"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the commonly misunderstood phrases in the language is "the Spanish Main." To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean Sea. Although Shakespeare in "Othello," makes one of the gentlemen of Cyprus say that he "cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail," and, therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the word to the ocean, "main" really refers to the other element. The Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished from Cuba, Hispaniola and the other islands, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis^. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus^. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Myth.]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken [Scot.]; get a sight of, have a sight of, catch a sight of, get a glimpse of, have a glimpse of, catch a glimpse of; command a view of; witness, contemplate, speculate; cast the eyes on, set the eyes on; be a spectator ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... far more to make London miserable to him: he was now at last disgusted with his trade: this continuous feeding on the labor of others was no work for a gentleman! he began to descry in it certain analogies which grew more and more unpleasant as he regarded them. For his poetizing he was sick of that also. True, the quality or value of what he had written was nowise in itself affected by its failure to meet acceptance. It had certainly not had ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... slanted up a steep hillside. Presently Hazel could look away over an area of woodland undulating like a heavy ground swell at sea. Here and there ridges stood forth boldly above the general roll, and distantly she could descry a white-capped mountain range. They turned the end of a thick patch of pine scrub, and Bill pulled up in a small opening. From a case swinging at his belt he took out a pair of field glasses, and leisurely ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... the trench towards the batteries at the foot of the Loos Crassier. In doing so, we had to pass under the road. I was going on ahead, and when I stooped down to pass under the bridge, to my surprise I could dimly descry in the darkness a row of silent men sitting on each side of the passage facing one another. I said, "Good-night, boys," but there was no answer. The figures in the darkness remained motionless and still. I could not quite make out what the matter was, for ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... our elephants bore us back to Siemrap through an avenue of colonnades similar to that by which we had come; and as we advanced we could still descry other gates and pillars far in the distance, marking the line of some ancient avenue ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... Jean knew there were several flocks of Jorth's sheep on the mountain in the care of herders, but he had never thought of them being so far west, more than twenty miles from Chevelon Canyon. His roving eyes could not descry any herders or dogs. But he knew there must be dogs close to that immense flock. And, whatever his cunning, he could not hope to elude the scent and sight of shepherd dogs. It would be best to go back the way he had come, wait for darkness, then cross the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... selues and our oxen were exceeding weary and faint, not knowing how far off we should find any Tartars, on the sudden, there came two horses running towards vs, which we tooke with great ioy, and our guide and interpreter mounted vpon their backes, to see, how far off they could descry any people. At length vpon the fourth day of our iourney, hauing found some inhabitants, we reioyced like sea faring men, which had escaped out of a dangerous tempest, and had newly recouered the hauen. Then hauing taken fresh horses, and oxen, we passed on from lodging to lodging, till at ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... of a bluff. Dusk hid our approach; and the absence of the dogs that usually infest Indian camps told us that these fellows were marauders. Smoke curled up from the poles crisscrossed at the tepee forks, but we could descry no figures against the tent-walls as in summer, for heavy skins of the chase overlaid the parchment. All was silence but in one wigwam. This was an enormous structure, built on poles long as a mast, with moose-hides ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... From these, earth's matin songs, my ear Would turn, a sweeter voice to hear— A voice, whose tones the very air Seemed trembling with delight to bear; From leafy wood, and misty stream, From bush, and brake, and morning beam, Would turn away my wandering eye, A dearer object to descry, Till voice so sweet, and form so bright, Grew part of hearing ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... mind of man Descry Thy dazzling throne, And pierce and find Thee out, and scan Where ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... (Varro, cited in Civitas Dei, iii. 457), Africans of Fez (Leo Africanus); while Maoris use a drop of blood (Taylor), Egyptians use ink (Lane), and Australian savages employ a ball of polished stone, into which the seer 'puts himself' to descry the results of ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... how Kant bases his whole system upon the indestructible fact of ethical law, the primeval intuition of the awakened spirit of man into the eternal distinction between good and evil. Standing on that foundation, he is able to descry the world of transcendental realities—"the land which is very far off"—which the pure and critical reason could never behold. But though the eyes of the mind were holden, the intuition of the will enables him to gaze direct into the unseen and discern freedom, soul, immortality and God ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... some on earnest labour bent Their business, murmuring, ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty; Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of the little reign And unknown regions dare descry; Still as they run they look behind, And hear a voice in every wind, ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... foresees clearly enough that the earlier half of this present century must needs be a time of much rough pioneering service on the part of those who are the most earnest friends of the negro race. As lookers-on from afar on the European side of the broad Atlantic, we are able to descry many reassuring signs. Both in the North and the South, Booker Washington has met with abundance of sympathy, and a good deal of honest, practical help. When Harvard University bestowed on him the degree of Master of Arts, he was the first negro who had ever received ...
— From Slave to College President - Being the Life Story of Booker T. Washington • Godfrey Holden Pike
... sailed along under the tall cliffs of Ireland. We were about three miles from the shore, on which now every telescope and glass was eagerly directed. As the light and fleeting clouds of early morning passed away, we could descry the outlines of the bold coast, indented with many a bay and creek, while rocky promontories and grassy slopes succeeded each other in endless variety of contrast. Towns, or even villages, we could see none—a few small wretched-looking hovels were dotted over the hills, and here and there a thin ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... the last thrilling work of Maggie Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid soupon of curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite distress, Adolphus and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... some desert shore, Doth home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of wave ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... token, no Woman ever wore before. It is The medicine, which none but brave Of noble birth may wear. Though thou Art not of chieftain father bred, Still yet thou art born noble. Take, Janishkisgan, and to the top Of Wey-do-dosh-she-ma-de-nog. There let thine eye be keen, the path Of open safety to descry;— Use this plume of eagle plucked, To point to us the way. We will Prepare the arrows; grass and grain Arrange, and make the fuel ready for The flame upon the graves. When four And twenty hours have passed, light thou The fires upon the tombs, and ...
— Indian Legends of Minnesota • Various
... Where were the ships?—Where could they be found? All our telescopes, directed over the sea could not descry a single friendly sail Bonaparte, I affirm, would have regarded such an event as a real favour of fortune. It was, and—I am glad to have to say it, this sole idea, this sole hope, which made him brave, for three days, the murmurs of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... passed, one after one, Wearing their radiance to the darkened room,—— Surely, new-comers to Oblivion May still descry, in that all-quenching gloom, Rare faces, lovely, lifted and alight, Like tapers burning through the ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... he went, when he heard a sound that made him look up. Then he saw that he was under a great beech, and the sound seemed to come from somewhere in the top of it—a sound like the pleased cooing of a dove. He looked hard into the branches and their wilderness of fresh leaves, but could descry nothing. Then came a little laugh, and with a preparatory rustling and rustling in its passage, a book—a small folio—fell plump ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... did not abhor, No more Than Man, in Youth's high spousal-tide, Abhors at last to touch The strange lips of his long-procrastinating Bride; Nay, not the least imagined part as much! Ora pro me! My Lady, yea, the Lady of my Lord, Who didst the first descry The burning secret of virginity, We know with what reward! Prism whereby Alone we see Heav'n's light in its triplicity; Rainbow complex In bright distinction of all beams of sex, Shining for aye In the simultaneous sky, To One, thy Husband, Father, Son, and Brother, Spouse blissful, Daughter, ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... on for two more weary hours, cutting our steps in the icy cliffs, or sinking to our thighs in the treacherous snow-beds. We could see that we were nearing the top of the great chasm, for the clouds, now entirely cleared away, left our view unobstructed. We could even descry the black Kurdish tents upon the northeast slope, and, far below, the Aras River, like a streak of silver, threading its way into the purple distance. The atmosphere about us grew colder, and we buttoned up our ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... hour, another armed troop passed through the streets of St. Petersburg. With drawn swords they surrounded two closely-covered sledges, the mysterious occupants of which no one was allowed to descry! The train made a halt at the same gate through which the overthrown imperial family had just passed. The soldiers surrounded the sledges in close ranks; no one was allowed a glimpse at those who alighted ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... advance, but by keeping close to the shore, they held their way, and on the 24th they encamped on a fine stream of water running through a mesa at the foot of a sierra, whence looking across the sea, they could descry Santa Catalina Island. This was San Juan Capistrano, and here they rested on the 25th. On the 28th they reached the Santa Ana river, near the present town of that name; a violent shock of earthquake which they experienced caused them to name the river Jesus de los Temblores[19]. July ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... joyous parent to descry, A guileless bosom true to sympathy! A long lost friend, or hapless child restored, Smiles at his blazing hearth and social board; Warm from his heart the tears of rapture flow, And virtue triumphs o'er ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... narrowly I saw it to be a serpent big of bulk and gigantic of girth, wherewith it flew away clean out of sight. I marvelled at this and faring forwards found myself on a peak overlooking a valley, exceeding great and wide and deep, and bounded by vast mountains that spired high in air: none could descry their summits, for the excess of their height, nor was any able to climb up thereto. When I saw this, I blamed myself for that which I had done and said, "Would Heaven I had tarried in the island! It was better than this wild desert; for there I had at least fruits to eat and water ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... passed away, and morning had already dawned imperceptibly in the horizon; looking up, I shuddered as I beheld in the east all those splendid hues that announce the rising sun. At this hour, when all natural shadows are seen in their full proportions, not a fence or a shelter of any kind could I descry in this open country, and I was not alone! I cast a glance at my companion, and shuddered again—it was the man in the grey coat himself! He laughed at my surprise, and said, without giving me time to ...
— Peter Schlemihl etc. • Chamisso et. al.
... last farewell to home. Yonder it lies on the point—the fjord sparkling in front, pine and fir woods around, a little smiling meadow-land and long wood-clad ridges behind. Through the glass one could descry a summer-clad figure by the bench ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... Nob Hill, the hill of palaces, must certainly be counted the best part of San Francisco. It is there that the millionaires are gathered together vying with each other in display. From thence, looking down over the business wards of the city, we can descry a building with a little belfry, and that is the Stock Exchange, the heart of San Francisco: a great pump we might call it, continually pumping up the savings of the lower quarters into the pockets of the millionaires upon the hill. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... glance they cast upon the objects which we passed, I endeavored in vain to guess at the nature of the country through which we were traveling; but, except the tall shafts of the everlasting pine trees, which still pursued us, I could descry nothing, and resigned myself to the amusing contemplation of the attitudes of my companions, who were all fast asleep. Between twelve and one o'clock the engine stopped, and it was announced to us that we had traveled as far upon ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... of our small barques, named the Gabriel, was sent by our general to bear in with the land, to descry it, where, being on land, they met with the people of the country, which seemed very humane and civilised, and offered to traffic with our men, proffering them fowls and skins for knives and other trifles, whose courtesy caused us to think that they had small conversation with the other of ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... oceans of mud, which ought, properly, to have been navigated with boats. The whole cavalcade always moved under the charge of an officer, and many were the anxious looks that we took with our spy-glasses, from a hill overlooking the road, on the days of their expected return, each endeavouring to descry his own. Mine came back to me twice; but "the pitcher that goes often to the well" was verified in his third trip, for—he perished ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... waxing, from about the eighth day to the full, it requires no very vivid imagination to descry on the westward side of the lunar disk a large patch very strikingly resembling a rabbit or hare. The oriental noticing this figure, his poetical fancy developed the myth-making faculty, which in process of time elaborated the legend of the hare in the moon, which ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... point a moral), the soldiers, the mounted constables, the dirt, the dreariness, the misery, and the dark over-grown palace frowning over it all from barred window and guarded gateway—what more than all this do we dimly descry in a mental image of the dark ages? For all his desire to keep the peace with the vivid image of things if it be only vivid enough, the votary of this ideal may well occasionally turn over such values ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... July last the sd. Brigt Hawk being in Consort with the Sloop Elizabeth a Private Man of Warr belonging to New-York of About 10 Carriage and 12 Swivel Guns and about 55 Men Commanded by Thomas Barns about Twelve o'Clock of that day descry'd a ship Standing to the Westward, the Hawk then Standing to the Eastward upon which Capt. Waterhouse bore away to the sd. sloop to Consult with Capt. Barns (who was then to Leward) About Engaging sd. Ship, and Capt. Barns ask'd what they Made of ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... berth, as giving warning of rocks underneath; but in the light-draught gig they have no fear of these, and with the swell still tossing them about, they might be even glad to get in among the kelp—certainly there would be but that between it and the shore. They can descry waveless water, seemingly as tranquil ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid
... Tulip, who thy stock in paint dost waste, Neither for physic good, nor smell, nor taste. Beauty, whose flames but meteors are, Short-liv'd and low, though thou would'st seem a star, Who dar'st not thine own home descry, Pretending to dwell richly in the eye, When thou, alas, dost in ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... plain; From many a lonely hamlet, which, hid by beech and pine, Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest of purple Apennine; From lordly Volaterrae, where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants for godlike kings of old; From seagirt Populonia, whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops fringing the southern sky; From the proud mart of Pisae, queen of the western waves, Where ride Massilia's triremes heavy with fair-hair'd slaves; From where sweet Clanis wanders through corn and vines and flowers; From where Cortona lifts ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... yet say, they watched with special attention that part of the garden where they had last seen them. Perhaps indeed they gave in consequence too little attention to the house. But the creatures were too cunning to be easily caught; nor were the watchers quick-eyed enough to descry the head, or the keen eyes in it, which, from the opening whence the stream issued, would watch them in turn, ready, the moment they should leave the lawn, to report the ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... unto the skinne, that the most part of the souldiers had their skinnes pierced thorow with them in many partes of their bodies." Yet, giddy with weakness, they dragged themselves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to descry ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... straight for Pummy, contenting himself for the moment with an occasional glimpse of him between the moving heads, now opening a vista, now closing it again, for he hoped to get gradually nearer unseen, so as to be close to the animal when first he should descry him, for he dreaded attracting attention by becoming, while yet at a distance, the object of an uproarious outbreak of affection on ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... "I can descry nothing either," said Becker; "and yet this is the direction the storm must have driven ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... pondrous Shield Ethereal temper, massie, large and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his Shoulders like the Moon, whose orb Thro Optick Glass the Tuscan Artist views At Evning, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands, Rivers, or Mountains, on her spotted Globe. His Spear (to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian Hills to be the Mast Of some great Admiral, were but a wand) He walk'd with, to support uneasie ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... steeple, the top of which peeped out among the green trees, at a distance two inviting hills which I was to climb in the morning, and around me the green cornfields. Oh! how indescribably beautiful was this evening and this walk! At a distance among the houses I could easily descry the inn where I lodged, and where I seemed to myself at length to have found a place of refuge and a home; and I thought, if I could but stay there, I should not be very sorry if I were never ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz
... The presence of the hands is characteristically explained by the handkerchief stretched tight between them, the action being expressive of suppressed excitement: "She stands at a window ... gazing out with a dreamy, yearning expression, as if seeking to descry one whom she awaits." ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... both east and west, we descry dark mountains rolled up against the sky. These are the twin ranges of the Rocky Mountains. Long spurs trend towards the river, and in places appear to close up the valley. They add to the expression of many a beautiful landscape that ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... over; while to throw light round our steps, and either explore its darkest places, or serve for our recreation; illustrations are fetched from a thousand quarters, and an imagination marvellously quick to descry unthought of resemblances, points to our use the stores, which a love yet more marvellously has gathered from all ages and nations, and arts and tongues. We are, in respect of the argument, reminded of ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... cluster of old houses, and scarcely saw them in the deepening night. As she went by the mill she could just descry its ruined roof standing out like a dark pyramid against the dun sky. The snow fell faster. It was now lying thick on her cloak in front, and on the windward face of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... salvation; and that, as she was not sufficiently informed in such high matters, the Bishop and the Inquisitor offered her the choice of one or more of the assessors to act as her counsel." The accused, in presence of this assembly, in which she did not descry a single friendly face, mildly answered: "For what you admonish me as to my good, and concerning our faith, I thank you; as to the counsel you offer me, I have no intention to forsake the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... say 'Punch and Judy show' I am wrong. Although what I saw suggested the proximity of a Punch and a Judy, to say nothing of the likelihood of a show, I did not, as a matter of fact, descry any one of the three. The object that presented itself to my view was the tall, rectangular booth, gaudy and wide-mouthed, with which, until a few years ago, the streets of London were so familiar. Were! Dear old Punch and Judy, how quickly you are becoming ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... had water'd, we steer'd for the Havana, and between Portobello and Carthagena, we spied a Sail; as she clapp'd upon a Wind, as soon as she descry'd us, and we went upon One Mast, we soon met, but were as willing to shake her off, as we had been to speak to her. She proved a Forty Gun French Ship, which handled us without the least Ceremony. We began the Fight ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... little store, useless to me at St. Peter's—yes; but, even as my eyes pricked to the emotion of gratitude, some inner consciousness told me my friend's gift would yet prove of very real use to me outside the Orphanage, one day. And, before Ted came, I had been unable to descry any ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... * 'The negro, while in this country, will be treated as an inferior being.' * * 'Our slavery is such, as that no device of our philanthropy for elevating the wretched subjects of its debasement to the ordinary privileges of men, can descry one cheering glimpse of hope that our object can ever be accomplished. The very commencing act of freedom to the slave, is to place him in a condition still worse, if possible, both for his moral ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... you can't descry, "with sorrow laden," the tiny soul of 'Arry, it is because you no longer read your own small print, my Atlas! and the microbes of Eternity ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... tolerably suitable light was procured Pollux threw himself on a stool, straddled his legs, craned his head forward as far as his neck would allow, looking, with his hooked nose, like a vulture that strives to descry his distant prey-cast his eyes down, raised them again to take in something fresh, and after a long gaze looked down again while his fingers and nails moved over the surface of the wax-figure, sinking into the plastic material, applying new pieces to apparently ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... threw myself upon my back, and dragged his head up high enough upon my breast to lift his mouth out of water, supporting him and myself by vigorous strokes with my feet. Looking round, as we rose on the crest of a sea, I could dimly descry the brig through the rapidly increasing gloom; and to my horror she appeared to be a long distance away. I had time only, however, for a momentary glance, when we sank into the trough, and I lost sight of her. A few seconds afterwards I caught sight ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... own visions oft astonish'd droop, When, o'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. 60 Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, Their destined glance some fated youth descry, Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen, And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. For them the viewless forms of air obey; 65 Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair: They know what spirit brews the stormful day, And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare To see the phantom train ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... garden alleys, where he still retained his station. Trusting this might be a gardener, or some domestic belonging to the house, Edward descended the steps in order to meet him; but as the figure approached, and long before he could descry its features, he was struck with the oddity of its appearance and gestures.—Sometimes this mister wight held his hands clasped over his head, like an Indian Jogue in the attitude of penance; sometimes he swung them perpendicularly, like a pendulum, ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... accusation. Many scrupled not to declare, that they sold cheaper than they bought, and therefore must soon come to an end; yet they went on, year by year, in steady and rapid increase.... He already seemed to descry in the distance the possibility of a great wholesale establishment; but this must be reached by little and little. He would not attempt what he could not accomplish. Any sudden bound, therefore, by which he was at once to pass ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... wood, come away, The floor with grass and flowers is gay! There ’neath no tree shalt thou descry In churlish guise old jealousy. Fear not my love, afar is now The loon, thy tiresome lord, I trow; To all a jest amidst his clan He choler deals in Cardigan. Here, nestled nigh the sounding sea, In Ifor’s bush we’ll ever be. More bliss ...
— The Brother Avenged - and Other Ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... I say when I descry Deep in the restless ocean The myriad creatures passing by In ...
— Hymns and Hymnwriters of Denmark • Jens Christian Aaberg
... this have been captured or safe in France. I tried a hundred conjectures to explain the mystery, which now, from the long continuance of the sounds, seemed to denote a desperately contested engagement. It was not 'till after three hours that the cannonading ceased, and then I could descry a thick dark canopy of smoke that hung hazily over one spot in the horizon, as if marking out the scene of the struggle. With what aching, torturing anxiety I burned to know what had happened, and with which side ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... was cavalry at the trot. The force, apparently a heavy one, did not seem to be coming from Schallberg. He leaned far out of the window challenging the darkness with his peering eyes. Dimly he could descry the plateau about the castle with its low bastions at the cliff's edge. Indefinite shapes pacing along the wall he knew to be Krovitzer sentries. He fancied he heard a challenge on the distant road, a halt, then the invisible army took up its ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... throng; The brawny oaf in mould herculean cast, The pigmy statesman trembling in his blast, The cumb'rous citizen of portly paunch, Unwont to soar beyond the smoaking haunch; The meagre bard behind the moving tun, His shadow seeming lengthen'd by the sun; Who forms scarce visible shall thus descry, Like flitting clouds athwart the mental sky; From giant bodies then bare gleams of mind, Like mountain watch-lights blinking to the wind; Nor blush to find his unperverted eye Flash on his heart, and give his tongue ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... vengeance of Heaven. Though he was the idol of his friends, and the favoured companion of princes, yet he afterwards became the victim of persecution, and spent some of his last hours within the walls of a prison; and though the Almighty granted him, as it were, a new sight to descry unknown worlds in the obscurity of space, yet the eyes which were allowed to witness such wonders, were themselves doomed to be closed ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... that these animals can descry a man at the distance of twenty or twenty-five feet. When approaching a crayfish "town" for the purpose of making observations, I use the utmost caution; otherwise, each inhabitant will retreat into its ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... scattered cinders fly: Its fury reaches the remotest coast, And strows the Asiatic shore with dust. 160 Now does the sailor from the neighbouring main Look after Gallic towns and forts in vain; No more his wonted marks he can descry, But sees a long unmeasured ruin lie; Whilst, pointing to the naked coast, he shows His wondering mates where towns and steeples rose, Where crowded citizens he lately view'd, And singles out the place ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... still wept, indeed, as she thought of those she had left; but often, while the tear trembled in her eye, its course was arrested by wonder, or admiration, or delight; for every object had its charms for her. Her cultivated taste and unsophisticated mind could descry beauty in the form of a hill, and grandeur in the foam of the wave, and elegance in the weeping birch, as it dipped its now almost leafless boughs in the mountain stream. These simple pleasures, ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... is at hand: A holy maid hither with me I bring, Which by a vision sent to her from heaven Ordained is to raise this tedious siege, And drive the English forth the bounds of France. The spirit of deep prophecy she hath, Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome: What's past and what's to come she can descry. Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words, For they ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... would have thee row me down the river below Bassorah.' An he say to thee, 'I cannot go farther than a parasang' do thou answer, 'As thou wilt;' but, when he shall have come so far, lure him on with money to carry thee farther; and the first flower-garden thou wilt descry after this will be that of the lady Jamilah. Go up to the gate as soon as thou espiest it and there thou wilt see two high steps, carpeted with brocade, and seated thereon a Quasimodo like me. Do thou complain to him of thy case and crave his favour: belike he will have compassion ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... shall be called away from guiding your feete, to descry by their fardest kenning, the vast Ocean, sparkled with ships, that continually this way trade, forth and backe, to most quarters of the world. Neerer home, they take view of all sized cocks, barges, and fisherboates, houering on the coast. Againe, contracting your sight to a narrower scope, ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... haunt the dim borders of insanity, he would sit in that valley for hours, regarding the wider-spread valley below him, in which he knew every height and hollow, and, with his exceptionally keen sight, he could descry signs of life where another would have beheld but an everyway dead level. Not a live thing, it seemed almost, could spread wing or wag tail, but Steenie would become thereby aware of its presence. Kirsty, boastful to her parents of ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... and asked whether any swordfish have been seen, and if tidings are thus obtained the ship's course is at once laid for the locality where they were last noticed. A man is always stationed at the masthead, where, with the keen eye which practice has given him, he can easily descry the telltale dorsal fins at a distance of two or three miles. When a fish has once been sighted, the watch "sings out," and the vessel is steered directly toward it. The skipper takes his place in the "pulpit" holding the pole in both hands by the small end, and directing ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... did she happen to break away from the bonds that limit and restrain most Red brides? This is the question that has troubled ethnologists since the North was first invaded by the, scientific. We think we have found the answer. Along the shores of Fond du Lac we descry a long-legged wader, the phalarope. This is the militant suffragette of all bird-dom. Madame Phalarope lays her own eggs (this depository act could scarcely be done by proxy), but in this culminates and terminates all her ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron
... peaceably lying at anchor in the bay; and the only thing in motion was a row-boat, the heavy monotonous stroke of whose oars rose in the stillness of the morning air. Not a single habitation of man could I descry, nor any vestige of a human being, except that mass of something upon the rock far down beneath be one, and I think it is, for I see the sheep-dog ever returning again and again to the ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... The 14 day we came within Saker-shot of the castle, and straightway they set forth an Almade to descry vs, and when they perceiued that we were no Portugals, they ranne within the towne againe: for there is a great towne by the Castle which is called by the Negros Dondou. Without this there lie two great rockes like Ilands, and the castle standeth ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of - The English Nation, Vol. 11 • Richard Hakluyt
... be Lie here embraced by deeper death than we; Nor shape nor thought of theirs canst thou descry With ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... an awful spectacle to meet a father's eye! His infant made a vulture's prey, with terror to descry! And know, with agonizing breast, and with a maniac rave, That earthly power could not avail, that ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... high place Frey could still see distinct shapes moving about through the gloom. Strange and monstrous shapes they were, and Frey stood a little higher, on tiptoe, that he might look further after them. In this position he could just descry a tall house standing on a hill in the very middle of Joetunheim. While he looked at it a maiden came and lifted up her arms to undo the latch of the door. It was dusk in Joetunheim; but when this ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... Caen, the travellers here Before the chief Hotel appear, Miss Earle, Rose, Bertie you descry— ...
— Abroad • Various
... longer look out from the castle walls to descry the glitter of Southern spears. The bell-tower from which the alarm was sounded is now silent—the only bell heard within the precincts of the castle being that of the railway porter, announcing the arrival and departure of trains. The Scotch express ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... command respect, had expressed their belief in it. One or two far-seeing thinkers, among whom the place of honour must be assigned to Mr. Herbert Spencer, had done more. They had used their philosophic insight, which, to science, is the eye of faith, to descry the promised land almost within reach; they knew and announced how rich and spacious the heritage would be, if once the entry could be made good. But on that 'if' everything hung. Nature was not bound to give up her secret, ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... Fraternal banners against a common foe, Against mine enemy, yon crafty villain. Ye sons of Slavs, speedily will I lead Your dread battalions to the longed-for conflict. But soft! Methinks among you I descry New faces. ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... a' the town she troll'd by him; A lang half-mile she could descry him; Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him. She ran wi' speed; A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam' nigh him Than ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... spread over their country from the north southwards. What people dwelt in it before them it is impossible to say; the Pelasgi and Leleges, whom they themselves conceived to have preceded them, left behind them no other trace than that belief. When first we descry this land in the faint dawn of history, it is tenanted by the people whose name it bears, touched only by the Thracians to the north, and the Illyrians to the west, these also being Aryan races. Though the Greeks are on both sides ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... said De Vaux. "Yet would I rather than my best horse I had taken that watch myself. There is mystery in it, young man, as a plain man may descry, though he cannot see through it. Cowardice? Pshaw! No coward ever fought as I have seen thee do. Treachery? I cannot think traitors die in their treason so calmly. Thou hast been trained from thy post by some deep guile—some well-devised stratagem—the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... us? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate My being—had I signed the bond— Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such? Try and test! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? Now, heaven and ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... have followed us!" She sprang from the bed, and opening the window noiselessly, looked out. The night was quite dark, but by straining her eyes she could descry the form of a covered carriage below, and two dark figures stood hammering on the house-door. The sounds rang reverberating through the dwelling, and disturbing the still, calm air without, laden with the scent of myrtle and ...
— Six Women • Victoria Cross
... thoroughly, and we were toiling along in single file behind him, when suddenly we heard the sound of an exclamation, and he vanished. Next second there arose all around us a most extraordinary hubbub, snorts, groans, and wild sounds of rushing feet. In the faint light, too, we could descry dim galloping forms half hidden by wreaths of sand. The natives threw down their loads and prepared to bolt, but remembering that there was nowhere to run to, they cast themselves upon the ground and ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... imagine how anxiously both officers and men scanned the western horizon towards which they were steering. Each one had a pecuniary motive for wishing to be the first to descry the New Continent, King Ferdinand having promised a reward of 10,000 maravedis, or 400 pounds sterling, to the first discoverer. The latter days of the month of September were enlivened by the presence of numerous large birds, petrels, man-of-war birds, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... as a comet, with a very long tail. The superstitious thought my appearance to be significant of some coming misfortune. Some draughtsmen took my figure, as far as they could descry it, so that when I landed I found paintings of myself, and engravings taken ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... as the bird, who 'mid the leafy bower Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night With her sweet brood; impatient to descry Their wished looks, and to bring home their food, In the fond quest, unconscious ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... been built. The fortress seems in a very dilapidated condition; many breaches are still in the same state in which they were left after the taking of the town by the English in 1840, and part of the wall has fallen into the sea. In the background we could descry some ruins on a rock, apparently the remains of ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... the magnum emporium, except some lines of moldering wall that wander along the canals, and through pastures and vineyards, in the last imbecile stages of dilapidation and decay. There is a lofty bell-tower, also, from which, no doubt, the Torcellani used to descry afar off the devouring hordes of the barbarians on the main-land, and prepare for defense. As their city was never actually invaded, I am at a loss to account for the so-called Throne of Attila, which stands in the grass-grown piazza before the ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... of mock Debate, Or seen a new-made Mayor's unwieldy State; Where change of Fav'rites made no Change of Laws, And Senates heard before they judg'd a Cause; How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish Tribe, Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe? Attentive Truth and Nature to descry, And pierce each Scene with Philosophic Eye. To thee were solemn Toys or empty Shew, The Robes of Pleasure and the Veils of Woe: All aid the Farce, and all thy Mirth maintain, Whose Joys are causeless, or whose Griefs are vain. ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... there scraps of schoolroom learning came back to my mind. That the stars were all suns, surrounded perhaps in their turn by worlds as large or larger than our own. Worlds beyond worlds, and others farther still, which no man might number or even descry. And about the distance of those wonderful suns too,—that one, for instance, at which I was looking,—what was it that I had been told? That our world was not yet peopled, perhaps not yet formed, ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... bifurcates; forming the Shafah chain to the east, and westward of it, in Madyan Proper, the Jibl el-Tihmah, of which the Shrr is perhaps the culmination. We have noted the accidents of the latter as far as Dumayghah Cove, and now we descry in the offing the misty forms—how small they look!—of the Jebel el-Ward; the Jibl el-Safhah; the two blocks, south of the Wady Hamz, known as the Jibl el-Rl; and their neighbours still included in the Tihmat-Balawyyah. Lastly, we shall sight, behind El-Haur, the Ab Ghurayr ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... easie thing is to descry The gentle blood, however it be wrapt In sade misfortunes foule deformity And wretched sorrowes which have often hapt! For,—howsoever it may grow mis-shapt Like this wyld man being undisciplyned ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... remarks, a simile of Homer's, which ought to have been pure nonsense for Pope and Cowper; viz. that in describing a dense mist, such as we foolishly imagine peculiar to our own British climate, and meaning to say that a man could scarcely descry an object somewhat ahead of his own station, he says, [Greek Text: tosson tis t'ep leussel oson t'epi laan iaesi]: so far does man see as lie hurls a stone. Now, in the skirmish of 'bickering,' this would argue no great limitation of eyesight. 'Why, man, how far would you see? Would ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... Giles demanded, trying to descry the fugitive among them. "Death and fiends! you have ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... Seine, because it is very like vnto the Riuer of Seine in France. From this Riuer wee retired toward our shippes, where being arriued, we trimmed our sailes to saile further toward the North, and to descry the singularities of the coast. But wee had not sayled any great way before wee discovered another very faire Riuer, which caused vs to cast anker ouer against it, and to trimme out two Boates to goe to search it out. Wee found there an Ile and a king ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... now approaching the verge of woman-hood. What lay beyond it I could ill descry, though surely a vague power of undeveloped prophecy dwells in every created thing—even in the bird ere he ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... whom we denominate 'savages' are made to deserve the title. When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the 'big canoe' of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosom the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... qualities which did exist in his protege that he saw his friend through the medium of a glamour which set up, as it were, a mirage of things that were not. Well, it speaks better for a man's heart to descry non-existent merits than to imagine vain defects, and it was like the generous soul of FitzGerald to attribute excellencies to his friend which only ...
— Edward FitzGerald and "Posh" - "Herring Merchants" • James Blyth
... they as big just as the body is? Or shoot they out to the height ethereal? Doth it not seem the impression of a seal Can be no larger than the wax? The soul with that vast latitude must move Which measures the objects that it doth descry. So must it be upstretch'd unto the sky And ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... the genius whom the gladsome throng obeys? Do I his numerous train descry? In plenty's teeming horn the gifts of heaven he sways, And reels ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... There Burton, who was completely worn out, lay ill for several months, during which time Speke made a push to the northward of more than three hundred miles, going as far as Lake Okeracua, which he came in sight of on the 3d of August; but he could descry only the opening of it at ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... marvel that the soul of youth should cry, "Man builds his temples 'tween me and the face Of Him whom I would seek; I cannot trace His purpose in their shadow, nor descry ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... was commanded by Tancred, and William his brother; the other by the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Chartres. Bohemond, who headed the reserve, was posted with his horsemen on an eminence in the rear, from whence he could descry the whole ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... it, but for an hour he had been under the scrutiny of the half-breed, who had been quick to descry the horseman moving through the brush. McFann had been expecting Talpers, and he was none too pleased to find that the trader had sent the gossiping cowpuncher in his stead. Andy, being one of those ingenuous ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... I do not know: what the modern Arians teach, I utterly condemn; but that the great council of Ariminum was either Arian or heretical I could never discover, or descry any essential difference between its decisions and the Nicene; though I seem to find a serious difference of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If there be a difference between the Councils of Nicea and Ariminum, ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... world, anyway, and went back about his business on the trail behind. Two or three times, there was a vague rustle in the leaves that she couldn't localize—water ouzel in moss covert, or hawk babies in hiding, or—or what? She couldn't descry. Then, suddenly, with a hiss—ss and swear plain as a bird could swear, a little male grouse came sprinting down the trail to stop her, ruff up, tail spread to a fan, wings down, screaming at her in bad words "to stop! to stop! or he'd pick her eyes out!" Eleanor naturally stopped. ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... by the way. These knights proceeded through the wood wondrously still, upon a hill, and eagerly beheld. They caused all the horsemen to alight in the wood, and get ready their weapons, and all their weeds (garments), except an hundred men, that there should look out, if they might descry through thing of any kind. Then saw they afar, in a great plain, three knights ride with all their main. After the three knights there came thirty; after the thirty they saw three thousand; thereafter came thronging thirty thousand anon, of Romanish ...
— Brut • Layamon
... stretched out at our feet. Beyond, the Fiz rocks and the Aiguille-de-Varan rose above the Sallanche Valley, and the whole chains of Mont Fleury and the Reposoir appeared in the background. More to the right we could descry the snowy summit of the Buet, and farther off the Dents-du-Midi, with its five tusks, overhanging the valley of the Rhone. Behind us were the eternal snows of the Gouter, Mont Maudit, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne |
