"Describe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... certain it is that they are making themselves heard now. On the special subject of her so-called "Rights" the abstract Woman was, I knew, prodigiously emphatic—how emphatic, though, I was not quite aware, until having seen from the top of a City-bound omnibus that a lady whom I will describe by the Aristophanic name of Praxagora would lecture at the Castle Street Co-operative Institute. I went and co-operated so far as to form one of that lady's audience. Her subject—the "Political Status of Women"—was evidently attractive, not only to what we used in our innocence to call ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... An achievement Worthy of Charlemagne, or of Orlando. Berni and Ariosto both shall add A canto to their poems, and describe you As Furioso and Innamorato. ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... careless of her to forget that she wrote to beg I would come and pay her a visit next Tuesday; when she hoped to have something to offer me in the way of amusement, which she would not now more particularly describe, only sea-green was her favourite colour. So she ended her letter; but in a P.S. she added, she thought she might as well tell me what was the peculiar attraction to Cranford just now; Signor Brunoni was going to exhibit his wonderful magic in the Cranford Assembly Rooms on ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... that my two chief opponents were either dying or about to retire. The question of the lecture-room was settled amicably, so that for the next year I was able to live in quiet. These two matters having come to an issue, I will next describe what came to pass ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... collar, and then very gently over my face and hair; it did not last half a minute, and there was something curiously magnetic in the touch of the slim firm fingers. "Now I see him," he wrote; "please thank him." "It will please him," said the Vicar, "if we ask him to describe you." In a moment, after a few touches of his wife's hand, he smiled, and wrote down a really remarkably accurate picture of my appearance. We then asked him a few questions about himself. "Very well and very happy," he wrote, "full of the love of God;" and then added, "You ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... shoe manufacture, is perhaps the most highly specialised of all in the sense that an operator may work a lifetime in any one of the between three and four score processes through which a shoe passes and know little of all the rest. Now the Shoe Book should describe hides and leathers, tanning,—old and new methods, with a little of the natural history of the animals, describe the process of taking them, of curing and shipping, each stage in the factory, designating those processes that require ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... saw a lady seated, in a quiet black dress, with a becoming bonnet. A moment passed before I knew—it was Cesarine. "Who is—that person?" Charles asked once more of the nearest inspector, desiring to see in what way he would describe her. ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... of a countenance naturally so sweet, and in the settled melancholy of her playful and mellow eye. These were the real causes of the journey undertaken by her father, and, in truth, of most of the other events which we are about to describe. ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... they have something always to say of Fust and the devil; curious anecdotes to rehearse of the multiplication of copies of the Scriptures in Paris and elsewhere; spells and incantations by the inventor of the "black" art to describe, &c. But this is all induced by ignorance of the facts. John Fust, the putative inventor of printing, was a shrewd silversmith, and we suspect a knavish one, for without having any thing to do with the invention of the "art preservative ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... me a direct manifestation of himself, and what I tell you of them is known to me by induction only, and by hearsay. Certain as their existence is, I should not attempt to describe their habits and their character. It is necessary to know when not to know, my son, and I make it a point not to bring forward ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... beasts as the dealer does. I am speaking always of a fair cut as sold from the sixty. It is not easy to explain in writing how this division is made; but as there is no doubt many a one has been bitten, I shall do my best to describe the process. Suppose the sixty beasts are well driven through one another, which is always done before a cut is attempted, and suppose the dealer is to cut the cattle, he merely gives the lot a glance; he can see in a moment the strong and the weak side, for there will be a difference. He ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... shrubs, the concerts of our birds! Now, at the source of beauty, from which flows all that is delightful upon earth, my soul intuitively sees, tastes, hears, touches, what before she could only be made sensible of through the medium of our weak organs. Ah! what language can describe those shores of eternal bliss which I inhabit for ever? All that infinite power and celestial bounty can confer, that harmony which results from friendship with numberless beings, exulting in the same felicity, we enjoy in unmixed perfection. Support, then the trial which is ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... four all told. There's Mrs. H. who's very old, And Baby Heckus, and a lad Named Tom, and Bill, the Heckus dad. Beyond this point I can't describe The fascinating Heckus tribe. I can but wonder how he came To think of such ...
— Bib Ballads • Ring W. Lardner
... confined to fops and the hangers on at ale houses and taverns but afterwards by the "chief men of the realm." Soon after the importation of the "durned weed" from Virginia the tobacco muse gave forth many a lay concerning the custom. The following verses describe the method ...
— Tobacco; Its History, Varieties, Culture, Manufacture and Commerce • E. R. Billings
... me to describe the effect of so instantaneous a change upon us. The boats were allowed to drift along at pleasure, and such was the force with which we had been shot out of the Morumbidgee that we were carried nearly to the bank opposite its embouchure, whilst we continued ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... all about a ghost, however trivial the details may be, but we desire no personal contact. Caius had no wish to meet this woman, for whom he felt repulsion, but he would have been interested to hear Neddy Morrison describe her least action, for Neddy was almost the only person who had constant ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the evening we were alarmed by signals from the frigates stationed for that purpose; and in an instant there was a general cry that the French fleet was out, and just passing through the streights. The admiral immediately came on board with some other officers; and it is impossible to describe the noise, hurry and confusion throughout the whole fleet, in bending their sails and slipping their cables; many people and ships' boats were left on shore in the bustle. We had two captains on board of our ship ...
— The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African - Written By Himself • Olaudah Equiano
... explain to each other how they feel when the dentist puts "that buzzer thing" against their bicuspids, and, if sufficiently pressed, they will describe their sensations on ...
— Love Conquers All • Robert C. Benchley
... after drinking away, and Povy and Creed staid and eat with me; but I was sorry I had no better cheer for Povy; for the foole may be useful, and is a cunning fellow in his way, which is a strange one, and that, that I meet not in any other man, nor can describe in him. They late with me, and when gone my boy and I to musique, and then ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... possible good should be needlessly or recklessly sacrificed, and in which men might live together as happily as is permitted by the nature which is at once their life and their habitation. The Career of Reason in these various fields we shall briefly trace and describe. We must expect to find, as in any career, however successful, failures along with the triumphs, and, as in any notable career still unfinished, possibility and great promise. Man's reason and imagination ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... Memoires. Vigorous, animated, always striking, often amusing, sometimes showing rare nobleness and high-mindedness, his stories and his portraits transport us to the very midst of the scenes he desires to describe and the personages he makes the actors in them. His rapid, nervous, picturesque style is the very image of that little dark, quick, agile man, more soldier than bishop, and more intriguer than soldier, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the dearest chappie I ever knew, and it's already been ten times lovelier than Polly and Peggy ever could describe it." ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... was meant to describe an accident of the most innocent character, demanded further details; wishing to be told what a straight left was; why a person named Spike Brennon kept such things about; and how Wilbur had been so careless as ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... shells." They haven't been putting many over lately, apparently. But they put some over the other day, and they are so amusing that I must describe ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... in the brow that God has made so bright that nor mirror nor emerald nor topaz would make any show beside it. But of all this, he who gazes at the brightness of the eyes has not a word to say; for to all those who behold them they seem two glowing candles. And who has so glib a tongue that he could describe the fashion of the well-shaped nose, and of the bright countenance where the rose overlays the lily so that it eclipses something of the lily in order the better to illuminate the face, and of the smiling little mouth which God made such on purpose that no one should see it and not think ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes
... am suffering! My loins, my arms!" and he fell back panting and exhausted, writhing in his terrible agony, while the captain's wife wiped the perspiration from his forehead. We all shed tears of grief and rage, as if we had been children. I will not describe the end to you; he died half an hour later, but before that he told us in which direction the enemy had gone. When he was dead, we gave ourselves time to bury him, and then we set out in pursuit of them, with our hearts full of ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant
... the first volume is devoted to a General Introduction, explanatory of the origin and design of the work, but mainly intended to paint the character of monastic institutions, to describe the happiness of a religious life, and to examine the charges brought against the monks. These topics are considered in ten chapters, filled with curious details, and written with an eloquence and an earnestness which it is difficult for the reader to resist. Following ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... to describe what it was that eventually gave quite a different direction to this movement. Meanwhile Liszt felt emboldened by these kindly signs to encourage me to renew my creative activity, which had now for some time been interrupted. His success with Lohengrin ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... faintest semblance of a smile on the hermit's face as he quietly observed his visitor, and waited till he should recover self-possession. As for Moses—words are wanting to describe the fields of teeth and gum which he displayed, but no sound was suffered to escape his magnificent lips, which closed like the slide of a dark lantern when the temptation to give way to feeling became ...
— Blown to Bits - or, The Lonely Man of Rakata • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... lovely in the expression of gratefulness on the face of the being one loves. If you have not experienced the feelings I describe, dear reader, I pity you, and am forced to conclude that you must have been either awkward or miserly, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... closely resemble those of D. Grayii, but being in a better state of preservation I will describe them. The labrum is highly bullate, with a row of minute teeth on the crest, placed very close together in the middle. Palpi small, thinly clothed with spines; mandibles extremely narrow, hairy, with four teeth, but the lower tooth is so close to the inferior angle, ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... founded on Links with the Past. Let me now describe in rather fuller detail three or four remarkable people with whom I had more than a cursory acquaintance, and who allowed me for many years the privilege of drawing without restriction on the rich stores of their political and ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... fold in the paper, as shown by the dotted line in the illustration. Then, taking any two points, as A and B, describe semicircles on the line alternately from the centres B and A, being careful to make the ends join, and the thing is done. Of course this is not a true spiral, but the puzzle was to produce ...
— Amusements in Mathematics • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... justify the Duke of York in breaking that promise of marriage by which he had obtained from Anne Hyde the last proof of female affection. Such a plea Talbot, in concert with some of his dissolute companions, undertook to furnish. They agreed to describe the poor young lady as a creature without virtue, shame, or delicacy, and made up long romances about tender interviews and stolen favours. Talbot in particular related how, in one of his secret visits to her, he had unluckily overturned the Chancellor's ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... religious duty, and encouraged by the opinion generally entertained of thy benevolent disposition to succour the distressed, I take the liberty, very respectfully, to offer to thy perusal some tracts which I believe faithfully describe the suffering condition of many hundred thousands of our fellow creatures of the African race, great numbers of whom, rent from every tender connexion in life, are annually taken from their native land, to endure, in the American islands and plantations, a most rigorous and cruel slavery, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... to you now as a business man—as a merchant of New York, the commercial metropolis of the nation. I am no politician, I have no interest except such as is common to the people. But let me assure you, that even I can scarcely realize, much less describe, the stagnation which has now settled upon the business and commerce of that great city, caused solely by the unsettled and uncertain condition of the questions which we are endeavoring to arrange and ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... concerning man's nature and his noblest destination,—the philosophy of a first cause; of subordinate agents in creation superior to man; the subserviency of pagan worship and pagan faith to the introduction of a purer and more perfect religion, which you so elegantly describe as winning, with gradual steps, her difficult way northward from Bethabara. After all this cometh Joan, a publican's daughter, sitting on an ale-house bench, and marking the swingings of the signboard, finding a poor man, his wife and six children, ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... thought. The use of the words EXTERNAL and INTERNAL, as applied to the establishment of this distinction, has been the symbol and the source of much dispute. This is merely an affair of words, and as the dispute deserves, to say, that when speaking of the objects of thought, we indeed only describe one of the forms of thought—or that, speaking of thought, we only apprehend one of the operations of the universal ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the successful handling of plants that it is impossible to describe in print. All persons can improve their practice through diligent reading of useful gardening literature, but no amount of reading and advice will make a good gardener of a person who does not love to dig in a garden or who does ...
— Manual of Gardening (Second Edition) • L. H. Bailey
... the Center described in subsection (b). (d) Notification.— (1) In general.—At least 180 days before any change in the biosafety level at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, the President shall notify Congress of the change and describe the reasons for the change. (2) Limitation.—No change described in paragraph (1) may be made earlier than 180 days after the completion of the transition period ...
— Homeland Security Act of 2002 - Updated Through October 14, 2008 • Committee on Homeland Security, U.S. House of Representatives
... belong so much to the art of tapestry weaving that it is hard to find their English equivalent. Tapestries of verdure and of personnages describe the two general classes, the former being any charming mass of greenery, from the Gothic millefleurs, and curling leaves with animals beneath, to the lovely landscapes of sophisticated park and garden which made Beauvais famous in the Eighteenth Century. ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... situation in which I meant to place myself— precisely the pledge which I meant to give. The Letters are exactly what they profess to be; the production of a Lady's pen, and written in the very situations which they describe.—The public can have no grounds for suspecting my veracity on a point in which I can have no possible interest in deceiving them; and those who know me will do me the justice to acknowledge, that I have a mind superior to the arts of deception, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... this, unless means of painting light—the one great deficiency which is still the opprobrium of human art—were discovered, would task to the uttermost the powers of the ablest artist, and at best he could give but a very imperfect notion of it. To describe it so that its beauty, brilliancy, and wondrous nature shall be in the slightest degree appreciated by my readers would require a command of words such as no poet since Homer—nay, not Homer himself—possessed. ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... wander any-whither with George Borrow. But, for the most part, the art of writing travels is lost—its imaginativeness, its credulity, its cherishing of mystery, and its proneness to awe. The old travellers are never sentimental—and sentiment is the very bane of road-books,—and they never describe for description's sake. The world was much too wonderful in their eyes for such unprofitable excursions of fancy. Beauty and danger, difficulty and strangeness, novel fashions and unknown garbs, were to them earnest and absorbing realities. The aspect of cities and havens, and leagues of forest ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... her window and looked up at the stars again. She saw one fall, describe an arc and vanish. She wondered what this man had done to put him beyond the pale; for few white men remained in Asia from choice. She had her ideas of what a rascal should be; but Warrington agreed in no essential. It was not possible that dishonor ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... the draft executives report that the amount of willful delinquency or desertion has been almost nil. Several describe the strenuous efforts of the Negroes to comply with the regulations, when the requirements were explained to them, many registrants travelling long distances to report in person to the adjutant general of the state. 'The ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... as to modelled work or vases. You must have some shapes sent up from the potteries in the "green" state, for it is almost impossible for amateurs to "throw" their own vases on a wheel. Space forbids me to describe the potter's wheel, but visitors to the Health Exhibition two years ago had the opportunity of seeing a potter at work, which is much better than reading about one. Those adventurous spirits who wish to try "throwing" vases, should get a small wheel from the potteries (it will ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII: No. 356, October 23, 1886. • Various
... has had an affair of honour.... Two mornings ago, about seven in the morning, my servant announced, while I was shaving in my dressing-room, that Mr. Hogg wished earnestly to speak with me. He was ushered in, and I cannot describe the half-startled, half-humorous air with which he said, scratching his head most vehemently, 'Odd, Scott, here's twae fo'k's come frae Glasgow to provoke mey to fecht a duel.' 'A duel,' answered I, in great astonishment, ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... with a calm sweet joy, which she was unable to describe. She arose from her bed, and went to the house of God, her heart still glowing with these newly awakened emotions; and while on her way thought within herself, "O that I had a voice that would reach to all the world, I would ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... last while the Christians were there, they concealed one side of the face and the chin. No one could behold them without wishing that the eclipse had been total. No epithet commonly applied to women in this country could adequately describe their want of comeliness. They kept their faces to their work, and except that they held their rags between their teeth, they gave no sign of knowing that ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... I will not describe the subsequent manoeuvres, which would interest nobody; enough if I say that on January 16, 1679, it had become of the highest moment for Friedrich Wilhelm to get from Carwe (Village near Elbing), on the shore of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... To describe, however, the windings and circumfluences of rivers, the embraces of mountain and rain-cloud in language on the other side of amorousness may easily be inconvenient or ridiculous, and not impossibly both; but I shouldn't at all mind upholding in public disputation, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... life was her mournful allusion to those responsibilities which so severely tax the incompetence of a lone woman. She felt obliged to ask advice of a friend; in fact, she asked the advice of three friends, and each responded with a cordiality delightful to describe. It happened that there were no less than three retired shipmasters in the old seaport town of Longport who felt the justice of our heroine's claims upon society. She was not only an extremely pleasing person, ...
— The Life of Nancy • Sarah Orne Jewett
... I must now describe a very recent method of estimating the age of the Earth. There are, in certain rock-forming minerals, colour-changes set up by radioactive causes. The minute and curious marks so produced are known as haloes; for they ...
— The Birth-Time of the World and Other Scientific Essays • J. (John) Joly
... knight feel and act while under Archimago's spell? 2. What becomes of Una? 3. How does Archimago plan to deceive her? 4. Tell the story of the lovers turned into trees. 5. Who was Sansfoy? 6. Describe the appearance and character of Duessa. 7. What did she have to do with Fradubio and Fraelissa? 8. What was the old belief about the penance of witches? 9. How only could the lovers be restored to their ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... other! no use in disguise; Through the holes in the mask comes the flash of the eyes; We can tell by his—somewhat—each one of our tribe, As we know the old hat which we cannot describe. ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... with you, and your own is a perfect sample of the kind you describe." And Treherne smiled as he rolled by to join Mrs. Snowdon, who evidently waited for him, while Octavia turned to her brother to ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... which, I perceive all our letters are opened. I can only tell you, that in most things you guessed right; and that as to myself (585) all is quiet. I am in great concern, for you seem not satisfied with the boy we sent you. Your brother entirely agreed with me that he was what you seem to describe; and as to his being on the foot of a servant, I give you my honour I repeated it over and over to his mother. I suppose her folly was afraid of shocking him. As to Italian, she assured me he had been learning it some time. If he does ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... scope, it is impossible to describe all the wars between the petty kingdoms peopled by races of various languages, which occupied Scotland. In 603, in the wild moors at Degsastane, between the Liddel burn and the passes of the Upper Tyne, the English Aethelfrith ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... describe what the lieutenant and I had seen in the cabin, his manner changed at once; his eyes rolling with fury and his thin, nervous hands clenching in impotent rage and despair, and he tried to stand up, raising ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... "We arrived in October, 1803: my pen is not able to describe half the beauties of that delightful spot: we were four months there. Much to my mortification, as well as loss, we were obliged to abandon the settlement, through the whim and caprice of the Lieutenant-Governor: additional expense to government, and additional loss to individuals, ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... view, the extinction of religion by science seems very unlikely. It is as unlikely that any thing that an Infidel says about religion should be true, as that a blind man should describe the sun correctly, or even read a chapter accurately, with the book open before him? I shall show you presently that learned Infidels make the grossest blunders respecting the plainest Scripture records of scientific facts. It is very unlikely that Infidels, who lay ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... his temper. "Why did I have to describe the notebook?" he said. "You haven't got any ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... horse-blanket about the lower part of my body, and as I had no belt with which to secure it, Miss Burroughs kindly offered to fasten it round my waist by means of a long pin which she took from her hat. It is impossible to describe the exhilaration that pervaded me as she performed this kindly office. After thanking her warmly, I took the ...
— The Magic Egg and Other Stories • Frank Stockton
... and am now suffering under one of these varieties of "Phobias," and my disease is a Politicophobia, I will describe the symptoms. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... solution and retain it. If they are then exposed to the air, the oxygen acts upon the indigo in the fibre and turns it back again to indigo blue. Various chemicals can be used to reduce indigo blue to indigo white. I propose to describe how the work is done with zinc dust and ...
— Vegetable Dyes - Being a Book of Recipes and Other Information Useful to the Dyer • Ethel M. Mairet
... saw that afternoon five days ago when he emerged from the bathroom and found the old trembler awaiting his inspection. Here are the muff and the gloves and the chiffon, and such a kind old bonnet that it makes you laugh at once; I don't know how to describe it, but it is trimmed with a kiss, as bonnets should be when the wearer is old and frail. We must take the merino for granted until she steps out of the astrakhan. She is dressed up to the nines, there is no doubt about it. Yes, but is her face less homely? Above all, has she style? ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... reflections. If the epic poets ignore the importance of the masses on the battlefield, is it not likely that they underrate it in the public assemblies? Is it not possible that here too, to please their patrons, they describe the glorious ages of the past as the days when the assembled people would not question the superior wisdom of their betters, but merely assembled to be taught and to applaud? I cannot, therefore, ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... possess him, the consequence and effect whereof was like to be more grievous than that of the fire itself; of which that loose company that was too much cherished, even before it was extinguished, discoursed of as an argument for mirth and wit, to describe the wildness of the confusion all people were in; in which the Scripture itself was used with equal liberty when they could apply it to their profane purposes. And Mr. May [Footnote: Baptist May (born in 1629) managed to ingratiate himself ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... and fifty,—an age in which, generally, very little of the boy has survived the advance of manhood; yet was there a hearty and frank exhilaration in the manner and look of the person we describe which is rarely found beyond the first stage of youth. His features were comely and clearly cut, and his air and appearance indicative of a man who might equally have belonged to the middle or the upper orders. But Clarence's memory, as well as attention, ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... grown too big for his profession. He mounted this loafing fellow on one of his horses three days a week and had him follow the hunt and report to him whenever they killed, and if he could view the fox so much the better, and then he made him describe it minutely, so he should know if it were his Silvia. But he dared not trust himself to go himself, lest his passion should master him and he might ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... Bolabola. He also mentioned another island which I thought he called Mojeshah, but we know no such island unless it be Howe's Island, and that seems to be situated too far to the South and to the West for the island he attempted to describe and point out to us. The chiefs and several other people came on board from these islands and brought with them the usual produce, and they were at all the isles very pressing to prevail upon us to make a longer stay with them, but ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... of Confucius," observes Mr. Arthur Helps, "say that when in the presence of the prince, his manner displayed RESPECTFUL UNEASINESS. There could hardly be given any two words which more fitly describe the manner of most Englishmen when in society." Perhaps it is due to this feeling that Sir Henry Taylor, in his 'Statesman,' recommends that, in the management of interviews, the minister should be as "near to the ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... for the Solar Guard to make? Under the present circumstances, do you think we should undertake a full-scale investigation? We talked to Al Sharkey, and while he admits being head of an organization known as the Venusian Nationalists, he denies any knowledge of any attack on Sinclair such as you describe. And he claims to have been in Venusport when the ...
— The Revolt on Venus • Carey Rockwell
... us hasty blows, and unawares we borrowed, to describe it, words fit for the sharp strokes of material things; but the fierce gale is soft. Along the short grass, trembling and cowering flat on the scarped hill-side, against the staggering horse, against the flint walls, one with the rock they grasp, the battery ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... that in Behmen's writings is to be found the true and clear demonstration of every physical fact that has been discovered since his day. Thus, the science of electricity, which was not yet in existence when he wrote, is there anticipated; and not only does Behmen describe all the now known phenomena of that force, but he even gives us the origin, generation and birth of electricity itself. Again, positive evidence can be adduced that Newton derived all his knowledge of gravitation ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... enough words in the Bible to describe what he done. Which maybe you sort of gather that he had to keep on performin', because the tenderfoot was still in the saddle. He was. An' he never pulled leather. No, sir, he never touched the buckin' strap, but jest sat there with his teeth set ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... now briefly describe the pompous entry of the English mission into Coomassie. The whole population turned out on the occasion, and all the troops, whose numbers Bowditch estimated at 30,000 at ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... the history of Charles Duran's birth, life, and early death, I will partially describe his father's residence. It was situated in the town of ——, in the State of Connecticut, and about six miles from the west bank of the beautiful Connecticut river. The house stood on a level road, running north and south, and was about ...
— Charles Duran - Or, The Career of a Bad Boy • The Author of The Waldos
... course, the nature and the results of the theological investigations, during the three days devoted to this conference, enough can be learned from church-history.[10] Our task is to describe the carriage and behavior of the persons engaged in it. They seem to divide themselves into two main classes of a better stamp, and one of a worse; the most prominent speakers were Zwingli, Conrad Schmied, commander of the Knights of St John at Kuessnacht, and Conrad Grebel. A reckless treatment, ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... father,' said Emily, while a sudden tear started to her eye, 'how exactly you describe what I have felt so often, and which I thought nobody had ever felt but myself! But hark! here comes the sweeping sound over the wood-tops;—now it dies away;—how solemn the stillness that succeeds! Now the breeze swells again. It ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... shall certainly recite to thee discourses that are delightful, on the subject, O king, of the puissance of this Vishnu as displayed in days of yore and as I have heard (from my preceptors). Listen to me also as I describe the puissance of that great god who has a bull for his device. Listen to me as I narrate also the doubt that filled the mind of the spouse of Rudra and that of Rudra himself. Once on a time the righteous souled ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... does not strictly apply to the creature, for it had no sex, nor are the words "naked," "scurried," "hover" and "gasping" accurate at all. But there are no English words to describe properly what it was and how it moved, except in very general terms. There are no Asiatic, African or European words, though perhaps there are mathematical symbols. But, because this is not a technical paper, the symbols ...
— The Inhabited • Richard Wilson
... direction are more creditable to him as a politician than as a worshipper.[3] In the history of Christianity one cannot commend the efforts either of the Gnostics or the neo-Platonists, nor always justify the medieval missionaries in their methods. Nor can we accurately describe as successful the ingenuity of Vossius, the Dutch theologian, who, following the scheme of Euhemerus, discovered the Old Testament patriarchs in the disguise of the gods of Paganism. Nor, even though Germany be the land of learning, can the clear-headed ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... the rasing-knife, which has a peculiar blade hooked at its point, as well as a centre-pin to describe circles. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... milk let every bowl and saucer be filled. Fletcher, at intervals of thirty feet along the wall let these be placed. If our wanderer is near she will be attracted. Margaret, with Miss Humfray to the village. Collect an army of village boys. Describe our Rose. Set them to scour the countryside for her. Yourselves join that search. Let the call of 'Rose! Rose!' echo through every lane. George, you also will scour far and wide. Upon your way despatch to me a cab from the station. I drive to the post- office to telephone for ...
— Once Aboard The Lugger • Arthur Stuart-Menteth Hutchinson
... one of the great blessings that precede great trials. I can't expect or wish (perhaps) always to sail with a fair wind, yet I try to remember that trial must come, without on that account restraining myself from a deep taste of the present joy. I can't describe it! ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Sin, then, on the whole, may be regarded as a crude novel of a common melodramatic type. What is painful about it is its style, which is slipshod and careless. To describe a honeymoon as a rare occurrence in any one person's life is rather amusing. There is an American story of a young couple who had to be married by telephone, as the bridegroom lived in Nebraska and the bride ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... What pen can describe the anguish of Arthur, when he found himself the inmate of a watch-house! His arrest had completely sobered him, and his intoxication was succeeded by a deathly and overpowering sickness, which he ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... terrible and exciting sight. One of the party would shout, "There, there, the boiler is going to throw up now!" and as it rose into the air, a grand chorus of "There" would announce the end of that discharge. It is impossible to describe to you the grandeur of the scene. It is one of God's most wonderful works. We felt ...
— Scenes in the Hawaiian Islands and California • Mary Evarts Anderson
... necessary to describe in detail this operation; it is sufficient to say that the two detectives worked steadily for a long time; and that when at last they were through with what they were doing, Nick had assumed the personality of Handsome, and ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... all is, and what are the laws of the relation between life and death, the living and the dead, I don't know. But that this relation exists, and exists in a manner as I describe it, for my own part I know. And I am fully aware that once we direct our living attention this way, instead of to the absurdity of the atom, then we have a whole living universe of knowledge before us. The universe of life and ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... died in the streets, and he would leave his little sisters and brothers and creep along the streets until he met the awful death-cart; and then he would ask, and perhaps the man would tell him where to go to find out about his mother, and someone might be able to describe a woman who had fallen down in the street seized by the plague, and had at once been carried off and buried. The boy would guess that that must have been his mother; and yet he could never be quite certain, for she had been buried in a plague-pit ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Frenchmen who accompanied him the misery of the Irish people and the imbecility of the Irish government produced an effect which they found it difficult to describe. Lauzun wrote to Louvois that the Court and the whole kingdom were in a state not to be imagined by a person who had always lived in well governed countries. It was, he said, a chaos, such as he had read of in the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... conspirators with their designs? When he says, therefore, that that is precisely what was understood by the conspiracy, he by no means justifies those who were the principal prosecutors of the plot. The design to murder the king he calls the appendage of the plot: a strange expression this, to describe the projected murder of a king; though not more strange than the notion itself when applied to a plot, the object of which was to render that very king absolute, and to introduce the religion which he most favoured. But it is to be observed, that though in considering the ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... Royal, like her mother, was married in the Chapel of St. James' Palace, and things went on very much as on that memorable wedding day—always spoken of by the Queen as "blessed." She now could describe more as a spectator the shouting, the bell-ringing, the cheering and trumpetings, and the brave sight of the procession. Prince Albert and King Leopold and "the two eldest boys went first. Then the three girls (Alice, Helena and Louise), in pink satin, lace and flowers." ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... business, even were I in possession of all the necessary facts, to say whether it would be better policy from our point of view, to reply to this Note, or to leave it unanswered; I can only describe the situation, as it appears to me at the moment. From that point of view the decision must depend very largely on the results which we expect to follow from the submarine campaign. If this campaign is regarded as an end in itself, and we are justified in believing ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... about their home, except the spirit that's inside it. I can't describe it, but it's there—a certain leisurely way of doing things, a sense that they have made work their servant instead of their master. And still they're certainly not lazy, and they've accomplished more than we have. ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... not to speak about the "State of the Government", not to detail every new initiative we plan for the coming year, nor describe every line in the budget. I'm here to speak to you and to the American people about the State of the Union about our world, the changes we've seen, the challenges we face. And ...
— State of the Union Addresses of George H.W. Bush • George H.W. Bush
... it was the fundamental law of the land, and constitutionally binding upon the government; for, otherwise, it would have been, in their eyes, an unimportant and worthless thing. What those sentiments were I will use the words of others to describe, the words, too, of men, who, like all modern authors who have written on the same topic, had utterly inadequate ideas of the true character of the instrument on which they ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... was too overladen with cloves and too rotten to undertake so long a voyage till she had undergone repair, so the little Victoria alone sailed for Spain with sixty men aboard to carry home their great and wonderful news. Who shall describe the terrors of that homeward voyage, the suffering, starvation, and misery of the weary crew? Man after man drooped and died, till by the time they reached the Cape Verde Islands there were ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... moment, half an hour after his marriage—his second marriage—is hardly a fair time to describe Dr. Arnold Grey; suffice it to say that he was a gentleman apparently about forty-five, rather low in stature, and spare in figure, with hair already thin and iron-gray. The twenty-five years between him and his newly-married ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... set themselves to record them. Perchance my words, too, might, in the ears of strangers, seem to be but an old man's gossip. To you, however, who know that these eyes which are looking at you looked also at the things which I describe, and that this hand has struck in for a good cause, it will, I know, be different. Bear in mind as you listen that it was your quarrel as well as our own in which we fought, and that if now you grow up to be free men in a free land, privileged to think or to pray as your consciences ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... dances of a number too considerable to describe here, also introduced. The dance of the eighteenth century from Derby ware (fig. 59) seems to be but a continuation in action of those of the ...
— The Dance (by An Antiquary) - Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. • Anonymous
... lost child in a Mississippi steamboat explosion years before. The man was lame in one leg, and appeared to be flitting from place to place. It seemed that Major Lackland got so close track of him that he was able to describe his personal appearance and learn his name. But the letter containing these particulars was lost. Once he heard of him at a hotel in Washington; but the man departed, leaving an empty trunk, the day before the major went there. There was something ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... the strangest examples of the degree to which ordinary life is undervalued is the example of popular literature, the vast mass of which we contentedly describe as vulgar. The boy's novelette may be ignorant in a literary sense, which is only like saying that a modern novel is ignorant in the chemical sense, or the economic sense, or the astronomical sense; but it is not vulgar intrinsically—it is the ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... Cromwell's trooper was a very wearisome, pedantic, grey-coloured Puritan in whom one cannot affect the slightest interest. How poorly he compares with Henry Esmond, who was slow and diffident, but a very brave, chivalrous, single-hearted, modest gentleman, such as Thackeray loved to describe. Were it not heresy to our Lady Castlewood, whom all must love and serve, it also comes to one that Henry and Beatrix would have made a complete pair if she had put some assurance in him and he had installed some principle into her, and Henry ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... Why then, O my God, my blessed God, in the ways of my spiritual strength, come I so slow to action? I was whipped by thy rod, before I came to consultation, to consider my state; and shall I go no farther? As he that would describe a circle in paper, if he have brought that circle within one inch of finishing, yet if he remove his compass he cannot make it up a perfect circle except he fall to work again, to find out the same centre, so, though setting that foot of my compass upon thee, I ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... degrees below zero, that one hundred, two hundred other lines of people likewise stand waiting at the doors of bakers and butchers, enduring the same cold, and that they have already endured it and will yet endure it a month and more. Words are wanting to describe the sufferings of these long lines of motionless beings, during the night, at daybreak, standing there five or six hours, with the blast driving through their rags and their feet freezing.—Ventose is beginning, and the ration of bread is reduced to a pound and a half;[42138] Ventose ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine |
