"Descant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 in these ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... | Con'verse converse' | In'sult 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'| Dis'cord discord' ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... 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 ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... 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. ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... 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, ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... 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 with gently gliding boats and barges, and skirted by fine woods. Opposite is the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 374 • Various
... such as cleaning her nails or using a tooth-pick. She will not 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 who are conversing, to ask an irrelevant question ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... workmen the apprehension of still greater evils and 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, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... Deform'd, 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, By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams, ...
— The Life and Death of King Richard III • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... or pricked down, in opposition to plain-song, where the descant rested with the will of the singer." Chappell's Popular Music, &c., ...
— Old English Plays, Vol. I - A Collection of Old English Plays • Various
... We descant volubly upon the subjects of citizenship and civilization but, as yet, have achieved no adequate definition of either of the terms upon which we expatiate so fluently. Our books teem with admonitions to train for citizenship in order that we may attain civilization of better quality. But, ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... the mountains after sunset. In those distant regions, where men yet feel the full value of the gifts of nature, a land-holder boasts of the water of his spring, the absence of noxious insects, the salutary breeze that blows round his hill, as we in Europe descant on the conveniences of our dwellings, and the picturesque ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... 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 ...
— Shakespeare and Music - With Illustrations from the Music of the 16th and 17th centuries • Edward W. Naylor
... Song of Mingling flows, Grave, ceremonial, pure, As once, from lips that endure, The cosmic descant rose, ...
— Poems of To-Day: an Anthology • Various
... Sir," says he to his Indian counsellor, "be so obliging as to tell me what you had for breakfast." The other, immediately putting on the wild stare of the maniac, cried out, "Hobnails, Sir! It is shameful to think how they treat us! They give us nothing but hobnails!" and went on with a "descant wild" on the horrors of the cookery of Bethlehem Hospital. Burke staid no longer than that his departure might not seem abrupt; and, on the advantage of the first pause in the talk, was glad to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... at the idea of dwelling with compassion on the lot of her washerwoman with a drunken husband. Yet her feelings sometimes became interested for the poor she heard of abroad, the poor she read of, and she would now and then descant largely on the few cases of actual distress which had chanced to come under her notice, and the little opportunity she enjoyed of bestowing alms. Superficial in her mode of thinking and observation, her ideas of charity were limited, forgetful that to be true it must be a pervading principle ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... entertainment with such a 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 as ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... 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 ...
— The Works of Horace • Horace
... 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. ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... alliterative beat, Skeat may certainly prove that all the later alliterative poetry has a movement of initial beat. But English ears will not submit to this rule. It is those light syllables of no account which have altered the rhythm of English descant from one of initial to one ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... 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 tabor. In these jigs there were sometimes more actors ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... tour in the Levant. One of the first things I did on my return was to go up to Grimwinter to pay a consolatory visit to his poor mother. I found her in deep affliction, and I sat with her the whole of the morning that followed my arrival (I had come in late at night), listening to her tearful descant and singing the praises of my friend. We talked of nothing else, and our conversation terminated only with the arrival of a quick little woman who drove herself up to the door in a "carryall," and whom I saw toss the reins ...
— Four Meetings • Henry James
... you to contrast Nature and Fortune, you could not have chosen a happier theme upon which to descant, for both have made a trial of their strength on the subject of your Memoirs. What Nature did, you had the evidence of your own eyes to vouch for, but what was done by Fortune, you know only from hearsay; and hearsay, I need not tell you, is liable to ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... Mentor's manner, as well as behavior, that evening, I cannot but believe it to have been one of the usual ebullitions of the egoism, not to say of the uneasiness, known to those who were accustomed to hear the great moral philosopher discourse upon his own productions and descant upon those of a contemporary. During this same visit, he was dilating upon some question in poetry, when, upon Keats's insinuating a confirmatory suggestion to his argument, Mrs. Wordsworth put her hand upon his arm, saying,—"Mr. Wordsworth is never interrupted." Again, during the same ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... still Eevning on, and Twilight gray Had in her sober Liverie all things clad; Silence accompanied, for Beast and Bird, 600 They to thir grassie Couch, these to thir Nests Were slunk, all but the wakeful Nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleas'd: now glow'd the Firmament With living Saphirs: Hesperus that led The starrie Host, rode brightest, till the Moon Rising in clouded Majestie, at length Apparent Queen unvaild ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... 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, and ...
— Some Account of the Life of Mr. William Shakespear (1709) • Nicholas Rowe
... against 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 a scuruie iest that a man should iest ...
— The Spanish Tragedie • Thomas Kyd
... 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
... 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 systems of Hutton or Werner, of Liebig or Cuvier. But although an acquaintance ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... present article with a short notice of an individual who, in the cast of his mind and in political principle, bears no very remote resemblance to the patriot and wit just spoken of, and on whose merits we should descant at greater length, but that personal intimacy might be supposed to render us partial. It is well when personal intimacy produces this effect; and when the light, that dazzled us at a distance, does not on a closer ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... clutch of that foul barbarian, 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 ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... now a new subject of grief to descant upon. The Marquis of Montferrat, unable to contend against the Visconti, applied to the Pope for assistance. He had already made a treaty with the court of London, by which it was agreed that a body ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... could weep th Oneida chief His descant wildly thus begun But that I may not stain with grief The death-song of my fathers ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... of importance he sojourns for a day or two, each day ranging his 'gang' in a line on the most busy street, and whenever a customer makes his appearance the oily speculator button-holes him immediately and begins to descant in the most highfalutin fashion upon the virtuous lot of darkeys he has for sale. Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom was not a circumstance to any one of the dozens he points out. So honest! so truthful! so dear to the hearts of their former masters and mistresses! Ah! Messrs. stock-brokers ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... a service rare Could I descant, if need there were, My firmer claim to bind. But rest I most my high pretence On that my genial influence, Which made the body's indolence ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... 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, ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... for her lodgers, whose mid-day and 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 attempt ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... 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 ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... 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
... 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 could give us little more than his "Trial Thaumaturga and that was only destined to ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... 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 prayer Deus qui salutis oeternoe, ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • 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 one of the most interesting was that in which the words ...
— Music Notation and Terminology • Karl W. Gehrkens
... ran short of trifles, like salt or pepper, well—we would bear it for sake of the Flag. Kimberley is a British stronghold, with a loyal population imbued with a fine sense of the invincibility of the British army. Many people were surprised to find that they could descant sincerely and patriotically upon the might and glories of the Empire. Even the Irish Nationalist seemed to feel that it took a nation upon whose territory the sun itself could not set to subjugate his native land; and he was moved to remind his Anglo-Saxon mates ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... then 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 help laughing and blushing), known ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... It has been said that a woman has but one him (hymn), and that she is never tired of singing it! It seemed so indeed in Mary Ann's case, for she had scarcely reached home when she took her sisters Thomasin and Grace aside, and began to descant most eloquently upon the manliness and goodness, cleverness and handsomeness of her lover, whom she boldly declared to be "the best and most kind-hearted man in the world." "And I will tell you ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... 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 ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... its inhabitants I am unwilling to descant, because this will be done so much better by my fellow-traveller, in a work which may probably precede this in publication, that I as little wish to follow as I would to anticipate him.[214] But some few observations are necessary to the text. The Arnaouts, or Albanese, struck me forcibly ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... 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 horde on the sticky joys of the candy cart of Isidore Belchatosky's papa or on ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... gift. Such was Mr. Thorne's way of thinking on this matter; nothing could atone for the loss of good blood; nothing could neutralize its good effects. Few indeed were now possessed of it, but the possession was on that account the more precious. It was very pleasant to hear Mr. Thorne descant on this matter. Were you in your ignorance to surmise that such a one was of a good family because the head of his family was a baronet of an old date, he would open his eyes with a delightful look of affected surprise, and modestly remind you that ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... 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 his ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... 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 ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... not the place to descant on the high importance of this discovery. It is only necessary to add that there is not the least doubt that it has put us in possession of the old Syriac translation, of which Ebedjesu speaks. There is only one question still to be settled, whether it is derived ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... went to the 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
... too, the robins, 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 own ...
— Lyrics of Earth • Archibald Lampman
... 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 ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... 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. ...
— Godliness • Catherine Booth
... canopy the skies. From aromatic shrubs the roguish gale Steals young perfumes and wafts them through the vale. 20 The youth, turn'd swain, and skill'd in rustic lays, Fast by her side his amorous descant plays. Herds low, flocks bleat, pies chatter, ravens scream, And the full chorus dies a-down the stream: The streams, with music freighted, as they pass Present the fair Lardella with a glass; And Zephyr, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... You may descant on the institution of Lent as much as you please, cried Epistemon; so many men so many minds; but certainly all the physicians will be against its being suppressed, though I think that time is at hand. I know they will, and have heard 'em say were it not for Lent their art would ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... Rosinante's nose at my shoulder we pushed slowly forward, a nightingale burst close against my ear into so passionate a descant I thought I should be gooseflesh to ...
— Henry Brocken - His Travels and Adventures in the Rich, Strange, Scarce-Imaginable Regions of Romance • Walter J. de la Mare
... observing me, 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 ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... 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 ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... by the Framley old-fashioned groom. My lord, however, had a head man of his own who took the matter quite into his own hands. Mark, priest as he was, was quite worldly enough to be fond of a good horse; and for some little time allowed Lord Lufton to descant on the merit of this four-year-old filly, and that magnificent Rattlebones colt, out of a Mousetrap mare; but he had other things that lay heavy on his mind, and after bestowing half an hour on the stud, he contrived to get his friend away to the ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... 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 ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... perplexed about his case. So he ceased not from melancholy the rest of that day and night, and on the morrow he betook himself to Ali bin Bakkar, with whom he sat till the folk withdrew, when he asked him how he did. Ali began to complain of desire and to descant upon the longing and distraction which possessed him, and repeated these ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... is one musical echo and aspiration. He finds his theme and illustration constantly in music. His amorous descant never fails him: his lute is always by his side. Following the "Steps of the Temple," a graceful tribute to Herbert, we have the congenial title, "The Delights of the Muses," opening with that ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... 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 not only the appearance of the ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... end of 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 ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mad for love, as is my case? Then sing, 'O Bountiful!' and seek the Lord His grace! Tell me, doth thy descant in joyance tale its rise Or in desireful pain, that in thy heart hath place? If for desire thou moan'st of bygone loves or pin'st For dear ones that have gone and left thee but their trace, Or if thou'st lost thy love, like me, ah, then, indeed, Severance long-felt ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume IV • Anonymous
... the quiet of the scene. He threw loose his pilgrim's dress, yet suffering part of its dark folds to hang around him mantle-wise; under which appeared his minstrel's tabard. He took from his side a rote, and striking, from time to time, a "Welsh descant, sung at others a lay, of which we can offer only a few fragments, literally translated from the ancient language in which they were chanted, premising that they are in that excursive symbolical style of poetry, which Taliessin, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... there is a really first-class article, and generally there are one or two very readable. The quality has much fallen off during the last eighteen months, but it affords a convenient outlet for the young colonists to air political and social crotchets, and to descant on philosophical theories. Now and then the editor used to hook a big fish, such as the Duke of Manchester, Professor Amos, and Senor Castelar, who have all contributed to its columns. The philosophical articles are naturally very feeble, but not unfrequently ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... 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
... matter, why had 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 ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... will philosophize! And we'll have 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, come, And in despite of God and of the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... you are too flat; And marre the concord, with too harsh a descant: There wanteth but a Meane ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... 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 ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... 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 ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... never dreamt of, luckily; so he was very genteel, though he was taken on a sudden, and from his breakfast, which an Englishman don't like particularly—I popped him a douceur of a draft, at thirty-one days, on Garraghty, the agent; of which he must get notice; but I won't descant on the law before the ladies—he handed me over his debt and execution, and he made me prior creditor in a trice. Then I took coach in state, the first I met, and away with me to Long Acre—saw Mordicai. 'Sir,' says I, 'I hear you're ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... 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 hath displayed; Cynthia once more in heaven Hath orbed her horns with silver now; ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... she may descant On sacred kinship. If at home I give Disorder license, where will order reign? Whoever governs his own house aright Will be a worthy member of the State. The bold transgressor that defies the law, Or thinks to override authority, Need look for no encouragement from me The lawful ruler's word ...
— Specimens of Greek Tragedy - Aeschylus and Sophocles • Goldwin Smith
... showered down gowns upon her; but it was nearly twenty years since Mrs. Shaw had been the poor, pretty Miss Beresford, and she had really forgotten all grievances except that of the unhappiness arising from disparity of age in married life, on which she could descant by the half-hour. Dearest Maria had married the man of her heart, only eight years older than herself, with the sweetest temper, and that blue-black hair one so seldom sees. Mr. Hale was one of the most delightful preachers she had ever ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... consecutive fourths and fifths, the intermovement of the voices, from being parallel and oblique, became contrary, thus avoiding the parallel succession of intervals. The name "organum" was dropped and the new system became known as tenor and descant, the tenor being the principal or foundation melody, and the descant or descants (for there could be as many as there were parts or voices to the music) taking the place of the organum. The difference between discantus and diaphony was that the latter consisted of several parts or voices, ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... ruffian keeper (and never did a vile, debasing occupation stamp its character more indelibly on the physiognomy of man) led one of the black victims forth, to meet the speculating caprices of a haggard old Turkish woman. He proceeded to point out her good qualities, and to descant on the firmness of her muscles, the robustness of her limbs, and her mature age; at the same time pinching her tender flesh, by way of proving the truth of his assertions, till the poor creature shrieked out with agony. He then tore down her eye-lids, to exhibit the healthiness of her eye-balls; ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... 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 ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... into the room, come to live with us for ever. I had already sung the praises of the old lady who read the Debats (I had hinted to my parents that she must at least be an Ambassador's widow, if not actually a Highness) and I continued to descant on her beauty, her splendour, her nobility, until the day on which I mentioned that, by what I had heard Gilberte call her, she appeared ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... to descant upon his own astuteness, but I was too sick at heart to listen. I remembered only the visit years before which that man's wife had paid to me. "Will you not open the parcel?" I interposed. He fell upon it, exposed its contents of bread, chocolate, and sardine ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... in these dramas is the descriptive power and brilliant philosophy of the choruses. They are quite unconnected with the plot, and generally either celebrate the praises of some god, e.g., Bacchus in the Oedipus, or descant on some moral theme, as the advantage of an obscure lot, in the same play. The eclat of their style, and the pungency of their epigrams is startling. In sentiment and language they are the very counterpart of ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... 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." ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... praise of gratifying curiosity, or affording assistance to the ambitious; we are very sure that the moral influence of the Lexicon Balatronicum will be more certain and extensive than that of any methodist sermon that has ever been delivered within the bills of mortality. We need not descant on the dangerous impressions that are made on the female mind, by the remarks that fall incidentally from the lips of the brothers or servants of a family; and we have before observed, that improper topics ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... became scarlet when 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 judgment on a ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... 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
... of racial and imperial progress. We 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 they ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... descant on the merit of these speeches; but as it is no less new than honorable to find a popular candidate, at a popular election, daring to avow his dissent to certain points that have been considered as very popular objects, and maintaining himself on the manly confidence of his own opinion, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... days 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 is the best described thing in the world. Besides, there ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... least 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 Swiss ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... could they do anything for men? Now and then, undoubtedly, especially with farms that pay no rent, the steward writes a letter, alleging the misery of the farmer. There is no doubt, also, that, especially for thirty years back, they desire to be humane; they descant among themselves about the rights of man; the sight of the pale face of a hungry peasant would give them pain. But they never see him; does it ever occur to them to fancy what it is like under the awkward and complimentary phrases of their agent? Moreover, do they ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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
... 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 comming of your joyous make, And hearken to the birds love-learned ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... results that one of his friends obtained by certain crosses. So far as the animal kingdom was concerned his ideas were sound enough, but when he came to the consideration of human kind he was as erratic as ever. As they walked back from the stables he began to descant on the population question, denouncing the century, and repeating all his old theories. Perhaps it was jealous rancor that impelled him to protest against the victory of life which the whole farm around him proclaimed so loudly. Depopulation! why, it did not extend fast enough. ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... avarice inclined? Extol him for his generous mind: And, when we starve for want of corn, Come out with Amalthea's horn:[3] For all experience this evinces The only art of pleasing princes: For princes' love you should descant On virtues which they know they want. One compliment I had forgot, But songsters must omit it not; I freely grant the thought is old: Why, then, your hero must be told, In him such virtues lie inherent, To qualify him God's vicegerent; That with no title to inherit, He must have been a king by merit. ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift
... friends had he been induced to 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 ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... 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 ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... to 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
... utterly wrecked, and the man who steered the boat on that occasion, as you all know, was the bridegroom? But—to turn from the particular to the general question—I am sure, Ladies and Gentlemen, that you will bear with me while I descant for a little on the wrong that is done to society by the present state of our laws in reference to the saving of life from shipwreck. Despite the activity of our noble Lifeboat Institution; despite the efficiency of her splendid boats, and the courage ...
— Saved by the Lifeboat • R.M. Ballantyne
... well understood this, and accordingly ruled barbarians by misrule. Therefore, to rule barbarians by misrule is the true way of ruling them.' It suited the purpose of European residents at Canton to descant upon the arrogance and inhumanity of the Chinese, as manifested by proceedings based upon those hostile edicts, while the provocations which explained and extenuated ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... will be as common to remove oaks a hundred and fifty years old, as it is now to transplant tulip-roots. 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 roasting a wild-boar and a whole pack of hounds alive, without ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... and see with their toes and fingers, and read unknown languages, 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 ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... without an observation or two upon the present state of the library. The anecdote is thoroughly bibliographical. After having examined some of the finer books before mentioned, and especially having dwelt upon the Latin Bible of Mentelin, and a few copies of the rarer Classics, I ventured to descant upon the propriety of parting with those for which there was no use, and which, without materially strengthening their own collection, might, by an advantageous sale, enable them to enrich their ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... The people are generally alive to public affairs—look into the votes and speeches of members, give their opinions—but are universally corrupt. They have a sour feeling against what are nicknamed abuses, rail against sinnicures, as they call them, and descant upon the enormity of such things while they are forced to work all day long and their families have not enough to eat. But the one prevailing object among the whole community is to make money of their votes, and though he says there are some ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... dogs at the Westminster Aquarium; on this occasion he was reassured by the manager telling him that the dogs were taught more by reward than by punishment. Mr. Herbert goes on:—"It stirred one's inmost depth of feeling to hear him descant upon, and groan over, the horrors of the slave-trade, or the cruelties to which the suffering Poles were subjected at Warsaw...These, and other like proofs have left on my mind the conviction that a more humane or ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... 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 ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... were not at quite such a discount with Mrs. Mervale as with her daughter and her friend; and she continued to descant upon the high standing of Mr. Hazlewood the elder, not one word in ten of which the girls heard, for she, like most old ladies, once started upon former times, was thinking of the pleasant young John Hazlewood of early days, who brought back with him a host of reminiscences, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... through the groves, with quiet tread, On his accustomed haunts he sped, The mother-thrush, unstartled, sung Her descant to her callow young, And fearless o'er his threshold prest The wanderer from the sparrow's nest, The squirrel raised a sparkling eye Nor from his kernel cared to fly As passed that gentle hermit ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... 