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Bystander   /bˈaɪstˌændər/   Listen
Bystander

noun
1.
A nonparticipant spectator.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bystander" Quotes from Famous Books



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

... A bystander said, "I don't know that they make as good soldiers as white men, from the fact that they are not so intelligent. Here is General Hunter, and I presume he will say the same thing"—turning to him ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland

... is, thank God! much of the humorous to relieve our tensions in The Army. A brother Commissioner of mine remembers seeing The General sail for the United States for the first time. As the steamer swung off, a bystander remarked, "So he's off?" "Yes." "And when do you go?" "Go? What do you mean?" "Well, you will never see him again now, will you?" And then my comrade fairly took in that the man was alluding to the continual prophecy of those days that The General, once he had got enough, would disappear ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton

... that magistrate's bench with such great care?" asked a bystander of a carpenter who was taking unusual pains. "Because I wish to make it easy against the time when I come to sit on it myself," replied the other. He did sit on that bench as a magistrate ...
— How to Succeed - or, Stepping-Stones to Fame and Fortune • Orison Swett Marden

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

... They were neatly made, and the heather of which they were composed being in bloom they looked very pretty. How it did rain on these dripping creatures! Being shut up by the weather I took an interest in the besom merchants and their load, which was such a heavy one that a good-natured bystander had to help to lift the load off the ass's back. It was a long while before a customer appeared. At length a stout woman, with the skirt of her dress over her head, ran across the street to buy a broom. She bargained closely, getting the broom and a scrubber for one half-penny, but as ...
— The Letters of "Norah" on her Tour Through Ireland • Margaret Dixon McDougall

... demand for unity. But we recognized also that this unity involves complete isolation. We annihilate beauty when we link the artistic creation with practical interests and transform the spectator into a selfishly interested bystander. The scenic background of the play is not presented in order that we decide whether we want to spend our next vacation there. The interior decoration of the rooms is not exhibited as a display for a department store. The men and women who carry out the ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg

... wonder of the public at some of the finest passages of Turner, which look like a mere meaningless and disorderly work of chance; but, rightly understood, are preparations for a given result, like the most subtle moves of a game of chess, of which no bystander can for a long time see the intention, but which are, in dim, underhand, wonderful way, bringing out ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... won what his companions called a hatful of money on the steeple-chase, and he stood to win on other races that were to come off that afternoon. During the interval that elapsed before the next race, he talked to a sociable bystander about Sir Philip Jocelyn, and the young lady he was going to marry. He ascertained that the wedding was to take place the next morning, and at ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon

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

... able to think, he determined that his first move must be to find Carlin, and that very night. It had been some weeks since he had visited the ship-chandler. He had tried the latch several times, and would have repeated his visits had not a bystander told him that Carlin was in the country fitting out a yacht for one of his customers and would not be back for a month. The time was ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith

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

... apple or two, and leaves like those of an Oleander. The brown lady, who was again at her post on deck, walked up to her in silence, uninvited, and with a commanding air waved the thing away. 'Dat manchineel. Dat poison. Throw dat overboard.' R——-, who knew it was not manchineel, whispered to a bystander, 'Ce n'est pas vrai.' But the brown lady was a linguist. 'Ah! mais c'est vrai,' cried she, with flashing teeth; and retired, muttering her contempt ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... decision, under a penalty of a forfeiture of the game to the opposing club. The Umpire shall in no case appeal to any spectator for information in regard to any case, and shall not reverse his decision on any point of play on the testimony of any player or bystander. ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1889 • edited by Henry Chadwick

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

... the waiter went to inform Meehaul, took two ribbons out of her pocket, one white and the other black, both of which she folded into what would appear to a bystander to be a simple kind of knot. When the innkeeper's son and the waiter returned to the hall, the former asked her what the nature of her business with him might be. To this she made no reply, except by uttering the word husht! and pulling the ends, first of the white ribbon, and afterwards ...
— The Dead Boxer - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

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

... said for and against this rule on both sides. A broader method to the lawyer seems shockingly loose and slipshod. The rules of evidence to the bystander seem an inhuman farce. The first allows an atmosphere to be created from which the whole truth may be reached. Would not an ordinary person, if he wanted to find out about the accident, read the newspapers, find out the police reports, ask what a witness thought, what that witness ...
— The Man in Court • Frederic DeWitt Wells

... these feelings only, she took Dr. Short's palm and pressed it. Of the two hands, which met for a moment then, one was soft and melting, the other a bunch of bones; but both were very white, and so equally adroit, that a double fee passed without the possibility of a bystander suspecting it. ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... feel that they have had its germs floating in their minds, though from the lack of favorable conditions, or some other cause, they never took root or became vital. An act of heroism is performed, and a bystander is conscious that he has that within him by which he could have taken the same step, although he did not. Some one steps forward and practically opposes a social custom that is admitted to be evil, yet maintained, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... Then he puts his head down and rushes madly in some direction, generally upwind. As he weighs about two tons, and can, in spite of his appearance, get over the ground nearly as fast as an ordinary horse, he is a truly imposing sight, especially since the innocent bystander generally happens to be upwind, and hence in the general path of progress. This is because the rhino's scent is his keenest sense, and through it he becomes aware, in the majority of times, of man's ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White

... presence; occupancy, occupation; attendance; whereness^. permeation, pervasion; diffusion &c (dispersion) 73. ubiety^, ubiquity, ubiquitariness^; omnipresence. bystander &c (spectator) 444. V. exist in space, be present &c adj.; assister^; make one of, make one at; look on, attend, remain; find oneself, present oneself; show one's face; fall in the way of, occur in a place; lie, stand; occupy; be there. people; inhabit, dwell, reside, stay, sojourn, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... of our arrival. But the sun now shines more lovingly, and the skies seem less disdainful of man and his perplexities. The earth is green, abundant and beautiful. But human life, so far as I can learn, is mean and meagre enough in its purposes, however striking to the speculative or sentimental bystander. Pray be assured that whatever you may say of the 'landlord at Clifton,' [21] the more I know of him, the less I shall like him. Well with me if I can put up with him for the present, and make use of him, till at last I can joyfully turn him ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle

... be doing a good service to all Rosemont if it proves that young people can have a good time without making the 'innocent bystander' ...
— Ethel Morton's Holidays • Mabell S. C. Smith

... ruins. But as Charles and his mother came by the corner, the knot of people parted and gave passage to a line of stretchers—six stretchers in all, and on each a body, which the bearers had not taken the trouble to cover from view. A bystander said that these were men who had run back into the building to drink the flaming spirit, and had dropped insensible, and been crushed when the walls fell in. The boy had never seen death before; and at the sight of it thrust upon ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... in the heart of man, not in the act he performs. If I shoot at a target, and kill a bystander, the act is not murder. But if I aim at my enemy and kill my friend I have committed murder. Out of the heart are the issues of life. Under the laws of to-day the act of this man is called a crime. Yet who can say that when we shall have slowly emerged from the era ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... that time not unimportant, coinciding as it did with other tendencies arising out of the industrial progress of society, which gradually exhibited the relation of lender and borrower in a light more reciprocal, beneficial, and less repugnant to the sympathies of the bystander. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various

