"Discernible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... criticism, and both in such a state of elevation that, like the two rivals in the Roman State, one could no longer bear an equal, nor the other a superior. Of the gradual abatement of kindness between friends, the beginning is often scarcely discernible to themselves, and the process is continued by petty provocations, and incivilities sometimes peevishly returned, and sometimes contemptuously neglected, which would escape all attention but that of pride, and drop from any memory but that of resentment. That the quarrel of these two wits should ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... arguments used by its votaries should make us suspect that there is a dumb logic of a more respectable sort behind them. There is, underlying this love of types and emblems, a strong conviction that if "one eternal purpose runs" through the ages, it must be discernible in small things as well as in great. Everything in the world, if we could see things as they are, must be symbolic of the Divine Power which made it and maintains it in being. We cannot believe that anything ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... plant producing it is easily cultivated.(138) Its immediate effect upon the user is generally agreeable, acting as a stimulant to some, but having a soothing effect upon the nerves of others. Moreover, a strong deterring factor in its use is lacking, since its harmful effects are not readily discernible and by many are avoided through moderation ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... colours were discernible, those on journey bent all rose up: the others fain would stay them. The five journeyed together, of "hus-carls" there were present twice that number—it was ill devised—Snaevar and Solar, they were Hogni's sons; Orkning he was named, who them accompanied, a gentle ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... out between two houses close to the inn, and struck a narrow track, scarcely discernible, which ran behind other houses, and then plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A single person, traversing the covert, might have made such a track; or pigs, or children. But it was the first idea that occurred to us, and ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... in sight, and the roar of the water was so great that it was impossible to hear the hounds. However, I determined to crawl along his track, which was plainly discernible, the high grass being broken into a regular lane which skirted the precipice of the great waterfall in the direction ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... by a sort of half Jews, as the foregoing quotations mention, is discernible enough. The frequent references made to that chief assassin and impostor Moses, and to the men called prophets, establishes this point; and, on the other hand, the church has complimented the fraud, by admitting the Bible and the Testament to reply ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... be was not clearly discernible; some said he was an officer in Her Majesty's Service, and others, that he was somebody connected with the disturbances of the preceding winter who was attempting to revisit ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... steadily over the plain; the mountains before them gradually lost their aspect of mere silhouette; depths were discernible; the blue dissolved to green, to towering slopes dense with foliage. Directly before them a dark shadow steadily grew darker, until it was resolved into a cleft through the range. They drew nearer and nearer to the pierced barrier, the road mounted perceptibly, the trees thickened ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... rest; assuming, for the present, equality of condition among men. But it seems to me that it is not the case that the practice of art adds to painful labour; nay more, I believe that, if it did, art would never have arisen at all, would certainly not be discernible, as it is, among peoples in whom only the germs of civilization exist. In other words, I believe that art cannot be the result of external compulsion; the labour which goes to produce it is voluntary, and partly undertaken ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... Marner's cottage had no thatch; and Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought made rapid by the stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; but while he did so, his eyes travelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks, distinct in the fire-light, were discernible under the sprinkling of sand. But not everywhere; for there was one spot, and one only, which was quite covered with sand, and sand showing the marks of fingers, which had apparently been careful to spread it over a given space. It was near the treddles of the loom. In an instant ...
— Silas Marner - The Weaver of Raveloe • George Eliot
... this course would afford them a camp at the only water-hole in all that wide desert lying between. With this certainty of water, they ventured to press their animals to swifter pace, although the sand made travelling heavy, and the trail itself was scarcely discernible. It was a hard, wearisome ride, hour after hour through the same dull, dreary landscape of desolation, the hot, remorseless sun beating down upon them, reflecting up into their blistered faces from the hot surface of sand. There was scarcely a breath ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... one cow-track differ from another? There must be a difference, or the tracker could not have performed the feat; a difference minute, shadowy, and not detectible by you or me, or by the late Sherlock Holmes, and yet discernible by a member of a race charged by some people with occupying the bottom place in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... may have been, his face remained without any discernible emotion. But he turned to D'Herouville, his tone free from banter and his dark ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... fired at him at too great a range, and then both, realizing that they were dropping altitude too quickly and that soon Joe would be on their level, turned away and sought a new updraft. As they banked, their faces were clearly discernible. One raised a hand in ...
— Frigid Fracas • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... turned to look at my companion—had I not suddenly seen the closed gateway in the heavens begin to open slowly, allowing a flood of golden radiance to pour out like the steady flowing of a broad stream. The kneeling woman's figure remained plainly discernible, but seemed to be gradually melting into the light which surrounded it. And then— something—I know not what—shook me down from the pinnacle of vision,—hardly aware of my own action, I withdrew my ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... see him go at all, but to have him sail on such a gloomy day as this, with not a ray of sunshine to cheer him on the way, was more than Helen could bear. Blinded by tears she stood kissing her hand to the familiar figure now only faintly discernible on the fast receding steamship, and she stood there long after every one else had left the dock watching until the Mauretania was only a speck in ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... sea as we approached, and to every throb of the oars, the shores leaped nearer. I saw the temple where I had been admitted first to manhood; I saw the pyramid in whose heart I had been initiated to the small mysteries; and then (as the lesser objects became discernible) I made out the house where a father and a mother had reared me, and my eyes became dim as the ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... monsters of the Northern Seas. They caught sight of the spout of a single whale in the distance; it rose in the air exactly like a fountain-jet, but the animal itself was too far off for its huge outlines to be discernible. One shark had the gallantry to swim round them for a few minutes, affording them an opportunity of observing it closely. It appeared to be from sixteen to ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... ever seemed too cautious not to dare beyond his tried strength, more especially in designing a subject of several figures. His true genius as alone conspicuous in those where much of the portrait was admissible; and such was his "Tragic Muse," a strictly historical picture: was it equally discernible in his "Nativity" for the window in New College Chapel? We think not. There is nothing in his "Nativity" that has not been better done by others; yet, as a whole, it is good; and if the subject demands a more ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... false ideas of life and its duties,—in short, to revolutionize society. The crime is perpetrated in secret. Many times no one but the criminal herself is cognizant of the evil deed. Only occasionally do cases come near enough to the surface to be dimly discernible; hence the evident inefficiency of any civil legislation. But the evil is a desperate one, and is increasing; shall no attempt be made to check the tide of crime and save the sufferers from both physical and spiritual perdition? An effort should be ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... first catches the strong vermilion touch on the lower lip, and then, knowing that a master like Sargent would not leave it isolated, one finds, to one's delight and joy, a little swipe of red on the tongue of the barely discernible black poodle squatting at his feet. Had the red of the dog's tongue predominated, we should never have been thrilled and fascinated by one of the great portraits of ...
— Outdoor Sketching - Four Talks Given before the Art Institute of Chicago; The Scammon Lectures, 1914 • Francis Hopkinson Smith
... to-morrow; thousands never expect to see the harvest. I must say the majority exhibit a great deal of patience, meekness, and submission." Again, in the same letter: "The effects of the Famine are discernible everywhere: not a domestic animal to be seen—pigs and poultry have quite disappeared. The dogs have also vanished, except here and there the ghost of one, buried in the skeleton of one of those victims of cruelty and ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... visits the house of the doomed and stands beside his, or her, couch. I have had this phantasm described to me, by those who declare they have seen it, as a very tall, hooded figure, clad in a dark, loose, flowing costume—its face never discernible. It would, of course, be foolish to say that a dog howling in a house is invariably the sign of death; there are many other and obvious causes which produce something of a similar effect; but I think one may be pretty well assured that, ...
— Animal Ghosts - Or, Animal Hauntings and the Hereafter • Elliott O'Donnell
... edifice dark. As the eyes of the onlookers became accustomed to the half-lights, they were aware of a huddle of clothes against the iron railing that outlined the curve of the three broad entrance-steps. As vision grew keener the form of a child was discernible, a little match girl who was lighting one by one a few matches and shielding the flame with both hands from the draught. Suddenly she looked up and around. The rose window above the porch was softly illumined; the light it emitted ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... until the morning of the seventh day after leaving Calcutta that we found ourselves on the banks of the Ganges. The Holy City loomed large in the grey dawn of morning, with its tapering minarets barely discernible above ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... boom of the serpent within the adjacent house, and the lesser strains of the fiddler, reached the spot as an accompaniment to the surging hiss of the flying rain on the sod, its louder beating on the cabbage-leaves of the garden, on the eight or ten beehives just discernible by the path, and its dripping from the eaves into a row of buckets and pans that had been placed under the walls of the cottage. For at Higher Crowstairs, as at all such elevated domiciles, the grand difficulty of housekeeping was an insufficiency of water; ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... it," she said, with a pout and a blush—her blushes were discernible now, for the last vestige of the scalding had gone—"but I mean to wear a veil from this on. I had one ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... only Mind, His are the only real thoughts, and thoughts are invisible to the eye, but discernible ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... the Cossacks who walked beside him had their carbines presented, ready to fire should he attempt to escape. But how could he escape? Everywhere round and about, outposts of the Russian cavalry were discernible; behind him a body of Cossack horse escorted a whole troop of Indians. Probably they were incendiaries and robbers who were, like him, being led out for execution; and it did not improve his frame of mind to find himself ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... some other even more indeterminate foundations, and two bits of road. More interest may attach to three ditches (one for sewage) and the clay base of a rampart, which belong in some way to the northern defences of the place in various times. The full meaning of these will, however, not be discernible till complete plans are available and probably not till further excavations have been made; Mr. Forster inclines to explain parts of them as ditches of a fort held in the age of Trajan, about A.D. 90-110. Several small finds merit note. An inscribed tile seems to have served as a writing lesson ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield
... observed a mother and some female relative, presumably an aunt, in company with a young relative; and always the sharpening and withering process of the years of set and unelastic thought was discernible upon their faces, which had once been young, and classic ...
— The Heart of the New Thought • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... It was ascertained by the old marks in the snow at the edge of the precipice that, whatever members of the party who owned the sledge had tumbled over, at least two of them had escaped, for their track—faint and scarcely discernible—was traced for some distance. It was found, also, that Wapaw's track joined this old one. The wounded Indian had fallen upon it not far from the precipice, and, supposing, no doubt, that it would lead him ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... was lifting on the swell towards the rocks. He pulled quickly, occasionally turning to note that the strange figure, whose movements were quite discernible to the naked eye, was still there, but gazing more earnestly towards the nearest shore for any sign of life or occupation. In ten minutes he had reached the curve where the trend opened northward, and the long line of shore stretched before him. He swept ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... fidgety, Steve turned to lean over the stern and take hold of the rope which held the beluga. The great fish-like creature yielded to the drag and came close up, but its head was hardly discernible, and it looked so weird and strange that the boy loosed his hold with a shudder, expecting that it would float away. But it remained stationary for a few moments, and then, urged by the current, rubbed heavily against the boat's side, ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... and by the Celtic defenders of Limerick, has ever been granted from the heart by either race. To this day a more than Spartan haughtiness alloys the many noble qualities which characterize the children of the victors, while a Helot feeling, compounded of awe and hatred, is but too often discernible in the children of the vanquished. Neither of the hostile castes can justly be absolved from blame; but the chief blame is due to that shortsighted and headstrong prince who, placed in a situation in which he might have reconciled ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... little more than reproduce the doctrine of Democritus. He starts from the fundamental proposition that 'nothing can be produced from nothing, nothing can really perish.' The veritable existences in nature are the Atoms, which are too minute to be discernible by the senses, but which nevertheless have a definite size, and cannot further be divided. They have also a definite weight and form, but no qualities other than these. There is an infinity of empty space; this Epicurus ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... said Knight, there being a faint ghastliness discernible in his laugh. 'They are much worse in a lady's eye than being ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... that friendship and esteem had actuated her conduct towards him. Yet those haughty features expelled this thought as soon as it arose. It was on the night of a gay assembly St. Eval had found an opportunity to speak with Caroline, and when both rejoined the gay crowd no emotion was discernible in the countenance of either. St. Eval was the same to all as usual. No one who might have heard his eloquent discussion on some state affairs with the Russian consul could have imagined how painfully ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... far as there can be an outcome in ever-recurring events, it is the outcome of a tremendous social and political struggle. Sir, it hardly suits the occasion to refer to the origin of this struggle or to trace its progress, but the effort for popular government is discernible through many centuries. As we come nearer to our time it becomes more intelligent and determined. Our great Declaration was its best pronunciamento. Our written Constitution was its most concise expression. The events that produced them founded a normal school for ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... before we could reach dry ground. We could see the northern shore, which appeared to be of the same character; and this made us hope that the Indians would not have attempted to go round and intercept us. The western shore was still discernible, but too far off to enable us to see whether the ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... Gothic romance were welcomed by readers weary of commonplace works where nothing ever happens. The influence of The Castle of Otranto was even felt across the Atlantic, by Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), the early American novelist. Some less pronounced traces of such influence are discernible also in the work of Edgar Allan Poe ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... straightened and crossed to the door. A thin spiral of smoke rose like a gray wisp above the zapote trees and a low-crooned, rhythmic chant was borne to her on the stirless air. Without hesitation she followed the narrow, scarcely discernible path toward the opening in ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... though she appeared to listen with all her faculties her face remained perfectly blank; a fact, however, not discouraging to Wayworth, who liked her better for not being premature. Her companions gave discernible signs of recognising the passages of comedy; yet Wayworth forgave her even then for being inexpressive. She evidently wished before everything else to be simply sure of ...
— Nona Vincent • Henry James
... search for some information respecting a future state; the heathen system was at once obscure and absurd; the philosophers avowedly spoke from conjecture; but by the Gospel, "life and immortality were brought to light." 7. The influence of a purer faith was discernible in the lives and actions of the first Christians; they lived in an age of unparalleled iniquity and debauchery, yet they kept themselves "unspotted from the world;" those who were once conspicuous for violence, licentiousness, and crime, became, when they joined the new sect, humble, temperate, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the hills of Asia Minor. Greek fishing-boats are plying hither and thither; one noble sailing-vessel, with all sails set, is slowly ploughing her way down toward the Dardanelles - probably a grain- ship from the Black Sea - and the smoke from a couple of steamers is discernible in the distance. Flourishing Greek fishing-villages and vine- growing communities occupy this beautiful strip of coast, along which the Greeks seem determined to make the Cross as much more conspicuous than the Crescent as possible, by ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... if any of the vessel's crew had seen our boat, as it was scarcely daylight and such a small object lying close to the water would not be readily discernible. I had thought, a few hours before, that my strength was entirely exhausted, but the sight of the vessel called out a reserve sufficient for ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... eyes distinguished something which might be the outline of walls and houses. This, I knew, was the situation of Catanzaro, but one could not easily imagine by what sort of approach the city would be gained; in the thickening twilight, no trace of a road was discernible, and the flanks of the mountain, a ravine yawning on either hand, looked even more abrupt than the ascent ...
— By the Ionian Sea - Notes of a Ramble in Southern Italy • George Gissing
... the same wind-hollowed hills, rooted into permanence by twisted oaks and magnolias. Upon their limbs in April the Spanish moss and air-plants were just blossoming, the former into little star-like, hardly-discernible flowers, the latter throwing up a green stem with a pink terminal bud, which in August had burst into a spike of crimson flowers. Curious lichens cover the rough trunks of these oaks—some gray, some ashy-white, some pink, some scarlet like blotches of blood. The Mitchella, the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... but only to put on a new beauty in the contrast between her olive skin and her silvering or silver hair. This contrast may almost be called the characteristic feature of the specially American type, which is much more clearly discernible in middle-aged and old ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer
... of old Megan, who was bemoaning the loss of her property on the wrong side of the gorge so many years ago, when there appeared to her suddenly a cowled monk, whose dark face was scarcely discernible, with a rosary hanging to his girdle, and a deep but ...
— Legend Land, Vol. 1 • Various
... just as distinctly discernible as chemical forces. The fact that we are not familiar with them no more makes against their existence and their importance than general ignorance of the pressure of the atmosphere takes that phenomenon out of the physical world. They are not only the atmosphere but ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... dreadful cry smote upon his ear, and a hope began to rise in his breast that no immediate danger threatened. A short distance away, embowered among the trees, was the house of Burrowes. The door was closed, and not a sign of life was discernible about the place. ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke
... leading man and passed on until a much bigger white shape loomed up in the obscurity of the noon-twilight, the going underfoot changed and skis fetched up against a great lump of ice which was scarcely discernible in the confusing darkness, and one realised that what little light there was to the northward had been blotted out by one of the big grounded icebergs. Directly one realised which berg it was a new ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... people and another faith were likewise here discernible, for where the Saxon forefathers of the village prayed and slumbered in death, the Roman invaders of the isle had trodden, and perchance performed their religious rites; some traces of an encampment being found in the churchyard by the historian of the spot, while the north ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... excessively within her own, she opened the door, but not a ray was yet visible. She was conducted to a seat, and Lady Gerard whispered that she should be still. Suddenly a light flashed forth on the opposite side, and Ellen saw that it came from a huge antique mirror. A form, in male attire, was there discernible. With a slow and melancholy pace he came forward, and his lips seemed to move. It was—she could not be mistaken—it was her cousin William! She thought he looked pale and agitated. He carried a light which, as it glimmered on his features, showed ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Batok we could catch a glimpse of Bromo itself, belching skyward great clouds of billowing smoke and steam, while from its crater came a rumble as of distant thunder. And far in the distance, its purple bulk faintly discernible against the turquoise sky, rose Smeroe, the greatest ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... in young apothecia, but in mature apothecia they are usually more or less gelatinized and coherent. In some of the species, they become so gelatinized that they form a homogeneous mass about the asci, in which the individual paraphyses are no longer discernible. When distinct, the paraphyses are sometimes branched, most commonly toward their apices ...
— Ohio Biological Survey, Bull. 10, Vol. 11, No. 6 - The Ascomycetes of Ohio IV and V • Bruce Fink and Leafy J. Corrington
... gone undiscovered until commencing necrosis and suppuration are plainly discernible, then the wisest course we can follow is to do all we can to hasten removal of the ...
— Diseases of the Horse's Foot • Harry Caulton Reeks
... the slopes of Jebel Surgham, I saw the entire dervish army some three miles off advancing towards us, the Khalifa's black flag surrounded by his Mulazimin (body-guard) being plainly discernible. I estimated their numbers at 35,000 men, though, from subsequent investigation, this figure was probably under-estimated, their actual strength being between forty and fifty thousand. From information received, I gather that it was the Khalifa's intention to have met us with this force ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... its outward form the Buddhism of the invaders tended to be a compound of Indian, Greek and Persian ideas in which Sun worship played a large part, for not only Indian myths, but Apollo and Helios and the Persian Mithra all entered into it. Persian influence in art is discernible as early as the architecture of Asoka: in doctrine it has something to do with such figures as Vairocana and Amitabha. Graeco-Roman influence also was powerful in art and through art affected religion. In Asoka's ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... so or not I will not here determine, but appeal to every one's own experience, whether the shadow of a man, though it consists of nothing but the absence of light (and the more the absence of light is, the more discernible is the shadow) does not, when a man looks on it, cause as clear and positive idea in his mind, as a man himself, though covered over with clear sunshine? And the picture of a shadow is a positive thing. Indeed, we have negative names, to which there be no positive ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... slanting against their sides in slides and drifts. Across the narrowing strip of fertility square cavities in rows showed themselves in the white face of the cliffs. The ruins of a number of squat hovels were barely discernible over ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... with a heart palpitating so violently that she felt at times almost suffocating, she watched the hardly discernible outline of the building from which the signal was to ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... (Dorothy Wordsworth's 'Journal', i, 55)—It was then that Stoddart obtained a copy of 'Christabel', and read it shortly afterwards [3] to Sir Walter Scott, then busy with his 'Border Minstrelsy'. The beauty of 'Christabel' touched Sir Walter's romantic imagination, and echoes of the poem are discernible in the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel' and the 'Bridal ...
— Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. • Coleridge, ed. Turnbull
... whole Mediterranean Sea, which, with the Arabian Gulf, was seen to separate Africa from Europe and Asia, was full in our view. The political divisions of these quarters of the world were, of course, undistinguishable; and few of the natural were discernible by the naked eye. The Alps were marked by a white streak, though less bright than the water. By the aid of our glass, we could just discern the Danube, the Nile, and a river which empties itself into the Gulf of Guinea, and which I took to be the Niger: but the ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... There is an extensive view from Asolo. Venice, with its cupolas and steeples, is seen to the east. Ottima detects the belfry of the Church of St. Mark. The towns of Vicenza and Padua are also discernible. ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... still those vague forebodings of evil persisted in torturing him. Looking back through his past life, he asked himself if any woman (his late wife of course excepted!) had ever taken the predominant place in his thoughts which Mrs. Zant had assumed—without any discernible reason to account for it? If he had ventured to answer his own question, the ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... was the sacred city of the Solymi{256}. At all events the intention not merely of reproducing the Hebrew word, but also of making it significant in Greek, of finding {Greek: hieron} in it, is plainly discernible. For indeed the Greeks were exceedingly intolerant of foreign words, till they had laid aside their foreign appearance—of all words which they could not thus quicken with a Greek soul; and, with a very characteristic vanity, an ignoring of all other tongues but their own, assumed ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... trail quite rapidly, for the trail was fresh. As long as he looked intently for hoof-marks, nothing was to be seen, the prairie was apparently virgin; but by glancing the eye forty or fifty yards ahead, a faint line was discernible through the grasses. ...
— Blazed Trail Stories - and Stories of the Wild Life • Stewart Edward White
... this part of Yorkshire. From all points around the shallow lake the smoke of fires ascended into the sky, patches of cultivation appeared among the trees, and villages, consisting of collections of primitive wooden huts, probably surrounded by a stockade, would have been discernible. ...
— The Evolution Of An English Town • Gordon Home
... exotic culture of a higher order and a vernacular culture of a primitive kind'. There were in Britain splendid houses and poor ones. But a continuous gradation of all sorts of houses and all degrees of comfort connects them, and there is no discernible breach in the scale. Throughout, the dominant element is the Roman provincial fashion which ...
— The Romanization of Roman Britain • F. Haverfield
... moved as if that winter excursion and adventure had never been. Even the memory of it must have faded into a haze that scarce left discernible any semblance of reality, for I was once again Boccadoro, the golden-mouthed Fool, whose sayings were echoed by every jester throughout Italy. My shame that for a brief season had risen up in arms seemed to be laid to rest once more, and ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... to me the words of a popular yet melancholy ballad I had once heard reproduced on a talking machine which dealt with the tragic and untimely fate of a noble youth who, through misapprehension and no discernible fault of his own, perished at the hands of a drum-head court-martial in time of hostilities, the refrain being: ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... outlines and character of the summit of Pike's Peak from Denver. The instrument has sufficient power to reveal on the lunar disc any object five hundred feet square. Such a thing as a village or even a great single building would be plainly discernible. ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... Homer, it seems sufficient to say that from the beginning to the end it is a plain and palpable parody, not only of the general spirit, but of the numerous passages of the Iliad itself; and even, if no such intention to parody were discernible in it, the objection would still remain, that to suppose a work of mere burlesque to be the primary effort of poetry in a simple age, seems to reverse that order in the development of national taste, which the history of every other people in Europe, and of many in Asia, has almost ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... final attack; but luckily another officer, Li Shou- cheng by name, was quicker to see an opportunity, and said: "They are many and we are few, but in the midst of this sandstorm our numbers will not be discernible; victory will go to the strenuous fighter, and the wind will be our best ally." Accordingly, Fu Yen-ch'ing made a sudden and wholly unexpected onslaught with his cavalry, routed the barbarians and succeeded in breaking through ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... clouds came again overhead, and it grew dark very fast." "Nor was the darkness of the night less uncommon and terrifying than that of the day; notwithstanding there was almost a full moon, no object was discernible but by the help of some artificial light, which, when seen from the neighboring houses and other places at a distance, appeared through a kind of Egyptian darkness which seemed almost impervious to the rays."(487) Said an eye-witness of the scene: "I ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... which they followed their guide had been hewn, in some forgotten age, out of a dark-red, crumbly stone. On either side were horizontal niches, where, if they held their torches closely, the shape of a human body was discernible in white ashes, into which the entire mortality of a man or woman had resolved itself. Among all this extinct dust, there might perchance be a thigh-bone, which crumbled at a touch; or possibly ...
— The Marble Faun, Volume I. - The Romance of Monte Beni • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... arms over his knees fanning a little fire. In the right panel another native sits on his heels cooking a meal; a bamboo slopes across the cell behind him, and supports a poor ragged cloth, a purda, I suppose, and behind, are just discernible his wife and child. These wayfarers make me at once think of a new and original treatment for a holy family, but hold! These passages of light and colour, form fading into nothingness, are they not worth understanding alone, are they not more pure art without being nailed to some tale ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... heavy with water. For a moment Roger considered some method of transferring his burden to the burro's little back. But Peter was so small, so winded, that he gave up the idea and trudged on to the west. Peter fell in after him and two scarcely discernible specks on the immense floor of the mesa they moved toward the black mountain top lifting before them. There was no sound save that of their own footsteps. There was no verdure here except the martial figures of the great cacti, those soldiers of the waste, that guard ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie
... possibilities, faint foreshowings—heaven knew what—of the initiation it would prove profitable to have arrived at when in the fulness of time he should have his own shop in some such paradise. What really touched him—that was discernible—was that she could feed him with so much mere vividness of reminder, keep before him, as by the play of a fan, the very wind of the swift bank-notes and the charm of the existence of a class that Providence had raised up to be the blessing of grocers. He liked ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... there was but one canoe and two men—little danger to him and his followers in that. Malbihn was puzzled. Who was this white man? He did not recognize him though Baynes' canoe was now in mid stream and the features of both its occupants plainly discernible to those on shore. One of Malbihn's blacks it was who first recognized his fellow black in the person of Baynes' companion. Then Malbihn guessed who the white man must be, though he could scarce believe his own reasoning. It seemed beyond ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... which I am truly guilty in Thy sight. Thou, Lord, saidst to Shimei, 'Curse David.' Glory be to Thy name that hast chosen to preserve me, exercised with so many griefs, that I may serve Thyself. There is one great sin discernible in my soul, which I confess before the whole world. I have never served Thee in proportion to my strength; that little talent of Thy grace which Thou hast deigned to grant me I have not yet turned to ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... of marshy vegetation. Mr. J. M. Lester, in a paper read before the Rugby School Natural History Society, observes:—"The wood-dove, when perched amongst the branches of its favourite fir, is scarcely discernible; whereas, were it among some lighter foliage, the blue and purple tints in its plumage would far sooner betray it. The robin redbreast too, although it might be thought that the red on its breast made it much easier ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... large one, had fallen of late years from a position of moderate comfort into sheer struggle for subsistence. Jessica, armed with certificates of examinational prowess, got work as a visiting governess. At the same time, she nourished ambitions, discernible perhaps in the singular light of her deep-set eyes and a something of hysteric determination about her lips. Her aim, at present, was to become a graduate of London University; she was toiling in her leisure hours—the hours ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... without whose resourcefulness and audacity it might have gone ill with Aragon; Popes and Palaso-logus—brilliant colour effects; the king of England and Saint Louis of France; in the background, dimly discernible, the colossal shades of Frederick and Innocent, looked in deadly embrace; and the whole congress of figures enlivened and interpenetrated as by some electric fluid—the personality of John of Procida. That the element of farce might not be lacking, Fate contrived that exquisite royal ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... entirely obliterated by a brace of shelves built across the corresponding window and brilliantly stacked with ribbons of a score of colors and as many widths. A considerable flow of daylight thus diverted, The Convenience Merchandise Corner, even of early afternoon, fades out into half-discernible corners; a rear-wall display of overalls and striped denim coats crowded back into indefinitude, the haberdashery counter, with a giant gilt shirt-stud suspended above, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... room. The light from the two candles shone on the bushrangers' faces, gleamed on the pistol barrels in their belts, on the dainty china, the glass, and the silver, but all the rest of the room was in gloom. She knew the other women were there, knew the children were there—they were dimly discernible in the corners. She could even see Hollis, but when she looked again the candles stretched out in long beams which reached her eyes and blinded her, and she turned to wipe away ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... (for a white nightcap and nightshirt were discernible in almost pitchy darkness), they saw him strut back from the window to slip downstairs and surprise them. Mr Pinsent paused only to insert his feet into a pair of loose slippers, and again, as he unbolted ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... came by chance Upon a place where once a home had been; Fragments of ruined walls, half-overgrown With moss, for even stones had their green robe. It had been a small cottage, with a plot Of garden-ground in front, mapped out with walks Now scarce discernible, but that the grass Was thinner, the ground harder to the foot: The place was simply shadowed with an old Almost erased human carefulness. Close by the ruined wall, where once had been The door dividing it from the great world, Making ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... as his own. He was a tall slender man; in figure very much resembling Percival, but not in face: the one was dark, the other fair. There was also the same indolent sort of movement, a certain languid air discernible in both; proclaiming the undoubted fact, that both were idle in disposition and given to ennui. There the resemblance ended. Lord Hartledon had nothing of the irresolution of Percival Elster, but was sufficiently decisive in character, prompt ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... heavily during the night and this was succeeded by a dense fog on the morning of the 28th. Being short of provisions we commenced our journey though the points of land were not discernible beyond a short distance. The surface of the ice, being honeycombed by the recent rains, presented innumerable sharp points which tore our shoes and lacerated the feet at every step. The poor dogs too marked their path with ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... second appeared in 1578, the third and most complete was published, in twelve volumes, in 1615. That he frequently shows too much credulity, and betrays a want of taste, must be admitted; but his works are allowed to breathe a spirit of piety; his candor, and desire to be accurate, are discernible in every part of his writings; and his learning, for the age in which he lived, was considerable. In Ribadeneira the line of ancient Agiographists ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... variety of delicate gestures and movements, changing with her changing moods, but they had an expression of their own, such as we look for in the eyes. I had gazed upon her hands so often, and had studied so carefully their varying expression, discernible both to my sight and to my touch, that I could read her mind through them as we read the emotions of others through the countenance. The "feel" of her hands, if I may use the word, I can in no way describe. Its effect on me was magical. The happiest moments I have ever ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... scenes that have made my life worth living. As I peer into the dark abysm of things gone by, many places that seemed at first indistinct, grow clearer; but many more must remain impenetrable. Upon the whole, however, I am surprised to find how much is still discernible. Nearly a score of years ago I published, in the shape of a formal biography of Hawthorne and his wife, the consecutive facts of their lives, and numerous passages from their journals and correspondence. My aim is different ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... premiums and small pecuniary aids to encourage and assist a spirit of discovery and improvement." In this recommendation the example of the English Board of Agriculture and the influence of his friend Arthur Young are discernible. It would have been well for the country if Congress had heeded the advice, but public opinion was not then educated to the need of such a step and almost a century passed before anything of much ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... merely incorporating it into U.S. forces; it is likely to include a significant redesign of both forces and leadership to embrace these rapidly evolving technologies. Many of the technologies that will support Rapid Dominance are already discernible. Unlike the impact of nuclear weapons, it is unlikely that a single technology or system will emerge to produce Rapid Dominance. It will only be attainable through the broadest integration of strategic concepts, ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... the niches and hollows of the cliff the shadows fell, all was utterly dark and unbroken by the smallest ray; only along the near waves of the sea and the whiter parts of the level sand were objects easily discernible. I strode to and fro for a few minutes before the Castle Cave; I saw no one, and I seated myself in stern vigilance upon a stone, in a worn recess of the rock, and close by the mouth of the Castle Cave. The spot where I sat was wrapped in total darkness, and I ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with no object discernible beyond the foaming waters surging round us. The men declared that they could hear the shrieks and cries of our shipmates. The captain swore at them as fools for saying so, declaring that their voices must long since have been silenced by the breakers. Every ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... which is already dry.... We go to the very rock.... The corpse is nowhere to be seen, and only on the spot where it had lain there still remains a depression, and one can make out where the arms and legs lay.... Round about the seaweed seems tousled, and the traces of one man's footsteps are discernible; they go across the down, then disappear on reaching ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... romance had begun to ebb before the close of the century. It rose again a few years later, and left perhaps more lasting tokens this second time; but the ripple-marks of its first invasion are still discernible in English poetry and prose. Southey was clearly in error when he wrote to Taylor, September 5, 1798: "Coleridge's ballad, 'The Ancient Mariner' is, I think, the clumsiest attempt at German sublimity I ever saw."[39] The "Mariner" is not ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... so transparent that the skin is seen under it as clear as if not a single hair crossed it, and yet by some invisible means the parts are held together, which can only be by light transparent hairs which are not discernible to the naked eye. He has obtained a patent for this invention, and although I know my countrywomen have generally very fine heads of hair, yet as from fevers or other causes they are sometimes deprived of it, also that grey hairs will intrude, I cannot ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... him, and how they would feel their dependence (if he failed to turn up) through a long month of anxious waiting. Prompted by his sensitive humanity, Davidson, in the gathering dusk, turned the Sissie's head towards the hardly discernible coast, and navigated her safety through a maze of shallow patches. But by the time he got to the mouth of the creek the ...
— Within the Tides • Joseph Conrad
... crossed the line, were only faintly discernible, the detail obscured by the blue ground haze so common to the eyes of the pilot operating at high altitudes. But the strip of barren land on each side of the trenches gave visible evidence of the grimness of the struggle far below, and here and there along the ...
— Aces Up • Covington Clarke
... defect, it constantly looked towards her blind side; and secondly, the ball consisted almost entirely of white, or rather yellow, with a little grey spot in the corner, so small that it was scarce discernible. Nose she had none; for Venus, envious perhaps at her former charms, had carried off the gristly part; and some earthly damsel, perhaps, from the same envy, had levelled the bone with the rest of her face: indeed it was far beneath the ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... simple, and perhaps, uninteresting; but they serve to exhibit a characteristic of the lower classes of Mexicans. Doubtless, such paltry thieving is the result of a want of animal courage, easily discernible by the close observer of the Mexican race. Of course there are many exceptions ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... evident that she was not, as he had first thought, dead; her breathing was slow and deep and harsh, her pulse deliberate and full; she was warm, too, but her face was suffused by an unnatural blueness and the pupils of her inert eyes were barely discernible. He shook her with an unceremonious vigor, but there was no answering energy; she fell across his arm in a sheer weight of satin-covered body. He moved back in a momentary uncontrollable repulsion when Kate Vollar threw herself past him onto the bed. "Nettie!" ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... criterion discernible by the touch of an experienced finger; and that is, the coat of the artery in inflammatory fevers, both those attended with strength of pulsation, and these with weak pulsation, feels harder, or more like a cord; for the coats of the arteries in these fevers ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... correspond, then join in center of the back with single crochet, putting hook through a loop of each part. If carefully done the joining will not be discernible. Join under arms, also, ...
— Handbook of Wool Knitting and Crochet • Anonymous
... American woman is pervaded by a spirit of eager and generally happy excitement. Good works and gay pleasures fill its days in a wild jumble. There is little or no order, selection, or discretion discernible in the result. "Something doing" all the time seems to be the motto, and to take part in this headless procession of unrelated events becomes the first law of the household. The daughter has been living an organized life in college. She wants to study or write, or do regular work of some ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... the skull of the wild but gentle gazelle. How superior also the elevated brain of the poodle dog, when compared with that of the indocile, snarling cur! Thus in animals of the same species the most marked disparity of form is easily discernible, on comparing the skulls of such as are docile and gentle, with those of the dull and intractable. The elevation of the one and the depression of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, February 1887 - Volume 1, Number 1 • Various
... grew accustomed to the dim light of the coals in the fireplace, I saw first the shapes of the door and window, looking blacker than the black of the walls. Next, the distinction between wall and floor became discernible, and at last I was sensible to the form and full expanse of the floor from end to end and side to side. Nothing was visible and the silence ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... then about five hundred yards from it. The resistance to Davis's advance was especially stubborn, and the losses of the day footed up seventy-five in Sheridan's division and some two hundred in Davis's. Shortly before sunset the rebel position was plainly discernible from Davis's front, and was formed diagonally across the old Murfreesboro and Franklin road. In the afternoon, McCook learned from a citizen who had seen the enemy's line of battle and the position of his troops, that they were posted with the right of Cheatham's ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... rails, the fact remained that five carriages out of six fell into the bed of the Loddon, dragged down by the locomotive. The sixth carriage, miraculously preserved by the breaking of the coupling chain, remained on the rails, six feet from the abyss. Below nothing was discernible but a melancholy heap of twisted and blackened axles, shattered wagons, bent rails, charred sleepers; the boiler, burst by the shock, had scattered its plates to enormous distances. From this shapeless mass of ruins flames and black smoke still rose. After ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... did not think exactly as I spoke, strive as I might to believe the man in jest. Too much solemnity and sorrow both were discernible in his worn and rugged features, hewn grandly as if from granite, to admit of a hope like this. His words were earnest, and some great calamity was in store, I could not doubt, or at least he apprehended such. For some time he replied not, then, slowing pointing to the base of the stricken ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... unnamed, is probably familiar. Perhaps in the biography of the human race, or of each budding mind, the infinite or indeterminate may have been the primary datum. On that homogeneous sensuous background, blank at first but secretly plastic, a spot here and a movement there may gradually have become discernible, until the whole picture of nature and history had shaped itself as we see it. A certain sense of that primitive datum, the infinite or indeterminate, may always remain as it were the outstretched canvas on which ...
— Some Turns of Thought in Modern Philosophy - Five Essays • George Santayana
... that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely discernible; but there the two old gentlemen continued to sit, in silence, with the ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... scattering luster over an embroidered dress, or knitting the links of a coat of mail. But ships cannot be drawn at times of rest. More complicated in their anatomy than the human frame itself, so far as that frame is outwardly discernible; liable to all kinds of strange accidental variety in position and movement, yet in each position subject to imperative laws which can only be followed by unerring knowledge; and involving, in the roundings and foldings of sail and hull, delicacies ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... eyes, and one abbreviated and vertical line for the nose, and another elongated and horizontal line for the mouth, and arms with extended and extremely elocutionary fingers, to say nothing of extremely attenuated legs which invariably toed-out, to make more discernible the silhouette of the ponderously booted feet. I have several dozen of these "li'l' men" carefully treasured in an old cigar-box. But he soon lost interest in these purely anthropocentric creations and broadened out into the ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... time, subsequently to 1805, visible to the naked eye. Its aspect in Sir John Herschel's great reflector on the 23rd of September, 1832, was described by him as that of a "conspicuous nebula," nearly 3 minutes in diameter. No trace of a tail was discernible. While he was engaged in watching it, a small knot of minute stars was directly traversed by it, "and when on the cluster," he tells us,[254] it "presented the appearance of a nebula resolvable and partly resolved into stars, the stars of the cluster ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... sustain courage and dissipate doubts by the inimitable certainties of Faith. In fine, this sentiment of paternity, which gave his pen a delicately feminine quality, lent to his prose a characteristically individual accent discernible among all ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... crossing a field, they chanced Upon a spot where once had been a home, And roots of walls still peered out, grown with moss. 'Twas a dead cottage, mouldered quite, where yet Lay the old shadow of a vanished care; The little garden's blunt, half-blotted map Was yet discernible by thinner grass Upon the walks. There, in the midst of dry Bushes, dead flowers, rampant, uncomely weeds, A single snowdrop drooped its snowy drop, The lonely remnant of a family That in the garden dwelt about the home— Reviving with ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald
... his fears were ungrounded. In spite of the dozens of lethal substances recommended by the Poison Institute, most poisoners stuck single-mindedly to arsenic or strychnine. They were cheap, sure, and very painful. Prussic acid had a readily discernible odor, mercury was difficult to introduce into the system, and the corrosives, although gratifyingly spectacular, were dangerous to the user. Wolfsbane and fly agaric were excellent, of course; ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... criticism of the inadequate capacity of the emperor of his day, there is discernible, though only in the form of cryptic hints, a fundamentally important progressive idea. It is that a nobleman (chuen-tzu) should not be a member of the ruling elite by right of birth alone, but should be a man of superior moral qualities. ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... or propriety in actions, as determined by our Understanding or Reason, is the ultimate test. "When a man keeps his word, there is a certain congruity or consistency between the action and the occasion, between the making of a promise and its fulfilment; and wherever such congruity is discernible, the action is right." This is the view of Cudworth, Clarke, and Price. It may be called the ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... conduct the water so as to fall over a rock directly into the casks. While the boys were filling them, I climbed to a height at the mouth of the harbour. There the masts of the French ship were plainly discernible. This did not give me much concern, but directly afterwards I perceived, through my glass, a party of men coming along the ...
— Peter Biddulph - The Story of an Australian Settler • W.H.G. Kingston
... disappeared, that this Empire of Britain now strives, fulfilling its destiny. Fixed in her resolve, the will of God behind her, whither is her immediate course? The narrow space of the path in front of her that is discernible even dimly—whither does it ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... sand-bank, and to launch it once more in the placid waters of the harbour of Kingston. We pulled across towards the town, until we landed at the bottom of Hanover Street; the lights from the cabin windows of the merchantmen glimmering as we passed, and the town only discernible from a solitary sparkle here and there. But the contrast when we landed was very striking. We had come through the darkness of the night in comparative quietness; and in two hours from the time we had left the old Torch, we were transferred from her ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... in the gathering gloom and was soon out on the heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps homeward. I stepped ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... to the utmost of their strength. The attempt was accomplished with little difficulty. A deep abyss now presented itself before them, whose thick obscurity the eye strove in vain to pierce. The rays of the Lamp were too feeble to be of much assistance. Nothing was discernible, save a flight of rough unshapen steps which sank into the yawning Gulph and were soon lost in darkness. The groans were heard no more; But All believed them to have ascended from this Cavern. As He bent over it, Lorenzo fancied that He distinguished something ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... society had been formed in America for the same object. These thoughts almost overpowered me. My mind was overwhelmed by the thought, that I had been providentially directed to this house; the finger of Providence was beginning to be discernible, and that the day-star of African ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various
... distinguished men who looked sorrowfully on. The influence which George Cruikshank exercised upon the genius of Leech will be apparent to any one who has given attention to the early etchings of the latter. This influence will be particularly discernible in the illustrations to "Richard Savage" and "The Marchioness of Brinvilliers." Both were men of genius, but Leech's fancy was of a tamer kind, and little inclined him in the direction of the supernatural ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... were answerable only the next morning, for just now I was too weary to care where I spent the night as I stumbled after mother into a dark passage, and then onwards to a room where the faint light had been dimly discernible from outside. ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... lunar inhabitants; and we may realize more than we have imagined or dreamed. We may obtain observations as satisfactory as those of a son of the Emerald Isle, who was one day boasting to a friend of his excellent telescope. "Do you see yonder church?" said he. "Although it is scarcely discernible with the naked eye, when I look at it through my telescope, it brings it so close that I can hear the organ playing." Two hundred years ago, a wise man witnessed a wonderful phenomenon in the moon: he actually beheld a live elephant there. ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... architecture appears to have originated in the Nile valley. Asecond centre of development is found in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, not uninfluenced by the older Egyptian art. Through various channels the Greeks inherited from both Egyptian and Assyrian art, the two influences being discernible even through the strongly original aspect of Greek architecture. The Romans in turn, adopting the external details of Greek architecture, transformed its substance by substituting the Etruscan arch for the Greek construction of ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... him to excel in patience, even when he had most cause for disgust. Washington was offered a command when there was little to bring out the unorganized resources of the continent but his own influence, and authority was connected with the people by the most frail, most attenuated, scarcely discernible threads; yet, vehement as was his nature, impassioned as was his courage, he so retained his ardor that he never failed continuously to exert the attractive power of that influence, and never exerted it so sharply as ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... is strange to see how very soon, when questioning these negroes about anything relating to geography, their weak brains give way, and they can answer no questions, or they become so evasive in their replies, or so rambling, that you can make nothing out of them. It is easily discernible at what time you should cease to ask any further questions; for their heads then roll about like a ball upon a wire, and their eyes glass over and look vacantly about as though vitality had fled from their bodies altogether. Bombay, though, is a singular ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke |
