"Ken" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... baloo, my dear, Does wee lammy ken that its daddy's no here? Ye're rocking full sweetly on mammy's warm knee, But daddy's ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 1 (of 4) • Various
... I lived on the frontier I came in contact with many persons who had been severely mauled or even crippled for life by grislies; and a number of cases where they killed men outright were also brought under my ken. Generally these accidents, as was natural, occurred to hunters who had roused or ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... very long inquiries by confessing they are beyond our ken? It almost seems so. For, with regard to the testimony afforded by family documents, Dr. Jacobi (whose labours were utilised by Crowe and Cavalcaselle) so conscientiously examined all that is left, that a discovery in this ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... tireless putter-right of men, Our roaring ROOSEVELT, swims into our ken. With clash of cymbals and with roll of drums, Reduced in weight, from far Brazil he comes. What risks were his! The rapids caught his form, Upset his bark and tossed him in the storm. Clutching his trumpet in a fearless hand, The damp explorer struggled ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 17, 1914 • Various
... the Wazirs also spoke with them; and Azadbakht said to them, "O folk, I would have it known to you that there is no doubt with me concerning this your speech proceeding from love and loyal counsel to me, and ye ken that, were I inclined to kill half these folk, I could do them die and this would not be hard to me; so how shall I not slay this youth and he in my power and in the hending of my hand? Indeed, his crime is manifest and he hath incurred death penalty; and I have deferred it only by reason of the ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... contrary, in every instance that came under my ken, gone through that campaign most honorably; had borne the marches, the most trying weather and the greatest straits of hunger, with an elasticity of mind and muscle that had long since astounded and silenced their most active scoffers. Now, in the bitter depths of ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... "But, Ken, don't you see how necessary you are to each other!" said Julia, kneeling before the chair in which her fat godson was seated, and displaying a number of gold chains and bracelets for his amusement. "You have to take a turn at everything—cooking and sewing and caring for old Sweetum ...
— The Story Of Julia Page - Works of Kathleen Norris, Volume V. • Kathleen Norris
... leddy what come jest a dey or too before yoo saled? Well, shees heer yit and I like 'er best ov al. She ain't to say real lively, yoo no, but shese good compny, and ken talk good on most enny sub-jick, and she ain't abuv spending a 'our with old Debby now'n then either. She is thee wun what is riting yure names on this verry letter—ain't ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... asked where was her lady? "Good troth," replied she, in a peculiar dialect, "she's washing your two shirts at the next door, because they have taken an oath against lending out the tub any longer." "My two shirts," cries he in a tone that faltered with confusion, "what does the idiot mean!" "I ken what I mean well enough," replied the other, "she's washing your two shirts at the next door, because—" "Fire and fury! no more of thy stupid explanations," cried he. "Go and inform her we have got company. Were that Scotch hag to be for ever in ...
— English Satires • Various
... "I shall then have on a suitable gown that will stand rough usage; but I beg of you, Ken, stop tucking that rug ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells
... Here, up to the age of seventeen, Columbine had lived and been educated; but the old schoolmistress had worn out at last, and on her death-bed had sent for Mrs. Peck, as being the girl's only remaining relative, her father having drifted out of her ken ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... the scene makes it sublime; for this magnificent view of Kashmir is no petty peep into a half-mile glen, but the full display of a valley sixty miles in breadth and upwards of a hundred miles in length, the whole of which lies beneath "the ken of ...
— Diary of a Pedestrian in Cashmere and Thibet • by William Henry Knight
... still thy crest! Primeval dweller where the wild winds rest, Beyond the ken of mortal e'er to tell What power sustains thee in ...
— Poems • Mary Baker Eddy
... seeming blend of lyricism and naturalism, it will on examination be found, I think, to exist only in plays whose subjects or settings—as in Synge's "Playboy of the Western World," or in Mr. Masefield's "Nan"—are so removed from our ken that we cannot really tell, and therefore do not care, whether an absolute illusion is maintained. The poetry which may and should exist in naturalistic drama, can only be that of perfect rightness ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ye to gang awa thinking I misdoobtit yer word, Francie! I believe onything ye tell me, as far as I think ye ken, but maybe no sae far as ye think ye ken. I believe ye, but I confess I dinna believe in ye—yet. What hae ye ever dune to gie a body ony richt to believe in ye? Ye're a guid rider, and a guid ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... matters off an' settin' dates ahead— To-morrow's sun'll find a hundred thousand of us dead; Don't think because yer feelin well you won't be sick no more— Sometimes the reddest pippin has a worm-hole to the core. Don't let a killin' habit grow upon you soft and still Because you think thet you ken throw it from you at your will— Now's ther time ter quit it when yer feelin' brave an' stout— You've lost ther chance to do it ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... eyes were closed, And I never did see this wondrous man; And the cottar woman she hath deposed He was gone ere his features she could scan." "Ho!" cried the baron, "I watched him then, As I stood on the opposite bank afeared; Of a hundred men I would ken him again, Though he were to doff ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... was, did not think it strange that the wife of a rich notary should wish to inspect a volume costing fifteen francs before deciding on the purchase. Your clever man never condescends to study the middle-class, who escape his ken by this want of attention; and while he is making game of them, they are ...
— Parisians in the Country - The Illustrious Gaudissart, and The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac
... orange-girl in the crowd pushed forward offering her wares, and Nell with a gay laugh bought fruit of her, announcing "I was an orange-girl once!" Brother Copas snorted, and snorted again more loudly when Prebendary Ken refused to admit the naughty ex-orange-girl within his episcopal gates. For the audience applauded the protest almost as effusively, and again clapped like mad when the Merry Monarch took the rebuke like a sportsman, promising ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... prognostication was being followed up beyond her ken, Tilly Ann sat bolt upright in her father's arms, looking round her with a proprietary air, and occasionally patting his cheek with a broad dimpled little palm. She was a tall, well-made child, plump and fair, with rosy cheeks and sturdy ...
— North, South and Over the Sea • M.E. Francis (Mrs. Francis Blundell)
... their arrows, but they glanced off from the soldiers' shields. Others tried clubs and stones, but with no better luck. The lines were still un-bro-ken. The soldiers moved stead-i-ly onward; their shields lapped over one another; their thousand spears looked like so many long bris-tles in the sun-light. What cared they for sticks and stones ...
— Fifty Famous Stories Retold • James Baldwin
... to write you a line, and it is as usual to beg your help in a sort of literary difficulty. I have received a letter dated , "Catherine Hall" from "Ken. Prescot," whom I doubt I have forgotten; for he begins "Dear Sir," and I protest I cannot recollect him, though I ought. He says he wants to send me a few classical discourses, and e speaks with respect of my father, and, by his trembling ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... ridiculous. But Mr. Coleridge stands on much lower ground, and will be known to future times only as a man who overrated and abused his talents—who saw glimpses of that glory which he could not grasp—who presumptuously came forward to officiate as High-Priest at mysteries beyond his ken—and who carried himself as if he had been familiarly admitted into the Penetralia of Nature, when in truth he kept perpetually stumbling ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... women, supposed to be at the end of their resources. Every successful physician and every leader of men knows the truth of these statements. What would have happened in the great war if Marshal Foch had not known that his men possessed powers far beyond their ken, and had not had sublime faith in the ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... summons, and flew high into the air. Balaam, however, surpassed him, and took a path in the air on which Zaliah could not follow, and after the former had soared through five different layers of air, he had quite vanished from Zaliah's ken, who knew not what to do. Phinehas, however, came to his aid. By means of a magical invocation he dispelled the clouds that covered Balaam, and then Zaliah forced Balaam to descend to earth and appear before ...
— THE LEGENDS OF THE JEWS VOLUME III BIBLE TIMES AND CHARACTERS - FROM THE EXODUS TO THE DEATH OF MOSES • BY LOUIS GINZBERG
... the fear was merely transient. When you began to administer those—am I correct in saying?—half-scissor hooks to the body, why, then I felt like some watcher of the skies when a new planet swims into his ken; or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes he stared at ...
— Psmith, Journalist • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... I espied, On a bay mule that did ride. Well away! what fearful ground In that savage part I found. If of art I aught could ken, Well behoved me use it then. More I look'd, the more I deem'd That it wild and desert seem'd: Not a road was there in sight; Not a house and not a wight; Not a bird and not a brute, Not a rill, and not a root; Not an emmet, ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... aether rise the rushing swarms, Gay dancing to the beam their sun-bright forms; And each thin form, still ling'ring on the sight, Trails, as it shoots, a line of silver light. High pois'd on buoyant wing, the thoughtful queen, In gaze attentive, views the varied scene, And soon her far-fetch'd ken discerns below The light laburnum lift her polish'd brow, Wave her green leafy ringlets o'er the glade, And seem to beckon to her friendly shade. Swift as the falcon's sweep, the monarch bends Her ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... still to doubt inclined, He stands suspended, and explores his mind: "What shall I do? unhappy me! who knows But other gods intend me other woes? Whoe'er thou art, I shall not blindly join Thy pleaded reason, but consult with mine: For scarce in ken appears that distant isle Thy voice foretells me shall conclude my toil. Thus then I judge: while yet the planks sustain The wild waves' fury, here I fix'd remain: But, when their texture to the tempest yields, I launch adventurous on ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... is a bamboo basket, Filled with choicest tea, I picked and dried it all myself It comes from Ken ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... never needed tar nor keil To mark her upo' hip or heel, Her crookit horn did as weel To ken her by amo' them a'; She never threaten'd scab nor rot, But keepit aye her ain jog-trot, Baith to the fauld and to the cot, Was never sweir to lead nor caw; Baith to the fauld and ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... and their relations in composition, succeeds as material for inspiration and reproduction the varied spectacle of the external world. With the early romanticists it may be said that for the first time the external world "swims into" the painter's "ken." But, above all, in them the element of personality first appears in French painting with anything like general acceptance and as the characteristic of a group, a school, rather than as an isolated exception here and there, such as Claude or ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... first time from her mistress's chamber. "Ha, ha, ha! how many heirs to Lunnasting are there, think ye? Never mind, good Bertha, 'The prince will hae his ain again! The prince will hae his ain again!' Who is the prince, think ye, Bertha? Ye little ken, but I do; the fool knows more than the wise man, or the wise woman either ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... mine, to-day we stand Where half a century sweeps our ken, Since God, through Lincoln's ready hand, Struck off our ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... elopement without any positive proof of a bona fide marriage preceding it, had shocked him into bitter remorse for having left her, an unprotected waif and stray, to the tender mercies of the world, and now she had passed out of his ken, and he could not but ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... fiercely, that he fairly took the lead in the discussion. Dr. Barclay eyed the hairy dialectician, and thinking it high time to close the debate, gave the animal a hearty push with his foot, and exclaimed in broad Scotch—"Lie still, ye brute; for I am sure ye ken just as little about it as ony o'them." We need hardly add, that this sally was followed by a hearty burst of laughter, in which even the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... out of a shop over the way. She, on her part, was quite unconscious of his attention, and in this was less fortunate than those young women whose very plumes, like those of Juno's bird, are set with Argus eyes whenever possible admirers are within ken. ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... to witness the scene with a bank customer, to whom, as to "the state of his account," it was necessary to administer what Mac's countrymen call a "hearing." Often he had to pity victims of circumstances in the sudden changes of colonial commerce; but "the gods aboon can only ken" to discriminate impartially in such cases, and duty to the bank must be done. First, the humorous twinkle in the eye sensibly abated, but it still lingered there, unless there must be still stronger stages of the ordeal, to bring the business culprit to reason. But when ...
— Personal Recollections of Early Melbourne & Victoria • William Westgarth
... your pardon, Sirs—but I guess frae your manner that ye are no unacquainted wi' the movements o' high life—do you ken how lang the King means to prolong his abode amang our neebors owre the water, his hair-brain'd Irish subjects, whase notions o' loyalty hae excited sae mony preposterously antic exhibitions by that ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... at length. "I'm no saying 'at ye're no a humorist. I ken fine ye're a sarcesticist, but there's other humorists in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, November 15, 1890 • Various
... long discussion about Shakespeare's character, John maintaining that his views of life were gloomy and that he must himself have been an unhappy man. I don't believe a bit of it; no one, I suppose, ever thinks this world, and the life we live in it, absolutely pleasant or good, but the poet's ken, which is as an angel's compared with that of other men, must see more good and beauty, as well as more evil and ugliness, than his short-sighted fellows, and the better elements predominating over the worse (as they do, else the world would fall asunder). ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... hierarchy, and a bigoted adhesion to ancient habits. Those now on the theatre of affairs will enjoy the ineffable happiness of seeing themselves succeeded by sons of a grade of science beyond their own ken. Our sister States will also be repairing to the same fountains of instruction, will bring hither their genius to be kindled at our fire, and will carry back the fraternal affections which, nourished by the same alma mater, will knit us to them by the indissoluble bonds of ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... a mutual friend, completed Kenneth's feeling of ease and confidence, and he was soon talking unrestrainedly about the Latimers—what splendid people they were. How Jim's father was trying to save his (Ken's) father from having a very valuable patent stolen by a ring of rascals in New York City. And how Mr. Latimer's brother who was a large financier on Wall Street, was financing the lawsuit, and the stock-company that was formed on ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... heart would know him amongst a million. He was anticly habited; but he cannot disguise himself from me, God be praised! as I can from him. I will not, however, tempt Providence by remaining within his ken. Tarleton the player himself could not so disguise himself but that, sooner or later, Doboobie would find him out. I must away to-morrow; for, as we stand together, it were death to me to ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... Donald quietly, "a man o' your position should ken better, sir! It is tyrannical and no worthy ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... mortal ken, Assisted by all the arts of men, A moment's time and the space is passed, And heaven's best gifts at ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... have nothing to take me away. If I am not at the castle I shall be at this spot. Good-bye, Frank." He took her in his arms and kissed her,—of course as a brother; and then he clambered up, got on his pony, and rode away. "I dinna ken just what to mak' o' him," said Gowran to his wife. "May be he is her coosin; but coosins are nae that sib that a weedow is to be hailed aboot jist ane as though she were ony quean at a fair." From which it may be inferred that Mr. Gowran had watched the pair as they were descending ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... may be made, to the effect that our Lord does not put aside this prayer of His apostles as if they were seeking an impossible thing. It is never safe, I know, to argue from the silence of Scripture. There may be many reasons for that silence beyond our ken in any given case; but still it does strike one as noteworthy that, when this fond mother and her ambitious sons came with their prayer for pre-eminence in His kingdom, our Lord did not answer what would have been so obvious to answer if it had been true, 'You are asking a thing which cannot ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... man's disposition is composed? Who shall penetrate those complex feelings which go to make a man what his secret consciousness knows himself to be? Not even the man himself can tell the why and wherefore of his passions and motives. It is a matter beyond the human ken. It is a matter which neither science nor learning can tell us of. Verner Lablache was possessed of all that prosperity could give him. He was wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice, and no pleasure which money could buy was beyond his reach. He knew, only too well, that when the moment came, ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum
... HIM," continued the girl, without heeding the rebuff. "It's no' the meestreess' wish that he's keepit here in the wing reserved for married folk, and she's no' sorry for the excuse to pit ye in his place. Ye'll be married yoursel', I'm hearin'. But, I ken ye's nae mair to ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... the wise, women and children as well as male adults. For these it is sufficient that they know certain religious truths within their grasp and conduct themselves according to the laws of goodness and righteousness. A strictly philosophic book would have been beyond their ken and they would have been left without a guide in life. But the more intellectual and the more ambitious are not merely permitted, nay they are obligated to search the Scriptures for the deeper truths found therein, truths akin to the philosophic doctrines found in Greek literature; ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... long since have closed, And our dear Lord in bliss reposed, High above mortal ken, To every ear in every land (Though meek ears only understand) He speaks ...
— The World's Best Poetry Volume IV. • Bliss Carman
... mantle gray he smiled and sate, With ink-horn at his knees and scroll and pen. And took the toll and register'd the freight, 'Mid noise of clattering cranes and strife of men: And all that moved and spoke was in his ken, With lines and hues like Nature's own design'd Deep in the ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... brave as they are beautiful, we still might dance on Sion. Yet have I often thought that, could I pillow this moody brow upon some snowy bosom that were my own, and dwell in the wilderness, far from the sight and ken of man, and all the care and toil and wretchedness that groan and sweat and sigh about me, I might haply lose this deep sensation of overwhelming woe that broods upon by being. No matter! Life is but a dream, and mine must ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... might think of Shira Glen. Whatever they may say of me or mine, they can never deny but I had the right fond heart for my own countryside, and I have fought men for speaking of its pride and poverty—their ignorance, their folly!—for what did they ken of the Highland spirit? I would be lying in the lap of the night, and my Ferrara sword rolled in my plaid as a pillow for my head, fancying myself—all those long wars over, march, siege, and sack—riding on a good horse down ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... he upheld the waning fortunes of the Confederacy as did Hector those of Troy. Last scene of all, at his surrender, his greatness and dignity made of his adversary but a humble accessory; and if departed intelligences be permitted to take ken of the affairs of this world, the soul of Light Horse Harry rejoices that his own eulogy of Washington, "First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen," is now, by the united voice of the South, applied to his ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... the rhyme to porringer? Ken ye the rhyme to porringer? King James the Seventh had ae dochter, And he gave her ...
— The Nursery Rhyme Book • Unknown
... fancied and Stephen D. Leop. Bloom there for a languor he had but was now better, be having dreamed tonight a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair of Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be for a change and Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading her belly, and now on the stools, poor body, two days past her term, the midwives sore put to it and can't deliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop that is a shrewd ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... it was short was certainly not my fault for he had charmed me by the mere amenity of his detachment which, in this case, I cannot help thinking he had carried to excess. He went away from his rooms without leaving a trace. I wondered where he had gone to—but now I know. He vanished from my ken only to drift into this adventure that, unavoidable, waited for him in a world which he persisted in looking upon as a malevolent shadow spinning in the sunlight. Often in the course of years an expressed sentiment, the particular sense of a phrase heard ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... Peel, with his coat so grey? D'ye ken John Peel, at the break of day? D'ye ken John Peel, when he's far, far away, With his hounds and his horn in ...
— Explorers of the Dawn • Mazo de la Roche
... ken," answered the prostrate one, "whether it was a wedding' or a funeral, but whichever it was it was ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... straw, then at another, unable to settle into any consistency of character. After gazing a few moments, Sagestus turned away exclaiming, How are the stately oaks torn up by a tempest, and the bow unstrung, that could force the arrow beyond the ken of the eye! ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... sae happy, Mary! O think how ance we said— Wad ane o' us gae fickle, Or are o' us lie dead,— To feel anither's kisses We wad feign the auld instead, And ken the ither's footsteps In the green ...
— Riley Love-Lyrics • James Whitcomb Riley
... not with the same crankiness as the horse, and always runs better toward night (this is curious, but it is a fact), which a horse seldom does. All the same an automobile is like David Balfour's Scotch advocate: hard at times to ken rightly—most of the time, one may say without undue exaggeration. Often an automobile is as fickle as a stage fairy, or appears to be, but it may be that only your own blind stupidity accounts for the lack of efficiency. Once in awhile an automobile gets uproariously full of spirits ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... abilities in the higher than in the lower rank; since experience teaches him that there is a crowd oftener in one year at Tyburn than on Tower-hill in a century." Mr. Wild with much solemnity rejoined, "That the same capacity which qualifies a mill- ken,[Footnote: A housebreaker.] a bridle-cull,[Footnote: A highwayman.] or a buttock-and-file, [Footnote: A shoplifter. Terms used in the Cant Dictionary.] to arrive at any degree of eminence in his profession, would likewise raise a man in what the world esteem a more honourable calling, I do not deny; ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... rides beside her there, Bends low and calls her very fair, And strives, by pulling down his hair, To hide from my dear lady's ken The grisly gash I gave him, when I cut him down at Camelot; However he strives, he hides it not, That tourney will not be forgot, Besides, it is King Guilbert's lot, Whatever he says she ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... had then built it up in exact accordance with the original. In such cases the spirit face may show as a flat surface instead of a contour. Rigid examination has shown that the existing model was usually outside the ken of the photographer. ...
— The Vital Message • Arthur Conan Doyle
... unwilling to admit that any human experience was beyond her ken, but no! not one single instance of the kind could she remember. She had felt lonely at times, silent and unsociable, but never shy! ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... there is a freedom from commonplace, and a power to hold the interest to the close, which is owing, not to a trivial ingenuity, but to the spell which her personages cast over the reader's mind as soon as they come within his ken.... The humor, which is a marked feature of Miss Wilkins's stories, is of ...
— Young Lucretia and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins
... being each of them both living and non-living, and each of them only a higher development of principles already admitted and largely acted on in the other, then the method of procedure observable in the evolution of the organs whose history is within our ken should throw light upon the evolution of that whose history goes back into so dim a past that we can only know it by way of inference. In the absence of any show of reason to the contrary we should argue from the known to the unknown, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... 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 round, If cottage were in view, sheep-cote, or herd; But cottage, herd, or sheep-cote, none he saw— Only in a bottom saw a pleasant grove, With chaunt of tuneful birds resounding loud. ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... black merino frock, Paisley shawl and ribboned cap on which a few puce-coloured poppies nodded—Mr Philp, with a handful of knitting, and a ball of worsted trailing at his feet— But it is impossible to construct a sentence which would do justice to Mr Philp as he loomed up and swam into ken through 'Bias's awed surmise; and the effort ...
— Hocken and Hunken • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... increasing gusto. To our grandmothers in this land the ruby fruit was given as "love-apples," which, adorning quaint old bureaus, were devoured by dreamy eyes long before canning factories were within the ken of even a Yankee's vision. Now, tomatoes vie with the potato as a general article of food, and one can scarcely visit a quarter of the globe so remote but he will find that the tomato-can has been there ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe
... streets of Portrush when I encountered Andrew himself, and in his own blunt but good-humoured way he remarked, "Young laddie, d'ye think y're gaun to tak the money awa' with ye? Ye've no chance, ye ken." I said nothing in reply, because I felt that he spoke the truth. Next day a heavy gale was blowing, and I started very cautiously. The first hole was on the side of a hill, and when my ball lay a yard from the flag and I had the next ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... filling of which she had a thousand times fondly talked to Harry Esmond: how they never should part; how he should educate her boy; how to be a country clergyman, like saintly George Herbert or pious Dr. Ken, was the happiest and greatest lot in life; how (if he were obstinately bent on it, though, for her part, she owned rather to holding Queen Bess's opinion, that a bishop should have no wife, and if not a bishop why a clergyman?) she would find a good ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... self-possession of Bishopriggs himself was shaken by the startling directness of that attack on it. His glib tongue was paralyzed for the moment. "I dinna ken what ye're drivin' at," he said, after an interval, with a sullen consciousness that he had been all but tricked ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... what she is doing, neither do I know, nor any man. But the impulse that drives her, so mean and poor to the critic's eye, has perhaps more significance in the eye of God; and the optimism of this continent, so seeming-frivolous, is justified, may be, by reason lying beyond its ken. ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... thought interact upon and help one another, as any other mechanical appliances interact on and help the invention that first hit upon them; but reason or thought, for the most part, flies along over the heads of words, working its own mysterious way in paths that are beyond our ken, though whether some of our departmental personalities are as unconscious of what is passing, as that central government is which we alone dub with the name of "we" or "us," is a point on which ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... for clearer ken design'd, The dim-discover'd tracts of mind; Truths which, from action's paths retired, My silent search in vain required! No more my sail that deep explores; 5 No more I search those magic shores; What ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... or larnin' uv any kind allowed. You better not be ketched wid a book in yore han's. Dat wus sumptin dey would git you fer. I ken read an' write a little but I learned since de surrender. My mother tole me 'bout dat bein' 'ginst de rules of de white folks. I 'members it while I wus only a little gal. When de ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... saw you, like our sires, For whom your face was Freedom's face, Nor know what office-tapes and wires With such strong cords may interlace; We know not if the statesmen then Were fashioned as the sort we see, We know that not under your ken Did ...
— Poems • G.K. Chesterton
... in my brain a crash Of heavy thunder, that I shook myself, As one by main force roused. Risen upright, My rested eyes I moved around, and search'd, With fixed ken, to know what place it was Wherein I stood. For certain, on the brink I found me of the lamentable vale, The dread abyss, that joins a thundrous sound Of plaints innumerable. Dark and deep, And thick with clouds o'erspread, mine eye in vain Explored its bottom, nor could aught discern. ...
— Song and Legend From the Middle Ages • William D. McClintock and Porter Lander McClintock
... skipper, a tall, raw-boned Scot, as he eyed the podgy German Leutnant with grim contempt. "But d'ye ken yon?" ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... to a select company of believers. They teach the passive virtues—patience, resignation, long-suffering, and so far realise the painter's ideal of earth as the portal to heaven. Certain spheres were beyond his ken. The marriage of Cana did not for him flow with the wine of gladness; he had no fellowship with the nuptial banquet as painted by Veronese. His pencil shunned the Song of Miriam and the Dance of the Daughter of Herodias; it could not pass, like ...
— Overbeck • J. Beavington Atkinson
... salvation, for love, for fulfillment. No denial, no doubt marred the white blaze of her realization. From the instant that she had looked up into Jean Isbel's dark face she had loved him. Only she had not known. She bowed now, and bent, and humbly quivered under the mastery of something beyond her ken. Thought clung to the beginnings of her romance—to the three times she had seen him. Every look, every word, every act of his returned to her now in the light of the truth. Love at first sight! He had sworn it, bitterly, eloquently, scornful of her doubts. And now a blind, ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... conquered Nature had laid her hoards at their feet, their restless longings would not be satisfied. Brave young spirits, with the dew of their youth fresh upon them, set out in quest of a land beyond their ken. Over the mountains, across the seas, through the forests, there came to the ear of the dreaming girl the measured tramp of marching men, the softer footfalls of loving women, the pattering of the feet of little children. Many ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... basket and the knapsack, or whether they ever met in upper air, I do not know. If they but float away and stay away from ken of mortal ...
— A Chosen Few - Short Stories • Frank R. Stockton
... shadow. Aileen was in the music-room strumming indifferently. She was thinking of times past—Lynde, from whom she had not heard in half a year; Watson Skeet, the sculptor, who was also out of her ken at present. When Cowperwood was in the city and in the house she was accustomed from habit to remain indoors or near. So great is the influence of past customs of devotion that they linger long past the hour when the ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... moving an inch from his groove in search of the girl whose unhappiness was yet always at the back of his thoughts. Now he was shaken with astonished self-reproach at his having allowed her to drift perhaps irretrievably beyond his ken. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... not much better than you ken ride," retorted Robin. This was a crusher in that company, where riding stood high above any literary attainment; for the other had been a ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page
... the kind,' rejoined Mr. Sikes. 'The Artful's a deal too artful, and would forget to come, or lose his way, or get dodged by traps and so be perwented, or anything for an excuse, if you put him up to it. Nancy shall go to the ken and fetch it, to make all sure; and I'll lie down and have ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... one way, however, in which speculative philosophy has indirectly proved the aid of religion. It has strengthened and quickened the mental action of the people, and they have through its agency, been able to look with clearer ken upon the truths of Scripture. However, after it has reached the goal of its task, we see so little that is truly valuable and worth preserving, that we are compelled to fall back upon the Christian ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... name, first one way, then another; once, he approached and came quite near her, but he changed his direction, to pass immediately out of her ken. ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte
... literary men, Which Georgian writers used to drink like fishes, When cocoa had not swum into their ken And coffee failed to satisfy all wishes; When tea was served to monarchs of the pen, Like JOHNSON and his coterie, in "dishes," And came exclusively from far Cathay— See "China's fragrant herb" ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various
... ken John Peel, with his coat so gay? D'ye ken John Peel at the break of day? D'ye ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... sand, over which it darted like a startled jackrabbit, kicking up behind it a tiny trail of yellow dust. Stone and dust diminished in size, until some of the party said the stone had stopped. That was because they could not see it any longer. It had vanished into the distance beyond their ken. Others saw it rolling farther on—I know I did; and it is my firm conviction that that stone is ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London
... B. & I., all the time," he grumbled. "I'm sick of the name of the damned things. And to tell you the truth, Ken, when a client asks for my advice about them, I don't ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... up and down on the roadside opposite to the hotel by the Park railings. That he was walking up and down Dolores became conscious of through the fact that, having half unconsciously seen him once float into her ken, she noted him again, with some slight surprise, and was aware of him yet a third time with still greater surprise. The man paced slowly up and down on what appeared to be a lengthy beat, for Dolores mentally calculated that something like a minute must have elapsed between each glimpse ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... cometh back;—so blithe, so bright, It hurries to my eager ken. As though but one short winter's night Had darkened o'er the world since then. It is the same clear dazzling scene;— Perhaps the grass is scarce as green; Perhaps the river's troubled voice Doth not so ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 558, July 21, 1832 • Various
... chiefe, hath been honor'd with a sword and "rise Sir Richard" (who is but my father in lawe[226] to a[nd?] by a former wife): for Mr. Underwitt, whome to salute you humbled your Cloth a gold Dublet, I ken not the wight. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... Ki Pak to his son as he entered the room, "is Wang Ken. I have engaged him to be your teacher, or tutor. The time has come for you to begin to learn to read and to cipher and to study the history and ...
— Our Little Korean Cousin • H. Lee M. Pike
... fancies grew rife Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep Fed in silence—above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep; And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie 'Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip 'twixt the hill and the sky: And I laughed—"Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks, Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks, Dream the life I am never ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... Creates, preserves, and regulates the whole. That Sire supreme must roll his radiant eye Round the wide earth and thro the boundless sky; That all their habitants, their gods and men, May rise unveil'd beneath his careful ken. Could thy dark fiend, that hides his blind abode, And cauldrons in his cave that fiery flood, Yield the rich fruits that distant nations find? Or praise or punish or behold mankind? But when my God, resurging ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... capt'n he is our kimmander, There's the bos'n and all the ship's crew, There's the married men as well as the single, Ken-ows what we poor sailors ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, August 7, 1841 • Various
... things make on our senses; furthermore our knowledge is limited to the finite, we have no knowledge of the Infinite, the Absolute. Schiller, not satisfied with the mere fact, in this poem expresses the conviction that there must be an ethical reason for this necessity, a reason that is beyond our ken. Compare also the beautiful words of Lessing: "Nicht die Wahrheit, in deren Besitz irgend ein Mensch ist, oder zu sein vermeinet, sondern die aufrichtige Muehe, die er angewandt hat, hinter die Wahrheit ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... at her—a sudden, rare smile of extraordinary sweetness. Her intention was so unmistakable—so touchingly ingenious, as are all youth's attempts to heal a bitterness that lies beyond its ken. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... thus, of mighty ken and plan, The all-round antiquarian Pursues his happy ministry; And on the world's progressive track Advances, always going ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... that the Place of Pilgrimage was inaugurated, and that a big star of hope swam into his ken. I had told him about Oxford before, but there had then seemed no sort of path open for him to go up thither. Now, in the midst of his schooldays, there opened out to him a path that he thought he might climb. It was then in the next long holiday time that he took his path, ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... on, as if talking rather to himself than to the others. "To me the Purpose of Life is self-consciousness, the total Purpose I mean. God seeking to know God. Eternal Force one immeasurable Thought. Humanity the developing consciousness of the little fragment of the universe within our ken. Art, the expression of that consciousness, the outward manifestation of the effort to solve the problem of Life. Genius, the power of expressing in some way or other what many thought but could not articulate. I do not mean to be dogmatic. Words fail us to define our meaning when we speak of these ...
— The Workingman's Paradise - An Australian Labour Novel • John Miller
... desirous of humbling the celestials and Asuras by fomenting quarrels among them, conversant with the sciences of war and treaty, proficient in drawing conclusions by judging of things not within direct ken, as also in the six sciences of treaty, war, military campaigns, maintenance of posts against the enemy and stratagems by ambuscades and reserves. He was a thorough master of every branch of learning, fond of war and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... the formulation of the Gods of Greece; who can link together the Old and the New, Earth and Heaven, and yield to the known worlds of thought and physical existence the mystery of the Unknown—of the Old World in its youth, and of Worlds beyond our ken!" ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... haunts and homes we know, whom we could probably find almost any day in the week if we were set to do it, yet from whom we are really farther than we are from the dead, and from those who have gone out of our ken? Yes, there are and must be such; and therein lies the sadness of old School memories. Yet of these our old comrades, from whom more than time and space separate us, there are some by whose sides we can feel sure that we shall stand again when time shall be no more. ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
... "Don't you go for to say my Peter's slow at his work. It's little ye ken how hard he's at it, nicht an' day, slavin' for you an' the doctor, miss; and he's nane sae auld neither, an' ye needna be ca'in' him an auld rheumaticky body that canna climb ...
— Hunter's Marjory - A Story for Girls • Margaret Bruce Clarke
... godliness proclaim, And call all evil by its name, Nought soften down, attempt no quibble, Nought polish up, nought vainly scribble. The world shall stand before thee, then, As seen by Albert Durer's ken, In manliness and changeless life, In inward strength, with firmness rife. Fair Nature's Genius by the hand Shall lead thee on through every land, Teach thee each different life to scan, Show thee the wondrous ways of man, His shifts, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... they have a right to be implicitly believed and obeyed. What majesty of authority, for example, shines through Paul's discussion of the doctrine of the resurrection, 1 Cor., ch. 15, where he announces truths that lie wholly beyond the ken of human reason. "Behold," says he, "I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed," as one who has perfect assurance that he speaks from God. The same tone of certainty runs through ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... pang, that she had set foot in the midst of some domestic tragedy, the like of which had never come within her ken before. She was conscious of a little recoil from it, such as is natural to a young girl who has not learnt by experience the meaning of sorrow; but the recoil was followed by a rush of that sympathy for which she had always shown a great capacity. ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... Gordon, after much talk on the subject of fomentations and bandages. The old woman hesitated to tell, but after a little pressing she said, in half apologetic tone,—"Weel, mem, it was na Ivor's fau't, but the day before yesterday he cam in—fou—ye ken he's fond o' his glass, mem, an' he was swingin' aboot his airms, poor falla, an' withoot the least intention, his haund cam doon wi' sik a ding on my heed that knockit me doon. But he kens na aboot it, so ye'll no speak o't to him—or ...
— The Eagle Cliff • R.M. Ballantyne
... William Morris, the poet and lover of harmony, should have selected this locality for a home is quite beyond the average ken. Certainly it mystified the fashionable literary world of London, with whom he never kept goose-step, but that still kept track of him—for fashion has a way of patronizing genius—and some of his old friends wrote him asking where Hammersmith ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... experience makes it appear; For instance, lately on the borders, Where there was nought but theft and murders, Rapine, cheating, and resetting, Slight of hand, fortunes getting, Their designation, as ye ken, Was all along the Tacking Men. Now, rebels more prevails with words, Then drawgoons does with guns and swords, So that their bare preaching now Makes the rush-bush keep the cow; Better than Scots or English kings, Could ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott
... the mammoth reptiles and beasts which lived before the ken of man are numerous in the fascinating West I know ...
— Evening Round Up - More Good Stuff Like Pep • William Crosbie Hunter
... I had given myself credit for possessing, I continued to survey the scene. I looked out again for my boat, thinking it possible that the current might drive her back to the rock, but she had been carried far beyond my ken. This made my heart sick. Knowing, however, that my life depended very much on my keeping up my courage, I endeavoured to muster all I possessed. I thought if I could climb up to the top of the rock ...
— Dick Cheveley - His Adventures and Misadventures • W. H. G. Kingston
... "You ken bet I'll not," said the matronly female, who stood half hidden in the humble doorway, from which Dr. Belford had just made his exit. "Lawks, doctor dear, I'll have an eye to him, jest as if he was my very own. It'ud not be me 'at would neglec' any Christian that ...
— Honor Edgeworth • Vera
... "Dinna ye ken I'm listening?" impatiently retorted the other, with a fierce frown. "Gang your way, mon," he added, churlishly, as he ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... or a grateful coolness swept their cheeks and hair when the tranquil heights around them were moved to slowly respond. Odors from invisible bay and laurel sometimes filled the air; the incense of some rare and remoter cultivated meadow beyond their ken, or the strong germinating breath of leagues of wild oats, that had yellowed the upland by day. In the silence and shadow, their voices took upon themselves, almost without their volition, a far-off confidential ...
— A Phyllis of the Sierras • Bret Harte
... Macadams and the Howards, to see their felicity, she ever declined the same, saying—"No! I have been long out of the world, or rather, I have never been in it; my ways are not as theirs; and although I ken their hearts would be glad to be kind to me, I might fash their servants, or their friends might think me unlike other folk, by which, instead of causing pleasure, mortification might ensue; so I will remain in my own house, trusting that, when ...
— The Annals of the Parish • John Galt
... is a rake, frae England he's come; The Scots dinna ken his extraction ava; He keeps up his misses, his landlord he duns, That's fast drawen' the lands o' Gight awa'. O ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... of resolutions. Religion is an endeavour to be numerous and communicative. We awe the impenitent with crowds, convert the world with boards, and save the lost with delegates; and how Jesus of Nazareth could have done so great a work without being on a committee is beyond our ken. What Socrates and Solomon would have come to if they had only had the advantage of conventions it would be hard to say; but in these days, when the excursion train is applied to wisdom; when, having little ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... Let me tell him, laddie. He never ken'd such a thing on board a man-o'-war. D'ye ken the national dish, ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... keel, wi' Dick Slavers an' Matt, An' the Mansion House stairs we were just alongside, When we a' three see'd somethin', but didn't ken what, That was splashin' and labberin', aboot i' the tide. 'It's a fluiker,' ki Dick; 'No,' ki Matt, 'its owre big, It luik'd mair like a skyet when aw furst seed it rise;' Kiv aw—for aw'd getten a gliff o' the wig— 'Ods marcy! wey, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... hands that have bound me to the mast of your destiny. I cannot go back, I must go forward: now I must keep on loving you or be shipwrecked. I did not know that this was in me, this tide of love, this current of devotion. Destiny plays me beyond my ken, beyond my dreams. "O Cithoeron!" Turn from me now—or never, O my love! Loose me from the mast, and let the storm and wave wash me out into the sea of your forgetfulness now—or never!... But keep me, keep me, if your love is great enough, if I bring you ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... opening first one door, and then the other, "that is, ef they ain' gone. I mighty 'feared they gone. I seen 'em goin' out the back way about a little while befo' you all come,—but I thought they might 'a' come back. Mister, ken y' all teck me 'long with you when you go?" she asked the officer, in a low voice. "I ...
— Two Little Confederates • Thomas Nelson Page
... gliding off, the oars dipping, as he spoke. How swiftly it shot from his ken, flashing in and out among the yachts, where the lamps were burning dimly in that clear radiance ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... the Bengali; "such escapade, if successful, is beyond my ken. There have been attempts; cui bono? Nobody is an anna the better. Nay, the last state of such misguided men is even worse; they die suffering ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... brought to administer the popish sacraments of the host and extreme unction, absolution and the eucharist. The host sticking in his throat, water was brought instead of wine to wash it down. Afterward bishop Ken came and pronounced another absolution upon him; and here observe, that he who was justly excommunicated by a lawful minister of the church of Scotland for his gross perjury, contempt of God and religion, lechery, treachery, covenant ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... simple as that," said Andrew, and then he seemed to be rather at a loss to say what it was. "I dinna ken," he continued presently with a grave face, "whether you've noticed that I'm a gey queer deevil? Losh, I think I'm the ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... the stunned astonishment of his Oxford Street experiences may have returned to him, for he had evidently counted on Kemp's co-operation in his brutal dream of a terrorised world. At any rate he vanished from human ken about midday, and no living witness can tell what he did until about half-past two. It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, for humanity, but for him ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... the field when the dew was lyin', My ain love stood whaur the road an' the mill-lade met, An it seemed to me that the rowin' wheel was cryin', "Forgi'e—forget, An turn, man, turn, for ye ken that ye lo'e ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob
... He knew that these were the voices of "our feathered songsters," that this was "a joyous chorus" greeting the day. He knew that a wakeful bishop ought to bless these happy creatures, and join with them by reciting Ken's morning hymn. He made an effort that was more than half habit, to repeat and he repeated with a scowling face and the voice of ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... of effect which will follow the given mechanical impulse, yet the quantity of effect—the height to which the stone will ascend, and the rapidity with which it will fall—is something utterly beyond his ken. The servant-girl has no need of chemistry to teach her, that, when the match is applied, the fire will burn and smoke ascend the chimney; but she is far from being able to predict the proportional weights of oxygen and carbon which will unite, the volume of the gases which are ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was the debate, Beside the council fire of those red men! With language burning as his sense of hate; With gesture just, with eye of keenest ken; With illustration simple, but profound, Drawn from the sky above him, or the ground Beneath his feet; and with unfalt'ring zeal, He spoke from a warm heart and ...
— The Emigrant - or Reflections While Descending the Ohio • Frederick William Thomas |
