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Afterthought   Listen
noun
Afterthought  n.  
1.
Reflection after an act; later or subsequent thought.
2.
An action taken after another action and related to the first action, which would normally or optimally be done along with the first action; as, to do something as an afterthought.
3.
A feature or part added to a device, not thought of in its original design.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Afterthought" Quotes from Famous Books



... our new plan after dinner," said Grace. Then as an afterthought she added: "Don't say anything about it at the table. Suppose we keep it a secret until our society is ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... of Arjamand's tomb is that of her lord and lover, its location proving that it was placed there obviously from necessity and as an afterthought. It is a span larger than his consort's stone, and occupies nearly all the space allowed by the position of the grilled inclosure—but is a sentimentally fitting ...
— East of Suez - Ceylon, India, China and Japan • Frederic Courtland Penfield

... Pavilion upon the centennial grounds was an afterthought, as theologians claim woman herself to have been. The women of the country, after having contributed nearly one hundred thousand dollars to the centennial stock, found there had been no provision made ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... girl, Min was," said Mr. Hines firmly, though, it might appear, a trifle inconsequentially: "I don't care what they say. Anyway, after I met up with her"; in which qualifying afterthought lay a whole sorrowful ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... tail, queue, train, wake, trail, rear; retinue, suite; appendix, postscript; epilogue; peroration; codicil; continuation, sequela^; appendage; tail piece [Fr.], heelpiece^; tag, more last words; colophon. aftercome^, aftergrowth^, afterpart^, afterpiece^, aftercourse^, afterthought, aftergame^; arriere pensee ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget

... the family the better. But," he added, as an afterthought, "I'll have to tell Ruth, or she'll be trying to marry you off. ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach

... to detect attitudes and affectation than we are apt to imagine; and Cissy could distinguish a certain other straying in this afterthought or moral of the preacher called up by her presence, and knew that it was not the real interest which the view had evoked. She had heard that he had been a sailor, and, with the tact of her sex, answered with what she thought would ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... Sconda. Look after him yourself, and see that he gets a good bite of grass. And, Sconda," she added, as if an afterthought, "you will be sure to go with the men ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... over the furnace in the kitchen, and some idle painter, who has stored his canvases and washed his brushes, jangling a waltz on the crazy, tongue-tied piano in the salle-a- manger. 'Edmond, encore un vermouth,' cries a man in velveteen, adding in a tone of apologetic afterthought, 'un double, s'il vous plait.' 'Where are you working?' asks one in pure white linen from top to toe. 'At the Carrefour de l'Epine,' returns the other in corduroy (they are all gaitered, by the way). 'I couldn't do a thing to it. I ran out of white. Where were you?' 'I wasn't working. I was ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson

... we ought to go. Or else," he added in an afterthought with the expression of a martyr, "or else I ought to go and take ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various

... said, in a voice much weaker than his usual tone. Then he added as an afterthought, "The gorge is chock full of color. Just git a holt on that handkerchief in my pea-jacket and open it. Say, handle ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... a clergyman's widow to render some secretarial service, and the ambitious Mrs. Badger had applied, duly weeded. Meanwhile the elderly Lady T. had seen her fiance and with the young person in pink, and it was a brilliant and base afterthought to bribe the clergyman's widow to claim the girl as her long-missing daughter (invented). Both the young Lord and the young person, too much in love perhaps to be critical, accept the situation; but you haven't quite got Mrs. Badger if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various

... I am sure I can do all that you want. And I should like to go to London with you. One hears such fine tales of London—and I don't want to leave mistress and you." Though this was evidently an afterthought. ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... the gracious threat, no doubt called up some sad thought, some memory of the old happy time when she could be wholly charming and gentle without an afterthought; when the gladness of her heart justified every caprice, and put charm into every least movement. The lines in her forehead gathered between her brows, and the expression of her face grew dark in the soft candle-light. Then looking ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac

... man nothing forswear, For resolution yields to afterthought. Little I looked hither to come again, So pelted with the hailstorm of thy threats. But the good fortune that surpasses hope Is of all pleasant things the pleasantest; And so I come in spite of all my oaths, And bring with ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith

... engaged in the requested task Davy took hasty survey of the surroundings. The stables and house were of the same architecture: rambling log structures that seemed to have been erected after many an afterthought. The front door of the house was open. Landy closed it, and circled the house to see that all other openings were closed. He then mounted and motioned Davy to follow the bulls to water. Here, Landy circled the cows and calves. "Thar's twenty-six of 'em," he commented, "en ye ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney

... shade decorated with an extremely sinuous wreath of morning glories trailing around the lower rim. A clatter of pots and pans told that Riley was washing his "cookin' dishes" in the lean-to kitchen that had been added to the house as an afterthought, the fall before. Belle had finished her dessert of hot mince pie, and leaned back now with a freshly lighted cigarette poised in ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... empty form which it seems always to have been within historical times. The rite was sometimes interpreted as a commemoration of the expulsion of the kings from Rome; but this appears to have been a mere afterthought devised to explain a ceremony of which the old meaning was forgotten. It is far more likely that in acting thus the King of the Sacred Rites was merely keeping up an ancient custom which in the regal ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... some kind of service, and winning by her unselfish love the enthusiastic admiration of the people. In the same spirit of exalted self-annihilation, she longed for martyrdom, and courted death. There was not the smallest personal tie or afterthought of interest to restrain her in the course of action which she had marked out. Her personal influence seems to have been immense. When she began her career of public peacemaker and preacher in Siena, Raymond, her biographer, says that whole families devoted to vendetta were ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... spring had put forth the tender and lively colours of the season. Even in the unchanging face of the death-stone, changes were to be remarked; and in the channeled lettering, the moss began to renew itself in jewels of green. By an afterthought that was a stroke of art, she had turned up over her head the back of the kerchief; so that it now framed becomingly her vivacious and yet pensive face. Her feet were gathered under her on the one side, and she leaned on her bare arm, which showed out strong and round, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of renown that comes to his sovereign, his language, his countrymen's art or science, his dietary, or his God. There are no sordid motives in all this. These spiritual assets of self-complacency are indeed to be rated as grounds of high-minded patriotism without afterthought." (The ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman

... are freely discussed. After coffee and smoking the question of purchase is gradually approached; not abruptly, as that would involve a loss of dignity; but circumspectly, as if the buying of anything were a mere afterthought. Maybe, after half an hour, the customer has indicated what he wants, and after discussing the quality of the goods, the customer asks the price in an off-hand way, as though he were not particularly interested. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... to? Virginia paced the floor in a very unloverlike mood; and at last she sat down and wrote a scathing letter to the assayer, demanding her assay at once. She also enclosed one dollar in advance to test the sample for gold and silver and then, as an afterthought, she enclosed another bill and told him to test it for copper, lead, and zinc. There was something in that rock—she knew it just as well as she knew that Wiley was in love with her, and this was no time to pinch dollars. For ten years and more they had stuck there in Keno, waiting and ...
— Shadow Mountain • Dane Coolidge

... his only comfort. Then, as an afterthought, he said, "You'd better wear my spurs; they'll help to impress him. A clink of spurs will make ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett

... law-abiding were disarmed and those who scattered and refused to give up their weapons were at large, how could the States preserve the peace? To this point Sherman said he attached most importance. This was not an afterthought when defending his action; he wrote it to Grant in the letter transmitting the terms when they were made. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xlvii. pt. iii. p. 243.] The same thought was forced home on the Confederates by their experience at the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... double-bitted axes and one pole axe, two brush hooks, three mowing scythes, a hatchet, a meat cleaver, half a dozen knives, both long and short—to say nothing of a drawing knife, some chisels and planes, which were added to the pile as an afterthought. ...
— Hidden Treasure • John Thomas Simpson

... the vicinity of my feet: "II vous faut prendre la douche"—I stared stupidly. The spectre was poised before me; its averted eyes contemplated the window. "Take your bath," it added as an afterthought, in English—"Come with me." It turned suddenly. It hurried to the doorway. I followed. Its rapid deadly doll-like hands shut and skillfully locked the doors in a twinkling. "Come," its ...
— The Enormous Room • Edward Estlin Cummings

... is an afterthought of mine too. I left a note to explain it, and account for my not being able to meet you this evening as ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy

... recognised. He spoke of it indeed as of some fabled planet, alien to the British orbit, lately proclaimed to have the admixture of atmospheric gases required to support animal life, but not, save under cover of a liberal afterthought, to be admitted into one's regular conception of things. I, for my part, felt nothing but regret that the spheric smoothness of his universe should be disfigured by the extrusion even of such inconsiderable particles ...
— A Passionate Pilgrim • Henry James

... know the house I want," he said. "Carville's the name. I," he added as if in an afterthought, "am Mr. Carville." And he looked at us gravely, apparently unaware of the turmoil of curiosity which ...
— Aliens • William McFee

... it you do—and I'll be better off," he said. And then as an afterthought he added: "Gulden might not think you—a white elephant on his hands!... Remember his way, the cave ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey

... capital purposed and planned Madrid is very well indeed. It has not the symmetry which forethought gave the topography of Washington, or the beauty which afterthought has given Paris. But it makes you think a little of Washington, and a great deal of Paris, though a great deal more yet of Rome. It is Renaissance so far as architecture goes, and it is very modern Latin; so that it is of the older and the newer Rome that ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells

... up tea here, Champion,' she said, 'and some tea-cake—you like tea-cake of course,' she said to Mark, with something of afterthought. 'Mother and Mabel are out, calling or something,' she added, 'so we shall be quite alone. And now sit down there in that chair and tell me everything you know ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey

... eagerly and vehemently, with an almost convulsive caress. Pauline drew her hands away, laid them on Raphael's shoulders, and drew him towards her. They understood one another—in that close embrace, in the unalloyed and sacred fervor of that one kiss without an afterthought—the first kiss by which two souls take possession ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac

... "nobody would guess it. Then understand this: You are headman of askaris. You take the orders: you report to me—or the memsahib," he added, almost as an afterthought. "To-morrow morning fall in, and I will ...
— The Leopard Woman • Stewart Edward White et al

... is an afterthought, having been written to provide a part for Mme. de Caylus, a niece of Mme. de Maintenon. It is never spoken on the stage, and rarely, if ever, read in French schools. It is here given for the sake ...
— Esther • Jean Racine

... take you to town," said Landers, simply, as he led the way toward his wagon. He then added, as an afterthought: "If you're tired and prefer, you may stay ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge

... "What a woman says doesn't amount to shucks. It's the way she says it—that's what counts. Besides," he cried in a brilliant afterthought, "she wouldn't tell you, ...
— The Third Violet • Stephen Crane

... increase of dignity to the university with which he is connected. He is appointed upon his merits as a discoverer or an author. The further consideration—namely, whether he is what we Americans style a "good teacher"—was not so much as an afterthought in the minds of those who gave him his call. The explanation of this disregard of the personal element in the professorial character is obvious. The professor is not called upon to teach. It does not constitute any part of his vocation to spur ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... As an afterthought, he got up, found a pencil and paper with the hotel's name stamped on them in gold and came back to the chair. Clearing the ashtray aside, he put the paper on the table and divided the paper into three vertical columns with the pencil. He headed the first one Method, ...
— Occasion for Disaster • Gordon Randall Garrett

... the assumption was a safe one," said the priest, smilingly, "unless," he added on afterthought, "it be by way of a genial profanity. There used to be some old Clare men who said 'Hell to my soul!' when they missed at quoits, but I haven't heard it for a long time. I daresay they're ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic

... paper on which he had written the address of the Art Students' League, and, as an afterthought, his ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers

... have asked me if you hadn't been going. And it was only an afterthought then. If I hadn't gone on for that last hour it ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond

... solemn, "haven't time. I'm going to take Marsh and the SPRITE and go to town. Old Heinzman," he added as an afterthought, "is stringing ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White

... as calm reflection as it was possible for Mrs. Lane to make brought her to the resolution to leave the house at all hazards. Where she was to go, was to be an afterthought. The greatest evil was to remain; after escaping that, she would consider the means of avoiding what followed. Putting on her bonnet and shawl, and taking her basket, she went down-stairs with her child, determined, if possible, to get away unobserved, ...
— Married Life; Its Shadows and Sunshine • T. S. Arthur

... is Merrington," responded that officer, answering for himself. "Superintendent Merrington, of Scotland Yard. This is Mr. Colwyn, a private detective," he added, as an afterthought. "I wish to ask you a few questions. I understand you were staying at the residence of Sir Philip Heredith when young ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... atmosphere had been allowed to settle a little, "is something to which we shall have to devote a little thought. If Mr. Cowperwood should fail, and the treasury lose that much money, it would embarrass us no little. What lines are they," he added, as an afterthought, "that this man ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser

... thrown was due to a still more accidental circumstance, i.e., Scott's overhearing Sir John Stoddard recite a fragment of Coleridge's unpublished poem "Christabel." The placing of the story in the mouth of an old harper fallen upon evil days, was a happy afterthought; besides making a beautiful framework for the main poem, it enabled the author to escape criticism for any violent innovations of style, since these could always be attributed to the rude and wild school of poetry to which the harper was supposed to belong. ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... and discussion following the service was an afterthought. The audiences steadily grew. It was and is the most cosmopolitan audience I ever saw. I wanted to get acquainted with the people and suggested a sort of reception in the chapel. The ladies of ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine

... never been in a place where there are so many points of vantage to look down from. In the matter of position Amboise is certainly supreme among the old houses of the Loire; and I say this with a due recollection of the claims of Chau- mont and of Loches, - which latter, by the way (ex- cuse the afterthought), is not on the Loire. The plat- forms, the bastions, the terraces, the high-perched windows and balconies, the hanging gardens and dizzy crenellations, of this complicated structure, keep you in perpetual intercourse ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James

... his beard thoughtfully, "I suppose that we shall;" adding, by way of an afterthought, "Are you glad ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... Then dark afterthought interposed. It crept like a cloud across her abandoned face. It brought about a change so prompt that ...
— Never-Fail Blake • Arthur Stringer

... Quilliam," said Caesar. Then, as if by an afterthought, "You're an ould friend of mine, Thomas; a very ould friend, Tom—I'll ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... said Mrs. Hilbrough, "and for Phillida to throw away such prospects, and such opportunities for usefulness"—she added this last as an afterthought, taking her cue from Mrs. Frankland—"seems to me ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston

... take a great interest in it," Anna answered Sviazhsky, who was expressing his surprise at her knowledge of architecture. "This new building ought to have been in harmony with the hospital. It was an afterthought, and was ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy

... Such juggling follows sensual indulgence such as drunkenness, when it becomes habitual and audacious, as in the preceding woe. Loose or perverted codes of morality generally spring from bad living, seeking to shelter itself. Vicious principles are an afterthought to screen vicious practices. The last subject of the triple woes is self-conceit and pretence to superior illumination. Such very superior persons are emancipated from the rules which bind the common herd. They are so very clever that they ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren

... he said, divining the desperate purpose of the other; adding, as an afterthought: "and if you should, you wouldn't have the courage to use it. That is the fatal lack in your makeup. It is what kept you from taking the train last night with the money belt which you emptied this morning. You'll never make a successful criminal; it ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde

... It must make you terribly unhappy." Morrow paused, and then added, as if in afterthought: "Perhaps when we tell your father that we care for each other, that when I have proved myself you are going to be my wife, he may confide in me—that is, if he is willing to give you to me. You know, dear, it is easier sometimes for a man to talk to another of his private worries, than to a ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... many a story about Aros, as I used to hear from my uncle's man, Rorie, an old servant of the Macleans, who had transferred his services without afterthought on the occasion of the marriage. There was some tale of an unlucky creature, a sea-kelpie, that dwelt and did business in some fearful manner of his own among the boiling breakers of the Roost. A mermaid had once met a piper ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... from wool gathering, he curtly declined the offer, and, as an afterthought, bestowed upon her a wholly mechanical smile, in recognition of a ...
— Between Friends • Robert W. Chambers

... Gallio may deign to be diverted—especially if in using it the air is found to be full of coincidences. The story of the book is already alluded to, as odd. The inquisitive reader may be referred to "certain copies only." Therein, "inserted by Afterthought on the Author's part" (and therefore in a mere fraction of whatever represented the extremely small edition of the work), may be sought the "Prefatory Explication, made for the Benefit of My Friends, Male and Female." ...
— The Square of Sevens - An Authoritative Method of Cartomancy with a Prefatory Note • E. Irenaeus Stevenson

... into tiny squares the card he had sent up. Presently, as at an afterthought, she collected all the fragments and placed them in a heap on ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers

... fag of burying the swag?" said Tommy once they were safe within the shelter of The Cedars gates. "Let's take it to one of your bedrooms. Besides," he added; as if this were quite an afterthought, as indeed it was, "I don't want to spoil the things, and burying them might damage the miniatures. Let's shove them into a drawer in your room. Better go on first, Jack, and see ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler

... hoping that some chance exclamation, or even perhaps an answer, might give her curiosity the food it longed for. But Margaret read and reread the note, and tore it up into very small pieces, thoughtfully; and, as an afterthought, she burned them one by one over a wax taper till nothing was left. Then she sent her maid away and fell to thinking. But that did not help her much; and the warm sun stole through the windows, and the noise ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford

... near the end of the term, though," she added casually, as an afterthought, "that maybe you had better wait until next ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates

... substance of what she said, although she did not put it quite so neatly. Then, as though by an afterthought, she asked when her cousin Jules, a young notary of Berne, was ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... Culture inverts the vulgar views of nature, and brings the mind to call that apparent, which it uses to call real, and that real, which it uses to call visionary. Children, it is true, believe in the external world. The belief that it appears only, is an afterthought, but with culture, this faith will as surely arise on the mind as ...
— Nature • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... all right, though," Banks replied, and added as an afterthought, "The old man may be a bit upset. I want to persuade 'em all to come out to Canada, you see. There's a chance there. Mother would come like a shot, but I'm afraid the old man'll ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... of strength, and vigour, and will, and steadfast resolution. From the short black hair above the broad forehead, to the long black beard descending below the curt, bold chin, there was not any curve or glimpse of weakness or of afterthought. Nothing playful, nothing pleasant, nothing with a track of smiles; nothing which a friend could like, and laugh at him for having. And yet he might have been a good man (for I have known very good men ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore

... David climbed up to the ledge, bringing with him the coil of rope and the hatchet. As an afterthought he had added a paper bag full ...
— David and the Phoenix • Edward Ormondroyd

... flat. Laramie gets hot sometimes and this is one of the times for folks to go slow. If you want to talk to Laramie come along up to the shack. But send them longhorns over there down to the creek," he added, as an afterthought and in the bluntly candid tone of appeal that ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman

... the best civilization the border had, his father being wealthy. He became very rich himself, and, despite his savage instincts, which were always strong, his wealth, in land and slaves, made him a conservative. At first he favored a war with the whites, but a calmer afterthought led him to desire peace, and when he found that the tempest he had helped to stir up would not subside at his bidding, he began casting about for a way of escape. He was a man of unquestionable genius; a soldier of rare strategic ability; an orator of the truest sort, and his courage in danger ...
— The Big Brother - A Story of Indian War • George Cary Eggleston

... fact, it would make it a jolly lot worse. Still, we'll cut that and change the subject. When you get back from Invermalluch give me a look up. I expect I shall be here. And, of course, give my kindest regards to Miss McLeod—oh, and the General," he added, as an afterthought. ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux

... "may you soon be with God." Then he added, by an afterthought, "What is your name? I ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... of them the better. He brought vast research to bear in order to show the growth and death of theological conceptions. Hate, fear, revenge and doubt are all theological attributes, detrimental to man's best efforts. That moral ideas were an afterthought, and really form no part of theology, Comte emphasized at great length, and shows from much data where these ideas were grafted on to the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard

... ship of the squadron, but an armed storeship, although originally a ship of war, and therefore by her thickness of side better fitted for defence than an ordinary merchant vessel. Placing her seems to have been an afterthought, to close the gap in the line, and prevent even the possibility of the enemy's ships turning in there and doubling on the van. Thus Howe avoided the fatal oversight made by Brueys twenty years ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan

... inflicted upon the enemy, would respond to every demand which could be made upon it, and would thus turn a series of indecisive combats, which the country would surely regard as defeats, into a magnificent victory. Smith's testimony shows this splendid conception to have been no afterthought with Porter, as it was with many who subsequently came to understand the facts of the case, but coming as it did hot from a desperate battle field, must be regarded as the inspiration of true military genius, while the fact that McClellan rejected ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson

... of eighteen, I formed the purpose of writing on French-American history, I meant at first to limit myself to the great contest which brought that history to a close. It was by an afterthought that the plan was extended to cover the whole field, so that the part of the work, or series of works, first conceived, would, following the sequence of events, be the last executed. As soon as the original scheme was formed, I began to prepare for ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... three-quarters of an hour. He stood observing my mother's very eager examination with my father of the defects in the wooden roof, and pointing out where it had been cut away to admit the stone, as a proof that the stone roof had been an afterthought; and at last turned to me with a look of astonishment. "Mrs. Edgeworth seems to have this taste for mechanics too." He spoke of it as a kind of mania. So I nodded at him very gravely, and answered, "Yes, you will find us all tinctured ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... quilt. If a border is included in the design it should harmonize in colour and design with the body of the quilt. However, in many quilts, borders seem to be "a thing apart" from the remainder of the top and, apparently, have been added as an afterthought to enlarge the top after the blocks had been joined. In old quilts a border frequently consisted of simple bands of colours similar to those found in the body of the quilt, but more often new material entirely different in colour and quality was added ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... route." There was a piece of sly humor for you. It may have been unconscious, but we preferred to believe that the commandant had chuckled as he dictated it. A sort of afterthought, as much as to say to his pilots, "Well, you young bucks, you would-be airmen: thought it would be all sport, eh? You might have known. It's your own fault. Now go out and attack those balloons. It's possible ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall

... to be an afterthought," grumbled the bachelor; then, when she merely laughed teasingly after the manner of women, ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume

... whimpered Mrs Pendle, tearfully. 'I dislike of all things to hear from a stranger what should be told to myself. As your father's wife, he has no right to shut me out of his confidence—and the library,' finished Mrs Pendle, with an aggrieved afterthought. ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... to the table and put down the message. Then, going to the door, she paused as though by an afterthought, and repeated quite slowly ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson

... against its own passions, to a mass meeting, where momentary interest, panic, or persuasive sophistry—all of them gregarious influences, and all of them contagious—may decide by a shout what years of afterthought may find it hard, or even impossible, to undo. There have been some things in the deportment of the President of late that have suggested to thoughtful men rather the pettish foible of wilfulness than the strength of well-trained and conscientious will. It is by the objects for whose sake ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell

... manage quite well," said Mr. Beauchamp cheerfully. "It is rather a bore being kept in London, of course, away from you and the chicks"—this came as an afterthought—"but I hope you will find it plane sailing. I want it to be a real ...
— Troublesome Comforts - A Story for Children • Geraldine Glasgow

... I must tell your majesty, was an afterthought which did not occur to me at the moment; so eager was I for the treasures which displayed themselves to my view, that I did not even stop to admire the magnificent columns and arcades which I saw ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous

... to bluster and hold out for a sum of money, or at least for his horse to be given up to him. But I had made up my mind to reward my followers with a present of a horse apiece; and I was besides well aware that this was only an afterthought on his part, and that he had fully decided to yield. I stood fast, therefore. The result justified my firmness, for he presently agreed to surrender on ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... which trail their loathsome length across our best buildings, regardless of console or capital or cornice. For the importance of the sign renders it constructive, and it has as much right to take part in the design as a door or a window. Instead of being pinned on like an afterthought, it should be built into the wall, panel fashion, and by a little taste in the selection of the style of letter, it might become one of the most striking features of the whole front. Color would be better for the letters than relief, ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... a little too full of life for their own good. A touch of bootleg whiskey might have set them going. Mebbe that's where Jim McFann came in. They might have killed the man when he resisted. The staking-out was probably an afterthought—a piece of Injun ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... quickly. "Tell the waiter to send up a simple dinner for two—I can't bother to order. And two cocktails," he added, as an afterthought. ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... days of calm afterthought which followed, this attempt upon the peace of the Sanford home grew more monstrous and helped largely to mitigate the feeling against the banker. Besides, he had not run away; that was a strong point ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... If she was moved by an afterthought it was without flurry or apparent sense of having committed an indiscretion. "Not every Tuesday," she said, quietly, and ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King

... with yellow spoil. Ah, thought I, an unwonted benevolence burgeoning, what a delight to me is their delight! It is sweet that children should pick poppies in my field. All summer shall they pick poppies in my field. But they must be little children, I added as an afterthought, and they must pick from the lower end—this last prompted by a glance at the great golden fellows nodding in the wheat beneath my window. Then the razor descended. Shaving was always an absorbing task, and I did not glance out of the window again ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... seem that as Americans we were rather unpatriotic to pass within a few miles of the ancestral country of the Washingtons without visiting it, but such was the case. It is not given much space in the guide-books and it came to us only as an afterthought. It was but five or six miles from Northampton, through which we passed. In the old church at Brington is the tomb of George Washington's great-great-great-grandfather and also one of the houses which was occupied by his relatives. In the same section is Sulgrave ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... by Rose Cottage as he spoke, and Timmy at once replied in a shrill voice:—"Yes, of course she is." And then, as if as an afterthought, he remarked slyly:—"Rosamund often says she wishes she were dead. Do you hate ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes

... brown eyes widened just a trifle. Malone felt as if he could have fallen into them and drowned. "Oh, my," she said. "You must be a detective." And then, like the merest afterthought, "My name's Dorothy." ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett

... their voices. What a leonine authority in the roar of their opinions! Their words strike the air firm as the tread of lions. They are not teased with fine distinctions, possibilities of misconception, or the perils of afterthought. Their talk is of the absolute, their opinions wear the primary colours, and dream not of 'art shades.' Never have they been wrong in their lives, never shall they be wrong in the time to come. Never have they been known ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne

... exhaustless animal spirits of his. A very common trick of the Rabelaisian humor is to multiply specifications, or alternative expressions, one after another, almost without end. From the second book of his romance,—an afterthought, probably, of continuation to his unexpectedly successful first book,—we take the last paragraph of the prologue, which shows this. The veracious historian makes obtestation of the strict truth of his narrative, and imprecates ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson

... beautiful," she sighed enviously, "so white, your skin is so clear. Your hair is so soft." And then as an afterthought, "But I think it would look just as ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... "Vanity Fair" in telling two stories not closely related, seems less a Novel than a chronicle-history of two families. It is important to remember that its two parts were conceived as independent; their welding, to call it such, was an afterthought. The tempo again, suiting the style of fiction, is leisurely: character study, character contrast, is the principal aim. More definitely, the marriage problem, illustrated by Dorothea's experience with Casaubon, and that of ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton

... You are a very kind young man, a really kind young man. I accept your offer—I suppose He won't mind," she added as an afterthought, shrugging her shoulders; "and if ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser



Words linked to "Afterthought" :   change of mind, turnabout, turnaround, improver, add-on



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