"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... frantic mood, Vast clouds terrific, sable-hued, Hid all the sky where'er they bore Their load of water mixt with gore. Above, below, around were spread Thick shades of darkness strange and dread, Nor could the wildered glance descry A point or quarter of the sky. Then came o'er heaven a sanguine hue, Though evening's flush not yet was due, While each ill-omened bird that flies Assailed the king with harshest cries. There screamed the vulture and the crane, And the loud jackal shrieked again. Each hideous thing that bodes ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... journey lengthens: wider grows the field, further advance the seekers, and from the top of unexplored headlands, through morning mists, they descry the outlines of countries till then unknown. They must be followed to realms beyond the grave, to the silent domains of the dead, across barren moors and frozen fens, among chill rushes and briars that never blossom, till those Edens of poetry are reached, ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... and 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 the gulf now separating him from his object, was not to ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... sight a new host of stars that escape the naked eye. Here they seem contiguous and minute, but to a nearer view immense orbs of fight at various distances, far sunk in the abyss of space. Now you must call imagination to your aid. The feeble narrow sense cannot descry innumerable worlds revolving round the central fires; and in those worlds the energy of an all-perfect Mind displayed in endless forms. But, neither sense nor imagination are big enough to comprehend the boundless extent, with all its ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... wigwams to the lee side 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 scattered so thickly upon ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... faith, to be worth anything, must be a reasonable one—one, that is to say, which is based upon reason. The fact is, that faith and reason are like desire and power, or demand and supply; it is impossible to say which comes first: they come up hand in hand, and are so small when we can first descry them, that it is impossible to say which we first caught sight of. All we can now see is that each has a tendency continually to outstrip the other by a little, but by a very little only. Strictly they are not two things, but ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... specially endowed with a conscience for the guidance of other people, so quick was he to descry and pounce upon their shortcomings. If one's sins are sure to find one out, there is little doubt but that Brother Nehemiah would ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... beneath me, bathed in the yellow gold of a rising sun; a few ships were 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)
... heart heaved with an emotion quite new to him. He beheld with admiration the regular disposition of the intrenchments, the long intersected tented streets, and the warlike appearance of the soldiers, whom he could descry, even at that distance, by the beams of a bright evening sun which ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... hundred miles more, and the Glory of the South Seas would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama. Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first descry the sails of the Spanish treasure. For once his luck failed him. The wind suddenly fell. Before Drake needed to issue the order, his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for dear life, towing the Golden Hind. Day or night from February twenty-fourth, they ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... when thou wert of gentle mood, And held with all the weary winds a truce, Upon the other shore I could descry Where, faintly outlined in the western sky, A mystic rainbow-girdled Headland stood, Whose silver sandals ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... Omba and Fetter. A burning island. Their missing the Turtle Isles. Banda Isles. Bird Island. They descry the coast of New Guinea. They anchor on the coast of New Guinea. A description of the place, and of a strange fowl found there. Great quantities of mackerel. A white island. They anchor at an island ...
— A Continuation of a Voyage to New Holland • William Dampier
... a bitter cry of "King? King Herod!" were followed by a muttered discussion that, in the ears of one of the two who waited in the gloom below, boded little good. The two could descry figures moving to and fro before the faint red light of the smouldering matches; and presently a man on the gate kindled a torch, and held it so as to fling its light downward. The stranger's ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... on fire. Fame's steep ascent by easy flights to win, With a neat pocket volume I'll begin; And dirge, and sonnet, ode, and epigram, Shall show mankind how versatile I am. The buskin'd Muse shall next my pen descry: The boxes from their inmost rows shall sigh; The pit shall weep, the galleries deplore Such moving woes as ne'er were heard before: Enough—I'll leave them in their soft hysterics, Mount, in a brighter blaze, and dazzle ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... me 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 from them, and ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... warmth they wane, Freeze to the marble of their images, And, pinnacled on man's subserviency, Through the thick sacrificial haze discern Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak Through icy mists may enviously descry Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun. So they along an immortality Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze, If haply some rash votary, empty-urned, But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand, Break rank, fling past the people and the ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... 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 she ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... at once. Carmen would be safe in the protecting care of Don Nicolas. Dona Maria yielded only after much persuasion. From the hilltop Jose could descry the Alcalde's boat slowly wending its way across the lake toward the Juncal. Rosendo, having finished his morning meal, prepared to meet ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... 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 ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... those which start up under our feet,—the natural growth of the path he is leading us 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 ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... breezes blow, And everlasting flowers in beauty smile— No disappointment shall the labourer know. Methought I saw a fair and sparkling gem In this rude casket—but thy shrewder eye, WANGNER! a jewell'd coronet could descry. Take, then, the bright, unreal diadem! Worldlings may doubt and smile insultingly, The hidden stores of truth are not ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso
... 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 ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... I could descry, Who better far deserv'd then I, Calmely I did reflect; "Old services (by rule of State) Like almanacks grow out of date, - What then ...
— Cavalier Songs and Ballads of England from 1642 to 1684 • Charles Mackay
... back. Something gleaming, rustling, glided past the rabbi into the dusky hall. The light of the candle in his hand was not sufficient to allow him to descry it. Before he had time to address her, she had vanished past him and had disappeared through the open door into the room. Shaking his head, the rabbi again ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Melnick, where the trees become higher, and groups of houses peer forth from among the innumerable vineyards. Opposite this little town the Moldau falls into the Elbe. On the left, in the far distance, the traveller can descry St. George's Mount, from which, as the story goes, Czech took possession ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... expedition, when the Persians destroyed Eretria, no one came to their help, or would risk the danger of an alliance with them, they thought that this would happen again, at least on land; nor, when they looked to the sea, could they descry any hope of salvation; for they were attacked by a thousand vessels and more. One chance of safety remained, slight indeed and desperate, but their only one. They saw that on the former occasion they had gained ...
— Laws • Plato
... 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 ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... less so, dear Felton, for having found some warm hearts, and left some instalments of earnest and sincere affection, behind me on this continent. And whenever I turn my mental telescope hitherward, trust me that one of the first figures it will descry will wear spectacles so like yours that the maker couldn't tell the difference, and shall address a Greek class in such an exact imitation of your voice, that the very students hearing it should cry, ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... had passed the latter part of the night. Whilst replying, as ever courteously—for in the look and bearing of Maximus there was that senatorius decor which Pliny noted in a great Roman of another time—his straining eyes seemed to descry a sail in the quarter he continually watched. Was it only a fishing boat? Raised upon the couch, he gazed long and fixedly. Impossible as yet to be sure whether he saw the expected bark; but the sail seemed to draw ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... 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 by a Broad-side, as we were under her Stern, ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... goodly habitations, with abundance of sweet waters, and dates enough, and being within foureteene miles of Medina they come vnto a great plaine called by them Iabel el salema, that is to say, the mountaine of health, from which they begin to descry the citie and tombe of Mahomet, at which sight they light from their horses in token of reuerence. And being ascended vp the sayd mountaine with shouting which pierceth the skies they say, Sala tuua salema Alaccha Iarah sul Allah. Sala tuua Salema Alaccha Ianabi Allah, Sala tuua Salema Allaccha ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... saw nothing, but as the Imps pressed into the room and ranged themselves along the walls, he was enabled, by the light of their glimmering lanterns to descry a dim bowed ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... such little slips and oversights as were committed in the writings of eminent authors. On the contrary, most of the smatterers in criticism, who appear among us, make it their business to vilify and depreciate every new production that gains applause, to descry imaginary blemishes, and to prove, by farfetched arguments, that what pass for beauties in any celebrated piece are faults and errors. In short, the writings of these critics, compared with those of the ancients, are like ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... John, the eventides The self-same feelings bring, My pulses beat as loud and strong As then beside the spring. And then I turn affrighted round, Some stranger to descry; But nothing can I see, my John,— ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... with delusive expectations! The end may be according to your hope—whether it will be so (which God grant!) is as inscrutable for angels as for men. But to descry that great struggles are yet to come is within reach of human foresight—that great tribulations must needs accompany them—and that these may be—you know not how near ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... the desert of Bloomsbury, the dead leaves rustling round the horse's hoofs as we gallop through the Squares. Ah, I shall be across the Border before these doorsteps are cleaned, before the coming of the milk-carts. Anon, I descry the cavernous open jaws of Euston. The monster swallows me, and soon I am being digested into Scotland. I sit ensconced in a corner of a compartment. The collar of my ulster is above my ears, my cap is pulled over my eyes, my feet are on a hot-water tin, and my rug snugly envelops most ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... When Phoebus next unclosed his wakeful eye, Up rose the sexton of that place profane, And missed the image, where it used to lie, Each where he sough in grief, in fear, in vain; Then to the king his loss he gan descry, Who sore enraged killed him for his pain; And straight conceived in his malicious wit, Some Christian bade ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... distant Aiden, 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 ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... naval hero of Britain first saw the light; he who annihilated the sea pride of Spain and dragged the humble banner of France in triumph at his stern. He was born yonder to the west, and of him there is a glorious relic in that old town; in its dark flint guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen: a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper
... hailed 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 ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... get up twice to bring back the horses, and at four o'clock made a start. The horses were in a very exhausted state; some having difficulty to keep up. About noon I could descry the land turning to the southward, and saw, with great pleasure, we were fast approaching the Head of the Great Australian Bight. Reached the sand-patches at the extreme Head of the Bight just as the sun was setting, and found abundance of water by digging two ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... 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. ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... of an emergency exit from the dress-circle of the Regent Theatre. Sir John Pilgrim, also in a fur coat, stood near the bottom of the steps, with the glare of a Wells light full on him and throwing his shadow almost up to Edward Henry's feet. Around, Edward Henry could descry the vast mysterious forms of the building's skeleton—black in places, but in other places lit up by bright rays from the gaiety below, and showing glimpses of that gaiety in the occasional revelation ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... seemed full of stars. As I stood 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, when ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... Or will thy all-surprising light Break at midnight, When either sleep or some dark pleasure Possesseth mad man without measure? Or shail these early, fragrant hours Unlock thy bowers,[151] And with their blush of light descry Thy locks crowned with eternity? Indeed, it is the only time That with thy glory doth best chime: All now are stirring; every field Full hymns doth yield; The whole creation shakes off night, And for thy shadow looks the light;[152] Stars now vanish without number; ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... Nymphs, and Shepherds look, What sudden blaze of majesty Is that which we from hence descry Too divine to be mistook: This this is she To whom our vows and wishes bend, Heer ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... 'at length descry the happy shore.' The heart of his mistress softened towards him. The last twenty- five sonnets are for the most part the songs of a lover accepted and happy. It would seem that by this time he had completed three more books of the Faerie Queene, ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... chain of the Brevent and the Aiguilles-Rouges 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, and, lastly, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... prominence. What we should have talked about if he had not thus held the floor I could not guess. I had noted that there were upon a ponderous table six popular novels, as many magazines, and piles of the great dailies. Nowhere could I descry even a small collection of books of the sort which may furnish material for conversation. I tried to imagine the Philosopher drawing a certain beloved book of essays from his pocket, settling himself comfortably with his back to the drop-light, and beginning ...
— A Court of Inquiry • Grace S. Richmond
... the first to descry her, for he was sitting with a heavy heart among the wooers dreaming on his good father, if haply he might come somewhence, and make a scattering of the wooers there throughout the palace, and himself get honour and bear ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... they would return, and that at some day, not far distant, perhaps, the throne of the Incas might be shaken by these strangers, endowed with such incomprehensible powers.1 To the vulgar eye, it was a little speck on the verge of the horizon; but that of the sagacious monarch seemed to descry in it the dark thunder-cloud, that was to spread wider and wider till it burst in fury on ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... could they dream the truth—or descry the hidden skeleton at the festival, wreathed in flowers and veiled with glittering, filmy draperies, which yet put forth its bony fingers to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... 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 ...
— Adventures in the Rifle Brigade, in the Peninsula, France, and the Netherlands - from 1809 to 1815 • Captain J. Kincaid
... the next ballad, you must fancy yourself (if you cannot realize it) stretched on the grass, by the margin of a mighty river of the south, rushing from or through an Italian lake, whose opposite shore you cannot descry for the thick purple haze of heat that hangs over its glassy surface. If you lie there for an hour or so, gazing into the depths of the blue unfathomable sky, till the fanning of the warm wind and the murmur of the water combine to throw you into ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... embarked? 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 his army. But in vain was help ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... completely at Gottingen, was led to believe that not merely the debris strewn along its path, but the comet itself must have been in immediate proximity to the earth during their appearance.[1226] If so, it might be possible, he thought, to descry it as it retreated in the diametrically opposite direction from that in which it had approached. On November 30, accordingly, he telegraphed to Mr. Pogson, the Madras astronomer, "Biela touched earth November 27; search near Theta Centauri"—the "anti-radiant," as it ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... one of the Magi, named Zerdusht. I mention this, because Hyde, and other learned men, have imagined this Zerdusht to have been the antient Zoroaster. They have gone so far as to suppose the two names to have been the [938]same; between which I can scarce descry any resemblance. There seem to have been many persons styled Zoroaster: so that if the name had casually retained any affinity, or if it had been literally the same, yet it would not follow, that this Persic and Indian ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... all on the right hand of him; silent except for some snoring hum; and now he is Eastward as far as the Barrier de Saint-Martin; looking earnestly for Baroness de Korff's Berline. This Heaven's Berline he at length does descry, drawn up with its six horses, his own German Coachman waiting on the box. Right, thou good German: now haste, whither thou knowest!—And as for us of the Glass-coach, haste too, O haste; much time is already lost! The ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... manner, I may be describing a school of thought in its fully developed proportions, which at present every one, to whom membership with it is imputed, will at once begin to disown, and I may be pointing to teachers whom no one will be able to descry. Still, it is not less true that I may be speaking of tendencies and elements which exist, and he may come in person at last, who comes at first to us merely in his ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... he screamed to the driver; but the latter had lost all power over the snorting steeds, who bore the fated carriage in a whizzing gallop towards the marsh. The blazing beech-tree rendered the surrounding objects fearfully distinct. Bolko could descry the figure of Auriola at the margin of the spring. Between her fingers glittered the ring, and words of lamentation issuing from her lips, dropped into the soul of Bolko and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... gloom lightens, however, and instead of the river bed the scene represents the green valley through which the Rhine is flowing. In the gray dawn one can descry the high hills on either side, and as the light increases Wotan and Fricka, the principal deities of Northern mythology, are seen lying on ...
— Stories of the Wagner Opera • H. A. Guerber
... globe in Caesar's days that she is at present. The earth in our days is incalculably richer, as a whole, than in the time of Charlemagne: at that time she was richer, by many a million of acres, than in the era of Augustus. In that Augustan era we descry a clear belt of cultivation, averaging about six hundred miles in depth, running in a ring-fence about the Mediterranean. This belt, and no more, was in decent cultivation. Beyond that belt, there was only a wild Indian cultivation. ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... At last they came to a high mountain, which, when they ascended, they discovered from the top thereof the South Sea. This happy sight, as if it were the end of their labours, caused infinite joy among the Pirates. From hence they could descry also one ship and six boats, which were set forth from Panama, and sailed towards the islands of Tavoga and Tavogilla. Having descended this mountain, they came unto a vale, in which they found great quantity of cattle, whereof they killed good store. Here while some were employed ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... At once in broad dimensions strike our sight; Millions behind, in the remoter skies, Appear but spangles to our wearied eyes; And when our wearied eyes want farther strength To pierce the void's immeasurable length Our vigorous towering thoughts still further fly, And still remoter flaming worlds descry; But even an Angel's comprehensive thought Cannot extend so far as Thou hast wrought; Our vast conceptions are by swelling, brought, Swallowed and ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... crystal and glittering silver on the flower-decked tables. All about her Billy saw flushed-faced men, and bright-eyed women, laughing, chatting, and clinking together their slender-stemmed wine glasses. But nowhere, as she looked about her, could Billy descry the man she sought. ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... co-operation of a sucker in securing turtle. Its use is comparatively rare. Generally both turtle and dugong are harpooned as they rise to the surface to breathe, the sportsmen being very cunning and skilful. They descry the turtle on the bottom, and softly follow its movements as it feeds on the marine vegetation, and then as it rises harpoon it; or they follow one that has betrayed itself by rising, observation and experience enabling them to ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... my voice was thick with sighs As in a dream. Dimly I could descry The stern, black-bearded kings with wolfish eyes, Waiting ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... 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
... consideration"; but they told him they were dervishes, and therefore without money, but they possessed certain wonderful gifts, which might be of use to him on the voyage. The first dervish said that he could descry any object at the distance of a year's journey; the second could hear at as great a distance as his brother could see. "Well!" exclaimed the captain, "these are truly miraculous gifts; and pray, sir," said ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... had been forwarded to them from the school, and by which the mistress was to identify them. As they left the carriage, they glanced anxiously at the coat of each lady who passed them on the platform, to descry a similar rosette. All in vain. Everybody was in a hurry, and ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... Polycletus in proud rivalry On her his model gazed a thousand years, Not half the beauty to my soul appears, In fatal conquest, e'er could he descry. But, Simon, thou wast then in heaven's blest sky, Ere she, my fair one, left her native spheres, To trace a loveliness this world reveres Was thus thy task, from heaven's reality. Yes—thine the portrait heaven alone could wake, This ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... not yet; but he whose sight Foreknows the advent of the light, Whose soul to morning radiance turns Ere night her curtain hath withdrawn, And in its quivering folds discerns The mute monitions of the dawn, With urgent sense strained onward to descry Her distant tokens, starts to find ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... well 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, and damiers, flying ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... he was able to descry a short stretch of the castle rampart, past which, away to the westward, the dog was pulling, along a rough cart-track through a field. This he presently found to be a quarry road, and straight into the ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... responsibility of a daily paper, not less than from the party and political involvements incident to it; and here was the material part of the answer made. "Many thanks for your affectionate letter, which is full of generous truth. These considerations weigh with me, heavily: but I think I descry in these times, greater stimulants to such an effort; greater chance of some fair recognition of it; greater means of persevering in it, or retiring from it unscratched by any weapon one should care for; than at any other period. And most of all I have, sometimes, that possibility ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... Sir Giles demanded, trying to descry the fugitive among them. "Death and fiends! you have not ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... THE WAR.—During the closing years of the life of Pericles, the growing jealousy between Athens and Sparta broke out in the long struggle known as the Peloponnesian War. Pericles had foreseen the coming storm: "I descry war," said he, "lowering from the Peloponnesus." His whole later policy looked toward the preparation of Athens ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... the view of human nature which pervades the instrument of 1787.... No men were less revolutionary in spirit than the heroes of the American Revolution. They made a revolution in the name of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights." I descry a bewildered Whig emerging from the third volume with a reverent appreciation of ancestral wisdom, Burke's Reflections, and the eighteen Canons of Dort, and a growing belief in the function of ghosts to ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... to the front of the house the elder woman was being led away with her hands bound, and no sooner did the young one descry her than she picked up her skirts and with one wild rush tried to be off and away. I called Spond, my trusty guard, and bid him stay her; and the noble hound dogged her steps till the men could catch her and lead her to my aunt. The lady questioned ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... 