"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... one led to glory and fame, While the other fulfilled not his heart-cherished aim; But the scales of mortality darkened his eye, And the thing I saw plainly he could not descry. ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... made him look up. Then he saw that he was under a great beech, and the sound seemed to come from somewhere in the top of it—a sound like the pleased cooing of a dove. He looked hard into the branches and their wilderness of fresh leaves, but could descry nothing. Then came a little laugh, and with a preparatory rustling and rustling in its passage, a book—a small folio—fell plump at ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... on earnest business bent, Their murmuring labours ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty, Some bold adventurers disdain 35 The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry: Still as they run they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... chose for joining the boat together was a hill about half a mile from the city, thinking by that means the better to descry the approach of danger. When the pieces were united, and the canvas drawn on, four of our number carried the boat down to the sea, where, stripping ourselves naked, and putting our clothes within, we carried it as far as ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... embarked? Where were the ships?—Where could they be found? All our telescopes, directed over the sea could not descry a single friendly sail Bonaparte, I affirm, would have regarded such an event as a real favour of fortune. It was, and—I am glad to have to say it, this sole idea, this sole hope, which made him brave, for three days, the murmurs of his ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... livid hue the fairest face o'ercast, And every beauty withers at the blast: Where e'er they fly their lover's ghosts pursue, Inflicting all those ills which once they knew; Vexation, Fury, Jealousy, Despair, Vex ev'ry eye, and every bosom tear; Their foul deformities by all descry'd, No maid to flatter, and no paint to hide. Then melt, ye fair, while crouds around you sigh, Nor let disdain sit lowring in your eye; With pity soften every awful grace, And beauty smile auspicious in each face; To ease ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... been forwarded to them from the school, and by which the mistress was to identify them. As they left the carriage, they glanced anxiously at the coat of each lady who passed them on the platform, to descry a similar rosette. All in vain. Everybody was in a hurry, and ...
— A Patriotic Schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... their skinnes pierced thorow with them in many partes of their bodies." Yet, giddy with weakness, they dragged themselves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to descry the anxiously expected sail. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... We had entered a ravine and came on a cluster of wigwams to the lee side of a bluff. Dusk hid our approach; and the absence of the dogs that usually infest Indian camps told us that these fellows were marauders. Smoke curled up from the poles crisscrossed at the tepee forks, but we could descry no figures against the tent-walls as in summer, for heavy skins of the chase overlaid the parchment. All was silence but in one wigwam. This was an enormous structure, built on poles long as a mast, with moose-hides scattered so thickly ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... lord! thou didst threat me with the cord; Come forth and brave my sword, if you dare!" But he met with no reply, and never could descry The glitter of ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... themselves with the enumeration of his goodness to them all, and with a fervent prayer for his safe return. The moon gleamed upon the bay as Mrs. Bates and Nannie looked from their windows upon the sparkling waves, and they almost fancied they could descry afar off the beaming face of their kind friend; but he lay heart-sick and home-sick in the berth of the tossing ship, thinking of his cosey room, and of the attic where so many pleasant moments had been spent, and wondering if Nannie and Pat would ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... knee-deep in verdure and shooting aloft in grotesque peaks. The open space lies at the head of the bay; in the distance it extends into a broad hazy plain lying at the foot of an amphitheatre of hills. Here is the large sugar plantation previously alluded to. Beyond the first range of hills, you descry the sharp pinnacles of the interior; and among these, the same silent Marling-spike which we so often admired from the other ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... fury reaches the remotest coast, And strows the Asiatic shore with dust. 160 Now does the sailor from the neighbouring main Look after Gallic towns and forts in vain; No more his wonted marks he can descry, But sees a long unmeasured ruin lie; Whilst, pointing to the naked coast, he shows His wondering mates where towns and steeples rose, Where crowded citizens he lately view'd, And singles out the place where once St Maloes stood. Here Russel's actions ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... it seemed to threaten their advance, but by keeping close to the shore, they held their way, and on the 24th they encamped on a fine stream of water running through a mesa at the foot of a sierra, whence looking across the sea, they could descry Santa Catalina Island. This was San Juan Capistrano, and here they rested on the 25th. On the 28th they reached the Santa Ana river, near the present town of that name; a violent shock of earthquake which they experienced caused them to name ...
— The March of Portola • Zoeth S. Eldredge
... and golden dreams anon, Born as the busy day's last murmurs die, In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom Their breathing lips and golden locks descry. And as the bees o'er bright flowers joyous roam, Around their ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... note; one of his little store, useless to me at St. Peter's—yes; but, even as my eyes pricked to the emotion of gratitude, some inner consciousness told me my friend's gift would yet prove of very real use to me outside the Orphanage, one day. And, before Ted came, I had been unable to descry ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Berwick no longer look out from the castle walls to descry the glitter of Southern spears. The bell-tower from which the alarm was sounded is now silent—the only bell heard within the precincts of the castle being that of the railway porter, announcing the arrival and departure of trains. The Scotch express passes along the bridge, and ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... across the meadow. It is a crisp autumn day, about ten o'clock in the morning, and the sun is shining. The golden ears are piling up under my magic skill, and there is peace. As I take down another bundle from the shock I descry what seems to be a sort of procession wending its way through the orchard. Then the rail fence is surmounted, and the procession solemnly moves across the meadow. In time the president and an assortment of faculty members stand before me, bedight in caps and gowns. I note that their gowns are ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... they have passed, one after one, Wearing their radiance to the darkened room,—— Surely, new-comers to Oblivion May still descry, in that all-quenching gloom, Rare faces, lovely, lifted and alight, Like tapers burning through the ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... Lithuania, ye who have upraised Fraternal banners against a common foe, Against mine enemy, yon crafty villain. Ye sons of Slavs, speedily will I lead Your dread battalions to the longed-for conflict. But soft! Methinks among you I descry New faces. ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... should find ourselves not much nearer what we wanted at the end. O toiling hands of mortals! O unwearied feet, travelling ye know not whither! Soon, soon, it seems to you,' you must come forth on some conspicuous hilltop, and but a little way further, against the setting sun, descry the spires of El Dorado. Little do ye know your own blessedness; for to travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... toward the lane gate, the worst was at once made known. The lane gate off Mr. Freeland's house, is nearly a half mile from the door, and shaded by the heavy wood which bordered the main road. I was, however, able to descry four white men, and two colored men, approaching. The white men were on horseback, and the colored men were walking behind, and seemed to be tied. "It is all over with us," thought I, "we are surely betrayed." I now became composed, or at least comparatively so, ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... hill-tops that meet the northern sky, Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry; And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloud veil aside, And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride; And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour— We are coming, Father Abraham—three hundred ...
— The Good Old Songs We Used to Sing, '61 to '65 • Osbourne H. Oldroyd
... of Judah from the remnant left in the land. After suffering for years the hopelessness of converting his people, the Prophet at last saw an Israel of whom hope might be dared. It was not their distance which lent enchantment to his view for he gives proof that he can descry the dross still among them, despite the furnace through which they have passed.(493) But the banished were without doubt the best of the nation, and now they had "dreed their weird," gone through the fire, been lifted out of the habits and passions of the past, and chastened ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... in every bush and nook doth pry, Her dearest Deer might answer ear or eye; So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss, A dearer Deer (far dearer Heart) than this. Still wait with doubts and hopes and failing eye; His voice to hear or person to descry. Or as the pensive Dove doth all alone (On withered bough) most uncouthly bemoan The absence of her Love and Loving Mate, Whose loss hath made her so unfortunate; Ev'n thus doe I, with many a deep sad groan, Bewail my turtle true, who now is gone, His presence and his safe return, still ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... 'tis fit and clear That each should consider what's most near. But as the general says, say I, One should always the whole of a case descry. We call ourselves all the Friedlander's troops; The burgher, on whom we're billeted, stoops Our wants to supply, and cooks our soups. His ox, or his horse, the peasant must chain To our baggage-car, and may grumble in vain. ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... we can descry the school-master who arrived at the front rather late in life. One needs only to go over the record and mark how often he has reversed himself to detect a certain mental and temperamental instability clearly indicating a lack of fixed or resolute intellectual purpose. This is characteristic ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... of sight. I marvelled at this and faring forwards found myself on a peak overlooking a valley, exceeding great and wide and deep, and bounded by vast mountains that spired high in air: none could descry their summits, for the excess of their height, nor was any able to climb up thereto. When I saw this, I blamed myself for that which I had done and said, "Would Heaven I had tarried in the island! It was better than this wild desert; for there I had at least fruits to eat and water to drink, and ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... sound of traffic penetrated into the room,—strangely mournful, a reminder of the immense and ineffable melancholy of a city which could not wholly lose itself in sleep. The window lightened. He could descry his wife's portable clock on the night-table. A quarter to four. Turning over savagely in bed, he muttered: "My night's done for. And nearly five hours to breakfast. Good God!" The cycle ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... waters the lower the ground is under them, and the higher they must build to reach the height they reached before. From Carrollton the current rebounds, and swinging over to the other shore strikes it, boiling like a witch's caldron, just above and along the place where you may descry the levee lock ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... do not descry my hermitage, which is situated in the midst of a forest, among that immense variety of objects which this elevated spot presents, the grounds are disposed with particular beauty, at least to one who, like me, loves rather the seclusion of a home scene, than great and extensive ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... Red Indians (Lejeune), Romans (Varro, cited in Civitas Dei, iii. 457), Africans of Fez (Leo Africanus); while Maoris use a drop of blood (Taylor), Egyptians use ink (Lane), and Australian savages employ a ball of polished stone, into which the seer 'puts himself' to descry the results ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... him by the hair, and turned him over on his back, then threw myself upon my back, and dragged his head up high enough upon my breast to lift his mouth out of water, supporting him and myself by vigorous strokes with my feet. Looking round, as we rose on the crest of a sea, I could dimly descry the brig through the rapidly increasing gloom; and to my horror she appeared to be a long distance away. I had time only, however, for a momentary glance, when we sank into the trough, and I lost sight of her. A few seconds afterwards I caught sight of her again, ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... did he stoop a listening ear, Sweep round an anxious eye, No bark or ax-blow could he hear, No human trace descry. His sinuous path, by blazes, wound Among trunks grouped in myriads round; Through naked boughs, between Whose tangled architecture fraught With many a shape grotesquely wrought, The hemlock's spire ...
— Oonomoo the Huron • Edward S. Ellis
... finest traits of the religion of their forefathers! The gloom of their times only led them more eagerly to con the predictions of their Hebrew prophets, and desire their accomplishment. Full often they would climb the heights and look out over the desert wastes to descry the advent of the Mighty One, coming from Edom, with his garments stained with the blood of Israel's foes. When they met, the burden of conversation, which flowed under vine or fig-tree, by the wayside or in humble homes, would be of their cherished hope. And as they beheld ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... He seemed, in the shadows, to descry weird phantom-shapes, moving stealthily; in the silence to hear ghostly whispers; sometimes he fancied he heard the silence itself! But in the very fear that clutched his throat there was a fascination—a lure—that made it impossible to ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... of impatience and fright. He dared not abjure the postman to hurry, lest Dobson should turn his head and descry his colleague. But that ancient man had begun to realize the shortness of time and was urging the cart along at a fair pace, since they were now on the flatter shelf of land which ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan
... and Ida Barton a super-woman—or at least they were personalities so designated by the cub book-reviewers, flat-floor men and women, and scholastically emasculated critics, who from across the dreary levels of their living can descry no glorious humans over-topping their horizons. These dreary folk, echoes of the dead past and importunate and self-elected pall-bearers for the present and future, proxy-livers of life and vicarious sensualists that they are in a eunuch sort of way, insist, since their own selves, environments, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... of alarm a trusty sentinel on the roof of the building was so stationed, as to be able to descry every suspicious object while yet in the distance. The gates were always firmly barred by night; and sentinels took their alternate watch, and relieved each other until morning. Nothing in the line of fortification can be imagined more easy of ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... and sorrow seized them when they gazed on the mist and the levels of vast land stretching far like a mist and continuous into the distance; no spot for water, no path, no steading of herdsmen did they descry afar off, but all the scene was possessed by a dead calm. And thus did one hero, vexed ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... Shales and his companions would have to pass along Wilderness Road, which skirts the churchyard. Shales himself was as short-sighted as a bat; but his companions had the usual long-sight of agriculturists, and would descry the slightest movement in the church-yard, or any glimmer of light at ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... blotted out acres and acres of grass. Thousands of sheep were grazing there. Jean knew there were several flocks of Jorth's sheep on the mountain in the care of herders, but he had never thought of them being so far west, more than twenty miles from Chevelon Canyon. His roving eyes could not descry any herders or dogs. But he knew there must be dogs close to that immense flock. And, whatever his cunning, he could not hope to elude the scent and sight of shepherd dogs. It would be best to go back the ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... how Kant bases his whole system upon the indestructible fact of ethical law, the primeval intuition of the awakened spirit of man into the eternal distinction between good and evil. Standing on that foundation, he is able to descry the world of transcendental realities—"the land which is very far off"—which the pure and critical reason could never behold. But though the eyes of the mind were holden, the intuition of the will enables him to gaze direct into the unseen ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... nor'wester howled along and lashed the narrow sea between England and the Continent; yet I kept our frail skiff before it, hoping, at daylight, to descry the lowlands of Belgium. The heart-broken woman rested motionless in the stern-sheets. We covered her with all the available garments, and, even in the midst of our own griefs, could not help feeling that the suddenness ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Etienne, turning to his friend, "you would see an oak counter from some bankrupt wine merchant's sale, and a tallow dip, never snuffed for fear it should burn too quickly, making darkness visible. By that anomalous light you descry rows of empty shelves with some difficulty. An urchin in a blue blouse mounts guard over the emptiness, and blows his fingers, and shuffles his feet, and slaps his chest, like a cabman on the box. Just look about you! there are no more books there ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... six in the morning, after being commended to God by Mr. Paz, we worked out of Savannah-la-Mar, and, having gained an offing with a light breeze, hoisted all her bits of canvas, even to a light jib-topsail we found on board—chiefly, I think, to impress her late owner, whom we could descry on the shore, watching us. He had steadfastly refused to believe us capable of handling a boat, whereas of our party Plinny and Mr. Goodfellow were the only landlubbers. Miss Belcher could take the helm with the best of us, and indeed it ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... be had at Budgett's. As custom increased, so did envy and accusation. Many scrupled not to declare, that they sold cheaper than they bought, and therefore must soon come to an end; yet they went on, year by year, in steady and rapid increase.... He already seemed to descry in the distance the possibility of a great wholesale establishment; but this must be reached by little and little. He would not attempt what he could not accomplish. Any sudden bound, therefore, by which he was at ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... wherefore else that start, which discomposes 5 The drowsy waters lingering in your eye? And are you really able to descry That precipice three ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... could descry her, walking about the yard in the pale sunshine. He had expected to find her preoccupied as usual; but to-day she was strolling restlessly to and fro in front of the house, quite near it and quite idle. When she saw him coming, scarce aware of her own actions, she went round the house and walked ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... green wood, come away, The floor with grass and flowers is gay! There ’neath no tree shalt thou descry In churlish guise old jealousy. Fear not my love, afar is now The loon, thy tiresome lord, I trow; To all a jest amidst his clan He choler deals in Cardigan. Here, nestled nigh the sounding sea, In Ifor’s bush we’ll ever be. More bliss for ...
— The Brother Avenged - and Other Ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... sun, the twilight, the moonlight. These are, for the painter, honeymoon trips with Nature. One is alone with her in that long and quiet association. You go to sleep in the fields, amid marguerites and poppies, and when you open your eyes in the full glare of the sunlight you descry in the distance the little village with its pointed clock tower which sounds the hour ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... babies I ever saw," replied Maria guardedly. She did not wish to descry the baby which was, after all, her sister, but she privately thought ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... conjunction with the light, it suggested some one who had been watching and had slunk away; but even that thought was slightly melodramatic in so well-ordered a community. He went on till he was at the foot of the steps, at a point where he could no longer descry the glow in the upper window, but could perceive through the fanlight over the inner door that, though the lower hall was dark, the electrics were burning somewhere in ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... Niccolo, it's no great science We shall ever conquer, you and I. Yet, when you are nestled at my shoulder, Others guess not half that we descry. ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... flew Charm'd to meet my Leila's view? Dost thou wonder that I hung Raptur'd on my Leila's tongue? If her ghost's funereal screech Thro' the earth my grave should reach, On that voice I lov'd so well My transported ghost would dwell:— If in death I can descry Where my Leila's relics lie, Saher's dust will flee away, There to ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... at hand: A holy maid hither with me I bring, Which by a vision sent to her from heaven Ordained is to raise this tedious siege, And drive the English forth the bounds of France. The spirit of deep prophecy she hath, Exceeding the nine sibyls of old Rome: What's past and what's to come she can descry. Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words, For they are ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... how anxiously both officers and men scanned the western horizon towards which they were steering. Each one had a pecuniary motive for wishing to be the first to descry the New Continent, King Ferdinand having promised a reward of 10,000 maravedis, or 400 pounds sterling, to the first discoverer. The latter days of the month of September were enlivened by the presence of numerous ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... said Rashleigh. "It is not worth while; it is no Isle of Calypso, umbrageous with shade and intricate with silvan labyrinth—but a bare ragged Northumbrian moor, with as little to interest curiosity as to delight the eye; you may descry it in all its nakedness in half an hour's survey, as well as if I were to lay it down before you by ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... cluster of old houses, and scarcely saw them in the deepening night. As she went by the mill she could just descry its ruined roof standing out like a dark pyramid against the dun sky. The snow fell faster. It was now lying thick on her cloak in front, and on the windward face of the lantern in ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... pretend That the latter world shall end To tremendous fire a prey, And to ashes sink away. To the Ark I now go back, Which pursues its dreary track, Lost and 'wilder'd till the Lord In his mercy rest accord. Early of a morning tide They unclosed a window wide, Heaven's beacon to descry, And a gentle dove let fly, Of the world to seek some trace, And in two short hours' space It returns with eyes that glow, In its beak an olive bough. With a loud and mighty sound, They exclaim: 'The world we've found.' To a mountain nigh they drew, And ...
— The Zincali - An Account of the Gypsies of Spain • George Borrow
... deem'd That it wild and desert seem'd: Not a road was there in sight; Not a house and not a wight; Not a bird and not a brute, Not a rill, and not a root; Not an emmet, not a fly, Not a thing I mote descry: Sore I doubted therewithal Whether death would me befall. Nor was wonder, for around Full three hundred miles of ground, Right across on every side Lay the ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... he who annihilated the sea pride of Spain, and dragged the humbled banner of France in triumph at his stem. He was born yonder, towards the west, and of him there is a glorious relic in that old town; in its dark flint guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen; a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... which was attached, on the peak of the adjacent hill, a beacon for transmitting alarms. You will find such here and there, all along the range of chalk hills, which traverses the country from north- east to south-west, and along the base of which runs the ancient Iknield road, whereof you may descry a portion in that long straight ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... you,' said Carker, 'when I think you descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs Dombey's pride—I use the word as expressive of a quality which, kept within due bounds, adorns and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments—and, not to say of punishing her, but of reducing her to the submission you ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You are alone with her in that long and tranquil rendezvous. You go to bed in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide open, you watch the going down of the sun, and descry in the distance the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the hour ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... once descry Her face, to most unknown; Thenceforth like changelings from the sky ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... work close along the whole of the southern coast of Saint Domingo on our eastward passage; and this we did, looking in first behind the island of a-Vache, where we were lucky enough to descry a French privateer brigantine snugly anchored under the shelter of a small battery. As there is nothing like making hay whilst the sun shines, we at once headed straight for the anchorage, and, trusting to the extreme roguishness of our own appearance to put our enemies off their ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... support. Still we plodded on for two more weary hours, cutting our steps in the icy cliffs, or sinking to our thighs in the treacherous snow-beds. We could see that we were nearing the top of the great chasm, for the clouds, now entirely cleared away, left our view unobstructed. We could even descry the black Kurdish tents upon the northeast slope, and, far below, the Aras River, like a streak of silver, threading its way into the purple distance. The atmosphere about us grew colder, and we buttoned up our now too scanty garments. ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... made no great clamor until the menacing ship drew close enough for them to descry the dreadful pennant which showed as a sable blot against the evening sky. Two women fainted and others were seized with violent hysteria. Their shrill screams were so distressing that the skipper ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... and the first recognisable bulks at which attention is arrested are in truth those shadowy Fichtean divisions: such are the rude beginnings of logical architecture. In its inability to descry anything definite and fixed, for want of an acquired empirical background and a distinct memory, the mind flounders forward in a dream full of prophecies and wayward identifications. The world possesses as yet in its regard only the superficial ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... seemed specially endowed with a conscience for the guidance of other people, so quick was he to descry and pounce upon their shortcomings. If one's sins are sure to find one out, there is little doubt but that Brother Nehemiah would ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... Her acting, as she replied by gesture to the question of the king, was perfect in its realization of the simplicity of Elsa. Nevertheless I, at any rate, as I searched her features through the lorgnon that Mrs. Sullivan had silently handed to me, could descry beneath the actress the girl—the spoilt and splendid child of Good Fortune, who in the very spring of youth had tasted the joy of sovereign power, that unique and terrible dominion over mankind which belongs ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... his toils! To ascend a hill and say you are the first civilized man that has ever trod on this spot; to gaze around from its summit and behold a prospect over which no European eye has ever before wandered; to descry new mountains; to dart your eager glance down unexplored valleys, and unvisited glens; to trace the course of rivers whose waters no white man's boat has ever cleaved, and which tempt you onwards into the ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... miles more, and the Glory of the South Seas would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama. Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first descry the sails of the Spanish treasure. For once his luck failed him. The wind suddenly fell. Before Drake needed to issue the order, his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for dear life, towing the ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... made our way through the trench towards the batteries at the foot of the Loos Crassier. In doing so, we had to pass under the road. I was going on ahead, and when I stooped down to pass under the bridge, to my surprise I could dimly descry in the darkness a row of silent men sitting on each side of the passage facing one another. I said, "Good-night, boys," but there was no answer. The figures in the darkness remained motionless and still. I could ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... between the sessions, were times of paradise to Cosmo. Now first he seemed to himself to begin to understand the simple greatness of his father, and appreciate the teaching of Mr. Simon. He seemed to descry the outlines of the bases on which they ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... later the man appeared at the ground-floor window, accompanied by a female of commanding appearance. He pointed us out to her. Behind them we could dimly descry a white tablecloth, a tea ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay
... that these animals can descry a man at the distance of twenty or twenty-five feet. When approaching a crayfish "town" for the purpose of making observations, I use the utmost caution; otherwise, each inhabitant will retreat into its burrow before I can come close enough to observe them, ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... sculptors were executed in porcelain, many of the best thoughts of their architects are expressed in brick, or in the softer material of terra cotta; and if this were so in Italy, where there is not one city from whose towers we may not descry the blue outline of Alp or Apennine, everlasting quarries of granite or marble, how much more ought it to be so among the fields of England! I believe that the best academy for her architects, for some half century to come, would be the brick-field; for of this they may rest assured, ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume II (of 3) • John Ruskin
... this breaking over a world which for six thousand years has been a dormitory of sin and death! For four thousand of these years, heathendom could descry no light through the bars of the grave; her oracles were dumb on the great doctrine of a future state, and more especially regarding the body's resurrection. Even the Jewish Church, under the Old Testament dispensation, seemed to enjoy little more than fitful and uncertain glimmerings, ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... rather more than a league and had begun to descry the first houses of the village, the red-tiled roofs of which stood out from the green trees which surrounded them, when, coming toward them mounted on a mule, they perceived a poor monk, whose large hat and gray worsted dress made them take him for an Augustine ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... about to give up all hope a cry of joy from the boat further to windward caused the occupants of the other two boats to rest on their oars, and turn in that direction; they strained their eyes in the endeavor to descry something beyond, but could see nothing. However, those nearest the point in question evidently could, and so they turned back and pulled against the wind with all their might, and in a few minutes the boatswain sung out, ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... don't reckon you have, miss. Since that race he has been hard to descry. He passed from view hurriedly, so to speak, headed toward the foot-hills, and leaping from crag to crag like the hardy shamrock of the ...
— Going Some • Rex Beach
... spread; and the main causes of this state of things were the infatuation of the colonists in favour of commercial protection, and the inability of the governor-general of the Canadas, and of the ministry at home, to descry the policy which was most calculated to serve the interests of the mother country ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... God have mercy!" said De Vaux. "Yet would I rather than my best horse I had taken that watch myself. There is mystery in it, young man, as a plain man may descry, though he cannot see through it. Cowardice? Pshaw! No coward ever fought as I have seen thee do. Treachery? I cannot think traitors die in their treason so calmly. Thou hast been trained from thy post by some deep guile—some well-devised ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... of the seamen. As soon as I landed I sent Midshipman Clark out again, who ventured as far from the island as he thought his boat would live, but this time he returned unsuccessful, having been able to descry no floating object whatever. Lieutenant Claiborne saved himself on a small hatch about two feet square, used for covering the pump-well, and which he found floating near the wreck. He was thrown with ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... or little sense; Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move, 390 For fools admire, but men of sense approve: As things seem large which we through mists descry, Dulness is ever ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... Elizabeth loved. She needed a favourite, and Essex was unfortunately marked out for what she wanted. He had Leicester's fascination, without his mean and cruel selfishness. He was as generous, as gallant, as quick to descry all great things in art and life, as Philip Sidney, with more vigour and fitness for active life than Sidney. He had not Raleigh's sad, dark depths of thought, but he had a daring courage equal to Raleigh's, without Raleigh's cynical contempt for mercy and honour. He had every ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... picturesque apotheosis of a loft! A loft with the rough bricks whitewashed and the heavy rafters painted red; a loft with big, plain tables and a bare floor and an only slightly partitioned-off kitchenette where the hungry could descry piles of sandwiches and many coffee cups. And there in the middle of the loft was the Samovar itself, a really splendid affair, and one actually not for decorative purposes only, but for use. I had always thought samovars were for the ornamentation either of houses or foreign-atmosphere ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... being—had I signed the bond— Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such? Try and test! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? Now, heaven and she are beyond ...
— Dramatic Romances • Robert Browning
... Glorious self-government is a glory not for you, not for Hodge's emancipated horses, nor you. No; I say, No. You, for your part, have tried it, and failed. Left to walk your own road, the will-o'-wisps beguiled you, your short sight could not descry the pitfalls; the deadly tumult and press has whirled you hither and thither, regardless of your struggles and your shrieks; and here at last you lie; fallen flat into the ditch, drowning there and dying, unless the others that are still standing please to pick you up. The others that ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... servitude, but not himself! And so they pale, for lack of warmth they wane, Freeze to the marble of their images, And, pinnacled on man's subserviency, Through the thick sacrificial haze discern Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak Through icy mists may enviously descry Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun. So they along an immortality Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze, If haply some rash votary, empty-urned, But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand, Break rank, fling past the people and the priest, ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... now known, are all that remain of the magnum emporium, except some lines of moldering wall that wander along the canals, and through pastures and vineyards, in the last imbecile stages of dilapidation and decay. There is a lofty bell-tower, also, from which, no doubt, the Torcellani used to descry afar off the devouring hordes of the barbarians on the main-land, and prepare for defense. As their city was never actually invaded, I am at a loss to account for the so-called Throne of Attila, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... loudly in, and Hilda, having climbed into a second-class compartment, leaned out from it, to descry her porter and bestow on him a threepenny bit. George Cannon and young Lawton were still in argument, and apparently quite indifferent to the train. Young Lawton's thin face had its usual faint, harsh smile; his limbs were moveless ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... who, at the beginning of a new century, stand with shaded eyes, gazing into the future, striving to descry the outlines of the shadowy figures which loom before us in the distance, nothing seems of so gracious a promise, as the outline we seem to discern of a condition of human life in which a closer union than the world has yet seen shall exist between the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... in the act of rushing off to pack your things—one moment: this essay has yet to be finished. We have yet to glance at those two extremes between which the mean is good guestship. Far to the right of the good guest, we descry the parasite; far to the left, the churl again. Not the same churl, perhaps. We do not know that Corin's master was ever sampled as a guest. I am inclined to call yonder speck Dante—Dante Alighieri, of whom we do know that he received during his exile much hospitality from many hosts and repaid ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... multitude trooping down the gardens from the gates and walls, over which in the distance he could descry them swarming, and forming a sort of semicircle around the entrance door. The vanguard were led by a drum and a violin. The expressions on the faces of the men were wild and haggard, most wore greasy bonnets of wool, ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... me then, and remember my bitterness and melancholy. But you had no opportunity to descry the depth and intensity of those sentiments in me. Suddenly the load was lifted. That woman made her appearance, as if from the grave, and you must have witnessed my wonder, as my eyes fell upon her. Then, she ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... afeared, yet I must act, so a-tiptoe I stole out, and like a cat stealthily approached 'Brownie's' door. The hour was somewhat after eleven, for I had heard the Tron Kirk chap recently; the moon in her last quarter had risen, and I could dimly descry the ...
— Border Ghost Stories • Howard Pease
... west, and a tolerably smooth sea. All night Lord Howe had carried a press of sail to keep up with the French fleet, which he rightly conjectured would be doing the same; and as he eagerly looked forth at early dawn, great was his satisfaction to descry them, about six miles off, on the starboard or lee bow of his fleet, still steering in line of battle on the larboard tack. His great fear had been that the French Admiral would weather on him and escape; now he felt sure that ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... the hand of every heart, That hand that holds the heart of every eye, That wit that goes beyond all Nature's art, The sense too deep for Wisdom to descry; That eye, that hand, that wit, that heavenly sense Doth show ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... scraps of schoolroom learning came back to my mind. That the stars were all suns, surrounded perhaps in their turn by worlds as large or larger than our own. Worlds beyond worlds, and others farther still, which no man might number or even descry. And about the distance of those wonderful suns too,—that one, for instance, at which I was looking,—what was it that I had been told? That our world was not yet peopled, perhaps not yet formed, when the actual spot of light which now struck my sight first started from the star's surface! While ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... had prostrated me; dashing my hopes and spirits so completely that I remained rooted to the spot long after his step had ceased to sound on the stairs. If what he said was true, in the gloom which darkened alike my room and my prospects I could descry no glimmer of light. I knew His Majesty's weakness and vacillation too well to repose any confidence in him; if the King of Navarre also abandoned me, I was indeed without hope, ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman |
