"At first glance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... kitchen at first glance was uninhabited; and yet, as she opened the door, she had heard voices within. Dropping her eyes to a lower level, she halted on the threshold and would have withdrawn without noise. In the penumbra beyond the circle of the lamp and the white tablecloth Mr. and Mrs. Benny, Nuncey, ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... At first glance at him a woman might have said mentally, "What nice eyes!" At the second, she would probably have noticed a strange thing—the eyes were quite opaque; they seemed to stare rather than look at you, there was no depth whatever in them. Certainly there was no guessing at Gastrell's character ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... of the specimens, rare to-day, of Hebrew architecture. A painter and an archeologist would look upon it with an equal amount of interest. At first glance it can be easily seen that it is a synagogue, although it does not look like other churches. Its four thick walls form a monotonous quadrangle, and its brown colour gives it a touch of dignity, sadness, and antiquity. These walls must be very old indeed, ...
— An Obscure Apostle - A Dramatic Story • Eliza Orzeszko
... horned animals of North America the white- tailed deer is the shrewdest in the recognition of its enemies, the wisest in the choice of cover, and in measures for self- preservation. It seems at first glance that the buck is more keen- witted than the doe; but this is a debatable question. Throughout the year the buck thinks only of himself. During fully one-half the year the doe is burdened by the cares of motherhood, and the paramount duty of saving ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... group.—Closely related in most respects to the group of ware just described is the striking series of vessels here presented. At first glance the resemblances are not apparent, but a careful study renders it clear that the vessels proper correspond closely in both groups. The basins are for the most part made in the same heavy, rudely ...
— Ancient art of the province of Chiriqui, Colombia • William Henry Holmes
... soldier, tall and broad-shouldered, with gray hair and a fierce-looking gray moustache drooping heavily over his mouth. But the eyes under his shaggy brows were so kind and gentle that the shyest child or the sorriest waif of a stray dog would claim him for a friend at first glance. ...
— The Story of the Red Cross as told to The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows-Johnston
... common aspect of life that would not at first glance seem worthy of mention. Not only does life, as we have just described it, mean opportunity, but it means self-conscious opportunity. The facts are such as we have found them to be, and as each one of us has previously ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... not without some little anxiety, yet not wholly divested of the hope of a favourable issue, to the character and object of the Edition HERE presented to the Public. It will be evident, at first glance, that it is greatly "shorn of its beams" in regard to graphic decorations and typographical splendour. Yet its garb, if less costly, is not made of coarse materials: for it has been the wish and aim ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... loom of the monstrous airship had been visible. The eye could hardly at first glance take in the vastness of this stupendous thing, that overshadowed all the central portion of the huge enclosure. It gave a sense of power, of swift potentialities, of speed unlimited. It stood there, tense, ready, waiting, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... other productive work and charged to the cost of the silk crop. I think that there can be no doubt that this one fact is quite sufficient to make the question of the cost of caring for the worms really as much in favor of the United States as at first glance it appears to be the other way; it being the case that in our country many who would be glad to do the work have spare time to give to it, whereas in Europe every hour that is given to silk worms would otherwise be spent in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various
... palmistes,—the pliant quivering exqisiteness of bamboo,—the furious splendor of roses run mad —more than atone for the loss of the horizon. Sometimes you approach a steep covered with a growth of what, at first glance, looks precisely like fine green fur: it is a first-growth of young bamboo. Or you see a hill-side covered with huge green feathers, all shelving down and overlapping as in the tail of some unutterable ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... of the mechanical engineer is seen in almost every piece of construction reared by the civil man, just as it is seen in every bit of construction work of the mining and the electrical engineers. At first glance this may not appear to be true, but a close analysis of different jobs will bring out ...
— Opportunities in Engineering • Charles M. Horton
... something, at first glance. Has it any further significance?" he pondered. "Of course it was prearranged, when and how—and does Sobieska know? If he doesn't, Josef has correspondents unknown to Krovitch—that alone looks dangerous. ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... and looked around. He was very proud of his even, regular, white teeth. They were so perfect that they might be taken for "store teeth" at first glance, but a second look would ...
— Frank Merriwell at Yale • Burt L. Standish
... a long wait, and much hammering back on the stage. Then the curtains parted again on the big realistic moment of the drama. Suspended at back was what at first glance looked to be a wooden window frame. It was suspended from above by ropes, which disappeared over the gallery which ran around the garage. Under this frame was a wooden saw-horse, and beneath that a pail. Only a look sufficed to show that this was La Belle Dame ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... been to his cousin's apartment and found it locked. He now entered the great hall, and at first glance thought it empty. To his alarm and astonishment, however, he saw that the sealed door had been broken open. He approached it with anxiety, and found his wife's cousin, the doughty duelist, lying pale and ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... merely a material element of metrical beauty, but a spiritual element of thought and passion also." An artist's color, glorious or tender, is only a symbol and manifestation to sense of his emotion. At first glance Titian's portrait of the "Man with the Glove" is an ineffable color-harmony. But truly seen it is infinitely more. By means of color and formal design Titian has embodied here his vision of superb young manhood; by the expressive power of his material symbols he has rendered visible ...
— The Gate of Appreciation - Studies in the Relation of Art to Life • Carleton Noyes
... At first glance, each of the cabins would be taken as a general living-room. Each was that; but also a little of everything else. At customary intervals, one compartment or the other would become a dining-cabin. ...
— Virginia: The Old Dominion • Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
... valley. Along its banks there are a number of little Southern homes, few of them boasting of the magnificence of which we often read, but all of them peaceful and attractive. Of one of these we give an illustration. At first glance they may not appear to be anything very remarkable about the little house and its surroundings, but on second thoughts and glances something more than poetical will be discovered. The old negro ballad from which we have quoted above gives in its lines a charming idea of the river and of the memories ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... To think didn't know you at first glance! But you are almost a woman. And when I saw you last you were just a little girl of eight. My ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... birth is not a miniature man. As compared with an adult its head and abdomen are relatively large, its chest relatively small; its limbs are short in proportion to the body; and at first glance it appears to have no neck at all. The middle point of a baby's length is situated about the level of the navel, whereas in a man the legs alone represent approximately half his height. The changes after birth consist chiefly in growth; but not altogether, since at least one organ, the thymus ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... that the countenance is the essential object of the interindividual sight. This knowing is still somewhat different from understanding. To a certain extent, and in a highly variable degree, we know at first glance with whom we have to do. Our unconsciousness of this knowledge and its fundamental significance lies in the fact that we direct our attention from this self-evident intuition to an understanding of special features which determine our practical relations to a particular individual. But if ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... chair sat Dr. Fu-Manchu, wearing a green robe upon which was embroidered a design, the subject of which at first glance was not perceptible, but which presently I made out to be a huge white peacock. He wore a little cap perched upon the dome of his amazing skull, and with one clawish hand resting upon the ebony of the table, he sat slightly ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... height of a few thousand miles Mercury, at first glance, strongly reminded them of the moon. The general effect was the same—leaden disk, with slight prominences here and there on the circumference, and large, irregular splotches of a darkish shade relieved by a great many brilliantly lighted areas, ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... nineteen inches in length, with a long tail, pointed wings, and Owl-like face. At first glance he seemed to be a bluish-gray bird, but on close inspection one could see that his under parts were white, mottled with brown, and there was also a large white patch on his rump. He spoke very ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... observe how various recent influences have modified the beliefs of people who not many centuries ago were doubtless of a uniform grade of culture. It is interesting, too, to note that European tales brought into the Islands by Mohammedan and Christian rulers and traders have been worked over until, at first glance, they ...
— Philippine Folk Tales • Mabel Cook Cole
... divine means. If one will compare the statues of St. Trophime of Arles with those at St. Denis, it will be found that the latter are better rounded, those at St. Trophime being coarsely blocked out; although at first glance one would say that there was little to ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... was produced from his resting place on a top shelf. At first glance he appeared to consist entirely of a very gaunt, cadaverous head and a sizable hump, but on being spread out he was found to possess a dark brown, unwholesome-looking body made of thick, ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... At first glance, the responsibility seems extraordinarily heavy and difficult. But with broadening experience, it becomes almost second nature to an officer quickly to set a course by which to judge individual men in relation to the affairs of ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... question should have been: "What is it that a lady does not wear when traveling by motor?" He saw coats and bonnets and goggles and vanity boxes and gloves, to mention only a few of those things he took in at first glance. ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... involved in politics, but qualified by experience for political life, her husband was made minister of the interior, and in March, 1792, he and his wife entered upon their duties. She was a keen reader of human nature, at first glance giving her husband a penetrating and generally truthful judgment of men. Being able to comprehend the temperaments of the ministers, she managed them with inimitable tact. Although all the Girondist ministers were ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... conclude a pedestrian tour without a glance at the wonderful interior of this cheap store, and I know all its contents familiarly. I recognize wares that have now been on sale there for years; I miss at first glance such accustomed objects as have been parted with between my frequent visits, and hail with pleasure the additions to that extraordinary variety. I can hardly, I suppose, expect the reader to sympathize with the joy I felt the other night, in discovering among the latter an adventurous ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... looked at first glance like a large, dead animal, proved to be a deer-hide stretched on framework, the hairy side out. A few slashes of Charley's hunting-knife laid open this rude leather box and revealed to their eager gaze a smaller similar box inside. Charley lifted it out ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... of view, we have to consider the Basilique de St. Denis no longer a cathedral, as one of the earliest Gothic examples in France, though at first glance little enough of the true Gothic feeling is apparent. About the year 275 a chapel was built here above the grave of St. Dionysius, the first Bishop of Paris. This was followed by a large basilica, ultimately given over to the uses of monks ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... with moving counters, or coins, that at first glance looks as if it must be absurdly simple. But it will be found quite a little perplexity. I give it in this place for a reason that I will explain when we come to the next puzzle. Copy the simple diagram, ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... some few years his senior, stalwart and clean-limbed. He appeared to be over six feet in height and a man of splendid physique. At first glance it was evident that he came of superior stock. His shapely hands were grimy, his eyes of a peculiarly light shade of blue were hollow and haggard looking. His face, emaciated and ghastly, was almost livid. A clean-cut ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... the drawing-room and made my way into the study. He was standing on the hearthrug, with the tails of his morning coat drooping over his arms and an expression on his face that I can only describe as cherubic. Seated on chairs, a yard or so away from him, were two visitors of whom at first glance I formed a most unfavorable opinion. One was a flashily dressed, middle-aged man, with fair mustache, puffy cheeks, and a superfluity of jewelry. The other I might at first have taken for an undertaker's mute. He had an exceedingly red nose, ...
— An Amiable Charlatan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... At first glance there might seem to be an objection in the fact that, while the government was lending money at two per cent. it was paying on savings deposits interest possibly as high as 2.4 per cent., which would appear to be an unbusiness-like and unprofitable ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... after the Chicago and Fredonia bill was smothered in committee there appeared upon the threshold of my office, in the administration building of the Ramsay Company, a man whom at first glance you might have taken for an exhorter or a collector for some pious enterprise. But if you had made a study of faces, your second glance would have cut through that gloze of oily, apologetic appeal. Behind a thin screen of short gray beard lay a heavy loose mouth, cruel ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... French Section. France is easily to modern art what Italy was to the art of the Renaissance or Greece to antiquity. Almost all countries, with the exception of those of northern Europe, have gone to school at Paris. It becomes quite evident at first glance that a certain very desirable spaciousness in the hanging of the pictures contributes much toward the generally favorable impression of this section of the exhibition, though it is hard to understand why this fine effect should have been spoiled by the pattern used ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... the eloquence of Demosthenes, the gift would have come too late. The door was thrown open, not by servants, but by a merry, curious crowd of ladies and gentlemen, anxious to see the arrival of the belated, no doubt much talked of, automobile. Light streamed out from a great hall, which seemed, at first glance, to be half full of people in evening dress, girls and young men, gay and laughing. Everybody was talking at the same time, chattering both English and French, nobody listening to anybody else, all intent ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... interested gaze of those few eyes that were turned toward his entrance. He engaged every pair with a pair very clear and steady and undropping, until somehow each lip that had started to twist in amusement straightened, and the twinkle that rose at first glance sobered at second. He did not know why an old gentleman in a plaid traveling cap, who looked up from a magazine, turned his gaze out of the window with an expression of grave thoughtfulness. To himself, the old gentleman was irrelevantly quoting a ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... there remained sixty-eight. That meant they had expended thirty-nine in the last charge alone. As near as they could make out, they had accounted for eight of the enemy, four in the melee just finished. Besides, there were a number of ponies down. At first glance this might seem like poor shooting. It was not. A rapidly moving figure is a difficult rifle-mark with the best of conditions. In this case the conditions would have rendered an Easterner incapable of hitting a feather pillow ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... At first glance I thought that the room was empty, then suddenly I heard another violent expletive and became aware of a man sitting close beside the iron stove. He turned to stare at us as we entered, but to my surprise it was not Theodore's ugly face which confronted us. The man sitting there alone ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... cranes its head upwards towards her; Michael Angelo nursing his dying Servant, a group of two three-quarter length figures; the servant reclining in an armchair with his head resting against the shoulder of Michael Angelo—a fairly powerful but somewhat academic version of the incident—which looks at first glance like the work of a not very important "old master;" The Star of Bethlehem, showing one of the Magi on the terrace of his house looking at the strange star in the East, while below are indications of a revel he has just left. Duett, Sisters, Sea Echoes, and ...
— Frederic Lord Leighton - An Illustrated Record of His Life and Work • Ernest Rhys
... we have already declared, was really in love with Clara. It seems incredible, at first glance, that a man who had no conscience could have a heart. But the assertion is not a fairy story; it is founded in solid philosophy. It is true that Coronado's moral education had been neglected or misdirected; that he was either born indifferent to the idea of duty, or had become indifferent ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Stephen, as they gently bear the corpse of the Count, the murky light of the torches in the background, while overhead the saintly hierarchy terminating in a white radiance, Christ the Comforter, His mother at His right hand, quiring hosts at His left—all these figures make an ensemble that at first glance benumbs the critical faculty. You recall the solemn and spasmodic music of Michael Angelo (of whom El Greco is reported to have irreverently declared that he couldn't paint); then as your perspective slowly shapes itself you note ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... and a scarlet shirt-waist underneath. Her face was long, with square chin and high cheek-bones, and thin, firm lips; yet she was comely, because of her lustrous black hair, her clear, gray eyes, and her charming, fair skin. She had another gift: everything about her was daintily neat; at first glance one said, "Here is a person who has spent pains, if not money, on ...
— Stories of a Western Town • Octave Thanet
... shaken his father had been at sight of him! Poor old Dad! And then what was the significance of all that talk about his range name, Panhandle Smith, and his father's strange fascinated handling of Pan's gun? Would his mother know him at first glance? Oh! no doubt of that! But Alice would not; she had been a child; and ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey
... "At first glance, yes," studied Peters. "But, on the other hand, it would be the death knell of my post-card business, and I'm calculating to go back to Baldpate next summer and take it up again. No, I'm afraid I can't let it be generally known that I've quit living in a shack on the mountain ...
— Seven Keys to Baldpate • Earl Derr Biggers
... over it, in fact, his thin, wrinkled hands, sits an old man. At first glance, one would need to be told that it was Mr. Stewart, so heavily has Time laid his weight upon him in these last four years. There are few enough external suggestions now of the erect, soldierly gentleman, swift of perception, authoritative ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... Myths 55 to 62 at first glance to not appear to be explanatory at all, but seem rather to be a series of stories dealing with the relations between certain persons and the natural spirits or those of the dead. However, it is the intent and use rather than the form of these stories which has caused them to ...
— Traditions of the Tinguian: A Study in Philippine Folk-Lore • Fay-Cooper Cole
... one of the very rarest impressions of the sacred text, in the XVth century, which is known to exist. It is printed in the gothic type, in double columns, and a full page contains thirty-six lines. There are running titles. The text, at first glance, has much of the appearance of Baemler's printing at Augsbourg; but it is smaller, and more angular. Why should not the book have been printed in Bohemia? This is a very clean, desirable copy, ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... At first glance I could distinguish no sign of the boatman left in charge, but, even as I lay there, breathless and uncertain, he suddenly revealed his presence by lighting a lantern in the stern. The illumination was feeble enough, ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... found him strangely clothed in soft brown, surrounded by youngsters; and asked for all he knew about Dhoop Kichari-lal and Koob Soonder. (Their request would have been made in different form, if they had recognised his order at first glance.) He eyed ...
— Son of Power • Will Levington Comfort and Zamin Ki Dost
... sort of subconscious, selfish idea that some one would steal the canyon away from me if I did not hurry to make it mine forever; so I sneaked off, and sat under a pine growing on the very rim. At first glance, I saw below me, seemingly miles away, a wild chaos of red and buff mesas rising out of dark purple clefts. Beyond these reared a long, irregular tableland, running south almost to the extent of my vision, which I remembered ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... negress appeared, who conducted the gentlemen, without uttering a word, across the narrow inner courtyard into a small cool room, where the lady awaited them, reclining on a low ottoman. At first glance she appeared smaller and stouter than the Moorish damsel met in the omnibus by the Tarasconian. In fact, was it really the same? But the doubt merely flashed through Tartarin's brain like ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... form, the capillitiums conjoined into a single body—indue this (form) with an appearance peculiar to a degree; however, should anyone prefer to call it a very remarkable variety of the preceding (S. fasciculata), we shall not strenuously refuse. At first glance it looks like a tubulina. After the fashion of its kind, the beginning is soft and milky. The diameter generally an inch and a half to two inches, the height four to six lines; the form perfectly round, or more rarely somewhat oblong. The hypothallus, ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride
... the same man," said the Angel. "You know, we were in Colorado last year, and there was a cowboy who was the handsomest man anywhere around. He'd come riding into town every night, and all we girls just adored him! Oh, but he was a beauty! I thought at first glance you were really he, but I see now he wasn't nearly so tall nor so broad as you, and only ...
— Freckles • Gene Stratton-Porter
... speeches. The best one, as far as I could learn, was made by the owner of the outraged premises at a late hour—when the party was breaking up—as you might put it. He said the bill would be about eighteen hundred dollars, as near as he could tell at first glance. He was greeted with hearty laughter and applause from the high-spirited young incendiaries and retired hastily through an unsuspected door to the pantry as they rushed for him. It was then they found out what to do with the rest of the catsup—and ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson
... At first glance, not an unusual or particularly commanding figure. Yet the man's power of personality, the sheer dominant force of him, radiated like a tower code-beam. No one could be in his presence an instant without feeling it. A power that enwrapped you; made you feel like ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... base of the mound on which he sat, partly hidden by clumps of stunted cypress and palms, was a small hut built of bamboo and thatched with palm leaves. It was built in the form of a lean-to against the slope of a sand dune near the shore, and at first glance it seemed to be part of the island itself. Indeed, it was so well concealed that Hugh might never have noticed it at all, save for the fact that he caught sight of a canoe with three men in it approaching the hut, from behind ...
— The Boy Scouts on Picket Duty • Robert Shaler
... At first glance he could only barely distinguish the outlines of her figure, dimly discernable against the dark background of the upholstery, but, as his eyes accustomed themselves to the faint light, her features also became dimly ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... magnitude of his ideas. He conceived every subject on so grand a scale that he had not room in his head to turn it over and examine both sides of it. Certain it is, that, if any matter were propounded to him on which ordinary mortals would rashly determine at first glance, he would put on a vague, mysterious look, shake his capacious head, smoke some time in profound silence, and at length observe, that 'he had his doubts about the matter;' which gained him the reputation of a man slow of belief and not easily imposed upon. What is more, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... hunters and were experts in the use of bow and arrow and also the blow-gun, and never failed to bring home a fresh supply of game for the village. This supply was always divided equally, so that no one should receive more than he needed for the day. At first glance the men might appear lazy, but why should they hurry and worry when they have no landlord, and no grocer's bills to pay; in fact, the value of money is entirely unknown ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... was a wide, low cleft in the north face of the chasm wall, and in front of it, spreading out like the flow of a stream, was a great spatter of white sand, like a huge rug that had been spread out in a space cleared of its chaotic litter of rock and broken slate. At first glance Aldous guessed that the cavern had once been the exit of a subterranean stream. The sand deadened the sound of their footsteps as they approached. At the mouth of the cave they paused. It was perhaps forty or fifty feet deep, and ...
— The Hunted Woman • James Oliver Curwood
... entrance. I was assigned to ride with the rear-guard beside the wagons, in company with the few settlers and fifteen of the Miamis under command of Sergeant Jordan. Captains Heald and Wells, the latter with face blackened so that at first glance I scarcely recognized him, took position at the head of the waiting column in front of the closed gates, and they sat there on their horses, facing us, and watching anxiously ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... its origin and real meaning, as given by the standard authorities? We are sure that many of you have no real idea of the actual meaning of the term, as strange as this statement may appear to you at first glance. Stop now, and define the word to yourself, as you have been accustomed to think of it. Ninety-five people of a hundred will tell you that it means something like "a strong personality." ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... the ancient kings of Thebes. Argyropoulos did not stop there, but led the travellers up a sort of steep slope, which at first glance seemed nothing but a break on the side of the mountain, choked in many places by fallen masses of rock, until they reached a narrow platform, a sort of cornice projecting over the vertical cliff on which the rocks, apparently thrown together by chance, nevertheless exhibited on close examination ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... feelings. And similarly we are fussed and bored by the tentative lines, the uncoordinated directions and impacts, of inferior, even if technically expert and realistically learned draughtsmen, of artists whose work may charm at first glance by some vivid likeness or poetic suggestion, but reveal with every additional day their complete insignificance as movement, their utter empathic nullity. Indeed, if we analyse the censure ostensibly based upon engineering considerations of material ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... which all the air had been pumped. The globes were to be twenty feet in diameter, and were estimated to have a lifting force of 2650 pounds. The weight of the copper shells was put at 1030 pounds, leaving a margin of possible weight for the car and its contents of 1620 pounds. It seemed at first glance a perfectly reasonable and logical plan. Unhappily one factor in the problem had been ignored. The atmospheric pressure on each of the globes would be about 1800 tons. Something more than a thin copper shell would ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... as that of the high larger islands. I cannot pretend to form any precise notion how the foundation of so anomalous an island has been produced, but its whole history must be very different from that of the atolls of the Indian and Pacific oceans—though, as I have said, at first glance of the charts there ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume II - Volume II (of II) • Charles Darwin
... who interested me. But he was of quite a different order. He was a personage. They called him Julian Mastakovich. At first glance one could tell he was an honoured guest and stood in the same relation to the host as the host to the gentleman of the whiskers. The host and hostess said no end of amiable things to him, were most attentive, wining ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... speechless excitement the girl's cunt, which seemed at first glance as if a prick had entered it; but looking more closely saw that the perforation was too small. I thrust gently my finger up it,—a cry,—a howl. "Don't,—you're a hurting," and again the little devil was arse upwards on the bed. Again I coaxed, ...
— My Secret Life, Volumes I. to III. - 1888 Edition • Anonymous
... remember that it was suggested that the theoretical daisy would soon alter its shape after it entered upon active life. This is plainly seen in the starfish, although at first glance the creature seems as radially symmetrical as a wheel. But at one side of the body, between two of the arms, is a tiny perforated plate, serving to strain the water which enters the body, and thus the circular tendency is broken, and a beginning made toward right and left handedness. ...
— The Log of the Sun - A Chronicle of Nature's Year • William Beebe
... have been made by men whose nation had been so bold on the sea for fifty years past is at first glance surprising. But one must remember that the Portuguese had been merely feeling their way along Africa. They had perfect confidence in a southern route that hugged the shore. South was safe; but west beyond the Azores, where there was no shore to hug, was quite another ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... Farnsworth, the cashier, was called into his room. But Farnsworth could not give him any information about Millard's character or capacities. That he would not do without special training for a teller or bookkeeper was too evident to require discussion. All that could be said of him at first glance was that he wrote a good hand and composed a letter with intelligence. He might be made of assistance to the cashier if he should prove to be a man of regular habits and application. What Masters wrote in reply was: "We should be ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... hemmed in by immense blocks of granite, is a large incubating mound. Save at one point it is encompassed by rocks, but the opening does not grant facilities for the accumulation of vegetable debris, yet the mound continually increases in dimensions. At first glance there seems no means by which such a large heap could have been accumulated for the birds do not carry their materials, but kick and scratch them to the site. A hasty survey shows that the birds have taken advantage of the junction ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... over, we know the lock is right. We repeat the experiment from the opposite bank, and in the same manner determine if the lock is right on the other pallets. You see we have now the means of measuring not only the angular motion of the lever, but the angular extent of the lock. At first glance one would say that if now we bring the roller and fork action to coincide and act in unison with the pallet action, we would be all right; and so we would, but frequently this bringing of the roller and fork to agree is not ...
— Watch and Clock Escapements • Anonymous
... had seen Sheridan except as I "looked toward" him when passing in review. One may do a good deal of service, even be in many skirmishes and battles without getting a good look at the corps commander, much less the commander of the army. There was nothing about Sheridan's appearance at first glance to mark him as the principal figure in the scene. Except for the fact that he rode in front one might have mistaken one of the other officers for chief. But close inspection easily singled him out. He was well mounted and sat his horse like a real cavalryman. Though ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... a week later when Anderson, going into the drug store one evening, found young Eastman in the line in front of the soda-fountain. A girl in white was with him, and Anderson thought at first glance that she was Charlotte Carroll, as a matter of course—he had so accustomed himself to think of the two in union by this time. Then he looked again and saw that the girl was much larger and fair-haired, and recognized ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... Stevens happened to look from the window of the kitchen where she was at work. Something was moving behind a clump of spiked niggerheads between the back door and the corrals; at first glance it looked like a dirty rag stirring in the wind, but when the woman had held her eyes on it a moment she saw, among the bits of rock and the thorny twigs with which it had been camouflaged, the folds ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... unconscious, of the living or the dead; but we do not speak of the attitude, pose, or posture of a corpse; unless, in some rare case, we might say the body was found in a sitting posture, where the posture is thought of as assumed in life, or as, at first glance, suggesting life. A posture is assumed without any special reference to expression of feeling; as, an erect posture, a reclining posture; attitude is the position appropriate to the expression of some feeling; the attitude may be unconsciously taken through the strength ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... that his countenance, despite of its healthy hue, was a good deal wrecked and weatherbeaten, and gave indications of those traces, which not only a much longer period of time, but deep and violent passions, seldom fail to leave behind them. His features were regular, and at first glance seemed handsome, but upon a nearer approach you were certain to find that their expression was heartless and disagreeable. They betokened no symptom of humanity of feeling, but were lit up with a spirit of harsh and reckless levity, which, whilst it made him popular ...
— The Tithe-Proctor - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... almost noiselessly down the drive was not the one in which the family had departed. It had the shape of a sleek gray beetle, rounded so that it was difficult to tell at first glance the hood from the rear. It glided to a stop before the steps and after a moment four ...
— Ralestone Luck • Andre Norton
... He looked dubiously at the electric airship and shrugged his shoulders. It seemed to him, at first glance, that, it would ...
— Tom Swift and his Wireless Message • Victor Appleton
... and at first glance seemed hardly calculated to bring about what she wanted—an invitation to call at the Ryder home, but she was shrewd enough to see that if Ryder wrote to her at all it was because he was most anxious to see her and her abruptness would not deter him ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... At first glance, Jewish history during the period of independence seems to be but slightly different from the history of other nations. Though not without individual coloring, there are yet the same wars and intestine disturbances, the same political revolutions and dynastic quarrels, ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... It sees truly enough at first glance, and its first glance is always keenest, that the German princes maintain and consolidate the old German social condition, upon which their existence stands or falls, and forcibly react against the dissolving elements. It likewise sees, on the other hand, the dissolving elements ...
— Selected Essays • Karl Marx
... bottom of the steps they divined, issuing from an isolated, temple-seeming building below, a train of sober-liveried attendants, all at first glance resembling Jarvo and Akko. These defiled leisurely toward the strangers and lined up irregularly at the foot of ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale
... [Footnote 6: At first glance a forcible illustration, since the Japanese proverb declares that "A sea-voyage is an inch of hell." And yet the original saying of Ry[u]-ju, now proverbial in Buddhadom, referred to the ease of sailing over the water, compared with ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... At first glance I could only make out a confused chaos, impossible to describe, amidst which my aunt was bustling about clad in pink fleshings. Clad, did I ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... senor," said Myra, deciding at first glance he was one of the most attractive men she had ever seen. "Congratulations on the win. ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... less relieved to see that Peter looked quite respectable, despite the indisputable patch on his trousers. His face was rosy, his thick black curls were smoothly combed, and his tie was neatly bowed; but it was his legs which we scrutinized most anxiously. At first glance they seemed well enough; but closer inspection revealed ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... exaggeration of what he might think to be the serious outlook of the case to friends would only lead to greater care of the patient, there is probably much more justification for his suggestion than might be thought at first glance. He says, "When the doctor quits the patient he should promise him that he will get quite well again, but he should inform his friends that he is very ill; in this way, if a cure is affected, the fame of the doctor will be so much the greater, but if the patient dies people ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... do not envy the mental condition of those who can rest in the belief that a really great poet can be a bad man. Be assured that the fruits of genius have never grown, and will never grow, in such a soil. Of all great poets Byron might seem at first glance to constitute an exception to this—I venture to call it—law of Nature. Yet hear what Walter Scott, a ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... entering the hall with Miss Hohlfelder would have seen, at first glance, only a company of well-dressed people, with nothing to specially distinguish them from ordinary humanity in temperate climates. After the eye had rested for a moment and begun to separate the mass into its component parts, one or two dark ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... my eye one day was ranging about with its accustomed coldness, and the proudly foolish sense of being in a shroud of thoughts that were not their thoughts, it was arrested by a face most fair, and well-known as it seemed at first glance,—for surely I had met her before and waited for her long. But soon I saw that she was a new apparition foreign to that scene, if not to me. Her dress,—the arrangement of her hair, which had the graceful pliancy of races highly cultivated ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... remarkable for one reason or another he excited interest. His horse, perhaps, received the first and most engaging attention—horses in that region being apparently more important than men. This particular horse did not attract with beauty. At first glance he seemed ugly. But he was a giant, black as coal, rough despite the care manifestly bestowed upon him, long of body, ponderous of limb, huge in every way. A bystander remarked that he had a grand head. True, if only his head had been seen ...
— The Lone Star Ranger • Zane Grey
... "At first glance Shirley and Gordon suggest themselves because both murders were highly spectacular, and the actor, above everything else, enjoys a big scene. After Werner's death, for instance, Shirley literally strutted up and down in that set. He was so full of the situation, ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... which it is put for the former are well known, but precisely what the latter could want of the article is not, at first glance, quite so obvious. We are informed, however, that it is valued for its antiseptic properties, and also for its softening effect on the quasi butter. Be this as it may, it seems that both here and in Europe the ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... feathers that adorn the peacock's back. It had none of the brilliant colours, however, of that proudest of birds, though it was quite as stately, and much larger and taller. In fact, its great height and erect attitude was why Hendrik at first glance had taken it for an ostrich. It was neither peacock nor ostrich, but belonging to a different genus from either—to the genus Otis or bustard. It was the great bustard of South Africa—the Otis kori—called "pauw" by the Dutch colonists, on account of its ocellated plumage and other points ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... At first glance, this parenthesis is obscure; but the obscurity is not due to its being "exactly like the short notes of a speech", etc. It is due to what the "obscurity" of Mr. Browning's language, as language, is, in nine cases out of ten, due, namely, to the COLLOCATION of the words, not to an excessive ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... it, the speed bracing my nerves. Fortunately, (as I thought then) Monsieur Anatole Girard was at home and able to receive me. I was shown into the plain but very neat little sitting-room of a flat on the fifth floor of a big new apartment house, and was impressed at first glance by the clever face of the dark, thin Frenchman who politely bade me welcome. It was cunning, as well as clever, no doubt: but then, I told myself, it was the business of a person in Monsieur Girard's profession ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson
... lamps with brass leaves and glass lotuses; and smiling Arabs in white from turban to slippers had blue larks flying wide-winged on their breasts. Oh, yes, Sir Marcus was "doing" his clients well, that was patent at first glance, and became even more conspicuous to the eyes of the Set as they wandered into the dining saloon, drawing-room and library, or peeped into each other's cabins. Sir Marcus himself had come on board ostensibly ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... at this speech. She wriggled past the conductor and the troubled porter, and ran into the car ahead. At first glance she spied the little group of mother and children that was the center ...
— Betty Gordon at Mountain Camp • Alice B. Emerson
... floor, the room was a scene of peace and quiet luxury. Even the large table which occupied the centre of the room and near which the master of the house had been standing when struck gave no token of the tragedy which had been enacted at its side. That is, not at first glance; for though its large top was covered with articles of use and ornament, they all stood undisturbed and presumably in place, as if the shock which had laid their owner low had failed to be communicated ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... in the street almost at a bound, and he was in time—in time to see something which at first glance froze the blood. The cries appeared to come from a decapitated head resting ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... give audience to traveling agents, tradesmen, working-hands and servants, as chatelaine of her ranch, and the occasion was not novel. Yet on entering the room, which she used partly as an office, she found some difficulty in classifying the stranger, who at first glance reminded her of the tramping miner she had seen that night from her window. He was rather incongruously dressed, some articles of his apparel being finer than others; he wore a diamond pin in a scarf folded over a rough "hickory" ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... been done in the invention of new combinations, the character of the harmonic structure has changed considerably since the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This is evident at first glance on comparing a score of Haydn or Mozart with one of Wagner or Liszt. There, although chromatic harmonies are not unfrequent, they occur only sporadically, the general structure being diatonic, whereas ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... through the valley. Some rank underbrush that fringed the timber gave the mouth of the gorge the appearance of a shallow cave, and a wall of rock, forming a ragged arch over the entrance, heightened the impression. At first glance the place ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... waiter, schooled to remember at first glance if he remembered at all, looked afresh at Ayling. "I see so many faces, sir—I couldn't just at the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Richard Kendrick himself came in. Quite as usual, he looked as if he had that moment left the hands of a most scrupulous valet. No wonder Louis's first thought was, as he looked at him, that people gave him credit for caring only for externals. One would not have said at first glance that he had ever soiled his hands with any labour more tiring than that of putting on his gloves. And yet, studying him more closely in the light of the revelations his friend had made, was there not in his attractive face more strength ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond
... leading into the garden. Having reached this, he keeps on down the centre walk, and over the wall at bottom, through which there chances to be a breach. All these mysterious movements are in keeping with the appearance of the man. For his countenance shows cunning of no ordinary kind. At first glance, and under the moonlight, he might be mistaken for a mulatto. But, though coloured, he is not of this kind. His tawny skin shows a tinge of red, which tells of Indian, rather than African blood. He is, in truth, a mestizo—half ...
— The Death Shot - A Story Retold • Mayne Reid
... the donkey that was harnessed to it had brought the cart all this distance? At first glance it seemed impossible, but although the animal was tired out, one could see upon a closer view that it was very robust and much bigger than the donkeys that one sees in Europe. Its coat was a beautiful dark grey, ...
— Nobody's Girl - (En Famille) • Hector Malot
... caused by the appearance of a bright point of light on the edge of the bluff, several hundred yards down the river, and upon the opposite side. At first glance it resembled some star of the first magnitude, which a sudden depression of the bluff had made visible. The scout ceased paddling, and, suffering the canoe to drift slowly with the tide, fixed his keen gray ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne |
