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More "Obtrude" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... naval warfare from warfare on land. We cannot choose on purely naval considerations. In naval warfare, however great may be our desire to concentrate our effort on the enemy's main forces, the ulterior object will always obtrude itself. We must from the first do our best to control sea communications, and since those communications are usually common, we cannot refrain from occupying those of the enemy without at the same time neglecting and ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... with these higher motives, came others that he hardly liked to confess to himself where Herminia was concerned, but which nevertheless would obtrude themselves, will he, nill he, upon him. What would other people say about such an innocent union as Herminia contemplated? Not indeed, "What effect would it have upon his position and prospects?" Alan Merrick's place ...
— The Woman Who Did • Grant Allen
... better—" she mentally scolded, behind her tired look, "than to obtrude himself the very first minute ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... aware that her beauty was remarkable even in a city of beautiful women, and it was rarely that she permitted her knowledge of that fact to escape her. Her beauty, to her, was a natural phenomenon, impossible to overlook. The realization of it did not obtrude itself into her mind, ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... she asked Mr. Balfour if she could have the liberty to obtrude a matter of business upon him. She did not like to interfere with his home enjoyments, but he would oblige her much by giving her half an hour of private conversation. Mr. Balfour looked at his wife, received a significant glance, and invited ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... unwritten code by which we are all governed nowadays, Howard could not obtrude by questioning his friend, and Stafford showed no signs of making any voluntary statement or explanation. He suffered in a silence with which he kept at arm's-length even his closed friend; and Howard pondered and worried in a futile attempt to guess at the trouble which had changed ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... we were still very wet, and the uncomfortable thought would obtrude itself that the safari might not get in that day. It behoved us at least to dry what we had on. I hunted up Memba Sasa, whom I found in a native hut. A fire blazed in the middle of the floor. I stooped low to enter, and squatted on my heels with the natives. Slowly I steamed off the ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... was probable, more by the impossibility of his accepting the old order of things than by his voluntarily abandoning the new. His wife and children would never submit. They would go away from this place, far away, where no reminiscence of either former wealth or former poverty could obtrude itself upon them. Mamie—his Mamie—should never go back to the cabin, since desecrated by Slinn's daughters, and take their places. No! Why should she?—because of the half-sick, half-crazy dreams of ...
— A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready • Bret Harte
... lurid and blood-stained glare of military glory, which cowered like an incubus on the breast of Europe. The battle-fields were beyond the frontiers of their own country; the calamities of war were too far distant to obtrude their disheartening features; and no lamentations mingled with the public rejoicings. Many a broken-hearted mother mourned in secret for her son lying in his bloody grave; but individual grief was disregarded in the madness which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know, or seek to know. You are vigilant and self reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster, or the capture of our men in great numbers, shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within ...
— Lincoln Letters • Abraham Lincoln
... psychology than to philosophy. Thus the ethical interests which have often inspired philosophers must remain in the background: some kind of ethical interest may inspire the whole study, but none must obtrude in the detail or be expected in the special results which ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... and Sweden! Should there be war between those two great Protestant powers, how the common enemy will rejoice! "To the Spaniard the prospect has already brought such an access of spirit and confidence that he has not hesitated, through his Ambassador residing with you, to obtrude most audaciously his counsels upon you, and that about the chief concerns of your Republic: daring even partly to terrify you by throwing in threats of a renewal of war, partly to solicit you by setting forth a false show of expediency, to the end that, abandoning by his advice ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... a distance from the scene of the fight, and were in such an out-of-the-way place, that the thought of being overtaken did not obtrude itself for an instant, either upon their ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... that we get no wrong, there is a twofold advocate given us, one in the earth, in our consciences, another in the heavens with God. Christ is gone up to the highest tribunal, where the cause receives a definitive sentence, and there he manageth it above, so that though Satan should obtrude upon a poor soul a wrong sentence in its own conscience, and bring down a false and counterfeit act, as it were, extracted out of the register of heaven, whereby to deceive the poor soul, and condemn it in itself, yet there is no hazard above, he dare not appear there, before the highest court, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... what he at first condemns, he admires and extols after deliberation; so that the object of the whole work is to correct popular errors, and to distinguish the semblance of virtue and vice from the reality. Its subordinate design is to expose the monstrous fictions, which some authors obtrude upon us in their ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... without wit, and trifling without elegance. ... We ... shall neither expose the infamy of his uncle, the indiscretions of his mother, nor his personal follies and embarrassments. But let him not again obtrude himself on our attention ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... guilty, adulterous woman fell into a voluptuous reverie, in which she pictured to herself the delights which she anticipated from her approaching interview with her sable lover. The possibility of her husband's remaining at home that evening, thereby preventing that interview, did not once obtrude itself upon her mind—so regularly had he absented himself from home every night during the preceding two or three weeks; and as he had never returned before midnight, she apprehended no difficulty in getting her paramour ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... the Saxon government is pursuing him. I hope that at the present moment he will have arrived safe and well in Paris, where his career of dramatic composer cannot fail to be extended, and in grand proportions. He is a man of evident genius, who must of necessity obtrude himself on the general admiration, and hold a high place in contemporary art. I regret that you have not had the opportunity of hearing his 'Tannhaeuser,' which is for me the most lyric of dramas, the most remarkable, the most harmonious, the most complete, ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... very remarkable man! He told me, I remember, that in Town, a man had his clothes put on for him, and—remembered them,—and so he does,—the difficulty will be ever to forget 'em, they"—here Barnabas stole a glance at his legs—"they positively obtrude themselves, John! Yes, clothes are wonderful things, but I fear they will take a great ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... came to visit Sally's dad as sleek and smart A chap as ever wandered there from any foreign part. Though his gentle birth and breeding he did not at all obtrude It was somehow whispered round he was a simon-pure Dude. Howsoe'er that may have been, it was conspicuous to see That he was a real Gent of an uncommon high degree. That Sally cast her tender and affectionate regards On this exquisite creation was, of course, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... conservative and conscientious to the last degree in handling the classics, and, although he has great individuality, passion, and fire, he would consider it a sacrilege to obtrude his own personality upon the listener. He is distinguished for elegance rather than perfection of technique. He may be considered a representative of ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... progress, in one-day intervals, from his initial experience in school to his assumption of the duties pertaining to the presidency of the bank. In thus tracing his progress there is no strain or stress in our thinking nor does the element of improbability obtrude itself. We think along a straight and level road where no hills arise to obstruct the view. Each succeeding day marks an inch or so of progress toward the goal. But should we set the responsibilities of the bank president over against the powers of the child, the disparity ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... wonders. "To give the scheme some more effect," he makes it visible only through a grate of massive iron bars, among which are arranged wires connected with an electrical machine in a neighbouring chamber; should any daring hand or foot obtrude itself with the bars, it receives a smart shock, that often passes through many of the crowd, and the cause being unknown, the effect is exceedingly comic; terror, astonishment, curiosity, are all set in action, and all ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... and dexterously opened it with a railway key. Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have lost me my last chance of catching the moving train, had I not dashed in after them. If I could choose, I would be the last man to obtrude myself where I was not wanted, but there was no time to choose; and I was thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my word. Besides, my heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave her, to care ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... fault of many young men in your position, and therefore the bishop is not inclined at present to resent it. You will, no doubt, soon learn what is required from you, and what is not. If you will take my advice, however, you will be careful not to obtrude advice upon the bishop in any matter concerning patronage. If his lordship wants advice, he knows where to look for it.' And then having added to her counsel a string of platitudes as to what was desirable and what not desirable in the conduct of a strictly evangelical, unmarried young clergyman, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... problem you have offered me. You are right in thinking that this testimony of yours might be of benefit to Arthur, and that you ought to give it in case of extremity. But I cannot advise you to obtrude it yet. I understand what it would cost you, and the sacrifice you would make is too great for the doubtful good which might follow. Neither must you trust me to act for you in this matter. My own position is too unstable for me to be of assistance to any one. I can sympathise with you, ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... of a day, But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay. 170 He, like a patient angler, ere he strook, Would let him play a while upon the hook. Our healthful food the stomach labours thus, At first embracing what it straight doth crush. Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude, While growing pains pronounce the humours crude: Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill, Till some safe crisis authorise their skill. Nor could his acts too close a vizard wear, To 'scape their eyes whom guilt had taught to fear, 180 And guard with caution that polluted nest, Whence Legion ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of licentious intrigue obtrude themselves at the most critical juncture of a grave historic drama. In no transaction where Charles was concerned could such sordid details be long absent. The King's fancy had shortly before been attracted by a new denizen of the "Lady's" ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... possible for him to perpetrate. No observing person can doubt that the sexual relations of men and women determine in a great degree their happiness or misery in life. This subject, then, deserves due attention and careful consideration. It is of no use to scout it; for it will inevitably obtrude itself upon us, no matter now sedulously we attempt to avoid it. It can be rightly considered only with the most perfect candor, with the mind unbiased by passion, and prayerfully anxious to know and do what ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... a matter of fact the only loyal supporters I ever had around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service of the State. When I announced my war aims on the Pacific for the benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war. That magniloquent Minister, with his versatile Irish amanuensis, not only turned my mother against me, ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its words and combinations crowd upon his memory; and haste and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... subject: and I am heartily concerned at the loss we all have in poor Belton: and when I get a little settled, and have leisure to contemplate the vanity of all sublunary things (a subject that will now-and-then, in my gayest hours, obtrude itself upon me) it is very likely that I may talk seriously with thee upon these topics; and, if thou hast not got too much the start of me in the repentance thou art entering upon, will go hand-in-hand with thee in it. If thou hast, thou wilt let me just ...
— Clarissa, Or The History Of A Young Lady, Volume 8 • Samuel Richardson
... thirty-five, who, when he spoke, arched his eyebrows, and had a peculiar smile. He began by expressing his apprehension that Mr. Reding must have been wearied by impertinent and unnecessary visitors—visitors without intellect, who knew no better than to obtrude their fanaticism on persons who did but despise it. "I know more about the Universities," he continued, "than to suppose that any congeniality can exist between their members and the mass of religious sectarians. You have had very ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... well gauged Mr. Scarsbrook mentally, modestly replied that he did not care to obtrude private affairs at an inopportune time. He knew that weighty affairs doubtless occupied Mr. Scarsbrook's mind during his business hours, but had intended to do himself the honour of presenting his ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... weakness, while indifferentism—specially in outward observances—argues strength. A certain shyness, moreover, withheld Iglesias, a not unadmirable dread of being guilty of ostentation. It was so little his custom to obtrude himself, his opinions, and his needs upon the attention of others, that he was scrupulous and diffident in the selection of time and place. The affair, however, decided itself, as affairs usually do when the intention of those undertaking them is ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... I shall no longer obtrude upon your Lordship on this occasion than to solicit that whenever the representation of what has taken place here shall be communicated to my Gracious Sovereign, your Lordship will have the goodness ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... our abode with Him." Neither of them would have dreamed of accepting the homage which Jesus took quite naturally, when men worshipped Him, and women washed and kissed his feet: and I ask how it could be that Jesus Christ, so essentially meek and lowly, so humble and unwilling to obtrude Himself, should have spoken and acted so differently, unless his nature had been separated by an impassable gulf from that of other men, however saintly and gifted? The very fact that these men, acknowledged amongst the greatest of our race, drew ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... These communications must always be begun by the pupil. I never (unless there may be occasional exceptions in some few very peculiar cases) commence. I am prevented from doing this both by my unwillingness to obtrude such a subject personally upon those who might not welcome it, and by want of time. I have scarcely time to write to all those who are willing first to write to me. Many cases have occurred where individuals have strongly desired some private ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... from an unstable to a stable equilibrium. The essential is to generate the energy which brings success; and the more the mind dwells upon the peculiarities of the modern capitalistic class, the more doubts obtrude themselves touching their ability to make the effort, even at present, and still more so to make it in the future as the magnitude of the social organism grows. One source of capitalistic weakness comes from a lack of proper instruments wherewith to work, even supposing ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... peace and quietness somewhere, anywhere, away from the two who represented Randolph Schuyler's tyranny and carping criticism without his right to obtrude ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... on behalf of some favourite metaphysical system, and attack on some rival one. In such case, the history would lose its independent character. While therefore he has never concealed his opinions on the subject of religion, he has thought it more proper not to obtrude, except indirectly, his ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... cannot be my own; if you mean by thoughts the opinions and principles I should be the most desirous to inculcate. Some favourite ones perhaps may obtrude too prominently, but otherwise no misbehaviour is permitted them: reprehension and rebuke are always ready, and the offence is ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... and temptation, young friend, Will often obtrude in your way, And constantly every footstep attend, And ...
— The Good Resolution • Anonymous
... press correspondents, or at any rate those representing the big dailies, except the Times, discovered they had a grievance. The news agencies shared that feeling with their colleagues. Even into war the affairs of business life obtrude. It is not an unmixed evil to have a grievance; trouble and ridicule come of having too many at the same time. I drafted a letter to Colonel Wingate on the subject—a sort of "Round Robin" which the majority of the ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... of—certain hints he had dropped—he was perfectly aware of the delicate position in which I stood with respect to his lordship's family. "In fact, my dear Lorrequer," he continued, "without wishing in the least to obtrude myself upon your confidence, I must yet be permitted to say, you are the luckiest fellow in Europe, and I most sincerely congratulate you on the prospect ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... sudden interest in the militant laboring ladies?" said Ramsey, drawing up his chair before the fire, and lighting a cigarette. "Are you going to obtrude your somewhat massive ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... obtrude themselves in the consideration of Breton fairy-lore are: Are all the fays of Brittany malevolent? And, if so, whence proceeds this belief that fairy-folk are necessarily malign? Example treads upon example to prove that the Breton fairy is seldom beneficent, that he or she is prone ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... my own, is not extraordinary. I have, in certain circumstances, fixed and determined in my own mind what would be most becoming for us both to do, and what in the end would be most advantageous, but I shall not obtrude my advice upon you, whose judgment I hold in higher esteem, infinitely, than my own, and whose temper is more equal. But I will say what I believe to be the state of things now, and what they probably will be, and you will judge the best, it ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... myself irresistibly carried back to old times. Forms that had faded into distance—thoughts that had seemed dissolved into nothing—scenes and impressions which I had in vain sought to revive—obtrude themselves irresistibly on my notice. In general, the unexpected visitants are welcome; the fireside is rendered brighter and more cheerful by them; and their presence sends a glow through this northern atmosphere, which allows autumn ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... with an unseeing look. He would stretch five very long fingers toward the facade of the farm-house, muttering, "Of course not the dormers; they obtrude, I think, and the note is pseudo-foreign. We should try to evolve something absolutely American, don't you think? But the pilasters, the door paneling, positively Doric in their clean sobriety! The eastern development, now; there may have been reason for the extreme slant ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... left to the care of a devoted uncle by parents she was too young to mourn. The latter half of her life these gods had crowned with a love which made her youth immortal. She had been married when she was a mere girl to a young soldier who had not lived long enough to obtrude upon her life more than a gentle memory of his bravery. The bearing of a child had been the vital part of that marriage, and the child had come into her new home with her, leaving it only for a happy one of her own. Her husband's child had been like a second daughter to her, and ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... for study and improvement, for enjoyment in whatever way we chose to seek it, was what we desired. We cared not for social recognition. We did not expect it, nor were we disappointed in not getting it. We would not seek it. We would not obtrude ourselves upon them. We would not accept recognition unless it was made willingly. We would be of them at least independent. We would mark out for ourselves a uniform course of conduct and follow it rigidly. These ...
— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper
... really a very light one. She does not require us to believe the Christian religion, she has very vague ideas as to what the Christian religion is, much less does she require us to practise it. She is quite satisfied if we do not obtrude our disbelief in it in an offensive manner. Surely this ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... tried to do. At times, and often too, wondering speculations on the cause of this change in Edith, would obtrude themselves upon her mind and frighten her; but in the calm of its abandonment once more to silent grief and loneliness, it was not a curious mind. Florence had only to remember that her star of promise was clouded in the general gloom that hung upon the house, and ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... on these matters—and, Joe, I am not disposed to think you have any very fixed ones—pray do me the favour to keep them to yourself while under my father's roof. I can almost promise you he'll obtrude none of his peculiar opinions on you, and I hope you will treat him ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... will say for her'—Mrs. Freddy's brother-in-law lazily defended the honour of the house—'she doesn't, as a rule, obtrude her opinions. There are people who have known her for years, and haven't a notion she's a ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... affectionate attitudes that greatly embarrassed and distressed me. Emmy did not seem to see them or appeared to be wholly undisturbed thereby. Then it occurred to me that I myself must be to blame here and that a peculiar inborn depravity made the natural appear so hideous to me and obtrude itself so plainly on my view. And all the more I honored and admired the pure creature the bright mirror of whose soul the impure breath of the world could not dim, and to whom the human love-life seemed ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... biggest, a small greenhouse with two brown Irish harps and the legend DONE TO DEATH. An Irish harp worked in embroidery lies sodden on the earth. Green shamrock leaves of tin, with the names of all the donors—this is important—obtrude themselves here and there. A six-foot cross of white flowers, like a badge of purity, lies on the grave, labelled Katherine Parnell, in a lady's hand. The place is swamped with Irish harps, and it occurs to me that the badge would not be so popular ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)
... existence was to provide for the few remaining wants of this only relative during the brief time she had yet to live, and to give her decent and Christian burial. Of her own future lot, the poor girl thought as little as possible, though fearful glimpses would obtrude themselves on her uneasy imagination. At first she had employed a physician; but her means could not pay for his visits, nor did the situation of her grandmother render them very necessary. He promised to call occasionally without ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... intend to carry his disaffection to overt acts. He found it hard to believe that a man like Bluewater could really contemplate carrying off with him the ships he commanded; yet he knew the authority his friend wielded over his captains, and the possibility of such a step would painfully obtrude itself on his mind, at moments. "When a man can persuade himself into all the nonsense connected with the jus divinum," thought Sir Gervaise, "it is doing no great violence to common sense to persuade himself into all its usually admitted consequences." Then, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... down and enjoy herself, careful not to obtrude herself on Whitecap lest he might become angry at the mere sight of her and treasure his anger up against the next time when ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... intellectual capacity and attainments constituted a qualification for office. Nevertheless Japanese legislators did not find it possible to apply fully these excellent principles. Habits of a millennium's growth could not be so lightly eradicated. Traces of the old obtrude themselves plainly from between the lines of the new. Thus the "Law of Descent" (Keishi-ryo), which formed the thirteenth section of the code, was a special embodiment of Japanese social institutions, having no parallel in the Tang statutes, and ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... any conscious simulation of feeling in this Nampont scene; it is that the feeling itself is overstrained—that Sterne, hugging, as usual, his own sensibilities, mistook their value in expression for the purposes of art. The Sentimental Traveller does not obtrude himself to the same extent as in the scene at Moulines; but a little consideration of the scene will show how much Sterne relied on the mere presentment of the fact that here was an unfortunate peasant who had lost his dumb companion, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... entertained as an excuse for curtailing them. I suppose people in the district got to know of the custom, and avoided making their calls at a time when they would have to wait some little while for attention. Our parents, however, never allowed this practice or their religious inclinations to obtrude on their neighbours; all was done most unassumingly and humbly, as ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... is drawn tight or allowed to hang slack. By mutual desire their chains of wedlock have been fastened as loosely as respect for security will permit, with the happy consequence that her aversion to him does not obtrude itself beyond the ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... letter ran:—"Lord John Russell unfortunately does not partake your Majesty's opinions in regard to Italy, and he is unwilling to obtrude on your Majesty unnecessary statements of his views.... Whatever may be the consequence, the liberation of the Italian people from a foreign yoke is, in the eyes of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, an increase of freedom and happiness ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... considers what he pursued or dreaded, slighted or esteemed, at different periods of his age, will have no reason to imagine such changes of sentiment peculiar to any station or character. Every man, however careless and inattentive, has conviction forced upon him; the lectures of time obtrude themselves upon the most unwilling or dissipated auditor; and, by comparing our past with our present thoughts, we perceive that we have changed our minds, though perhaps we cannot discover when the alteration happened, or by what causes ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... at least serve, we should suppose, as a working hypothesis, upon the basis of which we may consider in detail a variety of questions of the day. New problems have arisen before the eyes of the teacher, and indeed obtrude themselves upon all who must take part in the practical life of others. Some of these problems are due to changed external relations of countries to one another. Some are problems of internal adjustment and reconstruction. ...
— The Psychology of Nations - A Contribution to the Philosophy of History • G.E. Partridge
... "The Newcomes" not so much for the pleasure of seeing London high society as for the pleasure of seeing Thackeray see it. The merit, or the defect, of the method in any case is a question not of rules and regulations but of the tone and quality of the author's mind. Whether or not he may safely obtrude himself into his fictions depends entirely on who he is. This is a matter more of personality than of art: and what might be insufferable with one author may stand as the main merit of another. For instance, the ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... waves, diving, rising, breasting the current, and was agreeably supported by the consciousness that if Fate had so ordained it, he himself would have been capable of performing all these feats just as creditably. No need now to stifle a misgiving that in the old days would occasionally obtrude itself into the glowing views of the future, that he was possibly not of a stature to play the great parts for which he might be cast. On the contrary, what now remained was the blessed peace brought by ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... perchance, by some Yankee-Hindoo woman, whose small-voiced but sincere hospitality, out of the bottomless depths of a quiet nature, has travelled quite round to the opposite side, and fears only to obtrude its kindness. You step over the white-scoured floor to the bright "dresser" lightly, as if afraid to disturb the devotions of the household,—for Oriental dynasties appear to have passed away since the dinner-table was last spread ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... unpunished murderer in high place. His "Gulnare" is not the only lovely woman here, who bears unabashed the burden of a hideous past. A merit is peculiar to this guilty, world-defying pair. They seek no friends, obtrude on no external circles, and parade no lying ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... sentiments towards the Prince. Solicited by so ardent and considerable a faction, the Duke was no longer to be withheld from trying the venture, and if, he could not effect his entrance by fair means, was determined to do so by force.—He would obtrude his assistance, if it were declined. He would do his best to dismember the provinces, if only a portion of them would accept his proffered friendship. Under these circumstances, as the Prince could no longer exclude him from the country, it became necessary ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... external objects, and can not therefore be contrasted with our sensations. On this account, though we are affected with a variety of passions in our dreams, as anger, love, joy; yet we never experience surprize.—For surprize is only produced when any external irritations suddenly obtrude themselves, and dissever our ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... Maynard, looking crestfallen, "if King says so that settles it. I think it's a beautiful picnic day, but far be it from me to obtrude ...
— Marjorie's Busy Days • Carolyn Wells
... proceedings of this afternoon, I dare hardly venture to obtrude upon your attention. It was indeed very far from my expectation, when I came a pilgrim on a toilsome journey at this inclement season of the year, that I would be enabled to mingle the congratulations of the citizens of the 'Old Bay State' to Governor Kossuth with those ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... on that district would be really useful, both for the lovers of Nature and the observers of manners. As to the Giant's Causeway and the coast of Antrim, you cannot go wrong; there the interests obtrude themselves on ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... as have their good Sense: That Fools only, and Ignorants are kept in Awe, and restrain'd by their Precepts; which, if they observe it, they shall ever find, are the lest obey'd by those who pretend the most to obtrude ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... chairman had not the courage to attempt to stem the torrent. He did not care to obtrude himself inside Catchach's range of vision, for before he was done with Scotland the orator was rolling up his sleeves and calling out like Goliath of Gath for all the township of Oro to come forward and contradict him. Many ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... not invited? Ask to be asked. Ask A., ask B., ask Mrs. C., ask everybody you know: you will be thought a bore; but you will have your way. What matters if you are considered obtrusive, provided that you obtrude? By pushing steadily, nine hundred and ninety-nine people in a thousand will yield to you. Only command persons, and you may be pretty sure that a good number will obey. How well your money will have been laid out, O gentle reader, who purchase this; ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... know if he would be permitted to appear there in the character he had the honour to hold at Court, I replied that I had made it a rule never to interfere in the private or public amusements of the Court, and that His Eminence must be the best judge how far he, could obtrude himself upon the Queen's private parties, to which only a select number had been invited, in consequence of the confined spot where the fete was ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... including April 1, indeed, Lyons had been reporting that no definite stand was yet being taken by the American Government. At the same time Russell was continuing his instructions to Lyons to recommend conciliation "but never to obtrude advice unasked[103]." Yet Russell was not wholly undisturbed by the reports of Seward's quarrelsome attitude, for in a private letter of the same date as the preceding, he wrote to Lyons, "I rely upon your wisdom, patience, and prudence, to steer us through the dangers of this crisis. ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... from the officers of the two ships: and I can safely say, that the weekly contributions had the happy effect of employing the leisure hours of those who furnished them, and of diverting the mind from the gloomy prospect which would sometimes obtrude itself on ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... commented on the Toelatings Kaart. This relic of a past age, which did not add much to the revenue, and impressed one unfavourably with a rigid officialism at the port of entry that did not obtrude itself upon one's notice in the interior, may now be avoided by the traveller registering at the Tourist Bureau. In our own case, we were never called upon to produce ...
— Across the Equator - A Holiday Trip in Java • Thomas H. Reid
... work hangs. The important facts were that he was paying as much as he had paid at Mrs. Paynter's, and was enjoying rather less privacy. He and Nicolovius were friends of convenience only. Yet somehow the old professor managed to obtrude himself perpetually upon his consciousness. The young man began to feel an annoying sense of personal responsibility toward him, an impulse which his ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... had before her, regarding her lover, she could not be expected to do much in this latter relation; yet she did what she could, and so satisfied her pride and her conscience. Sometimes the recollection of the long and weary chancery suit would obtrude itself upon her, but only to provoke a hopeless and languid smile, prompted by the conviction that her enemy, whom she had never seen, and who had recently succeeded to the claims of his father—Philip Darcy, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... all classes very generally vote. Bad women do not obtrude their presence at the polls, and I do not now remember ever to have seen a distinctively bad ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... contemplates suicide? I remember that upon one occasion he spoke in a deeply reverent manner of the heinousness of the crime of self-destruction. I shall keep my eye upon him, however, and though I cannot obtrude upon the privacy of his cabin, I shall at least make a point of remaining on deck as long as he ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... stupendously indifferent frame and disposition of the generality of men, called Christians, not only provoking God to spue them out of his mouth, but a disposing them also unto a receiving of whatsoever men, lying in wait to deceive, shall propose and obtrude? ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... "I hesitate to obtrude, sir," he announced, as he entered the room, "but whether the captain likes it or not, he'll have to say good-by to me. I have attended to everything I can think of, sir; so, unless the captain has some further use for me, ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... the story of a young gentleman, who is in some respects the reverse of Vivian. The moral of this tale does not immediately appear, for the author has taken peculiar care that it should not obtrude itself ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... by Mr Leeson; and then her thoughts took another turn, and such a vision of a perfect carpet for a drawing-room—something softer and more exquisite than ever came out of mortal loom; full of repose and tranquillity, yet not without seducing beauties of design; a carpet which would never obtrude itself, but yet would catch the eye by dreamy moments in the summer twilight or over the winter fire—flashed upon the imagination of the Rector's wife. It would be sweet to have a house of one's own arranging, where everything would be in harmony; and though this sweetness ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... foundation the existence of this immateriality, totally destroys his own system. The same thing will necessarily happen to all those who reason upon his principles; they will always finish by confuting him, and by contradicting themselves. The same want of just inference, the same discrepancy, will obtrude themselves in the principles of the celebrated Father Malebranche; which, if considered with the slightest attention, appear to conduct directly to Spinosism; in fact, can any thing be more in unison with the language of Spinosa himself, than to say, as does ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... the number of the corpses that are brought hither for interment, or to hearken if the brothers there within, whose number is now almost reduced to nought, chant their offices at the canonical hours, or, by our weeds of woe, to obtrude on the attention of every one that enters, the nature and degree ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... filigree on the sides and edges; the post at one end, and on the end opposite it an altar and a female celebrant; the lamp-rests swinging by delicate chains from the extremities of drooping palm-branches; altogether a wonder in its way. But the silence would obtrude itself: he listened even as he looked at the pretty object—he listened, but there was not a sound; the palace ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... part. I dared not obtrude my poor affairs on your attention until you should notice me in some way," she meekly replied, and then she gracefully slipped out of Mrs. Rockharrt's embrace and went and folded Cora ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... premises were encompassed with a high brick wall, which might well have been supposed to hide a workhouse or a prison, instead of the paradise it actually concealed. Perhaps Mr. Caske had selected this secluded abode from an instinctive disinclination to obtrude the abundance and comfort which he had derived from the manufacture and sale of beer; perhaps he had bought this particular house simply because it was in itself such a dwelling as he desired. At any rate, there he was, with his abundance ...
— The Golden Shoemaker - or 'Cobbler' Horn • J. W. Keyworth
... the States to receive persons who would be dangerous to their peace; to force upon them, if you will, abolition lecturers; to force upon them persons whom they regard as the most dangerous emissaries that could be sent among them; to enable Congress to obtrude, in fact, into all the business of the States. That was not intended when the Constitution was framed, and never ought to have been. The present provision in regard to the rights of citizens in the several States, I regard as in the nature of an inter-treaty ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... detached itself from its surroundings and put between itself and Nature a certain clear and airy space, untroubled by any magnetic currents of spiritual reciprocity. One feels as though Nature were kept decisively and formally in her place and not permitted to obtrude herself upon the consciousness of civilised people except when they require some pleasant lawn or noble trees or smiling garden of roses to serve as a background for their metaphysical discussions or their ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... pallid face of the dying, and thoughts, of which the good might have been proud, flashed through his mind. Who, at such moments, would recognize David White, the bold, dark, dangerous man? But thus it is; mirthful feelings will sometimes obtrude when the heavy clod is falling upon the coffin of a friend, and the grave closing over him forever; thoughts of the last agony, the bourne of death, and the curtained futurity, will sometimes come like a pall over our minds, when the dance is at ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... isn't satisfied needn't act," endorsed Rachel, with such a very decided glance at the door that the two delegates could no longer obtrude their presence, and were obliged to beat ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... security in a competence. At the back of his mind there may have lurked a suspicion that Mrs Bosenna, as a business woman, was not in the least likely to bestow her hand on a penniless sailor: but there was no reason why he should allow this suspicion to obtrude itself, since self-respect would have forbidden him, being penniless, to ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... which I must leave my friend to answer for himself. The ground is too high for me. I have no skill in the flights of speculation. I take no pleasure in the enunciation of principles. To my restricted vision, placed as I am upon the earth, isolated facts obtrude themselves with a capricious particularity which defies my powers of generalization. And that, perhaps, is the reason why I attached myself to the party to which I have the honour to belong. For it is, I think, ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... a few hundred dollars thrown carelessly about, and presto! you have the counterfeit of a Cecil Rhodes. We are not only willing to take people at their own valuation, but are ever ready to multiply that valuation by ten. Obtrude romance—rich, stirring romance—into the lives of commonplace people, and they instantly lose their heads. Romance, more than cupidity, is what attracts the ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... presumption of those dreaded sacerdotal mole-catchers, who, not being willing to contain and coop up themselves within the grates and trellises of their own mysterious temples, do deal in, meddle with, obtrude upon, and thrust their sickles into harvests of secular businesses quite contrary and diametrically opposite to the quality, state, and condition of their callings, professions, and vocations; or the superstitious stupidity and senseless scrupulousness of ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... him terribly—she was quite sure of that—she who never willingly offended anyone. He had been too proud, too gentlemanly, to obtrude himself where he was evidently not wanted; but his pained, reproachful look as he drew back would haunt her for the rest of the day. And, then, how splendidly handsome he had looked! She had once likened him to a Greek ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... their conversation. I was alone at the time, far from all my men, without weapon of any kind. I was dressed in full Chinese dress and mounted on an unmistakably Chinese pony. I rode unconcernedly on, but I must confess that I did not feel comfortable till I was assured that they did not intend to obtrude an interview upon me. At length, to my relief, the party continued on its way, while I hurried on to my coolies, and made them wait till my party was complete. I was probably alarmed without any reason. But it was not ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... silently, surely moving, a separation infallibly exact and irrevocably final will be made between the evil and the good. As to the positive punishment into which the impenitent will be cast, while I simply receive all the words of the Lord, I shall take care not to obtrude many of my own. He spoke of matters beyond the cognizance of sense, and beyond even the range of imagination, and therefore in the nature of the case we cannot fully understand his words. But He who utters this solemn warning knows what we understand by "a furnace of fire," ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... gentle and devious stream of inconsequence. It would be vain-glorious, no doubt, to assert that there is placid indifference to vain-glory, which Carlyle declares to be, with neediness and greediness, one of the besetting sins of mankind; but am I not free from the cares that obtrude on those of tougher texture of mind who find joy in the opposite to this peace and unconcern for the rewards and honours of the world? Better this isolation and moderation in all things than, racked with worries, to moan and fret because of non-success in the ceaseless struggle ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... the extreme views which I professed—on platforms in the constituencies—or so those in authority alleged. Now, however, these views were put down to amiable eccentricity; moreover, I was careful not to obtrude them. Responsibility sobers, and as we age and succeed we become more moderate, for most of us have a ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... prefer to be left ignorant, I don't need to stay. Good morrow! Pray don't disturb yourself, Flemild—I can let myself out, as you are all so busy. You'll be sorry some day you did not take advice. But I never obtrude my advice; if people don't want it, I shall not trouble them with it. It's a ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... to believe that we of the West have few things of greater importance and of deeper religious significance to learn from the East than the appreciation of such graces of life as patience and endurance under evil. We stand always prepared to fight manfully for our convictions, and to obtrude them at all points upon friend and foe alike. It is not in the nature of the East to do this. We say that he has no stamina. We call him, in opprobrium, "the mild Hindu." But let us not forget that he will reveal ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... these may be expressed in the best and most intelligible manner. Indeed the artist himself is secondary in importance to the message, it is the spirit that works in and through him that must ever come first. The true artist never seeks to obtrude, or to make his own personality the first thing. He will, of course, endeavour to make his technique fully equal to all demands that can be made of him, but he will realise that he is doing his work in trust. "No MAN ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... no ruling power, without authority as I am, and without confidence, I should ill answer my own ideas of what would become myself, or what would be serviceable to others, if I were, as a volunteer, to obtrude any project of mine upon a nation to whose circumstances I could not be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... my disposition," was replied, "the life of a seamstress does not take off the keen edge of a natural reserve—or, to speak more correctly sensitiveness. I dislike to break in upon another's household arrangements, or in any way to obtrude myself. My rule is, to adapt myself, as best I can, to the family order, and so not ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... guard against those who upon very slight acquaintance, obtrude their unasked and unmerited friendship and confidence upon you; for they probably cram you with them only for their own eating; but, at the same time, do not roughly reject them upon that general supposition. Examine further, and see whether those unexpected offers flow from ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... address Truesdale allowed himself to respond. He had no wish to obtrude his musical and artistic doings upon his father until a more definite modus vivendi had been brought about; but he could no longer lend himself passively to being made an absurdity by the over-enthusiasm of his sister. Fencing, now, was a manly ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... regret having known her. He strove resolutely to refrain from applying conventional standards of judgment, with which, he assured himself, he had no sympathy, but little uneasinesses and awkward moments would obtrude. It was difficult to maintain the fine idea of rationalism. 'I won't have you bind the strange man you may be to-morrow with oaths,' Aurora had said; yet it was evident the change in him was a source of great distress ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... effort to quiet a cough. She will not go uninvited into the private room of anyone, nor into the kitchen of her hostess where she is a visitor. All such things really inflict pain upon sensitive people; they offend because they obtrude; and all similar actions and obtrusiveness are to be carefully avoided by everyone who desires to acquire a true and genuine culture of action, speech, and manners. It is well worth your while to think earnestly and often ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... another direction: to a little white object struggling in the clutches of a closed door at the back of the room. Steve turns to see what she is looking at, and at the same moment the door opens sufficiently to allow a pretty hand to obtrude, seize the kitten, or whatever it was, and softly reclose the door. For one second Alice did think it might be a kitten, but she knows now that it is part of a woman's dress. As for Steve thus suddenly ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... all stories that made bedtime sweet, stories to remember and brood upon gratefully in the darkness of the night when he lay awake and when, alas, other stories less pleasant to recall would obtrude themselves. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... the London Magazine (Lamb's Works, ed. Lucas, I, 236 ff.) opens with a facetious thrust at Hazlitt: "A very ingenious and subtle writer, whom there is good reason for suspecting to be an ex-Jesuit, not unknown at Douay some five-and-twenty years since (he will not obtrude himself at M—th again in a hurry), about a twelvemonth back, set himself to prove the character of the Powder Plot conspirators to have been that of heroic self-devotedness and true Christian martyrdom. Under ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... hovered on the outskirts of the conference. Bitter experience in the past had taught him not to obtrude when ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... your views are fully formed, and are of a mildly Liberal complexion (put it so, I beg of you, and don't use that distressful word Radical), I wouldn't for the world have you act contrary to them. But I wouldn't have you obtrude them too ostentatiously—for your own sake, Le Breton, for your own sake, I assure you. Remember, you're a very young man yet: you have plenty of time before you to modify your opinions in: as you go on, you'll modify them—moderate them—bring them into harmony with the average opinions ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... Whatever that may mean, I have long ago received it as the only solution at my command of their superfluous wear and tear, and worry and flurry, and tears and nerves and headaches. A fellow may suggest Jane, and obtrude Bridget, and hire Peggy, and run in debt for Mehetable, and offer to take the baby on 'Change with him, but has he by a feather's weight lightened Madam's mysterious burden? My dear sir, don't presume to expect it. She has just as much to do as she ever had. In fact, she has a little more. ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... powers far superior to those of the ordinary men of their own day, the analogies of nature are never for a moment considered; nor do questions of probability, or possibility, according to those analogies, ever obtrude to dispel the charm with which they are so pleasingly bound. They go on through life reading and talking of these monstrous fictions, which shock the taste and understanding of other nations, without once questioning the truth of one single incident, or hearing it questioned. There was ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... first deterr'd from my Design, by a Thought that it might be accounted unpardonable Rudeness to obtrude a Trifle of this Nature to a Person, whose sublime Wisdom moderates that Council, which at this Critical Juncture, over-rules the Fate of all Europe. But then I was encourag'd by Reflecting, that Lelius and Scipio, the two greatest Men ...
— The Busie Body • Susanna Centlivre
... was a queen, he a child; and now all at once the roles are changed; it is the submissive subject who arrives in the college cap of a professor, hiding under his arm an unknown and mysterious book. Is the man in the college cap about to command, to smile, to obtrude himself and his books, to speak Latin, to ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... this as in every thing else. May the Lord choose his path and direct his steps, and yours with him. Women were helpers of the apostles and others in Paul's days: at the same time care must ever be taken not to obtrude in any respect. I pray that you may be kept spiritual and humble: eminence in God's service is truly desirable, if the heart be kept humble. If the Lord open the eyes to behold more of the extent and spirituality of his law, the holiness and purity ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... pertaining to diet, medicine, and ventilation, and must inform him daily of the patient's state. She also assists the clergyman, if desired, in ministering to spiritual needs. But she must not obtrude her religion, when it is distasteful to her patients; rather manifest it in her deeds and ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft
... himself was cautious to obtrude [in obtruding] a new word upon his readers: and makes custom and common use, the best measure of receiving it into ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... arrived in Italy, many of the present painters of that country are ready enough to obtrude their precepts, and to offer their own performances as examples of that perfection which they affect to recommend. The modern, however, who recommends himself as a standard, may justly be suspected as ignorant of the true end, ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... of your house gowns in the same key as the hangings and upholstery of your room. White is safe in any room, black is at times too strong. It depends in part upon the size of your room. If it is small and in soft tones, delicate harmonising shades will not obtrude themselves as black can and so reduce the effect of space. This is the case not only with black, but with emerald green, decided shades of red, royal blue, and purple or deep yellows. If artistic creations, these colours are all decorative in a room done in light ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... to me there were things about the woman we had taken too little trouble to know. I wondered what old memories might be coming to her now; what staring faces might obtrude, what old, far-off, perhaps hated, voices might be sounding to her; what of remembered hurts and heartaches might newly echo back to make her flinch and wonder if she dreamed. She touched the sleeve again, as it might have been in protection from them, her eyes narrowed, her gaze fixed. It queerly ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... so simply and truly men as not to obtrude our personal business and distresses upon the people we meet socially? May we not forget for an hour our pretensions, our strife, our distributions into sets and cliques—in short, our "parts," and become as children once more, ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... pail emptied from an upper window. Pipes, with branches to the windows, come down the sides of the houses. They are of generous size, as in cities of northern countries where much snow lies on the roofs. Since wall-angles are many, the pipes generally find a place in corners. They do not obtrude. They do not suggest zinc or tin. They were painted a mud-gray color ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... early invented in their new abode, must undoubtedly have been the two whereby they were especially characterized in the time of their greatest power—architecture and agriculture. Chaldaea is not a country disposing men to nomadic habits. The productive powers of the soil would at once obtrude themselves on the notice of the new comers, and would tempt to cultivation and permanency of residence. If the immigrants came by sea, and settled first in the tract immediately bordering upon the gulf, as seems to have been ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... impressions, but as an active process of repression, by which the experience, and especially the unpleasant experience, is thrust and kept out of consciousness. There thus arises a mental conflict between the forces of repression and the forces which tend to obtrude the recollection into consciousness, and at times the energy engendered in this conflict escapes from the censorship of the repressing forces and finds vent in the production of abnormal mental states or disorders of conduct. Thus to take a simple example, ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... resignedly, "I suppose if the times are such that we must accept favours of the rebels, we must not resent their insults. But 't is bitter to think of our good land come to such a pass that rogues like this Brereton and Bagby should dare obtrude their suits ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... painter. The current of his music never really flows; it moves sluggishly now and then, and eddies lazily about every petty incident. In the scene of debauchery in the second act, it waits for a xylophone to rattle an accompaniment to the dice; it holds its breath for a muted horn to obtrude its voice with an inane vulgarity which would be laughable were it not pitiful to hear it in a work which is admirable in its dramatic contrivance and ...
— Chapters of Opera • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... response; "I had no intention to obtrude myself upon you. I merely called at Wilton Street in order to learn what I could, and I came away quite satisfied, even though your ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... wealthy, he is not, as somebody has well expressed it, "beastly rich." No feeling of the oppression of newly-acquired wealth flooded my soul as I walked about the pretty house and grounds in his company. He and his surroundings have the good taste not to obtrude themselves upon the casual visitor. The man is simplicity itself, and the most genial and cordial of hosts. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit, nor was it without infinite interest, for George Newnes is a companion always ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... would insist on, then, is this—that for Mr. Kean, or Mr. Young, or Mr. Macready, or any of those that are 'cried out upon in the top of the compass' to obtrude themselves voluntarily or ostentatiously upon our notice, when they are out of character, is a solecism in theatricals. For them to thrust themselves forward before the scenes, is to drag us behind them against our will, than which nothing can be more fatal to a ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... underneath her white blouse. Her white, slightly tanned neck was innocent of collar or scarf. A hasty movement loosened one plait of hair over her head and back, but she took no notice, but continued to scatter the corn, taking care that all received their share and that sparrows and daws did not obtrude too much, and looking as fresh and happy ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov
... to "the history of what is," and forbids all inquiry into reasons why it is. The question whether there be any intelligent purpose in the order and arrangement of the universe, is not a subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it has been permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over the facts, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... Lothair, "I must say I am often perplexed at the differences which obtrude themselves between Divine truth ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... read—you who would be so lonely with a wife who was not your companion, with whom you could not converse on equal terms of intellect,—my dear friend, where could you find a companion in whom you would not miss the poet-soul of Isaura? Of course I should not dare to obtrude all these questionings on your innermost reflection, if I had not some idea, right or wrong, that since the days when at Enghien and Montmorency, seeing you and Isaura side by side, I whispered to Frank, 'So should those ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... offered, but He never sought them. It is a fact that Christ never demanded, yet never declined the worship of men during His earthly sojourn. The Apostles shrunk from it, Angels rebuked it when offered to them, Christ never did. It was sometimes given, it was never declined. He did not obtrude Himself upon the attention of the multitude as the Saviour of the world; but ate, and drank, and slept, and walked, and lived amongst them, and was in every respect a man with men. He sometimes escaped from the society of the rich, that He might mitigate ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... discussion of serious and sacred subjects. No itinerant fiddlers (who then, as now, frequented taverns) were to be allowed to obtrude themselves. The feasts were to be celebrated with laughing, leaping, dancing, jests, and songs, and the jests were to be "without reflection." No man (and this smacks of Ben's arrogance) was to recite "insipid" ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sentiments are on these matters—and, Joe, I am not disposed to think you have any very fixed ones—pray do me the favour to keep them to yourself while under my father's roof. I can almost promise you he'll obtrude none of his peculiar opinions on you, and I hope you will treat ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... lines of his figure, and she realised with a faint sense of anger that his mere physical perfection, his strength and suppleness, appealed to her. This was, she recognised, an almost repugnant thing, a feeling to be judiciously checked, but it would obtrude itself. After all, in spite of her fastidiousness, she was endued with most of the characteristics of ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... time you might please, without one moment of reflection or embarrassment. Pray explain to me this phenomenon. All this I confess is not very applicable to you or to my present occupation, for I generally write you what first offers, without considering whether it be the best; and if many obtrude themselves at once, I write you, as at present, of—nothing. Indeed, my dear Theodosia, I have many, many moments of solicitude about you. Remember that occupation will infallibly expel the fiend ennui, and that solitude is the bug-bear of fools. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... paradox; but what he at first condemns, he admires and extols after deliberation; so that the object of the whole work is to correct popular errors, and to distinguish the semblance of virtue and vice from the reality. Its subordinate design is to expose the monstrous fictions, which some authors obtrude upon us in ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... come. Only would his inclinations obtrude. There was nothing mean or petty in this big creature. He loved his brother frankly and freely, and his absurd heart would not permit him to ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... unbosomed himself to me on this subject one night near Yvre-l'Eveque. The reason of it all is obvious. The higher a man's intelligence, the greater is his sense of responsibility and the force of his attachments. But in action the latter are set aside; they only obtrude at such times as I have said or else ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... Arctic Circle is winter indeed: there is no sun to gladden with his beams the hearts of the voyagers; but all is wrapt in darkness, day and night, save when the moon chances to obtrude her faint rays, only to make visible the desolation of the scene. The approach of winter is strongly marked. Snow begins to fall in August, and the ground is covered to the depth of two or three feet before ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... it a rule at Oxford to stand aloof from the conflict of parties, whether academical, theological, or political. I had my own work to do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude my opinions, which naturally were different from those prevalent at Oxford. Most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves; and though I gladly talked over such matters with my friends who ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... was older and less affable. He talked chiefly with Mr. Grove, a very quiet, somewhat careworn man; neither of them seemed able to shake off business, but they did not obtrude it on the company in general. The day passed pleasantly, but in Miss Derrick's opinion, rather soberly. Doing her best to fascinate Mr. Bilton, she felt a slight disappointment at her inability to engross his attention, and at the civil friendliness which he thought a sufficient reply to her ...
— The Paying Guest • George Gissing
... but that, too, was no use. What made his depression so vexatious and irritating was that it had a kind of casual, external character—he felt that. Some person or thing seemed to be standing out somewhere, just as something will sometimes obtrude itself upon the eye, and though one may be so busy with work or conversation that for a long time one does not notice it, yet it irritates and almost torments one till at last one realizes, and removes ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... He was aware she wished to say a good deal to him, but that the presence of Ingram hindered. And as the same constrained silence once more fell upon them, the elusive odour of her perfume seemed to obtrude again, as though taking the opportunity ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... very fond of her: he was fond of her still, and could not bring himself to regret having known her. He strove resolutely to refrain from applying conventional standards of judgment, with which, he assured himself, he had no sympathy, but little uneasinesses and awkward moments would obtrude. It was difficult to maintain the fine idea of rationalism. 'I won't have you bind the strange man you may be to-morrow with oaths,' Aurora had said; yet it was evident the change in him was a source of great distress ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... man has his oil-money to receive, and is taking his month's advance at the same time, is it not usual to ask him if he wants any supplies for his family?-I don't know that it is. We don't obtrude questions ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Philip Hardin is not the only knave and unpunished murderer in high place. His "Gulnare" is not the only lovely woman here, who bears unabashed the burden of a hideous past. A merit is peculiar to this guilty, world-defying pair. They seek no friends, obtrude on no external circles, and parade no lying sham ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... respective newspaper. On further reflection, it seemed more decorous that, as a member of the 'conference,' I should first appear before the Senate committee now in possession of all the papers, and there render any proper explanations, and not obtrude myself as a combatant in the newspapers, prematurely and only partially defending my official action. If, however, you should think that the articles should be answered without delay, I could readily cause it to be ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... 8: The letter ran:—"Lord John Russell unfortunately does not partake your Majesty's opinions in regard to Italy, and he is unwilling to obtrude on your Majesty unnecessary statements of his views.... Whatever may be the consequence, the liberation of the Italian people from a foreign yoke is, in the eyes of Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, an increase of freedom and happiness ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... at Baltimore; during a stay of two or three days, we found several persons who were friendly to our cause. There are computed to be five thousand slaves in this city, but of course slavery does not obtrude itself on the casual observer. Here, as in other countries, he who would see it as it is, must view ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... original contributions from the officers of the two ships: and I can safely say, that the weekly contributions had the happy effect of employing the leisure hours of those who furnished them, and of diverting the mind from the gloomy prospect which would sometimes obtrude itself on the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... son on the Virgin's window, perhaps she thought the Virgin would resent Pierre's boldness the more by contrast with her own good taste. So far as is known, nowhere does Blanche appear in person at Chartres; she felt herself too near the Virgin to obtrude a useless image, or she was too deeply religious to ask anything for herself. A queen who was to have two children sainted, to intercede for her at Mary's throne, stood in a solitude almost as unique ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... with some irritation, 'that you will not obtrude remarks of that nature, which, however harmless and well-intentioned, are quite out of place, and cannot be expected to be very agreeable to ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... from interference," I added. "I give you my word that I will not obtrude upon you ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... minister), being silent, was asked why he did not take part in the debate. He answered: "Ministers are like physicians, and the physician gives medicine to the sick only. Therefore, when I see your opinions are judicious, it would not be consistent with wisdom for me to obtrude my sentiments. When a matter can be managed without my interference it is not proper for me to speak on the subject. But if I see a blind man in the way of a well, should I keep silence it were a crime." On another occasion, when some Indian sages were discoursing ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... youngster, for he had promised not to obtrude his opinion in the presence of Bainbridge. But as his words did not refer in any manner to the story that Bainbridge was telling us, I should not have objected to them, but that with Arthur it was necessary to be cautious in creating precedents, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... not therefore evident the assertors of Matter destroy the plain obvious sense of Moses, with which their notions are utterly inconsistent; and instead of it obtrude on us I know not what; something equally unintelligible to ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... matter what the rewards of such industry, it must not be imagined that its disabilities did not insist upon due recognition and ugly ravel, and that such shred and fibre did not obtrude their unwelcome appeals for ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... But there would obtrude the terrible possibility of a few raiders hiding along the trace, determined to strengthen their medicine with more white scalps. But never once did I count in favor of the girl Dale's boasted friendship with the Shawnees. Even my most visionary listing of assets could not include that. I made a ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... little while the pursuit relaxed. The government, I believe, did not care, provided he did not obtrude himself, what became of him, or where he concealed himself. At all events, the local authorities showed no disposition to hunt him down. The young ladies' charges on the little forfeited property were paid without any dispute, and no vexatious inquiries were raised as to what had become ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 2 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... vision of a perfect carpet for a drawing-room—something softer and more exquisite than ever came out of mortal loom; full of repose and tranquillity, yet not without seducing beauties of design; a carpet which would never obtrude itself, but yet would catch the eye by dreamy moments in the summer twilight or over the winter fire—flashed upon the imagination of the Rector's wife. It would be sweet to have a house of one's own arranging, where everything would be in harmony; and though this sweetness was very ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... meant here to obtrude special views of politics, or to maintain that democratic principles have naturally this tendency; but it may help to explain why so little is heard or known in England of the better class of Americans. Their unobtrusive mode of life entirely accounts ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant, and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or the capture of our men in great numbers should be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... my wife, in the indistinct and throaty tones which always obtrude themselves into an Englishman's utterance when he is called upon to say something formal but graceful. Kitty greeted the guest with a smile with which I am well acquainted (and which I can guarantee from personal experience to be absolutely ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... no easy problem you have offered me. You are right in thinking that this testimony of yours might be of benefit to Arthur, and that you ought to give it in case of extremity. But I cannot advise you to obtrude it yet. I understand what it would cost you, and the sacrifice you would make is too great for the doubtful good which might follow. Neither must you trust me to act for you in this matter. My own position is too unstable for me to be of assistance ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... with him for all time now, he greedily hugged to himself these hours alone with her, when there was nothing but the fair blue sky and waving grass, the hills and valleys, to witness his happiness, none of the harshness of life to obtrude upon his perfect joy; nothing, not even the merest duties of daily life, to mar the delicious companionship which his wife's long-desired presence afforded him. The whole journey was to be a sort of honeymoon, a thousand times ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... not the courage to attempt to stem the torrent. He did not care to obtrude himself inside Catchach's range of vision, for before he was done with Scotland the orator was rolling up his sleeves and calling out like Goliath of Gath for all the township of Oro to come forward and contradict him. Many of the ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith
... Schoenberg do it? How does he pull off the trick? It is not a question to be lightly answered. In the first place the personality of the listener is bound to obtrude itself; dissociation from one's ego—if such a thing were possible—would be intellectual death; only by the clear, persistent image of ourselves do we exist—banal psychology as old as the hills. And the ear, like ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... food A relish sweet and cleanse the blood, Make cheerful health in spring-tide flood Incessant boil, And seldom restless thoughts obtrude On daily toil. ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... world, despite sunshine and bird-song, was a dark and evil place wherein I stood desolate and forlorn; here, bowing my head between my hands, I began to despair of myself and the future. But now, and all at once, what must obtrude upon these gloomy thoughts but a vision of ham and eggs, a tantalisation that ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... go, Mr. Blake, because I desire you and your regiment to understand that I have no wish to obtrude my ideas of discipline upon you at such a time. At any other I would not have ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... which we are all governed nowadays, Howard could not obtrude by questioning his friend, and Stafford showed no signs of making any voluntary statement or explanation. He suffered in a silence with which he kept at arm's-length even his closed friend; and Howard pondered and worried in a futile attempt to guess at the ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... of that," thought Egremont, the horrid phantom of settling-day seeming to obtrude itself between his mother and himself; but not knowing precisely at what she was driving, he merely sipped his ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Pipes, with branches to the windows, come down the sides of the houses. They are of generous size, as in cities of northern countries where much snow lies on the roofs. Since wall-angles are many, the pipes generally find a place in corners. They do not obtrude. They do not suggest zinc or tin. They were painted a mud-gray color ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... April 1, indeed, Lyons had been reporting that no definite stand was yet being taken by the American Government. At the same time Russell was continuing his instructions to Lyons to recommend conciliation "but never to obtrude advice unasked[103]." Yet Russell was not wholly undisturbed by the reports of Seward's quarrelsome attitude, for in a private letter of the same date as the preceding, he wrote to Lyons, "I rely upon your wisdom, patience, and prudence, to steer ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... useful man hitherto I had always been refused any sort of office, because of the extreme views which I professed—on platforms in the constituencies—or so those in authority alleged. Now, however, these views were put down to amiable eccentricity; moreover, I was careful not to obtrude them. Responsibility sobers, and as we age and succeed we become more moderate, for most of us have ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... us to "the history of what is," and forbids all inquiry into reasons why it is. The question whether there be any intelligent purpose in the order and arrangement of the universe, is not a subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it has been permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over the facts, and led the ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... forget that the poor miller's child had no right to obtrude her comeliness in the presence of the banker's daughter. I confess my 'high crime and misdemeanor' against the pet of fortune, and await my condign punishment. Is it your sovereign will that I shear my shining locks like royal Berenice, and offer them in propitiation? Or, does ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... your house gowns in the same key as the hangings and upholstery of your room. White is safe in any room, black is at times too strong. It depends in part upon the size of your room. If it is small and in soft tones, delicate harmonising shades will not obtrude themselves as black can and so reduce the effect of space. This is the case not only with black, but with emerald green, decided shades of red, royal blue, and purple or deep yellows. If artistic creations, these colours are all decorative in a room done in light tones, ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... enrag'd, denies the glittering prize, And rends the air with loud and piteous cries. Thus far we see the party on their way— What dire disasters mark'd the close of day, 'Twere tedious, tiresome, endless to obtrude; Imagination must the ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... the womb of the leathern conveniency. As they immediately began to settle their clothes, which were a little deranged, as may be presumed, I concluded they had received no injury, and did not venture to obtrude my services at their toilette, for which, I understand, I have since been reflected upon by the fair sufferers. The outsides, who must have been discharged from their elevated situation by a shock resembling the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... more honest and clear-sighted than he knew. He was dealing with a woman who could sacrifice all to the well-being and happiness of those she loved. With Nan self held a particularly subservient place to every other emotion. And when it did manage to obtrude itself it was her way to fight her battle alone, at a time when no prying eyes were there to witness her sufferings. To the daylight she presented a pair of sweet brown smiling eyes, and lips as full, and ripe, and firm as though no shadow of doubt and unhappiness ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... a city of beautiful women, and it was rarely that she permitted her knowledge of that fact to escape her. Her beauty, to her, was a natural phenomenon, impossible to overlook. The realization of it did not obtrude itself into her mind, it simply ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... 236 ff.) opens with a facetious thrust at Hazlitt: "A very ingenious and subtle writer, whom there is good reason for suspecting to be an ex-Jesuit, not unknown at Douay some five-and-twenty years since (he will not obtrude himself at M—th again in a hurry), about a twelvemonth back, set himself to prove the character of the Powder Plot conspirators to have been that of heroic self-devotedness and true Christian martyrdom. Under the mask of Protestant candour, he actually gained admission for his treatise into a ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... whether, as the learn'd contend, You from the neighbouring Gaul descend; Or from Parthenope[1] the proud, Where numberless thy votaries crowd; Whether thy great forefathers came From realms that bear Vespuccio's name,[2] For so conjectures would obtrude; And from thy painted skin conclude; Whether, as Epicurus[3] shows, The world from justling seeds arose, Which, mingling with prolific strife In chaos, kindled into life: So your production was the same, And from contending atoms came. Thy fair indulgent mother ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... worth remarking, that, although Shelley's diction is at other times singularly rich, it ceases in these poems to be rich, or to obtrude itself at all; it is imperceptible; his Muse has become a veritable Echo, whose body has dissolved from about her voice. Indeed, when his diction is richest, nevertheless the poetry so dominates the expression that we feel the latter only ...
— Shelley - An Essay • Francis Thompson
... help thinking that Hardy is the greatest artist of the English character since Shakespeare; and much of The Dynasts (except its historical fidelity) might be Shakespeare. But I value his lyrics as presenting himself (the self he does not obtrude into the comprehensiveness of his novels and The Dynasts) as truly, and with faults as well as strength visible in it, as any character in his novels. His lyrics have not the spontaneity of Shakespeare's or Shelley's; they are rough-hewn and jagged: ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... consciousness is of calm and mutual enjoyment, which seems not to have been the birth of that very moment, but prolonged from a past eternity. Thus content with an inner sphere which they inhabit together, it is not immediately that the outward world can obtrude itself upon ...
— The New Adam and Eve (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Unwilling to obtrude himself on the princess, Rostov did not go back to the house but remained in the village awaiting her departure. When her carriage drove out of the house, he mounted and accompanied her eight miles from Bogucharovo to where the road ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... is not easy to discriminate the criminal from the accuser. But," she added, seeing his brow darken, "you have led me into a subject which can only betray my ignorance; you well know that I am wholly incompetent to judge of your public affairs; and I have never ventured to obtrude upon your private ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... was replied, "the life of a seamstress does not take off the keen edge of a natural reserve—or, to speak more correctly sensitiveness. I dislike to break in upon another's household arrangements, or in any way to obtrude myself. My rule is, to adapt myself, as best I can, to the family order, and so not disturb ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... illusion of reality during the two hours' traffic of the stage. It is, to be sure—especially in the standard English translation—abominably written. One of the two orphans launches wide-eyed upon a soliloquy beginning, "Am I mad?... Do I dream?"; and such sentences as the following obtrude themselves upon the astounded ear,—"If you persist in persecuting me in this heartless manner, I shall inform the police." Nothing, surely, could be further from literature. Yet thrill after thrill is conveyed, by visual means, ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... lest agreement should, after all, spell weakness, while indifferentism—specially in outward observances—argues strength. A certain shyness, moreover, withheld Iglesias, a not unadmirable dread of being guilty of ostentation. It was so little his custom to obtrude himself, his opinions, and his needs upon the attention of others, that he was scrupulous and diffident in the selection of time and place. The affair, however, decided itself, as affairs usually do when the intention of those undertaking them ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... therefore the bishop is not inclined at present to resent it. You will, no doubt, soon learn what is required from you, and what is not. If you will take my advice, however, you will be careful not to obtrude advice upon the bishop in any matter concerning patronage. If his lordship wants advice, he knows where to look for it.' And then having added to her counsel a string of platitudes as to what was desirable and what not desirable in the conduct of a strictly evangelical, unmarried young clergyman, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... said Oliver, somewhat sternly, 'do not obtrude your advice where it is not called for; this man, for whom you plead, murdered your ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... know the remarks that are being made: but of course, if you prefer to be left ignorant, I don't need to stay. Good morrow! Pray don't disturb yourself, Flemild—I can let myself out, as you are all so busy. You'll be sorry some day you did not take advice. But I never obtrude my advice; if people don't want it, I shall not trouble them with it. It's ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... in Jeddart law,' his companion answered. 'I would hang the man first and then discuss the question of our promise. However, pink me if I will obtrude my ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mixed, where the chief part of education, and the most conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its words and combinations croud upon his memory; and haste and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms and ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... Annabel was assured that the royal family had positively fixed upon Weymouth for their residence, and were even daily expected, she resolved instantly to retire. Her stern sense of duty assured her that it was neither delicate nor loyal to obtrude before the presence of an outraged monarch the wife and daughter of a traitor; her haughty, though wounded, spirit shrank from the revival of her husband's history, which must be the consequence of such a conjunction, and from the startling and painful ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... by parents she was too young to mourn. The latter half of her life these gods had crowned with a love which made her youth immortal. She had been married when she was a mere girl to a young soldier who had not lived long enough to obtrude upon her life more than a gentle memory of his bravery. The bearing of a child had been the vital part of that marriage, and the child had come into her new home with her, leaving it only for a happy one of her own. Her husband's ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... was, and liked it—that is, when it did not obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and interest. She had a respect for "Angleterre;" and as to "les Anglaises," she would have the women of no other country about her own children, if she could ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... a word that profanes one of your delusions, you shake your head and are incredulous. Pause: listen one moment to my counsels,—perhaps the last I may ever obtrude upon you. Lift your eyes; look around. Far as your eye can reach, nay, far beyond the line which the horizon forms in the landscape, stretch the lands of my inheritance. Yonder you see the home in which my forefathers for many generations lived with honour, and died lamented. All these, in the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as I went, the thought would obtrude itself, how far I had recovered my lost authority, and succeeded in satisfying that insatiable monster called Public Opinion. For my curate had been reading for me a story by some American author, in which the narrative ended in a problem whether a lady ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... which early obtrude themselves in the consideration of Breton fairy-lore are: Are all the fays of Brittany malevolent? And, if so, whence proceeds this belief that fairy-folk are necessarily malign? Example treads upon example to ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... dull day there without him. Hawk Street had long since ceased to be exciting. The fellows I liked—and they were very few—did not obtrude their affections on me during business hours, and the fellows I disliked had given up the pastime of baiting me as a bad job. I had my own department of work to attend to, and very little communication with any one else in the doing of it, except with Doubleday, who, as the ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... less hopefully than before. At length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter past, and then the conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... knock may seem rude to the Oriental dreamers. The door is opened, perchance, by some Yankee-Hindoo woman, whose small-voiced but sincere hospitality, out of the bottomless depths of a quiet nature, has travelled quite round to the opposite side, and fears only to obtrude its kindness. You step over the white-scoured floor to the bright "dresser" lightly, as if afraid to disturb the devotions of the household,—for Oriental dynasties appear to have passed away since the dinner-table was last spread here,—and thence to the frequented ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau
... rigidly and literally obeyed, for Cuthbert Laurance is far too proud to obtrude his presence or his homage on any woman; but Mrs. Orme's interdict does not include that public realm, where she has repeatedly assured me that gold always secures admission to her smiles, and from which no earthly power can debar ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... the morning of the 11th, and if any of the widow's own friends attended the funeral they forbore to obtrude themselves during the ceremony or at the breakfast which followed it. While the guests drank sherry and ate cold chickens in the dining-room, Mrs. Stephen carried her grief off to her own apartment and left ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... really had prepared his sermons painfully, but long practice brings to the preacher a certain fatal facility. Old ideas are not improved by being clothed in new phrases, and of new ideas—a new idea will occasionally obtrude itself even on the Christian preacher—the Canon was exceedingly mistrustful. The study was an unexciting and comparatively comfortable room. The firelight on winter afternoons played pleasantly on the dim gold ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... religion, it has been assumed, is to restore confidence, when man is mazed, and out of his depth, fearful of the mysteries that obtrude on his life, yet compelled, if not exactly wishful, to face them and wrest from them whatever help is in them. This function religion fulfils by what may be described in one word as "suggestion." How the suggestion works psychologically—how, for ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... gauged Mr. Scarsbrook mentally, modestly replied that he did not care to obtrude private affairs at an inopportune time. He knew that weighty affairs doubtless occupied Mr. Scarsbrook's mind during his business hours, but had intended to do himself the honour of presenting his letter ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... things, and that the object of technique is simply that these may be expressed in the best and most intelligible manner. Indeed the artist himself is secondary in importance to the message, it is the spirit that works in and through him that must ever come first. The true artist never seeks to obtrude, or to make his own personality the first thing. He will, of course, endeavour to make his technique fully equal to all demands that can be made of him, but he will realise that he is doing his work in trust. "No MAN ever did any great work yet: he became a free channel through which ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... are discontented people who still venture to obtrude their sentiments on the public. One of them, in a ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... at the funeral. That he was there I knew, but either he, himself, or Lucy for him, had managed so well, as not to obtrude his person on my sight. John Wallingford, who well knew my external or visible relation to all the Hardinges, thinking to do me a pleasure, mentioned, as the little procession returned to the house, that young Mr. Hardinge had, by dint ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... rector was granted an interview, but Lady Camper was not at home to General Ople. She is of superior station to me, and may not wish to associate with me, the General modestly said. Nevertheless he was wounded: for in spite of himself, and without the slightest wish to obtrude his own person, as he explained the meaning that he had in him, his rank in the British army forced him to be the representative of it, in the absence of any one of a superior rank. So that he was professionally hurt, and his heart being in his ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... good; but we were still very wet, and the uncomfortable thought would obtrude itself that the safari might not get in that day. It behoved us at least to dry what we had on. I hunted up Memba Sasa, whom I found in a native hut. A fire blazed in the middle of the floor. I stooped ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White
... make her "gentlemen" comfortable. She was labouring still. As he lay in bed he asked God to grant him her wisdom; that he might keep sorrow within due bounds; that he might abstain from extreme hatred and envy of Stephen. It was seldom that he prayed so definitely, or ventured to obtrude his private wishes. Religion was to him a service, a mystic communion with good; not a means of getting what he wanted on the earth. But tonight, through suffering, he was humbled, and became like Mrs. Aberdeen. Hour after hour he awaited sleep and tried to endure the faces that ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... food,—they nosed into his drinks, his cigars, his cigarettes, his pipes,—they bothered themselves about his meal hours,—they even inspected his wash when it hung on the line! Some of them, that is. The rest were totally different; they let every one alone. They did not intrude nor obtrude—they went their way, and permitted ...
— In Her Own Right • John Reed Scott
... same way at present; but my business is to record, as far as my means may permit, the growth and structure of one great mind, and the effect which it produced upon the actual witnesses of its manifestations, not to obtrude the conjectures of a partial individual as to what rank posterity may assign it amongst or above ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... know any better—" she mentally scolded, behind her tired look, "than to obtrude himself the very first minute after ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... is not a difference of form or structure, and therefore belongs rather to the special science of psychology than to philosophy. Thus the ethical interests which have often inspired philosophers must remain in the background: some kind of ethical interest may inspire the whole study, but none must obtrude in the detail or be expected in the ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... dislike, in degree as the bond connecting them is drawn tight or allowed to hang slack. By mutual desire their chains of wedlock have been fastened as loosely as respect for security will permit, with the happy consequence that her aversion to him does not obtrude itself beyond the limits ...
— John Ingerfield and Other Stories • Jerome K. Jerome
... him from head to foot like a practical man who is examining a subject; then he said, in a tone of conviction: "You see, my dear fellow, all depends on assurance, here. A shrewd, observing man can sometimes become a minister. You must obtrude yourself and yet not ask anything. But how is it you have not found anything better than a ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... witness to the number of the corpses that are brought hither for interment, or to hearken if the brothers there within, whose number is now almost reduced to nought, chant their offices at the canonical hours, or, by our weeds of woe, to obtrude on the attention of every one that enters, the nature and ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... Sometimes the thought would obtrude that Jessie deserved something more than the drear life of the northland. But the girl herself dispelled these thoughts. Like her mother, she had no desire beyond the home she ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... Miss Minford has shown a desire to avoid him on several recent occasions, when they have accidentally met in the street. It was Mr. Lynville's blessed privilege, under Providence, to save Miss Minford's life; but he would not be selfish and base enough on that account to obtrude himself on Miss Minford's notice. Mr. Lynville would die sooner than be guilty of that discourtesy. He is not presumptuous enough to ask an answer to this letter. His only object in writing it, is to inform Miss Minford that he will not venture again upon the impropriety of speaking ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... nervous system is so apt to be deranged by going from home, that I am by no means sure that I should not be so much of a dependent invalid, I mean a person obliged to manage himself, as to make it absolutely improper for me to obtrude myself where neither my exertions of mind or body, could enable me to be tolerable company. I say nothing of my family, because a short absence would be abundantly recompensed by the pleasure of a 'sweet return.' At all events, I must express my sincere ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... was insulted. Whatever he had proscribed was favoured. Because he had been scrupulous about trifles, all scruples were treated with derision. Because he had covered his failings with the mask of devotion, men were encouraged to obtrude with Cynic impudence all their most scandalous vices on the public eye. Because he had punished illicit love with barbarous severity, virgin purity and conjugal fidelity were made a jest. To that sanctimonious jargon which was his Shibboleth, was opposed another jargon not less absurd ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sure that Mr. Linden would be pleased with the state of matters, as days went on, and she was sure she was not pleased herself. There was something she did not understand. The doctor's manner was not presuming, in a way; neither did he obtrude even his sorrow upon her; yet he took the place of a privileged person—she felt that—and she was obliged to see his pain in the very silence and in the play of words or of face which she thought assumed to conceal it. She was very sorry for him, ...
— Say and Seal, Volume II • Susan Warner
... until the "good landlord"—the landlord almost worshipped in Ireland at this hour—is the landlord who neither evicts his tenants nor raises their rents. The consequences are inevitable, and, over a large portion of the island, they are patent to every eye—they obtrude themselves everywhere. The people are poor; they are despondent, broken-spirited. In the south of Ireland decay is written on every town. In the poorer parts you may see every fifth or sixth house ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... stage. It is, to be sure—especially in the standard English translation—abominably written. One of the two orphans launches wide-eyed upon a soliloquy beginning, "Am I mad?... Do I dream?"; and such sentences as the following obtrude themselves upon the astounded ear,—"If you persist in persecuting me in this heartless manner, I shall inform the police." Nothing, surely, could be further from literature. Yet thrill after thrill is conveyed, by visual means, through situations artfully contrived; ...
— The Theory of the Theatre • Clayton Hamilton
... in that Egyptian hall, and its immediate attendant circumstances, I need not tell you. It was like other feasts of ceremony, where the niceties of form constantly obtrude themselves, and check too much the flow of conversation. Then too one's mind is necessarily distracted, where the feast is sumptuous, by the rarity of the dishes, the richness of the service, and the pomp and stir of the ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... say, sir, in reply, and no desire to hear anything more. I beg you won't obtrude your conversation, or these personal attacks, upon me. I shall not be deterred from doing my duty to my country and my countrymen, by any such attempts, whether they proceed from emissaries of the Pope or not, I assure you. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... current, and was agreeably supported by the consciousness that if Fate had so ordained it, he himself would have been capable of performing all these feats just as creditably. No need now to stifle a misgiving that in the old days would occasionally obtrude itself into the glowing views of the future, that he was possibly not of a stature to play the great parts for which he might be cast. On the contrary, what now remained was the blessed peace brought by ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... express in this way my entire satisfaction with what you have done up to this time, so far as I understand it. The particulars of your plan I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any constraints or restraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great numbers shall be avoided, I know these points are less likely to escape your attention than they would be mine. If there is anything wanting which is within ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... the room, she had little to say, for Grandma Maynard was accustomed to dominate everything in her own house. And as her ideas were not entirely in accord with those of her daughter-in-law, the younger Mrs. Maynard thought it wise not to obtrude her own opinions. ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... what honesty was, and liked it—that is, when it did not obtrude its clumsy scruples in the way of her will and interest. She had a respect for "Angleterre;" and as to "les Anglaises," she would have the women of no other country about her own children, if ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Zora. With others he did not speak; the matter seemed too delicate and sacred, and he always had an awful dread lest sometime, somewhere, a chance and fatal word would be dropped, a breath of evil gossip which would shatter all. He had hated to obtrude his troubles on Mrs. Cresswell, who seemed so torn in soul. But today he must speak, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... questions which I must leave my friend to answer for himself. The ground is too high for me. I have no skill in the flights of speculation. I take no pleasure in the enunciation of principles. To my restricted vision, placed as I am upon the earth, isolated facts obtrude themselves with a capricious particularity which defies my powers of generalization. And that, perhaps, is the reason why I attached myself to the party to which I have the honour to belong. For it is, I think, the party which sees things as they are; as they are, that is, to ...
— A Modern Symposium • G. Lowes Dickinson
... conspicuous accomplishment, is skill in ancient or in foreign tongues. He that has long cultivated another language, will find its words and combinations crowd upon his memory; and haste and negligence, refinement and affectation, will obtrude borrowed terms ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... and Nature a certain clear and airy space, untroubled by any magnetic currents of spiritual reciprocity. One feels as though Nature were kept decisively and formally in her place and not permitted to obtrude herself upon the consciousness of civilised people except when they require some pleasant lawn or noble trees or smiling garden of roses to serve as a background for their metaphysical discussions ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... advocate given us, one in the earth, in our consciences, another in the heavens with God. Christ is gone up to the highest tribunal, where the cause receives a definitive sentence, and there he manageth it above, so that though Satan should obtrude upon a poor soul a wrong sentence in its own conscience, and bring down a false and counterfeit act, as it were, extracted out of the register of heaven, whereby to deceive the poor soul, and condemn it in itself, yet there is no hazard above, he dare not appear ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... if they wanted rest and quiet, they were very apt not to invite him. Rollo took the hint. The next time he had an invitation to ride, he remembered that he was the invited party, and bore himself accordingly. He did not "pitch in" in the conversation. He did not obtrude his own affairs. He answered when he was spoken to, listened when he was not spoken to, and found that he was well rewarded by attending to the things which interested his father and mother, and to the matters he was discussing with her. And so it came about that Rollo, by not offering himself ...
— How To Do It • Edward Everett Hale
... on the piazza with Bessie, Mr. Leslie came up the walk; Sibyl was in the parlor playing soft chords on the piano, but she could hear his words as he spoke. Mr. Leslie's voice was deep, but clear, and his pronunciation perfectly distinct without any apparent effort. He did not obtrude the alphabet unpleasantly upon his hearers; he was not so anxious to show his correct pronunciation of "Been" as to force it to rhyme with "Seen;" he was not so much concerned with "Institute," as to te-u-ute the last syllable into undue importance; ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... truth, and view every part or the chief parts of knowledge as if developed from it, and to be tested and determined by its principles. Others, though conscious to themselves of their anti-christian opinions, have too much good feeling and good taste to obtrude them upon the world. They neither wish to shock people, nor to earn for themselves a confessorship which brings with it no gain. They know the strength of prejudice, and the penalty of innovation; they wish to go through life quietly; they scorn polemics; they shrink, as from a real humiliation, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... after all, spell weakness, while indifferentism—specially in outward observances—argues strength. A certain shyness, moreover, withheld Iglesias, a not unadmirable dread of being guilty of ostentation. It was so little his custom to obtrude himself, his opinions, and his needs upon the attention of others, that he was scrupulous and diffident in the selection of time and place. The affair, however, decided itself, as affairs usually do when the intention of those undertaking them is a ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... off the harbour the following morning quite early, but was unable to anchor off Fort Frederick, till the evening on account of fog. On arriving at the Fort he was greatly relieved of apprehensions that would obtrude themselves upon him during his lonely trip by finding his ...
— Young Lion of the Woods - A Story of Early Colonial Days • Thomas Barlow Smith
... affords is now and then a witty, sarcastic, or humorous reply. But he is generally successful in his continual attempts to give the conversation a new turn, when his favourite opinions are opposed: for I do not think it wise to obtrude too many painful contradictions upon him at a time. Truth must be progressive. Like a flash of lightning, it stuns or kills ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... quite true that De Stancy at the present period of his existence wished only to escape from the hurly-burly of active life, and to win the affection of Paula Power. There were, however, occasions when a recollection of his old renunciatory vows would obtrude itself upon him, and tinge his present with wayward bitterness. So much was this the case that a day or two after they had arrived at Mainz he could not refrain from making remarks almost prejudicial to his cause, saying to her, ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... necessary to explain that the ceremonial etiquette of these barbarian outcasts is both conflicting and involved. Upon most of the ordinary occasions of life to obtrude oneself within the conversation of another is a thing not to be done, yet repeatedly when this unpretentious person has been relating his experience or inquiring into the nature and meaning of certain matters which he has witnessed, he ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... whose kind hearts had prompted them to proffer their sympathy, have heard these words they would not have been likely to obtrude any more on the hard, cold woman who held them in ...
— Only An Irish Boy - Andy Burke's Fortunes • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... tongue, an attractive manner, a few hundred dollars thrown carelessly about, and presto! you have the counterfeit of a Cecil Rhodes. We are not only willing to take people at their own valuation, but are ever ready to multiply that valuation by ten. Obtrude romance—rich, stirring romance—into the lives of commonplace people, and they instantly lose their heads. Romance, more than cupidity, is ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... Ask for it. Do you want to go to a party to which you are not invited? Ask to be asked. Ask A., ask B., ask Mrs. C., ask everybody you know: you will be thought a bore; but you will have your way. What matters if you are considered obtrusive, provided that you obtrude? By pushing steadily, nine hundred and ninety-nine people in a thousand will yield to you. Only command persons, and you may be pretty sure that a good number will obey. How well your money will have been laid out, O gentle reader, who purchase this; and, taking ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... proceeding, I must think it a piece of impertinence, unseasonable at least, and out of place, to obtrude these papers upon the officiating clergyman,—to offer to a public functionary an instrument which by the tenor of his function he is not obliged to accept, but, rather, he is called upon to reject. Is it done in his clerical capacity? He has no power ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... panes the peach and plum trees could be seen like traceries on the clear glass. Around the walls of this room the book shelves ranged at just the right height, and above them hung pictures that inspired but did not obtrude. The high, carved chimney with its deep, generous ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... indulgent to his wife, resisted at first the advice of his counsellors to get rid of Home, he was forced at last to put an end to the seances at the Tuileries, Fontainebleau, and Biarritz. The spirits "summoned" had had the imprudence to obtrude upon him their own views of his policy. When the alliance with Italy and a probable war with Austria were under discussion in the cabinet, the spirit-inspired pencil at the Tuileries scrawled these words: "The emperor should declare war and deliver ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... by the involuntary indifference which these consequences produced. When her friend was all the world to her, she found she was not as necessary to her happiness; and her delicate mind could not bear to obtrude her affection, or receive love as an alms, the offspring of pity. Very frequently has she ran to her with delight, and not perceiving any thing of the same kind in Ann's countenance, she has shrunk back; and, falling from one extreme into the other, instead of a ...
— Mary - A Fiction • Mary Wollstonecraft
... forgotten more than that," said Julian. "You have forgotten that you were born a gentleman and bred a man of honor. So far as I am concerned, I don't ask you to remember that I am a clergyman—I obtrude my profession on nobody—I only ask you to remember your birth and your breeding. It is quite bad enough to cruelly and unjustly suspect an old friend who has never forgotten what he owes to you and to himself. But it is still more unworthy ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... time being her thoughts were evidently fixed upon her present purpose, to the exclusion of all considerations such as might have been expected to obtrude themselves upon the mind of a young girl engaged in a nocturnal raid. The dark solitude, the lateness of the hour, the surreptitious manner of her entry into the room, all these, which might well have occasioned some degree of nervousness in the coolest of housebreakers, appeared ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... safely say, that the weekly contributions had the happy effect of employing the leisure hours of those who furnished them, and of diverting the mind from the gloomy prospect which would sometimes obtrude itself on the ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... inquiry into reasons why it is. The question whether there be any intelligent purpose in the order and arrangement of the universe, is not a subject of scientific inquiry at all; and whenever it has been permitted to obtrude itself, it has thrown a false light over the facts, ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... I will say for her'—Mrs. Freddy's brother-in-law lazily defended the honour of the house—'she doesn't, as a rule, obtrude her opinions. There are people who have known her for years, and haven't a notion she's ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... promises, hung on a breath, the slenderest gossamer chance. He tried to think that the knowledge of her love would soothe him even in his dying hours; but the phantoms of what life with her might be would obtrude, and made him almost gasp and reel under the uncertainty he was enduring. Will's appearance had only added to ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the PEOPLE meant the SECURITY of the CROWN. As a matter of fact the only loyal supporters I ever had around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service of the State. When I announced my war aims on the Pacific for the benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war. That magniloquent Minister, with his versatile Irish amanuensis, not only turned my mother against me, but he had the temerity ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... whom had even offered to adopt her as his child if she would consent to become a Huron. In taking this direction, the shrewd girl did so to invite inquiry. She was too well trained in the habits of her people to obtrude the opinions of one of her sex and years on men and warriors, but nature had furnished a tact and ingenuity that enabled her to attract the attention she desired, without wounding the pride of those to whom it was her duty to defer ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... belief of the probability of all beings having descended from ONE primordial form; but as this seems yet to me probable, I am not willing to strike it out. Huxley alone supports me in this, and something could be said in its favour. With respect to man, I am very far from wishing to obtrude my belief; but I thought it dishonest to quite conceal my opinion. Of course it is open to every one to believe that man appeared by a separate miracle, though I do not myself ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... greatly enlarged, and in two volumes. I took this opportunity of inserting the manuscript Notes of Lord Byron, with the exception of one, which, however characteristic of the amiable feelings of the noble poet, and however gratifying to my own, I had no wish to obtrude on ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... be rigidly and literally obeyed, for Cuthbert Laurance is far too proud to obtrude his presence or his homage on any woman; but Mrs. Orme's interdict does not include that public realm, where she has repeatedly assured me that gold always secures admission to her smiles, and from which no earthly power ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... neighborhood, if we decide to remain within city limits, is a difficult one. In most of the larger places no one can accurately foretell the future of even the most attractive residence district. Factories and business houses may not obtrude, but flats are almost sure to come. Few cottages are being constructed in cities, partly because of lack of demand, but principally because they do not pay sufficient income on the investment. Consequently the houses that are to ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... risen from the same fountain, being a point of art, and a known expedient, for men who cannot quit their immoralities, at least to banish all reflections that may disturb them in the enjoyment, which must be done either by not thinking of religion at all; or, if it will obtrude, by ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... of redemption and eternity, the noblest ideas known, can shine on a human mind, without imparting some small occasional degree of dignity to its train of thought. You can make allowances for the great defects of private Christians, but when men obtrude their infinite littleness and folly on the public in books, you can hardly help regarding them as inexcusable. True, many of those worthless and mischievous books are evermore disappearing, but others as bad, or but little better, take their places. ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... hope there is another feeling too. I think we feel that to speak of our sufferings or, deeper feelings is to obtrude oneself, to make a fuss, to be self-concerned, when we might be ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... placed on a folding table in front of Ida, and since it was two or three yards from the other, Dick got up when she filled the cups. She gave him two, which he carried back, but remained where she was, within hearing but far enough away not to obtrude her society upon the others. Dick, who lighted his cigar, felt grateful to Fuller. It was some time since he had met people of any refinement on friendly terms, and until he took up his quarters in the locomotive shed had been living ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... ever fought alike. Offensives and defensives will be planned along certain lines. Then will suddenly obtrude the element of surprise or something that could not be foreseen or guarded against, which will overturn the ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... the Virgin's window, perhaps she thought the Virgin would resent Pierre's boldness the more by contrast with her own good taste. So far as is known, nowhere does Blanche appear in person at Chartres; she felt herself too near the Virgin to obtrude a useless image, or she was too deeply religious to ask anything for herself. A queen who was to have two children sainted, to intercede for her at Mary's throne, stood in a solitude almost as unique as that of Mary, ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... suppress the sudden sneeze, and use every effort to quiet a cough. She will not go uninvited into the private room of anyone, nor into the kitchen of her hostess where she is a visitor. All such things really inflict pain upon sensitive people; they offend because they obtrude; and all similar actions and obtrusiveness are to be carefully avoided by everyone who desires to acquire a true and genuine culture of action, speech, and manners. It is well worth your while to think earnestly and often upon these things; to learn to understand ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... for a little after Lockerbie's feast. I resented the discomfort of temporary illness, but rather liked being alone, and told Joe to refuse me to callers—even the Mauers, who were more like friends and neighbors than any one else in the place. My own affairs should not obtrude on this tale at all; and I will not go into them more than to say that I came to the end of my dosing and emerged upon the world after three days. The foolish thought came to me that I would have a look at French Eva's hair, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... supposed to have any weight;' or 'If my experience goes for anything;' or, 'I'm an old woman now, but I think I know something of the world;' or, 'If a friendly hint of mine would be of any service: —then when very desperate, it is, 'However averse I am to obtrude my advice, yet as I consider it my duty, I must for once;' or, 'It certainly is no affair of mine, at the same time I must just observe,' etc. etc. I don't say that she insists, however, upon your swallowing ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... at first condemns, he admires and extols after deliberation; so that the object of the whole work is to correct popular errors, and to distinguish the semblance of virtue and vice from the reality. Its subordinate design is to expose the monstrous fictions, which some authors obtrude upon us in their descriptions of ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... I have read fail to convey to my mind's eye the forms and colours of snowy mountains, or to my imagination the sensations and impressions that rivet my attention to these sublime phenomena when they are present in reality; and I shall not therefore obtrude any attempt of the kind upon my reader. The latter has probably seen the Swiss Alps, which, though barely possessing half the sublimity, extent, or height of the Himalaya, are yet far more beautiful. In either case he is struck with the precision and sharpness of their ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... Ministers of God approve of a thing, it is a Sign it is of the Devil"; but that he did say, "Most of the Ministers are for it, and that induces me to think it is from the Devil; for he often makes use of good men as instruments to obtrude his delusions on the world." There would be decided objection to the first utterance, at that time or since; but the second one, what the Courant did say, was as near the truth as either side was ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... resign'd, bow'd down his thoughtful head, And calmly silent follow'd where they led. "Such be the fate of all," the monarch cried, "Who, born to meanness, swell with worthless pride; Who, glad with nobler men to be preferr'd, Rise, by officious guilt, above the vulgar herd, Obtrude their ready service on the great, And deem their talents fit to rule a state! Yes, my brave friends, I meant this recreant fool But as a means, a momentary tool. To push my purpose to a readier end, Then ...
— Gustavus Vasa - and other poems • W. S. Walker
... pretty well gauged Mr. Scarsbrook mentally, modestly replied that he did not care to obtrude private affairs at an inopportune time. He knew that weighty affairs doubtless occupied Mr. Scarsbrook's mind during his business hours, but had intended to do himself the honour of presenting ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... the lady's figure was well preserved; she was still a young woman, and she looked even younger than her age. There was a shade of melancholy in her expression, and an undertone of suffering in her voice—enough, in each case, to indicate that she had known trouble, but not enough to obtrude that trouble on the notice of others. She brought with her a fine, fair-haired boy of eight years old, whom she presented as her son, and who was sent out of the way, at the beginning of the interview, to amuse himself in the rectory garden. Her card had preceded ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Bourdon is mainly an objective, impartial, and impersonal study, and the author has been careful not to obtrude his own private views. It is only in the last chapter that he attempts to draw the lesson and point out the conclusion of his own inquiry. And his conclusion is an eloquent though restrained plea for a Franco-German rapprochement, and in favour of the only policy which will bring ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... up by denouncing the distinguished Mississippian as a dog. Prentiss turned sharply upon him with the exclamation: "If he is a dog, sir, he is our dog, and you shall not abuse him in my presence!" The discomfiture of the toady may be easily imagined; he slunk away, nor did he again obtrude his unwanted presence upon Prentiss during ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... was, bitterly sorry for his errors, which he had enough of in his life, but he was not ashamed in that mean way. What he had done he owned to, good, bad, or indifferent, and if it was bad he was rather amused than troubled as to the effect in your mind. He would not obtrude the fact upon you, but if it were in the way of personal history he would not dream of withholding it, far less ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of feeling in this Nampont scene; it is that the feeling itself is overstrained—that Sterne, hugging, as usual, his own sensibilities, mistook their value in expression for the purposes of art. The Sentimental Traveller does not obtrude himself to the same extent as in the scene at Moulines; but a little consideration of the scene will show how much Sterne relied on the mere presentment of the fact that here was an unfortunate peasant who had lost his dumb companion, ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... meaning to us no more than the fa-sol-la of the gamut. The reason of this is very evident. If the poetry be good it has a rhythm and cadence of its own which resembles music, but in respect of art belongs to poetry and not to music. Arbitrarily united with melody the words obtrude a meaning which the music may not suggest, though the capacity of fine music is equal to any words. The beauty of Schubert's songs is their completeness. They are lyrics, and the words are only an addition. ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... appear there in the character he had the honour to hold at Court, I replied that I had made it a rule never to interfere in the private or public amusements of the Court, and that His Eminence must be the best judge how far he, could obtrude himself upon the Queen's private parties, to which only a select number had been invited, in consequence of the confined spot where the fete ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 5 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... parts or phases of social evolution in general, and it is safe to say that industry, both in its organization and evolution, cannot be understood apart from the general conditions, psychological and biological, which surround society. Again, many non-economic forces continually obtrude themselves upon the student of industrial conditions, such as custom, invention, imitation, standards, ideals, and the like. These are general social forces which play throughout all phases of human social life and so show the dependence of industry upon ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... Neither is it to obtrude the name of the old original superannuated obscure Jemmy Jackman, once (to his degradation) of Wozenham's, long (to his elevation) of Lirriper's. If I could be consciously guilty of that piece of bad taste, it ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... of office, because of the extreme views which I professed—on platforms in the constituencies—or so those in authority alleged. Now, however, these views were put down to amiable eccentricity; moreover, I was careful not to obtrude them. Responsibility sobers, and as we age and succeed we become more moderate, for most of us have ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... would sweep him with an unseeing look. He would stretch five very long fingers toward the facade of the farm-house, muttering, "Of course not the dormers; they obtrude, I think, and the note is pseudo-foreign. We should try to evolve something absolutely American, don't you think? But the pilasters, the door paneling, positively Doric in their clean sobriety! The eastern development, now; there ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Mr. Balfour if she could have the liberty to obtrude a matter of business upon him. She did not like to interfere with his home enjoyments, but he would oblige her much by giving her half an hour of private conversation. Mr. Balfour looked at his wife, received a significant glance, and invited ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... of reflection or embarrassment. Pray explain to me this phenomenon. All this I confess is not very applicable to you or to my present occupation, for I generally write you what first offers, without considering whether it be the best; and if many obtrude themselves at once, I write you, as at present, of—nothing. Indeed, my dear Theodosia, I have many, many moments of solicitude about you. Remember that occupation will infallibly expel the fiend ennui, and that ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... yet, John, but you may; he is a very remarkable man! He told me, I remember, that in Town, a man had his clothes put on for him, and—remembered them,—and so he does,—the difficulty will be ever to forget 'em, they"—here Barnabas stole a glance at his legs—"they positively obtrude themselves, John! Yes, clothes are wonderful things, but I fear they will take a great ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... their gentle rule. People who would obtrude, now do not obtrude. The mediocre circle learns to demand that which belongs to a high state of nature or of culture. Your manners are always under examination, and by committees little suspected,—a police in citizen's clothes,—but are awarding or denying ...
— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)
... position," she had said to him; and, from the expression of her quick eyes, he could see that she did completely understand his position. "But you will do me at least this justice—you will allow that I am an easy person to live with. I shall not obtrude myself on you, or annoy you. I only wished to ensure Ada's future; I ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... pompously, "I have given you a wrong estimate of Wilson Budd Hotchkiss if you think that a question of dinner would even obtrude itself on his mind at ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... some favourite metaphysical system, and attack on some rival one. In such case, the history would lose its independent character. While therefore he has never concealed his opinions on the subject of religion, he has thought it more proper not to obtrude, except indirectly, his opinions on that ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... depended upon their own capricious will: if they chose to 'take' me, I went; if, for reasons best known to themselves, they chose to go alone, I took my seat in the carriage. I liked walking better, but a sense of reluctance to obtrude my presence on anyone who did not desire it, always kept me passive on these and similar occasions; and I never inquired into the causes of their varying whims. Indeed, this was the best policy—for to submit and oblige was the ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... a snare and temptation, young friend, Will often obtrude in your way, And constantly every footstep attend, And ...
— The Good Resolution • Anonymous
... the youngster, for he had promised not to obtrude his opinion in the presence of Bainbridge. But as his words did not refer in any manner to the story that Bainbridge was telling us, I should not have objected to them, but that with Arthur it was necessary to be cautious in creating precedents, ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... separation infallibly exact and irrevocably final will be made between the evil and the good. As to the positive punishment into which the impenitent will be cast, while I simply receive all the words of the Lord, I shall take care not to obtrude many of my own. He spoke of matters beyond the cognizance of sense, and beyond even the range of imagination, and therefore in the nature of the case we cannot fully understand his words. But He who utters this solemn warning knows ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... case Mr. Justice Wilmot says: "It is the concurrence and acceptance of the university that gives the force to the charter of the crown." In the King v. Pasmore,[54] Lord Kenyon observes: "Some things are clear: when a corporation exists capable of discharging its functions, the crown cannot obtrude another charter upon them; they may either accept or ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... and preoccupying, indeed, were they, that he once or twice believed he was on the eve of learning something regarding her. While engaged in reading, the figures of his wife and the hunter would obtrude themselves; he found it impossible to dismiss them, so he had laid down the book and gone ...
— The Lost Trail - I • Edward S. Ellis
... composed of vanishing forms I am to vindicate the imperishability, the majesty of law, and to show how man proceeds, in his social march, in obedience to it. I am to lead my reader, perhaps in a reluctant path, from the outward phantasmagorial illusions which surround us, and so ostentatiously obtrude themselves on our attention, to something that lies in silence and strength behind. I am to draw his thoughts from the tangible to the invisible, from the limited to the universal, from the changeable to the invariable, from ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... looked at Cleo again, and her eyes and lips gleamed at him strangely. He was aware she wished to say a good deal to him, but that the presence of Ingram hindered. And as the same constrained silence once more fell upon them, the elusive odour of her perfume seemed to obtrude again, as though taking ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... never sought them. It is a fact that Christ never demanded, yet never declined the worship of men during His earthly sojourn. The Apostles shrunk from it, Angels rebuked it when offered to them, Christ never did. It was sometimes given, it was never declined. He did not obtrude Himself upon the attention of the multitude as the Saviour of the world; but ate, and drank, and slept, and walked, and lived amongst them, and was in every respect a man with men. He sometimes escaped from ...
— The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern • Knowles King
... and of the stupendously indifferent frame and disposition of the generality of men, called Christians, not only provoking God to spue them out of his mouth, but a disposing them also unto a receiving of whatsoever men, lying in wait to deceive, shall propose and obtrude? ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... Oliver, somewhat sternly, 'do not obtrude your advice where it is not called for; this man, for whom you plead, murdered ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... 1900 being comparatively light, the ignoring of the car-distribution clauses of the Act did not obtrude as brazenly as it did the year following. But when grain began to pour in to the shipping points in 1901 and the farmers found the railway unheeding their requests for cars their disgust and disappointment were as complete as their anger was swift. It was the rankling disappointment ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... putting themselves in the right to themselves. The love she bore him, because it was the love his high conceit exacted, hung on success she was ready to fly with him and love him faithfully but not without some reason (where reason, we will own, should not quite so coldly obtrude) will it seem to her, that the man who would not fly, and would try the conflict, insisted to stake her love on the issue he provoked. He roused the tempest, he angered the Fates, he tossed her to them; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... called upon by no ruling power, without authority as I am, and without confidence, I should ill answer my own ideas of what would become myself, or what would be serviceable to others, if I were, as a volunteer, to obtrude any project of mine upon a nation to whose circumstances I could not be ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... outskirts of the conference. Bitter experience in the past had taught him not to obtrude when deep called thus ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... to him it must be said that he was most careful not to obtrude himself into the sight of their sacred majesties. If they were at home he rarely went in, if he did he crept round unfrequented paths, the byeways of the gardens, and hid himself under the fig trees, as it were. But if by chance a Pamment did light upon ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... kiss—pushed very close by those who have entered; but, soon after, the breath of every rushing moment blows it further and further ajar. Drab objects from the outer world drift across the threshold and obtrude their presence—vagabond tramps in a rose-garden, unpleasant, marring the surroundings, soiling the atmosphere. Cares drift in, worldly interests drift in; in drift smudgy, soiled, unpleasant objects brushing the door yet wider upon its hinges till it stands back to its furthest extent ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... due by consequence to overtake the political strategy and the political preconceptions of the new century, is a question that will obtrude itself, though with scant hope of finding a ready answer. It may even seem a rash, as well as an ungraceful, undertaking to inquire into the possible manner and degree of prospective decay to which the received ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... of autobiography, I decline its higher and its deeper aspects; as also I wish not to obtrude on the public eye mere domesticities and privacies of life. But mainly lest others less acquainted with the petty incidents of my career should hereafter take up the task, I accede with all frankness and humility to what seems to me like a present call to duty, having little time to spare at ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... debate. He answered: "Ministers are like physicians, and the physician gives medicine to the sick only. Therefore, when I see your opinions are judicious, it would not be consistent with wisdom for me to obtrude my sentiments. When a matter can be managed without my interference it is not proper for me to speak on the subject. But if I see a blind man in the way of a well, should I keep silence it were a crime." On another occasion, when some Indian sages were discoursing on his virtue, ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... of human nature, and an unusual quickness of discernment. She prudently considered that consolation could much better be promoted by a gentle and timely acquiescence with the desires of the afflicted, than by an overstrained and ill-timed attempt to obtrude gaiety on a mind that was not prepared for its admission. Theodora's request to keep her apartment was accordingly complied with. There she passed the remainder of the day in busy communion with her own thoughts, and bewildered in contemplating the conduct that she ought to adopt ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the scene until Mendelssohn had extended his call to an hour, and was just ready to leave. The Prince Consort was too perfect a gentleman to ever obtrude when his wife was entertaining callers, but now he apologized for not knowing the Meister had honored them—which we hope was a white lie. But, anyway, Felix consented to remain and play a few bars of the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard
... popularity, in spite of his utter abandonment of all consistency and public principle. If the writers to whom we are alluding will not condescend to this unstudied and familiar mode of communing with the public, let them at least have the art to conceal their art, and not obtrude the conviction that they are more anxious to display themselves than inform their readers; and let them, above all things, consent to be intelligible to the plainest capacity; for though speech, according to the averment of a wily Frenchman, was given to us to conceal our thoughts, no one has yet ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... give the coarsest food A relish sweet and cleanse the blood, Make cheerful health in spring-tide flood Incessant boil, And seldom restless thoughts obtrude On daily toil. ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... able to imagine in advance how Shelbyisms would obtrude everywhere upon the roving eye of the visitor, whose one aim was a polite desire to exclaim upon everything exclaimable, they might have laid out the line of ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... lazy, and slip out of sight to escape service, some are too sharp, and prick and scratch wherever they are. Others are poor, weak things, who bend up and lose their heads as soon as they are used. Some obtrude themselves on all occasions, and some are never to be found in times of need. All have the choice to wear out or to rust out. I chose the former, and have had a useful, happy life so far. I'm not as straight as I once was, but I'm bright still, my point is sharp, my head firm, and age has ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Vol. 5 - Jimmy's Cruise in the Pinafore, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the soul, and never is erased but by the worst passions that can obtrude upon the human mind, Natura had enough for these ladies to make him extremely glad no worse consequences had attended their acquaintance with him, but was extremely merry, as they were all indeed, at the story of the ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... of your plans I neither know nor seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any restraints or constraints upon you. While I am very anxious that any great disaster or capture of our men in great number shall be avoided, I know that these points are less likely to escape your attention than ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... gained such a distance from the scene of the fight, and were in such an out-of-the-way place, that the thought of being overtaken did not obtrude itself for an instant, either upon their minds ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... to know of the custom, and avoided making their calls at a time when they would have to wait some little while for attention. Our parents, however, never allowed this practice or their religious inclinations to obtrude on their neighbours; all was done most unassumingly and humbly, as a matter of ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour
... as if, methinks, for no other purpose than to bear witness to the number of the corpses that are brought hither for interment, or to hearken if the brothers there within, whose number is now almost reduced to nought, chant their offices at the canonical hours, or, by our weeds of woe, to obtrude on the attention of every one that enters, the nature and degree of ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... just arrived in Italy, many of the present painters of that country are ready enough to obtrude their precepts, and to offer their own performances as examples of that perfection which they affect to recommend. The modern, however, who recommends himself as a standard, may justly be suspected as ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper object ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... opens with a facetious thrust at Hazlitt: "A very ingenious and subtle writer, whom there is good reason for suspecting to be an ex-Jesuit, not unknown at Douay some five-and-twenty years since (he will not obtrude himself at M—th again in a hurry), about a twelvemonth back, set himself to prove the character of the Powder Plot conspirators to have been that of heroic self-devotedness and true Christian martyrdom. Under the mask of Protestant candour, he actually gained admission for his treatise into a ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... with great sorrow that Miss Minford has shown a desire to avoid him on several recent occasions, when they have accidentally met in the street. It was Mr. Lynville's blessed privilege, under Providence, to save Miss Minford's life; but he would not be selfish and base enough on that account to obtrude himself on Miss Minford's notice. Mr. Lynville would die sooner than be guilty of that discourtesy. He is not presumptuous enough to ask an answer to this letter. His only object in writing it, is to ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... early obtrude themselves in the consideration of Breton fairy-lore are: Are all the fays of Brittany malevolent? And, if so, whence proceeds this belief that fairy-folk are necessarily malign? Example treads upon example to prove that the Breton fairy is seldom beneficent, that he ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... his friends had several talks with the "Reverend Josiah Blinderpool," as the pretended clergyman still called himself. But he did not obtrude his company on them, and though he asked many questions as to where Tom and his party were going, the young inventor, with his usual caution in talking to strangers, rather ...
— Tom Swift in Captivity • Victor Appleton
... thought would obtrude that Jessie deserved something more than the drear life of the northland. But the girl herself dispelled these thoughts. Like her mother, she had no desire beyond the home she ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... nature stronger, deeper, more honest and clear-sighted than he knew. He was dealing with a woman who could sacrifice all to the well-being and happiness of those she loved. With Nan self held a particularly subservient place to every other emotion. And when it did manage to obtrude itself it was her way to fight her battle alone, at a time when no prying eyes were there to witness her sufferings. To the daylight she presented a pair of sweet brown smiling eyes, and lips as full, and ripe, and firm as though no shadow of doubt and unhappiness ...
— The Forfeit • Ridgwell Cullum
... therefore evident the assertors of Matter destroy the plain obvious sense of Moses, with which their notions are utterly inconsistent; and instead of it obtrude on us I know not what; something equally ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... for some time in silence, unwilling to obtrude myself upon the sorrows of one to whom I was unknown; and as I walked up and down the gloomy chamber, my thoughts became riveted so completely upon my own fortunes that I ceased to remember my fellow-prisoner. ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... accustomed to the mildness of his manner, as had all the village, that this sudden display of physical and moral force brought with it an awakening that had an unpleasant flavor. Then, too, his own thoughts were none too easy, and the picture of Eve as he had last seen her would obtrude itself, and created, if no gentler feeling, at least a guilty ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... still, and could not bring himself to regret having known her. He strove resolutely to refrain from applying conventional standards of judgment, with which, he assured himself, he had no sympathy, but little uneasinesses and awkward moments would obtrude. It was difficult to maintain the fine idea of rationalism. 'I won't have you bind the strange man you may be to-morrow with oaths,' Aurora had said; yet it was evident the change in him was a source of great ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... Henderson done lib here," he replied, in answer to a question from some one. "But he am bery busy jest at de present occasioness an' he'll be most extremely discommodated if yo' obtrude yo' presence on him at de conglomeration ob de statutory limitations, which am to say right now. ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... thy young attention's growing looser. A piece of cake? O fie! my Thomas, fie! The keeper said, "Please not to feed the gnu, Sir." And yet it seems a shame to pass thee by Without some slight confectionery douceur; So here's a bun; and let this thought obtrude: What matter freedom while there's ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 10, 1917 • Various
... your honoured brother-in-law reside? and what is his official capacity? But I fear I'm too coarse in my manner, and could not presume to obtrude ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... dream me this man set forth in might: He wolf and whelps upon those mounts pursued Which Pisa 'twixt and Lucca's domes obtrude. Hounds had he with him, lank and shrewd and keen, And in their front Gualandi's sword had place, Sismondi's lash and sour Lanfranchi's mace. Father and sons' undoing soon was seen; Methought the sharp fangs on them closed, and tore Their ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... hands in the snow if he had been in ignorance of the occurrence? He was the real, if not active, cause of her death and he knew it. Either he—Excuse me, Dr. Heath and Mr. Gryce, it is not for me to obtrude my opinion." ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... trust it will send these embodied prosecutors, this Constitutional Association, as (by the figure, I suppose, of lucus a non lucendo) they entitle themselves, into that obscurity to which they properly belong, or at least if they will obtrude further upon the impatience of the public, let them carry with them the ill omen of a failure in their first attempt to insinuate, either that the English Constitution is deficient in its establishment of responsible law officers of the crown, or that those officers ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... it has been assumed, is to restore confidence, when man is mazed, and out of his depth, fearful of the mysteries that obtrude on his life, yet compelled, if not exactly wishful, to face them and wrest from them whatever help is in them. This function religion fulfils by what may be described in one word as "suggestion." How the suggestion works psychologically—how, for instance, association of ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... pardon in his ancestor. Some years after his acquaintance with Boswell he married Lady Diana Spencer, a lady who had been divorced upon his account from her husband, Lord Bolingbroke. But he took care not to obtrude his faults of life, whatever they may have been, upon the old moralist, who entertained for him a peculiar affection. He specially admired Beauclerk's skill in the use of a more polished, if less vigorous, style of conversation ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... person can doubt that the sexual relations of men and women determine in a great degree their happiness or misery in life. This subject, then, deserves due attention and careful consideration. It is of no use to scout it; for it will inevitably obtrude itself upon us, no matter now sedulously we attempt to avoid it. It can be rightly considered only with the most perfect candor, with the mind unbiased by passion, and prayerfully anxious to know and ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
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