"Describe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... agitated from his surprise, to Lady Theresa Sydney. All that he remembered had prepared him for beauty; but not for the degree or character of beauty that he met. It was a rich, sweet face, with blue eyes and dark lashes, and a nose that we have no epithet in English to describe, but which charmed in Roxalana. Her brown hair fell over her white and well turned shoulders in long and luxuriant tresses. One has met something as brilliant and dainty in a medallion of old Sevres, or amid the terraces and gardens ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... hero made his appearance at the door, and, having given his name, was asked into the counting-house of the establishment, where sat Mr Small and his factotum, Mr Sleek. It may be as well here to describe the persons and peculiarities of ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... them to give an opinion as to the suitability or desirability[21:2] of the arrangement, or of the political importance that might be assigned to the same. This limitation of the duty of the Committee is of importance in order to understand the terms of its conclusions; it was meant simply to describe the effect of the aforesaid arrangement under ...
— The Swedish-Norwegian Union Crisis - A History with Documents • Karl Nordlund
... as in the case of M. Guenon's indications of milking-cows; but there are, nevertheless, marks so definite and well understood, that they are comprehended and acted upon by every grazier, although they are by no means easy to describe. It is by skillful acumen that the grazier acquires his knowledge, and not by theoretical rules; observation, judgment, and experience, powerful perceptive faculties, and a keen and minute comparison and discrimination, are ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... slipped back into place, closing out the bunk, the man stood in night absolute. But after a minute a slender beam of golden light struck suddenly athwart the darkness and found his face. This he endured impassively, only lifting a hand to describe an obscure sign. Immediately the light was shut off, a door opened in the wall opposite, dull light from behind disclosed the silhouette of a man in Chinese robes, his head inclined in a ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... strenuous endeavor was made to arouse popular indignation against the order. The regular and secular clergy were commanded to preach against the Templars, and to describe the horrible enormities that were practised among them. It is incredible to us in these days that such charges should be made, and still more that they should actually be believed. It was said that the Templars worshipped some hideous idol in their secret assemblies, that they offered sacrifices ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... for special persons such as monks or ministers who have by the nature of their calling more time to devote to quiet meditation? I am a busy worker and have little time to spend alone." I am happy to say that the life I describe is for everyone of God's children regardless of calling. It is, in fact, happily practiced every day by many hard working persons and is beyond the reach ...
— The Pursuit of God • A. W. Tozer
... old familiar faces wore new unfamiliar disguises, every step that he took now seemed to be dangerous, misfortune after misfortune had come to him, at first slight and even ludicrous, at last with Falk's escape, serious and bewildering. Bewildering! That was the true word to describe his case! He was like a man moving through familiar country and overtaken suddenly by a dense fog. Through it all, examine it as minutely as he might, he could not see that he had committed ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... the power and privilege which the right of suffrage has conferred upon you, and in your honest, manly souls you can not but disdain the meanness and injustice which might prompt you to deny it to women. Language utterly fails me when I try to describe the painful humiliation and mortification which attend this abject condition of total disfranchisement, and how anxiously and earnestly women desire to be taken out of the list of idiots, criminals and imbeciles, where they do not belong, and placed in the respectable company ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... Boat within a coffin, Pray, gentlefolks, forbear your scoffin'; A Boat a judge! yes, where's the blunder A wooden Judge is no such wonder! And in his robes you must agree, No Boat was better dekt than he. 'Tis needless to describe him fuller, In short he was an ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... to describe Kitty. She's indescribable. Besides—you must find her out. Do go and talk to her. She's to be half with me, half with ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I said, "but they are bringing a young man with them. We may, as he is not here, describe him as a boy. Therefore there must be a large number ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... superfluous, and indeed only going over the same ground already beat at Bath, to describe Miss Brunton's reception on her first appearance in London. Suffice it to say that plaudits and even exclamations of delight were, if possible, more rapturous and more incessant at Covent Garden than at Bath. Of the reputation thus quickly acquired, she never, to the day of ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold
... commence, and continue from time to time, a series of satirical papers purporting to be translated from some Savage Chronicles, and to describe the administration of justice in some country that never existed, and record the proceedings of its wise men. The object of this series (which if I can compare it with anything would be something between Gulliver's Travels and the Citizen of the World) would be to keep ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Describe the composition of phosphate of lime, and the chemical changes which take place in altering it to ...
— The Elements of Agriculture - A Book for Young Farmers, with Questions Prepared for the Use of Schools • George E. Waring
... first photographed on to the glass from a large outline drawing, and then colored; but so few boys have the means of making their slides in this manner that it will be best to pass this system by, especially as I shall describe a method of making the sketch which answers as ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls - Volume XIII, No. 51: November 12, 1892 • Various
... reveries became at last so painful, that I had recourse to reading to drive them away, and subscribing to a good circulating library, I was seldom without a book in my hand. By this time I had been nearly two years and a half with Mr Cophagus, when an adventure occurred which I must attempt to describe with all the dignity with which it ought to ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... step" must have been invented to describe the walk of the Thoracic. No matter how hurried, his walk has more grace than the walk of other types. He does not stumble; and it is seldom that a Thoracic steps on the ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... poorly. I have been to a funeral, where I made a pun, to the consternation of the rest of the mourners; and we had wine. I can't describe to you the howl which the widow set up at proper intervals. Dash could; for it was not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... describe the killer's appearance. They range in length from ten to twenty feet, have a corresponding girth, and show the greatest diversity of colouring and markings. Their anatomy is very much that of the sperm whale—the one member of the cetacean family which ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... are in several other tropical lagoons I know of—a fish which I can only describe as a golden herring. A bronze herring it looks when landed, but when swimming away down against the background of coral brains and white sand patches, it has the sheen of burnished gold. It is as good to eat as to look ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... south of Luzon, has 9,000; and the others from 1,200 to 5,500. I shall not mention or describe them separately. We shall visit only Manila and the country near it, and you would not remember even the names of the islands over night. They are all mountainous and volcanic. The highest mountain is Apo, in Mindanao, which is ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... planetary light over the gently-heaving ocean; or I would recall the deep valleys of the Cordilleras, where the tall and slender palms pierce the leafy vail around them, and waving on high their feathery and arrow-like branches for, as it were, "a forest above a forest;"* or I would describe the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe, when a horizontal layer of clouds, dazzling in whiteness, has separated the cone of cinders from the plain below, and suddenly the ascending current pierces the cloudy vail, so that the eye ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... terms florid enough for Robins, or any other poet. Sold for eighteen pounds, and to a lady. This lady had formed a violent attachment to Miss W.; so next week they will be at daggers drawn. My turn came, and the auctioneer did me the honor to describe me as 'the lot of the evening.' He told the bidders to mind what they were about, they might never again be able to secure a live baronet at a moderate price, owing to the tightness of the money market. Well, sir, I was honored with ...
— A Terrible Temptation - A Story of To-Day • Charles Reade
... Yes, that is the word by which to describe, if you like, the prevalent Bairnsfather expression of countenance. But the kind of weariness he depicts is the reverse of the kind that implies "give up." Au contraire, mes amis! The "fed-up" Bairnsfather man is a fixture. "J'y suis," he ...
— Fragments From France • Captain Bruce Bairnsfather
... out of prison upon the scaffold I hurried away, trembling with the terrible thought that a young life was about to be taken. As it was impossible for me to speak to him I hastened to escape the sound of the drop, but did not succeed. The horrors of war no pen can describe, no tongue can utter, no pencil can paint. The demoralizing influence over the soldier is dreadful. No doubt desertion was this fellow's aim, and, to serve his purpose, he fell into this strong temptation and crime. Desertion cost the life of one whom ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... serious studies. He was more devout in his daily life than ever, prayed to Christ with the foil in his hand, studied the Bible in Hebrew and Greek, spent whole nights in prayer, fasted the livelong day on Sundays, and was, in a word, so Methodistic in his habits that he could truly describe himself as a "rigid Pietist." He interfered in many a duel, and rebuked his fellow students for drinking hard; and for this he was not beloved. As he had come to Wittenberg to study law, he was not, of course, allowed to attend the regular theological ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... was going by, its edge overhead, the rest of it extending eastwardly; and it was long and broad as a pasture for ten thousand camels, and horses ten thousand. It had no likeness earthly except a carpet of green silk; nor could those standing under describe what bore it along. They thought they heard the sound of a strong wind, but as the air above far and near was full of birds great and small, birds of the water as well as the land, all flying evenly with the carpet, and making a canopy of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... Cessnock banks a lassie dwells; Could I describe her shape and mein; Our lasses a' she far excels, An' she ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... to it. Nor was this strange, because there just weren't any words to describe the feeling one gets from contact with a pleasant-faced, quietly dressed example ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... I describe as Modern History that which begins four hundred years ago, which is marked off by an evident and intelligible line from the time immediately preceding, and displays in its course specific and distinctive characteristics ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... to have brought the ship also! On board of her, it is true, we possess weapons against which even such a monster as you tell me of could not prevail. But these weapons I have not with me. How then can I, single-handed, hope to overcome so terrible a creature as you describe? Rather send me back to my ship, when I promise to bring her here, so that a party of us, well armed, may attack the demon, when no doubt we shall be able to destroy it." But at this the ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... there had been—or so I fancied—a fierce, shifty gleam in his coal-black eyes during the few brief minutes that he had bent over me as I lay there in my bunk, that seemed to reveal cruelty and treachery, rather than pity and good-will. Let me describe the man. Standing there beside my bunk, he had conveyed to me the impression of an individual nearly six feet in height,—I afterwards found his stature to be five feet ten inches in his stockings,—broad across the shoulders in proportion, and big boned, but ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... scarcely say, of great value to all who are interested in historical research, supplying, as they do, the necessary details which fill out and amplify the bare facts of history, giving us a living picture of the times and events that they describe. ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... look upon me as being of almost antediluvian age, sometimes ask me to describe the discomforts of an all-night coach journey in my youth, or inquire how many days we occupied in travelling from, say, London to Edinburgh. They are obviously sceptical when I assure them that my memory does not extend ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... you see what a curse is on me. I feel I must describe it, and to no one else but you. Yet I daren't tell you, for it would be rattling at the ...
— The Road to Damascus - A Trilogy • August Strindberg
... headaches. But he was never idle unless when suffering. He had at this time commenced a work,—an Encyclopedia Ecclesiastica, as he called it,—on which he laboured to the moment of his death. It was his ambition to describe all ecclesiastical terms, including the denominations of every fraternity of monks and every convent of nuns, with all their orders and subdivisions. Under crushing disadvantages, with few or no books of reference, with immediate access to no library, he worked at his most ungrateful ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... sylph kept his word, and with what success, what enthusiasm! It is easier to tell you of the reception he got, the transport he excited, than to describe, analyse, divulge, the mysteries of an execution which was nothing analogous in our terrestrial regions. If we had in our power the pen which traced the delicate marvels of Queen Mab, not bigger than an agate that glitters on the finger of an alderman, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... saw, was of middle age and of very ordinary appearance; so ordinary, in fact, that he was difficult to describe—his only peculiarity being his extreme thinness. Pleasant—that is, good—vibrations issued from his atmosphere and met Dr. Silence as he advanced to greet him, yet vibrations alive with currents and discharges betraying the perturbed and disordered condition of ...
— Three More John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... to avoid and so asked him in my confusion to dine with me, which you cannot forget that he accepted. I wished above all things to be lodged as far from a certain Lady(140) as I could, and I have so contrived it, that for the present I am next door. I intend for the future to describe her by that name, that is, La Dame, as Lord Clarendon does the Duchess of Cleveland. I will for the rest of my life mention her as little as possible; but when I am forced to speak upon her subject I will ...
— George Selwyn: His Letters and His Life • E. S. Roscoe and Helen Clergue
... for his own pedigree to lay his sins at his great-grandfather's door. As the nephew of a Tory squire, he was but two degrees removed from original righteousness. In spite of this consideration, he was wont to describe himself with engaging candour as a "bad hat." In doing so he recognised that he was a dependent part of a vast and complicated system. If he, Vincent Hardy, was a bad hat, who was to blame for it? Obviously, civilisation for providing him with temptation, and society for supplying encouragement. ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... over curious in search of an apt or inapt quotation: but nothing can be fitter than a verse of Shakespeare's to praise at once and to describe the ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Asked to describe the cuckoo the other day, a small boy said it was the bird which put its eggs out to be laid by ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... singing, and its joys ever new. Every young woman may cultivate a cheerful spirit, and throw its charm around her associates. Agreeable manners is another Beauty of spirit which charms every body. It is the product of a kind heart and a refined taste. We can not describe it, though we all know what it is. It is one of the charming graces of cultivated womanhood. All who will, may possess it. But they can not do it without effort, culture, and constant watchfulness over the impulses and habits. To possess agreeableness of manners they must have a correct taste. ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... torrent. Pity then is left upon the stage, and presently found by Freewill, representing a lewd debauchee who, with his dissolute companion, Imagination, relate their manner of life, and not without humour describe the stews and other places of base resort. They are presently joined by Hickscorner, who is drawn as a libertine returned from travel, and agreeably to his name scoffs at religion. These three are described as extremely vicious, who glory in every act of wickedness. At length two of them ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... There was a fierce sand storm raging at the time and the steamer had returned without being able to land her passengers at their destination. I decided to wait till the Tuesday. There is plenty to interest one in Baku. I will not describe the eternal fires, described so often by other visitors, nor tell how naphtha was tapped for the first time at this place, and how in 1886 one particular well spouted oil with such tremendous force that it was impossible to check it and it deluged ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... Stella, "and there is something about him that is a thousand times more than all that; for there is an earnestness and sincerity of purpose and a power, such as I have never seen or felt before, in all he says and does. I don't know how to describe it, for he is so different to any man I ever met or saw; and, as for his subject, why, it was just grand. But I cannot help laughing when I think of the feelings of horror, and so much mocked modesty which I saw and heard expressed ...
— A California Girl • Edward Eldridge
... own resources, and will do so as long as the present system lasts. These are cold words with which to describe the tyranny under which we suffer; try then to ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... forlorn scenery—the scenery of the Yorkshire moors round about her home—she was, however, in the more flexible portion of her curious nature inveterately influenced. She does not precisely describe this scenery—not at any rate at any length—either in her poems or in "Wuthering Heights"; but it sank so deeply into her that whatever she wrote was affected by it and bears its desolate and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... had secured success by one adroit wriggle—we can describe his mode of achieving greatness by no better phrase. He was destined to receive half a million for his treachery to his employers. During the war, when United States securities were at their worst; when men, pledged to take them, forfeited money rather than do so, Mr. ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... plaster; their ceilings and borders were decorated with arabesque woodwork. There were tiled fireplaces, with carved mantels, white, like the rectangular window-frames and panelled doors. Well, well, 'twas but a house like countless others, and why should I so closely describe it?—save that I love the memory of it, and fain would linger ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... upon the grandeur of cliffs and sea, upon the impressive wildness of certain districts, full of great pine-covered mountains and endless fir woods, contrasting with others more gentle and fertile, which are covered with broad fields of corn and rye. She loves to describe the long still summer nights and the gray dawn when the birds begin to sing, the sweet scents of the forest, and the soft freshness of the western breeze. The smallest details of the living picture do not escape her notice. She records ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... obvious that these words describe perfectly the basic principle of every modern phonograph or other talking-machine, irrespective of its ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... could make for my whole great family, but somehow this seems almost a private matter, and I am sensitive about giving it publicity. My love and hope for Lisa are so great, I cannot bear to describe her "case," nor paint her unhappy childhood in the hues it deserves, for the sake of gaining sympathy and aid. I may have to do it, but would I were the little Croesus of a day! Still, Christmas is ...
— Marm Lisa • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... married. I suppose I ought to stop now and describe just how it was, and what the bride wore, and a list of the presents. But it didn't last long enough to be clear in my mind. Everything is a bit hazy, just there. I dropped the ring, I know that for certain, because it rolled under an article of furniture that looked ...
— The Range Dwellers • B. M. Bower
... years roll by, a deeper, sounder faith and love from experience.—An experience of which I shall not talk here; for those who have not felt it for themselves would not know what I mean; and those who have felt it need no clumsy words of mine to describe ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley
... was hardly in accordance with its painful character. The three men—for there was another whom we have not attempted to describe—stood on the border of a small loch, the tranquil waters of which came lapping almost to their feet as they spoke together. The grassy shores were fringed with alder and rowan-trees. Above the heads of the speakers waved the branches ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... broodingly and sought the dark places. And yet it could not be said that times were dull for him: the luckless picket who finds himself in an open eighty-acre field, under the eye of a sharpshooter up a tree, would not be apt to describe the experience as dull. And Cora never missed a shot; she loved the work; her pleasure in it was almost as agonizing for the target as was the accuracy ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... well as listening. "There's a very sure and certain way of finding out who Godwin Markham is! Do you remember?—Mrs. Lester said her son had only seen him once. Well, once is enough!—he'd remember him. We must go to Maychester right away and see this young Lester, and get him to describe ...
— The Chestermarke Instinct • J. S. Fletcher
... witty Mirth, which could be acquired by no Art. This Quality must be of the Kind of which I am now speaking; for all sorts of Behaviour which depend upon Observation and Knowledge of Life, is to be acquired: but that which no one can describe, and is apparently the Act of Nature, must be every where prevalent, because every thing it meets is a fit Occasion to exert it; for he who follows Nature, can never be ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... this off to describe what is going on, which is too interesting to ignore. For the second time this afternoon we are shut up in the dark tent, everyone having fled before a pelting shower. We were first aligned for calisthenics, but were dismissed on account ...
— At Plattsburg • Allen French
... referred to the ferocity of the walrus when attacked. As a rule, man is the assailant. Sometimes, however, the monster of the Arctic deep assumes the offensive. On the occasion we are about to describe the ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... eat; and one of them, with an empty laugh, threw what was left into the fire, which blazed and roared again over this unusual fuel. I never in my life saw men so careless of the morrow; hand to mouth is the only word that can describe their way of doing; and what with wasted food and sleeping sentries, though they were bold enough for a brush and be done with it, I could see their entire unfitness for ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he said to himself, thinking how he should describe him to Bud. "An' gole buckles on his shoes, an' a sword on, an' a long white feathah in his hat. Cricky! An' it was his hawse I done held! Maybe it will be somethin' mighty fine what he's goin' to bring me, 'cause I ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... needless to describe the dismay and astonishment which poor Hilda's return excited in the establishment. Lawrence had evidently in no way warned them of what had occurred. Bertha Eswick had need of all her self-possession and ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... history since our last meeting. I mightn't judge of what Mrs. Pallant kept back, but for myself I quite overflowed. She let me see at any rate that her life had been a good deal what I supposed, though the terms she employed to describe it were less crude than those of my thought. She confessed they had drifted, she and her daughter, and were drifting still. Her narrative rambled and took a wrong turn, a false flight, or two, as I thought ...
— Louisa Pallant • Henry James
... on that. My personal effects and the mementos of my travels, which lay about my rooms in great confusion, must remain where they were. As to the few friends who still remained to me, I did not write to them. I could not well describe a project of which I knew nothing, save that it was being carried out by dangerous lunatics, or, at least, by men who were dangerous, whether their madness was real or assumed. Nor could I think of any reasonable excuse for leaving ...
— The Crack of Doom • Robert Cromie
... has, in fact, "educated" a nation. For to this day, no sooner does each succeeding Wednesday spread the new issue over the country than a mass of newspapers, both in England and in the colonies, immediately describe and discuss "This week's cartoon" for the edification of their readers. And so we have come to accept these types until they have almost grown into concrete ideas—conventions which have been given to us chiefly by Sir John Tenniel—Britannia and Father ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... give an account of the internal economy of this establishment, it will be necessary to describe the building which was appropriated to this use; and the other local circumstances, necessary to be known, in order to have a clear ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... did not lose in his telling, particularly when he came to describe the fight on the gravel bar which no man had seen, and of which Poleon had told him little; but the good priest was of a militant turn, and his blue eyes glittered and flashed ...
— The Barrier • Rex Beach
... driven into the background. Compositions for the Concert Spirituel, for the theatre, and for dilettanti, as well as teaching and visits to great people, occupied him. His mother writes: "I cannot describe to you how much Wolfgang is beloved and praised here. Herr Wendling had said much in his favor before he came, and has presented him to all his friends. He can dine daily, if he chooses, with Noverre [the famed ballet-master], and also with Madame d'Epinay" [Grimm's celebrated friend]. ...
— The Letters of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, V.1. • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
... describe our amusements. I went to school with a more hopeful, manly spirit than I ever did before, and to the astonishment of Dr Summers, set to with a will at everything he gave me to do, and before long was nearly up at the head of my class. I wished to please my father, and ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... and stars appear in the sky; Her glance drops to earth, and flowers clothe the knoll whereon she stands. Beria looks up, and basilisks die of terror; Be not amazed; 'tis a sight that would Satan affright. Tamar's divine form human language cannot describe; The gods themselves believe her heaven's offspring. Beria's presence is desirable only in the time of vintage, When the Evil One can be banished by naught but grimaces. Tamar! Had Moses seen thee he had never made ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... while we sometimes use the word "sleep" to describe the hypnotic state, we are not actually referring to true sleep. This accounts for much of the confusion. The individual thinks, "If I'm asleep, how can I awaken myself?" If the subject were asleep in the true sense ...
— A Practical Guide to Self-Hypnosis • Melvin Powers
... thine enemies perish, O Lord let them that love him be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might. [But who can describe their utter disappointment! So shamefully, so totally, let all the enemies of thy people, and all the opponents of thy dominion in the earth perish, O Lord, from before thy face forever! But let all those who are animated with a sacred zeal for thy glory resemble the morning ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... laughed the Gaul, "you do not know him, but I—I am his friend and may follow wherever—he goes. Now only wait and I will tell you a few stories about him. If I chose I could describe his whole soul to you as if it lay there on the surface of the wine in my cup. Once in Rome he went to inspect the newly-decorated baths of Agrippa, and in the undressing-room he saw an old man, a veteran who had fought with him somewhere or other. My ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... came again before the presidents; and upon their permission to make a seizure for his money, he, with difficulty, went out of his country with a party of soldiers for that purpose. And this is all the war which these men so tragically describe; and this is the affair of the expedition into Arabia. And how can this be called a war, when thy presidents permitted it, the covenants allowed it, and it was not executed till thy name, O Caesar, as well as that ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... deserve to be transmitted to posterity. They were Mlles. Crolo, Raisin, Fyoux, and Chatel. The title of Sister was not given them for many years after, but in 1671 they received letters patent authorizing them to form a religious community. We cannot better describe the rise and progress of the Sisters of the Congregation than by giving extracts from the manuscripts of Sister Bourgeois. ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... having laid aside her customary broad-bordered cap, with a high crowned turban of red, and yellow cotton handkerchief on her head, appeared at the parlor door. Mr. Tiffany paused: he saw the Moorish princess before him; rallying, however, he was proceeding to describe himself as a friendly troubadour, whose affection had been responded to, when the Captain placing his mouth to his ear, as in confidence, uttered in a portentous ...
— Chanticleer - A Thanksgiving Story of the Peabody Family • Cornelius Mathews
... to describe their characteristics, I should say, the most exuberant and extravagant humour, coupled with strong, noble, Christian purpose,—a thorough scorn for all that is false and base, all the more withering because ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... on, "we walks the four miles out, through a virgin conservatory of palms and ferns and other roof-garden products, to the president's summer White House. It was blue, and reminded you of what you see on the stage in the third act, which they describe as 'same as the first' ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... her than he dared. And his interest was growing by leaps and bounds. This woman fascinated him; he was infatuated—bewitched by her personality. To be near her affected him mentally and physically in a way too extraordinary to analyze or to describe. It was as if they were so sympathetically attuned that the mere sound of her voice set his whole being into vibrant response, where all his life he had lain mute. She played havoc with his resolutions, too, awaking in him ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... take it rather than risk navigation in such a torrent as you describe," decided Billy after the remark of Aga had been translated ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... she did not; it was a bewildering joy, but it was a longing; it was an exquisite satisfaction, yet it was also a secret, unspeakable wish; it was the first thrill of a feeling too exquisite for words to describe, but with it there came a mysterious forelightening of something unknown ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... with my dear mother and sister after so long an absence abroad can be well imagined, and so too my first interview with Elsie, whom I should hardly have known again, for how can I describe her beauty and grace, and though I had been prepared in some measure from accounts my mother had sent me, still they exceeded ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... nothing at all of that in comparison with the garden. Here, when possible, they even had their lessons; here they played all their wonderful and remarkable games; here they went through their brief sorrows, and tasted their sweetest joys. But I must hasten to describe the garden itself. In the first place, it was old-fashioned, having very high brick walls covered all over with fruit trees. These fruit trees had grown slowly, and were now in the perfection of their prime. Never were such ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... not attempt to describe my own state of mind. When I tell you that I am actually afraid of dying before I can give my sweet love the first kiss, you will understand and pity me. When night comes, ...
— The Fallen Leaves • Wilkie Collins
... No one in the world can properly understand and describe this shouting of "Joe," unless he were on this El Dorado of Ballaarat ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... dark, Gothic, and opening on the minster sanctuary, not only by casement windows that shed a dim midday gloom, but by a narrow winding staircase, at the foot of which an iron-spiked door led to the long gloomy path of cloistered solitude. This place remained in the situation in which I describe it in the year 1776, and probably may, in a more ruined state, continue so ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... these cruder instances, what a wealth of associations crowd in upon the mind, when a sight that moves one is observed. Put two men before a scene, one an ordinary person and the other a great poet, and ask them to describe what they see. Assuming them both to be possessed of a reasonable power honestly to express themselves, what a difference would there be in the value of their descriptions. Or take two painters both equally gifted in the ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... their escape from the dangers which threatened them in England, we return to follow the adventures of Prince Charles during his residence on the Continent, and, more particularly in this chapter, to describe his reception by the royal family of France. He was one of the first of the children that escaped, having arrived in France in 1646. His father was not beheaded until two ...
— History of King Charles II of England • Jacob Abbott
... is not." Why doth the Lord take pleasure to reckon their sins, to describe so abominable a people? Is not this Jacob in whom he saw no iniquity?(267) Is not this Israel, whose transgressions are not known?(268) Certainly if this people would have charged themselves so, he would not have done it. He loves to forget, ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... boys, I am glad to see you again! Since I last saw you I have made an extensive tour, and visited some of the most romantic and picturesque scenery in England. One day I may give you an account of what I saw, and describe to you the scenes which I visited; but I must deny myself this pleasure at present. I promised, at our next meeting, to tell you some TALES ABOUT THE INSTINCT OF ANIMALS; and I propose to begin with the Horse. I like to interest you with those animals with which you are familiar, and to draw ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... authorities from which the popular histories of the time have been chiefly taken are Appian, Plutarch, Suetonius, and Dion Cassius. Of these the first three were divided from the period which they describe by nearly a century and a half, Dion Cassius by more than two centuries. They had means of knowledge which no longer exist—the writings, for instance, of Asinius Pollio, who was one of Caesar's officers. But Asinius ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... a note this minute," thought Lloyd, with a warm glow in her heart. "I'll describe some of the sights we have seen, and send her that fo' leafed clovah that I found at the chateau yestahday, undah a window of the great hall where Anne of Brittany was married ovah fo' hundred yeahs ago. I don't suppose Jessie gets a lettah ...
— The Little Colonel's Hero • Annie Fellows Johnston
... strictly in place, I do not know where I can more conveniently describe this little group of small islands. The lowest bed is a sandstone with ferruginous veins; it weathers into an extraordinary honeycombed mass; above it there is a dark-coloured argillaceous shale; above this a coarser sandstone—making a total thickness ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin
... with some emotion he would conceal. Strong it must be, judging from its effects on the ex-man-o'-war's man. On his face there is an expression difficult to describe—surprise amounting to amazement—joy subdued by anxiety. Soon, as having given up the glass, he pulls off his dreadnought, then divesting himself of his shirt—a scarlet flannel—he suspends it from the outer end of the cross-piece which ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid
... exclaimed Charlie, with animation; putting down a short-cake he had just buttered. "Wonderful!—There is no other word to describe them." ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... we should incline to fix in Colorado, but she includes New England and California in her travels, and finds something beautiful to describe wherever she goes within those broad limits. The Yosemite, the Big Trees, the Mormons, the Chinese, the snow-sheds, drawing-room cars, agates, prairie-and mountain-flowers, New Hampshire life and scenery, and an infinity ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... game of the Plum-stones is one of the favorite games of the Dakotas. Hennepin was the first to describe this game, in his Description de la Louisiane, Paris, 1683, and he describes it very accurately. See Shea's translation p. 301. The Dakotas call this game Kan-soo Koo-tay-pe—shooting plum-stones. Each stone is painted black on one side and red on ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... historian and as one of the founders of French prose. His Chronicles present an account of the fourteenth century, when the age of feudalism was fast drawing to an end. He admired chivalry and painted it in glowing colors. He liked to describe tournaments, battles, sieges, and feats of arms. Kings and nobles, knights and squires, are the actors on his stage. Froissart traveled in many countries and got much of his information at first hand from those who had made history. Out of what he learned he composed a ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... of melancholy interest, and a crowd of people had gathered on the levee to hear the latest tidings of woe from her cabin, now changed into a hospital. I care not to dwell upon the sad scene which greeted my vision as I went on board of her, nor to describe the horror with which I glanced at the long row of ghastly corpses which had been ...
— Down The River - Buck Bradford and His Tyrants • Oliver Optic
... postmasters and their assistants, revenue collectors, inspectors, clerks, marshals, deputies, consuls, and ambassadors were a part of the organization, contributing to its maintenance. We often hear today of the "Federal Crowd," a term used to describe such appointees as still subsist on presidential and senatorial favor. In Grant's time, this "crowd" was a genuine machine, constructed, unlike some of its successors, from the center outward. But the "boss" of this ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... accomplish; he could secure no leverage on the instrument. He was not to be thwarted, however; so changing his tactics, he took the barrel in his hand and began to rain heavy blows upon the keys, with the butt end. In less time than it takes to describe the episode, the instrument had been ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... colossal dimensions of which could not be estimated. Its face turned towards the earth was brilliantly lighted. It looked like a small moon reflecting the light of the large one. It advanced at prodigious speed, and seemed to describe round the earth an orbit right across the passage of the projectile. To the movement of translation of this object was added a movement of rotation upon itself. It was therefore behaving like all celestial ...
— The Moon-Voyage • Jules Verne
... May Vaughan led four hundred men to the hills near the town, and saluted it with three cheers,—somewhat to the discomposure of the French, though they describe the unwelcome visitors as a disorderly crowd. Vaughan's next proceeding pleased them still less. He marched behind the hills, in rear of the Grand Battery, to the northeast arm of the harbor, where there were extensive magazines of naval stores. These his men set ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... left him with precipitation, and retiring to her own apartment, threw herself on the bed, and gave vent to an agony of grief which it is impossible to describe. ...
— Charlotte Temple • Susanna Rowson
... person singular in speaking of the tribe, and to avoid, even in its name, the plural termination. Tsiskwa went on with the tone of reminiscence rather than legendary lore, and with an air of bated rancor, as of one whose corroding grievance still works at the heart, to describe how the Lenni Lenape crossed the Mississippi and fell upon the widespread settlements of the Alligewi (or Tallegwi) Indians—considered identical with the Cherokee (Tsullakee)—and warred with them many years in folly, ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... with bodily freedom. Take our tight and ungainly shoes. Here is an abominable instance of our slavery to style. In most instances the foot is made to fit the shoe, and the suffering that is endured by many so-called stylish people for the purpose of making the foot fit the shoe would be difficult to describe. A shoe should fit the foot. The more nearly you approximate the same freedom when walking in a shoe as you do when barefooted the more perfect the shoe. The toes should not be squeezed out of shape. The great toe should follow the straight line of the inside of the ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... Newhall, who disappeared before Burleigh. He questioned the clerks at the corral, reconnoitered the neighborhood, asked what were their means of defense, turned inside out a worn yet shapely boot that had been the captain's, bade man after man to describe that worthy, and finally walked away from the depot, having picked up lots of information and imparted none. He spent some time at Folsom's that evening. He drove out to the fort in the afternoon, "and what do you think he wanted?" said Old ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... describe the variety of shrubs we found on the island. Many were evergreens. One, which the doctor called the suriana, emitted a peculiarly strong, though not unpleasant odour. We used to be very glad, when the rays ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... embody the substantial characteristics and be entirely consistent with a substantial identity of form. Thus, if the invention were of a design for an ornamental button, the face of which was grooved with radial rays, it would seem that the first designer of such a button might properly describe a button of five rays, and, having stated that a greater number of rays might be used, might claim a design consisting generally of radial rays, or of "five or more" rays, and, that it could not be necessary for him to take out a patent for each additional ray that could be cut ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various
... cannot tell you all our adventures consecutively, so shall describe only some of the most interesting. We first visited the Saint Vincent, which, as we had just left our little yacht, looked very fine and grand. Papa was saying to one of the officers that he had served on board her, when a weather-beaten petty ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... state of mind, to insist upon the political conduct, the controversial bearing, and the social methods and manifestations of Rome. And here I found a matter ready to my hand, which affected me the more sensibly for the reason that it lay at our very doors. I can hardly describe too strongly my feeling upon it. I had an unspeakable aversion to the policy and acts of Mr. O'Connell, because, as I thought, he associated himself with men of all religions and no religion against ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... purpose of this paper to present some of the facts discovered during the restoration of the vehicle, to show the problems that faced its builders, and to describe their solutions. An attempt also has been made to correlate all this information with reports of the now almost legendary day-to-day experiences of the Duryeas, as published by the brothers in various booklets, and as related by Frank Duryea during two interviews, ...
— The 1893 Duryea Automobile In the Museum of History and Technology • Don H. Berkebile
... Who's Who? you'll find out exactly where I live, though I can tell you that myself—" he mentioned the number of his chambers in Regent Street. "They'll tell you in Who's Who? that my sports are riding, fishing, and shooting—that describes a man in England; it doesn't describe me. I don't ride; I don't fish or shoot; I used to; that's another matter. I only ride an occasional hobby now—fish for work on the papers, and shoot— Lord knows what I shoot! Nothing, I suppose. I belong to the National Liberal Club for the Library, to the Savage ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... words of a contemporary writer (Pandulph. Pisan. in Vit. Paschal. II. p. 357, 358) describe the election and oath of the praefect in 1118, inconsultis patribus.... loca praefectoria.... Laudes praefectoriae.... comitiorum applausum.... juraturum populo in ambonem sublevant.... confirmari eum in urbe ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... here and there, seeing that everything was prepared; looking vastly important, and thinking I was immensely busy, when in reality I was doing next to nothing. I shall, therefore, without further preface, proceed to describe my ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... openly and without afterthought made love to him. He was a charming little lad, it is true; but quite apart from that, he was the only male creature above servant rank in the household. I describe him so because I cannot bring myself to call him a man; but he was quite man enough for the lady's intent. It is a surprising instance of the tact there was innate in the youth that he checked every undue liberty on the part of his mistress without endangering ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett |