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

... statements on the joys and ills of the thin. But when he undertakes to tell me that fat people are happier than thin people, it is only hearsay evidence with him and decline to accept his statements unchallenged. He is going outside of his class. He is, as you might say, no more than an innocent bystander. Whereas I am ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... centre. Nothing can be more unlike one's preconceived ideas than the gambling itself, or the aspect of the gamblers around the tables. Of the wild excitement, the frenzy of gain, the outbursts of despair which one has come prepared to witness, there is not a sign. The games strike the bystander as singularly dull and uninteresting; one wearies of the perpetual deal and turn-up of the cards at rouge-et-noir, of the rattle of the ball as it dances into its pigeonhole at roulette, of the monotonous chant of "Make ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... when a transparent solid is immersed in a liquid of the same refractive index as itself, it immediately disappears. I remember once dropping the eyeball of an ox into water; it vanished as if by magic, with the exception of the crystalline lens, and the surprise was so great as to cause a bystander to suppose that the vitreous humour had been instantly dissolved. This, however, was not the case, and a comparison of the refractive index of the humour with that of water cleared up the whole matter. The indices were identical, and hence the light pursued its way through both as if ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... cigar, Nicol Brinn drew a copy of the Sketch from the rack, and studied the photographs of more or less pretty actresses with apparent contentment. He had finished the Sketch, and was perusing the Bystander, when, the car having climbed a steep hill and swerved sharply to the right, he heard the rustling of leaves, and divined that they were ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... with her feet tucked under her, and her face reclining upon one of her shoulders. And as she talked she was playing with a little toy which was constructed to take various shapes as it was flung this way or that. A bystander looking at her would have thought that the toy was much more to her than the conversation. Lady Laura was sitting upright, in a common chair, at a table not far from her companion, and was manifestly devoting herself altogether to the subject ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... thing, and we have not gotten used to it yet. It is so new to men's natures that they do not always know how to manage it, and so it occasionally runs away with them and leaves them struggling in the ditch, from which they emerge sorry sights, or laughable, according to the view of the bystander and the extent of the disaster. And yet, in spite of mishaps, let the truth stand that those who travel fast and go far, go by Love's Parcel-Post, concerning which there is no limit to the size of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

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

... What did she do? What did some one cry out? Why did not the bystanders help? What did the dog do? What did one bystander say? What did another say when the dog came up? What did he say ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin

... was cruel, Like Carleton cheap, or famed Du-Ruel, Receive the filth which he ejects, She soon would find the same effects Her tainted carcass to pursue, As from the Salamander's spue; A dismal shedding of her locks, And, if no leprosy, a pox. "Then I'll appeal to each bystander, If ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... bounds; they could scarcely believe what they saw; and then, on recovering, with the spirit of true gentlemen, they seized both my hands, congratulating me on the magnitude of my success, and pointed out, as an example of it, a bystander who showed fearful scars, both on his abdomen and at the blade of his shoulder, who they declared had been run through by one of these animals. It was, therefore, wonderful to them, they observed, with what calmness I went up to ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke

... otherwise," answered my lady, rising and dropping him a curtsy, in which stately action, if there was obedience, there was defiance too; and in which a bystander, deeply interested in the happiness of that pair as Harry Esmond was, might see how hopelessly separated they were; what a great gulf of difference and ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

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

... retreated to the safety of the tapestry curtain which hung in the doorway. There for a little while he conducted an innocent bystander business, which presently ended in disaster. Up to the moment, the Mud Turtle had been silent, but now from his throat came a yelp which drowned the rattle ...
— Lady Luck • Hugh Wiley

... Meredith were a good thirty feet from each other, and neither looked at the other. Unless a bystander had equipment to tune in on the special scrambled wavelength they were using, that bystander would never know they were holding ...
— The Penal Cluster • Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)

... and the next moment his heart bled for the girl. 'Poor creature, it's little she knows!' he sighed. 'Let her enjoy herself while she can!' But was it possible, when Flora used to smile at him on the Braid ponds, she could have looked so fulsome to a sick- hearted bystander? ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson

... door, as though half ashamed of themselves, and reappear, after a little, wiping their mouths, and not quite steady in their gait. A young man, with pale and haggard face, swaggers past and goes in, and, as he enters the door, one bystander nudges another and remarks: "Pentuere is going to have a good day again; he will come to a bad end, ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie

... four carts approaching. In each of them were three persons sitting, with their arms closely pinioned. On each side of the carts rode public officers, the sheriffs, city marshals, the ordinary of Newgate, and others. I asked a bystander where they were going and what was to be done to them, for I did not know at the time that ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

