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Bystander   Listen
noun
Bystander  n.  One who stands near; a spectator; one who has no concern with the business transacting. "He addressed the bystanders and scattered pamphlets among them."
Synonyms: Looker on; spectator; beholder; observer.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Bystander" Quotes from Famous Books



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

... asked himself? It was nothing to him. He was a disinterested bystander now. But looking down on Bland's cabin, he reflected that his irritation was rooted in the fact that he did not want to be a bystander. He desired to eliminate Myra Bland and all that pertained to her from even casual contact with him. It seemed ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

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

... once, and turned away to avoid recognition—for although nothing would have pleased him more, he was a man of great tact and common sense, and never spoiled a good chance by indiscreet intrusion. As he turned away, Colonel Vaughan caught sight of him, and, stopping the carriage, beckoned to a bystander, who touched his hat with a knobbed ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

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

... foregoing in Barnum's career. One occurred on board a steamboat, going from New York to Bridgeport. As they entered the harbor of the latter city a stranger asked the great showman to point out "Barnum's house" from the deck. Barnum did so, and then another bystander remarked, "I know all about that house, for I did a lot of painting there for several months while Barnum was in Europe." He went on to say that it was the meanest and worst contrived house he ever saw, and added, "It will cost old Barnum a mint of money and ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... a little. But though Maurice rose and clattered his chair, Herries persisted, with an Englishman's supreme indifference to the bystander: "Do you ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

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

... more than common docility and a young childhood of few explicit revolts, the boy of twelve years old enters upon a phase which the bystander may not well understand but may make shift to note ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell

... whenever they happened to stand where there was any press of people, and Hugh chanced to be looking downward, he was sure to see an arm stretched out—under his own perhaps, or perhaps across him—which thrust some paper into the hand or pocket of a bystander, and was so suddenly withdrawn that it was impossible to tell from whom it came; nor could he see in any face, on glancing quickly round, the least confusion or surprise. They often trod upon a paper like the one he carried in his breast, but his companion whispered him ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

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

... she may pass the cliff in the darkness," put in a bystander. "Mine eyes are good, but I cannot see mid-stream, and a boat that carries no lights may easily slip by unseeing ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan

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

... rule. Hence it was that she did not even so much as heed any of that large company, but gave directions and issued orders, adopting any course of action which she fancied, just as if there were no bystander. ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... father reached the gate first, and, therefore, Mademoiselle Therese had already exhausted a little of her energy before Barbara appeared. But she was about to fling herself in tears upon the girl's neck when a bystander interposed. ...
— Barbara in Brittany • E. A. Gillie

... whistle. At the first sound, Traveller stopped and pricked up his ears. The General whistled a second time, and the horse with a glad whinny turned and trotted quietly back to his master, who patted and coaxed him before tying him up again. To a bystander expressing surprise at the creature's docility the General observed that he did not see how any man could ride a horse for any length of time without a perfect understanding being established between them. ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... absent, but when they went back to their charge he was not there, and a bystander had seen him rise, look about him, and move away, at first slowly and then quite briskly, in the direction of the Sixty-fourth ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch

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

... shadows they turned to depart when a bystander suddenly peering forward, said: "Look there, Lee. What is that? There, close to the tree. Temple, do ...
— Idle Hour Stories • Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... her money out of the collection, as soon as possible," Rand said. "To reopen the question of her husband's death and start a murder investigation wouldn't exactly expedite things. I'm just a more or less innocent bystander, who wants to know whether there is going to be any trouble or not.... Now, you came here to tell me what happened on the night of Lane ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper

... unsatisfactory. But the eyes under their long lashes were shrewdness itself, and there was an individuality in the voice, a cheery even-temperedness in look and tone, which had a pleasing effect on the bystander. Her dress was neat and dainty; every detail of it bespoke a young woman who respected both ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward

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

... a paper in my hand, that same mealy-mouthed, false-faced paper that was printed since in the pamphlet "by a bystander," for behoof (as the title says) of James's ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... by a bystander; but instead of answering, it went on as though continuing the former ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various

... was a face that he knew. She kept on putting her hand up to the gap and screaming. Douglas Stone sat down at the foot of the couch with his knife and his forceps. The room was whirling round, and he had felt something go like a ripping seam behind his ear. A bystander would have said that his face was the more ghastly of the two. As in a dream, or as if he had been looking at something at the play, he was conscious that the Turk's hair and beard lay upon the table, and that Lord Sannox was ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle

... was drowned not very long ago in the river running under our windows. A few days afterwards a field piece was dragged to the water's edge, and fired many times over the river. We asked a bystander, who looked like a fisherman, what that was for. It was to "break the gall," he said, and so bring the drowned person to the surface. A strange physiological fancy and a very odd non sequitur; but that is not our present point. A good many extraordinary ...
— Pages From an Old Volume of Life - A Collection Of Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... to say something to his nephew, but could give forth only a feeble jabber, after which he turned blank again. Coronado, in the extreme of anxiety, now made another effort to get at Clara. Reaching her house, he learned from a bystander that she had gone out to walk with the Americano, and then he thought he discovered them entering ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... of age, he had struck his dagger with all his might into a door, exclaiming, as he did so, "Would that the blow had been in the heart of Orange!" For this he was rebuked by a bystander, who told him it was not for him to kill princes, and that it was not desirable to destroy so good a captain as the Prince, who, after all, might one day reconcile himself ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