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 cathedral; and I fear that ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... shalt see I am Capocchio's shade, Who metals falsified by alchemy; Thou must remember, if I well descry thee, ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... rigging, and looked through the smoke. Dead men he could descry through the blinding veil, rolled in heaps, laid flat; dead men and dying: but no man upon his feet. The last volley had swept the deck clear; one by one had dropped below to escape that fiery shower: and alone at the helm, grinding his teeth with rage, his mustachios curling up to ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... high trees she did descry A little smoke, whose vapour, thin and light, Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky, Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight, That in the same ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... eat the second time after repose, The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: Sometimes that with Elijah he partook, Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. Thus wore out night; and now the harald Lark Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry 280 The Morn's approach, and greet her with his song. As lightly from his grassy couch up rose Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream; Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked. Up to a hill anon his steps he reared, From whose high top to ken the prospect round, If cottage were in view, ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... old man so charm'd his guest, As they familiar grew, The stranger to his guidance bent, Tho' born of spirit high: At last the long'd-for hour was come, On what slow wings it flew! But now the dear returning group, They from the hill descry. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... that hold the hand of every heart, That hand that holds the heart of every eye, That wit that goes beyond all Nature's art, The sense too deep for Wisdom to descry; That eye, that hand, that wit, that heavenly sense Doth show my only ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... was the first century of human sympathy,—the age when half wonderingly we began to descry in others that transfigured spark of divinity which we call Myself; when clodhoppers and peasants, and tramps and thieves, and millionaires and—sometimes—Negroes, became throbbing souls whose warm pulsing ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Maisanguaq and Ootah were engaged in a fight to the death. In the darkness she sensed them moving away from her. Straining her eyes she began, very dimly—as Eskimos can even in pitch darkness—to descry the black outlines of the two men wrestling as they shifted nearer and nearer the edge of the ice. Then it dawned upon Annadoah's mind that they were being carried, in the jeopardy of an awful storm, on a ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... rising of the sun, the twilight, the moonlight. These are, for the painter, honeymoon trips with Nature. One is alone with her in that long and quiet association. You go to sleep in the fields, amid marguerites and poppies, and when you open your eyes in the full glare of the sunlight you descry in the distance the little village with its pointed clock tower which sounds the hour ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... Earth—reciprocal, if land be there, Fields and inhabitants? Her spots thou seest As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce Fruits in her softened soil, for some to eat Allotted there; and other Suns, perhaps, With their attendant Moons, thou wilt descry, Communicating male and female light— Which two great sexes animate the World, Stored in each orb perhaps with some that live. For such vast room in Nature unpossessed By living soul, desert and desolate, ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... of August the Captaine of the Anne Francis taking the Master of his Shippe with him, went vp to the top of Hattons Hedland, which is the highest land of all the straights, to the ende to descry the situation of the Countrey vnderneath, and to take a true plotte of the place, whereby also to see what store of Yce was yet left in the straights, as also to search what Mineral matter or fruite that soyle ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt
... green and rose colour; the roof purple and brown. The water is very deep and of a fine olive green, and, being remarkably clear, the light stones lying at the bottom are distinctly visible, among which at my last visit we could descry great fishes, probably bass, pursuing shoals of launces." By "launces" the writer meant what we should now call the lancelet. Just south of Dollar is the old smugglers' cave known as Raven's Hugo. Below this to the extreme point of the Lizard the coast ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... as might not come again for long left the Argonauts on the empty Libyan land. And when they came forth and saw that vast level of sand stretching like a mist away into the distance, a deadly fear came over each of them. No spring of water could they descry; no path; no herdsman's cabin; over all that vast land there was silence and dead calm. And one said to the other: "What land is this? Whither have we come? Would that the tempest had overwhelmed us, or would that we had lost the ship and our lives between the Clashing ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... 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 ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... befriend Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end Of all thy dues be done, and none left out, Ere the blabbing eastern scout, The nice Morn on the Indian steep, From her cabined loop-hole peep, And to the tell-tale Sun descry Our concealed solemnity. Come, knit hands, and beat the ground ...
— L'Allegro, Il Penseroso, Comus, and Lycidas • John Milton
... by the corroding waters the lower the ground is under them, and the higher they must build to reach the height they reached before. From Carrollton the current rebounds, and swinging over to the other shore strikes it, boiling like a witch's caldron, just above and along the place where you may descry the levee lock of the ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... 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 where once St Maloes stood. Here Russel's actions should my Muse require; And, would ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... aloud (O son of Bharat!), lo! The Princess marked five of that throng alike In form and garb and visage. There they stood, Each from the next undifferenced, but each Nala's own self;—yet which might Nala be In nowise could that doubting maid descry. Who took her eye seemed Nala while she gazed, Until she looked upon his like; and so Pondered the lovely lady, sore-perplexed, Thinking, "How shall I tell which be the gods, And which is noble Nala?" Deep-distressed And meditative waxed she, musing hard What those ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... to her death, she seemed to be in the "land of Beulah," on the "mountains of the shepherds," where, like Bunyan's pilgrim, she could clearly descry the promised land. She had a strong desire to depart and be with Christ, which was far better than even his most intimate earthly visits. Again and again, as I called to see her, she assured me that she had had a fresh visit from her Saviour, and he had ...
— Mary S. Peake - The Colored Teacher at Fortress Monroe • Lewis C. Lockwood
... chaos, limbs from broken rafters. Eager to help, they dared not set their feet upon the mass—not that they feared the walls which another shock might bring upon their heads, but that they shuddered lest their own added weight should crush some live human creature they could not descry. Three or four who had received little or no hurt, were moving about the edges of the heap, vaguely trying to lift now this, now that, but yielding each attempt in despair, either from its evident uselessness, or for lack of energy. They would give a ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... situation. We made our way through 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 ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... the expanse of the harbour. Once out in it we could almost imagine ourselves at sea, for, from the low deck of the Lily, we only see the higher grounds and hill-tops round, looking like islands in the distance, as we cannot descry the continuity of shore. And now we have leisure to make closer acquaintance with ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... acacia; and immense tracts, covered with its various species, form impenetrable thickets (chapparals). I distinguish in these thickets the honey-locust, with its long purple legumes, the "algarobo" (carob-tree), and the thorny "mezquite"; and, rising over all the rest, I descry the tall, slender stem of the Fouquiera splendens, with ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... descry thee; And I defy thee To a mortal fight; And so, miller, good night. And now, sweet Joan, Be it openly known Thou art ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... more leisured school of politics than the present lively generation which knew not Joseph. They knew other things—the youngsters—strange methods of the city ward; and the philosophic observers, who on all sides think they descry evidence of the corruption of the country by the city, would have glibly explained to the Hon. Seneca Bowers the causes of his inefficiency. He had come to rely more and more on his sprightly deputy, till now, virtual county leader and his party's candidate, Shelby, double-weighted, ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... to threaten their 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 ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... 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
... July, the wind was very light at southwest, with a mist and drizzling rain; but by three in the afternoon the two fleets could descry and count each other ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... little sketch is given), which he handed to me, and which, after he left the room, remained on the table by me. I gazed at it, I know not why, for some minutes, till called away by the day's duties; and you will smile incredulously when I say that I seemed to myself to begin to descry reflected in it objects and scenes which were not in the room where I was. You will not, however, be surprised that after such an experience I took the first opportunity to seclude myself in my room with what I now half believed to be a ...
— A Thin Ghost and Others • M. R. (Montague Rhodes) James
... spiral steps, of Egyptian marble, ascends to the fourth story, forming a balcony at each, where ottomans are placed, and from which a fine view of the curvature presents itself, from whence those who have ascended may descry those ascending. On the second story is a corridor, with moulded juttings and fretwork overhead; these are hung with festoons of jasmines and other delicate flowers, extending its whole length, and lighted by globular lamps, the prismatic ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... dark, but it was light enough to see that the ship had struck upon a reef. Straining their eyes, the alarmed passengers could descry land. Indeed, the reef was an outlying ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... of Arabia In my heart, when out of dreams I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn Descry her gliding streams; Hear her strange lutes on the green banks Ring loud with the grief and delight Of the dim-silked, dark-haired musicians, In the brooding ...
— A Cluster of Grapes - A Book of Twentieth Century Poetry • Various
... left in the land. After suffering for years the hopelessness of converting his people, the Prophet at last saw an Israel of whom hope might be dared. It was not their distance which lent enchantment to his view for he gives proof that he can descry the dross still among them, despite the furnace through which they have passed.(493) But the banished were without doubt the best of the nation, and now they had "dreed their weird," gone through the fire, been lifted out ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... Moon, whose orb The Tuscan artist views through optic glass At evening from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains in her ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... 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 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 gray coat himself! He laughed at my surprise, and said, without giving me time to speak: "You see, according to the ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various
... piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis[obs3]. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus[obs3]. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Mythical]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken; 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 &c. 444 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... she lifts the streaming hair, That o'er her shoulders droops so gracefully, While with the other she directs his gaze, All desperate with amaze, Yet with a strange delight, through all his fear! What sees he there? Buried within her bosom doth his eye The deadly steel descry; The blood stream clotted round it—the sweet life Shed by the cruel knife!— The keen blade guided to the pure white breast, By its own kindred hand, declares the rest! Smiling upon the deed, she smiles on him, And in that smile the lovely shape ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... Ayr), and to the Scott Country (Loch Katrine, The Trossachs, Edinburgh, and Abbotsford). In Edinburgh, William Sharp's statement about Stevenson should be remembered, "One can, in a word, outline Stevenson's own country as all the region that on a clear day one may in the heart of Edinburgh descry from the Castle walls." ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... watching and had slunk away; but even that thought was slightly melodramatic in so well-ordered a community. He went on till he was at the foot of the steps, at a point where he could no longer descry the glow in the upper window, but could perceive through the fanlight over the inner door that, though the lower hall was dark, the electrics were burning somewhere in the interior of ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... glory not for you, not for Hodge's emancipated horses, nor you. No; I say, No. You, for your part, have tried it, and failed. Left to walk your own road, the will-o'-wisps beguiled you, your short sight could not descry the pitfalls; the deadly tumult and press has whirled you hither and thither, regardless of your struggles and your shrieks; and here at last you lie; fallen flat into the ditch, drowning there and dying, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... impending denouement. She had never heard, or had forgotten the title to which Lord Borland of the old time was heir; and now that all doubt as to the identity of the man was over, although, let her strain her vision as she might, she could not, through the deformation of years, descry the youthful visage, she felt that all action on the part of the generation in possession was none the less forestalled and precluded by the presence of one in the house who had evidently long waited his arrival, and had ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the beautiful twilight lingered, serene and gracious, and in that clear light we could descry the form of the Sea Queen forging slowly out to sea, and rolling as she moved on ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... 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
... running toward them from the tower side, across the cleared space. He waved his kepi several times that they might see him better. Lacour trembled for him. The enemy might descry him; he was simply making a target of himself by cutting across that open space in order to reach them the sooner. . . . And he trembled still more as he came nearer. . . . ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... barely dark skirting the lake. You could almost see the rings made by rising trout, and there was enough of you visible at least to send the waterfowl scuttering from the reeds. Beyond that again, you could descry the pale ribbon of the footpath, and guess at the exuberant masses of the peony bushes, their heavy flowers, when they were white, still smouldering with the last of the sunset's fire. But once ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... with tears I pray That thou wilt not go lightly nigh them, But ride about another way, Far distant off thou may'st descry them." ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... sleep, the golden dreams anon, Born as the busy day's last murmurs die, In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom, Their breathing lips and golden locks descry, And as the bees o'er bright flowers joyous roam, Around ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... far as eye can see, Where its long reaches fade into the sky, Thy constant gaze, fair child, rests lovingly; But neither thou nor any can descry Aught but the grassy banks, the rustling sedge, And flocks of wild-fowl ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... for support. Still we plodded 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 now too scanty garments. We must be nearing the top, we thought, and yet we ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... occupants peacefully inclined. Earthquake? I look towards the doctor's box, and observe that nervous gentleman perfectly tranquil and unmoved. Hark! a tinkling bell is ringing somewhere outside the theatre. From my position in the stalls I can see into the open street beyond, and anon I descry a procession of church dignitaries in full canonicals, the first of whom bears the tinkling bell, while the rest carry long wax candles, the Host, and the sacred umbrella. Their mission at this hour of the evening is that of administering the holy sacrament to a dying man, and as they pass along ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... vivid dreams concerning the heroes of my last-read novel, and I would keep picturing to myself some leader of an army or some statesman or marvellously strong man or devoted lover or another, and looking round me in, a nervous expectation that I should suddenly descry HER somewhere near me, in a meadow or behind a tree. Yet, whenever these rambles led me near peasants engaged at their work, all my ignoring of the existence of the "common people" did not prevent me from experiencing an involuntary, overpowering sensation ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... granted (a heavenly dispensation, it would have to be) a decade of happiness beginning now, a decade of lovers of their own choosing, men of delicacy and wisdom, that thirty years from now there would be that poise and sweetness in the world that dreamers descry in far future ages. And here and there would be a beyond-man, indeed; and here and there cosmic, ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... shape our course for the mainland of the Southland, to which we are navigating. About noon we were close inshore, running along the coast with small sail at about half a mile's distance from it, in order to see if we could not descry any men or signs of men, until the afternoon, when we saw a small column of smoke rise up from the higher land, but it soon vanished. Nevertheless we anchored there in 21 fathom fine sandy bottom, in order to look for the skipper ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... therein nothing but worship and desire. Her acting, as she replied by gesture to the question of the king, was perfect in its realization of the simplicity of Elsa. Nevertheless I, at any rate, as I searched her features through the lorgnon that Mrs. Sullivan had silently handed to me, could descry beneath the actress the girl—the spoilt and splendid child of Good Fortune, who in the very spring of youth had tasted the joy of sovereign power, that unique and terrible dominion over mankind which belongs ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... 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 howled out that it was ghosts. As for Sir Henry and myself, we stood amazed; ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... art wholly in the right: Seven thousand pounds even as a matter of profit for this world, nay for the mere cash-market of this world! And as a matter of profit not for this world only, but for the other world and all worlds, it outweighs the Bank of England!—Can the sagacious reader descry here, as it were the outmost inconsiderable rock-ledge of a universal rock-foundation, deep once more as the Centre of the World, emerging so, in the experience of this good Quaker, through the Stygian mud-vortexes and general ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... the custom of the Voizin women to visit the sunny shores of the bay: this he had seen from Lihou; could he then succeed in landing unperceived, and in concealing himself in one of the many clefts of the rocks, he felt sure that if the well-known form were there he would descry it; what would follow afterwards was a question which had taken many fantastic shapes in his imagination, none of which had ...
— The Forest of Vazon - A Guernsey Legend Of The Eighth Century • Anonymous
... preparations have been made, I doubt not," said Nowell; "nay, I descry some armed men through the windows of the hall. Before coming to extremities, I will make a last appeal to you and your kinsman. I have granted Mistress Nutter and the girl with her an hour's delay, in the hope that, seeing ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... travelled thus for the space of ten or twelve days, our captain did oftentimes cause certain to go up into the tops of high trees, to see if they could descry any town or place of inhabitants, but they could not perceive any, and using often the same order to climb up into high trees, at the length they descried a great river, that fell from the north-west into the main sea; and presently ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt
... can cheat a lover's care? Could guess the fraud, the coming change descry, And in the midst of safety feared a snare. Now wicked Fame hath bid the rumour fly Of mustering crews. Poor Dido, crazed thereby, Raves like a Thyiad, when the frenzied rout With orgies hurry to Cithaeron ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... insolent, By that small loss, or rout, at LEXINGTON, Prevent our purpose and the night by-past, Have push'd intrenchments, and some flimsy works, With rude achievement, on the rocky brow, Of that tall hill. A ship-boy, with the day, From the tall mast-head, of the Admiral, Descry'd their aim, and gave the swift alarm. Our glasses mark, but one small regiment there, Yet, ev'ry hour we languish in delay, Inspires fresh hope, and fills their pig'my souls, With thoughts of holding it. You hear the sound Of spades and pick-axes, upon the hill, Incessant, pounding, ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... 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 chips ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... two leagues from the city before every head was stuck out of window. There were outcries and astonishment. Tartarin looked in his turn, and what did he descry! the camel, reader, the inevitable camel, racing along the line behind the train, and keeping up with it! The dismayed Tartarin drew ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet
... confluence of a number of stagnant creeks and back-streams, a sort of knot in the interminable loops and windings of the delta. Here and there in the line of tree-tops was a gap showing where some waterway came through. Here and there, too, I could descry a tiny beach of mud a yard or two wide, with a hut and a canoe tied to the mangrove roots, and black, naked people crouched on their hams in the shadows cast by the forest, engaged in their—to me—mysterious business of living. They were ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... us who, at the beginning of a new century, stand with shaded eyes, gazing into the future, striving to descry the outlines of the shadowy figures which loom before us in the distance, nothing seems of so gracious a promise, as the outline we seem to discern of a condition of human life in which a closer union than the world has yet seen shall exist between the man and the woman: where the Walhalla ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... although the way was a longer one, she did not find it a trouble to go by a circuitous route. When she reached the Sylhet plains she was called "Shengurkhat," and she then flowed past Chhatak, and so reached Duwara. She looked round to see where Umiam was, but she could not descry her anywhere. So out of playfulness she flowed slowly, and she formed a channel like a necklace (rupatylli) by way of waiting to see where Umiam was. Umiew was very proud, she felt strong enough to make the channel she chose, and although it was through the midst of hills and rocks, she cared ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... corps de reserve. When you are taken, he will negotiate with the constable of the night about your ransom, for which you must pay smartly, other-wise be detained till Justice opens her doors to descry and punish your enormities, according to the nature of the crime committed; upon which the Spunger says, that he foresaw and told you the consequences that would happen if you persevered, but that you would not ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... high on either bow as we dash through the foaming waters. Our distance from the object rapidly diminishes, while eager eyes are directed ahead, until it is seen from the deck. Hope fills the breast of the sanguine, despair that of the gloomy and desponding. Sure eyes and good telescopes soon descry the Yankee ensign floating aloft in lazy folds; and as we come still nearer, those accustomed to observe the shape of sails and set of masts, detect the peculiarities of an old acquaintance. It is the Lucy Ann, an American vessel of a very suspicious ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various
... premature in such prevision. Your own may come first, sir. Look well at your eyes the next time you shave, and I fear you will descry those radiant fibres in the iris which always co-exist with heart-disease. I can tell you fifty cases, if ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... eyes, however closely we pry, into whatever depths of infinity we peer, we observe the most perfect harmony between structure and law, law moulding structure and structure utilising law. Afar off we descry systems upon systems, solar and sidereal, like sand upon the sea-shore for multitude, and every individual orb thereof rotating or revolving in strictest accordance with inflexible mathematical principles, and ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... moving on the top of the deep snow near the outskirts of the wood—moving about in an aimless way, stopping occasionally, and starting again, raising the voice sometimes, and again going on in silence. Trenholme could not descry any track left on the snow; all that he could see was a large figure dressed in garments which, in the starlight, did not seem to differ very much in hue from the snow, and he gained the impression that the head was thrown back and the face ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... time elapsed ere the hospitable mansion of Victor's uncle appeared in sight, with lights dancing from every window, and our good steeds, like couriers of the air, scudded over the polished surface toward these pleasant beacons. We were soon able to descry forms flitting before the window, and as we turned up the road leading from the lake ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... taught 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 burrow before I can come close enough to observe ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... furnished with lamps, however, and, by the rapid 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 the railroad as it was yet ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... the falling snow, which froze upon their lashes and obscured his sight, Kit often tried to catch the earliest glimpse of twinkling lights, denoting their approach to some not distant town. He could descry objects enough at such times, but none correctly. Now, a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps. Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, or meeting them in narrow ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens |
