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Observable   Listen
adjective
Observable  adj.  
1.
Capable of being observed; discernible; noticeable. "The difference is sufficiently observable."
2.
Worthy of being observed; important enough to be noted or celebrated; as, an observable anniversary.
3.
Noteworthy; remarkable.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Observable" Quotes from Famous Books



... Government to relax the restrictions and remove the vexations by which mutual relations had up to that time been beset. But nothing of the kind transpired. No special and national recognition of the service rendered was ever accorded; and, so far from any improvement being observable, as a consequence, in British relations with China, these were marked in the sequel by some of the most trying and difficult crises with which we have had to deal. More than this, the very moment of triumph was disgraced ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various

... success is easily observable in a man of so volatile a nature. It seems to me that I could have told by his manner, day by day, the inwash of the separate ripples of the inrolling tide of success. He was all alive, full of plans, and the tale of his coming conquests was told in his eye. Sometime in the second year of our acquaintance ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser

... more deliberate and more slow Nature of wit is to have its operation prompt and sudden Nature, who left us in such a state of imperfection Nearest to the opinions of those with whom they have to do Negligent garb, which is yet observable amongst the young men Neither be a burden to myself nor to any other Neither continency nor virtue where there are no opposing desire Neither men nor their lives are measured by the ell Neither the courage ...
— Quotes and Images From The Works of Michel De Montaigne • Michel De Montaigne

... an observable social phenomenon that, when any family in a community makes an advance very greatly ahead of its neighbors in style of living or splendor of entertainments, the fact causes great searchings of spirit in all the region round ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... It is observable that Nature seldom produces any one who is afterwards to act a notable part on the stage of life, but she gives some warning of her intention; and, as the dramatic poet generally prepares the entry of ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... suggest the gentle relationship. One is tall, dark, and dark-haired, of that golden-brown complexion usually styled brunette. Her nose is slightly aquiline, and her eye of the oblique Indian form. Other features present an Indian character, of that type observable in the nation of the Chicasaws—the former lords of this great forest. She may have Chicasaw blood in her veins; but her complexion is too light for that ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid

... appearance had borne out the declaration. The lovely hair had been brushed tightly back; the old hat would have been unbecoming if it could: all seemed to testify that if the girl could have had her way not an element of attractiveness would have been observable in her. Miss Upton waxed indignant as she went on to picture the probable scenes which had frightened and disgusted the child into such an abnormal frame of mind. The memory of Rufus Carder's gaze, as his oblique eye had feasted upon his guest, brought ...
— In Apple-Blossom Time - A Fairy-Tale to Date • Clara Louise Burnham

... a loose and easy dress contributes much to give to both sexes those fine proportions of body that are observable in the Grecian statues, and which serve as models to our ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... violently bombarded than others, this being due to the unevenly distributed electric density, necessitated, of course, by sharp projections, or, generally speaking, irregularities of the electrode. But the luminous patches are constantly changing in position, which is especially well observable if one manages to produce very few, and this indicates that the configuration of the ...
— Experiments with Alternate Currents of High Potential and High - Frequency • Nikola Tesla

... the superior affability, the polish of manners, that distinguishes the people of France. It is also observable that this nation is much devoted to music; that which is produced by their own composers, and most in use by the people, being usually of the graceful, brilliant style. An eminent French writer states, that, for ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter

... usual rate for fifteen miles, (i.e., 2d. a mile.) Public conveyances, multiplying rapidly, could not but diffuse a general call for improved roads; improved both in dimensions and also in the art of construction. For it is observable, that, so early as Queen Elizabeth's days, England, the most equestrian of nations, already presented to its inhabitants a general system of decent bridle roads. Even at this day, it is doubtful whether any man, taking all hinderances ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... Gaur have more of the form of the deer than any other of the bovine genus. This is particularly observable in the acuteness of the angle formed by the tibia and tarsus, and in the slenderness of the lower part of the legs. They give the idea, however, of great strength combined with fleetness; and the animal is observed ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey

... some differences between them, which, or some of which, observable at first, grew more distinct in the lapse of years, in their places of nativity, in their temperaments, in their intellectual traits, and in their politics. Both were partly of Gallic descent; but here they differed as in other things. Tazewell was French on the father's side; ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby

... bringing the gesture to a point. There is generally a slightly flexible, rythmical movement of the arm and hand. This should not, as a rule, be very marked, and in specially energetic action is hardly observable. In this arm action there is an early preparatory movement, which indicates or suggests, what is coming. Often a moment of suspense in the preparation enhances the effect of the finish, or stroke, of the ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... is observable, that the patriarch did not request the preservation of the wicked for their own sake, or because of any supposed severity in the predicted punishment, but solely for the sake of the righteous who might be discovered in the place. Value your connexion, ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox

... evident, from the immense quantity contained in the vault, it could have been used for no other purpose for many ages." "It is probable that from an early contemplation of this dreary spot Shakespeare imbibed that horror of a violation of sepulture which is observable in many parts ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... and must avoid any enterprise not strictly in accordance with the known intentions of the commander of the Main Body. The tendency to independent action of this kind, which militates against the success of the best laid plans, was very observable in the early battles of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Actions were hastily entered on by Advanced Guards, maintained with varying success by the gradual arrival of reinforcements, and finally concluded with barren results and losses ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... distrust of human nature was the result of his most piercing glances into the human soul. He had humor, and sometimes humor of a delicious kind; but this sunshine of the soul was but sunshine breaking through or lighting up a sombre and ominous cloud. There was also observable in his earlier stories a lack of vigor, as if the power of his nature had been impaired by the very process—which gave depth and excursiveness to his mental vision. Throughout, the impression is conveyed of a shy recluse, alternately bashful in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various

... which is the peculiar province of the passions and emotions, it is easy for them to appear common and vulgar. And this is specially observable in the works of the French tragic writers, who set no other aim before themselves but the delineation of the passions; and by indulging at one moment in a vaporous kind of pathos which makes them ridiculous, at another in epigrammatic witticisms, endeavor ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer

... me see it more clearly than I had done before. He would advance all possible objections to my suggestion, and even after these were exhausted would long remain dubious. A second characteristic was his hearty sympathy with the work of other scientific men. (The slight repetition here observable is accounted for by the notes on Lyell, etc., having been added in April, 1881, a few years after the rest of the 'Recollections' ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin

... sincerity, when speaking of sentiments and principles, that was particularly pleasing to the watchful widow. At times, however, she could not but observe an air of restraint, if not of awkwardness, about him that was a little surprising. It was most observable in mixed society, and once or twice her imagination pictured his sensations into something like alarm. These unpleasant interruptions to her admiration were soon forgotten in her just appreciation of the more solid parts of his character, ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper

... had not yet been spoken. There was something lacking in the so-called civilized man's economy—a lack which his philosophy failed to account for, but which was not observable among animals and primitive men. There, the economy of the infinite cosmic mechanism which binds and holds all manifestations of life in one harmonious whole was too apparent to even suggest the detachment of a single form of life from this whole, but with the civilized ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... Administrative Report, that for 1880-1881, the happy effects of the training some of the leading Chiefs of Malwa received under Aberigh-Mackay were visible in the improved administration of their States. The most notable instance, the Governor-General's Agent points out, being observable in Rutlam. His Highness the "Rajah Saheb having conducted the Government with such ability and success as would do credit to ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay

... H.—No. 63, 'Half-length of a Lady,' has considerable merit. It is rich and mellow in color, and better we think than many of Mr. FLAGG'S recent works. No. 208, 'The Widow,' is a popular picture; pleasing in expression, and possessing more refinement of character than is observable in many of his other portraits. No. 102, 'Bianca Visconti,' we ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various

... It is observable among men who travel long in company together in a wild country, that, when they return again to civilised, or to semi-civilised life, they feel a strong inclination to draw closer together, either from ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne

... gloomy outlook, however, one bright spot was observable. The "wave" had evidently come just at the opportune moment. For not only were civic elections pending but just at this juncture four or five questions of supreme importance would be settled by the incoming council. There was, for instance, ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... never illustrate, but only distort and obscure subjects drawn from other orders of civilization. Yet none but a great master could, to produce a desired effect, have utilized every association which tradition afforded with the consummate skill observable in Milton's poem. He has been blamed for the introduction of St. Peter, on the ground of incongruity; but he has tradition on his side. St. Peter, as we have already seen, figures, under the name of Pamphilus, in the eclogues of Petrarch, and his introduction ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... called, does not often come here; but it is observable that while strange horses are maddened by it, the native ones do not seem disturbed, knowing that it only creeps and does not bite. It is small and brown, not so formidable looking as the large fly, popularly called a stout, as big as a ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... completely has the south shaped the manners of the north, in this respect, that even abolitionists make very little of the surname of a Negro. The only improvement on the "Bills," "Jacks," "Jims," and "Neds" of the south, observable here is, that "William," "John," "James," "Edward," are substituted. It goes against the grain to treat and address a Negro precisely as they would treat and address a white man. But, once in a while, in slavery as in the ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass

... garment here is entirely open on the right side, after the fashion followed by Spartan maidens, whereas there it is sewed together from the waist down; there is here no girdle; and the broad, flat expanse of cloth in front observable there is here narrowed by two folds falling from ...
— A History Of Greek Art • F. B. Tarbell

... lot he had chosen for himself awakened. I could not, however, but observe that these indications of a contented heart soon ceased. His mention of the partner of his home became more rare and formal, and there was observable, I thought, through some of his letters a feeling of unquiet and weariness that brought back all those gloomy anticipations with which I had, from the first, regarded his fate. This last letter of his, in particular, struck me as full of sad omen, and, in the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... the business threw him into peculiar outbursts of sympathy with the triumphant knowingness of that remarkable packman. Bob's juvenile history, so far as it had come under Mr. Tulliver's knowledge, was recalled with that sense of astonishing promise it displayed, which is observable in all reminiscences of the ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... bare back of the syenitic rock, which seems to rise to the surface in large but gentle swells, like the broad waves of the ocean in a calm after a storm. A great difference appeared to me to be observable between the minds and manners of the people among whom we were now travelling, and those of the people of the Sagar and Nerbudda territories. They seemed here to want the urbanity and intelligence we find among our subjects in ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... boys began to collect again from their ignominious flight, and it was observable that they were all laughing at one another in an accusatory manner, each feeling full of contempt for the pusillanimous behaviour of the others, while the looks of Morris might have given the ...
— Glyn Severn's Schooldays • George Manville Fenn

... intervene; and all this only to make one syllable of two, directly contrary to the example of the Greeks and Romans; altogether of the Gothic strain, and a natural tendency towards relapsing into barbarity, which delights in monosyllables, and uniting of mute consonants; as it is observable in all the Northern languages. And this is still more visible in the next refinement, which consists in pronouncing the first syllable in a word that has many, and dismissing the rest; such as phizz, hipps, mobb,[4] poz., rep. and many more; when we are already ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift

... o'clock, an unusual bustle was observable among the staff-officers, and we soon after received an order to stand to our arms. The troops who had been stationed in our front during the night were then moved off to the right, and our division took up its ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid

... his commanding officer of marines with a party of his men. He also may take with him a lieutenant of the ship and as many midshipmen as he thinks fit; but he himself is not to quit his command until regularly relieved." A greater stringency is observable at this later date, in the Channel Fleet, than in the Mediterranean; for at the earlier period the spirit of mutiny had not openly broken out, and he had besides on the distant station better captains than those who had clung to the home fleet under its lax discipline. "Old women ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan

... Justice Best came first, bending nearly double under a painful infirmity, and was received by a cold and ceremonious rising of the bar. To him succeeded his brother Holroyd, a learned but not a very brilliant lawyer, and another partial acknowledgment of the counsel was observable. Then entered the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Abbot, with more of dignity in his carriage than either of the preceding, and a countenance finely expressive of serenity and comprehensive faculties: his welcome was of ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... and would not suffer a stone of it to be removed, so that the new building, adapted to the style of the old one, formed with it only a simple and elegant residence. The taste of Madame St. Aubert was conspicuous in its internal finishing, where the same chaste simplicity was observable in the furniture, and in the few ornaments of the apartments, that characterized the manners of ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe

... distinguishable from his fellows, and which gives the charm of picturesqueness to society, is fast disappearing from amongst us. A man may count the odd people of his acquaintance on his fingers; and it is observable that these odd people are generally well stricken in years. They belong more to the past generation than to the present. Our young men are terribly alike. For these many years back, the young gentlemen I have had the fortune to encounter are clever, ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith

... the temperature of that or any other winter passed in the higher latitudes; but, on comparing our Meteorological Register with some others kept during the corresponding season and about the same latitude,[028] it does appear that, though no material difference is observable in the mean temperature of the atmosphere, the quantity of rain which we experienced is considerably greater than usual; and it is well known how very rapidly ice is dissolved by a fall of rain. At all events, from whatever cause it may have ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... God. That every thought, or carnal reasoning, may be not only taken, but brought as captive into obedience to Christ; that is, be made to stoop to the word of God, and to give way and place to the doctrine therein contained, how cross soever our thoughts and the word lie to each other. And it is observable that he here teacheth, They exalt themselves against the knowledge of God, which cannot be understood that our carnal or natural reason doth exalt itself against an eternal deity, simply considered; for that nature itself doth gather from the very things that are made, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... supposed to take up dead bodies to use in enchantments, which was confessed by the woman whom king James examined, and who had of a dead body that was divided in one of their assemblies, two fingers for her share. It is observable that Shakespeare, on this great occasion, which involves the fate of a king, multiplies all the circumstanaces of horror. The babe, whose finger is used, must be strangled in its birth; the grease ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson

... road up this mountain gorge, but in some parts it was scarcely possible to make one, so rugged was the ground, so dense the jungle. But the preliminary difficulties were as nothing compared to those which met them further up; yet it was observable that the Dutch waggoners faced them with the quiet resolution of men accustomed to ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne

... of these instruments they awoke as it were by enchantment, opened their eyes, and moving slowly at first, according to the measure of the music, were, as the time quickened, gradually hurried on to the most passionate dance. It was generally observable that country people, who were rude, and ignorant of music, evinced on these occasions an unusual degree of grace, as if they had been well practised in elegant movements of the body; for it is a peculiarity in nervous disorders of this kind, that the organs of motion are in an altered condition, ...
— The Black Death, and The Dancing Mania • Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker

... for the security of the Hanoverian succession; but the preamble of that measure showed that it was not intended merely for a temporary purpose, it stated the object to be to diminish the heavy expenses of frequent elections, and to put an end to heats and animosities. It was observable, he said, that from the Revolution to the passing of the septennial act, the persons who had the chief weight and leading authority in the country were peers; since the passing of that act almost every person who has possessed a leading influence has ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... connections, the suggested lines of thought are taken up and followed out in their wider applications. Take for example the "Burial of Moses," and in the proper analysis and study of the poem, such a process of absorption and reflection is observable. In tracing the biography of John Quincy Adams or of Alexander Hamilton, the facts of personal experience and action first absorb the attention from step to step in the study of his life. But reflection on the bearings of these personal events, ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry

... a Greek pediment being nearer together and leaning slightly inwards, and the repeated forms of windows, columns, and mouldings being infinitely varied in themselves. But although you often find repetitions of the same forms equidistant in architecture, it is seldom that equality of proportion is observable in the main distribution of ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... reading at that time one of Mayne Reid's works which I had drawn from the library, and I pondered upon it as much as I did upon what the teacher said to me. In introducing Swartboy to his readers he made use of this expression: "No visible change was observable in Swartboy's countenance." Now, it occurred to me that if a man of his education could make such a blunder as that and still write a book, I ought to be able to do it, too. I went home that very day and began a story, "The Old Guide's ...
— Ben, the Luggage Boy; - or, Among the Wharves • Horatio Alger

... partiality, which rarely made its appearance unless in some slight and inconsiderable circumstances, but which, for that very reason, was valuable in proportion to its delicacy and the caution with which it was guarded. Always indeed in some quiet and inoffensive shape was the partiality she bore him observable; and sometimes it consisted in a postponement of his wishes or comforts to those of her other children, because she felt that she might do with him that which she could not with the others—thus calculating as it were upon his greater ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

... and manufacture attain their most complete development in these great towns, their influence upon the proletariat is also most clearly observable here. Here the centralisation of property has reached the highest point; here the morals and customs of the good old times are most completely obliterated; here it has gone so far that the name Merry Old England conveys no meaning, for Old England ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... it was certainly productive of some good results, also. It tended to make people careful each of the other's rights, kind to the afflicted, and brotherly in their social intercourse. The attractive simplicity of manners observable, even at this day, in some of the old French villages, is traceable to this peculiar form ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... she may have many spasmodic pains from time to time. The wise mother will tactfully see that she takes plenty of nourishing food and systematic exercise, and that she gets enough sleep in a well-aired room. There are other physical changes which are observable at this age. The girl grows taller, the figure broadens out, the hips widen, the bust enlarges, and the waist line increases in size. These are all part of the great ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol 2 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague

... this be an answer to those who would allege the fifty-six various readings of the first line of the "Orlando Furioso." Compositions so produced are to poetry what mosaic is to painting. This instinct and intuition of the poetical faculty is still more observable in the plastic and pictorial arts; a great statue or picture grows under the power of the artist as a child in the mother's womb; and the very mind which directs the hands in formation is incapable of accounting ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds

... small towns the priest is the first personage of the place. But still it cannot be concealed that there is a sad deficiency in the inculcation of the fundamental principles of scriptural truth in the exercise of his ministry; this same deficiency is equally observable in other Catholic countries. As a general rule, the only instruction which children receive from the priest is the learning to repeat from memory a very incomplete and superficial catechism. Preaching has rarely any ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous

... two cases to be very different: and I apprehend Mahomet's not taking this course, to be one proof, amongst others, that the thing is difficult, if not impossible, to be accomplished: certainly it was not from an unconsciousness of the value and importance of miraculous evidence; for it is very observable, that in the same volume, and sometimes in the same chapters, in which Mahomet so repeatedly disclaims the power of working miracles himself, he is incessantly referring to the miracles of preceding prophets. One would imagine, to hear some men talk, or ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley

... discernible between tertiary individuals and their supposed descendants of the present day affords no argument against Darwin's theory, as has been rashly thought, but is decidedly in its favor. If the identification were so perfect that no more differences were observable between the tertiary and the recent shells than between various individuals of either, then Darwin's opponents, who argue the immutability of species from the ibises and cats preserved by the ancient Egyptians being just like those of the present day, could triumphantly add a few hundred ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... to guide him in his Classification was the following: 'All observable phenomena may be included within a very few natural categories, so arranged as that the study of each category may be grounded on the principal laws of the preceding, and serve as the basis of the next ensuing. This order is determined by the degree of simplicity, or, what comes to the same ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... place is supplied by a plumpness and smoothness of the skin, which, though perhaps more consonant with our ideas of beauty, is no real advantage, as it seems attended with a kind of languor in all their motions, not observable in the others. This observation is fully verified in their boxing and wrestling, which may be called little better than the feeble efforts of children, if compared to the vigour with which these exercises are performed at ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... already a fact. This should be borne in mind. The whole of this scene of the quarrel between Mowbray and Bolingbroke seems introduced for the purpose of showing by anticipation the characters of Richard and Bolingbroke. In the latter there is observable a decorous and courtly checking of his anger in subservience to a predetermined plan, especially in his calm speech after receiving sentence of banishment compared with Mowbray's unaffected lamentation. In the one, all is ambitious hope of something yet to come; in the ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... upon this because I think it justifies me in adding that, observing so little, what I did observe with my bodily eyes must almost certainly have been observable. But now ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... in itself but as being the first isolated statue of modern times. It was made for Cosimo de' Medici, to stand in the courtyard of the Medici palace (now the Riccardi), and until that time, since antiquity, no one had made a statue to stand on a pedestal and be observable from all points. Hitherto modern sculptors had either made reliefs or statues for niches. It was also the first nude statue of modern times; and once again one has the satisfaction of recognizing that ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas

... observable, that, either by nature or by habit, our faculties are fitted to images of a certain extent, to which we adjust great things by division, and little things by accumulation. Of extensive surfaces we can only take a survey, as the parts succeed one ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson

... business of computing; all his reasonings upon that subject, although he does not here descend to particular sums, agreeing generally with the accounts given by others who have since made that enquiry their particular study. And it is observable, that in this Address, as well as in one of his printed letters, he hath specified several important articles, that have not been taken notice of by others ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift

... generally observable in the instances of the soeurs de charite, that in the performance of their duties towards the sick, during the first three or four months, they display all that tender solicitude and devotedness, which romance ascribes to them as constant and habitual. After the first feelings ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 383, August 1, 1829 • Various

... It is observable that while the progress of animate nature finds its representation on this diagram by lines sloping upwards from left to right, the course of events in inanimate nature—for example, the history of the organic configuration ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly

... its early flowering; its blossoms which are shewy contribute to enliven the green-house in March and April; on their first expanding, they are white, in some plants (for they are subject to great variation) inclined to yellow, in a few days they become purple; to this change of colour observable also in the Cheiranthus maritimus already figured, it owes ...
— The Botanical Magazine, Vol. 6 - Or, Flower-Garden Displayed • William Curtis

... government. Their mission was to overrun other nations, and to prevent them from indulging in internecine warfare. To them mankind are therefore indebted for the preservation of whatever civilization was then extant, and for stopping the retrogressive course of the human race. This was particularly observable in their conquest of Greece and the kingdoms of Asia Minor, where incessant quarrels between rival cities and principalities had checked the progress of the arts, sciences, and literature. Content to conquer in battle, ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen

... Man with a general Appetite of Glory, Education determines it to this or that particular Object. The Desire of Distinction is not, I think, in any Instance more observable than in the Variety of Outsides and new Appearances, which the modish Part of the World are obliged to provide, in order to make themselves remarkable; for any thing glaring and particular, either in Behaviour or Apparel, is known to have this good Effect, that it catches the Eye, and will ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... spite of this experience and my now settled convictions, my purpose required whetting. The indescribable charm, the extreme refinement and nobility of manner observable in both Mr. Grey and his daughter were producing their effect. I felt guilty; constrained. whatever my convictions, the impetus to act was leaving me. How could I recover it? By thinking of Anson Durand and his present ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green

... colours, lay on a long shutter that rested on trestles; and in the shop, behind the trestles, were great stacks of books reaching to the ceiling. He fingered the books with the affection with which he had seen his Uncle Matthew finger those in the attic at home. Some of them had the dreary, dull look observable in books that have long passed out of favour and have lain disregarded in some dark and dusty corner; and some, though they were old, looked bright and pleasant as if they were confident that the affection which had been theirs for years would be continued ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine

... Cotswold atmosphere very brilliant meteors are observable at certain seasons of the year. Never shall I forget the strange variety of phenomena witnessed whilst driving homewards one evening in autumn from the railway station seven miles away. There had been a time of stormy, unsettled weather for some weeks ...
— A Cotswold Village • J. Arthur Gibbs

... last stages, India may be called the special fields, for probably nowhere else in the world are so many animals killed in sacrifice as at the temple of Kalighat in Calcutta; and the last stage, as an observable religious phenomenon, is peculiar to India. In India there is presented to us salvation in the attainment of an eternal existence along with God, as among Christians and Mahomedans and many of the less educated Hindus; and ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... 'Do you call yourself a gentleman, sir?'—'Never mind, sir.' 'Did I offer to say anything to the young woman, sir?'—'Never mind, sir.' 'Do you want your head knocked up against that wall, sir?'—'Never mind, sir.' It is observable, too, that there would appear to be some hidden taunt in this universal 'Never mind,' which rouses more indignation in the bosom of the individual addressed, than the most lavish abuse could ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens

... to indicate the political drift of the "Telemachus." That drift is, indeed, observable everywhere ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... lost, the footnotes are, to a certain extent, progressive; that is to say, a word already explained in a foregoing ballad is not always explained again; and to the best of my ability I have freed the notes from the grotesque blunders observable in ...
— Ballads of Romance and Chivalry - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - First Series • Frank Sidgwick

... amelioration, and the observable improvement in the condition of the men are largely to be attributed to the distribution, on August 30 and 31 of Canteen Stores, providing ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... water area of all sections of the temperate latitudes contribute something to the precipitation; yet it is but a fractional part of the whole, and quite inconsiderable. Still its influence is sufficient to make it observable near large seas like our own inland system, where the quantity falling is, in the cooler portions of the year, increased in consequence of the then higher temperature of the water of the lakes over that of the adjacent land districts. In summer, the only effect ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... lower Court to that above it. Drill was on the German model, but the language was Dutch. The Boer gunners were ready pupils, having much the same natural aptitude for the handling of ordnance as is observable in British recruits. Only 20 rounds per gun were allowed for the ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... this manner to an actual miracle. I think it absurd to attribute so much to the Deluge. An inundation, which left an olive-tree standing, and bore up the ark peacefully on its bosom, could scarcely have been the sole cause of the rents and dislocations observable on the face of the earth. How could the tropical animals, which have been discovered in England and in Russia in a perfectly natural state, have been transported thither by such a flood? Those animals must evidently have been natives of the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... their sixteenth year, men are overtaken with decrepitude and decay and the period of life itself is soon outrun. And O king, when men become so short-lived, more youths act like the aged; while all that is observable in youth may be noticed in the old. And women given to impropriety of conduct and marked by evil manners, deceive even the best of husbands and forget themselves with menials and slaves and even with animals. And O king, even women that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... for the Liberal movement which was observable at the opening of the campaign rapidly dwindled as the significance of the nomination became more clear. Greeley was open to attack from too many quarters. The cartoons of Nast in Harper's Weekly, especially, held him up to merciless ridicule. In the end he was defeated by 750,000 ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... aid, but imposes a necessity for double service on others, whose fidelity to their duties may be relied upon in such an emergency. The exposure to this increased and arduous labor since the passage of the act of 1850 has already had, to a most observable and injurious extent, the effect of preventing the enlistment of the best seamen in the Navy. The plan now suggested is designed to promote a condition of service in which this objection will no longer exist. The details of this plan may be established in great part, if not altogether, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... are glad to escape occasionally to the irresponsibility of hotel life. Mr. King noticed that many of the women had the unmistakable air of familiarity with this sort of life, both in the dining-room and at the office, and were not nearly so timid as some of the men. And this was very observable in the case of the girls, who were chaperoning their mothers —shrinking women who seemed a little confused by the bustle, and a little awed by the machinery of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... the Central Market is Francis Goodwin, Esq., and it is but justice to say, that it is highly creditable to his taste and skill. The front is of the Grecian order, and perhaps the largest piece of masonry in the county of York, with the fewest observable joints. It is expected to prove an ...
— Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 276 - Volume 10, No. 276, October 6, 1827 • Various

... themselves in space and time, they come within the scope of the man of science. It is said that all bad German systems of philosophy when they die come to England. Hegelianism has certainly been very fashionable in this country, and its influence is still observable in ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various

... of the primitive Celtic Church. The Norman and English influences are clearly traceable up to the invasion of Edward I., and the political connection with France and the Netherlands is distinctly observable in ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story

... up—not, I think, with any reference to my movements, but in the ordinary course of affairs. Small bodies of the enemy were always hovering about, and a state of extreme vigilance, not to say anxiety, was observable almost everywhere along the line. Since my return from England I have again traversed the country from East London to Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, and from Johannesburg to Durban and back, to say nothing ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold

... observable in England, which, as the wealthiest and worst-instructed of European nations, offers precisely the elements (of Heat, namely, and of Darkness), in which such moon-calves and monstrosities are best generated. Among the newer Sects of that country, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle

... quality of the Negro we shall find that two things are observable. One is that any distinction so far won by a member of the race in America has been almost always in some one of the arts; and the other is that any influence so far exerted by the Negro on American civilization has been primarily in the field of aesthetics. ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... preceding paragraph greatly exceed other students having the same preparation except this form of design work, in mental vigor, breadth of view, intellectual power, and initiative. This difference in capacity is certainly observable in subsequent college work, and is ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper

... low chair, which brought her within the radius of lamp-light at the tea-table, and was thus revealed as a lady of generous proportions, with a conspicuous absence of features, and no observable lap. In speaking, she displayed a marked partiality for undue emphasis. Sublimely unconscious of the depression induced by her advent, she continued to talk, as she pulled off her gloves, which were a size too small, and came ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... other with desperate monotony. Each morning was like the one that had preceded it; noon poured down the same exhaustless rays, and night condensed in its shadow the scattered heat which the ensuing day would again bequeath to the succeeding night. The wind, now scarcely observable, was rather a gasp than a breath, and the morning could almost be foreseen when even that gasp ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... remote; they are the fitting channels for art which is cut loose from immediate action and reaction. Taste and touch are too intimate, too immediately vital. In Russian, as Tolstoi has pointed out (and indeed in other languages the same is observable), the word for beauty (krasota) means, to begin with, only that which pleases the sight. Even hearing is excluded. And though latterly people have begun to speak of an "ugly deed" or of "beautiful music," it is not good ...
— Ancient Art and Ritual • Jane Ellen Harrison

... again to the window, but she did not resume her seat. She stood right in front of it, her forehead bent forward against its middle pane. The lamp, casting a bright light, was behind her, so that her figure might be distinctly observable from the lawn, had any one been there to look ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood

... is the difference of rhythmical effect observable in reading, one after the other, a page of Pope's heroic couplets in the Essay on Man, of Keats's same couplets in Endymion, and Browning's same couplets ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum

... among the delightful phenomena which are observable at the commencement of the rainy season, (immediately following that of the withering hot winds,) the joy displayed by the peacocks is one of the most pleasing. These birds assemble in groups upon some ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 264, July 14, 1827 • Various

... at bleak and bare spots,—you wonder how there can be any enjoyment in them. I meet a girl in a chintz gown, with a small shawl on her shoulders, white stockings, and summer morocco shoes,—it looks observable. Turkeys, queer, solemn objects, in black attire, grazing about, and trying to peck the fallen apples, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various

... Indeed, both his faults and his excellencies lie on the surface, and are obvious and patent to the most superficial reader; his fables, for the most part ill knit and insufficient, disappoint as they are unfolded; repetitions and omissions are frequent: in short, a general want of care and finish is observable throughout, which must be attributed to the hurry in which he was compelled to write, arising from the multiplicity and distracting nature of his engagements. His tendency to caricature was innate; but even this would probably have been in a great measure repressed, had he allowed himself ...
— A Walk from London to Fulham • Thomas Crofton Croker

... carefully prepares beforehand to throw a force, superior alike in armament and numbers, against the vitals of its enemy. Assuming that the combatants are fairly equal in physical qualities—and the spread of liberty has undoubtedly lessened the great differences that once were observable in this respect among European peoples—war becomes largely an affair of preliminary organisation. That is to say, it is now a matter of brain rather than muscle. Writers of the school of Carlyle may protest that all ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... influence, he said, was particularly exercised on the nervous system, and produced two states which he called intension and remission, which seemed to him to account for the different periodical revolutions observable in several maladies. When in after-life he met with Father Hell, he was confirmed by that person's observations in the truth of many of his own ideas. Having caused Hell to make him some magnetic plates, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay

... seen. His stature, rising nearly two inches over the tallest of those around him, perhaps added to the effect of a mien remarkable for dignity, composure, and self-confidence. The predominant and most immediately observable expression of his face was one of serene calm and command. A closer inspection and a longer experience explained why, notwithstanding, my first conception of his character (and it was a true one) ascribed to him quite ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... and self-confidence had ranked themselves for the defense of a comparatively unimportant and commonplace existence. As has been said, she forbade, years before, any mention of her family troubles, and had lived on before the world as if they could be annihilated, and not only were not observable, but never had been. In a more thoughtful and active circle of social life the contrast between her rare capacity and her unnoticeable career would have been more striking. She stood as a fine representative of the old ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett

... the social consideration bestowed upon those connected with the institution. The prejudice which ostracises "a nigger teacher" and which is so pronounced in most communities where there is a colored institution, is rarely observable here. On the Board of Visitors are men of the highest standing, like Col. J.L. Power, for almost a lifetime the head of the Clarion; Oliver Clifton, the Clerk of the Supreme Court, and F.A. Wolfe, the former Superintendent ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 7. July 1888 • Various

... Miss Robarts was conscious that he was waiting on his future mistress. I fancy that he was, for these sort of people always know everything, and the peculiar courtesy of his demeanour as he let down the carriage steps was very observable. ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope

... I believe to be observable, more or less, in every individual who has occupied the position—is, that while he leans on the mighty arm of the Republic, his own proper strength departs from him. He loses, in an extent proportioned to the weakness or force of his original ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... How I wish I could have seen her face! "These half-hearted voters, their easily stifled convictions are what make majorities," she stammered. Mr. Steele may have bowed; he probably did, for she went on confidently and with a certain authority not observable in the tone of her previous remarks. "You are right. The paragraph reflecting on me must be traced to its source. The lie must be met and grappled with. I was not well last week and showed it, but I am perfectly ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... the whole it is less difficult to say what it is not, than what it is. It abounds with Sanskrit words to such a degree that its surface seems strewn with them. Yet would it be wrong to term it a Sanskrit dialect, for in the collocation of these words the Tartar form is most decidedly observable. A considerable proportion of Tartar words is likewise to be found in this language, though perhaps not in equal number to the terms derived from the Sanskrit. Of these Tartar etymons I shall at present content myself with citing one, though, if necessary, it were easy to ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... the human sister of those vegetable ones, as beautiful as they, more beautiful than the richest of them, but still to be touched only with a glove, nor to be approached without a mask. As Beatrice came down the garden path, it was observable that she handled and inhaled the odor of several of the plants which her father had most ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... that all beauties are not discernable at once, and our sympathies are not all awakened by a single exhibition of what may be productive of delight or sorrow. Whatever of pleasure I have derived from the beauties observable from such places as this, are not primarily referable to my own powers of application, but rather from the lessons of another—lessons derived from a few words, and ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various

... my friend's table, I should not have troubled you with this letter: but the same kind of ill breeding prevails too often, and in too many places. The giglers and the whisperers are innumerable; they beset us wherever we go; and it is observable, that after a short murmur of whispers, out comes the burst of laughter: like a gunpowder serpent, which, after hissing about for some time, goes ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore

... the shrewd good-natured fellow talk in this strain. Our companion, Joaquim, had fallen asleep; the night air was cool, and the moonlight lit up the features of Raimundo, revealing a more animated expression than is usually observable in Indian countenances. I always noticed that Indians were more cheerful on a voyage, especially in the cool hours of night and morning, than when ashore. There is something in their constitution of body which makes them feel excessively depressed in the hot hours of the day, especially ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates

... caste to Upper through the easy efforts of Philip Holland, had made no observable difference in his relationship with Nadine. Of course, she was Mid-Upper, he told himself, while he was Low-Upper. Still it was far from unknown for romances to cross such comparatively little ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds

... Select Pleas of the Court of Admiralty (introduction), may be consulted. But the settled practice now and for a long time past has been for a special commission and warrant to be issued for this purpose. In connexion with this it is observable that in 1793 the Admiralty Court of Ireland claimed to exercise prize jurisdiction under its general patent; and it is said to have been the opinion of Sir W. Wynne that the Admiralty Court of Scotland had a similar right (Brown, Civil Law of Admiralty, vol. ii. 211, 212). Any ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... times, without such a distinct "act of will", and without any observable change in the attractiveness of either alternative, we simply find, after awhile, that a decision has emerged, and that we now know what we are going to do. What has happened in us to bring about the decision we cannot ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... of a pair of scissors. But this motion might be merely muscular, and compatible with a state of slumber or unconscious repose. At all events, the bird has been seen to keep its place in the air for many minutes at a time, with no other motion observable than that of the long and gracefully-forking feathers ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... English and French novels; and a novel is especially a reflection of national life, a kind of dramatic narration of truth, in the form of a story. But in poetry, which is the highest form of literature, the difference is much more observable. We find the Latin poets of to-day writing just as freely on the subject of love as the old Latin poets of the age of Augustus, while Northern poets observe with few exceptions great restraint when treating of this theme. Now where is the ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn

... feeling no difference between writing to the highest and lowest being on earth; but because I have ever thought that forms should yield to whatever should facilitate business. Comparing the two governments together, it is observable that in all those cases where the independent or reserved rights of the States are in question, the two executives, if they are to act together, must be exactly co-ordinate; they are, in these cases, each the supreme head of an independent government. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... a collection of many important decisions gathered from the testimonies of distinguished Rabbis. It is observable that the decisions of the School of Shammai are more rigorous than those of the School of Hillel, from whence it is inferred that the former adhered more closely to Scripture, the latter to tradition. The former were the Scribes, and are ...
— Hebrew Literature

... "November 20.—Two parhelia were observable with a halo; the colours of the inner edge of the circle were a bright carmine and red lake, intermingled with a rich yellow, forming a purplish orange; the ...
— Narrative of a Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, in the years 1819-20-21-22, Volume 2 • John Franklin

... the guests who soon began to flow through the house in a steady stream. The new brightness which touched her usually thoughtful face was easily explained by the congratulations she received as orator, and the slight agitation observable, when a fresh batch of gentlemen approached soon passed, as none of them noticed the flowers she wore over a very happy heart. Demi meantime was escorting certain venerable personages about the college, and helping his grandfather entertain ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott

... somatic characteristics of mankind since the Exodus, they had not altered the compatibility of human germ plasm. Man could interbreed with man—aliens could not. The test was simple. The results were observable. And what was more important, everyone could understand it. No definition of humanity could be ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone

... unhealthy west coast; nor can any of the Zulu or Kaffir tribes be reduced to bondage, though all these live on comparatively elevated regions. We have heard it stated by men familiar with some of the Kaffirs, that a blow, given even in play by a European, must be returned. A love of liberty is observable in all who have the Zulu blood, as the Makololo, the Watuta, and probably the Masai. But blood does not explain the fact. A beautiful Barotse woman at NHLe, on refusing to marry a man whom she did not like, was in a ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams

... course, that such should be a general rule throughout all the thousands and millions of species which have ever inhabited the earth. But, equally of course, on the theory of a natural evolution this is so necessary a consequence, that if no correlation of such a two-fold kind were observable, the theory would be negatived. Thus the question whether there be any indication of such a two-fold correlation may be regarded as a test-question as between the two theories; for although the vast majority of extinct species have been lost to science, there are a countless ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes

... expenditure to this spirited work. In reference to the artistic qualities, it gives us immoderate satisfaction to state that the whole is conceived and executed with that characteristic attention so observable in the works of this master[3], and that the fruit-knife, fork, cork-screw, decanter, and chiaro-scuro (as the critic of the Art Union would have it), are truly excellent. The only drawback upon the originality of the subject is the handkerchief on the knee, which (although painted ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... His method of manipulating the instrument was readily observable upon close attention. The accordion was a small one of the kind which is ...
— Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University • The Seybert Commission

... for a time, they changed their place, and seldom more than one or two were to be seen about the rock upon the more detached outlayers which dry partially, whence they seemed to look with that sort of curiosity which is observable in these animals when following ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... which each muscle changes from one associated tribe to another, and that either backwards or forwards, is well observable in the muscles of the arm in moving the windlass of an air-pump; and the slowness of those muscular movements, that have not been associated by habit, may be experienced by any one, who shall attempt to saw the air quick perpendicularly with one hand, ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... least, had found it expedient to make an addition to his dwelling. At the distance of more than two miles, we had a view of white Augusta, with its steeples, and the State-House, at the farther end of the town. Observable matters along the road were the stage,—all the dust of yesterday brushed off, and no new dust contracted,—full of passengers, inside and out; among them some gentlemanly people and pretty girls, all looking fresh and unsullied, rosy, cheerful, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 101, March, 1866 • Various

... against her natural sense of propriety. On the contrary both were in perfect harmony. She had long known, in common with all the country, the circumstances of Miss Walladmor's early meetings with Edward Nicholas—and the attachment which had grown out of them. And it is observable that to all women endowed with much depth and purity of feeling, more particularly to women in humble life who inherit a sort of superstition on that subject (and are besides less liable to have it shaken by the vulgar ridicule of the world, and the half-sneering tone with ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey

... far, if in the separate arts of architecture, music, and painting (for the moderns have never had a sculpture of their own), we should endeavour to point out the distinctions which we have here announced, to show the contrast observable in the character of the same arts among the ancients and moderns, and at the same time to demonstrate the kindred aim ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... increase of 15 or even 20 per thousand could be sustained; but the expansion of the European peoples has now passed its zenith, and a tendency to revert to more normal conditions is almost everywhere observable. One of the most advanced nations, France, has already reached the equilibrium towards which other civilised nations are moving. The old-established families in the United States are believed to be ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... decided, the Hartleys were pinched for money, but just as surely, she thought, that could not have the effect of casting that indefinite gloom over them which was now and then observable. And as she idly swung in her hammock, she made up her ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells

... when he next goes out to get his dinner. He had no such memory on the first day, and he has upon the second. Some modification of action must ensue upon this modification of the actor, and this is immediately observable. He wants his dinner, indeed, goes down into the street, and sees the policeman as yesterday, but he does not ask the policeman; he remembers what the policeman told him and what he did, and therefore ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... Bundt, Horne, Vanderlin, Colonel Bannier, and one of the Prince's servants. Of these that thus met, nine had been in commission as generals, two of the English and of the Swedes seven, which was noted as very observable. They sat at table in the same manner as they did at Grave Eric's entertainment, Whitelocke in the midst of the table, the company in their ranks on either side, and all ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... his silence was observable, Willis said that he supposed that persons who were not Catholics could not tell what were corruptions and what not. Here the subject dropped again; for Willis did not seem in humour—perhaps he was too tired—to ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... sound of laughter and of amused voices—voices of men, women, and children—resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens

... the discrepancy observable in the Gospels arises from OMISSION; from a fact or a passage of Christ's life being noticed by one writer, which is unnoticed by another. Now, omission is at all times a very uncertain ground of objection. We perceive it not only in the comparison of different writers, but even in the same ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler

... was then the most commonly used in England, 80 to 100 loads an acre being a common dressing, but many farmers were very ignorant of its proper use. Marl, which to-day is seldom used, was considered to last for twenty years, though for the first year no benefit was observable, and very little the second and the third, its value then becoming very apparent. In the last five years, however, its value was nearly worn out. But it was much to be questioned whether marl in its best state anywhere yields an increase ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler

... It is further observable, that these extravagances did not show themselves in that different manner I have mentioned, in different persons only; but all the variety would appear, in a short succession of moments, in one and the same person. A man that we saw this minute dumb, and, ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe

... whip. The horses started forward to overtake the carriage. Perhaps however Mr. Carlisle was fascinated—he might well be—by the present view he had of his charge; there was a blushing shy grace observable about her which it was pretty to see and not common; and maybe he wanted the view to be prolonged. He certainly did not follow the nearest road, but turned off instead to a path which went winding up and down the ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume I • Susan Warner

... been made by men who, he said, were not afraid to take "the short cut across lots." He told of piratical adventures in the West Indies,—of the fun of chasing and overhauling ships,—and gave dazzling accounts of the treasures found on board. It was observable that all these stories were told on the line between joke and earnest,—as frolics, as specimens of good fun, and seeing ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the numerous political associations which had grown powerful because of that distress, on the suffering of the agricultural population, on the 'nightly alarms, burnings, and popular disturbances,' as well as on the 'general feeling of doubt and apprehension observable in every countenance.' He endeavoured to show that the measure was not revolutionary in spirit or subversive of the British Constitution, as many ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... though solitary, was prosperous and successful. Friends appeared for her where she least expected them. The influence of her engaging person and winning manners is observable in one obliging attention she received even from strangers. The Viceroy appointed a woman to accompany her free of expense; the captain refused money for her passage; and the physician at Madras, from whom she had ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart

... be, as Zwaardemaker has suggested in his Physiologie des Geruchs, that the nasal congestion at menstruation and similar phenomena are connected with that association of smell and sexuality which is observable throughout the whole animal world, and that the congestion brings about a temporary increase of olfactory sensitiveness during the stage of sexual excitation.[43] Careful investigation of olfactory acuteness would reveal the existence of such ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... the further experience of fourteen centuries and from the point of view of our own generation. This is one remarkable peculiarity of this investigation; another is the prominence given to the severe side of the Person and character of whom he writes, and what is even more observable, the way in which both the severity and the gentleness are apprehended ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... which gradation extends, and to its invisible subtilty, is its grandeur, and in proportion to its narrow limits and violent degrees, its vulgarity. In Correggio, it is morbid and vulgar in spite of its refinement of execution, because the eye is drawn to it, and it is made the most observable and characteristic part of the picture; whereas natural gradation is forever escaping observation to that degree that the greater part of artists in working from nature see it not, (except in certain of its marked developments,) but either ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin

... distinguish the original parts of a building from alterations made in Byzantine days or since the Turkish conquest; while, by the prominence given to the variety of type which the churches present, the life and movement observable in Byzantine ecclesiastical art has been made clear, and the common idea that it was a stereotyped art has been proved ...
— Byzantine Churches in Constantinople - Their History and Architecture • Alexander Van Millingen

... broad views of human nature, otherwise than intellectually—not only from each other but still more from those who, whatever their ostensible labels, are in reality followers of Gallio and routine. And something like the same process is observable in the religious music of the past generation. Many of its old conventions have silently dropped away, unregarded and unregretted: whatever the outlooks, and they are many and various, they are more clear-sighted, ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various

... to the south. Bathurst is said to be a very healthy climate; wonders are told of the climate of New South Wales generally, and yet we are informed that "the cheeks of the children beyond the mountains have a rosy tint, which is seldom observable in the lowlands of the colony." However, notwithstanding all that may be said, disease and death can find out their victims even ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden

... definite aim. His relations with the great city were of a very slight and external kind. He had few acquaintances, and spent his time mainly in rambling about the streets. His descriptions of this phase of his life have little interest. There is some flatness in an enumeration of the nationalities observable in a London ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers

... oppose, the country must languish under the severity of the government, or fly into a mutiny to save themselves from starving. If any do appear more zealous in prosecuting the countries complaints they know what to expect. It being observable that none has been thus punisht but those who were forward in the assembly to oppose the encroachments on the people, and promote the complaint to England, being out of hope ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... you account for the American practice of admitting students to the professional courses without the Arts course? What is the best American practice in this matter to-day, and what tendencies are observable? ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY

... the time of our grandmothers used to be called inward fits. A child thus affected lies as though it were asleep, winks its imperfectly closed eyes, and gently twitches the muscles of its face—a movement especially observable about the lips, which are drawn as though into a smile. Sometimes, too, this movement of the mouth is seen during sleep, and poets have told us that it is the angels' whisper which makes the babe to smile—I am sorry that its meaning in plain prose should be so different. If this condition increases, ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... "The most important peculiarity of American English is a laxity, irregularity, and confusion in the use of particles. The same thing is, indeed, observable in England, but not to the same extent, though some gross departures from idiomatic propriety, such as different to for different from, are common in England, which none but very ignorant persons would be guilty of in America.... In the tenses of the verbs, I am inclined ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)



Words linked to "Observable" :   noticeable, observe, evident, discernible



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