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

... was standing near it, in his soft hat and his waterproof cape, all through the afternoon. Anybody who knew him would have recognized the portrait at a glance, but nobody who didn't know him would have recognized the portrait from its bystander: it "existed" so much more than he; it was bound to. Also, it had not that expression of faint happiness which on that day was discernible, yes, in Soames's countenance. Fame had breathed on him. Twice again in the ...
— Enoch Soames - A Memory of the Eighteen-nineties • Max Beerbohm

... such forgive them) have I known, Ever in their own eager pastime bent To make the incurious bystander, intent On his own ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... is getting through the press the Letters of Paul, of whose lucubrations I trust soon to send you a copy. As the observations of a bystander, perhaps you will find some amusement in them, especially as I had some channels of information not accessible to every one. The recess of our courts, which takes place to-morrow, for three weeks, will give me ample time to complete this job, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... is this I see? [He addresses a bystander.] What did you say, sir? "This shampooer is being maltreated by the gambling-master, and no one will save him"? I'll save him myself. [He presses forward.] Stand ...
— The Little Clay Cart - Mrcchakatika • (Attributed To) King Shudraka

... to set the police by the ears, using his gray-seal device both as an added barb and that no innocent bystander of the underworld, innocent for once, might be involved—he had meant to laugh at them and puzzle them to the verge of madness, for in the last analysis they would find only an abortive attempt at crime—and he ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... months after the Chinese insurrection, and though we old inhabitants took it very easily, Mr. Hacket always thought his wife and child in danger. I remember, one day a Malay was being tried in the court-house, when he, by a sudden spring, escaped from the police, and snatching a sword from a bystander, ran amuck through the bazaar, wounding two or three people he met. The hue and cry in the town fired the imaginations of the timid. People came running to the house for shelter, bringing their goods and chattels, and all sorts ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall

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

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

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

... lays out for the economist a task in the discharge of which the innocent bystander will sincerely wish him a pleasant ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine

... called out a bystander, whose sympathies had been awakened for the much suffering heathen. "I saw him running for all he was worth. That's pretty ...
— Two Boys and a Fortune • Matthew White, Jr.

... the last flower, the soft yellowness of the last morning, the last recognition of some object of affection, hand or voice; it could not be but that the latest look of the eyes, before their final closing, would be strangely vivid; one would go with the hot tears, the cry, the touch of the wistful bystander, impressed how deeply on one! or would it be, perhaps, a mere frail retiring of all things, great or little, away from ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater

... the proper thing to do," declared another bystander. "The Ripley kid has no kick coming to him. ...
— The High School Pitcher - Dick & Co. on the Gridley Diamond • H. Irving Hancock

... particularly attractive, especially to women of the more cultivated and impressionable sort. His thin grayish hair was rather long—not of that pronounced length which inevitably challenges the decision of the bystander as to whether the wearer be fool or poet, but still long enough to fall a little carelessly round the head and so take off from the spruce conventional effect of the owner's irreproachable ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... working loose my heavy gold belt, and I dashed it on the table in front of them. "There! Now you send for some gold scales, right now, and you divide that up! Right here! Damn it all, boys," I ended, with what to a cynical bystander would have seemed rather a funny slump into the pathetic, "I thought we were all real friends! You've ...
— Gold • Stewart White

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

... country thing, the only one she knew, and though he considerately toned down his movements to suit her demurer gait, the pattern of the shining little nails in the soles of his boots became familiar to the eyes of every bystander. The tune had enticed her into it; being a tune of a busy, vaulting, leaping sort—some low notes on the silver string of each fiddle, then a skipping on the small, like running up and down ladders—"Miss M'Leod of Ayr" was its name, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... Kissing, feeling strongly convinced there was a novel hidden there, but not daring to express his belief. "I have been half the morning, Mr Eames, looking for this letter to the Admiralty, and you've put it under S!" A bystander listening to Mr Kissing's tone would have been led to believe that the whole Income-tax Office was jeopardised by the terrible ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... had been passed round the donkey so mysteriously, and the little fellow having eaten thereof, the donkey was removed by his owners. The father, his son, and other members of his family were moving off, when a bystander inquired what all these 'goings on' had been adopted for? The father stared at the ignorance of the inquirer, and then in a half contemptuous, half condescending tone, informed him that 'it was to cure his poor son's whooping-cough, to be sure!' Extraordinary as this ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... as others ran, and arrived just when a dark-blue dress was emerging from the water, and then a dripping fur tippet, and then the bonnet, making the gradual revelation to him who it was. For one instant he covered his face with his hands, half-hiding an expression of agony so intense that a bystander who saw it, said, "Take comfort, sir: she has been in but a very short time. She'll recover, I don't doubt." Hope leaped to the bank, and received her from the arms of the men who had drawn her out. The first thing she remembered was hearing, in the lowest tone she could conceive ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

