"Inconspicuous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... or any other materials he might normally be expected to possess as a householder or as a worker in his particular occupation. His arsenal is the kitchen shelf, the trash pile, his own usual kit of tools and supplies. The targets of his sabotage are usually objects to which he has normal and inconspicuous access ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... labourers on the estate, it would not have mattered much to anybody if he had not been there. Nobody ever connected any romantic thought with him. There was something in his strong build, pale but healthy aquiline face, his inconspicuous brown eyes and hair, which seemed from the beginning to mark him out as the ordinary earthy ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... distinguish with the naked eye, and might not attract any attention at all unless they were pointed out; yet when attention is drawn to the fact, it is impossible to deny the redness of some, such as Aldebaran. But though we may admit this, we might add that the colours are so very faint and inconspicuous, that they might be, after all, ...
— The Children's Book of Stars • G.E. Mitton
... played but an inconspicuous part, was now to become the scene of the greatest naval battle of the war. A British army of 11,000 men under Sir George Prevost undertook the invasion of New York by advancing up the western bank of Lake Champlain. This advance was impracticable unless there was ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... stays and supports of our declining years—all these things come in bottles. From the time of its purchase to the moment of its consignment to the barrel in the cellar or the rapacious wagon of the rag-and-bone man the bottle plays a vital part in our lives. And as with most inconspicuous necessities, but little is known of its history. We assume vaguely that it is blown—ever since we saw the Bohemian Glass Blowers at the World's Fair we have known that glass is blown into whatever ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... detective. These little animals are the natural food for many of the larger undersea creatures, so one of their greatest talents is hiding. Approaching danger, whether from octopus, fish or man, arouses caution in a small mollusk and it becomes as inconspicuous as it can. This can be pretty inconspicuous, as the novice conchologist learns ...
— Let's collect rocks & shells • Shell Oil Company
... is no longer to be seen in India. Four or five inconspicuous railway carriages or motor-cars now take the place ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the Human from the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... so conspicuous are thus frequent, how very general must be the smaller, and inconspicuous injuries! To one case where positive illness is traceable to over-application, there are probably at least half-a-dozen cases where the evil is unobtrusive and slowly accumulating—cases where there is frequent derangement of the functions, attributed ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... variations there would not be the slightest difficulty in giving bright colours to the males alone, and at the same time or subsequently, dull colours to the females alone. In this manner the females of some butterflies and moths have, it is probable, been rendered inconspicuous for the sake of protection, and ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... typical V. tricolor, with broad flowers, variously colored and veined with yellow, purple and white. It occurs in waste places on sandy soil. The second is called V. arvensis or the field-pansy; it has small inconspicuous flowers, with pale-yellowish petals which are shorter than the sepals. It pollinates itself without the [40] aid of insects, and is widely dispersed in cultivated fields. The third form, V. alpestris, grows in the Alps, but is of lesser importance ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... is at least three hundred yards west of the point indicated on the map as the site of Socapa, and it cannot be seen at all from the channel, or even from the highest parapet of Morro. Unless Socapa Castle, therefore, is so small and inconspicuous as to have escaped my notice, it must have fallen into ruins or been destroyed. There is no castle on the western side of the entrance now that can be seen from the water, from the Estrella battery, or ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... characteristics, together with his whimsical humor, are part of his great charm. One cannot help loving the man as one reads about him or reads his stories. The mental picture of him which one receives is of a shy and meditative little man, inconspicuous of dress, getting over the ground with strides almost as long as himself, and with a face that one cannot meet without stopping ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... him finely. On one side of this old palace—for he was sure it could be nothing short of a palace—was a flight of steps which led up to a small door. This entrance was an inconspicuous one, which could not be said of the several porticoed entrances. Beside the steps, in the angle made by the meeting of the wall with them, was conveniently set a small, pine box. Johnnie had hunted a vacant building with the intention of entering it. But now he decided to read first, and steal ...
— The Rich Little Poor Boy • Eleanor Gates
... upward from this wealthy but inconspicuous substratum was the compact and dominant group which the Mingotts, Newlands, Chiverses and Mansons so actively represented. Most people imagined them to be the very apex of the pyramid; but they themselves ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... the end of a long muscular neck, with a pair of glazing beady eyes and a surprisingly small mouth. When Ed pressed on the muscles at the base of the skull, the mouth gaped roundly and a two-inch long spine slid smoothly out of an inconspicuous slot ...
— Cat and Mouse • Ralph Williams
... himself to test it. Captain after captain, upon being asked to name a selected man, had to confess ignorance; not so my skipper. He knew them all. "What is that man's name?" asked the Brigadier, indicating an inconspicuous and rather terrified private, just that sort of man whose name one would never know or want to know. (It was something rather like Postlethwaite, I believe). "Two paces forward, Private Johnson," ordered my skipper emphatically, fixing an hypnotic ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 14, 1914 • Various
... the valley he saw the place where the Temple had been, but no Temple was there now—only the dome of the Muhammedan mosque. Of the Holy Sepulchre there was nothing visible, for it lay within the City and was inconspicuous. He came to Gethsemane, where Christ had suffered, and he climbed the Mount of Olives, from whence he could look over Jerusalem. He did so, and wept. After he had paid his devotions in the ruins of the Church of the Resurrection, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... out the bad erratum at page 301. I hope that you will experimentise on inconspicuous flowers (741/3. See Miss Bateson, "Annals of Botany," 1888, page 255, "On the Cross-Fertilisation of Inconspicuous Flowers:" Miss Bateson showed that Senecio vulgaris clearly profits by cross-fertilisation; Stellaria media ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... A quiet and inconspicuous example of exquisite refinement in Gothic bas-relief is to be seen in the medallioned "Portail aux Libraires" at the Cathedral in Rouen. This doorway was built in 1278 by Jean Davi, who must have been one of the first sculptors of his time. The medallions are a series of little grotesques, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... an empty sleeve. "I, alas, have nothing. The benefits I have in mind are of a subtler and more priceless kind. At Yu-ping my office will be that of the keeper of the doors of the yamen, including that of the prison-house. Thus I shall doubtless be able to render you frequent service of an inconspicuous kind. Do not forget the name ...
— Kai Lung's Golden Hours • Ernest Bramah
... voice that was vaguely felt by all as a part of the universal strangeness that was in her erect bearing, her proud head, her deep eyes that looked so straight into their own—a strangeness that was in that belt and those stockings and those shoes, inconspicuous as they were, to which she saw every eye in time covertly wandering as to tangible symbols of a mystery that was beyond their ken. Old Hon and the step-mother alone talked at first, and the others, even Loretta, said never ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... messenger, content to take orders from this swiftest of moving brains. For the present Cowperwood was satisfied to do business under the firm name of Peter Laughlin & Co.—as a matter of fact, he preferred it; for he could thus keep himself sufficiently inconspicuous to avoid undue attention, and gradually work out one or two coups by which he hoped to firmly fix himself in the financial future ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... need hardly remind our readers, has only been rescued from subsidence and collapse at an immense cost by a lavish use of the resources of modern engineering. The building itself is not without merits, but its site is inconspicuous and the swampy nature of the soil is a constant menace to its durability. The scheme which we venture with all humility to suggest is that it should be removed and re-erected, in the same spirit though in the architectural ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... possible which of the factors is the relatively strongest one. As usual, here, too, I began with rather complicated material and only slowly did I simplify the apparatus until it finally took an entirely inconspicuous form. But this is surely the most desirable outcome for testing methods which are to be applied to large numbers of persons. Complicated instruments, for the handling of which special training is needed, ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... had made himself as inconspicuous as possible while in Okar, waiting for the train, and he was certain that none of Dale's men ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer
... corners. It seemed to him that there was safety in concealment. Where could he hide to be inconspicuous when the lights returned? At last he sat down upon a seat in a recess on one of the higher ways, conceiving he was ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... after glancing from the younger man to the elder, said to herself as she closed the door, "Father, sure enough." The likeness was that of outline, which is always most striking at the first moment; the expression had been wrought into the strongest contrasts by such hidden or inconspicuous differences as can make the genius of a Cromwell within the outward type of a father who was no ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... mania for refusing things. Why, I owe her—never mind, I won't tell you now—but I would have felt very much hurt, Miss Debutante, if you'd thrown back my little present. I'm sure I selected something quite modest and inconspicuous.... Dear me, I'm blocking the whole ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... to make the outing with his unwonted wife an inconspicuous one. Uxoriousness was a weakness that the precepts of the Caribs did not countenance. If any of his friends of the track, the billiard cloth or the square circle had wives they had never complained of the fact in public. There ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... seem in rather an excitable mood to-night," said the lieutenant; "we had therefore better make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible. I wonder what has occurred? Possibly there may have been some battle, in which the Bolivians have been defeated. I would not have come ashore had I thought that the city was likely to be in this state of unrest. However, as we are here we may ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... their rude inconspicuous flints, and the accumulated remains of their feasts in the 'mirnyongs,' or native shell-mounds, along our coasts, which only have significance to the careful observer, we have no other visible evidence ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... now lay among the trees on the crag's edge looking down into the terrific chasm below. He and the girl who crouched in the thicket of alpine roses behind him seemed a part of the light-flecked forest—so inconspicuous were they among dead leaves and trees in their ragged and ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers
... so inconspicuous and quiet and lady-like," remarked Billie when some time later they left the motor car in charge of Komatsu and went in to visit Shiba Temple in Shiba Park. These chapels are mostly the tombs of the Shoguns who for many years were powerful nobles and who really ruled Japan in place of the Emperor, ...
— The Motor Maids in Fair Japan • Katherine Stokes
... suggest that the ivy adopts the converse attitude towards its visitors to that forced upon the alpine flower. The ivy bloom is small and inconspicuous, but then it has the season to itself, and its inconspicuousness is no disadvantage, i.e. if one plant was more conspicuous than its neighbours, it would not have any decided advantage where the pollinating insect is ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... seemed conscious of this feeling, for not only did he take care to proceed to the Quai d'Orsay in as inconspicuous a manner as possible, but he also applied to the authorities to detail a policeman to accompany him in ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... seeking? To be invisible, is the first point; the second, to be invisible in a post-chaise and with a servant. Can you not perceive the delicacy of the quest? Nothing must be too coarse, nothing too fine; rien de voyant, rien qui detonne; so that I may leave everywhere the inconspicuous image of a handsome young man of a good fortune travelling in proper style, whom the landlord will forget in twelve hours—and the chambermaid perhaps remember, God bless her! with a sigh. This is the very fine ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... however, the conditions are very dissimilar. In the first place the machine owing to its diminutive size as compared with the airship, offers a small and inconspicuous target. Then there is its high independent speed, which is far beyond that of the airship. Furthermore its mobility is greater. It can wheel, turn sharply to the right or to the left, and pursue an irregular ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... apically (capitalized color terms after Ridgway, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, Washington, D. C., 1912); large nasal patch Cinnamon-Buff in two specimens, but Pale Pinkish-Buff in holotype; white throat spot small and inconspicuous, throat mostly bright Cinnamon-Buff; auricular patch pure Plumbeous, hairs lacking cinnamon-colored tips; tarsi with Cinnamon-Buff hairs; dentition as in P. bulleri except that enamel plate of posterior wall of M1 reduced to a vestige present only ...
— A New Species of Pocket Gopher (Genus Pappogeomys) From Jalisco, Mexico • Robert J. Russell
... respective countries. He divides the Macedonian Slavs into pure Slavs, Slavized Bulgars and pure Slavs influenced by Slavized Bulgars: "all three categories," he says, "have been subjected to a strong and often continuous Greek influence, to say nothing of the Turks and the inconspicuous Vlachs," so that in his opinion it is rash to make sharp divisions among a people who have thus acted and reacted on one another. A large proportion of the Macedonians[53] have no knowledge of the race to which their ancestors belonged; and one is brought ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... drew bridles in the yellowing October forest. Their smart drab uniforms touched with purple blended harmoniously with the autumn woods. They were as inconspicuous as two deer in the dappled shadow. There was a sunny clearing just ahead. The wood road they had been travelling entered it. ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert Chambers
... in one place and then in another; but in each position the picture predominated and asserted itself so markedly, that Stuart gave up the idea of keeping it inconspicuous, and placed it prominently over the fireplace, where it reigned supreme above every other object in the room. It was not only the most conspicuous object there, but the living quality which it possessed in so marked a degree, and which was due to its naturalness of ...
— The Exiles and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... ensure a continuing supply of fuel, they would probably have left him a reasonably good one. But, since only a little could be left, allowing him a good car would have been simply an example of conspicuous waste, and the government had always preferred its waste to be inconspicuous. ...
— The Most Sentimental Man • Evelyn E. Smith
... had harmed Vitellius or feared reprisals, but from love of their emperor, and to follow his noble example. Similar suicides became common afterwards at Bedriacum and Placentia, and in other encampments.[323] An inconspicuous tomb was built for Otho, as being less likely to be disturbed: and thus he ended his life in ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... you, my friend?" asked the Night-Violet [Footnote: An inconspicuous flower which in Denmark is very fragrant in the evening, the "night-smelling rocket" (Hesperis triatto).], who stood there giving forth fragrance just ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... religion a persistent though inconspicuous current of non-theistic thought. It does not deny the existence of spirits but it treats them as being, like men, subject to natural laws, though able, like men, to influence events. The ultimate truth for it is not pantheism but ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... sign yesterday at the roadside that I never saw anywhere before. It was not a large sign—indeed rather inconspicuous—consisting of a single word rather crudely painted in black (as by an amateur) upon a white board. It was nailed to a tree where those in swift passing cars could not ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker
... large, axillary, solitary. Calyx double, the outer portion deciduous, consisting of 3 small, acute leaflets inserted on the base of the inner calyx; the inner is bell-shaped, larger than the outer, with 5 inconspicuous, persistent teeth. Corolla four times longer than the calyx, of 5 fleshy, fluted petals, their borders overlapping, much broader above. Stamens very numerous, arranged around and along a column. Filaments long. Anthers of half-moon shape. Style 1, very thick. Stigma cleft in 5 parts, ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... all three stood safely on the dazzlingly white beach of coral sand that stretched for about a mile in either direction from the spot where they had landed. From here the hull of the brig looked little more than a small inconspicuous spot against the snow-white cloud of surf that broke eternally upon the outer edge of the barrier reef; and Leslie made a mental note to pull off aboard again betimes in the afternoon, for it would be practically impossible to hit off her ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... two uniforms were hidden in the seat of the car. The rifles and helmets, to lend color to the invasion, were dropped in the open road, and five minutes later three gentlemen in inconspicuous Harris tweeds, and with golf clubs protruding from every part of their car, turned into the shore road to Cromer. What they saw brought swift terror to their guilty souls and the car to an abrupt halt. Before them was a regiment of regulars advancing in column ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... they do not know the portion of the locality, say, for instance, a certain township, in which the minerals occur. And if they do succeed in finding this, it is seldom that the portion in which the mineral occurs, which is generally some small inconspicuous vein or fissure, is found; and even in this it is generally difficult to recognize and isolate the mineral from the extraneous matter holding it. As an instance of this I might cite thus: Dana, in his text book on mineralogy, will mention the locality for a certain species, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 344, August 5, 1882 • Various
... themselves in the warm sun amid a deep thicket of alpine roses, and remained silent and busy with pencil and paper for a while—two inconspicuous, brownish-grey figures, cuddled close among the greyish rocks, with nothing of military insignia about their dress or their round grey wool caps to differentiate them from sportsmen—wary stalkers of chamois or red deer—except ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... during several years spent on the coasts of New Guinea and in the Moluccas I was never able to obtain a skin. We are therefore quite ignorant of the habits of this bird, and also of its female, though the latter is no doubt as plain and inconspicuous as in all the other species ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... ends our Parisian wanderings," Lanyard announced. "If you'll be good enough to keep an eye out for busybodies—and yourself as inconspicuous as possible in ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... arrived he was on the point of using the telephone. He feed the linen-coated porters and dismissed them as rapidly as possible. Then he ransacked the trunks until he found, amidst a pile of fashionable clothing, a quiet and inconspicuous suit of dark grey. In the bathroom he hastily changed his clothes, selected an ordinary Homburg hat, and filled a small leather case with various papers. He was on the point of leaving the room when his eyes fell upon the cable. He hesitated for a moment, gazed at the ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... his station by the tall library mantel and wandered across the room to an inconspicuous corner, where he propped his manly form up against the wall and followed Arethusa with his eyes, totally unregardful of anything else in their line of vision, as she swayed and dipped like a snow fairy in her ...
— The Heart of Arethusa • Francis Barton Fox
... person with gentle little slaps for a match. The current of the pavement rippled by him; the great expanse of his back was half turned to it, so that he and his search were in a kind of privacy, and the situation was favorable to the two inconspicuous men who approached him from either side. The one, with an air of hurry, ran against him at the instant, when he was exploring his upper waistcoat pocket, staggered and caught at him with mumbled apologies; ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... frightened Philip himself. He realized for the first time that he was indeed the son of a man who had killed in anger. He touched more than once the little inconspicuous gold cross that hung at his belt, wondering whether he were fitted after all for the vocation he ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... and the lazy fun, Rosy-Lilly would slip from one big woodsman to another, an inconspicuous little figure in the smoke-gloomed light of the two oil-lamps. Man after man would snatch her up to his knee, lay by his pipe, twist her silky, yellow curls about his great blunt fingers, and whisper wood-folk tales or baby nonsense into her pink little ear. ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... forthwith in the workshops and tool-sheds attached to the home premises of Stoke Revel, and presently emerged, furnished with the object he had made diligent and particular search for; this he proceeded to carry in an inconspicuous way to a distant cottage where he knew there was a grindstone. He spent a happy hour with the object, the grindstone, and a pail of water. Whirr, whirr, whirr, sang the grindstone, now softly, now loudly—"this ...
— Robinetta • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... formed by the margin of separate lobes or of the whole pinnules; often inconspicuous, fronds usually hairy. ...
— The Fern Lover's Companion - A Guide for the Northeastern States and Canada • George Henry Tilton
... narrow-minded persons term red, but which has been known to cause the more discriminating to draw heavily on the dictionary for adjectives. My face is small and heart-shaped, with features strictly for use and not for ornament, but fortunately inconspicuous. As for my eyes, I think tawny quite the nicest word, though Aunt Jane calls them hazel and I have even heard ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... Tom himself, who, stretched upon the slippery black leather lounge, hoarse as a frog from much addressing of obdurate electors, was endeavoring to sing "Just Before the Battle, Mother," hitting the tune only in the most inconspicuous places! ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung
... Patty exclaimed. "I didn't see her, either. She's the most abnormally inconspicuous person I ever heard of. What did she look ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... had an adventure the first time he attended a union meeting, but it was not of his own seeking. Jurgis had gone with the desire to get into an inconspicuous corner and see what was done; but this attitude of silent and open-eyed attention had marked him out for a victim. Tommy Finnegan was a little Irishman, with big staring eyes and a wild aspect, a "hoister" by trade, and badly cracked. Somewhere ...
— The Jungle • Upton Sinclair
... Be that as it may, this mace has held its own far more steadily than the fame of its alleged detractor, and its transportation through the tea-room is the only manner of announcement that the lecture is about to open in the hall beyond. Indeed, so inconspicuous is the proceeding, and so quietly do the members that choose to attend pass into the lecture-hall, leaving perhaps half the company engaged as before, that the "stranger "—as the non-member is here officially designated—might very readily fail to ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... supply and the first drought kills these. Still others fail to send up a vigorous stem and the passing animal knocks them over and they die. Of the few that are still surviving, some produce such small and inconspicuous blossoms that the insects scarcely see them, and they go unfertilized. In the end only the aristocrats of the group are left, aristocrats in the best sense of the word. These are strong, thrifty, and beautiful, and are provided with every defense known to the mullein ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... same thing staring at you whichever way you turn. 'T is the easiest thing in the world to have too much of a good thing. Sometimes the better the thing the worse the repetition. This general effect which we must have is well secured by a small, inconspicuous figure, or by those vine-like patterns, so delicate and wandering that you don't attempt to follow them. Better than either are the plain tints, which give you, in fact, all you require; a modification of the cold white wall, and the most effective background for pictures and other furnishing. ...
— Homes And How To Make Them • Eugene Gardner
... of that, and yet was troubled lest he guessed at her secret behind that mask of innocence he wore. He did not even remotely guess it as yet, but he was far closer to the truth than he pretended. The girl knew she should leave him and go about her work. Her role was to appear as inconspicuous as possible, but she could not resist the fascination of trying ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... Society would be finished. A socialist state is, in its final development, an absolute, total, state; no total state can tolerate extra-legal and para-governmental organizations. So we have adopted the policy of giving a little inconspicuous aid, here and there, to people who are dangerous to the Statisticalists. The Lady Dallona of Hadron, and Dr. Harnosh of Hosh, are such persons. You appear to be another. That's why I ordered that fellow, Larnorm, to make sure you were ...
— Last Enemy • Henry Beam Piper
... matters which are not without significance for the physical well-being of a prospective mother. Neat and comfortable clothing will help her to overcome a natural inclination to become a "stay-at-home," and on this account an inconspicuous way of dressing is often more valuable than medicine. So long as they do not attract attention, most prospective mothers go out in the day time, mingle with their acquaintances, and attend public places of amusement. Deference to ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... utterly comfortable and contented little soul on the face of this earth. She would not change places with a queen." "But Rose is not plain. Rose is the happy medium. And THEY are the lucky ones—the inconspicuous people—the every-day sort—" ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... building and crossed an alley to another of like size. Down toward its middle was the usual wall of canvas with half-a-dozen men about the opening at one corner. A curious whirring noise came from within. He became an inconspicuous unit of the group and gazed in. The lights were on, revealing a long table elaborately set as for a banquet, but the guests who stood about gave him instant uneasiness. They were in the grossest caricatures of evening dress, both men and women, ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... inconspicuous ordinary-looking little shell, its upper surface recalling the aspect of H. alliaria but with more convexity and no lustre, and its base that of H. crystallina. It was found, apparently gregarious, under dead leaves in an islet in ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... life which has no natural end but absolute completeness. The small seed may grow very slowly in the climate and soil which it finds here, and be only a poor little bit of ragged green, very shabby and inconspicuous by the side of the native flowers of earth flaunting around it, but it has a divine germinant virtue within, and waits but being carried to its own clime and 'planted in the house of the Lord' above, to 'flourish in the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... running best that something happens. Something is dropped into the gear, and it's usually done by the last man you'd expect to do it. The fellows who are tending the machine are too busy watching that part of the crowd they think is dangerous, and then the inconspicuous chap ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... linked with those of man. In the case of the larger parasites, such as the tapeworms and the trichina, there is a direct interchange of disease with animals, certain phases of the life cycle of the organisms are passed in man and others in various of the domestic animals. A small inconspicuous tapeworm inhabits the intestine of dogs and seems to produce no ill effects. The eggs are passed from the dog, taken into man, and result in the formation of large cystic tumors which not infrequently cause death. Where the companionship ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... the rancher went toward the house, shoulders low, making himself as inconspicuous as possible. The distance between the house and where Dick was waiting was not far, but it was all open, and with the moon lighting up the scene almost like day, a person crossing might ...
— The Boy Ranchers on Roaring River - or Diamond X and the Chinese Smugglers • Willard F. Baker
... hunt went on, the mother watching gravely under a bush where she was inconspicuous, and the cubs, full of zest and inexperience, missing the flying tidbits more often than they swallowed them, until they learned at last to locate all game accurately before chasing or alarming it; and that is the rule, learned from hunting grasshoppers, which a wolf follows ever afterward. ...
— Northern Trails, Book I. • William J. Long
... had been elected to some new and absorbing organization for putting the social edifice still more irretrievably into the disorder it seemed bent for, in which case she might forget the inner wobblings of such an inconspicuous nomad as a brother in metaphysical pangs. He became recklessly optimistic, as the train climbed higher into the hills, and luxuriated in it, conscious all the time that it was altitude that was intoxicating him, not ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... peeping out of its hole in the ground. In colour the difference ranges from the light blue of the forget-me-not to the deep blue of the gentian; from the delicate pink of the dianthus to the deep crimson of the rhododendron; from the brilliant hues of the orchids to the dull browns and greens of inconspicuous tree flowers; from the vivid light greens, yellows, and reds of the young leaves of these tropical forests to the greyer green of their maturity; from the smiting reds and blues of the most gaudy butterflies, beetles, and dragon-flies ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... East back to where it belonged. "Yes, I know. But we're talkin' about Texas. Still, I reckon you ought not to have any trouble on this trip. Don't let anybody know why you are at the fort. Don't gamble or drink. Get the money from Major Ponsford and melt away inconspicuous into the brush. Hit the trail hard. A day and a night ought to ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... not been detected in the synizesis stage (fig. 4), but in the later growth stages (figs. 5-7) this pair is conspicuous in preparations stained by the various methods cited above, while the spireme is pale and inconspicuous. The size of the heterochromosome pair varies considerably at different times in the growth period, and in some nuclei (fig. 7) both chromosomes appear to be attached to a plasmosome. The ordinary chromosomes assume the form of rings and crosses in the prophase of the first maturation mitosis ...
— Studies in Spermatogenesis - Part II • Nettie Maria Stevens
... tired of imitating comedians with noisy clashing of spades and death-blows, Ulysses and the other active lads would propose the game of "Bandits and Bailiffs." But thieves could not go clad in such rich cloths; their attire ought to be inconspicuous. And so they overturned some mountains of dull-colored stuffs that appeared like mere sacking in whose dull woven designs could be dimly discerned legs, arms, heads, and branching ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... responsibilities, or that any inspiration but the hope of personal gain would induce such effort. The contention that the honor of direction and the applause of the multitude would incite to the necessary competition is not sound. In the first place long years of inconspicuous service but with the same eager effort are essential preliminaries to the great places which but few can reach, and secondly the honor would go as it does now in public affairs, not to the man efficient in industry, but to the man efficient in talk. The one ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... itself into two, one half riding to the left and the other to the right, and stringing themselves out, single file, close in under the shadows of the overhanging cliffs, where they quickly became so inconspicuous as to be practically invisible. Then, accompanied by a body of twenty picked men, who spread themselves out in open order in our rear, the king and I advanced toward the buffalo at ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... pretty slender herb is seldom more than five or six inches high, and its blossoms are so inconspicuous as to be often overlooked. The flowers droop gracefully before expansion. In country places it is often called Mill Mountain, and its infusion is an old remedy for rheumatism. If bruised, and applied externally, it reddens the skin, and will sometimes ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... other. Basil Dashwood played a part in Yolande and Peter had not failed to take with some comfort the measure of his aptitude. He judged it to be of the small order, as indeed the part, which was neither that of the virtuous nor that of the villainous hero, restricted him to two or three inconspicuous effects and three or four changes of dress. He represented an ardent but respectful young lover whom the distracted heroine found time to pity a little and even to rail at; but it was impressed upon his critic that he scarcely represented young love. He looked very well, but Peter ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... with pencil and order-pad might have been seen some hours later going as if from the kitchen to the ninth floor of a Washington hotel. And the same waiter, a few minutes later, was escorting a guest from a rear service-door to an inconspicuous car parked nearby. The waiter ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... of those who read his book happened to meet him personally, and one or two of this number—clever but inconspicuous people—lucidly apprehended him for what he was: that rare phenomenon, the artist (such he was already calling himself)—the artist whose personality, whose opinions and whose work are in exact accord. The reading public—a body rather captious and ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... clubs it is a stretch of churches. Shrinking back from the sidewalk on the east side of the Avenue between Forty-fifth and Forty-sixth Streets is the Church of the Heavenly Rest. So inconspicuous in appearance is it that once a passer-by commented: "I can perceive the Heavenly, but where is the Rest?" Two blocks to the north, at the corner of Forty-eighth, is the Collegiate Church of St. ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... out about it. Came in in the late morning generalized report-digest; very inconspicuous item, no special urgency symbol or anything. Fortunately, one of the report editors spotted it and messaged Police Terminal for a copy of the ...
— Time Crime • H. Beam Piper
... of the kingdom of heaven, the intense experiences of the war, both in the army and out of it, left no man just as he was before. To "them that were exercised thereby" they brought great promotion in the service of the King. The cases are not few nor inconspicuous of men coming forth from the temptations and the discipline of the military service every way stronger and better Christians than they entered it. The whole church gained higher conceptions of the joy and glory of self-sacrifice, and deeper ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... wren song began, quite near this time, everything else was forgotten, and after a few moments' eager suspense we saw our bird. He was little and inconspicuous in shades of brown, with tail stuck pertly up, wren fashion, foraging among the dead leaves and on old logs, entirely unconscious that he was one of the three distinguished singers of the wood; none but the hermit thrush and the veery being comparable to him. Whenever, in the ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller
... men are equally interesting in appearance. They wear broad- brimmed hats with low crowns. Their clothes are so extremely plain that buttons, universally deemed indispensable, are taboo and their place is filled by the inconspicuous hook-and-eye, which style has brought upon them the ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... influence of the revival of ancient art which arose with Winckelmann towards the close of the last century, a gospel of esthetics was preached. Its apostles were chiefly Germans, and among them Schiller and Goethe are not inconspicuous names. The latter, before his long life was closed, began to see the emptiness of such teachings, and the violence perpetrated on the mind by forcing on the religious sentiment the food fit ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... There was Rashid against the wall of a large mosque, beating himself against that wall with a most fearful outcry. A group of high-fezzed soldiers, the policemen of the city, hung round him in compassion, questioning. Happily, I wore a fez, and so was inconspicuous. ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... line effects in the furniture heights and in the wall-paper, which, if in pronounced patterns, must balance in conspicuous wall members and show the broken junctures or bad matchings in inconspicuous or ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford
... places. The meetings of the two were taking place in accordance with what she had read in the love stories of Paris. She was going in search of Julio, fearing to be recognized, tremulous with emotion, selecting her most inconspicuous suit, and covering her face with a close veil—"the veil of adultery," as her friends called it. They had their trysts in the least-frequented squares of the district, frequently changing the places, like timid birds that at the slightest disturbance fly to perch a little ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... to the exact appearance of that bird. "Feathers around base of bill black," said the book. I had not noticed that. But no matter; the bird was a blue grosbeak, for the sufficient reason that it could not be anything else. A black line between the almost black beak and the dark-blue head would be inconspicuous at the best, and quite naturally would escape a glimpse so hasty as mine had been. And yet, while I reasoned in this way, I foresaw plainly enough that, as time passed, doubt would get the better of assurance, as it always does, and I should ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... forming with the coast-line, whence you look, The harbor's entrance, stretches Eastern Point, A lighthouse at its end; a mile of land Arm-like thrust out to keep the ocean off; So narrow that beyond its width, due east, You see the Atlantic glittering, hardly made Less inconspicuous by the intervention. The cottage fare, the renovating breeze, The grove, the piny odors, and the flowers, Rambles at morning and the twilight time, Sea-bathing, joyous and exhilarant, Siestas on the rocks, with inhalations Of the pure breathings of the ocean-tide,— ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... Johnny rode to the S.P. depot feeling like a criminal trying to escape. He took his luggage and sneaked into the waiting room, sought an inconspicuous place and waited, his whole head and shoulders hidden behind a newspaper which he was not reading. Cliff Lowell could have found nothing to criticize in Johnny's manner of screening his presence there; though he would probably have been surprised at Johnny's reason for doing so. Johnny ...
— The Thunder Bird • B. M. Bower
... office-building that afternoon he was closely scrutinized by an inconspicuous man who, just inside the door by the cigar-stand, had been conversing with Tully. Bean saw Tully, but strode by that gentleman with head erect, chest expanded, and waist drawn in. Tully was cut. And Bean did not, of course, notice the inconspicuous man ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... still noting various small items of Holton's raiment—his tan oxford shoes, brilliant socks, and brown derby. A brown derby seemed odd in Montgomery. From the pocket of his sackcoat protruded the cuffs of tan gloves, and he wore an inconspicuous watch chain passed from pocket to pocket of his waistcoat. Not even the most prosperous of the college seniors had ever presented to Phil's eye a variety of adornments so tastefully chosen, a color scheme so effective. The interview seemed to be to the young man's liking. He ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... wear, a quiet, rather simple street dress, which does not proclaim that either money or time has been spent upon it to any notable extent, is by far the most appropriate. The suit should be becoming but inconspicuous. ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... OBJECTS. Then proceed to discover very small objects, either concealed or else placed in an inconspicuous place, such as a pin stuck in the wall, etc.; or a small bean under a ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... the rule at the French court, but there were exceptions, and not inconspicuous ones, for Louis XV. was an unfeeling man, and Louis XVI. was an awkward one. When Mademoiselle Genet, fifteen years old, was first engaged as reader to the former king's daughters, she was in a state of agitation easy to imagine. The court was in mourning, ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... are others as well, so that we may even speak of metamorphoses between different types of metamorphosis!) they all obey the same basic rule, namely, that before proceeding to the next higher stage of the cycle, the plant sacrifices something already achieved in a preceding one. Behind the inconspicuous sheath of the calyx we see the plant preparing itself for a new creation of an entirely different order. As successor to the leaf, the flower appears to us time and again as a miracle. Nothing in the lower realm of the plant predicts the form, colour, scent and all the ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... and in a few cases in his treatment of plot.[489] In one particular indeed he has markedly improved on his model; he has made Jason, the hero of his epic, a real hero; conventional he may be, but he still is a leader of men. In Apollonius, on the other hand, he plays a curiously inconspicuous part; he is, in fact, the weakest feature of the poem; he is in despair from the outset, and at no point shows genuine heroic qualities; he is at best a peerless wooer and no more. Here, however, he ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... keeps well. Clusters large, long, broad, tapering, single-or sometimes double-shouldered, loose; pedicel with a few inconspicuous warts; brush short, pale green. Berries of medium size, oval, dull purplish-red with thick bloom, firm; skin thick, adherent, astringent; flesh green, translucent, juicy, fine-grained, vinous, sprightly, sweet and rich; very good. Seeds free, frequently abortive, two, broad-necked, ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... its lowness and its earth covering, the Navaho house, or hogan, is the most inconspicuous of habitations. One might ride from morning till night across the reservation and not observe either a hogan or an Indian, although he has no doubt passed within a stone's throw of many of these houses and been peered at by many more dark eyes from brush concealments. ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... kind of reputation for his comely looks and cheerful manner. His picture had even been taken by a young artist in the neighbourhood; nay, the likeness had been multiplied into engravings, somewhat rude and somewhat unfaithful, which might be seen occupying no inconspicuous or dusty corner in the principal printshop of the town: nor was mine host's character a contradiction to his looks. He had seen enough of life to be intelligent, and had judged it rightly enough to be kind. He had passed that line so nicely ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the effect of apparently enlarging the room, since the added mass of light tint seems to broaden it. There still remain two feet of space between the picture moulding and ceiling-line which may be treated as a ceiling-border in inconspicuous design upon the same cream ground, the design to be in darker, but of the ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... morning that I left. As I was listening to the Dowager's parting remarks about being inconspicuous and reflecting credit on the school by my nice manners, Martin sent in word that Princess was lame and couldn't be driven. So instead of going to the station in the hearse, I went with Mam'selle in the trolley car. When we got in, ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... leaf-sheaths, the corresponding blades, each sometimes 10 ft. in length, forming a spreading crown. A true stem develops at the flowering period; it grows up through the hollow tube formed by the sheaths, emerges above and bears a large number of inconspicuous tubular flowers closely crowded in the axils of large, often brightly-coloured, protecting bracts. The ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... no longer distracted the attention of its envying admirers, or of its owner; the numerous flirtations that had been thought quite worth the price of the ticket, and of the crushed flounces, died away for a few moments; the dissatisfaction of the many who discovered themselves too late in inconspicuous seats was drowned in the deeper and sadder unrest that the music awakened. For the music spoke separately to each heart, roused up the secrets hidden there, fanned dying hopes or silent longings. It made the light-hearted lighter in heart, the light-minded heavy in soul. Where there ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... this attitude was evident to us, and our hearts beat with a painful anxiety while the light flickered around. The body was scarcely five hundred yards out; but though perfectly visible from our position, it must have been inconspicuous to the horsemen below; for as soon as it darkened, we heard them, to our great relief, ride back toward the front—Ijurra reiterating his doubts as ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... that quarter of old New York called Greenwich Village stands Jefferson Market Court. Almost concealed behind the towering structure of the Sixth Avenue Elevated, the building by day is rather inconspicuous. But when night falls, swallowing up the neighborhood of tangled streets and obscure alleyways, Jefferson Market assumes prominence. High up in the square brick tower an illuminated clock seems perpetually to be hurrying its pointing hands ...
— What eight million women want • Rheta Childe Dorr
... was far from happy, as from a distance he watched Alexander's apotheosis. Bud knew that he was like a gray and inconspicuous moth enamored of a splendidly winged butterfly. She could never be thrilled by the colorless fidelity of a man who was simple almost to stupidity, even though he lived with no thought above his loyalty. One day almost unconquerable thirst ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... difficulties as the fact that bright colours in flowers do not attract insects in many cases, but much more inconspicuous flowers if they have a scent (mignonette, for example) do; passing over such a fact as that afforded by the violet, which (as some may not be aware) has two kinds of flower, one scented and of a beautiful colour, the other green and inconspicuous, and it is the latter, not the former ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell |
