buds that lie half-hidden in leaves, rhymes should peep out, sparkling ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... Some had come from Virginia, some from New England, and others from the island of Bermuda. They had their little assembly and their governor Stevens, their humble plantations, their modest trade, their beloved solitudes, and the plainest and least obtrusive laws imaginable. They paddled up and down their placid bayous and rivers in birch-bark canoes; they shot deer and 'possums for food and panthers for safety, they loved their wives and begat their children, they ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... whatsoever creed or camp it comes is balance or equipoise, judgment being rendered without thought of the law. After the picture has been left as finished, why does an artist often feel impelled to create an accent on this side or weaken an obtrusive one on the other side of his canvas if not working under a law ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... waiting until he should notice her. As he rose to his feet he looked at her in astonished surprise. Above the average height, his compact, athletic figure was so perfectly proportioned that his height was not obtrusive. His beardless face showed every line of a determination that was softened by mobile lips which could straighten and set with decision, or droop and waver with appreciative humour. His blue eyes were still more ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... itself you never need this knowledge; it never forces itself on you. The hundreds, and almost thousands, of persons who form the company of the Comedie—their frequently recurring parts adjusted with extraordinary, though by no means obtrusive or offensive, consistency to the enormous world of detail and scenery and general "surroundings" in which their parts are played—are never interfered with by the pointing-stick or the prompter. They are there; they can't help being there, and ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... her tiny sitting-room, for Pinto was somehow less alarming to her than he had been. Perhaps she was conscious that at the corner of the street stood a quietly dressed man doing nothing particular, who was relieved at the eighth hour by an even less obtrusive-looking gentleman ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... seize the salient characteristics of an artist whose glory it is to offer nothing over-prominent, and who keeps the middle path of perfection, is impossible. As complete health may be termed the absence of obtrusive sensation, as virtue has been called the just proportion between two opposite extravagances, so is Titian's art a golden mean of joy unbroken by brusque movements of the passions—a well-tempered harmony in which no thrilling note suggests the possibility of discord. In ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... generally sheltered behind some protecting rock, or resting against the slope of the mountain, so that, from one side, you may step upon the roof. That is the chalet. When well grouped, running along a slope of mountain side, these huts produce a very pleasing effect, being never obtrusive (owing to the prevailing grayness of their tone), uniting well with surrounding objects, and bestowing at once ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... touched the right chord. It was not obtrusive, it had no hint of pity; it was simply that one who had been hurt fully understood the hurt of another. Ralph felt ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... protecting the rest of the sleeping girl, that perfume of innocence shed around the maidenly couch, that lamp, open-eyed amid the shadows, like a soul in prayer, had inspired the seducer with an unknown distress. Irritated by what he called an absurd cowardice, he had extinguished the obtrusive light, and was advancing towards the bed, and addressing unspoken reproaches to himself, when Gabriel swooped upon him with a wounded tiger's fierce gnashing ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he drawled, prodding the near ox lightly in the ribs. And the team lurched to the right to avoid a markedly obtrusive boulder. "Haw, Bright!" he ejaculated a minute later, flicking with his whip the off shoulder of the farther ox. And with sprawling legs and swaying of hind-quarters the team swerved obediently to the left, shunning a mire-hole that would have taken in the wheel to the hub. Presently, coming to a ...
— Earth's Enigmas - A Volume of Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... every rake exerts his art T' ensnare the unsuspecting heart. The prostitute, with faithless smiles, Remorseless plays her tricks and wiles. Her gesture bold and ogling eye, Obtrusive speech and pert reply, And brazen front and stubborn tone, Show all her native virtue's flown. By her the thoughtless youth is ta'en, Impoverished, disgraced, or slain: Through her the marriage vows are broke, And Hymen ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... I will meet and not be foes, E'en as the rue may stand beside the rose And not affront it,—as a lonely tree May guard a shrine and not upon the lea Be deem'd obtrusive,—as an errant knight May serve the sovereign of his soul's delight And not, thereby, be deem'd of less account Than he who keeps her daily ...
— A Lover's Litanies • Eric Mackay
... for his political opinions, he did not meddle in public matters seeing that he paid less than a hundred francs a year in taxes, and refused, impartially, to subscribe to either royalist or liberal demands. His known horror for the priesthood, and his deism were so little obtrusive that he turned out of his house a commercial runner sent by his great-nephew Desire to ask a subscription to the "Cure Meslier" and the "Discours du General Foy." Such tolerance seemed inexplicable to the liberals ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... parts in a charmingly unconscious fashion, is a relation worth having. Married friends on either side can afford many extra and delightful opportunities of meeting. While thus smoothing the path of love, all obtrusive allusion to the suspected or recognised state of things should be carefully avoided. It is an unpardonable breach of etiquette for any one to draw attention to the movements of a couple by a laugh, ...
— The Etiquette of Engagement and Marriage • G. R. M. Devereux
... He wasn't obtrusive about his heart. You wouldn't have known he had one. He only left it to the physical laboratory at Waterbury for the benefit of science, since he considered it to be quite an extraordinary kind of heart. And the joke of the matter was that, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... Francisco excursions,—a dusty drive with a julep at the end of it. Well, one day we were coming back from a drive there, and when we were beginning to wind along the brow of that dreadful staring Lone Mountain Cemetery, I said I would get out and walk, and avoid the obtrusive glitter of those tombstones rising before me all the way. I pushed open a little gate and passed in. Once among these funereal shrubs and cold statuesque lilies everything was changed; I saw the staring tombstones no longer, for, like them, I seemed to be always facing the sea. The road had ...
— A First Family of Tasajara • Bret Harte
... giants)—our golf and skating,—our very cricket, and boat-racing, and jack and grayling fishing, carried on till we are fairly frozen out. We are a stern people, and winter suits us. Nature then retires modestly into the background, and spares us the obtrusive glitter of summer, leaving us to think and work; and therefore it happens that in England, it may be taken as a general rule, that whenever all the rest of the world is in-doors, we are out and busy, and on the whole, the worse the day, ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... for binding time; and so he had to grope. It is not strange that he was puzzled by himself. It is not strange that he thought himself an animal; for he has animal propensities as a cube has surfaces, and his animal propensities were so obtrusive, so very evident to physical sense—he was born, grew, had legs and hair, ate, ran, slept, died—all just like animals—while his distinctive mark, his time-binding capacity, was subtle; it was spiritual; it was not a visible organ but an invisible function; it was ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... Maurice rose restlessly, a big, obtrusive figure. He felt tight and hampered. He ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... De Stancy had been an easy, melancholy, unaspiring officer, enervated and depressed by a parental affection quite beyond his control for the graceless lad Dare—the obtrusive memento of a shadowy period in De Stancy's youth, who threatened to be the curse of his old age. Throughout a long space he had persevered in his system of rigidly incarcerating within himself all instincts towards the opposite sex, with a resolution ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... Monkwell-street,) resided many years in the Lower-street, Islington. One day, when he got into the stage to come to London, he met with two ladies of his acquaintance, and a loquacious young Irishman, who was very obtrusive with his "would-be wit" to the females. The coachman soon stopped to take up another passenger, who, Dutchman-like, was "slow to make haste." A young dog, being confined in the neighbourhood, bewailed its loss of liberty, by making an hideous noise; which all the party agreed was very disagreeable. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 266, July 28, 1827 • Various
... breath, Rhoda, in a last desperate effort, swung out her right hand, seized the confronting spectre by its obtrusive left arm, and whirled it backward to the floor, starting up herself as she did so with ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... girl had just been observing that Schwaenli and Baerli were by far the cleanest and prettiest of the goats. They evaded the obtrusive Turk with a sort of contempt and always managed to find the greenest bushes for themselves. She mentioned it to Peter, who replied: "I know! Of course they are the prettiest, because the uncle washes them and gives them salt. He has ...
— Heidi - (Gift Edition) • Johanna Spyri
... settlement have contributed, not only to the abundance of American prosperity, but also to the formation of American character and institutions; and undoubtedly many of the economic and political evils which are now becoming offensively obtrusive are directly or indirectly derived from the gradual monopolization of certain important economic opportunities. Nevertheless, these opportunities could never have been converted so quickly into substantial ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... among young and neglected people of that class. He is considered one of the best conversationists at present in society: it may very well be so; his style of talking being very simple and natural, anything but obtrusive, so that you might enjoy its agreeableness without suspecting it. He introduced me to his wife (a daughter of Lord Crewe), with whom and himself I had a good deal of talk. Mr. Milnes told me that he owns the land in Yorkshire, whence some of the pilgrims ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of his feelings for myself. Those who were most pliant to his touch loomed, of course, largest in his thoughts: and my mother's letter, giving him the proof of my affection, which, since it was less obtrusive than Doe's, had been probably less clear to him, brought me in the foreground of his view. Be it right or wrong, this man with the hard chin and kind eyes had his favourites; and I date from this moment my usurping of Doe's position as Radley's foremost favourite. The way in which ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... as to the great question of Donatello's ears, and the mysterious influence which he retains over the animal world so long as he is unstained by bloodshed. In 'Septimius' alone, it seems to me that the supernatural is left in rather too obtrusive a shape in spite of the final explanations; though it might possibly have been toned down had the story received the last touches of the author. The artifice, if so it may be called, by which this is effected—and the romance is just sufficiently ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D—, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visiter, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived; these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... nimbus of pale yellow flame "Berberis vulgaris" hands me a bit of pasteboard, and dangling from a resinous bough is the statement that it is "Pinus strobus" that welcomes me to fragrant shade. Like many city manners which are new to country folk these seem to be a bit obtrusive at first. Yet on second thought I find it an excellent custom which ought to be enlarged upon in various ways. I can fancy people coming to the bungalow for a day's intercourse with the pasture shrubs ...
— Old Plymouth Trails • Winthrop Packard
... of an invincible loyalty of principle, and that, asking no sentimental affection, and indeed yielding none, he was, without presuming on his relationship, devoted to his cousin's interest. It seemed that from being a glancing ray of sunshine in the house, evasive but never obtrusive, he had become a daily necessity of comfort ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... she chose to exert herself? She glanced about, hoping to catch a glimpse of Gryce; but her eyes lit instead on the glossy countenance of Mr. Rosedale, who was slipping through the crowd with an air half obsequious, half obtrusive, as though, the moment his presence was recognized, it would swell to the ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... was so soft and feeble that not one of the little animals was as yet able to roll itself into the shape of a ball. The spines, however, served a useful purpose: they kept the tender skin beneath from being irritated by the chance touch of the mother hedgehog's obtrusive quills. ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... drawing-room. And when she picked up a fragment of fresh news she lost not a moment, but put on her bonnet and carried it over to Mount Street. So assiduous was she in this self-imposed duty, that Mrs. Barton was obliged at last to close her door against this obtrusive visitor. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution, so he told me, by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial ground of the family, I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... carelessness of good things—giving him, in a way, the look of shambling power. Yet in spite of the tie a little crooked, and the trousers a little too large and too short, he had touches of that distinction which power gives. His large hands with the square-pointed fingers had obtrusive veins, but they were ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... his secretary, that the Relation does not differ substantially from other contemporary accounts, and that the attempt to varnish over the exceptionable passages in the conduct of the Conquerors is not obtrusive. ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... knew each other well; Howard knew them only as he had seen their names in the "fashionable intelligence" columns of the newspapers. Mrs. Carnarvon was a small thin woman in a black velvet gown which made her thinness obtrusive and attractive or the reverse according as one's taste is toward or away from attenuation. Her eyes were a dull, greenish grey, her skin brown and smooth and tough from much exposure in the hunting field. Her cheeks were beginning to hang slightly, so that one ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... them on a person of your penetration. But he does. By his own account and the evidence of his manners he had been bred for a clergyman, and he certainly has gifts for the part. You find him always in possession of your point of view, and with an evident though not obtrusive desire to stand well with you. For an account of his killings, for his way with women and the way of women with him, I refer you to Brown of Calaveras and some others of that stripe. His improprieties had a certain sanction of long standing not accorded to the gay ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... loved his second wife too well to seek to know the truth, if that truth would be to her discredit. He preferred to be deceived; and he had what he preferred. He stifled all doubts, darkened all chinks by which the obtrusive light might penetrate, kept his love if not his faith unshaken, caring only to remember her as beautiful, seductive, soothing, and mourning her as deeply, doubtful as she had proved herself to be, as he had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... handling things, of rising and sitting, of walking and being still. It was a new way, unlike Poppy's way, or Flossie's way, or the way of any woman he had yet seen. What struck him most was the intense quiet of her presence; it was this that made his own so noisy and obtrusive. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... sincerely for your generous review; and it is with the sense of double content I express my gratitude, because I am now sure the tribute is not superfluous or obtrusive. You were not severe on 'Jane Eyre;' you were very lenient. I am glad you told me my faults plainly in private, for in your public notice you touch on them so lightly, I should perhaps have passed them over thus ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... the negro, his whole face quivering with excitement, and the whites of his eyes unusually obtrusive as he pointed to the ever-growing line of land on the horizon, "you ...
— The Madman and the Pirate • R.M. Ballantyne
... elephant I could hardly have been more embarrassed than I was at the apparition of this urbane and magnificent Hindoo prince. He was young; he was handsome; he was slim, for a rajah; he wore European costume, save for the huge white turban with its obtrusive diamond; and he spoke English much better than a great many Englishmen. Yet what place could he fill in my life and Elsie's? For once, I felt almost angry with Harold. Why couldn't he have allowed us to go quietly through India, two ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... and in spite of radical changes, the elegant, exquisitely kept town of Nancy appears little altered to me. The ancient capital of Lorraine is now one of the largest garrisons on the eastern frontier, but the military aspect is not too obtrusive. Except for the perpetual roll of the heavy artillery waggons and perpetual sight of the red pantalon, we are apt to forget the present position of Nancy from a strategic point ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Phyllis Ayrton remained side by side at the entrance to the conservatory, at the further end of which a vocal quartette party sang delightfully—delightfully; sufficiently loud to enable all the guests who wanted to talk to do so without inconvenience, and at the same time not so loud as to become obtrusive. It is so seldom that a quartette party manage to hit this happy medium, people said. They generally sing as if they fancy that people come together to hear them, not remembering that the legitimate ...
— Phyllis of Philistia • Frank Frankfort Moore
... profound astonishment. They had heard that he had married in Sydney, and from their past knowledge of his character expected to see a loudly-attired Melbourne or Sydney barmaid with peroxided hair, and person profusely adorned with obtrusive jewelry. Instead of this they beheld a tall, ladylike girl with a cold, refined face, and an equally cold and ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... necessarily placed her in embarrassment which was very likely to produce the opposite effect. The young Virginian girl could not do otherwise than receive those attentions with gratitude, and yet her very desire not to be obtrusive and not to seem to demand more attention than was necessary, placed her in an equally anomalous position. The two girls consequently became much less intimately acquainted within the first few days, than they might have done if thrown together ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... well with Quintus Cicero; but I can see also that, when Caesar prevailed, it was occasionally a matter of doubt with Quintus whether his brother should not be abandoned among other things which were obtrusive and vain. He could not quite do it. His brother compelled him into propriety, and carried him along within the lines of the oligarchy. Then Caesar fell, and Quintus saw that the matter was right; but Caesar, though he fell, ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress, and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops; now, eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy, in the low nursing-chair near the fire, by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance; now, exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby; now, going round and round upon the hearth, and lying down as if he had established himself for the night; now, getting up again, and taking that nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his, ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... the hollows and angles of the architecture and folds of the dress, than in all the etchings of Rembrandt put together. The unexciting color will not at first delight you; but its charm will never fail; and from all the works of variously strained and obtrusive power with which it is surrounded, you will find that you never return to it but with a sense of relief and of peace, which can only be given you by the tender skill which is wholly without pretense, ...
— Lectures on Landscape - Delivered at Oxford in Lent Term, 1871 • John Ruskin
... here and now, as anywhere and at any time!" returned Rosa, yet more resignedly. "And the end must come, sooner or later. This was what I was saying over to myself when you came in. I am a fool—a baby—to mind it!" angrily dashing away the obtrusive brine from her mournful eyelids. "I WISH you would leave me alone for a few minutes, Mr. Chilton, until I can ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... least encouragement out would come my manuscript book, unabashed. I need hardly state that my cousin was not a severe critic; in point of fact the opinions he expressed would have done splendidly as advertisements. None the less, when in any of my poetry my childishness became too obtrusive, he could not restrain his hearty ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... been my aim to make the character of "Magdalen," which personifies this struggle, a pathetic character even in its perversity and its error; and I have tried hard to attain this result by the least obtrusive and the least artificial of all means—by a resolute adherence throughout to the truth as it is in Nature. This design was no easy one to accomplish; and it has been a great encouragement to me (during the publication of my story in ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... the Norman conquest influenced Scotland only less profoundly than England itself. In the case of Scotland it was less immediate and obtrusive, but in its totality it is a fact of the first importance in the ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... changes give cause for reflection. When my geranium-flowers were devastated, how had the obtrusive Bee, untroubled by the profound dissimilarity between the petals, snow-white here, bright scarlet there, how had she learnt her trade? Nothing tells us that she herself was not for the first time exploiting the plant from the Cape; and, if she really did have predecessors, ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... before continuing the trip. He made a landing at daylight at a frame house over the door of which was painted the word "confectionery" and he thought he could get some breakfast. He was given a room, but it was soon filled with obtrusive questioners. A farmer, seeing the look of hunger in his eyes, volunteered to procure some breakfast. The Captain was prepared to do justice to the kind of a meal he had been wishing for, when the farmer returned with a genuine ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... broken. "Yes, the heap to be cleaned is rather obtrusive," he said, "but I suppose it is ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... or a "Romance of Adventure"), redeemed from the aimless prolixity incident to that form by its regular plan, by the intercommunion of the adventures of the several knights (none of whom disappears after having achieved his own quest), and by the constant presence of a not too obtrusive allegory. This last characteristic attaches it on the other side to the poems of the Roman de la Rose order, which succeeded the Romans d'Aventures as objects of literary interest and practice, not merely in France, but throughout ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... wishes he could possibly think of for his happiness. During a quarter of an hour he lavished on him his myrrh and honey. Samuel would gladly have wrung his neck. He could not breathe until the abbe had freed him from his obtrusive society. ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... perverse, passionate disposition. Unless you overcome this dangerous tendency of character, you may expect only wretchedness and humiliation in coming years. I am sincerely sorry for you, but I tell you unhesitatingly, that I find it difficult to tolerate your grave and obtrusive faults." ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... to slide sideways, like barn doors, into cavities formed to receive them. If built with extreme care and handled with the utmost tenderness they are a degree less obtrusive than when wholly dependent on hinges. Likewise, outside blinds may be contrived to swing horizontally as well as vertically, standing out from the top of the window like a small shed roof. They are not quite wide enough to serve as awnings, and are ...
— The House that Jill Built - after Jack's had proved a failure • E. C. Gardner
... with her hands clasped behind her, before the deal table. She gazed, under lowered brows, straight out of window; and following that gaze, I saw across the coombe a mean mud hut, with a wall around it, that looked on Sheba Farm with the obtrusive humility of a ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... forgot that I had not told you," said she, pushing back her hat, and speaking like one determined to go through with the thing. "Why, cousin, I have been told that you spoke of my manners towards yourself as being freer—more—obtrusive than they should be. And now," said she, her eyes flashing, "you see it was not a very easy thing to tell you, but I began with being frank, and I will be so, for the sake ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... hundred winters. In this state of decrepitude, she occupied the best position in the house, seemed to be treated with great kindness, and whatever she said was listened to with much attention. They are by no means obtrusive; and as their fisheries supply them with a competent, if not an abundant subsistence, although they receive thankfully whatever we choose to give, they do not importune us by begging. Fish is, indeed, their chief food, except roots and ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... more tenderness than my vexing spirit had recently permitted me to show; but I recoiled from the effects of my own attentions. I was vexed to perceive that my approaches occasioned a start, a flutter—a shrinking inward—as if my advance had been obtrusive, and my attempts ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... the features of our friends, are always distracting, especially during illness, when restfulness is so essential. The plain cartridge-papered wall with frieze and ceiling either flowered or of a light shade of the same or a contrasting color is never obtrusive and always in good taste. With a flowered wall a plain ceiling is a relief, and vice versa. Figures in both walls and ceiling are tiring, besides having none of the effect resulting from contrast. Walls in plain stripes need to be livened with a fancy ceiling, or ceiling and ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... new boat to which he was appointed is not yet finished. So he is saved! I am distressed about Captain Huger, and could not refrain from crying, he was so good to Jimmy. But I remembered Miss Cammack might think it rather tender and obtrusive, so I dried my eyes and began to hope he had escaped. Oh! how glad I should be to know he has suffered no harm. Mr. Hutchinson was on his way above, going to join others where the final battle is to ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... the animal which produced honey must be the Musk-rat, the wondrous nature of whose secretions required no proof; and, in the powerful logical procedure of the Owl, from musk to honey was but a step. Some disturbance arose hereupon, for the Musk-rat began to make himself obtrusive, believing in the Owl's opinion of his powers, and feeling that he could have produced the honey if he had thought of it; until an experimental Butcher-bird proposed to anatomise him as a help to decision. The hubbub increased, the opponents of the Musk-rat inquiring who his ancestors were; until ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... favourable side of the catalogue should end. His speeches have the great blemish of insolence. They are wanting in geniality, and apparently wanting in reflectiveness. They contain too little thought and more than enough of gall. Perhaps their cleverness is too obtrusive. His hearers are pleased, but they suspect a trick, and levy a discount on his argument. The faults of his speeches are his faults as a politician. He is headstrong and impulsive. He borrows his ideas from his passions, and fancies he is sagacious when ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... Companion. Some of you call it Rickety Dick, or Willy Wagtail." Turning to the Kangaroo especially, it continued, "If you can bring yourself to speak to anything so obtrusive and gossiping, without any ancestry or manners whatever, you will be able to learn all you need from that bird. Humans and Wagtails fraternise ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley
... vivacious, with gleams of her former great beauty, the gracious and agreeable hostess; again, her condition was that of sheer indifference and semi-torpor. And who was the officious and familiar ayah, her attendant and shadow, an obtrusive creature with bold black eyes and a resolute mouth? Why did she speak so authoritatively to her mistress? Why did she wear such handsome jewellery and expensive silk saris, heavily fringed with gold, and strut about with ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... been written by some one who has been on the spot, and I wish him, and he deserves, success. Will you apologise to the author for the liberties I have taken with his MS.? Had I been less awake to, and interested in, his theme, I had been less obtrusive; but you know I always take this in good part, and I hope he will. It is difficult to say what will succeed, and still more to pronounce what will not. I am at this moment in that uncertainty (on our own score); and it is no small proof of the author's powers to be ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... He was now standing in the M.B. waistcoat and the pink bed-gown. The sleeves were more obtrusive than ever. The minister was reminded of his official ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... who feels himself preordained to contemplation and not to belief, all believers are too noisy and obtrusive; ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... on their visit only the day before: they had taken a long holiday, and had been visiting many friends. It was now about two months since their marriage, and the gowns in Minnie's trousseau began to lose their obtrusive newness: nor can it be said that her sentiments were new. They were only modified a little by her present milieu. "I suppose," she said, after an interval, "that Lady Markland will come to see me as soon as she knows I am here. Shall they have ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... A Card Spirit And Law Truth-Healing Heart To Heart Things To Be Thought Of Unchristian Rumor Vainglory Compounds Close Of The Massachusetts Metaphysical College Malicious Reports Loyal Christian Scientists The March Primary Class Obtrusive Mental Healing Wedlock Judge Not New Commandment A Cruce Salus Comparison to English Barmaids A Christian Science Statute Advice To Students Notice Angels Deification Of Personality A Card Overflowing ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... of her company, and weary of the sound of her voice. Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have wearied of me as I wearied of them; seventy-five of that number would have promptly avenged themselves by active and obtrusive flirtation with other men. Mrs. Wessington was the hundredth. On her neither my openly-expressed aversion, nor the cutting brutalities with which I garnished our ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... to the end of their journey at number forty in the Krumerweg. It was a house of hanging gables, almost as old as the town itself, solid and grim and taciturn. There are some houses which talk like gossips, noisy, obtrusive and provocative. Number forty was like an old warrior, gone to his chair by the fireside, who listens to the small-talk of his neighbors saturninely. What was it all about? Had he not seen battles and storms, revolutions and bloodshed? The ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... without which (whatever the nature of the writing may be, there can be no crime) who are morally the publishers of this pamphlet? Have you any evidence, whatever, that any one of these pamphlets was in circulation, or ever would have been circulated, but for the impertinent, obtrusive, sordid, and base part of the ministers of the Constitutional Association? How otherwise is this pamphlet here? Let us turn back to the evidence of the first witness. He was the worthy servant of the Association in this and a few other recent instances, but for the most ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... the fear of this that had kept Sir Felix away from the club. Grasslough, as he had told himself, was just the fellow to ask such a question,—ill-natured, insolent, and obtrusive. But the question demanded an answer of some kind. 'Yes,' said he; 'a fellow attacked me in the street, coming behind me when I had a girl with me. He didn't get much the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... consideration of our readers. Since the days of Smith and Montesquieu, no more valuable addition has been made to moral science; and though the good taste and modesty of its author, has induced her to put, in the least obtrusive form, the wisdom and erudition—the least fragment of which would have furnished forth a host of modern Sciolists with the most ostentatious paragraphs—the deep thought and nervous eloquence by which almost every page of the volume ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... knitted in anxious scrutiny, he could peer his way through the labyrinth of a sonata or fantasia much too complex for any one but a trained artist, enjoying to the full the mental excitement of the discordant struggle, and comfortably conscious that as his residence was "detached," no obtrusive neighbor could either warn him to desist, or set up an opposition nuisance next door by constant practice on the distressingly over-popular piano. One thing very much in his favor was, that he never manifested any desire to perform in public. No one had ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... in deep silence. The thermometer was at 53, we being about 4,500 feet above the level of the sea. The pagazis, almost naked, walked quickly in order to keep warm, and by so doing many a sore foot was made by stumbling against obtrusive roots and rocks, and treading on thorns. At 3 A.M. we arrived at the village of Unyambogi, where we threw ourselves down to rest and sleep until dawn should reveal what else was in store ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... from you this little rapier, which, like the barber's pole, I have often thought too obtrusive in ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... wish to see him again, and therefore gave him no address or invitation in case he should come to England. As I rolled away in the Malleposte, my busy thoughts reviewed all the details of our acquaintance, and the farther I was carried from his presence, the more obtrusive became the suspicions which connected him with the murder of Lieschen Lehfeldt. How, or upon what motive, was indeed an utter mystery. He had not mentioned the name of Lehfeldt. He had not mentioned having before been at Nuremberg. At Heidelberg the tragedy ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... opposite extreme. In her anxiety to fulfil what she deems her only possible destiny, she becomes Forward and assuming. She regards it as necessary to force attention toward herself. She is not of those who "to be won, must be wooed." Her aims are obtrusive; instead of waiting for the approach of another, she makes constant advances toward him. This fault is still more repulsive to most gentlemen than the other. They esteem it an indication of great vanity on the part of a young woman, and expressive of no very high sense of their own powers ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... turned admiringly upon the calm, stately beauty and her white flowers. Ronald saw them. He could not help remarking the exquisite toilet, marred by no obtrusive colors, the pretty lily wreath and fragrant bouquet. It never occurred to him that Valentine had chosen those delicate blossoms in compliment to him. He thought he had never seen a fairer picture than this magnificent blonde; then she faded from his mind. He looked round on those fair and noble ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... wishes. Marked attention, and in most cases affectionate kindness, to the lady's mother ought to be shown: such respectful homage will secure for him many advantages in his present position. He must not, however, presume to take his stand yet as a member of the family, nor exhibit an obtrusive familiarity in manner and conversation. Should a disruption of the engagement from some unexpected cause ensue, it is obvious that any such premature assumption would lead to very embarrassing results. In short, ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... aware in rather a ludicrous way. My host's daughter was a very pleasant pretty girl, who made herself more agreeable to me than most of those about me. For some days my companion-shadow had been less obtrusive than usual; and such was the reaction of spirits occasioned by the simple mitigation of torment, that, although I had cause enough besides to be gloomy, I felt light and comparatively happy. My impression is, that she was quite aware of the law of appearances that existed between the people ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... peculiar glory of our English speech. Spenser, Ben Jonson, and Marlowe; Dryden, Cowley, and Waller; Milton, George Herbert, and Gray—to mention only the most familiar names—had owed allegiance to that mother who received Wordsworth now, and Coleridge and Byron immediately after him. "Not obvious, not obtrusive, she;" but yet her sober dignity has often seemed no unworthy setting for minds, like Wordsworth's, meditative without languor, and energies advancing without shock or storm. Never, perhaps, has the spirit of Cambridge been more truly caught than in Milton's ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... a similar mortification nightly awaited the unconscious sleepers, although "upon uneasy pallets stretching them," in the occasional tinkling of an obtrusive bell, that peremptorily hurried them from their recumbent position to the cold stones of the chapel, where on bended knees they were obliged to pray ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... of the same gray-white as the bed. Within the pattern of the velvety-blacks there are as many subtle gradations as in the pattern of the gray-whites. The tableau is a satisfying scheme in black and gray, with practically one non-obtrusive texture throughout. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... conduct the performances. He was partly paralysed, and his baton, I believe, had to be fastened to his hand because he could not grasp it. Further, he was becoming deaf, and the result was that the loud brass instruments were allowed to become too blatant and obtrusive. Costa was a good man in his day, and he did good work. He was very autocratic, even despotic, but he introduced two good things into the orchestra—order and punctuality. With all his ability, tact, ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... Hungarian society, speaking the languages without hesitation when she did speak, while in her quiet way keeping every one entertained, showing the art de tenir un salon, and moreover, preserving Francie from obtrusive admiration in a way perhaps learnt by experience on that more perilous subject, Angela, who had invited what Francie shrank from. The two girls were supremely happy, and Francie seemed to have a fountain of joy that diffused a rose- coloured spray ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... success in society she had never had much admiration from the other sex. This she did not attribute so much to anything as to her own superiority; it really wanted a great deal of courage for an average mortal to propose to her. Her unconscious egotism had something rather grand in it; it was rarely obtrusive, but it was always there. Her mind was naturally a vigorous one, but it had moved in a narrow channel, and whatever was out of her own groove, she ignored. She appreciated whatever Jane Melville knew ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... show, in a thousand facts, that not only the sovereign of Leaphigh, but most other sovereigns, are and ever have been, destitute of the faculty of a memory. It might be said to be incompatible with the royal condition to be possessed of this obtrusive faculty. Were a prince endowed with a memory, he might lose sight of his high estate, in the recollection that he was born, and that he is destined, like another, to die; he might be troubled with visions of the past; nay, the consciousness of his very dignity might be unsettled and weakened ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... expected that the outlay upon the trinket would be repaid him, he could be generous when it suited him, and was quite aware that a less costly lure would have served his purpose equally. He also knew when it was advisable to offer something more tasteful than the obtrusive dollar. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... Quayle asked, with the utmost suavity. "Of the nameless, obtrusive, alien element, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... The elaborateness of the German prince—an elaborateness which has been justly and happily compared with that of Goethe—was wholly alien to the half-Irish, half-English, statesman. The somewhat boisterous courage in minor dangers, and the obtrusive use of an always effectual but not always refined, commonplace, which are Lord Palmerston's defects, doubtless grated on Prince Albert, who had a scholar's caution and a scholar's courage. The facts will be known to our children's children, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot |
