"Describe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a book must have a fitting end was a mere vulgar prejudice. What is there in the world that really has an end? That is all very well, said the girls, but the book must certainly have some ending. The last scene, one of ineffable beauty, should describe a walk at night and by moonlight through the streets of Bruges, when the souls of the priest and the maiden should be revealed to one another, and they should commune half as lovers, half dreaming like prophets. The two should find themselves ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... or forty different kinds of pitcher-plants, varying in size a great deal. But the strange thing about all of them is that the ends of their leaves are shaped like pitchers, or perhaps it would describe them better if we said they were like jugs with lids. It is from this peculiarity that the plant takes its name. The leaf is the shape of any ordinary leaf until it reaches its point, where it is drawn out into a long stalk or tendril, at the end of which is the jug or pitcher, which, you ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... force by two electro-magnets pulling at right angles to each other. One must be excited by the main current of the machine, the other by a shunt current from the terminals of the machine. The point of the pencil will describe the curve. ...
— The Standard Electrical Dictionary - A Popular Dictionary of Words and Terms Used in the Practice - of Electrical Engineering • T. O'Conor Slone
... omitted to mention that this memorable day was a Saturday, one on which civic sportsmen exhibit. We may also premise, that the particular hunt we are about to describe, took place when there were very many packs of hounds within reach of the metropolis, all of which boasted their respective admiring subscribers. As our party proceeded they overtook a gentleman perusing a long ...
— Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities • Robert Smith Surtees
... before we knew his treachery, we held in light estimation: abilities must, in truth, be rare in New York. But whilst speaking of baseness, Colonel Laurens will tell you of the fine embassy sent by General Clinton to some mutinous soldiers. He will describe to you also the details of that mutiny; the means employed to arrest it with the Pennsylvanians, and also those we employed with the Jersey troops. This only proves, however, that human patience has its limits, as no European army would endure the ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Others may describe the horrors, almost indescribable, of contract labor in prisons; I saw nothing of that at Atlanta—type of another widespread system of prison work—though I heard enough about it from men who had undergone ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... I have rambled, but I hope you see that this is a delicate way of letting you into the nature of the individual who is, officially, the principal personage at our table. It would hardly do to describe him directly, you know. But you must not think, because the lightning zigzags, it does not ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... elsewhere, might have been considered handsome; but on this occasion their charms were completely eclipsed. In attempting to describe the person of so singular and lovely a female, I feel conscious how inadequate my language has been to convey any idea of the reality; which, like a Peri descended from the celestial paradise, flits before my eyes, ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... one's power to change and make a new being of himself," he finally said, in a harsh tone, as the pope continued his exhortations and representations. "You, my blessed father, cannot convert yourself into a monster such as you describe me; and I, Cardinal Albani, cannot attain to the sublime godliness which we all admire in your holiness. Every one must walk in his own path, taking especial care not to disturb others ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... in an instant I fervently blessed Toddie and the soup which the child had sent upon its aimless wanderings. I would rather pay the price of a fine dress than try to describe Miss Mayton's attire; I can only say that in style, color and ornament it became her perfectly, and set off the beauties of a face which I had never before thought was more than pleasing and intelligent. ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... then, I describe as Modern History that which begins four hundred years ago, which is marked off by an evident and intelligible line from the time immediately preceding, and displays in its course specific and distinctive characteristics of its own 10. The modern age did not proceed from the medieval by normal ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... shrine of the craft in the fifth and sixth centuries. It is useless in so small a space to attempt to describe or do justice to these incomparable walls, where gleam the marvellous procession of white robed virgins, and where glitters the royal cortege of Justinian and Theodora. The acme of the art was reached when these mural decorations were planned and executed, and the churches of Ravenna may be considered ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... he watched these hands groping along outside the curtains till they reached the middle. The curtains were then drawn a little apart, and a Face peered in—an awful, evil Face, with an expression of wickedness and hate upon it which no words could describe. It looked at him for a few moments, then drew back again, and the curtains closed. The clergyman had sufficient courage left to leap out of bed and make a thorough examination of the room, but, as he expected, he found no one. He dressed himself ...
— True Irish Ghost Stories • St John D Seymour
... in imagination, make a visit to the post-office and describe what may be seen therein. A pupil's letter is prepared, and the teacher, by using an old envelope, shows what is done with the letter till it reaches the person to whom it is addressed, tabulating these points on the black-board: (1) Stamped; (2) Stamp cancelled; (3) Placed in the mail bag; ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: History • Ontario Ministry of Education
... sympathetically into the following vivid description: "It would be difficult to describe the hardships gone through by the Mounted Police stationed at the passes. The camp at the Chilcoot under Inspector Belcher was pitched on the summit, where it is bounded by high mountains. A wooden cabin was erected in a couple of days. The place where it was in the pass ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... reached a point where she could describe the very essence of her passion; she had to let this go. After a moment ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... praising of wine might not Bacchus himself describe at the full, though he were alive. For among all liquors and juice of trees, wine beareth the prize, for passing all liquors, wine moderately drunk most comforteth the body, and gladdeth the heart, and saveth wounds and evils. Wine strengtheneth ...
— Mediaeval Lore from Bartholomew Anglicus • Robert Steele
... suddenly found myself face to face with the problem of putting these two heterogeneous things together so as to make them look like a homogeneous whole. I was extremely mortified to see how poor a showing would be made in the eyes of foreign astronomers. But I could do nothing more than to describe the work and methods in such a way as to keep in the background the want of system that ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... To describe the Battle which ensued, Battle named of Striegau or Hohenfriedberg, excels the power of human talent,—if human talent had leisure for such employment. It is the huge shock and clash of 70,000 against 70,000, placed in the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... for me to describe to you minutely the various trials which I made. It is quite enough for me now to say that I at last found out that in that very private drawer where I had first discovered the cipher writing there was a false bottom of very peculiar construction. It lay close to the real bottom, ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... poet, I make Time himself intervene to explain the omission of ten whole years. Ten whole years, indeed, have passed since I wrote one single line in this diary; and now that I take up the pen again, I have not the pleasure, alas! to describe a Perdita "now grown in grace." Youth and beauty are the faithful companions of poets; but those charming phantoms scarcely visit the rest of us, even for the space of a season. We do not know how to retain them with us. If the fair shade of some Perdita should ever, ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... proportion to the quantities which they carry away. On the third day after leaving Soldaia, we fell in with the Tartars, on joining whom, I thought myself entered into a new world; wherefore, I shall use my best endeavours to describe their manners ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... In looseness of construction, in the emphasis on character in distress, and in the introduction of a masque, as well as in other ways, this play resembles the tragi-comedies of the period rather than any earlier chronicle. Thus the term "romantic tragi-comedy" may be properly used to describe all the work of the ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... chief of the moral virtues is justice, and by it a man is brought into contact with his neighbour, as the Philosopher proves.[412] We describe, then, the active life by those things by means of which we are brought into contact with our neighbour; yet we do not thereby mean that the active life consists solely in these ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... entered the reception-room there were about twenty or twenty-five people who were to be entertained at dinner. I will not attempt to describe the elegance, not to say splendor, of everything in connection with the dinner. As I ate food for the first time in my life out of gold dishes, I could not but recall the time when as a slave boy I ate my ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... was 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 been ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... creature such a glow of love and reverence that Durtal gazed with admiration and trembled with awe. Without in the least knowing why, in the midst of the darkness that fell on his soul, of the impotent and wavering feeling that thrilled it without there being any word to describe them, he felt a tide bearing him to the Saviour, ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... could live comfortably upon them. I had some classmates who paid for their commons and never entered the hall while they belonged to the College. We were allowed at dinner a cue of beer, which was a half-pint, and a sizing of bread, which I cannot describe to you. It was quite sufficient for one dinner." By a vote of the Corporation in 1750, a law was passed, declaring "that the quantity of commons be as hath been usual, viz. two sizes of bread in the morning; one pound of meat ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... and as you think down in your heart. Tell me frankly: if your love were not the work of the senses, would you take so much pleasure in considering that form, those eyes which enchant you, that mouth which you describe to me in such glowing colors? If the qualities of heart and mind alone seduce you, a woman of fifty is worth still more in that respect than the Countess. You see such a one every day, it is her mother; why not become enamored of her instead? ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... take upon me exactly to describe their proceedings in these things, because I expecte it will be fully done by them selves, who best know the carrage & circumstances of things; I shall therfore but touch them in generall. From Connightecute (who were most sencible ...
— Bradford's History of 'Plimoth Plantation' • William Bradford
... of dreary, blank darkness, and then there were other visions, too wild and strange to describe, and soon the darkness of annihilation settled upon his soul. How long a time elapsed while in this state of insensibility, he could not say; but he was at length half-aroused by voices near him, and he was conscious that some hand was feeling for ...
— The Runaway - The Adventures of Rodney Roverton • Unknown
... running. Some months were elapsed in this manner, till at last it was thought convenient to fix a day for the nuptials of the young couple, who seemed earnestly to desire it. During the preparations for the wedding, I need not describe the busy importance of my wife, nor the sly looks of my daughters: in fact, my attention was fixed on another object, the completing a tract which I intended shortly to publish in defence of my favourite ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... Calcutta, by the Regulating Act of 1773, Six articles of impeachment were accordingly exhibited to the house by Sir Gilbert Elliot, who supported them by a long and impressive speech, in which he professed to describe the career of the accused from his first arrival at Calcutta, down to his recall by a resolution of the house of commons. The articles which he produced related to the trial and execution of Nuncomar; to the conduct of Impey in a cause called the Patna ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... that he had had enough of desert travelling to last a lifetime. At that the chagrin of Elias was pitiful to witness. He saw the valley full of gold, which the second before had seemed quite close to him, removed by this reply a great way off. But when Iskender offered to describe its whereabouts to the best of his remembrance, and to make over all his rights in it to him (Elias), confiding in his far-famed generosity, the seer's lips parted and his eyes started out from his head with astonishment and delight. Whipping out his grand ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... place," began Miss Jennings, "we will consider the girl. I know her well. You need not describe her. What I know about her is this: She is the daughter of a criminal. Her father was a pickpocket, he died in prison. Now I ask you, Faith, what can you expect from this girl? According to your Bible are not 'the ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... No words could describe the joy in his wife's heart when her father took their hands and asked their forgiveness for years of estrangement, and told the tale of the intercepted letters, which he might never have discovered had it not been for little Hepsie's Christmas ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... that make us act are generally too vague to be defended. All that I could do would be to describe a mood, a passion that takes me now and then, and makes me want to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... add, he was not so well pleased with it but that among his friends he maintained for the present a rich reserve about it. He had no irresistible impulse to describe generally how he had disinterred a strange, handsome girl whom he was bringing up for the theatre. She had been seen by several of his associates at his rooms, but was not soon to be seen there again. His reserve might by the ill-natured have been ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... work of this kind to describe the details of the after treatment of wounds, as this can only be properly undertaken by a surgeon, owing to the varying conditions which may arise. In general it may be stated that the same cleanliness and care should be followed during the whole course of healing as has been ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various
... critical moments would be easier to imagine than describe. Every moment he expected that the bundle would be lifted off, and he anticipated the mortification of being dragged out and being brought face to face with the man whom he now most dreaded. As the other ...
— Heiress of Haddon • William E. Doubleday
... did, if you choose to accept the hypercritical interpretation of these latter-day Jeffersonians—Jefferson did buy the Louisianians, even "like sheep in the shambles," if you care so to describe it; and did proceed to govern them without the consent of the governed. Monroe bought the Floridians without their consent. Polk conquered the Californians, and Pierce bought the New Mexicans. Seward bought ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... dry, had to examine our screeds with microscopic eyes and with infinite remembrance of the thousand and one rules. Was it safe to mention the weather? Would that give any information to the enemy? Was it permissible to describe the smell of chloride-of-lime in the trenches, or would that discourage recruiting? That description of the traffic on the roads of war, with transport wagons, gun-limbers, lorries, mules—how did that conflict with Rule No. 17a (or whatever it was) ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... coming is a divine visitation. The word here 'hath visited us' (or 'shall visit us,' as the Revised Version varies it), is chiefly employed in the Old Testament to describe the divine acts of self-revelation, and these, mostly redemptive acts. Zacharias employs it in that sense in the earlier portion of the song, where he says that 'God hath visited and redeemed His people.' And so from the use of this word ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... imagine a few slight and unessential changes in the real sections of the amphioxus in order to have this ideal anatomic figure or diagram of the primitive vertebrate form, as we see in Figures 1.98 to 1.102. The amphioxus departs so little from this primitive form that we may, in a certain sense, describe it as a modified "primitive vertebrate."* (* The ideal figure of the vertebrate as given in Figures 1.98 to 1.102 is a hypothetical scheme or diagram, that has been chiefly constructed on the lines of ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.1. • Ernst Haeckel
... haven't known Dakota long of course," he defended. "Perhaps I erred in saying we were friends. Acquaintances would better describe it ...
— The Trail to Yesterday • Charles Alden Seltzer
... leaders advocating the cause. I shall be your Tyrtaeus, your Mazzini, your Napoleon. How blessed that I came to England just now. I have lived in the Holy Land—the genius of the soil is blent with mine. I can describe its beauties as none other can. I am the very man at the very hour. And yet I will not go rashly—slow and sure—my plan is to collect small amounts from the poor to start by sending one family at a time to Palestine. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... that instant a weeping and agonized mother bared her breast to her dying child, but it yielded nothing to appease the thirst of the little innocent who pressed it in vain. O night of horrors! what pen is capable to paint thy terrible picture! How describe the agonizing fears of a father and mother, at the sight of their children tossed about and expiring of hunger in a small boat, which the winds and waves threatened to ingulf at every instant! Having full before our eyes the prospect of inevitable death, we gave ourselves ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard
... to describe the sensations of Sarah Burns while her father was giving expression to his own feelings. Joy that all cause of annoyance and trouble was removed from him; pleasure that this young man in particular had been the instrument; ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... alphabet, in which musical themes expressed arbitrarily the various characters whom, if the auditor's eyes and ears could stand it, were presently to be seen going through divers evolutions together. That seemed to him a pedantic and childish game for a great contrapuntist. He did not try to describe characters or actions, but only to express emotions familiar to every man and woman, in which they could find the echo of their own souls, and perhaps comfort and relief. The first movement expressed the grave ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... by the old jeunes. This he believed and deplored until one day he found himself seated at a restaurant next to a too well-fed man whom, in spite of the ravages of comfortable living, he recognized as one of the jeunes of his own period. This one had been wont to describe himself and three or four others as the Hermits of the New Parnassus. He and his school had talked outside cafes and elsewhere more than solitaries do as a rule; but, then, rules were what they had vowed themselves to destroy. They proclaimed that verse, in particular, was ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... delighted the senses, the mild effulgence of gaslight transmitted through opaque globes of glass melted upon the sight, while sofas, divans and ottomans in luxurious profusion invited repose. To describe the rare paintings, the rich gems of statuary and the other miracles of art which were there to be seen would be as impossible as it would be to portray the exquisite taste which enhanced the value of each and constituted more ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... the building is finished, it can not be very important to describe the scaffolding, nor to go into all the details which respected the business. My opinion of the treaty is apparent from my having signed it. I have no reason to believe or conjecture that one more favorable to ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... the first things to be done was to ascertain the real nature of dreams, and accordingly, with characteristic passion for a foundation of fact, he turned to the only facts accessible to him, and tried to describe exactly his own experiences in dreaming. The result showed that, along with the scientific impulse, there was working in him a more powerful antagonistic force. He got no further than telling how once, when walking with Hogg near Oxford, he suddenly turned the corner of a lane, ...
— Shelley • Sydney Waterlow
... to have been carried on by Napoleon I against whom he brings precisely the same accusations of Machiavellism that Joly brings against Napoleon III. "The author of The Prince," he writes, "was always his guide," and he goes on to describe the "parrot cries placed in the mouths of the people," the "hired writers, salaried newspapers, mercenary poets and corrupt ministers employed to mislead our vanity methodically"—all this being carried on by "the scholars ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... elegant youth than this son of his nor hath any the like of his shop." Num took the box and seeing the names of her lord and his father written thereon, changed colour and said to herself, "Doubtless, the owner of this shop is come in search of me." So she said to the old woman, "Describe this youth to me." "His name is Nimeh," answered the old woman; "he is richly clad and perfectly handsome and has a mole on his right eyebrow." "Give me the medicine," cried Num, "and may the blessing and help of God the Most High attend it!" So she drank off the potion ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... co-operation on the part of the faithful, which is in process of realization, will elevate the human personality to an intensity of force and grandeur productive of a new era to the Church and to society—an era difficult for the imagination to grasp, and still more difficult to describe in words, unless we have recourse to the prophetic language ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... approaches "the fair white walls" of Florence, he re-echoes the "Italia! oh, Italia!" of Filicaja's impassioned strains. At Florence he gazes, "dazzled and drunk with beauty," at the "goddess in stone," the Medicean Venus, but forbears to "describe the indescribable," to break the silence of Art by naming its mysteries. Santa Croce and the other glories "in Arno's dome of Art's most princely shrine," he passes by unsung, if not unseen; but Thrasymene's "sheet of ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... which Foxe presents of Bonner, Bishop of London, in the administration of his office, is as distorted and malicious as his libellous picture of Gardiner. The pages of the Acts and Monuments, which describe Bonner's examination of those brought before him on charges of heresy, teem with such picturesque epithets as "this bloody wolf," the "Bishop was in a marvellous rage" or "in a great fury," but when we read what Bonner really said, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... me even more sensibly than the spectacle of death and dissolution which I have striven to describe. Thus the apparently living men who haunt this spot are more truly dead than the corpses upon which they exercise their pretended science. They seemed to me ruins far more terrible than those of the body, ruins which repelled all hope, ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... You yourselves must never commit any illegal offence,—aren't there cat's-paws for the chestnuts? As all laws are oppressions (only necessary and often sacred oppressions, which you need not explain to him), and his character is especially hostile to oppression, you easily seduce the person we describe into braving the laws of his country. Yes! the bold, generous, frank, and affectionate man has only to be born in humble life to be ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hearing something said about it being a recent purchase. Mr. Carmyle bought it from some lord or other who had been losing money on the Stock Exchange. I hope you haven't seen it, anyway, because I want to describe it at great length. I want to pour out my soul about it. Ginger, what has England ever done to deserve such paradises? I thought, in my ignorance, that Mr. Faucitt's Cissister place was pretty good, but it doesn't ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... conscience pricked him. The rupture came in June 1650, when Charles's son made his appearance in Scotland and his peace with the Presbyterians, subscribing with inward emotions it would be unkind to attempt to describe the Solemn League and Covenant, and attending services and listening to sermons the length of which, at least, he never forgot. War was plainly imminent between the two countries. The question was, who should begin? Cromwell, who ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... was Mount Dunstan at all," answered the other man. Then he suddenly threw out his arms in a gesture whose whole significance it would have been difficult to describe. There was a kind of passion in it. "I am the last Mount Dunstan," he harshly laughed. "Moi qui ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... expression upon Isobel's face with a depth of sympathy which I cannot attempt to describe. The successive trials which had been imposed upon her in so short a time had robbed her cheeks of their sweet color and there were dark shadows under her eyes. The tumult of my own feelings was such that I was scarcely ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... Republican convention in 1912, when he kidded the standpat crowd out of every Republican state in the union but two at the election. Possibly you don't like that word kid. But it's in the dictionary, and there's no other word to describe Henry's talent. He is always jamming the allegro into the adagio. And that night in the encircling gloom on the boat as we started on our martial adventures he began kidding the ocean. His idea was that he would get Wichita ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... species being the common Cigale and the variety which lives on the flowering ash. Both of these are widely distributed and are the only species known to the country folk. The larger of the two is the common Cigale. Let me briefly describe the mechanism with which it produces ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... of His Sonship, of the mission of the Comforter, and of the mysterious union between Himself and His people. [179:3] All the evangelists direct our special attention to the scene of the crucifixion. As they proceed to describe it, they obviously feel that they are dealing with a transaction of awful import; and they accordingly become more impressive and circumstantial. Their statements, when combined, furnish a complete and consistent narrative of the sore travail, the deep humiliation, and the dying utterances ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... to have heard something of this, and to have paid no great attention to it at the time, having little sympathy with such aspirations as you describe. You have lived many years in Danville's service, Monsieur Lomaque; have you"—he hesitated for a moment, then continued, looking the land-steward full in the face—"have you found him ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins
... some juvenile years with the least mischief to themselves or others, I have no concern. But after supposing the previous and indispensable requisites of age, judgment, a competent knowledge of men and books, and a freedom from domestic prejudices, I will briefly describe the qualifications which I deem most essential to a traveller. He should be endowed with an active, indefatigable vigour of mind and body, which can seize every mode of conveyance, and support, with a careless smile, every hardship of the road, the weather, or the ...
— Memoirs of My Life and Writings • Edward Gibbon
... charm of existence, of the glory of motion, so instinct with character, and mood, and wayward fancy, that their very names are sounds of enchantment, whilst the fleeting scenes they depict and the deeds they describe have become the properties and the pastimes for all the years that are still to be of a considerable fraction ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... master is popularly supposed to have a method by following out which he has come to fame. Yet if asked to describe this method many an artist would be at a loss to do so, or else deny that he had any specific method at all, such a subtle and peculiarly individual matter it is that constitutes the technical part of singing. Most singers—in fact, all of them—do ...
— Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing • Enrico Caruso and Luisa Tetrazzini
... additional argument for some education which will correct this supposed natural defect. And I say deliberately that there is but one sort of education which will correct it; one which will teach young women to observe facts accurately, judge them calmly, and describe them carefully, without adding or distorting: and that is, some training ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... has paid us back partly, and without knowing it. He came to the hotel this morning to ask if we were up, and he endeavoured, as well as he could, to describe us, so that the landlord would know which persons he meant. He finished with the casual remark that we were lunatics. The observation was so innocent and so honest that it amounted to a very good thing ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... with organs like yours Is hardly safe to step out of doors! Just fancy a horse that comes full pelt, But as quiet as if he was 'shod with felt,' Till he rushes against you with all his force, And then I needn't describe the course, While he kicks you about without remorse, How awkward it is to be groom'd by a horse! Or a bullock comes, as mad as King Lear, And you never dream that the brute is near, Till he pokes his horn right into your ear, Whether you like the thing or lump it,— And all for want of buying ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... performer. When the orchestra began its work thirteen years ago, it is doubtful if there were very many persons in Pittsburgh, other than musical students, who knew the difference between a symphony, a suite, a concerto, and a fugue. To-day there are thousands of people in this city who can intelligently describe the shading differences in the Ninth Symphony and give good reasons for their preference as between the two movements of the "Unfinished." The first conductor of the orchestra was Frederic Archer, for three years, who was followed by Victor Herbert, for three years, and then came ...
— A Short History of Pittsburgh • Samuel Harden Church
... with a Socialist then, who, under pretence of organising for us, comes despotically to break up our voluntary arrangements, to check the division of labour, to substitute isolated efforts for combined ones, and to send civilisation back? Is association, as I describe it here, in itself less association, because every one enters and leaves it freely, chooses his place in it, judges and bargains for himself on his own responsibility, and brings with him the spring ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... with difficulty conceal her feelings when she heard that Captain Falkner commanded the ship to which she had been conveyed, while it would be impossible to describe the satisfaction which she experienced. Nora insisted at once on going down and seeing poor Barry, who was still unable to leave his cot. At first he would scarcely believe who it was who stood before him, and for some time he fancied himself in a dream, and ...
— The Heir of Kilfinnan - A Tale of the Shore and Ocean • W.H.G. Kingston
... filter are not identical with the agencies through which they pass to the other person's brain, then your mental picture and his mental picture cannot be the same. You can never be sure that what both you and another may describe as green may not create an entirely different impression in your mind from the impression ...
— Applied Psychology: Making Your Own World • Warren Hilton
... day in the heavens, but of what a human eye would have seen on the fourth day from the earth. And Moses Stuart, in his philological assault on the geologists, is scarce less explicit in his avowal of a similar belief. "Every one sees," he says, "that to speak of the sun as rising and setting, is to describe, in common parlance, what appears optically, that is, to our sensible view, as reality. But the history of creation is a different affair. In ONE RESPECT, indeed, there is a resemblance. The historian everywhere ...
— The Testimony of the Rocks - or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed • Hugh Miller
... sprung from the ground. There was an official examination, of course, and Jack explained, apparently to everybody's satisfaction, exactly how he came to make the mistake that resulted in the loss of his beard and his windows. I don't know exactly how to describe the feeling of uneasiness which has come over me. At first sight this city did not strike me as so very much different from New York or London, and meeting, as I did, so many refined gentlemen in high places, I had come to think St. ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... take judge and jury then and there and show them these "horrid weapons" still sticking to the exterior. In the larger houses the hall had branched off, by the fourteenth century, into withdrawing-rooms, and parlours, and bedrooms, such as the Paston Letters describe with much curious wealth of detail. Lady Milicent Falstolf, we are told, was the only one in her father's household who had a ...
— Mediaeval Socialism • Bede Jarrett
... the eye a very incarnation of that ideal loveliness, which haunts enamored poets in their dreams, the girl just bursting out of girlhood, the glowing Hebe of the soft and sunny south. But if her form was lovely, how shall the pen of mortal describe the wild romantic beauty of her soul-speaking features. The rich redundancy of her dark auburn hair, black where the shadows rested on it as the sable locks of night, but glittering out wherever a wandering ray glanced on its glossy surface like the bright tresses of Aurora. The broad and ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... in heated gusts from the north-east, and on the morning of the 14th the gale continued with unabated violence, and eventually became a hot wind. We were, therefore, unable to stir. The flies being in such myriads around us, so that we could do nothing. It is, indeed, impossible for me to describe the intolerable plague they were during the whole of that day ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... hordes of Ambrons and Teutons, and secured Italy on the west, returned to the Peninsula, and finding that the Cimbri were streaming down from the north-east, met them near Vercellae, and there defeated and slaughtered them also, I leave for other pens to describe. That battle ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... deserted me, and I felt without strength, and without hope. Several causes, perhaps, co-operated to bring about the state in which I then felt myself. It is not improbable that my energies had been overstrained during the work, the progress of which I have attempted to describe; and every one is aware that the results of overstrained energies are feebleness and lassitude—want of nourishment might likewise have something to do with it. During my sojourn in the dingle my food had been of the simplest and most ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... consequence of this Observation are truly beautiful, and are properly Marks of a great Genius; as also these Lines which describe the Morning, are in ...
— Some Remarks on the Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Written by Mr. William Shakespeare (1736) • Anonymous
... If I could but describe her! Languorous, slender and passionate. Sleepy eyes that see everything. An indolent purposeful step. An unimaginable grace. If you were /her/ lover, my boy, you would learn how fierce love can be, how capricious and sudden, how hostile, ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day Jr.
... a judicious reader will give himself some pains to observe, what we have so greatly laboured to describe, the different operations of this passion of love in the gentle and cultivated mind of the Lady Booby, from those which it effected in the less polished and coarser ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... message is an history-making event, big with dramatic consequences. The controversy about his book did not die with him, but continued for some years, until it was merged into the standing controversy between the two religions. We cannot describe it here. ...
— Ten Reasons Proposed to His Adversaries for Disputation in the Name • Edmund Campion
... beauty and number of its chantries, in which it is richer than any other English cathedral. They are said to have been saved from destruction during the Civil War by the Parliamentary colonel, Fiennes, an old Wykehamist; and certain historians describe the dramatic incident of the colonel standing with drawn sword to protect the chantry of the founder of his Alma Mater from the iconoclastic tendencies of his troopers. The chantries number seven, and were built as chapels by bishops for their last resting-places. ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... colored fellows were so excited they may describe us as having horns, hoofs and a tail, and their story may not be believed. I'm not worrying about them. My chief concern is to drive the Red Cloud for all she is worth. I want to explain some ...
— Tom Swift and his Airship • Victor Appleton
... I describe it to you after close observation—, is this: she will never mend, though she take ten thousand doses of medicine. It is therefore undesirable to make the experiment, unless your object is merely to compel me to fail and cover me with disgrace. Pray do not ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... taper candlestick, several small pieces of riband and gauze, 4 yards of silk fringe, 7 cases of different kinds of cards, a crape scarf, some lining calico, 13 little boxes, a straw basket, and about 50 other various little articles. It is difficult to describe the peculiar pleasure which I had in unpacking the box, and in finding that all these articles were for the Lord's work.—There came in still ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself. Second Part • George Mueller
... are three really beautiful lines; namely, those which describe the arrival of the spirit in ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... hardly receive any answer but the correct one. Which is it more rational to suppose, that the earth should turn round on its axis once in twenty-four hours, or that thousands of mighty stars should circle round the earth in the same time, many of them having to describe circles many thousands of times greater in circumference than the circuit of the earth at the equator? The obvious answer pressed upon Copernicus with so much force that he was compelled to reject Ptolemy's theory of the stationary earth, and to attribute the diurnal ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... From this overgrowth it is difficult to construct a true narrative; still, the research of latter-day scholars has gone far to prove a basis of truth in the statements made in the famous letter of the pseudo-Aristeas, which professes to describe the origin of the work. We may extract from his story that the Septuagint was written in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about 250 B.C.E., with the approval, if not at the express request, of the king, and with the help of rabbis brought from Palestine to give authority to the work. ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... and if I'm not greatly mistaken I dressed his wound in my office this morning, and left him there in charge of my boy Nap, bidding him keep the fellow there, if possible, till I came back. I'd better return at once, lest he should make his escape. Do you know the man? and can you describe him?" ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... tell the Human Race of this!" I heard my voice; saw my prophetic gestures, as I expounded the ultimate meaning of existence to the white, rapt faces of Humanity. Only to find the words—that troubled me; were there then no words to describe this Vision—divine—intoxicating? ...
— Trivia • Logan Pearsall Smith
... at the office, describe particularly the dreadful outrage which was committed upon the corpse; suffice it that two or three, maddened by drink, and incited by the others, plunged the hedge-stake through the body, and there left it, a ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... 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 and new combinations ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... and his sentimentality, are illustrated by his version of the woman with the ointment. Matthew and Mark describe it as taking place in the house of Simon the Leper, where it is objected to as a waste of money. In Luke's version the leper becomes a rich Pharisee; the woman becomes a Dame aux Camellias; and nothing is said about money ...
— Preface to Androcles and the Lion - On the Prospects of Christianity • George Bernard Shaw
... no better account of the Norse pantheon than by extracting the passages from the prose Edda, which describe the gods. We take the ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... began to move. He was trying to put that mystery, that emotion, into words ... "It's white," he murmured, "and sharp—burning—like—like"—his fancy fumbled—"like the inside of a cold flame." He shook his head. That did not describe the marvelous quality of the night. And yet—if the world had gone up to heaven in a single, streaming point of icy fire and a fellow stood in it, frozen, swept up out of a fellow's body.... Again ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... such thing as patriotic art. The qualities in a poem, a picture, or a symphony that lead people to describe the work as patriotic are purely adventitious and have nothing to do with its aesthetic significance. Wordsworth's so-called patriotic sonnets, in so far as they are works of art—and what superb works of art they are!—are as appreciable in Berlin as in London. They appeal ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... out so rudely about the gulf—about Tulp's being thrown over by—by the gentleman my daughter is to marry? since you choose to describe him thus." ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... of others. Indeed, 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
... disquisition about the passions and the whole appetitive side of human nature, over which Reason is called to rule, he is brought to the subject of virtue. He is Aristotelian enough to describe virtue as habitus—a disposition or quality (like health) whereby a subject is more or less well disposed with reference to itself or something else; and he takes account of the acquisition of good moral habits (virtutes acquisitae) by practice. But with this he couples, or tends to ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... came to pass—I am not going to describe that either. From the very evening when he came into the drawing-room—I was at the piano, playing a sonata of Weber's when he came in—handsome and slender, in a velvet coat lined with sheepskin and high gaiters, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the key to the present time. All forms of thought that influence it come before us in their turn, and we have to describe the ruling currents, to interpret the sovereign forces, that still govern and divide ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... 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 ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... be made on Monday. Oh, Miss Trenham—I can hardly describe my feelings. I dread it and yet my own mother is an ideal mother. I hardly dare think of the happiness in store for me, but I shall go on here at school. I am glad of that. I could not give up ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... in practice any of the good institutions that are among them. And this is the true cause of their being better governed, and living happier than we, though we come not short of them in point of understanding or outward advantages."—Upon this I said to him, "I earnestly beg you would describe that island very particularly to us. Be not too short, but set out in order all things relating to their soil, their rivers, their towns, their people, their manners, constitution, laws, and, in a word, all that you imagine we desire to know. And you may well imagine that we desire to ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... its advent till later—steal in through the window with the moonbeams, and I feel its presence just as assuredly and instinctively as I can feel and detect the presence of hostility in an audience or individual. I cannot describe how; I can only say I do, and that my discernment is seldom misleading. On the evening in question I was alone in the house. I had noticed, amid the shadows that lay in clusters on the floor and walls, this enigmatical Something. It was there most ...
— Byways of Ghost-Land • Elliott O'Donnell
... I shaved the Vicar of Bray. I shall now describe my fellows which are all ugly and gross. Parson is ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... the sergeant out in front. While we were at the "char" it kept getting lighter, and presently a pair of Lewises started to rattle a hundred yards or so away down the line. Then came a sudden commotion and a kind of low, growling shout. That is the best way I can describe it. We stood up, and below we saw men going over ...
— A Yankee in the Trenches • R. Derby Holmes
... with George Brown. He opposed the Confederation movement. But we must not anticipate his career further than to say that his political attitude was at all times extremely difficult to define. That he himself would not demur to this estimate may be inferred from the fact that he was wont to describe himself, in his younger days, as a 'political Ishmaelite.' Though born and bred a Roman Catholic, he was not commonly regarded as an eminently devout member of that Church, of which he used laughingly to call himself 'an outside pillar.' The truth is that John Sandfield Macdonald ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... greet the wage-earners as they gathered at night around the home table. It is a very happy family, but it was not about any of them that I set out to tell you. In truth, it was Muriel's apron that I wanted to talk about; but it seemed necessary to describe the family in order to secure ...
— Stories Worth Rereading • Various
... of the proverb, that a man is never a prophet in his own country. He left us with regrets, which proved his esteem for us, and when the moment of separation arrived, he ran from cabin to cabin embracing every one. It is impossible to describe the mental anguish of the young man when he left. He gazed at the vessel, burst into tears, and crouched in despair in the bottom of his pirogue. We saw him again, stretching out his arms to us, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... foregoing pages an effort has been made to follow and describe Watt's work in detail as it was performed, but we believe our readers will thank us for presenting the opinions of a few of the highest scientific and legal authorities upon what Watt really did. Lord Brougham has ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... Shamkhalat: that he implored the Colonel to allow him to kill him in an ambuscade, or to poison him in his food; but that the other consented only to send him to Siberia, beyond the end of the world. In one word, invent and describe every thing cleverly. You were formerly famous for your tales. Do not eat dirt now. And, above all, insist that the Colonel, who is going on a furlough, will take him with him to Georgieffsk, to separate him from his kinsmen and faithful noukers; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... with farr less compass move, Serv'd by more noble then her self, attaines Her end without least motion, and receaves, As Tribute such a sumless journey brought Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light; Speed, to describe whose swiftness Number failes. So spake our Sire, and by his count'nance seemd Entring on studious thoughts abstruse, which Eve 40 Perceaving where she sat retir'd in sight, With lowliness Majestic from her seat, And Grace that ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... with a great deal of pleasure the article on Christ Church by Canon Beanlands. These reminiscences of former days in Victoria have a charm for me that is not easy to describe. More particularly is this the case in the present instance, as my very earliest recollections of this fair city are connected with Victoria District Church. My mother was a devout church woman, and I attended her in her frequent and regular attendance. She encouraged me to ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett
... it upon myself to describe their order of ceremonies; indeed, I ought not, since I have never been able to view the habits and customs of our aborigines in any other light than that of a sorrowful subject of jest. Besides, in this instance, the powwow and the expected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... of Willie's boys waken up at night screaming with a terror he could not describe. Well, it was much like that with me, except that I was awake ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... companionable sort of man, though you would never believe it to see him casually; he looks at first glance like a true Pendleton, but he isn't in the least. He is just as simple and unaffected and sweet as he can be—that seems a funny way to describe a man, but it's true. He's extremely nice with the farmers around here; he meets them in a sort of man-to-man fashion that disarms them immediately. They were very suspicious at first. They didn't care for his clothes! And I will say that his ...
— Daddy-Long-Legs • Jean Webster
... all the members of the human race to-day, and which does not lose its value as the generations come and go, that is the largest possible idea within human thought. Transient literature may do without those large ideas. A gifted young reporter may describe a dog fight or a presidential nominating convention in such terms as lift his article out of carelessness and hasty newspaper writing into the realm of real literature; but it cannot become abiding literature. It has not a large enough idea to keep it alive. And to any ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... amid a surrounding horde of flesh-eaters, have withstood the power of temptation, and proved, in some measure, true to their own nature, and the first impulses of mercy, humanity, and charity. I shall not, of course, attempt to describe all the sects and societies of the kind to which I refer, but only a few of those which seem ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott
... We must now describe the present state of other solitary islands and groups discovered by Captain Cook. In the course of his second voyage (1774) he fell in with a low, solitary island, which, from the ferocity of the inhabitants, he called Savage Island. The inhabitants, numbering between three ...
— Captain Cook - His Life, Voyages, and Discoveries • W.H.G. Kingston
... most interesting objects of inquiry which occurs in human affairs; but we have scarcely any positive information on the subject; for our ancient historians, though they are not wanting in diligently recording the number and the acts of national assemblies, describe their composition in a manner too general to be instructive, and take little note of novelty or peculiarity in the constitution of that which was called ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction No. 485 - Vol. 17, No. 485, Saturday, April 16, 1831 • Various
... anger at the discovery of her daughter's refusal it is needless to describe—it may easily be imagined; and poor Mary was almost heartbroken by the violence and duration of it. Sometimes she wavered in her ideas as to whether she was doing right in thus resisting her mother's wishes; and in the utmost distress ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... reader tire, if I should minutely describe our long-drawn journey from Paris to Geneva? If, day by day, I should record, in the form of a journal, the thronging miseries of our lot, could my hand write, or language afford words to express, the variety ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... He did not describe this penalty. It appeared to be nothing more for some time than a sense of wrong. This was sufficiently acute, and was aggravated by the belief that his offence was incapable of expiation. No one could contemplate the agonies which ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... which produces the effect of perpetual repetition. And we owe Byron a grudge for having written such trite words as "the castled crag" in relation to the Rhine, since no commonplace mind of the present day acquainted with his works but has fallen back on "the castled crag" to describe Drachenfels or Marksburg or Rheinfels, because, forsooth, its own English is too limited to supply a better adjective. So it is that conventional and inadequate English is perpetuated and individual force and expression are lost because people accept ...
— A War-time Journal, Germany 1914 and German Travel Notes • Harriet Julia Jephson
... him. Pierre was unapproachable; Jeanne herself was a mystery, filling him alternately with hope and despair; D'Arcambal had accepted him as a son. He could find no words adequate to his emotion; none that could describe his own happiness, unless it was in a bold avowal of his love for the girl he had saved. And this his good sense told him not to make, at ...
— Flower of the North • James Oliver Curwood
... far the most attractive. We see the best side of Swift when he addresses Stella, whether in verse or prose. The birthday rhymes he delighted to write in her praise have the mark of sincerity, and there is true feeling in the lines which describe her as a ministering ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... that do I. I love it, March. There is a freedom, a species of wild romance about it, that is more captivating than I can describe." ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... out her sentence with an expression of countenance which it was well her adoring rescuer did not see. Not that it lacked womanliness; "womanly" is the word that most exactly describes it—and always will exactly describe such expressions—and the thoughts behind—so long as men compel women to be just women, under penalty of refusing them support if they are ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... appreciate Andy's peculiar virtues even if I were to try to describe them," said Marshall with ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... portrayal of an heroic battle between the forces of conscience and desire. Although this prelude may be too subjective and involved to be readily digested by readers unfamiliar with the Swedish author's method they will soon follow with intent interest into those pages that describe how Ingmar met at the prison door the girl for whose infanticide he was ethically responsible. He brings her back apparently to face disgrace and to blot the fair scutcheon of the Ingmarssons, but actually to earn the respect of the whole community voiced in the declaration of the Dean: ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof
... not sated yet and still for more are hungering Will find Vol. II. describe how E. gave cause for scandal-mongering. Vol. III. narrates how R. became enamoured of a fairy at A ball, was robbed of all his wealth and joined the proletariat. How E. washed clothes to earn her bread, while R. reclined in beery ease Upon his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 21st, 1920 • Various
... the cloister; the cats live on the green garth, and sometimes die there, I did not see much of the Canons; but the cats seemed to me very sad-depressed, nostalgic even, I might describe them, if there had not been something more languid, something faded and spiritless about their habit. It was not that they quarrelled. I heard none of those long- drawn wails, gloomy yet mellow soliloquies, ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... the money was going to come from to buy the lodger's booze. It meant longer hours for her; it meant care to work only out of school hours; it meant harder knocks than even she had experienced; it meant a fatigue there were no words to describe even among the beautiful, wonderful, colourful ones the lodger taught her. But she sold the papers and she ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... At last, coming close to them, Agni-Sikha shouted, in a loud harsh voice: "So you have not obeyed my orders. You have not bid my brother to the wedding. Your life is forfeit, and you will die to-morrow instead of marrying Rupa-Sikha. Describe the temple in which Dhuma Sikha lives and the appearance ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... During all this time wretched Hungary was ravaged with incessant wars between the Turks and Austrians. Army after army swept to and fro over the smoldering cities and desolated plains. Neither party gained any decisive advantage, while Hungary was exposed to misery which no pen can describe. Cities were bombarded, now by the Austrians and now by the Turks, villages were burned, harvests trodden down, every thing eatable was consumed. Outrages were perpetrated upon the helpless population by the ferocious Turks which can not ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... ask. Such a tiny little word ... so weighty though ... could a heart, as full of unspeakable love as mine not speak this tiny little word with the whole soul? I do it and my soul whispers it for ever. The grief of my heart, the many tears, could I but describe them ... oh, no! Your plan seems to me risky, but a loving heart fears no obstacles. Therefore once more I say yes! Could God turn my eighteenth birthday into a day of mourning? Oh, no! that were far too gruesome. Ah, I have long felt 'it must be,' and nothing in ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... youth's setting up his Father's standard, to be almost constantly about his person, till November 1748 . . . I became more and more captivated with his amiable and princely virtues, which are, indeed, in every instance so eminently great as I want words to describe. ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... spring had snapped. I could never fight again. Any loud noise made me shake all over. I knew that I could never face a battle—impossible! I should certainly lose my nerve and run away. It is a damned feeling, that broken something inside of one. I can't describe it." ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... here add what Pausanias[A] relates from Euphemus Car, who by contrary Winds was driven upon some Islands, where he tells us, [Greek: en de tautais oikein andras agrious], but when he comes to describe them, tells us that they had no Speech; that they had Tails on their Rumps; and were very lascivious toward the Women in the Ship. But of these more, when we ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... call me a fool," cried Hodge, with a laugh, which caused his mouth to describe a graceful line across his face from ear to ear; "you call me a fool, and that is a great honor for me, for then I am a servant worthy of my master. And as to being blear-eyed, that must be caused by the simple ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... adventures of Tom Jones have left me; in plain English the Drawing-room was put off on account of the Queen's indisposition, and I am just at the end of the above-mentioned delightful book. Oh! had I the wit of Partridge, the religion of Thwackum, or the learning of Square, I might describe with tolerable accuracy the intolerable stupidity of this great town. The Opera is thin of company, thin of performers, thin of lights, thin of figurantes, thin of scene-shifters, thin of everything! One night we were a good deal entertained by ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... days it blew a regular hurricane, and the captain dared not venture out to sea, our schooner lying safely at anchor inside the coral reef. I have not space to describe my stay here, but it proved most enjoyable, and the captain's pretty Samoan daughters gave several "meke-mekes" (Fijian dances) in my honour, and plenty of "angona" was indulged in, and what with feasts, native games and first-class fishing inside the coral reef, the ...
— Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines • H. Wilfrid Walker
... brought his wonderful inventions before the eyes of his audience in a manner equally bold and astonishing. Even Barthlemy's description of the Grecian stage is not a little confused, and his subjoined plan extremely incorrect; where he attempts to describe the acting of a play, the Antigone or the Ajax, for instance, he goes altogether wrong. For this reason the following explanation will appear the less superfluous [Footnote: I am partly indebted for them to the elucidations of a learned architect, M. Genelli, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... empirical, psychological. Kant had the right to consider himself the creator of noetics, for he showed it the transcendental point of view. Knowledge is an object of experience, but its conditions are not. The object is to explain knowledge, not merely to describe it psychologically,—to establish a new science of knowledge from principles, from pure reason. That which lies beyond experience is sealed from our thought; that which lies on this side of it is still uninvestigated, though ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... infinity that staggers you." He flung himself into a chair opposite Jewdwine, planted his elbows on the table, and propped his chin on his hands. He looked as if he saw the infinity he spoke of. "I can't describe to you," he said, "what it is merely to be alive out there in the streets, on a sunny day, when the air's all fine watery gold, and goes dancing and singing into your head like dry champagne. I've given up alcohol. It isn't really necessary. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... it be fair to go? For a month or two I might keep straight, then—I've tried to describe my people—you can imagine their feelings at the inevitable outbreak. Besides, there's a more serious difficulty." Jernyngham's tense face relaxed into a grim smile. "Can you imagine Ellice an inmate ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... Commandant were with the Prince; whose emotions one may fancy; but not describe. Seldom did any Prince or man stand in such a predicament. Vain to say, and again say: "In the name of God, I ask you, stop the execution till I write to the King!" Impossible that; as easily stop the course ...
— History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 7 • Thomas Carlyle
... fear the infection of the Small Pox; but this assertion proved fallacious, for, on being exposed to the infection upwards of twenty years afterwards, he caught the disease, which took its regular course in a very mild way. There certainly was a difference perceptible, although it is not easy to describe it, in the general appearance of the pustules from that which we commonly see. Other practitioners, who visited the patient at my request, agreed with me in this point, though there was no room left for suspicion as to the ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... "excuse me a moment," went forward to give some directions to the English seamen, leaving Forster to look about him. What he observed, we shall describe for the ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... may assume that the cruel feelings emanate from the impulse to mastery and appear at a period in the sexual life before the genitals have taken on their later role. It then dominates a phase of the sexual life, which we shall later describe as the pregenital organization. Children who are distinguished for evincing especial cruelty to animals and playmates may be justly suspected of intensive and premature sexual activity in the erogenous zones; and in a simultaneous ...
— Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex • Sigmund Freud
... Who shall describe the emotions of Mike Murphy during these exasperating moments? He recalled the experience of Alvin and Chester, as they related it to him, when they were arrested as post office robbers some days before, and now something similar in essence had come to him. But what could ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... entered what Dampier called Shark Bay, from an enormous shark he caught there. He then explored the north-west coast as far as Roebuck Bay, in all about nine hundred miles; of which he published a full and fairly accurate account. He was a man of keen observation, and delighted to describe the habits and manners of the natives, as well as peculiarities in the plants and animals, of the various places he visited. During the time he was in Australia he frequently met with the blacks and became well acquainted with them. He gives ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland |
