"Describe" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... half a mile of the Maine, and my small boat was the first to gain the wreck. It is beyond my power to describe the explosion. It was awful. It paralysed the intellect for a few moments. The cries that came over the water awakened us to a realisation that some great tragedy ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... be impossible to describe the excitement of Polly and Jacob at this moment, but the girls and boys can imagine something ...
— Connor Magan's Luck and Other Stories • M. T. W.
... Ah, what superiority of intellectual strength! Truly, a proud and noble character that I describe in the supposed words of Monsieur, the uncle. Ha, ha, ha! Death of my soul, I ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... To describe any details of dress, that will not be as "queer" to-morrow as to-day's fashions are bound to be, would seem at the outset pretty much like writing about next year's weather. And yet, there is one unchanging principle which must be followed by every woman, man and ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... interview between the mother and her daughter we cannot describe, as no one witnessed it save God; but Adah's face was radiant with happiness, and her soft, brown eyes beaming with joy when it was ended, and she went next to where Hugh ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... I said, "you shall have the estimate. What you want is the cost of erecting a structure like the one here in the plans. Well, if it was to be put on our Florida coast, where I think the conditions are somewhat similar to those you describe, I would advise you to add about one hundred thousand dollars to the cost ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... heavens themselves, become so closely related that in none of its parts can anything be changed without causing confusion in the other parts and in the whole universe. Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe. Thereafter in the remaining books, I set forth the motions of the other stars and of all their ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... Characters. In addition to definite directions at special times during the course of the dialogue, modern writers of plays describe each character quite fully at his first entrance into the action. This gives the delineator of each role a working basis for his guidance. Such directions carefully followed out assure the tone for the whole cast. They keep a subordinate part always ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... a wretched state, which is under the necessity of trading with pirates, in order to enrich itself; nor will such a government hesitate by what means an injury can be repaired, or a fortune gained. Neither can language describe the low and base principles of a government which could employ such a miscreant as John Trumpet in its service. He was a tool in the hands of the government of Cochin; and, as the dog said in the fable, "What is done by the master's orders, is the master's action;" or, as the ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and hellish rage, which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... nobleman, selfish and wicked as now seems the fashion to describe him, force the peasant of Samogitia to servile work, when the latter had an opportunity of drawing a good profit from the results of his labor in the neighboring marts of Memel, Liban, Riga, Mittau, Venden, etc.? No, must ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... and the old theatre, on the City Hall side. I frequently afterward met him in this and other streets. He was always an object of interest, inasmuch as he had become an historical character, somewhat notoriously so. I will attempt to describe his appearance, or rather how he appeared to me: He was small, thin and attenuated in form, perhaps a little over five feet in height, weight not much over a hundred pounds. He walked with a slow, measured ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... as we have informed the reader, was the owner of a Lust Haus, or pleasure-house for sailors: we will describe that portion of her tenements more particularly by-and-bye: at present, we must advert to her own private house, which stood adjoining, and had a communication with the Lust Haus by a private door through the party wall. This was a ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... Jesus is in the heart which makes Him welcome, as the steam is in the piston, as the sap is in the branch, as the blood is in the heart, as the life is in the body. It would be impossible for words to describe a more intense spiritual Oneness than that which is here presented to us. The Saviour is in each of us, as the Father is in Him, and we are in Him, and He in God. "Our life is hid with Christ in God." Therefore we are not only one with Jesus ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... merriment, raised frankly to his face, were revelations to him. He had not seen such eyes before, and all the old-time similes for deep-brown orbs sprang instantly to mind. "Fathomless pools," "translucent amber"—no simile would really describe them. Late hours had never dimmed them, illness had never made them heavy, he was sure a lie had never made them shift from their straight gaze for one short second. He had not ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... she cried, her eyes brilliant with excitement. "Oh, tell me! I—" She faltered under his surprised stare, and went on rather lamely: "You see, I—we have been immensely interested in the Zariba Dam. The reports all describe it as an extraordinary work of engineering. And so we have been curious to learn something about ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... position that all the mounds of this region were for the purpose of observation as well as sepulture. The two purposes in no way antagonize. For the better understanding of the whole I have selected the largest mound of the Takawgamis yet discovered, and will describe it more minutely. ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... incredible. Indeed, it was only frequent repetition, and the credence of the hundred and fifty minds round me, which forced on me its full acceptance. As to that week of suspense, with its blank, yet burning days, which brought from him no word of explanation—I remember, but I cannot describe ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... known of the personal character of this man as of Shakespeare's; and the portraits of him, though much more numerous than those of the poet, are even less compatible with one another. The estimates and conjectures of historians also differ; some describe a pious hero and martyr, others a dissolute adventurer and charlatan. We are constrained, in the end, to construct his effigy from our own best interpretation of the things he did. Some little learning he had; just ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... stones,—flag-stones for the convenience of pedestrians being as yet unknown. In short, the streets in the towns and the roads in the country were alike rude and wretched,—indicating a degree of social stagnation and discomfort which it is now difficult to estimate, and almost impossible to describe. ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... en las Indias," has devoted some dozen columns of redondillas to an account of the sufferings of his countrymen in the expedition to the Amazon. The poet reckoned confidently on the patience of his audience. The following verses describe the miserable condition to which the Spaniards were reduced by the ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... them led me to wander down the bed of the creek, when, to my joy, I found a pond of water within a hundred yards of the tents. It is impossible for me to describe the relief I felt at this success, or the gladness it spread among the men. Mr. Hume joined me at dusk, and informed me that he had made a circuit, and had struck upon the creek about three miles below us but that, ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... Mrs. Orme had said; and then she kissed Lady Mason, and went her way. She had never left her without a kiss, had never greeted her without a warm pressure of the hand, since that day on which the secret had been told in Sir Peregrine's library. It would be impossible to describe how great had been the worth of this affection to Lady Mason; but it may almost be said that it had kept her alive. She herself had said but little about it, uttering but few thanks; but not the less had she recognised the value of what had been done for her. She had even ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Report to describe in detail, and with full justice, the varied labours in which these brethren are engaged. Like ministers at home, our Missionaries preach the Gospel; instruct, govern, and build up churches; watch over the young, and ...
— Fruits of Toil in the London Missionary Society • Various
... thirty years afterwards, with all his powers in their strongest training, and after the total change in his feelings and principles, which I have endeavored to describe, he undertook the series of "England and Wales," and in that series introduced the subject of Llanthony Abbey. And behold, he went back to his boy's sketch and boy's thought. He kept the very bushes in their places, but brought the fisherman to the other ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... To describe a city so much frequented as Glasgow, is unnecessary. The prosperity of its commerce appears by the greatness of many private houses, and a general appearance of wealth. It is the only episcopal city whose cathedral was ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... may imagine, for we cannot adequately describe, the burden of woe and grief which took possession of the soul of Paul when he found that his darling brother, on whose account he suffered so much anxiety and came such a distance, was gone forever from his sight. And when ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... could describe the beauties of the white bantams or the size of the big golden cock, ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... name SURYA, given by the Hindūs to the Sun, the Sect who paid him particular adoration were called Souras. Their painters describe his car as drawn by seven green horses. In the Temple of Visweswara, at Benares, there is an ancient piece of sculpture, well executed in stone, representing him sitting in a car drawn by a horse with twelve heads. His charioteer, by whom he is preceded, is ARUN [from [Hebrew: ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... or since has she been known to accomplish it. She put him down on the floor and stepped on him. She repented of the act in dust and ashes. Before she could get across the room to close the window ten more had come to his funeral. To describe the horrors of the ensuing hour she has no words. She put them out of the window,—they came directly back. She drowned them in the wash-bowl,—they fluttered, and sputtered, and buzzed up into the air. She killed them in corners,—they came to life ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... very point, Leonard. It is the temptation to us doctors to ascribe too much to the physical and too little to the moral; and perhaps you would be more convinced by Mr. Wilmot than by me; but I do verily believe that all the anguish you describe could and would have been insanity if grace had not been given you to conquer it. It was a tottering of the mind upon its balance; and, humanly speaking, it was the self-control that enabled you to force yourself to your duties, and find ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... other edge at d. The distance, C d, between the foot of this perpendicular and the other edge is the length of a wave of the light. The angle C D d, moreover, being equal to R C R', is, in the case now under consideration, 1'38". From the centre D, with the width D C as radius, describe a semicircle; its radius D C being 1.35 millimeter, the length of this semicircle is found by an easy calculation to be 4.248 millimeters. The length C d is so small that it sensibly coincides with the arc of the circle. Hence the length of ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... been generally recognised, and indeed it seems scarcely open to doubt, that the main theme which the poet set before himself in composing this hymn was to describe the traditional foundation of the Eleusinian mysteries by the goddess Demeter. The whole poem leads up to the transformation scene in which the bare leafless expanse of the Eleusinian plain is suddenly turned, at the will of the goddess, into a vast sheet of ruddy corn; the beneficent deity ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... manuscript. He handed it across the desk as Dal watched him. "You may read this if you like, at your leisure. Don't worry, it's not for publication, just a private study which I have never mentioned before to anyone, but the pattern is unmistakable. This peculiar talent of your people is difficult to describe: not really telepathy, but an ability to create the emotional responses in others that will be most favorable to you. Just what part your Fuzzies play in this ability of your people I am not sure, but I'm quite certain that without them ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... order and the style which has most power to move men, and especially uneducated men, to devotion; and therefore it speaks inaccurately of God and of events, seeing that its object is not to convince the reason, but to attract and lay hold of the imagination. (86) If the Bible were to describe the destruction of an empire in the style of political historians, the masses would remain unstirred, whereas the contrary is the case when it adopts the method of poetic description, and refers all things immediately to God. (87) When, therefore, the Bible says that the earth is ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part II] • Benedict de Spinoza
... don't, as I seem to remember hearing something said about it being a recent purchase. Mr. Carmyle bought it from some lord or other who had been losing money on the Stock Exchange. I hope you haven't seen it, anyway, because I want to describe it at great length. I want to pour out my soul about it. Ginger, what has England ever done to deserve such paradises? I thought, in my ignorance, that Mr. Faucitt's Cissister place was pretty good, but it doesn't even begin. It can't compete. Of course, his is just an ordinary country ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... of the various subjects treated of involved some consideration; two or three plans were open for adoption. 1st. To describe the several products in the order of their agricultural importance or commercial value. 2nd. An alphabetical reference, in the style of a Dictionary or Encyclopaedia; and 3rd. Classifying them under subdivisions, according to their particular or chief uses. The last seemed to me ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... admitted reluctantly, "that things seem to be as you describe them, but it is part of the ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... not consent to be mine unless I carried you away from Vienna. Then you went on to order our mode of travelling as you would have done had I been your husband. 'Be here at such an hour; have your passes for various countries. Describe me therein as your sister. Come through the garden and await me at the head of the secret stairway.' Is this a love-letter? It is a mere note of instructions. For one week I have waited for a look, a sigh, a pressure of the hand; and when I come hither to take you from ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... directed by the boys at the hand toward which Jimmie was pointing. It bore a scar running clear across the back—an ugly, jagged scar that they had heard Jimmie describe. ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... the druggist:—" The terrible stories Told me to-day will serve for a long time to make me unhappy. Words would fail to describe the manifold pictures of mis'ry. Far in the distance saw we the dust, before we descended Down to the meadows; the rising hillocks hid the procession Long from our eyes, and little could we distinguish about it. When, however, we reach'd the road that winds thro' the valley, Great was ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... 3 To describe in the most accurate manner the way the foetus clings to the teat. They should determine this by observations of several specimens of different ages, and repeat, if possible, on the Didelphides, the curious experiments made ...
— Movement of the International Literary Exchanges, between France and North America from January 1845 to May, 1846 • Various
... the idea of danger," Van Duyk said. "To them the idea that I should be charged with dealing with the enemy is so supremely ridiculous that they make light of it, and are inclined to think that the state of things I describe is purely a matter of my own imagination. If I were attacked they would come as quickly as they could to my aid; but they may be all ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... situation of the Great City. The Inn is a Gothic building, which Thynne in his Glossary says was the lodging of the Abbot of Hyde, by Winchester. On the Inn is inscribed its title, and a proper advantage is taken of this circumstance to describe the subject of the Picture. The words written over the gateway of the Inn are as follow: 'The Tabarde Inn, by Henry Baillie, the lodgynge-house for Pilgrims who journey to Saint Thomas's ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... surtout with its velvet collar, his gray pantaloons, his black stock, and his face, the most original one Nature ever modelled, yet the least obtrusively so; not one feature that could be termed marked or odd, yet the effect of the whole unique. There is no use in attempting to describe what is indescribable. Being in no hurry to address him, I sat ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... had returned to every aspect of his new experience, and he tried excitedly to describe the wonders of the vestibule, the stairway and the big hall. In the midst of it he paused suddenly and fell ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... to describe again his perils and his victories, and told in glowing language of the grisly monsters and the desperate combats, and of the boundless gratitude and splendid generosity of the Danish king, and of his prophecy of lasting friendship ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... colleagues and circle of principal citizens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of dinner-parties given me, as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in their familiar society. But I can not describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican government was evidently the favorite sentiment. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... time a strenuous endeavor was made to arouse popular indignation against the order. The regular and secular clergy were commanded to preach against the Templars, and to describe the horrible enormities that were practised among them. It is incredible to us in these days that such charges should be made, and still more that they should actually be believed. It was said that the Templars worshipped some hideous idol in their secret assemblies, that they offered sacrifices ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... breeches and powdered wigs who signed the Declaration of Independence and framed the Constitution—the soldiers in blue-and-buff, top-boots and epaulets who led the armies of the Revolution—were what we are wont to describe as gentlemen. They were English gentlemen. They were not all, nor even generally, scions of the British aristocracy; but they came, for the most part, of ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... camp was a stone-covered koppie, where, on the morning after our arrival, I saw six or eight men executed in a way that I will not describe. Their crime, according to Mr. Owen, was that they had bewitched ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... parish with the view of preventing, if possible, the sojourn there among my people of these objectionable characters. When there I was encountered by Mr. Fenwick, not only in a most unchristian spirit, but in a bearing so little gentlemanlike, that I cannot describe it to you. He had obtruded himself into my presence, into one of my own houses, the very house of the murdered man, and there, when I was consulting with the person to whom I have alluded as to the expediency of ridding ourselves of these ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... multitude of her dependants. The children, taking advantage of her absence, had fed only themselves. As a consequence, the trustful lives around the house had suffered a great wrong, and they were attempting to describe it to each other. The instant Pansy descended from the carriage the ducks, massed around the doorsteps, discovered her, and with frantic outcry and outstretched necks ran to find out what it all meant. The signal was taken up by other species and genera. In the stable ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... nation, and the sages into the life of the individual; and the historical books recorded its practical working. The significant fact is that back of the Old Testament records exists something greater and deeper than pen can fully describe: it is a vital, living connection between Jehovah and his people that makes possible the unique relation which finds expression in the remarkable history of the race and in the experiences and souls of its spiritual leaders. Thus ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... either for my book or for my visit. I say so much, in order that it may not be supposed that it is my special purpose to write an account of the struggle as far as it has yet been carried. My wish is to describe, as well as I can, the present social and political state of the country. This I should have attempted, with more personal satisfaction in the work, had there been no disruption between the North and South; ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,—for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,—insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, ...
— Sarrasine • Honore de Balzac
... this plough, but to make it himself, or rather to put it together himself, with the help of a carpenter and blacksmith in the neighbourhood. But before we introduce the old blacksmith, who is a very principal person in our story, we must describe the way in which Mr. Dymock ...
— Shanty the Blacksmith; A Tale of Other Times • Mrs. Sherwood [AKA: Mrs. Mary Martha Sherwood]
... continent over which the Queen of Great Britain ruled, and which comprised an area larger than that of the Federal and Confederate States put together. Now what was that great property? He could not describe it better than in the language of the United States. If the House would refer to the report on the Reciprocity Treaty laid before the House of Representatives at Washington in 1862 by Mr. Ward, they would find a glowing description of the vast extent, the wonderful ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... imagination which remain as yet an untilled field of her domain. Plowing is a simple art, but it requires much sweat. This at least we know—to the expenditure we cheerfully consent. So much for the beginning. It would be boastful to describe plans to keep pace with the enlarging of the motion picture field before a real beginning is made. But with youth in its favor, the Denver Art Museum hopes yet to see this art set in its rightful place with painting, sculpture, architecture, and the handicrafts—hopes ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Admiral's Men, who had been dispersed in 1591, some joining Strange's Men, some going to travel in Germany, were brought together again; and Edward Alleyn, who had formerly been their leader, and who even after he became one of Strange's Men continued to describe himself as "servant to the right honorable the Lord Admiral,"[226] was induced to rejoin them. Alleyn thereupon brought them to the Rose, where they began to perform on May 14, 1594. After three days, however, they ceased, probably ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... To describe the life of one Western town marshal, himself the best and most picturesque of them all, is to cover all this field sufficiently. There is but one man who can thus be chosen, and that is Wild Bill Hickok, better known for a generation as "Wild Bill," and properly accorded an honorable ...
— The Story of the Outlaw - A Study of the Western Desperado • Emerson Hough
... binds them we cannot always tell. With this person it is fashion, and with that it is earnings; with another it is pride, and still another selfishness; with this one it is the encouragement of some passion, and with still another it is the practice of some secret sin. It is not necessary to describe the bondage; it is true, alas, that many of us are sadly crippled in our influence because of these things, for this woman was just as truly bound as if she had been in chains. When Jesus entered the synagogue his eye saw her instantly, and he detected her difficulty. ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... but every intelligent being can make his own exercises, so I shall describe but one. Have the hands hanging at the sides, palms facing each other. Inhale slowly and at the same time bring the arms, which are to be held straight, forward and upward, or outward and upward, carrying them as far up and back over the head as possible. The arm motion is also to ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... As Chrysostom says (Hom. xv in Matth.), all these rewards are one in reality, viz. eternal happiness, which the human intellect cannot grasp. Hence it was necessary to describe it by means of various boons known to us, while observing due proportion to the merits to ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... which would pain the heart of a child to dwell upon, and which we will not describe at length. It is enough to know that the Lamb of God, who had come to take away the sins of the world, was willingly in the power of His enemies, and going down to death. A wonderful description of the trial and death of the Messiah may be found in the fifty-third chapter ...
— Child's Story of the Bible • Mary A. Lathbury
... akin to the first is this: the observation of each child should describe with great accuracy the child's relations to other children. Has he brothers or sisters? how many of each, and of what age? Does he sleep in the same bed or room with them? Do they play much with one another alone? ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... He mounted this loafing fellow on one of his horses three days a week and had him follow the hunt and report to him whenever they killed, and if he could view the fox so much the better, and then he made him describe it minutely, so he should know if it were his Silvia. But he dared not trust himself to go himself, lest his passion should master him and ...
— Lady Into Fox • David Garnett
... for this morning's service, and the chapter which follows it, describe the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ, both God and Man. They give us the facts, in language most awful from its perfect calmness, most pathetic from its perfect simplicity. But the passage of St Paul which I have chosen for my text gives us an ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... passed from hand to hand. In this manner the whole interior of the city is disposed in squares, so as to resemble a chess-board, and planned out with a degree of precision and beauty impossible to describe. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... been—or so I fancied—a fierce, shifty gleam in his coal-black eyes during the few brief minutes that he had bent over me as I lay there in my bunk, that seemed to reveal cruelty and treachery, rather than pity and good-will. Let me describe the man. Standing there beside my bunk, he had conveyed to me the impression of an individual nearly six feet in height,—I afterwards found his stature to be five feet ten inches in his stockings,—broad across ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... descriptions. Take, for instance, quality of tone. Each one of us knows perfectly the various qualities of the different speaking voices of friends and acquaintances, yet how many of us can so accurately describe those qualities to a stranger that he also may be able to identify the voices among a thousand others. The tabulation of such elusive qualities would have to be in very general terms. Such indefinable characteristics would, to some extent, have ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... to attempt, in a work of this kind, to describe the different species and varieties of horses; I shall, therefore, quickly pass on to a small selection from the numerous anecdotes placed before me, a few of which are the results of personal experience. Before I do this, however, it may be as ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... at Jarra, a large town situated at the bottom of some rocky hills. But before I proceed to describe the place itself, and relate the various occurrences which befel me there, it will not be improper to give my readers a brief recital of the origin of the war which induced me to take this route; an unfortunate determination, the immediate cause of all the misfortunes and calamities ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... soft, purring accents. "You know, darling Muriel, I have never looked upon Nicholas Ratcliffe as a marrying man. He is such a gay butterfly." (This with an indulgent shake of the head.) "Indeed, I have heard dear Mrs. Gybbon-Smythe describe him as a shocking little flirt. And they say he is fond of his glass too, but let us hope this is an exaggeration. I know for a fact that he has a very violent temper, and this may have given rise ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... facts toward a knowledge of the earth's surface, says one skilled authority, than any book that had been written before. The writer was the first to describe China, or Cathay, in its vastness of territory, its wonderfully rich and populous cities, and the first to tell of Tartary, Thibet, Burmah, Siam, Cochin-China, the Indian Archipelago, the Andaman ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... bad enough when he was separated from her by the entire length of the room; but their work required a certain collaboration, and there were occasions when he was established near her, when deliberately, in cold blood and of his own initiative, he was compelled to speak to her. No language could describe the anguish and difficulty of these approaches. His way was beset by obstacles and perils, by traps and snares; and at every turn there waited for him the shameful pitfall of the aitch. He whose easy courtesy charmed away the shyness of Miss Flossie Walker, whose ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... feeling the embarrassment of the other presence, and scarce knowing how best to describe my case. It seemed simple enough when I was alone, but now all my thoughts fled in confusion, and I realized how little call I had to ask assistance. My eyes fell, and the words trembled unspoken on my lips. When I dared glance up again ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... vain to describe the feelings of rage and despair which agitated the major's bosom, as he saw the party quit the hovel, accompanied by Coates. Aware as he was of their destination, after one or two desperate but ineffectual ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... only wanted to fling a quatre, and yet I threw deuce ace five times running. Some months were elapsed in this manner, till at last it was thought convenient to fix a day for the nuptials of the young couple, who seemed earnestly to desire it. During the preparations for the wedding, I need not describe the busy importance of my wife, nor the sly looks of my daughters: in fact, my attention was fixed on another object, the completing a tract which I intended shortly to publish in defence of my favourite principle. As I looked upon this ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... "I can hardly credit that. One uses such a phrase to describe fussy people, alive with foolish activity. Your worst enemy would not place ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... saved. The fatal reef where those parents had gone down also held for her a weird fascination, and at times the voice of the ocean seemed like the despairing cries of mortals. One picture, and it was her best, was a view of the wreck, as near as Uncle Terry could describe it, with human forms clinging to the ice-clad rigging and tempestuous seas leaping over them. The subject held an uncanny influence over her, and she had spent months on the picture. But this shadow of her life she kept ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... promontory with shadowy woods and low bare pasture-lands, with here and there a tower standing up or a solitary sea-mark, or a hamlet of clustered houses by the water's edge, while the water between grew paler and stiller, reflecting the wan green of the sky. It is not easy to describe the effect of this scene, thus magically transfigured, upon the mind; but it is a very real and distinct emotion, though its charm depends upon the fact that it shifts the reality of the world to a further point, away from the ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... prevent being imposed upon. Communication addressed to A. B. and left at the composing room, if originating in honorable intentions will be attended to with secrecy, honor and punctuality, and should the interview succeed, the advertiser will faithfully describe his situation and prospects. ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... sashes waved to and fro, and ornamented branches nodded their heads about. In addition to this, the members of the family were clad in such fineries that they put the peach tree to shame, made the almond yield the palm, the swallow envious and the hawk to blush. We could not therefore exhaustively describe them within our ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... describe all that occurred in the boat. We made fair way while the wind continued fair, and the weather favourable, but Jamaica still seemed a long distance off. It is a large island however, so that there was not much ...
— Marmaduke Merry - A Tale of Naval Adventures in Bygone Days • William H. G. Kingston
... production will be attempted. Only the making of flies of the very highest quality and most durable construction will be attempted. In describing the principals of construction with the following illustrations, it will be impossible to describe in detail each standard pattern; however, it must be remembered that the fundamentals applying to each style of fly will be the principal bases of construction of all flies of that style, and that the use of ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... way one will describe the size of a pecan is to say it is as large as his thumb and about two thirds the length of his forefinger, and so thin shelled that two of them can easily be cracked in the hand ...
— Northern Nut Growers Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-First Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... sorts of documents emanating from the Old South have a character of true depiction inversely proportioned to their abundance and accessibility. The statutes, copious and easily available, describe a hypothetical regime, not an actual one. The court records are on the one hand plentiful only for the higher tribunals, whither questions of human adjustments rarely penetrated, and on the other ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... openly and without afterthought made love to him. He was a charming little lad, it is true; but quite apart from that, he was the only male creature above servant rank in the household. I describe him so because I cannot bring myself to call him a man; but he was quite man enough for the lady's intent. It is a surprising instance of the tact there was innate in the youth that he checked every undue liberty on the part of his mistress ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... Julia was not so easy to describe. Her figure was tall, lithe, and serpentine; her hair the colour of a horse-chestnut fresh from its pod; her ears tiny and shell-like, her eyelashes long and silky; her mouth small when grave, large ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... faith, Captain, you are just in time. Only a moment ago a lady, such as you describe, but prettier than that, got into ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... executed, not on account of his stubborn defense, but because at the beginning of the siege he had said he would surrender and had not kept his word. After the fall of Kingyang the Chinese troops were granted a well-earned rest, and Suta visited Nankin to describe the campaign to Hongwou. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... Supplement, a letter by Mr. R. Barrett Browning appeared. He says: 'Mr. Hume, who subsequently changed his name to Home' ('Home' is pronounced 'Hume' in Scotland), 'was detected in a "vulgar fraud," for I have heard my father repeatedly describe how he caught hold of his foot under the table.' In the other story the foot was above the table; in the new version no infant phantasm occurs. Moreover, to catch a man's foot under a table in itself proves nothing. What was the foot doing, and ...
— Historical Mysteries • Andrew Lang
... and those who remained on board watched the progress of the boats, as well as the movements on the rock, with intense interest. It is scarcely possible to describe the excitement on the rock, caused by the departure of the boat. If the actions had before been extravagant, they were now doubly so; they shrieked, they danced, they embraced each other with the most frantic gestures; and, indeed, appeared ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... at which time their learning was greatly impaired, and their antient theology ruined. Horus Apollo assures us, if any credit may be given to what he says, that this canine figure was an emblem of the earth: [44][Greek: Oikoumenen graphontes kunokephalon zographousi.] When they would describe the earth, they paint a Cunocephalus. It could not, therefore, I should think, in any degree relate to Canuphis. The same[45] writer informs us, that under the figure of a dog they represented a priest, or sacred scribe, and a prophet; and all ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant
... their commerce, either purchased of the nabobs and rajahs, or conquered in the course of the war. As the operations we propose to record were confined to the coasts of Malabar and Coromandel, or the interior countries which form the peninsula intra Gangem, it will be unnecessary to describe the factory at Bencoolen, on the island of Sumatra, or any settlement which the English possess in other parts of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... suffering among women is unnecessary, being due to the neglect of the little things, so much ill health can be relieved by attention to a few simple hygienic measures, that I think it wise to describe some of the most common disorders of the female organs, and to explain their symptoms so that you would not ignorantly neglect them, if you should be so unfortunate ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... you know me is not the name by which I have been known here. I must beg you to address the telegram to 'The Reverend Julian Gray, Mablethorpe House, Kensington.' He is here, and he will show it to me. No words of mine can describe what I owe to him. He has never despaired of me—he has saved me from myself. God bless and reward the kindest, truest, best man I have ...
— The New Magdalen • Wilkie Collins
... was in the arms of her old mother; the smiles, kisses and tears of the whole family party were bountifully showered upon poor Cecelia, and her sweet little daughter. Imagination may always better paint such a scene, than could the feeble pen describe it. The deep and gushing eloquence of human nature, when thus long pent, bursts forth, sweeping the meagre devises of the pen before it, like snow-flakes before the mighty ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... a description of this most memorable battle, I do not pretend to give you figures, and describe how this general looked and how that one spoke, and the other one charged with drawn sabre, etc. I know nothing of these things—see the history for that. I was simply a soldier of the line, and I only write of the things I saw. I was in every battle, skirmish ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... could describe the Heathcroft manner of saying "Isn't there." I can't, however; there is ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... Chicago Republican convention in 1912, when he kidded the standpat crowd out of every Republican state in the union but two at the election. Possibly you don't like that word kid. But it's in the dictionary, and there's no other word to describe Henry's talent. He is always jamming the allegro into the adagio. And that night in the encircling gloom on the boat as we started on our martial adventures he began kidding the ocean. His idea ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... water beginning to change itself into ice? Yes. Then try to describe the sight. Success in that trial will prove you a poet. People do not prove themselves poets only by writing long poems. A line—two words—may show that they are the Muse's sons. How exquisitely does Burns picture to our eyes ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... them seated round a table in the middle of the room, at the head of which table stood a high arm-chair, and in it, as I believe, the biggest man I had ever seen. The looks of the company are past my power to describe, being such as to make me feel as if I had broke into Bedlam. Their faces were all red and blotched with drink, and their heads covered with extravagant ringlets, which might never have seen a comb, while their dress was disordered to indecency, and the whole ...
— Athelstane Ford • Allen Upward
... Paul (Gal. 6:2)—"pursue hospitality" (Rom. 12:13; the very word runs through the Epistles of the New Testament). And, as we shall see in a later chapter, the Last Judgement itself turns on whether a man has kindly instincts or not. Matthew quotes (12:20) to describe Jesus' own tenderness the impressive phrase of Isaiah (42:3), "A bruised reed shall he ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover
... endless attempt to describe that scene of confusion and disturbance occasioned by him [Whitefield]: the division of families, neighborhoods, and towns, the contrariety of husbands and wives, the undutifulness of children and servants, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... be, appearing perhaps somewhat in advance of her contemporaries, but rather from her training than from intrinsic force of character. The qualities of womanhood well developed, were so entirely the staple of her composition, that there is little to describe in her. Was not she one made to learn; to lean; to admire; to support; to enhance every joy; to soften every sorrow of ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... intend to soar too high. It is not for our alien pen to portray the splendors of such a marriage as that of the princess of Satsuma to Iyesada, the thirteenth Sho-gun of the Tokugawa dynasty, when all Yedo was festal and illuminated for a week. Neither shall we describe that of the imperial princess Kazu, the younger sister of the Mikado, who came up from Kioto to wed the young Sho-gun Iyemochi, and thus to unite the sacred blood of twenty-five centuries of imperial succession with that of the Tokugawas, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... about what took place at the Doctor's cottage and at the old manor? I think not. There is surely no boy who reads this and thinks of his mother's tears who cannot imagine the scene far more vividly than I can describe it. For the long mourned ones had returned, as if by a miracle, and all ...
— Cormorant Crag - A Tale of the Smuggling Days • George Manville Fenn
... primeval part of it. Izanagi, whose return to the upper world takes place in southwestern Japan,* now cleanses himself from the pollution he has incurred by contact with the dead, and thus inaugurates the rite of purification practised to this day in Japan. The Records describe minutely the process of his unrobing before entering a river, and we learn incidentally that he wore a girdle, a skirt, an upper garment, trousers, a hat, bracelets on each arm, and a necklace, but no mention is made of footgear. Twelve Kami are born from these various articles as he discards them, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... that the instrument, continuing to move in the same direction, will roll around the point B. It is well, then, to manage so that the system shall have another point of support. For that reason I prolong C B, take B C' B C, draw C' I, and describe the circumference—the geometrical place of the points C'. I take C' D C' B and obtain at D the position of the fixed point at which the needle is inserted. In Fig. 4 are represented different positions of the instrument; and it may be seen that all the points C C', and the centers ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 363, December 16, 1882 • Various
... placed; his contracted pronunciation of the word "breach," and other new readings and actings, kept the house in a right joyous humour, until the climax of all mirth was attained by the dying scene of "the gallant and the gay;" but who shall describe the prolonged agonies of the dark seducer! his platted hair escaping from the comb that held it, and the dark crineous cordage that flapped upon his shoulders in the convulsions of his dying moments, and the cries of the people ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, - Vol. 10, No. 283, 17 Nov 1827 • Various
... good morning to one another across the room; and pretty soon one saw me lying there and called attention to the fact. Then they all began to crowd to the front and hang out over the sides of the beds in a fringe, to study my habits. I can't describe the strange spectacle: you would have supposed it was the middle of March and a forward season! There were more worms than I had counted, and they were larger ones than I had thought. And the more they got awake the wider they yawned, and the longer they stretched. The fat fellows ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... for the magnificent and was sure only of the limits of what I saw. It wasn't that the boys swarming for us at school were not often, to my vision, unlimited, but that those peopling our hours of ease, as I have already noted, were almost inveterately so—they seemed to describe always, out of view, so much larger circles. I linger thus on Edgar by reason of its having somehow seemed to us that he described—was it at Doctor Anthon's?—the largest of all. If there was a bigger place than Doctor Anthon's it was there he would ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... of ancient wisdom, and a man who has travelled in India, even if he has only discovered Calcutta, or Bombay, or Madras, is listened to like another Marco Polo. In England a student of Sanskrit is generally considered a bore, and an old Indian civil servant, if he begins to describe the marvels of Elephanta or the Towers of Silence, runs the risk ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... dilate upon; I was, however, sorry to perceive there was occasionally a want of "holding in" in his conversation upon points which a due self-respect for those acquirements which he possessed, equal to any individual living, should have taught him to have observed. To describe this deficiency as laconically as possible, Mr. Colton wanted that mental firmness which the unfortunate Burns has aptly enough termed "Self-control." I once saw him, in the company of the above mentioned Mr. Tucker, seat himself, at Edmonton Fair, in one of those vulgar vehicles ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... circumstances which prepared him for this work, and in repeating the vision in which like a Hebrew prophet the young officer was called to teach the Negroes, the writer shows that work to have been a definite growth. No one who knew Samuel C. Armstrong can ever forget him, or ever describe him, but not one of his wide circle ever failed to be moved by any contact with him to put forth his own powers to ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... describe the character of this unfortunate man. Just as is the condemnation which facts compel history to pronounce, I have a feeling of relief in the thought, that, before the tribunal to which he so long ago passed, the mercy we all shall need, which comprehends all motives and allows for all infirmities, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... out, a few days later, to redeem my promise, I found that, in order to make things intelligible, it was absolutely necessary to explain the historical backgrounds of the Russian revolutionary movement, to describe the point of view of various persons and groups with some detail, and to quote quite extensively from the documentary material I had gathered. Naturally, the limits of a letter were quickly outgrown and I found that my response to my friend's innocent request approached the length of a small volume. ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... of the Thirteenth Century, gave herself up so wholly to this inward contemplation; to fasting, prayer, and withdrawal from the outer to the inner life, that she lived as the "bride of God," in such daily contact with Him as would fitly describe any love-mated honeymoon of today. According to her testimony "God" indulged in such language and caresses, and intimacies, kisses and compliments as would satisfy any woman married to ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad |