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

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

... will work," I said, in reply to a bystander's question. "I have seen whole teams of cows on the Plains in '52. Yes, we will soon have a team," I declared with all the confidence in the world, "only we can't go very far in a day with a raw team, especially in ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker

... 97. While a bystander, by agreement among the players, may decide any question, he should not say anything unless appealed to; and if he make any remark which calls attention to an oversight affecting the score, or to the exaction of a penalty, he is liable to ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work

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

... enter his name on the poll-list. If the inspectors suspect that a person offering to vote is not a qualified elector, they may question him upon his oath in respect to his qualifications as to age, the term of his residence in the state and county, and citizenship. Any bystander also may question his right to vote. This is called challenging. A person thus challenged is not allowed to vote until the challenge is withdrawn, or his qualifications are either proved by the testimony of other persons, or ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... sure I was seasick; and I am convinced any inexperienced bystander, had there been one there, would have been misled by my demeanor into regarding me as a seasick person—but it was a wrong diagnosis. The steward told me so himself when he called the next morning. He came and found me stretched prone on the bed ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... One deserves record here. Two travelling-carriages arrived at a village-inn, one evening, where they were resting. While the gentlemen were inspecting the apartments, a lady of distinguished appearance inquired of a bystander, who the strangers were towards whom so many friendly glances were directed; soon after, the landlord bore to them her request for an interview; they rose at her entrance; she attempted to speak, but her voice faltered, and, with tears, she turned to her little boys and said, "Kneel, my darlings, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... proverb, the bystander sees more of the game than those who share too closely in its passions. And assuredly, if it were asked, what it is that we who write upon Indian news aspire to effect, I may reply frankly, that, if but by a single suggestion any one of us should add something to the illumination of the great ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey

... and discover that it pierced the creature. If he could hold these various elements in the situation, sharpening the stick and using it, he would have made an invention—a rude spear. A particularly acute bystander might comprehend and imitate the process. If others did so and the habit was established in the tribe so that it became traditional and was transmitted to following generations, the process of civilization would have begun—also the process of human ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson

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

... Clarendon, with some difficulty, rescued him and conveyed him home by a bye path. Cartwright, it is said, was so unwise as to mingle with the crowd. Some person who saw his episcopal habit asked and received his blessing. A bystander cried out, "Do you know who blessed you?" "Surely," said he who had just been honoured by the benediction, "it was one of the Seven." "No," said the other "it is the Popish Bishop of Chester." "Popish dog," cried the enraged Protestant; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... ladies would be willing to go in that. It wasn't very smart, but it would take 'em safe,—as if "the ladies" would have raised any objections to going in a wheelbarrow, had it been necessary, and so we bundled in. The hills were steep, and our horse, the property of an adventitious bystander, was of the Rosinante breed; but we were in no hurry, seeing that the only thing awaiting us this side the sunset was a blackberry-patch without any blackberries, and we walked up hill and scraped down, till we got into a lane which somebody told us led to the Fort, from which the village, Fort ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

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

... poor Gale was just "t'other one." Then the Lanes went to Green River where some lodge was having a parade. They were watching the drill when a "bystander that was standing by" said something about the "fine regalia." Instantly "Mis' Lane" thought of her unnamed child; so since that time ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart

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

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

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

... dead. I am not here to seek medical assistance for a grandparent who succumbed to disappointment that time when Samuel J. Tilden got counted out, or for a great-grandparent who entered into Eternal Rest very unexpectedly and in a manner entirely uncalled for as a result of being an innocent bystander in one of those feuds that were so popular in my native state immediately following the Mexican War. Leave my ancestors alone. There is no need of your shaking my family tree in the belief that a few overripe patients will fall ...
— "Speaking of Operations—" • Irvin S. Cobb

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

... A bystander seized the thin man's pistol hand, and yelled at him not to shoot or he might kill some one—of course he meant some one he did not aim at, but it sounded a little funny, and I laughed. Several joined in the laugh, and there was ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick

... the ambulances depart with their melancholy burdens and then turned for information to a bystander. He had not much to give, but the substance of his account—confirmed later by the newspapers—was this: The police had located a gang of suspected burglars and three officers had come to the house to make arrests. They had ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... occurred at Surbiton Cottage. It might have been evident to a watchful bystander that Alaric was growing in favour with all the party, excepting Mrs. Woodward, and that, as he did so, Harry was more and more ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope

... colts up on their haunches, flung the lines with a smile to the nearest bystander, and walked up the aisle with her free, swinging step, followed by a girl carrying a baby. The ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... Thou wrongest our philosophy, O king, In stooping to inquire of such an one, As if his answer could impose at all! He writeth, doth he? Well, and he may write. Oh, the Jew findeth scholars! Certain slaves 350 Who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ; And (as I gathered from a bystander) Their doctrine could be held by no ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... and in his next assault attempted, and with partial success, to hit below the belt. This roused a spirit of indignation in Charlie, which gave strength to his arm and vigour to his action. The next time Stoker paused for breath, Charlie— as the juvenile bystander remarked—"went for him," planted a blow under each eye, a third on his forehead, and a fourth on his chest with such astounding rapidity and force that the man was driven up against the wall with a crash that shook ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne

... done by mobs, and in some States for damage to life done by lynchers; the widow and children of the person lynched may recover damages. In Kansas, by a statute of 1900, it is made a misdemeanor for a bystander to refuse to assist a sheriff in quelling a riotous disorder. Most significant, perhaps, of this militia legislation is that concerning its relation to the labor unions, and more significant still, the too apparent desire of labor unions ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson

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

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

... its rider. Cries of lamentation, mingling with the groans of the fallen person, excited the compassion of Wallace. He rode toward the spot from when the latter proceeded, and asked the nearest bystander (for several had alighted) whether the unfortunate man was much hurt. The answer returned was full of alarm for the sufferer, and anxiety to obtain some place of shelter, for rain began to fall. In a few minutes it increased to torrents, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter

... was to stand.(1566) Dangerfield, another professional informer, was made to undergo a punishment scarcely less severe. He survived the punishment, but only to die from the effect of a vicious blow dealt him by a bystander as he was being carried back ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe

... can only be truly described by the impression they make on the bystander; and it is certain that her friends excused in her, because she had a right to it, a tone which they would have reckoned intolerable in any other. Many years since, one of her earliest and fastest friends quoted Spenser's sonnet as accurately ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

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

... stillness of the house; he felt a sense of ownership of the whole of it: both of these satisfactions were to be interfered with now. But he had a singular consciousness that some new element was coming into his life. He did not define this; he hardly recognized it in its full extent; but if a bystander could have looked into his mind, following the course of his reverie distinctly, as an unbiassed outsider might, he would have said, "Stephen, man, what is this? What are these two women to you, that your imagination is taking these wild and ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson

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

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

... to join with Signor Julio de Pampedillo, who, in a treatise dedicated to the King of the Two Sicilies, calls it the Serapis of the Egyptians, and supposes it to have been fabricated about eleven hundred and three years before the Mosaic account of the creation.' A bystander inquires what has become of the nose of the bust? 'The nose? What care I for the nose?' cries an enthusiastic amateur. 'Why, sir, if it had a nose I wouldn't give sixpence for it! How the devil should we distinguish the works of the ancients if they were perfect? Why, I don't suppose but, barring ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... away with great delight to Will, although a bystander might scarce have found it out. He continued to take his meals opposite Marjory, and to talk with her and gaze upon her in her father's presence; but he made no attempt to see her alone, nor in any other way changed his conduct towards her from what ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Church, in 1822, conducted by Fathers Crandall, Tupper and McCully, twenty-five persons were immersed in Morris's millpond. During the service a woman stood up to exhort, handing her infant of six months to a bystander. The woman was Mrs. Tupper, and the infant the future Sir Charles Tupper. This must have been Sir Charles's first appearance in ...
— The Chignecto Isthmus And Its First Settlers • Howard Trueman

... on, when a bystander interrupted him by remarking that he seemed to understand going on all-fours. "Exceedingly well," said he, "as you shall see;" and off he shuffled, in that posture, amidst the unbounded laughter of the spectators. "Enough! enough!" said the president. "What we ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston

... and tossed a fiery dram down his gullet. But fair fight in the accepted sense of the phrase was farthest from his intention. Quick as a flash, he drew from his belt a dirk, and would have stabbed his antagonist, had not a bystander seized his uplifted arm, while another wrenched the weapon from his grasp. The ruffian's comrades hurried their dangerous leader from the inn, and guided his steps to the river and aboard a large new ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... Cassandra come down from the sky, To tell each bystander what none can deny, That I am Cassandra come down ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi

... is proffered voluntarily, we must still not offer a verdict. Put the case to the contestants and let them settle it. Listen, as a bystander, coming in only when absolutely necessary to insist on exact statements of fact. That course should be excellent training in clear thinking, in the duty of seeing the other man's side, in the deliberation that saves from unwise accusations ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope

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

... written on the forehead. Such as a man's character is, he immediately shows it in his eyes, just as he who is beloved forthwith reads everything in the eyes of lovers. The man who is honest and good ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander as soon as he comes near him must smell whether he choose or not. But the affectation of simplicity is like a crooked stick.[A] Nothing is more disgraceful than a wolfish friendship [false friendship]. ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

... but the incarnation. It is not the intrinsic value of each that we here regard, but the value of the ownership one has in each. 'Deacon Giles and I,' said a poor man, 'own more cows than any five other men in the county.' 'How many does Deacon Giles own?' asked a bystander. 'Nineteen.' 'And how many do you?' 'One.' And that one cow, which that poor man owned, was worth more to him than the nineteen which were Deacon Giles's. So, when you have determined whose the style is which enfolds a thought, whose ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

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

... his kindness, make room?' What is it? Something borne on men's shoulders comes by in the half-light, and I stand back. A woman's corpse going down to the burning-ghat, and a bystander says, 'She died at midnight from the heat.' So the city was of Death as well as ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling

... found that Orion was still in the room. The divided couple stood face to face. What was done could not be undone; but, though he greeted her with only a calm bow, and she fluttered her fan with abrupt little jerks to conceal her embarrassment, nothing took place which could surprise the bystander; indeed, Katharina's pretty features assumed a defiant expression when he enquired how the little white dog was, and she coldly replied that she had had him chained up in the poultry-yard, for that the patriarch, who was their ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... a notary out of work, with his inkbottle dry," said another bystander, very much out at elbows. "Better don a cowl at once, Ser Cioni: everybody will ...
— Romola • George Eliot

... the pillars of society even in the playhouse. Le Foyer was hissed repeatedly at the Theatre Francais. Night after night the proceedings ended in the ejection and arrest of forty or fifty spectators. Even to a mere outsider, an idle bystander of the boulevards, this complete exposure of the social, moral, and political hypocricies of a nation seemed exceptionally brutal. Le Foyer and "Le Jardin" could only have been written by a man passionately devoted to the human ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten

... law, all over the world, and I rather guess this question is ag'in it. In the Granite State, it is always held, when a thing can be proved by the person who said any particular words, that the question must be put to him, and not to a bystander." ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper

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

... Froude is moved to tell the following anecdote: While standing by the grave of Luther, and musing over the strange career of the giant monk whose teachings had gone so far to wreck his most cherished schemes and render his life a failure, some fanatical bystander advised the Emperor to have the body taken up and burned in the market-place. "There was nothing," says Mr. Froude, "unusual in the proposal; it was the common practice of the Catholic Church with the remains of heretics, who were held unworthy to ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske

... raised clouds of dust such as mark the moving of armies. The Whig state convention at Utica became a mass-meeting of twenty-five thousand people, who formed into one great parade. "How long is this procession?" asked a bystander of one of the marshals. "Indeed, sir, I cannot tell," was the reply. "The other end of it is ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... power of the court to impose is a mere bagatelle, compared to the distinction of scientifically man-handling four of society's finest in one afternoon. As one bystander remarked in the ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... toward the little group; but a bystander who had been present at the trial, said loud enough to be ...
— Down the Slope • James Otis

... three, or four, or five fingers; and his adversary has, in the same instant, at hazard, and without seeing his hand, to throw out as many fingers, as will make the exact balance. Their eyes and hands become so used to this, and act with such astonishing rapidity, that an uninitiated bystander would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to follow the progress of the game. The initiated, however, of whom there is always an eager group looking on, devour it with the most intense avidity; and as they ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... determination never to touch it again. An attempt to distribute it among the people about us is interpreted by the well-meaning khan as an impulse of pure generosity on my own part; the result being that he ties the stuff up nicely in a clean handkerchief that an unlucky bystander happens to display at that moment and bids me ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

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

... two ladies were sufficiently posted in the nefarious goings on of the 'dreadful' progeny quite to appreciate the bystander's surprise, but they gazed with renewed ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins

... has been followed in Connecticut, /1/ in a case where a man fired a pistol, in lawful self-defence as he alleged, and hit a bystander. The court was strongly of opinion that the defendant was not answerable on the general principles of trespass, unless there was a failure to use such care as was practicable under the circumstances. The foundation of liability in trespass as ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

... not weary her young husband. But how was I to know that the harmless little shopping expedition would resolve itself into a domestic tragedy, with Herr Nirlanger as the villain, Frau Nirlanger as the persecuted heroine, and I as—what is it in tragedy that corresponds to the innocent bystander in real life? ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... and professional men in manufacturing towns. There are many things which a man cannot say for himself; and, as Bacon has observed, it is one of the advantages of friendship, that it provides some person to say these things for one. So, in this case, it must often have a very good effect, when a bystander, as it were, explains to the men the kind wishes and endeavours of a master manufacturer, which explanation would come with much less force and grace from the ...
— The Claims of Labour - an essay on the duties of the employers to the employed • Arthur Helps

... object to refer to a bystander who professes himself uninterested in the game and able to decide ...
— The Laws of Euchre - As adopted by the Somerset Club of Boston, March 1, 1888 • H. C. Leeds

... progressed since then, but spasmodically. At every session of Congress tremendous efforts have been made by people desiring an adequate navy, and tremendous resistance has been made by people who believed that we required no navy, or at least only a little navy. The country at large has taken a bystander's interest in the contest, not knowing much about the pros and cons, but feeling in an indolent fashion that we needed some navy, though not much. The result has been, not a reasonable policy, but a succession of unreasonable compromises ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske

... the hospitality of Mistress Stanhope for a few days. She hoped Master Drury was there, but of this she could not feel sure; but whether or no he was there, she must go, and she made instant inquiry of a bystander for Captain Stanhope's house. After some little difficulty she found it, and to her joy heard that Master Drury was there. He seemed much astonished to see Maud, and Mistress Stanhope was in no little alarm at her ...
— Hayslope Grange - A Tale of the Civil War • Emma Leslie

... ease and confidence of a practised rider. Her habit was of very dark blue, with huge puffed sleeves and a high lace collar. She wore a top-hat of black, a long blue veil trailing down her back. He heartily agreed with the laconic bystander who remarked that she ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon

... know that you managed that situation very cleverly just now?" said the lady, with a keen glance that made Margaret color. "One has such a dread of the crowd, just public sentiment, you know. Some odious bystander calls the police, they crowd against your driver, perhaps a brick gets thrown. We had an experience in England once—" She paused, then interrupted herself. "But I don't know ...
— Mother • Kathleen Norris

... you and me, sir. You will find a bystander may shoot a malefactor to save the life of a citizen. Confine your defense, at present, to the point at issue. Have you any excuse, as against this young man?" (To Henry.)—"You look pale. You can sit ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade



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



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