"Describe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bees, whose habits we now describe, are closely allied in form to the Hive bee, socially they are the "mud-sills" of bee society, ranking among the lowest forms of the family of bees. Their burrowing habits ally them with the ants, from whose nests their own burrows can scarcely be distinguished. ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... itself, I can describe it almost as well as if I had witnessed it, for some time after I had the pleasure of seeing my friend Rapp, who was sent an a mission to Prussia. He gave ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... making that followed this little farce was of too varied a character to describe. Some of the boys insisted on standing on their heads while others took up a low mournful dirge that might have done credit to the days of ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... of some dream. He looked down, and found himself a witness to a scene that he could not interrupt, because he could not help, and a sudden word might create danger. It passed very quickly, though it would take many words to describe it. A piazza led across the windows of the story below, to a projecting part of the building, the sloping roof of which it touched. At the other end of the sloping roof, where it met an alley-way that opened upon a street beyond, there was a little child leaning over to look at some soldiers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "I'll tell you a secret. I'm writin' a story for the 'Irish Harp,' and I want to describe the residence of jess such a vampire as this here Farnham. Now, writin', as I do, in the cause of humanity, I naturally want to git my facts pretty near right. You kin help me in this. I'll call to-morrow to see you while you're there, and I'll get some p'ints that'll ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... creeping to the verge of the wood, looked off over the green slope. I understood by the crash and roar of the guns, the yells and cheers of the men, and that hoarse murmur which those who have been in battle know, but which I cannot describe in words, that there was hot work going on out there; but never have I seen, no, not in that three days' desperate melee at the Wilderness, nor at that terrific repulse we had at Cold Harbor, such absolute slaughter as I saw that afternoon on the green slope of Malvern Hill. The guns of ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... others: but we were not dismayed at the filth and darkness of the place, our faith and joy in the Holy Ghost reconciled us to our sufferings in that place, though these were such as it is not easy for words to describe; but the greater our trials, the greater is he who overcomes them in us. Our brother Rhenus, in the mean time, had a vision, in which he saw several of the prisoners going out of prison with a lighted lamp preceding each ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... which is an invention of my own. I am not a fool, as you may have discovered before this; and in a drawer at home is a piece of flannel cut so as exactly to resemble the irregular outline of a scar of the kind you describe, and a few little bits here and there will do the rest of the work artistically. When the liquid has effected its work, which will be in ten minutes, I shall remove it, and apply an ointment, another invention of my own, ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... had given him on the last birthday before he left home, and stared at the wall opposite where hung the picture of a little girl in a white dress with floating hair and starry eyes. In his face there grew a yearning and a hopelessness that was beyond anything to describe. It was like a face that is suffering pain of fire and studying to be brave, yet burns and suffers and is not consumed. That was the look in Mark Carter's eyes and around his finely chiseled lips. Once, when he was in that mood travelling ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... suitor. But good mamma, to whom papa had made known his hopes, whispered in my ear what this guest was. His name is Yegor Andreyevitch Kurnatovsky; he is upper-secretary to the Senate. I will first describe to you his appearance. He is of medium height, shorter than you, and a good figure; his features are regular, he is close-cropped, and wears large whiskers. His eyes are rather small (like yours), brown, and quick; ...
— On the Eve • Ivan Turgenev
... was nearly nine at night they flung themselves upon the Flavians, who were standing steady in their places to receive them. In their fury and the darkness the Vitellian line was so disordered that one can hardly venture to describe the disposition of their troops. However, it has been stated that the Fourth Macedonian legion were on the right flank; in the centre were the Fifth and Fifteenth with the detachments of the Ninth, the Second and the Twentieth ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... the production of one and the same person. Much of the material is borrowed from PTOLEMY and PLINY but the facts which are new could only have been collected by persons who had visited the scenes they describe. The compiler says he had learned from a certain scholar of Thebes that the inhabitants of Ceylon were called Macrobii, because, owing to the salubrity of the climate, the average duration of life was 150 years. The petty ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... puzzled. 'I suppose,' he thought, 'I ought to call myself a good boy, and yet that isn't exactly how Porker would describe me. And what is more, good boys are such saps.' Then he spoke aloud: 'Well, sir, I'm a fairish specimen of a ...
— The Flamp, The Ameliorator, and The Schoolboy's Apprentice • E. V. Lucas
... and grunt, but iron vessels throb and quiver through all their hundreds of ribs and thousands of rivets. The Dimbula was very strongly built, and every piece of her had a letter or number, or both, to describe it; and every piece had been hammered, or forged, or rolled, or punched by man, and had lived in the roar and rattle of the shipyard for months. Therefore, every piece had its own separate voice in exact proportion to the ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... that the place to seize was the graveyard, cavalry pursuit up a rocky hill being naturally impracticable, and from there to open fire on the retreating enemy. He therefore at once seized the graveyard with dismounted men. To describe the events of the next few minutes it had best be done in the words of an officer who was an eye-witness and whose account appears in ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... being rather fond of fine phrases, he has sometimes spoken to me of, or rather, insisted upon what he called "the lonesome splendour of the human soul," which it is our business to perfect through various lives till I can scarcely appreciate and am certainly unable to describe. ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... dragon-fly. Last year I quoted for you a remarkable and rather mystical composition by the poet Blake about accidentally killing a fly. Blake represents his own thoughts about the brevity of human life which had been aroused by the incident. It is charming little poem; but it does not describe the fly at all. I shall not quote it here again, because we shall have many other things to talk about; but I shall give you the text of a famous little composition by Oldys on the same topic. It has almost the simplicity of Blake,—and certainly something ...
— Books and Habits from the Lectures of Lafcadio Hearn • Lafcadio Hearn
... "You will describe it to me," replied Franz, "and the recital from your lips will make as great an impression on me as if I had witnessed it. I have more than once intended witnessing an execution, but I have never been able to make up my mind; and ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... (xii. 10), and St. Luke in the parallel place of his Gospel (xiv. 3), describe our Lord as asking,—'Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?' Tischendorf finding that his favourite authorities in this latter place continue the sentence with the words 'or not?' assumes that ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... of quarantine laws, boards of health, and sanatory regulations, has now avowedly reached our shores, and we may be permitted at last to acknowledge the presence of the enemy—to describe to the affrighted people the true nature of the terrors with which he is clothed—and to point out how these can be ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... Describe the Orinoco River. Mississippi River. St. Lawrence River. James River. Ohio River. Colorado River. Columbia River. St. John's River (see map for ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... may read the most minute letters from a distance. It is an invention of great utility, and grounded on optical principles; nor is at all difficult of execution; but it must be so divulged as not to be understood by the vulgar, and yet be clear to the sharp-sighted.' After this, he proceeds to describe a mechanism the details of which are confusing and unintelligible, nor did it appear to bear any resemblance to ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... your thoughts; and flatter not too soon. Just in the place you named, where three ways met. And near that time, five persons I encountered; One was too like, (heaven grant it prove not him!) Whom you describe for Laius: insolent, And fierce they were, as men who lived on spoil. I judged them robbers, and by force repelled The force they used: In short, four men I slew: The fifth upon his knees demanding life, My mercy gave it;—Bring me comfort now. If I slew Laius, what ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... a yard square Of the sickening air But has a Demon or two for its share, Breathing fury, woe, and despair, Never, never was such a sight! It beats the very Walpurgis Night, Displayed in the story of Doctor Faustus, For the scene to describe Of the awful tribe, If we were two Goethes, would ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... autobiography I have tried to describe Kid as he really is, and this year, when he again strives for blue ribbons, I trust, should the gentle reader see him at any of the bench-shows, he will give him a friendly pat and make his acquaintance. He will find his advances met with a polite ...
— The Boy Scout and Other Stories for Boys • Richard Harding Davis
... hearers of the Pitaka hungered not merely for a knowledge of the four truths but for the very words of the great voice: did he really say this, and if so when, where and why? Most suttas begin by answering these questions. They describe a scene and report a discourse and in so doing they create a type of literature with an interest and individuality of its own. It is no exaggeration to say that the Buddha is the most living figure in Hindu literature. He stands before us more distinctly ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... last penetrated his befogged brain: he saw that M. de Coralth was right—that he had acted like a fool, and that, if he hoped to escape from the dangers that threatened him, he must take the advice of more experienced men than himself. So, ceasing his recriminations, he began to describe what he styled his explanation with Madame d'Argeles. All went well at first; for he dared not ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... endure to behold me an outcast, and stigmatized with a parent's curse, when a little forbearance on your part would make all right? I know I have been hasty in acting as I have done, but now I cannot remedy my error. To-morrow I will write to my father, describe your rank and merits, and request his consent to our immediate union. The moment his permission arrives, I will cast myself on the palatine's friendship, and reveal what has passed.' The tenderness of my husband blinded my reason, and with ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... duller shade fell over the air; and one of the two gigantic crests into which the summit had been divided, rocked and waved to and fro; and then, with a sound, the mightiness of which no language can describe, it fell from its burning base, and rushed, an avalanche of fire, down the sides of the mountain. At the same instant gushed forth a volume of blackest smoke, rolling on, over air, sea and earth. Another, and another, ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... go to the window, and glance across with such a peculiar smile that I knew as well as if I had seen her that Christian's Elsa was at her window with her music, looking across for me between each bar. I cannot describe the smile which hovered on the face of the Little Playmate. But perhaps all the male beings who read my book may have seen something like it. All that I can say is, that the smile conveyed an almost superhuman understanding of men and their little ways, ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... say something about California, and then proceed to describe the lands for sale, and the prospects of those ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett
... that, owing to this awkward "conceptions" the vast majority of the human race have been, and are, and for ages will be, sunk in the grossest Fetichism,—Polytheism,—and every form of absurd and misshapen Monotheism;—the horrors of all which he proceeds faithfully, but not too faithfully, to describe, and sometimes, when he is in the mood, to soften and extenuate; in order that he may find that the "grim Calmuck," and even the savage, "whose hands are smeared over with the blood of human sacrifices," are yet in possession of the "absolute Idea" ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... sold so cheap and yet answer so good a purpose. And, indeed, they could not, if every part of their manufacture was not systematized in the most perfect manner and conducted on a large scale. I will describe the manner in which the O-G. case is made, (the style has been made a long time, and in larger numbers than any other,) which will give some idea with what facility the whole thing is put through. Common merchantable pine lumber is used for the body ...
— History of the American Clock Business for the Past Sixty Years, - and Life of Chauncey Jerome • Chauncey Jerome
... unity in his life. He cannot respect himself. Others cannot put confidence in him. There is no principle binding each part of his life to every other, and holding the whole together. The other words by which we describe such a life all spring from the same conception. We call such a person dissolute; and dissolute means literally separated, loosed, broken apart. We call him dissipated; and dissipated means literally scattered, torn apart, ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... began to describe the prowess of Arjuna, saying, 'Even this one is he that slew the foe, like unto a lion devastating a flock of deer. Even he ranged through crowds of hostile cars, slaying their best of car-warriors. By him was slain a huge, infuriate elephant by means ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... I remember right, that your excellency understands something of cosmography, I intend to describe to you our progress in our navigation, by the latitude and longitude. We sailed so far to the south that we entered the torrid zone and penetrated the circle of Cancer. You may rest assured that for a few days, while sailing through the torrid zone, we saw four shadows of the sun, as the sun appeared ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... the reins round his body; but on this supposition, not to mention other objections, the comparison with the sailor does not hold so well. It is more natural to suppose that he leaned back in order to get a purchase: in this attitude he is made to describe himself in Ov. Met. xv. 519, Et retro lentas tendo resupinus habenas. If there be any doubt of [Greek: eis toumisthen himasin] being Greek, this objection is obviated by putting a stop after [Greek: himasin], and making ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... Shall I describe it? Yes; from no morbid wish to dwell upon the frightful scenes which, alas! grew too common, but as some palliation of the acts of our men, against whom charges were plentiful about their ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... rattling along at a rapid rate, when, suddenly, near the Hotel de Chalusse, I noticed a change in the motion of the vehicle. I looked out and saw that we were driving over a thick layer of straw which had been spread across the street. I can scarcely describe my feelings on seeing this. A cold perspiration came over me—I fancied I saw Marguerite in agony, dying—far from me, and calling me in vain. Without waiting for the vehicle to stop, I sprang to the ground, and was obliged to exercise all my self-control to prevent ...
— The Count's Millions - Volume 1 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... useless to attempt to describe the condition of our decks by this time. No one who has not seen it can appreciate the effect of such a fire in a confined space. Men were being killed and maimed every minute, those faring best whose duty kept them on the spar deck. Just before our stern-guns were disabled, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... little that is positive has been revealed, writers have made up for the deficiency by any amount of negative description. Such writers as Aurelian and Obedenare simply deplore the paucity of information, whilst Fuchs, an able and industrious geologist, says: 'It is difficult to describe the country because there are such vast tracts which have a character of despairing monotony; because fossils are rare and badly preserved, if not entirely wanting; and the different elevations present exactly similar petrographic appearances;' in fact, ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... reached, his inspiration has all gone up in sounds pleasing to his audience, ugly to him—sacrificed for the first acoustic—an opaque clarity, a picture painted for its hanging. Easy unity, like easy virtue, is easier to describe, when judged from its lapses than from its constancy. When the infidel admits God is great, he means only: "I am lazy—it is easier to talk than live." Ruskin also says: "Suppose I like the finite curves best, who shall say I'm right or wrong? No one. It is simply a question of experience." You ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... B., Americain, Catholique, et gentilhomme, as he was disposed to describe himself in moments of lofty expansion! Are there still to be found in Europe gentlemen keen of face and elegantly slight of body, of distinguished aspect, with a fascinating drawing-room manner and with a dark, fatal glance, who live by their ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... life, about the little town. They looked neither older nor younger now; the beards of the aged were no whiter, nor could the creeping babe of yesterday walk on his feet to-day; it was impossible to describe in what respect they differed from the individuals on whom he had so recently bestowed a parting glance; and yet the minister's deepest sense seemed to inform him of their mutability. A similar impression struck him most remarkably, ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... talented New York friends who are touched with Buddhism just now and much puzzled to describe, and I judge even to imagine, their heaven, I confidently recommend a week's continuous jar upon a rough railway as the surest preparation for attaining a just conception of Nirvana, where perfect rest is held ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... perceive the source of those errors, into which men, otherwise extremely profound and very enlightened have fallen, when they have been desirous to speak of the soul: to describe its operations. Obliged either by their own prejudices, or by the fear of combatting the opinions of some imperious theologian, they have become the advocates of the principle, that the soul was a pure spirit: an immaterial substance; of an essence ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 1 • Baron D'Holbach
... the girl and began to jaw at her. It was in some other language, and we could only understand by the motion of their mouths and their actions. It seemed as though the men were trying to sell clams to her. First Brignoli began to whoop it up, and describe the clams he had to sell, and tried to get her to invest. He yelled at her, and seemed really put out, and she was as spunky as any girl we ever saw. When Brignoli got out of breath, Carleton began to tell her that Brig had been ...
— Peck's Compendium of Fun • George W. Peck
... with his great models and predecessors. In style as well as in substance his reports and articles were masterpieces of their kind. He came to his task with the equipment of a perfect feuilletonist; his style was polished and musical; he possessed in an exceptional degree the capacity to describe natural scenery in a few fine clear strokes and of hinting at, rather than of reproducing, a mood with a minimum of language. Everything was there, background, mood and development of action in plastic balance. It was only now, ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl
... to meet or difficulty to overcome. It was not religion and it was not hope of gain which led him away into those western wildernesses, but pure love of nature and of adventure, with so little ambition that he had never cared to describe his own travels, and none knew where he had been or where he had stopped. For years he would vanish from the settlements away into the vast plains of the Dacotah, or into the huge wilderness of the north-west, and then at last some day would walk back into Sault ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle
... tells me of the trouble here on the dam," he said. "My government is undertaking some great work which I will describe to you. We will make you a formal offer if you ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... with the deprivations, the ills or forebodings of age. But in no such passages is language used which is at all equivalent to that here quoted. Nowhere does he present such a travesty as to allow Juliet to describe herself in good straight terms that would befit her grandmother; and there is nothing that the much-lamenting Hamlet says which would lead an actor to play the part with the accessories of age and feebleness ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson
... violence, in which work all the white men in the ship had to take part amid a chorus of awful skirling, serpentlike fuffing, ominous and deadly growling, and, generally, hideous caterwauling, that no pen, however gifted, could adequately describe. ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... can describe exactly! You know, usually, I don't interfere in your affairs. But now ... I'd like real well to know ... what's come ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann
... knife and fork. 'Is eaten,' says Mr. White, 'does not mean has been eaten.' Very true; but a continuous unfinished passion—Polonius's still undergoing manducation, to speak Johnsonese—was in Shakespeare's mind; and his words describe a passion no longer in generation. The King of Denmark's lord chamberlain had no precedent in Herod, when 'he was eaten of worms'; the original, γενόμενος σκωληκόβρωτος, yielding, but for ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... to us a set of fools, Chingatok. Your voyage to the far-off lands has not been very successful. These men want something that they do not understand; that they could not see if it was before them; that they cannot describe when they talk about it, and that they could not lay hold of ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... dominant note in Italy during the two hundred years in which she eclipsed and bewildered the rest of Christendom; and it bore fruit in those great historic wardrobes which the Italian chroniclers describe with loving minuteness. We know all about Isabella d' Este's gowns, as if she had worn them yesterday. We know all about the jewels which were the assertion of her husband's pride in times of peace, and his security with the Lombard bankers in times of war. We know ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... every exercise of the Christian life was simply the grace of Jesus Christ imparted to him and lived out by him, so that holiness was to put on the Lord Jesus and all the robes of His perfect righteousness which he loves to describe so often in his beautiful epistles. "Put on therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved," he says to the Colossians, "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long suffering"; and, "above all these things, put on love which is the bond of perfectness." None of these ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... of the fifteenth century; and it is worthy of notice that though we have retained our word "chair," adopted from the Norman French, the French people discarded their synonym in favour of its diminutive "chaise" to describe the somewhat smaller and less massive seat which came into use ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... never again, afterwards, never, that was to say, for any other woman, did Rowcliffe feel what he felt then. Looking back on it (afterward) he could only describe it as a sense of certainty. It lacked, surprisingly, the element ...
— The Three Sisters • May Sinclair
... was somebody Nicholas Snyders had never set eyes on before. And neither, after that one visit, did Nicholas Snyders ever set eyes upon him again. The light was fading, and Nicholas Snyders was not the man to light candles before they were needed, so that he was never able to describe with any precision the stranger's appearance. Nicholas thought he seemed an old man, but alert in all his movements; while his eyes—the one thing about him Nicholas saw with any clearness—were ...
— The Soul of Nicholas Snyders - Or, The Miser Of Zandam • Jerome K. Jerome
... the next few weeks on the Kimmel front, and, as a matter of fact, it is no exaggeration to say that trench-raiding which has since been carried out so extensively was really initiated by the "Fighting Twenty-Fifth." Before proceeding further, let me describe a trench. They are all transversed, because if a shell or bomb should burst in one part of the trench the transverse prevents the spread of the shrapnel. A communication trench is usually to connect the trenches together, and sometimes these trenches are a mile long ...
— Over the top with the 25th - Chronicle of events at Vimy Ridge and Courcellette • R. Lewis
... following pages I have endeavoured to describe a dream, partly of study, partly of adventure, in which will be found copious notices of books, and many descriptions of life and manners, some ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Negro was enfranchised. What was the result? No language has been spared to describe these results as the worst imaginable. This is not true. There were bad results, and bad results arising from Negro suffrage; but those results were not so bad as usually painted, nor was Negro suffrage the prime cause of ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... more idle, and, what is less to be forgiven in a writer, more tedious, than minute and lengthened descriptions of localities; where it is very doubtful whether the writers themselves had formed any tolerable notion of the place they describe,—it is certain their readers never can! These descriptive passages, in which writers of imagination so frequently indulge, are usually a glittering confusion of unconnected things; circumstances recollected from others, or observed by themselves at different times; the ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... in winter! It is more than pen can describe. Its beauty, grandeur, and immensity are feebly told in words. Snow and ice are everywhere, and that everywhere seems as great as the world. Hills and mountains are here innumerable and majestic; while rivers and creeks unlimited in number and ...
— The Trail of a Sourdough - Life in Alaska • May Kellogg Sullivan
... old familiar faces wore new unfamiliar disguises, every step that he took now seemed to be dangerous, misfortune after misfortune had come to him, at first slight and even ludicrous, at last with Falk's escape, serious and bewildering. Bewildering! That was the true word to describe his case! He was like a man moving through familiar country and overtaken suddenly by a dense fog. Through it all, examine it as minutely as he might, he could not see that he had committed the ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... more shameful exploitation, intellectual and economic, than that which has been practised on the Ulster Orangeman by his feudal masters. Were I to retort the abuse, with which my own creed is daily bespattered, I should describe him further as the only victim of clerical obscurantism to be found in Ireland. Herded behind the unbridged waters of the Boyne, he has been forced to live in a very Tibet of intellectual isolation. Whenever he moved in his thoughts a little towards that Ireland to which, for all his ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... Macao for the protection of the China trade. I speak of course from hearsay, as what I am about to relate occurred just before I came into existence; indeed, of many other subsequent events which I shall venture to describe I cannot be said to have any very vivid recollection, although present at the time. The frigate was standing to the eastward, some three or four leagues from the coast, when one of the topmen, Pat Brady, on the look-out at the mast-head, discovered ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... Mrs. Arnot had sought with all a woman's tact to consummate their marriage, so that the mystical words of God, "And they twain shall be one flesh," should describe their union; but as time passed she had seen her task grow more and more hopeless. The controlling principles of each life were utterly different. He was hardening into stone, while the dross and materiality of her nature were being daily refined away. A strong but wholly ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... at that time with many of these visiting-cards of introduction, and after this instance I filed them with great care in the waste-basket. I then examined my other letters. It is idle to describe to those who have never depended upon such documents in foreign countries the inadequacy of half of them. In spite of the kindest intentions, they were ...
— Abroad with the Jimmies • Lilian Bell
... palpitation of your heart, which is not at all diseased, but which flutters a little from time to time because the great nerve of the heart is tired, like the other great nerves and nerve-centers of your body. You grow apprehensive over the analogous tremor which you describe as 'inward trembling,' and which you often feel all through your trunk and sometimes in your knees, hands, and face, particularly about the eyes and mouth and in ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... In the prisoners' camps in the enemy countries, non-German prisoners were invited to join the enemy's ranks. Czech legions and battalions are composed almost entirely of former prisoners of war. The minister further went on to describe the propaganda of the Czechs abroad, the activity of Czech committees in enemy and neutral countries, especially in Russia and Switzerland. He also mentioned the case of Pavlu, a Czech soldier, who in a Russian newspaper described how he penetrated the Austrian trenches in ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... like the blast of a furnace. To describe this awful scourge of The Desert, defies all the powers of language. The pencil assisted by the pen might perhaps afford a faint idea of it, winged with the whirlwind and charioted with thunder, it urged its fiery course, blasting ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... day, when the flight was still a novelty, the women and girls were cheerful enough, but who can describe their heartache and misery during their enforced journey on the rainy nights? I do not know how all those waggons and cattle got through the swollen river that night. Twenty paces from where I lay a waggon was being inspanned; I ...
— On Commando • Dietlof Van Warmelo
... the trickeries of Sganarelle, the lies of Mascarille, and the empty bags of Scapin which such a system develops. There has never been a failure which did not generate enough matter to fill the fourteen volumes of "Clarissa Harlowe," if an author could be found to describe them. A single example will suffice. The illustrious Gobseck,—ruler of Palma, Gigonnet, Werbrust, Keller, Nucingen, and the like,—being concerned in a failure where he attempted to roughly handle the insolvent, who had managed to get the better of ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... profound a respect for his own pedigree to lay his sins at his great-grandfather's door. As the nephew of a Tory squire, he was but two degrees removed from original righteousness. In spite of this consideration, he was wont to describe himself with engaging candour as a "bad hat." In doing so he recognised that he was a dependent part of a vast and complicated system. If he, Vincent Hardy, was a bad hat, who was to blame for it? Obviously, ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... saints occasionally describe lapses into heathenism in Ireland, not characterised by "idolatry," but by wizardry, dealing in charms, and fidlanna, perhaps a kind of divination with pieces of wood.[880] But it is much more likely that these had never really been abandoned. They belong to the primitive ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... the light in her eyes continued for him not to be that of mockery. "Isn't what you describe perhaps but the expectation—or at any rate the sense of danger, familiar to so many people—of ...
— The Beast in the Jungle • Henry James
... pretend to describe the feelings with which I gazed. Amazement was, of course, predominant. Legrand appeared exhausted with excitement, and spoke very few words. Jupiter's countenance wore, for some minutes, as deadly a pallor as ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... words describe the impression it made on a certain young man from Boston! It was long and low and ramshackly and hot that night as the inside of a brick-kiln. As he drew near it on the single plant walk over the black prairie-mud, he ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... beginning to get a headache already from trying to figure out what it all meant. Danny, describe that haunting face just ...
— The High School Boys' Fishing Trip • H. Irving Hancock
... that I would have found things as you describe, an hour or two ago; but the fact is, my men were hungry; so two of your cattle were knocked in the head, and a right jolly feed we had, I ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... lark's song, the wafts from the cow-shed at top of the field, the pant and smoke of a distant train,—all were wine,—or song, was it? or odour, this unity they all blended into? I had no words then to describe it, that earth-effluence of which I was so conscious; nor, indeed, have I found words since. I ran sideways, shouting; I dug glad heels into the squelching soil; I splashed diamond showers from puddles with a stick; I hurled clods skywards at random, and presently I somehow found myself ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... Many other organic gardeners reach the same conclusion. But most gardeners do not understand one critical difference between farming and gardening: most agricultural radicals start farming on run-down land grossly deficient in organic matter. The plant and animal health improvements they describe come from restoration of soil balance, from approaching a climax humus level much like I've done in my pasture by no ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... of a series of eight addresses delivered as the Hewitt Lectures of Columbia University at Cooper Union in New York City during the months of February and March, 1907. The purpose of these lectures was to describe in concise outline the Doctrine of Evolution, its basis in the facts of natural history, and its wide and universal scope. They fall naturally into two groups. Those of the first part deal with matters of definition, with the essential characteristics of living ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... it is earnings; with another it is pride, and still another selfishness; with this one it is the encouragement of some passion, and with still another it is the practice of some secret sin. It is not necessary to describe the bondage; it is true, alas, that many of us are sadly crippled in our influence because of these things, for this woman was just as truly bound as if she had been in chains. When Jesus entered the synagogue his eye saw her instantly, and he detected her difficulty. ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... explains things in him that surprised his acquaintances very much, and, in fact, did him much wrong with them. It was a scrofulous condition of the stomach, and [52] when developed by taking cold, it was something dreadful to hear him describe. The effect was to make entirely another man of him. He who was affluent in means and disposition became suddenly not only depressed and melancholy, but anxious about expenses, sharp with the courier upon that point, and not at all agreeable ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... We may briefly describe the apparatus used in military operations. The French in the campaigns of the 19th century used varnished silk balloons of about 10,000 cub. ft. capacity. The Americans in the Civil War used much larger ones. those of 26,000 cub. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... for popular purposes, or for beginners. And no wonder that with views so similar on this first and so radical point, these two men should have hit upon the same method in Rhetoric exactly, though it was then wholly new. But our Gascon, goes on to describe its freedoms and novelties, its imitations of the living conference, ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... set out again, intending to make no pause in his next stage until he had reached Kendal. Upon approaching the villages he looked about for the footpaths that might be expected to describe short arcs around them; and, following one of these, he passed a cottage that stood at a corner of a lane. He had made many fruitless inquiries hitherto, and had received replies that had been worse than valueless; but he could not resist the temptation ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine
... comb in the hive makes honey. Many of our would-be young poets bring us the crude nectar from the fields—fine descriptions of flowers, birds, sunsets, and so on—and expect us to accept them as honey. The quality of the man makes all the difference in the world. A great nature can describe birds and flowers and clouds and sunsets and spring and ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... step forward with a superb smile—"My good fellow, you should never reproach a man with his good actions," he said; "but at the same time, having eaten your dinners, as you describe, I have a certain claim on your gratitude. We have had some—a—business connection—for some years. I don't say you have reason to be actually grateful for that; but, at least, it brought you now and then into the society of gentlemen. A man who ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... at learning the position of the soldier," he snapped out nastily, after a while. "Whenever, in barracks, or elsewhere, in ranks or out, if you hear the command, 'Attention,' ye'll come to the position of the soldier. Now, watch me, ye thick-pated rookies, and, as I describe it, bit by bit, I'll come to the ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys in the Ranks - or, Two Recruits in the United States Army • H. Irving Hancock
... is a very striking application of these words of David, which so fearfully describe the agitation of those who are exposed to a hurricane at sea. We too generally limit this passage to its literal sense. To Bunyan, who had passed through such a deep experience of the "terrors of the Lord," when he came out of tribulation and anguish, he must have richly enjoyed the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... insisted that I should surrender them to her for the gratification of the assembled party. One condition only was I permitted to make in this surrender, and this was, that Mr. Arlington should also bring forth his portfolio for inspection, and should describe the locale of the scene sketched, or relate the circumstances under which the sketches were made. A pretty ruse this, my gentle Annie, by which you furnished the artist with an opportunity to display to others the talents which had charmed yourself. In accordance with this compact, the drawings, ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... recollecting that I should not, to him, and before his daughter, describe the Jew, who had committed a deed without a name, I with much embarrassment said, that "it was nothing of any consequence—it was something I could ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... The journey to Miranda I pass by. One is not qualified to write an essay on a country from inspection through the windows of a railway-carriage in motion, more particularly at night. As well attempt to describe a veiled panorama, unrolling itself at a hand-gallop. At Miranda, which was crowded with soldiers, there was a diligence that plied to San Sebastian by tacit arrangement with the knights of the road—that is, the adherents of Don Carlos. As the fares were very expensive, ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... the place in the world to which I am most attached" ["And so say all of us"]; the other, after some notice of the Corpus plate, telling how "I got out to Hinksey and up the hill to within sight of the Cumnor firs. I cannot describe the effect which this landscape always has upon me: the hillside with its valleys, and Oxford in the great Thames valley below." And this walk is again referred to later. He was pleased by a requisition that he should stand yet again for the Poetry Professorship, though of ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... man who was searching for a lost child in a Mississippi steamboat explosion years before. The man was lame in one leg, and appeared to be flitting from place to place. It seemed that Major Lackland got so close track of him that he was able to describe his personal appearance and learn his name. But the letter containing these particulars was lost. Once he heard of him at a hotel in Washington; but the man departed, leaving an empty trunk, the day before the major went there. There was ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 7. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... painfully conscious of the defects of this volume, but I venture to present it to the public in the hope that, in spite of its demerits, it may be accepted as an honest attempt to describe things as I saw them in Japan, on land journeys ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... to describe the grief, indignation, and astonishment which took place, not only among the spectators, who were overwhelmed with a flood of sorrow, but throughout the whole nation, as soon as the report of this fatal execution ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... Egerton,[116] stating that Edmund Lambert was to hold it only until repaid the loan, that the money had been duly tendered to him on the agreed date, that he had refused it, and that his son John holds the land still, and makes secret estates of the premises, the nature of which they cannot describe, as the papers have been withheld them; that their papers and evidences are open to the court. They add further that "the sayde John Lamberte ys of greate wealthe and abilitie, and well frended and allied amongst gentlemen and freeholders of the county ... and your saide oratores are of small ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... could be faithfully told. But it is not given to all of us to see our lives in relief as we look back. Most of us, I think, see them in perspective, of which our birth is the vanishing point. Seeing, too, is only half the battle. How few people can describe what they see! ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... you, that we have as yet no satisfactory news of the ship Lafayette; but, on the contrary, her long delay occasions the most alarming apprehensions. If, as but too probable, that ship is lost, you will more easily conceive than I can describe what will be the situation of our ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... count its leaves, and copy with unerring pencil the softest tints that stain them with varied bloom and beauty. Science will detect every kind of rock in the structure of the most defiant crag. Not a bird can chant or build its nest in the most leafy shade, but science will find the nest, describe every change of color on the feathers of the little singer, and set to music every tone that gushes from its tiny throat. Not a gem can repose safe from seizure, in the rocks, in the sand, or in the torrent. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... know him from that description," said Auntie Sue, thinking of the wretched creature who had fallen, sobbing, at her feet so short a time before. "But, you do not make him seem like a criminal at all. It is strange that a man such as you describe should be a fugitive from the law, ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... has enabled me to spend in these pursuits, have been some of the happiest of my existence, and have awakened and cherished such an admiration of nature and such a love for the country and its scenes, as I think can never be appreciated by the inhabitants of large towns, and which I cannot describe so well as in the words of one of my friends in a beautiful apostrophe to England, when leaving ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... earth. Hence we cannot avoid the question: Are we in process of evolving a social idea vaster than that underlying nationality? Do the Socialists hint to us the geographic basis of this new development, when they describe themselves as an international ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... honorable fame as a member of the House of Representatives, and as a member of the Cabinet in the administration of General Taylor. He had entered the Senate at a ripe age, and with every qualification for distinguished service. To describe him in a single word, he was a wise man. Conservative in his nature, he was sure to advise against rashness. Sturdy in his principles, he always counseled firmness. In the periods of excitement through which the party was about to pass, his judgment ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... shall this void be filled? Speaking in the first person, the simplest means appears to be to study those whose profession it is to describe the society of the time, and primarily, therefore, the works of dramatic writers, who are supposed to draw a faithful picture of it. So we go to the theatre, and usually derive keen pleasure therefrom. But is pleasure ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... this fundamental marriage that all men and women are born into the desire to complete themselves by conjunction. The symbol of sexual intercourse is a legitimate one to use in speaking of this heavenly union; indeed, we may describe the highest bliss attainable by the soul, or conceivable by the mind, as a spiritual orgasm. Into conjugal love "are collected," says SWEDENBORG, "all the blessednesses, blissfulnesses, delightsomenesses, pleasantnesses, and pleasures, which could possibly be conferred upon man by the Lord the Creator."(1) ...
— Bygone Beliefs • H. Stanley Redgrove
... but, oh! how can I describe the astonishment and joy I felt when in his countenance I traced, though more advanced in life, the features of that portrait that had so long been my greatest comfort? I sunk down before him, and, clasping his ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas
... of attaining any thing, but warped and perverted by the influence of early impressions. He is below the ordinary stature, though strong and active, having the true negro face, every feature of which is strongly marked. I shall not attempt to describe the effect of his narrative, as told and commented on by himself, in the condemned hole of the prison: the calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late deeds and intentions; the expression of his fiend-like face, when excited by ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... no discretionary power left?" inquired the Captain. "It must be oppressive, if carried out; Good men-whether they be white or black-are entitled to the advantages due them; but where laws such as you describe are carried out, a good man's evidence being black, the intention could not be made white. Now, according to my idea of the law of nature, a man's merits are in his moral integrity and behaviour; therefore I should establish ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... drops off, and the abdomen is entirely healed by the seventh to the tenth day, after which time baby is daily sponged for another week. And now we will describe in detail the simplest, easiest manner of administering an oil bath or a ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... call painting dumb poetry, the painter may call poetry blind painting. Now which is the worse defect? to be blind or dumb? Though the poet is as free as the painter in the invention of his fictions they are not so satisfactory to men as paintings; for, though poetry is able to describe forms, actions and places in words, the painter deals with the actual similitude of the forms, in order to represent them. Now tell me which is the nearer to the actual man: the name of man or the image of the man. The name of ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... her with a strange revulsion of feeling. "I could save Dorcas," he muttered to himself, "in less time than it takes to describe." He paused, however, as he reflected that this would depend entirely upon the methods of the writer of this description. "I could rescue her! I have only to take the first clothes-line that I find, and with ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... text-books read plain enough, and are not difficult of apprehension. The uncertainty of the law arises in the doubt and uncertainty of the facts; and hence the doubt about which, of many rules, ought to govern. A man of genius, as you describe him, ought to become a good lawyer; he would excel in the investigation and presentation of facts; but none but a lawyer saturated with the spirit of the law until he comes to have a legal instinct, can with accuracy ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... room to describe the lark, if the lark had been about. Bryant comes nearer the mark ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... was taken as I was going out of his house; when I wrote to her for money, she said she was ill in bed and put me off to another day. And when I got home I found her in diamonds and sitting with that villain alone." He then went on to describe hurriedly the personal conflict with Lord Steyne. To an affair of that nature, of course, he said, there was but one issue, and after his conference with his brother, he was going away to make the necessary arrangements ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... found himself quite alone, he locked his door, to secure himself from any possibility of interruption, and hung a towel over the key-hole, to guard his movements from observation, and then he unlocked his portmanteau, and took from it a strange and horrible disguise, that I will try to describe, so as to make it plain ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... became aware that something interposed between the page and the light,—the page was over-shadowed. I looked up, and I saw what I shall find it very difficult, perhaps impossible, to describe. ...
— Haunted and the Haunters • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... strong excitement—of the experience in the secret places of her soul. The first of these letters is written under stress of emotion so intense that coherence is hardly possible. The mind is baffled in seeking to find human speech which shall even adumbrate reality. What Catherine has to describe is the culmination of her earthly life: the final triumph of faith over despair, the final offering of herself as a sacrificial victim, in obedience, as she believes, to the express Voice of God. The second letter is more calm. ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... psychological formulae, made him slightly defiant. It was so easy to be wise in the explanation of an experience one has not personally witnessed. "A kind of desolate and terrible odor is the only way I can describe it," he concluded, glancing at the features of the quiet, unemotional ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... to trace her thought Through its wide range, describe her blooming youth, The heart whose feelings were so finely wrought, Its meek ambition, and its ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... other kind of knowledge is an acquisition greatly attained, and poetry is a gift conferred at once; or that the first poetry of every nation surprised them as a novelty, and retained the credit by consent which it received by accident at first; or whether, as the province of poetry is to describe nature and passion, which are always the same, the first writers took possession of the most striking objects for description and the most probable occurrences for fiction, and left nothing to those that followed them but transcription of the same events ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... which I more delight in than in travels, especially those that describe remote countries, and give the writer an opportunity of showing his parts without incurring any danger of being examined and contradicted. Among all the authors of this kind, our renowned countryman, Sir ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... honesty displayed on this occasion. The Squire, when he was thus instigated to persevere, did his best to describe the manner in which he had been rejected. His powers of description were not very great, but he did not conceal anything wilfully. "She was as hard as nails, ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... she got up and made the old man describe the way to the sparrow's house. When he saw what was in her mind he tried to keep her from going, but it was useless. She would not listen to one word he said. It is strange that the old woman did not feel ashamed of going to see the sparrow after the cruel ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... describe the rest of this day. Robert went home. Everyone greeted him tenderly. His first inquiry was for Clara. Still in that trance-like sleep; would she never wake? Mrs. Hardy shuddered with fear. She had spent much of the day in prayer and tears. The evening ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... the praises of Augustus, genius celebrate merit, and flattery extol the talents of the great. "The short and simple annals of the poor" engross my pen; and while I record the history of Flor Silin's virtues, though I speak of a poor peasant, I shall describe a noble man. I ask no eloquence to assist me in the task; modest worth rejects the aid of ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... about the courage of Paris, courage as fine and noble as anything in history, and in a later chapter of this book I hope to reveal the strength as well as the weakness in the soul of Paris. But if there is any truth in my pen it must describe that exodus by one and a half millions of people who, under the impulse of a great fear—what else was it?—fled by any means and any road from the capital which they love better than any city in the world because their homes are there ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... an advocate of economy in our national expenditures, but it is a misuse of terms to make this word describe a policy that withholds an expenditure for the purpose of extending our foreign commerce. The enlargement and improvement of our merchant marine, the development of a sufficient body of trained American seamen, the promotion ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... a trunk of sufficient size, the wind had dropped and a mist was settling down, which made it difficult for me to see anything that was not immediately before my eyes. A haunting sensation of insecurity began to pervade my mind. I hardly know how to describe it; it was not dread of a physical death, but fear lest my soul might get lost. Though I was now about to imperil my life, for the preservation of which, during the last half year, I had made every effort of which a human being is capable, that seemed to ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... four times that I made reconnaissance of this Port, and made its map, I found at the northeast and north-northeast what is shown on the map and I here describe. To the north-northeast of Angel Island, distant about a mile, there is a bay running in a direction north-northwest to south-southwest. The distance between the points forming said bay, is about two leagues, and the shore line is about two and a half leagues. To the northwest ...
— The March of Portola - and, The Log of the San Carlos and Original Documents - Translated and Annotated • Zoeth S. Eldredge and E. J. Molera
... placing Eunice in the position toward Philip which I have just endeavored to describe? I dared not allow my mind to dwell on the generosity which had so nobly pardoned him, or on the force of character which had bravely endured the bitterest disappointment, the cruelest humiliation. The one consideration which I was bound to face, was the sacred consideration ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... commit themselves. But one wants a little animation in a husband. She called on bell-motion of the head to toll forth the utter nightcap negative. He had not any: out of the saddle, he was asleep:—'next door to the Last Trump,' Colney Durance assisted her to describe the soundest of sleep in a husband, after wooing her to unbosom herself. She was awake to his guileful arts, and sailed along with him, hailing his phrases, if he shot a good one; prankishly exposing a flexible ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to describe in detail the scientific operations during the sixty-five days between the 20th May and the 24th July. Again the commander-in-chief enlightened the world by an exhibition of a more artistic and humane style of warfare than previously to his appearance on the military stage had been known. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... the Doctor began, "is very hard to describe and has to be seen to be believed. A War Babe would probably not recognise one if he saw it. To give you a rough idea, however, it is an airy ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 18, 1917 • Various
... castle, tall of base and strong of build whose ordinance was one brick of gold and one of silver. The apes entered and he after them, and he saw in the castle all manner of rarities, jewels and precious metals such as tongue faileth to describe. Here also he found a young man, passing tall of stature with no hair on his cheeks, and Sayf al-Muluk was cheered by the sight for there was no human being but he in the castle. The stranger marvelled ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... and boxes suspended in these ponds. When the young fish hatch out, the trays which contained the ova can be removed, and the young fish kept in the boxes. Later on the young fish can be released from the boxes into the ponds. I shall subsequently describe how these ponds, trays, and boxes ...
— Amateur Fish Culture • Charles Edward Walker
... retorted Mrs Wilfer, with an awful look, and in an awful tone, 'was what I describe him to have been, and would have struck any of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to question it. It was one of mamma's cherished hopes that I should become united to a tall member of society. It may have been a weakness, but if so, it was equally the ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... person? That, too, is necessary, because it is 'prevenant'. Do you aim at easy, engaging, but, at the same time, civil or respectful manners, according to the company you are in? These, and a thousand other things, which you will observe in people of fashion better than I can describe them, are absolutely necessary for every man; but still more for you, than for almost any man living. The showish, the shining, the engaging parts of the character of a fine gentleman, should (considering your destination) be the principal objects, ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... hunting-field; her love of life and of fair play would have kept her out of that. But I use it as a descriptive illustration. One was always glad to meet her in a house party, though one could not have explained why. It is quite impossible to describe her. ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... bergs cast over them, and by the pools of clear water which shone like crystals in their hollows, while the beautiful beryl blue of the larger bergs gave a delicate colouring to the dazzling scene. Words cannot describe the intense glitter that characterized everything. Every point seemed a diamond, every edge sent forth a gleam of light, and many of the masses reflected the rich prismatic colours of the rainbow. It seemed as if the sun himself had been multiplied ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... General Lee one day visited the old manor-house crowning the grassy hill and overshadowed by great oaks; Generals Jackson, Longstreet, and Stuart, accompanied him, and the reception which he met with, though we cannot describe it, was such as would have satisfied the most exacting. The children came to him and held out their small hands, the ladies divided their attention between him and the beloved "hero of the Valley," Jackson; and the lady of the manor could only express her sense of the great honor of ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... which I describe followed the variations of bodily health; if it came when all was prosperous and joyful, and was withdrawn when the light was low; if it deserted me in seasons of robust vigour, and came when the bodily vitality was depressed, I could refer it to some physical basis. But it contradicts ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... talked a great deal about you—a theme never tiresome to me, nor any body else that I know. What a variety of expression he conjures into that naturally not very fine countenance of his! He absolutely changes it entirely. I have done—for I can't describe him, and you know him. On Sunday I return to Aston, where I shall not be far from you. Perhaps I shall hear from you in the mean time. ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron
... this ill-starred marriage. Every successive critic, in exposing the errors of his predecessor, has himself committed some fresh blunder. Bishop Burnet, for instance, first of all in a Protestant age indicated the bloody mistakes of papal lawyers in 1536; not meaning at all to describe these mistakes as undetected by those who were answerable for them. Though hushed up, they were evidently known to their unhappy authors. Next upon Burnet, down comes Mr. Froude. Burnet had shaped his criticism ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... prose who should describe scenes like these, would aim to give us a distinct and accurate picture by presenting all their prominent features, omitting nothing, and grouping them as Nature herself had grouped them. Such descriptions we daily see in all books of ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various
... better than other folk, and that only a small proportion of those to whom the blessing came were qualified or willing to bear its responsibilities. She touched on eugenics—its advantages and its limitations; she referred to the inadequacy of present laws and protective measures. Then she went on to describe what a Bureau ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... nearly enough assured of my ground to say that active work, as you describe it, is either advisable or necessary. I want to examine and consider, to turn life and thought inside out, to see if I can piece together in the least the enormous problem of which God has flung us the fragments. I do not despair of arriving at some inkling of that ...
— Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge • Arthur Christopher Benson
... describe all that followed on that bewildering day, the dismay of Grandmamma and Nursey, the wrath of Jennings over the match, the joy of everybody at Lady Bird's escape, or her own confusion of mind at the fire and the excitement and the new Papa, who ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... walls with more scenery of that description than any other. What a gallery of alpine, arctic and marine sunsets we have, and how blank an impression do they all produce! From any of them, done with a clever pen by one who undertakes to describe what he has freshly seen, we gather that the spectacle must have been very fine, and must have deeply delighted the spectator. We can even catch some tints here and there, but they are fugitive, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... time, but it is significant that the beautiful romanza 'Spirto gentil,' to which the act and indeed the whole opera owes most of its popularity, was transferred from an earlier and unperformed work, 'Le Duc d'Albe.' It would be waste of time to describe the plots of any other serious works by this composer. Many of them, such as 'Betly,' 'Linda di Chamonix,' and 'Anna Bolena,' were successful when produced; but Donizetti aimed merely at satisfying the prevailing taste of the day, and when a ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... well-known aids to sermonising. He was a great man at all tea- meetings, anniversaries, and parties. He was facile in public speaking, and he dwelt much upon the joys of heaven and upon such topics as the possibility of our recognising one another there. I have known him describe for twenty minutes, in a kind of watery rhetoric, the passage of the soul to bliss through death, and its meeting in the next world with those who had ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... the getting of it was through a "nithings-deed," the murder of a dying man! William Morris was most felicitous in envoys and dedicating poems, and in the sonnet prefixed to this translation he was particularly happy. The first eight lines describe the hero of the saga—the last six lines the ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... First describe a circle: whose diameter let be an inch. Diuide the Circumference into foure equall partes. From the Center, by those 4. sections, extend 4. right lines: eche of 4. inches and a halfe long: or of as many ...
— The Mathematicall Praeface to Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara • John Dee
... just far enough to preserve the opposite or hospital side intact. It must then be cut downward to a point below the level of the hospital floor, then eastward into Rat Hell, the completed opening thus to describe the letter "S." It must be wide enough to let a man through, yet the wall must not be broken on the hospital side above the floor, nor marred on the carpenter's-shop side below it. Such a break would be fatal, ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... my good Ganz, that you do your best to thin them out! This specimen was too typical for me to be able to describe him. Younger than usual, possibly; yellow hair, blue eyes, constrained manner, everything to sample. He called himself Mark, or Matthew. Rather their apostolic air, too—except that he was in the Oil Company's motor-boat. But he gave me ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to describe my early years, you would laugh at me as an impostor; but the following letter from mamma to a friend, after her marriage, will pretty well show you what a poor foolish creature she was; and what a reckless extravagant fellow was my other ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fro in benicotined enjoyment of some odd strain of philosophy. Good heavens! was that the way men went to war,—as if it were a hunt with an equal chance of being the hound or the hare? 'Sausage-eaters'—what a phrase to describe those eagle-helmeted supermen of Prussia's cavalry! And this little island of pipe-smoking, country-side philosophers and pampered, sport-loving youth—this was the country, heart of a crumbling empire, that had ordered the gray torrent of Germany to alter its course and flow back to its own confines. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... never such fruit—there were never such cakes as these that were set before them. As for the ice cream, it was— inexpressible. In describing the feast afterwards, Marian could never get beyond the ice cream. She was always at a loss for adjectives to describe it. It was like the manna that the Children of Israel had in the wilderness, she thought, and surely they ought to have ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... just leaving the door, seemed greatly surprised to meet us there at that hour. Words cannot describe my feelings, when in answer to my father's inquiries, he told us that Amy was sick with ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... hours swimming backwards and forwards after the beasts; sometimes I had hold of their tails, and anon had to meet them and turn them towards the shore. There are lots of people now living at Barton who saw the affray, and who could describe it much ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... thought complete without a few words concerning the personal appearance of my old friend; although, perhaps, few things could be more difficult for me to describe. Dogs and cats are apt to admire such very different forms of beauty, that the former often call beautiful what we think just the reverse. He was tall, strong, and rather stout, with a large bushy ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes |
