"Compass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this disaster, resolved to take more care of himself for the future; and having lying by him the long-boat of our English ship he had taken, he resolved he would not go a-fishing any more without a compass and some provision; so he ordered the carpenter of his ship, who also was an English slave, to build a little state-room, or cabin, in the middle of the long-boat, like that of a barge, with a place to stand behind it to steer and haul ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... highest praise, they presented to English readers but a limited number of Plutarch's biographies. Mr. Clough says, justly, in his Preface, that his own work would not have been needed, had not Mr. Long confined his translations within so narrow a compass.] ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... as if it were not in her power to sing out of tune." The celebrated flute-player Quantz, instructor of Frederick II., also gave Dr. Burney the following account of Faustina's artistic qualities: "Faustina had a mezzo-soprano voice, that was less clear than penetrating. Her compass now was only from B flat to G in alt; but after this time she extended its limits downward. She possessed what the Italians call un cantar granito; her execution was articulate and brilliant. She had a fluent tongue for pronouncing ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... candidly admitted that the American poet has not the elegance, special melody, nor recherche aroma of the accepted poets of Europe or his own country; but his compass and general harmony are infinitely greater. The sweetness and spice, the poetic ennui, the tender longings, the exquisite art-finish of those choice poets are mainly unseen and unmet in him,—perhaps because he cannot achieve them, more likely because he disdains ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Praxiteles, Holman Hunt, and Mr. Whistler pale away into shadows of shadows in presence of the indications of love she receives from that baby. And this intense single-minded love elevates her within its own compass. She sees in that baby's eyes the light that never was on sea or land, the consecration and the mother's dream. She broods over it till she effects for it in her own maternal fancy an apotheosis; and round its image in her heart there glows a bright halo of poetry. She sees through ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... a sea-turn. The wind smelt salty and damp, and the fog was creeping in. It was not more than a mile distant. We all knew enough about fogs not to want to be out in the bay in one, without a compass, and when it was nearly sunset. So we hurried down to the boat, ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... produced a small compass and handed it to Charley. "Steer due west as near as you ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... Saladin.... A work full of "mountain-mirth," mischievous as Puck and lightsome as Ariel.... We know not whether to admire most the genial, fresh, and discursive concinnity of the author, or his playful fancy, weird imagination, and compass of style, at once both objective and subjective.... We might indulge in some criticisms, but, were the author other than he is, he would be a different being. As it is, he has a wonderful pose, which flits from flower to flower, and bears the reader irresistibly along ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... four days. For I know all the earth doth not yield the like confluence of streams and branches, the one crossing the other so many times, and all so fair and large, and so like one to another, as no man can tell which to take: and if we went by the sun or compass, hoping thereby to go directly one way or other, yet that way we were also carried in a circle amongst multitudes of islands, and every island so bordered with high trees as no man could see any further than the breadth of the river, or length of the breach. But this ...
— The Discovery of Guiana • Sir Walter Raleigh
... we ratched past the island until it was left a couple of miles astern of us, when we tacked ship, and brought the land on our lee beam. Then, steering full and by, half an hour's sailing sufficed to bring the summit of the hill to the required compass-bearing of south-east, half-south, whereupon we bore dead away for it, and, leaving O'Gorman in charge of the deck, I sprang into the fore rigging and mounted to the crosstrees, from which commanding elevation ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... further all that day, or the next night, of the felucca, although Tom never went below for a single watch even when his time for relief came—except for meals, of course—remaining on deck and keeping a sharp lookout towards every point of the compass, not only during his own time of duty but in that of the chief mate as well, despite the latter's broad hints and insulting remarks that his absence would be more agreeable than his company. So, when the following day likewise ...
— Picked up at Sea - The Gold Miners of Minturne Creek • J.C. Hutcheson
... across the road he had spoken the one word "Hazel!" louder than an Indian would have done. Then he stood beside her. Wych Hazel herself—bareheaded, without gloves, her little white evening cloak not around her shoulders, but rolled up into the smallest possible compass, and held down by her side. She had been standing in the deepest depth of shadow under a low drooping hemlock, and now came out to meet him. But she seemed to have no more words to give. That something had happened, was very clear. Rollo's first move was to take the girl's hand, and the ...
— Wych Hazel • Susan and Anna Warner
... blossom. He began by spouting little recitations, and gradually practised until he could take his part in amateur stage performances. As he put it, "I found that the majesty of Coriolanus and the humour of Paul Pry were alike within my compass, and I impartially included both these celebrated parts in my repertoire." Nothing ever diverts a stage-struck youth from his fell purpose unless he is absolutely pelted off the boards. Devine loathed his office; he hated the sight of a business letter, and he finally appeared ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out ev'n ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... out 6 miles (geo.) and then camped. I think they had had enough of leading. We passed them, Bowers and I ahead on ski. We steered with compass, the drifting snow across our ski, and occasional glimpse of south-easterly sastrugi under them, till the sun showed dimly for the last hour or so. The whole weather conditions seem thoroughly disturbed, and ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... like a narrow gorge cold with perpetual shadow is yet their shortest path upward to the high slopes lit with sunlight. Let them enter it without fear and endure its shadows a while, for by other ways they will fetch a longer compass and ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... brave little berry-brown man At the opposite side of the earth; Of the White, and the Black, and the Tan, He's the smallest in compass and girth. O! he's little, and lively, and Tan, And he's showing the world what he's worth. For his nation is born, and its birth Is for hardihood, courage, and sand, So you take off your cap To the brave little Jap Who fights ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... have had the coarse-growing, yellow-flowered, daisy-like PRAIRIE ROSIN-WEED (Silphium laciniatum) in mind when he wrote this stanza of "Evangeline," his lines apply with more exactness to the delicate prickly lettuce, our eastern compass plant. Not until 1895 did Professor J. C. Arthur discover that when the garden lettuce is allowed to flower, its stem leaves also exhibit polarity. The great lower leaves of the rosin-weed, which stand nearly vertical, with their faces ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... with blows. But the dread lest Chia Lien should slip out of the room, induced her to post herself in such a way as to obstruct the doorway. "What a fine wench!" she shouted out abusingly. "You make a paramour of your mistress' husband, and then you wish to compass your master's wife's death, for P'ing Erh to transfer her quarters in here! You base hirelings! You're all of the same stamp, thoroughly jealous of me; you try to cajole me ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... them. They never mean what they say, because they don't understand the use of words. They are generally half impudent and half timid. When in love they do not at all understand what has befallen them. What they want they try to compass as a cow does when it stands stretching out its head towards a stack of hay which it cannot reach. Indeed there is no such thing as a young man, for a man is not really a man till he is middle-aged. But take them at their worst they are a deal too good for us, for they become men some day, ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... "If ye could compass it to make your sister friendly, then might come to these lands the gold of Nibelung. Of this might ye win great store, an' the queen would be ...
— The Nibelungenlied • Unknown
... referred to was Bory de Saint-Vincent, who wrote the Voyage dans les quatre principales iles des mers d'Afrique, Paris 1804.) He related, on the alleged authority of an officer, that, being in want of a magnetic needle to replace one belonging to a compass which had been injured, he applied to the commodore, who had several in a drawer in his cabin. Baudin found one, but as it was somewhat rusty, the officer feared that the magnetic properties of the steel would be impaired. Baudin expressed his regret, and said: "Everything has ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... our sail as much as possible, and Martin, as the most experienced, took the helm. The night became darker and darker. We had no compass, and no land could be seen. Still, supposing that the wind was now remaining steady, we stood on, our stout boat riding buoyantly over the increasing seas. Martin at length expressed his fear that the wind had gone back to its old quarter, ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... surely a complete and absolute change. You agree with me in my definition?" Mr. Scogan glanced from face to face round the table; his sharp nose moved in a series of rapid jerks through all the points of the compass. There was no sign of dissent; he continued: "A complete and absolute change; very well. But isn't a complete and absolute change precisely the thing we can never have—never, in the very nature of things?" Mr. Scogan once more looked ...
— Crome Yellow • Aldous Huxley
... achievements were as follows: he reduced all Gaul, bounded by the Pyrenean forest, the Alps, mount Gebenna, and the two rivers, the Rhine and the Rhone, and being about three thousand two hundred miles in compass, into the form of a province, excepting only the nations in alliance with the republic, and such as had merited his favour; imposing upon this new acquisition an annual tribute of forty millions of sesterces. He was the first of the Romans who, crossing the Rhine ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... in a close room, the former will lose only eleven parts in the same time that the latter will dissipate twenty parts." The superior heat-retaining capacity which a clean tin kettle possesses over one that has been allowed to collect smoke and soot, lies within the compass ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... Masrur, "Take him up," returned to the palace. Accordingly, the Eunuch took up Abu al-Hasan and carrying him to the palace of the Caliphate, set him down before Al-Rashid, who bade the slaves and slave-girls compass him about, whilst he himself hid in a place where Abu al-Hasan could not see him. Then he commanded one of the hand-maidens to take the lute and strike it over the Wag's head, whilst the rest smote upon their instruments. So they played and sang, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... made its way to the low, shedlike eating-house with a pre-breakfast solemnity bordering on sulkiness. Not a petticoat was in sight to offset the spurs and sombreros that filed into breakfast from every point in the compass, prepared to eat primitively, joke broadly, and quarrel speedily if that sensitive and often inconsistent something they called honor ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... replied, with every appearance of having fully considered the matter, "I have merely felt about it. In my opinion love is a matter of sentiment; one steers by landmarks and makes port; take compass and chart and you ...
— Married • August Strindberg
... she; and I found her immoveably set on taking this journey speedily. She was getting together all the money she could, and her jewels too, intending to turn them into money if needful; and she was packing some clothes in very small compass, so as to carry ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling
... every wise statesman keeps sound and general political principles in his eye, as the pilot looks upon his compass to discover his true course. But this true course cannot always be followed out straight and diametrically; it must be altered from time to time, nay sometimes apparently abandoned, on account of shoals, breakers, and headlands, ...
— Political Pamphlets • George Saintsbury
... way to the promontory: but according to the winde, they draw always as neere South as they can to put themselues in the latitude of the point, which is 35 degrees and an halfe, and then they take their course towards the East, and so compass the point. But the winde serued vs so, that at 33 degrees we did direct our course toward the point or ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... elaborately carved, and clearly had once been a room for entertainment. The idea of restoring it to its original dignity arose in my mind; and I hoped that, furnished after as antique a fashion as I could compass, it would prove a fine room. The windows were small, to be sure, and the pitch rather low, but the whitewashed walls were pannelled, and I had some hopes ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... some barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the living sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane, and then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as possible, Ahab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly altered, and the sail to ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... swinging himself on to the wall, and crouching there in as small a compass as he could reduce himself to, 'only me, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... is victorious, every refinement of outrage which is within the compass of the German imagination will be inflicted on us in every aspect of our lives. Realize, too, that if the Allies are beaten there will be no spot on the globe where a soul can escape from the domination of this enemy ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... conscious that their own graves are already dug in the wilderness. No great social or political movement has ever been carried on without their aid; and they have never reaped the benefits of those reforms which they lived and died to compass. Perhaps there are no sadder sights on the page of history than those solitary figures, of all nations and all times, who have foretold the coming of the dawn and yet died before it was ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... come to the last of the many beautiful places that lie within the compass of this fifty miles of England, places with so varied a loveliness that nowhere else, I think, can ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old Quatre Face, as the house is four sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... John Sprat—oft called for shortness, Jack— Had married—had, in fact, a wife—and she Did worship him with wifely reverence. He, who had loved her when she was a girl, Compass'd her too, with sweet observances; E'en at the dinner table did it shine. For he—liking no fat himself—he never did, With jealous care piled up her plate with lean, Not knowing that all lean was hateful to her. And day by day she thought to tell him o't, And watched the fat go out ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... the dream of sages, Philosophy upon the Throne!" And on the other side, "Oh what a Phoebus Apollo, mounting the eastern sky, chasing the Nightmares,—sowing the Earth with Orient pearl, to begin with!"—In which fine duet, it must be said, the Prince is perceptibly the truer singer; singing within compass, and from the heart; while the Phoebus shows himself acquainted with art, and warbles in seductive quavers, now and then beyond the pitch of his voice. We must own also, Friedrich proves little seducible; shows himself laudably indifferent to such siren-singing;—perhaps ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. X. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—At Reinsberg—1736-1740 • Thomas Carlyle
... in a free country where continued knocking at doors and waiting in hallways eventually secure it a trial. Then, if it succeeds, the fellow who thought that the conception was original with him finds his claims disputed from all points of the compass. If it fails, the poor thing goes to ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... girl, and WILL love her more—I have an opportunity of winning favour, of doing service, which shall bind him to me; yes, he shall have the girl, if I have art to compass the matter. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... rest of the family and, between them, a furtive, dark rectangle where they hurried through their meals. Eric had begged for years to have the back wall removed from the hall to make an adequate dining-room, but his mother had grown middle-aged in a familiar compass and did not care to be told by him too explicitly how the house should be run and improved. In the moment of arrival Eric was too much pleased with his welcome to ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... Tours,[18] Arabic and Persian had perhaps been the classical languages, and Islamism the religion of Europe; and where we have cathedrals and colleges we might have had mosques and mausoleums; and America and the Cape, the compass and the press, the steam-engine, the telescope, and the Copernican System, might have remained still undiscovered; and but for the accident which turned Hannibal's face from Rome after the battle of Cannae, or that which intercepted his brother Asdrubal's letter, we might now all be ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... was only conscious, in a confused sort of way, that the Old Man was ranting at me. This feeling of bewilderment passed off, and I found that I was peering blankly into the binnacle, at the compass-card; yet, until then, entirely without being aware of the fact. Now, however, I saw that the ship was coming back on to her course. Goodness knows how much she had ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... to have one more decent drink? Was this to be the absolute and final end? Certainly. Yet his imagination could not really comprehend, compass, picture to himself life made a nuisance by self-denial—life in any other guise except as a background for inertia ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... of your furlongs, but I am sure it is a very long wood, and that we have been winding in and out ever since we came into it; and therefore, when I say that we have walked a mile in it, I must speak within compass." ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... to express how greatly the king of Persia was surprised at the sight of so much riches, enclosed in so little compass. "What! prince," cried he, "do you call so inestimable a present a small token of your gratitude, when you never have been indebted to me? I declare once more you have never been in the least obliged to me, neither the queen your mother nor you. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... loss, when mourning availed him not. The Minister, hearing the words of King Yu nan, rejoined, 'O Monarch, high in dignity, and what harm have I done him, or what evil have I seen from him that I should compass his death? I would not do this thing, save to serve thee, and soon shalt thou sight that it is right; and if thou accept my advice thou shalt be saved, otherwise thou shalt be destroyed even as a certain Wazir who acted treacherously by the young Prince." ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... hyphen is not used in points of the compass unless doubly compounded; northeast, southwest, ...
— Compound Words - Typographic Technical Series for Apprentices #36 • Frederick W. Hamilton
... blinded and would go tumbling down banks into streams or lie down to die. One morning the bellowing of buffaloes awakened Henry and he looked out to see the prairie black. "The ground was covered at every point of the compass, as far as the eye could reach, and every ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... is so loyal there can be no apprehension from any such attempt ; but she adds, that if it had happened in the north everything might have been feared. Heaven send the invaders far from all the points of the Irish compass! and that's an Irish wish for expression, though not for meaning. All the intelligence she gathers is encouraging, with regard to the spirit and loyalty of all that surround her. But Mr. Brabazon is in much uneasiness ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... to the ex-governess than De Montespan herself. The star of the latter favorite is already on the wane, whereas yours may rise again at the bidding of Memory. These four women have long-meditated your destruction, and many are the thorns with which they have strewed your path in life. But, to compass your ruin, there was wanting ONE strong arm that could concentrate their scattered missiles, and hurl them in ONE great bomb at your head. Countess de Soissons, that arm is mine—I, Louvois, the trusted minister of the ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... box, and in the inside contains a map of their country, divided into seventeen districts, with seventeen little pieces of historical painting, representing the seventeen persecutions of the primitive Christians; the whole being folded up in a very small compass, and is a most ingenious piece ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... himself on one elbow and looked about him, at first with a confused feeling of uncertainty as to where he was. Then the truth burst upon him with overwhelming force. Not only was he alone in a little, half-decayed boat without sail, rudder, or compass, on the great Pacific Ocean, but, with the exception of a few fish, he was without food, and, worst of all, he had not a drop ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... local, Greenwich, or Washington, and he is referred to an ephemeris and table of logarithms for data, he becomes lost in "confusion worse confounded," and gives up in despair, settling down to the conviction that the simple method of compass surveying is the best after all, even if ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various
... escape from the horrid sense of utter depravity that arises from our vices. A man puts to himself the question: How is it possible that at one moment I should be sympathetic and kind, should strive to compass the happiness of my fellow-beings, should take a generous interest in public causes, and try to act justly; and that at another moment I am so selfish and base? How can there be this oscillation from one pole to the other of human character? It is the contradiction that makes the tragedy. Am ...
— The Essentials of Spirituality • Felix Adler
... builds houses not made with hands—houses of flesh which souls inhabit, craving for a heart and a love to fill them, can and will satisfy their longings; . . .I know no other words in the English language which compresses into small compass such a body of high and inclusive thought as verse nine. (1) God the sole changeless, to whom we turn with passionate desire as the one abiding-place, as we find how all things suffer loss and change, ourselves, alas! the greatest. (2) His power and love able and willing to satisfy the hearts ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... said he. 'I was told last evening it was but fifty, and I have travelled all night.' 'But,' said I, 'you are now travelling from Boston. You must turn back.' 'Alas!' said he, 'it is all turn back! Boston shifts with the wind, and plays all around the compass. One man tells me it is to the east, another to the west; and the guide-posts, too, they all point the wrong way.' 'But will you not stop and rest?' said I; 'you seem wet and weary.' 'Yes,' said he, 'it has been foul weather since I left home.' 'Stop, then, and refresh yourself.' 'I ...
— Famous Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... county, Pennsylvania, contains within a moderate compass deeds from 1683 downwards. They are referred to by indices on the following plan: All deeds made within a certain time, and in which the name of the grantor commences with the same letter of the alphabet, are bound ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... in the animal world, and not at all in the vegetable kingdom. Even in animals, it will act only on points which are under the direct or indirect control of the will. And even where it does act, it is not clear how it could compass a change so profound as an increase of complexity: at most this would be conceivable if the acquired characters were regularly transmitted so as to be added together; but this transmission seems to be the ...
— Creative Evolution • Henri Bergson
... seemed incredible and quite disastrous; and yet at the same time had he not, in one unvisited corner of his mind, always foreknown it? Suddenly he was distressed, discouraged, disillusioned about the whole of life. He thought that Everard Lucas, screwing up a compass, was strangely unmoved. But Mr. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... and cream, and of a country fair with farm-lads eager to buy fairings for their lassies. Unfortunately, under the influence of the fashionable affectation, Margaret is unusually learned in Greek mythology, citing Jove, Danae, Phoebus, Latona and Mercury within the compass of a bare five lines. The indebtedness of Greene to Lyly's Campaspe for the idea of a simple love romance as plot has been acknowledged. In the use of pastoralism, too, he borrowed a hint, perhaps, from Peele. Yet, when ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... unnecessary to pursue the argument through all its artifices, since, dismantled of ornament and seducing language, the plain truth may be stated in a narrow compass. Johnson knew that Milton was a republican: he says, "an acrimonious and surly republican, for which it is not known that he gave any better reason than, that a popular government was the most frugal; for the trappings ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... the compass of this book to do more than deal with typical and representative persons. Schleiermacher was epoch-making. He gathered in himself the creative impulses of the preceding period. The characteristic theological tendencies of the two ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... Powers say, "Yes, he come in to ask if we could loan him our compass. He's going to go up tomorrow in the Eagle Rock woods to run out the line between the Warner and the Benson woodlots. The Warners have sold the popple on theirs to the Crittenden mill, and Frank says the blazes are all barked over, they're ...
— The Brimming Cup • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... the way to Coneyhurst Hill. Pitch Hill they know, and only Pitch Hill. Nor will they recognise bilberries or whortleberries so called; "hurts" is the name. Another point on which the traveller wandering in these wilds should assure himself is that he has plenty of time, or has a compass with him, or can find his way by the sun. The woods—Hurt Wood is the general name for miles—north and west of Pitch Hill are the loneliest places. Here and there a forest fire has cleared openings in the trees, but where the pines have fallen or have been cut ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... assiduous in obtaining observations to ascertain the Variation of the compass—i.e., the difference between the direction shown by the magnetic needle and the true north. He is constantly puzzled by the discrepancies in these observations made at short intervals. These arose from the different positions of the ship's head, whereby the iron ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook
... most beautifully got up and interesting volumes we have seen for a long time. It gives, in the compass of one volume, an account of the history of these beautiful monuments of former days.... The illustrations are ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 37. Saturday, July 13, 1850 • Various
... the Empire in general—a wide subject, which it will be impossible to treat here with any completeness, owing to the limits to which the present work is necessarily confined. In order to bring the matter within reasonable compass, the reader may be referred in the first instance to the account which was given in a former volume of the products of the empire of Babylon; and the enquiry may then be confined to those regions which were subject to ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... times by the English factory to convey intelligence from Scanderoon of the arrival of company's ships in that port, the name of the ship, the hour of her arrival, and whatever else could be comprised in a small compass, being written on a slip of paper, which was secured in such a manner under the pigeon's wing as not to impede its flight; and her feet were bathed in vinegar, with a view to keep them cool, and prevent her being tempted by the sight ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 269, August 18, 1827 • Various
... enumerated powers. There was another class, he contended, which might be termed "resulting" powers. If the end to be gained by a measure was comprehended within the specified powers, and the measure was obviously a means to that end and not forbidden by the Constitution, then it was clearly within the compass of the national authority. Washington finally yielded to Hamilton's persuasions, and ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... up a current in the conductor. The energy of the ring would have been restored to the latter. The curious thing is that physically the polarized ring does not present any different appearance or ordinary properties different from those of a plain ring, and will not deflect a compass needle. Its condition is discoverable, however, by the test of self-induction to currents of different direction. As a practical consideration, we may mention in this connection that a self-inductive coil for currents of one direction must be constructed differently ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... that period which excited my imagination were the enormous mass meetings, with processions, coming in from all points of the compass, miles in length, and bearing every patriotic device and political emblem. Here the Whigs had infinitely the advantage. Their campaign was positive and aggressive. On platform- wagons were men working at every trade which expected ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... was probably bound to one or the other of these; but it was of the utmost importance to know which one, for any mistake upon this point would be fatal, as it must result in the canoe being missed altogether. So Leslie took a boat compass that had originally belonged to the brig, and the telescope, and, thus provided, made his way as rapidly as possible to Mermaid Head—as he had named the most southerly point of the island—hoping and believing that from the lofty cliffs of ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... the compass in Astracan was 13. deg. 40. minutes.] The 16. of April the variation of the compasse obserued in Astracan was 13. deg. 40. min. from North to West. This spring there came newes to Astracan that the queene of Persia (the king being blind) had bene with a great army against the Turks that were left ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... every mood, but generally having a far, dim, dreamy look into vacancy,—the gaze of the poet seeing visions; a firm, high, aquiline nose, indicating both intellect and spirit; flexile lips, bending to every breath of passion; a voice of singular compass and pliancy, responding justly to all his wayward humors and all his noble thoughts, now tremulous with tender passion, now rough with a partisan's fury; a man of strange contradictions and inconsistencies every way; a hand of iron with a glove of silk; a tiger's ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... Victories with palms, and at the top a naked Fame. We need not ask who was Lancinus Curtius. He is forgotten, and his virtue has not saved him from oblivion; though he strove in his lifetime, pro virili parte, for the palm that Busti carved upon his grave. Yet his monument teaches in short compass a deep lesson; and his epitaph sums up the dream which lured the men of Italy in the Renaissance to their doom. We see before us sculptured in this marble the ideal of the humanistic poet-scholar's life: Love, Grace, the Muse, and Nakedness, and Glory. There is not a single intrusive ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... incredible distances. It looked as if the great beast had lifted him with it and carried him across these astonishing intervals. Simpson, who was much longer in the limb, found that he could not compass even half the stretch by taking a ...
— The Wendigo • Algernon Blackwood
... in his own chapel, Our Lady-Mass, which was most melodiously chaunted, the Lord Granthuse being present. When the Mass was done, the King gave the said Lord Granthuse a cup of gold, garnished with pearl. In the midst of the cup was a great piece of unicorn's horn, to my estimation seven inches in compass; and on the cover of the cup a great sapphire." After breakfast the King came into the Quadrangle. "My Lord Prince, also, borne by his Chamberlain, called Master Vaughan, which bade the Lord of Granthuse welcome. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... the children of this world ever toil, wearily, wearily, but in vain. We grasp at shadows, we grapple with the fashionless air, we walk in the blindness of our own vain imaginations, we compass heaven and earth for our objects, and marvel that we find them not. The truth which is of God, the crown of wisdom, the pearl of exceeding price, demands not this vain-glorious research; easily to be entreated, it lieth within the reach of all. The eye of the humblest spirit may discern ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... passive absorption that seeks nothing further nor deeper than unending continuance of this profound repose of all filled sensation, just as it is incapable of the kindred mood of elevated humility and joyful unasking devoutness in the presence of emotions and dim thoughts that are beyond the compass of words. ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... conditioned by cooeperant Reason, imagination becomes the mightiest instrument of the physical discoverer. Newton's passage from a falling apple to a falling moon was, at the outset, a leap of the imagination. When William Thomson tries to place the ultimate particles of matter between his compass points, and to apply to them a scale of millimetres, he is powerfully aided by this faculty. And in much that has been recently said about protoplasm and life, we have the outgoings of the imagination guided and controlled by the known analogies of science. In fact, without this power, our knowledge ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... under way, and cleared the narrow passages between the islands into the Yellow Sea, when it was perceived how very little advantage it was likely to derive from the Chinese pilots. One of them, in fact, had come on board without his compass, and it was in vain to attempt to make him comprehend ours. The moveable card was to him a paradox, as being contrary to the universal practice with them, of making the needle traverse the fixed points, and not the points described ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... Arise ye more than dead. Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. 10 From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty
... after Melville had returned home, Herbert was led, by the ardor of the chase, to wander farther than usual. He was aware of this, but did not fear being lost, having a compass and knowing his bearings. All at once, as he was making his way along a wooded path, he was startled by hearing voices. He hurried forward, and the scene upon which he ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... his victory on that Sunday. When he told her that he would compass the death of Ralph Newton if Ralph Newton was to cause her to break her heart, she believed that he would do it, and she felt obliged to him,—although she laughed at him. When he declared to her that he didn't know what to do because of his love, she was near to telling him what he might do. When ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... the king, which Madame Roland did so much to compass, led not indirectly to the ruin of her own most trusted political friends and associates. The murder of the queen, for which she had longed and laboured, was brought to pass, on October 16, 1793, by men who had then made up their minds to send herself ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... times, at this stage, the bow was tillered, or tested for its curve, or, as Sir Roger Ascham says, "brought round compass," which means to make it bend in a perfect arc ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... Greeks have no ordinary name for, though they might use the word [Greek: ablabeia], for innocency is that disposition of mind which would offend no one) and several other virtues are comprehended under frugality; but if this quality were of less importance, and confined in as small a compass as some imagine, the surname of Piso[36] would not have been in so great esteem. But as we allow him not the name of a frugal man (frugi), who either quits his post through fear, which is cowardice; or who reserves to his own use what was privately ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... essay seems like one continual strain to attain the unattainable, to compass and define Whitman, who will not be compassed and defined, I can only say that I regret it, but could not well help it. Talking about Whitman, Symonds said, was like talking about the universe, and it is so. There is somewhat incommensurable ...
— Whitman - A Study • John Burroughs
... as easy for Patricia as the united efforts of those who loved her could compass. Geoffry, in his gratitude for her decisive action, which lifted the onus of a broken engagement from his shoulders, found a substantial ground for his belief that they had sacrificed themselves on the altar of duty. Mrs. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... out, that both the very short and long waves are of exactly the same character as those of a medium length, which the ear can detect, the only difference being one of rapidity. We do not therefore suggest that in the case of sound, where the vibrations lie outside the compass of the ear, those which lie outside are not sound waves, or that they are different from those which lie within the compass of the ear, and which the ear can detect. Whether the sound waves are long or short, whether they ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... I paddle with my hands and the stick which I had taken on board. I turned and turned again round to all the points of the compass, but to no purpose. At last I began to reflect. The sea was smooth and quiet; so I was in no immediate danger. The Padre, when he awoke in the morning, would discover my accident, and perhaps see the boat; he would hasten ...
— Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet • Captain Marryat
... mahogany face, and one revolving one, on the principle of some lighthouses. This head was decorated with shaggy hair, like oakum,' which had no governing inclination towards the north, east, west, or south, but inclined to all four quarters of the compass, and to every point upon it. The head was followed by a perfect desert of chin, and by a shirt-collar and neckerchief, and by a dreadnought pilot-coat, and by a pair of dreadnought pilot-trousers, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... of thing, and that speedily—even though he be invulnerable, and bear a charmed life, he must and shall be put out of my way—I swear it! though I should be forced to risk my name and my title to compass it." ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... Centennial stands more than a quarter of a century in advance of even the latest of its fellow expositions. At Vienna a river with a few small steamers below and a tow-path above represented water-carriage. Good railways came in from every quarter of the compass, but none of them brought the locomotive to the neighborhood of the grounds. In the matter of tram-roads for passengers the Viennese distinguished themselves over the Londoners and Parisians by the possession of one. In steam-roads they had no advantage ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... wave, but gild the leaden mass with crimson and unexpected gold, whose brightness may reach some storm-driven sail, giving it the light of hope, bringing the ship to a well-defined and hospitable shore, and regulating, with a new attraction, the lately distracted compass. Therefore, we do not hesitate to say that the philosophy, and the creed, and the manners of the optimist are good for society. However, his excellence may well be criticised; it may even sometimes take its place amid those excesses which are catalogued as amid the ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... unforeseen accident. The chancellor of the exchequer (which was then his title) being stabbed with a penknife, the following day, at the Cockpit, in the midst of a dozen lords of the council, by the Sieur de Guiscard, a French papist; the circumstances of which fact being not within the compass of this History, I shall only observe, that after two months' confinement, and frequent danger of his life, he returned to his ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... in his joy at the thought of revenge, he fell upon Ganelon's neck and kissed him. Then he bade his attendants bring royal gifts, which he bestowed upon the traitor; after which they both took a solemn oath to compass the fall of Roland,—Ganelon swearing by the cross on his sword-hilt, and Marsilius by the Koran, the ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... wayward and tigerish and undomestic she may be, she then desires to be the acknowledged possession and belonging of the man, even to her own dishonour. She desires to reproduce his likeness, she wants to compass his material good. She will think of his food, and his raiment, and his well-being, and never of her own—only, if she is wise she will hide all these things in her heart, for the average man cannot stand this great light of her sweetness, and when her love ...
— Three Weeks • Elinor Glyn
... every superstition. You have, I perceive, escaped from the rank materialism of Sir Owen's teaching, but whither are you drifting, my dear child? You must return to the Church; without the Church, we are as vessels without a rudder or compass." ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... table and struck a resounding blow on it with his knuckles. "This is a nutshell proposition and we'll keep it in small compass. You gave me a layout of your proposed stock issue. No matter what has been done by the best of big financiers, no matter what is being done or what is proposed to be done, in this particular case your consolidation means that ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... hath left the choice, who by some strange spell I wot not of will send an eerie call through all the kingdom. And only those will hear who wake at dawn to listen in high places. And only those will heed who keep the compass needles of their souls true to the north star of a great ambition. The time of testing will be long, the summons many. To duty and to sorrow, to disappointment and defeat, thou may'st be called. No matter what the tryst, there is but one reply ...
— The Little Colonel's Christmas Vacation • Annie Fellows Johnston
... tradition, composed certain parts of his Lusiad. Ay, Camoens was a sailor once! Then, there's Falconer, whose 'Ship-wreck' will never founder, though he himself, poor fellow, was lost at sea in the Aurora frigate. Old Noah was the first sailor. And St. Paul, too, knew how to box the compass, my lad! mind you that chapter in Acts? I couldn't spin the yarn better myself. Were you ever in Malta? They called it Melita in the Apostle's day. I have been in Paul's cave there, White-Jacket. They say a piece of it is good for ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... instead of observing his abundant pen-scratches and amplitude of paper with the uncritical awe of an elegant-minded canary-bird, seemed to present herself as a spy watching everything with a malign power of inference. Here, towards this particular point of the compass, Mr. Casaubon had a sensitiveness to match Dorothea's, and an equal quickness to imagine more than the fact. He had formerly observed with approbation her capacity for worshipping the right object; he now foresaw with sudden terror that this capacity might ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... materials for the Civil, Ecclesiastical, or Literary History of the United Kingdom; and it accomplishes that object by the publication of Historical Documents, Letters, Ancient Poems, and whatever else lies within the compass of its designs, in the most convenient form, and at the least possible expense consistent with the production of ...
— Notes and Queries, No. 181, April 16, 1853 • Various
... and less directly with Elsie Marley, whose name she was masquerading under. Leaving all these out of consideration, and depending almost wholly upon the fragments she received concerning life in the parsonage at Enderby, a brief letter once in three or four weeks was the utmost the girl could compass. ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... significance than the above imperfect attempts at an explanation of the emblems. The inscriptions upon the monument at Dentsu-In are typical. On different sides of the structure,—near the top, and placed by rule so as to face certain points of the compass,—there are engraved five Sanscrit characters which are symbols of the Five Elemental Buddhas, together with scriptural and commemorative texts. These latter have been ...
— In Ghostly Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... thief, with every man's hand against him. Thus the steps that led up to this September night were easy, natural, and gradual. This child of circumstances, a born plainsman like the Indian, read in plain, forest, and mountain, things which were not visible to other eyes. The stars were his compass by night, the heat waves of the plain warned him of the tempting mirage, while the cloud on the mountain's peak or the wind in the pines which sheltered him alike spoke ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... where he wished to go: number forty. It was gray-black in the small streets; and but for the occasional light in a window the dark would have had no modification. Sometimes he would lose the point of the compass and blunder against a wall or find himself feeling for the curb, hesitant of foot. The wayside shrine was a rift in the gloom, and he knew that he had only a few more steps to take. After all, who was the lady in black and why should he bother himself ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... and outhouses. This he had been induced to do from that aching desire for physical exertion which had been familiar to him from boyhood, and which he felt could never be sufficiently indulged within the limited compass of the little village itself—subjected as he must be to the observation of the curious and the impertinent. He returned from Albany after a few months' absence, in the autumn of 1809, bringing with him his ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... to me that through this error of my father's we may yet find means to compass the deliverance of Wendot. There are none of those save ourselves who know which of you twain is the first-born and which the youngest. In your faces there is little to mark you one from the other. Griffeth, if thou wilt be willing to be called Wendot— if Wendot will consent ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... House, wrong was done by the annexation itself, that would not warrant us in doing fresh, distinct, and separate wrong by a disregard of the obligation which that annexation entailed. These obligations have been referred to in this debate, and have been mentioned in the compass of a single sentence. First, there was the obligation entailed towards the English and other settlers in the Transvaal, perhaps including a minority, though a very small minority, of the Dutch Boers themselves; secondly, there was the obligation to the native races; and thirdly, there ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... from every side,—which is not to be wondered at, for if you look at the map you will see that we were right in the heart of it. Lucknow is rather better than a hundred miles to the east, and Cawnpore about as far to the south. From every point on the compass there was nothing but torture and ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... little carbuncle on his nose. Having now completed his toilet, he placed the fragment of mirror on a low bench, and looked over his shoulder at so much of his legs as could be reflected in that small compass, with the greatest possible ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... concerts, theatres, no music of any kind, except what the waves may whisper in rarely gentle moods; no galleries of wonders like the Natural History rooms, in which it is so fascinating to wander; no streets, shops, carriages; no postman, no neighbors, not a door-bell within the compass of the place!... The best balanced human mind is prone to lose its elasticity and stagnate, in this isolation. One learns immediately the value of work to keep one's wits clear, cheerful, and steady; just as much ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... believe me, Lady Blakeney?" he added, "that there is no personal animosity in my heart towards you or your husband? Have I not told you that I do not wish to compass his death?" ...
— The Elusive Pimpernel • Baroness Emmuska Orczy |
