"Ray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... flows, Lo! its trail runs a ripple of fire on the nipple it bids be a rose, 20 Yet englobes it diaphanous, veil upon veil in a tiffany drawn To bedrape the small virginal breasts yet unripe for the spousal of dawn; Till the vein'd very vermeil of Venus, till Cupid's incarnadine kiss, Till the ray of the ruby, the sunrise, ensanguine the bath of her bliss; Till the wimple her bosom uncover, a tissue of fire to the view, 25 And the zone o'er the wrists of the lover slip down as they reach to undo. Now learn ...
— The Vigil of Venus and Other Poems by "Q" • Q
... counted himself among the launched, no doubt, and had breasted seas; but the boy was alive, a trencherman lad, in the coming schoolmaster, and told him profitable facts concerning his condition; besides throwing a luminous ray on the arcane of our elusive youthful. If they have no stout zest for eating, put Query ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... profaned? Why have we fallen on such evil times? Why didst thou give us birth, or why No sooner suffer us to die, O cruel Fate? We, who have seen Our wretched country so betrayed, The handmaid, slave of impious strangers made, And of her ancient virtues all bereft; Yet could no aid or comfort give. Or ray of hope, that might relieve The anguish of her soul. Alas, my blood has not been shed for thee, My country dear! Nor have I died That thou mightst live! My heart with anger and with pity bleeds. Ah, bitter thought! Thy children fought and fell; But not for dying Italy, ah, no, But in the ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... seemed to be a full day in length of time, there was afar off a faint soft gleam of light on the surface of the water—a ray which sent a flood into the hearts of the watchers—and from that moment the light began to grow broader and higher, while they suddenly woke to the fact that the boat was moving gently towards the entrance of the cavern, drawn by ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... complaisant, are banished, or going to be banished; and even the captains of the guard. In short, the King, his mistress, and the Chancellor, have almost left themselves alone at Versailles. But as the most serious events in France have always a ray of ridicule mixed with them, some are to be exiled to Paris, and some to St. Germain. How we should laugh at anybody being banished to Soho Square and Hammersmith? The Chancellor desired to see the Prince of Conti; the latter replied, "Qu'il lui ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume II • Horace Walpole
... on, and our life moves under it, so surely, across whatever gulf, the beauty shall all be one again; so surely does it even now move all together, perfect and close always under His eye, who never sends a half ray anywhere. ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... overcome. The last ray of hope was gone. He heard nothing of what Sigault read, and he signed the paper ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... phantom ray of hope. All returned to their accustomed places. Curtis alone remained motionless, but his eye no longer scanned the ...
— The Survivors of the Chancellor • Jules Verne
... clearer than all possible arguments that she had been right, when in the morning, at her parting with Rudin, she had involuntarily cried out that he did not love her! But that made things no easier for her. She sat perfectly still; it seemed as though waves of darkness without a ray of light had closed over her head, and she had gone down cold and dumb to the depths. The first disillusionment is painful for every one; but for a sincere heart, averse to self-deception and innocent of frivolity or exaggeration, it is almost unendurable. ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... is it a play Which runs a thousand nights? Is it a dream Precipitated into some alembic Or glass retort by Ex-ray Lankester? ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... the kind of fool you're going to make of yourself," cried Septimus, a ray of wonderful lucidity flashing across his mind. "There's a couplet of Tennyson's—I don't read poetry, you know," he broke off apologetically, "except a little Persian. I'm a hard, scientific person, ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... words, the sbirri felt ashamed of their irresolution, and, indicating by signs that they would fulfil their compact, they entered the room, accompanied by the two women. As they had said, a ray of moonlight shone through the open window, and brought into prominence the tranquil face of the old man, the sight of whose white hair had so ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Leary was running the ray of an electric lamp over the faces of the two young women when one of them sat up and muttered in a choking, frightened tone, "Oh, Isabel!" Whereupon she ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... the fences and along the borders of the wood, these X-ray eyes would see the chipmunk at the end of his deep burrow with his store of nuts or grains, sleeping fitfully but not dormant. The frost does not reach him and his stores are at hand. One which we dug out in late October had nearly four quarts of weed-seeds and cherry-pits. ...
— The Wit of a Duck and Other Papers • John Burroughs
... man, though he was not of our church, he wrote a great book called "Mysterium Magnum," was seven days in a trance. Truth, or whatever truth he found, fell upon him like a bursting shower, and he a poor tradesman at his work. It was a ray of sunlight on a pewter vessel that was the beginning of all. [Goes to the door of inner room.] There is no stir in him yet. It is either the best thing or the worst thing can happen to anyone that is happening to ...
— The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays • William B. Yeats
... Wasted around their rich perfume: The birch-trees swept in fragrant balm, 720 The aspens slept beneath the calm; The silver light, with quivering glance, Played on the water's still expanse— Wild were the heart whose passion's sway Could rage beneath the sober ray! 725 He felt its calm, that warrior guest, While thus he communed with his breast: "Why is it, at each turn I trace Some memory of that exiled race? Can I not mountain-maiden spy, 730 But she must bear the Douglas ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... Empire had become very different. Men breathed the oppressive air with laboring breasts; the bright dawn which promised so glorious a day had, been followed by sullen mists, and the blue sky had disappeared behind heavy, leaden-gray clouds, through which no comforting ray of sunshine pierced. Where was all the glowing enthusiasm, the rapture of hope and joy that, in the first years after the great war, had flushed every German cheek and lit up every eye? Throughout the length and breath of the land the opposing factions ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... standing beyond the railing, in the free space around the marble table, and whom no one had yet caught sight of, since his long, thin body was completely sheltered from every visual ray by the diameter of the pillar against which he was leaning; this individual, we say, tall, gaunt, pallid, blond, still young, although already wrinkled about the brow and cheeks, with brilliant eyes and a smiling mouth, clad in garments of black serge, ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... John Miller schoolmaster there Robert Gill there Alexander Ray there James Smith mason there Andrew Aird servant there Hugh Thomson smith Tarbolton Roberr Elliot do. there Willm Rattray weaver there Andrew Cowan wright Sorn Wilm. M'Gown miller do. James Ralston in Sorn James Mitchel in Craighall John Mitchel there John Baird there John ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... of the ridge. The soldiers turned it into a cross road and mounted the hill. Two of them left it, scouting to see what was happening; the other stayed in the car. One of the enemy suddenly appeared. His ray struck the car. Its tires, its woodwork, and fabric and cushions melted and vanished, and the man within it likewise disappeared. Everything organic vanished under the assailing green beam. The other two soldiers ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... to hold his little hand out long, for it began to ache and grow stiff; so he pulled it in, and comforted himself with the ray of light that came through the hole, and the thought of the fresh air ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a woman of middle age who could not be persuaded to keep her cabin porthole closed at night. Again and again a ray of light was projected through it upon the surface of the water and the quarter- master, whose duty it was to see that no lights were shown, was at his wit's end. His difficulty was the greater because he could speak no English, and she no French. ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... There was a small hole in it, which, when held opposite the sun, admitted the light against the inside of the ring behind. On this were marked the hours and the quarters, and the time was known by observing the hour or the quarter on which the slender ray, that came in from the hole in ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... rise, climb the old wall again, And pausing look forth on the sundown world, Scan the wide reaches of the wondrous plain, The hamlet sites where settling smoke lay curled, The poplar-bordered roads, and far away Fair snowpeaks colored with the sun's last ray. ...
— Poems • Alan Seeger
... in, she saw that not only was every chair there occupied, but people were standing about in expectant groups. For a moment, her heart beat high.... Could Olga have arrived and by some mistake have gone straight in there? It was a dreamlike possibility, but it burst like a ray of sunshine on the party that was rapidly becoming a nightmare to her,—for everyone, not Lady Ambermere alone, was audibly wondering when the Guru was coming, and when Miss Bracely was ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... tropic gorgeousness, the Lord of Day To the bright chambers of the west retired, And with the glory of his parting ray The hundred domes of Mexico he fired, When I, with vague and solemn awe inspired, Entered the Incarnation's sacred fane. The vaulted roof, the dim aisle far retired, Echoed the deep-toned organ's holy strain, Which through the incensed air ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... A ray of sunlight, fitful and struggling, burst at this moment through the heavy clouds, and stole into the opening of the tent as he contemplated the slumbering girl. It ran its flowing course up her uncovered ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... farthest into space, above the treetops and the ruins,—fixed so intently that mechanically I turned my own gaze to follow the flight of hers. It was as if she watched for some expected, familiar sign to grow out from the depths of heaven; perhaps to greet, before other eyes beheld it, the ray ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of yellow or ruby paper or we must examine our room carefully to stop up any cracks where rays of white light may enter. We must remember that a plate sensitive enough to record instantaneous exposures of 1-500 of a second must be sensitive to any tiny ray of outside light also. Almost any room will make a dark room, especially if it is used at night. By drawing the shades and by doing our work in a far corner of the room away from outside light we are comparatively safe. Of course an electric street ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller
... embattled plain Moves yonder warrior train, Their banners wanton on the morning gale! Full on their bucklers beams the rising ray, Their glittering helmets flash a brighter day, The shout of war rings echoing o'er the vale: Far reaches as the aching eye can strain The splendid horror of their wide array. Ah! not in vain expectant, o'er Their glorious ...
— Poems • Robert Southey
... commonly (but not universally) made of the long spiral shoot which arises from the top of the yellow gum-tree, and bears the flower. The former have several prongs, barbed with the bone of kangaroo. The latter are sometimes barbed with the same substance, or with the prickle of the sting-ray, or with stone or hardened gum, and sometimes simply pointed. Dexterity in throwing and parrying the spear is considered as the highest acquirement. The children of both sexes practice from the time that they are able to throw a rush; their first essay. It forms their constant recreation. ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... dived again into my physical being. He consulted German authorities. I squirmed and lied and resisted all I could, but he said he owed me an eternal debt that could only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie me up and shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white socks. He had a long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He jerked hairs out of my head to sample my nerve force. He said I was a baffling subject, but that he meant to make ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... a gem of purest ray serene, Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears, Like angels' visits, few and far between, Deck the long vista of ...
— A Nonsense Anthology • Collected by Carolyn Wells
... he is going with me. His fate is now being decided; and his eyes, melting with anguish, devour my mind. If I buckle on my leather gaiters, it means the sudden and utter extinction, of all that constitutes the joy of life. They leave not a ray of hope. They herald the hateful, lonely motorcycle, which he cannot keep up with; and he stretches himself sadly in a dark corner, where he goes back to the gloomy dreams of an unoccupied, forsaken dog. But, when I slip my arms into ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... seven pillars of Gothic mould,[6] In Chillon's dungeons deep and old, There are seven columns, massy and grey, Dim with a dull imprisoned ray, 30 A sunbeam which hath lost its way, And through the crevice and the cleft Of the thick wall is fallen and left; Creeping o'er the floor so damp, Like a marsh's meteor lamp:[7] And in each pillar there is a ring,[8] And in each ring ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... altar, poet-kings;— Chaucer, still young with silvery beard that seems Worthy the adoration of a child; And Spenser, perfect master, to whom all Sweet graces ministered. The shut eye weaves A picture;—the immortals pass along Into the heaven, and others follow still, Each on his own ray-path, till all the field Is threaded with the foot-prints of the great. And now the passengers are lost; long lines Only are left, all intertwisted, dark Upon a flood of light......... I am awake! I hear domestic voices ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... morning light Up rose the mighty anchorite, And thus to youthful Rama said, Who lay upon his leafy bed:— "High fate is hers who calls thee son: Arise, 'tis break of day; Rise, Chief, and let those rites be done Due at the morning's ray." At that great sage's high behest Up sprang the princely pair, To bathing rites themselves addressed, And breathed the holiest prayer. Their morning task completed, they To Visvamitra came, That store of holy works, to pay The worship saints may claim. Then to the hallowed spot they went Along fair ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them, the elder, too, with his face all ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 6 • Charles H. Sylvester
... contempt, the frost of adversity, the blast of persecution, the storm of oppression—all have been yours. There was no substance to be found—no prospect to delight the eye or inspire the drooping heart—no golden ray to dissipate the gloom. The waves of derision were stayed by no barrier, but made a clear breach over you. But now—thanks be to God! that dreary winter is rapidly hastening away. The sun of humanity is going steadily up from the horizon to its zenith, ...
— Phrases for Public Speakers and Paragraphs for Study • Compiled by Grenville Kleiser
... radiate heat in different degrees. Near a double screen of polished tin was placed an ordinary ring gas-burner, and on this was placed a hot copper ball, from which a column of heated air ascended. Behind the screen, but so situated that no ray from the ball could reach the instrument, was an excellent Thermo-electric pile, connected by wires with a very delicate galvanometer. The pile was known to be an instrument whereby heat is applied to the generation of electric currents; the strength of the current being ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... them all, you may be sure, and although the three girls smiled and Scraps yelled: "Hoo-ray!" in derision, the Wizard seemed to consider ...
— The Lost Princess of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... closely guarded in the apartments of the Stadholder, while the country and very soon all Europe were ringing with the news of his downfall, imprisonment, and disgrace. The news was a thunder-bolt to the lovers of religious liberty, a ray of dazzling sunlight after ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... sainted shrine, Who may deny that round us throng A hundred earthly creeds as wrong, But meaner far, which yet unblamed Stalk by us and are not ashamed? So, therefore, Katie, as our stroll Ends at this portal, while you roll Those lustrous eyes to catch each ray That may recall some vanished day, I—let them jeer and laugh who will— Stoop down ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod
... old Doorman, is straightening the furniture in the room. He clumsily clears the floor of a litter of letters and places them in the corner with the unopened bag. He draws the heavy draperies of the windows and adjusts them so that no ray of light can reach the outside. MRS. LINCOLN enters and ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... merely add, the Bobarts, father and son, were personal friends of Ashmole and Ray, and that, in all probability, among their correspondence much curious and ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 189, June 11, 1853 • Various
... She became silent, her head lowered, her eyes downcast, intent upon the hands in her lap. With her fingers she rubbed away the caress. She was thinking rapidly, yet her face betrayed no visible emotion, whether of joy, or surprise, or resentment. Only her cheek danced with a ray of sunshine, a stolen ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... secret. Still, if art has efficacy to surprise and reveal the elusive Spirit of Truth, when truth is dramatically presented it is made vivid and impressive, strengthening the faith of the strongest and bringing a ray of heavenly light to many ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... so continuous in its blossoming. A friend beside me says: "Ah! but what of violas?" To which I reply: "Grow both in quantity, since both are as variable as they are beautiful." But when viola shrinks in foggy November from the frost demon, anemone rises Phoenix-like responsive to the first ray of sunshine. Besides, fair Viola, richly as she dresses in velvet purple or in golden sheen, has not yet donned that vivid scarlet robe which Queen Anemone weareth, nor are her wrappers of celestial azure so pure; and blue is, as we all know, the highest note of coloring in floral ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... joy the grand chaos of struggling forms dissolves into a harmonious sea of oblivion. When the ray of happiness breaks in the last tear of longing, Iris is already adorning the eternal brow of heaven with the delicate tints of her many-colored rainbow. Sweet dreams come true, and the pure forms of a new ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... fifteen, bewilderingly pretty in the changes that passed over her mobile face. A complexion that was pink and pearl, golden hair that was a mass of waves and shining rings that seemed to ray off sunshine with every movement of the head that had a bird-like poise; a low broad Clytie brow and eyes that were the loveliest violet color, sometimes blue, sometimes the tenderest, most appealing gray. Her smile was captivating, disarming. ...
— The Girls at Mount Morris • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Then suddenly a ray of light shone through the clouds. The ever-cheerful Signor Nitti, after a conference with Lloyd George and Clemenceau—no Yugoslav being present, whereas Signor Nitti was both pleader and judge—was authorized to say that ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... is dead! (Marcel in his turn goes up to the bed, and retreats in alarm; a ray of sunshine falls through the window upon Mimi's face; Musetta points to her cloak, which, with a grateful glance, Rudolph takes, and standing upon a chair, endeavors to form a screen by stretching the cloak ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... by virtue of his dictatorial power, ordered the rioter to be loaded with irons, and confined in the strong room, which is a dismal dungeon, situated upon the side of the ditch, infested with toads and vermin, surcharged with noisome damps, and impervious to the least ray ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... time the heavy London clouds which had been hanging all the morning over the Park opened a little to show the blue sky, and a broad ray of sunshine struck in through the anteroom window and lit up ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... comforting. The young men seek on endless paths to find In Wisdom's hands the weed Oblivion. And on the window shutters that are closed, The clay pots with their flowers seem to be A dead man's wreath; and the lone ray that glides Through the small fissure is transformed within Into a taper's light on ...
— Life Immovable - First Part • Kostes Palamas
... and suddenly a cloud reddened before his eyes. The sun was not in sight, but was rising, and sending forerunners before his face. The cattle began to stir, a blackbird burst into song, and before Drumsheugh crossed the threshold of Saunders' house, the first ray of the sun had broken on a peak ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... queer mixture of snarling anger and exulting triumph in his voice that Chris looked up. Just for an instant Henson had dropped the mask. A ray of light from the open door streamed fully across his face. The malignant pleasure of it startled Chris. Like a flash she began to see how she had been ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... that rejoiced in the perception that gave you what you called 'the inside of a sun-ray,'—you, for whom the things which interest men and women of the moment are mere toys of poor invention—you, of all others, ought to know that when the laws of the universe are understood and followed, there can be no ...
— The Secret Power • Marie Corelli
... wearing on my finger a ring which was formerly given me by Theckla (the good countess, whom you know); although this token of careless and frivolous love could not trouble me much, I heroically made of it a sacrifice to ray new-born love, and the poor ring disappeared in the water which flows rapidly under my window. It is useless to tell you what a night I passed; you can imagine it I knew that the Princess Amelia was fair, and of angelic beauty; I endeavored to imagine her features, her stature, ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... the New York Society for the promotion of Education among Colored Children to the Honorable Commissioners for examining into the condition of Common Schools in the City and County of New York, will show. Reverend Charles B. Ray, who was President of this Society, and Philip A. White, its Secretary, both continued to labor in the interest of education unto the close of their lives, Mr. White dying as a member of the School Board of the city of Brooklyn, and Mr. Ray bequeathing ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... eating. Every dish came in for its share of criticism; the eel-pie remained uncut, the lobster had lost one claw, but more than half the contents of that was left on Abel's plate. My penny buns all vanished, that was one ray of comfort. ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... be only so very faint they could leave no clue to our destiny. The first ray of hope that shot through him was finding one of our little notes, though, for some time, they thought it was but the writing of ancient days, and not meant for them now. But when they found another, and when the pirates picked ...
— Yr Ynys Unyg - The Lonely Island • Julia de Winton
... have received your letter making an appeal to me in behalf of Ernest Ray, the son of my cousin. You wish me to educate him. I must decline to do so. His father very much incensed my revered uncle, and it is not right that any of his money should go to him or his heirs. ...
— The Young Bank Messenger • Horatio Alger
... running over now. He took her cold hands in his; he knelt beside her and passed his arm around her waist. He drew her head upon his shoulder. He was not sure that any of these things were effective until she suddenly lifted her eyes to his with the last ray of mirth in them vanishing in a big teardrop, put her arms round his ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... more brightly as he spoke thus, and Earnscliff observed that he held out his right hand armed with some weapon of offence, which glittered in the cold ray like the blade of a long knife, or the barrel of a pistol. It would have been madness to persevere in his attempt upon a being thus armed, and holding such desperate language, especially as it was plain he would have little aid from ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... hearted; and the false soon grow weary of love! And so, tiring of her beauty and her goodness, he stabbed her mortally to death, and thought no one had seen him do the deed. For the only witness to it was a ray of moonlight falling through the window—just as the sunlight falls now!—see!" And he pointed to the narrow aperture which lit the cell, while Florian Varillo, shuddering in spite of himself, lay motionless. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... a fish of the Cyprinid family, which is an inhabitant of the rivers of central Europe, and is very locally distributed in England. It has four barbels (Lat. barba, beard; fleshy appendages hanging from the mouth), and the first ray of the short dorsal fin is strong, spine-like and serrated behind. It attains a weight of 50 lb on the continent of Europe. The genus of which it is the type is a very large one, comprising about 300 species from Europe, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various
... the rays of light coming from Alpha Centauri to us are chasing one another incessantly across the gulf of space, and as each ray left that star some four years before it reaches us, our view of the star itself must therefore be always some four years old. Were then this star to be suddenly removed from the universe at any moment, we should continue to see it still in ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... finished his impassioned speech, a ray of sun fell upon his face, lifted in stern warning to his opponents. He was like a figure of the Past demanding reverence and ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... the tropics is a member of the sting ray family, and the common name it bears is given to it because of two prongs, or horns, which project just in front of its mouth. His Satanic Majesty is popularly supposed to have horns, together with a tail, hoofs and other appendages, ...
— Tom Swift and his Undersea Search - or, The Treasure on the Floor of the Atlantic • Victor Appleton
... The last ray of hope for preserving the Union peaceably expired at the assault upon Fort Sumter, and a general review of what has occurred since may not be unprofitable. What was painfully uncertain then is much better defined and more distinct now, and the progress of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... that were connected with mortification to others; and, even if I could have got over that, the eternal feud fretted and tormented my nature. Love, that once in childhood had been so mere a necessity to me, that had long been a reflected ray from a departed sunset. But peace, and freedom from strife, if love were no longer possible, (as so rarely it is in this world,) was the clamorous necessity of my nature. To contend with somebody was still my fate; how to escape the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... continually upon her the necessity of having the points at issue between herself and Murray examined by a commissioner, artfully putting it on the ground, not of a trial of Mary, but a calling of Murray to account, by Mary, for his usurpation. At last, harassed and worn down, and finding no ray of hope coming to her from any quarter, she consented. Elizabeth constituted such a court, which was to meet at York, a large and ancient city in the north of England. Murray was to appear there in person, ...
— Mary Queen of Scots, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... distinctly heard by him to whom they were addressed, and as he again turned up his face, a ray of triumph illumined his sunken eyes; he did not, however, or he could not speak, for the heat of the battle was carried back again towards the gate, and the tumultuous sea of fighting men was hurried away from the spot where they had ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... the ports a ray of sunshine was creeping upwards towards the dying man's face. But the radiance that now overspread it was from an inward source. Feebly he returned the clasp of ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... from all material things. They come from our own sun, and rush in, and flood the earth's aerial veil, the atmosphere; and "Each little atom of matter, like a mirror, reflects and re-reflects them as if in sport, buffeting each luminous ray from one to another, increasing and amplifying it by an infinity of repercussions" (Herschel), and then in their entirety and whole, like a huge multi-mirror, so blend and mingle them that they come to earth's surface in that soft radiance ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... one night with a fire which flamed and flickered gloriously. It set in motion many shadows which had their home in the corners of the walls, and bade them cease their sullenness and come forth to dance in the riot of the hour. And so each shadow found its partner in a ray of firelight, and there they danced. They danced about the tangled front of the big bison's head which hung upon the wall. They crossed the grinning skull of the gray wolf. They softened the eyes of the antelope's head, and made dark ...
— The Singing Mouse Stories • Emerson Hough
... brought forth painters in abundance, and created schools all over Italy. The church increasing in power and riches, called on the arts of painting and sculpture, to add to the beauty and magnificence of her sanctuaries; riches and honors were showered on men whose genius added a new ray of grace to the Madonna, or conferred a diviner air on St. Peter or St. Paul; and as much of the wealth of Christendom found its way to Rome, the successors of the apostles were enabled to distribute their patronage over all the schools of Italy. Lanzi reckons fourteen ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects, and Curiosities of Art, (Vol. 2 of 3) • Shearjashub Spooner
... above us; above plenty more, who were the peers of Mr. John Burrill. Last year, as everybody knows, she refused Robert Crofton, who is handsome, rich, and upright in character. This Spring, they say, she jilted Raymond Vandyck, and people who ought to know, say that they were engaged. Why, Ray Vandyck comes of the best old Dutch stock, and his fortune is something worth while. I wonder what young Vandyck will say to this, and how that high-stepping old lady, his mother, will fancy having her son ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... with only the light that could sift through the violet and amber of the stained glass windows; but in one, the big one at the end, was the figure of a snowy dove, with outstretched wings. Through this silvery pane a long slanting ray of light, dazzling in its white radiance, streamed across the keys of the organ and the man ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... side door of the store, and it held an unwonted note of decision in its hushed cadences. A deep pink spot burned on either cheek, her eyes were very bright, and she kept her face turned resolutely away from little Mr. Crabtree, over whose face there had flashed a ray of most beautiful ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... that loves to bless; The clouds of Sorrow at her presence flee; Rejoice! rejoice! ye Children of Distress! 20 The beams that play around her head Thro' Want's dark vale their radiance spread: The young uncultur'd mind imbibes the ray, And Vice reluctant quits ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... The power ray from behind ripped out great gobs of the sheltering bushes. But running naturally, bent close to the bottom of the ravine, Jon Karyl dodged the bare spots. The oxygen made the tremendous exertion easy for his ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... happy as he was. The God of nature gave them the same beautiful prospect of lake and hills, and woods and rocks, to look out upon; and if these things helped to gladden their hearts, it was goodness which lay at the foundation of all their joys, and cast a ray of sunshine across the path of poverty and want. They were contented with their lot, hard and bitter as many others deemed it; and contentment made them happy,—prepared their hearts to enjoy the blessings of plenty, if God in his wisdom should ever ...
— The Boat Club - or, The Bunkers of Rippleton • Oliver Optic
... spot where the body was drawn ashore. In the absence of rain the water ran clear as gin, and the marks made by the feet of Adelaide Melhuish's murderer were still perceptible. If only those misshapen blotches could reveal their secret! If only some Heaven-sent ray of intuition would enable him to put the police on the track of the criminal! Theoretically, a novelist and essayist should be a first-rate detective, yet, brought face to face with an actual felony, here was one who ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... she were larger than she is, and of less pleasing aspect, I think she might be intolerable; but being so small, and with a fair skin, and as healthy as a wild-flower, she is really very agreeable; and to look at her face is like being shone upon by a ray of the sun. She never walks, but bounds and dances along, and this motion, in her diminutive person, does not give the idea of violence. It is like a bird, hopping from twig to twig, and chirping merrily all the time. Sometimes she is rather vulgar, but ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 2. • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eminently characteristic of the composition of comets. Carbon is not only intimately associated with articles of daily utility, and of plenteous abundance, but with the most exquisite gems of "purest ray serene." More precious than gold, more precious than rubies, the diamond itself is no more than the same element in crystalline form. But the greatest of all the functions of carbon in the universe has yet to be mentioned. This same wonderful element ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... bat, you should wear specs. I can see several rays. I'll count them off. Ray one: the ugly all-sorts-of-paint has been washed away by the weather. Ray two: the air up here is as pure as it's sharp, and there's nothing to obstruct or keep it from blowing your 'hypo' away. Ray three: there are our own darling ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... themselves visible to men, and to make themselves heard by them, we must first of all explain what is vision, which is only the bringing of the species within the compass of the organ of sight. This "species" is the ray of light broken and modified upon a body, on which, forming different angles, this light is converted into colors. For an angle of a certain kind makes red, another green, blue or yellow, and so on of all the colors, as we perceive in the prism, on which the reflected ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... glimmer of sunlight enabled me to see my way. But the sound of the dripping of water from the root of the cave warned me that I was approaching some deep pool, into which a false step might plunge me. I therefore kept within the light of day. An occasional ray of the sun lit up the enormous rock pillars which the quarrymen had left to support the roof. It was a most ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... so then, and I believe so now. I never shall forget, Mr. President, how my heart bounded for joy when I thought I saw a ray of hope for their adoption in the fact that a Republican Senator now on this floor came to me and requested that I should inquire of Mr. Toombs, who was on the eve of his departure for Georgia to take a seat in the Convention of that ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... rather shabby, dark dress making a swirl behind her; and as she got there she turned and spoke again, with her hand on the bronze tracery of the fingerplate, making, unconsciously, a highly dramatic picture, as a sudden last ray of the sinking sun shot out and struck the glory of her hair, turning it to flame ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... character so notorious as Robertson, who they readily guessed was alluded to in the last sentence, excepting that she should become the partner and victim of his future crimes? Jeanie, who knew George Staunton's character and real rank, saw her sister's situation under a ray of better hope. She augured well of the haste he had shown to reclaim his interest in Effie, and she trusted he had made her his wife. If so, it seemed improbable that, with his expected fortune, and high connections, he should again resume the life of criminal adventure which he had ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a ray into the white-and-cherry bedroom; peeped at the lovely girl sitting stiffly on the bed's edge, turned thick mote-beams upon the lady of deceptive delicacy who stood, with flowing brown hair and still more flowing robe de chambre, silent upon her peak in Darien. The leather-shod clocklet, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... falling on his knee beside the virgin who joins in his devotions, fervently prays to Indra, that at last his love may be given to him again. Slowly Urvasi rises from the rose-bush. A long and exalted love-duet follows, then the Indian heaven opens and the King dies at Urvasi's feet, struck by a ray from ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... a method, not quite so learned, to convey an idea of the generation of colors, and the decomposition of the solar ray. Instead of examining them in a prism of glass, we shall consider them in the heavens, and there we shall behold the five primordial colours unfold themselves in the order which we ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... and at breakfast, for half an hour or so, I have him to myself. Then we take a little walk in the palace grounds of M. le Ray de Chaumont, Chief Forester of the kingdom, which adjoins us. To the Count's generosity Franklin is indebted for the house we live in. The Doctor loves to have me with him in the early morning. He says breakfasting alone is the most triste of ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... mysterious tenacity of a crannied flower, was pulling from her soil toward the light. And light in all its chiaroscuras rules the se leve, couche, complexion, and humors of the world. Lindsley was a ray. ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... footnotes tomorrow. Both the successes and the setbacks of the past year remain on our agenda of unfinished business. For every apparent blessing contains the seeds of danger—every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope—and the one unchangeable certainty is that nothing ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... for it, and broke up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors."[252] The sun may have shone for millions of years before upon the earth, or might have been shining with all his brilliance at that very time, while not a single ray penetrated the thick darkness of the vapors in which earth was clothed. But whether or not, darkness must, from its very nature, be limited, both in space and time. To speak of infinite and eternal darkness is as unscriptural as it is absurd. The ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... impatiently expected letters never failed her, and always brought a ray of happiness to the house which seemed so gloomy after the departure of one of its inmates. The voyage was safely accomplished; the fishing proved excellent, and the profits promised to be large. Besides, at the end of each letter, Ole always referred to a certain secret, and of the fortune ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... for all was parched and bare with the violence of intemperate suns and storms. Soon he was out of sight and hearing of the village, travelling in a network of empty watercourses, till at length he came to the long side of mountain which he knew of old as the first landmark of the way. A thin ray of hope began to break up his despair. He knew now the exact distance he had to travel, for his gift had always been an infallible instinct for the lie of a countryside. The sun was still high in the heavens; with any luck he should be ...
— The Half-Hearted • John Buchan
... He gave me the impression in his dungeon of one of those toads which are found from time to time in blocks of coal, and have lain there unbreathing and unmoving since the deluge. However, he was a man of business, and so was I for the moment. I handed him my brother's note; and like a ray of sunshine on the torpid snake, it put him into immediate motion. He now took off his spectacles, as if to indulge himself with a view of me by the naked eye; and after a scrutinizing look, which, in another place and person, I should probably ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various |
