"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... termination of the great hall a massive flight of spiral steps, of Egyptian marble, ascends to the fourth story, forming a balcony at each, where ottomans are placed, and from which a fine view of the curvature presents itself, from whence those who have ascended may descry those ascending. On the second story is a corridor, with moulded juttings and fretwork overhead; these are hung with festoons of jasmines and other delicate flowers, extending its whole length, and lighted by globular lamps, ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... prove.... There is a hearty puritanism in the view of human nature which pervades the instrument of 1787.... No men were less revolutionary in spirit than the heroes of the American Revolution. They made a revolution in the name of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights." I descry a bewildered Whig emerging from the third volume with a reverent appreciation of ancestral wisdom, Burke's Reflections, and the eighteen Canons of Dort, and a growing belief in the function of ghosts to make laws ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... terrible; and only by creeping forward between the gusts was it possible to pass among the sand-hills; and now the salt spray flew up from the sea like down, while the ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. It required a practised eye to descry the vessel out in the offing. The vessel was a noble brig. The billows now lifted it over the reef, three or four cables' lengths out of the usual channel. It drove towards the land, struck against the ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... carriages were furnished with lamps, however, and, by the rapid glance they cast upon the objects which we passed, I endeavored in vain to guess at the nature of the country through which we were traveling; but, except the tall shafts of the everlasting pine trees, which still pursued us, I could descry nothing, and resigned myself to the amusing contemplation of the attitudes of my companions, who were all fast asleep. Between twelve and one o'clock the engine stopped, and it was announced to us that ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... lord! thou didst threat me with the cord; Come forth and brave my sword, if you dare!" But he met with no reply, and never could descry The glitter of ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... time. Some one had taken the child—was it Billy?—or he would have fallen. He did fall. The memory pieced itself out bit by bit. He remembered thinking that he had entered the City of Fire literally at last, "the minarets" already he seemed to descry "gleaming vermilion as if they from the fire had issued." It was curious how those old words from Dante had clung in his memory. "Eternal fire that inward burns." He thought he was feeling now in his body what his soul had experienced for long months ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill
... bright lamps began to appear ahead. By stooping, as she clung to one of the hand-straps, Nancy was able to descry the outlines of several big buildings—or a huge building with several wings; she did not know which it was, and ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... weeks previous to her death, she seemed to be in the "land of Beulah," on the "mountains of the shepherds," where, like Bunyan's pilgrim, she could clearly descry the promised land. She had a strong desire to depart and be with Christ, which was far better than even his most intimate earthly visits. Again and again, as I called to see her, she assured me that she had had a fresh ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... day, one of our small barques, named the Gabriel, was sent by our general to bear in with the land, to descry it, where, being on land, they met with the people of the country, which seemed very humane and civilised, and offered to traffic with our men, proffering them fowls and skins for knives and other trifles, whose courtesy caused us to think that ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... and round the castle's steep, I let my glances wander; But cannot from the dizzy keep, Descry it, there or yonder. Oh, he who'd bring it to my sight, Or were he knave or were he knight, Should be my ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... nevertheless of an earlier and more leisured school of politics than the present lively generation which knew not Joseph. They knew other things—the youngsters—strange methods of the city ward; and the philosophic observers, who on all sides think they descry evidence of the corruption of the country by the city, would have glibly explained to the Hon. Seneca Bowers the causes of his inefficiency. He had come to rely more and more on his sprightly deputy, till now, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... shattered. I ran with the leaders, my stature and strength standing me in good stead more than once, and as we twisted into Northwest Street I took a glance at the mob behind me, and great was my anxiety at not being able to descry one ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the lake. You could almost see the rings made by rising trout, and there was enough of you visible at least to send the waterfowl scuttering from the reeds. Beyond that again, you could descry the pale ribbon of the footpath, and guess at the exuberant masses of the peony bushes, their heavy flowers, when they were white, still smouldering with the last of the sunset's fire. But once in the woods you had to feel ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... trooping down the gardens from the gates and walls, over which in the distance he could descry them swarming, and forming a sort of semicircle around the entrance door. The vanguard were led by a drum and a violin. The expressions on the faces of the men were wild and haggard, most wore greasy bonnets of wool, some huge wooden shoes, some hobnailed ones, and over their ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... great clamor until the menacing ship drew close enough for them to descry the dreadful pennant which showed as a sable blot against the evening sky. Two women fainted and others were seized with violent hysteria. Their shrill screams were so distressing that the skipper ordered them to be lugged below and ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... familiar figures. As the late spring days grew warmer and brighter they mainly camped out on the "terrace," amid the array of small tables at the door of the establishment, where Mr. Flack, on the return, could descry them from afar at their post and in the very same postures to which he had appointed them. They complained of no satiety in watching the many-coloured movement of the Parisian streets; and if some of the features in the panorama were base they were ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... immediately submerged "in a weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid soupon of curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite distress, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... hour, another armed troop passed through the streets of St. Petersburg. With drawn swords they surrounded two closely-covered sledges, the mysterious occupants of which no one was allowed to descry! The train made a halt at the same gate through which the overthrown imperial family had just passed. The soldiers surrounded the sledges in close ranks; no one was allowed a glimpse at those who alighted ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... immense tracts, covered with its various species, form impenetrable thickets (chapparals). I distinguish in these thickets the honey-locust, with its long purple legumes, the "algarobo" (carob-tree), and the thorny "mezquite"; and, rising over all the rest, I descry the tall, slender stem of the Fouquiera splendens, with panicles ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... the worst pirates in the world, and with a glass we may all but discern the dreadful barracks in which so many hundreds of our fellow-Christians lie at this moment languishing. Please God we are only visible from the hill-country, and coast tribes may miss to descry us! For our goal lies north and east, and to fail of it would break my heart. But 'twere a high enterprise for England some day to smoke out these robbers, and I know none to which a Christian man ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... of his stay at Rabaeck Mr Wraxall found the church door open, and made these notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... spirit voices boding ill. Like elephants in frantic mood, Vast clouds terrific, sable-hued, Hid all the sky where'er they bore Their load of water mixt with gore. Above, below, around were spread Thick shades of darkness strange and dread, Nor could the wildered glance descry A point or quarter of the sky. Then came o'er heaven a sanguine hue, Though evening's flush not yet was due, While each ill-omened bird that flies Assailed the king with harshest cries. There screamed the vulture and the crane, And the loud jackal shrieked ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... insane, he was hardly accountable for his actions till his immersion in the waves brought him rudely to his senses. After coming to the surface, he looked about for the steamer, and was astounded to see it already so far away that it seemed to him impossible for a boat's crew to descry him in that heaving expanse of ocean. To add to his dismay, the vessel seemed to steam on as though determined to leave him ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... the journey lengthens: wider grows the field, further advance the seekers, and from the top of unexplored headlands, through morning mists, they descry the outlines of countries till then unknown. They must be followed to realms beyond the grave, to the silent domains of the dead, across barren moors and frozen fens, among chill rushes and briars that never blossom, till ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... passed, one after one, Wearing their radiance to the darkened room,—— Surely, new-comers to Oblivion May still descry, in that all-quenching gloom, Rare faces, lovely, lifted and alight, Like tapers ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... tolerably smooth sea. All night Lord Howe had carried a press of sail to keep up with the French fleet, which he rightly conjectured would be doing the same; and as he eagerly looked forth at early dawn, great was his satisfaction to descry them, about six miles off, on the starboard or lee bow of his fleet, still steering in line of battle on the larboard tack. His great fear had been that the French Admiral would weather on him and escape; now he felt sure that he ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... forgotten the title to which Lord Borland of the old time was heir; and now that all doubt as to the identity of the man was over, although, let her strain her vision as she might, she could not, through the deformation of years, descry the youthful visage, she felt that all action on the part of the generation in possession was none the less forestalled and precluded by the presence of one in the house who had evidently long waited his arrival, and had certainly but begun his reprisals. ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... breath and repose themselves, the sun coming round and drawing up the vapors from below, the gross foggy air that was now gathered and condensed above formed in a cloud upon the mountains; and, all the under places being clear and open, the river Crimesus appeared to them again, and they could descry the enemies passing over it, first with their formidable four horse chariots of war, and then ten thousand footmen bearing white shields, whom they guessed to be all Carthaginians, from the splendor of their ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... had made for them and had wandered off. The stock-keeper and two of the men, having ascended the conical hill behind us to try if they could see them from it, reported on their return that they could descry a large lake or expanse of water, which bore about south ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey
... the scripture saith, The word's our ghostly food; food for our faith. Nor are all forced to the same degree In things divine, tho' all exhorted be To the most absolute proficiency That law or duty can to them descry. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Were cried aloud (O son of Bharat!), lo! The Princess marked five of that throng alike In form and garb and visage. There they stood, Each from the next undifferenced, but each Nala's own self;—yet which might Nala be In nowise could that doubting maid descry. Who took her eye seemed Nala while she gazed, Until she looked upon his like; and so Pondered the lovely lady, sore-perplexed, Thinking, "How shall I tell which be the gods, And which is noble Nala?" Deep-distressed And meditative ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... near the sea that it seemed to threaten their advance, but by keeping close to the shore, they held their way, and on the 24th they encamped on a fine stream of water running through a mesa at the foot of a sierra, whence looking across the sea, they could descry Santa Catalina Island. This was San Juan Capistrano, and here they rested on the 25th. On the 28th they reached the Santa Ana river, near the present town of that name; a violent shock of earthquake which they experienced caused them to name the river Jesus ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... breaking; and, in the distance, Walter and his companions could descry the caravan, apparently guarded by a strong force: and gradually the white turbans and green caftans and long spears became more and more distinct. It was clear that, in the event of Salisbury not returning in time, Walter would have to fight against great odds; and the return ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... increased, so did envy and accusation. Many scrupled not to declare, that they sold cheaper than they bought, and therefore must soon come to an end; yet they went on, year by year, in steady and rapid increase.... He already seemed to descry in the distance the possibility of a great wholesale establishment; but this must be reached by little and little. He would not attempt what he could not accomplish. Any sudden bound, therefore, by which he was at once to pass the gulf ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... thousand pounds even as a matter of profit for this world, nay for the mere cash-market of this world! And as a matter of profit not for this world only, but for the other world and all worlds, it outweighs the Bank of England!—Can the sagacious reader descry here, as it were the outmost inconsiderable rock-ledge of a universal rock-foundation, deep once more as the Centre of the World, emerging so, in the experience of this good Quaker, through the Stygian mud-vortexes and general Mother ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... on The battle from the far-off mountain's crest, But in our hearts to bear our fiery blazon, An Olaf's cross upon a mailed breast,— To look afar across the fields of flight, Tho' pent within the mazes of its might,— Beyond the mirk descry one glimmer still Of glory—that's ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen
... ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe. His spear—to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral, were but a wand— He walked with, to support uneasy steps ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... beauty, once descry Her face, to most unknown; Thenceforth like changelings from the sky Must walk their ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... there. Jean knew there were several flocks of Jorth's sheep on the mountain in the care of herders, but he had never thought of them being so far west, more than twenty miles from Chevelon Canyon. His roving eyes could not descry any herders or dogs. But he knew there must be dogs close to that immense flock. And, whatever his cunning, he could not hope to elude the scent and sight of shepherd dogs. It would be best to go back the way he had come, wait for darkness, then cross the canyon and climb out, and work ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... for a time, but the soft rush of the sea at the bows of the yacht. They had left the Thames water some distance behind, and were then in that part of the estuary where it is just possible in mid-channel to descry either coast. The glorious rose of dawn was just beginning to flame in the eastern sky. Lefevre looked about him, and strove to shake off the sensation, which would cling to him, that he was involved in a strange dream. There lay Julius or Hernando Courtney before him; or at least the figure ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban
... of cleavage and the first recognisable bulks at which attention is arrested are in truth those shadowy Fichtean divisions: such are the rude beginnings of logical architecture. In its inability to descry anything definite and fixed, for want of an acquired empirical background and a distinct memory, the mind flounders forward in a dream full of prophecies and wayward identifications. The world possesses as yet in its regard only the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... To me from each poor hut! Filled with content so great, The smell of stubble burnt, delights. Piled high The wagons silent standing take their nightly rest, On distant hills the silver birches I descry, Framed gold by fertile fields the sacred picture blest. Then with a joy unshared save by the vagrant, I see the threshing floor well filled and fragrant, The sloping straw-thatched cottage roofs again, The window ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi
... I behold with tearless eye Or tranquil soul those characters of thine, In which affection doth so brightly shine, And charity's own hand I can descry! Blest soul! that could this earthly strife defy, Thy sweets instilling from thy home divine, Thou wakest in me the tone which once was mine, To sing my rhymes Death's power did long deny. With ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... shop, my dear Lucien," said Etienne, turning to his friend, "you would see an oak counter from some bankrupt wine merchant's sale, and a tallow dip, never snuffed for fear it should burn too quickly, making darkness visible. By that anomalous light you descry rows of empty shelves with some difficulty. An urchin in a blue blouse mounts guard over the emptiness, and blows his fingers, and shuffles his feet, and slaps his chest, like a cabman on the box. Just ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... your ignorant rashness Have passed through the bounds and limits Of this interdicted valley, 'Gainst the edict of the King, Who has publicly commanded None should dare descry the wonder That among these rocks is guarded, Yield at once your arms and lives, Or this pistol, this cold aspic Formed of steel, the penetrating Poison of two balls will scatter, The report and fire of which Will the air ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... dark, but it was light enough to see that the ship had struck upon a reef. Straining their eyes, the alarmed passengers could descry land. Indeed, the reef was an outlying ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... and Homers too; Could read and write in prose and verse, And speak like ***, and build like Pearce.[3] He knew their voices, and their wings, Who smoothest soars, who sweetest sings; Who toils with ill-fledged pens to climb, And who attain'd the true sublime. Their merits he could well descry, He had so exquisite an eye; And when that fail'd to show them clear, He had as exquisite an ear; It chanced as on a day he stray'd Beneath an academic shade, He liked, amidst a thousand throats, The wildness of a Woodlark's[4] notes, And ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... THE WAR.—During the closing years of the life of Pericles, the growing jealousy between Athens and Sparta broke out in the long struggle known as the Peloponnesian War. Pericles had foreseen the coming storm: "I descry war," said he, "lowering from the Peloponnesus." His whole later policy looked toward the preparation of Athens ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... on the canvass we'll Adeline place, With her full and expressive dark eye; Decision of purpose is stamped on that face, And good scholarship too we descry. ...
— The Kings and Queens of England with Other Poems • Mary Ann H. T. Bigelow
... let me take away The mote that's in thine eye, when yet 'tis plain The beam that's in thine own doth still remain? First cast away the beam, thou hypocrite, From thine own eye, so shall thy clearer sight The better be enabled to descry, And pluck the mote out of thy brother's eye. Give not to dogs the things that are divine, Neither cast ye your pearls before the swine Lest that they should their feet them trample under, And turn upon you, and rend you asunder. Ask, and obtain; seek, and ye shall find; do ye Knock, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... Argonauts on the empty Libyan land. And when they came forth and saw that vast level of sand stretching like a mist away into the distance, a deadly fear came over each of them. No spring of water could they descry; no path; no herdsman's cabin; over all that vast land there was silence and dead calm. And one said to the other: "What land is this? Whither have we come? Would that the tempest had overwhelmed us, or would that we had lost the ship and our lives between ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... to cleave so neere unto the skinne, that the most part of the souldiers had their skinnes pierced thorow with them in many partes of their bodies." Yet, giddy with weakness, they dragged themselves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to descry the ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... excusing such little slips and oversights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared with those of the ancients, are like the works of ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... of a man who had suddenly halted in the clearing, half-way between the woods and the crest of the bluff. The snow on the ground enabled the two to descry each other. Winwood saw the man raise ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... morn the Baron climbed the tower, To view afar the Scottish power Encamped on Flodden edge: The white pavilions made a show, Like remnants of the winter snow, Along the dusky ridge. Long Marmion looked: at length his eye Unusual movement might descry Amid the shifting lines: The Scottish host drawn out appears, For flashing on the hedge of spears The eastern sunbeam shines. Their front now deepening, now extending; Their flank inclining, wheeling, bending, Now drawing back, and now descending, The skilful Marmion ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... distinguished savants as I see around me, and to this object they have brought that profundity of learning which is only to be gathered from the perusal of elementary text books, that almost strabismal acuteness of perception which enables them to descry such great scientific truths as can be discovered through an orifice in a barn door, and that wonderful power of discrimination which enables them to distinguish between the seed of the leguminous plant known as the bean, and ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 26, September 24, 1870 • Various
... now across the equator. A few hundred miles more, and the Glory of the South Seas would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama. Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first descry the sails of the Spanish treasure. For once his luck failed him. The wind suddenly fell. Before Drake needed to issue the order, his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for dear life, towing the Golden Hind. Day or night from February twenty-fourth, they ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... tops of the high trees she did descry A little smoke, whose vapour, thin and light, Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky, Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight, That in the same ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... stated that, in the year 1754, a whaler, under the command of a Captain Wilson, was conducted, on the eastern side of Greenland, as far north as to the 83d degree of latitude: the sea was clear of ice, as far as the commander of this ship could descry; but as he did not meet with any whales, and began to apprehend some danger from proceeding onward, he returned; and, in the same year, another whale-fisher sailed as far north as to 84-1/2 degrees. These are the highest northern latitudes which ...
— Travels in North America, From Modern Writers • William Bingley
... valley is gone,—it has vanished like a dream; and a scene of stern, savage, overpowering sublimity rises before you. Alp is piled upon Alp, chasms yawn, torrents growl, jutting rocks threaten; and far over head is the dark pine forest, amid which you can descry, perhaps, the frozen billows of the glacier, or have glimpses of those still higher and drearier regions where winter sits on her eternal throne, and holds undivided sway. Your farther progress is completely barred. So it looks. A cyclopean wall rises from earth to heaven. The gate ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... back. Something gleaming, rustling, glided past the rabbi into the dusky hall. The light of the candle in his hand was not sufficient to allow him to descry it. Before he had time to address her, she had vanished past him and had disappeared through the open door into the room. Shaking his head, the rabbi again ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... latitude, and 163 deg. 52' longitude. On the 23rd of September we crossed this point, and saw indeed birds of a description that rarely fly to any great distance from land; but the reported island itself we were unable to descry even from the mast-head, although the atmosphere was perfectly clear:—so little is the intelligence of masters of trading-vessels ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... misunderstood phrases in the language is "the Spanish Main." To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean Sea. Although Shakespeare in "Othello," makes one of the gentlemen of Cyprus say that he "cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail," and, therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the word to the ocean, "main" really refers to the other element. The Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Stanley, charge! On! Stanley, on! Were the last words of Marmion. If I had been in Stanley's place When Marmion urged him to the chase, In me you quickly would descry What draws a ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie
... even before any competent judges of wit itself. For he overthrows his own pretence, and cannot reasonably claim any interest in wit, who doth thus behave himself: he prejudgeth himself to want wit, who cannot descry fit matter to divert himself or others: he discovereth a great straitness and sterility of good invention, who cannot in all the wide field of things find better subjects of discourse; who knows not how to be ingenious within reasonable compass, but to pick up a sorry conceit ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... was far the first to descry her, for he was sitting with a heavy heart among the wooers dreaming on his good father, if haply he might come somewhence, and make a scattering of the wooers there throughout the palace, and himself get honour and ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... eyes on the object: the distance was so great that it was at first with difficulty that we could distinguish whether it moved or not. A quarter of an hour, however, dispelled all doubts, for within this time it had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, and we could descry a figure seated on an animal of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... difference of ten days in the French and English dates, the New Style having been adopted by the former and not by the latter.] At length, before dawn on the morning of the sixteenth, the sentinels on the Saut au Matelot could descry the slowly moving lights of distant vessels. At daybreak the fleet was in sight. Sail after sail passed the Point of Orleans and glided into the Basin of Quebec. The excited spectators on the rock counted thirty-four of them. Four were large ships, several others were of considerable size, and ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... mayst thou know how hard to stem the tide Of chaste desire, and love's o'erwhelming storm, When by entranc'd affection first descry'd, Beauty and truth, such as in Heaven reside, Appear on ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... mill-pond, the melancholy sound of the ripples, a fair, solitary vessel, gliding across the surface of the water like a woman stealing out to a tryst—it was a picture full of harmony. That mere speck full of movement was a starting-point whence the soul of man could descry the immutable vast of space. Solitude and bustling life, silence and sound, were all brought together in strange abrupt contrast; you could not tell where life, or sound, or silence, and nothingness lay, and no human voice broke the ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... awe, At times, and His immaculate law, Construed in its extremer sense. Jehovah's mild magnipotence Smiles to behold His children play In their own free and childish way, And can His fullest praise descry In the exuberant liberty Of those who, having understood The glory of the Central Good, And how souls ne'er may match or merge, But as they thitherward converge, Take in love's innocent gladness part With infantine, untroubled heart, And faith that, straight ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore
... curve, or what the line, That makes this girl, like lightning, send Looks of our long lamented friend? If Richard liv'd, that sorcery spell Quickly his lion-heart would quell: He never could her glance descry, And any wish'd-for boon deny! She's weeping too!—most strangely wrought By workings of another's thought! She knows no English; yet I speak That language, and her paling cheek With watery floods is overcast.— Fair maid, we talk of times ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... as the ocean wave Draws the raging storm and breaks against a rocky cave. Yet amid this frenzied tumult children often come, Decked in flowers, singing of a half-forgotten home. Soon the darkness round them changes to a vivid glare,— Dimly in the center I descry a lonely pair; Ah, two women,—stern the one and gloomy as the night,— And the other gentle, like the evening in its flight. How familiar to my eyes the two lone figures seemed! With her smiling countenance ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen
... the clear moonlight, and deep silence was over the valley. There were none stirring at so early an hour, but we could descry two or three dark objects down by the river. We knew them to be the sentinels that stood over our captive comrades. The sight was gratifying, for it told us they still lived. They little dreamed, poor fellows! how near ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... that made him look up. Then he saw that he was under a great beech, and the sound seemed to come from somewhere in the top of it—a sound like the pleased cooing of a dove. He looked hard into the branches and their wilderness of fresh leaves, but could descry nothing. Then came a little laugh, and with a preparatory rustling and rustling in its passage, a book—a small ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... left untouched, as for the time being dog had completely taken its place. There was thus no great sign of depression to be noticed when we came back into the tent after finishing our work, and had to while away the time. As I went in, I could descry Wisting a little way off kneeling on the ground, and engaged in the manufacture of cutlets. The dogs stood in a ring round him, and looked on with interest. The north-east wind whistled and howled, the air was thick with driving snow, and Wisting was not ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... lash into the divine frenzy which only the human form can adequately portray. Govind stirs the incense-heap; the dense smoke rolls forth again and shrouds all; there is a feeling of witchery in the air and in the midst of the smoke-pall one can just descry Rama bending low before the Mother. Now he rises, draws the rattan-canes through his hands, and then leans against a palm-tree with eyes tightly closed and hands quivering as if in pain. But hark! there is something toward in the hut, and out of the darkness dash ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... through the ribs and arches of an old gothic window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. The farmer stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was dressed tradition does not say; but that the ladies were all in their smocks: and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... Haseen Aga's, about 1541), and such frequent alarms given to the coast of Spain, that there was a necessity of erecting watch towers at proper distances, and of keeping guards constantly on foot, in order to descry the approach of his squadrons, and to protect the ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... does we can descry the school-master who arrived at the front rather late in life. One needs only to go over the record and mark how often he has reversed himself to detect a certain mental and temperamental instability clearly indicating a lack of fixed or resolute intellectual ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... ships were peaceably lying at anchor in the bay; and the only thing in motion was a row-boat, the heavy monotonous stroke of whose oars rose in the stillness of the morning air. Not a single habitation of man could I descry, nor any vestige of a human being, except that mass of something upon the rock far down beneath be one, and I think it is, for I see the sheep-dog ever returning again and again ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... thought that I was on a wide, whitened Alpine plain. It was night. In front of me, towered on high the rugged peaks of the Matterhorn, imposing in their grandeur; further on, in the illimitable distance, I could descry the rounded, snowcapp'd head of Mont Blanc, rearing itself heavenward, where the pale, treacherous moon kept her silent watch, and from whence the glistening stars twinkled down through an ocean of space, touching frosted particles ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... strength whereof sufficed him forty days: Sometimes that with Elijah he partook, Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. Thus wore out night; and now the harald Lark Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry 280 The Morn's approach, and greet her with his song. As lightly from his grassy couch up rose Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream; Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked. Up to a hill anon his steps he reared, From whose high top to ken the prospect ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... crimes in Love's gay spring, Prompt the youthful Female's sigh; When her roses all take wing, And Matrons sage her plight descry; ...
— An Essay on War, in Blank Verse; Honington Green, a Ballad; The - Culprit, an Elegy; and Other Poems, on Various Subjects • Nathaniel Bloomfield
... up their silken sails On the gilded yard so high, And they in less than two months space Old Denmark could descry. ...
— The Mermaid's Prophecy - and Other Songs Relating to Queen Dagmar • Anonymous
... ruling, Elizabeth loved. She needed a favourite, and Essex was unfortunately marked out for what she wanted. He had Leicester's fascination, without his mean and cruel selfishness. He was as generous, as gallant, as quick to descry all great things in art and life, as Philip Sidney, with more vigour and fitness for active life than Sidney. He had not Raleigh's sad, dark depths of thought, but he had a daring courage equal to Raleigh's, without ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... baron climb'd the tower, To view afar the Scottish power, Encamped on Flodden edge: The white pavilions made a show, Like remnants of the winter snow, Along the dusky ridge. Lord Marmion look'd:—at length his eye Unusual movement might descry. Their ranks inclining, wheeling, bending, Now drawing back, and now descending, The skilful Marmion well could know, They watched the ...
— The Prose Marmion - A Tale of the Scottish Border • Sara D. Jenkins
... the mystery, which now, from the long continuance of the sounds, seemed to denote a desperately contested engagement. It was not 'till after three hours that the cannonading ceased, and then I could descry a thick dark canopy of smoke that hung hazily over one spot in the horizon, as if marking out the scene of the struggle. With what aching, torturing anxiety I burned to know what had happened, and with which ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... would have to be) a decade of happiness beginning now, a decade of lovers of their own choosing, men of delicacy and wisdom, that thirty years from now there would be that poise and sweetness in the world that dreamers descry in far future ages. And here and there would be a beyond-man, indeed; and here and there cosmic, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... the people in Alba whom we can dimly descry around Agricola's fortified frontier between the firths of Forth and Clyde, about 81-82 A.D. When Agricola pushed north of the Forth and Tay he still met men who had considerable knowledge of the art of war. In his battle at Mons Graupius (perhaps at the junction of Isla and Tay), his ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... of Leila's chamber were peculiarly adapted to command a safe nor insufficient view of the progress of the enemy; and, with a beating heart and flushing cheek, the Jewish maiden, deaf to the voices around her, imagined she could already descry amidst the horsemen the lion port and snowy garments of Muza ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the wind was very light at southwest, with a mist and drizzling rain, but by three in the afternoon the two fleets could descry and count each other through ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as the bottles do, From a house you could descry 10 O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue Or green ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... Shark, and Co. Attorneys all as keen and staunch As e'er devoured a client's haunch. And did I not their clerks invite To taste said ven'son hash'd at night? For well I knew that hopeful fry My rising merit would descry, The same litigious course pursue, And when to fish of prey they grew, By love of food and contest led, Would haunt the spot where once they fed. Thus having with due circumspection Formed my professional connexion, My desks with precedents ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... the sky? Shall it in the Evening run When our words and works are done? Or will thy all-surprizing light Break at midnight, When either sleep, or some dark pleasure Possesseth mad man without measure? Or shall these early, fragrant hours Unlock thy bowres? And with their blush of light descry Thy locks crown'd with eternitie? Indeed, it is the only time That with thy glory doth best chime; All now are stirring, ev'ry field Full hymns doth yield; The whole Creation shakes off night, And for thy ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... waters the lower the ground is under them, and the higher they must build to reach the height they reached before. From Carrollton the current rebounds, and swinging over to the other shore strikes it, boiling like a witch's caldron, just above and along the place where you may descry the levee lock of ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... of the men, as he peered through the darkness, trying to descry the hull of the vessel. They had not heard the guns or seen a rocket thrown ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie
... but at this season, and especially at this hour, it was void as the Sahara. After sauntering along for half an hour, now listening to the wind that blew over the sand-hills, and now watching the spiky sparkle of the wintry stars in the sea, he reached a point whence he could descry the windows of Mr Fraser's part of the college. There was no light in Kate's window. She must be in the dining-room with her uncle—or—or—on the pier—with whom? He flung himself on the sand. All the old despair of the night of thunder, of the moonlight ramble, of the last walk together, ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... saucy, "my lord," will salute the best of them.] His talk at the table is like Benjamin's mess, five times to his part, and no argument shuts him out for a quarreller. Of all disgraces he endures not to be nonplussed, and had rather fly for sanctuary to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing, which all. His boldness is beholden to other men's modesty, which rescues him many times from a baffle; yet his face is good armour, and he is dashed out of anything sooner than ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... worked out of Savannah-la-Mar, and, having gained an offing with a light breeze, hoisted all her bits of canvas, even to a light jib-topsail we found on board—chiefly, I think, to impress her late owner, whom we could descry on the shore, watching us. He had steadfastly refused to believe us capable of handling a boat, whereas of our party Plinny and Mr. Goodfellow were the only landlubbers. Miss Belcher could take the helm with ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... forming the Shafah chain to the east, and westward of it, in Madyan Proper, the Jibl el-Tihmah, of which the Shrr is perhaps the culmination. We have noted the accidents of the latter as far as Dumayghah Cove, and now we descry in the offing the misty forms—how small they look!—of the Jebel el-Ward; the Jibl el-Safhah; the two blocks, south of the Wady Hamz, known as the Jibl el-Rl; and their neighbours still included in the Tihmat-Balawyyah. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... Still you are right—it is better to live, even in anguish and distress, than to die in anguish and distress; for he who lives has still a future before him, and is able to strive in it for revenge and compensation for the past. Let us descry our immediate future from the hill yonder, and there decide on ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... temper, massie, large and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his Shoulders like the Moon, whose orb Thro Optick Glass the Tuscan Artist views At Evning, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands, Rivers, or Mountains, on her spotted Globe. His Spear (to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian Hills to be the Mast Of some great Admiral, were but a wand) He walk'd with, to support uneasie Steps Over ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... which evolution is carrying us? For in any of these stages we see organs forming whose use only comes into play long after that stage has been passed; so also, in the new rudimentary forms of thought which are started by every fresh discovery may we not some day be able to descry the heights which we are destined to attain if ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... dream, methought, I went To search out what might there be found; And what the sweet bird's trouble meant, That thus lay fluttering on the ground. I went and peered, and could descry 545 No cause for her distressful cry; But yet for her dear lady's sake I stooped, methought, the dove to take, When lo! I saw a bright green snake Coiled around its wings and neck. 550 Green as the herbs on which it couched, Close by the dove's its head it crouched; And with the dove ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... swordfish have been seen, and if tidings are thus obtained the ship's course is at once laid for the locality where they were last noticed. A man is always stationed at the masthead, where, with the keen eye which practice has given him, he can easily descry the telltale dorsal fins at a distance of two or three miles. When a fish has once been sighted, the watch "sings out," and the vessel is steered directly toward it. The skipper takes his place in the "pulpit" holding the pole in both hands by the small end, and directing ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... them deliberately but savagely away, certainly a very proper punishment for leading me such "a wild-goose chase," such "a dance," over The Desert. In my wrath I was not disheartened. Now, as it was dark, I began to ascend the highest mounds of Desert, from, whose top I might descry the fires of our encampment. I wandered round and round, and on, now over, sand and sand-hills, now climbed up trees, now upon eminences of sand or earth-banks, seeking the highest mounds of the vast plain, to see if any lights were visible, looking ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... temptation to screen its abuses? Will the press always speak the truth, when the truth, if spoken, may be the means of silencing it for the future? Is the truth in no danger, is the watchman under no temptation, when he can neither proclaim the approach of national evils, nor seem to descry them, without the loss of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... have upraised Fraternal banners against a common foe, Against mine enemy, yon crafty villain. Ye sons of Slavs, speedily will I lead Your dread battalions to the longed-for conflict. But soft! Methinks among you I descry ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... workings sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... my soul a temple make Where hills stand up on high; Thither my sadness shall I take And comfort there descry; For every good and noble mount This message doth extend— That evil men must render count ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug. 22, 1917 • Various
... suffering for years the hopelessness of converting his people, the Prophet at last saw an Israel of whom hope might be dared. It was not their distance which lent enchantment to his view for he gives proof that he can descry the dross still among them, despite the furnace through which they have passed.(493) But the banished were without doubt the best of the nation, and now they had "dreed their weird," gone through the fire, been lifted out of the habits ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... went round to the front of the house the elder woman was being led away with her hands bound, and no sooner did the young one descry her than she picked up her skirts and with one wild rush tried to be off and away. I called Spond, my trusty guard, and bid him stay her; and the noble hound dogged her steps till the men could catch her and lead her to my aunt. The lady questioned her closely, deeming that so ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... happy subject, and went not to bed at all, but expected the return of day; and, the more to express cheerfulness to the seamen, he promised that as soon as light did appear, if they would up to the shrouds and top, he that could first descry land should have his reward, and a bottle of good ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... first saw the light; he who annihilated the sea pride of Spain, and dragged the humbled banner of France in triumph at his stem. He was born yonder, towards the west, and of him there is a glorious relic in that old town; in its dark flint guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen; a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and mother-of-pearl. 'Tis the sword of Cordova, won in bloodiest ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking, like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry, but I thought I could recognize the outline ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... a' the toun she trotted by him; A lang half-mile she could descry him; Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, She ran wi' speed: A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... me hours to obey this hint, and I stepped from the window to the deck of a schooner. The meadows had utterly disappeared. Nothing but water glistened in the sunlight. When I reached the mainland I looked back at the house. I could just descry the roof. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... stood even, the tops of its magenta flowers as level as a lake—it was, in fact, a lake of faded crimson lying between shores of luxuriant green. The cart-ruts went right down into the flame-flowers, and she thought she could descry where they rose from them on the other side. Evidently the blossoming had taken place since the last cart had passed over, and no doubt many miles intervened between this and the next dwelling-house. ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... of moldering wall that wander along the canals, and through pastures and vineyards, in the last imbecile stages of dilapidation and decay. There is a lofty bell-tower, also, from which, no doubt, the Torcellani used to descry afar off the devouring hordes of the barbarians on the main-land, and prepare for defense. As their city was never actually invaded, I am at a loss to account for the so-called Throne of Attila, which stands in the grass-grown piazza before the cathedral; ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... we should find ourselves not much nearer what we wanted at the end. O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you,' you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... "I don't reckon you have, miss. Since that race he has been hard to descry. He passed from view hurriedly, so to speak, headed toward the foot-hills, and leaping from crag to crag like the hardy shamrock of ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach |
