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Bystander   Listen
noun
Bystander  n.  One who stands near; a spectator; one who has no concern with the business transacting. "He addressed the bystanders and scattered pamphlets among them."
Synonyms: Looker on; spectator; beholder; observer.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bystander" Quotes from Famous Books



... jest." Bid him go home and nurse himself, while you Act as his counsel and his agent too; Hold on unflinching, never bate a jot, Be it for wet or dry, for cold or hot, Though "Sirius split dumb statues up," or though Fat Furius "spatter the bleak Alps with snow." "What steady nerve!" some bystander will cry, Nudging a friend; "what zeal! what energy! What rare devotion!" ay, the game goes well; In flow the tunnies, and your fish-ponds swell. Another plan: suppose a man of wealth Has but one son, and that in weakly health; Creep ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace

... to mine, Bonsor," said a bystander with a laugh, slowly tearing up the communication he had opened with fingers so eager ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... with a clean volplane. The aviator and his mechanicians were wheeling it toward the hangar. They glanced at him uninterestedly. Carl understood that, to them, he was a Typical Bystander, here where he ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis

... standing near it, in his soft hat and his waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. Anybody who knew him would have recognized the portrait at a glance, but nobody who didn't know him would have recognized the portrait from its bystander: it "existed" so much more than he; it was bound to. Also, it had not that expression of faint happiness which on that day was discernible, yes, in Soames's countenance. Fame had breathed on him. Twice again in the course of the month I ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm

... correct and whose speech was according to rule. Hence it was that she did not even so much as heed any of that large company, but gave directions and issued orders, adopting any course of action which she fancied, just as if there were no bystander. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... was any press of people, and Hugh chanced to be looking downward, he was sure to see an arm stretched out—under his own perhaps, or perhaps across him—which thrust some paper into the hand or pocket of a bystander, and was so suddenly withdrawn that it was impossible to tell from whom it came; nor could he see in any face, on glancing quickly round, the least confusion or surprise. They often trod upon a paper like the one he carried in his breast, but his companion ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... bystander, yellow-legginged and purple-faced, said hoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to her feet, that she 'oughtn't to be let ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... men walked about aimlessly. They seemed to have no friends among the pleasure-seekers. At last, however, as they stood reading a public notice posted at the entrance of the town-hall or yamen, a bystander asked them ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman

... on, and not performing, all my life: except in one instance in a long life, I've only been a bystander in the way of courtship and matrimony. Here we are at last, and now for a chaise to Deal. Thank God, we can afford to shorten the time, for Bessy's ...
— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... their names because they fear that he would thereby acquire some supernatural power over themselves. Asked his name by a stranger, who is ignorant of their superstitions, an Araucanian will answer, "I have none." When an Ojebway is asked his name, he will look at some bystander and ask him to answer. "This reluctance arises from an impression they receive when young, that if they repeat their own names it will prevent their growth, and they will be small in stature. On account of this unwillingness to tell their ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditure. In reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... Prescott, and it was inflamed at the new mention of the Secretary's name. If it were any other it might be more tolerable, but Mr. Sefton was a crafty and dangerous man, perhaps unscrupulous too. He remembered that light remark of the bystander coupling the name of the Secretary and Lucia Catherwood, and at the recollection the ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler

... conceived, I was in no mood to endure such words from any man, so was but natural that for answer I caught the dainty Vicomte a buffet that knocked him into the arms of the nearest bystander, and brought him to ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini

... Pressing Club and The Park Hill Democratic Marching Club, and has always, like his father, who was a Confederate soldier, voted the Democratic ticket. He has had one wife and one child and still has them. In religion he is an Innocent Bystander.' ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton

... lettres de cachet against anything in the shape of a railway company—to scatter them broadcast, and to invite any one who happens to have leisure to fill them out, by inserting the name of a railway company. It says to the bystander: 'Drop us a postal card, or mention to any of our commissioners, or to a mutual friend, the name of any railway company of which you may have heard, and so give us jurisdiction to inquire if that company may have by chance omitted to dot an ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... of the same refractive index as itself, it immediately disappears. I remember once dropping the eyeball of an ox into water; it vanished as if by magic, with the exception of the crystalline lens, and the surprise was so great as to cause a bystander to suppose that the vitreous humour had been instantly dissolved. This, however, was not the case, and a comparison of the refractive index of the humour with that of water cleared up the whole matter. ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... hospitals to discharge—and freedom; freedom, which to that ardent nature proved to be irksome. For whilst the very springs of his genius were dammed by the agony of a world in travail, he found himself outside the mighty theatre, a mere bystander having no part ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... nothing of the stout lady still left in the bedroom; and when Elliot, heedless of the cheers and hand-shakes that met him, flung Lady Dover into the arms of the nearest bystander, and turned again towards the ladder, they were utterly at a loss to understand what ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... voice carried conviction and the crowd in silence awaited her action. Snatching a walking stick from a bystander and tearing a sleeve from her dress she made a flag of truce and mounted ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs

... must act with greater caution and calculation, and must learn to refrain from too wholesale barbarities; only so much wrong is permitted by public opinion as is necessary for the end in view, and this the impartial bystander certainly finds no fault with. No trace is here visible of that half-religious loyalty by which the legitimate princes of the West were supported; personal popularity is the nearest approach we can find to it. Talent and calculation are the only means of advancement. ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt

... rushing down the main aisle, brandishing his cane, and with imprecations warning lookers-on to "let them alone." Among those hastening to the rescue, Mr. Morgan arrived first, just in time to catch and sustain the Senator as he fell. Another bystander, who had run round outside the railing, seized Brooks by the arm about the same instant; and the wounded man was borne to an adjoining room, where he was cared for by ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay

... who had to bear the brunt of her father's mental agony when he discovered, shortly after Lord Emsworth had left him, that the gem of his collection of scarabs had done the same. It is always the innocent bystander who suffers. ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... facts, the POSSIBILITY of the facts, the tougher empiricists accuse him of taking the mere name and nature of a fact and clapping it behind the fact as a duplicate entity to make it possible. That such sham grounds are often invoked is notorious. At a surgical operation I heard a bystander ask a doctor why the patient breathed so deeply. "Because ether is a respiratory stimulant," the doctor answered. "Ah!" said the questioner, as if relieved by the explanation. But this is like saying that cyanide of potassium kills ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... home. Wales was in full revolt. The country had been devoted to Richard; and so notorious was its disaffection to the new line that when Henry's son knelt at his father's feet to receive a grant of the Principality a shrewd bystander murmured, "He must conquer it if he will have it." The death of the fallen king only added to the Welsh disquiet, for in spite of the public exhibition of his body he was believed to be still alive. Some hold that he had escaped ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... Weren't you trying to make me out a quitter?" I had succeeded in working loose my heavy gold belt, and I dashed it on the table in front of them. "There! Now you send for some gold scales, right now, and you divide that up! Right here! Damn it all, boys," I ended, with what to a cynical bystander would have seemed rather a funny slump into the pathetic, "I thought we were all real friends! You've ...
— Gold • Stewart White

... (as such forgive them) have I known, Ever in their own eager pastime bent To make the incurious bystander, intent On his own swarming thoughts, ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... Both were somewhat proud of their grip, and a bystander might have mistaken their amiable efforts to crush each other's fingers for the outward and visible signs of ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs

... one of the greatest bores of companionship is, not merely that people wish to fit tastes and notions on you just as they might the first pair of ready-made shoes they meet with, a process amusing enough to the bystander, but exquisitely uncomfortable to the person being ready-shod: but that they bore you with never-ending talk about their pursuits, even when they know that you do not work in the same groove with them, and that they cannot hope to make you ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps

... votes, Miss Anthony assured them that should they be prosecuted she herself would bear all the expenses of the suit. They had been advised not to register the women by Silas J. Wagner, Republican supervisor. All three of the inspectors and also a bystander declared under oath that Daniel J. Warner, the Democratic supervisor, had advised them to register the names of the women; but on election day this same man attempted to challenge their votes. This, however, already had been done by one Sylvester Lewis, who testified later that he acted ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... attitude at her writing-table, with her face turned to the door. She had once been photographed at her writing-table, with a curtain behind her, and her face turned to the door. The photograph had appeared in The Queen, The Ladies' Field, The Sketch, The Taller, The Bystander, Home Chat, Home Notes, The Woman at Home, and Our Stately Homes of England. It was a favourite photograph of hers; she had taken a fancy to it, and therefore she always liked to be found in this position. The photo had been called: 'Lady Everard at work ...
— Tenterhooks • Ada Leverson

... already descending. Carrie played the piano in the other room. The General snorted over something in his city paper. Mrs. Kitty had disappeared on household business. Pete and Pup, having been mistaken one for the other by some innocent bystander, gloomed and ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White

... walked up to her in silence, uninvited, and with a commanding air waved the thing away. 'Dat manchineel. Dat poison. Throw dat overboard.' R——-, who knew it was not manchineel, whispered to a bystander, 'Ce n'est pas vrai.' But the brown lady was a linguist. 'Ah! mais c'est vrai,' cried she, with flashing teeth; and retired, muttering her contempt of English ignorance ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... if there be no objection," said a bystander with a wink at Mogridge, which Rodney ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... Sharon?' he exclaimed. He threw himself at her feet, and pressed the hem of her garment to his lips with an ecstasy which it would have been difficult for a bystander to decide whether it were mockery or enthusiasm, or genuine feeling, which took a sportive air to veil a devotion which it could not conceal, and which it cared not too gravely ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... beguile the simple-minded Dutchman by selling him worthless goods at five times their value. "I have loads of friends among the Boers. There is hardly a Boer in the Transvaal who does not know me"—("To his cost," put in a bystander with a grunt)—"and yet I have tried all I know"—("And you know a good deal," said the same rude man)—"and I ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... creatures of his own creation for thinking what they cannot help thinking, and being what they cannot help being. Every one has heard of the Predestinarian, who, having talked much of his God, was asked by a bystander to speak worse of the Devil if he could; but comparatively few persons feel the full force of that question, or are prepared to admit God-worshippers in general, picture their Deities as if they were ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... literary occupation is getting through the press the Letters of Paul, of whose lucubrations I trust soon to send you a copy. As the observations of a bystander, perhaps you will find some amusement in them, especially as I had some channels of information not accessible to every one. The recess of our courts, which takes place to-morrow, for three weeks, will give me ample time to complete this job, and also ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... mind, any," he told Ware, "it isn't such a case of innocent bystander as you may think. This man is the one who hired Saleratus Bill to abduct me in the first place; and probably to kill me in the second. I have a suspicion he got what ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White

... have read long ere this. It was very fine: very effective: really almost solemn: to fall at such a moment. He spoke as if it was his last political scene: as if he felt that between alienated friends and unwon foes he could have no party again; and could only as a shrewd bystander observe and advise others. There was but one point in the Speech which I thought doubtful: the apostrophe to "Richard Cobden."[14] I think it was wrong, though there is very much to be said for it. The opening of the American peace ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... itself. Whether men reflect again upon this internal management and artifice, and how explicit they are with themselves, is another question. There are many operations of the mind, many things pass within, which we never reflect upon again; which a bystander, from having frequent opportunities of observing us and our conduct, ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

... struggles of nature towards the melting relief, and the extreme self-agitations I had used to come at it, had wearied and thrown me into a kind of unquiet sleep: for, if I tossed and threw about my limbs in proportion to the distraction of my dreams, as I had reason to believe I did, a bystander could not have helped seeing all for love. And one there was it seems; for waking out of my very short slumber, I found my hand locked in that of a young man, who was. kneeling at my bed-side, and begging my pardon for his boldness: but that being a son to the lady to whom, ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... was tramps," interrupted a bystander. "Git in the haymow an' think they got to have ...
— Back Home • Eugene Wood

... money out of the collection, as soon as possible," Rand said. "To reopen the question of her husband's death and start a murder investigation wouldn't exactly expedite things. I'm just a more or less innocent bystander, who wants to know whether there is going to be any trouble or not.... Now, you came here to tell me what happened on the night of Lane Fleming's death, ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... Dyer says, there was an accident in a Cornish mine whereby several men lost their lives, and, rather than that their relatives should be shocked at the sight of their mangled remains, some bystander, with all the best intentions in the world, threw the bodies into a fire, with the result that the mine has ever since been haunted by a troop ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell

... native land, with no mother or sister near her, because she pitied us.' Expressions similar to these were made and listened to with many tears. I remarked once, 'What crowds are pressing to the house! Are all from the town?' A bystander replied, 'Yes; as the news spreads all will be here, for she was greatly beloved.' Another added, 'Many tears will ...
— Daughters of the Cross: or Woman's Mission • Daniel C. Eddy

... public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back In manifold reflection from without; While we, each pore alert with consciousness, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, 210 And each bystander a detective were, Keen-eyed for every ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

... sounds, mixed up with others of wheezing or fine whistling quality, accompanying respiration. These are denominated dry sounds, and they are occasionally so abundant and distinct, as to convey their vibrations to the hand applied to the chest, as well as to be audible to a bystander at some distance. As the disease progresses these sounds become to a large extent replaced by others of crackling or bubbling character, which are termed moist sounds or rales. Both these kinds of abnormal sounds are readily explained ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... counting votes. It is not claimed by the indictment that these votes were counted or put into the ballot box—or affected the result. The defendants simply received the votes. What they did with them, does not appear. Any bystander, who had received these votes, could be convicted under this indictment ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... precaution. Men answer you out of their past experience,—much like a headstrong personage who was about to attempt crossing a river in a boat sure to sink. "You will drown, if you go in that thing," said a bystander. "Never was drowned yet," was the prompt retort; and pushing off, he soon lost the opportunity to repeat that boast! But this resistance is constantly becoming less. Meantime, numbers of foreseeing men are waking up, or are already awakened, to the importance of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various

... was standing near it, in his soft hat and his waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. Anybody who knew him would have recognised the portrait at a glance, but nobody who didn't know him would have recognised the portrait from its bystander: it 'existed' so much more than he; it was bound to. Also, it had not that expression of faint happiness which on this day was discernible, yes, in Soames' countenance. Fame had breathed on him. Twice again in the course of the month I went ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... finding their paradises. Touching the life of Alma, in Mohi's chronicles, 'tis related, that a man was once raised from the tomb. But rubbed he not his eyes, and stared he not most vacantly? Not one revelation did he make. Ye gods! to have been a bystander there! ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville

... much personal fascination. I also visited the public market, where a man in one of the stalls bought a book, remarking at the same time that he supposed he ought to buy four, as he had that number of wives. A bystander asked if this did not sound very strangely in the ears of one so unaccustomed to a plurality of wives. I quickly responded that the men of Utah must have large hearts to be capable of taking in four wives, or even more, ...
— The World As I Have Found It - Sequel to Incidents in the Life of a Blind Girl • Mary L. Day Arms

... manufactures might be swept away, and a few half-naked fishermen would divide with the owls and foxes the ruins of the greatest of European cities.' It was a notable controversial tournament, at which the intelligent bystander probably assisted with much satisfaction and no excessive alarm, having little faith in the absolute theorist, and not much in the disinterestedness of the Whigs. For the moment it was sufficient that both parties agreed in supporting the Reform Bill, although, as Mr. Stephen remarks, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall

... of the question and Fanny's answer were pronounced by lips that were so near each other, that no bystander could hear the words. Mrs. Bolton only said, "Come, come, Mr. H.—no nonsense, if you please; and I think you've acted like a wicked wretch, and been most uncommon cruel ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... not in the least want to get arrested, and he was terrified at the idea of making even so short a speech as was here the order of the night. But, of course, his honour was at stake, there was no way out. He handed his torch to a bystander, and mounted the scaffold. "Is this a free country?" he cried. "Do we have free speech?" And Jimmie's first effort at oratory ended in a jerk at his coat-tail, which all but upset the frail platform ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair

... curled her lips. It was the beginning of the third day since Starr Wiley had issued his ultimatum. He must carry his threat into execution or admit it to have been sheer bluff. Curiously, she looked upon the impending crisis with the impassivity of a bystander. What did it ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... part. The Christian who knows not God in Nature, who does not, that is to say, correspond with the whole environment, most certainly is partially dead. The author of "Ecce Homo" may be partially right when he says: "I think a bystander would say that though Christianity had in it something far higher and deeper and more ennobling, yet the average scientific man worships just at present a more awful, and, as it were, a greater Deity than the average Christian. In so many Christians the idea of God has been ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond

... man," said a bystander; "if you've lost money, that's no rason why you should fly in the face o' God for P——'s roguery. Devil a one o' myself cares if I join you in a volley against the robbin' scoundril, but I'd not take all the money the rip of ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... talk?" asked a bystander. And then, with a chuckle: "Use a knife an' fork to his ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... course," added Tutt, "you must admit there are a lot of criminals who are criminals from perfectly good motives. Take the man, for instance, who thrashes a bystander who insults his wife—the man's wife, ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train

... head was inimitable and indescribable. It was not arrogance or affectation; it was perfectly natural to the child; but to a bystander it would have signified that she was aware Maria's views and statements were not to be relied upon and could not be made the basis of either opinion or action. She took off her things, and without another word made her way to the room of her elder sisters. ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... A bystander once said: "Why don't you climb onto him and stay with him till he gets sick o' pitchin'; that's what a ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland

... managed to hook the chunky man by the suit. It fell away, exposing the initials S.M. carefully worked into his shirt. Second Mistake, Malone thought wildly, muttered, "Sorry," again and turned west, feeling fairly grateful to the unfortunate bystander. ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett

... A BYSTANDER [on the lady's right] He won't get no cab not until half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw

... any bystander among you know The herd he speaks of, or by seeing him Afield or in the city? answer straight! The hour hath come to clear this ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... lays out for the economist a task in the discharge of which the innocent bystander will sincerely wish him a pleasant ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... more, glided by, and penetrated farther into the throng. And then, as he proceeded, with those last words on his ear, the consciousness came upon him that his position had undergone a change. Difficult to define it; to an ordinary bystander people would have seemed to welcome him cordially as ever. The gradations of respect in polite society are so exquisitely delicate, that it seems only by a sort of magnetism that one knows from day to day whether one has risen or declined. A man has lost ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... shouting; the army men seemed to be pulling and pushing the civilians. When we got nearer, I asked of a bystander, "What's up?" The answer was: "They don't want 'em to go in ...
— They Call Me Carpenter • Upton Sinclair

... the court of Denmark, at the remote period of time fixed upon, before the modern refinements in morals and manners were heard of. It would have been interesting enough to have been admitted as a bystander in such a scene, at such a time, to have heard and seen something of what was going on. But here we are more than spectators. We have not only 'the outward pageants and the signs of grief; but 'we have that within which passes show'. We read the thoughts of the heart, we catch the ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... the law be added: If a man smite another who is his elder by twenty years or more, let the bystander, in case he be older than the combatants, part them; or if he be younger than the person struck, or of the same age with him, let him defend him as he would a father or brother; and let the striker be brought to trial, and if convicted imprisoned for a year or more at the discretion ...
— Laws • Plato

... reached the gate first, and, therefore, Mademoiselle Therese had already exhausted a little of her energy before Barbara appeared. But she was about to fling herself in tears upon the girl's neck when a bystander interposed. ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... personal questions led me to take him for an Englishman, I spoke of my visit to Niagara—the one wonder of the world that answers its warranty—and to Montreal. As I spoke of the strong and general Canadian feeling of loyalty to the English Crown and connection, a Yankee bystander observed— ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... a matter a little fire kindleth!" the moralizing bystander of the period might have observed, as he took note of the electrical condition of the political atmosphere of York, and, indeed, of the whole Province—the result of the indiscretion of one man, and the partisan frolic of half a dozen lads, who had inherited, with the bluest ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam

... within call of us will tell you that Gorman Purdy killed fifty men in his time," retorts a bystander. These words, so bitter yet so just, would be cruel indeed for the ears of Ethel Purdy; but she has lapsed into semi-consciousness. Harvey still holds her in his arms; he seems oblivious of the burden he has borne for more than a mile and ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... Receive the filth which he ejects, She soon would find the same effects Her tainted carcass to pursue, As from the Salamander's spue; A dismal shedding of her locks, And, if no leprosy, a pox. "Then I'll appeal to each bystander, If this be not ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... a moment, only to arise the next and walk to the board announcing the arrival of trains. Almost immediately one pulled into the station. Perceiving a bystander—one of the sort that always give the impression of being well-informed—he inquired ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon

... never thought otherwise," answered my lady, rising and dropping him a curtsy, in which stately action, if there was obedience, there was defiance too; and in which a bystander, deeply interested in the happiness of that pair as Harry Esmond was, might see how hopelessly separated they were; what a great gulf of difference and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... is never the one he ought to marry or intended to marry, but just some "innocent bystander" who happened to be in the way at ...
— A Guide to Men - Being Encore Reflections of a Bachelor Girl • Helen Rowland

... Then when another bystander interfered and tried to take him away, he began to struggle, and was being roughly handled when a fat, pompous man bristled up, ...
— Rodney, the Ranger - With Daniel Morgan on Trail and Battlefield • John V. Lane

... in derision. "And she didn't even have to tell you so! She can't even hide its deadly intensity from the casual bystander! haw! haw! haw! And it's all the outcome of a three-days acquaintance! It beats Doctor Swiftgrow's Mustache Invigor'—aw, haw! haw!" "Oh, you think so? Pity you couldn't get a few barrels of it—aw, haw! haw!" said Harry, and my laughter left off where ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... in Hamlet [he says], and Booth sent for Sam to come behind the scenes, and when Sam proposed to add a part to Hamlet, the part of a bystander who makes humorous modern comment on the situations in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... Boone Helm. The latter was brave, but Gallegher was a coward, and spent his time in cursing his captors and pitying himself. He tried to be merry. "How do I look with a halter around my neck?" he asked facetiously of a bystander. He asked often for whiskey and this was given him. A moment later he said, "I want one more drink of whiskey before I die." This was when the noose was tight around his neck, and the men were disgusted with him for the remark. One remarked, "Give him the whiskey"; ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough

... strength, would be used and must be used. Whether such a party would always choose precisely the best man may well be doubted. In a party once divided it is very difficult to secure unanimity in favour of the very person whom a disinterested bystander would recommend. All manner of jealousies and enmities are immediately awakened, and it is always difficult, often impossible, to get them to sleep again. But though such a party might not select the very best leader, they have the strongest motives to select a very good leader. The ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot

... in Holland wear wooden shoes to teach them patience and humility. With wooden shoes no frenzied financier of Holland will ever travel the fast road of speculation, slip on a bucket-shop banana peel, and fall on the innocent bystander who has coughed up his savings and given them to the honest ...
— Peck's Bad Boy Abroad • George W. Peck

... the tailor," proclaimed an awe-stricken bystander. (Legend takes strange twists in Our Square as elsewhere.) Some outlander, ignorant of our traditions, ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... brandishing arms and shouting "Stop thief!" and adding much to the noise and excitement, but availing nothing to stop the fugitive. Only one young fellow, an officer by his dress, snatched a gun from a bystander, and fired with so true an aim that had I not ducked my head I would have had no head ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... anatomy pretty well. There he lay quiet and composed, sipping small modicums of brandy and water, and taking his outlook into such transtygian world as he had fashioned for himself in his dull imagination. If he had misgivings he showed them to no bystander. If he thought then that he might have done better with his energies than devote them to dangerous horses, he never said so. His voice was weak, but it never quailed; and the only regret he expressed was that he had not changed the bit in Jemima's mouth. Lord ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope

... approval. It seemed to Miss Juliana and to him that he had been on the side of law and order, condemning and seeking to dissuade the offenders from their vicious proceedings. He felt that he was a very good little boy, indeed, and that the tall lady was understanding it. He had been an innocent bystander. ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson

... to the table, and glancing at Monks with an air of careless levity, withdrew her eyes; but as he turned towards Fagin, she stole another look; so keen and searching, and full of purpose, that if there had been any bystander to observe the change, he could hardly have believed the two looks to have proceeded from ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens

... sold as a slave, and afterward purchased his freedom. Then there was Felix, the ex-slave, another protege of Claudius, who trembled when Paul of Tarsus told him a little wholesome truth. These men were all immensely rich, and once, when Claudius complained of poverty, a bystander said, "You should go into partnership with a couple of your freedmen, and then your finances would be all right." The fact that Narcissus, Pallas and Polybius constituted the real government is nothing against them, any more than it is to the discredit of certain ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... nature of the hardy and able ruffian who had now become openly her master should no less openly have shown itself even in the first moments of their inauspicious union is what any bystander of common insight must inevitably have foreseen. Tears, dejection, and passionate expressions of a despair "wishing only for death," bore fitful and variable witness to her first sense of a heavier ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various

... said a member of the legislative body. "I am very glad to hear it," said a bystander, "for no man ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... of Amber from the coast, and had sounded it, that the anchorage was very good, and that the ship would there lie as safely as in the best harbour. "I would stake all I am worth upon it," said he, "and if I were on board, I should sleep as sound as on shore." A third bystander declared that it was impossible for the ship to enter that channel, which was scarcely navigable for a boat. He was certain, he said, that he had seen the vessel at anchor beyond the isle of Amber; so that, if the wind rose in the morning, she would either put to sea, or gain the harbour. ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... the lucky gambler returned to the room—but only to be a spectator, as he firmly said. Alas! his resolution failed him, and he quitted the tables indebted to a charitable bystander for a livre or two, to pay for ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz

... they landed on Earth, they had the Steele names, but by the time that cleared, you were outbound with another set of papers. It may have confused them, because they knew David Briscoe was dead—and there was just a chance you were an innocent bystander who could raise a real row if they pulled you in. Did old ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

... disciplined railroad men as having the immutability of the laws of the Medes and Persians, were still interpreted as loosely as if they were but the casual suggestions of a bystander. Rules were formulated and given black-letter emphasis in their postings on the bulletin boards, only to be coolly ignored when they chanced to conflict with some train crew's desire to make up time or to kill it. Directed to account for fuel and oil consumed, the enginemen good-naturedly ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... wherein old age was, pathetically, trying to make each little thing seem important, if only to the doer. Nothing his great-uncle could say would outweigh the warning of his picturesque old figure! To be a bystander; to see it all go past you; to let your sword rust in its sheath, as this poor old fellow had done! The notion of explaining what he had come about was particularly hateful to Miltoun; but since he had given ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... right. Hard labour and natural gift had secured their harvest; but that vivid personal element in success which captivates and excites the bystander seemed, in David's case, to have been replaced by something austere, which pointed attention and sympathy rather to the man's work than to himself. When he was young there had been intoxication for such a ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... innocent than guilty." He then joined in prayer with the others. He seemed to be much reverenced by his fellow prisoners. He chose those prayers he thought most adapted to the occasion. Hundreds were witnesses to the manly firmness of this negro. Observing a bystander listening attentively to the complaints of one of his fellow wretches, he translated what had been said into English. With a steady pace, and a resolute and resigned countenance, he ascended the fatal scaffold. Observing the executioner ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... man standing by offered to perform the service, and when they arrived at the door the young man asked, 'What shall I pay you, sir'? 'O nothing,' replied the old man; 'It was on my way, and no trouble.' 'Who is that polite old gentleman,' asked the young man of a bystander. The reply was, 'That is the Chief Justice of the United States.' The young man drank the bitter cup without ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis

... many of the Otoes had become such dogs that he was weary of governing them, and that his arms being broken, he could no longer be a great warrior. He gave some messages for his friend, the agent, who was expected at the village, and then turning to a bystander, told him he had heard that day that he had a bottle of whiskey, and ordered him to bring it. This being done, he caused it to be poured down his throat, and when drunk he sang ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... intellectual force with great delicacy of line in the contour of the head and face which was particularly attractive, especially to women of the more cultivated and impressionable sort. His thin grayish hair was rather long—not of that pronounced length which inevitably challenges the decision of the bystander as to whether the wearer be fool or poet, but still long enough to fall a little carelessly round the head and so take off from the spruce conventional effect of the owner's irreproachable dress and ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... up to the gap and screaming. Douglas Stone sat down at the foot of the couch with his knife and his forceps. The room was whirling round, and he had felt something go like a ripping seam behind his ear. A bystander would have said that his face was the more ghastly of the two. As in a dream, or as if he had been looking at something at the play, he was conscious that the Turk's hair and beard lay upon the table, and that Lord Sannox was leaning against the wall with his hand to his side, laughing ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle

... cloak, and the sword for a moment hampered. Before Le Gallais could extricate it, Elliot, with a savage cry, ran in upon him, drawing back his elbow, so as to stab his adversary with a shortened sword. A scuffle ensued, of which no bystander could follow with his eye the full details, till the Scot's sword was seen to turn upwards, and the point to pierce his own throat. Each combatant fell backwards, Le Gallais bleeding from the left hand, and Elliot spouting black gore from a ...
— St George's Cross • H. G. Keene

... is the use of so much talk about it? Why don't you hustle the old thing out," remarked a bystander, the respectability of whose appearance contrasted broadly with his manners; "she is some crack-brained abolitionist. Making so much fuss about a little nigger! Let her go into the nigger car—she'll be ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb

... after the Chinese insurrection, and though we old inhabitants took it very easily, Mr. Hacket always thought his wife and child in danger. I remember, one day a Malay was being tried in the court-house, when he, by a sudden spring, escaped from the police, and snatching a sword from a bystander, ran amuck through the bazaar, wounding two or three people he met. The hue and cry in the town fired the imaginations of the timid. People came running to the house for shelter, bringing their goods and chattels, and all sorts of tales—"The Chinese were coming ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

... unsupported testimony. But, on the day before the evidence was volunteered, as he was lounging in the streets, he had seen a gentleman pass by on horseback, in whom he immediately recognized the man who, in his belief, was the murderer of Sir Philip Derval. He inquired of a bystander the name of the gentleman; the answer was "Dr. Fenwick." That, the rest of the day, he felt much disturbed in his mind, not liking to volunteer such a charge against a man of apparent respectability and station; but that his conscience would not let him sleep that night, and he had resolved at morning ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... first-class hotel in Mexico itself. As the landlady seemed to have no disposition to do aught for us, we decided to look elsewhere. At a second so-called hotel we found a single bed. At this point, a bystander suggested that Don Pedro Barrios would probably supply us lodging; hastening to his house, I secured a capital room, opening by one door directly onto the main road, and by another, opposite, onto the large patio of his place. The room was large ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... of his own intimates detained him at the door, and presently Whyland, who had ended his remarks and was on his way to other matters, overtook him. An officious bystander made the two acquainted, and Whyland, who identified Abner with the author of This Weary World, paused for a few smiling and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller

... expectations. Pope was in ecstasies. He fell upon Warburton's neck—or rather at his feet—and overwhelmed him with professions of gratitude. He invited him to Twickenham; met him with compliments which astonished a bystander, and wrote to him in terms of surprising humility. "You understand me," he exclaims in his first letter, "as well as I do myself; but you express me much better than I could express myself." For the rest of his life Pope adopted the same tone. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... value of each that we here regard, but the value of the ownership one has in each. 'Deacon Giles and I,' said a poor man, 'own more cows than any five other men in the county.' 'How many does Deacon Giles own?' asked a bystander. 'Nineteen.' 'And how many do you?' 'One.' And that one cow, which that poor man owned, was worth more to him than the nineteen which were Deacon Giles's. So, when you have determined whose the style is which enfolds a thought, whose the thought is, is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... Keith took the first two, and they prepared to enter. The younger man took off his silver watch, with directions to a friend to send it to his sister if he did not come back. The older man said a few words to a bystander. They were about a woman's grave on the hillside. Keith took off his watch and gave it to one of the men, with a few words scribbled on a leaf from a memorandum-book, and the next moment the three volunteers, amid a deathly ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page

... to come to life again, total abstainer as he often was, he would, I expect, denounce the principle involved in 'Local Option.' I am not at all sure he would not borrow a guinea from a bystander and become a subscriber to the 'Property Defence League;' and though it is notorious that he never read any book all through, and never could be got to believe that anybody else ever did, he would, I think, read a larger fraction of Mr. Spencer's pamphlet, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... own preparations to help her. All was done at last; and one bright morning in October, Katy stood on the wharf with her family about her, and a lump in her throat which made it difficult to speak to any of them. She stood so very still and said so very little, that a bystander not acquainted with the circumstances might have dubbed her "unfeeling;" while the fact was that she was feeling ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... fifty-pound note came back to his mind. It must surely have been Raffles Haw with whom Hector Spurling had come in contact. There could not be two men in one parish to whom so large a sum was of so small an account as to be thrown to a bystander in return for a trifling piece of assistance. Of course, it must have been Raffles Haw. And his sister had the note, with instructions to return it to the owner, could he be found. He threw aside ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle

... and Daddy Darwin and his lad, coming home, and the pigeons along wi' 'em," she felt inclined to run too; but a fit of shyness came over her, and she demurely decided to wait by the school-gate till they came her way. They did not come. They stopped. What were they doing? Another bystander explained, "They're shaking hands wi' Daddy, and I reckon they're making him put up t' birds here, to see 'em go ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing

... excellently, and without ceremony he wrenched two of them out and, breaking them into suitable lengths, handed them to Earle. Then, while the latter brought the ends of the fractured bone into position and held them there, Dick adjusted the splints, as directed by Earle, afterwards assisted by a bystander, binding them firmly into position with the folds of his turban, which he unwound for ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood

... similar to the foregoing in Barnum's career. One occurred on board a steamboat, going from New York to Bridgeport. As they entered the harbor of the latter city a stranger asked the great showman to point out "Barnum's house" from the deck. Barnum did so, and then another bystander remarked, "I know all about that house, for I did a lot of painting there for several months while Barnum was in Europe." He went on to say that it was the meanest and worst contrived house he ever saw, and added, "It will cost old Barnum a mint of money ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... must have formed a great spectacle, but I had no time for appearances. As I was passing out of the door, the Countess, in her disappointed rage, threw a heavy ivory fan after me, which struck an innocent bystander in the eye, ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... "Homer was a pauper, and he wrote his rhymes in vain." Long I pondered, worried greatly seeking names both sweet and stately, something proud and high and noble, such as ancient heroes bore. "I shall call him Alexander—" but an innocent bystander muttered, "Aleck was a tyrant, and he splashed around in gore." And my aunts said: "Only trust us, and we'll name him Charles Augustus, which is princely and becoming, and will end this foolish fuss." But my Cousin James objected: "Nothing else can be expected, if you give him such a handle, ...
— Rippling Rhymes • Walt Mason

... if he is not sold?" Hugh asked of a bystander, who replied, "Go back to the old place to be kicked and cuffed by the minions of the new proprietor, Harney. ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes

... walked confidential servants, followed by a band of horsemen and foot- soldiers and Habashi slaves; and, as she rode along, the people formed espalier, standing on either side to salute her while she passed. The leech also joined the throng and made his obeisance, after which quoth he to a bystander, which was a Darwaysh, "Methinks this lady must be a queen?" "'Tis even so," quoth the other, "she is the consort of our Sultan and all the folk honour and esteem her above her sister-wives for that in truth she is the mother of Prince Khudadad ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... for some time to injure me, I went to the fuller's shop where he worked, and summoned him before the polemarch, supposing him to be an alien. And when he said he was a Plataean, I asked from what deme he was, on the suggestion of a bystander that I should call him before the tribe to which he pretended to belong. And as he answered from Decelea, I summoned him before the judges of the tribe Hippothoontis; then I went to the barber's shop near the Hermae, (3) where ...
— The Orations of Lysias • Lysias

... subtle dexterities, acquired by sagacious experience in searching for valuable little trinkets in great libraries, just as in other pursuits. A great deal of that appearance of dry drudgery which excites the pitying amazement of the bystander is nimbly evaded. People acquire a sort of instinct, picking the valuables out of the useless verbiage, or the passages repeated from former authors. It is soon found what a great deal of literature has been the mere "pouring out of one ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... bystander. "Don't be frettin' that a-way, ma'am; sure even if he's in gaol itself, he'll be out agin before ye know where yez are an' maybe they wouldn't keep him ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)

... closely packed crowd could give room for escape, it had circled the neck of the nearest bystander, Bill Jones, a cattleman, and jerked him, writhing and screaming, into the reddish core. Stupefied with soul-chilling terror, with their mass-consciousness practically annihilated before a deed with which their minds could make no association, the crowd could only gasp in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various

... left and right as fast as a rapid double-hit could be delivered, with both blows upon his impudent mouth. In an instant he was on his back, with his heels in the air; and, as I prepared to operate upon his backer, or upon any bystander who might have a penchant for fighting, the crowd gave way, and immediately devoted themselves to their companion, who lay upon the ground in stupid astonishment, with his fingers down his throat ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... home. Mr Gordon also followed the body to the house, and, feeling that at such a time any attempt at comforting the childless widow would be of no avail, he merely placed a sum of money in the hands of a respectable-looking person, a bystander, for her use, and slowly and sick at heart he was in the act of returning to his friends, when he met Christina Cunningham, who was in search of him, for the purpose of bringing him back to luncheon. She saw that he was deadly pale, and ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton

... on that wintry afternoon in Nineteen hundred, lounging with one shoulder to a wall of the dingy salesroom and idly thumbing a catalogue of effects about to be put up at auction; but his insouciance was so unaffected that the inevitable innocent bystander might have been pardoned for perceiving in him a pitiable victim of ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... readiness to believe all that was related of her. [Morning Post, March 2, 1838.] "Her appearance as she sits, as pale and almost as still as a corpse, is strangely awful. She whistles to oblige Dr. Elliotson: an incredulous bystander presses his fingers upon her lips; she does not appear conscious of the nature of the interruption; but when asked to continue, replies in childish surprise, 'it can't.' This state of magnetic semi-existence will continue we know not how long. ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... infliction of punishment, for that time. He says: "This landlord was the most abominably wicked man that I ever met with; full of horrid execrations, and threatenings of all Northern people. But I did not spare him; which occasioned a bystander to express, with an oath, that I should be 'popped over.' We left them distressed in mind; and having a lonesome wood of twelve miles to pass through, we were in full expectation of their waylaying, or coming after us, to put their wicked threats ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... find the quantity of tobacco offered for sale. A small planter has brought a lot of loose tobacco to market, which, being sold, was weighed in this manner, and for which the purchaser was about to pay, when a bystander quietly remarked, 'You forgot to weigh the nigger.' An explanation followed, and the tobacco, re-weighed, was found short 158 lbs., or the exact weight of the colored driver, who had, unobserved, been standing on the scales behind the cart while ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings

... diseases, and the superscriptions of gallipots in his apothecary's shop, which are ranked in his shelves and the doctor's memory. He is, indeed, only languaged in diseases, and speaks Greek many times when he knows not. If he have been but a bystander at some desperate recovery, he is slandered with it though he be guiltless; and this breeds his reputation, and that his practice, for his skill is merely opinion. Of all odours he likes best the smell of urine, and ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various

... iniquity. By the laws of society, this coat, this horse is mine, and OUGHT to remain perpetually in my possession: I reckon on the secure enjoyment of it: by depriving me of it, you disappoint my expectations, and doubly displease me, and offend every bystander. It is a public wrong, so far as the rules of equity are violated: it is a private harm, so far as an individual is injured. And though the second consideration could have no place, were not the former previously established: ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... person present pressed me for a copy. I sold several within the walls of the custom-house. The object, however, of most attention was the Gypsy Gospel, which was minutely examined amidst smiles and exclamations of surprise, some individual every now and then crying 'Cosas de los Ingleses.' A bystander asked me whether I could speak the Gitano language. I replied that I could not only speak it but write it, and instantly made a speech of about five minutes in the Gypsy tongue, which I had no sooner concluded than all clapped their hands, and simultaneously ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow

... Kennedy; "but you have not shown them what to do, however much you may have shown them what they are. You are like the surgeon who tears the bandages from the numerous wounds of his ulcerated patients, and, instead of giving fresh remedies, you expose them to the air and disgust of every bystander, who, laughing, exclaims, 'How ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... part would have been meddling with what was not my concern. I never saw, nor wished to see, a public document connected with the affair, and have only given as many of the leading features of the case as I can vouch for, and as were accessible to any other bystander.] ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... "So far as I have observed," he states, "the perfection of the art or science consists in their being able to put every part of the body into motion at the same time. And as they are naked, the bystander has a good opportunity of observing the whole process, which presents a remarkably odd and grotesque appearance,—the head, the trunk, the arms, the legs, the hands, the feet, bones, muscles, sinews, skin, scalp, and hair, each ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... "A dispassionate bystander might be expected to concur in the historical view of Lord Russell, and to desire that the war should be speedily terminated by a pacific agreement between the contending parties. But, unhappily, the decision upon any proposal of the English Government will be made, not by dispassionate bystanders, ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams

... parenthesis. I hope you haven't begun to think that I am the hero of this comedy. Let it be furthest from your thoughts. I am only a passive bystander.) ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... too—and I must have had mirth in mine, also, because I remember that at precisely that minute I thought up a perfectly wonderful joke on Elizabeth and Jane and their mother. Of course, the poor Laird will not see the point of the joke, but then he's the innocent bystander, and innocent bystanders are always, ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... a tenor in the same fix. He may—and does—get so hoarse that it is a pain to hear him; but as long as he can croak in good volume he is all right. Mere shouting will not do. He must shriek, until to the sympathetic bystander it seems that his throat must split wide open. Furthermore, he must shriek the proper things. It all sounds alike to every one but transport riders and oxen; but as a matter of fact it is Boer-Dutch, nicely assorted to suit different occasions. ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... I sat by the grave, at the brink of its cave Lo! a featureless skull on the ground; The symbol I clasp, and detain in my grasp, While I turn it around and around. Without beauty or grace, or a glance to express Of the bystander nigh, a thought; Its jaw and its mouth are tenantless both, Nor passes emotion its throat. No glow on its face, no ringlets to grace Its brow, and no ear for my song; Hush'd the caves of its breath, and the finger of death The raised features hath flatten'd along. The eyes' wonted beam, and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... instant acceptance of the clown's challenge to ride the trick mule, and his winning the wager amid the plaudits of the audience, after a rough-and-tumble scramble in the sawdust, sticking so tight to his back that a bystander remarked that the only way to get the boy off would be to "peel ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith

... as many suitors as hairs on her head," replied the bystander. "She wants to marry the Prince of Moonshine, but he only dresses in silver, and the King thinks he might find a richer son-in-law. The Princess will go to ...
— Old-Fashioned Fairy Tales • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing

... begun. At first they eyed each other steadily, and made feints, and changed their ground. And this went on so long that at last some irreverent bystander, longing to see business done, cried out, "Allons, mes amis, avancez." And at that moment a skilful thrust from Malin wounded Poivre in the face, and the first blood was drawn. But Malin received it back with interest, for Poivre, who was a tall and very muscular ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

... the duration of Greek thought too narrowly conceived. It was frequently thought and spoken of as the life of a spectator or bystander or onlooker, as a life withdrawn or isolated, cut off from what we should call ordinary human business and concerns, a life into which we, or at least a few of us, could escape or be transported at rare intervals and under exceptionally ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... few steps gave a peculiar low whistle. At the first sound, Traveller stopped and pricked up his ears. The General whistled a second time, and the horse with a glad whinny turned and trotted quietly back to his master, who patted and coaxed him before tying him up again. To a bystander expressing surprise at the creature's docility the General observed that he did not see how any man could ride a horse for any length of time without a perfect understanding being established between them. My sister Mildred, who rode with him constantly this summer, tells me ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... was drowned not very long ago in the river running under our windows. A few days afterwards a field piece was dragged to the water's edge, and fired many times over the river. We asked a bystander, who looked like a fisherman, what that was for. It was to "break the gall," he said, and so bring the drowned person to the surface. A strange physiological fancy and a very odd non sequitur; but that is not our present point. A good many extraordinary objects do really come ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... A bystander was hit by a hot halfpenny flying out of the air. Then Bert thought of the papers in his pockets, and staggered back, trying to extinguish ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells



Words linked to "Bystander" :   viewer, watcher, spectator, looker



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