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observation
A curated path through fragments connected by a shared motif, atmosphere, or recurring literary concern.
2026-03-07
Reaching the bottom, about five yards deep, he went on his knees and filled his bag with oysters picked up at random. Then he went up, emptied it, pulled up his stone, and began the operation once more, which lasted thirty seconds. And how should this poor Ind...
2026-02-23
Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but there, again, I fail to see how you work it out.” He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together. “It is simplicity itself,” said he; “my eyes tell me that on the inside of yo...
2026-02-17
Here I paused, not exactly knowing what path to pursue, when I heard the sound of voices, that induced me to conceal myself under the shade of a cypress. I was scarcely hid when a young girl came running towards the spot where I was concealed, laughing, as if ...
2026-02-16
“What on earth can be the matter with him?” I asked. “He is looking up at the numbers of the houses.” “I believe that he is coming here,” said Holmes, rubbing his hands.
2026-02-02
I leave you to judge how eyes were used on board the _Abraham Lincoln_. For my own part I was not behind the others, and left to no one my share of daily observations. The frigate might have been called the _Argus_, for a hundred reasons.
2026-01-26
The good woman, with much difficulty, at last perceived what I would be at, and taking me up again in her hand, walked into the garden, where she set me down. I went on one side about two hundred yards, and beckoning to her not to look or to follow me, I hid m...
2026-01-22
That he laughed at their folly, and went himself in the boat, ordering his men to take a strong cable along with them. That the weather being calm, he rowed round me several times, observed my windows and wire lattices that defended them. That he discovered tw...
2026-01-15
“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.” Mr. Jabez Wilson started up...
2026-01-14
I saw many kinds which I never before had a chance of observing. I shall notice chiefly ostracions peculiar to the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and that part which washes the coast of tropical America.
2026-01-10
Sherlock Holmes welcomed her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and, having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he looked her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which was peculiar to him. “Do you not find,” he said, “tha...
2026-01-03
They have at least that advantage.” “The country,” said Darcy, “can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.” “But people themselves alter so much, that there is somethin...
2025-11-30
These articles, with two small wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the room save for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards round and the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old and discoloured that it may have da...
2025-11-29
If you will keep the two corner seats I shall get the tickets.” We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of papers which Holmes had brought with him. Among these he rummaged and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until we...
2025-11-14
As to the fauna, it might be counted by thousands of crustacea of all sorts, lobsters, crabs, spider-crabs, chameleon shrimps, and a large number of shells, rockfish, and limpets. Three-quarters of an hour later we had finished our circuitous walk and were on ...