"Perceptible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in turn each day and when it came my time to preach I could find in all the audience scarcely one of my people. Up to that day the interest had been remarkable, but somehow from that day on, although people had been converted by the hundred, there was no perceptible spiritual impression. When the meetings had closed one of the prominent society leaders of my church came to explain to me why she was away from the service and she said, "I gave my afternoon reception and the people of our church were there." When I told ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... her companion was not gazing on the picture: his head, a little turned, indicated that there was a living countenance more interesting to him than all the skill of the most cunning artist. Part of his cheek was alone perceptible, ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... not greatly improve in smoothness, or adaptation to express finished thought. The ancients, indeed, saw a difference between Ennius, Pacuvius, and Accius, but it may be questioned whether the advance would be perceptible by us. Still the labor limae unsparingly employed by Terence, the rules of good writing laid down by Lucilius, and the labours of the great grammarians and orators at the close of the period, prepared the language for that rapid development which ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... last two or three minutes a change was perceptible. The upper edge of the clouds seemed to be suddenly broken up. Long streamers spread out like signal flags of danger. Masses of clouds seemed to be wrenched off and to fly with great rapidity for a short distance; some of them sinking a little, floated back until ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... took out from time to time what was required for household expenses; and it is highiy probable that this was not a solitary case. At present the quantity of coin which is hoarded by private persons is so small, that it would, if brought forth, make no perceptible addition to the circulation. But, in the earlier part of the reign of William the Third, all the greatest writers on currency were of opinion that a very considerable mass of gold and silver was hidden in secret drawers and ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... form with colour, as there is opportunity to do. Here is another golden ball to juggle with, one which no art purely in time affords. Of course it is known that musical sounds weave invisible patterns in the air, and to render these patterns perceptible to the eye may be one of the more remote and recondite achievements of our uncreated art. Meantime, though we have the whole treasury of natural forms to draw from, of these we can only properly employ such as are abstract. The reason for this is clear to any one who conceives of ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... had spoken sounded emphasized as though she were striving to convey a double meaning, and the second in which husband and wife looked at each other was to the puzzled witness a painful eternity. With a strong perceptible effort, Travers ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... impossible to steady a telescope, so as to look minutely at the progress of the waves and trace their breach upon the Bell Rock; but the height to which the cross-running waves rose in sprays when they met each other was truly grand, and the continued roar and noise of the sea was very perceptible to the ear. To estimate the height of the sprays at forty or fifty feet would surely be within the mark. Those of the workmen who were not much afflicted with sea-sickness came upon deck, and the wetness below being dried up, the cabins were again brought into a habitable state. Every ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... non-Catholic province of Friesland it is 13.15. Further, no one can doubt that in such densely populated districts as North and South Holland and Gelderland the Catholics, who number more than 25 per cent, of the inhabitants, exercise a perceptible influence in raising the birth figures for the whole kingdom. The results would be very different if the entire ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... circulated a report that the Twelve wished to purge the convention, and to substitute a counter-revolutionary tribunal for that which had acquitted Marat. The Jacobins, the Cordeliers, the sections sat permanently. On the 26th of May, the agitation became perceptible; on the 27th; it was sufficiently decided to induce the commune to open the attack. It accordingly appeared before the convention and demanded the liberation of Hebert and the suppression of the Twelve; it was accompanied ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... recovering, but still very weak. He did not, after having turned the corner, get well so fast as his medical minister judged he ought, and the reason was plain to Lizzy, dimly perceptible to his wife: he was ill at ease. A man may have more mind and more conscience, and more discomfort in both or either, than his neighbours give him credit for. They may be in the right about him up to a ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald
... early stage an opaque spot is seen in the middle of the clear germinative area, and this also passes from a circular to an oval shape. At first this shield-shaped marking is very delicate and barely perceptible; but it soon becomes clearer, and now stands out as an oval shield, surrounded by two rings or areas (Figure 1.117). The inner and brighter ring is the remainder of the pellucid area, and the dark outer ring the remainder of the opaque area; the opaque ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... or boards during the time they are washing, added to the sensible warmth of the water, has, in all probability, continued the practice of resorting to this spring in preference to any other. The Count de Choiseul Gouffier was informed by the Aga of Bounarbashi, that the water threw up a very perceptible steam in the winter; and later experiments, made with the thermometer, prove beyond doubt that this is a ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... partly round the interior, looking through the deep arches, overhung with verdure, and regretting the patches here and there too perceptible of modern masonry, and still more the ridiculous attempt, by the introduction of some contemptible pictures, or altar pieces, in the arena, to christianise the old heathen structure. They then ascended to the summit to enjoy the prospect it commands, both of the distant ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... first Diaphone heard in a public building in this country, namely that of a model sounded in St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York City, in 1905. In this form of Diaphone the pressure of air operating the Diaphone has been varied between 10 inches and 500 inches, without perceptible variation in the ...
— The Recent Revolution in Organ Building - Being an Account of Modern Developments • George Laing Miller
... of intellect and fixedness of habits. So the subject was thenceforth tacitly avoided between us; but, though words were suppressed, looks and involuntary gestures could not so well be; and an utter divergency of views on this and kindred themes created a perceptible ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... we saw a chain of mountains which were barren and by no means attractive. On the following morning (1st of May) small forts and watch-towers made their appearance, here and there, upon the peaks of beautiful groups of rock, and presently, also, a large one was perceptible upon an extensive mountain at the entrance ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... is deprived of those humid vapours, so perceptible and so disagreeable to the organs of sight and smell. Purified to a perfect transparency, it floats in the state of cold air, and suffers itself to be directed by the smallest and most fragil pipes. Chimnies of an inch square, made in the thickness of ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... finding himself very much disturbed by the doubt just mentioned, felt inclined to question whether any perceptible advancement had been made by this freak business of his canny subordinate. He was hardly ready to say yes, and was not a little surprised when on his way toward the head of the staircase he heard the exultant voice of Mr. ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... subsists in brilliant colors in its works, but can no more be reproduced. Near the monuments of past ages, the monuments of another age are now beginning to arise. What will be their form? I can not tell; but the ground upon which their foundations may rest is already perceptible. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... lie with Christ in the grave according to the flesh. Although it be true that we have the forgiveness of sins, that we are God's children and possess salvation, yet all this is not perceptible to our own senses or to the world. It is hidden in Christ by faith until the judgment day. For we do not yet experience in ourselves such righteousness, such holiness, such life and such salvation as ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... Already I had been awake and traveling some fourteen hours, and it was as broad daylight as ever. Nothing could be more wearying than the everlasting daylight that surrounded me—not bright and sunshiny, but dreary and lead-colored, showing scarcely any perceptible difference ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... I hear," said young Lord Fulkeward, another of the languid smokers, caressing his scarcely perceptible moustache. "My mother ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... general notice"—making him, we may infer, a special favorite of Bonaparte;—we can easily believe that these things were related, as he tells us they were, "with epic simplicity," and may even conclude that some other qualities of the epic would to more cautious ears have been equally perceptible in the narration. Of a like character, we suspect, is the statement that Selves, being on the staff of Grouchy on the day of Waterloo, "urgently represented to that general the propriety of joining the main body of the army as soon as the Prussians, whom he had ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... without affecting to hear the words which escaped the sentinel in his surprise; nor did he again pause until he had reached the low strand, and in a somewhat dangerous vicinity to the western water bastion of the fort. The light of an obscure moon was just sufficient to render objects, though dim, perceptible in their outlines. He, therefore, took the precaution to place himself against the trunk of a tree, where he leaned for many minutes, and seemed to contemplate the dark and silent mounds of the English works in profound attention. His gaze at the ramparts ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame,—such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume; but the thoughts of years were all ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various
... moment later I felt sure that he had found that something which he had sought, for, though he replaced the lens upon its nail with a quiet and composed air and made no remark, there was a sparkle of the eye and a scarcely perceptible flush of suppressed excitement and triumph which I had begun to recognise beneath the impassive mask that he ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... decreasing. I may say that we are now (August 1883) at, or very near, a maximum epoch. There is no doubt that this period has an intimate connection with our auroral displays; but I don't think that the influence sun-spots have on light or heat is perceptible. Whatever influence they possess would be felt alike on the whole terrestrial globe. We have wet, dry, cold, and warm years, but they are never general. The kind of season which prevails in one country ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... good large lump of ointment, rubbed it all over my body and limbs. When I was thoroughly anointed, I swung my arms up and down, in imitation of the movement of a bird's pinions, and continued to do so a little while, when instead of any perceptible token of feathers or wings making their appearance, my own thin skin, alas! grew into a hard leathern hide, covered with bristly hair, my fingers and toes disappeared, the palms of my hands and the soles of my feet became four solid hoofs, and from the end of my spine a long tail ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... appears from the extracts and remarks of Paulin Paris to be that of an industrious simple man, without method or much judgment. "The haste with which he worked is too perceptible; the adventures are told without connection; you find long stories of Tristan followed by adventures of his father Meliadus." For the latter derangement of historical sequence we find a quaint and ingenuous apology offered in Rustician's epilogue to ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... just that half perceptible line or two. "Do you think people ought always to have the next ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... sincerely indifferent to every thing but the festoons of smoke which formed about him; nor ever seemed to suffer in his peace of mind except when this aerial drapery was rent or too much attenuated: then indeed he puffed with a perceptible agitation, until he had reinstated the vapoury awning—which done he immediately recovered his equanimity. But as to White Hat, by the complexity of his man[oe]uvres for disguising his interest in the conversation about him—by uniformly ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... the avenue of a dozen yards loading from it to the outside plain, and the plain itself, were all perfectly level, and covered with a smooth turf. Any object upon their surface would be easily perceptible at a distance. The grove was thickly stocked with underwood—principally the smaller species of "mezquite." There was also a network of vines and llianas that, stretching upward, twined around the limbs of the live-oaks—the latter forming the highest and largest timber of all. The underwood ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... the Senecas, she was induced to give her consent, whereupon they were massacred; their number I have not been able to obtain. They were buried southwest from the Queen's house, the mound of which was perceptible until a few years ago, when ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... your conversion made a greater perceptible change in your soul and life than did your sanctification. This matter of change depends largely on circumstances. If you were very deeply convicted of sin and were very happily converted, your conversion may have been greater apparently than your ...
— Adventures in the Land of Canaan • Robert Lee Berry
... much as if military occupation of the country for a long time might be necessary. General Scott at once began the preparation of orders, regulations and laws in view of this contingency. He contemplated making the country pay all the expenses of the occupation, without the army becoming a perceptible burden upon the people. His plan was to levy a direct tax upon the separate states, and collect, at the ports left open to trade, a duty on all imports. From the beginning of the war private property had not been taken, either ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Cochins, but not nearly twice as broad, as in Bantams. The bones at the base, from the occipital foramen to the anterior end (including the quadrates and pterygoids), are absolutely identical in shape in all the skulls. So is the lower jaw. In the forehead slight differences are often perceptible between the males and females, evidently caused by the presence of the comb. In every case I take the skull of G. bankiva as the standard of comparison. In four Games, in one Malay hen, in an {261} African ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... ship in the same state throughout the day until six P.M.; when the strength of everyone began to fail the expedient of thrusting in felt, as well as oakum, was resorted to, and a plank nailed over all. After this operation a perceptible diminution in the water was made and, being encouraged by the change, we put forth our utmost exertion in bailing and pumping; and before night to our infinite joy the leak was so overpowered that the pumps were ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... physical impossibility for the voice to produce two notes in succession exactly alike. They may sound very similar, but there is a difference quite perceptible to the highly trained ear. When a singer starts a phrase a certain amount of motive power is required to set the vocal apparatus in vibration. After the first note has been attacked with the full force of the breath, there is naturally not so much weight or pressure ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... hostess had advanced to Lady Fanny with an outstretched hand but with an eagerness of greeting merged a little in the sweet predominance of wonder as well as in the habit, at such moments most perceptible, of the languid lily-bend. Nothing in general could have been less conventionally poor than the kind of reception given in Mrs. Brookenham's drawing-room to the particular element—the element of physical ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... supper they went out upon the porch. A slight breeze had sprung up with the dusk, though the sky was still cloudless. At ten o'clock, when they retired, the breeze had increased in velocity, sighing mournfully through the trees in the vicinity of the ranchhouse, though there was no perceptible change in the atmosphere—it seemed that the wind was merely shifting the heat waves from one ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... an overlooked copy of a first edition inscribed by some immortal author to a forgotten love; or even—if one were in rare luck—a picture, its pristine brilliance faded, the signature of the artist illegible beneath the grime of years, evidence of its origin perceptible only to the discerning eye—to such an eye, for instance, as Michael Lanyard boasted. ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... absorption of nutritive matter is chiefly effected. The Ileum, which signifies something rolled up, is the longest division of the small intestine. Although somewhat thinner in texture than the jejunum, yet the difference is scarcely perceptible. The large intestine is about five feet in length, and is divided into the Caecum, Colon, and Rectum. The Caecum is about three inches in length. Between the large and the small intestine is a valve, ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... things, he was clearly apprehensive of the storms which Rousseau's extraordinary hardihood had the very natural effect of raising in the circles of authority, though it is true that the most acute observers of the time thought that they noticed a very perceptible increase of Voltaire's own hardihood as a consequence of the example which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... the Empire and not merely in the one in which they were principally fought out; and in the condemnation of heresy, each half of the Church assisted the other. Though already marked lines of cleavage are clearly perceptible, and in the West the dominating personality of Augustine forwarded the development of the characteristic theology of the West, setting aside the Greek influences exerted through Hilary, Ambrose, Rufinus, ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... accomplished, it only confirmed the assertions and conjectures of old Tabaret. The doctor explained, as the old man had done, the position of the body. In his opinion also, there had been a struggle. He pointed out a bluish circle, hardly perceptible, round the neck of the victim, produced apparently by the powerful grasp of the murderer; finally he declared that Widow Lerouge had eaten about three hours ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... with the Rectory, at some distance indeed, but on lower ground; and what with barns, hay and wheat ricks, sheds, cowhouses and stables, all thatched, a big wood-pile, and a long old-fashioned greenhouse, there was almost continuous communication. Clouds of smoke and an ominous smell were already perceptible on the wind, generated by the heat, and the loose straw in the centre of the farmyard was beginning to be ignited by the flakes and sparks, carrying the mischief everywhere, and rendering it exceedingly difficult to release the animals and drive them ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... most luxurious capitals can afford. At two hours and a half the plain terminated; we then turned the point of the above-mentioned mountain, and entered the valley called Wady Hommar [Arabic], in which we continued E. b. N. This valley, in which a few acacia trees grow, has no perceptible slope on either side; its rocks are all calcareous, with flint upon some of them; by the road side, I observed a few scratchings of the figures of camels, done in the same style as those in Wady Mokatteb copied by M. Niebuhr and M. Seetzen, but without any inscriptions. At four hours we ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... you to join the army? I fear not. Fatigue and bad weather may ruin it. I confess I am much disappointed in my opinion of the mineral waters. From your letters, I conclude the stock of health you have gained since I left you is scarcely perceptible. Something else must be tried. Life is precious, and demands every exertion and sacrifice to preserve it. Mr. Paterson and I have often spoken together on this subject, and we both agree that a ride to the southward ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... after these events that Julian received from Mr Carden a pressing invitation to spend a Sunday with him at Harton. Glad of a change, he easily obtained an exeat, and went down on the Saturday morning. Even the half-year since he had left had made a perceptible change in the old place. There were many new faces, and many old ones had disappeared, so that, already, he began to feel himself half a stranger among the familiar scenes. But alike from boys and masters ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... a firstrate organisation are the aristocracy of Nature. Such excellence is a positive fact; not an imagination, a ceremony, coined by poets, blazoned by cozening heralds, but perceptible in its physical advantages, and in the ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... was nothing that we could see, though now the sound was just perceptible to the ear if one strained his attention a bit. I listened. It was plain in the detector; yet nothing was visible. What strange power could it be that we could not see or feel ...
— The Treasure-Train • Arthur B. Reeve
... ignorance of country ways hath led me into a grave error," says Mr. Tawnish, with a scarce perceptible shrug of the shoulders; "upon second thoughts I grant there is about a man who can put down one throat what should ...
— The Honourable Mr. Tawnish • Jeffery Farnol
... lamp upon the walls of the cavern which separated it from the central shaft of the volcano. What was the thickness of this wall? It might be ten feet or a hundred feet—it was impossible to say. But the subterranean sounds were too perceptible to allow of the supposition that it was of ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... caused by the smell of blood, noticeable in horses and cattle among our domestic animals, and varying greatly in degree, from an emotion so slight as to be scarcely perceptible to the greatest extremes ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... the fate of the neighbor, Antone Ramos, who in last year's olive season had thought one evening to smoke a pipeful of tobacco secretly, and lo! the American, ever watchful, came to Antone Ramos' house that very night, and the tobacco smoke was perceptible! Antone Ramos was discharged! ...
— Out of the Triangle • Mary E. Bamford
... the courtyard, that he drew a long breath, and then stretched and shook himself, as if to regain the elasticity of his limbs, cramped by confinement in the narrow compartment from which he had just emerged. Then he glanced around him, and a scarcely perceptible smile played upon his lips. One might have sworn that the place was familiar to him, that he was well acquainted with these high grim walls, these grated windows, these heavy doors—in short, with all the ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... past became again and again the present. Evolution, on the contrary, prefers to begin with the distant past, to postulate formations, even if they have left no traces, and to speak of those almost imperceptible changes by which the postulated past became the perceptible present, as not only necessary, but as real. Perhaps the difference is of no importance, but the historical method seems certainly the more accurate, and the more satisfactory from a purely ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... years. The Indians he saw now for the first time with their animals perfectly motionless. They were grouped around their chief in an irregular circle, and in the gathering darkness, with their long, coarse, black hair dangling over their shoulders; their low, scarcely perceptible foreheads; broad, misshapen, painted faces and their hideous figures, they formed as unearthly a scene as can be conjured up. Several persisted in talking at the same moment, and they indulged liberally in gesture, so that it was very apparent that something exciting was before ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... perspective. However, on one side toward the lake was a fair meadow, broken by a water-tower, and just beyond the west dividing wall I saw a little chapel; and still farther, in the same direction, the outlines of the buildings of St. Agatha’s were vaguely perceptible ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... coloured photograph. David had been with his regiment in India when Owen had first seemed to be a good deal attracted to Pont Street. He had wooed Mildred with dogged persistency, and won her without perceptible triumph, and Mildred had been immensely flattered at first by the conquest of this man, whom everybody said was going to be famous, great, distinguished ... and now ... the wedding-day was coming awfully near. And how on earth was it possible for a girl to tell a man with Owen's dreadfully ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... rope around my guzzle some time, Davy, just as sure as you're sittin' there," said Artful Dick, and, notwithstanding his careless laugh, a perceptible gleam of terror showed in his eyes for an instant. "But I'm wandering again. When I was up to Sing Sing I tumbled to what was on Brad's mind. He thinks she turn him down for Grand. The more he thought of it, the more full of the devil he got. ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... men and women who succeed by self-exploitation and count only that bad morals which is also bad business. And that was the status of the matrimonial adventure of the Gilfoyles for the present. It made no perceptible difference to anybody that they were married—least of all to themselves—for the present. But of course Kedzie was obscurely preparing all this while for a tremendous explosion into publicity and into what is known as "the ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... distinguished him from the time when he was a student, he still subjected her to one test after another. The result was always the same. Not only was there no tendency to brain disease—there was not even a perceptible derangement of the nervous system. 'I can find nothing the matter with you,' he said. 'I can't even account for the extraordinary pallor of your ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... prove ineffectual until they have been removed by some specific antidote. After having made a most careful diagnosis, a single dose of the highest potency of the specific remedy be given, and be allowed to act as long as a trace of improvement is still perceptible. As soon as the improvement ceases, or an aggravation of the symptoms sets in, Apis is in its place and will act most satisfactorily. We then give Apis 3 in water, as mentioned above, with ...
— Apis Mellifica - or, The Poison of the Honey-Bee, Considered as a Therapeutic Agent • C. W. Wolf
... mean is that one yonder." He was getting so romantically attached to Christminster that, like a young lover alluding to his mistress, he felt bashful at mentioning its name again. He pointed to the light in the sky—hardly perceptible ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... met in New London, but there was a very perceptible difference in their greeting to that lady: It was the formal, perfunctory bow and handclasp of the superficially known midshipman; not the hearty, spontaneous one of the boy who has learned to trust and love someone as Mrs. Harold's ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... sense of danger happily escaped. He would have been a bold man who should confidently have prophesied at the Revolution that American and English would remain the same tongue, and that at the end of the nineteenth century there would not be the slightest perceptible cleavage, or threat of ultimate divergence. No doubt there were forces obviously tending to preserve the linguistic unity of the two nations. There was the English Bible for one thing, and there was the whole body ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... seventeenth month, although no disturbance of the development took place, there was no perceptible advance in the utterance of thoughts by sounds, or in the imitation of syllables pronounced by others, or in articulation, but there was a considerable increase of the acoustic power of discrimination in words heard and of the memory ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... consequently to develop its true philosophy. Its fundamental error is the assumption that all our knowledge is confined to the observation and classification of sensible phenomena—that is, to changes perceptible by the senses. Psychology, based, as it is, upon self-observation and self-reflection, is a "mere illusion; and logic and ethics, so far as they are built upon it as their foundation, are altogether baseless." Spiritual entities, forces, causes, efficient or final, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... no longer, if it ever was, a hill, or even a perceptible rise of ground, but a pleasant gardened and planted space, not distinguishable from a hundred others in London, with public offices related to the navy closing it mostly in, but not without unofficial public and ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... others are inserted in the same way, and as far along the joint as can be reached with the wires. After having dried, the glue which had oozed up round the square will be found to have decreased so much as to be but little perceptible—thus you see how it was done. Do not try this yourself unless you have become expert by long practice in repairing generally, as you may probably find this more taxing to your nerves than you may be aware of, ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... of man-o'-war hawks, or frigate pelicans, the most graceful bird on the continent, excepting the fork-tailed kite. These birds soared high overhead, circling, rising and falling with scarcely a perceptible motion of their wings. From another key a flock of roseate spoon-bill, or pink curlew, flew at the approach of the boat, while young herons sat fearlessly on branches of trees or spread wings and stretched long legs ...
— Dick in the Everglades • A. W. Dimock
... their pursuit of methods for the government of a nation, to make it happy, Diana was leader. Her fine ardour and resonance, and more than the convincing ring of her voice, the girl's impassioned rapidity in rushing through any perceptible avenue of the labyrinth, or beating down obstacles to form one, and coming swiftly to some solution, constituted her the chief of the pair of democratic rebels in questions that clamoured for instant solution. By dint of reading solid writers, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... tale in i. 148. 12, etc (Ind. St. ii. p. 395), has been equated with syrinx; Skanda with Alexander, etc. It is needless to say that each of these is only a guess in etymology. But Greek influence is perceptible in the Greek soldiers and names of (Greek) kings that are found in ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... the merit of being pictures as well as portraits. He led to a complete revolution in this department, so that if he had rivals—and he certainly had one in Gainsborough—they were of his own making. The change is mostly perceptible in female portraits. They assumed grace and beauty. Our grandmothers and great-grandmothers were strangely vilified in their unpleasing likenesses. The somewhat loose satin evening-dress, with the shepherdess's crook, was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... not have been so perceptible had you taken a note payable in one or two years. Hold that demand note as a club over the old woman, and perhaps you will get ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... was absent at Derval Court; the house was searched. In the bureau in my favourite study, which was left unlocked, the steel casket was discovered, and a large case-knife, on the blade of which the stains of blood were still perceptible. On this discovery I was apprehended; and on these evidences, and on the deposition of this vagrant stranger, I was not, indeed, committed to take my trial for murder, but placed in confinement, all bail for my appearance refused, and ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hawthorns on the upper lands, and willows, flags, reeds, and rushes on the lower. These crumbling ruins still more choked the stream, and almost, if not quite, turned it back. If any water ooze past, it is not perceptible, and there is no channel through to the salt ocean. It is a vast stagnant swamp, which no man dare enter, since death would ...
— After London - Wild England • Richard Jefferies
... General Washington went past it to be inaugurated. From Fithian's window the pleasant land was seen spread out below him beyond the Christina; and the Swedish, Dutch, and English farms smiled from their loamy levels on sails which moved with scarcely perceptible motion through the narrow dykes planted with greenest willows. Before his door the teamsters, ill-tempered with lashing and swearing at their teams in the ruts of Iron Hill, schoolboys from Nottingham, millers' men from ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend
... improved and enlarged edition of the poem might probably appear after his death. Struck with the especial knowledge displayed of the author in question, I asked if he happened to be a friend. Then, with a scarcely perceptible smile playing about the corners of the mouth (a circumstance without significance for me at the time and only remembered afterwards), my new acquaintance answered: "He is my oldest and dearest friend." Next morning I saw my night-long ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... noise resembling that produced by the fall of some heavy piece of furniture. The shock extended through the cities of London and Westminster, and was felt on both sides of the river Thames, from Greenwich to the westward of London; but not perceptible at a considerable distance. On the very same day of the next month, between five and six o'clock in the morning, the inhabitants of the metropolis were again affrighted by a second shock, more violent than the first, and abundantly more alarming, as it waked the greater part of the people from their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... all, considering the natural villany of our sex, she confessed to herself that she might have been worse off. But through all the calm and cheerfulness of Riccabocca, a nervous perturbation was sufficiently perceptible; it commenced after the second week of marriage; it went on increasing, till one bright sunny afternoon, as he was standing on his terrace, gazing down upon the road, at which Jackeymo was placed, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... burst forth from persons all over the house. The congressman arose and went up to Belton and congratulated him upon his triumph over oratory, and lamented his defeat by prejudice. This action caused a perceptible ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... nucleus of the ovule and the tubercle of cellular tissue constituting the primordial anther, there is little or no difference, so that it may be said that, for a time, there is no distinction of sex in the nascent flower, but as development goes on, the difference becomes perceptible. It cannot at present be stated what precise circumstances induce the one mass to form mother-cells and pollen-grains, and the other to develop an embryo sac and germinal vesicles. Position and external circumstances may have some indirect effect, and it may, perhaps, ...
— Vegetable Teratology - An Account of the Principal Deviations from the Usual Construction of Plants • Maxwell T. Masters
... the semi-obscurity. By the light of the candle I saw an elderly man with good features and a refined, intelligent and even attractive face, but dreadfully emaciated, bloodless and sallow. He lay quite motionless except for the scarcely perceptible rise and fall of his chest; his eyes were nearly closed, his features relaxed, and, though he was not actually asleep, he seemed to be in a dreamy, somnolent, lethargic state, as if under ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... ever diminishing. Volcanoes, so plentiful in the first days of the world, are being extinguished by degrees; the internal heat is weakened, the temperature of the lower strata of the globe is lowered by a perceptible quantity every century to the detriment of our globe, for its ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... perceptible emotion, "I take back what I once said to you on Owl Marsh. No man is a real crook by nature who did what you have done. That is 'faithfulness unto death' — the ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... knew, or how she counselled him as to his unexpected situation. Yet the relief that his announcement brought her was perceptible. To have confided her trouble in return was what her aching heart longed to do; and had Humphrey been a woman she would instantly have poured out her tale. But to him she feared to confess; and there was ...
— Life's Little Ironies - A set of tales with some colloquial sketches entitled A Few Crusted Characters • Thomas Hardy
... the Indians. Many of them, in fact, grow very fond of it. They usually dress it, however, in a different manner. They take off the head and hands before bringing it to the table; so that the "child-like" appearance is less perceptible. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... own weight would have been too great for it. The Knight and Squire followed closely on the first two carriages. They were flying, on starting, somewhat too high; but Ernest hauled in the lines, and the effect was soon perceptible. On went their daddy-long-legs, as he and Ellis called their car, and soon got up ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... that it might produce an effect of that kind, and, going back into the house, soon reappeared with a rather stiff drink of West India rum; which the old man tossed off with no perceptible difficulty. ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... Robots carried a frigid blast for miles. By dawn of that June 10th, the south wind was carrying from the enemy area a perceptible wave of cold even as far as Westchester. Allen, flying over the city, saw the devastated area clearly. Ice in the streets—smashed vehicles—the gruesome litter of sword-slashed human bodies. And other ...
— Astounding Stories, April, 1931 • Various
... February, 1810. "It was twilight, and the light was then large and greatly lambent, very bright, broad at the bottom and terminating acutely upward. From each side seemed to issue rays of faint light similar to those perceptible in any blaze placed in the open air at night. It continued about fifteen minutes from the time I first observed it, then gradually became smaller and more dim until it was entirely extinguished." The same gentleman saw it again in the following December, when he thought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... accordingly, he sets at nought the whole of the mathematics, which he does not understand. This equivocation between the formula of the physician and that of the mathematician is as good, though not so perceptible to the world at large, as that made by Mr. Briggs's friend in Punch's picture, which I cut out to paste into my Logic. Mr. Briggs wrote for a couple of bruisers, meaning to prepare oats for his horses: his friend sent him the Whitechapel Chicken and the Bayswater Slasher, ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... upon the open prairie. No trees were in sight; but close at hand, a little dribbling brook was twisting from side to side through a hollow; now forming holes of stagnant water, and now gliding over the mud in a scarcely perceptible current, among a growth of sickly bushes, and great clumps of tall rank grass. The day was excessively hot and oppressive. The horses and mules were rolling on the prairie to refresh themselves, or feeding among the bushes in the ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... struck. For the first few leagues, our route to-day resembled that of yesterday, in almost every particular. There was the same appearance of peaceful quiet, the same delightful intermingling of woods, corn-fields, vineyards, and pasture; but we had not proceeded far, when a marked difference was perceptible; every step we trod, the soil became more and more sandy, the cultivation less frequent, and the wood more abundant, till at last we found ourselves marching through the heart of an immense forest of pines. ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... contain some of the essential oil of the animal; like the smell, which adheres to one's hand on stroking the hides of some dogs; or like the effluvia, which is left upon the ground, from the feet of men and other creatures; and is perceptible by the nicer organs of the dogs, which hunt them, may admit ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... had on him was not perceptible. He had not seated himself, and, with a smile that was actually satirical, he bowed, uttered a few words of greeting, and went ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... describing, which is much more difficult than I expected, and has much the same sort of interest as a puzzle has; but I confess I often feel wearied with the work, and cannot help sometimes asking myself what is the good of spending a week or fortnight in ascertaining that certain just perceptible differences blend together and constitute varieties and not species. As long as I am on anatomy I never feel myself in that disgusting, horrid, cui bono, inquiring, humour. What miserable work, again, it is searching for priority of names. I have just finished two ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... class is more especially perceptible at Rome, near the Pontifical throne. It gradually disappears, together with many other abuses, in proportion to their distance from their source. There are bottomless abysses between the noble Roman and the citizen of ...
— The Roman Question • Edmond About
... dull monotony of this ice, and snow, and frost could not last for ever. In early March a faint feeling of spring was perceptible in the air; the sea sounded less dread; the birds' cries lost some of their harshness; and before the end of the month they were aroused by a cheery "Pip, pip, pop!" oft and vigorously repeated from the ...
— Marguerite De Roberval - A Romance of the Days of Jacques Cartier • T. G. Marquis
... clothes in Arnold's case had transformed him from a superior looking tramp into an aristocratic and decidedly good-looking man, in the prime of his youth, saving only for the thinness and pallor of his face, and a perceptible ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... Bayle, shrewd as he is, is not always free from this confusion. Mysteries may be explained sufficiently to justify belief in them; but one cannot comprehend them, nor give understanding of how they come to pass. Thus even in natural philosophy we explain up to a certain point sundry perceptible qualities, but in an imperfect manner, for we do not comprehend them. Nor is it possible for us, either, to prove Mysteries by reason; for all that which can be proved a priori, or by pure reason, can be comprehended. All that remains for us then, after ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... that is not the reason; for although it is the fact, yet you cannot suppose that their difference can be perceptible, in that respect, to those heavenly bodies which appear to resemble only diamond sparks, from their immense distance. The brilliancy of which I speak arises from the greater purity of the air: we frequently ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... small-sized breed of horses at Savu, similar to that of Rottee; and pigs, sheep, and poultry appeared to be very plentiful. No observations were taken during our stay in Zeba Bay. The tides were scarcely perceptible and their rise and fall uncertain from the steep bank on which ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia - Performed between the years 1818 and 1822 • Phillip Parker King
... 200 miles to the point at which the bottom is now covered by 1,700 fathoms of sea-water. Then would come the central plain, more than a thousand miles wide, the inequalities of the surface of which would be hardly perceptible, though the depth of water upon it now varies from 10,000 to 15,000 feet; and there are places in which Mont Blanc might be sunk without showing its peak above water. Beyond this, the ascent on the American side commences, and ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... even school life, is better for the child than home life, will become an over-ridden hobby; and we shall presently be told by our faddists that anything, even camp life, is better than school life. Some blundering beginnings of this are already perceptible. There is a movement for making our British children into priggish little barefooted vagabonds, all talking like that born fool George Borrow, and supposed to be splendidly healthy because they would die if they slept in rooms with the windows shut, or perhaps even with ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... rushing in to welcome Mrs. Truscott, etc., etc.) put an end to the possibility. It was a comfort to note that though perfectly courteous and pleasant in her manner, even to the extent of that indefinable yet perceptible half intimacy which exists between travelling companions, Miss Sanford seemed in no wise encouraging and by no means displeased at the interruption to the plan so audaciously proposed. At dinner Mr. Gleason sat opposite the young lady, and was, therefore, obliged to talk much with Mrs. Stannard. ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... period, if not permanently." On Ivan's asking impatiently whether that meant that he was now mad, they told him that this was not yet the case, in the full sense of the word, but that certain abnormalities were perceptible. Ivan decided to find out for himself ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... in a large mill one night. A solitary tallow candle shone over my head like a halo of glory; a few lanterns around the outskirts of the audience made the darkness perceptible; but all I could see of my audience was the whites of their eyes in the dim distance. People came from twenty miles around to these meetings, held either in the morning, afternoon, or ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... the Croton water, which is also supplied to the State Prison at Sing Sing, and the Institutions on Blackwell's, Randall's, and Ward's islands. The Croton River is one of the purest streams in the world. The water is bright and sparkling, and there is no sediment perceptible to the naked eye. Actual analysis has shown that the amount of impurity during an entire summer was but 4.45 grains in a gallon, or 7.63 parts ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... so gradually into Dennet's hands that no change of government was perceptible, except that the keys hung at the maiden's girdle. She had grown out of the child during this winter of trouble, and was here, there, and everywhere, the busy nurse and housewife, seldom pausing to laugh or play except with her father, and now and then to chat with her old friend ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... without any perceptible result, or they absorb it like a passion. To one class of readers he appears sublime, to another (and we fear the largest) ridiculous. He has probably realised Milton's wish,—"and fit audience found, though few:" ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... was just perceptible before Thresk spoke again. But he had his face under control. He took the stroke without flinching. He turned to Dick with ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... into the vestry. During the exciting moments of her recusancy there had been a perceptible flutter among the sensitive members of the congregation; nervous Dissenters seeming to be at one with nervous Episcopalians in this at least, that they heartily disliked a scene during service. Calm was restored to their minds by the minister starting a rather long hymn ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... have been some traces of earnestness visible, I fancy, on my inky face, for I saw Mr Barnacle look at me curiously as I spoke, while there was the faintest perceptible twitch at the corners of ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... beautiful movement of the young mother she takes up the crawling mass of white frock, kisses her son and settles his blue sash. And when she has talked to him for a few minutes she rings the bell for nurse; then she sits down to write. As usual, her pen runs on without a perceptible pause. Words come to her easily, but she has not finished the opening paragraph of the article she is writing when the sound of rapid footsteps attracts her attention, and ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... wholesome draught; a minute dose administered by stealth did incalculable mischief. Behold the results of this criminal homoeopathy! On the third day poor Cibot's hair came out, his teeth were loosened in their sockets, his whole system was deranged by a scarcely perceptible trace of poison. Dr. Poulain racked his brains. He was enough of a man of science to see that some destructive agent was at work. He privately carried off the decoction, analyzed it himself, but found nothing. It so chanced that Remonencq had taken ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... same field of view. There is, besides, a companion which, although it was known to exist, no telescope was able to detect until November, 1896. It must be of immense mass, since its attraction causes perceptible perturbations in the motion of Procyon. Its magnitude is eight and a half, distance 4.83", p. 338 deg.. One of the small stars just referred to, the second one east of Procyon, distant one third of the moon's diameter, is an interesting double. Our four-inch ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... which is in the style of Livy or Cicero, but not Tacitus. At the same time no writer is so fond of alliteration as Tacitus; yet he resorts to it with so much judgment, that it never grates on the ear, and with so much art that it all but passes notice. It is perceptible in the Germany and the Agricola as well as the History; though in the latter work it is carried to greater perfection, and is more systematically used, being found in almost every paragraph. The rule with Tacitus is this:—When he resorts to alliteration ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... kindness in naming for me this and many other insects, and giving me much valuable assistance.) I found that this insect emitted the most brilliant flashes when irritated: in the intervals, the abdominal rings were obscured. The flash was almost coinstantaneous in the two rings, but it was just perceptible first in the anterior one. The shining matter was fluid and very adhesive: little spots, where the skin had been torn, continued bright with a slight scintillation, whilst the uninjured parts were obscured. When the insect ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... as it only does shine between the tropics, the sky clear and cloudless, the mild breeze, just enough to fill our sails, pushing us gently through the water, the sea as glassy as a mountain-lake, and motionless, save the long, slight swell, scarcely perceptible to those who for long weeks have been tossed by the tempestuous waves of the stormy Atlantic. The sails of a distant ship were seen, far away to the north, making the lovely scene less solitary; the only sounds heard were the rippling at the bows, the low sough of the zephyr through the rigging, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... Salle des Pas-Perdus. It is entered through the first door in the long dark passage in which the eye loses itself when looking from the middle of the vaulted gateway. This ill-omened room is lighted by a funnel, barred by a formidable grating, and hardly perceptible on going into the Conciergerie yard, for it has been pierced in the narrow space between the office window close to the railing of the gateway, and the place where the office clerk sits—a den like a cupboard contrived by the architect at the ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... mine, not indeed known as mine (for what am I?), have fallen, perhaps not altogether void, into the mighty seed-field of Opinion; fruits of my unseen sowing gratifyingly meet me here and there. I thank the Heavens that I have now found my Calling; wherein, with or without perceptible result, I am ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... further cheer came to her from her mother, the excellent Catalina. By profession, this good Catalina was a lavandera. Hers was a vicarious virtue, for while her washing was endless, its visible results rarely had any perceptible connection with herself. Indeed, it is a fact that the washer-women of Mexico are upheld by so lofty a sense of their duty to their employers that only by the operation of some extraordinary law of chance is it that their own garments ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... Paul's overwrought senses, as he passed the melancholy remains of the illumination before the post-office and the Sultan Valide mosque, and he hurried on towards the more secluded streets leading to Santa Sophia, in which the night's gayety had left no perceptible signs. At last he came to the narrow lane behind the huge pile, feeling that he had at last reached the end ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... blood infusion, European characteristics would, in time, become indiscernible among the masses. Even on Europeans themselves, in defiance of their own volition, the new physical conditions and the influence of climate on their mental and physical organisms are perceptible after two or three decades of years' residence ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... to those with whom he might be conversing. He could render himself acceptable to the middle classes, although indications of pride and aristocratic haughtiness might be occasionally detected in his words and manner. These symptoms were only perceptible to delicate investigators; by the great majority he was considered affable and unassuming. In the Chambers he spoke with ease and animation, if not with eloquence, and often indulged in an attractive play of fancy. He could have rendered good service to the ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... cheeks; he was bowed down with fatigue upon fatigue, his throat seemed to be glued by the desert thirst. The guide meanwhile stood motionless, listening to these complaints with an ironical expression, studying the while, with the apparent indifference of an Oriental, the scarcely perceptible indications in the lie of the sands, which looked almost black, like ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac |