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

... smile curled her lips. It was the beginning of the third day since Starr Wiley had issued his ultimatum. He must carry his threat into execution or admit it to have been sheer bluff. Curiously, she looked upon the impending crisis with the impassivity of a bystander. What did it ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

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

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

... proselytism in Rome; Father Cataldi. Condition of Rome at that time. Improvements since. Naples and "King Bomba"; Robert Dale Owen's statement to me. Catechism promoted by the Archbishop of Sorrento. Liquefaction of the blood of St. Januarius; remark of a bystander to me. The doctrine of "intercession" illustrated. Erasmus's colloquy of "The Shipwreck." Moral condition of Naples. Influence of this Italian experience upon my ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White

... and begun. At first they eyed each other steadily, and made feints, and changed their ground. And this went on so long that at last some irreverent bystander, longing to see business done, cried out, "Allons, mes amis, avancez." And at that moment a skilful thrust from Malin wounded Poivre in the face, and the first blood was drawn. But Malin received it back with interest, for Poivre, who was a tall and very muscular ...
— The French Prisoners of Norman Cross - A Tale • Arthur Brown

... see Booth in Hamlet [he says], and Booth sent for Sam to come behind the scenes, and when Sam proposed to add a part to Hamlet, the part of a bystander who makes humorous modern comment on the situations in the ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... dared not pelt the mongrel after what the bystander had said. The crowd became so numerous that a policeman came strolling that way. He saw Purt with the dog ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison

... Earth, they had the Steele names, but by the time that cleared, you were outbound with another set of papers. It may have confused them, because they knew David Briscoe was dead—and there was just a chance you were an innocent bystander who could raise a real row if they pulled you in. ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley

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

... his mother could never again be what it had been. Supposing, indeed, her story was all true! But in the case of a character like Lady Tressady's, there are for long, recurrent, involuntary scepticisms on the part of the bystander. It seems impossible, unfitting, to grant to such persons le beau role they claim. It outrages a certain ideal instinct, even, to be asked to believe that they too can yield, in their measure, precisely the same tragic stuff as ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

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

... bystanders signalise the event by raising a long shout, attended with a peculiar vibratory noise, caused by the motion of the hand and tongue, or the tongue alone. The devil-dancer is now worshipped as a present deity, and every bystander consults him respecting his diseases, his wants, the welfare of his absent relatives, the offerings to be made for the accomplishment of his wishes, and in short everything for which superhuman knowledge is supposed to ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... the bystander (who was no other than Diomed) in the same voice, 'who seek to know the fate of our vessels, which sail for Alexandria to-morrow. We are about to offer up a sacrifice and implore an answer from the goddess. I am not one of those who have petitioned the priest to ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... supinely down upon our backs and let oppression dig his iron heel in our upturned pleading face until, perchance, the pity of a bystander may ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... because they fear that he would thereby acquire some supernatural power over themselves. Asked his name by a stranger, who is ignorant of their superstitions, an Araucanian will answer, "I have none." When an Ojebway is asked his name, he will look at some bystander and ask him to answer. "This reluctance arises from an impression they receive when young, that if they repeat their own names it will prevent their growth, and they will be small in stature. On account of this unwillingness ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... he had an eye to certain lower ends, his success surpassed his expectations. Pope was in ecstasies. He fell upon Warburton's neck—or rather at his feet—and overwhelmed him with professions of gratitude. He invited him to Twickenham; met him with compliments which astonished a bystander, and wrote to him in terms of surprising humility. "You understand me," he exclaims in his first letter, "as well as I do myself; but you express me much better than I could express myself." For the rest of his ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... seller of some poor scraggy beast extolling its merits, the intending buyer running it down as a "miserable bossu," &c., and disputing every point raised in its behalf, until the contest of words rose to such a height—men, women, and even children, on both sides, taking part in it—that the bystander would have thought it impossible they could separate without a fight. But matters always came to a peaceable conclusion, for the French are by no ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles

... by disciplined railroad men as having the immutability of the laws of the Medes and Persians, were still interpreted as loosely as if they were but the casual suggestions of a bystander. Rules were formulated and given black-letter emphasis in their postings on the bulletin boards, only to be coolly ignored when they chanced to conflict with some train crew's desire to make up time or to kill it. Directed to account for fuel and oil consumed, the enginemen good-naturedly forged ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... in derision. "And she didn't even have to tell you so! She can't even hide its deadly intensity from the casual bystander! haw! haw! haw! And it's all the outcome of a three-days acquaintance! It beats Doctor Swiftgrow's Mustache Invigor'—aw, haw! haw!" "Oh, you think so? Pity you couldn't get a few barrels of it—aw, haw! haw!" said Harry, and my laughter left off where his began. But, some way ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable

... present to me," says M. Scherer. "He was twenty-eight, and he had just come from Germany laden with science, but he wore his knowledge lightly, his looks were attractive, his conversation animated, and no affectation spoiled the favorable impression he made on the bystander—the whole effect, indeed, was of something brilliant and striking. In his young alertness Amiel seemed to be entering upon life as a conqueror; one would have said the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... the thought of evil can no more acquire the feeling of reality than the thought of good can gain reality when melancholy rules. To the man actively happy, from whatever cause, evil simply cannot then and there be believed in. He must ignore it; and to the bystander he may then seem perversely to shut his eyes to it and hush ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... tenderness is no less deep and real for this, and while the chief persons are thus passionate, the Greek lesson of moderation and reasonableness is taught by the event, whether expressed or not by the mouth of sage or prophet or of the 'ideal bystander'. ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... all suggestion of rain, he carries instead of a riding cane a matronly umbrella. When he rides a horse, and he rides several with a singularly intimate and finished method, he hands the umbrella to a reverential bystander; when the trial is over the umbrella is reassumed. If anything were needed to accent its artless domesticity, it would be the group of boys, horse copers in ambition, possibly in achievement, who sit in a row under a fence, with their teeth grimly clenched upon ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... I hope you haven't begun to think that I am the hero of this comedy. Let it be furthest from your thoughts. I am only a passive bystander.) ...
— The Princess Elopes • Harold MacGrath

... him,—the son of the ole man with the patch on his nose wot died. I christen him last winter." No one is more apt at naming than these men. Two days ago, at the treaty at Lesser Slave, when a smiling couple drew five dollars for a baby one day old, a Cree bystander dubbed the baby "dat little meal-ticket." A young girl who came up to claim her money was nicknamed "Pee-shoo," or "The Lynx," because of her bad temper. So we see where all the old cats of the ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... affectionate letter of condolence to her aunt, begging her to consult nothing but her own health and convenience, and to stay at Windsor just as long as she pleased. The writer was observed to address this as usual "To the Queen of England." A bystander interposed, "Your Majesty, you are Queen of England." "Yes," answered the unelated, considerate girl-Queen, "but the widowed Queen is not to be reminded of the fact ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler

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

... soul. Through snows above, mines underground, The inks of Erebus he found; Rehearsed to men the damned wails On which the seraph music sails. In spirit-worlds he trod alone, But walked the earth unmarked, unknown, The near bystander caught no sound,— Yet they who listened far aloof Heard rendings of the skyey roof, And felt, beneath, the quaking ground; And his air-sown, unheeded words, In the next ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... on the sidewalk beside the cab in the act of being extracted from the plate-glass window. An open-mouthed bystander listened admiringly to his language. Then the detective's eyelid twitched. It twitched again, violently. Something made him look up. An employee of the plate-glass company—there were rumors that Big Jake ...
— The Ambulance Made Two Trips • William Fitzgerald Jenkins

... emerged the neat figure of the postmistress with the mailbag which had been dexterously flung at her feet from the top of the passing vehicle. A dozen loungers eagerly stretched out their hands to assist her, but the warning: "It's agin the rules, boys, for any but her to touch it," from a bystander, and a coquettish shake of the head from the postmistress herself—much more effective than any official interdict—withheld them. The bag was not heavy,—Laurel Run was too recent a settlement to have attracted much correspondence,—and the young woman, having pounced upon her ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Fiorenzo, that Nelson found time to brood over the neglect of which he thought himself the victim, in the omission of Lord Hood to notice more markedly his services in Corsica. It is usually disagreeable to the uninterested bystander to see an excessive desire for praise, even under the guise of just recognition of work done. Words of complaint, whether heard or read, strike a discord to one who himself at the moment is satisfied with his surroundings. We all have an instinctive ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... fallen back a little to watch them pass, felt strangely isolated. They hurried on without seeing him, as if he were merely some spectral bystander. Yet the significant fact was not that a thousand strangers should pass him without being aware of his presence, but that he himself should notice their indifference. It ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

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

... of the game which created the most mirth was providing a goose for the tailors, which was accomplished by some of their confederates throwing into the circle any bystander who was not on his guard, and who, immediately that he was thrown in, was thrashed and kicked by the whole circle until he could make his escape. An attempt of this kind was soon made upon Seymour, who, being well acquainted ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat

... blush.[1441] The Bakairi show no sense of shame as to any part of the body. They are innocent in respect to any reserve[1442] [i.e. no taboo of concealment exists amongst them]. A few cases are reported in which the awakening of shame has been observed. A bystander threw a cloth over a nearly naked man on the Chittagong hills. "He was seen to blush, for it was the first time in his life that he realized that he was committing a breach of decency in appearing unclothed."[1443] No doubt the more correct explanation ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... whom curiosity seemed to have drawn the Whig parson whom I have before mentioned. He stood at a little distance, shy and uneasy; one of the company took advantage of so favourable a butt for jests, and alluded to the bystander in a witticism which drew laughter from all but St. John, who, turning suddenly towards the parson, addressed an observation to him in the most respectful tone. Nor did he cease talking with him (fatiguing as the conference ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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

... very civilly answered by Lady Bertram, but Edmund said nothing. His being only a bystander was not disclaimed. After continuing in chat with the party round the fire a few minutes, Miss Crawford returned to the party round the table; and standing by them, seemed to interest herself in their arrangements till, as if struck by a sudden recollection, she exclaimed, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

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

... which is shut from them, and that the King wrongs their philosophy in stooping to inquire of such an one. "Oh, he finds adherents, who does not. Certain slaves who touched on this same isle, preached him and Christ, and, as he gathered from a bystander, their doctrines could be held ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... gained, its guns were turned on the convent, whence the Mexicans were still slaughtering our gallant Second and Third. Duncan's battery, too, hitherto in reserve, was brought up and opened with such rapidity that a bystander estimated the intervals between the reports at three seconds! Stunned by this novel attack, the garrison of San Pablo slackened fire. In an instant the Third, followed by Dimmick's artillery, dashed forward ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne

... known in that district, there was a vast amount of interest aroused thereabouts by the news. Indeed, people were beginning to chatter on the sidewalks, and at the doors of the shops. And as Mr. Tertius turned away in the direction of Portman Square, he heard one excited bystander express ...
— The Herapath Property • J. S. Fletcher

... fault? If you wish to secure him, tie him to your petticoat-string.—But do not think to speak to me without a reply, because you happen to be richer than I am.' Having delivered this pretty piece of eloquence (which I translate as it was related to me by a bystander), she went on her way, leaving a numerous audience with Madame * *, to ponder at her leisure on the dialogue ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... life a public gallery, Nor feels himself till what he feels comes back In manifold reflection from without; While we, each pore alert with consciousness, Hide our best selves as we had stolen them, 210 And each bystander a detective were, Keen-eyed for every ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell

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

... observing that the sick cows at the farm gave out an OFFENSIVE STENCH FROM THEIR UDDERS. However, I must remark that it is unusual for cattle to suffer to such an extent, when disordered with the cowpox, as to make a bystander sensible of any ill smell. I have often stood among a herd which had the distemper without being conscious of its presence from any particular effluvia. Indeed, in this neighbourhood it commonly receives an early check from escharotic applications of the COW LEECH. ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various

... to us in this world, that when we come with our heart in our hands to some person or other,—when we pour out some generous burst of feeling so enthusiastic and self-sacrificing, that a bystander would call us fool and Quixote;—it often, I say, happens to us, to find our warm self suddenly thrown back upon our cold self; to discover that we are utterly uncomprehended, and that the swine who would have munched up the acorn does not know what to make of the pearl. That sudden ice which then ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... it has been well said, "so awful, and yet so Christ-like in its awful sternness, in the expression which came over that beautiful face when he heard of anything base or cruel or wicked, that it brought home to the bystander our Lord's judgment ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... to draw revolvers and blaze away at each other and if ejected from the house to stand nearby and fire through the wooden walls. In Porto Rico such affairs are decided with the machete and only the immediate combatants are hurt, but revolver bullets are more dangerous to the innocent bystander than to those doing the shooting. In Macoris I was told of a dance where the casualties were fifteen killed—more than in the average revolution. Yet so deep-seated is the fondness for dancing that after the smoke has cleared away ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

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

... man then took his seat on the Bench, of which he was chairman, and I gathered from a bystander that his name was Sir Thomas Ingell, Bart., M.P., of Ingell Park, Huckley. He began with an allocution pitched in a tone that would have justified revolt throughout empires. Evidence, when the crowded little court did not drown ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling

... no emissary from Aimee. This was no philanthropic bystander. It was some girl of the palace, jealous and daring, conspiring shrewdly for the removal of ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley

... with creatures of his own creation for thinking what they cannot help thinking, and being what they cannot help being. Every one has heard of the Predestinarian, who, having talked much of his God, was asked by a bystander to speak worse of the Devil if he could; but comparatively few persons feel the full force of that question, or are prepared to admit God-worshippers in general, picture their Deities as if they were demons. 'Recognise,' exclaims ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell

... purchased his freedom. Then there was Felix, the ex-slave, another protege of Claudius, who trembled when Paul of Tarsus told him a little wholesome truth. These men were all immensely rich, and once, when Claudius complained of poverty, a bystander said, "You should go into partnership with a couple of your freedmen, and then your finances would be all right." The fact that Narcissus, Pallas and Polybius constituted the real government is nothing against them, any more than it is to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... her eyes—she has nice eyes, too—and I must have had mirth in mine, also, because I remember that at precisely that minute I thought up a perfectly wonderful joke on Elizabeth and Jane and their mother. Of course, the poor Laird will not see the point of the joke, but then he's the innocent bystander, and innocent bystanders ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... way your case is stated, it seems to concede the most important half of the question, and so affords a presumption for the rest, on the side of design. For you seem to assume an actor, a designer, accomplishing his design in the first instance. You—a bystander—infer that the player effected his design in sending the first ball to the pocket before him. You infer this from observation alone. Must you not from a continuance of the same observation equally infer a common design of the two players in the complex ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

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

... curious about the duke than about the emperor. Charles was then in the very prime of life. His personality commanded attention, but there were some among the onlookers who found it more striking than attractive. One bystander thought that the very splendour of his dress, wherein cloth of gold and pearls played a part, only brought into high relief the severity of his features. His great black eyes, his proud and determined air failed to cast into oblivion a certain effect of insignificance ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam

... leather shield may be used for this purpose, which is cut with two holes, one for the key and the other to permit the operator to observe the numbers on the dial. The shield answers a further purpose of preventing any bystander from noting ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... obligation to itself. Whether men reflect again upon this internal management and artifice, and how explicit they are with themselves, is another question. There are many operations of the mind, many things pass within, which we never reflect upon again; which a bystander, from having frequent opportunities of observing us and our conduct, ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler

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

... during this interlude between prison and exile. One deserves record here. Two travelling-carriages arrived at a village-inn, one evening, where they were resting. While the gentlemen were inspecting the apartments, a lady of distinguished appearance inquired of a bystander, who the strangers were towards whom so many friendly glances were directed; soon after, the landlord bore to them her request for an interview; they rose at her entrance; she attempted to speak, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various

... may well imagine, this scientific gentleman did not appear to take the slightest interest in his explanations. On the contrary, with those expressive shrugs of the shoulder and shakes of the head which convey so much to the bystander without absolutely committing the actor,—with an occasional sly, mysterious, undertone remark to his colleagues,—he indicated very plainly, that, though his humanity would not permit him to give a worthy man cause ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... law be added: If a man smite another who is his elder by twenty years or more, let the bystander, in case he be older than the combatants, part them; or if he be younger than the person struck, or of the same age with him, let him defend him as he would a father or brother; and let the striker be brought to trial, and if convicted imprisoned for a year or more at the discretion of the ...
— Laws • Plato

... As the inspectors hesitated to receive the votes, Miss Anthony assured them that should they be prosecuted she herself would bear all the expenses of the suit. They had been advised not to register the women by Silas J. Wagner, Republican supervisor. All three of the inspectors and also a bystander declared under oath that Daniel J. Warner, the Democratic supervisor, had advised them to register the names of the women; but on election day this same man attempted to challenge their votes. This, however, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

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

... and Daddy Darwin and his lad, coming home, and the pigeons along wi' 'em," she felt inclined to run too; but a fit of shyness came over her, and she demurely decided to wait by the school-gate till they came her way. They did not come. They stopped. What were they doing? Another bystander explained, "They're shaking hands wi' Daddy, and I reckon they're making him put up t' birds here, to see 'em go home to ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing

... of kinship is particularly strong, for reasons which I shall presently touch upon, and I straightway grasped my cousin's hand with a warmth that would have seemed exaggerated to a bystander, if there had been a bystander; but it was early in the day, and the avenue had not yet awakened to life. As this bitter world goes, a sleek, prosperous, well-dressed man does not usually throw much heartiness into his manner when he is ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... sight of death, stood and pondered upon it. Everything was well, no doubt; such things should be! but the indifference of the defunct seemed almost shocking. Do they not care for decent interment? Then he turned to a bystander. ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett

... has scratched the varnish on the globe, and forthwith frames his new theory of creation. In ten years he is proved utterly wrong by that microscopist who has detected animal remains in an igneous rock. The simple bystander cannot understand either side, and far less tell which side is true. But when the combatants slay each other, the wayfaring man can understand this neutralization. The philosopher strikes me with awe so long as he keeps aloft beyond my knowledge or comprehension. When he comes down ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... much shall I pay you?" "Oh, nothing," replied the Judge, smiling, "you are welcome. It was on my way, and no trouble." So saying, the Judge departed, and the young man, with a faint suspicion of the truth, turned to a bystander, and asked, in some confusion, "Who is that polite old gentleman who brought home my turkey for me?" "That is John Marshall, the Chief Justice of the United States," was the reply. "Why, then, did he bring home my turkey?" stammered the fop. "To give you a ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.

... sooner was he in battle, where his squadron was received with the fire of more than a thousand guns, than, as if that artillery, like music, had driven away all care and painful thoughts, his countenance brightened; and, as a bystander describes him, his conversation became joyous, animated, elevated, and delightful. The Commander-in-Chief meantime, near enough to the scene of action to know the unfavourable accidents which had so materially weakened Nelson, ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

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

... days at Bannisdale had begun to recover a certain boyish bloom, became again white and drawn. The eyes were scarcely ever seen; if, by some rare chance, the heavy lids did lift, the fire and brilliance of the gaze below were startling to the bystander. But for the most part he seemed to be wrapped in a dumb sickliness and pain; his person was even less cleanly, his clothes less cared for, than before. At table he hardly talked at all; never of painting, or of any topic ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

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

... buffalo. The Indian woman had meantime struck a fire, whose faint blue smoke curled lakeward in the soft evening air. Quickly, and with the system of experienced campaigners, the evening bivouac had been prepared; and wildly picturesque it must have seemed to a bystander, had there been indeed any possible ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough

... drew up on the crest of the Levee, and I saw the lady directing some inquiry to a bystander, who immediately pointed to our Captain. The latter, perceiving that he was the object inquired after, stepped up to the side of the carriage, and bowed to the lady. I was close to the spot, ...
— The Quadroon - Adventures in the Far West • Mayne Reid

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

... is as a tenor in the same fix. He may—and does—get so hoarse that it is a pain to hear him; but as long as he can croak in good volume he is all right. Mere shouting will not do. He must shriek, until to the sympathetic bystander it seems that his throat must split wide open. Furthermore, he must shriek the proper things. It all sounds alike to every one but transport riders and oxen; but as a matter of fact it is Boer-Dutch, ...
— African Camp Fires • Stewart Edward White

... ugly disfigured lips there gushed and rippled a miracle of a voice—young, deep, unutterably touching in its penetrating sweetness. "Woman or wood-fairy?" queried a bystander. Woman only,—but a very, very great artist. The way she handled her instrument might have astounded the most skillful geisha; but no such voice had ever been heard from any geisha, and no such song. She sang as only a peasant can sing,—with vocal rhythms learned, perhaps, from the cicada and ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn

... I have not seen him since the last time he came down to Richmond. Lady Linlithgow doesn't allow—followers." There was a pleasant little spark of laughter in Lucy's eye as she said this, which would have told to any bystander the whole story of the affection which existed between her ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope

... distracted by the quarrels of Gomarists and Arminians. During the leisure thus arising, Descartes one day had his attention drawn to a placard in the Dutch tongue; as the language, of which he never became perfectly master, was then strange to him, he asked a bystander to interpret it into either French or Latin. The stranger, Isaac Beeckman, principal of the college of Dort, offered to do so into Latin, if the inquirer would bring him a solution of the problem,—for the advertisement was one of those challenges ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... sight Merton Gill felt himself growing too emotional for a mere careless bystander, and withdrew to a distance where he could regain better control of himself. When he left the miner to be shorn was betraying comic dismay while the other pantomimed the correct use of the implement his thoughtfulness had ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... to that plain [where I was], and seeing a crowd, he ascertained [from a bystander] that they were placing some person on the stake. Immediately on hearing this, he galloped up to the stake, and cut the ropes with his sword. He threatened and chastised the magistrate's soldiers, and said, ...
— Bagh O Bahar, Or Tales of the Four Darweshes • Mir Amman of Dihli

... much easier to dig it than to steal it, considering the risks attendant on the latter course. A story is told of a miner, while paying for something, dropping a small lump of gold worth perhaps two or three dollars. A bystander picked it up and offered it to him. The miner, without taking it, looked at the man with amazement, exclaiming: "Well, stranger, you are a curiosity. I guess you haven't been in the diggings long. You had better keep that lump for ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White

... boys, four and five years old respectively, were playing quietly, when the one of four years struck the other on his cheek. An interested bystander stepped up and asked him why he had hit the other who had ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers

... in the stream of strangers. What did it signify that the figure was insignificant by comparison, and the face with nothing distinguished in its pallor, under its red beard and moustache?—"a little foxy-headed fellow," any sharp-tongued bystander might have called him. It was a well-known face where all the others were drearily unknown, a Redcross face in London, the face of a man who might have shown himself an enemy, yet had proved a friend in need; and though there ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler

... and crumb of nourishment, that, if freely given, would have brought back abundance of life where life was failing; but the generous feast was snatched from her, spread before another, and she remained but a bystander at ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

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

... every turn of the tug's propeller all this bright dashing world of adventure drew nearer and nearer. For some reason he recalled what the bystander on the dock had said—"Everything is unreasonable at ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling

... to observe either this or any other particular, the whole of his faculties being concentrated in the management of the animal attached to the chaise, who displayed various peculiarities, highly interesting to a bystander, but by no means equally amusing to any one seated behind him. Besides constantly jerking his head up, in a very unpleasant and uncomfortable manner, and tugging at the reins to an extent which rendered it a matter of great difficulty for Mr. Pickwick ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

