"Distance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beseech you remember that the laws of perspective are such as that a minute thing near at hand shuts out the vision of a mighty thing far off, and a hillock by my side will hide the Himalayas at a distance, and a sovereign may block out God; and 'that which is least' has the diabolical power of seeming greater to us than, and of obscuring our vision of, 'that which ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... dwelling in him, as a fruit of the new birth, a principle of righteousness. Then indeed he is a tree of righteousness, and God is like to be glorified in, and by him; but this the Pharisee was utterly ignorant of, and at the remotest distance ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Heaven's sake get him from this place, get him from all chance of such passion and peril. I go to town to-morrow; I will find him a house, that shall be safe from all spies, all discovery. And there, too, my friend. I can do what I cannot at this distance,—watch over him, and keep watch also on ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and the country never. He said that if life appeared so hopeless to him as it must to the dwellers in that neighborhood he should not himself be willing to quit its distractions, its alleviations, for the vague promise of unknown good in the distance somewhere. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... family were in some degree secure, by the arrival of detachments of the Ancient Britons and the North Cork Militia; That however Examinant still continued to be alarmed, as his house was a considerable distance from the Barracks; That Examinant saith that he was awakened about the hour of one o'clock in the forenoon, by the barking of a large dog he had, and some time after he was alarmed by the firing of some shots; Examinant saith that on looking out of his window, ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse's flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... on, Lambert made out something lying in the road which looked, at that distance, like the body of a man. Closer approach proved this to be the case, indeed. Whether the man was alive or dead, it was impossible to determine from the saddle, but he lay in a huddled heap as if he had been thrown from a horse, his hat in the ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... him once, Hugo never completely lost his prudence in his association with her. He was by no means lavish with money, and he installed her in a rather simple apartment only a short distance from his own home. He gave her an allowance that was relatively small, though later he provided for her amply in his will. But it was to her that he brought all his confidences, to her he entrusted all his interests. She became to him, thenceforth, much more than she appeared ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... coast of Northumberland, at a little distance from the land, you can just see rising up a group of little islands, rocks scattered without order, that grow in number at low water; you may count as many as twenty of them, whose sharp, menacing crests seem ...
— Two Festivals • Eliza Lee Follen
... dread simoom in distance roar, Whilst the crushed shell upon the pebbly shore Crackled beneath the crocodile's huge coil. Westwards, like tiger's skin, each separate isle Spotted the surface of the yellow Nile; Gray obelisks shot upwards from ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... of Hyllus, successively attempt to renew the enterprise, and in vain. The three sons of Aristomachus (Aristodemus, Temenus, and Cresphontes), receive from Apollo himself the rightful interpretation of the oracle. It was by the Straits of Rhium, across a channel which rendered the distance between the opposing shores only five stadia, that they were ordained to pass; and by the Return of the third fruit, the third generation was denoted. The time had now arrived:—with the assistance ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... half-dozen men seemed to be surrounding him and Juliette, but the drizzling rain blurred every outline. The blackness of the night too had become absolutely dense, and in the distance the cries of the populace ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... verandahs round them, and gardens both in front and in the rear. Between them was a broad hard road, with two rows of trees, and a stream of sparkling water led through the centre, fed by a waterfall which came foaming down the side of a rocky hill at a little distance inland. Several streets of equal width had been commenced at right angles with the main street, and on the same plan, and new houses were in course of erection in several directions. Here it was evident, ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... base including major deposits of oil, natural gas, coal, and many strategic minerals, timber note: formidable obstacles of climate, terrain, and distance hinder ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... along elephant paths that led through dense bush, up stony hills and down again to the beds of dried-up rivers. Each time Condamine looked at the pale, wan man who lay in the litter, it was with a horrible fear that he would be dead. They began marching before sunrise, swiftly, to cover as much distance as was possible before the sun grew hot; they marched again towards sunset when a grateful coolness refreshed the weary patient. They passed through interminable forests, where the majestic trees sheltered under their foliage ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... proved. Two days afterwards the king was explaining to me his scheme for transforming brigandage into a peaceful orderly system of taxation, when four shots were fired in the distance. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... torturous, hill-climbing, miles, while exhausting in the extreme, was not without interest. It brought us within seeing and speaking distance of the inhabitants. A group of little boys and girls trudged along at our side singing what they no doubt believed to be our Marseillaise, "Cheer, cheer, the gang's all here." The shrill voices of these petit garcons expressed our ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... of service that remained to him the child was always as near to him as might be. Fortunately, by this time the period of his foreign service was all but at an end. Wherever he had his command the child and her nurse were always within riding distance. He did not believe in barracks and towns for the rearing of anything so fresh and tender. His Nelly must have the fields and the woods and the waters. In later years her milkmaid freshness owed, perhaps, something to ...
— Mary Gray • Katharine Tynan
... the course usually prescribed for ladies. I also inherited a talent for music which had been carefully cultivated, so that I was well able to teach any branch that might be desired. Through the kindness of our family physician I obtained a situation in a seminary at some distance from my home, as music teacher. My deep mourning, together with my extreme youth, procured sympathy and kindness from many; but I rejected all the overtures and led a life of perfect isolation, as much alone as ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... moon in unchallenged possession of the harbor. For a long time Miss Cameron stood silent, looking out across the bay at the shore and the hills beyond. A fish splashed near them, and the sound of oars rose from the mist that floated above the water, until they were muffled in the distance. The palms along the shore glistened like silver, and overhead the Southern Cross shone white against a sky of purple. The silence deepened and continued for so long a time that Mrs. Collier felt its significance, and waited for the girl to ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... southward to Cape St. James, and from thence northward around the west and north coast to Massett, are uniformly rock-bound, containing however, many stretches of fine, sandy, or gravelly beaches. From Massett to Dead Tree Point, Moresby Island, a distance by the coast line of about seventy-five miles, a magnificent broad beach of white sand, extends the greater portion of the way. The shores of Naden Harbor and Skidegate Inlet and channel are also generally low and sandy. With the exception of the north and eastern portion of Graham ...
— Official report of the exploration of the Queen Charlotte Islands - for the government of British Columbia • Newton H. Chittenden
... technical mode of saying that the earth causes the motion, with the additional particularity that the motion is toward the earth, which is not a character of the cause, but of the effect. Let us now pass to another condition. It is not enough that the earth should exist; the body must be within that distance from it, in which the earth's attraction preponderates over that of any other body. Accordingly we may say, and the expression would be confessedly correct, that the cause of the stone's falling ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... eyes—they are darkly shining now; this very moment that passes me, drinks their beauty;—that voice,—that tone,—that very tone—on some careless ear, even now it wastes its luxury of blessing. Continents of hail and darkness, the polar seas—all earth's distance, could never have parted me from him; but now I live in the same world with him, and the everlasting walls blacken between us. Those looks may shine on the dull earth and senseless stones, but not on me; on uncaring eyes, but not on mine; ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... little a curious feeling of unrest began to spread over the ship. The sailors stopped in their work to glance up at the strange and menacing cloud. Its edges were black with an orange fringing, and as clean cut as though it were some gigantic plate being moved across the sky. In the distance there was a low rumble, as ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... hundred nationalities, Ronda impresses you by its peculiar silence. The lack of sound is the more noticeable in the frosty clearness of the atmosphere, and is only emphasised by an occasional cry that floats, from some vast distance, along the air. The coldness, too, has pinched the features of the people, and they seem to grow old even earlier than in the rest of Andalusia. Strapping fellows of thirty with slim figures and a youthful air have the faces of ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham
... serious. He was very much annoyed, not only that this thing had happened to him, but that it had happened at such an inauspicious moment. Of course, he could not now go on to the woods, and he must get somebody to help him to the house. Looking about, he saw, at a distance, Uncle Isham, and he called loudly to him. As soon as Lawrence was well away from the edge of the ravine, there emerged from some thick bushes on the other side of it, and at a short distance from the crossing-place, a negro girl, who slipped noiselessly ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton
... dawning, a dog-cart, driven by a gentleman's servant, had come to her door—the dog-cart was now standing at a little distance from Mrs. Jernam's house—and she had been called out by the servant, and told that he had been sent to bring her over to Plymouth, with as little delay as possible. It appeared that her brother, who had ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... concealed nothing, and felt no necessity to distribute either praise or blame. He portrayed a man just as that man was, recorded the word just as the word was spoken; and facing the man we may see his enraptured audience,—at a distance, indeed, but marvelously clear, as when we look through the larger end of a field glass at a landscape dominated by a mountain. One who reads this matchless biography will know Johnson better than he knows his own neighbor; ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... pinch. But that was more than he expected, and sent a thrill of delight through him; his brown eyes replied with a volume, and holding her hand up in the air as high as her ear, and keeping at an incredible distance, he led her solemnly to a room where the other ladies were, and left her there with a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... out from an arched doorway at the lower part of the long straight building, and some little distance below the end gallery, but the sentry saw nothing of it, for his back was turned. As silently and as stealthily as a cat the figure crawled along by the dark shadowy wall, now and then stopping, and then again creeping ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... very nasty place, yet we are within easy distance of a park which swarms with game. This game is preserved for the amusement of a royal duke, who is kind enough to draw about twelve thousand a year from the admiring taxpayer. He has not rendered any very brilliant service to his adopted country, ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... companion, with his eyes intently fixed upon the strange sail astern, which, now that the dense masses of cloud overhead were torn into shreds of flying scud by the fury of the wind, was pretty distinctly visible, at a distance of about a mile and a half, by the dim, misty ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... drain; think, if applied in other channels, what good could be done! We are proud of our battleship Texas. She is a noble war dog; yet do you realize that if we had applied the money spent on her in our own state we could have had one gigantic paved highway twice the distance from El Paso to Galveston? We could have had two hundred high schools, representing $75,000 each. We could have raised our institutions of higher learning to a level with any of the East or North. Fifteen millions gone for a floating war machine ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... and described, to-wit, As follows, herein, namely BEGINNING at the distance of A ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... distance away, a vast number of blunt and ugly towers rose against the sinister skyline, but no form of animal life seemed in evidence. Wonderingly, my head whirling, whether from my strange experience or from the shock of finding myself in what was obviously another ...
— The Infra-Medians • Sewell Peaslee Wright
... the fine equipose of Mr. Braxton. Alas for his peace of mind!—the preacher of truth had gone past the dead letter, and revealed its spirit and its life. Suddenly he felt himself removed, as it were, to an almost impossible distance from the heaven into which, as he had complacently flattered himself, he should enter by the door of mere ritual observances, when the sad hour came for giving up the delightful things of this pleasant world. No wonder that Mr. ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... ball, that you will flatten to the thickness of one third of an inch, put them over wafers or on pieces of paper or in a baking tin greased with butter and sprinkled with half flour and half powdered sugar. Dispose them at a certain distance from one another as they will enlarge and ...
— The Italian Cook Book - The Art of Eating Well • Maria Gentile
... sobbed Edith, uttering the next instant a scream of joy, as she saw, in the distance, the carriage from Collingwood, and knew that Richard was in it. "To him! to him!" she exclaimed, throwing up her arms. "Let me go to Mr. Harrington! He wants ...
— Darkness and Daylight • Mary J. Holmes
... for the race was a difficult one. There were hedges and brooks to be negotiated, and, worst of all, ploughed fields. The first ploughed field usually thinned the ranks of the competitors considerably. The distance was about ...
— The Pothunters • P. G. Wodehouse
... in wear exhibited by different bones within the same block of matrix is attributable to differences in distance that the bones were transported before final deposition. The final sites of deposition, the fissures, were inundated occasionally by floods alone, or because of changes in location of the channel of the stream at the time of flooding. The periodicity ...
— Two New Pelycosaurs from the Lower Permian of Oklahoma • Richard C. Fox
... stone affair of one floor, set against the side of the mountain, a short distance above the flume. I looked about the interior in surprise; for not a soul was in sight in any of the compartments. There were signs that people had been there but a few moments before. I called it strange, for I had seen no one leave ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint
... road turned into a broad and beautiful avenue of poplars, down which we saw, at a distance, the triumphal arch terminating the Simplon road, which we had followed from Sesto Calende. Beyond it rose the slight and airy pinnacle of the Duomo. We passed by the exquisite structure, gave up our passports at the ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... gardening at the Red House," said Godfrey, surprised at the difficulty he found in approaching a proposition which had seemed so easy to him in the distance. "You've done a good part by Eppie, Marner, for sixteen years. It 'ud be a great comfort to you to see her well provided for, wouldn't it? She looks blooming and healthy, but not fit for any hardships: she doesn't look like a strapping girl come of working parents. ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... London early and yet they travelled only 51 miles that day. The whole distance to Harwich is 71 miles. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... Way. The illustration of the Forum at the present time gives a view, looking eastward from the Capitoline Mount, and shows several of the buildings on or near the Sacred Way. At the left are seen the ruins of the basilica of Constantine. Farther in the distance the Colosseum looms up. Directly ahead is the arch of Titus, which commemorates the capture of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. [61] The ruins of the palaces of the Caesars occupy the slopes of ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... summer, I made my first direct and thorough studies from nature, and amongst these was one, a view from my window across gardens and a churchyard with the church spire in the distance; a small study which incidentally had a most potent effect on all my later life. It was bought in the autumn by the Art Union of New York, and on the proceeds, thirty dollars, the first considerable sum of money I had ever earned, I decided to go to Europe and see what ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... ascended, and the last sight of Him, as the cloud wrapped Him round, showed Him shedding blessing from them. He continues that attitude and act till He comes again. Two separate motions are described in verse 51. He was parted from them,—that is, withdrew some little distance on the mountain, that all might see, and none might hinder, His departure; and 'was carried up into heaven' by a slow upward movement, as the word implies. Contrast this with Elijah's rapture. There was no need of fiery ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... discovered the second gateway at some distance to the left, and started toward it, forcing a way through a tangle of scrubby undergrowth, weeds, and thorny acacia, but had taken few steps ere a heavy splash in the river below brought him up standing, with a thumping heart. After an irresolute moment he turned back to see for ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... also, that the present Sufferings of the Country are the effects of horrible Witchcrafts, yet he now goes to evince it, That there neither are, nor ever were Witches, that having made a Compact with the Devil, can send a Devil to Torment other people at a distance. This Paper was Transcribed out of Ady; which the Court presently knew, as soon as they heard it. But he said, he had taken none of it out of any Book; for which, his Evasion afterwards, was, That a Gentleman ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... world about him was dark except when bathed with the light of star shells, intermittently fired from the opposing armies. Yet he realized that these balls of blinding whiteness must be quite a distance away, since their calcium glare but vaguely penetrated the canopy of smoke, touching the wreckage and the dead with ghost-like iridescence and making them appear almost as unreal as real. He could not even tell from what point these shells were fired, as no spot-lights showed—merely their effect ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... to the southward of Japan, not far off a South Sea whaler. The commander, who was an old acquaintance of Captain Longfleet, came aboard, and spent the evening with him in the cabin. I waited eagerly till it had become dark. The lights of the other ship could be seen in the distance, and I expected every instant that the captain would come on deck ready to take his departure. The boat's crew had come aboard, and were being entertained by our men. I thought if I could manage to slip down I might stow myself away under the foremost ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... person had stolen one of our best asses; and as the load must be left if we could not recover it, Isaaco's people having traced the foot marks to a considerable distance, agreed to go in search of it. Isaaco gave them the strictest orders, if they came up to the thief in the woods to shoot him; and, if not, to follow him to a town and demand the ass from the Dooty; if he refused to give it up, to return ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... of which they were more easily slain, since they kept becoming entangled one with another. This was what they endured while they were still being struck from afar off. But when the Romans after exhausting their long-distance ammunition charged down upon them, the edges of the force were slaughtered, one blow sufficing for their death, since the majority were unarmed, and the center was crushed together, as all by reason of the encompassing fear fell toward it. So they perished, pushed about and trampled ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... amounted to serious presumptive evidence of guilt, and if Derues had shown himself to the multitude, which followed every phase of the investigation with increasing anxiety, a thousand arms would have willingly usurped the office of the executioner; but the distance thence to actual proof of murder was enormous for the magistracy. Derues maintained his tranquillity, always asserting that Madame de Lamotte and her son were alive, and would clear him by their reappearance. Neither threats nor stratagems ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a little apart from each other, while one of the seconds paced the distance. He steps out away from them, across the crater floor, carrying Tom's revolver in his hand, till he reaches the required point, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... startling silhouette, and the coal that he shovelled into what was like a flaming mouth of a cavern seemed sparkling black diamonds. The snow-flakes glimmered as the wind swept them by the wide-open window, and in the distance were seen the lights and the dim outline of another boat rushing toward the city. Clang! the iron doors are shut, and all ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... no superior in New York, and, in some respects, no equal in the country. He possessed a broader horizon, a larger intellect, a greater moral courage, than most of his contemporaries. It is probably true that, like a mountain, he appeared best at a distance, but having confidence in his ability and integrity, people easily overlooked his rough, unpopular manners. The shrewd, sagacious Yankee farmers who were filling up the great western counties of Ontario ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... exceeded the calm and instructive superiority of Imogen's tone. A mass of soft white fabric lay upon her lap, although she had removed scissors and needle and thimble to a safe distance. She tilted her chin with a royal air. When the storm lulled ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... as early as four o'clock on Saturday. By night-fall the atmosphere was a little dense, but the lamp-posts were still clearly visible at a distance of some feet, and nobody, accustomed to living in London, would have noticed anything much out of the common. It was not till Sunday morning that the ...
— The Swoop! or How Clarence Saved England - A Tale of the Great Invasion • P. G. Wodehouse
... former days? Where are the quail, the rabbits, that our ancestors used to kill so plentifully? Are not they growing less all the time? And the water! Look—" and the old woman, with arm extended, pointed with her forefinger toward the three dry lakes in the distance, only one of which showed any signs of moisture, a small spot in the centre, covered with, perhaps, a foot of water—"look," she repeated, "what were those lakes years ago? Our fathers tell us that long, long ages past, those three lakes were ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... drained, that no water may stagnate in it near the bottom of the cultivated mould, as the strength of the plants depends upon the dryness and richness of the bottom soil. After which the ground is to be divided into beds, four feet in width, with alleys of eighteen inches between them; then, at the distance of every two feet each way, five or six seeds are to be sown, in a circle of about four inches diameter, to the depth of two inches. This business should be performed in a strictly regular and exact manner, as the plants ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... America this legend of the Seven Sons, Seven Tribes, the Seven Caves whence they issued, or the Seven Cities where they dwelt, constantly crops out. To that land the Aztecs referred as their former dwelling place. It was located at some indefinite distance to the north or northwest—in the same direction as Tollan. The name of that land was significant. It was called the White or Bright Land, Aztlan.[1] In its midst was situated the mountain or hill Colhuacan the Divine, Teoculhuacan.[2] ...
— American Hero-Myths - A Study in the Native Religions of the Western Continent • Daniel G. Brinton
... Kaaba at Mecca, which was worshipped by the ancient Arabians, and is still treated with religious veneration by the modern Mohammedans. The Mussulman priests, however, say that it was originally white, and of such surprising splendor that it could be seen at the distance of four days' journey, but that it has been blackened by the ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... Brown made a reconnaissance in the direction of St Hilaire. He destroyed a bridge over a ravine some distance to the south of St Charles, and placed above it an outpost with orders to prevent a reconstruction of the bridge. But when the British troops appeared on the morning of the 25th, this and other outlying pickets fell back without making any resistance. They probably ...
— The 'Patriotes' of '37 - A Chronicle of the Lower Canada Rebellion • Alfred D. Decelles
... the middle seventies—I think it was '74, I was partner with a man named George Stevens at Eureka Springs, west of Fort Thomas in the Apache country, a trading station for freighters. We were owners of the trading station, which was some distance south of where the copper cities of Globe and Miami are now situated. We made very good money at the station and Stevens and I decided to have some repairs and additions built to the store. We looked around for a mason and finally hired one named George Warren, a competent ...
— Arizona's Yesterday - Being the Narrative of John H. Cady, Pioneer • John H. Cady
... power, of the men by whom the change seems to have been effected. We cannot overrate their power,—for the greatest men of any age, those who become its leaders when there is a great march to be begun, are indeed separated from the average intellects of their day by a distance which is immeasurable in any ordinary terms ...
— Mornings in Florence • John Ruskin
... steps for a short distance, they turned into a side street, and here—wonder of wonders!—were some more people. A horse stood, saddled and bridled, before the door of one of the houses, and a man was just in the act of mounting. He did not seem to be a particularly ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... a considerable distance from shore, and it was doubtful if their glasses would locate the waving hats of the little party far in between ...
— Tarzan of the Apes • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... into clusters of stars by more powerful instruments. In many cases, he found that a certain proportion existed between the telescopic power by which a cluster was first rendered visible, and that required for its resolution, and by this means he formed what he considered a probable estimate of its distance. Other clusters there were which only became visible in his most powerful telescopes, and which, therefore, he could never succeed in resolving. These he placed at a still greater distance, and from this estimate he deduced the conclusion that their light must have been in some cases as much ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... prior to all experience, it is even superior to it, and often leads animals to disregard it,—the spontaneous impulse which Nature has given them being their best guide. The carrier-pigeon or the bird of passage, taken a long distance from home by a circuitous route, trusting to this "pilot-sense," flies back in a straight course; and the hound takes the shortest way home through fields where he has ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... fire-ships. He do say, that this afternoon they did force our ships to retreat, but that now they are gone down as far as Shield-haven: but what the event hath been of this evening's guns they know not, but suppose not much for they have all this while shot at good distance one from another. They seem confident of the security of this town and the River above it, if ever the enemy should come up so high; their fortifications being so good, and guns many. But he do say that people ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... feet in height; trunk 2-5 feet in diameter, separating a few feet from the ground into several large, slightly diverging branches. These, naked for some distance, repeatedly subdivide at wider angles, forming a very wide head, much broader near the top. The ultimate branches are long and slender, often forming on the lower limbs a pendulous fringe sometimes reaching to the ground. Distinguished in winter by its ...
— Handbook of the Trees of New England • Lorin Low Dame
... on for a little distance, he paused to rest in a clump of fir-trees, one of which had been dead for so many years that all its twigs and smaller boughs had decayed and dropped to the ground. Only the large branches, gaunt and skeleton-like, ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... of a thin and narrow strip of black ash which would fold up conveniently to six inches. All this pains I took because I did not wish to be obliged to say merely that the moose was very large. Of the various dimensions which I obtained I will mention only two. The distance from the tips of the hoofs of the fore-feet, stretched out, to the top of the back between the shoulders, was seven feet and five inches. I can hardly believe my own measure, for this is about two feet greater than the height of a tall horse. The extreme length was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... but a hundred yards to the sailor's cottage, which stood on the edge of the sharp rise, a short distance ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... and Hudson therefore determined to return. We may well imagine that he was satisfied already with the result of the voyage, even supposing him to have been disappointed in not finding here a passage to the Indies. He had explored a great and navigable river to the distance of nearly a hundred forty miles; he had found the country along the banks extremely fertile, the climate delightful, and the scenery displaying every variety of beauty and grandeur; and he knew that he had opened the way ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... to the best poets, and those who make it with most ease.... What it adds to sweetness, it takes away from sense; and he who loses the least by it may be called a gainer. It often makes us swerve from an author's meaning; as, if a mark be set up for an archer at a great distance, let him aim as exactly as he can, the least wind will take his arrow, and divert it from the white."[420] The line of the heroic couplet is not long enough to reproduce the hexameter, and Virgil is especially succinct. "To make him copious is to alter his character; and to translate ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... himself together. He sat thus for some time, and the sun was beginning to encroach upon his refuge, when suddenly he was aroused by the faint and far-off sound of a hunting horn. That the listener distinguished it at such a distance might have argued that he himself had known hound and saddle in his day; yet he readily caught the note of the short hunting horn universally used by the southern hunters, and recognized the assembly ...
— The Law of the Land • Emerson Hough
... at some distance, which was about to quit the fleet next morning and return to port. The skipper of it knew well which vessel had been run down, but, not being near enough to see all that passed, imagined that the whole crew had perished along with her. During the night the breeze ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... explained at length her plan of campaign. In her opinion the town must be allowed to fall into still greater panic, while Pierre was to maintain an heroic demeanour in the midst of the terrified inhabitants. A secret presentiment, she said, warned her that the insurgents were still at a distance. Moreover, the party of order would sooner or later carry the day, and the Rougons would be rewarded. After the role of deliverer, that of martyr was not to be despised. And she argued so well, and spoke with so much conviction, ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By the time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead of him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... they now advanced boldly. They saw the redoubt on the crest as they came on, and unlimbering a section or two, flung a few shells up at it, which either fell short or passed over without doing material damage. None of the guns was allowed to respond, as the distance was too great with the ammunition the battery had, and, indifferent as it was, it was too precious to be wasted in a duel at an ineffectual range. Doubtless deceived by this, the enemy came on in force, being obliged by the character of the ground to keep almost ...
— The Burial of the Guns • Thomas Nelson Page
... morning, a little before midday; the sky was dark and the sea very ugly. All at once we saw a steamer running in our track, very quickly. She got so close to us that we could hear her engines—katakata katakata!—but we saw nobody on deck. Then she began to follow us, keeping exactly at the same distance, and whenever we tried to get out of her way she would turn after us and keep exactly in our wake. And then we suspected what she was. But we were not sure until she vanished. She vanished like a bubble, ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... suggested that when the time came, he pack up and leave as quietly as possible, neither looking to the right nor the left, but getting out of the city by the most direct route; and when a respectful distance was reached, just to drop her a friendly line, saying he could not find it compatible with his conscience to longer eat her bread without paying for it, but as soon as fortune put the means in his way, he would lose no time in rubbing out ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... to the nature of the ground on which the impending battle was to be fought. Sedan lies in the most beautiful part of the valley of the Meuse, amid terraced heights, covered with trees, and, within close distance, the villages of Donchery, Iges, Villette, Glaire, Daigny, Bazeilles, and others. Along the Meuse, on the left bank, ran the main road from Donchery through Frenois, crossing the river at the suburb Torcy, and there traversing Sedan. The character of the locality may ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... it appeared under a form most pleasing to the author, was not listened to; for in the distance Folly tossed the coxcomb of Panurge, and the author wished to seize it; but, when he tried to catch it, he found that it was as heavy as the club of Hercules. Moreover, the cure of Meudon adorned it in such fashion that a young man who ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... "Pshaw, sir. Distance is nothing nowadays. It was a very different thing when I was a boy. Take my word for it, Mr. Harkaway, our patient will jump ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... large hall of the asylum. One who professed magnetism was trying his skill upon a subject, to the great entertainment of his fellows. He was making the passes after a singular fashion, upon a docile fellow who sat bolt upright in a chair with a face of the most stolid gravity. Standing at a distance, he would rush up with long strides, make a wavy flourish with his hands over the face of the subject, and retreat as rapidly. Then with eager, swelling eyes, aiming with the fore-finger of each hand, he would run up and point at ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... been drained to erect the colossal amphitheatre of Titus. [63] From the mouths of fourteen aqueducts, a pure and copious stream was diffused into every part of the city; among these the Claudian water, which arose at the distance of thirty-eight miles in the Sabine mountains, was conveyed along a gentle though constant declivity of solid arches, till it descended on the summit of the Aventine hill. The long and spacious vaults which had been constructed for the purpose of common sewers, subsisted, after twelve ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... of her hair, where undoubtedly one hand must have gone to punish some amorous lock that would wander near her lips. Her eyes are full of light; her very lips are smiling. Jane, the cook, at a respectful distance, is half ashamed at the situation of her young lady; the young lady is ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... the Moffatt girl; and that en somme she has done herself no good by the whole affair. But, after all, poor soul, she is disinterested. She stands to gain nothing, as I understand; and she risks a good deal. From this comfortable distance, I really find something touching ...
— Lady Rose's Daughter • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... noiselessly stalking till within ten paces of their game, they let the broad arrow fly. At this distance who could miss? Should the game be simply wounded, it is quite enough; they never lose him, but hunt him up, like hounds upon ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... their superlatives to describe for London readers next day. Those superlatives need not be served up again here. One or two bald facts will perhaps give to anyone possessing any faculty of visualisation as clear an idea as they could get from any number of dithyrambic pages. The distance from the Ulster Club to the quay where the Liverpool steamer is berthed is ordinarily less than a ten minutes' walk. The wagonette in which the Ulster leader and his friends were drawn by human muscles took three minutes short of an hour to traverse it. It was estimated that into that short ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... meet her; and although, stiffly enough, he let her kiss him and say "I'm so glad—I'm so glad!" she felt this tolerance as not quite the mere calm of the rising diplomatist. He turned toward the house with her and walked on a short distance while she uttered the hope that he had come ...
— The Marriages • Henry James
... in a short time after colours had been hoisted, those of the French brig being raised upon a spare spar, the stranger came steadily on in the most peaceable way till the tide had carried her within reasonable distance of the schooner's anchorage, when an order rang out, an anchor was lowered with a splash, and as she swung slowly round, a light boat was dropped from the davits, and a swarthy-looking Spaniard, who seemed to be an officer if not the skipper of the swift-looking raking ...
— The Ocean Cat's Paw - The Story of a Strange Cruise • George Manville Fenn
... ran through my frame as he spoke these words. A mystery rigid as Fate seemed to shackle me. Without seeing him go, I knew that Vannelle had left the room. Again was I conscious of the carriage-rumble growing fainter, fainter, fainter in the distance. A dream of passionate excitement, a phantasmagoria of old wishes, old hopes, of the life I might have led, flew before me. For a moment the energy of Vannelle seemed to have transfused itself through every fibre. An unquenchable thirst that I had ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... here for another hour, at least," whispered Sarrion, who was standing by the window watching Marcos. "It is too far for a man of his age to ride, and he has no carriage. There may be some delay in finding one to do so great a distance at this time in the morning. You must take the opportunity to ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... witness the last act of the law, and started from home at six o'clock on the appointed morning. A white mist filled the air, and gradually thickened into rain; and by the time I had reached the spot—a distance of about two miles—a smart shower was falling. The place of execution is a field in the outskirts of the city, bounded on one side by the main road, and close to the "Spinnerinn am Kreuz," an ancient stone cross, standing ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... a beautiful morning. Spring seemed to have come with a winged leap. A faint down of green shaded the elms, and there was a pink cloud of peach bloom in the distance. The cherry trees were swollen almost to blossom, and the apple trees had pale radiances in the glance of the sun. The grass was quite green, and here and there were dandelions. Clemency was out in the yard, working in a little flower-garden, as James drove ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... the common movements. I have a slow and perplexed apprehension, but what it once apprehends, it apprehends well, for the time it retains it. My sight is perfect, entire, and discovers at a very great distance, but is soon weary and heavy at work, which occasions that I cannot read long, but am forced to have one to read to me. The younger Pliny can inform such as have not experimented it themselves, how important an impediment this is to those who ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... was aware that the mutiny would soon be excited, when it was understood that those who composed the expedition were to be sacrificed to the avarice of the Commandant. The weather being fine, they sailed on during the night: passed the island of Ternate at ten leagues' distance; and before morning were among the cluster of isles, the southernmost of which was the one on which the treasure had been buried. On the second night the vessels were beached upon a small island; and ...
— The Phantom Ship • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that way fell into a snare. So Death had much flesh to eat. One day the Spider came to Death and said to him, "You have so much meat!" and she asked if she might have some to take home with her. Death gave her leave. So the Spider made a basket as long as from Ho to Akoviewe (a distance of about five miles), crammed it full of meat, and dragged it home. In return for this bounty the Spider gave Death her daughter Yiyisa to wife. So when Death had her for his wife, he gave her a hint. He said, "Don't walk on the broad road which I have made. Walk ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Sylvia and Harley were somewhere north of the town, and, dividing into groups, five or six to a group, they spread out to a great distance. They carried whiskey for warmth, and lanterns with which to signal to each other, and for guidance in the night that might come before they returned. In the twilight of the ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... Byron," she said, "have admirably painted the desires of a superior mind; when reading them, one aggrandizes them by all the space they have perceived; one admires the scope of their view; one would fain give them one's soul to help theirs to cover the distance that separates them from the goal they aspire to reach. But, if an author comes and tells me he has attained this goal, I no longer see in him, however great he may be, more than a presumptuous man; his vanity shocks me, and I diminish him ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... interminable to this impatient traveller, who was eager to stand upon the deck of Messrs. ——'s electric steamers, to feel the icy spray dashing into his face, and to see the town of Dover, shining like a flaming crescent against the darkness of the night, and the Calais lights in the distance rising up behind the black ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon |
