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Ken   Listen
noun
Ken  n.  Cognizance; view; especially, reach of sight or knowledge. "Beyond his ken." "Above the reach and ken of a mortal apprehension." "It was relief to quit the ken And the inquiring looks of men."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ken" Quotes from Famous Books



... from Stephen's letters. "You were very good to write to him so often," she said. It seemed like a dream to Stephen, like one of the many dreams of her, the mystery of which was of the inner life beyond our ken. He could not recall a time when she had not been rebellious, antagonistic. And now—as he listened to her voice, with its exquisite low tones and modulations, as he sat there in this sacred intimacy, perchance to be the last in his life, he became dazed. His eyes, softened, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... "But, Ken," Emily Tweksbury followed her companion from the room, "you are like that—you really are! You just take life by the throat and you are sure of yourself in a ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock

... a one for him makes mane, But nane sall ken where he is gane; O'er his white banes, when they are bare, The wind ...
— The Golden Treasury - Of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language • Various

... to Calendar's side. Life's naked brutalities had theretofore been largely out of his ken. He had heard of slums, had even ventured to mouth politely moral platitudes on the subject of overcrowding in great centers of population, but in the darkest flights of imagination had never pictured to himself anything so unspeakably foul and hopeless as this.... ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... MacIan, again assuming the most deliberate and lingering lowland Scotch intonation, "if ye're really verra anxious to ken whar a' come fra', I'll tell ye as a verra great secret. A' come from Scotland. And a'm gaein' to St. Pancras Station. Open the ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton

... "Ye ken in this country ilka gentleman is wussed to be sae civil as to see the corpse aff his ain grounds. Ye needna gang higher than the loan-head—it's no expected your honour suld leave the land—it's just a Kelso convoy, a step and a half ower the ...
— The Proverbs of Scotland • Alexander Hislop

... "You ken fine, Sneck," said Cruickshanks, "that you said, 'Thou art the man' to ilka ane o' them, and just voted for Mr. Dishart because ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... o' the art o' gerdening. Dinna ye ken that the founder o' the hail human race was a gerdener?-Hout awa, moil; speak ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton

... wits about them if you've dealings with them. A very strange race of people, in my opinion—very. Know the story of the master who fancied his man was drunk? 'Donald, you're trunk,' says he. 'It's a tam lee,' says Donald. 'Donald, ye ken ye're trunk,' says the master. 'Ah ken ah wish to Kott ah was!' says Donald. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... smiled and sate, With ink-horn at his knees and scroll and pen. And took the toll and register'd the freight, 'Mid noise of clattering cranes and strife of men: And all that moved and spoke was in his ken, With lines and hues like Nature's own design'd Deep in the magic mirror of ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... Do you ken how I made my start? Are ye thinkin', maybe, that I'd a faither to send me to college and gie me masters to teach me to sing my songs, and to play the piano? Man, ye'd be wrong, an' ye thought so! My faither deed, puir man, when I was but a bairn of eleven—he was but ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... a world, and in so doing he created as the poet creates; there was as much of truth, too, in his imagined world before he found the actual planet as there was of reality in the planet itself after it swam into his ken. This creation of the concrete world of art is the joint act of the imagination and the reason working in unison; and hence the faculty to which this act is ascribed is sometimes called the creative ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry

... wit occupied about worldli things that the Holy Spyrit author of all wisdom and cunnynge and truthe dresse him for his work and suffer him not to err." And he concludes with the prayer, "God grant to us all grace to ken well and to kepe well Holie Writ, and to suffer joiefulli some paine for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... in a drawing-room full of people, he had generally ended his evening beside her. Now his manner, for all its courtesy, seemed to tell her that those times were done; that she was four years older; that she had lost the first brilliance of her looks; and that he himself had grown out of her ken. Helena's young unfriendly eyes had read her rightly. She did wish fervently to recapture Philip Buntingford; and saw no means of doing so. Meanwhile Sir Richard, now demobilized, had come back from the war bringing great glory with him, as one of the business men whom ...
— Helena • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Scotch lady, from whom Sir Walter Scott derived many of the traditionary stories and anecdotes wrought up in his novels, taxed him one day with the authorship, which he, as usual, stoutly denied. "What!" exclaimed the old lady, "d'ye think I dinna ken my ain groats among ...
— Books and Authors - Curious Facts and Characteristic Sketches • Anonymous

... stravaguin' that get, Meg, whan ye ken weel eneuch ye sud a' been in to worship lang syne? An sae we maun hae worship our lanes for ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald

... was, did not think it strange that the wife of a rich notary should wish to inspect a volume costing fifteen francs before deciding on the purchase. Your clever man never condescends to study the middle-class, who escape his ken by this want of attention; and while he is making game of them, they are ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac

... have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or one more subdued to settled quiet. "Ailie," said James, "this is Maister John, the young doctor; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak aboot you, doctor." She smiled, and made a movement, but said nothing; and prepared to come down, putting her plaid aside and rising. Had Solomon, in all his glory, been handing down the Queen of Sheba at his palace gate he could not have done it more daintily, ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... The addition of America to the map had spiritual effects which it is difficult to estimate in any proper terms. If the old world of the Mediterranean regions could be thought into a unity, it was more difficult to reduce to the One the new world which swam into men's ken. Still more burdened with fate for the future generations was the vast volume of commerce, necessarily conducted on a national basis, which the age of discoveries went to swell. Meanwhile, men had begun to think and to write in national languages. Already ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various

... little doubt therefore that as the accounts of a deluge, for instance, which we find almost everywhere, are originally recollections of the annual torrents of rain or snow that covered the little worlds within the ken of the ancient village-bards,[166] this tearing asunder of heaven and earth too was originally no more than a description of what might be seen every morning. During a dark night the sky seemed to cover the earth; the two seemed to be one, and could not ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... the last, to save his own neck, forfeit to the State, he left me, still in the wilderness and in danger, and went his way.' My honor, madam, is my own, and I choose not so to stain it. Again: I must be the witness to your story. You have wandered for many weeks in a wilderness, far beyond the ken of your friends. To your world, madam, I am a rebel, traitor and convict, a wretch capable of any baseness, of any crime. If I go back with you, throwing myself into the power of Governor and Council, at least I shall ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston

... a law called the "Stamp Act," which put so high a tax on goods that folks here would not pay it; tea was one of the things on which this tax was put; and when Eng-land sent o-ver three ships full of tea to Bos-ton, our men would not let it be ta-ken from the ships, but broke the great chests and threw all the tea in the wa-ter. This act is known as the "Bos-ton Tea Par-ty"; and now the first signs of war were seen; a fierce fight took place at Lex-ing-ton, one Sun-day morn-ing, be-tween ...
— Lives of the Presidents Told in Words of One Syllable • Jean S. Remy

... with reverence be it spoken, do not make the best parents. Fancy and imagination seldom deign to stoop from their heights; always stoop unwillingly to the low level of common duties. Aloof from vulgar life, they pursue their rapid flight beyond the ken of mortals, and descend not to earth but when compelled by necessity. The prose of ordinary occurrences is beneath the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... seeking beasts," he said: "what price are cattle gi'en the noo?" "Yes, seeking beasts," I replied, "but very old ones: I have come to hammer your rocks for petrified fish." "I see, I see," said the man; "I took ye by ye'er gray plaid for a drover; but I ken something about the stane fish too; there's lots o' them in the quarries ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller

... shocking transaction took place in the little town of Clinton, Hickman co. Ken. The circumstances are briefly as follows: A special canvass for a representative from the county of Hickman, had for some time been in progress. A gentleman by the name of Binford was a candidate. The State Senator from the district, Judge James, ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... who were the old man's invariable shadows did not laugh at him, or at his boots either. Between the whiskered senior and his small comrades there existed a freemasonry that made them all sense a thing beyond the ken of most of their elders. Perhaps this was because the elders, being blind in their superior wisdom, saw neither this thing nor the communion that flourished. They saw only the farcical joke. But His Honor, Judge Priest, to cite a conspicuous exception, seemed not ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... PERCEPTIONS OF LIGHT % 441. Vision. - N. vision, sight, optics, eyesight. view, look, espial[obs3], glance, ken, coup d'oeil[Fr]; glimpse, glint, peep; gaze, stare, leer; perlustration[obs3], contemplation; conspection|, conspectuity|; regard, survey;introspection; reconnaissance, speculation, watch, espionage, espionnage[Fr], autopsy; ocular inspection, ocular ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... a splendid shot, an expert and successful hunter, a bold mountaineer, a good rider, a capital cook, and a generally "jolly fellow." His cheery laugh rings through the cabin from the early morning, and is contagious, and when the rafters ring at night with such songs as "D'ye ken John Peel?" "Auld Lang Syne," and "John Brown," what would the chorus be without poor "Griff's" voice? What would Estes Park be without him, indeed? When he went to Denver lately we missed him as we should have missed the sunshine, and perhaps ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird

... she saw what lay beyond our ken, and which the future has brought to light. Alas, that she never saw the day when the King threw off his supine fear and idleness, and played the man in the conquest of his kingdom, and when De Richemont fought like a lion at his side! Yet who dare say that she did not see and did ...
— A Heroine of France • Evelyn Everett-Green

... if he had ever troubled his mind by plunging so far into the depths of speculation, as to consider, that in truth the various matters forbidden in the commandments were in the sight of God, or, what was more within his ken, in the sight of the Church, equally forbidden to all men, still it would have been clear to him that there was no reason why such great people as the Marchese di Castelmare, with Cardinals for his friends, and ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... M'Craw's intellect has not yet explored. Look, gentlemen! Does a week pass without the announcement of the discovery of a new comet in the sky, a new star in the heaven, twinkling dimly out of a yet farther distance, and only now becoming visible to human ken though existent for ever and ever? So let us hope divine truths may be shining, and regions of light and love extant, which Geneva glasses cannot yet perceive, and are beyond ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... join'd the shout; With hark, and whoop, and wild halloo, No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew. Far from the tumult fled the roe, Close in her covert cower'd the doe; The falcon, from her cairn on high, Cast on the rout a wondering eye, Till far beyond her piercing ken The hurricane had swept the glen. Faint, and more faint, its failing din Return'd from cavern, cliff, and linn, And silence settled, wide and still, On the ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... Irish saint, born at Tralee, celebrated for his voyages in quest of "a land beyond human ken" and his discovery of "a paradise amid the waves of the sea"; founded a monastery at Clonfert; died in 577, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... that I swam never in Solon's ken as a rival for her smiles. His own triumph was too easy, too widely heralded. In the second week of her coming, was there not a rhyme shouted on the playground, full in the ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson

... this living thing retains its sense of identity when so transformed (for without that sense it could be aware of no future being), and though, indeed, the fulfilment of divine justice is removed from the scope of our ken, yet we have a right to assume it to be uniform and universal, and not varying and partial, as it would be if acting only upon general and secondary laws; because such perfect justice flows of necessity from perfectness of knowledge to conceive, perfectness of love to will, and perfectness ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... her, so much so that her father would consult her about his undertakings, that is, about those of them which were absolutely above board and beyond suspicion of sharp dealing. The others he was far too wise to bring within her ken, knowing exactly what he would have heard from her upon the subject. And yet notwithstanding all his care she suspected him, by instinct, not by knowledge. For his part he was proud of her and would listen with pleasure when, still a mere child, she engaged his guests boldly in argument, for instance ...
— Love Eternal • H. Rider Haggard

... her saffron bed, And beams of early light the heav'ns o'erspread, When, from a tow'r, the queen, with wakeful eyes, Saw day point upward from the rosy skies. She look'd to seaward; but the sea was void, And scarce in ken the sailing ships descried. Stung with despite, and furious with despair, She struck her trembling breast, and tore her hair. "And shall th' ungrateful traitor go," she said, "My land forsaken, and my love betray'd? Shall we not arm? not rush ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil

... beautifully remote, shining in the distance, like a white moon at sunset, a crescent moon beckoning as it follows the sun, out of our ken. Sometimes dark clouds standing very far off, pricking up into a clear yellow band of sunset, of a winter evening, reminded her of Calvary, sometimes the full moon rising blood-red upon the hill terrified her with the knowledge that ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... is not thus; Time mocks at pause, In march continual onward goes; Th' unfailing progress of his laws, No respite nor effacement knows; This year is but the force of last, Not something new to mortal ken; Heredity's enchainment vast Enthrals the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 7, 1893 • Various

... once when Thomas Carlyle and a technical grammarian were talking over some violation of correct speech—according to the latter's standard—when Carlyle suddenly burst forth in effect, in his rich Scotch burr: "Why, mon, I'd have ye ken that I'm one of the men that make the language for little puppies like ye to paw over with ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James

... stone, or charged again The paints with fire of souls electrical, Or broke up heaven for music. What more then? Why, then, no more. The chaplet's last beads fall In naming the last saintship within ken, And, after that, none prayeth in the land. Alas, this Italy has too long swept Heroic ashes up for hour-glass sand; Of her own past, impassioned nympholept! Consenting to be nailed here by the hand To the very bay-tree under which she stept A queen ...
— The Poetical Works of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume IV • Elizabeth Barrett Browning

... man dies, For years beyond our ken, The light he leaves behind him lies Upon the paths ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education

... early career, nor can any tell where lie his bones; we only know that his limbs were made in England, and that the great inland sea, called after him, ebbs and flows above his grave. He first comes into the ken of history, sailing on the seas, resolute to discover virgin straits and shores; and when we see him last, he is still toiling onward over the waves, peering into the great mystery. Possibly, as has been suggested, he may have been the descendant of the Hudson who ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne

... Innesmore Gardens, reviewed yesterday's happenings calmly and critically, and arrived at the settled conviction that his proper course was to visit Scotland Yard and make known to the authorities the one vital fact he had withheld from their ken ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy

... over him, "let me tell you this, my man. The next time ye gang to my faither, and tell a story about any one o' us, or the next time you say a word against the French lassie, as ye ca' her, do ye ken what I'll do? I'll take ye back to my faither by the lug, and I'll tell him ye were sweerin' like a trooper down by the burn, and every one o' us will testify against you, and then, I'm thinking, it will be your turn ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various

... most eagerly have sought my life deemed me already dead, drowned in the fosse, and so would make no search for me. Yet, as soon as I went about my master's affairs, as needs I must, I would be known and taken; and, as we say in our country proverb, "my craig would ken the weight of my hurdies." {12} None the less, seeing that the soldiers deemed me dead, I might readily escape at once from Chinon, and take to the roads again, if but I could reach my master's house unseen, and get rid of this foolish feminine gear of cap and petticoat which now I wore ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang

... smiling sadly, and then, mocking my bad Scotch, "and do ye ken that ither one, a native too of that country where, as you say, poetry is a rare plant; that great wanderer over many lands and seas, seeker after summer everlasting, who died thousands of miles from home in a tropical island, and was borne ...
— A Traveller in Little Things • W. H. Hudson

... less queer than they at first seemed to us. It is that our vision of them has been dimmed. We are lucky when by some chance we see again, for a fleeting moment, this thing or that as we saw it when it first came within our ken. We are in the habit of saying that 'first impressions are best,' and that we must approach every question 'with an open mind'; but we shirk the logical conclusion that we were wiser in our infancy than we are now. 'Make yourself even as a little child' ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... you ouer-weene to take it so: This Offer comes from Mercy, not from Feare. For loe, within a Ken our Army lyes, Vpon mine Honor, all too confident To giue admittance to a thought of feare. Our Battaile is more full of Names then yours, Our Men more perfect in the vse of Armes, Our Armor all as strong, our Cause the best; Then Reason will, our hearts should be as good. ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... united in the bonds of matrimony. Here the remains of those they loved had been carried, ere they were consigned to their final resting-place, and here, too, after divine service, they had congregated to glean intelligence of what was going on in the world beyond their ken. Now, however, the scene was changed. Guards were at the door; and in the centre of the church a table had been placed, round which soldiers were drawn up. Presently Colonel Winslow entered, attended by his officers. Deep silence ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... said coldly, "I guess you're goin' to see some fun. I ain't mostly hard on people. I like to do the thing han'some. Say I'll jest roll this bar'l 'long so as you ken set. An' see hyar, ef you're mighty quiet I'll ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... strong man puts out his strength," said my companion, "there's naething frivolous in the matter, be his object what it may. Robert's ballads are far, far aboon the best things ever seen in Scotland afore; we auld folk dinna ken whether maist to blame or praise them, but they keep the young people laughing frae the ae nuik o' ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton

... we can distinguish works of grace from works of nature, which is the essence of historic Christianity, or that we can detect the activity of heavenly influences is also superstition. All such supernaturalism lies beyond our ken. There are three common forms of superstition, all promoted by positive religion: the belief in miracles, the belief in mysteries, and the belief in the means of grace."[4] So prayer is a confession of weakness, not a ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch

... basic purpose in holding its gala week. And now this beneficent plan was threatened by one individual, and he young, inexperienced, and a new Worthingtonian, Mr. Harrington Surtaine. This unforeseen cloud upon the horizon of peace, prosperity, and happiness rose into the ken of Dr. Surtaine the day after the appearance ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... Zeus and Apollo, and nothing is hid from their ken; They are gods; and in wits a man may surpass his fellow men; But that a mortal seer knows more than I know—where Hath this been proven? Or how without sign assured, can I blame Him who saved our State when the winged songstress ...
— The Oedipus Trilogy • Sophocles

... to a tune of fifes and drums. Everywhere men were drilling. At more or less regular intervals one saw them marching down Montgomery street, brave in their new uniforms, running a gauntlet of bunting, flags and cheers. Then they passed from one's ken. Each fortnight the San Francisco papers published a column ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman

... of a gentleman of the scamp. The blowen kidded the swell into a snoozing ken, and shook him of his dummee and thimble; the girl inveigled the gentleman into a brothel and robbed him of ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... on it, child," said the mother, her own eyes streaming. "Thou didst try him greatly. It was ill in thee not to return to us, but thou art young and full well do I ken the allurements that court life holds for youth. But this thy father could have pardoned ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... the business he was engaged upon. Some blamed the Bishops and other ministers for their laxity and the flattery that they shewed to His Majesty: but I do not think that charge is a fair one; for they were very bold indeed upon occasion. Dr. Ken, who preached pretty often, was as outspoken as a preacher well could be, denouncing the sins of the Court in unmeasured language, even in His Majesty's presence: and a certain Bishop, whose name I forget, observing on one occasion during sermon-time that the King was fast asleep, ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson

... inform his father that he is heavily in debt, and, having borrowed money from his tailor, he will disappear from the parental ken, to turn up again, after a week, without his watch, his scarf-pin, or his studs. This freak will be accepted by his relatives as a convincing proof of his fitness for a financial career, and he will shortly be transferred ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98, April 5, 1890 • Various

... away on the wings of paradisaical ecstasy by a something that consisted of kidney and a few eggs. This omelette had all the finer and nobler qualities of Yorkshire pudding and scrambled eggs combined, together with others beyond the ken of his greedy fancy. Yes, he was a greedy man. He knew he was greedy. He was a greedy man whose evil passion had providentially been kept in check for over a quarter of a century by the gross unskilfulness, ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... Bishop Ken, born in 1637, is known chiefly by his hymns for the morning and evening, deservedly popular. He has, however, written a great many besides—too many, indeed, for variety or excellence. He seems to have set himself to write them as acts ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald

... the fury the attempted surprise must have occasioned. Perhaps something of the stunned astonishment of his Oxford Street experiences may have returned to him, for he had evidently counted on Kemp's co-operation in his brutal dream of a terrorised world. At any rate he vanished from human ken about midday, and no living witness can tell what he did until about half-past two. It was a fortunate thing, perhaps, for humanity, but for him it was ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells

... wild flowers beside it. Theresa Joyce, who sat opposite to him, was pulling bog-cotton too, though less diligently, for it might have been noticed that she often looked off her work, and towards the scrap of road that lay within her ken. Joe Egan was at his cousin's elbow, and a few other lads and lasses made a rough circle. But old Mrs. Joyce, and old Mrs. Ryan, and old Paddy Ryan, and old Felix O'Beirne had established themselves on a low grassy bank at a little distance. It was kept so ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... by her side. How is it, O azure Heaven, From my home I thus am driven, Through the land my way to trace, With no certain dwelling-place? Dark, dark; the minds of men! Worth in vain comes to their ken. Hastens on my term of years; ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge

... until just before nightfall. He was very agitated when he came. Ramar Chind, too, was eager. What would happen within the next several hours, he realized, might be beyond his ken, but he still recognized its importance. And, being an opportunist, he would pounce on whatever he found of ...
— Equation of Doom • Gerald Vance

... of Nature, and which lies still deeper from the Ken of common Observation, has been taken notice of in a Note upon The Tempest; where Prospero at once interrupts the Masque of Spirits, and starts into a sudden Passion and Disorder of Mind. As the latent Cause of his Emotion is there fully ...
— Preface to the Works of Shakespeare (1734) • Lewis Theobald

... gibes at love canst scarce repress, Beware! The angry god may strike again! I knew a youth who laughed at love's distress, And bore, when old, the worst that lovers ken. ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus

... regarded a theatre not as a sink of wickedness after the manner of the Stumfoldians, but as a place of danger because of difficulty of ingress and egress, because the ways of a theatre were far beyond her ken. The very mode in which it would behove her to dress herself to go out to an ordinary dinner party, was almost unknown to her. And yet, in spite of all this, ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope

... gudeman, ye need na be sae mim; every body kens, and I ken too, that ye're ettling at the magistracy. It's as plain as a pikestaff, gudeman, and I'll no let ye rest if ye dinna mak me a bailie's wife or a' ...
— The Provost • John Galt

... his lap would be the large green volume ("British Poets of the Nineteenth Century," edited by Professor Curtis Hidden Page) which was the textbook of that sophomore course. He was reading Keats. And his eyes were those of one who has seen a new planet swim into his ken. I don't know how many evenings we spent there together. Probably only a few. I don't recall just how we communed, or imparted to one another our juvenile speculations. But I plainly remember how he would sit beside his desk-lamp and chuckle over ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley

... the 'road;' for, of course, the conductors saved themselves from loss. Oh, yes, you bet they did! The conductor's actual expenses a day average $5; his pay is $2.25, which leaves a fine tail-end margin of profit. How the expenses are incurred I have told you. What ken a man do? Honesty? No man can be honest and remain a conductor. Conductors must help themselves, an' they do! Why, even the driver who profits by the conductor's operations, has to fee the stablemen, else how could he get good horses? Stablemen ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... from which the augur drank," [Greek: einai gar paegaen en oiko katageio, kai ap autaes pinein ton prophaetaen.] How can we believe that Tacitus was ignorant of such an ordinary native ceremony, and one, too, that must have come repeatedly within his ken? ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross

... have been the denizen of another planet, strayed to earth. Although she never flaunted it, one felt that her simplest word hid secret wisdom; that to her books were open in which we could not read. Moreover, as I have said, occasionally power flamed out of her, power that was beyond our ken and understanding. ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... old Bill. "But he's a-goin' to marry her. But I'll tell you both right here, she'll never set foot in my house, ner I in her'n. Sam ken keep her, but what on, I don't know. He gits right out of this here farm the day he marries her, and he don't come back, ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson

... one saw the rounded calves fixed in position, the fleshings drawn on, the voluptuous outlines of the figure produced by means purely mechanical, blushes mantling from the paint-pot, and the golden tresses well secured by the wigmaker. Books, Mr. Taylor thought, should swim into one's ken mysteriously; they should appear all printed and bound, without apparent genesis; just as children are suddenly told that they have a little sister, found by mamma in the garden. But Lucian was not only engaged in composition; he was plainly rapturous, enthusiastic; Mr. Taylor saw him throw ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... themselves, and are vindicated by events, and form at last the constants of human understanding. A character of the first order of greatness, such as seems to pass out of the limits and course of ordinary life, often lies above the ken of intellectual judgment; but its merits and its infirmities never escape the sleepless perspicacity of the common sentiment, which no novelty of form can surprise, and no mixture of qualities can perplex. The mind—the logical faculty—comprehends a subject, ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... parallel lines in a' the compairison," returned Malcolm. "Mistress Kelpie here 's e'en ower ready to confess her fauts, an' that by giein' a taste o' them; she winna bide to be speired; but for haudin' aff o' them efter the bargain's made—ye ken she's no even responsible for the bargain. An' gien ye expec' me to haud my tongue aboot them—faith, Maister Crathie, I wad as sune think o' sellin' a rotten boat to Blue Peter. Gien the man 'at has her to see tilt dinna ken to luik oot for a storm o' iron shune or lang teeth ...
— The Marquis of Lossie • George MacDonald

... has sought you wi' a bribe in her hand, Davie. You ken whether she has bid your price or not. When you hae served your twa years I'se buy you a L20,000 share in the Gordon Bank, and a man wi' L20,000 can pick and choose the wife he likes best. But I'm aboon bribing you—a fair offer isna ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... was settin' the keel, wi' Dick Slavers an' Matt, An' the Mansion House stairs we were just alongside, When we a' three see'd somethin', but didn't ken what, That was splashin' and labberin', aboot i' the tide. 'It's a fluiker,' ki Dick; 'No,' ki Matt, 'its owre big, It luik'd mair like a skyet when aw furst seed it rise;' Kiv aw—for aw'd getten a gliff o' the wig— 'Ods marcy! wey, marrows, ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... His remarks are interesting in themselves, as coming from one illustrious as a man of science, and, at the same time, a true poet—a combination which may hereafter become more frequent, since already in the vast regions of space and time brought within human ken, imagination strives hard to keep pace with established fact. In a manuscript volume now in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin, he writes, under ...
— Poems • Denis Florence MacCarthy

... Olive passed from the mere prettiness of most woman-painters to the grandeur of true Art. Strengthened by her almost masculine power of mind, she learned to comprehend and to reverence the mighty masters whom Vanbrugh loved. He led her to those heights and depths which are rarely opened to a woman's ken. And she, following, applied herself to the most abstruse of Art-studies. Still, as he had said, there were bounds that she could not pass; but as far as in her lay, she sought to lift herself above her sex's ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... resume the happy course of her daily existence. And in this upwelling of life her love expanded, and the society of Henri was the reward she allowed herself for the intensity of her past sufferings. In the shelter of that room they deemed themselves beyond the world's ken, and every hindrance in their path was forgotten. The child, to whom their love had proved a terror, alone remained a bar ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola

... made in his first burst of joy, "but nae doubt we are waur aff than we hae been, or suld be. And for eating—what signifies telling a lee? there's just the hinder end of the mutton-ham that has been but three times on the table, and the nearer the bane the sweeter, as your honours weel ken; and—there's the heel of the ewe-milk kebbuck, wi' a bit of nice butter, and—and—that's a' that's to trust to." And with great alacrity he produced his slender stock of provisions, and placed them with much formality upon a small round ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... and taking him, carried him to the slave-dealer and said, "Sell me this old man." Said the dealer, "Who will buy this wight, and he a son of eighty years?"[FN337] Then quoth he to the king, "In what crafts art thou cunning?" and quoth he, "I ken the quintessence of jewels and I ken the quintessence of horses and I ken the quintessence of men; brief, I ken the quintessence of all things." So the slave-dealer took him and went about, offering him for sale to the folk; but none would buy. Presently, ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... lift the curtain from a larger picture. The distracted state amidst which the queen lived, the vexations, the secret sorrows, the agonies and the despair of Mary in the absence of William, nowhere appear in history! and as we see, escaped the ken of the Scotch bishop! They were reserved for the curiosity and instruction of posterity; and were found by Dalrymple, in the letters of Mary to her husband, in King William's cabinet. It will be well to place under ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... could be, then the foundations upon which we stood were shattered. But one little law! Back in my mind was buzzing the enigma of the Blind Spot. They were woven together. Some law that had eluded the ken of mankind. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint

... a few stunted trees, immediately below the point of land on which Luke stood; and although their branching antlers could scarcely be detected from the ramifications of the wood itself, they escaped not his practised ken. ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... construed the Dean of St. Patrick more literally. On one occasion, when dispatch was of some importance, knowing his inquiring nature, she called her Scotch Paul Pry to her, opened the note, and read it to him herself, saying, "Now, Andrew, you ken a' aboot it, and needna' stop to open and read it, but just take it at once." Probably most of the notes you are expected to carry might, with equal harmlessness, be communicated to you; but it will be better not to take so lively an interest ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton

... say ony mair 'at ye dinna believe in God. Ye duv believe in 'im—mair, I'm thinkin', nor onybody 'at I ken, 'cep', maybe, my grannie—only hers is a some queer kin' o' a God to believe in. I dinna think I cud ever manage to believe in ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald

... his imagination in earlier days than those in which he discovered the aptitude of Mary Hutchinson to his own needs. The last stanza is very like her; and her husband's sonnet to the painter of her portrait, in old age, discloses to us how the first stanza might be also, in days beyond the ken of ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... deep, and seven miles broad, and he must drain it the next day, or else he would have him for his supper. Nicht Nought Nothing began early next morning and tried to lave the water with his pail, but the loch was never getting any less, and he did no ken what to do; but the giant's dochter called on all the fish in the sea to come and drink the water, and very soon they drank it dry. When the giant saw the work done he was in a rage, and said, 'I've a worse job for you to-morrow; there is a tree seven miles high, and no branch on it, till you ...
— Custom and Myth • Andrew Lang

... some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific—and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise— Silent, upon ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt

... talked of it—it was the nine-days' wonder of town and country. The actors in it, one by one, disappeared. Lady Helena shut up Powyss Place and went abroad; Sir Victor vanished from the world's ken; the heroine of the piece no doubt went back to her native land. That, in brief, is the story, my dear, of the interesting spectre I met to-day on the steps of Fenton's. Now, young ladies, put on your bonnets and come. I wish to call at Madame Mirebeau's, ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... wash my hands on 't," said Israel. "I shall hanker arter the critter some, but he's a-gettin' too big to be handy; 'n it's one comfort about critters, you ken git rid on 'em somehaow when they're more plague than profit. But folks has got to be let alone, excep' the Lord takes 'em; an' He generally don't ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn

... there have been, I ken, By their old works, stout, able-bodied men; They'd not the knowledge then that now they've got, To work by steam—hand-labour was their lot. But I am told that many ages back A foreign army did our land invade, And ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls

... God? Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?" Job's friends professed to have discovered the reason for his affliction, for, forsooth, had they not found out the secrets of the divine wisdom unto perfection. No, such is beyond their human, finite ken. Isa. 40:28—"There is no searching of his understanding." Jacob's captive condition might lead him to lose trust and faith in God. But Jacob has not seen all God's plans—no man has. Job, 37:16—"The wondrous works of him which is ...
— The Great Doctrines of the Bible • Rev. William Evans

... this street, but soon her hunger for news of Thrums overcame her prudence, and she consented to let him go back if he promised never to tell that his mother came from Thrums. "And if ony-body wants to ken your name, say it's Tommy, but dinna let on ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie

... comrades with him. Four, three, and two, they simultaneously strive to enter without delay. Full soon was the sail spread and the anchor of the barque weighed. Those on land, who were sore at heart for the lads whom they see departing, follow them with their eyes' ken as far as they can; and so that they may watch them the better and the further, they go off and climb together a high peak by the shore. Thence they watch their sorrow as far as they can see them. They gaze at their own sorrow in sooth; ...
— Cliges: A Romance • Chretien de Troyes

... Ye ken auld Jock o' Windybarns? The bull had near ca'ed oot his harns, His een were blinkin' fu' o' starns, An' doon they ran for ...
— The Auld Doctor and other Poems and Songs in Scots • David Rorie

... his own way, the sentiment that business was below the ken of enslavers and enchantresses. He then mentioned his intention, as a gentleman and a parent, of writing to Mr Merdle. Mrs Merdle concurred with all her heart—or with all her art, which was exactly the same thing—and herself despatched a preparatory letter by the next ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... turn back from the work! See there!' he howled, facing round to the beautiful Cathedral, 'what means this great heap of stones? Is it not an altar of Baal? Is it not built for man-worship rather than God-worship? Is it not there that the man Ken, tricked out in his foolish rochet and baubles, may preach his soulless and lying doctrines, which are but the old dish of Popery served up under a new cover? And shall we suffer this thing? Shall we, the chosen children ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... "an' there's nae doot 'at he's makkin for the minister's, for he has on his black coat. He'll be to row the minister's luggage to the post-cart. Ay, an' that's Davit Lunnan's barrow. I ken it by the shaft's bein' spliced wi' yarn. Davit broke the shaft ...
— A Window in Thrums • J. M. Barrie

... Paul, with his bride, had vanished from human ken; Rose, a shattered illusion, gone too. Better so—of course; though, intermittently, the man she had roused in him still ached for the sight and feel of her. She gave a distinct thrill to life: and, if he could not forgive her, neither could ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... hae burned them. The sun is hot this simmer day, and the sand as weel, and ye ken (know) ye are no used to gang without your shoon (shoes); wade a bit, noo, and ...
— Stories of Many Lands • Grace Greenwood

... have a law-term apparently so out of the ken of an unprofessional writer, that it would seem to favor the Attorney and Solicitor theory. But let us see if the knowledge which its use implies was confined to Shakespeare among the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various

... if the gods are beyond our ken, and if the world to come is misty, we still have this world with us; a world not always to be daffed aside with love and wine and comradeship, since behind its frolic wantonness lie the ennobling claims of duty and of conscience. As with Fielding, as with Thackeray, the light current ...
— Horace • William Tuckwell

... have gambled, but two dollars was a momentous hazard to the habitual card players of the village. He thought, occasionally, of taking a short trip, of two or three days, to nearby cities outside his ken, or to the ocean—Gordon had never seen a large body of water; but his life had travelled such a narrow course, he was so accustomed by blood and experience to the feel of the mountains, that, when the moment arrived to consider an actual departure, he ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... on her way when a violent storm arose. The ferryman and his mate, both Highlanders, held a consultation, and after a short debate the ferryman turned to his passengers and remarked, anxiously: "We'll just tak' your tuppences now, for we dinna ken what ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... you this evening, you are so dry. Ken you not what I mean? Speak three words for him to your friend, ...
— Tales And Novels, Volume 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... is rising again, which is odd on so still an evening. Listen to how it wails, yes, and stirs your hair, though mine hangs straight enough. But why do I talk of ghosts, seeing that you travel to seek other ghosts, white ghosts, beyond my ken, who can only deal with those who ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard

... cooks our soups. His ox, or his horse, the peasant must chain To our baggage-car, and may grumble in vain. Just let a lance-corp'ral, with seven good men, Tow'rd a village from far but come within ken, You're sure he'll be prince of the place, and may Cut what capers he will, with unquestioned sway. Why, zounds! lads, they heartily hate us all— And would rather the devil should give them a call, Than our yellow collars. And why don't they fall On us fairly at once and get rid of our ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... quivered under its weight, while the water in the black ditches on either side quivered in sympathy. The tourists spoke of the vast loneliness, unconscious of the intricate network of social life that lay all around them, beyond their ken, far beyond their understanding. They spoke authoritatively of Irish affairs; mentioned that the Irish were "a bit 'ot tempered," but added that "all they ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross

... scarcely realize it as a thing in actual existence:—so strange, so wonderful does it appear to me. In this, as in most other matters, we are too slow. When this spirit first dawned, it might probably have been easily checked; but it is scarcely within the reach of human ken, at this moment, to say when, where, or how it will terminate. There are combustibles in every state, to which ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall

... there was no shame, For one upon whose dazzled eyes The whole world poured its vast surprise. The open heaven was far too near, His first day's light too sweet and clear, To let him waste his new-gained ken On the hate-clouded ...
— Pike County Ballads and Other Poems • John Hay

... Sir, and she has rather forgotten hersel in speaking to my Leddy, that canna weel bide to be contradickit, (as I ken nobody likes it, if they could ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore

... demonstrated a service John Barleycorn renders, a service by which he increases his power over men. And over the world, wherever I have gone, during all the years, it has been the same. It may be a cabaret in the Latin Quarter, a cafe in some obscure Italian village, a boozing ken in sailor-town, and it may be up at the club over Scotch and soda; but always it will be where John Barleycorn makes fellowship that I get immediately in touch, and meet, and know. And in the good days coming, ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London

... inquiry George had made induced him to relinquish all hope of influencing him at that time. He saw how he had fallen; and he needed no prophet's ken to behold his future course, unless he turned from the path he ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams

... four-flushing was absolutely beyond his ken. He was like those South-Sea Islanders told of by Robert Louis Stevenson, who didn't know enough to lie until after the missionaries came, when they ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard

... much about machinery that I dinna ken, Mr. Murray, from a forty thousand horse power quadruple expansion doon to a freewheel bicycle. (Proudly.) I hae done spells work at ...
— The Drone - A Play in Three Acts • Rutherford Mayne

... proper name and style of this buff-ermine moth which at the present instant is buzzing round the lamp. A very little botany will enable you to recognize every flower you are likely to meet in your walks abroad, and to give you a tiny thrill of interest when you chance upon one which is beyond your ken. A very little archaeology will tell you all about yonder British tumulus, or help you to fill in the outline of the broken Roman camp upon the downs. A very little astronomy will cause you to look more intently at the heavens, to pick out your brothers the planets, who ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... for us alone Was laughing Eros born, Nor shines alone for us the moon, Nor burns the ruddy morn; Alas! to-morrow lies not in the ken Of us who are, O ...
— John Smith, U.S.A. • Eugene Field

... strange wight to our town en', An' the fient a body did him ken; He twirled na' lang, but he glided ben, Wi' a weary, ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson

... see why I shouldn't make money as well's other fellers. It's a free country, an' if a feller wants to try suthin' else 'sides fishin' uv it, what d'yer all want to be down on him fur? I don't want to slave all my days, when other folks ken live in big houses an' ride in 'kerriges, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various

... (vnder correction) giueth small assurance of a Nauigable sea by the Northeast, to goe round about the world, For that be iudged by the eye onely, seeing we in this our cleare aire doe account twentie miles a ken at Sea. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... or like a ray of the halo that rises up on the low horizon of the Libyan desert, when the dawn has crimsoned all the eastern heavens, might thus well be selected as the most suitable object to bring the invisible sun-god within the ken of human vision and the range of human worship. The poetical imagination may detect a significance even in the difference between the material used in the construction of the obelisk, and that used in the construction ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... soul! Do not speak of that ... not now ... when my arms are round thee and the whole world has vanished from my ken. Let me live in my dream just a brief moment longer; let me forget all save my love for thee. It hath burned my soul for an eternity meseems, for I have only lived since that hour when first I heard thy voice ... in the Forum ... dost remember?... ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... such a chat for a very long time—not, in fact, since Keningale (or Ken, as his friends called him) had returned from his visit to Europe the year before. He went abroad, as he affirmed at the time, "for purposes of study," whereat we all smiled, for Ken, so far as we knew ...
— David Poindexter's Disappearance and Other Tales • Julian Hawthorne

... pairish sleep at nicht Blind wi' the elders' shinin' licht, Nor ken wha's hand keeps a' ...
— Songs of Angus and More Songs of Angus • Violet Jacob

... terrorism of their earlier power is to be merged in the more gratifying system,of deportation and the guillotine. Being now hors de combat myself, I resign to others these cares. A long attack of rheumatism has greatly enfeebled me, and warns me, that they will not very long be within my ken. But you may have to meet the trial, and in the focus of its fury. God send you a safe deliverance, a happy issue out of all afflictions, personal and public, with long life, long health, and friends as sincerely attached, as ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Look, son, I know that with Ken Armstrong dead our whole approach has to be changed—it's going to be trickier, but it might even work out better. The Senate knows what's been going on between Rinehart and me, and so does the President. They know elections are due next June. They know I want ...
— Martyr • Alan Edward Nourse

... live; and what were a few sheep? Of some such it might be said, that though they were above the arts by which the Brownbies lived, they were not very scrupulous themselves; and it perhaps served them to have within their ken neighbours whose morality was lower even than their own. But to such a one as Harry Heathcote the Brownbies were utterly abominable. He was for the law and justice at any cost. To his thinking, the ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope

... expressive, un-English bow, and of a deftness of phrase compared with which Trenby's laboured compliment savoured of the elephantine. Swiftly she dismissed the memory, irritably chasing it from her mind, for was it not five long, black, incomprehensible weeks since Peter had vanished from her ken? From the day of the bridge-party at the Edenhall flat, she had neither seen nor heard from him, and during those five silent weeks she had come to recognise the fact that Peter meant much more to her than merely a friend, just as he himself had realised that she ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler

... home than in his ordinary style. Take, for instance, a passage from 'Rob Roy,' where our dear friend, the Bailie, Nicol Jarvie, is taken prisoner by Rob Roy's amiable wife, and appeals to her feelings of kinship. '"I dinna ken," said the undaunted Bailie, "if the kindred has ever been weel redd out to you yet, cousin—but it's kenned, and can be proved. My mother, Elspeth Macfarlane (otherwise Macgregor), was the wife of my father, Denison ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen

... a cloud over the lands of men. Movement, passion of colour and pure wings, Curving to cut like knives—these are the things I search for:—passion beyond the ken ...
— The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems • Aldous Huxley

... the Douglas said, 'What recks the death o' ane! Last nicht I dreimed a drearie dreim, And I ken the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... genealogical chart of the family, the pedigree of which he carried back rather farther than the greatest strength of credulity would allow. "I gude faith, man," says the king, "it may be they are very true, but I did na ken before ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various

... still ling'ring on the sight, Trails, as it shoots, a line of silver light. High pois'd on buoyant wing, the thoughtful queen, In gaze attentive, views the varied scene, And soon her far-fetch'd ken discerns below The light laburnum lift her polish'd brow, Wave her green leafy ringlets o'er the glade, And seem to beckon to her friendly shade. Swift as the falcon's sweep, the monarch bends Her flight abrupt; the following host descends. Round the fine twig, like ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth

... had years ago become too urban for the poor cherry-tree, which had long since disappeared from mortal ken; and the last of the currant-bushes, too, were holding their own but poorly against the smoke and cinders of metropolitan life. One of Jane's earliest recollections was that of putting on her flat and taking her tin pan and accompanying her mother out to pick currants ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... and forty years ago Sine the one of us the other did ken; And we have had, betwixt us two, Of children either nine or ten: We have brought them up to women and men: In the fear of God I trow they be. And why wilt thou thyself misken? Man, take thine ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... away from our sight— Away from our hearing or ken. We call and cry for a last good-bye, But they never ...
— Yesterdays • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... the astronomer, the more powerful his telescope, though it may resolve some of the nebulae that resisted feebler instruments, only has his bounds of vision enlarged as he looks through it, and sees yet other and mightier star-clouds lying mysterious beyond its ken— so each new influx and tidal wave of knowledge of the Father, which Christ gives to His waiting child, leads on to enlarged desires, to longings to press still further into the unexplored mysteries ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren

... common day, which the bards and saints so much condemn and disdain, when subjected to the microscopic and telescopic ken of modern science, opens as large a field for wonder and for the imagination to revel in as did the old marvels, fables, and fictions of the Past. The True is beginning to be found as strange, nay, stranger than the purely Imaginative and Mythic. The ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various

... indeed, Donald,' said Sir Walter, 'but we must help one another; for, to tell you the truth, I'm not good at any other tongue but the English, or rather, the Scotch.'—'Oh, sir, maybe,' replied the Highlander, 'you are a countryman, and ken my maister Captain Cameron of the 79th, and could tell me whare he lodges. I'm just cum in, sir, frae a place they ca' Machlin,[18] and ha' forgotten the name of the captain's quarters; it was something like the Laaborer.'—'I can, I think, help you with this, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart

... plotting harm, Didst rouse the billows with tempestuous blasts, 300 And separating him from all his friend, Brought'st him to populous Cos. Then Jove awoke, And, hurling in his wrath the Gods about, Sought chiefly me, whom far below all ken He had from heaven cast down into the Deep, 305 But Night, resistless vanquisher of all, Both Gods and men, preserved me; for to her I fled for refuge. So the Thunderer cool'd, Though sore displeased, and spared ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer

... not much better than you ken ride," retorted Robin. This was a crusher in that company, where riding stood high above any literary attainment; for the other had been a failure as ...
— Bred In The Bone - 1908 • Thomas Nelson Page

... the fowk had boards to kneel on, ye ken," Bell explained, "but the maist o' them prayed kneelin' on ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett



Words linked to "Ken" :   grasp, Ken Kesey, Ken Russell, cognizance, knowing, reach, range, sight, compass



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