Obscure

But his lapse of memory (if that was what it was) did not change his belief that Helen had been cheated in some obscure fashion ... that some bad-tempered fate had tied a can to her tail, and she didn't even know it.

But Neotrantor existed – an obscure village of a planet drowned in the shadow of mighty Trantor, until a heart-throttled royal family, racing before the fire and flame of the Great Sack sped to it as its last refuge – and held out there, barely, until the roaring wave of rebellion subsided.

She was the Commander-in-Chief, we were nobodies; her name was the mightiest in France, we were invisible atoms; she was the comrade of princes and heroes, we of the humble and obscure; she held rank above all Personages and all Puissances whatsoever in the whole earth, by right of baring her commission direct from God.

’Tis the grot Of Proserpine, when Hell, obscure and hot, Doth her resign; and where her tender hands She dabbles, on the cool and sluicy sands: Or ’tis the cell of Echo, where she sits, And babbles thorough silence, till her wits Are gone in tender madness, and anon, Faints into sleep, with many a dying tone Of sadness.

As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!

Oh, he could fill twice as many pages as he had already written about that, becoming more obscure, more arcane, until he finally became lost in the clockwork of himself and still nowhere near the mainspring at all.

“If I had been less—less fortunate, the world would call it—if some obscure and peaceful life had been my destiny—if I had been poor, sick, helpless—would you have turned from me then?

He tells us that a single obscure decision of prophecy, perhaps the choice of one word over another, could change the entire aspect of the future.

As for the freakish death of an obscure Department of Mysteries employee in St. Mungo’s, Harry, Ron, and Hermione seemed to be the only people who knew or cared.

Still the obscure child even when Iris is living under the same roof 84 52862_Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.qxd 2/12/2003 8:39 AM Page 85 T H E I M P - R I D D L E D H O U S E After several days of Clara simply refusing to appear at all, Henrika brings Iris to the door of Clara’s room and calls in to her daughter, “Please, my dear, I want you to meet your new friend.” “No.” The sound comes out like a little smothered yelp, as if even in the middle of the day Clara is huddled beneath bedclothes.

Today I have much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high; for there may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist obscure it, will be to me a safety.

It will be a movement beginning in the far-off past, a thing obscure and unhonored, a thing easy to ridicule, easy to despise; a thing unlovely, wearing the aspect of vengeance and hate—but to you, the workingman, the wage-slave, calling with a voice insistent, imperious—with a voice that you cannot escape, wherever upon the earth you may be!

But he, the King of Heav’n, obscure on high, Bar’d his red arm, and, launching from the sky His writhen bolt, not shaking empty smoke, Down to the deep abyss the flaming felon strook.

The hunger and heat combined, a poisonous taste resembling defeat; yes, he thought, that's what it is: I've been defeated in some obscure way.

Many a one is able to obscure and abuse his own memory, in order at least to have vengeance on this sole party in the secret: shame is inventive.

Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure background (for few men’s courage is proof against protracted meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby Dick.

No one makes things complicated by becoming your friend for any obscure reason.

"But there is one who might. If you haven't yet found the monster when you reach San Francisco, seek out Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea. He has a long memory and a sharp eye. He has the gift of knowledge sometimes kept obscure from my Oracle."

The pride of having his judgment right hardens his heart, till at last he beholds with satisfaction, or sees with disappointment, the accomplishment or the failure of his predictions.—This book ends with the same kind of strong and well-directed point against prophets, prophecies and indiscriminate judgements, as the chapter that Benjamin Franklin made for the Bible, about Abraham and the stranger, ends against the intolerant spirit of religious persecutions—Thus much for the book Jonah.67 Of the poetical parts of the Bible, that are called prophecies, I have spoken in the former part of The Age of Reason, and already in this, where I have said that the word for “prophet” is the Bible-word for “poet,” and that the flights and metaphors of those poets, many of which have become obscure by the lapse of time and the change of circumstances, have been ridiculously erected into things called prophecies, and applied to purposes the writers never thought of.

I said the origin of his fortune remained obscure.

“You must promise to behave well, and not cut up any pranks, and spoil our plans.” “Not a prank.” “And don’t say funny things when we ought to be sober.” “I never do; you are the one for that.” “And I implore you not to look at me during the ceremony; I shall certainly laugh if you do.” “You won’t see me; you’ll be crying so hard that the thick fog round you will obscure the prospect.” “I never cry unless for some great affliction.” “Such as fellows going to college, hey?” cut in Laurie, with a suggestive laugh.

Stonesnake went east with him a short way, then doubled back to obscure their tracks, and the three who remained set off toward the southwest.

Sofya Ivanovna was the daughter of an obscure deacon, and was left from childhood an orphan without relations.

A moment later, a tall black figure, which a belated passerby in the distance might have taken for a phantom, appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the Seine, then drew itself up again, and fell straight down into the shadows; a dull splash followed; and the shadow alone was in the secret of the convulsions of that obscure form which had disappeared beneath the water.

In the world of ideas everything was clear; in life all was obscure, embroiled.

Yes my brother I know, The rest might not, but I have treasur’d every note, For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding, Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows, Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights after their sorts, The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing, I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair, Listen’d long and long.

where were thy wings When far away upon a barbarous strand, In fight unequal, by an obscure hand, Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!

I had an obscure feeling that all was not over and that he would still commit some signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the recollection of the past.

"Their origin is obscure."

Gone too from the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend.

I start a small fire, counting on the mist to obscure any telltale smoke.

I had whispered to myself “Let me chance it, now, before we begin,” seeing truly that this was the last chance, and that after a successful capture of Akaba I would never again possess myself freely, without association, in the security lurking for the obscure in their protective shadow.

The last, I think; for, O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend.” Round the corner from the bystreet, there was a square of ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and conditions of men; map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers and the agents of obscure enterprises.

Paudeen Indignant at the fumbling wits, the obscure spite Of our old Paudeen in his shop, I stumbled blind Among the stones and thorn trees, under morning light; Until a curlew cried and in the luminous wind A curlew answered; and suddenly thereupon I thought That on the lonely height where all are in God’s eye, There cannot be, confusion of our sound forgot, A single soul that lacks a sweet crystalline cry.

“The essence of a detective story,” I said, “is to have a rare poison—if possible something from South America, that nobody has ever heard of—something that one obscure tribe of savages use to poison their arrows with.

How the sense of beauty in its simplest form—that is, the reception of a peculiar kind of pleasure from certain colours, forms and sounds—was first developed in the mind of man and of the lower animals, is a very obscure subject.

Richard still could not place her accent: he was beginning to suspect that she was African or Australian—or perhaps she came from somewhere even more exotic and obscure.

↩︎ This section is obscure, and the conclusion is so corrupt that it is impossible to give any probable meaning to it.

Then to her maids: "Why, why, ye coward train, These fears, this flight? ye fear, and fly in vain. Dread ye a foe? dismiss that idle dread, 'Tis death with hostile step these shores to tread; Safe in the love of heaven, an ocean flows Around our realm, a barrier from the foes; 'Tis ours this son of sorrow to relieve, Cheer the sad heart, nor let affliction grieve. By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent; And what to those we give to Jove is lent. Then food supply, and bathe his fainting limbs Where waving shades obscure the mazy streams."

“Procrastinate, obscure, prevaricate, dissemble, and delay all you like, Uncle, Ser Balon must still come face-to-face with Myrcella at the Water Gardens, and when he does he’s like to see she’s short an ear.

↩︎ His widow married Galeazzo de’ Visconti of Milan, “and much discomfort did this woman suffer with her husband,” says the Ottimo, “so that many a time she wished herself a widow.” ↩︎ Hamlet, IV 5:— “His obscure funeral, No trophy, sword, or hatchment o’er his grave.” ↩︎ The Visconti of Milan had for their coat of arms a viper; and being on the banner, it led the Milanese to battle.

But what does he do if there is no forest?” “Well, well,” cried Flambeau irritably, “what does he do?” “He grows a forest to hide it in,” said the priest in an obscure voice.

Occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.

Sorrow and joy Had passed him by—the dreamiest, safest man, The most obscure, until this curse began.

All these and more came flocking; but with looks Downcast and damp, yet such wherein appeared Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their Chief Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost In loss itself; which on his countenance cast Like doubtful hue.

Who can have robbed it of the beauty that gladdened it, of the grace and gaiety that charmed it, of the modesty that shed a lustre upon it?” “Who?” replied Don Quixote; “who could it be but some malignant enchanter of the many that persecute me out of envy—that accursed race born into the world to obscure and bring to naught the achievements of the good, and glorify and exalt the deeds of the wicked?

‘No hands.’ And to an audience stilled with awe, he distributed certified photostatic copies of the obscure regulation on which he had built his unforgettable triumph.

Hence things which have perplexed you and made the case more obscure, have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions.

The time and manner, however, in which so important a revolution was brought about, is one of the most obscure points in modern history.