"Obscure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to which their exposition belongs. Such have been, and are, my convictions, and upon them I shall act. I fervently hope that the question is at rest, and that no sectional or ambitious or fanatical excitement may again threaten the durability of our institutions or obscure the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... pride, and to aggravate their misery. But happiness is exclusively and unalterably attached to the cultivation of the affections,—to the acquisition of moral excellence;—so that it is equally within the reach of every individual, however obscure, or however talented. Few men can be intellectually great,—fewer still can be rich or powerful; but every man may, if he pleases, be good,—and therefore happy. In choosing the subjects and exercises ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... an obscure family, with whom I had lodged during these terrible times. So great was the terror and misery in the city that those who lived envied the dead. It was death to bury even a relative, and both within and without the city lay heaps of bodies, decaying ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... I am confident. No presentation of the facts, however bald and inadequate it be, can obscure the truth that this little book deals with a great and an inspiring literature. It is possible to question whether the books of great Jews always belonged to the great books of the world. There may have ...
— Chapters on Jewish Literature • Israel Abrahams
... life, which interested and amused Fleda to the last degree, Mr. Carleton shewed her many an obscure part of Paris where deeds of daring and of blood had been, and thrilled the little listener's ear with histories of the Past. He judged her rightly. She would rather at any time have gone to walk with him, than with anybody else to see any show that could be devised. His object in all this ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... His obscure rebellion against the power that forced him to drag his love out into the light impelled him to say, without quite knowing why, "Did Thor ever speak of you and ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... even at the most loathsome moments, and which at such moments nearly made me curse. Already even then I had my underground world in my soul. I was fearfully afraid of being seen, of being met, of being recognised. I visited various obscure haunts. ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... proposal, and promising to visit Tchang the following morning, returned to his home. In the evening, when Ming-Y left the house of Tchang, a servant followed him unobserved at a distance. But on reaching the most obscure portion of the road, the boy disappeared from sight as suddenly as though the earth had swallowed him. After having long sought after him in vain, the domestic returned in great bewilderment to the house, and related what had taken place. Tchang immediately ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... thrown up into a prominent position; and it is usually pressed toward the end of the sentence, nearer to the sentence which is its consequence. In a paragraph quoted on page 222, where this same subject is taken up in connection with sentences, there is an excellent illustration of this. "Slow and obscure," "inadequate ideas," "small circle," and the numerous phrases which repeat the thought, though not the words, are firm words binding the sentences ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... endeavour to picture to himself the scene which followed the introduction of the neighbours to this weird and most novel court of inquiry. Imagine the place to be an humble cottage in a remote and obscure hamlet; the judge and jurors, simple unsophisticated rustics; and the witness an invisible, unknown being, a denizen of a world of whose very existence mankind has been ignorant; acting by laws mysterious and inconceivable, in modes utterly ...
— Hydesville - The Story of the Rochester Knockings, Which Proclaimed the Advent of Modern Spiritualism • Thomas Olman Todd
... with the air of polite interest with which she was wont to receive his obscure sayings; then ...
— Happy Pollyooly - The Rich Little Poor Girl • Edgar Jepson
... Scripture had been done by an obscure scribbler, or by an infidel quoting the word of God merely for a purpose, it would not have been matter of such profound astonishment. But is it not unspeakably shocking that a Christian man, nay, that a Christian minister and doctor of divinity, should thus ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... the newspapers of that era ought to have at least given me a "puff" for, but they didn't; in fact, I never, like Byron (Lord Byron, I mean), awoke one morning to find myself famous, because my football was that of days long ago, in an obscure (to football, at least) country town; and, besides, the game then was conducted in rather a rude and undignified fashion. Talk about rules, we had those which might, for all I know, have been framed by the "Chief Souter ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... knew nothing of processes that were employed to provoke the hypnotic sleep. As soon as her husband left the house she looked for some book in the library that would enlighten her. But the dictionary that she found gave only obscure or confused instructions in which she floundered. The only exact point that struck her was the method employed to produce sleep; to make the subject look at a brilliant object placed from fifteen to twenty centimetres in front of the eyes. If this were true she had no fear ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... not once outside his native Germany; Haydn left Austria only to make those visits to England which had so important an influence on the later manifestations of his genius: His was a long, sane, sound, and on the whole, fortunate existence. For many years he was poor and obscure, but if he had his time of trial, he never experienced a time of failure. With practical wisdom he conquered the Fates and became eminent. A hard, struggling youth merged into an easy middle-age, and late years found him in comfortable circumstances, with a solid ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... applied only to the few so strangely and so luckily chosen, while the mass was rejected. For that mass, from earliest childhood until death, there was only toil in squalor—squalid food, squalid clothing, squalid shelter. And when she read one day—in an obscure paragraph in her newspaper—that the income of the average American family was less than twelve dollars a week—less than two dollars and a half a week for each individual—she realized that what she was seeing and living was not ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... with the exception of their pastors, are the only class our rural population know and revere. As to the generality of our statesmen, good, bad, or indifferent, their names, brilliant as they may be, are not half so well known in our villages as that of the most obscure labourer, the humble artizan who knows how to file a saw or make ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... the elements of a style which, under, early discipline, nicer culture, and a richer vocabulary, might have made it a model for all times. There are, here and there, some involved, unfinished, and obscure passages, which seem, indeed, to be the offspring of haste, or perhaps of careless and inadequate proof-reading. But in general his style is without ornament, simple, dignified, concise, and clear. While he was not a diffusive writer, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... misfortune was on the way to obscure the star of Beauregard. His soldiers, elated with their wonderful victory, broke into disorderly plundering of the captured Federal camps. Except for a few thousand sternly disciplined troops under Bragg's command the whole Southern army suddenly ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... looked back upon those scenes of horror and outcry which filled London but a week or two ago, when danger was not confined to night only, and the environs of the capital, but haunted our streets at midday. Here, I could wander over an entire city; stray by the port, and venture through the most obscure alleys, without a single apprehension; without beholding a sky red and portentous with the light of fires, or hearing the confused and terrifying murmurs of shouts and groans, mingled with the reports of artillery. I can assure you, I think ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... be ascertained, is the truth about the arrival of Columbus in Portugal. The early years of an obscure man who leaps into fame late in life are nearly always difficult to gather knowledge about, because not only are the annals of the poor short and simple and in most cases altogether unrecorded, but there is always that instinct, ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... people were talking much or little, but she had an obscure desire to shift ever so slightly the ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... This is Keil's ingenious interpretation of an obscure passage. We may compare the English designation of a church yard as "God's acre." What Licinius Crassus actually did was, while haranguing from the rostra, to turn his back upon the Comitium, where the Senators gathered, and address himself directly to the people assembled in the Forum. ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... brought them into the thickest and most obscure part of the forest, when, stealing away into a by-path, they there left them. Little Thumb was not very uneasy at it, for he thought he could easily find the way again by means of his bread, which he had scattered all along as he came; but he was very much surprised when ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... raised the picture to a level with his face, and with bent head and extended neck, appeared to be trying to decipher upon the canvas some microscopic writing or obscure hieroglyphics. ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... howe of lithe Myrine (II. 814). We do not know that women were usually buried in howe, but Myrine was a warrior maiden of the Amazons. We know, then, minutely what the Homeric mode of burial was, with such variations as have been noted. We have burning and howe even in the case of an obscure oarsman like Elpenor. It is not probable, however, that every peaceful mechanic had a howe all to himself; he may have had a small family cairn; he may not have had ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... what was real and familiar there, to what was wild and magical. But that there was one thing in the Hall, to which the eyes of Redlaw, and of Milly and her husband, and of the old man, and of the student, and his bride that was to be, were often turned, which the shadows did not obscure or change. Deepened in its gravity by the fire-light, and gazing from the darkness of the panelled wall like life, the sedate face in the portrait, with the beard and ruff, looked down at them from under its verdant ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens
... the other earliest operas, he played the harpsichord and Haym the violoncello. Dieupart, after the small success of the design set forth in this letter, taught the harpsichord in families of distinction, but wanted self-respect enough to save him from declining into a player at obscure ale-houses, where he executed for the pleasure of dull ears solos of Corelli with the nicety of taste that never left him. He died ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... true—but they could acquire it, with practice. My quality travels ahead of me in the most mysterious way. I write my family name without additions, on the register of this hotel, and imagine that I am going to pass for an obscure and unknown wanderer, but the clerk promptly calls out, 'Front! show his lordship to four-eighty-two!' and before I can get to the lift there is a reporter trying to interview me as they call it. This sort of thing shall cease at once. I will hunt up the American ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... delicate, gentle child. Twelve summers and winters had passed over her little head without a cloud to obscure the sunshine of her life save one—but that one was a terribly dark one, and its shadow lingered over her for many years. When Alice lost her mother, she lost the joy and delight of her existence; and ...
— Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader • R.M. Ballantyne
... etymological mysteries must be probed. Perhaps the German professors, after the war, can usefully wreak themselves on this complex and obscure research. Meanwhile the above notes are offered not as a serious contribution to a subject so immense, but rather as a warning. The infectiousness of slang is incredible; and this gigantic inter-association of classes and clans has brought about a hitherto unheard-of levelling-down ...
— Observations of an Orderly - Some Glimpses of Life and Work in an English War Hospital • Ward Muir
... present we are only on the threshold of investigation concerning the physical causes of insanity, and have scarcely done more than recognize the possibility of molecular disease of the brain. Hereafter science will, probably, succeed in unveiling the obscure facts of molecular brain pathology, and enable the medical psychologist to predicate disease of recognized classes of brain elements from the special phenomena of mind disturbance. This is the line of inquiry, and the result, to which the progress ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... only an excellent scholar, but she had the art of imparting knowledge, and, what is very important, she was able in a few luminous words to explain difficulties and make clear what seemed to her pupil obscure. ...
— Adrift in New York - Tom and Florence Braving the World • Horatio Alger
... pupil who knows his lesson; nor is evil condemned to an eternal Hell. Both belong together in the sphere of all that is human. Often enough it is seen that evil triumphs over good, while virtue, ever highly praised in words, is rarely practiced. It is set aside to become dusty and dirty in some obscure corner. Only at some opportune moment is it brought forward from its hiding place to serve as a cover for some vile deed. We can no longer believe that beyond and above us there is some irrevocable, irresistible Fate, whose duty it is to punish all evil and wrong and to reward ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... very definite opinion at present," I replied guardedly. "The symptoms are rather obscure and might very well indicate several different conditions. They might be due to congestion of the brain, and, if no other explanation were possible, I should incline to that view. The alternative is some narcotic poison, such as ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... it, as well as the issues and upshot of all things. It is at once the mirror to all time of the sins and perfections of men, of the judgments and grace of God, and the record, often the only one, of the transient names, and local factions, and obscure ambitions, and forgotten crimes of the poet's own day; and in that awful company to which he leads us, in the most unearthly of his scenes, we never lose sight of himself. And when this peculiarity sends us to history, it seems ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... lady," said De Bracy, "though you may think it lies too obscure for my apprehension. But dream not, that Richard Coeur de Lion will ever resume his throne, far less that Wilfred of Ivanhoe, his minion, will ever lead thee to his footstool, to be there welcomed as the bride of a favourite. Another suitor might feel jealousy while he touched this string; ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... he said, nodding his head. "I've done with larking now." He began rolling up the sleeves of his sweater. For some obscure reason—possibly because his deliberation seemed to connote implacability—this simple action filled her with a terror that she had not known before even in the midst of their ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... Pacific coast a normal girl, obscure and lovely, makes a quest for happiness. She passes through three stages—poverty, wealth and service—and works out ...
— The Wall Street Girl • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... been much criticised as being too near to easy journalism to be classed among the great classic passages of English; but this much must be recognised to his great credit—he never wrote an obscure sentence or an ambiguous phrase, and his works may be searched in vain for a foreign idiom or even a foreign word. He possessed an infallible memory, absolute perspicuity, and a scholarly taste. He detested oppression wherever enforced, and never ...
— The Glory of English Prose - Letters to My Grandson • Stephen Coleridge
... either lessen or increase the sterility of self-sterile species; and why the individuals of some species should be even more fertile with pollen from a distinct species than with their own pollen. And so it is with many other facts, which are so obscure that we stand in awe ...
— The Effects of Cross & Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom • Charles Darwin
... staying in seaside lodgings, I had the misfortune to break a homely vessel of thick blue glass which had evidently begun life as a fancy jam jar, but had been relegated, for some reason obscure to me, to the proud position of mantel 'ornament,' if that be the term. To my surprise the worthy landlady wept bitterly over the pieces, and when I spoke of gorgeous objects wherewith to replace her treasure, explained snappishly: 'Nothing won't make it good to ...
— Modern marriage and how to bear it • Maud Churton Braby
... prayers, so that I may imitate many apostolic laborers whom we have had here, and of whom we have at present many, who have come from all those provinces of Espana; they have made and are making gardens pleasant to the sight of God, from the obscure forests which the devil has possessed so many thousands of years and still possesses in these islands. For, as we have been told, there are eleven thousand islands, of which that of Manila is the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXII, 1625-29 • Various
... entire neighborhood. The pride seemed to be, not that the new bonnet was a superb affair, but that such a fashionable artist produced it, and that it cost so much money. Had it been equally beautiful at half the cost, or the handiwork of an obscure milliner, it would have been considered mean. Thus, instead of a necessity for being extravagant, it struck me there was a desire to be so, and principally in order that others, when they looked on the display, might ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... lib. 2. de causis sympt. 1. For Galen imputeth all to the cold that is black, and thinks that the spirits being darkened, and the substance of the brain cloudy and dark, all the objects thereof appear terrible, and the [2660]mind itself, by those dark, obscure, gross fumes, ascending from black humours, is in continual darkness, fear, and sorrow; divers terrible monstrous fictions in a thousand shapes and apparitions occur, with violent passions, by which the brain and fantasy are troubled and eclipsed. [2661]Fracastorius, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... particular sections of it. "The scope," it has been well observed, "is the soul or spirit of a book; and, that being once ascertained, every argument and every word appears in its right place, and is perfectly intelligible; but if the scope be not duly considered, every thing becomes obscure, however clear and obvious its meaning may really be." Horne's Introduct., vol. 2, p. 265, edit. of 1860. This language is not too strong. It is by a neglect or perversion of the scope that the meaning of the inspired writers is perverted, and they are ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... in, strung up for the occasion. Or the uniform comes forward with Roger inside it. He has been a very ordinary nice boy up to now, dull at his 'books'; by an effort Mr. Torrance had sent him to an obscure boarding-school, but at sixteen it was evident that an office was the proper place for Roger. Before the war broke out he was treasurer of the local lawn tennis club, and his golf handicap was seven; ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... Miss Lady, occupying a dark corner of Mr. Gooch's outer office. Here, with feet hooked under a rung of a stool, and fingers grasping his pompadour, he doggedly wrestled with the cases he heard in court, laboriously puzzling out obscure points by the aid of the ...
— A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill • Alice Hegan Rice
... dog. When the moon was in the sky, he barked at the moon. When only the stars shone out, he barked at the stars; when clouds shut in both moon and stars, he barked at the clouds; and when the darkness was so deep and black as to obscure even the clouds, he barked at the darkness. Through all the long night he barked, barked, barked! It was not a bark of defiance, nor of alarm, nor of astonishment, nor of warning. It was not a note of danger, breaking the hush of midnight, ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... not well who doth his time deplore, Naming it new and a little obscure, Ignoble and unfit for lofty deeds. All times were modern in the time of them, And this no more than others. Do thy part Here in the living day, as did the great Who made ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... as the horses quickened their trot. Heads were stretched out in Gaga's direction; Maria Blond and Tatan Nene turned round and knelt on the seat while they leaned over the carriage hood, and the air was full of questions and cutting remarks, tempered by a certain obscure admiration. Gaga had known her! The idea filled them all with ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... answer that it is what I work at."[4] Again, in reference to J. G. Droysen's Precis of the Science of History, a certain critic expressed an opinion which was meant to be, and was, a commonplace: "Generally speaking, treatises of this kind are of necessity both obscure and useless: obscure, because there is nothing more vague than their object; useless, because it is possible to be an historian without troubling oneself about the principles of historical methodology which ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... northwest is tolerably certain; but to trace their previous wanderings back to Shinar, India, or Persia would be a waste of time, as the necessary data are lacking. Even within their appointed domain the accounts of their early history are too obscure to be accepted as to any ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... are so obscure as not to be intelligible, unless perhaps the passage between Cape Breton Island and Newfoundland is here meant ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... water from the ambrosial fount? Thee, lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee How shall I part, and whither wander down Into a lower world, to this obscure And wild? how shall we breathe in other air Less pure, accustomed ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... Lady Jane exchanged smiles; and poor crotchety Mr. Adair leaned forward his large, bald brow, obscured by many obscure ideals. After a ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... unrivalled. The Society has issued some twenty-four volumes of its own publications, in addition to numerous essays and addresses. Besides these, its library contains some seventy-three thousand volumes of printed works, chiefly Americana, many of them relating to the Indians and obscure early colonial history. Eight hundred and eleven genealogies of American families—the fountain-head of the national history—are a feature of the collection. The library also possesses one of the best sets of Congressional documents extant, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... roads, and all towns, with suspicious care. But sometimes they paused, for food and rest, at the obscure hostel of some scattered hamlet: though, more often, they loved to spread the simple food they purchased by the way under some thick, tree, or beside a stream through whose limpid waters they could watch the trout glide and ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... of this, and the time spent in making circuits round in the woods to avoid parties of the enemy, who were seasonably discovered by the wary guide to be still at work, in several places, in trying to improve some of the worst portions of the road, the progress of our heroine was slow and obscure. And it was not till after a dreary and fatiguing ride of several hours, that she and her attendant began to emerge into the more open ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... morning last August (yes, there was one), I stepped out of my diggings in an obscure Cornish fishing-village to find a gentleman busily engaged strangling a lady on the cliff side. He had her by the throat and was gradually forcing her over the edge. Once in Bristol I interposed in a slogging contest between husband and wife and was very properly chastised ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... in which he was born and brought up. As certain lilies draw their colors from the subtle qualities of the soil hidden beneath the water upon which they float, so are men profoundly affected by the obscure and insensible influences which surround their childhood and youth. The art of the chemist may discover perhaps the secret agent which tints the white flower with blue or pink, but very often the elements, which analysis detects, nature alone can combine. The analogy is not strained ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... his new lodgings, and, in revenge, gave information to the publican. This creditor took out a writ accordingly, and the bailiff had just secured his person, as Captain Crowe and Timothy Crabshaw chanced to pass by the door in their way homewards, through an obscure street, ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... what it did. And tharefor, yit agane we say, that such as in that suddane dejectioun beholdis not the hand of God, feghting against pride for fredome of his awin litill flock, injustly persecutted, dois willingly and malitiouslie obscure the glorie of God. But the end thairof ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... Fortune was still against them. A German opera appeared on the bill. Carmina turned to the music-seller in despair. "Is there no music, sir, but German music to be heard in London?" she asked. The hospitable shopkeeper produced a concert programmed for that afternoon—the modest enterprise of an obscure piano-forte teacher, who could only venture to address pupils, patrons, and friends. What did he promise? Among other things, music from "Lucia," music from "Norma," music from "Ernani." Teresa made another approving mark with her ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... the third member of our triangle—perhaps, if I take a moment to outline the events of that evening, the Professor's part in what follows will be less obscure. We had called on him, M. S. and I, at his urgent request. His rooms were in a narrow, unlighted street just off the square, and Daimler himself opened the door to us. A tall, loosely built chap he was, standing in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... of the Babylonians we may now pass to their science—an obscure subject, but one which possesses more than common interest. If the classical writers were correct in their belief that Chaldaea was the birthplace of Astronomy, and that their own astronomical science was derived mainly ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... Philosopher. "This course, however, is rarely followed by the fairy people: they do not ordinarily steal for ransom, but for love of thieving, or from some other obscure and possibly functional causes, and the victim is retained in their forts or duns until by the effluxion of time they forget their origin and become peaceable citizens of the fairy state. Kidnapping is not by any means confined to either ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens
... he could not find out their race: nor did he know from what part of the world they originally came, nor to what country they afterwards betook themselves. I may appear presumptuous in pretending to determine a history so remote and obscure; and which was a secret to this learned Grecian two thousand years ago. Yet this is my present purpose: and I undertake it with a greater confidence, as I can plainly shew, that we have many lights, with which the natives of Hellas were unacquainted; besides many advantages, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... were vain to ask in what remote city, in what fantastic riddle of narrow nameless streets, in what obscure little temple known only to the poorest poor, she waits for the darkness before the Dawn of the Immeasurable Light,—when the Face of the Teacher will smile upon her,—when the Voice of the Teacher will say to her, in tones of sweetness deeper than ever came from human lover's lips:—"O my daughter ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... on the hands of an obscure Clancy, havin' the entertainment of the representative of a great foreign filibusterin' power. I first bought for the general and myself many long drinks and things to eat that were not bananas. The general man trotted along at my side, ...
— Cabbages and Kings • O. Henry
... (Plate X.). A peak 6,000 feet in height rises in the centre of its floor, while a series of terraces diversity its interior slopes; but it is the mysterious bright rays that chiefly surprise us. When the sun rises on Tycho, these streaks are utterly invisible; indeed, the whole object is then so obscure that it requires a practised eye to recognise Tycho amidst its mountainous surroundings. But as soon as the sun has attained a height of about 30 deg. above its horizon, the rays emerge from their obscurity and gradually increase ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... of this relic is unknown, and is as obscure as that of the other 'Relics of the Holy Blood' which are to be found in various places. But there can be no doubt whatever that in the twelfth century the Christians at Jerusalem believed that it had been in existence since the day of the Crucifixion. ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... wrong side; but, contrary to all our expectations, and when we had hardly room to veer, the ship came about, and having filled on the starboard tack, we stood off N.E. Thus we were relieved from the apprehensions of being forced to anchor in a great depth, on a lee shore, and in a dark and obscure night. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... never subscribe for your picture of "Shakspeare's Study." Great intelligence runs quickly through our primers, our cities, constitutions, galleries, traditions, cathedrals, creeds. The long invention of the race is a tortuous, obscure way. Must I creep all my fresh years in that labyrinth, and postpone youth to the end of age? What need of so much experience and contrivance, if without contrivance, if by simplicity, the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... is not difficult to understand, although there has arisen a host of commentators to obscure his meaning, although Nietzsche himself delights in expressing himself in the form of cryptic and mystic aphorism, although he continuously contradicts himself. But apart from those difficulties, his ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... according to an obscure story, he was offered the continuance of his employment, and, being pressed by his wife to accept it, answered: "You, like other women, want to ride in your coach; my wish is to live and die an honest man." If he considered the Latin secretary as exercising any of the powers of government, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... without the aid of superstition. But all the same, there was the chance of others having an object in watching us, so every spadeful was thrown out in silence, every word spoken in a whisper. The night came on impenetrably black and obscure, but we worked on, feeling our way lower and lower, taking turn and turn, till once more we stood in the pit we had dug, and commenced groping about with our hands, for the spades told us that we had come to whatever ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn
... course this must be understood generally. The conjectures of a few philosophers, and the irradiations of poetical inspiration, constitute an occasional exception. Man can never altogether turn aside his thoughts from infinity, and some obscure recollections will always remind him of the home ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... The wife's name is interpreted "maid of the god Nebo." It is thought that Gudea reigned in her right. The inscription goes on to say: "Mother I had not, my mother was the water deep. A father I had not, my father was the water deep." The passage is obscure, but it is explained if we regard this as one of the legends of miraculous birth so frequent in primitive societies under mother-descent.[243] Another relic of some interest is an ancient statue of ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... show the view Darwin took of his own work, and what it was that he alone claimed to have done, the concluding passage of the introduction to the Origin of Species should be carefully considered. It is as follows: "Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists until recently entertained and which I formerly entertained—namely, that each species ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... brooks. During the day the horses were excessively tormented by flies of several kinds, and the numbers of which were almost incredible. They formed, around the caravan, a vast cloud, so thick as to obscure every distant object. The heads, necks, and shoulders of the leading horses were continually covered with blood, the consequence of the attacks of these tormenting insects. Some of them were horse-flies, as large as humble-bees; ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... contained his name in the list of the steamer passengers who arrived that morning. It might meet HER eye, although he had been haunted during the voyage by a terrible fancy that she was still in Europe, and had either hidden herself in some obscure provincial town with the half-crazy Pendleton, or had entered a convent, or even, in reckless despair, had accepted the name and title of some penniless nobleman. It was this miserable doubt that had made his homeward journey at times seem like a cruel ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... parents or his education, surnamed the Cappadocian, was born at Epiphania in Cilicia, in a fuller's shop. From this obscure and servile origin he raised himself by the talents of a parasite; and the patrons, whom he assiduously flattered, procured for their worthless dependent a lucrative commission, or contract, to supply the army with bacon. His employment was mean; he rendered it infamous. He ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... contemporaries and the judgment of historians unite in crediting to William Bradford that rare combination of intelligence and industry, of judicial and executive ability, by which a small and obscure band of persecuted fugitives laid in an unexplored wilderness the foundations of a ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... slumbers; that the animal had been on its way up the ravine,—perhaps seeking shelter from the sand-storm; but what had caused it to return so suddenly back down the slope? Above all, why had it made the downward journey in such a singular manner? Obscure as had been their view of it, they could see that it did not go on all-fours, but apparently tumbling and struggling,—its long limbs kicking about in the air, as if it was performing the descent by ...
— The Boy Slaves • Mayne Reid
... some few of the many testimonies in favour of Sir Bartle Frere, because he,—a man beloved and respected by many of us,—was the subject of a hastily formed judgment which continues in a measure even to this day, to obscure the memory of ...
— Native Races and the War • Josephine Elizabeth Butler
... which the outline becomes gradually more definite; one by one, the peaks catch the exquisite Alpine glow, lighting up in rapid succession, like a vast illumination; and when at last the steady sunlight settles upon them, and shows every rock and glacier, without even a delicate film of mist to obscure them, he feels his heart bound, and steps out gaily to the assault—just as the people on the Rigi are giving thanks that the show is over and that they may go to bed. Still grander is the sight when the mountaineer has already reached some lofty ridge, and, as ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... rejoined Abner. "I might"—with the emission of an obscure, self-conscious sound between a chortle and a gasp, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... A cloud is in his head, That doth but show how wisdom's covered With its own mantles, and to stir the mind To a search after what it fain would find. Things that seem to be hid in words obscure, Do but the godly mind the more allure To study what those sayings should contain, That speak to us in such ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... doom pronounced, nor changed a whit his wonted gaiety; but dying, as he had lived, in abandoned luxury, sent under seal to the emperor, in lieu of flatteries, the unblushing record of their common vices. The obscure playwright is no less impressive than the world-renowned historian. While Antonius and Enanthe are picturing to themselves the consternation into which Petronius will be thrown by the emperor's edict, the object of their commiseration presents himself. Briefly dismissing the ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... more obscure than any returned from the oracular tripod at Delphi, the interpretation of which I left to the infatuated Madame d'Urfe, she discovered herself—and I took care not to contradict her—that the Countess Lascaris had gone mad. I encouraged her fears, and succeeded ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for him—poor Tom!—and into his tortured heart there fell a poisonous drop of spiritual pride. Public reprobation applied to a certain order of offences makes a very marketable kind of fame, as the author of Manfred knew very well. David in his small obscure way was supplying another illustration of the principle. For the past year he had been something of a personage in Clough End—having always his wits, his book-learning, his looks, and his ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... men, women and children, schools, clubs, libraries, authors, eds., 936; poets, "cranks," adventurers, 937; let. from child, slave to correspond., "if young women fail, octogenarian will work harder," 938; trib. to obscure women, devoting closing yrs. to permanent fund for wom. suff. and Press Bureau, Hist. Soc. invites to Berkshire, 939; official and pressing invit., she invites natl. suff. com. and other friends, arrang. for family reunion, "Old Hive" swarms, 940; pres. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... not meet Johnny on this particular night was that he had a pressing engagement with other persons. Just at seven o'clock he might have been seen emerging from an obscure street. He hailed a taxi-cab and getting in, drove due north across the river and straight on until, with a sharp turn to the right, he drove two blocks toward the lake, only to turn again to the right and cross the river again. He had ...
— Triple Spies • Roy J. Snell
... speak) a refugee from the other side and, in a sense, a spiritual ancestress of Bolshevism. Miss HARRADEN would however object, and justly, that the clean-purposed conspirators of the earlier revolution had little in common with the unsavoury individuals who at present obscure the Russian dawn. Soon after this, Patuffa's papa begins to go quite dreadfully off the rails, even to the extent of wishing to elope with her governess and eventually losing all his money and shooting ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, October 6, 1920 • Various
... "Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles". Cyclopoma spinosum Agassiz. Volume 4 tab 1, pages 20, 21.) It is interesting both as a psychological fact and as showing how, sleeping and waking, his work was ever present with him. He had been for two weeks striving to decipher the somewhat obscure impression of a fossil fish on the stone slab in which it was preserved. Weary and perplexed he put his work aside at last, and tried to dismiss it from his mind. Shortly after, he waked one night persuaded that while asleep he had seen his fish with all the missing features perfectly ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... again, why should Dante go about to make me believe in devils? Me! the ruler of all the devils in the teatrino! As though I did not know more about devils than anyone. Dante is the Emperor of Words, but the buffo is the Emperor of Deeds. And then his obscurity! As a theme for discussion Dante is as obscure as religion. One says: 'It is so.' While another says: 'It is not so.' As men discuss a melon and one says: 'Inside it is red.' While another says: 'Inside it is white.' Who can bear testimony to the truth of Dante's words? We cannot cut his poem open and see his ...
— Castellinaria - and Other Sicilian Diversions • Henry Festing Jones
... quote them occasionally, it is to avoid the suspicion of proudly despising them, or of failing to read, and to give sufficient consideration to, their writings. While we read them intelligently, we do so with critical discrimination, and we do not permit them to obscure Christ, and to corrupt the ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... tosauten pistin euron] (St. Matt. viii. 10), we are invited henceforth to read [Greek: par' oudeni tosauten pistin en to Israel euron];—a tame and tasteless gloss, witnessed to by only B, and five cursives,—but having no other effect, if it should chance to be inserted, than to mar and obscure ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... principle as chaste As this is gross and selfish! over which Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway, That govern all things here, shouldering aside The meek and modest Truth, and forcing her To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men, Where violence shall never lift the sword, Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong, Leaving the poor no remedy but tears; Where he that fills an office, shall esteem The occasion it presents of doing good More than the perquisite; ...
— The Task and Other Poems • William Cowper
... clothes nervously, and looked hard at Ah Fe. Wanting the quick-witted instinct of affection that sharpened Carry's perception, she even then could not distinguish him above his fellows. With a recollection of past pain, and an obscure suspicion of impending danger, she asked him when he ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... gigantic schoolboy. His wrists, and large sinewy hands, both employed at the bridle of his hard-mouthed charger, were markedly visible; for it was the Corporal's custom whenever he came into an obscure part of the road, carefully to take off, and prudently to pocket, a pair of scrupulously clean white leather gloves which smartened up his appearance prodigiously in passing through the towns in their route. His breeches were of yellow buckskin, and ineffably ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... be one. On the contrary, he looked with mistrust on silver-tongued orators. "You know," he said in the Diet on February 3, 1866, "I am not an orator.... I cannot appeal to your emotions with a clever play of words intended to obscure the subject-matter. My speech is simple and clear." And a few years later he said: "Eloquence has spoiled many things in the world's parliaments. Too much time is wasted, because everybody who thinks he knows anything wishes to speak, ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... vale, Thick mists obscure involv'd me round; Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye, Nae ray of fame was to be found: Thou found'st me, like the morning sun That melts the fogs in limpid air, The friendless bard and rustic song Became alike ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... his lightnings are less to him than his fireworks; and his pages so teem with fine sayings and magniloquent epigrams and gorgeous images and fantastic locutions that the mind would welcome dulness as a bright relief. He is tediously amusing; he is brilliant to the point of being obscure; his helpfulness is so extravagant as to worry and confound. That is the secret of his unpopularity. His stories are not often good stories and are seldom well told; his ingenuity and intelligence are always misleading him into treating mere episodes as solemnly ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... gloomy impress on him, Added years of bitter pining. May the dove of peace brood over Every blighting grief and trial, May all past despair and anguish Hold abeyance till the Judgment. The Confederates were rallied, Oft in haste and stealth and darkness. All the archives of their columns Are obscure, or lost forever. See Appendix, for the gathering Of the names that float about us, Whether officers or privates; Let the blanks be duly pardoned. H. D. Brown,[6] was First Lieutenant Of command of Captain Logan; J. T. McQuery was Lieutenant; James ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts |
