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






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Sensitive" Quotes from Famous Books



... out a lump of sugar and stuffed it between the sensitive lips that nibbled at his sleeve, kissed the white star between the soft brown eyes, whispered an endearing word into the cocked ear, slapped the glossy ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... in the House of Commons. His appearance, his style of speech, even the framework of his thought, seem to belong to another—in some respects a finer and more passionate period than our own. The long hair combed straight back—the strong aquiline nose—the heavy-lined and sensitive mouth—the subdued tenderness and wrath of the eyes—even the somewhat antique cut of the clothes—suggest the days when the storm and stress of the youthful century were still in men's souls, and were driving them to conspiracy, to prison, to scaffold, to barricades, ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor

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

... centers of the fluor-spar cubes become negatively electric by the action of light. The electric tension diminishes toward the edges and angles, and frequently positive polarity is produced there. With very sensitive crystals a short exposure to daylight is sufficient; by a long exposure to light the electric current increases. The direct rays of the sun act much more powerfully than diffused daylight, and the electric carbon light is more powerful ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various

... hand again with glistening eyes and an emotion that was quite unintelligible to Edward; but not to the quick, sensitive spirits, who sat ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade

... crowning work. Offhand critics have disposed of it, but the great minds go back to it again and again. In the character of Pompilia the author sought to pay tribute to the woman whose memory was ever in his mind; yet he was too sensitive and shrinking to fully picture her. He sought to mask his inspiration; but tender, loving recollections of "Ba" are interlaced and ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... feet of the poets who sang of heaven, and they have told us their dreams. We have listened to the poets who sang of earth, and they have chanted to us dirges and words of despair. But there is one class of men more:—men, not capable of vision, nor sensitive to sorrow, but firm of purpose—practised in business; learned in all that can be, (by handling,) known. Men, whose hearts and hopes are wholly in this present world, from whom, therefore, we may surely learn, at least, how, at present, conveniently to live in it. What will they say to ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin

... a marvel of wonder, Over the dawn of a blush breaking out; Sensitive nose, with a little smile under Trying to hide in a blossoming pout— Couldn't be serious, try as you ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley

... was puzzling the girl, the sense of something wrong that her blinded but sensitive nature suffered from, loomed close. This man ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock

... him go, and, with a long sigh, she lifted her trembling hands to her head, put her frilled cap straight and her shawl. She was just moving away, when something of a different sort struck her sensitive soul, and she turned again. She lived for 'Lias, but she lived for her religion too, and it seemed to her she had been sinning in ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... and read not because it is prescribed, but because it gives pleasure; not as the product of a "standard author," but as the expression of a rich and engaging personality, which has written itself like an indorsement across the face of a young nation's literature. It is that of a man so sensitive that the scornful finger of a child might have left him sleepless; so kindly that nobody ever applied to him in vain for sympathy; so modest that the smallest praise embarrassed him. His manner and tastes were simple and unassuming. He had no great ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton

... we not appeal also to our brethren of the South—and ask their fair consideration of the two propositions I have suggested? If feeling, discussion, and action, in reference to a subject upon which they are so sensitive, cannot be extinguished, is it not wise to endeavor to moderate and restrain them? May they not, if they cannot give their approbation to our Society, as good in itself, at least bring themselves to tolerate it as the preventive of greater evils? May it not be wise ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown

... upon the almsgiving of Bannisdale. A man who marries, who may have children, can no longer deal with his money as he pleases. Meanwhile he found his reward in Laura's half-reluctant pleasure. She was at once full of eagerness and full of a proud shyness. No bride less grasping or more sensitive could have been imagined. She loved the old house and would fain repair its hurts. But her wild nature, at the moment, asked, in this at least, to be commanded, not to command. To be the managing wife of an obedient husband was the last thing that her imagination ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... something in regard to the use made of the Twenty-third Corps in the battle of Nashville. If he then saw, as it would seem he must have done, the wrong into which he had been betrayed, his sudden death is fully accounted for to the minds of all who knew his true and honest and sensitive nature. He had been betrayed by some malign influence into an outrage upon his own great reputation which it was not possible to explain away, while the slight wrong he had done to me, even if he had intended ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield

... coming true? Was it the judgment of an offended God that his hideous pride, obstinacy, and old-time hatred of this officer were now to be revenged by daily, hourly contact with the victim of his criminal persecution? He had grown morbidly sensitive to any remarks as to Hayne's having "lived down" the toils in which he had been encircled. Might he not "live down" the ensnarer? He dreaded to see him,—though Rayner was no coward,—and he feared day by day to hear of his restoration ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... venturing to raise their thoughts to the beauty of a Brahmin's daughter; and a touching tale in such creative fancy, no doubt, it would make, for, from their outward appearances, I do not perceive why they should not be endowed with minds as sensitive at least as those of the castes above them. There are among them some very stout and handsome men; and it is ridiculous to see sometimes all their strength devoted to the charge of a sickly puppy;—to take care of dogs ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various

... gratified, for Mrs Edmonstone's manner was so frank and cordial that he experienced none of the oppression which a sensitive person is apt to feel when receiving compliments, however well merited, if not bestowed with tact. She, supposing naturally that he had already been introduced to her younger companion, did not think it necessary again ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston

... subject, and opens with an account of the domestic animals on the farm, their increased dependence on man and the compassionate feelings they evoke in us. He is, we feel, dealing with realities, always from the point of view of a boy of sensitive mina and tender heart—one taken in boyhood from this life before it had wrought any change in him. For in due time the farm boy, however fine his spirit may be, must harden and grow patient and stolid in heat and cold and wet, like the horse that draws ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... because they were 'private,' with a view to create the impression that General Sherman, in referring to ulterior measures, suggested the violent expulsion of a high officer from his office, passes my comprehension. Still I know that General Sherman is so sensitive upon questions of official propriety in publishing papers, that he would rather suffer from this false inference than correct it by publishing another private note, and as I know that this letter was not the only one written ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman

... good long look at him. He still a young man, though worn-looking—and sad as I now saw it, rather than gloomy—with the sensitive lips and the unworldly look one sees sometimes in the faces of saints. His black coat was immaculately neat, but the worn button-covers and the shiny lapels told their own eloquent story. Oh, it seemed to me I knew him as well as if every incident of his life ...
— The Friendly Road - New Adventures in Contentment • (AKA David Grayson) Ray Stannard Baker

... change and excitement that the correspondence will take us, with some important gaps indeed, but on the whole fullest when it is most wanted to shew the feelings and motives guiding the active politicians of the day, or at any rate the effect which events had upon one eager and acute intellect and sensitive heart. One charm of the correspondence is variety. There is almost every sort of letter. Those to Atticus are unstudied, spontaneous, and reflect the varying moods of the writer. At times of special excitement they follow each other ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... rod of gas carbon with the ends set loosely in blocks of the same material. The blocks are attached to an upright support, glued into a wooden base board. This instrument is connected with the battery and the telephone. So wonderfully sensitive is it, that the ticking of a watch, the walking of a fly across a board, or the brush of a camel's-hair pencil can be heard even though it be hundreds ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers

... of Port Royal wince, also received some bruises in return. The shamelessness of the attacks made upon his friends and himself, contemptible as they were in their nature, left scars upon a mind and temper so sensitive and reserved as his. The “insufferable audacity” with which “holy nuns and their directors” had been charged with disbelieving the mysteries of the faith was “a crime which God alone was capable of punishing.” To bear such a charge required a degree of humility ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... classes. And fully conscious of the labyrinth into which he had wandered between his wish to behave honourably in the dilemma of his engagement to his cousin Adelaide and the intensity of his love for Cytherea, Springrove was additionally sensitive to any allusion to the case. He had spoken to Miss Aldclyffe with ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy

... a gross insult offered to him by a man whom he had hitherto esteemed his friend, and being wounded at such a moment in the most sensitive part, called upon Sir Francis Burdett for an explanation; and this being refused, he demanded satisfaction in the field, as a dernier resort, when he found that no terms of conciliation were likely to be acceded to by the Baronet. ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 2 • Henry Hunt

... not able to feel it in gritty, grimy accumulations on skin and linen, and smell it in suffocating stenches which serve, with sneeze-provoking dust, to stifle anything like comfort, their skin must be thicker, their linen more neglected, and their noses less sensitive than those of the majority of fellow travellers it has been our fortune to be cooped up with ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... as Father of the Packing-House Industry, was keenly sensitive to these slanders on the quality of the product and the honesty of the packers. The charges were thoroughly investigated by a board of army officers and declared by them to ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... awaiting the pleasure of his rider. When Gregoire quitted the group to go and throw the saddles across the patient animals, Melicent, who contemplated an additional hour's chat with Therese, crossed over to the cottage to procure a light wrap for her sensitive shoulders against the chill night air. Hosmer, who had started to the assistance of Gregoire, seeing that Therese had remained alone, standing at the top of the stairs, approached her. Remaining a few steps below her, and looking up into her face, he held out his hand to say good-night, ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin

... of peeled logs, morticed into each other and plastered with clay; while the roof was of chestnut bark or of big shingles. Near to each stood a small cabin, partly dug out of the ground, and in consequence very warm; to this the inmates retired in winter, for they were sensitive to cold. In the centre of each village stood the great council-house or rotunda, capable of containing the whole population; it was often thirty feet high, and sometimes stood on a raised mound ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... which lasted during the remainder of Leonardo's life. The difference of age (for Michael Angelo was twenty-two years younger) ought to have prevented all unseemly jealousy; but Michael Angelo was haughty and impatient of all superiority, or even equality; Leonardo, sensitive, capricious, and naturally disinclined to admit the pretensions of a rival, to whom he could say, and did say, "I was famous before you were born!" With all their admiration of each other's genius, their mutual frailties prevented any ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various

... largest producer and exporter of cocoa beans and a significant producer and exporter of coffee and palm oil. Consequently, the economy is highly sensitive to fluctuations in international prices for these products, and, to a lesser extent, in climatic conditions. Despite government attempts to diversify the economy, it is still heavily dependent on agriculture and related activities, engaging roughly 68% of the population. ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... light in the doorway. Ashton was too terrified to heed. But the snake was more sensitive to the change in the light. Without altering the deadly poise of its head, it again sounded its shrill, menacing rattle. The shadow passed and the light streamed in as before. The rattling ceased. There followed a pause of a few ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet

... about the large room, and a habit of listening intently, as though he expected to bear approaching footsteps, showed that he suspected Otto was hiding somewhere in the cabin. Mrs. Carleton understood his feelings and she was annoyed to anger, for her sensitive nature felt the insult keenly. Beside, she despised the coarse nature of the man who seemed so ...
— Camp-fire and Wigwam • Edward Sylvester Ellis

... life. The forests are so demanding, the incidents so stirring in themselves, that many have doubtless missed the high theme that expressed itself there. But that theme possessed its author, and it possesses every sensitive reader as some fateful, recurring, tragic melody in an opera full of ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley

... pensive. We may conclude that Seti was of the true Egyptian race, with perhaps an admixture of more southern blood; while Ramesses, born of a Semitic mother, inherited through her Asiatic characteristics, and, though possessing less energy and strength of character than his father, had a more sensitive temperament, a wider range of taste, and a greater inclination towards peace and tranquillity. His important wars were all concluded within the limit of his twenty-first year, while his entire reign was one of sixty-seven ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson

... see that this is done," added Captain Pendleton in a low voice, for he did not wish to wound poor Joe's sensitive self-love. ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... minds, one simple and practical, the other sensitive and speculative, did not move in the same atmosphere, and could not understand one another. Ambrose was in the condition of excitement and bewilderment produced by the first stirrings of the Reformation upon enthusiastic minds. He had studied the Vulgate, ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge

... the main their eyes did not wander far from the main chance. You will think of many exceptions; but this comes as near truth, probably, as a generalization may. We should understand their temperament; quick and sensitive, capable of inspiration to high deeds; but, en masse, rarely founded on enduring principles. That jumping into the seas was nothing to the Persians; they were not sung to it; it was not done in defense of home, or upon a motive of sudden passion, as hate or the like; but permanent elements ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris

... shabby box beside him. His dark eyes, over which the lids dropped at the outer corners, were now fixed on hers, he was trying to see through her veil. He was a magnificent creature, even now, with his youth behind him: his big nose had fine cut, sensitive nostrils, his mouth under a big moustache was well-cut and serene, and his strong chin was softened by a dimple. And he ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten

... retaliation for Berkeley's execution of Captain Carver. Yet he attempted to rule impartially and well. Writs were issued in the spring of 1679 for an election of Burgesses, and the people were protected from intimidation at the polls. The Assembly, as a result, showed itself more sane, more sensitive to the wishes of the commons, than had been either of the sessions of 1677.[878] Several laws were enacted redressing some of the most flagrant evils of the old governmental system of Berkeley. The voters of each parish were empowered to elect two men "to sitt in the severall county courts and ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the previous war, in the way here indicated,——"the disgrace" of which, says Lingard, "sunk deep into the heart of the King and the hearts of his subjects." History of England, Vol. IX. Ch. III., June 13, 1667.]. The England of Charles the Second was hardly less sensitive than the France of Louis Napoleon, while in each was similar indifference to consequences. But France has precedents of her own. From the remarkable correspondence of the Princess Palatine, Duchess of Orleans, we learn that the first war with Holland under Louis the Fourteenth was ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner

... virtue, genius and patience. He observed the lack of them all in De Seyres, and his incapacity for expansion made his case the more difficult to handle. "Son coeur est toujours serre," Vauvenargues exclaims. But he nourished a deep and ever-deepening affection for this sensitive lad, and became desirous, almost passionately desirous, to lead him up to better things from out of the mediocrity ...
— Three French Moralists and The Gallantry of France • Edmund Gosse

... Penrod was sensitive, and this cold word hurt him. However, he was under the domination of his strategic idea, and he subordinated private grievance to the common weal. "Get up!" he commanded. "You get up, too, Verman. You got to—it's the rule. Now here I'll SHOW you what we're goin' to do. Stoop over, and both ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington

... all the prejudices to meet in the minds of the people, but they were too courteous and hospitable to act upon those feelings so far as to turn her from their doors. She was brave and did not surrender; not even when her sensitive woman's heart was wounded and humiliated by the little acts done heedlessly under the impression that a woman had stepped out of her sphere and was taking upon herself a vocation belonging exclusively to men. She is naturally sincere, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... barehanded and almost barefooted, for my thin silk slippers and stockings formed not, after my first few steps, the slightest impediment to wet or cold, I felt that I must perish by the wayside. The sleety storm drove sharply in my face, rendered doubly sensitive to its rigor by long absence from outward air. My insufficient clothing clung closely about me, freezing in every fold, and I glided rather than walked along the icy pavement, scarcely lifting my stiffened feet, or having power ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... dreadfully changed and so awfully composed, and I always was sensitive. And, besides, to find you like this when I expected you to beat your head upon the floor—or was it against the wall, they said?—and pray to be put out of your misery by poison, or revolver, or knife, as though anybody would be wicked enough ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves

... nature could be conceived. The motives which dictated this choice were pure, but, I think, slightly morbid. She had, in the course of her life, been called on to contemplate, near at hand, and for a long time, the terrible effects of talents misused and faculties abused: hers was naturally a sensitive, reserved, and dejected nature; what she saw sank very deeply into her mind; it did her harm. She brooded over it till she believed it to be a duty to reproduce every detail (of course with fictitious characters, incidents, and situations), as a warning to others. ...
— Charlotte Bronte's Notes on the pseudonyms used • Charlotte Bronte

... which is generally somewhat swollen. The same rash extends to the abdomen, back, and limbs. Between the mottled, red rash may be seen the natural color of the skin. At this time the cough may be hoarse and incessant, and the eyes extremely sensitive to light. The fever and other symptoms abate when the rash subsides, and well-marked scaling of ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... bourgeois spirit,—against timid, negative, and shuffling substitutes for active and courageous well-doing,—and declined to worship at the shrine of what he called the bestial goddesses Comfort and Respectability. The moralist in him helped the artist by backing with the force of a highly sensitive conscience his instinctive love of perfection in his work. The artist qualified the moralist by discountenancing any preference for the harsh, the sour, or the self-mortifying forms of virtue, and encouraging the love for all tender or heroic, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... a pelican and a duck passed, flying southwest. By the true reckoning the fleet had sailed seven hundred and fifty leagues. Colon wondered whether there could be an error in the map, or whether by swerving from their course they had passed between islands into the southern sea. Pedro, as sensitive as a dog to the moods of his master, watched the Admiral's face as he came and went, and wondered in ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey

... tinged with a certain pensiveness, the effect of too much early sorrow and seclusion upon a very sensitive temperament, Edith better loved the solitude of the grand old forest of St. Mary's or the loneliness of her own shaded rooms at Luckenough than any society the humdrum neighborhood could offer her. And when at the call of social duty she did go into company, she ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... most determined literary warfare. The Plautine style of composing had taken root among the Roman bourgeoisie; the comedies of Terence encountered the liveliest opposition from the public, which found their "insipid language," their "feeble style," intolerable. The, apparently, pretty sensitive poet replied in his prologues—which properly were not intended for any such purpose—with counter-criticisms full of defensive and offensive polemics; and appealed from the multitude, which had twice run off from his -Hecyra- to witness a band of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... mean our room; she's moping," Betty answered. "She said three distinct times that she wished Connie were back, and so I left. I'm not sensitive, but—" Betty left the rest unsaid, but her ...
— Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School • Dorothy Whitehill

... old chap," he replied. "Yes, that was as nasty a thing as the savage could do; but I was thinking of how hard you can hit a sensitive man with your tongue." ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn

... dark, with a ripe kind of face, and full, red, sensitive, sensual lips, not without a trace of humor. Near the door, in a protesting kind of attitude, as if there against her will, was a remarkably handsome young person, attired plainly as a housekeeper, or upper-servant, ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... really knew the fate of the missing man. No one but Cora Rothsay had even the clew to the cause of his disappearance; and she—from her sensitive pride, no less than from her sacred promise not to reveal the subject of her communicaton to her husband on that fatal evening of his flight or of his death—kept her ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... arose as he uttered these last words and in his rhapsody forgetting the presence of Mr. Middleton, without a farewell he stalked through the great apartment, absentmindedly, though gracefully twirling a pair of pearl gray gloves in the long sensitive fingers of his left hand. A little hush fell upon the brilliant assemblage and many a bright eye dwelt admiringly upon the elegant person, so elegantly attired, of the urbane and accomplished prince of the tribe ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... arguments we may show that the principle cannot be irrational soul, whether sensitive, or orectic. For if it appears that it has something separate, together with impulsive and Gnostic enemies, yet at the same time it is bound in body, and has something inseparable from it; since it is notable to ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... silence. She was terribly sensitive. She was interested, but troubled. Did Cousin Charlotte really want them, she wondered, "or had mother forced them ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch

... dear girl, that wasn't love! That was just a little girl's first feeling. But look at Fred and Linda after seventeen years. Why, it's sacred—it's holy. Harriet, if once you said you would, it would COME. Why, that's the very proof that you're as fine—as sensitive as you are—that you don't feel it now. But, Harriet," his arm was about her now, his voice close to her ear "don't let those years with rich people spoil you for the real thing, dear! Think of our hunting for an apartment—Fred and I haven't ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris

... Mount Sinai, his passing unhurt the darts from Beelzebub's castle, and his finding refuge at the Wicket Gate. It is true, that the most delicate Christian must become a stern warrior—the most sensitive ear must be alarmed with the sound of Diabolus' drum, and at times feel those inward groanings which cannot be uttered—pass through 'the fiery trial,' and 'endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ'; while at other periods of his experience, flushed with victory, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... finger-tips, the long, square, high-mooned, deeply laid nail. Hands which, coming to her down the centuries through Quaker and through Puritan, were calling to her to stand firm and hold the scales well-balanced, whilst the soft, rounded palm, hidden in the golden fringe of her garment, and the over-sensitive finger-tips, with little nerve-filled cushions at the end of each, clamoured aloud for beauty and sweetness, tenderness and mastery, as the great man, with the beads of Allah slipping noiselessly through his fingers, reading the girl's thoughts ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... sensitive plant (schrankia angustata) occurs frequently, generally on the dry prairies, in valleys of streams, and frequently on the broken prairie bank. I remark that the leaflets close instantly to a very light touch. ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... of three most honourable and high-minded people, and was, set up in their minds as a sort of live statue of undeserved martyrdom. They who learned the tale afterwards mourned his weakness, and supposed him to be the victim of a too sensitive organisation. He lives now with a genuine halo of sanctity about him, and seems in the minds of some to have suffered for the sake of a great principle, quite noble, but not ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... he came toward her. He certainly had some old-time manners, for the reverence he felt for her caused him first of all to raise her hand to his lips. The curious, well-known flush rose slowly to her sensitive face at the action; when he had caught her swiftly to him, a sobbing ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf

... or drinking—in fact, any irritation of the stomach or intestines is liable to be followed by Founder, owing to the similarity in the sensitive structure of the foot, skin, and mucous membranes. Horses with weak feet are predisposed to Founder, but it may also occur in strong-footed animals. Founder is also produced by driving an animal on a hot summer day and then placing in the stable where the sweat is suddenly checked ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek

... as sensitive and cultivated as his ear was the reverse. He had a painter's feeling for color and grouping and scenic effect; was always picturesque in his appearance, dress, attitudes, and movements; and all the pieces that were put upon the stage under his supervision ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

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

... the sensitive soul, anxiously pondering, asks, Are students of astronomy prone to infidelity, and does this last question mean to convey the faintest shadow of a doubt? If not, ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... answered: "Well, let us discuss it then. Let us talk things over. Let me ask you at once, Have you something against me, something that I have done unwittingly? I have fancied lately a personal note.... I am absurdly sensitive, but if there is anything that I have done, please let me apologise for it. I want you ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole

... to carry out the body, as every one helped to do any small work if he had his hands free at the moment. It was the saving of one's sanity and self-respect. Yet to me, more sensitive perhaps than it is good to be, it was a moral test almost greater than my strength of will to enter that large room where the wounded lay, and to approach a dead man through a lane of dying. (So many of them died after a night in our guest-house. ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... records,—and that these few were only recalled to remind me of circumstances which I might erroneously think were all entirely forgotten. If, on the other hand, I preferred to accept what would be called a reasonable and practical solution of the enigma, I would say:—That, being imaginative and sensitive, I had been easily hypnotised by a stronger will than my own, and that for his amusement, or because he had seen in me the possibility of a 'test case,' Santoris had tried his power upon me and forced me to ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli

... improve. In 1889 he began to have attacks of heart trouble, and the sensitive artist's nature appears in a remark which he made after one of them. "I walked quickly across the terrace on which the guests were assembled," he said, "with one idea in my mind, how awkward it would be to fall down and die in ...
— Swan Song • Anton Checkov

... passes I can induce a cataleptic state, in which the sensitive becomes perfectly rigid and can be laid out between two chairs, his head on one and his heels on another, like a log. They can also be easily made insensible to pain, so that pins are stuck through their hands, teeth drawn, and painful but harmless acids put in the eye, without ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various

... invited the whole Bar to his house to expose her infidelity. On arriving, the party found the shy, petite creature quietly engaged in her household duties, and retired abashed and discomfited. But the sensitive woman did not easily recover from the shock of this extraordinary outrage. It was with difficulty she regained her equanimity sufficiently to release her lover from the closet in which he was concealed and escape with him. She left a boy of three years ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... London, England, in 1795 or 1796. His poem "Endymion" was criticised severely in the Quarterly Review. Keats was so sensitive that this criticism is supposed to have aggravated his malady, and thus to be responsible for his early death. Among his other poems may be noted "Hyperion," "Lamia," and "The Eve of St Agnes." He died at Rome ...
— Graded Poetry: Seventh Year • Various

... ready-made complete scheme of action, it means keeping the balance in a multitude of diverse actions, so that each borrows and gives significance to every other. Any person who is open-minded and sensitive to new perceptions, and who has concentration and responsibility in connecting them has, in so far, a philosophic disposition. One of the popular senses of philosophy is calm and endurance in the face of difficulty and loss; it is even supposed to be a power ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... perhaps suggested the extreme of accuracy in speech. But as has already been said, any degree of overnicety, of pedantic elegance, of stilted correctness, is especially irritating to a sensitive ear. Excessive biting off of syllables, flipping of the tongue, showing of the teeth, twisting of the lips, is carrying excellence to a fault. The inactive jaw, tongue, and lips must be made mobile, and in the working away of clumsiness ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... consequences. To elate and intoxicate, in the first place, an ardent and ambitious boy, by flattery and favors, and then, in the end, on the occurrence of real or fancied causes of displeasure, to tease and torment so sensitive and impetuous a spirit to absolute madness and phrensy, was to take the responsibility, in a great measure, for all the effects which might follow. At least so it has generally been regarded. By almost all the readers of the story, Essex is pitied and mourned—it ...
— Queen Elizabeth - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... rouse us to this pitch; our sensitive, appreciative spirits would assuredly flag unless some keynote of resonant power ...
— Original Letters and Biographic Epitomes • J. Atwood.Slater

... welcome home our eternal candidates for the joyous office of Vice-President of the Republic. He kept his dress suit packed for flight at Fraserville free of that delicate scent of camphor that sweetens the air of provincial festivals. Thatcher never, to the righteous, sensitive, local consciousness, wholly escaped from the maltster's taint, in itself horrible and shocking; nor did his patronage of budding genius in the prize ring, or his adventures (often noisily heralded) as ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson

... self-confidence to go through with my purpose. Gradually the original phase of stupefaction passed, and I was able to look the situation in the face. I knew the worst now, at any rate; and when the lowest point has been reached things must begin to mend. Still, I was wofully sensitive regarding anything which might affect my Lady of the Shroud, or even my opinion of her. I even began to dread Aunt Janet's Second-Sight visions or dreams. These had a fatal habit of coming so near to fact that they always made for a danger of discovery. I ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker

... serfs might well be called domestic slaves, but I must warn the reader that he ought not to use the expression when speaking with Russians, because they are extremely sensitive on the point. Serfage, they say, was something quite different from slavery, and slavery ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace

... more sensitive and stronger than the average man, but that doesn't mean that I have superhuman abilities to the extent that I can do in two or three years what the combined forces of the Government couldn't do in ten. Certainly you wouldn't ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... to which, whatever our rank and nature, we are almost equally sensitive,—the ill-breeding that comes from want of ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou

... sucking-dove pitch, could be ventured on when her quick ears were present. He 'roared you' indeed, all through her part of the Elizabethan time; but it was like any nightingale. The clash and clang of these Roman Plays were for the less sensitive and ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon

... its present position must fall, I suppose, upon our American taste, which, when taken by and large, is unquestionably crude, easily satisfied, and not sensitive to good things. American taste does not rebel against the "formula." If interest is pricked it does not inquire too curiously into the nature of the goad. American taste is partial to sentiment, and ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby

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

... engaged to another, and, as Bertram's friend and fellow-traveller, he fancied he was looked upon by the family as one who had in some degree contributed to their mortification. Much of this was imaginary, but Lothair was very sensitive, and the result was that he ceased to call at Crecy House, and for some time, kept aloof from the duchess and her daughter, when he met them in general society. He was glad to hear from Bertram and ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli

... said Clapperton, who was sensitive enough to feel the sting of all this, "you don't suppose we're doing this for fun, do you? Will you promise not to play on Saturday, even if you ...
— The Cock-House at Fellsgarth • Talbot Baines Reed

... low shrubs along the plains, stretching its flexible branches over the ground; Mimosa terminalis (the sensitive plant) was very plentiful, and more erect than usual; a species of Verbena, with grey pubescent leaf and stem, was also abundant. The night breeze had been exceedingly strong during the last four days. At the camp of the 4th of February my companions shot twenty-one pigeons (Geophaps ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt

... a noble house, but the only son of a decayed merchant. His attitude of mind and disposition, however, were naturally somewhat aristocratic, I think. Also, as I have said, our talk was in the 'sixties. He was sensitive, very proud, inclined, perhaps, to scornfulness, certainly to fastidiousness, and one who seldom suffered fools either gladly or with much show of tolerance. It was a somewhat unfortunate temperament, probably, ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson

... received by messenger a letter which interested her much. So much that at first she was unwilling to show it to anyone, and took it to her own boudoir to read over again in privacy. She had a sort of feeling of expectancy with regard to it; such as sensitive natures feel before a thunderstorm. The letter was natural enough in itself. It was dated that morning from Varilands, a neighbouring estate which marched ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker

... ferreted out from the Doctor the truth with respect to Reuben! It makes us tremble while we write of it. There is often a kind of moral tyranny in households, which, without ever a loud word, much less a blow, can pierce a sensitive mind as with fiery needles. Of such a silent, fearful tyranny Adele now felt the innumerable stings, and under it her natural exuberance of spirits gave way, her faith almost waned; it seemed to her that a kiss upon her silent crucifix were better than a prayer shared ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various

... say so without danger to others. Neither the circumstances of her life or death hold out temptations to follow her example. She endured vexation and contumely enough, during the most brilliant period of her life, to embitter even a less sensitive spirit than hers. The deep and earnest love she bore the worthless king, must have been a sore scourge to her own heart. The very piety of her nature, overcome as it was by circumstances, and the lack of those ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... child is so sensitive and nervous, and she thinks so much of Arthur," Mrs. Carroll said. "Give me the ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... lovely; but not quite like anybody else. That is the best of it; Mrs. Hartley will rave of you," said Clara, as they set forth. And the words jarred a little on Lettice's sensitive mind; she thought that she should object to ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... sensitive to this sort of thing," he replied slowly; "I have noticed it before as a useful capacity. I don't like the look of the man myself. The fact that he has been in Van Roon's employ for some years goes for nothing. ...
— The Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer

... you, I think, in putting on the fine lady," returned the teasing Arthur, who saw at once that Edith Hastings was his fair cousin's sensitive point. ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes

... dependence and unquestioning devotion. He was "so vigilant to preserve your Majesty from all treasons," adds the Primate, "that few could be so secretly conceived but he detected the same from the beginning." Henry, like every Tudor, was fearless of open danger, but tremulously sensitive to the lightest breath of hidden disloyalty; and it was on this dread that Cromwell based the fabric of his power. He was hardly secretary before spies were scattered broadcast over the land. Secret denunciations poured into the open ear of the ...
— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

... never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new Administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... dark waters of oblivion. This path demands an ear ever open to the plaints of the wronged and the suffering, tho they can never repay advocacy, and those who mainly support newspapers will be annoyed and often exposed by it; a heart as sensitive to oppression and degradation in the next street as if they were practised in Brazil or Japan; a pen as ready to expose and reprove the crimes whereby wealth is amassed and luxury enjoyed in our own country at this hour as if ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... heard the faintness of her sighs, so that when she swayed I grasped her by the arm and held her up until her husband relieved me of her weight. A Frenchwoman had a baby at her breast. It cried with an unceasing wail. Other babies were crying; and young girls, with sensitive nerves, were exasperated by this wailing misery and the sickening smell which ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs



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