"Subtle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at the boy's amazement. There was a subtle sympathy between these two that surprised me, for Ruth Schuyler was fastidious in her choice of friends. But he amused her, and he was never really ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... on the part of these two men which has, in a great measure, served to give celebrity to their names; we refer to their residence, entirely alone, for more than a year, in a land filled with the most subtle and unsparing enemies, and under the influence of no other motive, apparently, than a love of adventure, of Nature, and of solitude. Nor were they, during this time, always together. For three months, Daniel remained ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley
... her features were as perfectly chiselled as Armelline's, but Armelline was possessed of a delicate and subtle charm ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... expressed—that man, in his insatiable curiosity, might dive deep enough to find it even there. Finally, after a space of silence, the oldest and wisest of the gods said: "Hide it in man himself, as that is the last place he will ever think to look for it!" And it was so agreed, all seeing at once the subtle and wise strategy. Man did wander over the earth, for ages, seeking in all places high and low, far and near, before he thought to look within himself for the divinity he sought. At last, slowly, dimly, he began to realize that what he thought was far off, hidden in "the pathos of distance," ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... glimmering idea of what lay beneath that ungraceful exterior and that quaint and humorous speech. The elegant orator and polished man of the world felt no magnetism but that of repulsion; and his senses were so dulled by it that he never guessed the wisdom and the breadth, the subtle policy and the deep statesmanship, the luminous insight and the unfaltering purpose which now seem writ so plain in Lincoln's words ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... had made in withstanding her father's assault upon it had exhausted her. Though she had had the strength to triumph, at the moment, a partial and secret collapse was the price she had afterwards to pay. Father Arlworth, who had a subtle understanding of human nature, noticed that Domini was changed and slightly hardened by the tragedy she had known, and was not surprised or shocked. Nor did he attempt to force her character back ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... eyes studied with a new interest her superb, confident youth—the rolling waves of splendid Titian hair, the lovely, subtle eyes with the depths of shadowy pools in them, the alluring lines of long and supple loveliness. Certainly here was no sweet, ingenuous youth all prone to blushes, but the complex heir of that world-old wisdom the weaker sex has shaped to serve as a weapon against ...
— Bucky O'Connor • William MacLeod Raine
... such occasions, one of the parties got a little warm in the course of the discussion, for Deerslayer met all the arguments and prevarication of his subtle opponent with his own cool directness of manner, and unmoved love of truth. What an elephant was he knew little better than the savage, but he perfectly understood that the carved pieces of ivory must have some ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... He avoided speaking of his artistic interests in her presence; he discovered terrible defects in the fair ladies who sought him as a portrait painter; he praised Josephina's spiritual beauty; he painted pictures of her, putting her features on the canvas, but beautifying them with, subtle skill. ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... ago been displaced as containing an element of harsh tyranny. But it was not perceived, and it seems indeed not even yet to be generally recognised, that the system which replaced it, and is only now beginning to pass away, involved another and more subtle tyranny, the more potent because not seemingly harsh. Parents no longer whipped their children even when grown up, or put them in seclusion, or exercised physical force upon them after they had passed childhood. ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... whimpering for supper and home, and at length Frau Stein rose, and, with an urgent request that Randall should call on her and see her husband, bade him a cordial adieu. He stood there watching her out of sight with an unconscious smile of the most refined and subtle cynicism. Then he sat down and stared vacantly at the close-cropped grass on the opposite side of the path. By what handle should he lay hold of ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... prey by the mountains which confined them. On one part were flocks and herds feeding in the pastures, on another all the beasts of chase frisking in the lawns, the sprightly kid was bounding on the rocks, the subtle monkey frolicking in the trees, and the solemn elephant reposing in the shade. All the diversities of the world were brought together, the blessings of nature were collected, and its ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... hands upon the table. She turned her ring and clenched her hand. She could see his spring coming, realised in those few seconds that here was an opponent of more desperate and subtle calibre than Joseph. Whether her wits might have failed her, fate remained her friend. There was a knock ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... civilized nations, and among them the most profound thinkers, are in this respect no more enlightened than the most savage tribes and ignorant peasants; and, examining the subject closely, we shall find, that, by the speculations and subtle refinements of men, the divine science has been only more and more obscured. Every religion has hitherto been founded only upon what is called, in logic, begging the question; it takes things for granted, and then proves, by ...
— Good Sense - 1772 • Paul Henri Thiry, Baron D'Holbach
... mirror, as the womb surrounds The babe unborn, so is the world of things Foiled, soiled, enclosed in this desire of flesh. The wise fall, caught in it; the unresting foe It is of wisdom, wearing countless forms, Fair but deceitful, subtle as a flame. Sense, mind, and reason—these, O Kunti's Son! Are booty for it; in its play with these It maddens man, beguiling, blinding him. Therefore, thou noblest child of Bharata! Govern thy heart! Constrain th' entangled sense! Resist the false, soft sinfulness which ...
— The Bhagavad-Gita • Sir Edwin Arnold
... relieve this confusion beyond the addition of some helpful marginal renderings. It would seem, if it were possible, that Satan, the author of confusion and the only one advantaged by it, had been able in some subtle way to keep in darkness that which would otherwise be light; thus preventing a revelation of ...
— Satan • Lewis Sperry Chafer
... as she spoke, and Wrayson fancied that there was some subtle meaning in the swift glance which passed between the two. Almost involuntarily he leaned forward once more and looked downwards. Heneage's inscrutable face was still upturned in their direction. There was nothing to be read there, not even curiosity. As the eyes of the two men met, ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... all three? What pen describe all Hermione's glowing beauty, or how her blue eyes, meeting eyes of grey would, for no perceptible reason, grow sweetly troubled, waver in their glance, and veil themselves beneath sudden, down-drooping lashes? What mere words could ever describe all the subtle, ...
— The Definite Object - A Romance of New York • Jeffery Farnol
... mind as one studies in her husband's pictures the full calm lineaments, the large and serene beauty of Lucrezia del Fede; a predominant and placid beauty, placid and implacable, not to be pleaded with or fought against. Voluptuous always and slothful, subtle at times no doubt and sweet beyond measure, full of heavy beauty and warm, slow grace, her features bear no sign of possible love or conscience. Seen side by side with his clear sad face, hers tells more of the story than any written record, even though two poets of our age ...
— Great Pictures, As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Esther Singleton
... night, instead of preparing for sleep, she sat down in the window, and tried to analyze the charm which drew her towards this stranger, without any volition of her own. She could not do it—it was intangible, evasive and subtle. The effect of his presence was like the sun-burst on the landscape, the moment of his arrival. The dark places of her soul seemed suddenly illumined; the massy columns of her intellect turned like the tree trunks, into pillars of gold and light; ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... classes, by no means delighting in his representation of them. When such is felt to be the case among a sufficient number, his bards blow him away as a vapour; we hear that he is a piece of our English humour—we enjoy grotesques and never should agree to paint ourselves handsome: our subtle conceit insists on the reverse. Nevertheless, no sooner are the hours auspicious to fatness than Bull is back on us; he is our family goat, ancestral ghost, the genius of our comfortable sluggishness. And he is at times a mad Bull: a foaming, lashing, trampling, horn-driving, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... roads running between fields of violets and narcissi, and still white farmhouses among the terraced oliveyards and vines. All these things were an abiding joy, but a greater joy than all, and still more unchangeable, was the daily oncoming of light, the subtle flush and gradations of colour before the sun ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... time, there should be no mistake about the manner in which command is exercised. To command is not simply to compel or to convince but a subtle mixture of both. Moral suasion and material compulsion are linked in its every act. It involves not only saying that this is the best thing to do but inferring that the thing had best be done. Force and reason are inseparably ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... pleasure, by which he knows, and feels, and lives, and moves. We have no sympathy but what is propagated by pleasure. I would not be misunderstood, but wherever we sympathize with pain it will be found that the sympathy is produced and carried on by subtle combinations with pleasure. We have no knowledge, that is, no general principles drawn from the contemplation of particular facts, but what has been built up by pleasure, and exists in us by pleasure alone. The man of science, the chemist, and mathematician, whatever difficulties and disgusts they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... was already too deeply engrossed in learned converse with his brother professors to take any notice of the great fact which was beginning to get itself accomplished; but her mother's instinct instantly noticed the subtle change that had come over her daughter, and she saw it with anything but displeasure. All sensible mothers of beautiful daughters are discreetly sanguine. She was far too wise in her generation not to have agreed ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... of abject slavery to man and unfaithfulness to God that might sink Scotland into a condition little better than that of some eastern nations at the present day. Thus was the camp of the Covenanters divided. There were also more subtle divisions, which it is not necessary to mention here, and in both camps, of course there was an infusion, especially amongst the young men, of that powerful element—love of excitement and danger for their own sake, with little if any regard to principle, which goes ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... Trengganu Malay is somewhat larger boned, broader featured, and more clumsily put together than is the typical Pahang Malay. He also dresses somewhat differently, and it is easy to detect the nationality of a Trengganu man, even before he opens his mouth in speech. The difference in appearance is subtle, and to one who is not used to Malays, the natives of Pahang, Kelantan, and Trengganu have nothing to distinguish them one from another, whereas, after a year or two on the East Coast, what ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... universal Self, and then enjoins meditation on it. The highest Brahman, in its causal condition as well as in its so-called 'effected' state, constitutes the Self of the world, for in the former it has for its body all sentient and non-sentient beings in their subtle form, and in the latter the same beings in their gross condition. Nor is there any contradiction between such identity with the world on Brahman's part, and the fact that Brahman treasures within itself glorious ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... been his upon the last occasion when we had talked at length together upon some of the present social and political phases of our republic—that day of the New Bridge and the advent of Hortense. Only, upon that day, he had by his manner in some subtle fashion conveyed to me a greater security in my discretion than I felt him now to entertain. His many observations about the Replacers, with always the significant and conspicuous omission of Hortense, proved more and more, as I ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... had not been for the encouragement of Nat and his mother Peter might not have had the grit to master his work at the beamhouse. A wholesome spur these two friends were to his flagging spirits. There was some subtle quality in Nat's mother that made a fellow want to do his very best—to be as much of a man as he could. And yet she said little to urge either of the lads to their task. It was just that she was so proud and so pleased when they did win any good fortune through their own endeavors. And so ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett
... but her slimness and erectness, and the kind of costume she wore made her seem tall as she stood in this low-ceiled room. Her features were of very uncommon type, at once sensually attractive and bearing the stamp of intellectual vigour. The profile was cold, subtle, original; in full face, her high cheekbones and the heavy, almost horizontal line of her eyebrows were the points that first drew attention, conveying an idea of force of character. The eyes themselves were hazel-coloured, ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... it to be the first step towards adjustments when he motored Karen and Mrs. Talcott to Guillian House to lunch with his friends the Lavingtons. The occasion must mark for him the subtle altering of an old tie. Karen and the Lavingtons could never be to each other what he and the Lavingtons had been. It was part of her breadth that congeniality could never for her be based on the half automatic affinities of caste and occupation; and ...
— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... action, construed it as the subtle old diplomat intended he should. "Yes, yes! I am a king only for her sake. Go on. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... moral atrophy; for any of our voluntary functions, capacities and powers which we fail to exercise will in time become benumbed and paralyzed. Unprejudiced observers who come in close contact with metaphysicians cannot help perceiving the pernicious effect of their subtle sophistries on ...
— Nature Cure • Henry Lindlahr
... Great ship-timber planks for the fray. But here will the tongue be at work, uncoiling, word-testing refining, Sophist-creator of phrases, dissecting, detracting, maligning, Shaking the envious bits, and with subtle analysis paring The lung's ...
— The Frogs • Aristophanes
... adjusted to feminine preferences and feminine capacities. We are now learning to realise that the tertiary physical, and psychic sexual differences—those distinctions which are only found on the average, but on the average are constant[2]—are very profound and very subtle. A man is a man throughout, a woman is a woman throughout, and that difference is manifest in all the energies of body and soul. The modern doctrine of the internal secretions—the hormones which are the intimate stimulants ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... the stories did not make the public nor influence the public mind. "I was," he says in the last edition of these tales, "the most unknown author in America". Full of glancing wit, of tender satire, of exquisite natural description, of subtle and strange analysis of human life, darkly passionate and weird, they yet floated unhailed barks upon the sea of publicity—unhailed, but laden and gleaming at every crevice with the true treasure of Cathay. Bancroft, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... in gorgeous green and blue shades. Spring had bustled into town from the prairies, insinuating itself into the dirty, cavernous streets, sailing in boisterously over the gleaming lake, eddying in steam wreaths about the lofty buildings. The subtle monitions of the air permeated the atmosphere of antiseptics in the office, and whipped the turbulent spirits of Sommers until, at the lunch hour, he deserted the Athenian Building ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... possibly have been regained. This project of a compromise, by which Ferdinand would have been freed from his secret engagement with Austria, was exactly what Metternich desired to frustrate. He found himself matched, and not for the first time, against a statesman who was even more subtle than himself. This was Count Capodistrias, a Greek who from a private position had risen to be Foreign Minister of Russia, and was destined to become the first sovereign, in reality if not in title, of his ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... His colour was all that can well be desired, but ill-described by any poor word-palette. Enough that he seemed to tone away from olive and umber, with carmine stars, to glowing gold and soft pure silver, mantled with a subtle flush of rose and ...
— Crocker's Hole - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... the existence of a Swiss, or a Belgian, literature. In this sense, too, it was no doubt once possible, with no small measure of justification, to deny the existence of an American, as distinguished from an English, literature. Yet, despite the subtle psychic bonds that link identity of speech to similarity of thought, the environment (which helps to shape pronunciation as well as vocabulary and the language itself) is, from the standpoint of literature, little removed ...
— Brazilian Tales • Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis
... of it is unchangeable; the allegory, subtle and profound and yet simple, is cast into the form of a dramatic narrative, which moves with unconventional freedom to a finely impressive climax; and the reader, who began in idle curiosity, finds his intelligence more and more engaged until, when ...
— Makers of Madness - A Play in One Act and Three Scenes • Hermann Hagedorn
... or mouse, that swims betwixt him and the sky; these he hunts after, if he sees the water but wrinkle or move in one of these dead holes, where these great old Trouts usually lie, near to their holds; for you are to note, that the great old Trout is both subtle and fearful, and lies close all day, and does not usually stir out of his hold, but lies in it as close in the day as the timorous hare does in her form; for the chief feeding of either is seldom in the day, but usually in the night, and then the ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... view to influencing the imaginations of his patients, this shrewd practitioner caused his consulting apartments in Paris to be dimly lighted and surrounded by mirrors. Strains of soft music were heard, subtle odors pervaded the air, and the patients were seated around a circular oaken trough or baquet, in which were disposed a row of bottles containing so-called electrical fluid. A complicated system of wires connected the mouths of the bottles with handles, which were grasped by the patients. ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... sepulchres, the philological dictionaries. On the other hand, English which goes too far, and fails of a delicate distinction between what is really and essentially idiomatic and what is colloquial, becomes at once vulgar and utterly wanting in that subtle quality of dignity for which there is no better ...
— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody
... it was a League, must have members; even if he had been prepared to contribute all the funds himself and carry on the whole business of it single-handed, it couldn't consist solely of Mr. Waddington of Wyck. His problem was a subtle and difficult one: How to identify himself with the League, himself alone, in a unique and indissoluble manner, and yet draw to it the necessary supporters? How to control every detail of its intricate working (there would be endless wheels within wheels), and at the same time give proper powers ...
— Mr. Waddington of Wyck • May Sinclair
... the writing. This is very important; for handwriting is, as it were, an extension of the personality of the writer. And just as a man to some extent snares his personality with his near blood-relations in the form of family resemblances, so his handwriting often shows a subtle likeness to that of his near relatives. You must have noticed, as I have, how commonly the handwriting of one brother resembles that of another, and in just this peculiar and subtle way. The inference, then, ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... about trouble under the Bastardy Laws Dogberry first used the arm of the law by apprehending him, and then the subtle methods of ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... Mr. Britling, by the light of a variety of emotional excursions in other directions, had been discovering this. Whatever Mr. Britling discovered he talked about; he had evolved from his realisation of this tenderness, which was without an effort so much tenderer than all the subtle and tremendous feelings he had attempted in his—excursions, the theory that he had expounded to Mr. Direck that it is only through our children that we are able to achieve disinterested love, real love. But that left unexplained that far more intimate emotional hold of Hugh ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... found to be desirable, becoming, beautiful, comfortable, appropriate, seduisant—what you will—are taken as the foundation of the next wardrobe order, and with this inside information from women who know (know the subtle distinction between daring lines and colours, which are good form, and those which are not), the men or women who give their lives to creating costumes proceed to build. These are the fashions for the exclusive few this year, for the ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... and became the wonder of the world. She was married to a powerful King, and they lived in peace and plenty until the Goddess of Envy once more troubled the child's life. For owing to her subtle planning a Prince was promised for wife the fairest woman in the world, and he took the wife of the powerful King and carried her away to Asia to the six-gated city. The King prepared a host of ships and armed men and sailed to Asia to win back his wife. And he and his army fought for ten years until ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... has killed his score of men. We are drawn by a certain charm that lurks in his iron nerve and gleams from his cold eyes. The toreador has his way with the Spanish dons and senoritas alike. The high-rope dancer and the trapeze girl attract us by a subtle spell. Is it an unlabelled force in nature? I can but ask the question. I do not pretend ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... aspirant to histrionic fame was MARIE BOUFFE, "the most perfect comedian of his day," says Mr. Hervey, and we fully coincide in the verdict. Bouffe, is one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and agreeable actors we ever saw; subtle and delicate in his conceptions of character, energetic without rant, ever true to Nature, and of a rare versatility of talent. We have known several persons who fancied, partly perhaps on account of his name, that he only ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... too great for words. A sudden, inexplicable emotion took possession of him,—an emotion to which he could give no name, but which stupefied him and held him mute. Was it her beauty which so dazzled his senses? Was it some subtle perfume in the room that awoke a dim haunting memory? Or what was it that seemed so strangely familiar? He struggled with himself, and ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... makes them work." The old gentleman smiled upon him kindly and patronizingly. He had been born and brought up in New York. He was receptive to new ideas and people. There was something about Uncle William—a subtle tang—that he liked. It was ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... it is in a sense a sequel to The Beautiful Years. It is the work of a very clever young writer whose nature essays have attracted the widest attention here and in America, and is utterly unlike the usual "school story." It is a subtle and beautifully written ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... had even adopted some of their "pagan" practises. Besides this, the Government had introduced innovations and reforms, many of which were displeasing to the people. In short, the country was polluted with "heresy"—a subtle, evil influence lurking in everything foreign, and very dangerous to the spiritual and temporal welfare of the Faithful—something of the nature of an epidemic, but infinitely more dangerous; for disease kills merely the body, whereas "heresy" ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... there was a vast deal in education—and in pride too, she said. While Miss Rawlins came with a prudish God forbid that virtue should be owing to education only! However, I declared that Miss Howe was a subtle contriver of mischief; one who had always been my enemy: her motives I knew not: but despised the man whom her mother was desirous she should have, one Hickman; although I did not directly aver that she would rather ...
— Clarissa, Volume 5 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... is perhaps the most subtle of the ancient Greek poets. "Several schools of critics have commented on his works. To the Englishman he has presented one meaning, to the Frenchman another, to the German a third; the interpretations have also differed with the philosophical systems which the interpreters ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... her curiously, while the color came and went with her tumultuous emotions, and her troubled breathing; and he changed his tone—being subtle. ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... yet. This darling little creature clearly does not belong to the room, or even to the country; for her complexion, though very delicate, has been burnt biscuit color by some warmer sun than England's; and yet there is, for a very subtle observer, a link between them. For she has a glass of water in her hand, and a rapidly clearing cloud of Spartan obstinacy on her tiny firm set mouth and quaintly squared eyebrows. If the least line of conscience could be traced between those eyebrows, an Evangelical ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... "Condensed Novels" Harte surpassed all parodists. With clever burlesque, there was both appreciation and subtle criticism. As Chesterton says, "Bret Harte's humor was sympathetic and analytical. The wild, sky-breaking humor of America has its fine qualities, but it must in the nature of things be deficient in two qualities—reverence and sympathy—and these two qualities were knit into the closest texture ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... bones they are moist with marrow, And with milk your breasts are full; Your hands they are strong and subtle, And your life-blood never dull; But fail at the sword or the plowshare, Or fall at the forge or the wheel, And ye only mar earth's bosom With a wound that ...
— Pan and Aeolus: Poems • Charles Hamilton Musgrove
... this fact has a hard time in opening the eyes of the public. He succeeds eventually, but not until he has encountered every sort of contemptible opposition and hypocritical evasion of the plain truth. The social satire of the piece is subtle and sharp; what the author really aims at is to illustrate, by a specific example, the repressive forces that dominate the life of a small people, and make it almost impossible for any sort of truth to triumph ...
— Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson • William Morton Payne
... the object of the cognition of reason, philosophers may be divided into sensualists and intellectualists. Epicurus may be regarded as the head of the former, Plato of the latter. The distinction here signalized, subtle as it is, dates from the earliest times, and was long maintained. The former asserted that reality resides in sensuous objects alone, and that everything else is merely imaginary; the latter, that the senses ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... and selfish propositions of the French king, had incurred that monarch's wrath, it would have taken a noble position no doubt, but it would have perhaps been utterly destroyed. The Advocate considered himself justified in using the artifices of war against a subtle and dangerous enemy who wore the mask of a friend. When the price demanded for military protection was the voluntary abandonment of national independence in favour of the protector, the man who guided the affairs of the Netherlands did not hesitate to humour and to outwit the king who strove ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... answer at once, Because the evil is so rife, the dangers so great and manifold, the temptations so strong and subtle, that your influence must be united to that of the boy's father if you want to safeguard him. Every influence you can lay hold of is needed here, and will not prove more than enough. The influence of one parent alone is not sufficient, more especially ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... to her, which meant that she had some subtle, indescribable charm, but Aunt Priscilla would have said she had no dictionary words to explain it, though there had been a speller ...
— A Little Girl in Old Boston • Amanda Millie Douglas
... that he was aiming a covert sarcasm at those women who thrust themselves conspicuously upon the notice of the public, and that he meant to hint that those who thus unsex themselves often make a showy appearance without displaying much solid merit. If this subtle, sharp, and strong-minded female did not turn out to be something of a shrew, before her husband was done with her, I am much mistaken. Possibly, however, Shakspeare's sarcasm might bear a more general interpretation, and implies that women in an argument seldom ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... twice befriended her while in New York. Moved by that sympathy for the suffering which is ever the purest offspring of woman's heart, no matter how low her condition, she resolved not to rest until she had devised the means of his release. Her influence over the subtle-minded old Judge she well knew, nor was she ignorant of the relations existing between ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... mate himself who burst out crying like a child. I never ascertained, however, for I had kicked off my shoes and was busy baling with them. Others were hunting for the leak. But the mischief was as subtle as it was mortal—as though a plank had started from end to end. Within and without the waters rose equally—then lay an instant level with our gunwales—then swamped us, oh! so slowly, that I thought we were never going to sink. It was like ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... by which pity is endeavoured to be excited by complaints. These and all other common topics are derived from the same rules from which the other systems of arguments proceed, but those are handled in a more delicate, and acute, and subtle manner, and these with more gravity, and more embellishment, and with carefully selected words and ideas. For in them the object is, that that which is stated may appear to be true. In these, although it is desirable to preserve the appearance of truth, still the main object is to give importance ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... take for granted the conceits because of the "wildness" of Ariosto, and the good taste because of the "regularity" of Tasso, just assume the reverse of the fact. It is a rare thing to find a conceit in Ariosto; and, where it does exist, it is most likely defensible on some Shakspearian ground of subtle propriety. Open Tasso in almost any part, particularly the love-scenes, and it is marvellous if, before long, you do not see the conceits vexatiously ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... morning. He finds it necessary to alter his conduct, as he sees now that I could do without him. I determined to go on with him for the present. I do not wish to leave him here with En-Noor, for he may do us harm with that subtle Kailouee prince. I must take him away ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... spotless as to linen and sleek as to hair, she felt this singular sensation of a secret understanding with him and, added to it, of a kind of almost personal pride in his appearance, now that he was dressed, which presently extended in some subtle way to an almost personal ...
— The Enchanted April • Elizabeth von Arnim
... Fraser push us over the wall? But instantly logic came to my rescue. Fraser had brought us here, and he could have brought us for but one thing: to question us. Would he be apt to do us harm before those questions were asked? And besides, would Fraser's brilliantly subtle mind stoop so low as to destroy enemies by ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... not really arise from the logical basis on which it seems to repose. It comes from something much deeper,—a certain habit and set of mind which gives these arguments their force. For want of a better name, we call it the spirit of the age. It is the result of very subtle and complicated forces, which I do not pretend to analyse. It spreads through society, and forms the congenial soil in which these seeds of evil, as we believe them to be, take root. Does anybody suppose that the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... to lift than any one could believe who reads your articles," said she, with a subtle smile.—"I have not such a sum as you need, but come to-morrow at eight; the bailiff will surely wait till nine, especially if you bring him away to ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... Temple, she was very nice to Betty, and she spoke to Vernon with a delicate, subtle, faint suggestion of proprietorship in her tone. At least that was how it seemed to Betty. To Temple it seemed that she was tacitly apologising to an old friend for having involuntarily broken up a dinner a deux. To Vernon her tone ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... complete biography, it will not be necessary to dwell on the subsequent portions of the exile, inasmuch as there is little reference to these in the psalms. We must pass over even that exquisite episode of Abigail, whose graceful presence and "most subtle flow of silver-paced counsel" soothed David's ruffled spirit, and led him captive at once as in a silken leash. The glimpse of old-world ways in the story, the rough mirth of the shearers, the hint of the kind of black mail ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... the sixtieth, when it is only the fifty-sixth; Quinquagesima, as if it were the fiftieth, when it is the forty-ninth; Quadragesima, as if it were the fortieth, when it is the forty-second. Alcuin's answer is more subtle ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... watching Griffith, and reading his face. She had subtle, vague misgivings, and forbade her mother to mention the pedler's visit to Griffith yet awhile. Womanlike she preferred ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... when there is no vehicle of wit or delicacy, no subtle conveyance. The difference between coarse and refined abuse is as the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... they had learned it well. Now in the land of the Moor, dwelling in the palaces they had built, and gazing upon masterpieces of Arabic art and architecture which they had left, they were to learn the subtle charm of form and color, and the fascination which music and poetry and beauty and knowledge may lend to life. As they drank from these Moorish fountains the rugged warriors found them very sweet; and they discovered that there were other pleasures in life beside fighting the ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... Into life the old delights We have tasted in our youth, And our graver years, forsooth! How again the boyish heart Leaps to see the chipmunk start From the brush and sleek the sun Very beauty, as he runs! How again a subtle hint Of crushed pennyroyal or mint, Sends us on our knees, as when We were truant boys of ten— Brown marauders of the ...
— Riley Child-Rhymes • James Whitcomb Riley
... was short, and I did not wish to keep Mr. Rassendyll waiting. Besides, in my new-born nervousness, I was anxious to accomplish my errand as soon as might be. What had become of Bauer? The thought returned, and now with it another, that seemed to connect itself in some subtle way with my present position: why and whither had the Count of Luzau-Rischenheim set out from Strelsau a day before I started on ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... round the marble courts in voluptuous but easy and graceful dances. Here sculptors carved away amidst admiring pupils, and forms of supernatural beauty grew out of Parian marble in a quarter of an hour; and grave philosophers conversed on high and subtle matters, with youth listening reverently; it was a long time ago. And still beneath all this wonderful panorama a sort of suspicion or expectation lurked in the dreamer's mind. "This is a prologue, a flourish, there is something behind; something that means me no good, something ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... ever planned (not at all cheap, either, nor heterogeneous in matter), the Tudor Translations, faintly annoys me in the mass. Its appearances in a series seems to me to rob a book of something very delicate and subtle in the aroma of its individuality—something which, it being inexplicable, I will not ...
— Mental Efficiency - And Other Hints to Men and Women • Arnold Bennett
... at last, with so new a smile on her lips, that criticism was lost in curiosity. Its subtle curves blended expectancy, fear and tenderness, seen through a veil ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... and subtle flattery did Thorir Klakka seek to entice Olaf over to Norway, to the end that Earl Hakon might secretly waylay him and bring him to his death, and so clear his own path of a rival whom he feared. ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... characters of Captain Anthony and de Barral are deliberately suggested in fainter outline just because Marlow has in fact not known them personally, but only through the reports of others. I am prepared to believe the author of Typhoon subtle enough for that, or for anything else, and I have this only grudge against him, that he intrigued me to the point of feverishly "skipping," out of sheer excitement to know if and how the deplorable misunderstanding between Flora and her quixotic Captain Anthony was to be cleared up, just ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, January 28, 1914 • Various
... and uninteresting small boy, never gave him for the rest of the school term, after which he left, the slightest sign of recognition; and yet for years after the fields and trees and houses which they had passed on the line were suffused for Hugh with a subtle emotion in the memory of ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... brilliantly ingenious, of Mr. Macrae. 'This,' he exclaimed rather superfluously, 'accounts for the fiendish skill with which these miscreants took cover when pursued by the Marine Police. This explains the subtle art with which they dodged observation. Doubtless they had always, somewhere, a well-found normal yacht containing their supplies. Do you not ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... I have not stirred since the cold weather began. Robert has kept up the fire in our bedroom throughout the night. Oh, he has been spoiling me so. If it had not been that I feared much to hurt him in having him so disturbed and worried, it would have been a very subtle luxury to me, this being ill and feeling myself dear. Do not set me down as too selfish. May ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... to be a traveler on the highroad to fortune; he had become almost reconciled to the loss of his bank balance, to the loss of his place in the upper world. His was the constitution of a born criminal, and, had he been capable of subtle self-analysis, he must have known now that fear, and fear only, hitherto had held him back, had confined him to the ranks of the amateurs. Well, ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... avalanches had ground the rocks at the Dells into boulders. It remembered the descendants of its subjects, the Aztec Indians. It remembered how the Spaniards had cruelly broken the Aztec nation. Through the subtle influence of psychic forces, it stirred up a passion of hate for Spain in the hearts of the people of the United States, and it fostered the awful spirit of strife, and at the right moment it let loose the dogs of war. One convulsive touch of its rocky claws ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... conscious of a subtle change in their relation. Carrington seemed a shade less frank than had been habitual with him; all at once he had removed his private affairs from the field of discussion. Afterward, when Norton considered the matter, he wondered if it were not that the Kentuckian felt himself superfluous ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... were all closed and locked and I have already ascertained that the gas and water lines have not been tampered with. Gas won't penetrate through a solid roof in sufficient concentration to knock out a man like that. It was something more subtle than gas." ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... like to see answered. And Faith's words, few or many, for she was sometimes drawn on, were said in the humble yearning desire to let him know what she rejoiced in and save him from an abyss of false fathomless depth. It was more than she could do. Dr. Harrison's subtle difficulties and propositions had been contrived in a school of which she knew nothing; and were far too subtle and complicate in their false wit for Faith's true wit to answer. Not at all for lack of wit, but for lack of skill in fencing and ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... some strange, subtle sympathy between drunkards, for, at the very time these two men expressed their wish, the master of the Evening Star said to Gunter, "Get out ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... prophet, prelate and priest, jurist and lawmaker, prince and peasant, scholars and men of affairs have felt and dreaded its subtle power, and sought relief in code and commandment, bull and anathema, decree and statute—entailing even the penalty of death—and all in vain until in the march of the races to a higher civilization, the centuries enthroned faith in the place of fear, wisdom in the place of ignorance, ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... wasn't a sense of duty; they all knew well enough how to shirk, and laze, and dodge—when they had a mind to it—and mostly they had. Was it the two pounds ten a month that sent them there? They didn't think their pay half good enough. No; it was something in them, something inborn and subtle and everlasting. I don't say positively that the crew of a French or German merchantman wouldn't have done it, but I doubt whether it would have been done in the same way. There was a completeness in it, something solid like a principle, and masterful like an instinct—a disclosure of something secret—of ...
— Youth • Joseph Conrad
... the governor's permission. He had been told that to give a glass of water to a communicant, who must of course have fasted and abstained from any liquid since midnight according to the law of the Church, was a holy act which brought the giver a blessing, and so the subtle Chinese thought to make his blessing greater by offering a drink ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... fixed in Irene's memory. She drew from it formerly, extensive conclusions, then she ceased altogether to recall it; now she thought again of it, forgetting her painted chrysanthemums, which, on the blue satin, seemed to gaze at her, having as subtle and enigmatical a look ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... to demonstrate the true meaning of those Poems, which some could not perceive unless I relate it, because it is concealed under the veil of Allegory; and this it not only will give pleasure to hear, but subtle instruction, both as to the diction and as to the intention of ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... ravenously unconventional. I remembered that the last time I had seen him at repast, just about forty-eight hours past, he had speared a croquette of chicken with disdain, and I decided not to apologize for the meal even in the most subtle way. Also the spectacle of father polishing off the small bones, when I remembered the efforts of devoted Henri to tempt his appetite with sophisticated food, filled me with a queer primitive feeling that made it possible for me to fall upon my series of the ribs with an ardor ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... called Irony; it was put to dramatic uses for the first time in European literature by Aeschylus. The horrible tragedy it may cause is clear enough in the Agamemnon; its power is terrible and its value as a dramatic source is inestimable. There is another and a far more subtle form of Irony, in which a character uses riddling speech interpreted by another actor in a sense different from the truth as it is known to the spectators; this too can be used in such a manner as to charge human speech with a sinister double ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... vulgar way, but through a deep curiosity in the presence of those mysteries of the universe which are unexplained by science. He believed himself to be endowed with magnetic powers; and, as a matter of fact, the irresistible effect of his words, the subtle force which emanated from his whole personality and confirmed by his contemporaries. He believed in telepathy, he held that two beings who love each other, and whose sensibilities are in a certain degree in harmony, are able, even when far ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... to him a vague mirage Or memory of a storied page With only that appeal; But oftentimes a sound or sight Would bring to him his own delight More subtle ...
— A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems • A. B. S. Tennyson
... entirely helpless state which excluded the smallest choice on his part; and, somehow or other, she felt that his going wrong would be his father's and mother's fault, if they failed in one tittle of their parental duty. Her notion of parental duty was not of a high and subtle kind, but it included giving him his due share of the family property; for when a man had got a little honest money of his own, was he so likely to steal? To cut the delinquent son off with a shilling, was like delivering him ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... came this unformed mass to be like our earth, to be covered with motion and organization, with life and general felicity? What primitive cause stocked it with plants and animals, and produced all the surprising and subtle contrivances which we find in their structure, all the wide and profound mutual dependence which we trace in their economy? Is it possible to conceive, as the Vestiges inculcate, that man, with his sentiment and intellect, his powers and passions, his will and conscience, ...
— An Expository Outline of the "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" • Anonymous
... the hideous humor of that? He knows Peggy Nyland and I are friends. Dale is ruthless and subtle. Can't you understand how a man of that type would enjoy seeing me send my friend's brother to his death—and the ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... see the connection between a roomful of furniture and a pig-pen, but Carol's wit is often too subtle for me." ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... the book has a subtle intention. It indicates, and is true to the verities in doing so, the strange dreamlike quality of life to the man who has not yet fought his own battles, or come into conscious possession of his will—only such battles bite ...
— A Certain Rich Man • William Allen White
... but disturbed in mind," he said. "Six months ago I stood well with my fellow citizens, and few were more popular in Dort than myself. Now, save among the better class, men look askance at me. Subtle whispers have gone abroad that I am in correspondence with France; that I am a traitor to Holland; that I correspond with the Spanish at Antwerp. In vain have I tried to force an open accusation, in order ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... replied Paaker, who did not perceive the subtle irony that lurked in Pentaur's words, and who was accustomed to pay for the gifts of the Divinity in proportion to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... as individuals the universal passion? There are at least some of Drayton's sonnets which possess a direct, instant, and universal appeal, by reason of their simple force and straightforward ring; and not in virtue of any subtle charm of sound and rhythm, or overmastering splendour of diction or thought. Ornament vanishes, and soberness and simplicity increase, as we proceed in the editions of the sonnets. Drayton's chief attempt in the jewelled or ornamental style appeared in 1595, with the title of Endimion and ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... almost infinitely, whereby there are innumerable shades and degrees of every conceivable distinction of merit and of sin, so the proportion and depth of the pains which the souls will feel will vary equally. The pains of no two souls will be exactly the same. They will be measured out, in subtle and exact aptness to each, according to its guilt or goodness, precisely as the process of its purification shall require. There will be nothing ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... The military millipede That tramples out the guilty seed— The capital all pleasure and delight— And all that like a town or army chokes The gazer with foul dust or sulphur smokes. The budget, prize for which ten thousand bait A subtle hook, that ever, as they wait Catches a weed, and drags them to their fate, While gleamingly its golden scales still spread— Such were the meats by which these ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... is nothing to guide us. And if everything is so nebulous about a matter so elementary as the morals of sex, what is there to guide us in the more subtle morality of all other personal contacts, associations, and activities? Or are we meant to act on impulse alone? It is all ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... depicted the Damned in Hell suffering a new torment from their inability to get at the Filboid Studge which elegant young fiends held in transparent bowls just beyond their reach. The scene was rendered even more gruesome by a subtle suggestion of the features of leading men and women of the day in the portrayal of the Lost Souls; prominent individuals of both political parties, Society hostesses, well-known dramatic authors and novelists, and distinguished aeroplanists were dimly recognizable in ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... please. My old friend, Mr. Frederic Harrison, wrote to me:—"I have read it all through with great attention and delight, and have returned to it again and again.... I am quite sure that it is the most finished and artistic of all your books and one of the most subtle and graceful things in all our modern fiction." And Charles Eliot Norton's letter from Shady Hill, the letter of one who never praised perfunctorily or insincerely, made ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... that day and night they remained there guarding the ivory seat, till the Cid should come and take his place thereon; every one having his sword hung from his neck. This was a right noble seat, and of subtle work, so that whoso beheld it would say it was the seat of a good man, and that it became such a one as the Cid. It was covered with cloth of gold, underneath which ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... talking to European women of the world. New York had been overrun of late with Russian princesses and other ladies of title come over in the hope of milking the good old American cow, and when he could divert them from their grievances he found them clever, subtle and interesting. It was unlikely that this woman had a grievance of that sort or was looking for a chance to get at the generous but elusive udder. Her pearls might not be real, but her gown was superlatively expensive, her evening wrap of mauve velvet ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... Walt Wilder is doomed. He has escaped the spears, arrows, and tomahawks of the Tenawa savages to fall a victim to a destroyer, stealthy, subtle, unseen. ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... convinced that the native servants had tried to poison him, inquired of his wife if she had felt the alarming symptoms. She confessed to a violent headache, but laid it to the champagne. Later on, the rather haggard victim approached Browne with subtle inquiries. Browne also had a headache, but said he wasn't surprised. Fifteen minutes later, Deppingham, taking the bit in his quivering mouth, unconditionally discharged the entire force of native servants. He was still in a cold perspiration when he sent Saunders to tell his wife what ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... whatever in convincing the Peking Government that the hour for action had arrived; nor again was there any question of real hostility to a nation which is so far removed from the East as to be meaningless to the masses. The deep, underlying, decisive influence was simply expediency—the most subtle of all political reasons and the hardest to define. But just as Britain declared war because the invasion of Belgium brought to a head all the vague grounds for opposition to German policy; and just as America broke off relations because the scrapping of undertaking ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... and Answer to the New Subtle Corruption of the Gospel of Christ—Erklaerung und Antwort auf die neue subtile Verfaelschung des Evangelii Christi," 1554 Nicholas Gallus maintained that, if the righteousness presented by Christ alone is the cause of our justification and salvation, then good works can only be the fruits of ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... is with most of these English models, they are so thick and heavy, so cart-horsey, or else they are so thin. The tall, graceful ones are too thin, I want those subtle, gracious lines, but I don't want sharp bones and corners. I want smooth, rounded contours, and yet the outlines to be delicate; I want slender ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... to the gate to see what he wanted. Lord 'Will be Will' plays a prominent part in the drama both for good and evil. He is neither Free Will, nor Wilfulness, nor Inclination, but the quality which metaphysicians and theologians agree in describing as 'the Will.' 'The Will' simply—a subtle something of great importance; but what it is they have never been ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... proofs, before they will credit anything that purports to be of a spiritual tendency;—something startling—some miracle of a stupendous nature, such as according to prophecy they are all unfit to receive. Few will admit the subtle influence and incontestable, though mysterious, authority exercised upon their lives by higher intelligences than their own—intelligences unseen, unknown, but felt. Yes! felt by the most careless, the most cynical; in the uncomfortable ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... which thought deals involve many subtle relations and require many nice modifications. Language has instruments, more or less perfect, whereby such relations and modifications may be expressed. But these subsidiary aids to expression do not form a notion ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... with a subtle light, as of stars, in the depths of her eyes; "I am especially delighted to find that the old furnishings remain; it would be difficult for me to collect articles so in keeping with the entire scheme of ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... since time suits me now to wait, I put away the softer style Proper to love; rhyme subtle and severe Shall tell how Nobleman's estate Is won by worth, hold false and vile The judgment that from ...
— The Banquet (Il Convito) • Dante Alighieri
... you are exerting no more power for God than a dead man! A christian, indeed, but without power because of compromise with something questionable or outrightly wrong! Is that so with you? I do not say it is, for I do not know. But you know. The hungry, critical world knows. Subtle, keen Satan knows. The Lord Jesus knows. Do you know if that describes you? You may know with certainty within twenty-four hours if you wish to and will to. May we be willing to have the Spirit's searchlight turned in upon ...
— Quiet Talks on Power • S.D. Gordon
... They are the child's thought in the child's language, and yet altogether, poetical. We do not know anything in the whole range of English literature to equal them in their own peculiar charm. There is a subtle beauty in them which is ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... less alarmed: they too sensibly feeling themselves affected by the magnetic influence. For the subtle current passing through the bodies of their horses, in like manner, and almost simultaneously enters their own. All now aware that they are in real danger, are using their utmost efforts to get out of it by spurring, shouting to their animals, and beating them with ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... dwell sociably and luminously on the peculiarly interesting character of what he called Dormer's predicament and on the fine suspense it was fitted to kindle in the breast of the truly discerning, that Peter wondered, as I have already hinted, if this insistence were not a subtle perversity, a devilish little invention to torment a man whose jealousy was presumable. Yet his fellow-pilgrim struck him as on the whole but scantly devilish and as still less occupied with the ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... I said, "I have made a dignified yet subtle protest. You wouldn't move in the matter so I had to do something. I flatter myself that a sense of her past silliness will rush over Jane like a flood when she comes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, August 19th, 1914 • Various
... those who were lame and those who were sick. Simply and with uninquiring minds, they knelt or stood in the roadway, content to watch the banners as they swung gaily to the rhythmic movements of the bearers, content to see the holy relics in the Pater's hand, content to feel that subtle wave of religious sentiment pass over them which made them at peace with their little world and brought the existence of God nearer to ...
— A Bride of the Plains • Baroness Emmuska Orczy |
