"Distinctness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... crossed the radiance of the heavens. Other sign of animal life there was none. Still the hidden voice rippled on in a stream of melody, and the listener stood amazed and enchanted at the roundness and distinctness of every note that fell from the lips ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... scene of colour as the wind blew aside the great waterfall behind which we stood, and alternately hid and revealed each of these fairy cataracts in irregular succession, or displayed them with various gradations of distinctness as the intervening spray was thickened or dispersed. What a scene too in summer! In the luxury of our imagination we could not help feeding upon the pleasure which this cave, in the heat of a July noon, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... criterion of certitude to the uttermost. There is one fact which I cannot doubt, even in doubting all—I think, and if I think, I exist—"Je pense, donc je suis." No other evidence of this is needed than that our conception is clear and distinct; in this clearness and distinctness we find the principle of certitude. Mind, then, exists, and is known to us as a thinking substance. But the idea of an infinite, perfect Being is also present to our intellect; we, finite, imperfect beings, could not have made it; unmake it we cannot; and in the conception of perfection ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... was marked throughout by a certain distinctness and accuracy that betoken care and attention—there was no evidence whatever of haste or passion—and this expression of a serious determination, duly weighed and resolved on, made itself very painfully felt by the young man as ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... lightning coming at longer intervals, and the thunder gradually becoming more and more distant, till at last it subsided into a low angry muttering; though the lightning still kept quivering and flashing—making everything in the bedroom appear with the greatest distinctness. ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... nevertheless stepped back with an exclamation of surprise and almost awe. The head stood out in the darkness with startling distinctness. It had the effect of being bathed in moonlight, although much more brilliant than even the light of the full moon. It seemed to him, indeed, almost as if a faint wavering light played around it, giving the stern face of the old Roman ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... clearly into the deep water. After a spell of watching a woman called out that she saw something moving up the channel, just below where she was standing. There was a stampede to the spot, but by the time the crowd had gathered the breeze had freshened, and it was impossible to see with any distinctness below the surface of the water. On being questioned the woman described what she had seen, but in such an incoherent way that the whole thing was put down as an effect of imagination; had it not been for the children's report she would not have been credited at all. ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... not see this nocturnal landscape, for his anger seemed, as it were, to lay a hand over his eyes. But gradually the brilliancy of the two stars, the larger and the smaller, caught his attention, then the dark distinctness of the mountains, and then the gray shimmering road and the strange light on the lake. But the more the great silent picture of the night gained power over his soul, the more did it appease his anger, until there grew ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... expression from the lips of the meek and down-trodden martyr was unbelievable,—and the way she said it! Not even Pat Murphy, the coal-wagon driver, with all his years of practice, could have said it with greater distinctness,—not even Pat who possessed the masculine right to amplify the behest with expletives not supposed to be uttered except in the presence of ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... great need of money now—the greatest need, Ivan Fyodorovitch. You don't know in what need he is," Smerdyakov explained, with perfect composure and remarkable distinctness. "He looks on that three thousand as his own, too. He said so to me himself. 'My father still owes me just three thousand,' he said. And besides that, consider, Ivan Fyodorovitch, there is something else perfectly true. ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... regulation and government; to which a willing submission was paid, so far as circumstances would permit. I much regret my inability to give these rules verbatim, but I cannot at this distant period of time recollect them with a sufficient degree of distinctness. They were chiefly directed to the preservation of personal cleanliness, and the prevention of immorality. For a refusal to comply with any of them, the refractory person was subjected to a stated punishment. It is an astonishing fact that any rules, thus made, should have so long existed ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... trace of what was written once", it was the mission of Christ, it is the mission of all great personalities, of all the concrete creations of Genius, to bring out into distinctness and vital glow. It is not, and cannot be, brought out,— and this fact is emphasized in the poetry of Browning,— it cannot be brought out, through what is born and resides in the brain: it is brought out, either directly or indirectly, by the attracting power of magnetic personalities, the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... of our Lord found place through His whole life, but culminates and comes out in special distinctness in His crucifixion. Wherein it consists is made clear by the words from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Messiah spake: 'Lo, I come to do Thy will.' And then it is added, 'In the which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ.' ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... taking a cup, tosses water so high that it enters the door of the moon; at the same time he shouts, "Send me a whale." A second man does the same, but tosses the water only a short distance, for he has met with disappointment in his whaling. All these scenes, with the distinctness of the voices, have the effect of making her homesick to return to the village. She pleads with the doorkeeper to allow her to retrace her steps, but he declares that the path has vanished, and that no one entering the moon can return by the same road. She, becoming disconsolate, is ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... had made a turn to the left into a smaller canyon. By this time the light was getting stronger. Tad was able to make out his man with more distinctness. The boy urged his pony forward with short, sharp yelps. The Indian was doing the same, but Tad was gaining on him every second. Now the boy uttered a perfect volley of shouts, hoping that Nance would understand when he got to the junction ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in the Grand Canyon - The Mystery of Bright Angel Gulch • Frank Gee Patchin
... held up the bag that was in his left hand as he drew near, when it was his custom to call out to him what was in it. It did not reassure the watcher, you may be certain, when a shout unnaturally faint reached him, as the phantom dangled the bag in the air, and he heard with a faint distinctness the ...
— J.S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 5 • J.S. Le Fanu
... bloodless, offered no complete impediment to vision. As volition was in abeyance, the balls could not roll in their sockets—but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere were seen with more or less distinctness; the rays which fell upon the external retina, or into the corner of the eye, producing a more vivid effect than those which struck the front or interior surface. Yet, in the former instance, this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only as sound—sound sweet or discordant as the ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe
... deluge have been worked up into a single story in the Bible" has been generally accepted by those who have followed him in the minute analysis of the literary structure of Holy Scripture; and the names of the "Priestly Narrative" and of the "Jehovistic Narrative" have, for the sake of distinctness, been applied to them. The former is so called because the chapters in Exodus and the two following books, which treat with particular minuteness of the various ceremonial institutions of Israel, are considered to be by the same writer. The latter has received its name from the preference ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... the scene came back to me, disengaging themselves from the darkness which had settled on my eyes, regaining distinctness and their proper form. I was sitting in a chair, and there were wet bandages about my head. Those present before were there still, save M. de Perrencourt, whose place at the table was vacant; the large sheet of paper and the materials for writing had vanished. ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... hair, of which there seems to be so much more nowadays than was to be seen twenty years ago. She was handsome—very handsome—Clarissa decided at once; but it seemed to her rather a cold, hard style of beauty; the straight nose, the mouth, and chin chiselled with a clearness and distinctness that was almost sharpness; the large luminous blue eyes, which did not seem to possess much ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... a liar," said Donna Inez with great distinctness, and speaking English excellently. "What you say against Sir Frank is madness and foolish talk. In Genoa my father did not speak of the manuscript, nor did I, who tell you this. How, then, could Sir Frank kill this poor man, when he had ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... "It was hardly perceptible. Just a slight loss of firmness and distinctness; such a trifling change as you would expect to find in the handwriting of a man who had taken to drink or drugs, or anything that might impair the steadiness of his hand. I should not have noticed it, myself, but, of course, ...
— The Mystery of 31 New Inn • R. Austin Freeman
... machine, covered by a tarpaulin and lying on an open field. He raised his head so high that his neck became almost perpendicular; and this he did from habit, for the machine lay on a slope below, and could not have been seen with more distinctness through the raising of the head; nor if any sound had proceeded from it could the sound have been more distinctly heard. His eyes and ears were directed intently forwards; and I could feel through the saddle the palpitations of his heart. With red, dilated nostrils, he snorted violently, and whirling ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... coming over us, at all; it is coming down on the other shore of the lake. Please, Mr. Pilot, to keep in a little nearer the land, or we shall pass the rocks so far out, that we shall not be able to see them with distinctness. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, May 1844 - Volume 23, Number 5 • Various
... scope of my efforts not to think; to keep up a conflict and uproar in my mind in which all order and distinctness should be lost; to escape from the sensations produced by her voice. I was therefore silent. I strove to abridge this interval by haste, and to waste all ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... and, although he did not seem to raise his voice above its usual pitch, the words he uttered fell on my ears with a distinctness and purity of sound which made them seem like a melody "sweetly played in tune." The words he read related to life and death, and such solemn matters; but to my mind his theology seemed somewhat fantastical, although it is right to confess that I am no judge of such ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... character of the work seemed to fall off, or rather the methods of the artist to change. It may have been, too, the inspiration from a dramatic spirited story also failed, for "Boz" had abandoned the free, almost reckless style of his first tale. There was a living distinctness, too, in the Pickwickian coterie, and every figure, familiar and recognizable, seemed to have infinite possibilities. The very look of ...
— Pickwickian Manners and Customs • Percy Fitzgerald
... the winds. The voices of animals and of birds, particularly the hammering of the woodpecker, serve to magnify our perceptions of grandeur. A very slight sound, during a calm in one of these deep woods, like the ticking of a clock in a vast hall, has a distinctness almost startling, especially if there be but little undergrowth. These feeble sounds afford one a more vivid sense of the magnitude of the place than louder sounds, that differ less from those we hear in the open plain. The canopy ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... departure of the daylight, for I should have liked to have seen more plainly the entrance to this wonderful harbour, pronounced by Nelson to be one of the finest in the world; but, on the other hand, the exquisite beauty of the scene made up for its want of distinctness. The glorious full moon, gaining power, shone into every creek and cranny, and beamed brilliantly over the water as we steamed ahead, until at last we dropped anchor off the dockyard of Trincomalee. ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... any great hazard of being observed (the glass being in a dark angle of the wall, between which and a large upright beam the observer had to thrust himself), but could, by applying his ear to the partition, ascertain with tolerable distinctness, their subject of conversation. The landlord of the house had not withdrawn his eye from this place of espial for five minutes, and Barney had only just returned from making the communication above related, when Fagin, in the course of his evening's business, came into the bar to inquire ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... their reason; that the precious gift should not be desecrated to hold relics that were subject to excommunication," he said with painful distinctness, and would not linger ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... darkness, in which retreating sounds seemed to be cut off suddenly at a distance of a hundred yards or so, instead of growing faint and fainter, and dying away, to strike the ear once or twice again—and after minutes, it might seem—with startling distinctness, before being finally lost in the distance, as it is on clear, frosty nights. So with the sounds of horses' hoofs, stumbling on the rough bridle-track through the "saddle", the clatter of hoof-clipped stones and scrape of gravel down the hidden "siding", and the low ...
— Over the Sliprails • Henry Lawson
... under such circumstances; but there is nevertheless some testimony to the contrary. A French observer, E. Liais, said that three photographic plates of the eclipse of 1858 seen in S. America all showed the outer limb of the Moon with more or less distinctness. This testimony, be it noted, is photographic and not visual; and on the whole it seems safest to say that there is very small probability of the Moon as a whole ever being seen under the circumstances ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... dark there, but sufficient light filtered in through cracks and cleverly-contrived apertures to render it easy to move about; and when the eye grew used to the dimness, everything could be seen with pretty fair distinctness. ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... been covered, with the gun-fire sounding with much greater distinctness, Darrin felt that he could judge the distance properly. Turning on a screened ...
— Dave Darrin After The Mine Layers • H. Irving Hancock
... their trade, tacking to and fro over the banks, where the fish congregate. The sky was clear, and the deep-coloured sea flashed here and there beneath the sun. Objects near and far stood out in the clear air with a startling distinctness. It was a fresh May morning, when it is good to be alive, and better to ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... events we have heretofore contemplated seemed to prophesy the speedy dissolution and downfall of the half-formed American Union, a series of causes, obscure enough at first, but emerging gradually into distinctness and then into prominence, were preparing the way for the foundation of a national sovereignty. The growth of this sovereignty proceeded stealthily along such ancient lines of precedent as to take ready hold of people's minds, although few, if any, understood the full purport of ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... with disagreeable distinctness, did not find any great comfort in being totally forgotten. He would have liked, though he scarcely expected, some expression of regret ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... last rim formed a golden sickle behind a blunt shoulder of rock; while over the eastward levels the topaz-yellow of an Indian dawn rushed at one stride to the zenith of heaven. In the clear light the girl's beauty took on a new distinctness, a new living charm. The upward-sweeping mass of her hair showed the softness of bronze, save where the sun burnished it to copper. Breadth of brow, and the strong moulding of her nose and chin, suggested powers rather befitting a man than a woman. But in the eyes and lips the ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... to the Dronne. Usually covered in summer with white or yellow lilies—seldom the two species together—these and other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths show their scalloped or feathery forms with perfect distinctness far below the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... first week in October) the musical season, in what we take to be the most music-loving of our cities, Boston, has not commenced, or shaped itself into much distinctness of plan. The season is late; hard times may make it later; yet shall "the winter of our discontent be glorious summer" ere long. Boston, for its best music,—best in artistic tendency, though not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... gray stone house lay quiet; its vine and roof heavy with the softly-falling snow, and showing no sign of light or life except in a feeble, red glow through the Venetian blinds of the many windows of one large room. Within, a huge fire of mighty logs lit up with distinctness only the middle space, and fell with variable illumination on a silent group about ...
— Mr. Kris Kringle - A Christmas Tale • S. Weir Mitchell
... by occasional questioning of the sentinels whom they passed in their circuit, was carried on in an audible whisper, which the close approximation of the parties to each other, and the profound stillness of the night, enabled them to hear with distinctness. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... and he did not stir. His stillness made his hearing more acute. The trampling of feet over his head came to him with great distinctness. He heard the singing of wind at the porthole, and, now and then, the swish of waters as they swept past the schooner. He wondered what Tayoga was doing and what would Willet think when he came back to Albany and found ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... during the night did the moon show her face, though about two o'clock in the morning the clouds thinned, the landscape showing with more distinctness. The girls, when they walked down to the shore, saw a sheet of water covering several acres. Leading down to the water was a pier that extended far out into the little lake or pond, whatever it ...
— The Meadow-Brook Girls by the Sea - Or The Loss of The Lonesome Bar • Janet Aldridge
... a-rolling. He seemed much shocked at what he beheld, and his proceedings, in consequence, had more in them of regularity and propriety, than he might have been supposed capable of exhibiting upon any occasion whatever. The daughter was first examined, and stated, with wonderful accuracy and distinctness, the manner in which she had been alarmed with a noise of struggling and violence in her father's apartment, and that the more readily, because she was watching him on account of some alarm concerning ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... being shorter, broader, more hairy, with the tip of the abdomen flatter and more hairy. The prothoracic segment is broader and flatter, and the rough portion of the dorsal plates is larger and less tranversely ovate. The structure of the head shows that its generic distinctness from Saperda is well founded, as the head is smaller and flatter, the clypeus being twice as large, and the labrum broad and short, while in S. vestita it is longer than broad. The mandibles are ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... our boats," Mark gravely replied, the image of Bridget, just at that instant, appearing before his mind with a painful distinctness. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... soldier at the breaking up of camp. Anxious for a change of scenery as he may be, the eye will linger upon each familiar spot, the quarters, the parade ground, and rocky bluff and wooded knoll, until memory's impress bears the lasting distinctness of a lifetime. Those leaving could not banish from their minds, even if disposed, the thought that, although but a temporary sojourn for them, it had proved to be the last resting-place of many of their comrades. The hospital, more dreaded than the field, had contributed ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... lui. The portraits in that gallery of dramatic paintings, Le Misanthrope, have names inscribed under them; and the immortal Tartuffe was a certain bishop of Autun. No dramatist has conceived with greater variety the female character; the women of Moliere have a distinctness of feature, and are touched with a freshness of feeling. Moliere studied nature, and his comic humour is never checked by that unnatural wit where the poet, the more he discovers himself, the farther he removes himself ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... addition, viz. G. F. De Witsland, discovered in 1628 by the ship Vianen commanded by G. F. De Witt [*]. In this case, too, it is difficult to determine exactly the longitudes between which the coast-line thus designated is situated. [**] But with great distinctness the chart exhibits the chain of islands of which the Monte Bello and tha Barrow islands are the principal, and besides, certain islands of the Dampier Archipelago, afterwards so called after the celebrated English navigator. ...
— The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 • J. E. Heeres
... never been excited or become inflected, be examined, the cells forming the pedicels are seen to be filled with homogeneous, purple fluid. The walls are lined by a layer of colourless, circulating protoplasm; but this can be seen with much greater distinctness after the process of aggregation has been partly effected than before. The purple fluid which exudes from a crushed tentacle is somewhat coherent, and does not mingle with the surrounding water; it contains much ...
— Insectivorous Plants • Charles Darwin
... responded, with the distinctness of one in power. "At the time, I told myself that even Fran would not do that. But, a long time afterward, I heard another sound, from the yard. I went to my window. I looked out. The moon was bright, ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis
... who had risen, remained for a few moments leaning against the tent-poles, gazing abstractedly toward the sea. The bees droned uninterruptedly in his ears, the far-off roll of the breakers came to him distinctly; but suddenly, with greater distinctness, came the murmur of ...
— A Drift from Redwood Camp • Bret Harte
... feeling in me. I remember with the utmost distinctness my first meeting with him. It was just after the Boer war and old Johnny Beaminster gave a dinner party to some men pals of his at the Phoenix. Johnny was not so old then—none of us were; it was a short ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... characters and manners. The only point of agreement between different writers respecting them is the circumstance that all represent them as very low in civilisation and of fierce and sanguinary habits."* Their distinctness as a race has been denied with much apparent reason by Mr. Earl, and they are considered by Prichard to be merely various tribes of the Malayo-Polynesian race retaining their uncivilised and primitive ...
— Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John MacGillivray
... fondness for painting hermits. The lighting of his pictures is frequently by lantern or candle. They are mostly small, and without animated action, but are full of picturesqueness. He was a good colourist, 'with a rare truth to nature and a marvellous distinctness of eye and precision of hand.' Minute as his execution was, his touch was 'free and soft.' His best pictures are 'like nature's self seen through the camera obscura.' An instance often given of his exquisite finish ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... northern hyperborean genius,—a winter bird with a clear, saucy, cheery call, and not a passionate summer songster. His lines have little melody to the ear, but they have the vigor and distinctness of all pure and compact things. They are like the needles of the pine—"the snow loving pine"—more than the emotional foliage of the deciduous trees, and ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... two hours, in the course of which my master fainted several times, and was distressed beyond measure. The same evening he fell into a slumber, from which he awoke in much perturbation, and said he had heard with much distinctness the tolling of an English funeral bell: I entreated him to be composed, and observed that sick people frequently fancy they hear and see things which can possibly have no existence. He ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 13, No. 362, Saturday, March 21, 1829 • Various
... as mental equilibrium and physical calm, he heard a whispered conversation going on around him, and the touch of footsteps on the carpet. The light in the chamber was so subdued that nothing around him could be seen with any distinctness. Two living figures were present, a nurse moving about softly, and a visitor. He discerned that the latter was feminine, and for the ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... outdone by the blustering substantive or the self-asserting verb. And so it is that the native American hangs upon the little words: he does not clip and slur "the smaller parts of speech," and what his tongue loses in colour it gains in distinctness. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... understand: "a primal eternal Being, author of all things, the father and the friend of man, the invisible omniscient guardian of morality," a definition which, while it fixes the high-water mark of monotheism, yet only states with formidable distinctness what, according to Mr. Lang, is found confusedly in the apprehension of the rudest savages. There are two senses in which we can understand an evolution of this idea of God; first, as Mr. Tylor understands it, in the sense of ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... the section of the cave, and thus a sort of outer cave is formed, the real portal of the glaciere being reached about 60 feet above the bottom of the slope. This outer cave presents a curious appearance, from the distinctness with which the several strata of the limestone are marked, the lower strata weathered and rounded off like the seats of an amphitheatre of the giants, and all, up to the shell-like roof, arranged in horizontal semicircles ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... certainly affinity beyond that of colouring, though in colouring to a limited degree. Between Rubens and Teniers there is surely a gap of many classes. If there be any characteristic mark common to both, it must lie in the silvery lightness of colouring, distinctness and freedom of touch, as if both had used the same vehicle, and in the same manner, allowance being made for the size and subjects of their pictures. We are not disposed to detract from the reputation of Rubens as a colourist; no painter perhaps better understood theoretically ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... "deification" sounds not only strange, but arrogant and shocking. The Western consciousness has always tended to emphasise the distinctness of individuality, and has been suspicious of anything that looks like juggling with the rights of persons, human or Divine. This is especially true of thought in the Latin countries. Deus has never been a fluid ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... grotesqueries certain individual scenes and plays stand out with startling distinctness as possessed of wit and humor of high order. The description by Cleaereta of the relations of lover, mistress and lena is replete with biting satire (As. 177 ff., 215 ff.). The finale of the same play is irresistibly ...
— The Dramatic Values in Plautus • Wilton Wallace Blancke
... romancist, to the dramatist, the character of such a man as John Porteous is intensely attractive; even in the graver ways of history he claims the attention imperatively, and stands forward with a decisive distinctness that lends to him an importance beyond his deserts. {59} His life had been from the beginning daring, desperate, and reckless. He was the son of a very respectable Edinburgh citizen, who was also a very respectable tailor, and whose harmless ambition it was to make the wild slip of his blood ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... amid the gloom of the scene, it strangely seemed to her that she was going down the long, sweet lane of Burleigh Grange. The magic of that perfume, and something of kindred sweetness in the sad, wailing music, brought old times and scenes before her with preternatural distinctness. Then she became conscious of a something making still darker and deeper the gloomy shadows cast by the black hangings of the scene,—a presence, not palpable or visible to the senses, but terribly real to the finer perceptions of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... lines on Tintern Abbey, and lately by Mr. Roden Noel in his noble poems of Pantheism. It is more or less strongly felt by all who have recognised the indubitable fact that religious belief is undergoing a sure process of change from the dogmatic distinctness of the past to some at present dimly descried creed of the future. Such periods of transition are of necessity full of discomfort, doubt, and anxiety, vague, variable, and unsatisfying. The men in whose spirits the fermentation of the change is felt, who have abandoned their old moorings, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... bushes or trees, usually below twenty feet from the ground; they are open frameworks of twigs, rootlets and weed stalks, through which the eggs can be plainly seen. The eggs are similar to those of the preceding but are usually of a paler color, the markings, therefore showing with greater distinctness. ...
— The Bird Book • Chester A. Reed
... are all concentrated in one direction and consequently they are much stronger in that direction. However, while the megaphone intensifies sound, the echoing from the sides of the megaphone makes the sound lose some of its distinctness. ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... shutters, and unnecessary banging of doors. That unearthly silence peculiar to houses after midnight reigned in Mr. Sheldon's domicile, and he could hear the voices of distant roisterers, and the miauling of neighbouring cats, with a painful distinctness as he sat brooding in his silent room. The fact that a mahogany chiffonier in a corner gave utterance to a faint groan occasionally, as of some feeble creature in pain, afforded him no annoyance. He was superior to superstitious fancies, and all the rappings and scratchings of ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... logging. Summers he spent at the mill. Occasionally he visited Marquette, but always on business. He became used to seeing only the rough faces of men. The vision of softer graces and beauties lost its distinctness before this strong, hardy northland, whose gentler moods were like velvet over iron, or like its own summer leaves veiling the eternal darkness ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... overhead. It was a dark summer night, shot through with infrequent shimmers of lightning silently firing a cloud lying low in the west and portending a storm. These brief, stammering illuminations brought out with ghastly distinctness the monuments and headstones of the cemetery and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a night in which any credible witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery, so the three men who were there, digging into the grave of ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... with mossy rocks protruding through the grass and a little lake on the other side. It was a cloudless August day; Rowland always remembered it, and the scene, and everything that was said and done, with extraordinary distinctness. Roderick surpassed himself in friendly jollity, and at one moment, when exhilaration was at the highest, was seen in Mr. Striker's high white hat, drinking champagne from a broken tea-cup to Mr. Striker's health. Miss Striker had her father's pale blue ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... this unfortunate name once more, with extraordinary efforts at distinctness, it swelled into eight ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... panic of hurry. She must go home at once, without a moment's delay. A little son was waiting for her to come and put him to bed. She had promised; he was waiting. They were to have a regular little lark—that she remembered, too, with distinctness. She was almost as uncertain as Murray had been of the meaning of a "lark"; she had used the word, as she had used so many other words to the child, heedlessly. She had even and odd, uncertain little feeling as to what it meant to put a little son to bed, for she had never unlaced or ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... of Roman scenes and places are full of truth, and render the common, every-day aspect of streets and squares, of gardens and churches, of popular customs and social habits, with equal spirit and fidelity. The interest of the story is sustained by the distinctness with which the localities in which it passes are depicted. The style of the book is so excellent that we the more regret a few careless and clumsy expressions, and some awkward sentences, which a little pains might have prevented. We regret also that the Italian ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... "The man I have been," said Simon Orts, "yes!—the man I have been!" Something clicked in his throat with sharp distinctness. ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... necessary to the digestive process, the liver has a duct to convey that product of its secretion to the intestines. The trachea is as it were the duct of the lungs. In the liver, then, the portal and hepatic veins being continuous as veins, the two systems, notwithstanding their apparent distinctness, caused by the intervention of the hepatic lobules, may be regarded as the veins corresponding with the arteries of the coeliac axis, and the two mesenteric. The hepatic artery and the hepatic veins evidently do not pair in the sense of afferent and efferent, with ...
— Surgical Anatomy • Joseph Maclise
... motions, as explained in Zoonomia, Sect. XXXVI. which are thus performed with great facility and energy; but in every less circle of actions or ideas, as in the burden of a song, or the reiterations of a dance. To the facility and distinctness, with which we hear sounds at repeated intervals, we owe the pleasure, which we receive from musical time, and from poetic time, as described in Botanic Garden, V. II. Interlude III. And to this the pleasure we receive from the rhimes ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... made four. True, I had learned my "Addition Table," but, strangely enough, that did not furnish me with any clue towards working out the problem of figures set for me on my slate. I was then in my ninth year; and I can remember, to this day, with perfect distinctness, how utterly discouraged I became, as day by day went by, and still I had not found a correct result to any one of my sums, nor gained a single ray of light on the subject. Strange as it may seem, I remained for several months in simple addition before I knew how to sum up figures, and then the ...
— The Lights and Shadows of Real Life • T.S. Arthur
... sergeant major and the three clerks had heard with sufficient distinctness every word that passed between the major and the accused captain, and, there being at Sandy some three hundred inquisitive souls, thirsting for truth and light, it could hardly be expected of this quartette that it should ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... the nail here, boy, will you be satisfied? Upon my word, it's the last place I'll try!" He spoke with what dignity and distinctness he could command, but the effect was lost upon Max, who, also dusty, also bearing upon his person the evidences of manual labor, was crouching over a wood fire, intent upon the ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... prior to the event, and unaccompanied by any tokens of crime, would not only be able to free the person suspected, at least from this point of suspicion, but would be enabled to place its burden elsewhere, and with the most conclusive distinctness. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... height up the side they rested. A faint glimmer was just then tingeing the sky and everything around them was still as death. The gentle lapping of the waves against the rocky shore, the barking of the dogs in Malaga, and the occasional crow of a rooster rang out with wonderful distinctness. The anchor light of the ship about one mile away twinkled as though only a little distance off. Not yet feeling secure they began climbing upwards. The progress was arrested by a hoarse sound coming ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... hardly had they put foot on deck ere her head was turned towards Hastings, where they were to disembark. At this instant the three friends turned, in spite of themselves, a last look on the rock, upon the menacing figure which pursued them and now stood out with a distinctness still. Then a voice reached them once more, sending this threat: "To our next meeting, sirs, ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... desire to emphasise the fact, I think that in this generation, and to-day, there is a great deal more need to insist upon the truth that the inmost essence and deepest purpose of the whole Old Testament system is to create an attitude of expectance, and to point onwards, with ever-growing distinctness, to one colossal and mysterious figure in which the longings of generations shall be fulfilled, and the promises of God shall be accomplished. The prophet was more than a foreteller, as is being continually insisted upon nowadays. There were prophets who never uttered a single prediction. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... varying shades of dull brown. In all of them you seem to feel the interposition of the air between you and the distant horizon at which you are looking. What else is there? At each point in the picture the air modifies the distinctness with which you can see the objects. This consciousness of air in a picture of low horizon is a very difficult thing to describe and explain. We know when it is there and when it is not. It has to be seen, to be enjoyed, and recorded. Holbein ...
— The Book of Art for Young People • Agnes Conway
... made up differently," Tavender assented, with philosophical gravity. Then he lurched gently in the over-large chair, and fixed an intent gaze upon his host. "What did you make your money in?" he demanded, not with entire distinctness of enunciation. "It ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... be discovered at that distance through the dusk. My mother's anxiety would not allow her to remain where she was. She rose, and seated herself at the window. She strained her sight to get a view of the dome, and of the path that led to it. The first painted itself with sufficient distinctness on her fancy, but was undistinguishable by the eye from the rocky mass on which it was erected. The second could be imperfectly seen; but her husband had already passed, or had taken a ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... bear close investigation, is discovered and ascertained, as navigators trace the lines and bearings of an unknown coast. The persons among whom this illustrious hypocrite performs the principal character, are traced with equal distinctness. The silly old mother, obstinate from age as well as bigotry; the modest and sensible Cleante; his brother-in-law, Orgon, prepared to be a dupe by prepossession and self-opinion; Damis, impetuous and unreflecting; Mariane, gentle and patient; with the hasty and petulant sallies of ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... there came upon him a compelling desire to draw this girl to whom he owed so much into his arms and comfort her. They both stood very still a moment, and Nasmyth heard the snapping of the stove with a startling distinctness. Then—and it cost him a strenuous effort—he let her ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... finding it harder to go away than I had supposed. So closely had I watched the changes upon her face, that every line of it was deeply engraved upon my memory. Other and more familiar faces seemed to have faded in proportion to that distinctness of impression. Julia's features, for instance, had become blurred and obscure, like a painting which has lost its original ...
— The Doctor's Dilemma • Hesba Stretton
... said Miss Forbes, with equal distinctness. "I'm not going to be left here alone—with all these ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis
... walls, produced by the distinctness with which the town stands out from the white sand, disappears, and three towers at regular intervals dominate the mass. The terraces of square houses are now distinguishable, renewing the first impression of grandeur in immensity. We enter the town, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... monism of Ramanuja (as his system is sometimes called) led to more uncompromising treatment of the question and to the affirmation of dualism, not the dualism of God and the Devil but the distinctness of the soul and of matter from God. This is the doctrine of Madhva, another southern teacher who lived about a century after Ramanuja and was perhaps directly influenced by Islam. But though the logical outcome of his teaching may appear to be simple theism analogous to Islam or Judaism, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... "All wrong. You should not leave your mother any work that you could spare her. One of the first things I taught our Maria" (Mrs. Upjohn in Mr. Hardcastle's presence always said our Maria with great distinctness),—"one of the first things I taught her was, that it was her privilege to save me in every thing. I don't believe in idleness for girls. Aren't you ready yet to attend to these crewels, Phebe? Miss Brooks is snarling ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... dramatic poetry, consists in leaving it doubtful to the father and mother what is the meaning of the excitement on the beach and the confused cries which reach their ears, until one cry comes home to them with terrible distinctness, "The crutch is floating!" It would be hard to name any single phrase in literature in which more dramatic effect is concentrated than in these four words—they are only two words in the original. However dissimilar ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... and quieting poor Tiney, and had at last succeeded in singing her to sleep, left her in Susan's care, and returned to her own room. It was a lovely, warm, moonlight evening, and Agnes stood by her raised window, watching the shadows of the tall trees which were thrown with such vivid distinctness across the gravel walks and the closely trimmed lawn, and thinking of a pleasant walk she had taken that day, and of some one who joined her, (as was by no means unusual,) on her return from the woods ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... truth, in your conduct there is not a little that to me, piteously inclined towards you as I am, yet appeareth obnoxious to the edge of this woman's reproaches. But think not, O bewildered and not-with-sufficient-distinctness-discerning-the-nature-of-things Titmouse! that she hath only a sharp and bitter tongue. In this woman behold a mother, and it may be that she will soften before you, who have plainly, as I hear, neither father nor ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... the table, torn by a conflict of the strangely warring forces within him. And with his head drooping heavily forward upon his hands he lay there until the melancholy dawn grayed the room into shadowy distinctness, his angle of vision twisted and maimed by the demon of the bottle. The candlestick loomed strangely forth from the still grayness; the bottle took form; the yellowed paper glimmered on the table. Carl stirred and a spasm of mirthless laughter ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... quarrel with Brown instantly forgotten. "Throw the little greaser out," he spoke with slow distinctness. "This is a white ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... on the pillow—and as the fire blazed up, the sharp profile being reflected in grotesque distinctness on the wall behind—was a man's face, thin and ghastly, the skin tightly drawn over the features, as is seen in the last stage ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... upon this river at the gulf we do not know, but on a Ptolemy map, published in Venice in 1513, it is thought by some that the delta is traced with distinctness, as less distinctly in Waldseemuller's map of 1507. Five years later (1518) on Garay's map of Alvarez de Pineda's explorations, there descends into the gulf a sourceless river, the Rio del Espiritu Santo, which is thought by some ...
— The French in the Heart of America • John Finley
... it has reached bewildering volume and complexity, in which the old principles are partly merged together and the new tendencies, for contemporary observers, at least, scarcely stand out with decisive distinctness. Most significant to-day, perhaps, are the spirit of independence, now carried in some respects beyond the farthest previous Romantic limits, and the realistic impulse, in which the former impulses of democracy and humanitarianism ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... if possessed by supernatural spirit and strength, she lashed it safe, resumed her seat, and rowed in, desperately, for the nearest shallow water where she might run the boat aground. Desperately, but not wildly, for she knew that if she lost distinctness of intention, all was lost ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... of parts is ever to be attended to, as it is one part of beauty, as has been already said: but that what I mean by distinctness of parts in this place may be better understood it will be proper to explain it by ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... accurate idea of Dante's style by a single word, that word would be power. Whatever he undertakes to say, he says in the form best suited to convey his thought to the reader's mind as it existed in his own mind. If it be a metaphysical idea, he finds words for it which give it the distinctness and reality of a physical substance. If it be a landscape, he brings it before you, either in outline or in detail, either by form or by color, as the occasion requires, but always with equal force. That landscape of his ideal world ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... of those portions of it, which had been explored, before I commenced my recent labours. This may reasonably be expected from me by my readers, not only to enable them to follow me into the heartless desert from which, it may still be said, I have so lately returned, with that distinctness which can alone secure interest to my narrative; but, also, to judge whether the conclusions at which I arrived, and upon which I acted, were such as past experience ought to ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... swimming about in the clear water and catching flies; a drive to the Belvedere, where there are superficial refreshments above and profound grottos below; these were trifles, though we enjoyed them. But the great mountains encircling us on every side, standing out in clear view with that distinctness and completeness of vision which is one charm of the Dolomites, seemed to summon us to more arduous enterprises. Accordingly, the Deacon and I selected the easiest one, engaged a guide, and prepared for ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... and thrilling romance.... Mr. Weyman has a positive talent for concise dramatic narration. Every phrase tells, and the characters stand out with life-like distinctness. Some of the most fascinating epochs in French history have been splendidly illuminated by his novels, which are to be reckoned among the notable successes of later nineteenth-century fiction. This story of 'Under the Red Robe' is in its way one of the very best things he has done. It ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... no uncertainty in the point of view; he has his fixed position, he cannot leave it. His description will represent the face that the facts in their sequence turned towards him; the field of vision is defined with perfect distinctness, and his story cannot stray outside it. The reader, then, may be said to watch a reflection of the facts in a mirror of which the edge is nowhere in doubt; it is rounded by the bounds of the narrator's ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... As we reflect and seek to correct this inadequacy, the percept changes on our hands. The very consciousness that other individuals and other qualities fall under our concept, changes this concept, as a psychological presence, and alters its distinctness and extent. When I remember, to use a classical example, that the triangle is not isosceles, nor scalene, nor rectangular, but each and all of those, I reduce my percept to the word and its definition, with perhaps a sense of the general motion of the ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... us what I tell you," said Lady Agnes; and she mentioned with distinctness and authority the dishes of which she desired that the meal should be composed. He interjected three or four more suggestions, but as they produced absolutely no impression on her he became silent and submissive, doing justice apparently to her ideas. For Lady Agnes had ideas, and, though ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... slowly along the narrow bank—tall trees towered around us, whose waving branches, together with the floating clouds, were mirrored with exquisite distinctness on the bosom of the dark, deep, narrow stream—near at shore lay the dreaming, luxurious water-lilies, and a thousand beautiful blossoms bent over the bank, and kissed playfully the passing waters, or coquetted with the inconstant breeze. ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... world no more wonderful natural scenery is to be found. And the eagle with no unusual effort could see it all in a single day, and see it with a distinctness of sight no man could equal. But keen though its eyesight was and wide though its range, the eagle in all that beautiful region would see not a single beauty. Neither in the sunrise, nor in the snowy mountains, nor in the luxuriant tropical ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... typical element implied in the whole form of worship) are of no apologetic value, and it is not possible summarily, on such grounds, to call the enemies before the judgment-seat of God. It was not enough to allude, in a way so general, to what could not be at once perceptible; greater distinctness and particularity would have been required. But if a single declaration—a direct Messianic prophecy—form the question at issue, our passage only can be meant; for it is the only prophecy of Christ which Moses, on whose person great stress ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... Moluccas—such as Waigiou, Guebe, Poppa, Obi, Batchian, as well as the south and east peninsulas of Gilolo—possess no aboriginal tribes, but are inhabited by people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corroborative proof of the distinctness of the Malayan and Papuan races, and the separation of the geographical areas they inhabit. If these two great races were direct modifications, the one of the other, we should expect to find in the intervening region some homogeneous indigenous race ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... the most probable solution of the apparent want of distinctness of explication on this article, in my humble judgment, is—that the so-called Apostles' Creed was at first the preparatory confession of the catechumens, the admission-ticket, as it were ('symbolum ad Baptismum'), at the gate of the Church, and gradually augmented as heresies started ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... speak. As I have just said, I paid no attention to the preliminary proceedings. I know nothing of the manner in which he was introduced to his audience; but when he became the speaker, every word fell upon my ear with a distinctness that seemed ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... he likes me." She spoke with an ominous distinctness, but under her breath. He caught her words and laughed again. "Pshaw, I didn't think you'd get jealous over a little thing like that, Nan. When there's a celebration on in town, everybody's friendly with everybody else. If you lay a little thing ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... he went, step at a time, scarcely daring to breathe as he shifted his weight again and again from one foot to the other. On the first landing, a board creaked with alarming distinctness. Came ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... pressing her eyes shut as if she had done with day and cared no more to see the bright sunshine that streamed through the lattice. The past, present, and future of her whole life started up before her in terrible distinctness, and seemed concentrated in one present ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... matter of fact, I knew already, with an almost despairing distinctness, nearly all these things I did not want and it has not helped me (with all due courtesy and admiration) having John Galsworthy out photographing them day after day, so that I merely did not want them harder. And Mr. Wells's measles and children's diseases, too. I knew already that I did not ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... awkward situation. The long speech of the ghost, to which Madeline paid no attention, but which I heard with perfect distinctness, had made ...
— Humorous Ghost Stories • Dorothy Scarborough
... The psychological distinctness of the affixed elements in an agglutinative term may be even more marked than in the -ness of goodness. To be strictly accurate, the significance of the -ness is not quite as inherently determined, ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir
... the strongest arguments which have been adduced to prove the original and permanent distinctness of species is, that varieties produced in a state of domesticity are more or less unstable, and often have a tendency, if left to themselves, to return to the normal form of the parent species; and this instability is considered to be a distinctive peculiarity ...
— Journal of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society - Vol. 3 - Zoology • Various
... mouth—that he had been only an errand boy between greed in the bank and self-interest in the stores. In a flash, a merciless, cynical flash, he looked into his life in the capital, and there he saw with sickening distinctness that with all his power as a boss, with his control over Senators and Governors and courts and legislatures, he was still the errand boy—that he reigned as boss only because he could be trusted by those who controlled the great aggregations of capital in the state—the railroads, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... see circular masses, that showed muddily red, within the clouded blackness. They appeared to be growing out of the nebulous murk. Awhile, and they became plainer to my accustomed vision. I could see them, now, with a fair amount of distinctness—ruddy-tinged spheres, similar, in size, to the luminous globes that I had seen, ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... lilies, nodding their ghastly, everlasting heads over the dreary Zaire; the shrouding shadow of Helusion; the ashen skies, and sere, crisped leaves in the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir, hard by the dim lake of Auber—all lay with grim distinctness before her; and from the red bars of the grate the wild, lustrous, appalling eyes of Ligeia looked out at her, while the unearthly tones of Morella whispered from every corner of the room. She rose and replaced the ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... and yet who possessed certain qualities that I should abstract and appropriate if I were to construct in my imagination an ideal teacher. I first met this man five years ago out in the mountain country. I can recall the occasion with the most vivid distinctness. It was a sparkling morning, in middle May. The valley was just beginning to green a little under the influence of the lengthening days, but on the surrounding mountains the snow line still hung low. I had just settled down to my morning's work when word ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... out from the farther wing of the row of butts, which stretched across the moor. Lisle watched the birds, with fingers tightening on his gun; one cluster was coming his way, each flitting body growing in size and distinctness with marvelous rapidity. Then there was a flash beside him, and another crash as he pitched up his gun. Something struck the heather with a thud not far away, and swinging the muzzle a little, he pulled again. He was not surprised to hear a second thud, and laying down his gun he turned ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... distinctness from Vasari's account of Michelangelo's work at S. Lorenzo is that a practical Italian architect, who had been engaged on buildings of importance since this work was carried out, believed it to have infused freedom ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... passed in the certainty that within a few minutes he must die. I was very anxious to hear him speak of his impressions during that dreadful time, and I several times inquired of him as to what he thought and felt. He remembered everything with the most accurate and extraordinary distinctness, and declared that he would never forget a single ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... defiant words, and I recall them with the distinctness of a present thought, for it needed little imagination to place myself in his stead. Had I succeeded in escaping at any former period and been retaken, this would have been my fate. While I saw the hazard, I was none the less resolved to ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... recent shower, and the ceaseless stream of people, mostly denizens of Quebec, peered at us curiously as we made slow progress. Great bonfires glowed from every high point of the cliff, their red glare supplementing our torches, and bringing out passing faces in odd distinctness. ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... some person older than herself a question which showed that her mind had been working under the influence of a new impression. She very soon got over her childish lisp, and even before she was four years old she spoke with perfect distinctness. She was afraid of her father. As for her mother, she regarded her with a feeling which she could scarcely define, not being afraid of her, but not behaving towards her caressingly. As for that, she did not caress even her nurse, although she loved her with her whole heart. She and Agafia ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... it all even now with horrible distinctness. Each item in it photographed itself vividly on my mind's eye. I saw it as in a picture—just as clearly, just as visually. And the effect, now I look back upon it with a maturer judgment, was precisely like a photograph in another way too. It was wholly unrelated ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... in my last letter that, as the expression of true and holy gladness was in old time statedly offered up by men for a part of worship to God their Father, so the expression of false and unholy gladness is in modern times, with as much distinctness and plainness, asserted by them openly to be offered to another spirit: "Chain of the Devil," and "Cancan of Hell" being the names assigned to these ...
— Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne - Twenty-five Letters to a Working Man of Sunderland on the Laws of Work • John Ruskin
... of his sentence was drowned in the roar of the train as it went rocking and clanking; but through all the hell of noises to which that unhappy house was periodically subject, they could hear the syllables of Magnus's answer, in all their bell-like distinctness: "I have no reason to feel confidence in ...
— The Innocence of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... rise above the region of hypothesis, but employing the objects of which the shadows below are resemblances in their turn as images, they having in relation to the shadows and reflections of them a greater distinctness, and therefore ...
— The Republic • Plato
... of Reptilia, viz. the Ichthyosauria, Plesiosauria, Pterosauria, Dinosauria, and perhaps another or two. There is no known extinct order of Birds, and no certainly known extinct order of Mammals, the ordinal distinctness of the "Toxodontia" ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... more real. I recognized more clearly the objects which had struck me during my first visit, while the stories which had been told came back to me with terrible distinctness. I remembered how it had been said that the pond had no bottom, and that it was haunted by the spirits of those that had been murdered. The story of its evil influence came back to me, and in my bewildered condition I wondered whether there was not ...
— Weapons of Mystery • Joseph Hocking
... last company had reported, the frightful war dance, peculiar to the American savages, was enacted in sight of the trappers' position. The battle songs and shouts which accompanied the dance reached the ears of the whites with fearful distinctness. Any other than hearts of oak with courage of steel would have quailed before this terrible display of savage enmity and ferocity. This dance, to men well skilled in the ways of the Indian warrior, was a sure signal that the next day would be certain to ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... first flush of joy, she had forgotten it. She had spent lonely nights struggling for rudiments; she had sought and fought to refashion herself, so that, if he came, he need not be ashamed of her. And now he had come, and, with a terrible clarity and distinctness, she realized how pitifully little she had been able to accomplish. Would she pass muster? She stood there before him, frightened, self-conscious and palpitating, then her voice ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... brass plate, was engraved the name of Count von Kotte. Baron von Moudenfels pulled this bell so violently that it echoed loudly, and at the door, which instantly opened, appeared a liveried servant with an angry face, muttering with tolerable distinctness something about unseemly noise and ...
— A Conspiracy of the Carbonari • Louise Muhlbach
... refectory, (5) the chapter-house. In these five buildings the life of the convent was carried on. Having said thus much we will pass on to the corporation itself—that which strictly was called the convent; and for convenience and distinctness it will be as well if we use that word convent in the more accurate sense and employ it only as signifying the corporate body of persons occupying those buildings of which I have been speaking, and which in their aggregate were called ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... their victims. We may object to the fact that the only person in the play possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew Fair," ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... cover through which he could look, and through which the sounds of the city's industry came to him. But he thought that he ascertained that by lifting off one of these covers he could hear with greater distinctness the thoughts of the inhabitants, and see all they were doing and suffering, with the most minute exactness. He looked for the place of his own town—Barton. There it lay in its geographical spot on ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... know where I was, who was with me, who I was, or what I was saying or writing; for just then the flow of ideas was given me, a delightful clearness, keen insight, and lucid mastery of material, as if the inner eye were able to see everything with the greatest distinctness." ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... his sentences with meretricious finery, or high-sounding, supernumerary words. When he did use the jewelry of rhetoric, he would quietly set a metaphor in his page or throw a comparison into his speech which would serve to light up with startling distinctness the colossal proportions of his argument. Of humor he had none; but his wit and sarcasm at times would glitter like the brandished cimeter of Saladin, and, descending, would cut as keenly. The pathetic ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809, and my earliest recollection goes back only to when I was a few months over four years old, when we went to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect some events and places there with some little distinctness. ...
— The Autobiography of Charles Darwin - From The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin • Charles Darwin
... these two contained, however, a short description of his Newtonian telescope, and he speaks of it with a just pride: "I believe that for distinctness of vision this instrument is perhaps equal to any that was ever made." He was, at least, certain of having obtained excellence in ...
— Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works • Edward Singleton Holden
... thrown in. Fyne looked down gloomily at the appeased animal, I too looked at that fool-dog; and (you know how one's memory gets suddenly stimulated) I was reminded visually, with an almost painful distinctness, of the ghostly white face of the girl I saw last accompanied by that dog—deserted by that dog. I almost heard her distressed voice as if on the verge of resentful tears calling to the dog, the unsympathetic dog. Perhaps she had not the power of ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... it that all her life seemed to be hurrying and crowding and whirling through it, with swift pictures starting into momentary distinctness and dying suddenly to give place to others. It was a terrifying and enthralling phantasmagoria which held her spell-bound on the threshold of this ruined hovel, ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... pronounced features and small sinister eyes, over which the level brows almost met across the sharp bridge of nose. His close black garb buttoned to the chin, outlined his wiry angular limbs with an almost painful distinctness, and the lean right hand which he placed across his breast as he bowed profoundly to the King, looked more like the shrunken hand of a corpse than that of a living man. The King observed him attentively, but not with favour; while thoughts, strange, and for him ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... his works he has created ideal characters that give him a higher rank as a poet (some of them not surpassed by even Shakespeare for originality, grandeur, and distinctness); but here he is a genuine Seanachie, and brings you to dance and wake, to wedding and christening—makes you romp with the girls, and race with the boys—tremble at the ghosts, and frolic with the fairies of ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... forest-track trodden by the hob-nailed shoes of these sturdy and ponderous Englishmen has now a distinctness which it never could have acquired from the light tread of a hundred times as many moccasins. It goes onward from one clearing to another, here plunging into a shadowy strip of woods, there open to the sunshine, but everywhere showing a decided line along which human interests have begun ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... near her, he gravely related, with emphatic distinctness and careful detail, his first meeting with the prisoner on the piazza at Elm Bluff, and the vivid impression she left on his mind; his return to Elm Bluff about half-past nine the same evening, in order to get a deed which he had forgotten to put into his pocket at the first ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... seems to be only a man. But when He stills the tempest on the Sea of Galilee, or calls Lazarus back to life, we see His divinity. It is interesting to study His life with a view to the manifestation of His two natures in each event—their distinctness and their blending. ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... into persons with more understanding. The sun was shining gloriously; the children that had been confirmed went out of the town; and from the wood was borne towards them the sounds of the unknown bell with wonderful distinctness. They all immediately felt a wish to go thither; all except three. One of them had to go home to try on a ball-dress; for it was just the dress and the ball which had caused her to be confirmed this time, ...
— Andersen's Fairy Tales • Hans Christian Andersen |
