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Detached   /dɪtˈætʃt/  /ditˈætʃt/   Listen
Detached

adjective
1.
Showing lack of emotional involvement.  Synonyms: degage, uninvolved.  "She may be detached or even unfeeling but at least she's not hypocritically effusive" , "An uninvolved bystander"
2.
Being or feeling set or kept apart from others.  Synonyms: isolated, separated, set-apart.  "Could not remain the isolated figure he had been" , "Thought of herself as alone and separated from the others" , "Had a set-apart feeling"
3.
No longer connected or joined.  Synonym: separated.  "On one side of the island was a hugh rock, almost detached" , "The separated spacecraft will return to their home bases"
4.
Used of buildings; standing apart from others.  "A detached garage"
5.
Lacking affection or warm feeling.  Synonyms: unaffectionate, uncaring.
6.
Not fixed in position.  Synonym: free.  "He pulled his arm free and ran"



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"Detached" Quotes from Famous Books



... in 1858, after Hawthorne had left the consulate, and containing what must have been the earliest sketch of the story, as he then conceived it. It begins abruptly, and proceeds uncertainly, at the rate of a few pages each day, for about a month. Detached passages of narration alternate with abstracts of the proposed plot, and analysis of the characters. The chief interest seems to lie in the project which a young American has formed, during a visit to England, of tracing ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop

... had been detached from the left wing of the Salonica forces and had come overland in order to deal with the situation in Montenegro. The Austrians had been in a woeful plight; it was regarded as a punishment to serve in Montenegro and Albania, not only because of the lack ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... operations; she accordingly leaned back in the carriage, and, closing her eyes, meditated on her plan of action. Bidding the coachman pull up at the corner of Brock street, she alighted, and proceeded on foot towards the house: it was a semi-detached cottage, with a small garden in front, the dwelling being only a few feet from the street. Inside all was, apparently, quiet as usual, but Mrs. Wilkie thought she heard a soft, measured song, as if some one were singing a child to sleep. Approaching the window she caught a glimpse ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer

... but a few yards distant, is the Baptistery, but, unfortunately, we were too late to obtain admittance. It is a beautiful, circular structure some 160 feet in diameter, surrounded by columns below, and a gallery of smaller detached columns above, covered with a conical dome 190 feet high. The building was commenced in 1153, but was not finally completed until 1278. It is famous ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... MARRIAGE. The Love of To-Morrow. A Noviciate for Marriage. Semi-Detached Marriage. Marriage and Divorce. Eugenics and the Mystical Outlook. Eugenics and Spiritual Parenthood. Blossoming Time. Love as a ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... influence, and enlarged his sphere of interest. At first came languid amusement in contemplating the pretty young bride, then liking and compassion for her, then the great anxiety in her illness, and afterwards real affection and solicitude for her and her child had filled his mind, and detached him from his own sorrows; and he now became sensible that he had, indeed, while trying to serve her and his brother, done much for his own relief. What she said of their dependence on him was not only a pleasure to him, but it awoke him to the perception that he had ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of the principal street to the right, just opposite to where the old dingy sign-board used to swing, a passer-by could not fail to notice a detached house more lofty and imposing in its appearance than the plain working-men's cottages on ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... been able to propagate the Colossal upon its own roots by layering a small tree in his orchard. Two limbs pegged into the ground in the spring of 1945 had produced roots a year later, and were then detached from the parent tree. This is a slow but sure method of propagating nut tree varieties that are not congenial with the stocks available for grafting or budding. He has also layered sweet cherries and prune trees by this method which is described ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Thirty-Seventh Annual Report • Various

... upper portion being hollow, the lower solid; small notches are cut where the two pieces fit, and handles attached to the upper part, which being filled with padi and kept turning round, the husk is detached and escapes ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... of the lost, Kate Lee voluntarily laid aside her own hopes of marriage and motherhood. Detached and in a sense lofty in her walk amongst her comrades, still there were those who had coveted her as a continual comrade in the war, and had made their plea. Once she almost yielded, but pity for the unsaved prevailed over the most human ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter

... circulated to soothe; but it failed abjectly in its purpose. We were not to be fooled "the whole of the time," by cant about flying Columns—whose wings, like those of Icarus, were only too likely to get detached in the heat of the Karoo. Such was the temper, the inflexible pessimism of the people; the much-talked of change that was to come over the scene was voted ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... along the bank, down the bank to the gangway which connected the deck of the Loulia forward with the shore. He pushed aside the dropped canvas, and he stepped upon the deck. A number of dark eyes gravely regarded him. Then Hamza detached himself from the hooded crowd and came up to where Isaacson ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... the Susquehanna, a screw, of the United States Navy, 4,000 in tonnage, and carrying 20 guns. She had been detached to take soundings between the Pacific coast and the Sandwich Islands, the initiatory movement towards laying down an Ocean Cable, which the Pacific Cable Company contemplated finally extending to China. ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... plebiscite to bring them to declare that they want to be French. We know what that means. During fifteen years we are going to work on them, to attack them from every point, till we obtain from them a declaration of love. It is evidently a less brutal proceeding than the coup de force which detached from us our Alsatians and Lorrainers. But if less brutal, it is more hypocritical. We know quite well between ourselves that it is an attempt to annex these 600,000 Germans. One can understand very well the reasons of an economic ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes

... I knew how to draw I would show you my thought: it should be very new, very bold. They are taking him down from the cross, and the man who has detached the hands has let drop the whole upper part of the body. It has fallen upon the crowd below, and they lift up their arms to receive and sustain ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... with the view of weakening the army that six thousand troops were ordered to be detached from it, and solely to harass it by a winter campaign that they were now called upon at this inhospitable season to undertake the recovery of Ratisbon. The Jesuits and the ministry enriched themselves with the treasure wrung ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty

... twice, never relaxing his hold. A moment later a form detached itself from the group before the door of the house opposite, crossed the street and joined them quickly, yet with ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford

... ordered German ranks, and how such a crowd could retreat and fight in the same manner as a wild-boar that defends itself when brought to bay by dogs. On the other hand, he was glad of the news that they were only a quarter of a mile distant, because he calculated that the people who were detached to cut off their retreat had already done so,—and, in case of the Germans being routed, not a single soul could escape. As to the outpost at the head of the detachment he did not care much, because he knew from the first that such would be the case and was ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... mails, usually a month in transit, became very erratic. But the colony eagerly undertook a share in the burden of the Empire; L2,250 was voted towards the war-chest; L750 was collected on behalf of the Prince of Wales's Fund. Detached, though keen, interest changed, however, as the weeks passed, to intimate alarm. The Governor, Mr. Allardyce, received a wireless message from the Admiralty that he must expect a raid. German cruisers were suspected to be in the neighbourhood. Never before ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various

... and convenient running gear, so arranged as to be easily attached and detached at pleasure, is furnished, if desired; forming, when separate, a ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... out of the narrow street and into one that was much wider and lined by houses that were detached and separated, apparently, by gardens, for there was a frequent waving of palms over the high walls which lined the road. The street was empty of all except an old orange vender, shuffling slowly along, with a cartwheel of a tray on her head, piled with yellow fruit ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley

... directions, probably to catch food. Others are so sluggish, that they may be mistaken for pieces of the rock, and are generally of a dark colour, and from four to five inches long, and two or three round. When the coral is broken, about high water mark, it is a solid hard stone, but if any part of it be detached at a spot which the tide reaches every day, it is found to be full of worms of different lengths and colours, some being as fine as a thread and several feet long, of a bright yellow, and sometimes of a blue colour: others resemble snails, and some are not unlike ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... Spirit and Divine life. It is led and confirmed, by this gift, in a pure and holy life, like that of God; and if it so completes its earthly career, in charity, chastity, and sanctity, it will one day be disengaged from its material envelope, as the ripe grain is detached from the straw, and as the young bird escapes from its shell. Like the angels, it will share in the bliss of the Good and Perfect Father, re-clothed in an aerial body or organ, and made like unto the Angels ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... work up his part. That should also apply to Mr. GARRY'S Schomberg, though he doesn't seem to have tried to fit himself into the skin of that entertaining villain. Mr. MURRAY CARRINGTON had an exceedingly tough task with his Heyst. But was he even as detached and eccentric as the average modern don? Certainly he was not the man of mystery of the original pattern, but rather ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various

... a broad gulf between the wall of the mountain and the crag, which, from its detached position and its shape, was known far and wide ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... of stout stems 6 or 8 in. long, firmly and deeply planted in a shady situation, mulched with leaf-mould, and kept watered in dry weather, will take root; but the surest method of propagation is by layers, pegged down in the soil and detached the following year. A good watering with liquid manure will swell the fruit to a large size. Keep the branches well thinned out and cut them regular, so as to let in light and air and form nicely shaped trees. The pruning should be done as soon as the ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink

... Washington left his camp-fires burning on the river bank, and taking roundabout roads, which he had already reconnoitred, marched on to Princeton. By sunrise he was in the outskirts of the town. Mercer, detached with some three hundred men, fell in with Mawhood's regiment, and a sharp action ensued. Mercer was mortally wounded, and his men gave way just as the main army came upon the field. The British charged, and as the raw Pennsylvanian troops in the van wavered, Washington ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge

... was as all the other villas in Dunmoral Avenue, which were just detached enough to allow the butcher's boy to squeeze himself and his basket—and perhaps the cook—between any two of them, and differed from each other in nothing but names, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various

... without number. Cosh had jostled against Speug in leaping from one dry spot to another and come down rolling in the mud, which made his appearance from behind wonderful; Speug, in helping Thomas John out of a very entangling place, had been so zealous that the seat had been almost entirely detached from Thomas John's trousers, and although Mr. Byles had done his best with pins, the result was not edifying; his brother's straw hat had fallen in the exact spot where Speug landed as he jumped from a wall, and was of no further service, and so the younger Dowbiggin—"who ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren

... was not purple now but a dull grey. He, too, had doubtless had his romance, blood and tears, anger and agony for somebody. How hard to keep out of such things, and yet one must if one is to achieve anything. Keep out of it, detached, observant, comfortable. Strange that in life comfort should ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of "Lord, how tired I am!" accompanied by ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... arms, and houses with palm leaf walls and innocent of locks, bolts and bars, offer unusual temptations to the burglariously inclined. My wife and I nearly always slept without a watchman and with the doors and windows unclosed, the servants' offices being detached from the house, and we have never had any of our property stolen except by ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher

... the smouldering heaps of embers showed red and black through it on the floor. There was a pause—then an advance all together of the firemen and the police which blocked up the doorway—then a consultation in low voices—and then two men were detached from the rest, and sent out of the churchyard through the crowd. The crowd drew back on either side in dead silence to ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins

... the king of Morocco, by way of recreation, shot a hundred Moorish slaves with arrows; in the second, he beheaded thirty Portuguese officers, prisoners of war; and in the third and last act, Muley, mad with his wives, set fire with his own hand to a detached palace, in which they were shut up, and reduced them all to ashes.... This conflagration, accompanied with a thousand shrieks, closed the piece in a very diverting manner.—Lesage, Gil ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... big volume I detached the loose leaf, dated 1893, which recorded Lord Semptam's purchase of a carved table for fifty pounds, and on which he had been paying a pound a week from that time to the date of which I am writing, which ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr

... a sickened aspect, drew inward, and they were all silent. But they were not all inactive, for Marguerite, with swift and skilful fingers, had detached both herself and him from the ...
— No Thoroughfare • Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins

... little water-color drawings of rare flowers fluttered out of others. Hard botanical names which he could not spell through, and descriptions of plants which he could not understand, occurred here and there in postscripts and detached passages of the longer letters. But still, whether long or short, they bore no signature but the initials "A. C.;" still the dates afforded no information of the year, month, or place in which they had been written; and still Mat quietly ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins

... let himself into the semi-detached, old-fashioned house on the north side of Vincent Square, where he had lodged for some years. It was nearly twelve o'clock, and his landlady, Mrs. Rapkin, and her husband had already ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey

... on it. He was a young man, with wide ears and unhealthy spots on his face. His hair, which was oily and thick, he wore neatly plastered into two pointed love-locks. This not only adorned and distinguished him, but it lent a casual and detached air to his ears, which stood at right angles to the plane of his face. I knew that engaging countenance. It was ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... that Snoozer must be suitably rewarded, he seemed fully to understand the importance of his action in barking at the right moment, and for the first morning on the whole trip he was up and about, waving his bushy tail with great industry, and occasionally uttering a detached bark, just to remind us of how he had done it. He walked around the pony several times, and looked at her with a haughty air, as much as to say, "Where would you be now if it hadn't ...
— The Voyage of the Rattletrap • Hayden Carruth

... the van of the army, Xenophon at once began to climb the hill. The enemy, seeing this movement, hastily detached a force for the same purpose. Both sides shouted encouragement to their men, and Xenophon, riding beside his troop, spurred them to exertion by reminding them of their wives and children at home. And here took place one of ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... incision at the external angle. A curved needle armed with a thread is now to be passed entirely through the eye, being careful to include sufficient of the sound parts within its grasp to prevent its tearing out. This finished, the needle may be detached, and the ends of the thread being united, the movements of the eye can be governed by means of this ligature: then ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... I imagine that this charming, generous, and independent creature had never known in her life a single genuine thought; I mean a single thought detached from small human vanities, or whose source was not in some conventional perception. All I know is that after advancing a few steps she extended her hand towards the motionless Sevrin. And that at least was no gesture. It was a natural movement. As to what she expected him to do, who can tell? The ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad

... though quite aware her embarrassments couldn't but be now of the gravest. I sacrificed to propriety by simply putting them away, and this is how, one day as my absence drew to an end, my eye, while I rummaged in my desk for another paper, was caught by a name on a leaf that had detached itself from the packet. The allusion was to Miss Anvoy, who, it appeared, was engaged to be married to Mr. George Gravener; and the news was two months old. A direct question of Mrs. Saltram's had thus remained ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James

... of Kaporaki's yard and down to the Nertcha, where we had a ferry-boat like the one at Stratensk, though a little larger. The horses were detached and remained on the bank until the tarantass was safely on board. There was not much room for them, but they ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox

... regretful, stood the post commander, counting in surprise the score of scarecrow forms now plainly visible, sitting, standing, or squatting along the mesa edge. Northernmost in view, nearly opposite Blakely's quarters, were two, detached from the general assembly, yet clinging close together—two slender figures, gowned, and it was at these the agent Daly was staring, as he, too, ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King

... it is believed are also the beautiful statues of Nineveh.[89-[]] Even the slightest touching makes a figure "in relief." This statue from Chichen-Itza has all the appearance of being intended as the likeness of a man, and much skill is shown in the delineation of the proportions. It is entirely detached, and reposes upon a base carved from the same block of stone as the figure, which gives it a higher rank in sculpture than any other in America, of which we have ocular proof at this day. It is a noteworthy circumstance in the controversy regarding ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.

... you have been to me, Angela? A saint—a star; ineffably pure, ineffably remote; a creature to worship at a distance; for whose sake it was scarce a sacrifice to repress all that is common to the base heart of man; from whom a kind word was enough for happiness—so pure, so far away, so detached from this vile age we live in. God, how that saintly face has cheated me! Mock saint, mock nun; a creature of passions like my own but more stealthy; from top to toe an ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon

... like Queen's, or the new buildings of Magdalen, are not the work of a Chaplain of Edward III., or a Chancellor of Henry VI. But of the University buildings, St. Mary's Church and the Divinity School, of the College buildings, the old quadrangles of Merton, New College, Magdalen, Brasenose, and detached pieces not a few are genuine Gothic of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey

... remarkable, perhaps, but showing that her mind and her imagination were alive. She was not by any means a precocious child; her mind was but little, if at all, in advance of her years. If one may judge from detached anecdotes and descriptions, she showed no more than the receptivity and quickness natural to a bright and somewhat unusually clear intellect. Through all these anecdotes there runs a vein denoting what is less common in ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... stained with blood by the sectaries of the goddess Kali. Not far off rose Ellora, with its graceful pagodas, and the famous Aurungabad, capital of the ferocious Aureng-Zeb, now the chief town of one of the detached provinces of the kingdom of the Nizam. It was thereabouts that Feringhea, the Thuggee chief, king of the stranglers, held his sway. These ruffians, united by a secret bond, strangled victims of every age in honour of the goddess Death, without ever shedding blood; there was a period when this part ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne

... The island of Japan Proper reaches only to lat. 40 deg. 37' N. and the southern coast of Tacuxima, its most southerly detached isle, is in lat. 32 deg. 28'. The most southerly point of the largest island of Niphon being in 33 deg. 3' N. The extreme length of Niphon, in a slight curve from N.E. to S.W. is about 815 English miles; or, continuing the measure to the S.W. extremity of Kiusiu at Cape Nomo, about 1020 ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr

... She knew it well enough; often and often, she had reproached herself for her idleness, for her habit of sleeping till the middle of the day, of taking her meals before the performance; but she would make up for it to-morrow! It is the usual refrain of stars who have become detached from their troupes, far removed from regimental discipline, so to speak: without a Pa, without a boss, you can do nothing. You must have some one ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... Likewise, our soul when detached and imprisoned within the narrow limits of a self loses its significance. For its very essence is unity. It can only find out its truth by unifying itself with others, and only then it has its joy. Man was troubled and he lived in ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore

... briefly referred to in Chapters II. and III. These cartridges are usually either receptacles of thin sheet-metal, say tin plate, or packages of carbide wrapped up in grease proof paper or the like. If of metal, they may have a lid which is detached or perforated before they are put into the generator, or the generator (when automatic and of domestic size) may be so arranged that a cartridge is punctured in one or more places whenever more gas is required. If wrapped in paper, the cartridges may be dropped into water by an automatic generator ...
— Acetylene, The Principles Of Its Generation And Use • F. H. Leeds and W. J. Atkinson Butterfield

... or an uncertainty and hesitation which one must, if possible, remove by saying or doing something to restore confidence. A man at some distance is waving his arms wildly. One has only to preserve an attitude of detached indifference, and the motions of the other person will be on the level of any remote physical change which we happen to note. If we have no concern or interest, the waving of the arms is as meaningless to us as the gyrations of the arms of a windmill. But if interest is aroused, we begin to participate. ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... the exploring party detached by Sir Douglas Forsyth, brought away a head of Ovis Poli, which quite bears out the account by its eponymus of horns "good 6 palms in length," say 60 inches. This head, as I learn from a letter of Colonel ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... "perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart." His pen, as it is rapid and fanciful, wants momentum and passion. It requires the same principle to make us thoroughly like poetry, that makes us like ourselves so well, the feeling of continued identity. The impressions of Mr. Moore's poetry are detached, desultory, and physical. Its gorgeous colours brighten and fade like the rainbow's. Its sweetness evaporates like the effluvia exhaled from beds of flowers! His gay laughing style, which relates to the immediate pleasures of love or wine, is better than his sentimental and romantic vein. ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt

... from her a remark in which this whole effect was mirrored, as well as something else in the Prince's movement while he slowly paced and turned. "We're distinctly bourgeois!" she a trifle grimly threw off, as an echo of their old community; though to a spectator sufficiently detached they might have been quite the privileged pair they were reputed, granted only they were taken as awaiting the visit of Royalty. They might have been ready, on the word passed up in advance, to repair together to the foot of the staircase—the Prince somewhat ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... thrusts forth an arm to the south that rises sheer from the plain some five hundred feet, and forms a plateau at the top encrusted with white crags, two thousand seven hundred feet long, by six hundred feet wide. It is detached from the main chain by a dip, and on every other side stands up in precipices. This is Les Baux, the name in ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... that his machine was a bit sluggish in the climbs. However, he went through with his performance, doing some beautiful "zooming," and then, as he was flying high and getting ready to do a spiral nose dive, the tunic detached itself from his skid ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach

... recall those events distinctly, Missy now saw them in a different kind of way. Now she was able to look at the evening as a whole, with herself merely a part of the whole. She regarded that sort of detached object which was herself. That detached Missy had gone to the meeting, and failed to find grace. Others had gone and found grace. Even though they had acted no differently from Missy. Like her they sang tunes; listened ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... valve. By shifting the lever, H, the supply of steam to the two cylinders may be increased or diminished, or its direction may be changed, so that the engines will be reversed or stopped. This engine is remarkable for its simplicity. The cylinders may be detached and changed if required, one size of bed answering for three different sizes of cylinder, which may vary only in diameter, the stroke being the same, so that the castings for engines of different power are the same except in the matter of the cylinders and pistons, ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various

... seen the entire mechanism of his busy little world humming smoothly and sweetly, the whole set in motion by his own big work-calloused hands. Those hands puzzled him now. He often looked at them curiously and in a detached sort of way as if they belonged to someone else. So white they were, and smooth and soft, with long, pliant nails that never broke off from rough work as they used to. Of late there were little splotches of brown on the backs of his hands and around ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... writers; I should probably meet with the fate of those who have tried in the same manner to describe the melodies of the ancient Greeks. They sing it in short lines or sentences, not always the whole at once, but most generally in detached parts, as time permits, and as the occasion or their feelings prompt them. Their accent is very pathetic and melancholy; a by-stander unacquainted with their language would suppose that they were details of some great affliction: both sexes sing in chorus, first the ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... story, Monsieur le President. As a prisoner, I was free. A new life opened before me. However, the incident nearly turned out badly. My three dozen Berbers, a troop detached from an important nomad tribe that used to pillage and put to ransom the districts lying on the middle chains of the Atlas Range, first galloped back to the little cluster of tents where the wives of their chiefs were encamped under the guard of some ten men. They packed ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... in the mental attitude of others towards himself. When he stood and gazed at people through the glass neatly screwed into his eye, one felt that it was he whose opinion was of importance, not the other person's. Through sheer chill imperviousness he seemed entirely detached from the powers of criticism. What people said or thought of his fixed opinion on a subject was not of the least consequence, in fact did not exist; the entities of the persons who cavilled at such opinions themselves ceased to exist, so far as he was concerned. His ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... felt in under his coat and detached from his waistcoat a small gold pin. He tore a strip of wrapping paper from the open box near him and wrote ...
— While Caroline Was Growing • Josephine Daskam Bacon

... Flounders.—Take a sharp knife, cut away the fins all round the fish, and split the flounder right down the middle of the back, then run the knife carefully between the flesh and bones, going towards the edge. You have now detached one quarter of the flesh from the bone; do the other half in the same way, and when the back is thus entirely loose from the bone, turn the fish over and do the same with the other side. You will now find you can remove the bone whole from the fish, detaching, ...
— Choice Cookery • Catherine Owen

... a motor tour. I have the sensation of being detached from my own past (good thing that, for some ladies of our acquaintance!) like a hook that's come out of its eye. The hook, however, is quite ready to fit into any new eye that happens to be handy, or dig out any eye that happens to be in the way. And that brings me back to Mademoiselle ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... Crain quickly detached the compact suit-phone from inside the neck of his own space-suit, and Kent rapidly tuned it to the one he had given Marta Mallen. His heart leapt as her ...
— The Sargasso of Space • Edmond Hamilton

... old leaves are crowded down and hang in loose folds about the stem like a flounced skirt. When dry the leaves burn readily, and are sometimes used for light and heat by lost or belated travelers. White threads of a finer fiber are detached from the margins of the leaves that are blown by the wind into a fluffy fleece, in which the ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk

... for this unexpected succor. She detached the porringer, milked the cow and drank the sweet milk with delight. The pretty, gentle cow signed to her to replace the porringer. Blondine obeyed, kissed her on the ...
— Old French Fairy Tales • Comtesse de Segur

... patrol of five commissioned officers to watch the Jamaica Pass. Three of these officers belonged to Colonel Lasher's New York City battalion—Adjutant Jeronimus Hoogland and Lieutenants Robert Troup and Edward Dunscomb; and the other two were Lieutenant Gerrit Van Wagenen, a detached officer of McDougall's old regiment, and a Lieutenant Gilliland, who with Van Wagenen had crossed to Long Island, as a volunteer. What part this patrol played in the incidents of the ...
— The Campaign of 1776 around New York and Brooklyn • Henry P. Johnston

... this duty consisted of six Horse Artillery guns, 400 British Infantry, 360 of the 1st Punjab Infantry, and a party of the Guides Cavalry, in addition to 250 men detached from the Metcalfe House piquets. The advance of the column up the road leading towards the Kashmir gate appeared to be unnoticed until it arrived close to the enemy, who then opened with grape. Our troops pressed on, and in their eagerness to capture the guns, ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... hollow bamboo filled with the numbered slices of wood and, prostrating herself three times before the Great One, shook it slowly until one detached itself from its brothers and fell to the floor. The abbot then handed her a slip ...
— My Lady of the Chinese Courtyard • Elizabeth Cooper

... the committees and officers of the two branches of the Legislature. It was also desirable not to mar the harmony and beauty of the present structure, which, as a specimen of architecture, is so universally admired. Keeping these objects in view, I concluded to make the addition by wings, detached from the present building, yet connected with it by corridors. This mode of enlargement will leave the present Capitol uninjured and afford great advantages for ventilation and the admission of light, and will enable the work to progress without ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume - V, Part 1; Presidents Taylor and Fillmore • James D. Richardson

... accepted the curious mixture of prose and poetry in Walt Whitman just as I accepted the musical Wagner. At that time we had not yet learned to know that Wagner's music was melodious; we had not yet discovered that "Lohengrin," for instance, was woven of many melodies, for they were not detached and made into arias. What could be expected of young persons brought up on "The ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... tradition among the Elephants that some one of the race will one day mount up to the sky and dwell among the stars. Once a young elephant thought that he must be the one, for a great stone becoming detached from a cliff fell upon his head. He instantly exclaimed, "I see stars all around me. I am surely the Elephant foretold!" and for a few moments actually thought he must have "gone up;" but those standing by saw him rambling round with uncertain step and laughed ...
— Seven Little People and their Friends • Horace Elisha Scudder

... of the modern dance in a detached, intellectual way. He dwelt on one particular development in the fox trot—had I noticed it?—there! that naval officer and the languishing blonde were doing it now—which seemed to him unaesthetic. It might be harmful in some cases, say to a Class A woman. Being curious, I asked what ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... were no moving objects visible yet, but the growing sound was less of a murmur; it was more detached, and the straining ears distinctly made out the clatter of hoofs evidently traveling fast down the valley trail. On they came, steadily hammering out their measure with crisp precision. It was a moment of tense excitement ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum

... it had given them trees and rocks. They hurled the trees, which the storms had felled years ago, and which fragments of rock had held on the brink of the precipice, into the depth of the gorge; they detached large fragments from the rocks, and rolled them down on the soldiers, many of whom were crushed by these terrible missiles. And when these trees and rocks fell into the depth, and spread death and confusion in the ranks of the soldiers, the Tyrolese profited by ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach

... to Mr. Alcott's defence, saying: "He is making an experiment in which all the friends of education are interested," and asking, "whether it be wise or just to add to the anxieties of this enterprise a public clamor against some detached sentences of a book which, on the whole, is pervaded by original thought and sincere piety." In a private note, Mr. Emerson urged Mr. Alcott to give up his school, as the people of Boston were not worthy of him. Mr. Alcott had spent more than the income of the school in ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... they are means of securing a deliberate consciousness of the presence of the Omniscient Judge. The inclination of my mind is at this moment, to the principle that an oath may deepen the guilt of an act sinful in itself, but cannot be detached from the act; it being understood that a perfectly voluntary and self-imposed oath is itself a sin. The man who compels me to take an oath by putting a pistol to my ear has in my mind clearly forfeited all his right to be treated as a moral agent. Nay, it seems to be a sin to act so as to induce ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... side of the immense temple stood quite detached from the town. There were on that side but few bronze doors, and these, which were opened only to the inhabitants of the building, had long since been locked for the night and needed no guard. As the inhabitants were forbidden to cross the space dividing the stadium ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... drew up all his vessels, placing the strongest in the front, and on the wings his archers. Between every two vessels with archers there was one of men-at-arms. He stationed some detached vessels as a reserve, full of archers, to assist and help such as might be damaged. There were in this fleet a great many ladies from England, countesses, baronesses, and knights' and gentlemen's wives, who were going to attend on the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... converted into such a prickly heat, such fiery tinglings, as made me sigh, squeeze my thighs together, shift and wriggle about my seat, with a furious restlessness; whilst these itching ardours, thus excited in those parts on which the storm of discipline had principally fallen, detached legions of burning, subtile, stimulating spirits, to their opposite spot and centre of assemblage, where their titillation raged so furiously, that I was even stinging made with them. No wonder then that in such a taking, and ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland

... advancing rapidly by the road opposite the left of the line, the artillery played on him with effect; and as he came nearer, the musketry began to fire also. This having obliged him to fall back, he next directed his attack against the detached Kentuckians on our right, one column moving toward the wood and the other toward the centre of the line. Now was felt the effect of the bad position that we occupied. One of the enemy's columns turned our troops at the extremity ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith

... every moment in shape. Sometimes they rise suddenly from the fields with a noise like thunder, while the glittering of innumerable wings of the brightest vermillion, amid the black cloud, occasion a very striking effect. At times the whole congregated multitude will suddenly alight in some detached grove and commence one general concert, that can plainly be distinguished at the distance of more than two miles. With the Redwings the whole winter season seems one continued carnival. They find abundant food in the old fields of rice, buckwheat and grain, ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous

... Southern Asia was similarly revelled, and it is probable that the seas stretched, with little interruption, from the west of Europe to the Pacific. The southern continent had deep wedges of the sea driven into it. India, New Zealand, and Australia were successively detached from it, and by the end of the Mesozoic it was much as we find it to-day. The Arctic continent (north of Europe) was flooded, and there was a great interior sea in the western part ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... detached life, practised many arts upon his individuality and character. He had time and to spare to "abandon the body," and he was growing more and more confident, that in these self-imposed crises he was gaining not only strength, but a keen and absorbing interest ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock

... assume this! If the phenomena of exteriorization of motivity be true (the phenomena produced by Eusapia Palladino, for example) then we have here nervous energy or "fluid" existing beyond the periphery of the body—that is, in space, detached from the nerves. And if a motor current can exist and travel in this manner, why not a sensory current? It would only have to travel in the opposite direction. For these reasons, therefore, I am disposed to regard the phenomena of exteriorized ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington

... city of Greenwood beyond it, the bay, the narrows, the sound, the two silvery rivers lying between me and the Palisades, and even, across and to the south of Brooklyn, the ocean itself. Wonderful effects of light and shadow, picturesque masses, composed of detached buildings so far distant that they seemed huddled together; grim factories turned to beautiful palaces by the dazzling reflection of sunlight from their window-panes; great ships seeming in the distance to be toy-boats floating idly;—with ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton

... detached by the next bend of the road. The way, hitherto winding through narrow glens, now swung to a ledge overhanging the last escarpment of the mountains; and far below, the Piedmontese plain unrolled to the southward its interminable blue-green distances ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... cannot be experienced upon any other tour. Our way over the long seas has not to be retraced. The farther we go, the nearer we come to home; every day's journey away from those we love, is also one day's step nearer to them. I think, also, that no amount of travel in detached portions of the world enables one to contemplate the world and the human race as a whole. One must traverse the ball round and round to arrive at a broad, liberal, correct estimate of humanity—its work, its ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie

... Maggie felt steadied and encouraged in the presence of something at least resembling danger. So long as Laurie was merely tiresome and foolish, she distrusted herself, she made little rules and resolutions, and deliberately kept herself interiorly detached from him. But now that there was something definite to ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson

... the town we passed a mound of the inscribed stones, which must have been nearly a quarter of a mile in length, and probably contained as many as 30,000. The left bank of the river, which thus formed our path, was a continuation of detached huts, forming no regular villages, and affording very little shade or apparent prospect of shelter for man or beast. The right bank, however, was studded with picturesque-looking little villages, built generally on rocky summits, and surrounded by tombs and ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight

... in it. But, supposing that, from a peculiarity in its constitution, nuclei are formed, we know very well how, by virtue of the law of gravitation, the process of an aggregation of the neighbouring matter to those nuclei should proceed, until masses more or less solid should become detached from the rest. It is a well-known law in physics that, when fluid matter collects towards or meets in a centre, it establishes a rotatory motion. See minor results of this law in the whirlwind and the whirlpool—nay, on so humble a scale as the water sinking through the aperture of a funnel. ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers

... station came down into their window from the roofs of adjacent trains, and then, before she rightly understood what was happening, she was out on to the platform with her arms full of her own and Mrs. Morris' bundles. A short man detached himself from a crowd that waited without the gates far in front, ...
— Nancy McVeigh of the Monk Road • R. Henry Mainer

... sewing is reckoned by some a feature of excellent binding. The sunken-band style is apt to give a stiff back, while the raised bands are usually treated with a flexible back. When sewed, the book is detached from its fellows, which may have been sewed on the same bench, by slipping it along the cords, then cutting them apart, so as to leave some two inches of each cord projecting, as ends to be fastened later to the board. In careful binding, the thread is sewed ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... these lines may be seen. When they are received from the binder they have the appearance of being well bound, they look smart on the shelf, but in a few years, whether they are used or not, the leather will have perished and the boards become detached, and they will ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell

... combatants lay weltering in their blood, and two of them, locked in a deadly embrace in each other's arms, fell off the rock into the sea, and a huge wave rolling in washed them both away. The gale was increasing, the wreck rocked to and fro, large portions were constantly being detached and hove against the rock. At length a sea heavier than any of the preceding ones came roaring in. It struck the wreck. High over it the foaming waters rushed, the spray from it almost blinding Hemming ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... I had heard these lines before. JOHNSON. 'I fancy not, Sir; for they are in a detached poem, the name of which I do not remember, written by one Giffard, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell

... CONTINUOUS? Can you pass from one to another, keeping always in your one universe without any danger of falling out? In other words, do the parts of our universe HANG together, instead of being like detached grains of sand? ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James

... knife under the joint at 1, and lifting the pinion with the fork, drawing off the wing with a slice of the breast attached. The leg, cut round, is easily released in the same way. The merry-thought may next be detached by turning it back from the breast; the neck-bones which are beneath the upper part of the wings are easily raised. Then the breast must be divided from the back by cutting through the ribs close ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge

... in average length, although I have taken them from Newfoundland pups fully thirty inches long. It is a semi-transparent entozoon; each segment is long compared to its breadth, and narrowed at both ends. Each joint has, when detached, an independent ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton

... similar passages in Jonson, this is [Greek (transliterated): eidos chalepon idein]—a sight which it is difficult to make one's self see,—a picture my fancy cannot copy detached from the words. ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... felt that she was unlike these people; not of their class or society; she was sure they knew it too, and would act accordingly; that is, not rudely or ungracefully making the fact known, but nevertheless feeling, and showing that they felt, that she belonged to a detached portion of humanity. Or they; what did it matter? Lois did not misjudge or undervalue herself; she knew she was the equal of these people, perhaps more than their equal, in true refinement of feeling and delicacy of perception; she knew she was not awkward in manner; yet she knew, ...
— Nobody • Susan Warner

... in a cold, detached fashion. "I came over to find Mr. Burke Ranger. But I gather ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... She would not meet his eyes. Sir Roland sat and passively regarded her. His face expressed no more than a detached and waning interest. ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... In one word, no speeches delivered in the English Parliament, are so likely to be eternalized as Burke's, because he has combined with his treatment of some especial case or contingency before him, the assertion of immutable Principles, which can be detached from what is local and national, and thus made to stand forth alone in all the naked grandeur of their truth and their tendency. Let us be permitted to investigate this topic a little further. If, then, what Quintilian asserted of the Roman orator may ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke

... life, for it meant that the father's presence obsessed the room. And it could not be altered, for it depended on the window; the window was too small to be quite efficient. When the children reflected upon the history of their childhood they saw one important aspect of it as a long series of detached hours spent in the sitting-room, in a state of desire to do something that could not be done without disturbing father, and in a state of indecision whether or not to disturb him. If by chance, as sometimes occurred, he chose to sit on the sofa, which was unobtrusive ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... and the Roosevelt was in the same position, with the ice crowding against her; but at the crest of the high tide the grounded floe-berg to which we were attached by cable went adrift, and we all hurried on deck. The lines were hastily detached from the berg. As the ice went south, it left a stretch of open water before us about a mile long, and we steamed northward along the shore, pushing our way behind the grounded bergs, trying to find another ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary

... tumultuous black ocean in which you sink or sail as a star. As a matter of fact it was a wet November night. The lamps of Soho made large greasy spots of light upon the pavement. The by-streets were dark enough to shelter man or woman leaning against the doorways. One detached herself ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf

... pursue. They have so many other Interests different from ours that we must avoid being entangled in them. We believe we can enforce those principles as to ourselves by Peaceable means, now that we are likely to have our Public Councils detached from foreign views. The return of our citizens from the phrenzy into which they had been wrought, partly by ill conduct in France, partly by artifices practiced upon them, is almost extinct, and will, I believe, become quite so, But these ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... conservatism and radicalism, you will find that a goodly number of their partisans are men who have not chosen their position, but have been bullied into it,—men who see clearly enough that both parties are based on principles almost equally true in themselves, almost equally false by being detached from their mutual relations. But then each party keeps its professors of intimidation and stainers of character, whose business it is to deprive men of the luxury of large thinking, and to drive ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various

... have them down—and feed them up; and though his slightly cynical humour perceived that they ministered to his daughter's love of domination as well as moved her warm heart, he never ceased to admire her for having so many ducks. He fell, indeed, year by year into a more and more detached and brotherly attitude towards his own son and daughters, treating them with a sort of whimsical equality. When he went down to Harrow to see Jolly, he never quite knew which of them was the elder, and would sit eating cherries with him out of one paper bag, with an affectionate ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... beach of Apemama was our daily resort. The coast is broken by shallow bays. The reef is detached, elevated, and includes a lagoon about knee-deep, the unrestful spending-basin of the surf. The beach is now of fine sand, now of broken coral. The trend of the coast being convex, scarce a quarter of a mile of it is to be seen at once; the land being so low, the horizon appears ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson

... there stole over me that same detached feeling that possessed me the day I had been made Boss ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan

... waited to see that, she would have seen him, in lurching over to prevent his sword from striking the ground, lose his balance on a detached paving-stone, and fall heavily on his ...
— An Enemy To The King • Robert Neilson Stephens

... in strong, bold outline the progress of British emancipation. Thence to slavery in its influence upon the holders, to the remark that this event hushed the old slander about inferior natures in the negro, thence to the philosophy of slavery, and so through many detached thoughts to the end. It was nearly two hours long, but was very commanding. He looked genial and benevolent, as who should smilingly defy the world, the flesh, and the devil to ensnare him. The address will be published by the ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke

... under the intact ice roof, was bare rock, wind-swept clean. It struck me that with a little management, and to a cursory inspector, it could look as though Paulette and I were drowned like Thompson. The snow had not piled on this side the lake as it had on ours. Detached rocks, few but practicable stepping-stones, lifted their bare bulk out of it, between us and the spruce bush we had to strike through to avoid the Halfway and Macartney's picket. Some kind of a trail ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones

... principal and very large courts in Windsor Castle, which give great pleasure to the beholders: the first is enclosed with most elegant buildings of white stone, flat-roofed, and covered with lead; here the Knights of the Garter are lodged; in the middle is a detached house, remarkable for its high tower, which the governor inhabits. In this is the public kitchen, well furnished with proper utensils, besides a spacious dining-room, where all the poor Knights eat at the same table, for into this Society ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... central genus of the Physaraceae from which all the others are detached by characters which for the ...
— The Myxomycetes of the Miami Valley, Ohio • A. P. Morgan

... Byng detached two companies of British soldiers to do their amateur damnedest with the guns, and, for infantry, they did good service with them; fifteen or twenty minutes after the first onslaught the enemy was writhing under the withering attention ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... Sometimes I have been troubled that I had not a deeper intuitive apprehension of the relations of numbers. But the triumph of the ciphering hand-organ has consoled me. I always fancy I can hear the wheels clicking in a calculator's brain. The power of dealing with numbers is a kind of "detached lever" arrangement, which may be put into a mighty poor watch—I suppose it is about as common as the power of moving the ears voluntarily, which ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... down the small room in his stockinged feet, looking at her, from time to time, with a detached, but ever studiously alert glance. Then he came to a stop, and confronted her. The memory of the night before, in the Promenade, with the sudden glimpse of her profile against the floating automobile curtain, came back to his mind, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... And while one goes over it with the latest map in hand, one may be sure that the map will be useless in a few years, because even now there are new gulfs in process of formation, tracts of land just ready to be detached from the mainland, and great canals being cut that will carry life to ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner

... to his duties in the forest, leaving a placid sewing-circle on the terrace. From which circle, presently, Shiela silently detached herself, arms encumbered with her writing materials and silks. Strolling aimlessly along the balustrade for a while, watching the bees scrambling in the scarlet trumpet-flowers, she wandered into the house and through to the ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... way down the street, and a considerable crowd had soon collected. Beth, quite detached from herself, leant against the orchard-wall and watched ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... story had proceeded toward its final portions, the young man had detached himself from his father's arms. When Judge Whaley concluded in the darkness he waited in vain for a response. The old man lighted the lamp and peered about the room wistfully. Perry ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... Martin ... She went up into her bedroom and whispered the name over and over to herself whilst she tried to mend her stocking. She flung the stocking down and gazed out of the window on to a world that was all golden cloud and racing watery blue. The roofs swam like floating carpets in the sun, detached from the brick and mortar beneath them, carried by the racing clouds. It was only at that sudden gaze that she realised that she was a prisoner. All her alarm came ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole

... district, named the Manor of Courland, was formed into a kind of citadel, replenished with stores, and Peekskill served as a port to it. On the 23d of March (1777), as soon as the river was clear of ice, Howe, who thought Peekskill of more importance than it really was, detached Colonel Bird, with about 500 men, under convoy of a frigate and some armed vessels, against that post. General M'Dougal, who commanded there, had then only about 250 men in the place. He had timely notice of Colonel Bird's approach, and, sensible that his post was untenable, he exerted himself ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... with other sensations has become thought, then ideas begin to exist. They are products of sensation detached from sensation. They are interassociated by laws that are obscure, yet which can be vaguely perceived. They awake, so to speak, and call to one another; every time an idea previously acquired reappears, it is followed ...
— Initiation into Philosophy • Emile Faguet

... politely received. If they slip away from him it is under a decent pretext; but if he is humored it is only out of a sense of decorum. "At Sura when a man dies, he holds a cow's tail in his hand." Society was never more detached from Christianity. In its eyes a positive religion is only a popular superstition, good enough for children and innocents but not for "sensible people" and the great. It is your duty to raise your hat to the Host as it passes, but your duty is ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... back, compelled to the answer, subservient to his touch, to his words, and, to the full, conscious of her subservience. She felt the big breath he drew in answering her monosyllable. He held her unresisting, passive in his arms, watching her cheeks fire. She realised, in a kind of detached way, that he was holding her so that the tips of her toes only touched the floor, and somehow that seemed of a piece with the rest. Then he set her down, and stood apart, keeping her hands. 'It's funny,' he said, 'how one goes on year after year, ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason

... first time introduced into the building, is very happy. Slender shafts of marble are employed in profusion by William of Sens, and Gervase expressly includes them in his list of characteristic novelties. But here we find them either detached from the piers, or combined with them in such a manner as to give a much greater lightness and elegance of effect than in the work of the previous architect. This lightness of style is carried still farther in the corona, where the slender shafts are carried ...
— The Cathedral Church of Canterbury [2nd ed.]. • Hartley Withers

... line of neutrality. This was the first idea of the Confederation of the North. Duroc, fearing lest the Russians should enter Hamburg, advised me, as a friend, to adopt precautions. But I was on the spot; I knew all the movement the little detached corps, and I ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... stood wide open, the watchman having disappeared, they entered a narrow lane, skirted by a few detached houses, all of which were shut up, and marked by the fatal cross. As they passed one of these habitations, they were arrested by loud and continued shrieks of the most heart-rending nature, and questioning a watchman who stood at an adjoining door, ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth

... midst of our straining I heard a sibilant sound. I detached my eyes from his; his struggles redoubled, and, behind him, stealing in towards us from the court, black on the strip of crimson cloth, I saw Tomas Castro. He flung his cloak back. The light of the lanthorn ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... from the Adouan, who were then in possession of the excellent pasturage of this country, permission to feed their cattle here, on paying a small annual tribute. They soon proved, however, to be dangerous neighbours; having detached the greater part of the other tribes of the Belka from their alliance with the Adouan, they have finally succeeded in driving the latter across the Zerka, notwithstanding the assistance which they received from the Pasha of Damascus. Peace had been made in 1810, and both tribes had encamped together ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt

... clan, associated with other banditti of the west marches to the number of two or three hundred horse, entered England in a hostile manner, and extended their ravages as far as Penrith. James VI., then at Berwick, upon his journey to his new capital, detached a large force, under Sir William Selby, captain of Berwick, to bring these depredators to order. Their raid, remarkable for being the last of any note occurring in history, was avenged in an exemplary manner. Most of the strong-holds upon the ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... regretted the absence of those agitated feelings, half fear half curiosity, which sympathise with the old legends of awe and wonder, from which the anxious reality of his own hopeless passion at present detached him. For he now only felt emotions like those expressed ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... you, these your fellow-diners. You fascinate them, doubtless. They, doubtless, are cudgelling their brains to 'spot' your state in life—your past, which now has escaped you. Next day, some of them are gone; and you miss them, almost bitterly. But others succeed them, not less detached and enigmatic than they. You must never speak to one of them. You must never lapse into those casual acquaintances of the 'lounge' or the smoking-room. Nor is it hard to avoid them. No Englishman, how gregarious and ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... here and there which grew into what is called the Transitional Period; and to this style—in between the Romanesque semicircular arch, with its accompanying massiveness, and the first style of Gothic known as Early English, distinguished by the pointed arch, detached pillars decorating the triforium and clerestory, and elaborate ...
— Beautiful Britain • Gordon Home

... mountains, with its odd castle on a detached hill top," said one of the tourists "it reminds me of a painting by one of the old masters. Cimabue, I think, or Perugino. I cannot remember which. I am constantly regretting while traveling abroad that we are not more proficient in history and art. ...
— A Trip to the Orient - The Story of a Mediterranean Cruise • Robert Urie Jacob

... a small group of writers detached from the main current of Russian literature who worship at the shrine of beauty and mysticism. Of these Sologub has attained ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various

... deceived me I removed the cruel medallion. I can not tell with what sadness I detached that iron girdle and what a sigh escaped me when ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... farther end, would have assured me, if assurance had been needful, for Tom himself commanded in that quarter, that all was perfectly secure on that side. A Jerseyman, a hunter of no small repute, had been detached with a fourth band to guard the open fields upon the north; due time had been allotted to him, and, as we judged, he was upon his ground. Scarce had the first yell echoed through the forest before the pattering of many feet might be heard, mingled ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)

... thing you know you'll be dropped like a hot potato," she thought. "There's nothing unselfish about this man. Don't make him feel he has you on his hands." And she would grow studiously abstract and detached in her talk about the town. But it kept cropping up in spite of her, this warm ...
— His Second Wife • Ernest Poole

... but from her gay admonitions to her child, whom she occasionally allowed to amuse himself—under restrictions very publicly enforced—in the tiny black patch which, as a forecourt to each house, was held, in the humble row, to be a feature. Jersey Villas stood in pairs, semi-detached, and Mrs. Ryves—such was the name under which the new lodger presented herself—had been admitted to the house as confessedly musical. Mrs. Bundy, the earnest proprietress of No. 3, who considered her "parlours" (they were a dozen feet square), even more attractive, ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James

... me a boundless wealth of this almost mystic love, and a belief that this earthly chrysalis would come forth in another world a butterfly, which, detached from all earthly conditions would soar from planet to planet, till it became united to the spirit of All-Life. For the first time the thought crossed my mind that Aniela and I may pass away as bodies, but our love will survive and even be our immortality. ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... of the regiment out some twelve miles from camp, toward Duck River, and, coming upon a large party of secesh, gave them a "taste of his quality." A short time after, the Colonel, with nine of his men, became detached from the main body, and found themselves completely surrounded by the rebels, and were within thirty yards of the foe, who ordered the Colonel to surrender. A moment's parley with his men, and the Colonel, ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett

... zancle (sickle) of Messina-port, whose depth of water and circular shape have suggested an old crater flooded. It was Sunday, and we were greeted with the familiar sounds, the ringing of cracked bells, the screaming of harsh, hoarse voices, a military band and detached musical performances. The classical facade of the Marina, through whose nineteen archways and upper parallelograms you catch a vista of dark narrow wynd, contrasts curiously with Catania: the former is a 'dicky,' a front hiding something unclean; while the ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton

... days' navigation had taught us to disregard, when compared with what we had reason almost every moment to expect. A little before noon a heavy floe, some miles in length, being probably a part of that lately detached from the shore, came driving down fast towards us, giving us serious reason to apprehend some more fatal catastrophe than any we had yet encountered. In a few minutes it came in contact, at the rate of a mile and a half an hour, with a point ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... held my fancy that we men may be the chief, and perhaps the only executives on earth; that we are detached on active service with, it may be only illusory, powers of free-will. Also that we are in some way accountable for our success or failure to further certain obscure ends, to be guessed as best we can; that though our instructions are ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... distance resembled great hedges. Now and then there were copses that stood apart from the larger tracts of forests, looking like islands upon the surface of a green sea, and by the name of "islands" these detached groves are known among the hunters and other denizens of prairie-land. Sometimes the surface was undulating or, as it is there termed, "rolling," and our road was varied, ascending or descending, as we crossed the gentle declivities. The timber through which we ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid

... de Cordova had completed the conquest of the southern moiety of the kingdom, and while lying before Tarento, he received intelligence of the occupation by the French of several places, both in the Capitanate and Basilicate. He detached a body of troops for the protection of these countries, and, after the surrender of Tarento, marched towards the north to cover them with his whole army. As he was not in a condition for immediate hostilities, however, he ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott

... of you, little chap," said Dick, when he had detached the terrier and was holding him firmly in both his hands, still snarling angrily. "If you were mine, you'd probably get a hiding, my son. As it is, you'll stop that ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson

... invariably shows him that nothing ever happens of itself. Thunderbolts do descend from clear skies, but an enemy and not nature has hurled them. A clever tactician will always look for his antagonist's hand behind any isolated or detached fluctuation of public feeling which bears in the slightest degree upon his problem. In going over the circumstances, looking for the correct interpretation of the appearance in our field of this second Richmond, ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson



Words linked to "Detached" :   unconcerned, unloving, unconnected, attached, separate, freestanding, unfixed, architecture



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