"Descant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... scent, the spicy tang of apples, the thrill of clasped arms and a lover's kiss. Or it may rise higher, and rest in the relations of things, in similes and metaphors; it may infuse longing and love and passion; it may descant fair reason and meditative musing. Or, in highest flight, beauty may range over the summits of lofty purpose, inspiring patriotism, devotion, sacrifice, till it becomes one with the love of man and the love of God, even as the ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various
... 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, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... amusing the audience with extemporary buffoonery, and also at the end of the performance. And, as Heywood, in his "History of Women" (1624), says "By his mimic gestures to breed in the less capable mirth and laughter." On these occasions, it was usual to descant, in a humourous style, on various subjects proposed to him by the spectators; but they were more commonly entertained with what was termed a jig: this was a ludicrous composition in rhyme, sung by the Clown, accompanied by his pipe and ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... 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 ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... 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 curiously." His subtlety {139} led him to "pose his apprehension with those involved ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... 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 fight. All this ...
— 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
... embarrassed, however, as to how to open conversation. He hummed and hawed and was visibly uneasy. He tried to descant upon the weather, but the subject failed him. Finally, with an effort, he hitched his chair nearer to his host's and said in a low voice, "Ike, I reckon you has ...
— The heart of happy hollow - A collection of stories • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... the house, "go on. I will hear you out." And then, seeing him stand before her with so much obvious disrelish to the task, she was suddenly overcome with laughter. Julia's laugh was a thing to ravish lovers; she rolled her mirthful descant with the freedom and the melody of a blackbird's song upon the river, and repeated by the echoes of the farther bank. It seemed a thing in its own place and a sound native to the open air. There was only one creature who heard ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... superseded nearly all the old clerks, Mr Perch had but to show himself in the court outside, or, at farthest, in the bar of the King's Arms, to be asked a multitude of questions, almost certain to include that interesting question, what would he take to drink? Then would Mr Perch descant upon the hours of acute uneasiness he and Mrs Perch had suffered out at Balls Pond, when they first suspected 'things was going wrong.' Then would Mr Perch relate to gaping listeners, in a low voice, as if the corpse of the deceased House were lying unburied in ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... 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 throw themselves with deep prostration ...
— 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
... later 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 ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... other provinces formed one France, at peace 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 500 francs would ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... thousand 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 so much to brighten ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... very fond of fish and lived, before railways, in the heart of the Midlands); one of the most uneventful of picnics; hares and hair (one of his most characteristic pieces of quietly ironic humour is a brief descant on wigs with a suggestion that fashion should decree the cutting off of people's own legs and the substitution of artificial ones); the height of chairs and candlesticks—anything will do. He remarks gravely somewhere, "What nature expressly designed me for, I have never been ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... 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, wants, it is said, those powers ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... Inhabited House Duty of tenement buildings. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER taken part in the Debate. CHARLES RUSSELL said a few words. House in most serious, not to say depressed mood. Subject particularly inviting for JESSE; always advocated welfare of Working Classes; now seized opportunity to descant on theme. Detailed with growing warmth arrangements desirable for perfecting sanitation of houses for Working Classes; when TANNER, crossing arms and legs, and cocking head on one side, with provoking appearance of keen interest, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, May 17, 1890. • Various
... besiegers may rush amain and carry your walls by assault. Lastly, there be Mantlets—stakes wattled together and covered with raw-hide—by the which means the besiegers make their first approaches. Then might I descant at goodly length upon the Mine and Furnace, with divers and sundry other stratagems, devices, engines and tormenta, but methinks this shall mayhap suffice thee for ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... 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 Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... tale of obloquy, or occasion of speech to such men as of 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
... 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 481, March 19, 1831 • Various
... more and more complex, and especially as writing in several parts came into use (cf. rise of organum, descant, and counterpoint), it became increasingly difficult to express musical ideas on the basis of the old notation, and numerous attempts were made to invent a more accurate and usable system. Among these ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... 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 to set ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... 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 in the fields, hee would sing the plaine song, and cause me to sing the ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... to me the smiling mornings shine, And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire; The birds in vain their amorous descant join, Or cheerful fields resume their green attire. These ears, alas! for other notes repine; A different object do these eyes require; My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine; And in my breast the imperfect joys expire; Yet morning ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... in a plea for this pursuit, as about the least costly foible to which those who can afford to indulge in foibles can devote themselves, one might descant on certain auxiliary advantages—as, that it is not apt to bring its votaries into low company; that it offends no one, and is not likely to foster actions of damages for nuisance, trespass, or assault, and the like. But rather let us turn our attention to the intellectual ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... Now, having left your hero and heroine in a situation peculiarly interesting, with the greatest nonchalance, pass over to the continent, rave on the summit of Mont Blanc, and descant upon the strata which compose the mountains of the Moon in central Africa. You have been philosophical, now you must be geological. No one can then say that your book ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... 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 Vo.—New ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 335 - Vol. 12, No. 335, October 11, 1828 • Various
... even unto trumpet and cymbal,—of 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 ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... and he lit it with a blazing sulphur match before he 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 ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... of Joseph on 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 single circumstance ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... ball at which the Prince and Princess of Wales were present, and had spent several weeks in the country houses of some of the wealthy English. Consequently, she considered herself quite au fait with their style and customs, which she never failed to descant upon, greatly to the amusement of her listeners, and the mortification of Grey, who was now old enough to see how ridiculous it ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... filial regret.] I am sensible how unseemly it appears in a son to descant on the unamiable passions of a parent;—but, as we are alone, and friends,—I cannot help observing in my own defence,—that when a father will not allow the use of reason to any of his family—when his pursuit of greatness makes him a slave ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... 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
... spirituality of their teaching, and the world of practical good they did among a neglected people, render them worthy of the deepest respect. It would have been an ungracious task ruthlessly to lay bare and to descant upon their weaknesses. That was done mercilessly by their contemporaries and those of the next generation. There is more need now to redress the balance by giving due weight to their ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... It is needless to descant on such a theme. It is impossible to give any true idea of the literary labors of those men, without having seen and perused their huge folios, many of which have not yet been published to the world. Poor Colgan ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... of purity and sweetness were cast back to their places, with every sign of tenderness and regret. Though rendered less connected by many and general interruptions and outbreakings, a translation of their language would have contained a regular descant, which, in substance, might have proved to possess ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... scene 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, Dorinda's melting moods of tenderness, ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... Many of his poems, which are not found in the present volume, the author trusts will be deemed worthy of being treasured in the scrap books of his friends. Of the literary merits of the composition, it would ill become the author in any way to descant upon; but in regard to these he leaves himself entirely and absolutely in the hands of a critical, and, he hopes, an indulgent public, feeling assured that he may trust himself in the hands ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... her head well; and her pale firm features, with the cast of immediate affliction on them, had much dignity: dignity of an unrelenting physical order, which need not express any remarkable pride of spirit. The family gossips who, on both sides, were vain of this rare couple, and would always descant on their beauty, even when they had occasion to slander their characters, said, to distinguish them, that Henrietta Maria had a Port, and Melchisedec a Presence: and that the union of a Port and a Presence, and such a Port and such a Presence, was so uncommon, that you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 of ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... accompanied with pious explanations and moral sayings. Each person stepped back delighted from the peep-show, and charmed the bystanders with the recital of the wonders he had witnessed. The beautiful Angelica now looked out of her window; and, hearing the Devil descant in so pious a tone, she felt an irresistible desire to see the wonders of his box, and to bestow alms upon the devout old showman. The Devil was sent for. Even he was struck by her wondrous beauty, ...
— Faustus - his Life, Death, and Doom • Friedrich Maximilian von Klinger
... unfrequently a pale golden olive, and I have seen them as fair as many Europeans. They are intelligent men with acute minds, but lazy and self-indulgent. Frequently the village Brahmin is simply a sensual voluptuary. This is not the time or place to descant on their religion, which, with many gross practices, contains not a little that is pure and beautiful. The common idea at home that they are miserable pagans, 'bowing down to stocks and stones,' is, like many of the ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... system, six thousand years only carries us just back into the last yuga, and is as but yesterday in the march of the divine aeons of the past. Certainly, writers whose productions are unreliable as a guide to the events of the past century or two are only indenting upon their imagination when they descant upon the chronological ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... say God bless her, and proved the depth of their fervor by generous financial aid to the cause she so ably represents. It is seldom that the beginner of a great reform lives to see such fruitage of her labors as does she. People often descant upon the indifference of women to the question of their own enfranchisement and to political matters generally; but there is serious doubt of greater interest ever having been shown by men in political meetings than women exhibit in ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... evening meals were sent from "La Cigogne," close by, in four large round tins that fitted into each other, and were carried in a wicker-work cylindrical basket. And it was little Frau's delight to descant on the qualities of the menu as she dished and served it. I will not ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... by the passions excited by the great controversy over Free Trade and Protection, to defy the warnings writ large upon the page of history. The tradition must be so challenged. Say what we will about the proximity of Ireland and Great Britain, descant as we will in law-books, pamphlets, leading articles, debates, on what ought theoretically to be the fiscal relations of the two countries, we cannot escape from the fact that, in this as in so many other respects, both the human ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... people, in opposing the Gospel, descant upon the hypocrisy of religious persons; they pick up every vague report that they hear to their disadvantage, and narrowly watch for the halting of such as they are acquainted with; and then they form general conclusions from a few distorted and uncertain stories. Thus they ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... repairs which were going on in the great Chapel; and all kneeling on their knees, and having recited the Pater-noster and the Ave-maria, the Abbot gave a sign, and the Precentor of the Convent began in plain descant the antiphony Salvator Mundi. And when the whole Convent had sung this, the Abbot said the verse Ostende nobis, and the verse Post partum virgo, and the prayer Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui es omnium dubitantium certitudo, and the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... 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 admitted as partners in the houses. ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... succession of patriots descended from the same stock. They who judged of the value attached to the possession of this charge, by the animation with which all attempts to relieve them of the burthen were repelled, must have been in error; for, to hear their friends descant on the difficulties of the duties, of the utter impossibility that they should be properly discharged by any family that had not been in their exercise just one hundred and seventy-two years and a half, the precise period ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... inspired mood; so might he have stood when gathering into his serene consciousness the pastoral melodies of Nature, on a summer evening, to be incorporated into immortal combinations of harmonious sound;—we might descant upon the union of majesty and spirit in the figure of Washington and the vital truth of action in the horse, the air of command and of rectitude, the martial vigor and grace, so instantly felt by the popular heart, and so critically praised by the adept in statuary cognizant of the difficulties ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... 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 ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... as mint-julep and its varieties; slings in all their varieties; cocktails, but I really cannot remember, or if I could, it would occupy too much time to mention the whole battle array against one's brains. I must, however, descant a little upon the mint-julep; as it is, with the thermometer at 100 degrees, one of the most delightful and insinuating potations that ever was invented, and may be drank with equal satisfaction when the thermometer is as low ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... 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 may reade ...
— Seven Minor Epics of the English Renaissance (1596-1624) • Dunstan Gale
... too, in Scotia, o'er the Bridge of Sighs, The Clyde's Necropolis uprears its head, Or that old abbey's sacred turrets rise Whose crypts contain proud Albion's noblest dead,— And where, by leafy canopy o'erspread, The lyre of Gray its pensive descant made— And where, beside the dancing city's tread, Famed Pere La Chaise all gorgeously displayed Its meretricious robes, with ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... Dinner had gone rather quietly, and our host had looked bored, I thought. Then, when the ladies had left us, Browne had kindled up, and we all three had a glorious hour, voicing the praises of Africa in a sort of three-man descant or glee. Meanwhile the fourth man, Drayton, a dark, plump and smiling youth, listened to us with a charming air of respectful attention. Transvaal tobacco was good, and the talk was good, though I say it who should not. Drayton's silence was also good, ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps
... 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 help laughing and blushing), known at the Clubs, and of the Society ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... beware of your sentimental descant on the worth of goodness, the goodness of being good, and the sinfulness of sin, without specifying either! It is a blank cartridge, or one of treacherous sand instead of powder, or a spiked gun, only whose priming explodes without noise or execution. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... 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 ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... for it is time; The Rosy Morne long since left Tithones bed, All 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; The Thrush replyes; the Mavis descant playes; The Ouzell shrills; the Ruddock warbles soft; So goodly all agree, with sweet consent, To this dayes merriment. Ah! my deere love, why doe ye sleepe thus long? When meeter were that ye should now awake, T' awayt the ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... sword, which, attracting the universal attention, testified at once that this strange garb was worn, not from the vanity of display, but for the sake of presenting to the concourse—in the person of the citizen—a type and emblem of that state of the city on which he was about to descant. ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... 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
... or chiefly these who are put into the 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 something about Monte ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... 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 ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams |
