Free Translator Free Translator
Translators Dictionaries Courses Other
Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Sensitive   Listen
adjective
Sensitive  adj.  
1.
Having sense of feeling; possessing or exhibiting the capacity of receiving impressions from external objects; as, a sensitive soul.
2.
Having quick and acute sensibility, either to the action of external objects, or to impressions upon the mind and feelings; highly susceptible; easily and acutely affected. "She was too sensitive to abuse and calumny."
3.
(a)
(Mech.) Having a capacity of being easily affected or moved; as, a sensitive thermometer; sensitive scales.
(b)
(Chem. & Photog.) Readily affected or changed by certain appropriate agents; as, silver chloride or bromide, when in contact with certain organic substances, is extremely sensitive to actinic rays.
4.
Serving to affect the sense; sensible. (R.) "A sensitive love of some sensitive objects."
5.
Of or pertaining to sensation; depending on sensation; as, sensitive motions; sensitive muscular motions excited by irritation.
Sensitive fern (Bot.), an American fern (Onoclea sensibilis), the leaves of which, when plucked, show a slight tendency to fold together.
Sensitive flame (Physics), a gas flame so arranged that under a suitable adjustment of pressure it is exceedingly sensitive to sounds, being caused to roar, flare, or become suddenly shortened or extinguished, by slight sounds of the proper pitch.
Sensitive joint vetch (Bot.), an annual leguminous herb (Aeschynomene hispida), with sensitive foliage.
Sensitive paper, paper prepared for photographic purpose by being rendered sensitive to the effect of light.
Sensitive plant. (Bot.)
(a)
A leguminous plant (Mimosa pudica, or Mimosa sensitiva, and other allied species), the leaves of which close at the slightest touch.
(b)
Any plant showing motions after irritation, as the sensitive brier (Schrankia) of the Southern States, two common American species of Cassia (Cassia nictitans, and Cassia Chamaecrista), a kind of sorrel (Oxalis sensitiva), etc.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Sensitive" Quotes from Famous Books



... The sensitive mimosa, at our feet, had long since surrendered to the fierce wooing of the sun-god, submissively folding its leaves and then its branches and putting aside its morning dress of green for one more in keeping with the ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... know," answered the Krzyzak. The king was especially sensitive where any question about Christianity arose. It seemed to him that the Krzyzak wished to make an allusion to him; therefore his cheeks flamed immediately and his eyes ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... this sharp reproof: "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." Peter's words constituted an appeal to the human element in Christ's nature; and the sensitive feelings of Jesus were wounded by this suggestion of unfaithfulness to His trust, coming from the man whom He had so signally honored but a few moments before. Peter saw mainly as men see, understanding but imperfectly ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... who considered this the normal type of nebula, estimated that there were at least 120,000 of such spirals within the reach of the Crossley reflector of the Lick Observatory. Professor Perrine has indeed lately raised this estimate to half a million, and thinks that with more sensitive photographic plates and longer exposures the number of spirals would exceed a million. The majority of these objects are very small, and appear to be distributed over the sky in ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage

... requirements of his own flesh and blood was doing quite enough for the preservation of his own credit. And when Theodore Brower cautiously suggested that the bitterness of certain experiences might be turned to sweetness by the institution of a bureau of justice for the poor and unfriended, the sensitive old man shrank back as if from contact with a nettle. Indeed, it is probable that so unconventional and untravelled a road to philanthropic renown would have proven uninviting to his feet at any time. And Jane, who, after the failure ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... two the ball was restarted, and the greater noise had diminished to the sensitive uneasy murmur which responded like a delicate instrument to the fluctuations of the game. Each feat and manoeuvre of Knype drew generous applause in proportion to its intention or its success, and each sleight of the Manchester Rovers, successful or not, ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett

... Mrs. Poppit's the day after to-morrow," he said. "I don't feel as if I could face it. Suppose they all go on making allusions to duelling and early trains and that? I shan't be able to keep my mind on the cards for fear of it. More than a sensitive man ought to be asked ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson

... keenly alive as ever to the hope that the young ranch owner might some day incline toward her little girl, but she was sensitive also to the impression which the Rexhills had made upon her. Her life with Mr. Purnell had not brought her many luxuries, and perhaps she over-valued their importance. She thought Miss Rexhill a most imposing ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony

... and were taken amiss from him. Even at that time there was a common feeling in England in favour of what is becoming in good society; and although the feeling was for a long time less deeply engraved on men's minds, and less sensitive to every outrage than it became at a later period, men did not pardon the King for ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke

... distinction of the white skin and traditions of European civilisation, yet bound to the life of and race of his own patria by reason of the native blood within his veins, the Hispanic Mexican has cultivated a sensitive social spirit which tinges his character and action in every-day life. From this largely arise his courtesy and spirit of hospitality—although these are undeniably innate—and principally his ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock

... Number Seven has to bear a good deal in the way of neglect and ridicule, I do not doubt. Happily, he is protected by an amount of belief in himself which shields him from many assailants who would torture a more sensitive nature. But the sweet voice of Number Five and her sincere way of addressing him seemed to touch his feelings. That was the meaning of his momentary silence, in which I saw that his eyes glistened and a faint flush rose on his ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... arteries. Of course, he had not been inside an hour until the maggot flies had laid eggs in the open wound, and before the day was gone the worms were hatched out, and rioting amid the inflamed and super-sensitive nerves, where their every motion was agony. Accustomed as we were to misery, we found a still lower depth in his misfortune, and I would be happier could I forget his pale, drawn face, as he wandered uncomplainingly to and fro, holding his maimed limb with his right hand, occasionally ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy

... decision was of more importance than they could at the time foresee. If their son had gone to a public school, it is more than probable that he would have turned out a different man, and have done different work. So sensitive and homeloving a boy might for a while have been too depressed to enter fully unto the ways of the place; but, as he gained confidence, he could not have withstood the irresistible attractions which the life of a great school exercises over a vivid eager nature, and he ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan

... and his devoted band made their last struggle for freedom. After the lapse of half a century, Tolstoy gave vent in "Hadji Murat" to the resentment which the military despotism of Nicholas I. had roused in his sensitive and fearless spirit. ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy

... ever stronger impression of the glory round poor Petter Nord's head. So it was not necessary to plunge him into the depths of remorse with the heavy burden of sin around his neck. Was he such a man? Such a tender-hearted, sensitive man! She sank back, closed her eyes and thought. She did not need to say it to him. She was astonished that she felt such a relief not to have to cause ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof

... wrestle, it exhibited all its ugliness and discharged all its venom.[9] The claw of the dragon was in His flesh, and its foul breath in His mouth. We cannot conceive what such insult and dishonour must have been to His sensitive and regal mind. But He rallied His heart to endure and not to faint; for He had come to be the death of sin, and its death was to be the ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker

... was at her lips—asking a question, giving an answer, with that shadowy smile—that men looked; they were sensitive lips, sensuous and sweet, and through them seemed to come warmth and perfume like the warmth and perfume ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... did not concern Fred. He did not weigh his duty to the State of New York, or to society. One day, when he had visited "the institution," as a somewhat sensitive neighborhood prefers to speak of it, he was told that the chance of a prisoner's escaping from Sing Sing and not being at once retaken was one out of six thousand. So with Fred it was largely a sporting proposition. ...
— The Red Cross Girl • Richard Harding Davis

... period of his life was spent out of doors amid beautiful scenery, where he felt the abounding life of nature streaming upon him in the sunshine, or booming in his ears with the steady roar of the March winds. He felt also (what sensitive spirits still feel) a living presence that met him in the loneliest wood, or spoke to him in the flowers, or preceded him over the wind-swept hills. He was one of those favored mortals who are surest of the Unseen. From school he would hurry away to his skating or bird-nesting ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... a new path in the evolution of the higher organisms. The sudden change in his natural conditions has brought about a large series of organic disharmonies, which become more and more acutely felt as he becomes more intelligent and more sensitive; and thus there has arisen a number of sorrows which poor humanity has tried to relieve by all the means in its power. Humanity in its misery has put question after question to science, and has lost patience at the slowness of the advance ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various

... than when his tailor had measured him. His hair was properly cut and parted, but although he was still young, its black was bright with silver. His head and brow were nobly formed, his set features fine and sensitive, but his thin face was lined and gray. It was unmistakably the face of a dissipated man, but oddly enough the chin was not noticeably weak, and the ideality of the brow, and the delicacy of the nostril and upper lip were unaltered. Nevertheless, and ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton

... vegetable fibres are easily tendered, or rendered rotten, by the action of even dilute mineral acids; with the additional action of steam, the effect is much more rapid, as also if the fibre is allowed to dry with the acid upon or in it. Animal fibres are not nearly so sensitive under these conditions. But whereas caustic alkalis have not much effect on vegetable fibres, if kept out of contact with the air, the animal fibres are very quickly attacked. Superheated steam ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith

... to get pretty rough before He had quite gotten here. The pure gentle virgin-mother was under cruelly hurting suspicion on the point about which a woman is properly most sensitive, and that too by the one who was nearest to her. I've wondered why Joseph, too, was not told of the plan of God when Mary was, and so she be spared this sore suspicion. I think it was because he simply could not have taken it in beforehand, though he rose so nobly when he was told. ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon

... expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her father and Anna Mikhaylovna, that it had something to do with her brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as she was, Natasha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything relating to Nikolenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner, but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her chair regardless of her governess' remarks. After dinner, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... of a fly and the impassibility of a sensitive plant. His agitation was not to be described. However, he took his resolution heroically, and decided to brave the law, and to follow the wapentake, so anxious was he concerning the ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... this letter her mind seemed to give way, and when Brother Kline got back home he found her very ill, both in body and mind. They told him at home that when she read the letter all hope of ever seeing him again vanished, and the shock was more than her sensitive nature could bear. It is very sad to relate, but true, that she never again seemed fairly to realize his being in her presence. His kindness to her was shown in unremitting attentions, to the day of his death; and I am persuaded that few men ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline

... guessed that he was a physician—a surgeon, perhaps—from his hands, and from the supple manner in which he twisted his long white fingers about one another over the stove. He was a man of about forty, with a thin sensitive face, strong rather than handsome, and remarkable eyes. They were not large, nor far apart, but were like twin dynamos, reflecting the life of the man within. They were the sort of eyes which Philip had always associated ...
— Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • James Oliver Curwood

... of good living and of every comfort. You are not even like an ordinary man, for you are exceptionally idle, and more sensitive to heat and cold than most people. You would never be able to go barefoot or to wear only one thin dress in the winter time! Do you think that you would ever have the patience or the endurance to live ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki

... goes quietly to sleep, forgetting her faults. Here is a woman who thought her sins nicely concealed; chance favoured her: an absent husband, probably no more; another man so exactly like him in height, face, and manner that everyone else is deceived! Is it strange that a weak, sensitive woman, wearied of widowhood, should willingly allow herself to be ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... seen when well-proportioned limbs are trained to every kind of athletic exercise. His face, however, was that of the dreamer, not of the athlete. He had a fine brow, thoughtful brown eyes, a somewhat long nose with sensitive nostrils, a stern-set mouth, and resolute chin. The spare outlines of his face, well defined yet delicate withal, sometimes reminded strangers of Giotto's frescoed head of Dante in his youth. But the mouth ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... to the sea, and their little colonies along the coast, and that part being mortal high and steep and full of cliffs. Up to the west side of the wall the ground has been cleared, and there are cocoa-palms and mummy-apples and guavas, and lots of sensitive. Just across, the bush begins outright; high bush at that, trees going up like the masts of ships, and ropes of liana hanging down like a ship's rigging, and nasty orchids growing in the forks like funguses. The ground where there was no underwood ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... made up the majority of the electronic equipment in the observatory required no "warm up" in the sense that the older electron tubes had—but when used in critical equipment, they were temperature sensitive, and he allowed for time to reach a stable operating temperature. Then, too, the older electron tubes had not been entirely replaced. Many of them were still ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond

... words, he took his place at the table. On his face there was no longer timidity and bashfulness. He was evidently deeply convinced of the righteousness of his cause. He looked boldly around, and only his lips quivered, as is always the case with young, sensitive people. At that moment old Saul and his two sons raised their ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko

... sleeplessness, and there was an anxious look about the keen light hazel eyes which was sometimes almost pathetic, and gave Cicely hope. To the end of her days she never could recollect how the Queen was arrayed; she saw nothing but the expression in those falcon eyes, and the strangely sensitive mouth, which bewrayed the shrewish nose and chin, and the equally inconsistent ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... it is a fine, fresh, cloudless day, such as we seldom get in autumn. The air has revived me and I greet it with joy. Yet to think that already the fall of the year has come! How I used to love the country in autumn! Then but a child, I was yet a sensitive being who loved autumn evenings better than autumn mornings. I remember how beside our house, at the foot of a hill, there lay a large pond, and how the pond—I can see it even now!—shone with a broad, level surface that ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... was a slip, but such, and other slips, hardly justify the remark that some people have not hesitated to make, namely, that I have a tendency to draw the long bow. I feel almost sensitive on this point, for I have always laboured to be true to fact, and to nature, even in my wildest flights ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne

... to see things in their true light, and her life was far from being happy. By her cousin Alice she was treated with a tolerable degree of kindness, while Eugenia, without any really evil intention, perhaps, seemed to take delight in annoying her sensitive cousin, constantly taunting her with her dependence upon them, and asking her sometimes how she expected to repay the debt of gratitude she owed them. Many and many a night had the orphan wept herself to sleep, in the low, ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... air of anticipation everywhere at the Scarlet Lake rocket base. Rick, who was sensitive to such things, felt it keenly. He also recognized that under the anticipation, like thick, stagnant water under the bright surface of a pond, there ...
— The Scarlet Lake Mystery • Harold Leland Goodwin

... tell you. It is a study of popular manners; the history of a young workman, sober and chaste, as handsome as a girl, with the mind of a virgin, a sensitive soul. He is a carver, and works well. At night, near his mother, whom he loves, he studies, he reads books. In his mind, simple and receptive, ideas lodge themselves like bullets in a wall. He has no desires. He has ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France

... the Kangaroo became extremely cautious. She no longer hopped in the open, but made her way with little leaps through the thick scrub. She peeped out carefully before each movement. Her long soft ears kept moving to catch every sound, and her black sensitive little nose was constantly lifted, sniffing the air. Every now and then she gave little backward starts, as if she were going to retreat by the way she had come, and Dot, with her face pressed against the Kangaroo's soft ...
— Dot and the Kangaroo • Ethel C. Pedley

... know he cared for approbation, but his constant refusal to read what the newspapers said about him was proof that he did. He boycotted the tribe of Romeike, because he knew that nine clippings out of every ten would be unkind, and his sensitive soul ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Musicians • Elbert Hubbard

... army, is that of being flanked. The road or roads leading from the rear to the base of supplies, along which not only food supplies for the soldiers, but, quite as important, ammunition, is brought up, either in wagons, automobiles, or in railroad trains, are the most sensitive part of an army's situation. Unless they are very short—that is, unless an army is very close to its base of supplies—it is impossible to guard these lines of communication adequately. Therefore, if the enemy is able ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan

... a fact. Hope had drawn herself up, not half pleased to have the size of her mouth—which was a sensitive feature—so questioned; but Faith had turned entirely away with sudden coolness, miffed because she did not look jolly, and display a dimple like the special one, the possession of which she had always envied her sister. It was an exhibition of female weakness entirely unexpected ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry

... long to see. I have heard nothing of mine, and do not know that it is yet published. I have published a pamphlet on the Pope controversy, which you will not like. Had I known that Keats was dead—or that he was alive and so sensitive—I should have omitted some remarks upon his poetry, to which I was provoked by his attack upon Pope, and my disapprobation of ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... give us all the space which the business department of their paper permits. And, by the way, one of the most valuable kinds of press work is that which can be done by every suffragist individually. Newspaper and magazine offices are most sensitive to the praise and blame of readers. Suffrage departments are sometimes stopped because no readers write their approval. Individual newspaper policies, belittling or perverting the suffrage issue, are sometimes persisted in because ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... assistance program. Warsaw continues to hold the budget deficit to less than 2% of GDP. Further progress on public finance depends mainly on comprehensive reform of the social welfare system and privatization of Poland's remaining state sector. Restructuring and privatization of "sensitive sectors" (e.g., coal, steel) has been delayed. Long-awaited privatizations in aviation, energy, and ...
— The 1998 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... mustard plaster to the feet of her child, to relieve congestion of the brain, that an article which is capable of producing a blister upon the external covering of the body, is quite as capable of producing similar effects when applied to the more sensitive tissues within the body. The irritating effects of these substances upon the stomach are not readily recognized, simply because the stomach is supplied with very few nerves of sensation. That condiments induce an intense degree of irritation of the mucous membrane of the stomach, was ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... few moments, Father Absinthe ceased watching his companion. He felt weary after the labors of the night, his head was burning, and he shivered and his knees trembled. Perhaps, though he was by no means sensitive, he felt the influence of the horrors that surrounded him, and which seemed more sinister than ever in the bleak light of morning. He began to ferret in the cupboards, and at last succeeded in discovering—oh, marvelous fortune!—a bottle of brandy, three parts full. He hesitated for an ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... right," remarked Lord Bannerdale. "She has been in great trouble and it has hurt her very badly; and though she seems rather cold and reserved, she is more sensitive than most women: you ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice

... man has no possibility of competition. Instead of the old scramble, which was bad enough, we get the present expert control of the tariff schedules. Thus the relation between business and government becomes, not a matter of the exposure of all the sensitive parts of the government to all the active parts of the people, but the special impression upon them of a particular organized ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson

... was born at Greenheys, Manchester, on the 15th of August 1785. He was the fifth child in a family of eight (four sons and four daughters). His father, descended from a Norman family, was a merchant, who left his wife and six children a clear income of 1600 a year. Thomas was from infancy a shy, sensitive child, with a constitutional tendency to dreaming by night and by day; and, under the influence of an elder brother, a lad "whose genius for mischief amounted to inspiration," who died in his sixteenth year, he spent much of his boyhood ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... not share the somewhat common opinion that in their friendships women are less constant than men are. But the trouble with them is that they put a heavier burden upon friendship than so delicate, so sensitive a sentiment as real friendship is was ever meant to bear. Something has to give way under the ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... of the story could have occurred only to a writer whose mind was very sensitive to the current of modern thought and progress, while its execution, the setting it forth in proper literary clothing, could be successfully attempted only by one whose active literary ability should be fully equalled by his power of assimilative knowledge both ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... restless grey eyes, his straight nose, with its delicate mobile nostrils, his pale brown curls brushed back over the sloping white brow, his full but beautiful, expressive lips, and his whole face betrayed a passionate and sensitive nature. He was in a state of great excitement; he blinked, his breathing was hurried, his hands shook, as though in fever, and he was really in a fever—that sudden fever of excitement which is so well-known to all who have to speak and sing before an audience. Near him stood a man of about ...
— A Sportsman's Sketches - Volume II • Ivan Turgenev

... made by the water, as it went "swishing" along the edge of the raft, instead of rousing them acted rather as a lullaby to their rest. The boy awoke first. He had been longer asleep; and his nervous system, refreshed and restored to its normal condition, had become more keenly sensitive to outward impressions. Some big, cold rain-drops falling upon his face had ...
— The Ocean Waifs - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea • Mayne Reid

... and made a clean breast of the matter from the beginning. Blaming himself for not having won the child's heart securely long before this, the minister did not censure him severely. He knew that after such an example, the sensitive lad would never go wrong as ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various

... darkness, if yet the cables held; they could not see till daybreak whether the sea had swallowed up their treasures. I wonder the wives were not white haired when the sun rose and showed them those little specks yet rolling in the breakers!" How clearly these scenes were photographed on the sensitive plate of her mind! She never forgot nor really lost sight of her island people. Her sympathy drew them to her as if they were her own, and the little colony of Norwegians was always especially dear to her. "How pathetic," she says, "the gathering of women ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... nearest approach to a successful epic writer. Although this poem has rather the character of a series of lyrical poems woven into an epic cycle, it is still a complete and great poem. It is characterized by tender, sensitive, and delicate feeling rather than by deep and overwhelming passion. In the story he has, for the most part, adhered to the ancient Saga. Tegner is as yet only the most popular poet of Sweden; but the bold advance which he has made beyond the established ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... at times, as we imagine a sensitive girl with an abhorrence of meanness and vice, and she was stubborn when she was convinced of the right and her friends would assert the wrong. Mr. Crawfurd's idea was, that Joanna had a temper like Cordelia, not ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... will see that in its origin it has had no other author than the sensations and wants of man; that the idea of God has had no other type and model than those of physical powers, material beings, producing either good or evil, by impressions of pleasure or pain on sensitive beings; that in the formation of all these systems the spirit of religion has always followed the same course, and been uniform in its proceedings; that in all of them the dogma has never failed to represent, under the name of gods, the operations of nature, and ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

... moment's moody deliberation, declined to meet Colonel Morley, actuated to some extent in that refusal by the sensitive vanity which once had given him delight, and now only gave him pain. Meet thus—altered, fallen, imbruted—the fine gentleman whose calm eye had quelled him in the widow's drawing-room in his day of comparative splendour—that in itself was ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... January 17th, 1906. The lifting force was too great for the weight, and the dirigible jumped immediately to 1,500 feet. The propellers were started, and the dirigible brought to a lower level, when it was found possible to drive against the wind. The steering arrangements were found too sensitive, and the motors were stopped, when the vessel was carried by the wind until it was over land—it had been intended that the trial should be completed over water. A descent was successfully accomplished and the dirigible was anchored for the night, but a gale caused it so much damage ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... treatment being a nullity, patients are never hurt by drugs, when it is adhered to. It pleases the imagination. It is image-worship, relic-wearing, holy-water-sprinkling, transferred from the spiritual world to that of the body. Poets accept it; sensitive and spiritual women become sisters of charity in its service. It does not offend the palate, and so spares the nursery those scenes of single combat in which infants were wont to yield at length to the pressure of the spoon and the imminence of asphyxia. It gives the ignorant, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various

... return, and whom he had since met once or twice as he came and went. The moment she perceived that he was aware of her presence, she threw herself on her knees at his bedside, hid her face, and began to weep. The sympathy of his nature rendered yet more sensitive by weakness and suffering, Malcolm laid his hand on her head, and sought ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... beings and brutes in the same rank, except in so far as both are sensitive creatures, and consequently susceptible of pleasure and pain. In this particular, the Creator himself has, to a certain extent, placed them in the same rank, and it is useless to cry out against his appointment. He will not listen to our talk about "the dignity of human beings." He will still ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe

... discerning his virtues. We are constantly attributing to him disagreeable motives, which arise solely from our idea of him, and of which he is quite innocent. Not only so, but our mistaken impressions increase his difficulty in rising to the best of himself. For any one whose temperament is in the least sensitive is oppressed by what he feels to be another's idea of him, until he learns to clear himself of that as ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call

... time all the boys lay watching for a bite. No one spoke, for sometimes they say fish are very sensitive to sound and go in another direction if they hear ...
— The Bobbsey Twins in the Country • Laura Lee Hope

... of all others he most revered. He was bewildered, almost dazed, at what seemed to him the perverse and unscrupulous recklessness of his accusers. Anonymous and abusive letters reached him daily; some even of his own friends looked coldly on him. He was a sensitive man, and he felt it deeply. He shrank from going out unless he knew exactly whom he was to meet. But his pride came to his rescue, and he preferred suffering injustice in silence to discussing in public, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... this of great English worthies: Macaulay, the most brilliant and learned of all English essayists; Scott, the finest story-teller of his own or any other age; Carlyle, the inspirer of ambitious youth; De Quincey, the greatest artist in style, whose words are as music to the sensitive ear; Dickens, the master painter of sorrows and joys of the common people; Thackeray, the best interpreter of human life and character; Charlotte Bronte, the brooding Celtic genius who laid bare the ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... mortified that he should have to make an application for an advance; but the increasing expenses of his family compelled him in a measure to do so. His application was refused in such a manner as greatly to hurt his sensitive feelings; and the result was that he threw up his situation, and determined to begin working ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... escaped from it, like that of Browne; the equilibrium of his judgment, essential to him as an artist, but equally removed from propagandism, whether as enthusiast or logician, would have unfitted him for the pulpit; and his intellectual being was too sensitive to the wonder and beauty of outward life and Nature to have found satisfaction, as Milton's could, (and perhaps only by reason of his blindness,) in a world peopled by purely imaginary figures. We might fancy him becoming a great statesman, but he lacked the social position which could have opened ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell

... excess of emotion which was peculiar to her, he held her close to him with a throb of answering feeling. The sensation of standing beside that which was not, although it was, his father, went through and through the being of the sensitive young man. Death is always most impressive in the case of a commonplace person, with whom we have no associations but the most ordinary ones of life. What had come to him?—to the mind which had been so much occupied with the quality ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant

... he meant to give Frank good advice. But to the sensitive and proud spirit of the boy, it sounded like withering sarcasm. He couldn't ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge

... eager curiosity Christophe watched the sensitive, mobile face, which blushed and went pale by turns. Emotion showed fleeting across it like the shadows of clouds ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland

... would not be likely to suffer outrage at my hands. In every other respect our moods and tempers were utterly unlike. I thought him dull, very frequently, when he was only balancing between jealous and sensitive tastes;—and ignorant of the actual, when, in fact, his ignorance simply arose from the decided preference which he gave to the foreign and abstract. He was contemplative—an idealist; I was impetuous and devoted to the real and living world around me, in which I was disposed to ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms

... young man in him who had hitherto seemed but a child to her, she lowered her eyes with a sort of tragic slowness. She allowed me to take and kiss her hand without betraying her inward pleasure, which I nevertheless felt in her sensitive shiver. When she raised her face to look at me again, I ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... after her. She sat her horse finely; her gray veil drifted in the hot wind. His sensitive color came. He watched her as if he had known that he should never see ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various

... windows, and the loud talking in the house, gave her the first clear impression she had received of the exile to which she had condemned her boy. However guilty he might be, he was still her child—her Jack. She remembered him as a little fellow, bright, intelligent, and sensitive, and the idea that he would presently appear before her as a thief and in a workman's blouse, seemed almost incredible. Ah! had she kept her child with her, or had she sent him with other boys of his ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... so open; you would find it impossible to hurt me or to deceive me; and you will tell me the truth, however cruel it may be. Do you wish me to encourage your confession? Well, then, heart of mine, I shall find comfort in a woman's thought. Has not the youth of your being been mine, your sensitive, wholly gracious, beautiful, and delicate youth? No woman shall find henceforth the Gaston whom I have known, nor the delicious happiness that he has given me.... No; you will never love again as you have loved, as you love me now; no, I shall never have a rival, it ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac

... lantern with a very feeble light, made still more feeble by interposing red paper, suffices for my own purpose; but the too attentive chowkee-dar, observing that my room is in darkness, and fancying that my light has gone out accidentally, comes flaring in with a torch, threatening the sensitive negatives with destruction. ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... of Gray was evidently written under the influence of strong feeling, and vivid impressions of the beautiful in the scenery around him, and when his sensitive mind was overspread with melancholy, in consequence of the death of his young, amiable and accomplished friend West, to whom, in June, 1742, he addressed his lovely Ode to Spring, which was written at Stoke; but before it reached his friend he was numbered with the dead! So true was the friendship ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various

... and Patty nodded, approvingly; "but I want to stop this game before it's my turn, for I'm too sensitive to have my faults held up to the ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells

... knew what comfort to administer to the affliction of his companion, was somewhat relieved by the change in his mood, though his more grave and sensitive nature was a little startled at its suddenness. But, as we have before seen, Montreal's spirit (and this made perhaps its fascination) was as a varying and changeful sky; the gayest sunshine, and the fiercest storm swept over it in rapid alternation; and elements of ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... others. This does not say, doubtless, that he was not in any way influenced by the very praiseworthy desire to be master of science, to well deserve the approval of society, or that he despised the glory whose stimulant is ordinarily more sensitive to elevated minds, or that he was not at all looking to his own personal interests. But above all these human reasons, that of religion was uppermost by a great deal in him, and it was this, without any doubt, which sustained his spirit and his will, and which frequently, in ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various

... very miserable and as if he was being made a laughing-stock; in fact his sensations were exactly those of a sensitive lad who appears in uniform for the first time; and hence he was in anything but a peaceful state of mind as he dashed into the room where his uncle was waiting, to be greeted with a roar ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn

... I was sensitive and thought a great deal about myself. Often I entertained the effeminate notion that people were talking about me, when I ought to have known that they could easily find some more interesting topic of conversation. I always went to extremes. I was up on a mountain ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs

... satisfaction, for though he seemed unsociable and morose he was really very sensitive to other people's opinion of ...
— Miss Mouse and Her Boys • Mrs. Molesworth

... Chatterton treated me very cruelly in one of his writings. I am sure I did not feel it so. I suppose Bryant means under the title of Baron of Otranto, which is written with humour. I must have been the sensitive plant if any thing in that character had hurt me! Mr. Bryant too, and the Dean, as I see by extracts in the papers, have decorated Chatterton with sanctimonious honour—think of that young rascal's note, when, summing up his gains and losses by writing for and against Beckford, he ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... out of the first cabin gangway; tunneled by a somber awning, streamed the first survivors. A young woman, hatless, her light brown hair disordered and the leaden weight of crushing sorrow heavy upon eyes and sensitive mouth, was in the van. She stopped, perplexed, almost ready to drop with terror and exhaustion, and was ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various

... concisely, as she put them down, and turned his shoulder upon her and stared out of the window again. It was altogether too discouraging. Evidently he was sensitive on the topic of operations and bandages. She did not "make so bold as to say," however, after all. But his snubbing way had irritated her, and Millie had a hot time of it ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... sensitive, They live far more than others live, And grief's and pain's experience Must be to them ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various

... sensitive to heat or cold, or even to rain, the weather was seldom sufficiently bad to prevent his going abroad. He went out for three objects: stag-hunting, once or more each week; shooting in his parks (and no man handled a gun with more grace or skill), ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... to take our flowers ready-made, and can hardly expect them to be beautiful and fragrant too. The separate blossoms are shaped like those of the pea and bean; they hang in long clusters somewhat resembling bunches of grapes. The leaves—or, rather, leaflets—are very sensitive and have a habit of folding over one another in wet and dull weather, and also in the night—a habit that is peculiar to all the members of the acacia family, ...
— Among the Trees at Elmridge • Ella Rodman Church

... charm: "Byron's countenance is a thing to dream of," he once said;[292] but he felt that popular estimation did Byron injustice. His articles on this poet contain some of his most characteristic moral reflections. Something of Byron's gloominess Scott attributes to the sensitive poetic organization which he felt that Byron had in an extreme degree; but more to the perverted habit of looking within rather than around upon the realities of life, in which Providence intended men to find their happiness. The philosophy is not ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball

... may take any point in Dr. Livingstone's character, and analyse it carefully, and I would challenge any man to find a fault in it. He is sensitive, I know; but so is any man of a high mind and generous nature. He is sensitive on the point of being doubted or being criticised. An extreme love of truth is one of his strongest characteristics, which proves him to be a man of strictest principles, and conscientious scruples; ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... about his waist, a wolfer's "feeler", three strands of wire twisted into a pliable cable ten feet long, the three ends of the strands extending forklike a bare two inches beyond the cable braid at one end. This simple invention eliminates much tedious excavation work, the sensitive tool following the curves of the branching tunnels which each wolf pup makes for himself as soon as he is able to dig. Shady prowled along the edge of the timber ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts

... monopolized, Dick was silenced, and as Austin and Viviette were talking in a lively but unintelligible way about a thing, or a play, or a horse called Nietzsche, he relapsed into the heavy, full-blooded man's animal enjoyment of his food and the sensitive's consciousness of heartache. ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke

... said the speaker. "The whiffletit is found only in streams running in a south-northerly direction. This is because the whiffletit, being a sensitive creature with poor vision, insists on having the light falling over its left shoulder at all times. A creek, river, inlet, or estuary which has a wide mouth and a narrow head, such as a professional after-dinner speaker has, is a favorite ...
— Sundry Accounts • Irvin S. Cobb

... Investigator and a Judge, with pure eyes and rigid judgment, then I shall be more ignorant of myself, and more confident in myself, than the most of men are when they bethink themselves, if I do not feel that I shrink up like a sensitive plant's leaf when a finger touches it, and would fain curl myself together, and hide from His eye something that I know lurks and poisons at the centre of ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... talent lest it should run away with them, and they neglect the rubrics, Dr. Newman was sensitive over musicians of the day setting to work upon liturgy. Of sorts of liberty taken we have modern examples in Gounod's Mors et Vita Oratorio, where O felix culpa, &c., is planted in the middle of the Dies Irae, and ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis

... not a common Oriental virtue. It is not even in general very highly appreciated, being apt to strike the lively, sensitive, and passionate Eastern as mere dulness and apathy. In China, however, it is a point of honor that the outward demeanor should be calm and placid under any amount of provocation; and indignation, fierceness, even haste, are regarded as signs of incomplete civilization, which the disciples of ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson

... that is, duties or offices of importance. The flow of the versification in this speech seems to demand the trochaic ending—/u/; while the text blends jingle and hisses to the annoyance of less sensitive ears ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... Dr Brown's is founded upon an assumed analogy between the structure of the optic nerve, and the structure of the olfactory nerves and other sensitive nerves, and is completely disproved by the physiological observations of Treviranus, who has shown that no such analogy exists: that the ends of the nervous fibres in the retina being elevated into distinct separate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various

... pain; for his wound, though in a way of healing, was still highly sensitive, and even the pointing a finger towards it ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... of June. The feeling of uneasiness and dread was becoming more and more felt, not only in commerce, which is so sensitive, but also in the social relations of men. The king's officers were more saucy, and, like all soldiers, eager for active service, imagining an easy victory over a people untrained in war. Such Tory pamphleteers as the foul-tongued Massachusetts writer, Daniel Leonard, were answering ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... the game, her sensitive and speaking face showed interest, sympathy, keen appreciation. She heard Captain Bertram's step, and turned to welcome him ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade

... though consonant, as Balzac says, with real stability, is a source of bewilderment to the reader of his sayings and doings, till it dawns upon him that, through pride, policy, and the usual shrinking of the sensitive from casting their pearls before swine, Balzac was a confirmed poseur, so that what he tells us is often more misleading than his silence. Leon Gozlan's books are a striking instance of the fact that, with all Balzac's jollity, his camaraderie, and his flow of words, ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... annoyance? If I have really been to blame in my conduct to you, then I must tell you: the hints of Mr. Bublitsyn were responsible for this, which was what I never expected. Anyway, I must humbly beg you not to be angry with me. I am a sensitive man, and any kindness I am most sensible of and grateful for. Do not be angry with me, Vassilissa Timofyevna, I beg you most humbly.—I remain ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... his quarrels with the SOECULUM were constant and endless; his wanderings up and down, and vehement arguings, in this world, to little visible effect, lasted all his days. We can perceive he was short-tempered, thin of skin: a violently sensitive man. For example, once in the Bohemian solitudes, on a summer afternoon, in one of his thousand-fold pilgrimings and wayfarings, he had lain down to rest, his one or two monks and he, in some still glade, "with a stone for his pillow" (as was ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... without being angular. The flower head that crowned this slender stem was exquisitely fair, with the fairness of a little child, soft pale-gold, fair. Her face had, indeed, no strictly sculptural beauty; her long flax-coloured eyes were not large, her nose had no special character; only her sensitive and clear-cut nostrils gave the pretty face its suggestion of ancient lineage. Her mouth was a little large, and her full red lips opened on singularly white teeth as even as almonds; while a low Grecian forehead and a neck graceful in every curve gave Esperance a total effect ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... most intricate movements may be memorized. But he did not visit that house often. The people there looked at him a little askance. They were courteous, but painfully self-conscious in his presence,—and Hollister was still acutely sensitive about his face. ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... participates in the weakness of the intellect; but it is by no means unusual for the former to be grievously perverted, while the intelligence is in no respect deficient. The moral element in the child seems to me to assert its superiority in this, that it is the most keenly sensitive, the soonest disordered— ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... she stood quite close to me, full in the thin stream of moonlight that fell across the floor, and I was conscious of a swift transition from hell to heaven as my gaze passed from that embryonic visage to a countenance so refined, so majestic, so divinely sensitive in its strength, that it was like turning from the face of a devil to look upon ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Mystic-Humorous Stories • Various

... before, fluttering and beating themselves as against the wires of a cage. You were true to your instincts then, my dear fellow-man,—instincts of space and Heaven. Courage!—the cage-door will open soon. And now, practically speaking, I give you this advice in parting: You have a quick and sensitive mind which you have allowed that strong body of yours to incarcerate and suppress. Give that mind fair play. Attend to the business of your calling diligently; the craving for regular work is the healthful appetite of mind: but in your spare hours ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... brother—for you have a kind and sensitive heart, and love your wife—the pangs that shot through me, and distorted my very soul, as I listened to this dreadful narrative. Its calm, dispassionate, official character, while it confirmed its truth, added ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... in later in the twilight, found her lying on the bed, with a feverish flush on her cheeks. The grieved, childlike droop of the sensitive little mouth told its own story, and Miss Barbara set her ...
— Mildred's Inheritance - Just Her Way; Ann's Own Way • Annie Fellows Johnston

... sorely needed he took the distasteful lecture field. His two subjects were "The Argonauts" and "American Humor." His letters to his wife at this time tell the pathetic tale of a sensitive, troubled soul struggling to earn money to pay debts. He writes with brave humor, but the work was ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... will of the subject people. Very few bold writers went so far as to say that lawful power may be resisted in cases of extreme necessity. But the colonisers of America, who had gone forth not in search of gain, but to escape from laws under which other Englishmen were content to live, were so sensitive even to appearances that the Blue Laws of Connecticut forbade men to walk to church within ten feet of their wives. And the proposed tax, of only L12,000 a year, might have been easily borne. But the reasons why Edward I. and his Council were not allowed ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

... especially those upon the western face. These gained, it would be possible to push northward along the flank, threatening the Colesberg road bridge and the enemy's line of retreat, regarding the safety of which the Boers had shown themselves peculiarly sensitive. Seeking a base from which to attack these outlying kopjes, French settled upon Maeder's farm, lying five miles west-south-west of Colesberg, and at 4 p.m. a squadron 10th Hussars moved thither as a screen to the main body,[262] which marched an hour later, and arrived ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... wounded in every conceivable manner, were frequently arriving from the battle-fields, and our friend went through the same experience to which so many brave women, fresh from the quiet and happy scenes of their peaceful homes, have been willing to subject themselves for the sake of humanity. Sensitive and delicate though she was, she acquired here, by constant attention to her duties, a coolness in the presence of appalling sights that we have rarely seen equaled even in the stronger sex, and which, when united with a tender sympathy, as in her case, makes ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett

... Ellen would generally be there sweeping the drawing-room floor and dusting while he was playing, and the boy, who was ready to make friends with most people, soon became very fond of her. He was not as a general rule sensitive to the charms of the fair sex, indeed he had hardly been thrown in with any women except his Aunts Allaby, and his Aunt Alethea, his mother, his sister Charlotte and Mrs Jay; sometimes also he had had to take off his hat to the Miss Skinners, and had felt as if he should ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... second child of this last Wife: his one child by the former Wife, a daughter now of good years, was married to the Duke of Mecklenburg. Son's name was Albert Friedrich; age, at his Father's death, fifteen. A promising young Prince, but of sensitive abstruse temper;—held under heavy tutelage by his Raths and Theologians; and spurting up against them, in explosive rebellion, from time to time. He now (1568) was to be sovereign Duke of Preussen, and the one representative of ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle

... the past half hour Polly had almost yielded to the inclination to implore Sylvia to take her eyes off her, for the little girl did not look sensitive and her eyes were so large and expressionless they made one uncomfortable, but then Polly forbore, until, as her own interest in their meeting proceeded, she ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at Sunrise Hill • Margaret Vandercook

... have already frequently attempted to sow discord in these good and sincere relations, but such efforts are vain. The Russian truth-loving national soul, sensitive of any display of mendacity or insincerity, was able to sift the chaff from the wheat, and faith in our friends is unshaken. There is not a single cloud on the clear horizon of our lasting allied harmony. Heartfelt greetings to you, true friends, rulers of the waves and our ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... there patiently, at least for the present. It is well that the poor have their sensibilities blunted early in life, for they are spared many sorrows that afflict those who are pampered by fortune and rendered morbidly sensitive by years ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... boarding-school as the occasion demanded. Goldsmith's school-life could not have been altogether a pleasant time for him. We hear, indeed, of his being concerned in a good many frolics—robbing orchards, and the like; and it is said that he attained proficiency in the game of fives. But a shy and sensitive lad like Goldsmith, who was eagerly desirous of being thought well of, and whose appearance only invited the thoughtless but cruel ridicule of his schoolmates, must have suffered a good deal. He was little, ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black

... the varied motions of animals are due to a peculiar property of the muscles, termed contractility. Although plants are influenced by external agents, as light, heat, electricity, etc., yet it is supposed that they may move in response to inward impulses. The sensitive stamens of the barberry, when touched at their base on the inner side, resent the intrusion, by making a sudden jerk forward. Venus's fly-trap, a plant found in North Carolina, is remarkable for the sensitiveness of its leaves; which close suddenly ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... George's happy letter. Many warm feelings combined in one stream of happiness in Susan's heart. Perhaps the keenest of all was pride at George's success. Nobody could laugh at George now, and insult her again there where she was most sensitive, by telling her that George was not good enough for her or any woman; and even those who set such store upon money-making would have to confess that George could do even that for love of her, as well as they could do it for love ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade

... intimate a knowledge of Judith's feelings and position, and he could not listen in silence. "I think you are mistaken, Mrs. Bryant," he said, in a tone which would have betrayed his angry disgust to any more sensitive ear. Even his landlady perceived that the subject was not a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... few moments the door-bell rings. Dartrey opens the outer door and brings Gilruth into the room. He is in deep mourning; is very white and broken. He seems grievously ill. Dartrey looks at him commiseratingly. He is sensitive ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy

... give any weight to the doctrine that virtue is something rigid and unyielding as iron. In point of fact it is in regard to friendship, as in so many other things, so supple and sensitive that it expands, so to speak, at a friend's good fortune, contracts at his misfortunes. We conclude then that mental pain which we must often encounter on a friend's account is not of sufficient consequence to banish friendship ...
— Treatises on Friendship and Old Age • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... In sensitive and therefore anxious natures, the very excess of the sensation makes the impression received subject to violent reaction. It goes up and down, down and up; and not until it slackens a little can reason intervene and bring it to its ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... to work for the Evening Press. As I recall now it was my second day, and I hadn't begun to feel at home there yet, and probably was more sensitive to outside sights and noises than I would ever again be in that place. Generally speaking, when a reporter settles down to his knitting, which in his case is his writing, he becomes impervious to all disturbances excepting those that occur inside his own ...
— The Escape of Mr. Trimm - His Plight and other Plights • Irvin S. Cobb

... few phases of human existence more interesting than that in which a young and sensitive woman is compelled by circumstances to cast aside the pleasant artifices, the carefully modulated emotions of a sheltered life, and to face the realities of fact ...
— The Mystics - A Novel • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... oblige me very much, Mrs. Hunter," said the minister, "—or Mrs. French,—if you can give me any particulars about old Mr. Capen's life. His family seem to be rather sensitive, and they depend on a long, old-fashioned funeral sermon; and here I ...
— The New Minister's Great Opportunity - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin

... Pennsylvania Anti-slavery Society. To the cause of the slave's freedom he gave with all his heart his money, his time, his talents. Fervent in soul, eloquent in speech, most gracious in manner, he was a favorite on the platform of Anti-slavery meetings. High-toned in moral nature, keenly sensitive in all matters pertaining to justice and integrity, he was a most valuable coadjutor with the leaders of an unpopular reform; and throughout the Anti-slavery conflict, he always received, as he ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... with grey; the tawny part predominating on the upper portions of his body, and the grey on the under part; his clean, well shaped, little forefeet were quite black, as also was the tip of his tail; and his small, well shaped head, with its bright eyes and quick, sensitive ears, not to speak of the mobile little mouth showing its occasional glimpses of white teeth, and his newly sprouted little whiskers, made him a typical specimen of a well- grown, well-built, ...
— Rataplan • Ellen Velvin

... plunging into the snow-drift and struggling on until he fell on his face, and then all was a blank. None of the Indians were with him in the drift; he felt sure they were all behind him, which was likely enough, as Gahra, though sensitive to cold, was a man of exceptional bodily strength. It was beyond a ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall

... chance. It's my affair—not hers. There'd be arguments, at the very least. She tramples tactlessly. And it's plain you're abnormally sensitive; and rather fierce ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... pronounced what was spelt Kenminster, a name meaning St. Kenelm's minster, had a grand collegiate church and a foundation-school which, in the hands of the Commissioners, had of late years passed into the rule of David Ogilvie, Esq., a spare, pale, nervous, sensitive-looking man of eight or nine and twenty, who sat one April evening under his lamp, with his sister at work a little way off, listening with some amusement to his sighs and groans at the holiday ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... his beard grow "naturally," had an absurd result, the hair growing in violent and abrupt crops in some places, and not at all in others; so that Jones, who was sensitive about appearances, (and whose own moustache was doing beautifully,) insisted at last upon R.'s being shaved, which event accordingly took place in the city of Milan. It was well that Robinson consented, for the barber eyed him eagerly, and as if he would ...
— The Foreign Tour of Messrs. Brown, Jones and Robinson • Richard Doyle

... he forced into play all his powers. He whispered a flood of words in her ear. His own voice shook, his eyes were soft. He pleaded as one beside himself. Lois—Lois whom he had found so sensitive, so easily moved, so gently affectionate—remained like a stone. At the end of all his pleadings she simply ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... lot of extra electrons rush for the plate. But when the grid whispers "Go back," many electrons which would otherwise have gone streaking off to the plate crowd back toward the filament. That's how the audion works. There is an electron stream and a wonderfully sensitive way ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills

... duke, yielding to the melancholy influence of this opening conversation, "sensitive persons live as much in the past or the future, as in ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... had touched a sensitive nerve. This was one of the details that went into the summary of Eben's excluding her from his business life, and it ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck

... became known to him, would meet the difficulties which arose, but he had never dreamt he would stand up in a crowded court like that and make such a confession. Paul knew him to be a proud man, knew, too, that he was sensitive to the least approach of shame, knew that he valued the name he owned—one of the oldest in England. One part of the judge's speech remained in his memory. He repeated the words over again and again to himself as if trying to understand their inwardness: ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... she refused to have her feet exposed, as was usual on that occasion; a circumstance, which, occurring at a time when there can be no suspicion of affectation, is often noticed by Spanish writers, as a proof of that sensitive delicacy and decorum, which distinguished her through life. [16] At length, having received the sacraments, and performed all the offices of a sincere and devout Christian, she gently expired a little ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott



Words linked to "Sensitive" :   aware, huffy, cognisant, responsive, medium, nociceptive, thin-skinned, highly sensitive, oversensitive, sensible, sensitive pea, sensitive fern, wild sensitive plant, excitable, light-sensitive, sensitive plant, cognizant, raw, sore, psychic, erogenous, sensitivity, reactive, painful, spiritualist, sense, feisty, conscious, irritable



Copyright © 2024 Free-Translator.com