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, as he held this infallible position; ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... fact, but it can be abundantly proved, that great numbers of the unfortunate strangers, who are carried from Africa to our colonies, are fraudulently and forcibly taken from their native soil. To descant but upon a single instance of the kind must be productive of pain to the ear of sensibility and freedom. Consider the sensations of the person, who is thus carried off by the ruffians, who have been lurking to intercept him. Separated from everything which he esteems in life, without the possibility ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... cannily round to all the other members, and represented to them, one by one, how proper it was that the lamps should be set up, both for a credit to the town, and as a conformity to the fashion of the age in every other place. And I took occasion to descant, at some length, on the untractable nature of Mr Hickery, and how it would be proper before the next meeting to agree to say nothing when the matter was again brought on the carpet, but just to come to the vote at once. Accordingly this ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... off and continued his stride, brandishing an aorist over my devoted head. The housekeeper waited unmoved till there fell a moment's break in his descant; and then, "You'd better drink it before it gets cold," she observed again, impassively. The wretched man cast a deprecating look at me. "Perhaps a little tea would be rather nice," he observed, feebly; ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame
... 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 ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... Jesuit" (i.e. Father Jouvency). In 1828 he had contemplated writing an article on music for the London Review, along with one on poetry. The latter, in the event, alone saw the day; the former "seems to have remained an idea only."[40] He is apologetic in the Idea of a University, when about to descant so eloquently upon music: "If I may speak," he says, "of matters which seem to lie beyond my own province;"[41] but in very early Oratory days at Edgbaston, he essayed some lectures on music to some of the community in ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... bill of Earl Grey's administration, was the study of his whole professional and public life. He not only knew every leading event, every great statute, but he had the minutest details at command, and was always pleased to descant upon a British statute, or on an epoch of British legislation. The excellent volumes of Lord Chancellor Campbell have made a knowledge of the history of the law an easy accomplishment; but Tazewell never read them, and drew his information from the original sources. In the history of ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... wall, do let fall drawbridges over which the 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 ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... same Alessandro del Dardo won her to himself by his descant upon the theme, "How a gentleman may dismember himself without dishonour for a ...
— Little Novels of Italy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... 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
... in his (if so it were) native Country. Here did he begin and finish the Translation of so many Authors, that considering their Voluminousness, a Man would think he had done nothing else; which made one thus to descant on him. ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... shyed most fearfully when an 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, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... 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 mantle threw— When Adam thus to Eve: ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... 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
... with intense solicitude about "the weather!" Will soon perceived, however, that in the circumstances this was utterly ridiculous, so he made another effort and asked about Flora's father and mother, and then, happy thought, he suddenly remembered Buckawanga, and began to descant upon him, after which he naturally slid into ships and voyaging, and so ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... flashed into her face and slowly faded away. What chance had she of gaining her father's ear? True, she could descant by the hour together, if she had the opportunity, on Lady Alice's sweetness and goodness; but when could she get the opportunity of speaking about them to him? He looked on her with an eye of mistrust, almost of contempt. She had been ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... forget! Of course the sequel shows She had some qualities of disposition, To which, in general, her sex are foes,— As strange proclivities to erudition, And lore unfeminine, reserved for those Who now-a-days descant on "Woman's Mission," Or tread instead that "primrose path" to knowledge, That milder Academe—the ...
— Collected Poems - In Two Volumes, Vol. II • Austin Dobson
... the last words we have left to descant upon: they are such as should be the last; and, like Joseph Surface, "moral to the end." The glowing passions the fervent hopes, the anticipated future, of the loving pair, all, all are frustrated! The ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 25, 1841 • Various
... 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 by. They were sure that so striking a novelty in patterns would be very acceptable. I would reply to their ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... first citizens were present, and among them the Captain recognised Colonel S—, who approached and began to descant upon the sale of the woman. "It's a d—d shame to sell that girl, and that fellow ought to be hung up," said he, meaning the owner; and upon this he commenced giving a history ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... rosy mom long since left Tithon's bed, All ready to her silver coach to climb; And Phoebus 'gins to show his glorious head. Hark, how the cheerful birds do chant their lays And carol of love's praise. The merry lark her matins sings aloft; The thrush replies; the mavis descant plays; The ouzel shrills; the ruddock warbles soft; So goodly all agree, with sweet consent, To this day's merriment. Ah! my dear love, why do ye sleep thus long, When meeter were that ye should now awake, To await the coming of your joyous mate, And hearken to the birds' love-learned song, The ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... part of good manners, or feeling is preferable to a mechanical jargon, I am inclined to think the English have a merit more than they have hitherto ascribed to themselves. Do not suppose, however, that I am going to descant on the old imputations of "French flattery," and "French insincerity;" for I am far from concluding that civil behaviour gives one a right to expect kind offices, or that a man is false because he pays a compliment, ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... 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 data of ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... Milton, than to allow this smooth and "candid" undermining of the reputation of the most perfect of our poets, and the purest of our moralists. Of his power in the passions, in description, in the mock heroic, I leave others to descant. I take him on his strong ground as an ethical poet: in the former, none excel; in the mock heroic and the ethical, none equal him; and in my mind, the latter is the highest of all poetry, because it does that in verse, which the greatest of men have wished ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... 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 ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... English gentlemen on 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 ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... 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 ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... 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 ...
— 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
... though he could hardly say so. He had heard Claude descant on the subject many a time in the years when Lois was still putting in a timid appearance at dances. Claude was interested in everything that had to do with girls, from ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... me quite by surprise. "By all means accept the place; don't remain in the government service a day longer than you have to. A scientific man here has no future before him, and the quicker he can get away the better." Then he began to descant on our miserable "politics" which brought about such a ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... sat on Mrs. Cranston's right, with the pretty bride on his other side, so that he might descant about the absent Percy to his heart's content, his eyes ever wandered across the simple table and dwelt on Agatha Loomis's noble face. She had recognized him at once as the one of the two civilians on the sleeper the previous June who had not been suggestively ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... 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 ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith
... 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 built this ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... descant Ornamental melody or counterpoint sung or played above a theme. Highest part sung in part music. Discussion or ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... of the wagon began to descant glowingly upon the many advantages of going on a road hike aided by the service that such a specially constructed wagon would give. In fact, Mr. Titmouse dwelt so enthusiastically upon the value of his wagon that Dick shrewdly ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... therefore go, confidently relying upon receiving the stipulated reward on my return." Akaitcho did not seem prepared to hear such declarations from his brothers and, instantly changing the subject, began to descant upon the treatment he had received from the traders in his concerns with them with an asperity of language that bore more the appearance of menace than complaint. I immediately refused to discuss this topic as foreign to our present business and desired Akaitcho to recall ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... I might see the garden front to better advantage from the corner. Mrs. Temple waited for us on the path, not wishing to wet her feet. Mr. Gaskell pointed out the beauties of the perspective as seen from his vantage-point, and we were fortunate in hearing the sweet descant of nightingales for which this garden has ever been famous. As we stood silent and listening, a candle was lit in a small oriel at the end, and the light showing the tracery of the window added to ...
— The Lost Stradivarius • John Meade Falkner
... with great pain," 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 the present—when every hope ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... new 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 ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... the earth, 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 ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... fidgetted on 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 ...
— The Honorable Miss - A Story of an Old-Fashioned Town • L. T. Meade |
