"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Illustrious, inquired how his Magnificence had passed the latter part of the night. Whilst replying, as ever courteously—for in the look and bearing of Maximus there was that senatorius decor which Pliny noted in a great Roman of another time—his straining eyes seemed to descry a sail in the quarter he continually watched. Was it only a fishing boat? Raised upon the couch, he gazed long and fixedly. Impossible as yet to be sure whether he saw the expected bark; but the sail seemed to ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing
... vividly aware of the desperate struggle nearby. Subconsciously she realized Maisanguaq and Ootah were engaged in a fight to the death. In the darkness she sensed them moving away from her. Straining her eyes she began, very dimly—as Eskimos can even in pitch darkness—to descry the black outlines of the two men wrestling as they shifted nearer and nearer the edge of the ice. Then it dawned upon Annadoah's mind that they were being carried, in the jeopardy of an awful storm, ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre
... HOW TO BE A DETECTIVE; but though he turned many pages and flitted to and fro from preface to conclusion he met only with disappointment. The pictures of noted bank burglars and confidence men aided him not one whit, for in none of them could he descry the slightest resemblance to the smooth faced youth of the early morning. In fact, so totally different were the types shown in the little book that Willie was forced to scratch his head and exclaim "Gosh!" many times in an effort to reconcile ...
— The Oakdale Affair • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had forgotten the title to which Lord Borland of the old time was heir; and now that all doubt as to the identity of the man was over, although, let her strain her vision as she might, she could not, through the deformation of years, descry the youthful visage, she felt that all action on the part of the generation in possession was none the less forestalled and precluded by the presence of one in the house who had evidently long waited his arrival, and had certainly but begun his reprisals. More would be heard ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... more, and the Glory of the South Seas would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama. Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first descry the sails of the Spanish treasure. For once his luck failed him. The wind suddenly fell. Before Drake needed to issue the order, his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for dear life, towing the Golden Hind. Day or night from February twenty-fourth, they ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... and continually augmented by those who, having run off to snatch their Christmas dinner, were returning to the spoil. Some lined the edge of the breakers, waiting the moment to rush in for a cask or spar that the tide brought within reach; others (among whom she seemed to descry Young Zeb) were clambering out with grapnels along the western rocks; a third large group was gathered in the very centre of the beach, and from the midst of these a blue wreath of smoke began to curl up. At the same ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... south, over the shoulders of Nob Hill, the hill of palaces, must certainly be counted the best part of San Francisco. It is there that the millionaires are gathered together vying with each other in display. From thence, looking down over the business wards of the city, we can descry a building with a little belfry, and that is the Stock Exchange, the heart of San Francisco: a great pump we might call it, continually pumping up the savings of the lower quarters into the pockets of the millionaires ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ian, "he made haste out of the ruck! But it was with difficulty he got clear, happily to windward—then for an hour sat motionless on his horse, watching through the moonlight the long dark shadow flitting toward its far-off goal. When at length he could no longer descry it, he put his horse to his speed—but not ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... commonly misunderstood phrases in the language is "the Spanish Main." To the ordinary individual it suggests the Caribbean Sea. Although Shakespeare in "Othello," makes one of the gentlemen of Cyprus say that he "cannot 'twixt heaven and main descry a sail," and, therefore, with other poets, gives warrant to the application of the word to the ocean, "main" really refers to the other element. The Spanish Main was that portion of South American territory distinguished from Cuba, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... chain of the Brevent and the Aiguilles-Rouges stretched out at our feet. Beyond, the Fiz rocks and the Aiguille-de-Varan rose above the Sallanche Valley, and the whole chains of Mont Fleury and the Reposoir appeared in the background. More to the right we could descry the snowy summit of the Buet, and farther off the Dents-du-Midi, with its five tusks, overhanging the valley of the Rhone. Behind us were the eternal snows of the Gouter, Mont Maudit, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... seen a new-made Mayor's unwieldy State; Where change of Fav'rites made no Change of Laws, And Senates heard before they judg'd a Cause; How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish Tribe, Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe? Attentive Truth and Nature to descry, And pierce each Scene with Philosophic Eye. To thee were solemn Toys or empty Shew, The Robes of Pleasure and the Veils of Woe: All aid the Farce, and all thy Mirth maintain, Whose Joys are causeless, or whose Griefs are ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... the Moon, Climbing through Night's highest noon: In Time's Ocean falling, drowned: In Aged Ignorance profound, Holy and cold, I clipp'd the Wings Of all Sublunary Things: But when once I did descry The Immortal Man that cannot Die, Thro' evening shades I haste away To close the Labours of my Day. The Door of Death I open found, And the Worm Weaving in the Ground; Thou'rt my Mother, from the Womb; Wife, Sister, Daughter, to the Tomb: Weaving to Dreams the Sexual strife, ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... orb The Tuscan artist views through optic glass At evening from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands, Rivers or mountains in her spotty ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... had their skinnes pierced thorow with them in many partes of their bodies." Yet, giddy with weakness, they dragged themselves in turn to the top of St. John's Bluff, straining their eyes across the sea to descry the anxiously expected sail. ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... does we can descry the school-master who arrived at the front rather late in life. One needs only to go over the record and mark how often he has reversed himself to detect a certain mental and temperamental instability clearly indicating a lack of fixed or resolute intellectual purpose. This is characteristic ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... a steep Hill doth rise That even to Heaven, mounts by degrees, And safe, with uncouth passage, leanes upon The solid backs, of Rocks and stone: Whence 'mid'st the Bulwark'd Forts, we may descry A displayd Banner from on hye, Which to th'Imperiall force a terrour was, A terrour to great Borgias, When through the brasen troops of's threatning foes, His fearfull thunder-bolts he throwes, Pursuing routed ...
— The Odes of Casimire, Translated by G. Hils • Mathias Casimire Sarbiewski
... American hospitality—that combination of eager good-nature, Oriental lavishness, and sheer brains. We had time to spare. Close to the terminus we had passed by a hotel whose summit, for all my straining out of the window of the cab, I had been unable to descry. I said that I should really like to see the top of that hotel. No sooner said than done. I saw the highest hotel I had ever seen. We went into the hotel, teeming like the other one, and from an agreeable and lively young dandy bought three ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... the twilight, the light of the moon. For the painter these are honeymoon trips with Nature. You are alone with her in that long and tranquil rendezvous. You go to bed in the fields amid marguerites and wild poppies, and, with eyes wide open, you watch the going down of the sun, and descry in the distance the little village, with its pointed clock-tower, which sounds the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... proposed also excellent reasons for their vehemence. And it is instructive to observe that the objections, and the reasons for the objections, recur, after the original object of wrath has passed into acceptance, nay, into dominance of the musical world. One may also descry one basic controversy running through all these utterances, even when not ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... arraign'd; The Fox her innocence maintain'd: The Ape, as umpire, takes his seat; Each pleads his cause with skill and heat. Then thus the Ape, with aspect grave, The sentence from the hustings gave: "For you, Sir Wolf, I do descry That all your losses are a lie— And you, with negatives so stout, O Fox! have stolen the goods ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... little cluster of old houses, and scarcely saw them in the deepening night. As she went by the mill she could just descry its ruined roof standing out like a dark pyramid against the dun sky. The snow fell faster. It was now lying thick on her cloak in front, and on the windward face of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... should find any Tartars, on the sudden, there came two horses running towards vs, which we tooke with great ioy, and our guide and interpreter mounted vpon their backes, to see, how far off they could descry any people. At length vpon the fourth day of our iourney, hauing found some inhabitants, we reioyced like sea faring men, which had escaped out of a dangerous tempest, and had newly recouered the hauen. Then hauing taken ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt
... growth of the path he is leading us over; while to throw light round our steps, and either explore its darkest places, or serve for our recreation; illustrations are fetched from a thousand quarters, and an imagination marvellously quick to descry unthought of resemblances, points to our use the stores, which a love yet more marvellously has gathered from all ages and nations, and arts and tongues. We are, in respect of the argument, reminded of Bacon's multifarious ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... who 'mid the leafy bower Has, in her nest, sat darkling through the night With her sweet brood; impatient to descry Their wished looks, and to bring home their food, In the fond ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... prophecy she hath, Exceeding the nine Sibyls of old Rome: What's past and what's to come she can descry. ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... a female named Sutchnimia, and she had been introduced to my notice as infallible, her character as usual being well supported by her mahout; but no sooner did this heroic beast descry the tiger, than she twisted herself into every possible contortion, throwing herself about in the most aimless attitudes, with a vigour that threatened the safety of the howdah and severely taxed the strength ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... build to reach the height they reached before. From Carrollton the current rebounds, and swinging over to the other shore strikes it, boiling like a witch's caldron, just above and along the place where you may descry the levee lock of ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... the first century of human sympathy,—the age when half wonderingly we began to descry in others that transfigured spark of divinity which we call Myself; when clodhoppers and peasants, and tramps and thieves, and millionaires and—sometimes—Negroes, became throbbing souls whose warm pulsing life touched us ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... whirlwind. Soon the conquerors And conquered vanish, and the dead remain Mangled by tomahawks. The mighty woods Are still again, the frighted bird comes back And plumes her wings; but thy sweet waters run Crimson with blood. Then, as the sun goes down, Amid the deepening twilight I descry Figures of men that crouch and creep unheard, And bear away the dead. The next day's shower Shall wash the tokens of ...
— Poems • William Cullen Bryant
... purple and brown. The water is very deep and of a fine olive green, and, being remarkably clear, the light stones lying at the bottom are distinctly visible, among which at my last visit we could descry great fishes, probably bass, pursuing shoals of launces." By "launces" the writer meant what we should now call the lancelet. Just south of Dollar is the old smugglers' cave known as Raven's Hugo. Below this to the extreme ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... evening had already fallen; but from his high place Frey could still see distinct shapes moving about through the gloom. Strange and monstrous shapes they were, and Frey stood a little higher, on tiptoe, that he might look further after them. In this position he could just descry a tall house standing on a hill in the very middle of Joetunheim. While he looked at it a maiden came and lifted up her arms to undo the latch of the door. It was dusk in Joetunheim; but when this maiden lifted up her white arms, such a dazzling reflection came from them, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... by her face and physnomy, Whether she man or woman only were, That could not any creature well descry." ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... pride of Spain, and dragged the humbled banner of France in triumph at his stem. He was born yonder, towards the west, and of him there is a glorious relic in that old town; in its dark flint guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen; a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and mother-of-pearl. 'Tis the sword of Cordova, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... the night sky and the big white Southern stars shining through a soft cloud. Inconsequentially, his vagrant mind recalled that, below Miami, the Southern Cross is smudgily visible on the horizon, somewhere around two in the morning. And he wondered if he could descry it, if that luminous cloud were not ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... paper, not less than from the party and political involvements incident to it; and here was the material part of the answer made. "Many thanks for your affectionate letter, which is full of generous truth. These considerations weigh with me, heavily: but I think I descry in these times, greater stimulants to such an effort; greater chance of some fair recognition of it; greater means of persevering in it, or retiring from it unscratched by any weapon one should care for; than at any other period. And most of all I have, sometimes, ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... thou didst threat me with the cord; Come forth and brave my sword, if you dare!" But he met with no reply, and never could descry The glitter of ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... conjunction with the light, it suggested some one who had been watching and had slunk away; but even that thought was slightly melodramatic in so well-ordered a community. He went on till he was at the foot of the steps, at a point where he could no longer descry the glow in the upper window, but could perceive through the fanlight over the inner door that, though the lower hall was dark, the electrics were burning somewhere in the ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... gesture to the question of the king, was perfect in its realization of the simplicity of Elsa. Nevertheless I, at any rate, as I searched her features through the lorgnon that Mrs. Sullivan had silently handed to me, could descry beneath the actress the girl—the spoilt and splendid child of Good Fortune, who in the very spring of youth had tasted the joy of sovereign power, that unique and terrible dominion over mankind which belongs to ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... with a sudden start of intuition, saw what her father had been unable to descry or even dream. The worthy baron's time of life for fervid thoughts was over; for him despairing love was but a poet's fiction, or a joke against a pale young lady. But Albert felt from his own case, from burning jealousy suppressed, and cold neglect put up with, and all the other many-pointed ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... he saw nothing, but as the Imps pressed into the room and ranged themselves along the walls, he was enabled, by the light of their glimmering lanterns to descry a ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... floated for a moment over the spot where the poor girl had sunk; suddenly Fritz disappeared, his keen eye had been of service here, for it enabled him to descry the object sought. In a few seconds he rose to the surface with Mary's inanimate body in his left arm. Willis hastened to assist him in bearing the precious burden to the boat, and Becker's powerful arms drew ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... Aiden, you can't descry, "with sorrow laden," the tiny soul of 'Arry, it is because you no longer read your own small print, my Atlas! and the microbes of Eternity ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... high trees she did descry A little smoke, whose vapour, thin and light, Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky, Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight, That in the same ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... only afraid that they might become a little too bumptious on the strength of it, and be after giving us another job. But they did more than simply bear us company; they bore us to the cool grove, which I have said we could descry from the deck of our ship, there to be introduced to certain worthies, and to make kef in their company. Nothing to my mind comes up to an al fresco entertainment—in proper season and country, be it understood; for an English gipsy party is a very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... damps of death are coming fast, My father, o'er my brow; The past, with all its scenes, are fled, And I must turn me now To that dim future which, in vain, My feeble eyes descry. Tell me, my father, in this hour, In whose stern faith ...
— The Christian Foundation, June, 1880
... situation. We made our way through the trench towards the batteries at the foot of the Loos Crassier. In doing so, we had to pass under the road. I was going on ahead, and when I stooped down to pass under the bridge, to my surprise I could dimly descry in the darkness a row of silent men sitting on each side of the passage facing one another. I said, "Good-night, boys," but there was no answer. The figures in the darkness remained motionless and still. I could not quite make out what the matter was, for our men always ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... silver on the flower-decked tables. All about her Billy saw flushed-faced men, and bright-eyed women, laughing, chatting, and clinking together their slender-stemmed wine glasses. But nowhere, as she looked about her, could Billy descry ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... assaults of the infidels. The standard of the true faith was constantly displayed from the loftiest tower, and a fire blazed there throughout the night, as signals of distress to the surrounding country. The watchman from his turret kept a wary look out over the land, hoping in every cloud of dust to descry the glittering helms of Christian warriors. The country, however, was forlorn and abandoned, or if perchance a human being was perceived, it was some Arab horseman, careering the plain of the Guadalquiver as fearlessly as if it were his ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... of the birds. We find a number of strange patriarchal beasts entering the scene in the early Eocene, and spreading into a great variety of forms in the genial conditions of the Oligocene and Miocene. As some of these forms advance, we begin to descry in them the features, remote and shadowy at first, of the horse, the deer, the elephant, the whale, the tiger, and our other familiar mammals. In some instances we can trace the evolution with a wonderful fullness, considering the ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... sand. The violence of the wind was terrible; and only by creeping forward between the gusts was it possible to pass among the sand-hills; and now the salt spray flew up from the sea like down, while the ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. It required a practised eye to descry the vessel out in the offing. The vessel was a noble brig. The billows now lifted it over the reef, three or four cables' lengths out of the usual channel. It drove towards the land, struck against the second ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... upright on their hind legs, by the side of a clump of juniper-spruce bushes and intently watching my movements, are a pair of full-grown cinnamon bears. When a bear sees a man before the man happens to descry him, and fails to betake himself off immediately, it signifies that he is either spoiling for a fight or doesn't care a continental password whether war is declared or not. Moreover, animals recognize the peculiar advantages of two to one in a fight equally with ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... a lover's care? Could guess the fraud, the coming change descry, And in the midst of safety feared a snare. Now wicked Fame hath bid the rumour fly Of mustering crews. Poor Dido, crazed thereby, Raves like a Thyiad, when the frenzied rout With orgies hurry to Cithaeron high, And "Bacchus! Bacchus" through the night they shout. At ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... mounting high; 20 That inn he long had passed; the distant spire, Which oft as he looked back had fixed his eye, Was lost, though still he looked, in the blank sky. Perplexed and comfortless he gazed around, And scarce could any trace of man descry, 25 Save cornfields stretched and stretching without bound; But where the sower dwelt was ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... graziers who went on the way, But unto the Cripple for passage did pay. And every brave merchant that he did descry, He emptied their ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... a metal shine, And flashes of white, and a sail thereon, He would also descry With a half-wrapt eye Between the projects he ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... there must be a chord attuned to echo back in voiceless melody the brightness and the beauty around? Yet oh! how many there may be, even here, whose sun of happiness hath set on earth forever! How many whose tear-dimmed glance can descry naught in the far future but a weary waste—whose life-springs all are dried—whose up-springing hopes all withered by the blighting touch ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... them in wrath On their perilous path; And Johnston bore down in a whirlwind to sweep Their ranks from the field Where their doom had been sealed, As the storm rushes over the face of the deep; While swift on the centre our President pressed. And the foe might descry In the glance of his eye The light that once blazed upon Diomed's crest. McDowell! McDowell! weep, weep for the day. When the Southrons you meet in their battle array; To your confident hosts with ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... greatly interrupted by his cruisers (viz. Haseen Aga's, about 1541), and such frequent alarms given to the coast of Spain, that there was a necessity of erecting watch towers at proper distances, and of keeping guards constantly on foot, in order to descry the approach of his squadrons, and to protect ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 41, Saturday, August 10, 1850 • Various
... he said, striking aside into a field which formed part of the Park. "Adieu, civilization of street lights!" and he pressed up into a dark grove where I stumbled after, and next, under the twilight of a sky full of stars, could descry dim outlines of the surroundings of our path and even of the Mountain, silent above us like a huge black ghost. We toiled up the steep stair, guiding ourselves by feeling, and in a few minutes Were at Prospect Point, that jutting bit of turf on the precipice's edge where ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... familiar sites as we flitted by: the last we made out plainly was Borghetto, a handful of houses, with a ruined castle keeping watch on a hill hard by: then twilight gathered, and we strained our eyes in vain for the earliest glimpse of Mount Soracte, and night came down before we could descry the first landmarks of the Agro Romano, the outposts of our excursions, the farm-towers we knew by name, the farthest fragments of the aqueducts. But it was not so obscure that we could not discern the Tiber between his low banks showing us ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... north took us abreast of Providential Channel, through which Captain Cook entered with the greatest difficulty in 1770. He arrived outside the Barrier Reef, rolling heavily to the swell with no wind, and finding it impossible to descry a single opening. Hope seemed at an end, when, providentially, Captain Cook espied from his masthead what looked like deep water between two rocks, through which he safely steered his vessel. From Restoration Island to Cape Weymouth we were considerably ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... descry no security from the pitfalls that were yawning for Polly, but in proposing to her, after dinner, to sit upon a low stool. "I will, if you will," said Polly. So, as peace of mind should go before all, he begged the waiter to wheel aside the table, bring a pack of cards, a couple ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... Ionian Sea had not helped to increase his cheerfulness. There had been a heavy storm, and then long days of leaden sky and sea, and a cold mist through which one could descry only at rare intervals ghostly sails of other ships, to remind one that here was the beaten track of commerce from the Orient. Even as they approached the Piraeus, and beat slowly and carefully up the bay, the desolate ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... sea. "There she is, blowing and drifting in fast. And right toward the Dolphin Rocks, too—the worst place on the beach!" They all gazed toward the doomed vessel, that was now much nearer shore. Blake even thought he could descry figures on deck, clinging to the ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... OF THE COUNCIL.—On the 16th of November, I embarked in a large boat at St. Mary's with a view of reaching Mackinack in season to take the last vessel returning down the lakes. The weather was hazy, warm, and calm, and we could not descry objects at any considerable distance. If we were not in "Sleepy Hollow" while descending the broad valley and stretched out waters of the St. Mary's, we were, at least, in such a hazy atmosphere, that our eyes might almost as well have been shut. It seemed an interlude in the weather, between ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Niccolo, it's no great science We shall ever conquer, you and I. Yet, when you are nestled at my shoulder, Others guess not half that we descry. ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... in caves among the rocks, totally unknown to the Pirates. At last they came to a high mountain, which, when they ascended, they discovered from the top thereof the South Sea. This happy sight, as if it were the end of their labours, caused infinite joy among the Pirates. From hence they could descry also one ship and six boats, which were set forth from Panama, and sailed towards the islands of Tavoga and Tavogilla. Having descended this mountain, they came unto a vale, in which they found great quantity of cattle, whereof they killed good store. Here ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... forms of ceiba, balata, acoma, stand dimly revealed as they pass; masses of viny drooping things take, by the failing light, a sanguine tone. For a little while Fafa can plainly discern the figure of the Woman before him;—then, as the path zigzags into shadow, he can descry only the white turban and the white foulard;—and then the boughs meet overhead: he can see her no more, and ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... the traveller in the desert, after a day of scorching glow and a night of breathless heat, descry the distant trees which mark the longed-for well-spring in the emerald oasis, which seems to beckon with its branching palms to the converging caravans, to come and slake their fever-thirst, and escape from the ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... seeking beauty, once descry Her face, to most unknown; Thenceforth like changelings from the sky Must walk ...
— The New Morning - Poems • Alfred Noyes
... with his cavalry from Halle, and the battle was renewed with the utmost fury. The Swedish infantry fled behind the trenches. To assist them, the king hastened to the spot with a company of horse, and rode in full speed considerably in advance to descry the weak points of the enemy; only a few of his attendants, and Francis, duke of Saxe-Lauenberg, rode with him. His short-sightedness led him too near a squadron of Imperial horse; he received a shot in his arm, which nearly precipitated him to the ground; and ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... sails On the gilded yard so high, And they in less than two months space Old Denmark could descry. ...
— The Mermaid's Prophecy - and Other Songs Relating to Queen Dagmar • Anonymous
... are still at their posts. An exquisite yellow butterfly, of a sort strange to my Yankee eyes, flits past, followed by a red admiral. The marsh hawk is on the wing again, and while looking at him I descry a second hawk, too far away to be made out. Now the air behind me is dark with crows,—a hundred or two, at least, circling over the low cedars. Some motive they have for all their clamor, but it passes my owlish wisdom to guess what it can be. A ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... war of words is wandering from the purpose. Now, mark me well—the man who dares insult A woman's modesty, must have descry'd Somewhat in her behaviour that would warrant Such outrage of abuse.—Is this your hand? [Shewing ...
— The Female Gamester • Gorges Edmond Howard
... (Buffon does not venture to guarantee the assertion), that "they will descry a fly at the distance of a quarter of ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... on earnest labour bent Their business, murmuring, ply 'Gainst graver hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty; Some bold adventurers disdain The limits of the little reign And unknown regions dare descry; Still as they run they look behind, And hear a voice in every wind, And snatch a ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... And by the Angel was bid rise and eat, And eat the second time after repose, The strength whereof sufficed him forty days: Sometimes that with Elijah he partook, Or as a guest with Daniel at his pulse. Thus wore out night; and now the harald Lark Left his ground-nest, high towering to descry 280 The Morn's approach, and greet her with his song. As lightly from his grassy couch up rose Our Saviour, and found all was but a dream; Fasting he went to sleep, and fasting waked. Up to a hill anon his steps he reared, From whose high top to ...
— Paradise Regained • John Milton
... case, now saw Mrs. Rance approach with an instant failure to attach to the fact any grossness of avidity of Mrs. Rance's own—or at least to descry any triumphant use even for the luridest impression of her intensity. What was virtually supreme would be her vision of his having attempted, by his desertion of the library, to mislead her—which in point ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James
... fond of watery soil; The white-barked palm tree, rising high in air; The mastic in the woods you may descry; Tamarind ...
— A Little Journey to Puerto Rico - For Intermediate and Upper Grades • Marian M. George
... wood, come away, The floor with grass and flowers is gay! There ’neath no tree shalt thou descry In churlish guise old jealousy. Fear not my love, afar is now The loon, thy tiresome lord, I trow; To all a jest amidst his clan He choler deals in Cardigan. Here, nestled nigh the sounding sea, In Ifor’s bush we’ll ever be. More bliss ...
— The Brother Avenged - and Other Ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise
... they were about to give up all hope a cry of joy from the boat further to windward caused the occupants of the other two boats to rest on their oars, and turn in that direction; they strained their eyes in the endeavor to descry something beyond, but could see nothing. However, those nearest the point in question evidently could, and so they turned back and pulled against the wind with all their might, and in a few minutes the boatswain sung out, "A sail ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... Marigold, and are immediately submerged "in a weak, washy, everlasting flood" of insipidity, twaddle, bosh, and heart-rending sorrow, you do not shut the book with a jerk. Why not? Because in the dismal distance you dimly descry two figures swimming, floating, struggling towards each other, and a languid soupon of curiosity detains you till you have ascertained, that, after infinite distress, Adolphus and Miranda ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Dost thou wonder that I hung Raptur'd on my Leila's tongue? If her ghost's funereal screech Thro' the earth my grave should reach, On that voice I lov'd so well My transported ghost would dwell:— If in death I can descry Where my Leila's relics lie, Saher's dust will flee away, There to join his ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous
... observe that nervous gentleman perfectly tranquil and unmoved. Hark! a tinkling bell is ringing somewhere outside the theatre. From my position in the stalls I can see into the open street beyond, and anon I descry a procession of church dignitaries in full canonicals, the first of whom bears the tinkling bell, while the rest carry long wax candles, the Host, and the sacred umbrella. Their mission at this hour of the evening is that of administering ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... dream, methought, I went To search out what might there be found; And what the sweet bird's trouble meant, That thus lay fluttering on the ground. I went and peered, and could descry 545 No cause for her distressful cry; But yet for her dear lady's sake I stooped, methought, the dove to take, When lo! I saw a bright green snake Coiled around its wings and neck. 550 Green as the herbs on which it couched, ...
— Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... what most men would have shrunk from. But by one bound from the earth, the active youth caught hold of the lower branch, and swung himself up into the tree, and in a minute more gained the top of the cliff, from which he could easily descry a human figure descending the valley. It was not that of a shepherd, or of a hunter, and scarcely any others used to traverse this deserted solitude, especially coming from the north, since the reader may remember that the brook took its rise from an ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... grotesque and laughable things, or truly piteous things, he can dispose of all these; if he wishes to evoke places and deserts, shady or dark retreats in the hot season, he represents them, and likewise warm places in the cold season. If he wishes valleys, if he wishes to descry a great {91} plain from the high summits of the mountains, and if he wishes after this to see the horizon of the sea, he can do so; and from the low valleys he can gaze on the high mountains, or from the high mountains he can scan the low valleys and shores; and in ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... With stronger thews and keener nerves he turns again to the visible around him. The changelessness amid change, the law amid seeming disorder, the unity amid units, draws him again. He begins to descry the indwelling poetry of science. The untiring forces at work in measurable yet inconceivable spaces of time and room, fill his soul with an awe that threatens to uncreate him with a sense of littleness; while, on the other side, the grandeur of their operations fills him with such ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... lane sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue Or green to ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... west, and a tolerably smooth sea. All night Lord Howe had carried a press of sail to keep up with the French fleet, which he rightly conjectured would be doing the same; and as he eagerly looked forth at early dawn, great was his satisfaction to descry them, about six miles off, on the starboard or lee bow of his fleet, still steering in line of battle on the larboard tack. His great fear had been that the French Admiral would weather on him and escape; now he felt ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... concerned us most was a sight to make us crouch quickly lest sharp eyes below should descry us on the sky-line of the cliff. Pitched on one of the grassy savannas by the stream, so fairly beneath us that the smallest cannon planted on our cliff could have dropped a shot into it, was the camp ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... more insolent, By that small loss, or rout, at LEXINGTON, Prevent our purpose and the night by-past, Have push'd intrenchments, and some flimsy works, With rude achievement, on the rocky brow, Of that tall hill. A ship-boy, with the day, From the tall mast-head, of the Admiral, Descry'd their aim, and gave the swift alarm. Our glasses mark, but one small regiment there, Yet, ev'ry hour we languish in delay, Inspires fresh hope, and fills their pig'my souls, With thoughts of holding it. You hear the sound Of spades and pick-axes, upon the hill, ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... could make out the formal but hazy stakes and posts, aligned in the distance to the end of sight; and here and there the swellings and round ink-blots of the dugouts. In some sections of trench one could sometimes even descry black lines, like a dark wall between other walls, and these lines stirred—they were the workmen of destruction. A whole region in the north, on higher ground, was a forest flown away, leaving only a ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... One of these corps was commanded by Tancred, and William his brother; the other by the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Chartres. Bohemond, who headed the reserve, was posted with his horsemen on an eminence in the rear, from whence he could descry the whole ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... gazed into his amethyst again, beaming at it, as if he could descry something deliciously comical in its depths. He gave a soft little laugh. At ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... wide expanses around him. Mist covered the farther distances, but through it, afar off, he fancied he could descry the grey line of the sea. To the right the moorland gave place to a distant stone wall, beyond which was a wheat field; to the left it stretched away into the mist, through which he saw the dim ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... flatteries abuse. To lash, and not be felt, in thee's an art; Thou ne'er mad'st any but thy schoolboys smart. Then be advis'd, and scribble not agen; Thou'rt fashioned for a flail, and not a pen. If B——l's immortal wit thou wouldst descry, Pretend 'tis he that writ thy poetry. Thy feeble satire ne'er can do him wrong; Thy poems and thy ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... sweet hand she lifts the streaming hair, That o'er her shoulders droops so gracefully, While with the other she directs his gaze, All desperate with amaze, Yet with a strange delight, through all his fear! What sees he there? Buried within her bosom doth his eye The deadly steel descry; The blood stream clotted round it—the sweet life Shed by the cruel knife!— The keen blade guided to the pure white breast, By its own kindred hand, declares the rest! Smiling upon the deed, she smiles on him, And in that smile ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... brought, and it was impossible to distinguish them in the giddy motion of the horrible arms. This lasted for a long, indefinite time until the evening. Then the partitions inside assumed a darker glow, and burning flesh could be seen. Some even believed that they could descry hair, limbs, and ...
— Salammbo • Gustave Flaubert
... which merited the vengeance of Heaven. Though he was the idol of his friends, and the favoured companion of princes, yet he afterwards became the victim of persecution, and spent some of his last hours within the walls of a prison; and though the Almighty granted him, as it were, a new sight to descry unknown worlds in the obscurity of space, yet the eyes which were allowed to witness such wonders, were themselves doomed to ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster
... Polycletus in proud rivalry On her his model gazed a thousand years, Not half the beauty to my soul appears, In fatal conquest, e'er could he descry. But, Simon, thou wast then in heaven's blest sky, Ere she, my fair one, left her native spheres, To trace a loveliness this world reveres Was thus thy task, from heaven's reality. Yes—thine the portrait heaven alone could wake, This clime, nor earth, such beauty ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... and the first recognisable bulks at which attention is arrested are in truth those shadowy Fichtean divisions: such are the rude beginnings of logical architecture. In its inability to descry anything definite and fixed, for want of an acquired empirical background and a distinct memory, the mind flounders forward in a dream full of prophecies and wayward identifications. The world possesses as yet in its regard only the superficial forms that appear in revery, it has no hidden ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... quicken'd? Limbs so firm, they seem'd to assure Life of health and days mature: Woman's self in miniature! Limbs so fair, they might supply (Themselves now but cold imagery) The sculptor to make Beauty by. Or did the stern-eyed Fate descry, That babe or mother, one must die; So in mercy left the stock, And cut the branch; to save the shock Of young years widow'd; and the pain, When Single State comes back again To the lone man who, 'reft of wife, Thenceforward drags a maimed life? The economy of Heaven is ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... and round the castle's steep, I let my glances wander; But cannot from the dizzy keep, Descry it, there or yonder. Oh, he who'd bring it to my sight, Or were he knave or were he knight, Should be ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... lost it, and can fight no more. Glorious self-government is a glory not for you, not for Hodge's emancipated horses, nor you. No; I say, No. You, for your part, have tried it, and failed. Left to walk your own road, the will-o'-wisps beguiled you, your short sight could not descry the pitfalls; the deadly tumult and press has whirled you hither and thither, regardless of your struggles and your shrieks; and here at last you lie; fallen flat into the ditch, drowning there and dying, unless the others that are still standing please to pick you up. The others that ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... round and you may descry the Tuscan Sea. Our situation is reported to be among the highest of the Apennines. Marcipor has made the sign to me that dinner ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... ascended, and, when it was high over the town of Shopton, Tom headed the craft due west. Looking down he tried to descry Mary Nestor, in her carriage, but the trees were in the way, their interlocking branches hiding the girl. Tom did see crowds of other persons, though, thronging the streets of Shopton, for, though the young inventor had made many flights, there was ...
— Tom Swift Among The Diamond Makers - or The Secret of Phantom Mountain • Victor Appleton
... eye cannot descry All workings of the brain; At silent night, it gains a might Which bears ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... inert bulk of the dead horse, unclenched the muscular grasp of the soldier, as if it had been a baby's clasp, slipped the staff, technically the lance, of the guidon from its socket, and stood with it in his own hand, looking suspiciously to and fro to descry if perchance he were observed. The coast clear, he turned to the wall of rock beside the road, for this was near the mountain sandstone formation, fissured, splintered, with the erosions of water and weather; and into one of the ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... faint moonlight he could just descry the dark shapes of the melons on the ground in front of him. The crickets were having a high time in the stubble around, and the night air drew sweet autumnal exhalations from the ground; for autumn begins by night a long time before it does by day. ...
— Hooking Watermelons - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... picked up Lieutenant Parker and myself and one of the seamen. As soon as I landed I sent Midshipman Clark out again, who ventured as far from the island as he thought his boat would live, but this time he returned unsuccessful, having been able to descry no floating object whatever. Lieutenant Claiborne saved himself on a small hatch about two feet square, used for covering the pump-well, and which he found floating near the wreck. He was thrown with great violence upon a reef near Sacrificios, but fortunately ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... Where scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For godlike kings of old; From seagirt Populonia, 30 Whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy ...
— Narrative and Lyric Poems (first series) for use in the Lower School • O. J. Stevenson
... inhaled the fetid odours arising from the narrow court. All the windows looking, like mine, upon the air-shaft were shrouded in darkness; only a light still burned in the window beneath the grating with the iron stair to the little yard. What was at the foot of the stair I could not descry, but I thought I could recognize the ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... carrying dispatches, and as some experts believe, in locating submarines and mines placed by the enemy in channels of exits from ports. A "coast aeroplane" could fly out 30 or 40 miles from land, and rising to a great height, descry any hostile ships on the distant horizon, observe their number, strength, formation and direction, and return within two hours with a report to obtain which would require several swift torpedo-boat destroyers and ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... route on the morning of the 3d of May, and went to encamp that evening at the upper-end of a rapid, where we began to descry mountains covered with forests, and where the banks of the river themselves were ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814 or the First American Settlement on the Pacific • Gabriel Franchere
... his stay at Rabaeck Mr Wraxall found the church door open, and made these notes of the interior which I have epitomized. Into the mausoleum, however, he could not make his way. He could by looking through the keyhole just descry that there were fine marble effigies and sarcophagi of copper, and a wealth of armorial ornament, which made him very anxious to spend some time ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... thou paintest to the eye The straw-thatched roof with elm trees high, But thou hast wisdom to descry What lurks below— The springing tear, the melting ...
— Life and Remains of John Clare - "The Northamptonshire Peasant Poet" • J. L. Cherry
... more Than Man, in Youth's high spousal-tide, Abhors at last to touch The strange lips of his long-procrastinating Bride; Nay, not the least imagined part as much! Ora pro me! My Lady, yea, the Lady of my Lord, Who didst the first descry The burning secret of virginity, We know with what reward! Prism whereby Alone we see Heav'n's light in its triplicity; Rainbow complex In bright distinction of all beams of sex, Shining for aye In the simultaneous sky, ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore
... Here they sat down under a tree, and after a short repast, which was moistened with their tears, resumed their journey. But they were again bewildered in forest, and, after gaining the summit of the mountain without being able to descry a single habitation, lay down on the bare ground and resigned themselves to sleep. The next morning Sir Isumbras found that his misfortunes were not yet terminated. He had carried his stock of provisions, together with his gold, the fatal ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... consultation with the cook was a solemn function with which nothing was allowed to interfere. New and fantastic arrangements of flowers graced the dinner-table each day, and the parlour-maid quailed before an eye which seemed able to descry dust in ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... gigantic of girth, wherewith it flew away clean out of sight. I marvelled at this and faring forwards found myself on a peak overlooking a valley, exceeding great and wide and deep, and bounded by vast mountains that spired high in air: none could descry their summits, for the excess of their height, nor was any able to climb up thereto. When I saw this, I blamed myself for that which I had done and said, "Would Heaven I had tarried in the island! It was better than this wild desert; for there I had at least fruits to eat and water to drink, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 6 • Richard F. Burton
... to appreciate the next ballad, you must fancy yourself (if you cannot realize it) stretched on the grass, by the margin of a mighty river of the south, rushing from or through an Italian lake, whose opposite shore you cannot descry for the thick purple haze of heat that hangs over its glassy surface. If you lie there for an hour or so, gazing into the depths of the blue unfathomable sky, till the fanning of the warm wind and the murmur of the water combine to throw you into a trance, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... the great bargains to be had at Budgett's. As custom increased, so did envy and accusation. Many scrupled not to declare, that they sold cheaper than they bought, and therefore must soon come to an end; yet they went on, year by year, in steady and rapid increase.... He already seemed to descry in the distance the possibility of a great wholesale establishment; but this must be reached by little and little. He would not attempt what he could not accomplish. Any sudden bound, therefore, by which he was at once to pass the gulf now separating him from his object, was not to be thought ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... another armed troop passed through the streets of St. Petersburg. With drawn swords they surrounded two closely-covered sledges, the mysterious occupants of which no one was allowed to descry! The train made a halt at the same gate through which the overthrown imperial family had just passed. The soldiers surrounded the sledges in close ranks; no one was allowed a glimpse at ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... Sahara. After sauntering along for half an hour, now listening to the wind that blew over the sand-hills, and now watching the spiky sparkle of the wintry stars in the sea, he reached a point whence he could descry the windows of Mr Fraser's part of the college. There was no light in Kate's window. She must be in the dining-room with her uncle—or—or—on the pier—with whom? He flung himself on the sand. All the old despair of the night of thunder, of the moonlight ramble, of the last ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... remarkable only as a heap of magnificent ruins. The first object that now presents itself to the traveller who approaches this forlorn place, is a castle of mean architecture and uncertain origin, about half an hour's walk from it, on the north side. "From thence," says Mr. Maundrell, "we descry Tadmor, enclosed on three sides, by long ridges of mountains; but to the south is a vast plain which bounds the visible horizon. The barren soil presents nothing green but a few palm trees. The city must have been of large extent, ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... with a Sigh shut eu'ry Close. Deare Citie, trauelling by thee, When thy rising Spyres I see, Destined her place of Birth; Yet me thinkes the very Earth 60 Hallowed is, so farre as I Can thee possibly descry: Then thou dwelling in this place, Hearing some rude Hinde disgrace Thy Citie with some scuruy thing, Which some Iester forth did bring, Speake these Lines where thou do'st come, And strike ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... impenetrable thickets (chapparals). I distinguish in these thickets the honey-locust, with its long purple legumes, the "algarobo" (carob-tree), and the thorny "mezquite"; and, rising over all the rest, I descry the tall, slender stem of the Fouquiera splendens, with ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... leading me such "a wild-goose chase," such "a dance," over The Desert. In my wrath I was not disheartened. Now, as it was dark, I began to ascend the highest mounds of Desert, from, whose top I might descry the fires of our encampment. I wandered round and round, and on, now over, sand and sand-hills, now climbed up trees, now upon eminences of sand or earth-banks, seeking the highest mounds of the vast plain, to see if any lights were visible, ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... the volley drowns his voice, and the scrub is alive with swarming natives armed with firelocks of every description. Yet, above the volley and the savage shouts, Laurence can hear the hoarse, barking yell, can descry the forms of his late enemies—such as are left of them—as they flee, leaping and bounding, zigzagging with incredible velocity and address, to avoid the hail of bullets which is poured ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... that these animals can descry a man at the distance of twenty or twenty-five feet. When approaching a crayfish "town" for the purpose of making observations, I use the utmost caution; otherwise, each inhabitant will retreat into its burrow before I can come close enough to observe ...
— The Dawn of Reason - or, Mental Traits in the Lower Animals • James Weir
... communication. For I could see no reason why her opinions should prevent her from corresponding with one who, whatever might or might not seem to him true, yet cared for the truth, and must treat with respect every form in which he could descry its predominating presence. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... tapers were put out, the lamps pushed aside, and raised or lowered, and when at last a tolerably suitable light was procured Pollux threw himself on a stool, straddled his legs, craned his head forward as far as his neck would allow, looking, with his hooked nose, like a vulture that strives to descry his distant prey-cast his eyes down, raised them again to take in something fresh, and after a long gaze looked down again while his fingers and nails moved over the surface of the wax-figure, sinking into the plastic material, applying new pieces ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... said Hugo; and he retreated to the kerb, in the expectation of being able to descry Camilla's light ...
— Hugo - A Fantasia on Modern Themes • Arnold Bennett
... that morning, and many were the muttered remarks which he made to himself, in German, as he urged the canoe against wind and current. As he neared home his fears increased. On reaching a certain part from which he had been wont to descry the chimney of old Liz's hut, he perceived that the familiar object was gone, and uttered a mighty roar ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... for everything, and on occasion we must learn to be just an eye focussed upon being. But that does not at all exclude the possibility of future works, treating in due order of the problem of human destiny, and perhaps even in the work so far completed we may descry some attempts to bring ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... had water'd, we steer'd for the Havana, and between Portobello and Carthagena, we spied a Sail; as she clapp'd upon a Wind, as soon as she descry'd us, and we went upon One Mast, we soon met, but were as willing to shake her off, as we had been to speak to her. She proved a Forty Gun French Ship, which handled us without the least Ceremony. We began the Fight ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... Where were the ships?—Where could they be found? All our telescopes, directed over the sea could not descry a single friendly sail Bonaparte, I affirm, would have regarded such an event as a real favour of fortune. It was, and—I am glad to have to say it, this sole idea, this sole hope, which made him brave, for three days, ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis[obs3]. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus[obs3]. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Mythical]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken; get a sight of, have a sight of, catch a sight of, get a glimpse of, have a glimpse of, catch a glimpse of; command a view of; witness, contemplate, speculate; cast the eyes on, set the eyes on; be a spectator &c. 444 of; look on ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... carriages were furnished with lamps, however, and, by the rapid glance they cast upon the objects which we passed, I endeavored in vain to guess at the nature of the country through which we were traveling; but, except the tall shafts of the everlasting pine trees, which still pursued us, I could descry nothing, and resigned myself to the amusing contemplation of the attitudes of my companions, who were all fast asleep. Between twelve and one o'clock the engine stopped, and it was announced to us that we had traveled as far upon the railroad as it was ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... indeed, as she thought of those she had left; but often, while the tear trembled in her eye, its course was arrested by wonder, or admiration, or delight; for every object had its charms for her. Her cultivated taste and unsophisticated mind could descry beauty in the form of a hill, and grandeur in the foam of the wave, and elegance in the weeping birch, as it dipped its now almost leafless boughs in the mountain stream. These simple pleasures, unknown alike to the sordid mind and vitiated ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... and, in the distance, Walter and his companions could descry the caravan, apparently guarded by a strong force: and gradually the white turbans and green caftans and long spears became more and more distinct. It was clear that, in the event of Salisbury not returning in time, Walter would have to fight against great ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... anxiously both officers and men scanned the western horizon towards which they were steering. Each one had a pecuniary motive for wishing to be the first to descry the New Continent, King Ferdinand having promised a reward of 10,000 maravedis, or 400 pounds sterling, to the first discoverer. The latter days of the month of September were enlivened by the presence of numerous large birds, petrels, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... observed them very completely at Gottingen, was led to believe that not merely the debris strewn along its path, but the comet itself must have been in immediate proximity to the earth during their appearance.[1226] If so, it might be possible, he thought, to descry it as it retreated in the diametrically opposite direction from that in which it had approached. On November 30, accordingly, he telegraphed to Mr. Pogson, the Madras astronomer, "Biela touched earth ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... star to star, from system to system, until we reach yon lonely star that appears to be performing the Guardian's task, upon the verge of unmeasured and immeasurable space. We may descry and describe the form and outlines of those heavenly bodies, detect their movements and approximately determine their distances and dimensions. But what more? Little that is satisfying. When they had a beginning, what purposes they subserve in the sublime system ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... president of the company authorized by the legislation which he had suggested previously to Governor Harrison. It is well known that the same views entertained by Washington and Jefferson were held and advocated by Mr. Madison, long before the most prescient statesman could descry the faintest image of that colossal empire of population, wealth and rapid development now lying ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... thou wert of gentle mood, And held with all the weary winds a truce, Upon the other shore I could descry Where, faintly outlined in the western sky, A mystic rainbow-girdled Headland stood, Whose silver sandals thou dost rise ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... far o'er The western wave, a smooth and level plain, Albeit the earth is fashioned like a wheel. Man was in ancient days of grosser mould, And Hercules might blush to learn how far Beyond the limits he had vainly set, The dullest sea-boat soon shall wing her way. Men shall descry another hemisphere, Since to one common centre all things tend; So earth, by curious mystery divine Well balanced, hangs amid the starry spheres. At our antipodes are cities, states, And thronged empires, ne'er divined of yore. But see, the Sun speeds on his western path To glad the nations ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... tones were heard caressing and coaxing the pony, which he led. Caius saw the cart, a black mass, disappear over the top of the hill, which was here not more than twenty feet high. When it was gone he could dimly descry a dark figure, which he supposed to be the boy, standing on the top, as if waiting to see what he would do; so, after holding short counsel with himself, he, too, began to stagger upward, marvelling more and more at the feat of the pony as he went, for though ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... the wind was very light at southwest, with a mist and drizzling rain; but by three in the afternoon the two fleets could descry and count each other through ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... teaching at all; it does not reach their ignorance; perhaps they require a teaching that to our ignorance would seem no teaching at all, or even bad teaching. How many things are there in the world in which the wisest of us can ill descry the hand of God! Who not knowing could read the lily in its bulb, the great oak in the pebble-like acorn? God's beginnings do not look like his endings, but they are like; the oak is in the acorn, though we cannot ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald |
