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Descry   Listen
noun
Descry  n.  Discovery or view, as of an army seen at a distance. (Obs.) "Near, and on speedy foot; the main descry Stands on the hourly thought."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books



... 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 ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay

... close order they sailed along under the tall cliffs of Ireland. We were about three miles from the shore, on which now every telescope and glass was eagerly directed. As the light and fleeting clouds of early morning passed away, we could descry the outlines of the bold coast, indented with many a bay and creek, while rocky promontories and grassy slopes succeeded each other in endless variety of contrast. Towns, or even villages, we could see none—a few small wretched-looking hovels were dotted over the hills, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... 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 cellular, tunnel-like ...
— The Lost Guidon - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... for us? Had fate Proposed bliss here should sublimate My being—had I signed the bond— Still one must lead some life beyond, Have a bliss to die with, dim-descried. This foot once planted on the goal, This glory-garland round my soul, Could I descry such? Try and test! I sink back shuddering from the quest. Earth being so good, would heaven seem best? Now, heaven and she are ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... be embarked? Where were the ships?—Where could they be found? All our telescopes, directed over the sea could not descry a single friendly sail Bonaparte, I affirm, would have regarded such an event as a real favour of fortune. It was, and—I am glad to have to say it, this sole idea, this sole hope, which made him brave, for three days, the murmurs of his army. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne

... dark skirting the lake. You could almost see the rings made by rising trout, and there was enough of you visible at least to send the waterfowl scuttering from the reeds. Beyond that again, you could descry the pale ribbon of the footpath, and guess at the exuberant masses of the peony bushes, their heavy flowers, when they were white, still smouldering with the last of the sunset's fire. But once in the woods you had to feel your way, and ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... wood, come away, The floor with grass and flowers is gay! There ’neath no tree shalt thou descry In churlish guise old jealousy. Fear not my love, afar is now The loon, thy tiresome lord, I trow; To all a jest amidst his clan He choler deals in Cardigan. Here, nestled nigh the sounding sea, In Ifor’s bush we’ll ever be. More bliss for us ...
— The Brother Avenged - and Other Ballads - - - Translator: George Borrow • Thomas J. Wise

... harvest in the richer soil Of towering thoughts—where holy breezes blow, And everlasting flowers in beauty smile— No disappointment shall the labourer know. Methought I saw a fair and sparkling gem In this rude casket—but thy shrewder eye, WANGNER! a jewell'd coronet could descry. Take, then, the bright, unreal diadem! Worldlings may doubt and smile insultingly, The hidden stores of truth are ...
— Peter Schlemihl • Adelbert von Chamisso

... delivered by the honourable member for South Oxford in Toronto in the session of 1856 or 1857, in which he described the path of the attorney-general [Macdonald] as studded all along by the gravestones of his slaughtered colleagues. Well, there are not wanting those who think they can descry, in the not very remote distance, a yawning grave waiting for the noblest victim of them all. And I very much fear that unless the honourable gentleman has the courage to assert his own original strength—and ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... who, at the beginning of a new century, stand with shaded eyes, gazing into the future, striving to descry the outlines of the shadowy figures which loom before us in the distance, nothing seems of so gracious a promise, as the outline we seem to discern of a condition of human life in which a closer union than the world has yet seen shall exist between the man and the woman: where the Walhalla of ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner

... sent a kind reply, For CAPEL thought he could descry An admirable plan To study all their ways and laws - (But not their lady-fish, because He was ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert

... as the bottles do, From a house you could descry 10 O'er the garden-wall: is the curtain blue Or green ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... Indeed, he could 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 ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens

... the order was given to march into the Chamla valley. My duty was to accompany the Mountain batteries and show them the way. As we debouched into comparatively open country, the enemy appeared on a ridge which completely covered our approach to Umbeyla, and we could descry many standards flying on the most prominent points. The road was so extremely difficult that it was half-past two o'clock before the whole force was clear of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... describe the fear, and the dool, and the misery it caused. All flocked to the kirk-yett; and the friends of the newly buried stood by the mools, which were yet dark, and the brown newly cast divots, that had not yet taken root, looking, with mournful faces, to descry any tokens of ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... than the heresiarch himself, so here too, in like manner, I may be describing a school of thought in its fully developed proportions, which at present every one, to whom membership with it is imputed, will at once begin to disown, and I may be pointing to teachers whom no one will be able to descry. Still, it is not less true that I may be speaking of tendencies and elements which exist, and he may come in person at last, who comes at first to us merely in his ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... while the muffled, thudding echo was cavalry at the trot. The force, apparently a heavy one, did not seem to be coming from Schallberg. He leaned far out of the window challenging the darkness with his peering eyes. Dimly he could descry the plateau about the castle with its low bastions at the cliff's edge. Indefinite shapes pacing along the wall he knew to be Krovitzer sentries. He fancied he heard a challenge on the distant road, a halt, then the invisible army took up ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton

... meditations—who hath staid in the world to fill a number; and when he is gone there wants one and there's an end."[J] He, to be sure, has no conversation, and that is his discretion—but others display then as now a bolder discretion, and in their talk "fly for sanctuary rather to nonsense which few descry, ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle

... Abbotsford). In Edinburgh, William Sharp's statement about Stevenson should be remembered, "One can, in a word, outline Stevenson's own country as all the region that on a clear day one may in the heart of Edinburgh descry ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... concluded 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 to ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... peered into the opening, and could just descry the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. I reached in and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. He was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a cat. He made no effort to escape, but planted ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... to accept them all at their own valuation, and thought most of them entirely charming. And though she had hardly had time as yet to progress beyond the introductory stages of chance meetings and informal little teas in public, she began clearly to descry enchanting vistas of better days to come, when the Princess Sofia Vassilyevski would have not only teas but dinners and dances given in her honour, and would be asked to spend gay week-ends in the country houses ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance

... tread again The mazes of this varying wood, And soon, amid a cultured plain, Girt in with fertile solitude, We shall our resting-place descry, Marked by one roof-tree, towering ...
— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... woman whom he had baptized the day before). He continued his way, praising the divine Providence and judgments of God, who had thus predestined the lot of that soul. We were informed that a sick man lay at the point of death, far out from the village. The road thither was hard to descry in the darkness of the night, and abounded with serpents, which were continually encountered, stretched out in the road. In addition to this, a very broad river must be passed, with rapid current and full of crocodiles—which, when they become ravenous, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, - Volume XIII., 1604-1605 • Ed. by Blair and Robertson

... 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 those who alighted ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach

... secured him?" Sir Giles demanded, trying to descry the fugitive among them. "Death and fiends! you have not let ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... in the act of rushing off to pack your things—one moment: this essay has yet to be finished. We have yet to glance at those two extremes between which the mean is good guestship. Far to the right of the good guest, we descry the parasite; far to the left, the churl again. Not the same churl, perhaps. We do not know that Corin's master was ever sampled as a guest. I am inclined to call yonder speck Dante—Dante Alighieri, of whom we ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... 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, To One, thy Husband, Father, Son, and Brother, Spouse blissful, Daughter, Sister, ...
— The Unknown Eros • Coventry Patmore

... voyage. The Indians had never been to sea before, and had never dreamed that such an expanse of water existed on the planet. They would stand at the rail, after the first days of seasickness were over, gazing out across the waves, and trying to descry something that looked like land, or a tree, or anything that seemed familiar and like home. Then they would shake their heads disconsolately and go below, to brood and muse and be an extremely unhappy and forlorn lot of savages. The joy that seized them when at last they came in sight of land, ...
— An Autobiography of Buffalo Bill (Colonel W. F. Cody) • Buffalo Bill (William Frederick Cody)

... and draw it different ways, And thus in prowess like a god the chief Subdued her strength nor softened at her charms— The nymph divine, the magic mistress, failed. Recovering, still half resting on the turf, She looked up wildly, and could now descry The kingly brow, arched lofty for command. "Traitor!" said she, undaunted, though amaze Threw o'er her varying cheek the air of fear, "Thinkest thou thus that with impunity Thou hast forsooth deceived me? ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor

... speeds my boat along, my garments fluttering to the gentle breeze. I inquire my route as I go. I grudge the slowness of the dawning day. From afar I descry by old home, and joyfully press onwards in my haste. The servants rush forth to meet me: my children cluster at the gate. The place is a wilderness; but there is the old pine-tree and my chrysanthemums. I take the little ones by the hand, and pass in. Wine is brought in full bottles, and I pour out ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles

... as I beheld in the east all those splendid hues that announce the rising sun. At this hour, when all natural shadows are seen in their full proportions, not a fence or shelter of any kind could I descry in this open country, and I was not alone! I cast a glance at my companion, and shuddered again—it was the man in the gray coat himself! He laughed at my surprise, and said, without giving me time to speak: "You see, according to the fashion of this world, mutual ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German (V.2) • Various

... administered by the literary Kazi with exemplary impartiality and severity; "denouncing evil doers and eulogising deeds admirably achieved." The morale is sound and healthy; and at times we descry, through the voluptuous and libertine picture, vistas of a transcendental morality, the morality of Socrates in Plato. Subtle corruption and covert licentiousness are utterly absent; we find more real"vice" in many a short French roman, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... Ethereal temper, massie, large and round, Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his Shoulders like the Moon, whose orb Thro Optick Glass the Tuscan Artist views At Evning, from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands, Rivers, or Mountains, on her spotted Globe. His Spear (to equal which the tallest pine Hewn on Norwegian Hills to be the Mast Of some great Admiral, were but a wand) He walk'd with, to support uneasie Steps Over ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... became 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, on a floe ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... went, when he heard a sound that made him look up. Then he saw that he was under a great beech, and the sound seemed to come from somewhere in the top of it—a sound like the pleased cooing of a dove. He looked hard into the branches and their wilderness of fresh leaves, but could descry nothing. Then came a little laugh, and with a preparatory rustling and rustling in its passage, a book—a small ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald

... Moon, whose 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 ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss

... twirled on high, Here molten stones and scattered cinders fly: Its fury reaches the remotest coast, And strows the Asiatic shore with dust. 160 Now does the sailor from the neighbouring main Look after Gallic towns and forts in vain; No more his wonted marks he can descry, But sees a long unmeasured ruin lie; Whilst, pointing to the naked coast, he shows His wondering mates where towns and steeples rose, Where crowded citizens he lately view'd, And singles out the place where once St Maloes stood. Here Russel's actions ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville

... or 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, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... they spend there together, gazing wistfully at the horizon, and thinking, if not talking, of home. But ships seldom visited that sea. Twice only, during their exile, did they at long intervals descry a sail, but on both occasions their flag failed to attract attention, and the hopes which had suddenly burst up with a fierce flame in their breasts were doomed to sink ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne

... the mizzen rigging, and looked through the smoke. Dead men he could descry through the blinding veil, rolled in heaps, laid flat; dead men and dying: but no man upon his feet. The last volley had swept the deck clear; one by one had dropped below to escape that fiery shower: and alone at the helm, grinding his teeth with rage, his mustachios curling up ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley

... 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... day's immeasured dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home — Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... all on the right hand of him; silent except for some snoring hum; and now he is Eastward as far as the Barrier de Saint-Martin; looking earnestly for Baroness de Korff's Berline. This Heaven's Berline he at length does descry, drawn up with its six horses, his own German Coachman waiting on the box. Right, thou good German: now haste, whither thou knowest!—And as for us of the Glass-coach, haste too, O haste; much time is already lost! The august Glass-coach fare, six Insides, hastily ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... 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 outline of ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams

... 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; ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci

... gone, O nature! was the world ordain'd for nought But fill man's maw, and feed man's idle thought? Thy grandsire's words savour'd of thrifty leeks, Or manly garlic; but thy furnace reeks Hot steams of wine; and can aloof descry The drunken draughts of sweet autumnitie. They naked went; or clad in ruder hide, Or home-spun russet, void of foreign pride: But thou canst mask in garish gauderie To suit a fool's far-fetched livery. A French head join'd to ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... fixed our eyes on the object: the distance was so great that it was at first with difficulty that we could distinguish whether it moved or not. A quarter of an hour, however, dispelled all doubts, for within this time it had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, and we could descry a figure seated on an animal of ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... half-an-hour, and an hour, and on the present occasion had considerably exceeded even this last limit. And now, Jeanie stood at the door, with her hand before her eyes to avoid the rays of the level sun, and looked alternately along the various tracks which led towards their dwelling, to see if she could descry the nymph-like form of her sister. There was a wall and a stile which separated the royal domain, or King's Park, as it is called, from the public road; to this pass she frequently directed her attention, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... the gloom. Enormous gnarled 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

... not called, like demigods, to gaze on The battle from the far-off mountain's crest, But in our hearts to bear our fiery blazon, An Olaf's cross upon a mailed breast,— To look afar across the fields of flight, Tho' pent within the mazes of its might,— Beyond the mirk descry one glimmer still Of glory—that's the ...
— Love's Comedy • Henrik Ibsen

... the Gods Display it on a day when bulls are slaughtered. So once I vowed, that should I ever see Or hear his safe return, I would enfold His glorious person in this robe, and show To all the Gods in doing sacrifice Him a fresh worshipper in fresh array.— The truth hereof he will with ease descry Betokened on this treasure-guarding seal.— Now go, and be advised, of this in chief, To act within thine office; then of this, To bear thee so, that from his thanks and mine Meeting in one, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles

... Professor Klinkerfues, who had 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 November 27; ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke

... goodness of the feed they had broken out from the little enclosure we had made for them and had wandered off. The stock-keeper and two of the men, having ascended the conical hill behind us to try if they could see them from it, reported on their return that they could descry a large lake or expanse of water, which bore about south by west ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... 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 ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... captains had mentioned to me an island situated in 17 deg. 32' latitude, and 163 deg. 52' longitude. On the 23rd of September we crossed this point, and saw indeed birds of a description that rarely fly to any great distance from land; but the reported island itself we were unable to descry even from the mast-head, although the atmosphere was perfectly clear:—so little is the intelligence of masters of trading-vessels to ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... a moment the Mahdi rose and stepped to the door, and then in the distance he could descry the procession approaching—a moving black shadow against the sky. Also over their billowy heads he could see a red glow far away in the clouds. It was the last smouldering of the fire ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... notion of concerning himself with the assassin's apprehension and punishment did P. Sybarite waste that moment of hasty survey. His eyes were only keen and eager to descry the yellow Western Union message; and when he had looked everywhere else, his glance dropped to his feet and found it there—a torn and crumpled envelope with its enclosure flattened out and ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... the empty Libyan land. And when they came forth and saw that vast level of sand stretching like a mist away into the distance, a deadly fear came over each of them. No spring of water could they descry; no path; no herdsman's cabin; over all that vast land there was silence and dead calm. And one said to the other: "What land is this? Whither have we come? Would that the tempest had overwhelmed ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum

... bay, across which a wooden bridge has been built. The fortress seems in a very dilapidated condition; many breaches are still in the same state in which they were left after the taking of the town by the English in 1840, and part of the wall has fallen into the sea. In the background we could descry some ruins on a rock, apparently the remains of an ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer

... in your ignorant rashness Have passed through the bounds and limits Of this interdicted valley, 'Gainst the edict of the King, Who has publicly commanded None should dare descry the wonder That among these rocks is guarded, Yield at once your arms and lives, Or this pistol, this cold aspic Formed of steel, the penetrating Poison of two balls will scatter, The report and fire of which Will the air astound ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca

... said Mr Chester—'really if you do not draw some nicer distinctions, your career will be cut short with most surprising suddenness. Don't you know that the letter you brought to me, was directed to my son who resides in this very place? And can you descry no difference between his letters and those addressed ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... 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

... dragged the humble banner of France in triumph at his stern. He was born yonder to 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 ...
— Souvenir of the George Borrow Celebration - Norwich, July 5th, 1913 • James Hooper

... a sign of the impending storm. Behind them Wolfe's cannon were playing busily from Lighthouse Point and the heights around the harbor; but, before them, the broad flat marsh and the low hills seemed almost a solitude. Two miles distant, they could descry some of the English tents; but the greater part were hidden by the inequalities of the ground. On the right, a prolongation of the harbor reached nearly half a mile beyond the town, ending in a small lagoon formed by a projecting sandbar, and known as ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... escape from out the forest, he drove his animals laden with the fuel into a bye-way of the bushes and swarmed up a thick trunk of a huge tree to hide himself therein; and he sat upon a branch whence he could descry everything beneath him whilst none below could catch a glimpse of him above; and that tree grew close beside a rock which towered high above head. The horsemen, young, active, and doughty riders, came close up to the rock-face and all dismounted; whereat Ali Baba took good ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... while my head would be filled with vivid dreams concerning the heroes of my last-read novel, and I would keep picturing to myself some leader of an army or some statesman or marvellously strong man or devoted lover or another, and looking round me in, a nervous expectation that I should suddenly descry HER somewhere near me, in a meadow or behind a tree. Yet, whenever these rambles led me near peasants engaged at their work, all my ignoring of the existence of the "common people" did not prevent me from experiencing ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... 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 ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble

... been seen, and if tidings are thus obtained the ship's course is at once laid for the locality where they were last noticed. A man is always stationed at the masthead, where, with the keen eye which practice has given him, he can easily descry the telltale dorsal fins at a distance of two or three miles. When a fish has once been sighted, the watch "sings out," and the vessel is steered directly toward it. The skipper takes his place in the "pulpit" holding ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey

... Leave even his heavenly Father's awe, At times, and His immaculate law, Construed in its extremer sense. Jehovah's mild magnipotence Smiles to behold His children play In their own free and childish way, And can His fullest praise descry In the exuberant liberty Of those who, having understood The glory of the Central Good, And how souls ne'er may match or merge, But as they thitherward converge, Take in love's innocent gladness part With infantine, untroubled heart, And faith that, straight t'wards ...
— The Victories of Love - and Other Poems • Coventry Patmore

... dear Lucien," said Etienne, turning to his friend, "you would see an oak counter from some bankrupt wine merchant's sale, and a tallow dip, never snuffed for fear it should burn too quickly, making darkness visible. By that anomalous light you descry rows of empty shelves with some difficulty. An urchin in a blue blouse mounts guard over the emptiness, and blows his fingers, and shuffles his feet, and slaps his chest, like a cabman on the box. Just look about you! there are no more books there than I have here. Nobody could guess what ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac

... to teach a class of sorry-looking senoritas, with their dusty toes stuck into carpet slippers, and their hair combed back severely on their heads. The afternoons he spent in visiting his flock; we could descry him from afar, chin in the air, arms swinging, hiking along with five-foot strides. If he could "doctor up" the natives he was satisfied. He knew them all by name down to the smallest girl, and he applied his healing lotions with the greatest sense of duty, much to the amusement ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert

... where sadly he now might descry From the banks of the Stowre the desolate Wye, He lamented for Behn, o'er that place of her birth, And said amongst Women there was not on the earth, Her superior in fancy, in language, or witt, Yet own'd that a little too loosely ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... 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 be closed ...
— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

... expanse of the harbour. Once out in it we could almost imagine ourselves at sea, for, from the low deck of the Lily, we only see the higher grounds and hill-tops round, looking like islands in the distance, as we cannot descry the continuity of shore. And now we have leisure to make closer acquaintance with the boat that ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay

... 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 trees draw back and ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... as the bird, 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 quest, unconscious of ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... sincerity by the surrender of their property for the support of their poorer brethren until the end should come. The awful day was awaited with glowing rapture of hope, or by some with terror. When it dawned there was eager gazing upon the clouds of heaven to descry the sign of the Son of man. And when the day had passed without event there were various revulsions of feeling. The prophets set themselves to going over their figures and fixing new dates; earnest believers, sobered by the failure of their pious expectations, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon

... appeared at the ground-floor window, accompanied by a female of commanding appearance. He pointed us out to her. Behind them we could dimly descry a white tablecloth, a ...
— Scally - The Story of a Perfect Gentleman • Ian Hay

... knowing how far off we 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 fresh horses, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... speech, the democrat leaped on a large block of stone, standing at the corner of the large house in front of which the multitude was gathered, and looked out anxiously, if he might descry the cause of ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... so be ye pine and so hanker after me this night I pray you come anon to the secret lair near the moat on the next floor, and there you will eke descry me. There we will discourse on love and other joyous matters, and until then I shall be, ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson

... I do fly Amidst the aery welkin soon, And, in a minute's space, descry What things are done below the moon. There's neither hag nor spirit shall wag, In any corner where I go; But Robin I, their feats will spy, And make good sport with ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 82, May 24, 1851 • Various

... where they have passed, one after one, Wearing their radiance to the darkened room,—— Surely, new-comers to Oblivion May still descry, in that all-quenching gloom, Rare faces, lovely, lifted and alight, Like tapers burning ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton

... a couple of men were discernible with the naked eye on the proa, it followed that the latter must descry the three individuals who were standing out in full view upon the ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... this fiery web is spun, Her watchmen shall descry from far The young Republic like a sun Rise from these ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various

... they suddenly disappearing, and absconding themselves in caves among the rocks unknown to the pirates. At last, ascending a high mountain, they discovered the South Sea. This happy sight, as if it were the end of their labors, caused infinite joy among them: 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: then they came to a vale where they found much cattle, whereof they killed good store: here, while some killed and flayed cows, ...
— Great Pirate Stories • Various

... 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

... said Carker, 'when I think you descry in this, a likely means of humbling Mrs Dombey's pride—I use the word as expressive of a quality which, kept within due bounds, adorns and graces a lady so distinguished for her beauty and accomplishments—and, not to say of punishing ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... hours, cutting our steps in the icy cliffs, or sinking to our thighs in the treacherous snow-beds. We could see that we were nearing the top of the great chasm, for the clouds, now entirely cleared away, left our view unobstructed. We could even descry the black Kurdish tents upon the northeast slope, and, far below, the Aras River, like a streak of silver, threading its way into the purple distance. The atmosphere about us grew colder, and we buttoned up our now too scanty garments. We must be nearing the top, we thought, ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... although the way was a longer one, she did not find it a trouble to go by a circuitous route. When she reached the Sylhet plains she was called "Shengurkhat," and she then flowed past Chhatak, and so reached Duwara. She looked round to see where Umiam was, but she could not descry her anywhere. So out of playfulness she flowed slowly, and she formed a channel like a necklace (rupatylli) by way of waiting to see where Umiam was. Umiew was very proud, she felt strong enough to make the channel she chose, and although ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... how anxiously both officers and men scanned the western horizon towards which they were steering. Each one had a pecuniary motive for wishing to be the first to descry the New Continent, King Ferdinand having promised a reward of 10,000 maravedis, or 400 pounds sterling, to the first discoverer. The latter days of the month of September were enlivened by the presence of numerous large birds, petrels, man-of-war birds, and damiers, flying in couples, a sign ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne

... sail early in the afternoon, and ran down the coast under a fair breeze that made the canvas play until the sea hissed. The day was wet and cheerless; a thick mist enshrouded the land, and going by Laxey they could just descry the top arc of the great wheel like a dun-coloured ghost of a rainbow in a grey sky. As they came to Douglas the mist was lifting, but the rain was coming down in a soaking drizzle. A band was playing dance tunes on the iron pier, which shot like ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... of August the Captaine of the Anne Francis taking the Master of his Shippe with him, went vp to the top of Hattons Hedland, which is the highest land of all the straights, to the ende to descry the situation of the Countrey vnderneath, and to take a true plotte of the place, whereby also to see what store of Yce was yet left in the straights, as also to search what Mineral matter or fruite that soyle ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, Vol. XII., America, Part I. • Richard Hakluyt

... Wiglaf bear forth to his lord, who surveyed them, and uttered thanks to his Maker, that he could win such a treasure. Then, turning to Wiglaf, he said, "Now I die. Build for me upon the lofty shore a bright mound that shall ever remind my people of me. Far in the distance their ships shall descry it, and they shall call it Beowulf's mound." Then, giving his arms to Wiglaf, he bade him enjoy them. "Thou art the last of our race. All save us, fate-driven, are gone to doom. Thither ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... for the space of ten or twelve days, our captain did oftentimes cause certain to go up into the tops of high trees, to see if they could descry any town or place of inhabitants, but they could not perceive any, and using often the same order to climb up into high trees, at the length they descried a great river, that fell from the north-west into the main sea; and presently after we heard an harquebuse ...
— Voyager's Tales • Richard Hakluyt

... are copies—often faint and shadowy—of That which is. Every particular thing "below" corresponds to an eternal reality "above." Even those things which appear thin and shallow possess an infinite depth, or we may just as well say an infinite height. "Didst thou ever descry," he asks, "a glorious eternity in a winged moment of Time? Didst thou ever see a bright Infinite in the narrow point of an Object? Then thou knowest what Spirit means—that spire-top whither all things ascend harmoniously, where they meet and sit connected in an unfathomed Depth of Life."[44] And ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... woke up. I was lying at full length upon the floor and my head was singing like a kettle, while it ached fearfully. I opened my eyes but for some minutes could descry nothing but stars. As I came round I made out the dim forms of the two Hindoo students bending over me. They were extremely agitated, but their peace of mind became restored somewhat when I at last sat up. Then they explained what had happened. After I had dodged the bayonet the soldier had swung ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... smoke into the awful abysses of the night; to run from gray heap to gray heap, igniting the long line of signal fires, until the whole earth seems a conflagration and the heavens are as rosy as at morn; to look far away and descry on the horizon an array of answering lights; not in one direction only, but leagues away, to see the fainter ever fainter glow of burning hempherds—this, too, is one of the experiences, one ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... a last farewell to home. Yonder it lies on the point—the fjord sparkling in front, pine and fir woods around, a little smiling meadow-land and long wood-clad ridges behind. Through the glass one could descry a summer-clad figure by ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen

... lightning can I fly About this airy welkin soon, And, in a minute's space, descry Each thing that's done below the moon. There's not a hag Or host shall wag, Or cry, ware goblins! where I go; But Robin I Their feats will spy, And send them home ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various

... land of the acacia; and immense tracts, covered with its various species, form 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 panicles of ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid

... our elephants bore us back to Siemrap through an avenue of colonnades similar to that by which we had come; and as we advanced we could still descry other gates and pillars far in the distance, marking the line of some ancient avenue ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... yet happened under the new administration; indeed it has scarce happened itself: your new master, Mr. Pitt, has been confined in the country with the gout, and came to town but within these two days. The world, who love to descry policy in every thing, and who have always loved to find it in Mr. Pitt's illnesses, were persuaded that his success was not perfect enough, and that he even hesitated whether he should consummate. He is still so lame that he cannot go to court—to be sure the King must go to him He ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole

... she by night This Earth—reciprocal, if land be there, Fields and inhabitants? Her spots thou seest As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce Fruits in her softened soil, for some to eat Allotted there; and other Suns, perhaps, With their attendant Moons, thou wilt descry, Communicating male and female light— Which two great sexes animate the World, Stored in each orb perhaps with some that live. For such vast room in Nature unpossessed By living soul, desert and desolate, Only to shine, yet scarce to contribute Each orb a glimpse of light, conveyed so far Down ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard

... disdain The limits of their little reign, And unknown regions dare descry; Still, as they run, they look behind, They hear a voice in every wind And ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner

... as a comet, with a very long tail. The superstitious thought my appearance to be significant of some coming misfortune. Some draughtsmen took my figure, as far as they could descry it, so that when I landed I found paintings of myself, and engravings taken from them, and ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... at Berwick no longer look out from the castle walls to descry the glitter of Southern spears. The bell-tower from which the alarm was sounded is now silent—the only bell heard within the precincts of the castle being that of the railway porter, announcing the arrival and departure of trains. ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various

... 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 ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle

... rising of the sun, the twilight, the moonlight. These are, for the painter, honeymoon trips with Nature. One is alone with her in that long and quiet association. You go to sleep in the fields, amid marguerites and poppies, and when you open your eyes in the full glare of the sunlight you descry in the distance the little village with its pointed clock tower which ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... eventides The self-same feelings bring, My pulses beat as loud and strong As then beside the spring. And then I turn affrighted round, Some stranger to descry; But nothing can I see, my John,— ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller

... a deep rose-pink; the sides rich dark brown, with blotches of bright green and rose colour; the roof 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

... glacier was marked by two waving parallel lines of lateral moraines, which formed, as it were, a vast raised gutter, or channel, ascending from perhaps 16,000 feet elevation, till it was hidden behind a spur in the valley. With a telescope I could descry many similar smaller glaciers, with huge accumulations of shingle at their terminations; but this great one was beautifully seen by the naked eye, and formed a very curious feature in ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker

... perplexity It doth create to puzzled reason, that She sayes and unsayes, do's she knows not what. Why then should we the worlds infinity Misdoubt, because when as we contemplate Its nature, such strange inconsistency And unexpected sequels, we therein descry? ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More

... from some desert shore, Doth home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... the one led to glory and fame, While the other fulfilled not his heart-cherished aim; But the scales of mortality darkened his eye, And the thing I saw plainly he could not descry. ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats

... lo! The Princess marked five of that throng alike In form and garb and visage. There they stood, Each from the next undifferenced, but each Nala's own self;—yet which might Nala be In nowise could that doubting maid descry. Who took her eye seemed Nala while she gazed, Until she looked upon his like; and so Pondered the lovely lady, sore-perplexed, Thinking, "How shall I tell which be the gods, And which is noble Nala?" Deep-distressed And meditative waxed she, musing hard What those signs ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... 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 ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler

... so occupied with his heel and toe pace that he did not descry the woman or the dog or the tree or the cat until the woman seized him by the ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie

... destiny; 50 His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself—an equal to all woes—[m][72] And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concentered recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

... beams let the Sun shine On Orra Moor. Could I be sure That from the top o' th' lofty Pine I Orra Moor might see, I to his highest Bough would climb, And with industrious Labour try Thence to descry My Mistress if that there she be. Could I but know amidst what Flowers Or in what Shade she stays, The gaudy Bowers, With all their verdant Pride, Their Blossoms and their Sprays, Which make my Mistress disappear; And her in envious Darkness hide, I from the ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... the less so, dear Felton, for having found some warm hearts, and left some instalments of earnest and sincere affection, behind me on this continent. And whenever I turn my mental telescope hitherward, trust me that one of the first figures it will descry will wear spectacles so like yours that the maker couldn't tell the difference, and shall address a Greek class in such an exact imitation of your voice, that the very students hearing it should cry, "That's he! Three ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields

... its cold ashes, then they thought the hour of deliverance had come, and every morning at earliest dawn a watcher mounted to the house-tops, and gazed long and anxiously in the lightening east, hoping to descry the noble form of Montezuma advancing through the morning beams at the ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton

... fell before the rhythm of fortune. The inexorable pendulum had swung the counter direction, and there was upon me an urgent need. The hogskin belt was flat as famine, nor did it longer gird my loins. From my window I could descry, at no great distance, a very ordinary mortal of a man, working industriously among his cabbages. I thought: Here am I, capable of teaching him much concerning the field wherein he labours—the nitrogenic—why of the fertilizer, ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London

... 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, Hispaniola and the other ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... for years the hopelessness of converting his people, the Prophet at last saw an Israel of whom hope might be dared. It was not their distance which lent enchantment to his view for he gives proof that he can descry the dross still among them, despite the furnace through which they have passed.(493) But the banished were without doubt the best of the nation, and now they had "dreed their weird," gone through the fire, been lifted out of the habits and passions ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith

... 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 ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... Tom Thornback, Shark, and Co. Attorneys all as keen and staunch As e'er devoured a client's haunch. And did I not their clerks invite To taste said ven'son hash'd at night? For well I knew that hopeful fry My rising merit would descry, The same litigious course pursue, And when to fish of prey they grew, By love of food and contest led, Would haunt the spot where once they fed. Thus having with due circumspection Formed my professional ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... Quebec, in Mass. Hist. Coll. 3, I. 101. There is a difference of ten days in the French and English dates, the New Style having been adopted by the former and not by the latter.] At length, before dawn on the morning of the sixteenth, the sentinels on the Saut au Matelot could descry the slowly moving lights of distant vessels. At daybreak the fleet was in sight. Sail after sail passed the Point of Orleans and glided into the Basin of Quebec. The excited spectators on the rock counted thirty-four of them. Four were large ships, several others were of considerable ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman

... 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 vain. [Footnote d: ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson

... the sound of a heel spurning the gravel, a gasping and grunting, a shouting of "Steer, man, steer!" a wavering unsteady flight, a spasmodic turning of the missile edifice of man and machine, and a collapse. Then you descry dimly through the dusk the central figure of this story sitting by the roadside and rubbing his leg at some new place, and his friend, sympathetic (but by no means depressed), repairing the displacement of ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells

... one thing, think also about another: if they are reliable peasants, send two or three of them in front, so as to signal when they descry the ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... they dream the truth—or descry the hidden skeleton at the festival, wreathed in flowers and veiled with glittering, filmy draperies, which yet put forth its bony fingers to ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... law, in Albion's channel ride. View the whole earth's vast landscape unconfin'd, Or view in Britain all her glories join'd. Then let the firmament thy wonder raise; 'Twill raise thy wonder, but transcend thy praise. How far from east to west? the lab'ring eye Can scarce the distant azure bounds descry: Wide theatre! where tempests play at large, And God's right hand can all its wrath discharge. Mark how those radiant lamps inflame the pole, Call forth the seasons, and the year control: They shine thro' time, with an unalter'd ray: See this grand ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young

... for a time, but the soft rush of the sea at the bows of the yacht. They had left the Thames water some distance behind, and were then in that part of the estuary where it is just possible in mid-channel to descry either coast. The glorious rose of dawn was just beginning to flame in the eastern sky. Lefevre looked about him, and strove to shake off the sensation, which would cling to him, that he was involved ...
— Master of His Fate • J. Mclaren Cobban

... shattered. I ran with the leaders, my stature and strength standing me in good stead more than once, and as we twisted into Northwest Street I took a glance at the mob behind me, and great was my anxiety at not being able to descry ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... himself, like a gleam-lit landscape through the whirl of a storm; a strange weird sinister thing, glimmering in a dubious light between the blasphemer we half see in him with the singer's eyes and the saint we half descry with our own. Of explicit pathos there is not a touch. Yet how subtly the inner pathos and the outward scorn are fused in the ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford

... alone (in appearance), and will call after me in vain, and abuse me roundly when I do not return, declaring that you cannot possibly carry that heavy basket in alone. Then, but not before, you will descry a certain William standing close by,—who will be Colonel Keith,—and showing surprise at seeing him there, will ask him to help you with the basket. He and you will carry the basket into the prison, and you will stand waiting a little while, during which time he will (with the connivance of a warder ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt

... a quaint, delicious, simple, picturesque apotheosis of a loft! A loft with the rough bricks whitewashed and the heavy rafters painted red; a loft with big, plain tables and a bare floor and an only slightly partitioned-off kitchenette where the hungry could descry piles of sandwiches and many coffee cups. And there in the middle of the loft was the Samovar itself, a really splendid affair, and one actually not for decorative purposes only, but for use. I had always thought samovars were for the ornamentation either of houses or foreign-atmosphere ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin

... preparations have been made, I doubt not," said Nowell; "nay, I descry some armed men through the windows of the hall. Before coming to extremities, I will make a last appeal to you and your kinsman. I have granted Mistress Nutter and the girl with her an hour's delay, in the hope that, seeing the futility of resistance, they would quietly ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... for the time being dog had completely taken its place. There was thus no great sign of depression to be noticed when we came back into the tent after finishing our work, and had to while away the time. As I went in, I could descry Wisting a little way off kneeling on the ground, and engaged in the manufacture of cutlets. The dogs stood in a ring round him, and looked on with interest. The north-east wind whistled and howled, the air was thick with driving snow, and Wisting was not to ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen

... sicken'd) That should thy little limbs have 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 dark; And ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... should happen to be scattered by weather, or other mishap, then so soon as one shall descry another, to hoise both topsails twice, if the weather will serve, and to strike them twice again; but if the weather serve not, then to hoise the maintopsail twice, and forthwith to ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes

... sight such dreary dreams engross, With their own visions oft astonish'd droop, When, o'er the watery strath, or quaggy moss, They see the gliding ghosts unbodied troop. 60 Or, if in sports, or on the festive green, Their destined glance some fated youth descry, Who now, perhaps, in lusty vigour seen, And rosy health, shall soon lamented die. For them the viewless forms of air obey; 65 Their bidding heed, and at their beck repair: They know what spirit brews the stormful day, And heartless, oft like moody madness, stare To see the phantom ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... certes, 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

... not sufficiently informed in such high matters, the Bishop and the Inquisitor offered her the choice of one or more of the assessors to act as her counsel." The accused, in presence of this assembly, in which she did not descry a single friendly face, mildly answered: "For what you admonish me as to my good, and concerning our faith, I thank you; as to the counsel you offer me, I have no intention to forsake the counsel ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... and behold! in spite of all their forebodings, there in the distance they could yet dimly descry the stern section of the ill-fated vessel still intact, as far as they could judge with the naked eye, amidst the rocks; and about it the waves played and circled and the surf showered its spray. Above the wreck, too, there still fluttered ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson

... moment 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 dim bowed ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield

... changeful hue, Where auburn half subsides in blue! Lord Fauconberg, canst thou divine What is the curve, or what the line, That makes this girl, like lightning, send Looks of our long lamented friend? If Richard liv'd, that sorcery spell Quickly his lion-heart would quell: He never could her glance descry, And any wish'd-for boon deny! She's weeping too!—most strangely wrought By workings of another's thought! She knows no English; yet I speak That language, and her paling cheek With watery floods is overcast.— Fair maid, we talk of times ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham



Words linked to "Descry" :   spot, sight, espy



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