"Distinctness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and shook the weapon and the bloody cloth from my hand, the moon which he had foretold I should never see rise, shone bright and broad into the room, and disclosed, with ghastly distinctness, the mangled features of the dead soldier; the mouth, full of clotting blood and broken teeth, lay open; the eye, close by whose lid the fatal wound had been inflicted, was not, as might have been expected, bathed ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... Arabian scene of colour as the wind blew aside the great waterfall behind which we stood, and alternately hid and revealed each of these fairy cataracts in irregular succession, or displayed them with various gradations of distinctness as the intervening spray was thickened or dispersed. What a scene too in summer! In the luxury of our imagination we could not help feeding upon the pleasure which this cave, in the heat of a July noon, would spread through a ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... occasional questioning of the sentinels whom they passed in their circuit, was carried on in an audible whisper, which the close approximation of the parties to each other, and the profound stillness of the night, enabled them to hear with distinctness. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... more wonderful natural scenery is to be found. And the eagle with no unusual effort could see it all in a single day, and see it with a distinctness of sight no man could equal. But keen though its eyesight was and wide though its range, the eagle in all that beautiful region would see not a single beauty. Neither in the sunrise, nor in the snowy mountains, nor in the luxuriant tropical forest, nor ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... Lord North had recalled to office. Though the Tories had now grown to a compact body of a hundred and fifty members, the Whigs still remained superior to their rivals in numbers and ability as well as in distinctness of political aim; for the return of the Bedford section to the general body of the party, as well as its steady opposition to the American war, had restored much of their early cohesion. But this reunion only strengthened ...
— History of the English People, Volume VIII (of 8) - Modern England, 1760-1815 • John Richard Green
... the pericardial sac, and may ultimately form a union of the opposing surfaces. Generally this adhesion will only be found to occupy a portion of the surfaces. As the serous or watery portion of this effusion is absorbed, the distinctness of the friction sound recurs, and may remain perceptible in a varied degree for a long time. When the serous effusion is very great, the pressure exerted upon the heart weakens its action, and may produce death soon; when it is not so great, it may cause dropsies of other portions ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... application, the field of the planet shrank a thousand leagues, but each time the light deepened. According to my principle, there was no doubt that some object would be revealed before the space became too limited, provided nothing interfered with the distinctness of the picture. At length I calculated that I was selecting about twenty square miles from about seven hundred. Forms were distinct, but they were rigid, and painfully reminded me of the astronomic maps. About five removes from this, I judged ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... by our first or northern march. The surpassing purity of the transparent atmosphere, especially at this season, causes the land to look as near at twenty as at ten miles; and thus both distances, showing the horizon with the utmost distinctness, appear equally close to the ship. Beginning towards El-Akabah, the Jebel el-Znah behind Maghir Shu'ayb, and its mighty neighbour, the Jebel el-Lauz, form the horizon of mountains which are not the least amongst the giants. Southwards appear the Jibl el-Tihmah, ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... slowly, pronouncing each word with exaggerated distinctness. "I am no prophet, sir, but, unless I am very much mistaken, the month of August will see part of this continent plunged in the bloodiest war the world has ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... for the signal. It came at last, sounding faint and far away. The boy smiled, shook out his reins and the pony moved forward almost as silently as the boy could have done himself. The night was dark, but Tad was able to make out objects with more or less distinctness. He used his eyes and ears to good purpose. Once Tad thought he heard a twig snap a short distance ahead of him. He halted abruptly and sat steadily for fully ten minutes. There being no further sounds he moved ...
— The Pony Rider Boys with the Texas Rangers • Frank Gee Patchin
... whose facets are being turned toward the light first one way and then another—a charming man, and always fascinating, whether he was talking or whether he was sitting still (what he would call still, but what would be more or less motion to other people). I can see those figures with entire distinctness across ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... having a sort of eternal or universal nature. When we analyze our own mental processes, we find words everywhere in every degree of clearness and consistency, fading away in dreams and more like pictures, rapidly succeeding one another in our waking thoughts, attaining a greater distinctness and consecutiveness in speech, and a greater still in writing, taking the place of one another when we try to become emancipated from their influence. For in all processes of the mind which are conscious we are talking to ourselves; the attempt to think ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... showed again that "exfoliated" appearance which I have described. Strange to say, this very exfoliation gave it something of a quite peculiarly desolate aspect. It looked so harsh, so millennial-old, so antediluvian and pre-adamic! I still remember with particular distinctness the slight dizziness that overcame me, the sinking feeling in my heart, the awe, and the foreboding that I had challenged a force in Nature which might defy all tireless effort ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... threaded with the security of one to whom every winding and turn was known. It was dim and dark there, but sufficient light filtered in through cracks and cleverly-contrived apertures to render it easy to move about; and when the eye grew used to the dimness, everything could be seen with pretty fair distinctness. ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... transacted in the coarse way which Bobadilla adopted. It is a great pity, and a sad instance of mistaken judgment, that they fixed upon him for their agent. I imagine him to have been such a man as may often be met with, who, from his narrowness of mind and distinctness of prejudice, is supposed to be high- principled and direct in his dealings; and whose untried reputation has great favour with many people: until, placed in power some day, he shows that to rule well requires other things than one-sidedness in the ruling person; and is fortunate ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... events of the preceding night crept with silent blood-stained feet into his brain, and reconstructed themselves there with terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair, came back to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was still sitting there, ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... they really belong to. So they are branded. There is no reason why women equally ignorant shouldn't be similarly treated." Every word was measured, uttered with fearful distinctness. His hand shot behind him on the table, where "Red" had left his spurs. Lucia saw the ...
— The Bad Man • Charles Hanson Towne
... perversion of truth in their statements; and even now they scarcely believe that what seems to them so true should appear and really be false to others. The intellectual effects of such habits are equally injurious with the moral ones. All natural clearness and distinctness of intellect becomes gradually obscured; the memory becomes perplexed; the very style of writing acquires the taint of the perverted mind. Truth is impressed upon every line of Dr. Arnold's vigorous diction, while other writers of equal, perhaps, but less respectable eminence, betray, even in their ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... agreed the engineer, who was now sighting through the glasses. In spite of the darkness the binoculars brought out the peculiarities of the aeroplane with considerable distinctness. ...
— Tom Swift and his Sky Racer - or, The Quickest Flight on Record • Victor Appleton
... be a long time before rules on this subject, based on well sustained theory, can be laid down with distinctness, and, in the mean time, we must be guided by the results of practice, and must confine ourselves to a distance which repeated trial, in various soils, has proven to be safe for all agricultural land. In ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... But why does the author allow himself to spend nine octavo pages over the discussion of this one passage, freely altering sentence after sentence to obliterate all traces of his error, without any intimation to the reader? Had not the public a right to expect more distinctness of statement, considering that the author had been led by this error to libel the character of more than one writer? Must not anyone reading the apology to Dr Westcott, contained in the note quoted above, necessarily carry off a wholly ...
— Essays on "Supernatural Religion" • Joseph B. Lightfoot
... the waiting crowds and the mounted constables. The ordinary traffic of vans, omnibuses, and cabs was proceeding as though it had never been interrupted—the clank and jingle of harness chains, the cries and whip-crackings of drivers, rose with curious distinctness above the incessant trampling roar which is the ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... closely packed, she put off, and breasted the water bravely, rising and dancing on the back of the waves like a dolphin. I should have enjoyed it but for my father's ghastly face of utter misery. The day was dull, the sky and sea lead-colored, the brown coast by degrees lost its distinctness, and became covered with a dark haze that seemed to blend everything into a still, stony, threatening iron-gray mass. The wind rose, the sea became inky black and swelled into heavy ridges, which ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... sense of real fear was, after all, left in reserve. I had rambled alone, as children will, along the High Street on a lovely summer day, each sight, and scent, and sound of which comes to me at this moment with a curious distinctness, and I had turned at the corner; had wandered along New Street, which by that time was old-fashioned enough to seem aged, even to my eyes; had diverged into Walsall Street, which was then the shortest way to the real country, ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... door admitted enough light to discern objects with sufficient distinctness in the room, and he carefully shoved the bolt in place, feeling he was prepared ...
— Brave Tom - The Battle That Won • Edward S. Ellis
... Edgar nevertheless stepped back with an exclamation of surprise and almost awe. The head stood out in the darkness with startling distinctness. It had the effect of being bathed in moonlight, although much more brilliant than even the light of the full moon. It seemed to him, indeed, almost as if a faint wavering light played around it, giving the stern face of the old Roman ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... the jungle in Ceylon, and who have had constant opportunities of watching the habits of wild elephants, have witnessed instances of the submission of herds to their leaders, that suggest an inquiry of singular interest as to the means adopted by the latter to communicate with distinctness, orders which are observed with the most implicit obedience by their followers. The following narrative of an adventure in the great central forest toward the north of the island, communicated to me by Major SKINNER, who was engaged for some time ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... intend, therefore, to attempt to sketch out the leading features of a phase of religious belief that acquired peculiar distinctness and prominence during Shakspere's lifetime—more, perhaps, than it ever did before, or has done since—the belief in the existence of evil spirits, and their influence upon and dealings with mankind. The subject ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... a breath to make this last statement, and continued with the same peculiar implicity of distinctness, which a terrific thunder of "What?" from Wilfrid did not overbear: "I was quite mad that day I went to him. I think, in my despair I spoke things that may have led him to fancy the truth of what he has said. On my honour, I do not know. And I cannot remember what ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... saying, that at every period of her existence, with rare exceptions, the Anglican church, consciously or unconsciously, maintained the theory of her nationality with greater distinctness than any of the continental churches? I fancy I have heard, though I cannot state on what authority, that this assertion might be made most truly of the Portuguese church, and should be very glad to have any light thrown on the subject by your able correspondent. Certain it is, that amongst ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 187, May 28, 1853 • Various
... the snow-capped mountain is lost in distinctness, but the joy of the tourist is to recognise the traveller on the top. The desire to see, for the sake of seeing, is, with the mass, alone the one to be gratified, ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... surface of the instrument that bridged life and death. He had completely forgotten Howard's presence in the room. On the threshold of a terrible deed, his thoughts were leagues away. Like a man who is drowning, and close to death, he saw with surprising distinctness a kaleidoscopic view of his past life. He saw himself an innocent, impulsive school boy, the pride of a devoted mother, the happy home where he spent his childhood. Then came the association with bad companions, ...
— The Third Degree - A Narrative of Metropolitan Life • Charles Klein and Arthur Hornblow
... reflections I endeavored to remember, and did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred about the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh, rare and happy accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was heated with exercise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair close to the chimney. ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... moon; at the same time he shouts, "Send me a whale." A second man does the same, but tosses the water only a short distance, for he has met with disappointment in his whaling. All these scenes, with the distinctness of the voices, have the effect of making her homesick to return to the village. She pleads with the doorkeeper to allow her to retrace her steps, but he declares that the path has vanished, and that no one entering the moon can return ...
— Short Sketches from Oldest America • John Driggs
... by minute on the dull oblong of the blind, and minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took something of distinctness. ...
— I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... standing like one in a trancelike illness, who can hear, indeed, with horrible distinctness, but can neither move nor speak. But now the increasing finality of her words seemed all at once to galvanize him; he shook himself slightly and took one heavy ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... period of the commercial crisis of 1819, while Congress was considering the admission of Missouri, the slavery issue flamed out, and revealed with startling distinctness the political significance of the institution, fateful and ominous for the nation, transcending in importance the temporary financial ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... disaster which had befallen the Republic and myself, while the later period, with your own most distressing and undeserved misfortune, has made me reluctant to write. Since, however, a sufficiently long period has now elapsed, and I have recalled with greater distinctness your high character and lofty courage, I thought it not inconsistent with my purposes to write this to you. For my part, my dear P. Sittius, I defended you originally, when an attempt was made in your absence to bring you into odium and under a criminal charge; and when a charge against you was ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... suddenly thrusts her golden head over the pinnacle of a hoary peak a thousand feet above and lights up the gorge with a ghastly distinctness that enables the watchers to behold a black horseman blocking the path ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... sciences. Each has its own history, in which the Italian investigators of this period, chiefly through their rediscovery of the results attained by antiquity, mark a new epoch, with which the modern period of the science in question begins with more or less distinctness. With regard to philosophy, too, we must refer the reader to the special historical works on the subject. The influence of the old philosophers on Italian culture will appear at times immense, at times ...
— The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy • Jacob Burckhardt
... the ennobling von; and at the least he insists, in common with the tradespeople, that I am a "Herr Doctor." The bills of purchases by madame come made out to "Frau——, well-born." At a hotel in Heidelberg, where I had registered my name with that distinctness of penmanship for which newspaper men are justly conspicuous, and had added to my own name "& wife," I was not a little flattered to appear in the ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... terrors of the tornado, the excitement of the chase, the tumult of battle, fire, and wreck, are presented by him with a freedom and breadth of outline, a glow and strength of coloring and contrast, and a distinctness and truth of general and particular conception, that place him far in advance of all the other artists who have attempted with pen or pencil to paint the ocean. The same vigorous originality is stamped upon ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... his measured distinctness: "Nobody cares what you think. