"Descant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Opposition coach approached them. Indeed, it was well known that the horses selected for these duties were, generally speaking, vicious and unsound, and not taken from the most able and powerful, but from the most showy classes. He then proceeded to descant upon the general wrongs of horses. He congratulated the community upon the abolition of bearing reins, those grievous burdens upon the necks of all free-going horses; and he trusted the time would soon arrive when the blinkers would also be taken off, every corn-binn ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... evening on, and twilight grey Had in her sober livery all things clad. Silence accompanied: for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk—all but the wakeful nightingale: She, all night long, her am'rous descant sung. Silence was pleased. Now glow'd the firmament With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length, Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... attention of the fathers of the Roman church had been turned early to the necessity of system in the delivery of the liturgical chants. The study of a style had developed a technic and to the achievement of vocal feats this technic had been incited by the rapid rise of the act of descant. ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... of a Theme or Copy of Verses, which are the usual Exercises, as they are called in the School-phrase, it would not be more proper that a Boy should be tasked once or twice a Week to write down his Opinion of such Persons and Things as occur to him in his Reading; that he should descant upon the Actions of Turnus and AEneas, shew wherein they excelled or were defective, censure or approve any particular Action, observe how it might have been carried to a greater Degree of Perfection, and ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... day that same Alessandro del Dardo won her to himself by his descant upon the theme, "How a gentleman may dismember himself without dishonour for a lady's love; ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... his question as to Wilhelm's adventures, the latter doing his best to get out of it by a few vague remarks on the uneventful character of his life during the last few months, and then hurried to descant on Paris, describing the town to them with the volubility of a guide-book. On his inquiring in return about their affairs, Paul and Malvine vied with one another in the redundancy of their account. All was ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... was digesting this paradox, Captain Hamilton proceeded to descant on the beauties of blue water and its fine medicinal qualities, which, he said, were particularly suited to young gentlemen with bilious stomachs, but presently, catching sight of Lieutenant Fitzroy standing apart, but with the manner of a lieutenant not there by accident, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... to descant here on the different fleeces, and various flavours of mutton which the numerous breeds of sheep afford. The least reflection and observation, teach us their unspeakable value as sources of food, clothing, and other purposes; my task ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... her chair. She wondered how many more times Mrs. Meadowsweet would descant on the elegancies of her drawing-room. She need not have feared. Whatever Mrs. Meadowsweet was she was honest; and at that very moment her eyes lighted on the felt which covered the floor. Mrs. Meadowsweet had never been trained in a school of art, but, as she said to herself, no one ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade
... his early career. Whilst walking in the woods or through the grounds, he would arrest his friend's attention by allusion to some simple object,—such as a leaf, a blade of grass, a bit of bark, a nest of birds, or an ant carrying its eggs across the path,—and descant in glowing terms upon the creative power of the Divine Mechanician, whose contrivances were so exhaustless and so wonderful. This was a theme upon which he was often accustomed to dwell in reverential admiration, when in the society ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... how he proceeds to descant on slavery itself:—"Slavery," says he, "was a survival from a social order which had passed away, and slavery could not be continued. IT DOES NOT FOLLOW THAT per se IT WAS A CRIME. The negroes who were sold to the dealers in the factories were most of them either slaves ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... our country folk, would probably have led me, through a false association, to regard the parties to which they attach as scarcely less specifically different from our country folk themselves. I suspect we are misled by associations of this kind when we descant on the peculiarities of race as interposing insurmountable barriers to the progress of improvement, physical or mental. We overlook, amid the diversities of form, color, and language, the specific identity of the human family. The Celt, for instance, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... eat peanuts or fruit or candy, or chew gum, in public places. In fact, I cannot imagine a really refined young lady chewing gum even in the privacy of her own room, so offensive is it to good taste. She will not descant upon bodily ailments in the drawing-room or at the table. She will not rush noisily up and down stairs or through the house, clashing doors and startling everyone with unpleasant noises. She will not interrupt people ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... sacrifices, for the temptations to spend six or nine cents are so much more insistent and unusual than are yearnings to squander lesser sums. Almost daily some member of the band would confess a fall from grace and solvency, and almost daily Isaac Borrachsohn was called upon to descant anew upon the glories of the Central Park. Becky, the chaperon, was the most desultory collector of the party. Over and over she reached the proud heights of seven or even eight cents, only to lavish her hoard on the sticky joys of the candy cart ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... return to home, if not to beauty. His wife, who was considerably older than himself, possessed, so he would inform me with tears in his eyes, every moral excellence that should attract mankind. Upon her goodness and virtue, her piety and conscientiousness he would descant to me by the half hour. His sincerity it was impossible to question. It was beyond doubt that he respected her, admired her, honoured her. She was a saint, an angel—a wretch, a villain such as he, was not fit to breathe the same pure air. To ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... Adrienne, was the sole issue of this marriage, having been born in the year 1810. Both the parents died before the Restoration, leaving the little girl to the care of her pious grandmother, la vicomtesse, who survived, in a feeble old age, to descant on the former grandeur of her house, and to sigh, in common with so many others, for le bon vieux temps. At the Restoration, there was some difficulty in establishing the right of the de la Rocheaimards to their share ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... style, avowedly for the purpose of thanking Lady Holland for the interest he heard she had shown about him when his death was reported, and at the same time to explain that he had no hand in the report, which he did with the utmost solemnity of asseveration;[10] but he took this opportunity to descant on the conduct of the party towards him, of the press, of the people, and of the leading Whigs, talked of the flags of truce he had held out, and how they had been fired on, and that he must again arm himself for another ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... the Third Part (p. 136) Phil.'s brother Polymathes comes with him to Gnorimus for a lesson in Descant—i.e., the art of extemporaneously adding a part to the written plainsong.[1] This brother had had lessons formerly from a master who carried a plainsong book in his pocket, and caused him to do the like; "and so walking ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... the Muse's bower; His lyre, like that to great Pelides strong, The soft'ning solace of a vacant boor, Its airy descant indolently rung. ...
— Poems (1828) • Thomas Gent
... Sometimes his satire becomes malignant, as in the sonnet against the people of Pistoja, which breathes the spirit of Dantesque invective. Sometimes the fierceness of it is turned against himself, as in the capitolo upon old age and its infirmities. The grotesqueness of this lurid descant on senility and death is marked by something rather Teutonic than Italian, a "Danse Macabre" intensity of loathing; and it winds up with the bitter reflections, peculiar to him in his latest years, upon the vanity of art. "My much-prized ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... on June 19, 1861, he was destined to become the idol of his countrymen, and consequently the victim of the friars and General Polavieja. Often have I, together with the old native parish priest, Father Leoncio Lopez, spent an hour with Jose's father, Francisco Mercado, and heard the old man descant, with pride, on the intellectual progress of his son at the Jesuits' school in Manila. Before he was fourteen years of age he wrote a melodrama in verse entitled Junto al Pasig ("Beside the Pasig River"), which was performed in public and well received. But young Jose yearned ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... rural concerns, and of noticing with what taste and discrimination, and what strong, unaffected interest they will discuss topics, which, in other countries, are abandoned to mere woodmen, or rustic cultivators. I have heard a noble earl descant on park and forest scenery with the science and feeling of a painter. He dwelt on the shape and beauty of particular trees on his estate, with as much pride and technical precision as though he had been discussing the merits of statues in his collection I found ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... ground here. The bodies of rich folks' relatives, if identified, are immediately removed, and, by means of family influence, interred with religious rites. Many suicides are buried at Nice and Mentone, but the larger proportion, farther off still. Not to descant further on this grim topic, let me now say ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... confer with the reader in regard to the evolution of this story,—a familiarity not without precedent, as I might prove from most of the old Greek comedies, whose parabasis permits the poet to mingle freely with the dramatis personae, to address the audience and descant at length in regard to himself, his play, and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... broke forth bright and serene. Marston and his guests, after passing a pleasant night, were early at breakfast. When over, they joined him for a stroll over the plantation, to hear him descant upon the prospects of the coming crop. Nothing could be more certain, to his mind, than a bountiful harvest. The rice, cotton, and corn grounds had been well prepared, the weather was most favourable, he had plenty of help, a good overseer, and faithful drivers. "We have plenty,-we live easy, you ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... concerns my embassy, being so much a fresh man as your Excellency sees I am in this Court, visible it is by what proceeds, I can as yet have nothing to descant or touch upon, but matter of ceremony only from and towards me, divisible into two considerations; the first, in reference to the past, of which I have already said the same hath been, as from, and to, other Ambassadors, in all this and all other ages; the second, in reference to the present ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... may serve to suggest the beneficial inquiry, whether we habitually cherish an equal zeal for our religion, with that which this young Moabitess manifested? It would be easy to descant upon the superiority of our advantages, and to urge our increased responsibility; but do we equal her in the firmness of our faith, and the steadfastness of our profession? It may not be a question, whether we are likely to be called to similar or equal trials; ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... evil will are ready to find faults. This delay of ripe time for marriage, besides the loss of the realm (for without posterity of her highness what hope is left unto us?) ministereth matter to these leud tongues to descant upon, and breedeth contempt. I would I had but one hour's talk with you. Think if I trusted not your good nature, I would not write thus much; which nevertheless I humbly pray you to reserve ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... now to follow Mr. Burke through a pathless wilderness of rhapsodies, and a sort of descant upon governments, in which he asserts whatever he pleases, on the presumption of its being believed, without offering either evidence or reasons ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... groaned and writhed in torment—and, borne out in the arms of Crowns and his men, the spirit-stirring Dandy was removed to bed, whence he arose to return, without delay, to London by the shortest possible road, even with the fear of another fieri facias before his eyes, to descant on vinous acidities, Gin Lakes, and the liver-consuming Spa of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... "The Cambridge Review," a fortnight ago, lamented this at length: so you will not set the aspersion down to me, nor blame me if these early lectures too officiously offer a kind of 'First Aid': that, while all the time eager to descant on the affinities of speech and writing, I dwell first on their differences; or that, in speaking of Burke, an author I adore only 'on this side idolatry,' I first present him in some aspects for your avoidance. Similarly I adore the prose of Sir Thomas ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... you, I think myself very fortunate to have escaped the possibility of another such week of desolation, and to be peaceably roosted at Antwerp. Were I not still fatigued with my heavy progress through sands and quagmires, I should descant a little longer upon the blessings of so quiet a metropolis, but it is growing late, and I must ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford
... Mingling flows, Grave, ceremonial, pure, As once, from lips that endure, The cosmic descant rose, When the temporal lord of life, Going his golden way, Had taken a wondrous maid to wife That long had said ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... householder's heart, until one fine day, under the benign influence of "the cup that cheers," he yields, but intimating that his petitioners can never afford the marriage payments.[3] He will then probably recount the purchase price of this own wife, always with exaggerations; descant on the qualities of his daughter, her strength, her beauty, her diligence, her probable fecundity; and deplore the grievous loss to be sustained by her departure from her parents' side. Whereupon the visitors respond that they are willing to substitute a number of ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... I went back to San Sebastian, to witness a bull fight; but I suppose my right to descant upon this entertainment should be measured less by the gratification it afforded me than by the question whether there is room in literature for another bull fight. I incline to think there is not; the Spanish diversion is the best described thing in the world. ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... noble had dishonoured him by a blow; and it was vain to ask redress for this affront from any but the highest personage in the state. Faliero, brooding over his own imagined wrongs, disclaimed that title, and gladly seized occasion to descant on his personal insignificance. "What wouldst thou have me do for thee?" was his answer: "Think upon the shameful gibe which hath been written concerning me, and think on the manner in which they have punished that ribald Michele Steno, who wrote it; and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... going to descant upon the probity of M. Andre Fauvel. You will tell me that all the virtues have taken refuge in the bosom of this patriarchal family. What do you know about it? Would this be the first instance in which the most shameful secrets are concealed beneath the fairest appearances? ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... "They only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his coming." "They go the fairest way to heaven, that would serve God without a hell." "All things are artificial, for Nature is the art of God." The last chapter of the Urn Burial is an almost rithmical descant on mortality and oblivion. The style kindles slowly into a somber eloquence. It is the most impressive and extraordinary passage in the prose literature of the time. Browne, like Hamlet, loved to "consider too ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... all Newport? Why, on the road to Cowes, to be sure; for who dreams of staying at home on the day of sailing for the King's Cup? If the "courteous reader" will accompany us, we will descant on the scenery presented on the road, as well as the numerous vehicles and thronging pedestrians will permit us. Leaving the town-like extent of the Albany Barracks, the prospect on the left is the Medina, graced ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... stick; the result was a heterogeneous conglomeration of worms, leaves, bugs, and crushed berries; but I succeeded in eliminating the refuse by throwing the whole mass into a tub of water, and skimming off the risings. I would then descant to buyers upon the freshness of the berries wet with the dews of heaven, but my ruse was soon discovered, and people refused to ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... with itself, so the different nations of Europe could dwell in harmony as one country. Then would be no longer war, but civilisation; and cannon would only be seen as curiosities shut up in museums." M. Hugo proceeded to descant on the vast expense of keeping up standing armies, and the great advantages that would arise if such money were thrown into the channels of labour, by which commerce would be promoted and intelligence advanced. M. Hugo concluded by announcing that ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... elegance, and comfort. In all such things the Americans are far ahead of us. Look at the steamboats running up and down the Thames, what miserable craft they are. You could put six or eight of them on board one of the American steam-ferries described, not to descant on the absence of all decent accommodation. I like to be fair and give the Americans their due. There is much I must decry. Will it make my praise appreciated on the other side of the Atlantic? I doubt it; but ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money
... dear friend Miss Arabella Rothes. Fortunately for the longevity of their mutual friendship, this young lady lived in an ancient house, forty miles to the north of London. This latter circumstance proved a pretty distress for their pens to descant on; and Arabella remained a most charming sentimental writing-stock, to receive the catalogue of Miss Euphemia's lovers; indeed, that gentle creature might have matched every lady in Cowley's calendar with a gentleman. But every ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Bugaboo; and then looked round for admiration. "Ah! je l'avais oublie!" he exclaimed. Upon this he pulled out a large shabby green pocket-book from his coat; took off a greasy black stock, displaying a collarless shirt and neck, upon the tinge of which it would be needless to descant, and then extracting from the pocket-book two curvilinear pieces of dirty white paper, which had been folded more than once, and had an ink spot or two on their surface, applied them to his chin, holding their corners in his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... dream of soul Hath hurried me beyond the goal. Why should I sing the mighty darts Which fly to wound celestial hearts, When ah, the song, with sweeter tone, Can tell the darts that wound my own? Still be Anacreon, still inspire The descant of the Teian lyre: Still let the nectared numbers float Distilling love in every note! And when some youth, whose glowing soul Has felt the Paphian star's control, When he the liquid lays shall hear, His heart ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and understand them too, by merely having the book placed on their bellies. Ignorant clodpoles, when once entranced by the grand Mesmeric fluid, could spout philosophy diviner than Plato ever wrote, descant upon the mysteries of the mind with more eloquence and truth than the profoundest metaphysicians the world ever saw, and solve knotty points of divinity with as much ease as waking men could undo ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... unfinish'd, sent before my time Into this breathing world scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;— Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, And descant on mine own deformity: And therefore,—since I cannot prove a lover, To entertain these fair well-spoken days,— I am determined to prove a villain, And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... might at the same time remember his Warwickshire Prosecutor, under the Name of Justice Shallow; he has given him very near the same Coat of Arms which Dugdale, in his Antiquities of that County, describes for a Family there, and makes the Welsh Parson descant very pleasantly upon 'em. That whole Play is admirable; the Humours are various and well oppos'd; the main Design, which is to cure Ford his unreasonable Jealousie, is extremely well conducted. Falstaff's Billet-doux, ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... the next day, worth preserving, except one saying of Dr. Johnson, which will be a valuable text for many decent old dowagers, and other good company, in various circles to descant upon. He said, 'I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society[1118].' He certainly could not mean ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... adherence to the theory of root culture. And he was a mechanic. He could build house or barn to the last beam, and ship or boat to the last joint; nay, he once devised the model of a self-righting life-boat, which I have often heard shipmasters, and even real shipwrights, descant upon in the highest terms of praise. Moreover, I can affirm that he was a navigator. It is true that the science of seamanship, as set forth in books, he had never mastered. But he knew right well what winds of a certain force and direction foretold, what waves of a certain height and aspect ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... him, you take him by the button-hole, or put your hand in his, and say, "My dear fellow, I am very sorry for you; is there any way in which I can help you?" If you have a friend afflicted with a fatal malady, and you see it, and he does not, you don't begin to descant on the power of disease and the way people may secure health, but you say, "My dear fellow, I am afraid this hacking cough is more serious than you think, and that flush on your cheek is a bad sign. I am ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... come to deal with art, whether plastic art or the art of letters, there stands out the same difference of spirit. And on all sides it is admitted that in this region Hellenism reached nearly to perfection. It is scarcely worth while here to descant upon the work of Phidias or Sophocles, and to analyse its excellence. In the domain of art the word 'Hellenic' implies absolute truth of form, absolute truth of taste, grace and elegance. It means the selecting and simplifying of essentials into an ideal shape; and therefore it implies ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... bang are here (chez nous); how happy are you mothers. She will descant on its beauties by the hour; will point them out to you distinctly, lest they might escape notice. The hair, the nose, the mouth, and, in short, every feature, limb, and muscle, is admirable and is admired. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the inevitable result, unless by a coincidence rare as snow at Midsummer the rival associations might be won upon to display a unanimity of approval, upon which the dramatic Press-critics would rapturously descant in the newspapers ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... preparations for war. This course seems expedient in this wise. On your meeting with Dhritarashtra it is possible that Dhritarashtra may do what you say. And as you are virtuous, you must therefore act virtuously towards them. And to the compassionate, you must descant upon the various hardships that the Pandavas have endured. And you must estrange the hearts of the aged persons by discoursing upon the family usages which were followed by their forefathers. I do not entertain the slightest doubt in this matter. Nor need you ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... lady's lattice. She carelessly took up her cithern. A few wild chords flew from her touch. She bent her head towards the instrument, as if wooing its melody—the vibrations that crept to her heart. She hummed a low and plaintive descant, mournful and tender as her own thoughts. The tone and feeling of the ballad we attempt to preserve ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... a novice like myself, however, presume to descant on the subject of fried pies to the thousands who doubtless know all the details of their manufacture. Theodora first prepared her dough, sweetened and mixed like ordinary doughnut dough, rolled it like a thick pie crust and then enclosed the "filling," ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... fourth cage, where he found a Bulbul[FN62] which, at sight of him, began to sway to and fro and sing its plaintive descant; and when he heard its complaint, he burst into tears and repeated ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... just then, though, of course, if Bowley insists, &c. While Bowley is pausing to consider which will be the best way to insist, Mr Nogoe carelessly leads the conversation to another topic, and begins to descant upon the marvellous capabilities of the 'Mother Bunch' for doing a first-rate trade; and hints mysteriously at the splendid thing that might be made of it, only supposing that his friend Bowley knew his own interest, and went the right way to work. The landlord, who is now all ear, and who ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 427 - Volume 17, New Series, March 6, 1852 • Various
... replied, that he was a man of fashion (un seigneur) who lived in the neighbourhood of Auxerre. I was much mortified to find that I had treated a nobleman so scurvily, and scolded my own people for not having more penetration than myself. I dare say he did not fail to descant upon the brutal behaviour of the Englishman; and that my mistake served with him to confirm the national reproach of bluntness, and ill breeding, under which we lie in this country. The truth is, I was that day more than usually peevish, from the bad weather, as ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... lusty as of old, Hunt the waste grass for forage, or prolong From every quarter of these fields the bold, Blithe phrases of their never-finished song. The white-throat's distant descant with slow stress Note after note upon the noonday falls, Filling the leisured air at intervals With his ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... necessary for me to tell, in order to fulfil my duty and to remove the clouds arising from rumors and letters that will go there. I am here and see everything; and there is never a lack of those who tell many new things, and exaggerate matters that are not so great as they will relate and descant there, where no one can report and declare what has happened. It is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... merely moral disquisitions, either not mentioning at all, or at least but cursorily touching on the sufferings and love of their Redeemer; and are little apt to kindle at their Saviour's name, and like the apostles to be betrayed by their fervor into what may be almost an untimely descant on the riches of his unutterable mercy. In addressing others also whom they conceive to be living in habits of sin, and under the wrath of God, they rather advise them to amend their ways as a preparation for their coming to Christ, than exhort them to ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... descant bold, She flung her white arms o'er the sea, Proud in her leafy bosom to ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... came.—No need to descant on the weather. The sun shone as brightly as could be desired, and as the interesting procession passed under the green bowers, cheer after cheer rose on the air, handfuls of flowers were trodden under the horses' feet, and hats, by common consent, performed ...
— Louis' School Days - A Story for Boys • E. J. May
... forbear to descant a little here, on the Dignity and Beauty of these Feathers, being such as are hardly to be seen in any part of the World, but just ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... hundred and fifty years hence it will be as common to remove oaks a hundred and fifty years old, as it is now to transplant tulip roots.[1] I have even begun a treatise or panegyric on the great discoveries made by posterity in all arts and sciences, wherein I shall particularly descant on the great and cheap convenience of making trout-rivers—one of the improvements which Mrs. Kerwood wondered Mr. Hedges would not make at his country-house, but which was not then quite so common as it will be. I shall talk of a secret for ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... years ago had their bases submerged by the rising of the sea or had gradually settled down beneath the surface of the ocean, may, of course, account for the poverty of Japan in regard to the animals therein. I must leave other pens than mine to descant on that interesting if highly speculative matter. Be that as it may, if the fauna of Japan is poor, the country certainly makes up for it by the variety and magnificence of its flora—a flora which deserves to be studied, and which has done ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... They used to descant loudly on the chaste elegance of the design, the richness of the tracing, etc., and beg me to furnish them with a copy of it when I got home, for their sisters to work window curtains or tidies ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... the most curious formes that are almost at this day extant, I will commend vnto you that modell which beareth the proportion of the Roman H. which as it is most plaine of all other, and most easie for conuaiance, so if a man vpon that plaine song, (hauing a great purse) will make descant, there is no proportion in which he may with best ease show more curiositie, and therefore for the plaine Husbandmans better vnderstanding I will here shew him a facsimile (for to adde a scale were needlesse in this generall worke, all men not being desirous ...
— The English Husbandman • Gervase Markham
... no lack of subjects to descant upon; but voluble, and indeed absurd as he was, Howard could not help liking him; he was a good fellow, he could see, and managed to diffuse a geniality over the scene. "I am interested in most things," he said, at the end of a breathless harangue, "and there is something in the ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... disengage One man from the million to mark him, next moment The crowd sweeps him hurriedly out of your comment; And since we seek vainly (to praise in our songs) 'Mid our fellows the size which to heroes belongs, We take the whole age for a hero, in want Of a better; and still, in its favor, descant On the strength and the beauty which, failing to find In any one man, we ascribe ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... tree-tops faintly rustle beneath the breeze's flight, A soft and soothing sound, yet it whispers of the night; I hear the wood-thrush piping one mellow descant more, And scent the flowers that blow when the heat of day ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... said enough;] Our minde doth move at others pleasure, and tyed and forced to serve the fantasies of others, being brought under by authoritie, and forced to stoope to the lure of their bare lesson; wee have beene so subjected to harpe upon one string, that we have no way left us to descant upon voluntarie; our vigor and libertie is cleane extinct. Nunquam tutelae suae fiunt: "They never come to their owne tuition." It was my hap to bee familiarlie acquainted with an honest man at Pisa, but such an Aristotelian, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... ready to her silver coche to clyme, And Phoebus gins to shew his glorious hed. Hark! how the cheerefull birds do chaunt theyr laies, And carroll of Loves praise: The merry larke hir mattins sings aloft; 80 The thrush replyes; the mavis* descant** playes; The ouzell@ shrills; the ruddock$ warbles soft; So goodly all agree, with sweet consent, To this dayes meriment. Ah! my deere Love, why doe ye sleepe thus long, 85 When meeter were that ye should now awake, ...
— The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, Volume 5 • Edmund Spenser
... of a special interest because we see it again later transformed and purified in the famous passage of Paradise Lost, in which "Silence was pleased" not only with the stillness of evening, but also with the song of the bird whose "amorous descant" alone interrupts it. Yet even that seemed to Warton, the best of Milton's early critics, a conceit unworthy of the poet. So difficult it is for "rational" criticism to see the distinction between an intellectual extravagance and a flight ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... caprice. Thus having braved Apollo's rage With humble prose I'll fill my page And a romance in ancient style Shall my declining years beguile; Nor shall my pen paint terribly The torment born of crime unseen, But shall depict the touching scene Of Russian domesticity; I will descant on love's sweet dream, The olden time ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... our parting camp on the river. We had done no harm; no accident had befallen us; we had seen many lovely things and heard music from warbler and vireo, thrush and wren, all day long. Even now a wood thrush closed his last descant in flute-like notes across the river. Night began silently to weave her dusky veil upon the vast loom of the forest. The pink glow had gone from the flower-masses around us; whitely they glimmered through ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... merciful Lord! Have pity upon us. We are brands plucked from the burning." And continued for several minutes to descant upon the theme of everlasting torture by incandescence and thirst. Nominally addressing a deity, but in fact preaching to his audience, he announced that, even for the veriest infant on a lorry, there was no escape ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... the best is to be found, and as the honor of their respective houses is to be sustained, it may well be imagined that all the bon-vivants on earth, were they to meet at one table, could hardly produce such a variety of fine old Madeira, as the clerks of Funchal then sip and descant upon. In no place do mercantile clerks hold so respectable a position in society as here; owing to the tacit understanding between their principals and themselves, that, at some future day, they are to be ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... went on with much modesty to descant upon the literary and fashionable departments of the Pall Mall Gazette, which were to be conducted by gentlemen of acknowledged reputation; men famous at the Universities (at which Mr Pendennis could scarcely ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... The diversions of the place they are not in a condition to enjoy. How then do they make shift to pass their time? In the forenoon they crawl out to the Rooms or the coffeehouse, where they take a hand at whist, or descant upon the General Advertiser; and their evenings they murder in private parties, among peevish invalids, and insipid old women — This is the case with a good number of individuals, whom nature seems to ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... of the chase, was the person who imparted knowledge to me on all subjects relating to Arabian horses. He would descant by the hour on the qualities of a colt that was yet untried, but which, he concluded, must possess all the perfections of its sire and dam, with whose histories, and that of their progenitors, he was well acquainted. Hyder had shares in five or six famous brood mares; and he told ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 10, Issue 285, December 1, 1827 • Various
... two volumes, have been written to prove the origin of that cosmopolitan, half-Gregorian descant known here as "America," and in England as "God Save the King." William C. Woodbridge of Boston brought it home with him from Germany. The Germans had been singing it for years (and are singing it now, more or less) to the words, "Heil Dir Im Siegel Kranz," and ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... said he, at length, in a tone of despondency, not unmingled with displeasure, "that I am obliged to descant upon the infirmities of a parent, and to censure her conduct as severely as I may do now. I feel the impropriety of such a step, and I would willingly avoid it, could I do so in justice to my own feelings—and especially at a moment like ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the tyranny of the butties or middlemen, and it will with little difficulty be felt that the public mind of this district was well-prepared for the excitement of the political agitator, especially if he were discreet enough rather to descant on their physical sufferings and personal injuries than to attempt the propagation of abstract political principles, with which it was impossible for them to sympathise with the impulse and facility of the inhabitants of manufacturing towns, members of literary and scientific institutes, habitual ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... fires out of the Grand Duke's wood, To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. And then we'll talk;—what shall we talk about? 310 Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout Of thought-entangled descant;—as to nerves— With cones and parallelograms and curves I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare To bother me—when you are with me there. 315 And they shall never more sip laudanum, From Helicon or Himeros (1);—well, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... be remembered that more people can give the list of Dr. Samuel Johnson's sins against good manners than can quote from his "Rasselas" and "Rambler," while there will always be more who can descant upon the selfish, tyrannical ill-breeding of Thomas Carlyle than can estimate the value and immensity of his ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... insult' Ab'stract abstract' | Con'vert convert' | Ob'ject object' Ac'cent accent' | Con'vict convict' | Out'leap outleap' Affix affix' | Con'voy convoy' | Per'fect perfect' As'pect aspect' | De'crease decrease' | Per'fume perfume' At'tribute attribute'| Des'cant descant' | Per'mit permit' Aug'ment augment' | Des'ert desert' | Pre'fix prefix' Au'gust august' | De'tail detail' | Pre'mise premise' Bom'bard bombard' | Di'gest digest' | Pre'sage presage' Col'league colleague'| ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... that the Sunne was climing vp in haste, To view the world with his ambitious eye. Faire Myrha; yet alas, more faire then chaste. Did set her thoughts to descant wantonly; Nay most inhumane, more then bad, or ill, As in the sequell you ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... our common Mother saw; Now earlie greets black Flores banefull Ile, (Flores, from whence afflictions selfe doth draw The true memorialls of a weeping stile;) And with Caisters Querristers[1] which straw Descant, that might Death of his darts beguile, He tunes saluting notes, sweeter then long, All which are made his last liues ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... pictur'd scene; Fathers who were what since their sons have been; And some whose laurell'd brows might glow with shame, Of sons with nought of their's besides the name. In this august abode the loud debate Seem'd hush'd, and prince and peer in silence sate; E'en G—ff—d's brazen descant seem'd to fail, And gasping C—pley gazed on L—d—rd—le; Panting, they loll'd their contumelious tongues, And suck'd Italian juice to clear their lungs. Y—k mus'd on armies; yet, with doubtful trust, Wish'd he were ...
— The Ghost of Chatham; A Vision - Dedicated to the House of Peers • Anonymous
... while "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" had been written in little more than a week, his "Eikonoklastes," a reply to a book published in February, did not appear until October 6th. His reluctance may be partly explained by his feeling that "to descant on the misfortunes of a person fallen from so high a dignity, who hath also paid his final debt both to nature and his faults, is neither of itself a thing commendable, nor the intention of this discourse." The intention ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... let her live what yet remains. Call, quickly call, the page who bears the lute; Bid him attune to descant of sad strains The lily voice we thought for ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... where light is low; Lawns watered with the rills That cruel Love hath made me shed, Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe; Thou stream that still dost know What fell pangs pierce my heart, So dost thou murmur back my moan; Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone, While in our descant drear Love sings his part: Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air; List to the sound out-poured from my despair! Seven times and once more seven The roseate dawn her beauteous brow Enwreathed with orient jewels ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... trial judge and not to any inadequacy in our methods of procedure. Yet the tenth case, the case where the criminal does beat the law by a technicality, does more harm than can easily be estimated. That is the one case everybody knows about, the one the papers descant upon, the one that cheers the heart of the grafter and every criminal who can afford to ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... Sapor—-and stood a silent and astonished witness of a love, such as I never saw in any other, and which seemed so great as to be a necessary seed of death to her frail and shattered frame? Of thee especially have I heard her descant as mothers will, and tell one after another of all thy beauties, nay and of the virtues which bound her to thee so, and of her trust so long cherished, that thou, more than either of her other sons, wouldst live to sustain, and even bear up higher, ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... he felt called so publicly to descant upon the natural history of the Lone Wolf? In order to focus upon that one the attentions of his enemies? Or to put ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... instruments of wood, from winding serpents to octave flute,—and of fiddles of parchment, from the grosse caisse to the tambourine. Nor were ancient instruments wanting. These were of quaint forms and diverse constructions. Mr. Graeme would descant for hours on an antique species of spinnet, which he procured from the East, and which he vehemently averred, was the veritable dulcimer. He would display with great gusto, his specimens of harps of Israel; whose deep-toned chorus, had perchance thrilled through the breast of more than one of Judea's ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... openly regret that they have never come across a woman to whom they cared to tie themselves for life might be in a position to descant on the inability of wives to enter into their husbands' inmost feelings, if only they—the bachelors—had known on a past occasion how to act with sudden promptitude on the top ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley
... of the Pastor Fido was laid in Arcadia, the play really represented polite Italian society. In the softness of its sentiment, its voluptuous verbal melody, and its reiterated descant upon effeminate love-pleasure, it corresponded exactly to the spirit of its age.[185] This was the secret of its success; and this explains its seduction. Not Corisca's wanton blandishments and professed cynicism, but Mirtillo's rapturous dithyrambs on kissing, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... have them dished up occasionally by mother, although she prefers to descant upon the immortal eighties, when she was a leader herself and 'money wasn't everything.' We never had so much of it anyhow. I know Grandfather Ballinger ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... such occasions was like his predecessor's coat, polychromatic. The Klosking read him, and wondered. "Alas!" said she, "with what versatile skill do you descant on a ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... therefore, got a little of the truth in him, though unhappily not much, since his heart had not been opened to that of the Koran. Nathu could have told him that he also had a book, which he and some fourscore millions more thought as good as his or better; but he was afraid to descant upon the merits of his 'shastras', and the miracles of Kishan Ji [Krishna], among such fierce, cut-throat-looking people; he looked, however, as if he could have eaten the porter, Koran and all, when I came ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... without having a word to utter, or a sentence to write, which can interest the bulk of readers. Does he come from the London University, or any of the provincial academies? He is thinking only of railroads or mechanics, of chemistry or canals, of medicine or surgery. He could descant without end on sulphuric acid or decrepitating salts, on capacity for caloric or galvanic batteries, on steam-engines and hydraulic machines, on the discoveries of Davy or the conclusions of Berzelius, of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... continued to smoke his pipe and descant upon human natur'. Mary had grown into a splendid woman, but coquettish as ever. Poor Tom Beazeley was fairly entrapped by her charms, and was a constant attendant upon her, but she played him fast and loose—one time encouraging ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Erling looked at her in surprise, but the unobservant hermit went on to descant upon the immense value of written language, until Hilda reminded him that he had consented to sit in ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... and censure are almost equally balanced; and the remainder of the Imperial crowd could only desire and expect to be forgotten by posterity. Was personal happiness the aim and object of their ambition? I shall not descant on the vulgar topics of the misery of kings; but I may surely observe, that their condition, of all others, is the most pregnant with fear, and the least susceptible of hope. For these opposite passions, a ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... before me so many documents and so much data bearing on this vast subject that I might set down very much more; I might descant on marvels of enterprise and organisation and of almost insuperable difficulties overcome. But, lest I weary the reader, and since I would have these lines read, I will hasten on to the last of my facts ...
— Great Britain at War • Jeffery Farnol
... to descant on the details of all active exercises. Riding may be left to the eulogies of Mr. N.P. Willis, and cricket to Mr. Lillywhite's "Guide." We will only say, in passing, that it is pleasant to see the rapid spread of clubs for the latter game, which a few years since was practised only by a few ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... the open door, "This," one was tempted to cry, "were the study for me! Here would I sit in the shelter of the wooden screen which keeps away draughts and noisy company, and turn the pages of my Livy for the tale of Cincinnatus, and deeds of rustic heroes; or hear old Horace descant on the gracious simplicity of life among ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... secrecie, I would say it were a peece of gentlemanlike knauery. I must goe to Pedringano and tell him his pardon is in this boxe! Nay, I would haue sworne it, had I not seene the contrary. I cannot choose but smile to thinke how the villain wil flout the gallowes, scorne the audience, and descant on the hangman, and all presuming of his pardon from hence. Wilt not be an odde iest, for me to stand and grace euery iest he makes, pointing my figner at this boxe, as who [should] say: "Mock on, heers thy warrant!" Ist not ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... obstinately shut our eyes to the magnitude of the Sphinx question that confronts us, and we address ourselves to one—and that the least important—of its many facets, and content ourselves with tackling that. We descant upon the turpitude of the Teuton who from the regions of idealism in which Goethe, Herder and their contemporaries dwelt has sunk into shift, treason and murder, and we proclaim our faith in the ultimate triumph of right, justice and of the democracy in which alone ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... her to confesse nothing to any of them, but continue constant in her made promise, rely vpon him, and hee would saue her. This was too high a straine aboue his reach to haue made it good, and a note of his false descant, who hauing compassed this wretched woman, brought her to a shamefull and vntimely end; yet doing nothing herein contrary to his malicious purposes, for hee was a murtherer from the beginning, Iohn 8. 44. Now then, to descend to particulars, and the ...
— A Treatise of Witchcraft • Alexander Roberts
... class inwardly rebelled at its task and thought of cool, green grottoes with heated men frantically falling over the home-plate, while the multitude belched bravos as Teddy McCorkle made three bases. Instead of the national game the class was wrestling with figured bass and the art of descant, and again ...
— Old Fogy - His Musical Opinions and Grotesques • James Huneker
... detached himself instantly from the group, and followed. "I am told you want a pony," said he; "there now is mine feeding amongst those horses, the best in all the kingdom of Leon." He then began with all the volubility of a chalan to descant on the points of the animal. Presently the friar joined us, who, observing his opportunity, pulled me by the sleeve and whispered, "Have nothing to do with the curate, master, he is the greatest thief in the neighbourhood; if you want a pony, my brother has a much better, which he will dispose ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... considered to be orthodox. Being at all times a curious examiner of the human mind, and pleased with an undisguised display of what had passed in it, he called to me with warmth, 'Give me your hand; I have taken a liking to you.' He then began to descant upon the force of testimony, and the little we could know of final causes; so that the objections of, why was it so? or why was it not so? ought not to disturb us: adding, that he himself had at one period been guilty of a temporary neglect of religion, but that it was not the result of ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... continued; and we all walked on again. I remember it all very distinctly, because it was the beginning of Nino's madness. Especially I call to mind his expression of indifference when Ercole began to descant upon the worldly possessions of the Lira household. It seemed to me that if Nino so seriously cast his eyes on the Contessina Edvigia, he might at least have looked pleased to hear she was so rich; or he might have looked disappointed, if he thought that her position was an obstacle in his ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... or marble, and with cornices of shining metal, "that glittered like stars through the dark foliage of the orange groves;" and the whole is compared to "an enamelled vase, sparkling with hyacinths and emeralds." [25] Such are the florid strains in which the Arabic writers fondly descant on the glories ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... Lydian measures; slow music, slow movement; adagio &c. adv.; minuet; siren strains, soft music, lullaby; dump; dirge &c. (lament) 839; pibroch[obs3]; martial music, march; dance music; waltz &c. (dance) 840. solo, duet, duo, trio; quartet, quartett[obs3]; septett[obs3]; part song, descant, glee, madrigal, catch, round, chorus, chorale; antiphon[obs3], antiphony; accompaniment, second, bass; score; bourdon[obs3], drone, morceau[obs3], terzetto[obs3]. composer &c. 413; musician &c. 416. V. compose, perform &c. 416; attune. Adj. musical; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget
... Mr Bunker went up, and approved. They readily agreed upon terms, and the landlady, charmed with her new lodger's appearance and manners, no less than with the respectability of his profession, proceeded to descant at some length on the quiet, comfort, and numerous other advantages of ...
— The Lunatic at Large • J. Storer Clouston
... who was not afraid to die for his country, is removed from Inachus, and the race of Aeacus, and the battles also that were fought at sacred Troy—[these subjects] you descant upon; but at what price we may purchase a hogshead of Chian; who shall warm the water [for bathing]; who finds a house: and at what hour I am to get rid of these Pelignian colds, you are silent. Give me, boy, [a bumper] for the new moon in an instant, give me one for midnight, and one for Murena ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace |
