"Obtrusive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... elaboration of musical themes—the symphony has the advantage. The words, which in the oratorio serve to give definite direction to the currents of emotion, may also sometimes hamper the free development of the pure musical conception, just as in psychical life the obtrusive entrance of ideas linked by association may hinder the full fruition of some emotional state. Nevertheless, in spite of this possible drawback, it may be doubted if the higher forms of polyphonic composition fall so very ...
— The Unseen World and Other Essays • John Fiske
... Titian. To seize the salient characteristics of an artist whose glory it is to offer nothing over-prominent, and who keeps the middle path of perfection, is impossible. As complete health may be termed the absence of obtrusive sensation, as virtue has been called the just proportion between two opposite extravagances, so is Titian's art a golden mean of joy unbroken by brusque movements of the passions—a well-tempered harmony in which no thrilling note suggests the possibility ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... homeliest and most uneducated peace and simplicity. Some had come from Virginia, some from New England, and others from the island of Bermuda. They had their little assembly and their governor Stevens, their humble plantations, their modest trade, their beloved solitudes, and the plainest and least obtrusive laws imaginable. They paddled up and down their placid bayous and rivers in birch-bark canoes; they shot deer and 'possums for food and panthers for safety, they loved their wives and begat their children, they wore shirts and leggins of deerskin like the Indians, and they ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... the dates when this bunch of Greens first made their appearance in the world; but these dates we withhold, from a delicate regard to personal feelings, which will be duly appreciated by those who have felt the sacredness of their domestic hearth to be tampered with by the obtrusive ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede
... absence of those vices in which contemporary princes indulged themselves, in wanton weariness of a woman for whom he had revolutionized the kingdom, and quarrelled with half Christendom, suddenly resolved to murder her; that, instead of resorting to poison, or to the less obtrusive methods of criminality, he invented, and persuaded his council to assist him in inventing, a series of accusations which reflected dishonour on himself, and which involved the gratuitous death of five persons with whom he had no quarrel, who were attached to his court ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... was performed in deep silence. The thermometer was at 53, we being about 4,500 feet above the level of the sea. The pagazis, almost naked, walked quickly in order to keep warm, and by so doing many a sore foot was made by stumbling against obtrusive roots and rocks, and treading on thorns. At 3 A.M. we arrived at the village of Unyambogi, where we threw ourselves down to rest and sleep until dawn should reveal what else was in store for the ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... Hungarian society, speaking the languages without hesitation when she did speak, while in her quiet way keeping every one entertained, showing the art de tenir un salon, and moreover, preserving Francie from obtrusive admiration in a way perhaps learnt by experience on that more perilous subject, Angela, who had invited what Francie shrank from. The two girls were supremely happy, and Francie seemed to have a fountain of joy that diffused a rose- coloured spray ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... pretty much of Wilson's mind, who, when told of a new brown, said "I am sorry for it." Very many of our modern pictures are ruined by the violent contrasts of the asphaltum and similar browns with less obtrusive pigments. The very transparency is, in our eyes, an objection. Asphaltum, for instance, besides that it is a changeable and never thoroughly drying pigment, is too transparent for depth. It was a mistake of Gainsborough when he said that with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Mr. Everett's whole life has been a sermon from this text. There was, at least, this advantage in duelling, that it set a certain limit on the tongue. When Society laid by the rapier, it buckled on the more subtle blade of etiquette wherewith to keep obtrusive vulgarity at bay.' In this connection, I may be permitted to recall a playful remark of his upon another occasion. The painful divisions in the First Parish, A.D. 1844, occasioned by the wild notions in respect ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... schools in New York, Boston, Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, and other cities, by which is carried on an elaborate scheme of interchangeable business, little less real in its operations and results than the more tangible and obtrusive activity which ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various
... and a tribute to Miss Johnson's memory rather than a criticism, the writer will touch but lightly upon the more prominent features of her productions. Without being obtrusive, not the least of these is her national pride, for nothing worthier, she thought, could be said of ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... But at that instant his servant brought in his supper, and he went no further. My own meal was before me a minute later, and we both devoted ourselves in angry silence to our food. I was still full of resentment at his obtrusive scorn of myself and my religious party, and I could see that he felt himself mightily outraged at my retorts. From the rapid, heedless way in which he ate, I fancied his mind was busy with all ...
— The Bright Face of Danger • Robert Neilson Stephens
... collar; it was for him, in the last analysis, that they cared much the most. They cared far more about Charlie than about the ballot. Olive Chancellor wondered how Mrs. Farrinder would treat that branch of the question. In her researches among her young townswomen she had always found this obtrusive swain planted in her path, and she grew at last to dislike him extremely. It filled her with exasperation to think that he should be necessary to the happiness of his victims (she had learned that whatever they might talk about with her, it was of him and him only ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... fashion, especially where they are too poor to be polygamists, though I am of opinion that the peculiar form of domesticity which we still cultivate to some extent in England, and which is largely connected with the fireside, cannot exist in a tropical country. After the obtrusive nudity and promiscuous bathing of the Japanese, there is something specially pleasing in the little secluded bathing sheds by the Malay rivers, used by one person at a time, who throws a sarong on the thatch to show that the shed ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... largest—there were fresh flowers in a vase, evidently gathered that morning; and, what seemed still more remarkable, the pitchers and ewers were freshly filled with water. This obliged Miss Milly to notice another singular fact, namely, that the house was free from dust, the one most obtrusive and penetrating visitor of Five Forks. The floors and carpets had been recently swept, the chairs and furniture carefully wiped and dusted. If the house WAS haunted, it was possessed by a spirit who had ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... message-bearers, charioteers, and the club-armed keepers of peace. The explosion of innumerable fire-crackers round the convivial shines, The gathering together of relations who at all other times shun each other markedly. The obtrusive recollection of a great many things contrary to a spoken vow, and the inflexible purpose to be more resolute in future. These in ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... had learned to content themselves with bare necessities; a lesson which they handed down to him, simply and directly, with no inheritance of frivolity. In his world, cause and effect were in a direct line; an obtrusive odor did not translate itself into a spectral chattering of the teeth. The result was in a direct line with the cause —but their relation was often that of the match and the bonfire. Herein lay the strength of his imagination; this was why he could encompass all things ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... exerts his art T' ensnare the unsuspecting heart. The prostitute, with faithless smiles, Remorseless plays her tricks and wiles. Her gesture bold and ogling eye, Obtrusive speech and pert reply, And brazen front and stubborn tone, Show all her native virtue's flown. By her the thoughtless youth is ta'en, Impoverished, disgraced, or slain: Through her the marriage vows are broke, And Hymen proves a galling yoke. Diseases come, destruction's dealt, Where'er ...
— Cottage Poems • Patrick Bronte
... this well. She had a gentle, sweet face; her manners were neither rude nor obtrusive, and when she spoke, though her tones were low, half fearful and trembling, still were her words as kind and polite, if not kinder and politer, than those of the ...
— The Angel Children - or, Stories from Cloud-Land • Charlotte M. Higgins
... arrived on their visit only the day before: they had taken a long holiday, and had been visiting many friends. It was now about two months since their marriage, and the gowns in Minnie's trousseau began to lose their obtrusive newness: nor can it be said that her sentiments were new. They were only modified a little by her present milieu. "I suppose," she said, after an interval, "that Lady Markland will come to see me as soon as she knows I am here. Shall they have any one there for ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... need of friendly consideration; and I stand just in that relation to my new neighbours. To certain extent I am ignorant of the ways and means appertaining to the locality; and can only get enlightened through an intercourse with the older residents. But I have no right to be obtrusive, or to expect too much concession to a mere stranger. Until I am better known, I will only ask the sojourner's kindness—not the confidence ...
— The Good Time Coming • T. S. Arthur
... frequented paths But what thine own foot makes betray thine home, Stealing obtrusive ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... wind. Joan watched her spreading the butter a quarter of an inch thick upon her toast and restrained with difficulty the impulse to take it away from her. And her clothes! Joan had seen guys carried through the streets on the fifth of November that were less obtrusive. ...
— All Roads Lead to Calvary • Jerome K. Jerome
... the study of his creation. But in reading the creation itself you never need this knowledge; it never forces itself on you. The hundreds, and almost thousands, of persons who form the company of the Comedie—their frequently recurring parts adjusted with extraordinary, though by no means obtrusive or offensive, consistency to the enormous world of detail and scenery and general "surroundings" in which their parts are played—are never interfered with by the pointing-stick or the prompter. They are there; they can't help being there, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... short servitude ended. As soon as a bend in the road hid us from the house I opened my portmanteau, got out my own clothes, and, sub there, changed my raiment, putting on a quiet suit of blue, and presenting George Sampson's rather obtrusive garments (which I took the liberty of regarding as a perquisite) to Jean, who received them gladly. I felt at once a different being—so true it is that the tailor ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... though sometimes rather broad and cheap, fun. In her time decent novels were apt to be appallingly serious in tone, and not infrequently stupid; humor in spite of Addison still connoted much coarseness and obtrusive sexuality, and in fiction had to be sought in the novels written for men only. As humor is the deadly foe to sentimentalism and hysterics, the Richardson school were equally averse to it on further grounds. Fanny Burney ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... checked the progress of the gay and rich, around whose footsteps avarice had gathered an eager and jostling crowd. Rude contact with, and unsavoury odours from, the unclean multitude shocked their nervous sensibility, as they made their way to their hotels amidst obtrusive obsequiousness, while the lone outlaw's pathway lay free through the open street and uncontaminated air. But a wretched exterior has its disadvantages also. I dared not present myself at a hotel, and many of the humbler ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... heavy thing it was, that looked as if it might be hundreds of years old; he turned the lock with it and stepped in, walking down the small brick aisle, observing the ancient oaken seats, the quaint pulpit, and strange brasses; till, white, staring, obtrusive, and all out of taste, he saw in the chancel what he had come to look for, a great white marble monument, on the south side; four fluttering cherubs with short wings that appeared to hold up a marble slab, while two weeping figures knelt below. First was recorded on the ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... Luther a reformer at once. He started to purge his order of Pharisaism, and the university of the dross of Aristotle. Soon he was called upon to protest against one of the most obtrusive of the "good works" recommended by the church, the purchase of indulgences. Albert of Hohenzollern was elected, through political influence and at an early age, to the archiepiscopal sees of Magdeburg and ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... for your generous review; and it is with the sense of double content I express my gratitude, because I am now sure the tribute is not superfluous or obtrusive. You were not severe on Jane Eyre; you were very lenient. I am glad you told me my faults plainly in private, for in your public notice you touch on them so lightly, I should perhaps have passed them over, thus indicated, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... there is a nearer approach to a human figure, and the physical side is not so obtrusive. Indra is most frequently invoked of all the gods, and may be called the national god of this period. He is described as a chieftain standing in a chariot drawn by two horses. He waged a great battle, but still wages it constantly, against the monsters of heat and drought, Vrittra, the coverer, ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... some half-dozen men, transfixed by what Mr. Snodgrass called "the mild gaze of intelligence beaming from the eyes of the defenders of their country," was, however flattering, somewhat disturbing to one not naturally obtrusive. With us the salute would have been given, of course; but only by the non-commissioned officer, touching his cap. Afterwards I was on the lookout for this, and ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... that and admired the taste with which they have kept the inscription so inconspicuous as not to clash with the decoration. An obtrusive inscription in Greek characters would have spoiled the consistency ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... did not please him as well as humbler and less obtrusive places. But it was all one,—Delmonico's, the Bellevue, a stool in the Twelfth Street Market, or a German cafe on Van Buren Street. The humors of certain eating-houses gave him infinite delight. He went frequently to the Diner's Own Home, the proprietor of ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... consumed by time. The Colorado River will carry their ashes to the sea, and where they once stood will be seen gray, desert-like plateaus. Their outlines now stand out like skeletons from which the flesh has been removed—sharp, angular, obtrusive, but bound together as by ligaments of granite. The tooth of time gnaws at them day and night and has been gnawing for thousands of centuries, so that in some cases only their stumps remain. From the Temple of Isis and the Tomb of Odin ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... as well as the brain. No writer's work leaves a better taste in the mouth; he makes us think better of the world, of righteousness, of ourselves. Yet no writer is less of a Puritan or a Philistine; none writes with less of pragmatic purpose or a less obtrusive load of positive fact. He scorns such overladen pedantry, and never loses a chance to lash it. He tells us that he has "never been inside the reading-room of the British Museum," and "expounds no theory save the unworthy one that ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... acquaintances stared at them both in profound astonishment. They had heard that he had married in Sydney, and from their past knowledge of his character expected to see a loudly-attired Melbourne or Sydney barmaid with peroxided hair, and person profusely adorned with obtrusive jewelry. Instead of this they beheld a tall, ladylike girl with a cold, refined face, and an equally ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... social position of those he meets, an Englishman prudently avoids all contact with them. Men are afraid lest some slight service rendered should draw them into an unsuitable acquaintance; they dread civilities, and they avoid the obtrusive gratitude of a stranger quite as much as his hatred. Many people attribute these singular anti-social propensities, and the reserved and taciturn bearing of the English, to purely physical causes. I may admit ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... that Marget gave way and scandalized Drumtochty, which held that obtrusive prosperity was an irresistible provocation to the higher powers, and that a skilful depreciation of our children was a ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... going of the friars, too, the village people have become well used, and the infrequent excursionists, for lack of intelligence and of any knowledge that would refer to history, look at them without obtrusive curiosity. It was only from a Salvation Army girl that you heard the brutal word of contempt. She had come to the place with some companions, and with them was trespassing, as she was welcome to do, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... President Krueger, with the result that, on May 18th, President Steyn's invitation was formally accepted, and on the following day it was arranged that the Conference should begin on May 31st. Never was intervention more effective, or less obtrusive. Mr. Hofmeyr's part in the affair was confined apparently to an after-dinner conversation with the High Commissioner. Nor was the directing hand of the Master of the Bond revealed more fully until Lord Roberts's occupation of Bloemfontein placed the British authorities in possession ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... method in the web. Tight as the versifier may draw the knot of logic, yet for the ear he still leaves the tissue of the sentence floating somewhat loose. In prose, the sentence turns upon a pivot, nicely balanced, and fits into itself with an obtrusive neatness like a puzzle. The ear remarks and is singly gratified by this return and balance; while in verse it is all diverted to the measure. To find comparable passages is hard; for either the versifier is hugely the superior of the rival, or, if he be not, and still persist ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this central building, the remainder of the ancient structures having to do with the peculiar uses of the spot present a bewildering array of broken stones and marbles. An obtrusive remnant of a Byzantine church is the one discordant feature. Aside from this the precinct recalls only the distant time when the regular games called all Greece to Olympia, while the "peace of God" prevailed throughout the kingdom. Just at the foot of Kronos a long terrace and flight ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... facts, that not only the sovereign of Leaphigh, but most other sovereigns, are and ever have been, destitute of the faculty of a memory. It might be said to be incompatible with the royal condition to be possessed of this obtrusive faculty. Were a prince endowed with a memory, he might lose sight of his high estate, in the recollection that he was born, and that he is destined, like another, to die; he might be troubled with ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... is highly interesting, marked by a good sense and good taste that render her knowledge always available, but never obtrusive. Her features are regular and delicate; her figure, though inclined to embonpoint, is very graceful, and her smile, like the tones of her voice, is irresistibly sweet, and reveals teeth of rare beauty. Mademoiselle Mars, off the stage, owes none of her attractions to the artful aid of ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... materials, design, and decoration, internal as well as external, has been universally considered the most perfect which human genius ever planned and executed. Its dimensions were sufficiently large to produce an impression of grandeur and sublimity, which was not disturbed by any obtrusive subdivision of parts; and, whether viewed at a small or greater distance, there was nothing to divert the mind of the spectator from contemplating the unity as well as majesty of mass and outline; circumstances which form the first ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... our Kartabo bungalow, nor the hands which fashioned it; neither the mahogany walls hewn from the adjoining jungle, nor the white-pine beams which had known many decades of snowy winters—none of these were obtrusive. The first had passed into oblivion, the second had been seasoned by sun and rain, papered by lichens, and gnawed and bored by tiny wood-folk into a neutral inconspicuousness as complete as an Indian's deserted benab. The wide verandah was open on all sides, and from the bamboos of the front compound ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... during the night, and a clear, frosty morning breaks upon a wintry landscape, in which nothing is visible but snow. The hadji announces his intention of "Inshallah Meshed, am roos" (please God, we will reach Meshed to-day) as he covers up the obtrusive tail of a fish emerging from one of the saddle-bags and prepares to mount. I give him my packages to carry, by way of lightening my burden as much as possible for the struggle through the snow, and promise him a bottle of arrack, upon reaching ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... She did not want to listen just then. She wanted to be quiet and think out the very obtrusive financial and moral problem of getting away. She felt like Lot when he knew of the destruction to come upon the cities of the Plain. But she felt one couldn't walk out of things as Lot had walked. Only—she had to do her worrying with placid face, giving lip-service ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... attract Julia's attention, this back moved, too, and Noble's nose but pressed black cloth. And the noise everybody made was so baffling that, in order to be heard, Julia herself was shouting. Finally Noble contrived to squirm round the obtrusive back, and protruded his strained face among all ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... great question of Donatello's ears, and the mysterious influence which he retains over the animal world so long as he is unstained by bloodshed. In 'Septimius' alone, it seems to me that the supernatural is left in rather too obtrusive a shape in spite of the final explanations; though it might possibly have been toned down had the story received the last touches of the author. The artifice, if so it may be called, by which this is effected—and ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... to be satisfied with what she had in the way of looks and not to envy the insolent radiance of the fair beauties, or the tragic splendour of the dark ones. Besides, great beauty has disadvantages; it attracts attention at the wrong moment, it makes travelling troublesome, it is obtrusive and hinders a woman from doing exactly what she pleases. It is celebrity, and therefore a target for every photographing ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... passion and poetry; but its ill-construction and the unnaturalness of its situations will always prevent, and justly, its public success as a drama. It is full of pathetic and noble poetry; its main characters are clearly outlined and of a refreshing simplicity. It has few obtrusive metaphysical or intellectual subtleties—things which Browning could not keep out of his dramas, but which only a genius like Shakespeare can handle on the stage. It has real intensity of feeling, and the various passions interlock and clash together ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... have cared to be to one who had more claims upon her, necessarily placed her in embarrassment which was very likely to produce the opposite effect. The young Virginian girl could not do otherwise than receive those attentions with gratitude, and yet her very desire not to be obtrusive and not to seem to demand more attention than was necessary, placed her in an equally anomalous position. The two girls consequently became much less intimately acquainted within the first few days, than they might have done if thrown ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... subject. There is, however, one part of your public conduct which our feelings will not permit us to pass in silence: our gratitude must trespass on your modesty; we mean, worthy Sir, your whole behaviour to the Scots Distillers.—In evil hours, when obtrusive recollection presses bitterly on the sense, let that, Sir, come like an healing angel, and speak the peace to your soul which the world can neither ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... which we have all felt, which we have all known. It has been my aim to make the character of "Magdalen," which personifies this struggle, a pathetic character even in its perversity and its error; and I have tried hard to attain this result by the least obtrusive and the least artificial of all means—by a resolute adherence throughout to the truth as it is in Nature. This design was no easy one to accomplish; and it has been a great encouragement to me (during the publication of my story in ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... of this morning a publication of Gen. Adams's appears, in which my name is used quite unreservedly. For this I thank the General. I thank him because it gives me an opportunity, without appearing obtrusive, of explaining a part of a former publication of mine, which appears to me to ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... fresh and blooming. But I missed something—something the absence of which awakened a sigh of regret. Ralph was very lover-like in his deportment, fluttering about Delia, complimenting her, and showing her many obtrusive attentions. But eyes that were in the habit of looking below the surface of things, saw no heart in ...
— The Allen House - or Twenty Years Ago and Now • T. S. Arthur
... duty—Camors reflected on a strong resolution he had made to keep very cool, and to expatiate to Madame Lescande only on her husband's virtues. This pious resolve had an unfortunate effect; for Madame, whose virtue had been piqued, had also reflected; and while an obtrusive devotion had not failed to frighten her, this course only reassured her. So she gave up without restraint to the pleasure of receiving in her boudoir one of the brightest stars from the heaven of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... consolation to those who applied to him. Everyone called him "Father," a title readily admitted by all who observed his kindly manner and still, kinder speech. Father Vianney moved, slowly through the surging throng and, although he was gentleness itself, yet unabashed and obtrusive persons were now and again brought to reason by a ...
— The Life of Blessed John B. Marie Vianney, Cur of Ars • Anonymous
... refuse to clothe your cot with beauty; the tigridia bulbs rot in the ground, and your beautiful collection of irises produces a pitiful pennyworth of bloom to an intolerable quantity of leaves. But the petunias and the sweet-williams, and the balsams, and all the other ill-bred and obtrusive flowers leap promptly into life and vigor, and fight each other for the ownership of the beds. And the ever-faithful and friendly nasturtium comes early and stays late, and the limp morning-glory may always be counted upon to slouch familiarly over everything in sight, window-blinds preferred. ...
— Jersey Street and Jersey Lane - Urban and Suburban Sketches • H. C. Bunner
... much better than your superior reasoning masculine animal; and, while the gallant captain was losing himself upon her perfect lips, Miss Thankful distinctly heard the farm-gate click, and otherwise noticed that the moon was getting high and obtrusive. She half released herself from the captain's arms, thoughtfully and tenderly—but firmly. "Tell me all about yourself, Allan dear," she said quietly, making room for him on ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... silent all this time, but I had observed that his more controlled excitement was even greater than the obtrusive emotion of the clergyman. He sat with a pale, drawn face, his anxious gaze fixed upon Holmes, and his thin hands clasped convulsively together. His pale lips quivered as he listened to the dreadful experience which had befallen his family, and his dark eyes ...
— The Adventure of the Devil's Foot • Arthur Conan Doyle
... secret, harassing, and unwelcome doubt respecting the divine government of the world. It is a question which the very philosophers are not likely to settle even among themselves, but it has become very obtrusive and important. Men raise their eyebrows and shrug their shoulders when it is alluded to, instead, as of old, of pulverising the audacious questioner on the spot, or even (as would have happened at a later date) putting him into Coventry; they have no opinion to offer upon the subject, ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... the popular Doctor was a wit more popularly known, H. J. Byron—as thin as the proverbial lamp-post. Of course the stories about Byron would fill a volume, but there is one that is always worth repeating, and that is his reply to a vulgar and obtrusive stranger who met him at Plymouth, and said to him, "Mr. Byron, I've 'ad a walk hall ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... looks like a church, with a flag- staff as long as itself sticking out of a steeple something larger than a tea-chest. Under the window is a small stand of coaches, whose slave-drivers are sunning themselves on the steps of our door, and talking idly together. The three most obtrusive houses near at hand are the three meanest. On one - a shop, which never has anything in the window, and never has the door open - is painted in large characters, 'THE CITY LUNCH.' At another, which looks ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... him one of her quick glances as he reached her, and noted with distaste the extreme fieriness of his red hair in the light of the sinking sun. His hair had always been an offence to her. It was so obtrusive. But she could have borne with that alone. It was the green eyes that mocked at everything from under shaggy red brows that had originally given rise to her very decided antipathy, and these Olga found it impossible ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... Julian, "that's a compatriot of mine named Hazlet; a very good fellow, I believe, though rather obtrusive perhaps." ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... Clark intimately, casually, or by sight alone, smiled always, meeting him, and thought, "What an odd man he is!" Not that there was anything extremely or ridiculously obtrusive in Mr. Clark's peculiarities either of feature, dress, or deportment, by which a graded estimate of his really quaint character might aptly be given; but rather, perhaps, it was the curious combination of all these things that had gained for Mr. Clark the transient celebrity ...
— Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley • James Whitcomb Riley
... if in excess or if obtrusive, is an essential of the leader. His feeling is extraordinarily contagious, and the morale of the group is in his keeping. He must not show fear, or self-distrust or self-lowering in any way. He must be deliberate, but forceful, vigorous, masterful. If he has doubts, he must keep them to ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... never attacked the fowls, and were not offensive or obtrusive, but kept to their own end of the plantation furthest away from the buildings. They only came when an animal was killed for meat, and would then hang about, keeping a sharp eye on the proceedings and watching their chance. This would come when the carcass was dressed and lights and other portions ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... space Judge Menefee felt crushed, humiliated, relegated. Second place galled him. Why had this blatant, obtrusive, unpolished man of windmills been selected by Fate instead of himself to discover the sensational apple? He could have made of the act a scene, a function, a setting for some impromptu, fanciful discourse or ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... tested it; all supplies were on board, and the chronometers had been checked. All that remained was to get rid of the importunate bumboat — men who swarmed round the vessel in their little craft, each looking like a small floating shop. These obtrusive fellows were quickly sent off down the gangway: besides ourselves only my brother was left on board. Now that we were thus completely isolated from the outer world, the long-expected moment had arrived when I could proceed to inform all my comrades of my decision, now a year old, ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... and addressed to him the most offensive insults, which fairly delighted everybody, as the devil alone could be bold enough to address a Capuchin in such a manner; but the holy man, hearing himself called an obtrusive ignoramus and a stinkard, went on striking Bettina with a heavy crucifix, saying that he was beating the devil. He stopped only when he saw her on the point of hurling at him the chamber utensil which she had just seized. "If it is the devil who has offended thee with his words," she said, "resent ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... a real liking for Parmalee. He was suave, polished and deferential. His attentions gallant without being obtrusive, and his geniality and culture made him a very ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... erroneous idea of the appearance of the carriage, we again advert to its upholstery in silk-velvet orange-tinted; to the cushions covering the seat; to the lace curtaining the windows in a manner to permit view from within while screening the occupant from obtrusive eyes without; and to the elaborate decoration of the exterior, literally a mosaic of vari-colored woods, mother-of-pearl and gold, the latter in lines and flourishes. In fine, to such a pitch of gorgeousness had the Prince designed ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... it was all well with Quintus Cicero; but I can see also that, when Caesar prevailed, it was occasionally a matter of doubt with Quintus whether his brother should not be abandoned among other things which were obtrusive and vain. He could not quite do it. His brother compelled him into propriety, and carried him along within the lines of the oligarchy. Then Caesar fell, and Quintus saw that the matter was right; but Caesar, though he fell, did not altogether fall, and therefore ...
— The Life of Cicero - Volume II. • Anthony Trollope
... no way obtrusive, or gushing in his attentions, Mr. Gregory was most thoughtful and kind, and few women are without appreciation of conduct ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... me, with the request, that I should review it, and make "candid remarks" upon it; and, that you have thus put it in my power to send to the South some of my views on slavery, without laying myself open to the charge of being discourteous and obtrusive. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... your being at that hospital;' and a burning blush spread over the pale cheek, and made Tom shrink, start, and feel guilty of having touched the chord of obligation, connected with that obtrusive pledge of his. Above all, however, to repress emotion was his prime object; and he calmly answered, 'It was a good Providence that brought any one ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... for evil. In a strawberry, we think only of the fruit; in a hawthorn, or the flowers; in a deadly nightshade, of the poisonous berry; and in a nettle, of the sting. Now, I frankly admit at the present moment that the nettle sting has an obtrusive and unnecessarily pungent way of forcing itself upon the human attention; but it does not sum up the whole life-history of the plant in its own one peculiarity for all that. The nettle exists for its own sake, we may be sure, and not merely for the sake of occasionally inflicting ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... the Norman conquest influenced Scotland only less profoundly than England itself. In the case of Scotland it was less immediate and obtrusive, but in its totality it is a fact of the first importance in ...
— Sutherland and Caithness in Saga-Time - or, The Jarls and The Freskyns • James Gray
... and not from the champagne. Perhaps I shall do well to say that on questions of right and wrong he had a will of iron. All his life he moved resolutely in whichever direction his conscience pointed; and, although that ever present and never obtrusive conscience of his made mistakes of judgment now and then, as must all consciences, I think it can never once have tricked him into any action that was impure or unclean. Some critics maintain that the heroes and heroines of his books are impossibly pure and innocent young people. R. H. D. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis
... story and the characters in the author's mind. Such plays are most of M. Brieux's; such plays are Mr. Galsworthy's Strife and Justice. The French plays, in my judgment, suffer artistically from the obtrusive predominance of the theme—that is to say, the abstract element—over the human and concrete factors in the composition. Mr. Galsworthy's more delicate and unemphatic art eludes this danger, at any rate in Strife. We do not ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... heard by the child that excited the merriment of the family when once repeated by him, were rehearsed times without number in a laughing, roguish, obtrusive manner, thus, du liebe Zeit. The child also calls out the name of his nurse, Marie, often without meaning, over and over again, even in the night. He calls others also by this name in manifest distraction of mind, often ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... the more sedate dances, because of that obtrusive tendency of the red sham to her skirt, Sissy was able to chaperon her senior all the more effectively at Crosby Pemberton's party. Irene danced like a thing whose vocation is motion. She was a twig in a rain-storm, a butterfly seeking sweets, a humming-bird whose ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... college we have little to do, but a few notes we must make now that she has reached her sophomore year. She had never known girls until she went to college and she had been the shyest of freshmen, the least obtrusive ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... politeness which was becoming an amiable, a virtuous and an accomplished female, on the first interview with a young man, to whom she had never given one thought before; but it was very flattering to me to find that those attentions were not considered obtrusive or disagreeable. I perceived that my father sat upon thorns, and that he was very much pleased to find that the young ladies declined the invitation of my sister to remain all night, although I added my intreaties to those of my sister, and this too in so earnest a manner, that my father ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... natures. The elaborateness of the German prince—an elaborateness which has been justly and happily compared with that of Goethe—was wholly alien to the half-Irish, half-English, statesman. The somewhat boisterous courage in minor dangers, and the obtrusive use of an always effectual but not always refined, commonplace, which are Lord Palmerston's defects, doubtless grated on Prince Albert, who had a scholar's caution and a scholar's courage. The facts will be known ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... put it to himself this way. There are birds—for instance, jays, kingfishers, goldfinches—which are, taken absolutely, extremely brilliant in colouring. Yet they do not jar, are not obtrusive. So it was with her. Her dress was, perhaps, taken absolutely, indecorous. Upon her it looked at once seemly and beautiful. Upon Bessie Prawle it would have been glaring; but one had to dissect it before one could discover any fault with it upon its wearer. She was very pale, ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett
... perpendicular; musicians—inventors of new instruments; savans in the style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains contained a little of everything, but where nothing could be found by reason of the disorder and the dust. It was sad to see them; and if their insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive as their bushy heads, their offensive pride and pompous manners, had not given one an inclination to laugh, their half-starved air and the feverish glitter of eyes that had wept over so many lost illusions and disappointed hopes, would ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... diversified by general conversation. Often they spoke about Zillah, but very seldom was it that they went beyond this. Miss Krieff showed no desire to speak of the subject which they once had touched upon, and Gualtier was too cunning to be obtrusive. So the weeks passed by without any renewal of that confidential conversation in ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... of woman! I suppose it has been developed like a cat's whiskers to supply the deficiency of a natural scent. Also, like the whiskers, it is obtrusive, and a matter for much irritatingly complacent pride. Judith regarded me with a mock magisterial air, and I was put into ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... agency in statecraft, bent every faculty to inspire confidence in the new Administration. Mrs. Davis herself was not the least of the factors that made the President's policy the creed of the land. There was no elaboration of costume—no obtrusive jewels. The most richly dressed dame in the company was a Madame Gannat, the deity of the most charming drawing-room at the capital. At her house society was always sure to meet the European noblemen ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... at the outset is enough to ruin a newcomer. It is the principal merit of fine manners and the highest breeding that they produce the effect of a harmonious whole, in which every element is so blended that nothing is startling or obtrusive. Even those who break the laws of this science, either through ignorance or carried away by some impulse, must comprehend that it is with social intercourse as with music, a single discordant note is a complete negation of the art itself, for ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... into seclusion behind the curtains, with which she had screened off the alcove and so made herself an improvised dressing room. The rest of the apartment she had altered to look as much like a sitting room as possible, with the exception of the obtrusive four-poster, which could not be hidden and which upon entering appeared the most salient feature visible. There was some tawdry jewellery lying about, and several pairs of the pale-hued Parisian boots she invariably affected. Emile made and lighted the inevitable ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... was that he should be looked upon and addressed as a gentleman, and for that purpose she encouraged him to associate with those only whose rank and position in life rendered any assumption of equality on his part equally arrogant and obtrusive. In his own family his bearing towards his parents was, in point of fact, the reverse of what it ought to have been. He not only treated his father with something bordering on contempt, but joined his mother in all ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... female form enveloped in a loosely flowing dress of virgin whiteness. The air was cool and serene, and except the rustling of the surrounding foliage, when agitated by the breeze, or the soft plaintive voice of the nightingale, no obtrusive sound disturbed the solemn silence. The blue vault of heaven, glittering with countless stars, the rich perfume flung around by the orange flower and jasmine, and a stilly languor that pervaded the spot, all disposed the mind to gentle and ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... exasperation against the Duc d'Orleans; and the great cause of a new and, though less obtrusive, yet perhaps an equally dangerous foe under all the circumstances, in Madame de Genlis. The anonymous slander of the one was circulated through all France by the other; and spleen and disappointment feathered the venomed arrows ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... perceived his form drawn up in the empty space at the left of the door, it was not until she had passed him and flung herself into a chair, that I thought to look in his direction. Then it was too late, for he had turned his face aside and was gazing with rather an obtrusive curiosity at the old-fashioned room, murmuring, as he did so, some such commonplaces ...
— The Forsaken Inn - A Novel • Anna Katharine Green
... the capacity for binding time; and so he had to grope. It is not strange that he was puzzled by himself. It is not strange that he thought himself an animal; for he has animal propensities as a cube has surfaces, and his animal propensities were so obtrusive, so very evident to physical sense—he was born, grew, had legs and hair, ate, ran, slept, died—all just like animals—while his distinctive mark, his time-binding capacity, was subtle; it was spiritual; it was not ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... came down with sunny greetings, fearless, trustful, never obtrusive. They looked innocently into human faces and pretended that they did not see the irritation there. "Tsic a dee. I wish I could help. Perhaps I can. Tic a dee-e-e?"—with that gentle, sweetly insinuating ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... pleased to see him, and had greeted him with that look of indescribable meaning which had charmed him that other evening on the Corso. He could not continue gazing at her without making himself obtrusive or attracting attention; and, feeling the incense-laden gloom of the cathedral atmosphere intolerable, he had come outside into the free, fresh air, where his thoughts could wander in undisturbed harmony with the beauty of his ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... ever, in the long afternoon, so full of warmth and fragrance and murmurous sound? That is the joy of art, of the symbol—that it remains and rests within itself, in a world that seems, for a moment, more real and true than the clamorous and obtrusive world we move in. ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... temperance, that there is seldom any thing of hollowness or insolidity in the result. Except in some of his earlier plays, written before he had found his proper strength, and before his genius had got fairly disciplined into power, there is nothing ambitious or obtrusive in his idealizing; no root of falsehood in the work, as indeed there never is in any work of art that is truly worthy the name. Works of artifice are a very different sort of thing. And one, perhaps the main, secret of Shakespeare's ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... Nobleman, whose remittances have been stopped by the war, is reminiscent of the original yearner for the idyllic life. "Is supposed to be of good appearance," he states with obtrusive modesty. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... play. A very few simple sets suffice for the plays of peasant life, a cottage interior, a village street, a crossroads in a gap of the hills, all to serve the action and the words as background, and to be no more obtrusive than the background of a portrait. It may be that this attitude of Mr. Yeats is in a measure due to his talks with Mr. Gordon Craig, but it is equally true, I think, that some of Mr. Gordon Craig's ideas are due in part to his talks with Mr. Yeats. Equally simple, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... intense stain and a drop of powerful scent into a large tank of distilled water, you change the superficial character of the water, make it seem to be other than what it is. But it remains essentially a tank full of water, now containing an obtrusive trifle of alien matter in addition to the hydrogen and oxygen that decide its most significant properties. That is what the Challon did to Homer—he released the potential, then accidentally but indelibly stained ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... he had patted as he had led it, thus winning a smile from her. And he couldn't help thinking that she remembered it too, and knew that he would do anything in the world for her. But when he began to saddle his own nag ("of Berold's begetting")—not meaning to be obtrusive—she stopped him by a finger's lifting, and a small shake of the head. . . . Well, he lifted her on the palfrey and set the Gipsy behind her—and then, in a broken voice, he murmured that he ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... approach, past the neat, obtrusive offices of the coal merchant and the house agent, and so to the wicket-gate by the butcher's shop that led to the field path to her home. Outside the post-office stood a no-hatted, blond young man in gray flannels, who was elaborately affixing a stamp to a letter. At the sight of her ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... his greatest aids. Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of the landscapes of Titian, of Salvator, and of Claude, says: "Even their skies seem to sympathise with their subjects." I have often been advised to consider my sky as "a white sheet thrown behind the objects." Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse; it must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition. It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... missed in these beautiful chambers—the usual obtrusive, caressed and pampered pet animal of a great lady. No paroquet, no monkey, no little, silken-haired lap-dog, no St. Bernard or Newfoundland dog, no cat, not even a little canary bird, was to be met with; and not a single flower, real or artificial, ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... of New Year's Eve was a memorable one for me. My first novel was accepted. Not an ambitious volume. It was rather short, and the plot was not obtrusive. The sporting gentlemen who accepted it, however—Messrs. Prodder and Way—seemed pleased with it; though, when I suggested a sum in cash in advance of royalties, they displayed a most embarrassing coyness—and also, as events ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... soiled and torn condition of the paper, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D——, and so suggestive of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of the worthlessness of the document; these things, together with the hyper-obtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to which I had previously arrived—these things, I say, were strongly corroborative of suspicion, in one who came with the intention ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... more upon the track of Raffles and his ill-gotten gains! And once more I blamed Raffles himself: his warning had come too late: he should have wired to me at once not to take the box to the bank at all. He was a madman ever to have invested in so obvious and obtrusive a receptacle for treasure. It would serve Raffles right if that and no other was the box which had been broken into ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... here, indeed, approaches the allegorical form, in the obtrusive, untempered predominance of the qualities represented, so overdone as to wear the air of a caricature, though the historical combination is still here. These diagrams are alive evidently; they are men, and not allegorical spectres, or toys, though ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... From all that teaches brotherhood to Man Far, far removed! from want, from hope, from fear! Enchanting music lulled your infant ear, 10 Obeisance, praises soothed your infant heart: Emblazonments and old ancestral crests, With many a bright obtrusive form of art, Detained your eye from Nature: stately vests, That veiling strove to deck your charms divine, 15 Rich viands, and the pleasurable wine, Were yours unearned by toil; nor could you see The unenjoying toiler's misery. And yet, free Nature's uncorrupted ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... gradually taking concrete form. It had not assumed much importance when the two friends were first discussing their trip, but now that they were actually at grips with the affair it was becoming more obtrusive, and Merriman felt it must be ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... Continued prosperity might develope too much a certain germ of ambition latent in your character. I saw this little germ putting out green shoots when I was staying with you at Hathersage. It was not then obtrusive, and perhaps might never become so. Your good sense, firm principle, and kind feeling might keep it down. Holding down my head does not suit my toothache. Give my love to your mother and sisters. Write again as soon as may ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter |