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

... few 'men of wicked spirits' would try to peep behind the curtain. But they never found him out; they all danced to Cromwell's tune, but none discovered that the pipe they heard was in their Protector's mouth. Even Ludlow, with all the proverbial opportunities of a bystander, though most anxious to know his great opponent's game, never guessed that he had patched up the Insurrection of March 1655, from the beginning to ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various

... receiving and counting votes. It is not claimed by the indictment that these votes were counted or put into the ballot box—or affected the result. The defendants simply received the votes. What they did with them, does not appear. Any bystander, who had received these votes, could be convicted under this indictment as ...
— An Account of the Proceedings on the Trial of Susan B. Anthony • Anonymous

... seemed near at hand, although he had but recently taken in hand so great an enterprise. Buchanan's History is not, more than other great histories which have succeeded it, an absolutely impartial work; but it is, throughout all his own stirring and momentous age, the record of a bystander with abundant means of knowledge and a keen apprehension of all the controversies and struggles of his time. If he may perhaps glorify too much the character of his patron and friend the Regent Murray, and take ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant

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

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

... down, their heads never turning to right or left. Their gymnastic and military training was incessant; wherever they met, we are told, they began to box; under the condition, however, that they were bound to separate at the command of any bystander. To accustom them early to the hardships of a campaign, they were taught to steal their food from the mess-tables of their elders; if they were detected they were beaten for their clumsiness, and went without their dinner. Nothing was ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... a puff of smoke leaps out. At the highest point upon the roof stands a dark figure in a desperate strait, the hands making frantic gestures, the arms swinging wildly—and then the body shoots off into frightful space, plunging upon the pavement with a revolting thud. The man's arm strikes a bystander as he darts down. The crowd shudders, sways, and utters a low murmur of pity and horror. The faint-hearted lookers-on hide their faces. One woman ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

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

... he appropriated it entirely to his own use, leaving the devoted lad to the care of the females. Some few of the individuals seated at the other tables seemed to take an interest in the proceedings of Blueskin and his party, just as a bystander watches any other game; but, generally speaking, the company were too much occupied with their own concerns to pay attention to anything else. The assemblage was for the most part, if not altogether, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... with its precious freight disappeared from view, Mr. Middleton was called upon to bid another farewell to his eldest daughter. "Reckon the old fellow likes one girl better than the other," said a bystander, who had witnessed both partings. And yet Mr. Middleton did well, and his look and manner was very affectionate as he bade Julia good-bye, and charged her "not to be giddy and act like a fool, nor try to come it over Dr. Lacey." "Though," thought he, "it'll be sarvin the rascal right if he should ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

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

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

... course not," said Frank; and a bystander might have thought that there was a touch of ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope

... a bystander has told us he turned red, then livid green. He straightway ordered and drank two bottles of claret, said nothing, but looked like a man who ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... but I fear Mrs Greenow's satisfaction in this respect was impaired by her disappointment in finding that it was not perceptibly bigger than those to the right and left of her. Her ambition in this and in other similar matters would have amused Kate greatly had she been a bystander, and not one of her aunt's party. Mrs Greenow was good-natured, liberal, and not by nature selfish; but she was determined not to waste the good things which fortune had given, and desired that all the world should see that she had forty thousand pounds of her own. And in ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

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

... within call of us will tell you that Gorman Purdy killed fifty men in his time," retorts a bystander. These words, so bitter yet so just, would be cruel indeed for the ears of Ethel Purdy; but she has lapsed into semi-consciousness. Harvey still holds her in his arms; he seems oblivious of the burden he has borne for more than a mile ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams

... man smilingly, and unaware of the painful emotion of the other bystander, "you have had the cream of my adventures first. I have told you one of the causes of my delay; and now for the other. Just now, as I was coming in, I met the dyer at the foot of the stairs, his arms a beautiful pea-green. Stopping me he said, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... reluctance and astonishment, was done. Returning to the house I saw the landlord, who then showed himself in his true colors, the most abominably wicked man I ever met with, full of horrid execrations and threatenings upon all northern people; but I did not spare him; which occasioned a bystander to say, with an oath, that I should be "popped over." We left them, and were in full expectation of their way-laying or coming after us, but the Lord restrained them. The next house we stopped at we ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

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

... We were serious to the point of solemnity, but once during the short voyage our eyes met and we laughed. When we landed we watched the discharging of the graceful threemaster which we had observed from the other quay. Some bystander said that she was a Norwegian vessel. I went to the stern and tried to decipher the legend upon it but, failing to do so, I came back and examined the foreign sailors to see had any of them green eyes for I had some ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce

... quibble. To clinch, or to clinch the nail; to confirm an improbable story by another: as, A man swore he drove a tenpenny nail through the moon; a bystander said it was true, for he was on the ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... bystander, yellow-legginged and purple-faced, said hoarsely over his red comforter, as she rose to her feet, that she 'oughtn't ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... A BYSTANDER [on the lady's right] He won't get no cab not until half-past eleven, missus, when they come back after dropping their ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw

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



Words linked to "Bystander" :   spectator, viewer



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