"Sensitive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... news has been communicated. On the contrary, should it be the cause of sorrow or grief for the listener, he will use—should he have occasion to reply—a darker quality of voice (voix sombre). Such phenomena are physiological. The vocal organs are the most sensitive of any in the human economy: they betray at once the mental condition of the individual. Joy is a great tonic, and acts on the vocal cords and mucous membrane as does an astringent; a brilliant and clear quality ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... after, to say that the king had sent him to show the party where to camp: and he led the way to a pleasant little grove, where there was a pool of water, and ample grass for the cattle; and after the new arrivals were settled down—far too near the "naygurs" to satisfy Dinny's sensitive nature, a return visit was paid to the king, who readily gave his permission for the party to hunt when and where they pleased ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... ever excuse or forgive his waywardness. Although younger, you are in some respects, the strongest; and I want your promise that you will always be patient and tender with him, and that you will shield him from evil, as I have tried to do. His conscience of course, is not sensitive like yours—because you know, a boy's moral nature is totally different from a girl's; and like most of his sex, Bertie has no religious instincts bending him always in the right direction. Women generally have to supply ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... Norris, was heavily built and feebly vitalised, sensitive as a musician, dull as a sheep, and conscientious as a dog. He took his position with seriousness, even with pomp; the long rooms, the silent servants, seemed in his eyes like the observances of some religion of which he was the mortal god. He had the stupid man's intolerance of stupidity ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... Gooch! We all owe much to her staunch fidelity, strong discipline, and unselfish devotion, but nature had not fitted her to deal with a timid, sensitive child, of highly nervous temperament. Indeed, persons of far more insight might have been perplexed by the fact that Clarence was exemplary at church and prayers, family and private,—whenever Griff would let him, that is to say,—and would add ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than a man, but this is due to her sensitive moral nature. With the conviction that she is past redemption, doors closed, no one loving her, people, yes, her own sex, ostracizing her—she becomes hopeless, desperate, reckless. Can you blame her? Again, let me recall to your mind, Jesus Himself forgave and renewed repentant ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... ought to keep on at school, even if it was only Miller's Notch. And I've cleaned Little-Dad's pipes. And I've promised Bigboy and Pepperpot and Dormouse that they may all sleep on my bed to-night. I'm afraid Pepperpot—he's so sensitive—is going to miss me dreadfully!" Jerry tried to frown away the thought; she did not want it to intrude upon ...
— Highacres • Jane Abbott
... Ahpilus not only mentally alienated from his people but also physically helpless, a kindly feeling came to the party for their old friend thus reduced to a condition doubly lamentable, and very pitiable to persons so refined and sensitive as were the Hili-lites. There was some discussion on the subject of Ahpilus's future; and then Peters said that he could easily carry the injured man down the mountain-side. This he at once began to ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... functions equally well. But in volvox division of labor and differentiation of structure have taken place. Certain cells have become purely reproductive, while the rest gather nutriment for these, but are at the same time sensitive and locomotive, excretory and respiratory. The first function to have cells specially devoted to it is the reproductive; this is a function absolutely necessary for the maintenance of the species. For the nutritive ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... she reported gleefully to Leonora and Patricia. "Nobody'll ever hear that song again! I was sure of it when I saw the word in the dictionary, for Vance Alden is so sensitive about a mistake. It is funny! Ilga—why, she'd never know whether it was good rhyme or metre or anything! But Vance didn't think of that. Now promise, both of you, that you won't ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... of their souls? I shall say that in Europe the minds are more cultivated, but in Mexico the hearts are more amiable. Here they are not only sentimental, but tender; not only soft, but virtuous; the body of a child is not more sensitive, (no es mas sensible el cuerpo de un nio), nor a rose-bud softer. I have seen souls as beautiful as the borders of the rainbow, and purer than the drops of dew. Their passions are seldom tempestuous, and even ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... circumstanced. She was a bed-ridden invalid, but she thrilled, like Achilles, at the first gleam and clangor of arms. The only thing that Sophie feared, and from which she shrank, was Sin. All else attracted her in proportion as it was powerful, stirring, or awe-inspiring. Delicate, sensitive, and apparently meek and timid as was her nature, her heart was firm as a Roman general's, and her soul as large and sympathetic as an Apostle's. Did the occasion offer, this pale minister's daughter was capable ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... the sensitive lad sitting there became clouded over with disappointment. He had brought this old friend of his with some vague hope that he might become a convert, or at least be sufficiently interested to make inquiries; but Brand sat silent, with ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... must have been an ugly room in the old days when its walls were probably white, and the great mahogany doors were spots of colour in prevailing spaces of blankness. Now, however, any one at all learned in art, or sensitive to beauty, would pronounce it a beautiful room. The way in which the ceiling with its heavy centre-piece and plaster cornice is treated is especially interesting. The whole of this is covered with an ochre-coloured bronze, while the walls and door-casings are painted a dark indigo, which includes ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... ruthless litigation which in New England corresponds to the vendettas of Kentucky and how they are reconciled eventually by sentiment in one guise or another; how a young girl—there are no Tom Joneses and few Hamlets in this womanly universe—grows up bright and sensitive as a flower and suffers from the hard, stiff frame of pious poverty; how a superb heroism springs out of a narrow life, expressing itself in some act of pitiful surrender and veiling the deed under an ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... he did not conceive that he should do his duty in witholding direction from his niece in a momentous crisis of this kind. Mrs. Davilow ventured a hesitating opinion that perhaps it would be safer to say nothing—Gwendolen was so sensitive (she did not like to say willful). But the rector's was a firm mind, grasping its first judgments tenaciously and acting on them promptly, whence counter-judgments were no more for him than shadows fleeting across the solid ground to which he ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... have at least one sweet-heart, whose feelings we shall address: —yes, I have a leaning—call it, if you will, a weakness—for the housemaid. Not that I would be understood to despise the nurse. For the child is a very interesting feature: I have long since marked out the child as the sensitive point in society.' He wagged his head, with a wise, pensive smile. 'And talking, sir, of children and of the perils of our trade, let me now narrate to you a little incident of an explosive bomb, that fell out some weeks ago under my own observation. ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... old man!" Then he ceased talking, for he had taken the girth strap between his teeth, and was cinching up the big Black with the firm pull of a grizzly. Diablo squirmed under the torture of the tightening web on his sensitive skin, and crouched as though he ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... jocular mask—one might have counted him the most serene and careless of vagrants, and in his words only the ordinary voice of banter spoke to the Governor. A good woman, it may well be, would have guessed before this the sensitive soul in the blundering body, but Barker saw just the familiar, whimsical, happy-go-lucky McLean of old days, and so he went gayly and innocently on, treading upon holy ground. "I've got it!" he exclaimed; "give your ...
— Lin McLean • Owen Wister
... guilty. To his nimble fancy it was almost as if her very person had invaded their sanctuary, in her neat hard coat and skirt and her neat hard summer hat with its one fierce wing, that, disdaining the tenderness of curves, seemed to stab the air, as her eyes so often seemed to stab Roy's hyper-sensitive brain. ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... one of the ablest advisers on whom she could rely, forwarded to her an earnest exhortation to induce her husband to reject it. He implored her "to have nothing to do with traitors." Using the argument which, to one so sensitive for her honor as Marie Antoinette, was well calculated to exert an almost irresistible influence over her mind, he declared that "her resolution at this most critical moment was to decide whether her glory was to be maintained, and her distresses to cease, or whether" (and he ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... at your distressing the poor child like that to-night; you might have known she would be sensitive, with Mike only gone to-day! You could ...
— Young Lives • Richard Le Gallienne
... one little phrase about Wayne's hands to change her daughter's love into repugnance,—that sentence had been only the first drop in a distillation that would do its poisonous work gradually,—but she had supposed that Mathilde would be too sensitive to expose Pete to further criticism. Indeed, there seemed something obtuse, if not actually indelicate, in being willing to create a situation in which every one was bound to suffer. Obtuseness was not a defect with which Adelaide had ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... exercise of federal government, state government, and local government, in your own town or city. Of which government do you observe the most signs? Of which do you observe the fewest signs? Of which government do the officers seem most sensitive to local opinion? ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... of the two technically, in colour as well as in composition. It is in danger of losing one's sympathy by a badly selected frame. Near it hangs a trifolium of virgins, of very anaemic colour. The drawing, however, is so very sensitive in this canvas that it makes good for the unconvincing anaemic ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... fingers into hers and bent over the wound. He noted two things, now: what strong hands she had, shapely, with sensitive fingers ignorant of rings; how richly alive and warmly colored her hair was, full ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... scenes yet fairer in the land of imagination and memory. Stoddard was then, as always, a handsome man, strong and stanch, black-haired and black-bearded, with strong eyes that could look both fierce and tender. He was masculine, sensitive, frank, and humorous; his chuckle had infinite merriment in it; but, as his mood shifted, there might be tears in his eyes the next moment. He was at that time little more than five-and-twenty years old, and he looked hardly that; he was a New England country youth of genius. Nature had kindled ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... tempted to gather their fresh petals, which were adorned with delicate tentacles, some newly in bloom, others barely opened, while nimble fish with fluttering fins brushed past them like flocks of birds. But if my hands came near the moving flowers of these sensitive, lively creatures, an alarm would instantly sound throughout the colony. The white petals retracted into their red sheaths, the flowers vanished before my eyes, and the bush changed into a chunk ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... years ago, when I printed my book on labor, one of my kindest critics congratulated the public that of my nine lectures, I had published only these. He thought it was useless to contend for more book-learning for women, and the subject of Civil Rights still disgusted his sensitive ear. The common sense of the book on labor ought to have shown him how I should treat the subject of education. He could not understand how the woman who gets an education which does not make her a "bread-winner," is essentially defrauded, nor how a woman well paid for her labor ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of delicate constitution, not addicted to the active sports or any of the more vigorous habits of boys of his age. His only companions were a few intimate friends, and, thus secluded, his character naturally took a sensitive, meditative cast, and his growing disrelish for severer tasks was confirmed. As has been intimated, he entered as a pupil at Athens; but as the course of instruction in that institution was not in harmony with his tastes, he soon withdrew, applying himself afterwards to the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... was exactly thirty-five years and a half. He was a short, compact figure, and a little inclined to a localised embonpoint. His face was not unpleasing; the features fine, but a trifle too pointed about the nose to be classically perfect. The corners of his sensitive mouth were depressed. His eyes were ruddy brown and troubled, and the left one was round with more of wonder in it than its fellow. His complexion was dull and yellowish. That, as I have explained, on account of those civil disturbances. He was, in the technical ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... often to go with her to the village, bareheaded, under an umbrella. And in the evening she would hold forth about the Zemstvo and schools. She was very handsome, subtle, correct, and her lips were thin and sensitive, and whenever a serious conversation started she would ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... is so near that the reflection of her child's sentiments gets into her mind, but very often with such prismatic changes, and oblique catchings of the light, that even sympathy goes wrong. Mrs. Warrender thus caught from Chatty the representation of an agitated soul in which there was all the sensitive shame of a love that is given unsought, mingled with a tender indignation against the offender who perhaps had never meant—But the mother on this point took a different view, and there rose up in her mind on the moment, a hundred cheerful, hopeful plans to bring him back ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... he and Marie met, was about thirty-five years old and an accomplished and confirmed social rebel. He had worked for many years at his trade, and was an expert tanner. But, deeply sensitive to the injustice of organised society, he had quit work and had become what he called an anarchist. His character was at that time quite formed, while the young girl's was not. It was he who was to be the ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... suitors were legion, and his own poverty-stricken self? Far from seeking to attract her attention, he always got out of her sight as quickly as possible, lest his ill-fitting, shabby garments and miserable old pony should excite a laugh at his expense; for he was very sensitive, this poor young nobleman, and could not have borne the least approach to ridicule from the fair object of his secret and passionate admiration. He had tried his utmost to stifle the ardent emotions that filled his heart whenever his ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... wonderful blue eyes—eyes that danced and scintillated with joyous good humor—eyes so captivating that few ever looked beyond them or noted the plain face they glorified. But the critic admitted that the face was charmingly expressive, the sweet and sensitive mouth always in sympathy with the twinkling, candid eyes. Life and energy radiated from her small person, which Miss Von Taer grudgingly conceded to possess unusual fascination. Here was a creature quite imperfect in detail, yet destined to allure and enchant whomsoever she might meet. All this ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society • Edith Van Dyne
... reckon I'm a heap too sensitive about my Southern birth; but only think, Miss POTTS, what I've had to go through since I've been amongst you Yankees! Fancy what it is to be suspected of a murder, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2., No. 32, November 5, 1870 • Various
... lightness upon us. Without one entangling alliance, our friendship is prized by every nation, and the rights of our citizens are everywhere respected, because they are known to be guarded by a united, sensitive, and watchful people. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... events of August and September the priest at Olmeta, and Colonel Gilbert at Bastia, watched each, in his individual way, the effect of the news upon a very sensitive populace. The abbe stood on the high-road one night within a stone's throw of Perucca, and, looking down into the great valley, watched the flickering flames consume all that remained of the old Chateau de Vasselot. Colonel Gilbert, in his little rooms in the bastion at Bastia, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... cloud in the blueness of its sky. And before me ran this long wide path, invitingly, with weedless beds on either side, rich with untended flowers, and these two great panthers. I put my little hands fearlessly on their soft fur, and caressed their round ears and the sensitive corners under their ears, and played with them, and it was as though they welcomed me home. There was a keen sense of home-coming in my mind, and when presently a tall, fair girl appeared in the pathway and came to meet me, smiling, and said 'Well?' to me, and lifted ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... considers, what appertains to Man. He discourses first, of Digestion, of the Circulation of the Bloud, and of the Use of the principal parts of the Humane Body. Next, he treats of the Senses, External and Internal; of all the Motions of the Body, both Natural and Voluntary, of the sensitive Appetite, and the Passions; Thence he proceeds to the Temperaments, Habits, Instinct, Sleep, Sickness, &c. Lastly, passing to the Rational Soul, he endeavours to demonstrate the Immortality thereof, ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... morning light is more prosaic than the dim illumination of their great tapestried drawing-room; and besides, sitting next to her, she did not have occasion to raise her voice in speaking, and I was not sensible what a slender voice she has. It is marvellous to me how so extraordinary, so acute, so sensitive a creature can impress us, as she does, with the certainty of her benevolence. It seems to me there were a million chances to one that she would have been a miracle ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... on awaking from a brief period of stupor and finding himself fast bound, would be difficult to describe. There can be no greater agony to a brave and sensitive man than to find himself helpless for revenge after having undergone ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... effect, if the sole object of the scientist be to perform some astonishing piece of work for the purpose of attracting attention or to secure a well-salaried position, or even if he be so wedded to his specialty as to fail to be sensitive to the relations of it to the body of truth in general. And the same holds good of the narrow-minded reformer, of whom Emerson has said that his virtue so painfully resembles vice; the man who puts a moral idol in the place of the moral ideal, who erects into the object toward which all his enthusiasm ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... national disaffection, for the double purpose of mortally wounding his ancient enemy, and of giving, as a boon to its oppressed inhabitants, that liberty of which he talks so much and knows so little. Doubtless the sufferings of this patient people have, before now, drawn tears from the sensitive eyes of "the brother of the sun;" and the "sagacious and enlightened Lin" has already suggested to his celestial master the propriety of dispatching some of his invincible war-junks to effect the liberation of the degraded slaves of the "red and blue devils" who have so cruelly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... that the giving of charity, or a 'helping hand' to the sick or needy, is more of a direct personal matter. The givers strive to be wise and tactful, so that our people may not lose their self-respect; for, as a rule, they are naturally very sensitive, and if self-respect is lost some are encouraged ...
— Pictures of Jewish Home-Life Fifty Years Ago • Hannah Trager
... life? towards whom, in vain, Are your fond eyes and yearning hearts upraised; The young, the loved, the honoured, and the praised? Come hither;—look upon the faded cheek Of that still woman, who with eyelids meek Veils her most mournful eyes;—upon her brow Sometimes the sensitive blood will faintly glow, When reckless hands her heart-wounds roughly tear, But patience oftener sits palely there. Beauty has left her—hope and joy have long Fled from her heart, yet she is young, is young; Has many years, as human tongues would tell, Upon ...
— Poems • Frances Anne Butler
... I've been to blame—but it's too late for that now. She's romantic, of course—what you'd call sentimental. I dare say I've played on her feelings—she saw I was lonely. She has a side that you've never suspected—a tender, sensitive side—she has ideals.... Well, do you realise what it would mean, with a girl like that? No one knows her as I do. I'm quite startled sometimes, to find how fond she is of me. Oh, have some sympathy! It's difficult, I know—it's terribly difficult. But she ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... can occur any time, but usually November to March; occasional tornadoes; low level of some of the islands make them very sensitive to ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... been touched on a point where I am very sensitive," he informed the young man. "I do not condone the policies of the Consolidated in regard to their control of franchises. Their system of operation has introduced a bad element into our finance and politics. I would be sorry to be ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... placed his sensitive ear to the tree, detected a rich, harmonious sound issuing from it. This surprising thing was tested and enjoyed by each scholar in turn, and great was the gladness and astonishment of all. Professor Woodlouse was requested to add to and extend the tree's name so as to make ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... their physical natures, knew very well that such a story, if it were not entirely discredited, would be at any rate doubted and caviled at. The general opinion would be that there was some truth in it, but not much. He was a sensitive man, disliking and dreading ridicule, and he came to the conclusion that no possible good could result from his publishing the story. He did not know the men—the street, the house, and the locality were alike unknown to him. When speech could ...
— A Bachelor's Dream • Mrs. Hungerford
... before men with rare and solemn loveliness. His classical attainments were very high; and, after the usual preliminary studies, he had been admitted Writer to the Signet. One distinguishing quality of his character was his sensitive truthfulness. In a moment would the shadow flit across his brow, if any incident were related wherein there was the slightest exaggeration; or even when nothing but truth was spoken, if only the deliverer seemed to take up a false or exaggerated view. He must not merely speak the ...
— The Biography of Robert Murray M'Cheyne • Andrew A. Bonar
... in want of human property,—planters in want of a few prime people,—brokers who have large transactions in such articles,—and factors who, being rather sensitive of their dignity, give to others the negotiation of their business,—are assembled in and around the mart, a covered shed, somewhat resembling those used by railroad companies for the storing of ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... reflected. There were a hundred accommodating dubious interiors between Shaftesbury Avenue and Leicester Square. He understood; he neither accused nor pardoned; but he was utterly revolted, and wounded not merely in his soul but in the most sensitive part of his soul—his pride. He called himself by the worst epithet of opprobrium: Simpleton! The bold and sudden stroke had now become the fatuous caprice of a damned fool. Had he, at his age, been capable of overlooking the ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... flew to Nancy's. She loved to see the admiring affection which she had been finding there. But Nancy's eyes were cold and unseeing. Judith, like most clever little girls, was extremely sensitive to public opinion, and she almost dropped her dumb-bells in an agony of shame and humiliation as she saw the coldness of Nancy's eyes faithfully repeated in all the eyes about her. Alas, poor Judith! "Teacher's pet," ...
— Judy of York Hill • Ethel Hume Patterson Bennett
... Edwin Drood, who had gone with them as far as the door of the seminary, were walking back together. Mr. Crisparkle had told Neville of Drood's betrothal to Rosebud, and Neville now spoke of it. Drood, who had felt all along that he and Rosebud did not get along well together and who was sensitive on the subject, was unjustly angry that the other should so soon know what he considered his own private affair. He answered in a surly way and, as both were quick-tempered, they soon came ...
— Tales from Dickens • Charles Dickens and Hallie Erminie Rives
... chemist. "But it might be that the apricots had brought on the syncope. Some natures are so sensitive to certain smells; and it would even be a very fine question to study both in its pathological and physiological relation. The priests know the importance of it, they who have introduced aromatics ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... of the two, for Drury was a delicate boy, too sensitive for the approval of his Spartan fellows. They made fun of his gentleness. He hated to wreathe a fishing-worm on a hook! He loathed to wrench a hook from a fish's gullet! The nearest he had ever come ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... the greater the sorrow of the loving heart when its love is spurned. The intenser the yearning for companionship, the sharper the pang when it is repulsed. The more one longs to bless, the more one suffers when his blessings are flung off. Jesus was the most sensitive, the most sympathetic, the most loving soul that ever dwelt in flesh. He saw, as none other has ever seen, man's miseries. He experienced, as none else has ever experienced, man's ingratitude, and, therefore, though God, even His God, 'anointed Him with the oil of gladness ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... moonlight upon it, stiffened into a mask-like reticence at this touching upon the sensitive topic which threatened his identification as a ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... old clothes. It was our first review, and I dare say we did tolerably; but of course it seemed to me that the men never appeared so ill before,—just as one always thinks a party at one's own house a failure, even if the guests seem to enjoy it, because one is so keenly sensitive to every little thing that goes wrong. After review and drill, General Hunter made the men a little speech, at my request, and told them that he wished there were fifty thousand of them. General Saxton spoke to them afterwards, and said that fifty thousand muskets were on their way for colored ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... they had chosen him for the transdimensional exploration. They had figured the best applicant for the job would be one with an intellect highly attuned to the vibrations of these others, known dimly through the warp-view, one extremely sensitive and with a great capacity for appreciation. ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson
... his head in his cell fantastic: in front of his head in his cell of fantasy. "The division of the brain into cells, according to the different sensitive faculties," says Mr Wright, "is very ancient, and is found depicted in mediaeval manuscripts." In a manuscript in the Harleian Library, it is stated, "Certum est in prora cerebri esse fantasiam, in medio rationem discretionis, in puppi memoriam" (it is certain that in ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... was then a candidate for the Senate against Mr. Sumner. He was sensitive, no doubt, and he may have felt that it was his duty to present Mr. Rantoul's credentials without delay. That was the proper course, probably, and the question whether his term in the Senate was continued a few days was of no public ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... stake with his sensitive upper lip he discovered it to be firm as a rock. Next he backed away and wrenched tentatively at the halter until convinced that the throat strap was thoroughly sound. His last effort must have been an ...
— Horses Nine - Stories of Harness and Saddle • Sewell Ford
... as he sat there, gaze bent upon the typewritten pages, were those of any other professional man. So it would have seemed to the casual observer. But perhaps there was a quality in the atmosphere of the office which would have told a more sensitive visitor that it was the apartment of no ordinary man of business. Whilst there were filing cabinets and bookshelves laden with works of reference, many of them legal, a large and handsome Burmese ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... intoxication of Lethe, and drenched with the waves of forgetfulness and confusion, so that the spirit comes into captivity to the body, and is put into the condition of growth; but little by little, it goes on digesting, so as to become fitted for the action of the sensitive faculty, until, through the rational and discursive faculty, it comes to a purer intellectual one, so that it can present itself to the mind, without feeling itself befogged by the exhalations of that humour, which, through the exercise of contemplation, ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... no property whereon to levy." Shortly after this, John Shakespeare is shorn of the last shred of his civic honours, being deprived of his office of alderman for non-attendance at the council meetings. In this condition of things we may realise the feelings of an imaginative and sensitive youth of his son's calibre; how keenly he would feel the helplessness and the reproach of his position, especially if—as was no doubt the case—it was augmented by the looks of askance and wagging of heads of the sleek and thrifty wise-ones ...
— Shakespeare's Lost Years in London, 1586-1592 • Arthur Acheson
... usually kept Mrs. Burton on tenterhooks, she was no less uneasy on his account when they went into society. He was so apt to call things by their right names. Thus on one occasion when the conversation ran upon a certain lady who was known to be unfaithful to her husband, he inexpressibly shocked a sensitive company by referring to her as "an adulteress." In this trait, as in many others, his famous son ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... his brother Arthur—Gilbert a Beckett joined the salaried Staff, and three years later he was appointed to the Table. He had a very quaint humour and a wonderfully quick and startling sense of the incongruous. He was sadly hampered by his affliction, but he was an accomplished, high-principled, sensitive fellow, of whom one of his companions declared that "he was the purest-minded man I ever knew." Under more favourable conditions of health he would probably have made a greater mark; but as it was, he did good work. He was a happy parodist, and ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... meaning to her; to be sweeter and cleaner, good in itself, a thing to rejoice in. The very air she breathed seemed charged with the indistinguishable odours of growing things, as it might strike the unspoiled, sensitive nostrils of a child. She felt a ...
— Desert Conquest - or, Precious Waters • A. M. Chisholm
... Paul, in his visits to the house, observed with tremor, the subtle changes wrought in her. Catching at the straw of her negative welcome, he went to see Liz whenever he could find a tangible excuse. He had a sensitive dread of intruding even upon the poor privacy of the "lower orders," and he could rarely bring himself to the point of taking them by storm as a mere matter of ecclesiastical routine. But the oftener he saw Joan Lowrie, the more heavily she lay upon his mind. Every day his conscience ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... confused. But he is real beyond words in his reproduction of the way in which such dreadful things must stamp themselves upon the mind. They are isolated, concentrated, distorted: the multiplicity of horrors making the perceiving mind more sensitive, morbid as from opium eating, and thus making the single impression, which excludes all the rest, more vivid and tremendous than, without that unconsciously perceived rest, it could possibly be. Nay, more, these scenes are not merely rather such as they were ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... who have unfortunately a sensitive palate, and have been accustomed to a luxurious variety of savoury sauces, and highly seasoned viands; those who, from the infirmity of age, are become incapable of correcting habits created by absurd indulgence in youth, are entitled ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... good to him, knew how the sensitive grey nostrils quivered wide, drinking deep draughts of cool moist air. The grasses were rested; the trees seemed enamoured of the deep shadows of night. The river gurgled musically from the jagged rocks of her ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... prominent object in the annals of his country. On the 19th of April his majesty prorogued parliament, and in the next number of the "North Briton," the celebrated 45th, Wilkes accused the monarch of uttering a direct falsehood in his speech on that occasion. Whether Grenville was more sensitive than his predecessor had shown himself, or whether Bute instigated him to take notice of this attack, in order to revenge himself upon Wilkes, is not clear, but it is certain that on the 26th a general warrant was issued from the secretary of state's ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... congestion of the brain, that an article which is capable of producing a blister upon the external covering of the body, is quite as capable of producing similar effects when applied to the more sensitive tissues within the body. The irritating effects of these substances upon the stomach are not readily recognized, simply because the stomach is supplied with very few nerves of sensation. That condiments induce an ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... the portrait is wonderful. This is a new Lincoln, and far more attractive, in a sense, than anything the public has possessed. This is the portrait of a remarkably handsome man.... The head is magnificent, the eyes deep and generous, the mouth sensitive, the whole expression something delicate, tender, pathetic, poetic. This was the young man with whom the phantoms of romance dallied, the young man who recited poems and was fanciful and speculative, and in love and despair, but upon whose brow ...
— McClure's Magazine, Volume VI, No. 3. February 1896 • Various
... answer. He was in hopes to have gotten in as he had stolen out, undiscovered; for he determined not to agitate her too kind mind by the history of his loss. He would not allow her to know anything of his embarrassments, from a sentiment of justice, as well as from that sensitive pride which all his sufferings and philosophy could not ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... name" was Rothsay Lass. She was a collie—daintily fragile of build, sensitive of nostril, furrily tawny of coat. Her ancestry was as flawless as any ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune
... an exaggerated growth—of the man she had once known. The same soft brown hair, only thicker and rougher, one drooping wave looking tangled and unkempt—the dreamy eyes with the latent sneer in them dreamier than ever and yet the sneer more visible, the thin sensitive nose thinner, the satisfied mouth more satisfied and conscious, the weak chin fatally weaker. And he was married, too! Mdme. Dubois—that must be his wife! How strange it was! Cecilia's brain was in a frightful state ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... however, in the second case, by Sainte-Beuve, whose lukewarmness Edmond—a "Sensitive Plant" in this way if hardly in ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... of those deep and clinging natures which hold hard by the heart of bygone times; but also he is of a nature so deep and sensitive that the spiritual endeavor of the period must needs utter itself in him. "ART THOU SURE?"—the voice went sounding keenly, terribly, through the profound of his soul. And to this his spirit, not without struggle and agony, but at length clearly, made the faithful Hebrew ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... sunk, the features prominent, bony, and rigid. The fearful clay-colour of death was over all. But the eyes were open and sensitive, though the films of the grave were setting ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... Her father's life was a melancholy one, and it became her duty as his biographer to break a silence on painful subjects about which he had preferred to say nothing. His reticence was a manly reticence; though a highly sensitive mortal, he preferred to put up with calumny rather than lay bare family sorrows and shame. His daughter, though compelled to break this silence, has done so in a manner full of dignity and feeling. The ruffians who in times past slandered the moral ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... hopefulness for the evanescence of the Irish. Both conquerors and conquered were heathen, and both had the institutions which seem to us to give an inhumanity to heathenism: the triumph, the slave-market, the lack of all the sensitive nationalism of modern history. But the Roman Empire did not destroy nations; if anything, it created them. Britons were not originally proud of being Britons; but they were proud of being Romans. The ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... any shock—had come the vocation to the priesthood, and so tenderly had the tendrils that attached him to a man's life in the world been loosened, that the process hardly seemed to have hurt any of the sensitive sympathies and interests he had always enjoyed. Even in the matter of giving up great possessions, all had come so gradually as to seem ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... speaks against people. I'll tell you the simple truth, Dion. As I helped to defend Mrs. Clarke, and as we won and she was proved to be an innocent woman, and as I believe in her and admire her very much, I'm sensitive for her. Perhaps ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... offend him for the world," McLaughlin went on. "He's as sensitive as a cat's tail. I would n't even dare to go into that cage of his." McLaughlin paused, "Yet we've got to do something. We can't wait till summer when he goes on his vacation. All kinds of things might happen before then. Time and Wall Street ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... resolved that he would talk this over with Carol when the others were not present, for he knew from her face and her voice that she was really sensitive on the subject. And he knew, too, that it is difficult to explain to the very young that the finest of ideas are not applicable to all cases by all people. But it happened that he was spared the necessity of dealing with Carol privately, for matters ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... When you met him, he had some "good story" or some story of goodness to tell—for both came alike to him, and his humour was as unfailing as his kindness. There was in his face a singular charm, blended, as it were, of the expressions of mirth and of patience. Being most sensitive to pain, as well as to pleasure, he was an exception to that rule of Rochefoucauld's—"nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... him to neglect his crumpet, to look up at her. He saw at once that she wore the air of a sensitive and beautifully mannered elderly lady who was afraid she had made a mistake and ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... swayed I grasped her by the arm and held her up until her husband relieved me of her weight. A Frenchwoman had a baby at her breast. It cried with an unceasing wail. Other babies were crying; and young girls, with sensitive nerves, were exasperated by this wailing misery and the sickening smell which pervaded this ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... cropped brown hair had the slightest touch of gray. The spacious forehead, deep-set gray eyes, and firm chin, scarcely concealed by a light beard, marked the thoughtful man of affairs. His face indeed might have seemed austere, but for a sensitive mouth, which suggested a reserve of humour and a capacity for deep feeling. A man of well-balanced character, one would have said, not apt to undertake anything lightly, but sure to go far in whatever he took in hand; ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... may have refused from superstitious motives. Muslims are peculiarly sensitive on this subject. In Egypt, Mohammed Ali encountered considerable passive resistance in his endeavours to ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... in the woods, she was so inclined to talk that I had to admonish her several times it was likely to get us into trouble. But law me! who ever heard of a handsome young lady that would take any advice about talking? Mrs. Perkins is very sensitive on that subject, and she chose to disregard what I said, and what was the consequence? Why, my friends—it wasn't five—certainly not ten—minutes after that, while we were picking our way along as ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... she said slowly still peering at him. "I reckon you've only seen and heard what the others did. I never can keep folks on this floor long. Most of 'em catch on sooner or later—that is, the ones that's kind of quick and sensitive. Only you being an Englishman I thought you wouldn't mind. Nothin' really happens; it's only ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... life could hardly come in question. With such general laws we could never have mastered the concrete situations of society, because we should have had to leave out of view the fact that there are gifted and ungifted, intelligent and stupid, sensitive and obtuse, quick and slow, ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... "if there's one thing I'm sensitive about it is my name. Slap me in the face, turn the hose on me, rip the coat off my back—and you'd be astounded by my mildness. But when it comes to ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... wistfulness that was in the sudden smile of welcome when she saw him start toward her and in the startled flush of surprise when he stopped; then, with the tail of his eye, he saw the quick paleness that followed as the girl's sensitive nostrils quivered once and her spirited face settled quickly into a proud calm. And then he saw her smile—a strange little smile that may have been at herself or at him—and he wondered about it all and was tempted to go back, but kept on doggedly, wondering at her and at himself with ...
— Crittenden - A Kentucky Story of Love and War • John Fox, Jr.
... notwithstanding all this, Eva's wishes upon the whole were favoured. Leonore accompanied her faithfully wherever she wished. The Judge was gloomy and disturbed in temper; the mother was mild and accommodating; and as to Eva, she was in a high degree sensitive; whilst whatever concerned her love, or seemed to oppose her wishes in the slightest degree, brought her to tears and hysterical sobs, and her friends became ever more and more aware how violent and exclusive ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... a Tingl-Tangl where I imagine they have organs and gramaphones and suchlike horrors, but then unless you chance to pass their open windows you need not endure their strains. In England, even if we are fond of music, and therefore sensitive to jarring sounds and maudlin melodies, yet in the street we cannot escape the barrel-organ nor in the house the drawing-room songs. As if these were not enough, we now invite each other to listen to the pianotist ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick
... shack, but lay shivering with fear until dawn; but not for worlds would she have admitted to Manley her dread of staying alone. She believed it to be necessary, or he would not require it of her, and she wanted to be all that he expected her to be. She was very sensitive, in those days, about doing her whole duty as a wife—the wife of ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... raised her tear-stained face to his: her eyes were blurred and sunken with crying, and her lips were white. He knew every line of her face by heart; he had known it in so many moods, and under so many conditions, that he was not as sensitive to its influence as he had once been; and he stood unwilling, with his hands in his pockets, while she clung to him and let him feel her weight. But he was very fond of her, and, as she continued mutely to implore forgiveness—she, Lulu, his Lulu, whom every one envied ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... brought almost within his reach.... He literally had seen stars for an instant—a star! Its beauty brimmed him up. He laughed in his corner. This thing, whatever it was, had been coming nearer for some time. These hints of sudden joy that breathe upon a sensitive nature, how mysterious, how wildly beautiful, how stimulating they are! But whence, in the name of all the stars, do they come? A great happiness passed flaming through his heart, an extraordinary sense of anticipation ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... had not come a minute too soon; for Freddy, his sensitive organization completely overwrought by the events of the morning and his narrow escape from death, had fallen fainting to the ground; his hands still clenched in the folds of little Louie's jacket. Will instantly raised him, when he saw that all danger was over, ...
— Red, White, Blue Socks. Part Second - Being the Second Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow
... On potato these bacilli grow like those of glanders, forming a grayish-brown layer on the surface. The comma bacilli thrive best at temperatures between 30 deg. and 40 deg. C., but they are not very sensitive to low temperatures, their growth not being prevented until 17 deg. or 16 deg. C. is reached. In this respect they agree with anthrax bacilli. Koch made an experiment to ascertain whether a very low temperature ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... with the nearly-related and friendly mammals (dogs, horses, cattle, etc.) which is urged in the ethical teaching of many of the older religions, especially Buddhism. (Unfortunately, Descartes gave some support to the error in teaching that man only has a sensitive soul, not the animal.) Whoever has spent much time in the south of Europe must have often witnessed those frightful sufferings of animals which fill us friends of animals with the deepest sympathy and indignation. And when one expostulates with these brutal 'Christians' on their cruelty, the only ...
— Life and Matter - A Criticism of Professor Haeckel's 'Riddle of the Universe' • Oliver Lodge
... earth and air and freedom from others' will. I need the country, but the next man might require the city as passionately. Don't imagine that only the hermits, like me, live instinctively. It can be done in New York, too, only one mustn't be so sensitive to others.... After all, friend, we were wrong in saying that this power lies outside the world of skyscrapers and business. It doesn't lie outside nor inside. It cuts across everything. Do you see? For it's all a matter of ...
— Read-Aloud Plays • Horace Holley
... page, whatever shape it wear, The Essex wizard's shadowed self is there,— The great ROMANCER, hid beneath his veil Like the stern preacher of his sombre tale; Virile in strength, yet bashful as a girl, Prouder than Hester, sensitive as Pearl. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... If Eben had been sensitive, the cool reception which he met with at the hands of Mr. Melville would have disturbed him. As it was, he felt angry and disappointed, and desirous of "coming up with" Herbert, as he expressed it, though it was hard to see in what way the ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... in a loose sense to mean any given fact or consciousness in general, the condition of experience is merely immediacy. If it be used, as it often is in empirical writers, for the shock of sense, its conditions are two: a sensitive organ and an object capable of stimulating it. If finally experience be given its highest and most pregnant import and mean a fund of knowledge gathered by living, the condition of experience is intelligence. Taking the word in this last sense, Kant showed in a ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... admirer of manly grace and power, and the recipient of Jim's friendship. The farmer alone seemed to prefer Clarence, and yet the latter's tacit indorsement of Red Jim, through his evident previous intimacy with him, impressed the man in Jim's favor. All of which Clarence saw with that sensitive perception which had given him an early insight into human weakness, yet still had never shaken his youthful optimism. He smiled a little thoughtfully, but was openly fraternal to Jim, courteous to his host and family, and, as he rode away in the faint moonlight, magnificently opulent ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... hand. "That's one of the greatest puzzles of human vanity, dear; and I don't pretend to know the answer. In all my life, the most arrogant people that I've known have been the most sensitive. The people who have done the most in contempt of other people's opinion, and who consider themselves the highest above it, have been the most furious if it went against them. Arrogant and domineering people can't stand the least, lightest, faintest breath ...
— The Magnificent Ambersons • Booth Tarkington
... in Punch has simply been the inevitable accompaniment of change in the times—in the tastes, manners, social polish, and sensitive feelings of the courteous and urbane. It is so easy to be strong in the sense in which an onion is strong; but Punch has long since cast away that kind of force. Many and many a time an admirable "subject" for a cartoon has been rejected—pointed, picturesque, or droll, ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... the young wife of Lord Sensitive. "Of noble parents, who perished under the axe in France." The young orphan, "as much to be admired for her virtues, as to be pitied for her misfortunes," fled to Padua, where she met Lord Sensitive.—Cumberland, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Greeks,—Spartans especially; but in the main their eyes did not wander far from the main chance. You will think of many exceptions; but this comes as near truth, probably, as a generalization may. We should understand their temperament; quick and sensitive, capable of inspiration to high deeds; but, en masse, rarely founded on enduring principles. That jumping into the seas was nothing to the Persians; they were not sung to it; it was not done in defense of home, or upon a motive of sudden passion, as hate or the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... that too sensitive youth follow his revered parents, and a train of smock-frocks and wheelbarrows, along the pier, until the bustle of the scene around, recalled him to himself. The sun was shining brightly; the sea, dancing to its own music, rolled merrily in; crowds ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... asked Van Reypen, looking at the expressive face of the girl, as her smile faded and her sensitive mouth drooped at ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... was shut out of the conversation; they had, in a moment, forgotten his very presence. He sat in the dusk by the window, his head in his hands, and terrible loneliness at his heart; it hurt as he had never known before that anything could hurt. He had never known that he was sensitive; in Auckland it had not been so. He had never felt things then, and had a little despised people that had minded. But there had been ever, in the back of his mind, the thought of those days that were coming when, with his son at his side, he could face all things. Well, now he had ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... The sensitive girl shivered. Perhaps no bodily danger could have sent that chill through her. It began in her head and crept quickly to her hands and then to her feet, for it was not a fear of death that came upon her, nor of anything outward. To lose life was nothing, ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... very sensitive to bad treatment. To that she was inured; but she had tasted the sweets of kindness, and it had inspired hopes that already began to wither, encouraged ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... causing many scruples among the planters. Armies have served as the instruments of grand conquests—that is to say, of grand spoliations. Is this saying that they are not composed of officers and men as sensitive of their honor, even more so, perhaps, than men in ordinary industrial pursuits—men who would blush at the very thought of theft, and who would face a thousand deaths rather than stoop ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat
... impulse, sensitive and plastic. Because she had been hard on him before he was struck down, her spirit ran open-armed to make amends. What manner of man he was she did not know. But what availed that to keep her, ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... engaged in the investment of Fort Motte, that a correspondence took place between himself and General Greene, which had nearly resulted in the loss of his invaluable services to the country. A pure and noble spirit, Marion was particularly sensitive to reproach, and felt deeply its injustice. From the moment that Greene took command of the southern army, he had yielded the most profound deference to his wishes, had seconded his slightest suggestions, timed his own movements ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... new stack of hay might have brought fragrance to Al's sensitive nostrils, but to me it seemed as well suited as a reservoir for perfume as for a monument ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... is especially singled out for mention by Inspector Jarvis, because of his special attention to the horses which were pulled through largely by his assiduous care. A man of that kind wins our respect and appreciation. A horse is perhaps the most sensitive animal in the world, and the West is full of stories of the positive attachment which grew up between the men on the frontier and the faithful animals to whose endurance and courage in storm and blizzard the troopers often owed ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... Offitt, in a tone of real distress—then, after a pause, "You needn't mention my havin' asked for him. He may be sensitive about it." ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... the merchant-city of the Arno, whose sons in those days could fight as well as wield the yardstick, and sing in strains that have rarely been equaled. In the first division of the work the great poet and his friends are brought vividly before us from the time when, a sensitive child, his eyes first beheld Beatrice and his new life began, to the painful hours of bereavement and exile. The poet, it is known, made a curious sonnet out of a dream he had after his first meeting with Beatrice, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... so sweet, withal so sensitive;— Would that the little flowers were born to live Conscious of half the pleasure which they give. That to this mountain daisy's self were known The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown On the smooth surface ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... is, but my frame is one peculiarly susceptible to ennui. There's no man so instantaneously bored. What activity does this singular constitution in all cases produce! All who are sensitive to ennui do eight times the work of a sleek, contented man. Anything but a large chair by the fireside, and a family circle! Oh! the bore of going every day over the same exhausted subjects, to the same dull persons ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... such a world, but is part of such a world. In this world of constant and ceaseless change, man is most sensitive and responsive. Everything may affect him. To all of the constant changes about him he must adjust himself. He has been produced by this world, and to live in it he must meet its every condition and change. We must, then, ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... bright, or when the autumn rains begin. Every thing suits it; moisture or dryness, whichever prevails, appears to be its element. Thoreau, who liked to see weeds overrun flowers, would have rejoiced in its vigor. We never touch it; but any one sensitive to its influence cannot pass near it, nor breathe the air where it grows, without being affected by it. Alameda seems hardly ready for human occupancy yet, unless something effectual can be done to exterminate it. We often see superficial means taken, like burning it ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... character disappears when the livery becomes the exclusive badge of the menial. The livery becomes obnoxious to nearly all who are required to wear it. We are yet so little removed from a state of effective slavery as still to be fully sensitive to the sting of any imputation of servility. This antipathy asserts itself even in the case of the liveries or uniforms which some corporations prescribe as the distinctive dress of their employees. In this country the aversion ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... earned more than she really did, in order to avoid offers of service which it would have pained her to accept, because she knew the limited means of Frances and her son, and because it would have wounded her natural delicacy, rendered still more sensitive by so ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... was poetry and there were politics. The poetry justified the politics; moreover, was their inspiration. A dilettante such as Jacqueline, aesthetic and delicately sensitive, was naturally a lover of the beautiful in her search after emotions. A sentiment for her surroundings came now as a matter of course. If she turned, she beheld the chaparral plain stretching flatly back of her to the sands and lagoons of the coast. If she flirted her whip overhead, down ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... case seemed clear enough until the inconvenient discovery was made that swordfish are taken on bottom trawl lines. In other respects their habits agree closely with those of the mackerel tribe, all the members of which seem sensitive to slight changes in temperature, and which, as a rule, prefer temperature in the neighborhood of 50 ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... are both of them, I am certain, quite as ignorant of who the woman is, and of what her past history in connection with us can be, as I am myself. But they are also, in widely different ways, rather nervous and sensitive; and you would only fidget one and alarm the other to no purpose. As for myself, I am all aflame with curiosity, and I devote my whole energies to the business of discovery from this moment. When my mother ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... when the buck's ears lifted and tensed with swift eagerness for sound. His head was turned down the canyon. His sensitive, quivering nostrils scented the air. His eyes could not pierce the green screen through which the stream rippled away, but to his ears came the voice of a man. It was a steady, monotonous, singsong voice. Once the buck heard the harsh clash of metal upon rock. At the sound he snorted ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... London, when he had lived under the roof of the great Republican, a docile pupil to a stern but kind master, Denzil had lived mostly under the open sky, was a keen sportsman, and loved the country with almost as sensitive a love as his quondam master and present friend, John Milton; and it was perhaps this appreciation of rural beauty which had made a bond of friendship between the great poet and ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... an excellent one, and we hope it will meet with success. That Congress has a right to abolish slavery in that District seems reasonable, though we fear it will meet with some opposition, so very sensitive are the slave-holding community to every movement relating to the abolition of slavery. At the same time, it would furnish to the world a beautiful pledge of their sincerity if they would unite with the non-slave-holding ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... it smashed into finders. We all stood stock-still for a minute, like folks in a tableau. The half-breed skipper stood next to me, and I snum if you couldn't see him shrivel up like one of them things they call a sensitive plant. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... distinction of Miss Gwilt's manners that I took an opportunity, when she was out of the room, of asking how she first came to be governess. 'In the usual way,' I was told. 'A sad family misfortune, in which she behaved nobly. She is a very sensitive person, and shrinks from speaking of it among strangers—a natural reluctance which I have always felt it a matter of delicacy to respect.' Hearing this, of course, I felt the same delicacy on my side. It was no part ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... the most knightly men of his time, a gentleman and a scholar, who was also a sincere follower of the Church of England and its teachings. Both in manner and person he is said to have greatly resembled the Earl of Chesterfield, and his diary as well as his portrait show him to have been at once sensitive and virile; quite the man, indeed, very effectually to fascinate the low-born beauty he had ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... this view is borne out by the facts recorded by contemporary annalists, of which only an outline has been given here. The nuns of Loudun were, as has been said, mostly daughters of the nobility, and were thus, in all likelihood, temperamentally unstable, sensitive, high-strung, nervous. The seclusion of their lives, the monotonous routine of their every-day occupations, and the possibilities afforded for dangerous, morbid introspection, could not but have a baneful effect on such natures, leading inevitably ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce |
