"Casual" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... great deal of misty stuff, he found the document to consist chiefly, contrary to his supposition beforehand, of certain rules of life; he would have taken it, on a casual inspection, for an essay of counsel, addressed by some great and sagacious man to a youth in whom he felt an interest,—so secure and good a doctrine of life was propounded, such excellent maxims there were, such wisdom in all matters ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... times he cam'," Mrs. Stirton used to expatiate, "maybe twice a week for a month. He hed a wy o' comin' through Tochty Wood—the shade helpit him tae study, he said—an' jumpin' the dyke. Sall, gin he dinna mak a roadie for himsel' through the field that year. A' wudna say," she used to add in a casual tone, "but that he micht hae gi'en a cry at the Lodge, but he cudna dae less, ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren
... was wreathed in a remarkable smile—a smile of satisfaction that caused the corners of his mouth to turn upward toward his eyes. I also smiled when I made a casual inventory of the battlefield loot with which he had decorated his person. Dangling by straps from his right hip were five holsters containing as many German automatic pistols of the Lueger make, ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... astonishment when he learned in reply that his correspondent was a casual dock labourer, and had but scanty hours of leisure in which to read and think and seek into the recesses of nature, while his means of observation consisted of a toy microscope bought for a shilling at a fair. Casting about for some means of lending the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... Come-One Come-All Up-to-date Stores. During his stroll he had gathered certain pieces of information. To wit, that Wrykyn was where the county families for ten miles round did their shopping, that the population of the town was larger than would appear at first sight to a casual observer, and, finally, that there was a school of six hundred boys only a mile away. Nothing could be better. Within a month he would take to himself the entire ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... warped and twisted timbering of roof and walls hung a great variety of baskets, large and small and variously shaped, of rush or bent withies, many of which seemed in course of manufacture. These and many other objects I took casual heed of as I lay, but often my gaze would rove back to the six books standing so orderly amid the pots and pans; indeed, these so stirred my interest that I began to wonder what manner of books these might be and what should bring them in such a strange and desolate ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... during his University career. His application was not assiduous, while his tutor, Bradshaw, whom he disliked, was negligent; and he appears to have been subject to frequent attacks of ague, disposing him to casual recreation rather than to close study. He had also apparently the desire to acquire a smattering of many different things rather than to study hard at a few special subjects. 'I began to look on the rudiments of musick, in which I afterwards arriv'd to some formal ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... the very first time in her life she had been made to feel that there was a barrier between herself and a member of her own class, and that, however willing Mrs Fanshawe might be to introduce her to a casual friend, she was unwilling to make her known to ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... faced maitre d'hotel, who presided over our portion of the room, came up smiling, with an inquiry as to our coffee. He exchanged a casual sentence or two with Mr. Parker, bowed and passed on. Mr. Parker, a moment later, with a little smile lifted the newspaper. The packet had disappeared. He noticed my look of surprise and ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... things while he served them the drinks they called for, and, in the most approvedly casual manner, put the ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... her first deliberate attempt to avoid him, an attempt that was so far successful that for the next hour she saw nothing of him beyond casual glimpses. She did not join her husband, for he resented her proximity ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... will continue to cater for men so long as they are left free to do so, but as knowledge grows their clients will tend to be limited to diseased men. Once men clearly understand that every casual connection is a risk of disease, they will certainly tend ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... picked up an education far above Gilbart's, and amazing in a common stoker. Also he wore some baffling, attractive mystery behind his reserve. Once or twice— certainly not half a dozen times—he had at a casual word pulled open for an instant the doors of his heart and given Gilbart a sensation of looking into a furnace, into white-hot depths, sudden and frightening. But what chiefly won him was the knowledge that in some perverse, involuntary and quite inexplicable ...
— The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... brought him into the house where all his weapons were stored, a numerous and exceedingly noteworthy array. Thereupon they say that the weapons shook of their own accord and gave forth a sound of no ordinary or casual sort, and then it seemed to Gizeric that there had been an earthquake, but when he got outside and made enquiries concerning the earthquake, since no one else agreed with him, a great wonder, they say, came over him, but he was ...
— History of the Wars, Books III and IV (of 8) - The Vandalic War • Procopius
... for worry. Two days later there occurred an irruption of dismaying young men with casual squares of paper in their pockets, upon which they scratched brief notes. They were, I was subsequently given to understand, the pick and flower of the city's reportorial genius. (I could imagine the ghost of Inky ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... as Mr. Lewis instructed—letting my glance finally fall in the most casual manner where he indicated. But as I did so my heart gave a great bound. Could that be Mademoiselle Pelagie? The pose of the head, the dark eyes seen dimly through the lace veil, the little ringlets in the neck, ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... catastrophe in Disillusion: love, which is life's core and kernel and epitome, the focus and quintessence of existence. A life that is without it has somehow missed its mark: it is meaningless and plotless, "a string of casual episodes, like a bad tragedy." For what, after all, is Love? Who has given an account of it? Plato's fable, which makes Love the child of Satiety and Want, or Poverty and Plenty, is a pretty piece of fancy: it is clever: ...
— Bubbles of the Foam • Unknown
... casual inquiries as to the progress of his intimacy with young Nason, all of which led Page to wonder what his object was and why it concerned him. At last, one day just at closing time, and after he had told the office boy he might go, Frye let a ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... He had been looking at himself in the mirror with a satisfaction which, to the casual observer, his appearance would not have seemed to justify. Hignett had not been suffering from a delusion. His cousin's face was black; and, even as he turned, he gave it a dab with a piece of burnt cork and made ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... casual sort of way, that there were always some hundreds of the enemy's infantry on the lookout for a passenger at this point, and that we were sure to draw a volley. Now, I had no really pressing business to persuade me onward, and I had no special liking for the prospect; but Campbell ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... by a brief newspaper notice at the residence of Mrs. Leary one afternoon on the occasion of a visit by a representative, Mrs. Frances E. Bailey of Oregon, at which six persons were present—the hostess, the guest of honor, three active members of the suffrage association and a casual guest. No business was transacted. With the "antis" should be classed the only minister who opposed suffrage, the Rev. Mark A. Mathews of the First Presbyterian Church, the largest in Seattle. He was born in Georgia but came to Seattle from Tennessee. His violent denunciations lent ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... successful; and once found, this path became familiar. The fleet of Cabral in 1500 immediately followed that of Da Gama, and, driven to the westward as it sailed to the south, discovered Brazil, as a casual incident of its successful voyage to India. Thus, if the voyage of Columbus had never been undertaken, America would have been found within less ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... in the most casual way, and I had never been in his rooms in my life, so I should not have been disappointed if he had been out. I found him, however, sitting by himself, and my first impression was that he was either very sleepy or very sad, ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... the Hindoo may be in comparison with the Lepcha, he presents a far less attractive picture to the casual observer; he comes to your camping-ground, sits down, and stares with all his might, but offers no assistance; if he bring a present at all, he expects a return on the spot, and goes on begging till satisfied. I was amused ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... a diary which Jack Sumner had kept on the former voyage, and the casual way in which he repeatedly referred to running through a "hell of foam" gave us an inkling, if nothing more, of what was coming. Our careful preparations gave us a feeling of security against disaster, or, at least, induced us to expect some degree of liberality from Fortune. We had done ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... article came sounding in among them like a great moral Dahlgren. "In the Boston Gazette of the fifth instant," the Governor, with his usual acuteness, wrote to the Secretary of State, "appeared a paper containing a system of politics exceeding all former exceedings. Some took it for the casual ravings of an occasional enthusiast. But I persuaded myself that it came out of the cabinet of the faction, and was preparatory to some actual operations against the Government. In this persuasion, I considered, that, if the troops from Halifax were to come here on a sudden, there would be ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... with an important addition to our thought upon such matters; that it is the sole formative influence I shall be better prepared to believe when I see that beauty is not regarded in Nature, but is a mere casual attendant upon use. The artist Greenough did, indeed, strenuously maintain this last. But the sloth and the bird-of-paradise are equally useful to themselves; if beauty were but an aspect of use, these should be equally comely in our eyes. No; "the struggle for life" has not grooved ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... at 20s.[110] The wages paid to the labourers for day work were 2d. a day, and we must remember that when he was paid by the day his wages were rightly higher than when regularly employed, for day labour was irregular and casual. The tenants about the same date obtained the following prices[111] ...
— A Short History of English Agriculture • W. H. R. Curtler
... women thus lose, alike in the means to fulfill their own lives and in the power to help others. A woman has a husband, she has marital relationships, she has children, she has all the usual domestic troubles—it seems to the casual observer that she has everything that constitutes a fully developed matron fit to play her proper part in the home and in the world. Yet with all these experiences, which undoubtedly are an important part of life, she may yet remain on ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... comparable to gravitation—the sole principle by which our 'ideas' and 'impressions' are combined into a whole; a theory, of course, corresponding to his doctrine of 'belief' as a mere custom of associating. Stewart uses the principle rather as Locke had done, as explaining fallacies due to 'casual associations.' It supposes, as he says, the previous existence of certain principles, and cannot be an ultimate explanation. The only question can be at what point we have reached an 'original principle,' and are therefore bound to ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... really portrays her own. Certainly, in these Memoirs she is generally content to keep herself in the background, while giving us a faithful picture of the brilliant Court at which she was for long the most lustrous ornament. It is only by stray touches, a casual remark, a chance phrase, that we, as it were, gauge her temperament in all its wiliness, its egoism, its love of supremacy, and its shallow worldly wisdom. Yet it could have been no ordinary woman that held the handsome Louis so long her captive. The fair Marquise was more than a mere leader of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... laugh and his springing step, walks cheerily to and fro in his daily work, striking the rocks here and there by the way-side with his bright steel hammer, eliciting a shower of sparks from each, and then on to the next. It is not the serious business of his life, but its casual and almost careless experiments. He does not wait to watch effects. You may gather up the brushwood and build yourself a fire, if you like. His part of the affair is but a touch and go,— partly for love and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property, of a man; like light, it can give little or nothing, but at most may show what is given; often it is but a false glare, dazzling the eyes of the vulgar, lending by casual extrinsic splendour the brightness and manifold glance of the diamond to pebbles of no value. A man is in all cases simply the man, of the same intrinsic worth and weakness, whether his worth and weakness lie hidden in the depths of his own consciousness, or be betrumpeted and beshouted ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... watch-house, where I perceived the awful representative of justice seated in an arm chair, with a good blazing fire, smoking his pipe in consequential ease. A crowd of Charleys, with broken lanterns, broken heads, and other symptoms of a row, together with several casual spectators, had gained admittance, when Jarvis entered, declaring—By G——he wouldn't be choused by any wh——re or cull in Christendom, and he would make 'em come down pretty handsomely, or he'd know the reason why: "And so please your Worship, Sir"—then turning round, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... pass in a few hours to places, once several days journey distant. Such rapid progress may perhaps be doubted, but it was sufficient to give them the appearance of ubiquity; and since they now were no longer casual but habitual robbers, the havoc and alarm they created had rather augmented, as their numbers declined. The colony, then prosperous in its general affairs, was deeply depressed by their continued outrages: shepherds would no longer tend their flocks, unless accompanied by armed ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... and the other, by holding their tongues and not thinking at all. By the first, many a smatterer acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts; by the other, many a dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of birds, comes to be considered the very type of wisdom. This, by the way, is a casual remark, which I would not, for the universe, have it thought I apply to Governor Van Twiller. It is true he was a man shut up within himself, like an oyster, and rarely spoke, except in monosyllables; but then ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... man is not a mere casual visitor at the palace-gate of the world, but the invited guest whose presence is needed to give the royal banquet its sole meaning, is not confined to any particular sect in India. Let me quote here some poems from a mediaeval poet of Western India—Jnandas—whose ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore
... never occurred up the whole length of the pole; the points of insertion forming, as might have been expected, an irregular spire. Any irregularity in the pole entirely destroyed the regularity of position of the leaves. From casual inspection, it appeared to me that the opposite leaves of Thunbergia alata were arranged in lines up the sticks round which they had twined; accordingly, I raised a dozen plants, and gave them sticks of various thicknesses, as well as string, to twine round; ...
— The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants • Charles Darwin
... flames. In order to explain this event, I must observe, that all the plains in America produce a rank, luxuriant vegetation, the juices of which are exhausted by the heat of the summer's sun; it is then as inflammable as straw or fodder, and when a casual spark of fire communicates with it, the flame frequently drives before the wind for miles together, and consumes everything it meets. This was actually the case at present; far as my eye could reach, the country was all in flames, a powerful wind added fresh fury to ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... that young man coming toward us?" said Evelyn, nodding in the direction of a tall, spare young fellow, who, with his shock of black hair, long, aquiline nose, and sensitive, thin-lipped mouth, looked decidedly temperamental, even to the most casual observer. ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... an American who has been in combat but can tell some other version of this same story, changing only the names and the surroundings. All too frequently it happens in the services—we look at a man, and because at a casual inspection we do not like the cut of his jib, or the manner of his response, or are over-persuaded by what someone else has said about him, we reach a permanent conclusion about his possibilities, and either mentally write him off, or impair our own ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... breakthroughs. But actually, as the Gesell-Young trip to Pensacola demonstrated, often more than the base commander was involved in these dramatic reforms. A week after their trip to Florida, Gesell and Young had a casual chat with Under Secretary Fay about conditions at Pensacola, particularly housing conditions, that, they claimed, had contributed to a "literally disgraceful" state of black morale, leading black sailors "almost to the point of rebellion." ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Wordsworth is aware of his frank and fearless openness in conversation. He has been beset for the last half century, not only by genuine admirers, but by the curious and idle of all ranks and of many nations, and sometimes by envious and designing listeners, who have misrepresented and distorted his casual expressions. Instances of negligent and infelicitous composition are numerous in Southey, as in most voluminous authors. Suppose some particular passage of this kind to have been under discussion, and Mr. Wordsworth to have exclaimed, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... don't you, the schoolbook classic of the noble lad who by reason of his neat dress, and by his use in the most casual conversation of the sort of language which the late Mr. Henry James used when he was writing his very Jamesiest, secured a job as a trusted messenger in the large city store or in the city's large store, ...
— A Plea for Old Cap Collier • Irvin S. Cobb
... the course of a casual conversation with Sam Kettleman, the grocer, "that wives is sometimes inconvenient and sometimes tryin' on the temper, but on the whole they're returnin' income ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... husband and wife and the feeling we have for God, that it is reasonable to consider the former also as a sacred thing. They do so value that close love of mated man and woman, they are so intent upon its permanence and completeness and to lift the dear relationship out of the ruck of casual and transitory things, that they want to bring it, as it were, into the very presence and assent of God. There are many who dream and desire that they are as deeply and completely mated as this, many more who would fain be so, and some who are. And from this ...
— God The Invisible King • Herbert George Wells
... the office he tried to look casual as he dropped the pinch bar to the floor by his feet and seated himself on the pile of rubble in the corner. He moved around to make a comfortable seat for himself and his fingers grabbed the severed neck ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison
... powerful enough. This, says Capt. Sueter, was apparently the only reason for de Son's failure, for his principles were distinctly sound, and he was certainly the first inventor of the mechanically propelled semi-submarine boat. After her failure de Son exhibited her for a trifle to any casual passer-by. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... but as parts of a larger whole held together by some central idea. The great systematic thinkers, from Plato down to Herbert Spencer, have aimed at "completely unified knowledge" and have sought to bring order and coherence into what may seem to the casual onlooker as a disunited array of phenomena. Philosophical teaching will be the more fruitful, the more it is inspired by the thought of unity of aim, and the more consciously the teachers of the different ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... McCarthy; Thomas Burt, the labor leader; Herbert Burrows, the Socialist, and Tom Mann, representing all phases of the Labor party, are cooperating with conservatives like Sir T. Eldon Gorst. But the real strength of this committee is not visible to the casual observer. As a matter of fact it represents many of the leading and most powerful British journals. A.E. Fletcher is editor of the London Daily Chronicle; P.W. Clayden is prominent in the counsels of the London Daily News; Professor James ...
— The Red Record - Tabulated Statistics and Alleged Causes of Lynching in the United States • Ida B. Wells-Barnett
... law were openly served with highballs, and laughed at the Constitution of the United States, the while they drank. Everyone at that party was loud in denunciation of Prohibition and what has come in its wake, yet went on dancing with the casual remark that it was of no consequence that they broke the law, since everyone was doing it—and everyone ...
— Nonsenseorship • G. G. Putnam
... thought Helen; but neither the cold wind, nor the rain, now drifting into her vehicle, occasioned her any sensation. It is only when the mind is at ease, that the body is delicate; all within her was too expectant of mental horrors to notice the casual inconveniences of season or situation. The cavalcade with difficulty mounted the steps of a mountainous hill, where the storm raged so turbulently that the men who carried the litter stopped, and told their lord it would be impossible to proceed in the approaching ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... privateer could check every supply from the continent, upon which it depends for fresh provisions and water, and might carry on hostile operations without the range of its batteries; which, by consequence, always exposes this garrison to contingencies and casual supply. In a commercial consideration, I view it as a possession of the greatest moment; from its contiguity to the French settlement of the Senegal, and to a large portion of that valuable district, which they claim and influence; from whence accurate information may be obtained ...
— Observations Upon The Windward Coast Of Africa • Joseph Corry
... out some one who did? For instance, you know that Mr Oliver who illustrates? I've seen his things in the Loadstar. You could ask him in a casual, off-hand manner ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... well attempt the persuasive effect of your eloquence upon a snail who has withdrawn into his shell at your approach, and will not emerge till his confidence is restored. To be told that I MUST see this, and ought to go there, because my casual neighbor was charme, has never presented itself to me as ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... so predisposed and so fitted for the study of entomology, a casual occurrence of a trivial nature was sufficient to awaken and give it direction. 'Observing accidentally, one morning, a very beautiful golden bug creeping on the sill of my window, I took it up to examine it, and finding that its ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 451 - Volume 18, New Series, August 21, 1852 • Various
... "The Expansion of England." Slight as it was, and containing no facts not already familiar, it gave a new perspective to the events of the last four centuries of British history, and made the growth of the Empire seem something not merely casual and incidental, but a vital and most significant part of the British achievement. Its defect was, perhaps, that it concentrated attention too exclusively upon the external aspects of the wonderful story, and dwelt too ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... following afternoon when Uncle John captured his casual acquaintance, Mr. Otis Werner, in the office of the hotel and dragged the motion picture man away to his rooms to be ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... to write plays, he has left a lively account of the casual meeting which led to his becoming attached to a company of players and to be for a time their playwright in ordinary. It was at a moment when his purse was empty; for as he quaintly puts it in one of his stories: "so long went the pot to the water, that at last it came broken home; and so ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... "I will be perfectly open with you. From some casual words of Monsieur de Merri at the inn at La Fleche, before we quarrelled, I was led to believe that the cause of his journey had something to do with the welfare of a lady. Afterwards when I heard whither he was bound so hastily, I remembered that. On learning at Montoire that ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... may be a risk of oversetting it on the other. Every project or a material change in a government so complicated, combined, at the same time, with external circumstances still more complicated, is a matter full of difficulties." This is not the language of a casual observer of men and manners, but of a profound politician. It is borne out by his majesty's early experience. The scheme which he adopted soon after his accession of breaking the power of the Whig ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of misery and ruin. Some persons have thought, that the many manifestations of material wealth and power which must have presented themselves to the eyes and mind of M. Ledru Rollin, even on the most casual observation, should have induced him in his character of philosoper to hesitate in deciding so hastily, and with such emphasis, that our destruction is imminent. But in our opinion there are events of everyday occurrence connected ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... of opinion, which do not merely flare up in spasmodic flames and then die down again, but burn with an accumulating ardor which can be checked and extinguished only by removing the grievances, and abolishing the unacceptable institutions which are its fuel. Casual discontent can be allayed, but agitation fixed upon conviction cannot be. To fight it is merely to augment its force. It burns irrepressibly in every public assembly; quiet it there, and it gathers head at street corners; drive it thence, and it smolders in private dwellings, in social gatherings, ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... attends elephant-shooting beyond all other sports. The size of the animal is so disproportionate to that of the hunter that the effect of a large herd of these monsters flying before a single man would be almost ridiculous could the chase be witnessed by some casual observer who was proof against the excitement of the sport. The effect of a really good elephant shot in the pursuit of a herd over open country is very fine. With such weapons as the double-barrelled No. ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... of gunshot, it is very possible he was thinking of that incident only, which doubtless would have taken a very different turn had the main body been able to come down. His wish to pursue is unquestionable, both from his assertion and from the whole character of his career before and after; and a casual remark, written ten days after the affair, shows his opinion confirmed by time. "Had our good admiral followed the blow, we should probably have done more, but the risk was thought ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... speed of a ship. In my opinion the Ebba has been travelling at the rate of from ten to eleven knots an hour. As to the direction we have been going in, it is always the same, and I have been able to verify this by casual glances at the binnacle. If the fore part of the vessel is barred to Warder Gaydon he has been allowed a free run of the remainder of it. Time and again I have glanced at the compass, and noticed that ...
— Facing the Flag • Jules Verne
... the fragments of conversations overheard,—conversations between the Superieure and Father Sebastien and certain visitors. Beyond this casual information she knew absolutely nothing of what was going on in the outer world. He misconstrued ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... in a manner that would be in harmony with the Turkish convenances. When the wives were escorted forth to be turned back to their countrymen, they were all weeping bitterly. Whether it was that the Turk in his casual manner decided that one day was as good as another, or whether he felt that he had no particular use for these particular women, we never knew, but at all events twenty-four hours later one of our patrols came upon ...
— War in the Garden of Eden • Kermit Roosevelt
... it ever been paid by an order for meal or food since then?-Not to my recollection, except it may be in the case of the applicants for casual relief, or applicants coming to me seeking relief before the meeting of the Board. In that case, sometimes, but not often, I would give an order for a little meal. I generally do that when I have not sufficient confidence in the economy of the party, and when I think the allowance may be put to ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... immediately De Vivonne and De Wilton arrived, and shortly thereafter came Sir Richard Ratcliffe and Sir Robert Brackenbury, and the talk became general. And presently Richard himself entered; and when he withdrew the Duchess went with him and the gathering broke up; and De Lacy got no more than a casual word of ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... of her own discretion, she ventured, later in the evening, to broach a subject fraught with risks. Having armed herself with a piece of embroidery, and placed the lamp between herself and the object of her diplomacy, she remarked in a casual manner: ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... to bear the impress of that special adaptation to the purposes of teaching, without which no book of this kind can fully perform the office which it assumes. The labor expended in this direction, though all unseen by the casual observer, has been neither light nor brief. It can be duly appreciated by none but ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... remedy for a crying and a growing evil is so simple that some may doubt its practical efficacy. Yet the most casual thinker must see the strength as well as the simplicity of a plan which would make skill and fidelity in service the only road to success. Self-interest, if nothing else, would stimulate our Katies and Bridgets, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... they talked about. While it was light they stared out at the blue sea or down on the rippling cane-fields, not daring to exchange more than a casual and hasty glance. Both knew that they should have separated the moment they met, but neither had the impulse nor the intention to leave the shade of the wood; and when the brief twilight fell and the moon rose, there still was Nevis, ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... after Lanier went out, and went silent but in unspeakable wrath, Paymaster Scott came dawdling in, and though but a casual visitor at the post, just back that day from a tour of the northward camps and forts along the Indian border, he saw at a glance that something had gone amiss. The colonel was laboriously waltzing; three or four couples were mechanically following suit, ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... several days before the Gorhams left Washington. To the casual observer, who might meet him even daily, no change would have been apparent in the smoothly working accurate human machine which found its exercise through his personality. His face never showed an emotion ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... reference to the model. In this connection we are reminded that he never saw Francis the First, whose likeness he notwithstanding painted with so showy and superficial a magnificence as to make up to the casual observer for the absence of true vitality;[6] that the Empress Isabella, Charles V.'s consort, when at the behest of the monarch he produced her sumptuous but lifeless and empty portrait, now in the great gallery of the Prado, was long since dead. ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips
... Middle Ages we find more specifically in Hallam; the Moors in Spain have been more vividly painted by subsequent writers, whose aim was less comprehensive: but how the imperial sway of Rome subsided into the Christian era, how a republican episode gleamed athwart her waning power in the casual triumph of Rienzi, the later emperors, and what occurred in their reign in Jerusalem and Constantinople, pass emphatically before us in the stately pages which once charmed readers of English as the model of historic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... when he saw her. "I didn't look for you to come back so soon, Cynthy. Put up the kit—hev you?" He stood in front of the fireplace staring with apparent interest at the place where the kit had been, and added in a voice which he strove to make quite casual, "How be Jethro?" ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... busy at the hospital that we did not see much of Warsaw. To the casual observer it looks a busy, modern, rather gay capital, but almost every inch of the city is interesting historically, and nearly all the pages of that history are red with blood. War, revolutions, and riots seem ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... casual manner, asked Jane to make her house her home while she remained in Edinburgh; and the invitation was accepted with the same indifferent tone of voice, which concealed great ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... whole establishment and the visits of pilgrims, as well as to place on the images of Buddha Hindu sectarian marks and other ornaments. Hindu pilgrims are still taken by their guides to venerate the Bodhi tree and, but for the presence of foreign pilgrims, no casual observer would suppose the spot to be anything but a Hindu temple of unusual construction. The same process went a step further in many shrines which had not the same celebrity and effaced all traces and memory ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... of reminding his brother-in-law of his position, he alluded two or three times in a casual fashion to his wife. The skipper hardly listened to him, and patting Miss Harris's cheek in a fatherly manner, regaled her with an anecdote of the mate's boyhood which the latter had spent a goodly portion of his life in denying. He denied it again, hotly, and Miss ...
— Lady of the Barge and Others, Entire Collection • W.W. Jacobs
... look of aroused interest, different from the casual look she had been giving him in the ...
— The Plunderer • Roy Norton
... coming thus upon Noble's ear, was like an unexpected shrine on the wayside where plods the fanatic pilgrim; and yet Mr. Patterson was the most casual of Julia's uncles-by-marriage: he neither had nor desired any effect upon her destiny. To Noble he seemed a being ineffably privileged and fateful, and something of the same quality invested the wooden gateposts in front ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... descended upon Mr. Lewisham—emotions that are unaccountable on the mere hypothesis of a casual meeting. Something was whispered; it sounded suspiciously like "It's her!" He advanced with his fingers in his book, ready to retreat to its pages if she looked up, and watched her over it. Ludibrium ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... now becomes credible to me. She kept a diary that is still in my possession, a diary of fragmentary entries in a miscellaneous collection of pocket books. She put down the texts of the sermons she heard, and queer stiff little comments on casual visitors,—"Miss G. and much noisy shrieking talk about games and such frivolities and CROQUAY. A. delighted and VERY ATTENTIVE." Such little human entries abound. She had an odd way of never writing ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... flowing store Dispense like casual alms the careless ore; Through throngs of men their lonely way they go, Let fall their costly thoughts, nor seem to know.— Not mine the rich and showering hand, that strews The facile largess of a stintless Muse. A fitful presence, seldom tarrying long, Capriciously she touches ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... principles or truths by processes of investigation and comparison. But the largest part of science is found in its method of approaching the truth as compared with religion, philosophy, or disconnected knowledge obtained by casual observation. In many ways it is in strong contrast with speculative philosophy and with dogmatic theology, both of which lack sufficient data for scientific development. The former has a tendency to interpret what is assumed to have already been established. ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... and down my narrow room, restless and unhappy. I knew that I could not long delay revealing to Penelope the paramount fact, and in revealing it to her I seemed to say that after all she was only a casual friend, that all my life's interest was bound up in Gladys Todd, and my life's ambition expressed in a room with an easel by the window, a bird's-eye-maple mantel, and around the walls a rack for odd lots of china and black-framed prints. It was hard to tell her that, but I ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... seen, down in Cornwall, which is where 'e be a-workin' in tin mines, an' when I 'eerd as 'ow 'e was p'raps a-goin' to tie hisself up in the bonds o' matterimony, I stepped out in the garden just casual like, an' if you'll believe me, I sees a magpie! Now, Mis' Deane, magpies is total strangers on these coasts—no one as I've ever 'eard tell on 'as ever seen one—an' they's the unlikeliest and unluckiest birds to come across as ever the good God created. ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... fact, the law, that your power, your high commission, is inward—vital—formative, and casual. Bring all questions of choice or duty to this test, will it work at the heart of things, among the realities and forces? Try your own life by this; remember that mere external is falsehood and death. The letter killeth. Give up all that is only of the appearance—or ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... conquest, been vested in the hands of the king by forfeiture, escheat, or otherwise. But, fortunately for the liberty of the subject, this hereditary landed revenue, by a series of improvident management, is sunk almost to nothing; and the casual profits, arising from the other branches of the census regalis, are likewise almost all of them alienated from the crown. In order to supply the deficiences of which, we are now obliged to have recourse to new methods of raising money, unknown ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... minutes alone with her because he was shrewd enough to drop in before five. No one else came until after that hour had struck. He was studiously reserved and considerate. There was nothing in his manner to indicate that he was there as anything more than the most casual sipper of the beverage that society brews. It was left for her to make ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... In 1898 Mrs. McCulloch published, in the form of a story called Mr. Lex, a resume of the terrible injustice and cruelty possible under this law; and also pointed out the same possibilities in the administration of other laws which seem entirely fair to the casual observer. It was widely reviewed by the Chicago press and aroused much interest. In the winter of 1901 a bill was passed by the Legislature giving fathers and mothers equal guardianship and custody of their minor children. Mrs. McCulloch, representing the State E. S. ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... I heard some of our boarders talking on the floor below. Opening my door and listening eagerly I heard one of them say, in such a casual tone: ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... for granted in the kindest possible manner—waived aside the matter of my abduction—affected to consider me as an afternoon caller. He introduced politics in a casual sort of way. Russia I found was the great and generous friend of Theos. Russia was pining for the friendship ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... family! But she felt that her life and honor were imperiled, and that she must use such means for her safety as circumstances offered. Mrs. Murdock impressed her as being an honest, truthful, and trustworthy woman. And Claudia wished to discover, by what should seem casual conversation with her, how much or how little truth there might be in Lord Vincent's representations of Mrs. Dugald's position ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... 1890, I was drawn into a casual debate with Mr. Eustis, of Louisiana, which extended to others, on the relations of the north and south, or, rather, between Union and Confederate soldiers. The subject before the Senate was a bill to aid the illiterate in obtaining a common school education. The chief ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... Scoti-chronicon, in which we have a more detailed account of the battle, was the work of Bower, a Lowlander who shared Fordun's antipathy to Highland customs. The Liber Pluscardensis mentions the battle in a very casual manner. It was fought between Donald of the Isles and the Earl of Mar; there was great slaughter: and it so happened that the town of Cupar chanced to be burned in the same year.[20] Bower assigns a greater importance to the affair;[21] ...
— An Outline of the Relations between England and Scotland (500-1707) • Robert S. Rait
... to reasoning, and their justness recognized in every breast. Love, grief, fear, anger, joy, all these passions have, in their turns, affected every mind; and they do not affect it in an arbitrary or casual manner, but upon certain, natural, and uniform principles. But as many of the works of imagination are not confined to the representation of sensible objects, nor to efforts upon the passions, but ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... a singular quality,—that of personal remembrance; and even at the distance of years he would recall a man to memory, even had the former acquaintance been but casual. Passing through the inn yard, his quick eye detected in the ostler a quondam stable-boy. To avoid the consequences attendant on a fair riot which had ended, "ut mos est," in homicide, the ex-groom had fled the country, and, as it was reported and believed, sought an asylum in the ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various |
