"On the face of it" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... same expression has been attributed to Hecatseus of Miletus. It has often been observed that this phrase seems Egyptian on the face of it, and it certainly recalls such forms of expression as the following, taken from a formula frequently found on funerary "All things created by heaven, given by earth, brought by the Nile—from its mysterious sources." Nevertheless, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 1 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... come to get away from Jeremiah Pixley and Charles Svendt? On the face of it, it seemed not impossible, for Graeme's only wonder was that she could ever have ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... criminal charge on the face of it. . . . You may be accused of suppressing the will," Fraisier made ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... diagnosis and a remedy. Whether their diagnosis is correct, whether their remedy is practicable, we will try to consider later, with something like a fair summary of what is to be said on both sides. But their theory, on the face of it, is perfectly reasonable. It is the theory that any abnormal qualities in the Jews are due to the abnormal position of the Jews. They are traders rather than producers because they have no land of their own from which to produce, and they are cosmopolitans ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... most part highly well-intentioned people—a frantic and unbridled desire to eliminate from our social world any form of "Temptation." (One wonders how far this attitude may have been fostered by that petition of the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into Temptation," which, on the face of it, seems to support Nietzsche's extravagant reaction against Christianity. Yet surely the Church has misunderstood that petition. Jesus himself faced the Tempter, and it is evident that he could not have so lacked insight into the soul's secrets as to ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... whom have decided unhesitatingly in favour of its being an original by Giorgione. Dr. Harck has written enthusiastically of its beauty. "Once seen," he says, "it can never be forgotten; the same mystic charm, so characteristic of the other great works of Giorgione, pervades it; ... it bears on the face of it the stamp of a great master."[44] Even more decisive is the verdict of Mr. Claude Phillips.[45] "All doubts," he says, "vanish like sun-drawn mist in the presence of the work itself; the first glance carries with it conviction, ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... down the passage and into the moonlit gallery before I could find a word of expostulation. Yoshio of course. I was naturally startled and angry in consequence. I demanded an explanation and after a great deal of hesitation he muttered something about Barry wanting him—which is ridiculous on the face of it. If Barry had really wanted him he would have been inside the room, not crouched outside on the door mat. He seemed very upset and kept begging me to say nothing about it. I don't remember how he put ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... is the best known and the best conceived. Hypatia was written in 1853 in the prime of his manhood and was on the face of it a controversial work. Its sub-title was—New Foes with an Old Face,—its preface elaborates the moral and spiritual ideas that it teaches, the very titles of the chapters bear biblical phrases and classical moralising as their style. ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... exempting Literature from Censorship, put forward by unreflecting persons: That it would require too many Censors—besides being unworthy, is, on the face of it, erroneous. Special tests have never been thought necessary in appointing Examiners of Plays. They would, indeed, not only be unnecessary, but positively dangerous, seeing that the essential function of Censorship is protection of the ordinary prejudices and forms of thought. There would, then, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... long on the Bull-driving Dithyramb, because it was not obvious on the face of it how driving a bull could help the coming of spring. We understand now why, on the day before the tragedies were performed at Athens, the young men (epheboi) brought in not only the human figure of the god, but also a Bull "worthy" of the God. ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison
... incredulity when I told him that Rivers was offering twenty-five thousand instead of ten thousand. One would have thought, on the face of it, that he would have been glad; as Nelda's husband, he would share in the higher price being paid for the collection. But when you realize that Rivers was buying the collection out of Dunmore's pocket, his reaction becomes quite understandable. ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... Environment which should never pass away. And yet what would Science demand of a perfect correspondence that is not met by this, THE KNOWING OF GOD? There is no other correspondence which could satisfy one at least of the conditions. Not one could be named which would not bear on the face of it the mark and pledge of its mortality. But this, to know God, stands alone. Natural Law, ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty of making on Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on the face of it, the word signifies "Flatterers of Dionysius"—consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles; besides this, however, it is as much as to say, "They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them" (for ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... was a tool to her hand, once more, was I? And how had it come about? She had not directly besought me to it—not by word. Daniel had decreed, and already our antagonism had been on. And I had defied him—naturally. He should not bilk me of free movement. But the issue might, on the face of it, appear to be she. As I tugged at the harness, under breath I cursed the scurvy turn of events; and in seeking to place the blame found amazing cleverness in her. Just the same, I was not going to kill him for her account; never, never! And I wished ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... which this was said seemed so absurd on the face of it that the cousins could not refrain from smiling: but the sight of a great mass of rock ahead dividing the swift stream into two, and toward which the raft seemed to be rushing fast, made all turn to seize their poles and fend it off from a ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... Nothing, on the face of it, could seem more extraordinary than the exclusion of Cavour from office in the momentous year of 1848. But he had no popular party at his back whose cry could overrule the disinclination which the king certainly felt towards making him his Minister. Moreover, his abilities, though ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... just received, Roger reentered the sitting-room. The ghastly audacity of the idea that Sartorius had a moment ago been on the very point of introducing the germs of lock-jaw—tetanus to give it its proper name—into the wound on his hand seemed on the face of it beyond the bounds of possibility. Why, what man would dare to do such a thing? The risk of it! ... Yet was there so great a risk? Hadn't the doctor repeatedly warned him of the danger he was running? Why, if there was nothing in it, did he examine ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... essentially free from sin, &c., and that the kaitanya is non-essential.) For the principle is that where two statements rest on equal authority, that only which suffers from an intrinsic impossibility is to be interpreted in a different way (i.e. different from what it means on the face of it), so as not to conflict with the other. But while admitting this we deny that the text which describes the Self as a mass of mere knowledge implies that the nature of the Self comprises nothing whatever but knowledge.—But what then is the purport of that text?—The meaning is clear, ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... nodded farewell, and I left him considerably puzzled. I had no guess as to what he meant by his talk of Barraclough and terms. It could only mean one thing on the face of it, and that was that Barraclough had been in communication with him. If so, was this by the Prince's desire? And if so again, why had not I heard of it? Our company was so small and our plight so desperate that it was unseemly to confine ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... On the face of it, the outlook for the passage of the Change of Venue bill in the Senate was not good. The machine, however, planned to pass the bill ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... his watch pocket, and in a moment she was holding the timepiece between them, so that the light of the lantern fell on the face of it. ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... own country, and from time immemorial all the unsuccessful aspirants to the profession have found their consolation in this proverbial truth. But for aught we know this hard limitation has never been applied to artists. Indeed it seems absurd on the face of it that the artist's countrymen, for whom and about whom he writes, should be less fit to recognise him than strangers. Yet in certain special and peculiar conditions, the most unlikely things will sometimes occur, as is proved in the case ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... get your diploma," argued Midshipman Dalzell, "the faculty of the Naval Academy will testify on the face of it that you're a competent midshipman and on your way to being fit to hold ...
— Dave Darrin's Fourth Year at Annapolis • H. Irving Hancock
... On the face of it, the various studies, arithmetic, geography, language, botany, etc., are themselves experience—they are that of the race. They embody the cumulative outcome of the efforts, the strivings, and the successes of the human race generation ...
— The Child and the Curriculum • John Dewey
... romantic than any novel. A very noble, brave fellow was that Orsini, and handsome too! It is a great pity he did not succeed in his plot against that scoundrel Napoleon, although it was not well planned, and failure was written on the face of it." Right gladly did I read memoirs which were all that Landor (and Giallo) claimed. It is strange that this book should be so little known. Were students of Italian to transfer their affections from Le mie Prigioni ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... method of procedure, viz the introspective and conjectural, rather than the inductive and experimental methods. They investigated Nature by studying their own minds, by considering the meanings of words, rather than by studying things and recording phenomena. This wrong (though by no means, on the face of it, absurd) method was not pursued exclusively, else would their science have been valueless, but the influence it had was such as materially to detract from the value of their speculations and discoveries. For when truth and falsehood are inextricably woven into a statement, ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... were they chosen!" exclaims M. Blaze de Bury. "A number of theologians, the elite of the time, had been named to represent France at the council of Bale; of these Cauchon chose the flower." This does not seem on the face of it to be a fact against, but rather in favour of, the tribunal, which the reader naturally supposes must have been the better, the more just, for being chosen among the flower of learning in France. They were not men who could be imagined ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... Before it was received, and soon after the first with which she had favored me, by the hands of the friendly physician, I had begun my preparations with the view to our clandestine marriage. I was only now required to quicken them. The obstacle, on the face of it, was, comparatively, a small one. To get her from a dwelling, in which, though her steps were watched, she was not exactly a prisoner, was scarcely a difficulty, where the lover and the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... But on the face of it, what an appalling story! It brought him violently to earth. He could not move, but sat staring at the woman, wanting to tell her that she lied, but knowing that she had spoken according to the truth of the letter. Of the truth ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... never speak truth, yet were so blind to his well-known propensity, that they always believed the lie to be truth, until they discovered it to be a falsehood. When he related a story, for instance, which carried not only improbability, but impossibility on the face of it, they never questioned his veracity. The neighbors, to be sure, were vexed and nettled at the obstinacy of their credulity; especially on reflecting that they were as sceptical in giving credence to the narrative of any other person, as all rational ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... very sorry for him to be taken in again," continued Emma; "nobody knows who that young person may be; it looks odd on the face of it. Are you in a hurry? Well, good-by. Give our best love to dear Julia. We are busy at work on a wedding-present for her; but you must not ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... ambiguity, as in Saye and Sate's case, 10 Mod. 46, where the name of the grantor had been omitted in the operative part of a grant, but, as it was clear from another part of the grant who he was, the deed was held to be valid. (2) Latent ambiguity is where the wording of an instrument is on the face of it clear and intelligible, but may, at the same time, apply equally to two different things or subject matters, as where a legacy is given "to my nephew, John,'' and the testor is shown to have two nephews of that ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... October the new lord mayor, Sir Anthony Bateman, entered upon his mayoralty,(1269) with the customary procession and pageant, followed by a banquet at the Guildhall. The banquet was made the occasion of what appears on the face of it to have been a studied insult offered—not by the municipal authorities, but by the lord chancellor, the bishops and lords of the council—to the French ambassador. Whether the lord chancellor ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... put you up to this. He has Davis on the brain. A Maryland man who wants to get out! Maryland must be a good State to move from. Weed, did you ever hear, in this connection, of the witness in court asked to state his age? He said sixty. As he was on the face of it much older, but persisted, ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... not in not in Daphne's confidence," I answered. "I don't know how she feels. But, on the face of it, I think I can venture to assure you that at least she won't laugh ...
— Hilda Wade - A Woman With Tenacity Of Purpose • Grant Allen
... English boats within sight should the fog lift—indeed, the guardship in Harwich harbour would be almost visible across the spit of land where Landguard Fort lies hidden—Barebone had no intention of asking help so compromising. He had but a queer story to tell to any in authority, and on the face of it he must perforce appear to have run away with the ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... statement might have made Ortensia smile at any other time. But she was staggered by it now, and forgot the speech she had prepared. On the face of it, to tell anything to a man who knew everything was superfluous. She reflected a moment, and he took advantage of her silence to speak again ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... card and there, sure enough, was a finger print on the face of it and two on the back. It looked as if someone with greasy hands had taken the card up as ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... the line of the barrier reef stopped at the end of the cape, a heavy surf ran on the shores of the bay. A little cliffy hill cut the valley in two parts, and stood close on the beach; and at high water the sea broke right on the face of it, so that all passage was stopped. Woody mountains hemmed the place all round; the barrier to the east was particularly steep and leafy, the lower parts of it, along the sea, falling in sheer black cliffs ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at him. "Confound it, what are you doing with no more rank than captain? On the face of it, you're an old hand, a highly ...
— Mercenary • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... heart to say, even in the absence of all external or traditional testimony, that it seems to me not pardonable merely nor permissible, but simply logical and reasonable, to set down this poem, a young man's work on the face of it, as the possible work of no man's ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... of his characters. I assure you I scoured England for William Arbuthnot Blain—'identified with the movement for improving the dwellings of the labouring classes'—or is that Richard Farrant, Esq.? In any case, what more likely, on the face of it? 'Frederick Wills, Esq., of the well-known tobacco firm of Bristol'—the public swallows that readily: and yet it never buys a packet of their Westward Ho! Mixture (which I smoke myself) without reading that the Wills's of Bristol are W. D. and ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... almost certainly be subjected to the utmost rigour of the law, and you will be lucky if you escape a heavy fine of five or ten shillings, exclusive of the costs of the case. Now, this is not right on the face of it. It is even wrong. The law should take into account the extreme provocation which led to the action. Punish if you will the man who travels second-class with a third-class ticket, or who borrows a pencil and forgets to return it; but there ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... The datum is—'A mineral solution exposed to common air does not develope bacteria;' the inference is—'Therefore if a turnip infusion similarly exposed develope bacteria, they must be spontaneously generated.' The inference, on the face of it, is an unwarranted one. But while as matter of logic it is inconclusive, as matter of fact it is chimerical. London air is as surely charged with the germs of bacteria as London chimneys are with smoke. The inference just referred to is completely disposed of by the simple ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... consist? There is certainly nothing hermetic about it; it is the simplest and most studiously matter-of-fact narrative of events, comprehensible without the slightest effort, and having no meaning that is not apparent on the face of it. And yet children, and grown people also, read it again and again, and cannot find it uninteresting. I think the phenomenon may largely be due to the nature of the subject, which is really of primary and universal interest to mankind. It is the story of the struggle of ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... judge in its case. The Federal Government has no power to destroy property. Do you pay taxes, then, to an agent, that he may destroy your property? Do you support him for that purpose? It is an absurdity on the face of it. To ask the question is to answer it. The Government is instituted to protect, not to destroy, property. And, in abundance of caution, your fathers provided that the Federal Government should not take private property for its own use unless by making due compensation therefor. It ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... so? Why, on the face of it, given a daughter and a son, should a form of service be expected of the one, which would be considered ignominious ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... gallery, "suspended the discussion until a distinguished place had been found for the French philosopher." This must be set down as a myth. The journals have been searched, and there is no official confirmation of the statement, improbable enough on the face of it. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... your cousin innocent of the murder, but to find out who is guilty. The most logical method would be to study the scene of the crime first, but as that does not appear feasible until morning, we will examine such data as we have. On the face of it the only two who appear to be implicated are Radnor and this Cat-Eye Mose—who is a most picturesque character," Terry added, the reporter for the moment getting ahead of ...
— The Four Pools Mystery • Jean Webster
... nature that you say you learned at college before I was born, permit me to point out that on the face of it you cannot have learned anything since. Socialism has no more to do with the state of nature than has differential calculus with a Bible class. I have called your class stupid when outside the realm of business. You, sir, have ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... maid had taken herself off of her own accord? Why was it? Why had she done so? Because—because she was afraid of something. If so, of what? No direct accusation could be brought against her on the face of it. She had not been in the sleeping-car at the time of the murder, while the Countess as certainly was; and, according to strong presumption, in the very compartment where the deed was done. If the maid was afraid, why was ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... the garb of a Dogan juju man consisting of little more than a wisp of cloth about his loins, played it straight, not knowing the setup. On the face of it, he had just flown out of the sky personally. The size of his equipment so small as to be all ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... absolutely real, with nothing less than the reality of seeing and hearing—the other, how vague, shadowy, problematical! Could its so limited probabilities be worth taking into account in any practical question as to the rejecting or receiving [49] of what was indeed so real, and, on the face of it, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... dodged the question. On the face of it this looked as though Pete might have been trying to shield himself by disclaiming any knowledge of that kind of weapon. But Owen knew the type of man he was talking to—knew that he would shield a companion even more quickly ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... and the Tudors; and to apply the principles of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in 1640 was, in effect, to institute a revolution. In our own time, to maintain the right of the Commons against the Lords is, on the face of it, to adhere to old constitutional right, but to do so under the new circumstances which have made the Commons representative of the nation as a whole is, in reality, to establish democracy for the first time on a firm footing, and this, again, ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... anything; that God must do it all. If you tell them to take bitter herbs every morning and every night for the next five years, they think that's all right, and if he had told Naaman to do that he would have done it. But to tell him merely to dip in the river Jordan seven times, why, it seemed absurd on the face of it! But this servant suggested to him that he had better go down to the Jordan and try ...
— Men of the Bible • Dwight Moody
... eighteen years, to a rebellion so reckless and savage that it caused, if it did not justify, the destruction of the Parliament and the carrying of the Union. The Act of Union did not lead to national unity, and a measure which appeared on the face of it (though the appearance, it must be admitted, was delusive) to be a copy of the law which bound England and Scotland into a common country inspired by common patriotism, produced conspiracy and agitation, and at last placed England ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... replying. On the face of it, it appeared like weakness to change my plans simply because I had been deserted by a comrade whose very existence had been unknown to me when first I made them. Yet, on the other hand, I had grown so used to his companionship now, that the thought of continuing ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... by inquiring what guarantee the latter could offer that his scheme would be successful when a very similar one conducted by such experienced adventurers as Hawkins and Drake had just disastrously failed. He frankly admitted that the young man's scheme was promising enough, on the face of it, and he also intimated that, as a merchant, he was always ready to take a certain amount of risk where the prospects of success seemed promising enough to justify it, but he no less frankly declared that, while he had the utmost ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... ancient spinsters of good family subject to spasms; gouty retired generals. Can anybody tell me how many men in the British Army go to a general? Somebody once assured me it was five thousand, but that is absurd, on the face of it. The British Army, in that case, would have to be counted by millions. There are a goodish few American colonels still knocking about. The American colonel is still to be met with here and there by the curious traveller, but compared ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... Lowland Europe are, properly speaking, high banks, for the most part following the courses of rivers, and forming a step from the high ground, of which the country generally consists, to the river level. Thus almost the whole of France, though, on the face of it, flat, is raised from 300 to 500 feet above the level of the sea, and is traversed by valleys either formed by, or directing, the course of its great rivers. In these valleys lie all its principal towns, surrounded, almost without exception, by ranges of hills covered with wood or vineyard. Ascending ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... it plainly as well. The evidence of Lady Glyde's death is, on the face of it, clear and satisfactory. There is her aunt's testimony to prove that she came to Count Fosco's house, that she fell ill, and that she died. There is the testimony of the medical certificate to prove the death, and to show that it took place under natural circumstances. There is ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... to understand the relevance of this extremely improbable narrative. It did not appear, on the face of it, complimentary to connect me with a declared thief and gaol-bird. Still it was my duty to be courteous to one who was for the time ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, June 9, 1920 • Various
... England.—The presence of the Irish members at Westminster is on the face of it a gross and patent injustice to Great Britain. It is absurd, it is monstrous, that while the Irish Parliament and the Irish Parliament alone settle whether Mr. Healy, Mr. M'Carthy, Mr. Redmond, or Mr. Davitt is to be head of the Irish government, ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... agreed that I should be free to work in my own way, and it was understood that I should, as far as possible, carry the campaign on my own shoulders, using to the limit my personal capital and credit. "Coppers" was to be a Lawson operation on the face of it, and I was determined, for many reasons, to avail myself of "Standard Oil's" aid only in taking care of completed transactions and not at all in the preliminary negotiations. This was not always possible, but my attitude in the matter and my desire to make a brilliant ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... of sale, that on the face of it was harsh and barbarous, some slight mitigation of the cruelty of the system had come; for the practice had grown up of permitting parents to buy back their own children—nominally thereafter holding them as slaves—and so to save them at a single stroke from both death and servitude. ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Johnny turned defensively to a tolerant condescension. "That wasn't so bad, if it hadn't shown on the face of it that it was just dragged in to make a rhyme. Do you know what wight ...
— Skyrider • B. M. Bower
... on the face of it, disconcerting. Peter looked about at the rows of books, at the thick, soft carpet and the leather-covered furniture, and at the rings on Mrs. Dassonville's hand. If Mr. Dassonville ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... of the mind to coerce other people or to influence them by means of suggestion, not for their benefit, but for your advantage, is highly destructive, not to them actually, but to you. On the face of it, it looks an easy road to success and prosperity, but, actually, it leads to failure and poverty. The mis-use of the mental powers in this way is really a form of black magic, and the fate of all black ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... results of a great mass of HEREDITARY EXPERIENCE" (p. 77), so that what he is driving at can be collected by those who take trouble, but is not seen until we call up from our own knowledge matter whose relevancy does not appear on the face of it, and until we connect passages many pages asunder, the first of which may easily be forgotten before we reach the second. There can be no doubt, however, that Mr. Romanes does in reality, like Professor ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... a murderer," said Sir Beverley. "And he deserves to be hanged. He killed his man,—whether by a foul or not I can't say; but anyway he meant to kill him. It's obvious on the face of it. But they chose to bring it in manslaughter, and he's only got five years; while some brainless fool must needs write an article a column and a half long to protest against the disgraceful practice ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... with some particular proficiency of his own, many artists forget the end of all art: to please. It is doubtless tempting to exclaim against the ignorant bourgeois; yet it should not be forgotten, it is he who is to pay us, and that (surely on the face of it) for services that he shall desire to have performed. Here also, if properly considered, there is a question of transcendental honesty. To give the public what they do not want, and yet expect to be supported: we have there a strange pretension, and yet not uncommon, above all with painters. The ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... imperfectly warmed, moistened, and filtered, as compared with what it would be if drawn through the elaborate "steam-coils" in the nostrils for this purpose, can have produced this array of defects? It is incredible on the face of it and unfounded in fact. Fully two-thirds of these can be traced to the ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... amounts needed beyond what could be secured by present taxation had been supplied entirely by the proceeds of bonds. In addition, however, to the issues of bonds, the government issued currency to a large amount, which was made legal tender and which on the face of it was not made subject ...
— Abraham Lincoln • George Haven Putnam
... a word like that to him. I couldn't. The nearest I got to it was I said, 'Well, but time's getting on, you know, old man. It's a—a funny position on the face of it. What do you suppose your wife's ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... constitution. At worst, the errors and deviations of every kind in reckoning are found and computed, and the ship proceeds in her course. This is the case of old establishments; but in a new and merely theoretic system, it is expected that every contrivance shall appear, on the face of it, to answer its ends; especially where the projectors are no way embarrassed with an endeavour to accommodate the new building to an old one, either in the walls ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... straight, on the face of it," he said, when the two were alone together, "but one can never tell. We've got to be pretty careful, for we are in a strange country, and are here for a purpose which may be resented by the mountaineers. We can't ...
— The Boy Scout Camera Club - The Confession of a Photograph • G. Harvey Ralphson
... is waked at last, and found to be alive, his soul must come back to him, glowing from the eternal flames. Unpleasant thought! Keyork Arabian, you had far better not go to sleep at present. Since all that is fantastic nonsense, on the face of it, I am inclined to believe that the presence of the soul is in some way a condition requisite for life, rather than depending upon it. I wish I could buy a soul. It is quite certain that life is not a mere mechanical ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... geology does not, on the face of it, come into the reckoning. Thus I might have asked the reader to assist at the digging out of a cave, say, one of the famous caves at Mentone, on the Italian Riviera, just beyond the south-eastern corner of France. These caves were ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... professor. This spiritualistic faith is mighty pretty on the face of it, but it seems to unhinge people's minds. I've known two or three to go 'locoed' with it; that's what kept me from interfering. It isn't for miners to monkey with; but I was in hopes that you would go into it. In fact, I was in hopes you'd got sort o' interested in Viola, and she in you, and ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... name was Jheru Bulchand, was definite. He went over it with Ronny and Tog in a bar adjoining UP headquarters. He had dossiers on each of the ten men, detailed dossiers. On the face of it, none of them could ...
— Ultima Thule • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... right after I located this feller, Sternford, coming into Sachigo, I got word of some stuff reported from one of your own camps way out north-west of Lake St. Anac. Guess it's about the farthest north in that direction, and it's cut off from any other camp by a hundred miles. On the face of it the stuff didn't seem to need more than a single thought. It was to say my man was quitting the camp. He'd sifted it right through, but there wasn't a 'jack' in the camp with any sort of story worth wasting paper on. There wasn't a trace of our man that way, and he proposed drawing ...
— The Man in the Twilight • Ridgwell Cullum
... when he was still at Pignerol, the name of Mattioli, freely used before, never occurs in the correspondence. But we still often hear of 'l'ancien prisonnier,' 'the old prisoner.' He was, on the face of it, Dauger, by far the oldest prisoner. In 1688, Saint-Mars, having only one prisoner (Dauger), calls him merely 'my prisoner.' In 1691, when Saint-Mars had several prisoners, Barbezieux styles Dauger 'your prisoner of twenty ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... one finds it, of course," said the big doctor, looking down at the unpromising face on the pillow, and shaking his head. "Yes, yes, yes, one must do what's right, on the face of it, come what will. There's no getting around that!" He glanced at me, a shadow in his kind gray eyes. "But there are times, my friend, when I wonder! Now, this morning I had to tell a working man his wife's got to die. There's no help and no ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... with him again. He did it casually, but, cool as he was, a cold sweat came on his cheek. He had to take a little brandy to steady himself—yet he had looked into menacing rifle-barrels more than once without a tremor. It was clear, on the face of it, that Delia and her mother should be his companions in the Park, and not this grave little half-breed; but, somehow, it got on his nerves. He hesitated for days before he could cast the die against Jacques. It had been the one open bond of the old life; yet the man was but a servant, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... necessary result of the interview, thus far) turned instinctively to the consideration of Obenreizer's motives. He had put obstacles in the way of the courtship; he was now putting obstacles in the way of the marriage—a marriage offering advantages which even his ingenuity could not dispute. On the face of it, his conduct was incomprehensible. What did ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
... there was but a faint thrum far up the lake. Then she went to bed, but not to sleep. What ugly passions were loosed at the lake head she did not know. But on the face of it she could not avoid wondering if Monohan had deliberately set out to cross and harass Jack Fyfe. Because of her? That was the question which had hovered on her lips that evening, one she had not brought herself to ask. Because ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the New Era. And that wouldn't work, dad. You know it wouldn't work. Your salary would barely keep you, let alone sending money to us. You can't expect to keep yourself and furnish us money; and you've paid out all you had in the bank. The thing's impossible on the face of it!" ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... encounter, as they would now have to encounter, a power which could by despotic law turn every citizen into a soldier. If the people had not been full of this lust for combat, it is certain that England must have been overborne. And it was thought, and is, on the face of it, reasonable, that a struggle between two indomitable men, with thirty thousand to view it and three million to discuss it, did help to set a standard of hardihood and endurance. Brutal it was, no doubt, and its brutality is the ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the papers, and as he was about to sign the note he demanded that I write on the face of it the following: "This note was given for a patent right." I refused at first, but when informed it was according to ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... not excel. Therefore I would counsel those who own the old aristocrats produced by skilled makers to hold on to them, even if they venerate neither their history nor their age. They may discard a treasure they cannot equal or replace. On the face of it, it stands to reason that any mechanism which will run two centuries or more was turned out by a workman who ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett
... the thirty-sixth and following clauses of the Constitutional Act of 1791, which proposed to support {49} and maintain a Protestant clergy in the provinces by grants of land, equal in value to the seventh part of lands granted for other purposes. On the face of it, and interpreted by the clauses which follow, the Act seems to bear out the Anglican contention that the English Church establishment received an extension to Canada through the Act, and that no other church was expected to receive a share. It is true that the legal ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... of aneurysms into two classes, true and false, is unsatisfactory. On the face of it, an aneurysm which is false is not an aneurysm, any more than a false bank-note is legal tender. A better classification is into spontaneous and traumatic. The man who has chronic inflammation of a large artery, the result, for instance, of gout, arduous, straining work, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... does this mean? On the face of it, a disinclination on the part of an elderly gentleman to expose himself to these chill March winds. But Magnus is not very old, and he does not ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... royal sisters of Spain should be married on one day—Isabella, the Queen, to the most unfit and uncongenial of all the possible candidates for her hand; Louisa to King Louis Philippe's son, the Duke of Montpensier. The transaction on the face of it was far from respectable, since the credit and happiness of the young Spanish Queen seemed to have hardly entered into the consideration of those who arranged for her the mariage de convenance into ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling
... above insisted on was, on the face of it, almost as obscure as that between "eveque and bishop." Yet we know that "eveque" is "episc" and "bishop" "piscop," and that "episcopus" is the Latin for bishop; the words, therefore, are really one and the same, in spite of the difference in their appearance. I think I can show, moreover, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... with the requirements of international law; the complaint resting, apparently, on the statement that the blockaders could not be seen from Genoa. Nelson replied that the proof of evident danger to vessels seeking to enter or leave, rested on the fact that captures were made; and it is, on the face of it, absurd to say that there can be no danger to a vessel seeking to enter a blockaded port, because the blockading vessels are not visible from the latter. Much more depends upon their number, disposition, and speed. "From my knowledge of Genoa and its Gulf," said Nelson, "I assert ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... considered the subject for a couple of hours he went back to one of his first points, relating to the fitness and capacity of Corny to accomplish the task he had undertaken. It was evident enough on the face of it that his cousin, even if he had been a veteran naval officer, could not carry out the plan alone. He must have confederates, in the double sense, on board of the Vernon. In the early stages of the war, men who had served in the navy ...
— Stand By The Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... that—but he might declare that she had spoken falsely, and might even say that it was an attempt to put another's sin on his shoulders. Moreover, as I told you, I have other reasons for disliking the man, and, on the face of it, it would seem that I had raked up this old story against him, not only from jealousy, ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... mean. And she'd be happy, of course. But she'd miss the biggest thing in life. Well, eligible playmates are pretty scarce. I've been watching for one for years. Mind you, I don't say this boy's going to do. There may be a score of reasons that put his suit out of court. But, on the face of it, he's nearer the ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... Inspector of Schools—a Mr. Jellinger Symonds—opening, perhaps for the first time, an elementary book on astronomy, came on something which he conceived to be a difficulty in the theory of lunar motion. His objection was on the face of it plausible. The true motions of the heavenly bodies are universally the opposite of the apparent motions. Mr. Symonds conceived that the moon could not revolve on its axis, because the same side of it was continually turned towards the earth; and if ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... "On the face of it, none," he said; "but I wouldn't have come afore you only to say I disapproved, because you'd say my opinion didn't matter a damn. So I've come because I'm wishful to be in it and let you know my right so to be. There's the cottage and there's your son, and if you think that Milly Boon be the right ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... be what, on the face of it, it claims to be, then the question of authenticity is for ever settled. As we have no doubt on this point, the corrections and variations between this manuscript, as collated by Mr. Percy Fitzgerald and the Lucas version, have been noted ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... On the face of it there was not much cause for congratulation in a war in which the United States trebled its national debt and lost 30,000 men and 1,500 merchant ships, without gaining any territory and without securing any promise at the end of the war that the disturbance ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... to our diagram—it may be asked, "How does it happen that there is such a large and growing excess of imports over exports? Surely that is a bad sign." On the face of it, why should it be? It only means that we are, apparently, getting more than we give, and most people do not in their private relations regard that as a hardship. There are, however, people to be found who, seeing that we every year buy more goods than we sell, will jump to the conclusion ...
— Are we Ruined by the Germans? • Harold Cox
... was up. The remedy was an absurd one, on the face of it; and if her common sense told her as much it would also make her guess my motive. But what limits are there to the credulity of ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... said before, nobody likes to play the compulsorily generous role of scab. It is a bad business proposition on the face of it. And it is patent that there would be no capitalist scabs if there were not more capital than there is work for capital to do. When there are enough factories in existence to supply, with occasional stoppages, a certain commodity, the building of new factories by ...
— War of the Classes • Jack London
... have done in that respect is right; that the judgment, if there be any part of the record to support it, proceeded upon that part. In writs of error, you are not allowed to conjecture, to decide on probabilities, you must look to the record; and unless the record itself, on the face of it, shows, not that there may have been, but that there HAS been manifest error in the apportioning of the punishment, you cannot reverse the judgment. You upon conjecture reverse the judgment; and if afterwards you were to consult the very judge ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... "I tell you, man, there's a blunder in the returns. Look, man, look!" snatching up the report from the Flats. "Isn't that arrant nonsense on the face of it? The Flats, mind you; our own little pocket borough of the Flats! Don't talk to me about the Poles muddling things; those inspectors of election can give them cards for stupidity and take every trick. Let ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... know that. But Carlton says that, on the face of it, it's an ugly affair. And General Jackson—Well, we can ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... none of our business," observed Patsy, quickly. "We're just a lot of gossips to be figuring on Count Ferralti at all. And although this sudden disappearance looks queer, on the face of it, the gentleman may simply have ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... horizon in the distance as she bowled along merrily on her north-western course, a long way to the southward of Cyprus, bearing up direct for the Archipelago, a keen observer on board might have noticed something that looked strange, at all events on the face of it. ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson |
