"Obvious" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to pace up and down the patio, and, as he did so, he questioned the new disciples as to their trade, their birthplace, and their parents. To this Rincon replied, "Our trade is sufficiently obvious, since we are here before your worship; as to our country, it does not appear to me essential to the matter in hand that we should declare it, any more than the names of our parents, since we are not now stating our qualifications for admission into ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... 1864 wore towards its close, military events manifestly approached a climax. In 1861 the two armies were comparatively green. For obvious reasons the advantage was on the side of the South. The South had so long been in substantial control at Washington that they had the majority of the generals, they had nearly all the arms and ammunition, and, since they had planned the coming conflict, their militia were in the main in ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... was no mention of the cache in the tules. The reporters, spilled out in the damp discomfort of the county seat, were filling their columns with anything they could scrape together, but it was still too early for them to have scraped more than the obvious, surface facts. Mayer would have to wait. As he sat at the table, picking at his breakfast, his mind darkly disturbed, he wondered if he had not better get out, and then called himself a fool. He was secure, absolutely secure. The man of the two who had had some capacity had escaped, ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... his diversions in the Parc-aux-Cerfs, daily restored his vigor by bathing in the blood of young children; and parents of the absentees began to manifest a double dissatisfaction, for the deduction was obvious. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... central point of everything, from which everything is equally distant, and to which everything is equally near. By the square he is to learn that God made everything equal. The drift of these symbolic explanations is obvious. ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... sat with Alice near the piano where Francie and her governess were playing duets, listening without listening to his companion's jerky talk—those pathetic attempts to attract him which so many second-rate girls were not too proud to make obvious to his keen apprehension. Claud Dalzell's distinction was that he was the most polished young man of his social circle. He had had all the advantages that money could give and in addition, was naturally refined and handsome. To hear ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... reveals itself, could lend no charm to a being whose every instinct predestined her to the storms of passion. Yielding himself up to the pleasures of this dawning intrigue, the young man did not try to explain the contradictions which were obvious between the coquetry and the enthusiasm of this singular young girl. Her assumed indifference allowed him to examine at his ease a face which was now as beautiful in its calmness as it had been when agitated. Like the rest of us, he was not disposed ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... It is obvious to an unprejudiced reader of the gospels that Christ's pre-resurrection body was real and normal. It was an organism of flesh and blood, of the same constitution and structure as ours. It occupied space, and was ordinarily subject to the laws of space. It was visible and tangible. ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... be an entirely independent evolution from representations of natural objects (see CRETE). (2) An Art, whose products cannot be confounded with those of any other known art by a trained eye. Its obligations to other contemporary arts are many and obvious, especially in its later stages; but every borrowed form and motive undergoes an essential modification at the hands of the Aegean craftsman, and the product is stamped with a new character. The secret of this character ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... of this nature it is obvious that the white trader has infinitely the advantage over the African, whom, therefore, it is difficult to satisfy, for conscious of his own ignorance, he naturally becomes exceedingly suspicious ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... mustache contrasting so oddly with his silver hair, frantically scribbling equations on his doodling-pad, as though his racing fingers could never keep pace with his brain, and explaining them, with obvious condescension, to the boyish-looking Japanese beside him. He was one of the greatest of living mathematicians by anybody's reckoning—the greatest, ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... in a large and very real sense this world agony of war is the supreme struggle between these two opposed traditions of civilization—a decision between two competing forms of life—seems to me so obvious as to need no argument. In such a struggle Italy must, by compulsion of historical tradition as well as of political situation, take her part on the side of those who from one angle or another are ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... conduct of men in general, are all included in kingly duties. All these acts, O chief of the Bharatas, occur in Kshatriya duties. If the functions of royalty are disturbed, all creatures are overtaken by evil. The duties of men are not obvious. They have, again, many outlets.[200] Led by many (false) systems, their eternal nature is sometimes offended against. Others who pin their faith to the conclusions arrived at by men, without really knowing anything about the truths ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... him that he was the sole legitimate owner of the property, that the land was absolutely and wholly his to do with what he would. And so, as we have seen, in his old age he tried to dispose of the Field to the market-gardener for five thousand dollars. But the lawyer raised the obvious objection that the Field could not be sold without Edward's consent, and of Edward nothing whatsoever was known. Some attempt was made at this time by John Clark on behalf of his father to trace the missing Edward—a feeble attempt. He wrote to an army friend in Chicago, who found ...
— Clark's Field • Robert Herrick
... a famous lady, whose name, for obvious reasons, I forbear to indicate even by an initial, had inherited great wealth under a will which, to put it mildly, occasioned much surprise. She shared an opera-box with a certain Lady D—-, who loved the flowing wine-cup not wisely, but too well. One night ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... that one of the obvious necessities for the economic progress of agriculture is that its business be conducted on a cooperative basis. The chief obstacle to cooperation is the individualism of the farmer. The training of boys and girls in team games, in which they learn loyalty to the group and to subordinate ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... and he pulled out a pocketbook, disclosing a roll of bills. As he did so he hurried to the door and looked up and down the depot platform, as if afraid of being observed. He saw the three boys, and, for a moment, seemed as if he was about to hurry away. Then, with an obvious effort, he remained, but turned into the freight office ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... I have observed few obvious subjects to have been so seldom, or, at least, so slightly handled as this; and, indeed, I know few so difficult to be treated as it ought, nor yet upon which there seemeth so much ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... McNally thought it must be obvious to a man with the intelligence of an oyster, that to release the brakes would be to let the heavy train shove him over the bank, even if his engine had the power to back up, which ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman
... extending man's sympathies beyond his own species," the Mahatma has explained. "Man through the cow is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives. Why the ancient rishis selected the cow for apotheosis is obvious to me. The cow in India was the best comparison; she was the giver of plenty. Not only did she give milk, but she also made agriculture possible. The cow is a poem of pity; one reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the second mother to millions of ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... played by the economic geologist in oil exploration and development is a large one for the obvious reasons given above. Probably no other single division of economic geology now employs so large a number of geologists. Practically no large oil company, or large piece of oil exploration and development, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... case. Those long descriptions of landscape-gardening; the copious extracts from Ottilie's diary, containing many thoughts which would hardly have entered the head of such a girl; the pages given to subordinate characters, whose comings and goings have no very obvious connection with the story,—all these retard the narrative and tend to hide the essential idea. The strange title, too, has served to divert attention from the real centre of gravity. Had the tale been called, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... usual preparatory arrangements for the annual exhibition, that the funeral should not be delayed; and as early a day as practicable was therefore fixed for the public interment in St. Paul's Cathedral. The obvious consequence, however, of this has been, that owing to the absence from town, at this particular season, of so many noblemen and gentlemen of the highest rank, and the indisposition of several others, many warm ...
— The Life, Studies, And Works Of Benjamin West, Esq. • John Galt
... Pelle hadn't the least doubt as to the future. The city was so monstrously large and incalculable; it seemed to have undertaken the impossible; but there could be no doubt of such an obvious matter of course as that he should make his way. Here wealth was simply lying in great heaps, and the poor man too could win it if only he grasped at it boldly enough. Fortune here was a golden bird, which could be captured by a little ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... will tell you by-and-by how this singular variation in the breed of sheep came to be noted, and to have the prominence that it now has. For the present, I mention only these two cases; but the extent of variation in the breed of animals is perfectly obvious to any one who has studied natural history with ordinary attention, or to any person who compares animals with others of the same kind. It is strictly true that there are never any two specimens ...
— The Perpetuation Of Living Beings, Hereditary Transmission And Variation • Thomas H. Huxley
... great occasion with some of the old Garibaldian veterans in their red shirts marching in front of the band. He had felt a lump in his throat that day, he said. When Venosta's gramophone played, the Italians encamped near by clustered round the edge of the terrace in obvious enjoyment, and sometimes one or two would dash indignantly down the road to stop limbers and carts, which were making a ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... been obvious to all hands for some time that the second mate, whose name was Foster, was an idle, careless fellow, and not much of a sailor, and that the captain was exceedingly dissatisfied with him. The power of ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... the neutral men of the Plain was as obvious to one side as to the other, and the Confederates attempted to negotiate with them. Their overtures were rejected; and when they were renewed, they were rejected a second time. The Plain were disabled by consideration for their friends, hostages in the grasp of Robespierre, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... person of Hermann's niece exhaled the profound physical charm of feminine form, so her adorer's big frame embodied to my senses the hard, straight masculinity that would conceivably kill but would not condescend to cheat. The thing was obvious. I might just as well have suspected the girl of a curvature of the spine. And I perceived that the ...
— Falk • Joseph Conrad
... errors have been corrected without notice. A few obvious typographical errors have been corrected, and they are ...
— Sanctification • J. W. Byers
... object, white being left for high lights of whatever hue. In consequence, the character of pervading daylight, almost inevitably produced in the preparation, was afterwards assumed as a standard in the painting. Effectism, accidental shadows, all obvious and vulgar artistical treatment, were excluded, or introduced only as the lights became more loaded, and were consequently imposed with more facility on the dark ground. Where shade was required in large mass, it was ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... Cunningham could not understand a word of what the fakir said, but the pantomime was obvious. His was the voice and the manner of the professional beggar who has no more need to whine but still would ingratiate. It was the bullying, brazen swagger and the voice that traffics in filth and impudence instead of wit; and, in payment for his evening bellyful he was pouring out abuse of ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... his real name, either, but its appropriateness was obvious. They were friends instantly with the quick unquestioning friendship of young ones not yet quite in adolescence, before even the first stains of adulthood began to make ...
— Youth • Isaac Asimov
... glance fairly, indulging apparently in the same curiosity, half idle, half cynical, that he might have displayed before some episode of the theatre. It was a useless question that he asked. He knew too well that the answer was obvious. ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... where there is as yet no polytheism; nor an ideal first ancestor where men do not worship their ancestors; while, again, the spirit of a man who died, real or ideal, does not answer to a common savage conception of the Creator. All this will become much more obvious as we study in detail the highest gods of ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... electrical pulsations were required to move the drum the distance between the fractions. The general operation was simple, and in normally active times the mechanism and the registrar were equal to all emergencies. But it is obvious that the record had to be carried away to the brokers' offices and other places by messengers; and the delay, confusion, and mistakes soon suggested to Doctor Laws the desirability of having a number of indicators ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... proportionally than other subjects, for the amount of work obviously done, if the teaching is to be, as I have said, practical. Work done in a laboratory involves a good deal of expenditure of time without always an obvious result, because we do not see anything of that quiet process of soaking the facts into the mind, which takes place through the organs of the senses. On this ground there must be ample time given to science ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... this period Hawthorne has resided abroad. "The Marble Faun," which must, on the whole, be considered the greatest of his works, proves that his genius has widened and deepened in this interval, without any alteration or modification of its characteristic merits and characteristic defects. The most obvious excellence of the work is the vivid truthfulness of its descriptions of Italian life, manners, and scenery; and, considered merely as a record of a tour in Italy, it is of great interest and attractiveness. The opinions on Art, and the special criticisms on the masterpieces of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... their own organizations, read women as easily and accurately as women read each other. They are alert to detect and interpret those smallest trifles in tone, expression, and bearing, which betray the real mood far more unmistakably than more obvious signs. Cordis had seen her backward glance, and noted her steps grow slower with a complacent smile. It was this which emboldened him, in spite of the short acquaintance, to venture on the line ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy
... no very enviable frame of mind; but the cause is obvious. He is as yet unsettled in life, and now that he has met again his Bonnie Jean, and seen his children, he is more than ever dissatisfied with aimless roving. 'I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. ...
— Robert Burns - Famous Scots Series • Gabriel Setoun
... guessed, had been contrived to avoid the embarrassment of a more formal beginning. It was obvious that their terms of former friendship could no longer be maintained. Nothing would have induced him to have shaken hands, and this Lord Blandamer must ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... various white flag incidents. At Ingogo the Boers raised the white flag, and when in response to this General Colley ordered the hoisting of a similar flag to indicate that it was seen, a perfect hail of lead was poured on the position where the General stood; and it was obvious that the hoisting of the flag was merely a ruse to ascertain where the General and his staff were. There was the ambulance affair on Majuba, when the Boers came upon an unarmed party bearing the wounded with the red cross flying over them, and after asking who they were and getting ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... AAA represents in plan an ordinary Fresnel's dioptric fixed light apparatus, and BB' a hemispherical mirror (either metallic or dioptric on my father's principle) which is made to revolve with uniform speed about the burner. This mirror, it is obvious, intercepts the rays of one hemisphere, and, returning them through the flame (less loss by absorption, etc.), spreads them equally over the other. In this way 180 deg. of light pass regularly the eye of the seaman; and are followed at once by 180 deg. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the like. Even the hen has a homely, contented carol; and I credit the owls with a desire to fill the night with music. Al birds are incipient or would be songsters in the spring. I find corroborative evidence of this even in the crowing of the cock. The flowering of the maple is not so obvious as that of the magnolia; nevertheless, there ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... accompanied by discretion and a feeling for style. In many mouths, however, the exhortation means that the copying of natural forms is advised, and often, if one may judge from the examples which one sees around one, without selection either of subject or form. Now it is obvious that it is sometimes the beauty of form in natural objects which attracts the eye, and sometimes the beauty or strangeness of colours, either in their combination or from the unusual tint. And while the former quality ...
— Intarsia and Marquetry • F. Hamilton Jackson
... The most obvious and the most distinctive features of the History of Civilisation, during the last fifty years, is the wonderful increase of industrial production by the application of machinery, the improvement of old technical processes ...
— The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century • T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley
... life. He went up into the Highlands where he was followed by one whose character has been variously represented—Mary Macgregor of Comar, his wife. According to one account, she was by no means the masculine and cruel being whom Scott has so powerfully described; yet, from several traits, it is obvious that she was one of the most determined of her sex, and that her natural boldness of spirit was exaggerated by an insult which was never forgiven, either by herself or by her husband. This was the forcible expulsion of herself and her family from their home at Inversnaid ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... is certainly something extraordinary the matter with you; that is obvious in spite ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... that very day he had complained bitterly of the commonplaceness of life. Here at least was a problem which would tax his sagacity to the utmost. Mr. Thaddeus Sholto looked from one to the other of us with an obvious pride at the effect which his story had produced, and then continued between the puffs ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wide reputation at the council board, where his mastery of language was no less felt than the wisdom of his advice. Appearing at Lacedaemon as the accuser of Tissaphernes, (9) he had carried his case, not only by the testimony of Astyochus, but by the obvious sincerity of his statements, and on the strength of this reputation he now betook himself to Pharnabazus. The latter did not wait to be asked, but at once gave him money, which enabled him to collect friends and triremes, with a view to his ultimate recall to Syracuse. Meanwhile ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... by bacteria, and the early proof that the silkworm disease was produced by a micro-organism, led to the suggestion that the inflammatory diseases accompanying wounds were similarly caused. There are many striking similarities between these troubles and putrefaction, and the suggestion was an obvious one. At first, however, and for quite a number of years, it was impossible to demonstrate the theory by finding the distinct species of micro- organisms which produced the troubles. We have already seen that there are several different ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... Ital.; Fr. un chiffre, un rien, a cipher in arithmetic, a nought; whence the proverb avere nel zero, mepriser souverainement, to value at nothing, to have a sovereign contempt for. I do not know what the etymology of the word may be; but the application is obvious to that point in the scale of the thermometer below the numbered degrees to which, in ordinary temperatures, the ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... Miss Hornblower had called that afternoon—which produced no sensation, though Cuthbert seemed for a moment inclined to ask who Miss Hornblower might happen to be, till he remembered in time that he really did not care, and saved himself the trouble. Then Trixie made a well-meant, but rather too obvious, effort to allure him to talk by an inquiry (which had become something of a formula) whether he had 'seen any one' that day, to which Cuthbert replied that he had noticed one or two people hanging about the City; and Martha observed that she was glad to see ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... she a peach? She's fine." He wanted to keep talking, too, it was obvious. "She brought me up, you know." He laughed boyishly. "Not that I'd want you to hold that against her, or anything ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... the first, had looked suspiciously at the garb of these young people, now taxed them with an intention which all the circumstances, indeed, rendered too obvious to be mistaken. ...
— The Snow Image • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 30. The obvious difference in serious results between sleep and other cessations of the ordinary consciousness and activity led among some tribes to the supposition of a special dream-soul that could leave the body without injury to the man. It was believed by certain Greenlanders[48] that a ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... there should be anything which would be contrary to this love, that thing would be contrary to that which is true; consequently, that, which should be able to take away this love, would cause that which is true to be false; an obvious absurdity. Therefore there is nothing ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza
... classes. Frequently they amount to little more than a large loss to one property interest, and a small gain to another. They increase the element of insecurity in all forms of property; for who shall say which form is immune from attack? Now it is the slum tenement, obvious corollary of our social inequalities; next it may be the marble mansion or gilded hotel, equally obvious corollaries of the same institutional situation. Now it is the storage of meat that is under attack; ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... suffering at this period from the most fearful distress. There were many causes for this state of destitution, which were quite obvious to all but those who were interested in maintaining it. The poorer classes, being almost exclusively Catholics, had been deprived of every means of support. Trade was crushed, so that they could ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... It is obvious that the chalk must have been upheaved and converted into dry land before the timber trees could grow upon it. As the bolls of some of these trees are from two to three feet in diameter, it is no less clear that ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various
... o' you," replied the simple seaman, and added with obvious sincerity, "I'm sure I should never ha' thought 'pon anything so clever as that. But why didn' you carry ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... OF PERICLES.—Wonderful as was the growth of Athens under Pericles, it is obvious that she stood exposed to two principal sources of danger. Her allies and dependants, the stay of that naval power in which her strength lay, were discontented with her spirit of domination and of extortion. The Peloponnesian Alliance, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... of Bludston knew. Once the boy inquired, and she broke a worn frying-pan over his head. Kegworthy, whoever he might have been, was wrapt in mystery. She had appeared in the town when Paul was a year old, giving herself out as a widow. That she was by no means destitute was obvious from the fact that she at once rented the house in Budge Street, took in lodgers, and lived at her ease. Button, who was one of the lodgers, cast upon her the eyes of desire and married her. Why she married Button she could never determine. Perhaps ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... battle-field, and with the scarcely less perilous struggle for honour and renown in the lists. Very soon after the Norman Conquest, in consequence of their presence being required to give validity to every species of legal document, SEALS became instruments of the greatest importance; and it was soon obvious that heraldic insignia, with a representation of the knightly shield upon which they were displayed, were exactly suited to satisfy every requirement of the seal-engraver. By such means Heraldry became interwoven as well ...
— The Handbook to English Heraldry • Charles Boutell
... judgment and skilfully engraved, adorn the pages, and throw light upon the definitions. Besides being inserted in the vocabulary in connection with the words they illustrate, they are brought together, in a classified form, at the end of the volume. This is claimed as an "obvious advantage." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... Birrell dejectedly, "that many people appear to like a drab-colored world, hung around with dusky shreds of philosophy"; but it is more obvious still that, whether they like it or not, the drapings grow a trifle dingier every year, and that no one seems to have the courage to tack up something gay. What is much worse, even those bits of wanton color which have rested generations of weary ...
— Masterpieces Of American Wit And Humor • Thomas L. Masson (Editor)
... contents. Should you, however, be a winner, any exhibition of the purse might be construed into an unseemly desire of "welling," or securing your gains, which of course must always be a matter of perfect indifference to you; and whatever advantages you obtain from chance or skill should be made obvious to every one are only destined to enrich your valet, or be beneficially expended in the refreshment of cabmen and ladies of faded virtue. In order to convey these intentions more conspicuously, should the result of an evening be in your favour, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... "natural right," and also an agitation for "minority representation" that is continued to this day. Mr. Curtis added: "The honorable Chairman would hardly deny that to regulate the exercise of a right according to obvious reason and experience is one thing, to deny it absolutely and forever is another." To regulate a law is to abolish it, either relatively or absolutely, for some, and to maintain it for others. When the State of New York says that no alien who has not been naturalized shall ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... country embarrassment. As for Bulstrode, I did not understand him at that time; it exceeding my observation to be certain whether he considered me of sufficient importance or not, to feel any concern on my account, in his very obvious suit with Anneke. Nevertheless, as he treated me with cordiality and respect, while he dealt with me so frankly, there was not room to take offence. Of course, I turned and walked back with the party, after had properly saluted the ladies ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... Desire than it had long had already? What wrong here had ever been left unrighted? Truth, and justice, and fairness, and sincerity, those priceless things—why, he had known them here for years. Were they now to be made more obvious, or more strong? He had believed his friends, had had friends to believe; would these walking at his side be better friends? These men of Heart's Desire, these simple children who had left the smother of civilization to seek out for themselves a place of strength and simplicity, these strong ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... already gained, it appears obvious that the translation "tares" in our English version is unfortunate: it not only fails to represent clearly the state of the fact, but leads the reader's mind away in a wrong direction. To an English reader the term suggests a species of legume, which bears no resemblance to wheat ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... a close likeness between all these bodies is obvious from the fact that when any of them is strongly heated, or allowed to putrefy, it gives off the same sort of disagreeable smell; and careful chemical analysis has shown that they are, in fact, all composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, combined ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... presently added a bravura touch: the unquenchable vanity of the intellectual snob asserting itself over all prudence. That is to say, I laid down the rule that no idea should go into the book that was not already so obvious that it had been embodied in the proverbial philosophy, or folk-wisdom, of some civilized nation, including the Chinese. To this rule I remained faithful throughout. In its original form, as published ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... his immediate problem. What were they going to do to him? The obvious thing would be to put him out of camp, and so be done with him; but would they rest content with that, in their irritation at the trick he had played? Hal had heard vaguely of that native American institution, the "third degree," but had never had occasion to think of it as a possibility ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... in the text will probably be admitted as correct; when we read in the Saxon annals of the recognition of the dead, by peculiar marks on their bodies; the obvious, or at least the most natural explanation of those signs, is to be found in the habit of puncturing the skin, mentioned by ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those just true-sized instruments, of which the masters have a better command than the more unwieldy, inordinate sized one are generally under. Straining me then close to his bosom, as he stood up foreright against me, and applying to the obvious niche its peculiar idol, he aimed at inserting it, which, as I forwardly favoured, he effected at once, by canting up my thighs over his naked hips, and made me receive every inch, and close home; so-that stuck upon the pleasure-pivot, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... imperative when he found that Miss Lucilla Van Tromp had heard the story and drawn from it what seemed to her the obvious conclusion. ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... plate II. In the latter of these figures he is shown stretching his mouth, apparently yawning but actually preparing for an attack on another monkey behind the wire screen. Figure 7 of this plate indicates Skirrl in an interesting attitude of attention and with an obvious lack of self-consciousness. The same monkey is represented again in figures 8 and 9 of plate II, this time in the act of using hammer ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... which had gone out, and continued, "Her father was a gambler and a wanderer. He lived mostly on the Continent—Monte Carlo for choice. Anne's mother"—here the Princess paused, and then went on with an obvious effort—"I know nothing of Anne's mother, Mr. Ware. She died when Anne was a child. Mr. Denham brought up his ...
— A Coin of Edward VII - A Detective Story • Fergus Hume
... a shaman. This task, however, was not so difficult as might appear on first thought, when once the learner understood the theory involved, as the formulas are all constructed on regular principles, with constant repetition of the same set of words. The obvious effect of such a regulation was to increase the respect in which this sacred knowledge was held by restricting it to the ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... authority, such as Sacrist, Almoner, Bookbinder, Chief Brewer, Chief Baker, with all their servants: scribes, messengers, bookbinders, illuminators and copyists: singing-men and choir boys, and women to keep the church clean. When we add that the Brewer had to provide 200 gallons of beer a day, it is obvious that there must have been a good many people belonging to the Cathedral who lived in the ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... the present volume (1635-36) is mainly commercial and financial matters on the one hand, and ecclesiastical affairs on the other. The paternalistic tendencies of the Spanish government are obvious in the former direction, with various restrictions on trade, and annoying imposts on all classes of people. The Portuguese of Macao are accused of ruining the Chinese trade with the islands, absorbing ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various
... case Noon wished to repose some confidence in me. Things are so seldom put right that it is wise to facilitate such intentions. But it appeared obvious that what Noon had to say could only be said to Berlyng. They had, it subsequently transpired, not been on ...
— Tomaso's Fortune and Other Stories • Henry Seton Merriman
... the most obvious of these fleeting features of infancy. They are short-lived, for their destruction is soon accomplished by several means. As a river system advances toward maturity the deepening and extending valleys of the ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... of fiction by Californian writers? And why its appeal otherwise than that of obvious esthetic and literary qualities? They who read what ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... of reaching some practicable arrangement whereby the peace may be kept, goes to say that even the most astute negotiations will in some degree be controlled by that need, and may reasonably be expected to make some approach to the simple and obvious requirements of the situation. ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... to remind me week by week, were obstinacy and pride of intellect; my weaknesses, lack of proportion and what he was pleased to call perversity, by which I suppose he meant a disposition to accept the consequences of my own acts. I freely admit a personal trait which will be obvious as I proceed. Trivial as it may seem, and does, at this time of writing, I must record an instance of it, the last I was to exhibit in England. Never vicious, I may sincerely say convinced, rather, that women are as far above our spiritual as they are fatally ...
— The Fool Errant • Maurice Hewlett
... between the baptism of a bird and the marriage of a eunuch? There is none at all. Marriage is, if I may say so, a conditional, a contingent sacrament. The priest blesses an event beforehand; it is evident that if the act is not consummated the benediction remains without effect. That is obvious. I have known on earth, in the town of Antrim, a rich man named Sadoc, who, living in concubinage with a woman, caused her to be the mother of nine children. In his old age, yielding to my reproofs, he consented to marry her, and I blessed ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France
... a sad Situation Parents, at least, will forgive the Tears of a Parent, and those Meltings of Soul which overflow in the following Pages. I have not attempted to run thro' the Common place of immoderate Grief, but have only selected a few obvious Thoughts which I found peculiarly suitable to myself; and, I bless GOD, I can truly say, they gave me a solid and substantial Relief, under a Shock of Sorrow, which would otherwise have ...
— Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children • Phillip Doddridge
... 'blasphemy' of such conceptions, it is by no means clear that any other conceptions of the 'inconceiveable' would be an improvement upon them. Undoubtedly, the matter-God-system has its difficulties, but they are trifles in comparison with those by which the spirit-God system is encompassed; for, one obvious consequence of faith in bodiless Divinity is an utter confusion of ideas in those who preach it, as regards ...
— Superstition Unveiled • Charles Southwell
... was ingenuous as the day, he soon apprehended the state of affairs; and, resolving to increase those misunderstandings on all sides, he quickly perceived that he could triumph in the keen Machiavellian policy, "divide et impera." The plan became more obvious as he calmly thought it out. Evidently his first step must be to ingratiate himself with both Henry and Maria, as the sympathizing brother, a very easy task among such charitable fools: number two should be to persuade them, as the mother did, that Sir Thomas, generally a reserved unsocial ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... moods of the day and evening, their play and nonsense, had all passed away. He had crossed a gulf that stood between this moment and those good-nights in the Pension. This was as real as anything in life; more real than death. Reality—he caught the obvious thought pass thickly through the body on the bed— is what has been experienced. Death, for that reason, is not real, not realised; dinner is. And this was real because he had been through it, though long forgotten it. Jimbo ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... unskilful workmanship that had created them. And yet there would be some souls who would see in her health, her youth, the kind sympathy of her eyes and mouth, the high nobility of her forehead from which her hair was brushed back, an attraction that might hold them more deeply than an obvious beauty. ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... contiguous to South Carolina, was equally poor and disaffected. The Whigs were utterly impoverished by their own wants and the ravages of the enemy. They had nothing more to give. Patriotism could now bestow little but its blood. It was with an obvious propriety resolved, by the Jacksonborough Assembly, that those who had proved false to the country should be made to suffer in like degree with those who had been true, and who were still suffering in her defence. As ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... created by friction, but merely collected from its state of diffusion through other matter to which it has been attracted. He showed further that all the phenomena produced by electricity had their counterparts in lightning. As it was obvious that thunder clouds contained an immense quantity of the electrical element, he devised a means to draw it from the clouds by rods erected on elevated buildings. As this was not sufficiently demonstrative he succeeded at length in drawing the lightning from ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... et police. No one exactly knows how to meet the difficulty, and What shall we do with our larrikins?' is likely to replace the former popular cry of 'What shall we do with our boys?' to which some ingenious person furnished the obvious answer, 'Marry them to our girls.' Corporal punishment for corporal offences is in my opinion and that of most of the serious portion of the community, the only remedy which is likely also to act ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... at the station to meet us, in a fever of excitement and good-will. Her obvious disappointment at Berry's absence was allayed by our assurance that he would ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... body of the house is sufficiently obvious, but it is curious to notice the ingenuity with which the wooden fireplace and chimney are protected from the action of the fire by a lining of clay, to see a smooth floor formed from the plain surface ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... she certainly escaped the epidemic "falling sickness" of enthusiasm for Pio Nono, takes shame upon herself that she believed, like a woman, some royal oaths, and lost sight of the probable consequences of some obvious popular defects. If the discrepancy should be painful to the reader, let him understand that to the writer it has been more so. But such discrepancies we are called upon to accept at every hour by the conditions of our nature, implying the interval between aspiration ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... as he paced the floor, Jones was in the mental condition of a dog in proximity to a hutched badger. Then he began to think clearly. The obvious fact before him was that Voles, the Plinlimons and Mulhausen were a gang; the presumptive fact was that the money paid in blackmail had gone back to Mulhausen, or at least a ...
— The Man Who Lost Himself • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... original Semitic Old Testament idea of sacrifice with its spiritual interpretation, the Greek idea with its interpretation.[277] It may, however, be maintained that the changes imposed on the Christian religion by Catholicism, are at no point so obvious and far-reaching, as in that of sacrifice, and especially in the solemn ordinance of the Lord's supper, which was placed in such close connection ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... average New Englander, and undoubtedly did more to lower taste and make inferior verse seem praiseworthy than any and all other causes. He writes: "In turning over these venerable pages, one suffers by sympathy something of the obvious toil of the undaunted men who, in the very teeth of nature, did all this; and whose appalling sincerity must, in our eyes, cover a multitude of such sins as sentences wrenched about end for end, clauses heaved up and abandoned in chaos, words disemboweled or split quite in ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... Son was born of a woman. The more general term "woman" indicates that Christ was born a true man. Paul does not say that Christ was born of man and woman, but only of woman. That he has a virgin in mind is obvious. ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... boundary of Texas, on the Rio Grande, and the eastern boundary of California, on the Colorado, from the best explorations now within our knowledge, does not exceed 470 miles, and the face of the country is in the main favorable. For obvious reasons the Government ought not to undertake the work itself by means of its own agents. This ought to be committed to other agencies, which Congress might assist, either by grants of land or money, or by both, upon such terms and conditions as they may deem most ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Buchanan • James Buchanan
... himself upon the celebration of Ellen's gifts and qualities with a simple-hearted eagerness which he afterwards denied when his wife accused him of it, but justified as wholly safe in view of Mr. Breckon's calling and his obvious delicacy of mind. It was something that such a person would understand, and Kenton was sure that he had not unduly praised the girl. A less besotted parent might have suspected that he had not deeply interested his listener, who seemed glad of the diversion operated by Boyne's ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Thomas. Cabell, in fact, is forever fussing over his books, trying to make them one degree better. He rewrites almost as pertinaciously as Joseph Conrad, Henry James, or Brahms. Compare "Domnei" in its present state to "The Soul of Melicent," its first state, circa 1913. The obvious change is the change in title, but of far more importance are a multitude of little changes—a phrase made more musical, a word moved from one place to another, some small banality tracked down and excised, a brilliant adjective inserted, the plan altered in small ways, the rhythm of it made ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... respect for military ability, whose mysteriousness—since it appeared to be altogether independent of intellect—imposed upon his imagination. The victor of Rio Seco was a popular hero. His services were so recent that the President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of political ingratitude. Great regenerating transactions were being initiated—the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization scheme. Anything that could unsettle the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided. Don Jose bowed ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... economies of consolidation were so obvious as to need no argument. If a single firm could do the business of five,—or fifty—it increased its profit through larger and better plants, greater division of labor, and a more careful use of its by-products. It could cut down expenses by reducing the army of competing salesmen and by ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... nothing more obvious to those whose business it is to assist labouring women, than that the several unnatural postures in which children present themselves at the birth are the occasions of most of the bad labours and ill accidents that happen to ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous |
