"Intricate" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... from pointed sticks she painted around the bottom of the coat a foot-wide border in intricate design, introducing red, blue, brown and yellow colours that she had compounded herself the previous summer from fish roe, minerals and oil. Other decorations and ornamentations were drawn upon the front ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... they had come, seemed intricate to some, But all agreed the rum was divine. And they looked with bitter scorn on their leader highly born, Who preferred to fill his horn ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... and he smiled. "It is very intricate, yet very simple when one has the clue. Every convolution of those filaments is photographed on my brain. I can close my eyes and see them winding ...
— The Destroyer - A Tale of International Intrigue • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... it—in which the genius of the great man is to be perfected and elaborated. Nature creates nothing in sport; and as much foresight—possibly even more—is displayed in the often complicated and intricate machinery of concurrent causes which prepare the development of great literary genius, as in the elaborate in-foldings which protect from injury the germ of the future oak, or the deep-laid and mysterious bed, and the unimaginable ages of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... our perception of the richness of individual parts, the fullness of physical phenomena, and of the heterogeneous properties of matter becomes enlarged. From the regions in which we recognize ony the dominion of the laws of attraction, we descend to our own planet, and to the intricate play of terrestrial forces. The method here described for the delineation of nature is opposed to that which mst be pursued in establishing conclusive results. The one enumerates what the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... greatly to be regretted," said Miss Phoebe Blyth, pausing in an intricate part of her knitting, and looking over her glasses with mild severity, "it is greatly to be regretted that Aunt Marcia occupies herself so largely with things temporal. At her advanced age, her acute interest in—one, two, three, purl—in worldly matters, appears ...
— Mrs. Tree • Laura E. Richards
... Hermit, "if I did untie them. They're only part of my poor little scheme for discouraging intruders, Master Wally." He slipped his fingers inside the flap and undid a hidden fastening, which opened the tent without disarranging the array of intricate knots. ...
— A Little Bush Maid • Mary Grant Bruce
... himself, as he did in his latest plays, you must look for him in the wilds; whether on the road near the shepherd's cottage, or in the cave among the mountains of Wales, or on the seashore in the Bermudas. The laws that are imposed upon the intricate relations of men in society were a weariness to him; and in this he is thoroughly English. The Englishman has always been an objector, and he has a right to object, though it may very well be held that he is too fond of larding his objection with the plea of conscience. But even this has a meaning ...
— England and the War • Walter Raleigh
... at our discomfiture. "Simple enough? Yet really an intricate code in itself. It made the phrasing of the main note a little difficult to compose, that was all." He sat up with his accustomed snap of alertness, and his face turned grim. "Georg will never address his audience. Nor the Princess—she will never ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... the first page to the last it is redolent of the health of an "incense-breathing morn." There are no dark scenes here, leaving on the reader a feeling of degradation that such things can be—no impossible villain weaving a web of intricate or purposeless villainy—but all is fresh and genuine, and we close the volume with a sense of gratitude that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... and the air was warm. Beyond the stone parapet, far below, the tideless sea was silent and motionless under the moon. A crooked fig-tree, still leafless, though the little figs were already shaped on it, cast its intricate shadow upon the platform. Very far away, a boy was singing a slow minor chant in a high voice. The peace was almost disquieting—there was something intensely expectant in it, as though the night were in love, ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... water. Where forests have been cut from the mountain sides and the red soil has washed away, the surface of the white limestone forms a pathless desert of rock where each square rod has been corroded into an intricate branch work of shallow furrows and sharp ridges. Great sink holes, some of them six hundred feet deep and more, pockmark the surface of the land. The drainage is chiefly subterranean. Surface streams are rare and a portion ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... Guard, and kissed him with delight. The whistle shrieked, the train turned swiftly in a tremendous sweeping curve, and vanished along the intricate star-rails into space, humming and booming as it went. It flew a mane of stars behind ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... not a floral production that she cannot truthfully and delicately reproduce with her kindly material, and she has lately executed a work which we believe defies competition in the department to which it belongs. This is an enormous bouquet, containing flowers of the most intricate structure, and supported by a rock, which peers from a lake of the brightest looking glass, decorated in its turn with waxen aquatic plants. All the flowers were modelled in the first instance from white wax, and the beautiful colours are all produced by painting. The whole group is enclosed by a ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... incensed and evenly divided parties engaged in a struggle for an important prize, Mr. Adams, having no strictly lawful authority pertaining to (p. 295) his singular and anomalous position, was hard taxed to perform his functions. It is impossible to follow the intricate and acrimonious quarrels of the eleven days which succeeded until on December 16, upon the eleventh ballot, R. M. T. Hunter, of Virginia, was elected Speaker, and Mr. Adams was relieved from the most arduous duty imposed upon him ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse
... certainly more perfect and intricate, and the ingredients that occasionally enter into their composition are more numerous. But notwithstanding the wonderful variety observable in the texture of the animal organs, we find that the original compounds, from which all the varieties of animal ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... could. When the dogs had reached the next level, they paused and waited, standing with uplifted heads and dripping tongues while we clambered down the gorge to join them. Again they took the lead; but this time the way was more intricate, and their progress slower. Single-file we followed them along a narrow winding track of broken ground, over which every moment a tiny torrent foamed and tumbled; and as we descended the air became less keen, the snow rarer, and a few patches of gentian and hardy plants appeared on the craggy sides ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... But a more intricate portion of the theory of Credit is its influence on prices; the chief cause of most of the mercantile phenomena which perplex observers. In a state of commerce in which much credit is habitually given, general prices at any moment depend much more upon the state of credit ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... Adriatic, is one of the most important. It is almost everywhere mountainous, and though the mountains themselves never attain as much as 10,000 feet in height, yet they cover the whole country with an intricate network and have always formed an obstacle to easy communication between the various parts of it. The result of this has been twofold. In the first place it has, generally speaking, been a protection against foreign penetration and conquest, and in so far was beneficial. Bulgaria, further east, ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... usual nausea on viewing the decoration of the ceilings and walls of the place below; it always makes me sick to go into that place; between realizing that I am of the same make as the brothers composing those mosaics, and trying to imagine what the intricate patterns will do at the Resurrection Day, I cannot command myself. Neither am I supported by the sight of some skeletons, the raw material of that grewsome artistry, deposited whole in their coffins in the niches next the ground, though their skulls smile so reassuringly from their ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... take both of you by the hand and together we shall wander forth to explore the intricate ...
— Ancient Man - The Beginning of Civilizations • Hendrik Willem Van Loon
... letters ought to have appeared, because one of them had appeared not on the date fixed, but ten days later; and this for a reason which Don Luis knew. Besides, it was not a question of all this. It was not a question of seeking the truth amid this confusion of dates and letters, amid this intricate tangle in which no one could lay claim ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... having found two harbours on the west side of the other channel; the one large, and the other small, but both of them safe and commodious; though, by the sketch Mr Pickersgill had taken of them, the access to both appeared rather intricate.[2] ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... him to the tribunal of justice and placed him in the chair. The duke's steward then said to him, "It is an ancient custom here, my lord governor, that he who comes to take possession of this famous island is obliged to answer a question put to him, which is to be somewhat intricate and difficult. By his answer the people are enabled to feel the pulse of their new governor's understanding, and, accordingly, are either glad ...
— Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... a time, and the good clergyman, all whose ideas of education ran through the halls of a college, began to have hopes of turning out a choice scholar. But when the boy's ship of life came into the breakers of that narrow and intricate channel which divides boyhood from manhood, the difficulties that had always attended his guidance and management wore an intensified form. How much family happiness is wrecked just then and there! How many mothers' and sisters' hearts are broken in the wild and confused tossings and tearings ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... beneath the dark and spreading boughs, the Baron, affected by the solemnity of the scene, hesitated whether to proceed, and demanded how much further they were to go. The Knight replied only by a gesture, and the Baron, with hesitating steps and a suspicious eye, followed through an obscure and intricate path, till, having proceeded a considerable way, he again demanded whither they were going, and refused to proceed ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... richer, fuller song that he sings to his nesting mate in the far north! The volume is really tremendous, coming from so tiny a throat. Those who have heard it in northern Canada describe it as a flute-like and mellow warble full of intricate phrases past the imitating. Dr. Coues says of it: "The kinglet's ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... the eyes which always distinguishes Spenser Hale when he places on the table a problem which he expects will baffle me. If I said he never did baffle me, I would be wrong, of course, for sometimes the utter simplicity of the puzzles which trouble him leads me into an intricate involution ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... characteristic imperfection of that method, the nature of which still remains to be pointed out. But as we can not enter into this exposition without introducing a new element of complexity into this long and intricate discussion, I shall postpone it to a subsequent chapter, and shall at once proceed to a statement of two other methods, which will complete the enumeration of the means which mankind possess for exploring the laws of nature by ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... with Greece and attempts to indicate the chief phases. It is the merest introduction to a vast and intricate subject, which, treated adequately, would involve not only the history of religion, of the Churches, of heresies, of persecution, but also the history of philosophy, of the natural sciences and of political theories. From the sixteenth century to the French Revolution ...
— A History of Freedom of Thought • John Bagnell Bury
... the outward apartments which surround the central royal residence, that of the common father and mother of the community, form an intricate labyrinth of nurseries and magazines, separated by chambers and galleries, communicating with each other, and continuing towards the surface of the pyramid; and being arched, they support each other, and are uniformly larger towards ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... saddle with careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top, and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their march, also, would place Croesus first; which position—the novelist, again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight—is held by all who value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. As ...
— The Eyes of the World • Harold Bell Wright
... rings, one inside the other. And two rings will take care of any motion in three dimensions. These rings were pivoted, too, so that an unbelievably intricate series of motions could be given to the solenoid within them all. But the device was broken, now. A pivot had given away, and shaft and socket alike had vanished. Tommy became absorbed. Some oddity ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... Walter as obscure and intricate. And I withal, that though it could not unto him, as being learned, yet it might seem obscure to the most present, and therefore had rather say with divines plainly, that the reasonable soul is a spiritual and immortal substance, breathed into man by God, whereby he lives and moves and understandeth, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... collected in them; narrow and imperfect in their aims, which were verbal rather than real; and not even succeeding in these aims! Latin, nothing but Latin! And how had they taught this precious and eternal Latin of theirs? "Good God! how intricate, laborious, and prolix this study of Latin has been! Do not scullions, shoeblacks, cobblers, among pots and pans, or in camp, or in any other sordid employment, learn a language different from their own, or even two or three such, more readily than school students, with every leisure ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... going to take the lead in colour; Simpson is all flushed, as if he were seen by a sunset. I send you here two rondeaux; I don't suppose they will amuse anybody but me; but this measure, short and yet intricate, is just what I desire; and I have had some good times walking along the glaring roads, or down the poplar alley of the great canal, pitting my own humour to this ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mounted to the first floor, where there was an account-book ruling and binding shop: the site of the old sitting-room and the girls' bedroom. In each chamber Edwin had to light a gas, and the corridors and stairways were traversed by the ray of matches. It was excitingly intricate. Then they went to the attics, because Edwin was determined that she should see all. There he found a ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... civilization. Along with this has progressed the conception of a deity, but only to a certain extent. The mind has embellished the outward appearance of its gods, consolidated them, and built upon them intricate systems of theology, upon which feed vast hordes of clergy; but the basic conception, the fundamental principle, that there must be something supernatural to explain something which we cannot explain at the present moment, that conception still ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... intricate is the theology and practice of these loathsome savages, that not even now have I explained it in full to you, O shipwrecked mariner, for your aid and protection. For a Korong, though it be a part of his privilege ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... Belton—and the doctor were on a "rush outfit" of rescue. They were riding back to camp after a long day of search along the banks of the Theton River. Their search was systematic. Each day they rode out and followed the intricate course of the smiling river with its endless chain of lakes. Each day their camp broke up and followed a similar course, but taking the direct and shortest route down the river. Then, at nightfall, ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... him, and her expression was a little baffling. "And have you any special qualification, Captain Vane, for dealing with such an intricate subject?" ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... Cicero made during his Praetorship—that, namely, in defence of Aulus Cluentius Habitus. As it is the longest, so is it the most intricate, and on account of various legal points the most difficult to follow of all his speeches. But there are none perhaps which tell us more of the condition, or perhaps I should say the possibilities, of life among the Romans of ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... practice and training. The purpose of a singing-method is to produce a perfect coordination of all parts of the human voice-producing mechanism, an apparatus which is by no means simple but, in fact, rather intricate and complicated. It will be found, for example, that such a natural function of life as breathing has to be especially adapted to the requirements of the singing voice; that breathing such as suffices ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... complicated controversy between the representatives of the Ballantynes and Mr. Lockhart, concerning these matters, can be content with Mr. Lockhart's—no doubt perfectly sincere—judgment on the case. It is obvious that amidst these intricate accounts, he fell into one or two serious blunders—blunders very unjust to James Ballantyne. And without pretending to have myself formed any minute judgment on the details, I think the following points clear:—(1.) That James Ballantyne was very severely judged by Mr. Lockhart, on ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... with the intricate hooks of her evening frock. Out of it finally, and slipping off her silk stockings and thin shoes she went quickly to the big clothes closet, chose a short country skirt, a pair of golf stockings, thick shoes and a tam-o'-shanter, made for the drawer in which were ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... I believe, sir; I think I begin to understand them now,' said the tyro, producing for Alaric's gratification five or six folio sheets covered with intricate masses ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... accurately. To "get a lip" quickly, I always carried my mouthpiece in my pocket, and blew noiselessly into it perpetually, even in school. Tosher had noticed this. One day my algebra paper was even worse than usual. With the best intentions in the world to master this intricate branch of knowledge, algebra conveyed nothing whatever to my brain. To state that A b xy, seemed to me the assertion of a palpable and self-evident falsehood. After looking through my paper, Tosher called ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... Phil, drawing his gaze reluctantly from the far horizon and letting it rest dreamily on his accuser. "May I be allowed to ask what intricate and devious chain of reasoning leads you to make so ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... medals and medallions, copying ancient cabinets and quaint furniture are, if not the principal, at least the most interesting occupations pursued in Nuremberg to-day. In searching out the little shops I also found that table linen, superbly embroidered and decorated with drawn-work of intricate patterns was ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... to please all those whose support was necessary to him; and this he could effect only by bringing forward a plan so intricate that it cannot without some pains be understood. He wanted two millions to extricate the State from its financial embarrassments. That sum he proposed to raise by a loan at eight per cent. The lenders might be either individuals or corporations. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... where the language is intricate, the thought is subtile, or the image always great where the line is bulky; the equality of words to things is very often neglected, and trivial sentiments and vulgar ideas disappoint the attention, to which they are recommended by ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... whom Joanna recognized as ladies; but she had long dreamed of sending her little sister to a really good school at Folkestone—where Ellen would wear a ribbon round her hat and go for walks in a long procession of two-and-two, and be taught wonderful, showy and intricate things by ladies with letters after their names—whom Joanna despised because she felt sure they had never had a chance ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... our intricate choruses resounded as we went in groups deviously homeward, and a few members of our sporting flock dotted the ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... active bodies the British were compelled to put many similar detachments into the field, known as the columns of Gorringe, Crabbe, Henniker, Scobell, Doran, Kavanagh, Alexander, and others. These two sets of miniature armies performed an intricate devil's dance over the Colony, the main lines of which are indicated by the red lines upon the map. The Zuurberg mountains to the north of Steynsburg, the Sneeuwberg range to the south of Middelburg, the Oudtshoorn ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... that it needs a whole host of them in an infinity of fine lines to cover a hundred feet of wall. They fill the blank spaces with their repeated detail; they make the style (which even in stone is full of chances and particular corners) most intricate, and—if one may use so exaggerated a metaphor—"populous." Above all, they lead the eye up and up, making a comparison and measure of their tiny bands until the domination of a buttress or a tower is exaggerated to the enormous. ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... propose he should spend at some of the German courts might not be better employed at Madrid or Lisbon, and in Italy. At the former there could be no object for him but politics, the system of which there is intricate, and can never be connected with us; nor will our commercial connections be considerable. With Madrid and Lisbon our connections, both political and commercial, are great and will be increasing daily. Italy is a field where the inhabitants of the Southern States may see much to copy ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... need of further proof. The intricate movements of a rotation such as I have described; the obstacle of hills and woods; the pitfalls of a road which moves on, moves back and returns after making a wide circuit: none of these is able to disconcert the Chalicodomae or prevent them ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... rebels had intrenched themselves in a very strong situation, environed on every side with such steep and rugged mountains as could not be passed without extreme difficulty, more like a wall than natural rocks. The only entrance was exceedingly narrow and intricate, so that it could easily be defended by a handful of men against an army; but the interior of this post was wide and convenient, and sufficient for accommodating the rebel army with all the cattle provisions and attendants with the utmost ease. The rebels had abundance of provisions and ammunition, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. There was a lull at this time in warfare. Casualties were few, and the periscope disclosed little beyond the vista (soon too familiar) of arid heath, broken only by patches of wild thyme, and of the intricate lacework of sandbagged trenches stretching from the tip of Cape Helles behind us to the top of Achi Baba. But for the constant booming of the guns and the plague of flies, these first days on Gallipoli were days of peace and happiness under a quiet, blue sky. ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... to cast my eyes around me in search of a callant to fill his place; as it is customary in our trade for young men, when their time is out, taking a year's journeymanship in Edinburgh, to perfect them in the more intricate branches of the business, and learn the newest manner of the French and London fashions, by cutting cloth for the young advocates, the college students, the banking-house clerks, the half-pay ensigns, and the rest ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... sun and delicate blue shadows on the snow. As they entered it the breeze fell and a warm stillness seemed to drop from the branches with the dropping needles. Here the snow was so pure that the tiny tracks of wood-animals had left on it intricate lace-like patterns, and the bluish cones caught in its surface stood out like ornaments ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... couldn't even talk the same language as the relative handful of trained men who built and operated the unbelievably intricate robomachinery which activated and maintained the ...
— DP • Arthur Dekker Savage
... place by a net of fine gold thread, in which were set, at regular intervals, pearls remarkable for their colour and perfect spherical form; then a dozen long pins with carved gold heads were passed through the net, and above and around all was bound a diadem of thin-beaten gold ornamented with intricate open-work tracery. Finally, the hairdresser, having bade Marcia behold herself in the polished silver mirror which she held up, retired with an expression of serene self-approbation upon her face, and gave way ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... the mocking birds included, in the extraordinary rapidity with which it is enunciated; once the song begins it goes on swiftly to the finish, harsh and melodious notes seeming to overlap and mingle, the sound forming, to speak in metaphor, a close intricate pattern of strongly-contrasted colours. Now the song invariably begins with the harsh notes—the sounds which, at other times, express alarm and other more or less painful emotions—and it strikes me as a probable explanation that when the bird in the singing ...
— Birds in Town and Village • W. H. Hudson
... the Church and the secular songs composed for music in this base Latin took a great variety of rhythmic forms. It is clear that vocal melody controlled their movement; and one fixed element in all these compositions was rhyme—rhyme often intricate and complex beyond hope of imitation in our language. Elision came to be disregarded; and even the accentual values, which may at first have formed a substitute for quantity, yielded to musical notation. The epithet ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... instead of two, like the north canoe; and, besides being capable of carrying twice as much cargo, are paddled by fourteen or sixteen men. Travellers from Canada to the interior generally change their canotes de maitre for north canoes at Fort William, before entering upon the intricate navigation through which we had already passed; while those going from the interior to Canada change the small for the large canoe. As we had few men, however, and the weather appeared settled, we determined to risk coasting round the northern shore of the ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... to this castle, said he, 'which is too long and intricate for me to relate. It is, however, contained in a manuscript in our library, of which I could, perhaps, procure you a sight. A brother of our order, a descendant of the noble house of Mazzini, collected and recorded the most striking incidents relating to ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... he was following started sharply up a steep acclivity, and there was no other choice left to him but still to continue in it, as the trees were closing in blindly intricate tangles about him, and the brushwood was becoming so thick that he could not have possibly forced a passage through it. His footing grew more difficult, for now, instead of soft pine-needles and leaves to tread upon, there were only loose stones, ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... tell the incidents of this extraordinary journey. At first it was easy enough. But when they left the land of the Incas and began to cross the lofty ranges of the Andes, they found themselves involved in intricate and difficult passes, swept by chilling winds. In this cold wilderness many of the natives found an icy grave, and during their passage a terrible earthquake shook the mountains, the earth in one place being rent asunder. Choking sulphurous vapors issued from ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... every available door in the chambers and passages, but not as quickly as she wished, since attention to her feet was needful in the ruinous state of steps and walls. Through those massive walls she could hear nothing distinctly, but she fancied voices and a cry, making her seek more intricate windings, nor did she dare to look out till she had gained a thick screen of bushy ivy at the corner of the turret, where a little door opened on the broad summit of ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... darksome, dusky, involved, ambiguous, deep, enigmatical, muddy, cloudy, dense, hidden, mysterious, complex, difficult, incomprehensible, profound, complicated, dim, indistinct, turbid, dark, doubtful, intricate, unintelligible. ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... ventured and had never come forth again. With some of the inhabitants, it was asserted, the attainment of an almost worthless trinket, or a single coin, or even a garment, was considered cheap as the price of murder; and so intricate were the streets, so honeycombed with secret hiding-places known only to the initiated, that attempts to enforce justice had almost invariably ended in failure. Naturally this squalid neighborhood materially swelled the yelling crowds who, in the name of patriotism, openly defied all law ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner
... back, would be found to go a devious and winding way, soon splitting up into half-a-dozen or more straggling branches that would lead to as many widely scattered regions. If he could mount to a point where he could enjoy a bird's-eye view of these and a hundred kindred trails, he would find an intricate criss-cross of streamlets and rivers of coffee forming a tangled pattern over the tropics and reaching out north and south to all civilized countries. This would be a picture of the coffee trade of ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... hardly knew whether he would rather dance with Nancy or stand at the open door and watch her as he had been doing earlier in the evening. He could not really see her now, although he was her partner, his mind was so occupied with the intricate figures, but he could feel her, in every fibre of his body, the touch of her light hand ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... around whom the threads of existence are weaving fabric more intricate than any woof or warp of the great mills goes confidingly to the old woman, who lifts her tenderly into her arms. With every word she speaks this aged creature draws her own picture. To these types no pen save Tolstoi's could do justice. Mine can do no more than display them ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... state of things which Molly thought was to endure for ever. Her work had been intricate up to this time, and had required a great deal of counting; so she had had no time to attend to her duties, one of which she always took to be to show herself to the world as an impartial stepmother. ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... readiness, Samoset and Squanto were dispatched with a courteous message to the king as the Pilgrims chose to translate the Indian term of sachem, inviting him to a conference, but the envoys, soon returning, brought an intricate greeting, from which Winslow the diplomatist at last evolved the meaning that Massasoit declined to trust himself among the white men without adequate hostages for his safety, and desired that one of the principal of the strangers should come ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... de Stael, Rousseau, the history of the Academy of Geneva, the literature of French-speaking Switzerland, and so on! And more than this, the production, such as it was, had been a production born of effort and difficulty; and the labor squandered on poetical forms, on metrical experiments and intricate problems of translation, as well as the occasional affectations of the prose style, might well have convinced the critical bystander that the mind of which these things were the offspring could have no real importance, no profitable ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... here, that the person who attempts what, for want of a better name, might be called pictorial gardening, is wise if he selects a rather simple pattern, especially at the outset of his career in this phase of garden-work. Intricate and elaborate designs call for more skill in their successful working out than the amateur is likely to be master of, and they demand a larger amount of time and labor than the average amateur florist will be likely to ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... during our ascent,—that danger was for our return; but I feared the intricate navigation of the river, though I did not fully know, till the actual experience, how dangerous it was. We passed without trouble far above the scene of our first fight,—the Battle of the Hundred Pines, as my officers ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... had found another pebble and was kicking it sombrely. He was beginning to perceive something of the intricate and unfathomable workings of the feminine mind. He had always looked on Elizabeth as an ordinary good fellow, a girl whose mind worked in a more or less understandable way. She was not one of those ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... both, from day to day, awaited breathlessly for tidings from Kilkenny, Dublin, London, Oxford, or Edinburgh, to learn what new forms the general contest was to take, in order to guide their own conduct by the shifting phases of that intricate diplomacy. ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... castle was hollowed into several intricate cloisters, and it was not easy for one under so much anxiety to find the door that opened into the cavern. When in that long labyrinth of darkness a gust of wind extinguished her lamp, words cannot paint the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... poor skill,—and if he died, some kindly comrade should carry it to Alice, and it should tell her what he had left unsaid,—and if he lived, he would take it to her himself, and it should serve him for the text of his story. That the carving of a design so intricate, on so minute a scale, must prove tedious argued in its favor; and putting off mourning weeds for his history, he took to this new love with a complacency that ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various
... can have no idea how much I am obliged to you for the Letter you sent me,’ writes a friend to a lady; ‘it is so very ingenious, and so nicely written. It narrates without narrating. It clears up the most intricate matters possible; its raillery is exquisite; it enlightens those who know little of the subject, and imparts double delight to those who understand it. It is an admirable apology; and if they would take it, a delicate and innocent ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... with that past again, Bulstrode had the same pleas—indeed, the years had been perpetually spinning them into intricate thickness, like masses of spider-web, padding the moral sensibility; nay, as age made egoism more eager but less enjoying, his soul had become more saturated with the belief that he did everything for God's sake, being indifferent to it for his own. And yet—if he could be back in that ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me—while the carvings ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... surrounded by a lofty mud wall, which converts the whole into a kind of citadel. The interior is subdivided into different courts. At the first place of entrance I observed a man standing with a musket on his shoulder; and I found the way to the presence very intricate, leading through many passages, with sentinels placed at the different doors. When we came to the entrance of the court in which the king resides, both my guide and interpreter, according to custom, took off their sandals; and the former pronounced the king's name aloud, repeating ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... now, and slowly, almost insensibly, the glamour of play began to steal over Sylvia Bailey's senses. She began to understand the at once very simple and, to the uninitiated, intricate game of Baccarat—to long, as Anna Wolsky longed, for the fateful nine, eight, five, and four to be ...
— The Chink in the Armour • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... As for the young scraps, why—supposing they are his-that won't make a bit of difference; they are property for all that, subject to legal restraints. Your claim will be valid against it. You may have to play nicely over some intricate legal points. But, remember, nigger law is wonderfully elastic; it requires superhuman wisdom to unravel its social and political intricacies, and when I view it through the horoscope of an indefinite ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... influential matrimonial agent lacking in no Jewish community, is painted true to life. Spiteful, cunning, witty, even learned, he excels in the art of bringing together the eligibles of the two sexes and unravelling intricate situations. ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... matter of classification into "arches," "loops," "whorls," and "composites." It is intricate to describe, but simple to carry out. To the uninitiated it inevitably suggests the old problem "think ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... is wont to strike with its rays, to be then reflected on the silent and sleeping valleys. The men who hold to-day the pen or draughting pencil in the university are the men who will handle the levers of the world's intricate machinery. There they grapple with the various problems of the scientifical, economic and political world and their views, later on, will gradually influence the whole mental attitude of the masses, who, in their daily life, are confronted with ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... belief we need not brood O'er intricate isms and modes of faith— For this embodies the highest goal For the life we are ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the rest of her rooms, and the dressing-rooms, bath, and other similar conveniences, were in that exquisite French taste, which can only be equalled by imitation. The chamber of the King looked upon the court, and was connected with that of the Queen, by a winding and intricate communication of some length. The door that entered the apartments of the latter opened into a dressing-room, and both this door and that which communicated with the bed-room form a part of the regular wall, being tapestried as such, so as not to be immediately seen,—a style of finish ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Charles would not allow him to be captured in London, it is most improbable that he would have permitted the unjust capital sentence to be carried out. The escape was probably collusive, and the sole result of these intricate iniquities was to create for the Government an enemy who would have been dangerous if he had been trusted by the extreme Presbyterians. In England no less than in Scotland the supreme and odious injustice of Argyll's trial excited general indignation. ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... thousands of intricate things that could go wrong on a spaceship, particularly a new one making its maiden voyage, had gone wrong. The officers were checking their catalogues and their various areas of watch meticulously—and not because their own lives were at stake. In spaceflight, your own life ...
— A Place in the Sun • C.H. Thames
... happened to lonely travellers lost in the bush. But I walked on to my destination without hesitation or mistake, showing there, for the first time, some of that faculty to absorb and make my own the imaged topography of a chart, which in later years was to help me in regions of intricate navigation to keep the ships entrusted to me off the ground. The place I was bound to was not easy to find. It was one of those courts hidden away from the charted and navigable streets, lost among the thick growth of houses like a dark pool in the depths ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... had no intention of "taking chances," or "monkeying with fate," as he tersely expressed it. Every scheme known to politicians must be worked, and none knew the intricate game better than Hopkins. This was why he held several long conferences with his friend Marshall, the manager at the mill. And this was why Kenneth and Beth discovered him conversing with the young woman in the buggy. Mr. Hopkins ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work • Edith Van Dyne
... school were rather intricate. The Guinea-pigs were not exactly the enemies of the Tadpoles, but the rivals. They were always jangling among themselves, it was true; and when Stephen, for the second time in one week, had hit Bramble ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... disclosed. His eyes flash anew; he pulls handfuls of grass and mops the surface clean, finally rubbing it with his handkerchief. Grasping the lantern from my hand he holds it close to the ground, when the rays reveal a complete mosaic—a pavement of minute tesserae of many colours, of intricate pattern, a work of much art, of much time, and of much industry. He exclaims in a shout that he knew it always—that it is not a Celtic stronghold exclusively, but also a Roman; the former people having probably contributed little more than the original framework which the latter ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... an important city like Puebla should not have been passed with contempt; it may be natural that the direct road to it should have been taken; but it could have been passed, its evacuation insured and possession acquired without danger of encountering the enemy in intricate mountain defiles. In this same way the City of Mexico could have been approached without any danger of opposition, except in ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... being brought in to receive the name of Tosca, which she did with less distaste than most, considering how thorough was his sprinkling. The Baptistery is rich in colour both without and within. The floor alone is a marvel of intricate inlaying, including the signs of the zodiac and a gnomic sentence which reads the same backwards and forwards—"En gire torte sol ciclos et roterigne". On this very pavement Dante, who called the ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... most picturesque and finest rivers I was ever in. Occasionally the right lines of stockades presented themselves, but we found nobody in them, and passed by them in peace. But the river now became more intricate, and the pilots, as usual, knew nothing about it. It was, however, of little consequence; the river was deep even at its banks, over which the forest trees threw their boughs in wild luxuriance. The wind was now down the river, and we were two or three days before we arrived at Bassein, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... which have been given under the head of each species are so numerous and so intricate, that it is necessary to tabulate the results. In Table 7/A, the number of plants of each kind which were raised from a cross between two individuals of the same stock and from self-fertilised seeds, together with their mean ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... one sewed them together with pieces of black satin between each two, and there was an antimacassar of severe but rich beauty. Denah explained all this as she set Mevrouw to work on the pattern; it was very intricate, quite exciting, because it was so difficult; the more excited the old lady became the more mistakes she made, but it did not matter; Denah was patience itself, and did not seem to mind how much time she gave. She came ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... river. Nanty Ewart betook himself to steering the brig, and the very touch of the helm seemed to dispel the remaining influence of the liquor which he had drunk, since, through a troublesome and intricate channel, he was able to direct the course of his little vessel with the most ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... light for the reconnoitring party to see their way as they steered through the intricate passages to the east of the large islands. With muffled oars and in dead silence they pulled on till they reached the island they wished to examine; and as they shoved the boat's bow into the mud, a loud rustling was heard in the brushwood, ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... embrace what is, perhaps, the most intricate as well as most ingenious and interesting portion of the science of ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey |
