"Discerning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at this discerning guest, Mrs. Gallosh thereupon led forward her two youngest daughters (aged fifteen and thirteen), who, with an air so delightfully coy that it fell like a ray of sunshine on the poor Baron's heart, presented him with their ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... family, and were observant of men, were wont to remark that the son would never fill the father's shoes. These family friends, I may perhaps add, were generally markers at billiard-tables, head grooms at race-courses, or other men of that sharp, discerning class. Seeing that I introduce these gentlemen to my readers at the Kanturk Hotel, in South Main Street, Cork, it may be perhaps as well to add that they were both Englishmen; so that mistakes on that matter ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... ordering his thought would need to possess, in addition to the highest musical and dramatic qualifications a metaphysical habit of mind such as is rare at the present day, and a sympathetic capacity for discerning the grains of golden truth amidst the dross. He must construct anew. Wagner's theoretical edifice will not stand as it is; it is too loosely jointed; but the materials are valuable. That there will ever be a real science ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... literary contributions were confined to a part of the "Notes on Current Events," the portion of the paper that naturally attracted least outside notice, and was rarely singled out for praise. It is true that a discerning schoolmaster from another school remarked that these notes displayed "restrained strength even more remarkable in boys than the qualities of the other parts of the paper." I am ashamed to say we ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... of serene beauty, and to the gifts of Nature he added the endowments of the mind. From his parents in household lays he learned the great deeds of the old Decii. Once, at a great spectacle, the whole school at the recitation of the Lay of the Decii turned their eyes on Importunus, discerning that he would one day rival his ancestors. Thus his widowed mother brought him up, him and all his troop of brothers, and gave to the Curia as many Consulars as she had sons[280]. All these private virtues I have discerned ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... did far more than ever he had asked of her, she cast reflections on his judgment by pushing it to extremes whither it had never been meant to stretch. She had been bidden to watch Alexander Quisante, to admire his great moments, to see a future for him, and to applaud the discerning eye which had seen that future first. But who had bidden her make a friend of the man, take him into the inner circle, treat him as one who belonged to the group of her intimates, to the company of her equals and of those ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... its revised form, Mr. Bryce's noble and discerning book deserves to hold its preeminent place for at least twenty years more."—Record-Herald, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... a new angle to the puzzles that distracted him. He was not only praised by the witless, but he had been found desirable by certain discerning overlords of filmdom. What could be the secret of a talent that caused people, after viewing it but ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... leading a pony that looked as if it had not felt a brush or comb since its birth, but Tad's discerning eye noted that the little animal was hardy and well-conditioned, ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in Alaska - The Gold Diggers of Taku Pass • Frank Gee Patchin
... young man appeared to anticipate. Was there not, when one came to think of it, a melancholy, a pessimism ingrained within the temperament of the complainful hero that would ill assort with those instincts toward frivolity the careful observer could not avoid discerning in the charming yet nevertheless somewhat ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... no beacons burning, No alarms, the Volunteer, in modest bliss, Te Deum sang with wife and friends: "We praise Thee, Lord, discerning That ...
— Wessex Poems and Other Verses • Thomas Hardy
... private tutor at home, Charles Wood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of the Rev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholar and a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerning friend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his private pupils. In his book of verses—Ionica—he made graceful play with a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall in the ecstasy of swimming—"Oh, how ...
— Prime Ministers and Some Others - A Book of Reminiscences • George W. E. Russell
... paving-stones,—Achilles with a cold in the head. Seen in due connection, they make up the reality; but their prominence as they occur is casual and shifting, and the result dependent on the spectator's power of discerning, amid the endless series in which they are involved, more or less ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... progress in the army of the Revolution, being a man of great courage and unusual military genius. Under Napoleon, whose discerning eye no soldier of ability escaped, Bernadotte became one of the most successful of the French generals, was made governor of a province, ambassador, and minister of war, and had much to do with winning the great victories of Austerlitz, Jena, and Wagram. Finally he was made a marshal ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... of a savage, is not so wanting in taste and discernment as to be backward in reading any book of yours or mine. Doubtless he yearns to read it. But then, you see, that infernal Tchirkass language steps between our book, the darling, and him, the discerning reader. Now, just such a barrier existed for the Spectator in the travelling arrangements of England. The very few old heavies that had begun to creep along three or four main roads, depended so much on wind and weather, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... felt but momentary dismay—for she had real pluck. Like many who have played with amateur theatricals, she fancied herself as an actress; but, after much effort, found that only her voice and the perfect preservation of her legs were appreciated by the discerning managers and public of South Africa; and for three chequered years she made face against fortune with the help of them, under an assumed name. What she did—keeping a certain bloom of refinement, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of it all came as a blinding flash. In an instant, he analyzed his heritage of ambition and knew the desires of his mother for what they were. He looked back now upon his life of advancement with discerning eyes, and, suddenly, ahead of him, not far now since this revelation, he saw a ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... shall be the heralds or avant-couriers of the Tales which are yet in my possession, nothing doubting that they will be eagerly devoured, and the remainder anxiously demanded, by the unanimous voice of a discerning public. I rest, esteemed Reader, thine ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... had done. He, who hated scenes, dreaded tears, would not annoy Freda for the world, to have raised such emotion! He did not understand it. Lady Mary had assured him Freda would be so glad to be allowed to marry Rowland. And she was so discerning and clever! But he could not ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... knows neither these complaisances nor these weaknesses. It does not descend to the apotheosis of a past which cannot return again. The real historical spirit consists in rightly discerning what belongs to each epoch. Its object is, by no means, to call back the dead to life, but to explain why and how they lived. In harmony with a healthy philosophy, it assigns a limit to the vagaries of arbitrary will, beyond which the latter cannot ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... littleness. The very circumstances which make the shallow misanthropical incline the wise to be benevolent. Fools discover that frailty is not incompatible with great men; they wonder and despise: but the discerning find that greatness is not incompatible with frailty; ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... dreaded. They had been stunned by the unexpected blow struck by the people in asserting the independence of the legislature: for whatever credit the Parliament of that day may assume for the part which they acted in that business, it requires no argument to prove to a discerning man, that they were passive instruments in the people's hand—they only re-echoed the voice of an armed nation which they conceived too loud to be smothered, and were hurried on irresistibly by that ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... women stupid and insignificant except those whom he was sentimentally in love with (as he was now in love with Grabetz), and such women he considered to be exceptions, whose merits he alone was capable of discerning. ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... in the other, it is Intelligence which is at fault, the enlightened brain, the calm and discerning eye that can see things for what they are, neither debasing nor exalting them. The clear-sighted eye in front of the enlightened brain—there can be no Imbecility then. Only the Diseases of the Soul which ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... discerning there would be no objection made on the part of his temporary master, Mr. Cruickshanks assured him that Cairnvreckan, a village which they were about to enter, was happy in an excellent blacksmith; 'but as he was a professor, he would drive a ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... have often tested myself by these conditions, when weeks, and perhaps months, have passed without some answer to prayer, and there has come a conscious spiritual sagging. As the discerning soul can plainly see, all the conditions mentioned in the list below may be included ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... argued and denied, and the court gone for thirty days, leaving him a clear field for his operations. He felt a contempt for most of his victims, who were slow-witted Swedes, grasping neither the purport nor the magnitude of his operation, and as to those litigants who were discerning enough to see its enormity, he trusted to ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... following day at noon, Mrs Jarley established herself behind the highly-ornamented table, attended by the distinguished effigies before mentioned, and ordered the doors to be thrown open for the readmission of a discerning and enlightened public. But the first day's operations were by no means of a successful character, inasmuch as the general public, though they manifested a lively interest in Mrs Jarley personally, and such of her waxen satellites as were to be seen for nothing, were not affected ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... constrained to send for Leonardo and delicately urged him to work, contriving nevertheless to show him that he was doing all this because of the importunity of the Prior. Leonardo, knowing that the intellect of that Prince was acute and discerning, was pleased to discourse at large with the Duke on the subject, a thing which he had never done with the Prior: and he reasoned much with him about art, and made him understand that men of lofty genius sometimes accomplish the most when they work the least, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... was useless to attempt to conceal anything whatsoever from the discerning Marguerite, so—in the quiet garden of the hotel, where the doves murmur sleepily on the tiles, and the breeze only stirs the flowers and shrubs sufficiently to disseminate their scents—he told father and daughter the end ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... character of the act was, that while it revealed to him his man, it also, although in a less degree, betrayed the location of Mickey himself, whose delighted astonishment may be imagined, when, instead of discerning a crouching, painted Apache, he recognized the familiar figure of Sut ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... many eminent men for that talent to be called in question; they seem to have decided talents and dispositions for financial operations. A Genevois has the aptitude of great application united to a very discerning, natural genius, and he generally succeeds in everything he undertakes. Literature is much cultivated here, and the females, who are in general handsome and graceful, excel not only in the various feminine accomplishments, such as music, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... had disappeared after the dreadful scene in the garden at Les Iles, how I had not seen him again for five years. Here I hesitated, little knowing how to tell the Vicomtesse of that affair in Louisville. Though I had a sense that I could not keep the truth from so discerning a person, I was startled to find ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... whom he was talking was the Contessa. She was in her old place in the room, the comfortable sofa which she had taken from Lady Randolph, and where Sir Tom, leaning upon the mantelpiece, as an Englishman loves to do, could talk to her in the easiest of attitudes. Jock, though he was not discerning, thought that Sir Tom looked aged and changed too. The people in general had a tired afternoon sort of look about them. They were not like people exulting to get out of town, and out of darkness and winter weather to the fresh air and April skies. Perhaps, however, ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... the hour was early still, The dew not fallen, the wind not chill: Listening ever, but not catching The customary cry, "Come buy, come buy," With its iterated jingle Of sugar-baited words: Not for all her watching Once discerning even one goblin Racing, whisking, tumbling, hobbling; Let alone the herds That used to tramp along the glen, In groups or single, Of brisk ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... craft approaching, he traced its course by sound, and when the man stepped ashore Slim was only a few yards away. Discerning a shadow just ahead of him, the youth threw himself at it with his whole weight, only to grunt his pain and disgust as he came into violent contact with the ...
— The Brighton Boys in the Radio Service • James R. Driscoll
... "Whosoever shall eat of this bread and drink of this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord." Verse 29: "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body." Going back to chapter ten, verse sixteen, we find the Apostle giving the doctrine of the Lord's Supper in a few words thus: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? ...
— The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church • G. H. Gerberding
... very charming way about her, and Helene was gifted, as many children are, with a faculty for discerning a heart filled with true affection, they immediately became fast friends. It did Jack good to see the child so happy, with only one cloud to cause an occasional sigh, and that the memory of her ...
— Air Service Boys Flying for Victory - or, Bombing the Last German Stronghold • Charles Amory Beach
... so diligent and exquisite a history of living creatures, hath mingled it sparingly with any vain or feigned matter; and yet on the other side hath cast all prodigious narrations, which he thought worthy the recording, into one book, excellently discerning that matter of manifest truth, such whereupon observation and rule was to be built, was not to be mingled or weakened with matter of doubtful credit; and yet again, that rarities and reports that seem uncredible are not to be suppressed or denied to ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... and to reflect with a great degree of probability that this catastrophe has been owing to his own inactivity and improper indulgence? May not all human characters frequently be traced back to impressions made at so early a period, that none but discerning eyes would ever suspect their existence? Yet nothing is more certain; what we are at twenty depends upon what we were at fifteen; what we are at fifteen upon what we were at ten; where shall we then place the beginning of the series? Besides, sir, the very prejudices ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... northern forms of civilization, and the more immediate power of the Church. That which was foreshadowed in the thirteenth century became in the fourteenth a distinct national development, which, as Symonds, its most discerning interpreter, shows us, was constructing a model ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... not merely an official but a deep and discerning interest in the colonisation of Australia. He foresaw its immense possibilities, encouraged its exploration, promoted the breeding of stock and the cultivation of crops, and had a wise concern for such strategic advantages as would tend to secure it for British occupation. He ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... appeased by the prudence of the commodore, to the general satisfaction of all. Some few, indeed, whose selfish dispositions were uninfluenced by the justice of this procedure, and who were incapable of discerning the equity of the decision, were dissatisfied, as it tended to deprive them of what they had ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... a cognition to the primitive impulse which directs his attention to external things, he has acquired other relations with the world, other forms of interest; these are no longer merely those primitive ones which are bound up with a species of primordial instinct, but have become a discerning interest, based upon the conquests ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... God, she has a morning; and in the morning the dew falls, and not in the night, nor in the heat of the day. So it is not in the night of defection, nor in the heat of the day of persecution, when the Lord's people are multiplied, but it is in the morning of the day. Beloved, I wish you may be a discerning people, to know the Lord's seasons. Sall we be as those, of whom our Saviour complains, who can discern the face of the sky, but cannot discern the day of the Lord's merciful and gracious visitation towards them? Men indeed may be very learned and ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... to obey De Vauquelin and land him in any French port he might ask for, leaving him at the same time to choose what French passengers would accompany him. This noble and generous behaviour of the English did honor to their nation, by rendering justice to, and discerning the merit of, an enemy, far beyond what De Vauquelin met with from Berryer, the Secretary of the Navy, on his ...
— The Campaign of 1760 in Canada - A Narrative Attributed to Chevalier Johnstone • Chevalier Johnstone
... create what they see. Let any man endeavor to discover a passage in the Hebrew Scriptures which, taken with its context, can fairly bear such a sense. There is not a shadow of valid evidence of any kind to support the merely traditional notions on this subject. The only way of discerning predictions of a death, descent, and ascent, of the Messiah, in the law and the prophets, is by the application of Cabalistic methods of interpretation, theories of occult types, double senses, ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... for Mr. Augustus Tomlinson increased by a sight of his abode. He found him settled in a polite part of the town, in a very spruce parlour, the contents of which manifested the universal genius of the inhabitant. It hath been objected unto us, by a most discerning critic, that we are addicted to the drawing of "universal geniuses." We plead Not Guilty in former instances; we allow the soft impeachment in the instance of Mr. Augustus Tomlinson. Over his fireplace ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... schoolboy as a discerning master delights in—keen about everything, bright, docile, popular, excellent at games. He was in the sixth, moreover, as soon as his age allowed: that is to say, as soon as he was sixteen; and his pride in everything connected with the great body in which he had already a marked and important ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... temperance? Who came to him tempted by devils, and did not get rest? Who came troubled by doubts, and did not get peace of mind? For this was the great thing in Antony's asceticism, that (as I have said before), having the gift of discerning spirits, he understood their movements, and knew in what direction each of them turned his endeavours and his attacks. And not only he was not deceived by them himself, but he taught those who were troubled in mind how ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley
... notwithstanding romantic and possibly awkward circumstances of origin and relation. All men, of whatever time of life and for whatsoever reason, admired her—the mean and earthy if only for her mould, the morally discerning for her beautiful quality that pitied, caressed, encouraged, or elevated all who ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying: the same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the Most High God, which shew unto us the way of salvation. And this did she many days." [92:1] It is quite possible that even daemons have the power of discerning certain classes of future events with the quickness of intuition; [92:2] and if, as the Scriptures testify, they have sometimes entered into human bodies, we can well understand how the individuals thus possessed have obtained credit for divination. In this way the damsel mentioned ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... gathered with our yearning, Gathered so wildly in our happy fief And glimmering beautiful beyond belief, With dazing fragrance, till my dim discerning Sees them the legend dropped for my ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... just was. He promised me five hundred guineas to make him speak. What all them solemn asses could not compass, that's sweeping in their thousands every quarter, thanks to a discerning public. Baugh! He had heard of a rake-helly dog, with some stuff in his brain-pan, and he came to me—and I done it—Black Dillon done it—ha, ha! that's for the pack ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... soldiers. Women, equally with men, should address themselves to the removing of the wicked cause of all this terrible sacrifice of life and its loving, peaceful issues. It is their privilege to profit by the lessons being taught at such a fearful cost. And discerning clearly the mistakes of the past, it is their duty to apply themselves cheerfully and perseveringly to the eradication of every wrong and the restoration of every right, as affecting directly or indirectly the progress of the race toward the divine ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... grand, but it is the wrong kind of grandeur. If there be truth in the contention that the living needs of today cannot be grafted upon the dead stump of any ancient grandeur, the futility of every attempt to accomplish this impossible will somehow, somewhere, reveal itself to the discerning eye. Let us seek out, in this building, the ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... the rich pasties—on the cold wines, the refreshing jellies, and the piles of oranges, figs, and almonds, pomegranates, melons, and pine-apples. The first vote of compliment was to Henri, the black cook from Saint Christophe, whence he had been brought over by the discerning hotel-keeper, who detected his culinary genius while Henri was yet but a lad. When the table was cleared, a request was sent up to the chairman from various parties at the table, that he would command Henri's attendance, to receive the testimony of the company respecting the dinner ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... machinations were discovered and communicated to the court of London by the earl of Stair, who then resided as English ambassador at Paris. He was a nobleman of unquestioned honour and integrity, generous, humane, discerning, and resolute. He had signalized himself by his valour, intrepidity, and other military talents, during the war in the Netherlands; and he now acted in another sphere with uncommon vigour, vigilance, and address. He detected the chevalier's scheme while ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... easily handled, and had steered them through to the office-boy age without mishap, put her extremely high in the class of gifted amateurs. Mamie was accordingly given a trial, and survived it triumphantly. William Bannister, that discerning youth, took to her at once. Kirk liked the neat way she moved about the studio, his heart being still sore at the performance of one of her predecessors, who had upset and put a substantial foot through his masterpiece, that same "Ariadne in Naxos" which Lora Delane Porter had criticised ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... of his law, and just prerogatives, which were his ornament and strength, deliver him over to indirect and violent counsels, which, as those Philistines, put out the fair and far-sighted eyes of his natural discerning, and make him grind in the prison-house of their sinister ends and practices upon him: till he, knowing this prelatical rasor to have bereft him of his wonted might, nourish again his puissant hair, the golden beams of law and right; and they, sternly shook, ...
— Milton • Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
... the destiny, but more than all else just now he was thinking of the woman before him and the issue to be faced by him regarding her. His thoughts were not so clear nor so discerning as Detricand's. No more than he understood Guida did he understand this clear-eyed, still, self-possessed woman. He thought her cold, unsympathetic, barren of that glow which should set the pulses of a man like himself ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the enlightened man will then be the task of a healthy person who has made himself acquainted with the laws of evolution in art and in society, and is able to test the excellence of work in any stage from immaturity to decadence by discerning what there is of truth, sincerity, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Thasian marble, which he erected, at the cost of eight talents, in the public place of the town of Aenus. For there were some who took upon them to cavil at all this, as not consistent with his usual calmness and moderation, not discerning that though he were steadfast, firm, and inflexible to pleasure, fear, or foolish entreaties, yet he was full of natural tenderness and brotherly affection. Divers of the cities and princes of the country, sent him many presents, to honor the funeral ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... to me,—" He doesn't strike fire." And then, "He doesn't touch them." And then, "Ah! he's got them; that's it; now they're burning." And it was exactly so as he said. I sat fascinated as I watched the crowd and heard his comments. The sense of discerning what was going on in another way than by sight had been grown in him by the very necessity of his blindness. Defect in one sense was overcome by nature, by increase in ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... loved him! They go far wrong who think that this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic. Not at all: he is one of the solidest of men. Practical, cautious-hopeful, patient; a most shrewd, observing, quietly discerning man. In fact, he has very much the type of character we assign to the Scotch at present: a certain sardonic taciturnity is in him; insight enough; and a stouter heart than he himself knows of. He has the power of holding his peace over many things which do not vitally concern him—"They? ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1-20 • Various
... the way we fare hath trod, Give to thy children quick, discerning eyes To see in life upspringing from the sod All the divineness that within it lies, Till humble service lift us to the skies Who, "doubting nothing," ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... licenses to teach. They suffered no drastic loss of touch with undergraduate thought and life. In the early years of their teaching this sympathetic and kindly understanding was fresh and strong, and they used it in their classroom and wove it into the tissue of their tutorial activities. A discerning observer of college faculties can even today discover in them men and women who entered them by the same door as these great ones of old, irregularly as we would say now,—without the hallmark, and whose good teaching is a surprise to their doctored colleagues. In one institution I know ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... thickness of a tree-trunk? Hearing is likewise absent. In the never-troubled silence of the oak's inmost heart, the sense of hearing would be a non-sense. Where sounds are lacking, of what use is the faculty of discerning them? Should there be any doubts, I will reply to them with the following experiment. Split lengthwise, the grub's abode leaves a half-tunnel wherein I can watch the occupant's doings. When left alone, it now gnaws the front of its gallery, now rests, fixed by its ambulacra to the two sides ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... with the guileless heart, And seeing all with only childlike eyes, Untouched of evil, nor discerning sin, Asked laughingly: "And are you really flowers? I do not know. ...
— Parsifal - A Drama by Wagner • Retold by Oliver Huckel
... extraordinary powers; but Mr. Boswell had qualities, in their own way, almost as rare. He United lively manners with indefatigable diligence, and the volatile curiosity of a man about town with the drudging patience of a chronicler. With a very good opinion of himself, he was quick in discerning, and frank in applauding the excellencies of others. His contemporaries, indeed, not without some colour of reason, occasionally complained of him as vain, troublesome, and giddy; but his vanity was inoffensive—his curiosity was commonly directed towards laudable objects—when ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the court, and, through the court, with the street, were fastened by inside bolts. These were easily withdrawn, and I issued forth with alacrity and confidence. My perturbed senses and the darkness hindered me from discerning the right way. I was conscious of this difficulty, but was not disheartened. I proceeded, as I have since discovered, in a direction different from the true, but hesitated not till my powers were exhausted and I sunk upon the ground. I closed my eyes, and dismissed all fear, and all ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown
... says that Johnson told him 'that in his whole life he was never capable of discerning the least resemblance of any kind between a picture and the subject it was intended to represent.' This, however must have been an exaggeration on the part either of Hawkins or Johnson. His general ignorance of art is shown ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... nothing, when the subject is utterly exhausted to let the pen still move on; by some called the ghost of wit, delighting to walk after the death of its body. And to say the truth, there seems to be no part of knowledge in fewer hands than that of discerning when to have done. By the time that an author has written out a book, he and his readers are become old acquaintance, and grow very loathe to part; so that I have sometimes known it to be in writing as in visiting, where the ceremony of taking leave has employed more time than the whole conversation ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... apprehension, keen, acute, alive, brainy, awake, bright, quick, sharp; quick witted, keen witted, clear witted, sharp-eyed, sharp sighted, sharp witted; wide- awake; canny, shrewd, astute; clear-headed; farsighted &c 510; discerning, perspicacious, penetrating, piercing; argute^; quick-witted, nimble-witted, needle-witted; sharp as a needle, sharp as a tack; alive to &c (cognizant) 490; clever &c (apt) 698; arch &c (cunning) 702; pas si bete [Fr.]; acute &c 682. wise, sage, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... be so eloquent and so discerning about the dangers of silence is forced nevertheless to approve the silence of Foch in not publicly destroying the illusions. There is here a complicated paradox, arising as we shall see more fully later on, because the traditional democratic view of ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... proving that he loses no time and earns his salary. He teaches the child such accomplishments as can be readily exhibited when required, without regard to their usefulness or worthlessness, so long as they are showy. Without selecting or discerning, he charges the child's memory with a vast amount of rubbish. When the child is to be examined, the tutor makes him display his wares; and, after thus giving satisfaction, folds up his pack again, and ...
— Emile - or, Concerning Education; Extracts • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... misfortunes that had befallen us of late. But she grew more and more feeble, and both she and I knew that the end was not far off. Never once, however, did we allude to such a catastrophe; and whenever I fixed my eyes earnestly upon her in the vain hope of discerning some more favourable symptom, she would pretend ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... are "nombreux des Anglais a St. Servan, des jeunes gens vivant dans les pensions brittaniques—des familles venant l'ete faire en Bretagne une cure d'economies pour l'hiver." Continuing, this discerning author says: "Bathers, bicyclists, golfists, promenaders, and excursionists abound." Better then let them hold forth here to their hearts' content; there is little that the lover of churches will gain from what remains to-day of the town's ...
— The Cathedrals of Northern France • Francis Miltoun
... have been turned from that manifold idolatry to the one true worship and have been enlightened by God's Word. More than that, in Christ have been bestowed upon you great and glorious gifts—discerning of the Scriptures, diversities of tongues, power to work miracles—things impossible to the world. It is unmistakably evident that you embrace the true God, who does not, like dumb idols, leave you to wander in the error of your own speculations, uncounseled by the Word; ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... not obtain any honour or promotion for his Crimean services. He was included in Sir Harry Jones's list of Engineer Subalterns who had specially distinguished themselves during the siege. The French Government, more discerning than his own, awarded him the ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... brass, by long attrition tried, Placed by the purer metal's side, Displays at length a dingy hue, That proves its former claim untrue; So time's discerning hand hath art To set ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... intimacy makes the sense of delight more keen, preserves it against influences which tend to deaden it, and makes the taste more sure and trustworthy. A man who has long had acquaintance with the best in any department of art comes to have, almost unconsciously to himself, an instinctive power of discerning good work from bad, of recognising on the instant the sound and true method and style, and of feeling a fresh and constant delight in such work. His education comes not by didactic, ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... true as regards the generality of minds; but to overcome this difficulty, when one has a mind eager for emotion, variable, with width and depth capable of discerning simultaneously the for and against of every thing, and thus being necessarily exposed to perplexity of choice, it is surely marvellous if a mind so constituted be also constant. Now, Lord Byron personified this marvel. In him was seen the realization ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... discern what was illusory or misleading. The Master's answer was, "Give a foremost place to honesty and faithfulness, and tread the path of righteousness, and you will raise the standard of virtue. As to discerning what is illusory, here is an example of an illusion:—Whom you love you wish to live; whom you hate you wish to die. To have wished the same person to live and also to be dead—there is an illusion ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... will always follow thee. Be thou gratified, O king, for the benefit of the universe. Thou always honourest me greatly. I, too, bear a great friendship for thee. It is for this that I say so unto thee. I shall dissuade Karna also, provided thou art inclined to peace. Discerning persons say that there are four kinds of friends, viz., those that are naturally so, those that are made so by conciliation, those that become so through wealth, and lastly those brought under subjection by the exercise of power. All these ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... has rather taken the opposite tack. But the wonder is that he should have been carried off his feet at all in the manner he was; and it must have been no ordinary breeze that did it. Emerson shares with his contemporaries the vast preponderance of the critical and discerning intellect over the fervid, manly qualities and faith. His power of statement is enormous; his scope of being is not enormous. The prayer he uttered many years ago for a poet of the modern, one who could see in the gigantic materialism of the times the carnival ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... Somehow she did not mind the humorous suspicion of the truth that twinkled in Jane's small, boot-button eyes, but she sincerely hoped that the rest of the household would not prove equally discerning. ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... distance, mutually appreciative. Their next meeting took place in Lady Everington's drawing-room, where Barrington had already heard fair ladies praising the gifts and graces of the young diplomat. He heard him play the piano; and he also heard the appreciation of discerning judgment. He heard him talking with arabesque agility. It was Geoffrey's turn to feel on the wrong side of a vast superiority, and in his turn he repaid the old debt of admiration; generosity filled the gulf and the two became ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... says admirably in this very book, "what a man has to say is recast and heightened in such a manner as to add dignity and distinction to it." It is the new critical attitude, the appreciation of literary beauty in and for itself, the sense of "the word," the power of discerning and the power of reflecting charm, the method not more different from the wooden deduction of the old school of critics than from the merely unenlightened and Philistine commonness of the reviewers, his earlier contemporaries, or from the aimless "I like that" and "I don't like ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... possession of her at the possibility of meeting Kearn Thode beneath his sister's discerning eye, and as soon as she could courteously do so, she tore herself away from her disappointed hostess and went over ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... was removed to the barge lamenting. Mystery (a puppy, alas!) met a snake, and the blue-mottled Beagle-boy (never a dainty hound) ate that which he should have passed by. Only Royal, of the Belvoir tan head and the sad, discerning eyes, made any attempt to uphold the honour of England ...
— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling
... "A discerning friend of mine," said Don Quixote, "was of opinion that no one ought to waste labour in glossing verses; and the reason he gave was that the gloss can never come up to the text, and that often or most frequently it wanders away from the meaning and purpose aimed at in the glossed lines; and besides, ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... cannot do otherwise than reject much of the revelation of God in his presumed Works as unworthy of him, just as Mr. Newman does very much in his supposed Word as equally unworthy of him. Mr. Newman says, "Only by discerning that God has Virtues, similar in kind to human Virtues, do we know of his truthfulness and his goodness...... The nature of the case implies, that the human mind is competent to sit in moral and spiritual judgment ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... altogether different—great financiers were behind the fluctuations of values told by the tongue of the ticker, and behind them was the wealth of the Republic and still in the far distance the power of the American people. Few of them ever looked below the grease paint, nor did the most discerning ever detect the laugh ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... discerning his sweet-flavoured brother, nodded and grinned in the dim light in a way that made him seem to David like a triumphant demon. If he had been of an impetuous disposition, he would have snatched the pitchfork from the ground and impaled this fraternal ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot
... last two years, but also spoke a little English. X. eagerly seconded the suggestion, and Mr. Schmidt appeared. His verdict was anxiously awaited, but especially by the owner of the cheque, whose future movements must depend on the decision, and his relief was great when the good, the discerning, the up-to-date Mr. Schmidt pronounced in his favour. He declared that, certainly he had seen such cheques before, and generously offered to cash it himself. Thus the situation was saved, and the stranger ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... language here, such as speaking of purity of character as "white garments." The honest, earnest, unprejudiced seeker after truth quickly recognizes these, and learns to become skilled in discerning what is meant. We come to see that Israel means Israel, not the Church. Jerusalem means that city in Judea, and ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... Ignorant Rich. He's a Hebrew. His parents weren't called Leslie, but never mind. Leslie rolls. He also bounds, but not aggressively high. One can quite stand him; in fact, he has his good points. He's rich but eager. Also he doesn't know a good thing when he sees it. He lacks your discerning eye, Margery. But such is his eagerness that he is determined to have good things, even though he doesn't know them when he sees them. He would like to be a connoisseur—a collector of world-wide fame. He would like to fill his house with things that ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... towsled-haired boy, with a thin, delicate face, sitting up in a small bed in a corner. Quickly, also, his rapid glance considered the room and its contents. It was furnished with more than comfort, and its adornments plainly indicated a woman's discerning taste. An open door beyond revealed the blackness of an ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... rural life and scenery.' Mr. John Taylor and his literary coadjutors had taken great pains to spread the news far and wide that a new Burns had been discovered on the margin of the Lincolnshire fens, and was to be publicly exhibited before a most discerning public. There were low rumours, besides, that William Gifford intended to place the new Burns on the pedestal of the 'Quarterly,' spreading the fame of the humble poet into the most distant regions. Accordingly, ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... deportment. Whatever may be said of English mobs and English demagogues, I have never met with a people more open to reason, more considerate in their tempers, more tractable by argument in the roughest times, than the English. They are remarkably quick at discerning and appreciating whatever is manly and honourable. They are, by nature and habit, methodical and orderly; and they feel the value of all that is regular and respectable. They may occasionally be deceived by sophistry, and excited into turbulence by public distresses ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... heroines, the young recluse author puts on paper what she would herself like to be, and what she thinks she might be if only her eyes were bluer, her purse longer, or men more wise and discerning. In painting the slights offered to her favorite ideal, she conceives the slights that might possibly be offered to herself, and the triumphant way in which she would (under somewhat more auspicious circumstances) delight to live them down and trample them under foot. The vexations and the annoyances ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... without worth cannot give you the likeness of any object; he dwells in vague outwardness, fallacy and trivial hearsay, about all objects. And indeed may we not say that intellect altogether expresses itself in this power of discerning what an object is? Whatsoever of faculty a man's mind may have will come out here. Is it even of business, a matter to be done? The gifted man is he who sees the essential point, and leaves all the rest aside as surplusage: it is ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... walk," observing the wild flowers; a "fern walk," discerning the delicate tracery of the fern in its cool haunts; a "tree walk", noting the different trees—all are natural ways of ...
— Camping For Boys • H.W. Gibson
... upon the manifold forms of worship of the various nations, and discerning that through them all the soul of man was feeling after one and the same ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... Sort of Female Soul was formed out of the same Materials that enter into the Composition of a Fox. Such an one is what we call a notable discerning Woman, who has an Insight into every thing, whether it be good or bad. In this Species of Females there are ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... knew under heavens the noblest of queens, Golden-adorned, giving forth treasures. Then in company with Scilling, in clear ringing voice 'Fore our beloved lord I uplifted my song; 105 Loudly the harp in harmony sounded; Then many men with minds discerning Spoke of our lay in unsparing praise, That they never had heard a nobler song. Then I roamed through all the realm of the Goths; 110 Unceasing I sought the surest of friends, The crowd of comrades of the court of Eormanric. ...
— Old English Poems - Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose • Various
... elected him. Descended almost entirely from New England stock, the men of the Ashtabula district were intensely radical on all questions relating to human rights. Well educated, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs, acutely discerning of character, not quick to bestow confidence, and slow to withdraw it, they were at once the most helpful and most exacting of supporters. Their tenacious trust in men in whom they have once confided is illustrated ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... it necessary—was it really necessary, Rufus?" whispered Garside, who alone had overheard, and whose paler face and tremulous figure betrayed fears which his swarthy senior partner would have scorned to feel. "This Carter is a most artful and discerning man. I am so afraid you have barked up the wrong tree. Was it necessary, really ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... the Hetairoi; and how the vigorous old man's eyes sparkled as, with youthful enthusiasm, he spoke of the divine vanquisher of the world who had at that time condescended to address him, gazed at him keenly yet encouragingly with his all-discerning but kindly blue eyes, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... first day at Madame Carre's. Nash showed, however, such a disposition to dwell sociably and luminously on the peculiarly interesting character of what he called Dormer's predicament and on the fine suspense it was fitted to kindle in the breast of the truly discerning, that Peter wondered, as I have already hinted, if this insistence were not a subtle perversity, a devilish little invention to torment a man whose jealousy was presumable. Yet his fellow-pilgrim struck him as on the whole but scantly devilish and as still less ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... cyanide of potassium, etc. Substances generally, when in the unoxidized state, have such characteristic qualities, that they cannot very readily be mistaken for others. For this reason, reduction is a very excellent expedient for the purpose of discerning and ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... of every kind, were almost wholly left to the vulgar; all, who aimed at literary eminence, wrote in the Latin language. Some discerning spirits became sensible that the German language was susceptible of great improvement, and excited their countrymen to its cultivation. Among these was Otfroid; he translated the Gospel into German verse. He describes, in strong terms, the difficulties which he had to encounter: "The barbarousness ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler
... her own history, by way of veiling her interest in the event; but her companion was too old, and too discerning, to be easily deceived. He continued silent, as he led her away from the cliff; and when he entered the cottage, Mildred saw, by the nearer light of the candles, that ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 'Whatever was written, either in rhetoric or logic, geometry, music, and arithmetic, by myself without much difficulty or any instruction, I understood, Thou knowest, O Lord my God; because both quickness and understanding and acuteness in discerning is Thy gift.' Or, again, speaking of the youthful excellences ('excellently hadst Thou made him') of that son who was the son of his beloved mistress: 'I had no part in that ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... did give no ready answer, but proposed some thing previous to it, which he knows would find us work, or writing to Mr. Pett to be informed how matters go there as to cost and ways of providing sawyers or saw-mills. We were parted without coming to any good resolution in it, I discerning plainly that Sir W. Warren had no mind to it, but that he was surprised at our motion. He gone, I to some office business, and then home to dinner, and then to office again, and then got done by night the lists that are ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... man on foot laden with gold passing through some evil-haunted wood, in the dark and unarmed. And he reflected that it would be well for the protege to watch, without seeming to do so, over the protector, to become the discerning Telemachus of the blind Mentor, to point out to him the quagmires, to defend him against the highwaymen, to aid him, in a word, in his combats amid all that swarm of nocturnal ambuscades which he felt were prowling ferociously around the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... cultivate them for the silk-worm, and other uses, they sow the perfectly mature berries of a tree whose leaves have not been gather'd; these they shake down upon an old sheet spread under the tree, to protect them from gravel and ordure, which will hinder you from discerning the seed: If they be not ripe, lay them to mature upon shelves, but by no means till they corrupt; to prevent which, turn them daily; then put them in a fine sieve; and plunging it in water, bruise them with your hand; do this in several ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... listeners but also to Cosimo himself. Gemisthos was, however, a Greek, and Cosimo was too busy a man in a city of enemies, or at any rate of the envious, to be able to do much more than extend his patronage to the old man and despatch emissaries to the East for more and more manuscripts; but discerning the allurements of the new gospel, Cosimo directed a Florentine enthusiast who knew Greek to spread the serene creed among his friends, who were all ripe for it, and this enthusiast was none other than a youthful ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... and the booty—the last considerable. Thus, on the same day, the Athenians were victorious on both elements—an unprecedented glory, which led the rhetorical Plutarch to declare—that Plataea and Salamis were outshone. Posterity, more discerning, estimates glory not by the greatness of the victory alone, but the justice of the cause. And even a skirmish won by men struggling for liberty on their own shores is more honoured than the proudest battle in which the conquerors are actuated ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the President of the night is not ceremoniously pretending, "positively for this night only," to have an interest in the drama, but that he has an unusual and thorough acquaintance with it, and that he has a living and discerning knowledge of the merits of the great old actors. It is very pleasant to me to remember that the Lord Mayor and I once beguiled the tedium of a journey by exchanging our experiences upon this subject. I rather prided myself ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... between the hours of eleven and four, every sixth man is an author. They are seldom to be seen very early in the morning, or late in the evening, but about dinner time they are all in motion, and have one uniform eagerness in their faces, which gives little opportunity of discerning their hopes or fears, their pleasures ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... Scipio, who told him he should cultivate the friendship, not of individual Romans, but of the State. But in Jugurtha's heart a noble sentiment found no echo. Brave, treacherous, restless, an able commander, a crafty politician, adroit in discerning and profiting by other men's bad qualities, wading to the throne through the blood of three kinsmen, he in some respects resembles Shakspeare's Richard III.,—his 'prime of manhood daring, bold, and venturous,' his 'age confirmed, proud, subtle, sly, and bloody.' [Sidenote: ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... sceptical conclusions might be reached by the learned and discerning, the devotion of the common people showed no signs of flagging. In the parish church of St. Stephen at Noyon, it was not the Christian proto-martyr alone that was decorated with a cap and other gewgaws, when his yearly festival came around, but likewise the "tyrants," ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... tuition of learning and the intuition of the Spirit. While we should not undervalue the former, it is striking to note how the Bible puts the weightier emphasis on the latter; so that really the unspiritual hearer is to be accounted less blameworthy for not discerning the truth than the intellectual preacher is for {91} expecting him to do so. When, for example, one attempts with the utmost learning to convince an unbeliever of the deity of Christ and fails, the word of Scripture to him is: "No man is able to say ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... have been discovered, or understood, or discussed. For the mere act of division, and of definition, and the distribution of the partitions of a doubtful question, and the understanding the topics of arguments, and the arranging the argumentation itself properly, and the discerning what ought to be assumed in arguing, and what follows from what has been assumed, and the distinguishing what is true from what is false, and what is probable from what is incredible, and refuting ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero
... reproach, so commonly thrown upon us, that we are the descendants of convicts? As far as it has lain in my way to be acquainted with the general sentiments of the people upon this subject, I solemnly declare, that the most discerning and judicious amongst them esteem it the greatest grievance imposed upon ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... he does, the demon mixes up a great many illusions amid some truths, in order that the difficulty of discerning the true from the false may make mankind take the side which pleases them most, and that the incredulous may always have some points to maintain them in their incredulity. Although the apparitions of spirits, angels, and demons, and their ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... and we have the envy of the coterie transformed into the fury of revolution. Whoever will closely observe the working of that mainspring of human actions—selfishness—on the society, whether in a village, a city, a country, or a metropolis in which he resides, will have no difficulty in discerning the real but secret, and therefore unobserved spring of the greatest changes that ever occur in the political and social world. Voltaire said the factions at Geneva were storms in a teacup; if any man will study the motion of water in a teacup, he will ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Marietta had been able to scrutinize her inner being, she would probably have owned that she found Jerry Freelands' influence upon her a great and guiding one. It was, she knew, a precious privilege to know a poet, and to see the natural and spiritual worlds through his discerning eyes. It would have seemed to her wonderful to be a poet herself. Ruth Bellair, waiting in unconscious sovereignty for Jerry to seek her out and lay lilies at her feet, was, she knew, the happiest woman in the spring world. Yet the soft air moved the pines to wavelike murmurings, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... work in the nature of secret service, Captain Prescott," he continued, "and it demands a wary eye and a discerning mind." ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... four stanzas are highly creditable, both sentimentally and metrically. Apart from the poetry, criticism seems the dominant element in The Piper, and it would be difficult indeed to find a more lucid and discerning series of reviews. Mr. Kleiner's unvarying advocacy of correct metre and perfect rhyming is refreshing to encounter in this age of laxity and license. Perhaps he is a little stern in his condemnation of the "allowable" rhymes ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... am certainly convinced that he will not remain under this delusion who possesses the gift of discerning spirits, and to whom our Lord has given real humility; for such a one will judge of them by the fruits, by the good resolutions and love,—and our Lord gives him light to understand the matter; and herein He regards the progress and advancement of souls, not the ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... think he's fine," Annabel answered. "And so clever! Just think of any one being discerning enough to find the way into Sue's good graces by ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... piece of machinery, illustrating the limit of human constructive power; perfectly under control, the movements smooth, unvarying, rhythmical, charming, excelling in agility and power its living prototype—but still, scientific—to the discerning eye, artful. The other, something more than rhythmical, more than smooth, beyond the control of human agency, beyond the power of man to analyze as to synthetize—more than science can explain, more than even art dare claim. The one explicable, the other inexplicable; the one from the hand of patient ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... beaus at Will's, the men of wit, By nature nice, and for discerning fit, The finished fops, the men of wig and muff. Knights of the ...
— The Strand District - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... discourse which Socrates—whom the oracle of Apollo pronounced to be the wisest of men—held upon this subject just before his death. In a word, when I consider the faculties with which the human mind is endued; its amazing celerity; its wonderful power in recollecting past events, and sagacity in discerning future; together with its numberless discoveries in the several arts and sciences, I feel a conscious conviction that this active, comprehensive principle can not possibly be of a mortal nature. And as this unceasing activity of the soul ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy |
