"Distinctness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... office was located was totally destroyed, and the letter was in a safe. I was very much disturbed; the safe was fireproof and I hoped to find the letters, but, alas! the safe and all its contents were destroyed—" The banker stopped short; he had made the last statement with startling distinctness. ...
— Two Wonderful Detectives - Jack and Gil's Marvelous Skill • Harlan Page Halsey
... and still more than that,—cannot you guess yet why I have summoned you here?" continued Angelique, rising and laying her left hand firmly upon the shoulder of La Corriveau, as she bent her head and whispered with terrible distinctness in her ear. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... common pressures, gave a better brush than oxygen, but did not equal nitrogen; the colour was greenish gray. In rarefied hydrogen, the ramifications were very fine in form and distinctness, but pale in colour, with a soft and velvety appearance, and not at all equal to those in nitrogen. In the rarest state of the gas, the colour of the light was ...
— Experimental Researches in Electricity, Volume 1 • Michael Faraday
... upon the nearest bench, overcome with my dismay—quite as much at Miss Ambient's horrible insistence and distinctness as at the monstrous meaning of her words. Yet they came amazingly straight, and if they did have a sense I saw myself too woefully figure in it. Had I been then a proximate cause— ? "You're a very strange woman ...
— The Author of Beltraffio • Henry James
... voice, but his words had a pitiless distinctness that seemed somehow more forcible than any violence. Vera Fielding shrank closer ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... if she had put her hand frankly and truthfully in his? There are times when to those most bewildered in mazes of error light breaks, clear and unmistakable, defining right and wrong with terrible distinctness. Such an hour was this to Christine. The law of God written on her heart asserted itself, and she trembled at the guilty thing she saw herself to be. But there seemed no remedy save in the one she had driven away, never to return, as she believed. After a brief but painful revery she exclaimed: ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... everything was arranged squarely, according to system, order, and not with a view of placing in the best lights and shadows the beautiful things to be sold. He saw that Mr. Ludolph was annoyed by the same defect. One bright day, when everything stood out with glaring distinctness, he seemed provoked beyond measure by this inartistic rigidity, and stormed through the store at ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... unbound, and its clear flaxen hue had not one shade of gold, as her clear gray eyes had not one shade of blue. Her small, straight, rose-leaf lips parted over small, dazzlingly white teeth, and the outline of her face in profile reminded you of an etching in its distinctness, although it was by no means perfect according to the rules of art. Still, what a comfort it was, after the blurred outlines and smudged profiles many of us possess—seen to best advantage, I think, in church on Sundays, crowned with flower-decked bonnets, listening calmly serene to favorite ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... since retained, and that our fathers became emphatically islanders, islanders not merely in geographical position, but in their politics, their feelings, and their manners. Then first appeared with distinctness that constitution which has ever since, through all changes, preserved its identity; that constitution of which all the other free constitutions in the world are copies, and which, in spite of some defects, deserves to be ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... itself. It affords a great deal of pleasure to others as well as to ourselves. In the second place, it improves our everyday speech and is also a preparation for public speaking; for the one who reads with distinctness and an accent of refinement is likely to speak in the same way, whether in private conversation or on the public platform. Moreover, it is only one step from reading aloud before the class to recitation, and another step ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... commented Mrs. Upjohn. "All wrong. You should not leave your mother any work that you could spare her. One of the first things I taught our Maria" (Mrs. Upjohn in Mr. Hardcastle's presence always said our Maria with great distinctness),—"one of the first things I taught her was, that it was her privilege to save me in every thing. I don't believe in idleness for girls. Aren't you ready yet to attend to these crewels, Phebe? Miss ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... Hastings, where they were to disembark. At this instant the three friends turned, in spite of themselves, a last look on the rock, upon the menacing figure which pursued them and now stood out with a distinctness still. Then a voice reached them once more, sending this threat: "To our next ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... tones. 'This is the moment.' He paused for a long time, then with the same distinctness went on: 'On my word of honour, all ...
— Tales Of Hearsay • Joseph Conrad
... Yes, I am sorry too. Will you tell me all you can about the Jacobis?" And then Malcolm, with masculine brevity and great distinctness, retailed his impressions of the brother and sister. Elizabeth's face grew grave ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... come out of nothingness, extraordinarily, they heard with a curious distinctness the sound of a woman weeping. Susie's heart stood still. They heard the sound of a woman weeping, and they recognized the voice of Margaret. A groan of anguish burst from Arthur's lips, and he was on the point ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... professional litterateurs of his day emerges, with ever sharper distinctness as time goes on, the name of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849.) By the irony of fate Poe was born at Boston, and his first volume, Tamerlane and Other Poems, 1827, was printed in that city and bore upon its title page the words, "By a Bostonian." ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... following day is written with a feeble hand, and scarce one pencilled word tallies with its neighbour in form or distinctness—in fact, it is seen at a glance what exertion it cost him to write at all. He says no more than "Ill" in one place, but this is the evident explanation; yet with the same painstaking determination of old, the three rivers which ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... of all this as if I did nothing but look about me while others fought. Of course that could not have been the case. I recall now these fragmentary impressions of the scene around me with a distinctness and with a plenitude of minutiae which surprise me, the more that I remember little enough of what I myself did. But when a man is in a fight for his life there are no details. He is either to come out of it or he isn't, and that is ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... of men and girls. The woman Stanton was there and, wheeling, she uttered a cry that startled Allie. Was this white, glaring-eyed, drawn-faced woman the one who had gone for Neale? Allie began to shake. She saw and heard with startling distinctness. The woman's cry had turned every face toward the stairway, and the buzz of ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... which Electra's untrained eyes, almost blinded by spray, could barely discern; and her heart beat like a muffled drum as it drew nearer and nearer. Once she heard a low, chuckling laugh of satisfaction escape the captain; then, with startling distinctness, the ringing of a bell was borne from ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... another—a charming man, and always fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he was sitting still (what he would call still, but what would be more or lees motion to other people). I can see those figures with entire distinctness ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... his sudden appearance not in Battle, yet on some Battle-field; which, we soon gather, must be that of Wagram; so that here, for once, is a certain approximation to distinctness of date. Omitting much, let ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... supplies the 'substance', and their imagination the ever-varying 'form'; the latter must impress their preconceptions on the world without, in order to present them back to their own view with the satisfying degree of clearness, distinctness, and individuality." ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... redundant. In this case we have the consequent denied in both, whereas in the former we had the antecedent affirmed. It is only for convenience that such arguments as these are thrown into the form of a single syllogism. Their real distinctness may be seen from the fact that we here deny each proposition separately, thus making two independent statements—C is not D and E is not F. But in the true instance of the simple destructive dilemma, what we deny is not the truth of the two propositions contained in ...
— Deductive Logic • St. George Stock
... broad vale on either side. At a distance, it looked like a strip of sky set into the earth, which it so etherealized and idealized that it seemed akin to the upper regions. Nearer the base of the hill, I could discern the shadows of every tree and rock, imaged with a distinctness that made them even more charming than the reality; because, knowing them to be unsubstantial, they assumed the ideality which the soul always craves in the contemplation of earthly beauty. All the sky, too, and the rich clouds of sunset, were reflected in the peaceful bosom ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... said Mr. Cooper, turning to his sister, and speaking with unusual distinctness—"how would it be if you opened the door, and just as he put his head out I hit it a ...
— Night Watches • W.W. Jacobs
... fainted either before reaching it or after leaving. This he knew, because the mark of Tom's coat, part of his waist-belt and the handle of his bowie-knife were all impressed on the softish ground with sufficient distinctness to be discerned by a sharp eye. The moccasined footprints told of Indians having found Brixton—still alive, for they would not have taken the trouble to carry him off if he had been dead. The various sizes ...
— Twice Bought • R.M. Ballantyne
... field of the planet shrank a thousand leagues, but each time the light deepened. According to my principle, there was no doubt that some object would be revealed before the space became too limited, provided nothing interfered with the distinctness of the picture. At length I calculated that I was selecting about twenty square miles from about seven hundred. Forms were distinct, but they were rigid, and painfully reminded me of the astronomic maps. About five removes from this, I judged that the space I was looking at must be about ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... but one relapse. It was when I got news of their marriage. I remember the day with a peculiar distinctness; for it was the first snow-storm of the season, and I had been out walking all the afternoon. It was one of those soft, leaden-colored, expectant days, of late autumn or early winter, when one ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... out-stretched in adoration the ever-radiant and ineffably beautiful Procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son, and to participate ourselves in that jubilee of jubilees, and drink in with greedy minds the wonders of that Procession, and the marvelous distinctness of its beauty from the Generation of the Son; to feel ourselves with ecstatic awe, and yet with seraphic intimacy, overshadowed by the Person of the Unbegotten Father, the Father to whom and of whom we have said so much on earth, the Fountain of Godhead, who is truly our Father, while ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... indicated in the same way by varying shades of dull brown. In all of them you seem to feel the interposition of the air between you and the distant horizon at which you are looking. What else is there? At each point in the picture the air modifies the distinctness with which you can see the objects. This consciousness of air in a picture of low horizon is a very difficult thing to describe and explain. We know when it is there and when it is not. It has to be seen, to be enjoyed, and recorded. ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... "The Brethren," after baptism, is also described with much distinctness, in a few words which seem to have been recorded once for all of the first converts, in formal terms which should be applicable to all others: "They continued stedfastly in the Apostles' doctrine, and fellowship, and in breaking ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... window was locked when I went to bed," Grimes stated with slow distinctness. "And I was the last person in this house to go ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln
... at this apparition, I am quite certain; but the sense of real fear was, after all, left in reserve. I had rambled alone, as children will, along the High Street on a lovely summer day, each sight, and scent, and sound of which comes to me at this moment with a curious distinctness, and I had turned at the corner; had wandered along New Street, which by that time was old-fashioned enough to seem aged, even to my eyes; had diverged into Walsall Street, which was then the shortest way to the real country, and on to the Ten ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... time blessed with long and keen vision, I saw this beautiful face with perfect distinctness. I saw even the blue veins that traced their wanderings on the whiteness ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... enter, we see it emerge, but its movement while inside the tunnel is concealed from us. Similarly we may say that we see with comparative distinctness the Christian Church of the Apostolic Age, and we see with comparative distinctness the Church of the Age of Cyprian and Origen, but with respect to the interval separating the two periods we are not indeed wholly, but, we ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... fell from Wolfe's brow, and his eye gazed, musingly and rapt, upon vacancy. Steps were heard ascending; the voice of a distant clock tolled with a distinctness which seemed like strokes palpable as well as audible to the senses; and, as the door opened and his accomplice entered, Wolfe muttered, "Too late! too late!"—and first crushing the note in his hands, then tore it into atoms, with a vehemence which astonished his companion, who, however, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... came—a multitude of impressions—crowded into a few brief seconds; yet every racing detail was engraved with awful distinctness upon the girl's mind, never to ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... scratchy, and its fur tickles, and its tail feels crawly, and there is nothing pleasant about it, and you are all the time afraid it will try to gnaw out, and begin on you instead of on the cloth. That mouse was next to me. I could feel its every motion with startling and suggestive distinctness. For these reasons I yelled to Maria, and as the case seemed urgent to me I may have yelled with a certain degree of vigor; but I deny that I yelled fire, and if I catch the boy who thought that I did, I shall ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the street where the fire was, it was deafening, and it kept its own distinctness above all other noises; and with the fire-bells, the saving and losing of household goods, and the trampling and talking of the crowd, there were noises not a few. Dennis and I were together, for Alister ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Moon as a whole, under such circumstances; but there is nevertheless some testimony to the contrary. A French observer, E. Liais, said that three photographic plates of the eclipse of 1858 seen in S. America all showed the outer limb of the Moon with more or less distinctness. This testimony, be it noted, is photographic and not visual; and on the whole it seems safest to say that there is very small probability of the Moon as a whole ever being seen ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... a tale with ghastly distinctness. It was that, unless they performed their feat of getting up the slope with the precision of machines, they were over the edge ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... see a white-haired, bent old woman, with a face as sweet as dawn, coming up the bank of Singing Water, that will be my mother's friend, Granny Moreland, who joins us on the north over there. She is frank and brusque, so she says what she thinks with unmistakable distinctness, but her heart is big and tender and her philosophy keeps her sweet and kindly despite the ache of rheumatism and the weight of ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... to-morrow?—O my love, The things that withered,—and you came not back! That day you filled this circle of my arms That now is empty. (O my empty life!) That day—that day you picked the first sweet-pea,— And brought it in to show me! I recall With terrible distinctness how the smell Of your cool gardens drifted in with you. I know, you held it up for me to see And flushed because I looked not at the flower, But at your face; and when behind my look You saw such unmistakable intent You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips. (You were the fairest ...
— Renascence and Other Poems • Edna St. Vincent Millay
... the distinctness with which the Union separation shone as the goal. This was shown in the Cabinet meeting by the very tactless, but very Norwegian expressions when the break-down of the negotiations was officially announced. The old King was pleased to express his hearty wishes, "that the two Kingdoms which could ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... cluster of pansies, purple and white and gold. Mr. Whittier called our attention to their wonderful resemblance to human faces,—a resemblance which we so often see in pansies, and which was brought out with really startling distinctness ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... this time. The dense mass of bush behind and on either side of the blazing mass acted in some sort as a reflector, concentrating the light of the fire upon the boom and our four boats clustered closely together about it, and defining them with very unpleasant distinctness against the background ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... though waving flame was now plainly visible, gracefully gliding over the lake, and throwing its light on the water in such a manner as to tinge it slightly though in the air, so strong was the contrast, the darkness seemed to have the distinctness of material substances, as if the fire were imbedded in a setting of ebony. This appearance, however, gradually wore off, and the rays from the torch struck out, and enlightened the atmosphere in front of it, leaving the background in a darkness ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... God and become righteous. They are all three designations of the same people, but regarded under different aspects and at different stages. There is a distinct order in them, and whether the Psalmist was fully conscious of it or not, he was anticipating and stating, with wonderful distinctness, ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Noirtier lighted up with rage, and d'Avrigny prepared to speak. Morrel, however, extended his arm, and commanded silence. "And I say that murders are committed here," said Morrel, whose voice, though lower in tone, lost none of its terrible distinctness: "I tell you that this is the fourth victim within the last four months. I tell you, Valentine's life was attempted by poison four days ago, though she escaped, owing to the precautions of M. Noirtier. I tell you that ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the men at the table, shifting quickly from one to another. He ran his tongue along his swollen lips, but said no word until Conniston had washed and taken his own chair. Then he spoke, his words coming with slow distinctness. ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... success for the young artist, and dealers were already beginning to buy up his pictures, paying a mere song for studies to-day which years hence they expected to sell for a big sum on the strength of the reputation he would have gained. Harry's strong points were his unequalled distinctness of vision and his intensity of feeling for art. He put a passionate throb into every movement of his brush. When once an idea occurred to him as desirable to work out, it defined itself to his imagination with a reality, a power, an amplitude of detail, which blinded him for the time being ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... easy for him to impersonate for the time being almost any character. Had he turned his attention to the stage he would have been a wonderful actor. As he read the Scriptures the Bible characters stood out with marvellous distinctness; we could almost see them or hear them. He entered also so fully into the deepest meaning of what he read that the rendering shed new light on some of the most difficult passages of the Bible. Attention has more than once been called to his rendering of those verses in which the Saviour speaks ...
— Sixty years with Plymouth Church • Stephen M. Griswold
... beautiful things done for me during my thirty thousand miles travel in Europe, but nothing stands out in my mind with more distinctness than the affectionate welcome I received into the homes of our representatives in Berlin. And, in passing, let me say this, I am distinctly proud of them, one and all. I say this because one hears many humiliating anecdotes of the mistakes made by the men and women sent to foreign ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... few years ago, used the purple and lilac inks very much. But they are not elegant; they are not in fashion; the best note-writers do not use them. The plain black ink, which gives the written characters great distinctness, is ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... added to the tendency of the first blow, and the body turned over and over, like an immense log rolling down hill. Despite the gloom of the abyss the sun was shining so brightly, and was in such a favorable position, that everything was seen with distinctness. ...
— Two Boys in Wyoming - A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3) • Edward S. Ellis
... what was written once", it was the mission of Christ, it is the mission of all great personalities, of all the concrete creations of Genius, to bring out into distinctness and vital glow. It is not, and cannot be, brought out,— and this fact is emphasized in the poetry of Browning,— it cannot be brought out, through what is born and resides in the brain: it is brought ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... and I wish very much she would join us in the mountains and return here with us. In my letter to her about the time when she went to her sister's wedding, which I hope she got, I told her of my wishes on the subject, and believe gave her our general plans. I can now say with more distinctness that, unless something now unforeseen should prevent, I will take your mother to the Warm Sprints, from the 10th to the 15th inst., and after trying the water there about two weeks, if not favourable, ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... his sentence was drowned in the roar of the train as it went rocking and clanking; but through all the hell of noises to which that unhappy house was periodically subject, they could hear the syllables of Magnus's answer, in all their bell-like distinctness: "I have no reason to feel ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... is known to readers of the Society for Psychical Research Proceedings that we do find such indications, scattered at first, and appearing unsought-for amid the phenomena of mesmeric or somnambulic states; but now to some slight extent isolated into distinctness, and brought ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... back of the waves like a dolphin. I should have enjoyed it but for my father's ghastly face of utter misery. The day was dull, the sky and sea lead-colored, the brown coast by degrees lost its distinctness, and became covered with a dark haze that seemed to blend everything into a still, stony, threatening iron-gray mass. The wind rose, the sea became inky black and swelled into heavy ridges, which made our little vessel dip deep and spring high, as she toiled ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... and she listened no longer; but, at all events, she had learned that they were going away to the North. And as her nerves had been somewhat shaken, she began to ask herself what further thing this madman might not do. The old stories he had told her came back with a marvellous distinctness. Would he plunge her into a dungeon and mock her with an empty cup when she was dying of thirst? Would he chain her to a rock at low-water; and watch the tide slowly rise? He professed great gentleness and love for her; ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... is," said the dark and placid Sarah. "She jumps on me if I say anything and then she cries herself sick thinking things. I would rather," she declared with peculiar distinctness, "have folks talk than ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... the Lilac Lady had meant when she had said so bitterly, "You will turn your face to the wall, say good-bye to those who you thought were your friends, build a high fence around you and hide—hide from the world and everything!" The words came back to her with a startling distinctness and a great sob rose in ...
— Heart of Gold • Ruth Alberta Brown
... he led an agreeable life enough among all these undercurrents of feeling, which he did not recognise with any distinctness. He was comfortable enough, pleased with his own importance, and too obtuse to perceive that he bored his companions; and then he considered himself to be slightly "sweet upon" both the girls. Ursula was his favourite in the morning, when he embarrassed her much by persistently seeking ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... then it is strictly logical to promote material and mental reaction; whilst it is absurd to believe that men will perpetually promote a growth of culture without ever taking advantage of it. I now see with appalling distinctness that if our toiling masses had not been saved by their social hopes from sharing our economic pessimism, we Liberals would long since have found ourselves in the midst of a reaction of a fearful kind: it is not through us that modern civilisation has been spared ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... soon to realize. You will remember, George, how strangely I behaved at that interview, in which you asked me to fix the day for our wedding. Let me explain. A few hours previous, while I was lost in one of my occasional fits of melancholy moping, the voice of Phillip came to my ears with startling distinctness. The voice said Martha, you must remain true to me! I love you as devotedly as ever! I am determined, never to give you up! I am coming home to wed you! I am surely coming! Wait for me! These words ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... survey has developed the older fossiliferous rocks, with a fullness and distinctness unknown elsewhere. Hence European savans study the New York Reports with eagerness. In 1850, as I entered the Woodwardian Museum, in the University of Cambridge, in England, I found Professor McCoy busy with a collection of Silurian fossils before him, which he was studying with ...
— The Uses of Astronomy - An Oration Delivered at Albany on the 28th of July, 1856 • Edward Everett
... afraid, for a few days since the child of a neighbour had died in consequence of an overdose of this same anodyne. For a long time there was silence in the room. Outside, voices kept sounding with that peculiar muffled distinctness which they have on a night of dense fog, when there is little or no wheel-traffic ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Enriquez to his sister, with a confidential lowering of tone but great distinctness of utterance, "it is ever so with the American! He will ever make first the salutation of the flower or the fruit, picked to himself by his own hand, to the lady where he call. It is the custom of the American hidalgo![156-1] My God—what will you? I make it not—it is so! Without ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... minutes after, he had to recite alone a passage of Tennyson's Morte d'Arthur, and then he appeared to greater advantage. Standing in a perfectly natural attitude, he began in low clear tones, enunciating every line with a distinctness that instantly won attention, and at last warming with his theme he modulated his voice with the requirements of the verse, and used gestures so graceful, yet so unaffected, that when with musical emphasis he ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... we analyze our own mental processes, we find words everywhere in every degree of clearness and consistency, fading away in dreams and more like pictures, rapidly succeeding one another in our waking thoughts, attaining a greater distinctness and consecutiveness in speech, and a greater still in writing, taking the place of one another when we try to become emancipated from their influence. For in all processes of the mind which are conscious we are talking to ourselves; the attempt ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... passed away. The aged poet has not unfrequently to complain, that as he rises in years, his "visions float less palpably before him." Those, on the contrary, which science conjures up, grow in distinctness, as, in the process of slow acquirement, form after form is evoked from out the obscurity of the past, and one restoration ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... to detect refutation by word or look. She did not know that he was lying. The events of the night, to the moment of her plunge with the Texan into the river at the end of the lariat line, stood out in her brain with vivid distinctness. Purdy believed Tex to have drowned. She did not believe it, for she knew that if he had not reached shore, she could not possibly have reached shore. Her brain functioned rapidly. If Tex had survived he would surely come to her rescue. ...
— Prairie Flowers • James B. Hendryx
... uttered with piercing distinctness, have been exchanged, the belated revellers from some club or whist-party or an evening at the theatre in town terminate their sweet sorrow at parting by going their several ways to their different homes, where, no doubt, on retiring to rest they sink at once into blameless slumber, ignorant of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... an unnatural stillness everywhere, amid which the crunching of the dry snow sounded with a distinctness that almost frightened the boy, who was simply going to his uncle Robert's to spend a day or two. But finally Dan was on the main road, where the snow was frozen so hard that his footsteps could not be heard as distinctly, and where the two tracks worn smooth by the runners of the sleighs lay spread ...
— A District Messenger Boy and a Necktie Party • James Otis
... small feet plant themselves afresh and artlessly stumble forward again—the first began long ago, far off, and yet glimmers at me there as out of a thin golden haze, with all the charm, for imagination and memory, of pressing pursuit rewarded, of distinctness in the dimness, of the flush of life in the grey, of the wonder of consciousness in everything; everything having naturally been all the while but the abject little matter of course. Partly doubtless as the effect of a life, now getting to be a tolerably long one, ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... thought of him brought a warmer light to her eyes and a stronger beat to her heart. Every feature of the moonlight scene on the night of the barn-raising when first she saw him stood out with startling distinctness, the new skeleton of the barn gleaming bony and bare against the sky, the dusky forms crowding about, and, sitting upon a barrel across the open moonlit space of the barn floor, the dark-faced lad playing his violin and listening while she sang. ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... Christmas to Come. The ghost of Christmas Past stands by SCROOGE'S bedside, of an uncertain form, though the belt round its body is wondrous light, and a flame shoots up from its head. Yet the figure fluctuates in distinctness, now one part being visible and now another. The spirit seizes the hand of SCROOGE, and they float through the air together. The old man is taken to the haunts of his childhood, and he is conscious of 'a thousand odors ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... violence offered her (I had not so much as laid hand upon her in the grotto), these marks failed to rouse my interest. But—and now I must leap a year in my story—there came a time when both of these facts recurred to my mind with startling distinctness ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... the gallery and nodded to his wife. Then Quisante seemed suddenly to increase his stature by an inch or two and to let loose his arms; his voice was still not loud, but every syllable fell with incisive distinctness on his listener's ears. An old Member of Parliament whispered to an elderly barrister, "He can speak anyhow," and got an assenting nod for answer. And he was looking as he had when he spoke of his Empress among women, as he had when he declared ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... the Cape of Bojador there was a lull in Portuguese discovery, the period from 1434 to 1441 being spent in enterprises of very little distinctness or importance. Indeed, during the latter part of this period, the Prince was fully occupied with the affairs of Portugal. In 1437 he accompanied the unfortunate expedition to Tangier, in which his brother Ferdinand was taken prisoner, who afterward ended his days in slavery to the Moor. In ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Distinctness depends upon several things. First, the voice must be loud enough to be heard without difficulty in every part of the room. To produce this result, one should speak especially to those in the rear, carefully watching to see whether he holds their attention; at the same time ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... shepherd, he now heard, was an Essene, but he lived among the hills, and Joseph remembered the striped shirt, the sheepskin and the long stride. His memory continued to unfold, and he recalled with singular distinctness and pleasure the fine broad brow curving upwards—a noble arch, he said to himself—the eyes distant as stars and the underlying sadness in his voice oftentimes soft and low, but with a cry in it; and he remembered how their eyes met, and it seemed to Joseph ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... consideration of the evidence and from the same, and from such further evidence as shall be taken (in case the court shall deem it necessary to take further evidence), may ascertain and report with distinctness and precision, especially as to time, place, distances, and other circumstances, all the facts touching the opening and prosecuting of the campaign in Georgia and Alabama against the hostile Creek Indians in the year 1836, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... impossible to give an adequate idea of the effect of what D'Annunzio said. His words fell like moulded bronze into the stillness, one by one, with an extraordinary distinctness, an intensity that made them vibrate through the mass of humanity. They were filled with historical allusions that any stranger must miss in part, but that touched the fibers of his hearers. He seized, ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... soundly, spite of the dissolving views of the novel panorama, when above the two voices that kept inviting him to "be seated," there arose, in muffled tones at first, and then with distressing distinctness, a sound of sobbing. It made the old man turn on his pillow even while he slept, for it was the voice of a woman, and he was tender of heart. It seemed in the dream and yet not of it—this awful, suppressed sobbing that disturbed his slumber, but was not quite strong ...
— Moriah's Mourning and Other Half-Hour Sketches • Ruth McEnery Stuart
... world no more wonderful natural scenery is to be found. And the eagle with no unusual effort could see it all in a single day, and see it with a distinctness of sight no man could equal. But keen though its eyesight was and wide though its range, the eagle in all that beautiful region would see not a single beauty. Neither in the sunrise, nor in the snowy mountains, nor ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... Declaration of Independence, was not the white man's equal; that in color, size, intellect, moral development, or social capacity the Negro was not on a par with the white man; but that that instrument did, with tolerable distinctness, consider "all men created equal" with certain inalienable rights, such as "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."[11] Lincoln held that, notwithstanding all these facts, there was no reason why the Negro was not entitled to all the natural rights embraced by the Declaration ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... beheld with all the distinctness of reality the rich, cool, green, unrivalled meads of England. But the vision soon melted away, and I was again in exile. I wept like a child. It was like a beautiful mirage of the desert, or one of those waking dreams of home which have ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... he said, flushing rather diffidently, "that you quite grasped just who you have on board," and then with great distinctness he added: "He is R. G. R. ...
— Our Navy in the War • Lawrence Perry
... of the direct teaching which we may gather from them, particular epochs in history have the charm for us which dramas have— periods when the great actors on the stage of life stand before us with the distinctness with which they appear in the creations of a poet. There have not been many such periods; for to see the past, it is not enough for us to be able to look at it through the eyes of contemporaries; these contemporaries themselves must ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... I therefore begged for a repetition of the words; this time there was no mistake about it, "Steam-pudding or pumpkin-pie?" echoed the maiden, giving me the terrible alternative in her most cutting tones; "Both!" I ejaculated, with equal distinctness, but, I believe, audacity unparalleled since the times of Twist. The female Bumble seemed to reel beneath the shock, and I noticed that after communicating her experience to her fellow waiting-woman, I was ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... Dronne. Usually covered in summer with white or yellow lilies—seldom the two species together—these and other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths show their scalloped or feathery forms with perfect distinctness far below the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... just as Zeena had stood, a lifted lamp in her hand, against the black background of the kitchen. She held the light at the same level, and it drew out with the same distinctness her slim young throat and the brown wrist no bigger than a child's. Then, striking upward, it threw a lustrous fleck on her lips, edged her eyes with velvet shade, and laid a milky whiteness above the black curve of ...
— Ethan Frome • Edith Wharton
... the colorless fluid he offered me, and sinking back on my pillow passed into a deep and tranquil sleep. When I awoke, the silence and darkness of night brooded around me. My mind now was clear as crystal, and every image appeared with startling distinctness. I lay still and calm, revolving what course to pursue; and as I lay and revolved, doubts of the truth of her story grew stronger and stronger. All my husband's love and tenderness rose in remembrance, vindicating his aspersed ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... few thoughts, fancies, if you will, but not unreasonable fancies, on the localities and other characteristics of what we call heaven and hell: in fact, I wish to show their probable realities with somewhat approaching to distinctness. It is manifest that these places must be somewhere; for, more especially of the blest estate, whither did Enoch, and Elijah, and our risen Lord ascend to? what became of these glorified humanities when "the chariot of fire carried up Elijah by a whirlwind ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... may be inferred from all that has been previously narrated. The republic knew its own mind, and had always expressed itself with distinctness. The Spanish Government having at last been brought to disclose its intentions, there was an end to the negotiations for peace. The rupture ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... drive the nail here, boy, will you be satisfied? Upon my word, it's the last place I'll try!" He spoke with what dignity and distinctness he could command, but the effect was lost upon Max, who, also dusty, also bearing upon his person the evidences of manual labor, was crouching over a wood fire, intent upon the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... up in the saddle before him," went on Bunker with painful distinctness, "and gave him a close shave while the horse was bucking, only cutting his throat ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge
... figures that are perfectly identical with magnetic phantoms. All the circumstances connected with these can be reproduced, the vibrating sphere giving the phantom of a magnet with its two poles. We may even exhibit the mutual action of two magnets. The figures show with remarkable distinctness—much more distinct, perhaps, than those that are ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... image and its halo as well may lie within the blind-spot. If now h is to be on the blind-spot, at least one of the end-circles e, e will be there also, whereas shape 4 shows both end-circles of the dumb-bell with perfect distinctness. ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... from the ground; they are open frameworks of twigs, rootlets and weed stalks, through which the eggs can be plainly seen. The eggs are similar to those of the preceding but are usually of a paler color, the markings, therefore showing with greater distinctness. Size ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... horns, and flattered the King of Israel by the symbol that he would push the Syrians till he should consume them (2 Chron. xvii. 10). About the time of the captivity, and in the hands of Ezekiel, this species of parable appears with great distinctness of outline, and considerable fulness of detail. When a frivolous people would not take warning of their danger, the prophet, godly and grave, took a broad flat tile, and sketched on it the outline of a besieged city, and lay on his left ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... called on a dozen houses, more or less, and was pleasantly met everywhere; I remember that; but I don't recall the name of a single one of them! You can see by this, from the distinctness with which I recall everything connected with my visit to Mr. Wiebusch, what a relief ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher |
