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Read between the lines   /rɛd bɪtwˈin ðə laɪnz/   Listen
Read between the lines

verb
1.
Read what is implied but not expressed on the surface.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Read between the lines" Quotes from Famous Books



... that little girl in there can look! And never more so than when she allows her temper to overcome her. She had been angry just now. Yes. But he can read between the lines; angry—naturally that he has not come to the point—declared himself—proposed as the saying is. Well, puffing complacently at his cigar, she must wait—she must wait—if the appointment comes off, if Sir Alexander stands to him, she has a very good chance, but ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... Olive was delicate; she could not travel; Mat could not leave her to come himself, and so on. Tom never doubted these excuses; he even made his little joke about the lad becoming a family man; but Susan, who was sharper than her husband, read between the lines. Mat was ashamed of bringing the Dean's niece down to see the shop; it was possible, but here Susan almost shuddered at the awfulness of the thought, that he might not have told his wife ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... of mind which can be read between the lines in George Sand's letters to Flaubert is serenity, and this is also the characteristic of her work during the last period of her life. Her "last style" is that of Jean de la Rocke, published in 1860. A young nobleman, Jean de la Roche, loses his heart to ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic

... the Higher Command is intended by anything that has been written. If such can be read between the lines, it is unintentional and a ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley

... baited; it would hardly have deceived the most guileless and unsuspecting. Harold Purling at a glance could read between the lines; he could trace effect to cause, and readily understood why his mother was so anxious ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... perhaps in the form of twinges of conscience, or dreams, or as you would say in the form of hazy memories inherited from earlier imperfect lives. If these gentle lessons fail, swift blows rain upon us. But we are never permitted to fall into error unchecked. Read well the tablet of your soul and read between the lines. Measure your strength and test your purity ere you dare to attempt to shatter at a blow the structure of the ages. When Lucifer fell from the Divine order, it was lust of knowledge that prompted him to set ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... wrote that he was now clear in his mind about the girl to this extent, that her harshness toward Apollonius was due to her fondness for another whom he could not bring her to name. In the next, one in which he scarcely spoke of the girl, Apollonius read between the lines a certain pity for himself, the reason for which he knew not how to find. The third gave this reason only too clearly. His brother himself was the object of the girl's secret affection. She had given him various signs of this, after he had renounced ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various

... the States-General, and that they were to send back the secret correspondence and also the Act, if it were still undelivered. The result answered to his expectations. While the clerk was laboriously deciphering the despatch, the envoys read between the lines of De Witt's letter, and without a moment's delay went to Whitehall and placed the Act in Cromwell's hands. The States-General had thus no alternative between acceptance of the fait accompli and the risk of a renewal of the war. No further action ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... as it stands "is pitched in an entirely wrong key. The cognate offices in the Rituale Romanun and the Priest's Prayer Book ought to have shown the Committee, were it not for their peculiar unteachableness, a better way." To one who can read between the lines, this arraignment of the Americans for their lack of docility to the teachings of the Priest's Prayer Book is not ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington

... she hadn't. It was easy to read between the lines the tale of the years of disappointment and anxiety. Such stories are not easy to tell, and he respected the widow more than ever for the simple way in which ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... the letter ended. There was not a word regarding any future meeting; there was nothing to read between the lines. A great loneliness surged over Hillard. Was this, then, really the end? No! He struck the letter sharply on his palm. No, this should not be the end. He would wait here in Florence till the day of doom. He would waste no time in seeking her, for he knew that ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath

... she began an appealing letter to Clare, concealing from him her hardships, and assuring him of her undying affection. Any one who had been in a position to read between the lines would have seen that at the back of her great love was some monstrous fear—almost a desperation—as to some secret contingencies which were not disclosed. But again she did not finish her effusion; he had asked Izz to go with him, and perhaps he did not care for her at all. She put ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... astonishing paradox, this whimsicality is full of good sense; this dream overflows with realities; this improbable and chimerical romance contains the substance and the marrow of a rational and truly modern treatise on pedagogy. Sometimes we must read between the lines, add what experience has taught us since that day, transpose into an atmosphere of open democracy these pages, written under the old order of things, but even then quivering with the new world which they were bringing to light, and for ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... It's dreadful! But you are right. I can't live without ideals. All the great artists had them. You have them yourself, or at least you had them. I don't know what to think about your book—I can't think, I can only feel; and I read between the lines. Surely you feel with me that there's nothing worth living for except morality? Surely you ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair

... he insisted. "I flatter myself I'm good at reading faces, you know, and yours is always interesting—one never has to read between the lines." ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb

... admiration of Lope's powers, his unfailing invention, and his marvellous fertility; but in the preface of the First Part of "Don Quixote" and in the verses of "Urganda the Unknown," and one or two other places, there are, if we read between the lines, sly hits at Lope's vanities and affectations that argue no personal good-will; and Lope openly sneers at "Don Quixote" and Cervantes, and fourteen years after his death gives him only a few lines of cold commonplace ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... altogether too much of this spirit in the army, and one who can read between the lines will see it in the history of many a campaign. It did not necessarily mean wavering loyalty. It was sometimes the mental indecision or timidity which shrinks from responsibility. It was sometimes also the result of education in an army on the peace establishment, ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox

... pregnant of high hope! O, I was born to love, I think, and I never loved but one. This story of my life is the story of Berna. It is a thing of words and words and words, yet every word is Berna, Berna. Feel the heartache behind it all. Read between the lines, Berna, Berna. ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... times that were too troubled for him to speak freely. In his works, however, not a few passages are found in which there can be no doubt that reincarnation is hinted at, to anyone able to read between the lines. (Tableau nat., vol. I, p. 136; L'homme de ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal

... poll was taken early (it was not on Saturday), And he lost by seven hundred, and is out of the fierce fray; And whether he rejoices, or internally repines, May be clear to the wiseacres who can "read between the lines." ...
— Punch, Or the London Charivari, Volume 103, July 16, 1892 • Various

... found no satisfaction in the rigid theologies of the time. She had sought help from accepted religion and religion had had nothing to give her. We have to read between the lines and especially to evaluate all this period in the light of "Science and Health" itself to reconstruct the movement of her inner life, but beyond a doubt her thought had played about the almost tragic discrepancy between her own experiences and the love and goodness of God. ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins

... again he read between the lines, finding sanity and sense, compassion and humor. The inherited charm of Brian's personality filled him ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple

... deceived, but read between the lines and made out the hidden words, which were not flattering to herself. And to her it was manifest that Edgar's attentions, offered with such excited publicity, were not so much to gratify her or to express himself, as to pique Leam Dundas and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various

... employment. The foreman had discharged her at the end of the third day. Once she had been engaged at an agency as a servant by a man, but as soon as his wife saw her Nellie was told she would not do. Bitter humiliating experiences had befallen her. Twice she had been turned out of rooming houses. Jeff read between the lines that as her time drew near some overmastering impulse had drawn her back to Verden. Already she was harboring the thought of death, but she could not die in a strange place so far from home. Only that ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine

... what I call plain speaking. I suppose it's up to us to read between the lines. I can assure you that my friend Mr. Jones will appreciate it. It isn't my place to say a word outside the letter which I have handed to you. I am a plain business man, and these things don't come in my way. That is why I feel I can criticize,—I am unprejudiced. You are Britishers, and you've ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... half-hour to write a brief note to mademoiselle, explaining why I was compelled to cancel my engagement with her for the next day, and bidding her good-by in such fashion that, without seeming presumptuous, she might read between the lines how much of my heart ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon

... can read between the lines may discover in these pages constant evidences of care and skill and faithful labor, of which the old-time superficial essayists, compiling library notes on dates and striking ...
— A Truthful Woman in Southern California • Kate Sanborn

... a great deal of scientific literature must be read between the lines. It's not everyone who has the lamentableness of a Sir John Evans. Just as a great deal of Voltaire's meaning was inter-linear, we suspect that a Captain Duff merely hints rather than to risk having a Prof. Lawrence Smith fly at him and call him "a half-insane ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort

... respect is not incompatible with many veiled and secret sarcasms, which were as well understood as they were sharply enjoyed by those who read between the lines. It is not surprising that these sarcasms were constantly unjust and shallow. Even those of us who repudiate theology and all its works for ourselves, may feel a shock at the coarseness and impurity of innuendo ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley

... must write to-night, Thomas," she said eagerly, "you mustn't delay, for the child is waiting for a word and she mustn't be disappointed, whatever happens. I expect she's pretty nigh broken her heart many a time longing to write to us, and—and—her father wouldn't let her. I can read between the lines. I'm ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... possession of this land for their Lord. Here, too, many sorrowing missionary parents have had to lay little ones, early taken home in this bleak climate. Ah, what stories are written on those simple gravestones, when one can read between the lines! ...
— With the Harmony to Labrador - Notes Of A Visit To The Moravian Mission Stations On The North-East - Coast Of Labrador • Benjamin La Trobe

... however, examined the dozen or so kits of mackerel which appeared as part of his cargo, they would have found, not fish, but a species of bait ofttimes used by fishermen; and could they have read between the lines of Captain Wolf's innocent inquiries they would have learned that fishing information was the thing he cared least about. Though Wolf talked trade, but did no trading; was anxious to buy, and bought not; willing to sell and sold not; it need not be inferred he transacted no ...
— Pocket Island - A Story of Country Life in New England • Charles Clark Munn

... you have read between the lines better than I thought. I would have preferred to remain plain William Heath to every one until after I had won my love; but perhaps I had better be perfectly frank with you. I am not ...
— Virgie's Inheritance • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... name. To reveal who he really was would even at this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school; and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to board a ship in the same ...
— Peter and Wendy • James Matthew Barrie

... But I read between the lines. He was "rather hard hit." Just when he was facing an attack from the front she had stabbed him in the back. In one way, the letter was a bitter disappointment, for I had longed to be told Eagle's plans; yet in the hint that I should hear again when he had "found ...
— Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... had been the witness, and how he had seen the drowning people saved, and the dead bodies brought ashore. All this rather long and verbose article was written solely with the object of self-display. One seemed to read between the lines: "Concentrate yourselves on me. Behold what I was like at those moments. What are the sea, the storm, the rocks, the splinters of wrecked ships to you? I have described all that sufficiently to you with my mighty pen. Why look at that drowned woman with the dead child ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... I, when I knew that for one who read between the lines the story of my own suffering was there? My secret had been hard enough to keep faithfully, even from her to whom the truth, had she ever divined it, must ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... said Fulkerson. "The only other person who took those criticisms in the right spirit was Mother Dryfoos—I've just been bolstering up the Dryfoos family. She had them read to her by Mrs. Mandel, and she understood them to be all the most flattering prophecies of success. Well, I didn't read between the lines to that extent, quite; but I saw that they were going to help us, if there was anything in us, more than anything that could have been done. And there was something in us! I tell you, March, that seven-shooting self-cocking donkey of a Beaton has given us the greatest start! ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... few weeks? I do long for you so. There is no one on earth but you to whom I can speak my utmost thoughts, and I feel all bottled up, for there are some things one can't write. I know you feel this, too, dearest, for there is a change in the tone of your letters, and I read between the lines that you have lots to tell me. We could have great sport with Wallace to take us about, and the people around are very hospitable, and always ask us out when we have a visitor. Wallace saw your photograph one day, and said ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... read between the lines that Shibo's will had dominated Horikawa. He had been afraid that his companion's wounded face would lead to his arrest. If so, he knew it would be followed by a confession. He forced Horikawa to hide in the vacant apartment till the wound should heal. Meanwhile he ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine

... slowly; then slowly returned it to its cover. There was no need to tell her the meaning of the unwritten message she read between the lines of those few brief sentences. It is only in story-books that human beings do not even suspect the inevitable until it arrives. As well as she knew her own name, she realized that in her answer to that evening's invitation lay ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge

... gulf of experience that separates us from 1914, recalls two pamphlets whose very titles are eloquent of this feeling—"The War that will End War," and "The Peace of the World." Was the hope expressed in those phrases a dream? Is it already proven a dream? Or can we read between the lines of the war news, diplomatic disputations, threats and accusations, political wranglings and stories of hardship and cruelty that now fill our papers, anything that still justifies a hope that these bitter years of world sorrow are the darkness ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... silent rapture over the shore road and Marilla guided the sorrel abstractedly while she pondered deeply. Pity was suddenly stirring in her heart for the child. What a starved, unloved life she had had—a life of drudgery and poverty and neglect; for Marilla was shrewd enough to read between the lines of Anne's history and divine the truth. No wonder she had been so delighted at the prospect of a real home. It was a pity she had to be sent back. What if she, Marilla, should indulge Matthew's unaccountable whim and ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... and read between the lines all I feel. I am sure you can if any one ever did, but I cannot put into words my admiration for you—and that comes from deep down in my heart. Good-bye, with all good wishes for your ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry

... long enough for the promises contained in his early dreams to 'try him' (Ps. cv. 19) whether his faith would stand apparent disappointment and weary delay. Like all the Scripture narratives, this history of Joseph has little to say about feelings, and prefers facts. But we can read between the lines, and be tolerably sure that the thirteen years of trial were well endured, and that the inward life had grown so as to fit him for his advancement. We have here a full-length portrait of the prime minister, or vizier, which brings out three points—his elevation, his naturalisation, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren

... Barrier! All accounts without exception, from the days of Ross to the present time, had spoken of this remarkable natural formation with apprehensive awe. It was as though one could always read between the lines the same sentence: "Hush, be ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... from the above remarks, it was no surprise to me to see such a paper on stuttering as Dr. Coriat's. To be sure it was tacitly understood, by those who could read between the lines, that this must be the belief of the Freudian school, since their conclusions were said to be true of ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10

... highly pleased, when he heard that his little patient was going to London with her sister. He was a man with plenty of observation, and he could read between the lines much better than poor ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... the circumstances I ought to have sent him a line to ask how he was getting on, and my conscience pricked me as I remembered that I had hardly thought of him since we parted, being absorbed in my own matters. The letter was not very long, but when one read between the lines it somehow told a good deal. I have it lying by me, and this is ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... have endeavored to consider it as an affair in which I, as an American minister, had no concern; and that my only principle is to dispute upon precedence with nobody." A good-natured contempt for European follies may be read between the lines of this remark; wherein it may be said that the Monroe Doctrine is applied ...
— John Quincy Adams - American Statesmen Series • John. T. Morse

... air of extreme innocence what they, for various reasons, do not care to express quite openly. Allegories, little romances, stories of fact full of clever words of "double sense" make known to the initiated, or those who know how to read between the lines, much that might otherwise awaken the disagreeable notice of the censor, when there is one. There is an air of good-natured raillery which takes off the edge of political rancour, and keeps up the amenities and the ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... through the culture-seeking stage, and knew my Henry James; so I could read between the lines of Sylvia's experiences. I figured her as a person walking on volcanic ground, not knowing her peril, but vaguely disquieted by a smell of sulphur in the air. And once in a while a crack would open in the ground! There was the Duke of Something in Rome, for example, a melancholy young ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair

... when Foreign Minister, to send through the official wireless an account of an interview with himself, which would, as he (SOLF) fondly hoped, help to bamboozle British public opinion. When the article appeared, so well had the author's editor read between the lines of the message that the journalist had to run for his life. He was particularly fortunate too, or clever, in getting in touch with the Kiel sailors who set the revolution going, but in spite of much excellent ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 18th, 1920 • Various

... first of her children's interest, and never of her own wishes; and yet I could read between the lines, and knew how she missed us, especially Dot, who was ...
— Esther - A Book for Girls • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... enough and to spare—French, English, American; and I sat down by my lion's cage and attempted to form some opinion of the state of affairs in France. And, as far as I could read between the lines, this is what I gathered, partly from my own knowledge of past events, partly from the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... I received the order to proceed immediately to Chicago. The man who gave me the order was one of the oligarchs, I could tell that by his speech, though I did not know his name nor see his face. His instructions were too clear for me to make a mistake. Plainly I read between the lines that our plot had been discovered, that we had been countermined. The explosion was ready for the flash of powder, and countless agents of the Iron Heel, including me, either on the ground or being sent there, were ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London

... with the British army in France and with the British fleet have been submitted to the censor. Though the censor may delete military secrets, he may not prompt opinions. Whatever notes of praise and of affection which you may read between the lines or in them spring from the mind and heart. Undemonstratively, cheerily as they would go for a walk, with something of old-fashioned chivalry, the British went ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... in Peking last night. Jack has typhus fever and the disease is nearing the crisis. I have read the message over and over, trying to read between the lines some faint glimmer of hope; but I can get no comfort from the noncommittal words except the fact that Jack is still alive. I am on my way to the terminus of the railroad, from where the message was sent. I ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... to understand you," he remarked, at last. "You mean that you are engaged to Ray Palmer, and that accounts for the attentions which he bestowed upon Ruth Richards at Hazeldean. You two were very clever, but even then I had read between the lines and knew what you have ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... no longer! The world holds but one thought; the day and the night are lost in the constant reiteration of every word he ever said to me, in the resuscitation of every glance, every touch. And, poring over these in my memory, I try to read between the lines the words that are not there, to ...
— The Wings of Icarus - Being the Life of one Emilia Fletcher • Laurence Alma Tadema

... for you, old chap. It's true, as far as it goes; but you have begun to read between the lines by this time, I know, and I may as well speak out. I should be an ostrich if I weren't sure that you've been saying to yourself: "Why doesn't this fellow refer to the girl he has spent so much pen and paper on? Why does he go out of his way ...
— Set in Silver • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... occupies 23 pages (pp. 95- 118). Scott (vi. 343) has "Mesroor retired and brought in Ali Ibn Munsoor Damuskkee, who related to the Caliph a foolish narrative (!) of two lovers of Bussorah, each of whom was coy when the other wished to be kind." The respectable Britisher evidently cared not to "read between the lines." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... gums. In that laugh and with that grin and the chuckling satisfaction I knew as well as if it had been spoken to me in words of thunder that my murder was settled, and the murderers only bided the proper time for its accomplishment. I could read between the lines of her gruesome story the commands to her accomplices. 'Wait,' she seemed to say, 'bide your time. I shall strike the first blow. Find the weapon for me, and I shall make the opportunity! He shall not escape! Keep him ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker

... legend which Plato also seeks to impose upon us. The verisimilitude which he has given to the tale is a further reason for suspecting it; for he could easily 'invent Egyptian or any other tales' (Phaedrus). Are not the words, 'The truth of the story is a great advantage,' if we read between the lines, an indication of the fiction? It is only a legend that Solon went to Egypt, and if he did he could not have conversed with Egyptian priests or have read records in their temples. The truth is that the introduction is a mosaic ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... done so, we shall be led to believe that those words which suggest to us so clear and coloured a vision of scenes often complex and uncommon, presented to his own mind only a comparatively simple and incomplete idea: the atmospheric effects, requiring a more modern painter than Turner, which we read between the lines of the "Inferno" and the "Purgatorio," most probably existed as little for Dante as they did for Giotto; the poet seeing and describing in reality only salient forms of earth and rock, monotonous in tint and deficient in air, like those in the backgrounds ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee

... Peter told them nothing of his visit to the Capital. But Ditte was old enough to read between the lines, and drew her own conclusions. At all events, her commission had not been executed. Soerine, for some reason or other, he had not seen either, as far as she could understand; and no money had been brought home. Apparently it had all been squandered—spent ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... of Tacitus is, perhaps, noted principally for its conciseness. Tacitean brevity is proverbial, and many of his sentences are so brief, and leave so much for the student to read between the lines, that in order to be understood and appreciated the author must be read over and over again, lest the reader miss the point of some of his most excellent thoughts. Such an author presents grave, if not insuperable, ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus

... third of a century— one side, at least, of this history. What she sought with the greatest eagerness, what she most loved and most hated, her spiritual aims, struggles, trials, joys and hopes, may here be read between the lines. And a beautiful testimony they give to the moral depth, purity and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss

... "we understand it." Possibly the creed is in the best possible condition for them now. There is a tacit understanding that they don't believe it. There is a tacit understanding that they have got some way to get around it, that they read between the lines; and if they should meet now to form a creed, they might fail to agree; and the creed is now so that they can say as they please, except in public. Whenever they do so in public, the church, in self-defense, ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest • Robert Green Ingersoll

... heavenly bliss equally incapable of understanding. This is about all that we can say regarding this form of the doctrine, without violating certain confidences that have been reposed in us. We fear that we have said too much as it is, but inasmuch as one would have to be able to "read between the lines" to understand fully, we trust that those who have favored us with these confidences ...
— Reincarnation and the Law of Karma - A Study of the Old-New World-Doctrine of Rebirth, and Spiritual Cause and Effect • William Walker Atkinson

... tone, quietly, joyfully confident. His serene mood displayed itself a week later in a note to Grant which is oddly characteristic. Who else would have had the impulse to make this quaint little confession? But what, for a general who could read between the lines, could have ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson

... a very striking incident connected with this text. The great battle is raging, a certain important prisoner has been taken, and if you read between the lines you seem to know that upon him depend many of the issues of war. His skill in leading the enemy had been marvelous, his courage in the thick of the fight striking; and now he is a prisoner. The king puts him in the keeping of a Jewish soldier, saying, "Guard this ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman

... office, lit the gas, and sat down at his desk. He began to re-read the letter slowly from the beginning. It took a long time, for he read between the lines. A deep groan escaped him as he laid it down. It was written as she would have spoken; he could see the expression of her face in the written words, and a miserable empty feeling of powerlessness came upon him. He did not blame her,—how could ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... Blair's report is confirmed by the memorandum of the same interview which Jefferson Davis wrote at the time. In this conversation, the rebel leader took little pains to disguise his entire willingness to enter upon the wild scheme of military conquest and annexation which could easily be read between the lines of a political crusade to rescue the Monroe Doctrine from its present peril. If Mr. Blair felt elated at having so quickly made a convert of the Confederate President, he was further gratified at discovering yet more favorable symptoms in his official surroundings at Richmond. ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay

... gives the teacher an opportunity to arouse in the class a thorough interest in the work in hand. This can be done in a variety of ways. Different parts of the story may be told by the students; questions may be asked to test the understanding of certain passages, to enable the pupil to read between the lines, and to awaken curiosity; supplementary facts may be given by the teacher, or by members of the class, to throw light on certain parts ...
— Teachers' Outlines for Studies in English - Based on the Requirements for Admission to College • Gilbert Sykes Blakely

... were greatly cheered by it. When we come to analyze its sentences there seems to be a sort of patronizing coolness in it, hardly calculated to awaken enthusiasm. The young girls who had given themselves to what they deemed a missionary work of peculiar urgency and sacredness, did not stop to read between the lines, however, but perused with tears of joy this first epistle from one of their own sex in that strange country where they had been treated as leprous outcasts by all the families who belonged to the race of which they were unconscious ornaments. ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... saw deeper than Shiel—it had always been her custom to read between the lines. "Now," she argued, "if Kelson were so easily influenced by Lilian Rosenberg, who was young and attractive, it was almost a sine qua non that he was in love with her," and as marriage was one of the eventualities strictly forbidden to the trio in ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... "probably, the most perfect poem in any language," but in my opinion it is far inferior to other books in the Bible. The adjective perfect is not applicable to a poem so obscure that more than half its meaning has to be read between the lines, while its plan, if plan it has, is so mixed up and hindmost foremost that I sometimes feel tempted to accept the view of Herder and others that the Song of Songs is not one drama, but ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... shall understand without that," Mrs. Leveret tittered; and Laura Glyde added significantly: "I fancy we can read between the lines," while Mrs. Ballinger rose to assure herself that the doors ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... their literature; while we who are removed by the ocean of space can enjoy these pictures of common life, as enabling us, better than any idealistic romance or study of the rare and extraordinary, to realise the life of our American cousins. To those who can read between the lines with any discretion, I should say that novels like "Silas Lapham" and "A Modern Instance" will give a clearer idea of American character and tendencies than any other contemporary works of fiction; to those who can read between ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead

... Blix. "They were born for each other. Just see, K. D. B. is a good housekeeper, and wants a respectable middle-aged gentleman. Captain Jack is a respectable middle-aged gentleman, and wants a good housekeeper. Oh, and besides, I can read between the lines! I just feel they would be congenial. If they know what's best for themselves, they would write to ...
— Blix • Frank Norris

... never took a liberty with a human face or a horse's head; and whenever it went a little astray you could always read between the lines and know exactly what ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier

... man turned down the road to his home and Amanda went on to the Reist farmhouse. She, too, was smiling as she went. She had read between the lines of the man's story and had seen there the moving finger writing above the name of Isabel ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers

... Huntington's opinions, and expose his methods during the struggle. Not completely, of course. One must read between the lines occasionally. Something is left to surmise—to the reflection, ...
— How Members of Congress Are Bribed • Joseph Moore

... doubt, these broken utterances would have appeared mere drooling and would have been dismissed as such. But the Woosters are quicker-witted than the ordinary and can read between the lines. I suddenly divined what it was that she was trying to ...
— Right Ho, Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse

... mystery to you, my friend," at last wearily said the lawyer. "I will never try to read between the lines. Take the whole correspondence with you. I have already had a copy made of the Vice-Consul's letter and Ferris' own few sentences. I know that Alice will surely consecrate this vile money to some good purpose, and so I make ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage

... Geoffrey had seen rather too much snow unpleasantly close at hand within the last few months. Therefore, he opened the newspaper beside him, and frowned to see certain rumors he had heard in Victoria embodied in an article on the Crown lands policy. Anyone with sufficient knowledge to read between the lines could identify the writer's instances of how gross injustice might be done the community with certain conditional grants made ...
— Thurston of Orchard Valley • Harold Bindloss

... person can here appreciate and read between the lines, it must be you—and one other, our friend. All the dominos will be transparent to your better knowledge; the statuary contract will be to you a piece of ancient history; and you will not have now heard for the first time of the dangers of Roussillon. Dead leaves from ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne

... for a man. A woman, unless she is an Asiatic and a slave, does not wish to be given up unasked. I found myself the property of one who was not only indifferent to me, but, as I plainly saw, averse to me. It was but natural that I should meet scorn with scorn. In your letters I could read between the lines, and in your cold and constrained answers to your father's remarks about me I saw how strong was your aversion. In your letters to me this was still more evident. What then? I was proud and impetuous, and what you merely hinted at I expressed openly ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... simple as possible. I give all my real property, or my personal property, or my share in so-and-so, or my jewels, or so forth, to—whoever it may be. The fewer words the better,—so that nobody may be able to read between the lines, you know,—and the signature attested by two witnesses; but they must not be witnesses that have any interest; that is, that have anything left to them by the document ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant

... known,—that is, so far as she dares to tell them. What she says is the truth, and nothing but the truth; but it is not the whole truth—that she could not tell. If she wrote it, it could not be printed. If it were printed, it could not be read. But if we read between the lines, we do just catch glimpses of ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael

... boys make a very appreciative audience when a visitor addresses them. Then they sing their hearty thanks with steady voices, and in stanzas of original poetry spun aboard ship, and sure to mean much if you can read between the lines; for London boys are both in good things and in ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor

... by a treacherous Ts'u statesman to Tsin; and indirectly this adventure led to his being charged by Tsin with a mission to Wu; to the subsequent entry of Wu into the conclave of federal princes; and to the ultimate sacking of the Ts'u capital by the King of Wu in 506: it is easy to read between the lines that the Kings of Ts'u were considered unusually arbitrary and tyrannical rulers; over and over again we find that their most capable statesmen took service with powers inimical to Ts'u. In 581 the ruler of Cheng, being forcibly detained in Tsin ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker

... their structure nor its collapse is so explicitly proclaimed by the metaphysicians with whom this lecture has dealt. But we hardly need to read between the lines in order to see the prominence of the moral interest in all that Green wrote; and it was after he had shown the inadequacy of the empirical method in the hands of Hume to give any criterion or ideal for conduct that he made his significant ...
— Recent Tendencies in Ethics • William Ritchie Sorley

... principle that what ought to be must actually have been from the beginning. Until the building of Solomon's temple the unity of worship according to it had, properly speaking, never had any existence; and, moreover, it is easy to read between the lines that even after that date it was more a pious wish than a practical demand. The Priestly Code, on the other hand, is unable to think of religion without the one sanctuary, and cannot for a moment imagine Israel without ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... than in his correspondence, so that after awhile, even though the subject of the letters be nothing more interesting than the studies in hand, those who write the letters may learn to know each other if they have but the mother wit to read between the lines. Certainly this young schoolmaster did not know Iris, nor did he desire to discover what she was like, being wholly occupied with the study of himself. Strange and kindly provision of Nature. The less desirable a man actually appears to others, the more fondly he loves and ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... seemed strange to the adventurers and court hangers-on in London. Not improbably his assumptions were offensive to the ungodly, and his ingenuous boastings made him the object of amusement to the skeptics. Their ridicule would naturally appear to him to arise from envy. We read between the lines of his own eulogies of himself, that there was a widespread skepticism about his greatness and his achievements, which he attributed to jealousy. Perhaps his obtrusive virtues made him enemies, and his rectitude was a standing ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... scarcely control myself sufficiently to read the letter; but I obeyed mechanically. This letter contained a few words of serious advice, breathing nothing but words of paternal love; though I read between the lines that it had cost him a struggle after her confession to regain this kind of calm affection for her. He had left with Cupid's arrow in his heart. The letter concluded with the most ardent wishes for her happiness; and he ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint

... writers of its text; read between the lines of their written words; it is a History; not alone of the American Negro on the "tented field"; the bloody trenches of France and Belgium, it is also a History and an arraignment, a warning and a prophecy, looking backwards and ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... together with their practical application to the life of our time. Some of these principles were stated, more briefly and technically, in my larger Studies of sex; others were therein implied but only to be read between the lines. Here I have expressed them in simple language and with some detail. It is my hope that in this way they may more surely come into the hands of young people, youths and girls at the period of adolescence, who have been present to my thoughts in all the studies I have written ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis

... His face had a queer attempt at melancholy, sadly at variance with a smirk of satisfaction which might be read between the lines. Though his calling was not a lively one, it did not depress his spirits, as in the bosom of his family he was the most cheery of men, and to him the "tap, tap" of coffin-making was as sweet and exhilarating as the tapping of a woodpecker.—C. Dickens, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... before the war, but now he can challenge the American commuter as an absorbent of the printed word. And not only has the German been suddenly educated into an avid newspaper reader, but he has developed a tendency to think for himself, to read between the lines, and interpret sentences. Thus, no German has any illusions about the military prowess of Austria; but her failure has caused no hard feelings. "The spirit is willing, but the leadership is weak," is the kindly ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... eyes when he finished the letter. Aye, he read between the lines, and he read well. The old thought that he had friends, powerful friends, came to him with renewed strength. It was obvious that the New York merchant had a deep affection for him and was watching over him. It was true of Willet too, and also of Mr. Huysman. His mind, as ever, ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... who read between the lines of his sister's letter, wrote to say that business would bring him to Holyhead on the following Tuesday week also, and, therefore, it would be quite convenient for him to meet Nora ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... before his eyes for a long while. Violet had told him that he could be hard, but he was not hard to her. He could read between the lines, he understood the struggle which she had had with herself, he recognised the suffering which the letter had caused her. He was touched to pity, to a greater humanity. He had shown it in his forecasts ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason

... share of troubles, and also that traces of these abound up and down his work if we could only identify them, for everything that everyone does is in some measure a portrait of himself; but here comes the difficulty—not to read between the lines, not to try and detect the hidden features of the writer—this is to be a dull, unsympathetic, incurious reader; and on the other hand to try and read between them is to be in danger of running after every Will o' the Wisp that conceit ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler

... Benincasa, were nuns in the Convent of Montepulciano. To one of them the following letter is addressed. One can read between the lines a lively solicitude. Never cloistered herself, Catherine had a close intimacy with cloisters, and knew their best and worst. She held in hearty and loyal respect the opportunities which they offered for leading an exalted life; to this Convent of St. Agnes she was peculiarly attached. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa

... written against the document one seems to trace the hand of Isabella rather than of Ferdinand. Their tone is matter-of-fact, cool, and comforting, like the coolness of a woman's hand placed on a feverish brow. Isabella believed in him; perhaps she read between the lines of this document, and saw, as we can see, how much anxiety and distress were written there; and her comments are steadying and encouraging. He has done well; what he asks is being attended to; their Highnesses are well informed in regard to this and that ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young

... a brief little story, the story of Dan Cullen, but there is much to read between the lines. He was born lowly, in a city and land where the lines of caste are tightly drawn. All his days he toiled hard with his body; and because he had opened the books, and been caught up by the fires of the spirit, and could "write a letter like a lawyer," he had been selected by his fellows to toil ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... Salome a look as of one who would say, You're bat-blind if you can't read between the lines of that; but Miss Salome was placidly unconscious. She was not really thinking of the subject at all, and did not guess that Chester ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Bukharest. He spent two days with Novisko. From there he went to Sofia. He was heard of in Athens and Constantinople. My own agent wrote me that he was in Belgrade. Hunterleys is the bosom friend of the English Foreign Secretary. That I know for myself. You have your reports. You can read between the lines. I tell you that Hunterleys is the man who has paralysed our action amongst the Balkan States. He has played a neat little game out there. It is he who was the inspiration of Roumania. It is he who drafted the secret understanding ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... all written, and it seemed to me that more was not needed. One could read between the lines, after ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... again about the child, telling briefly how he was killed. He barely mentioned the sister, and he told nothing whatever of his own part in it all. They looked at him curiously, as if they would read between the lines, for they saw he was deeply stirred, but they asked nothing. Presently they all fell to studying, Courtland with the rest, for the ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz



Words linked to "Read between the lines" :   interpret, construe, see



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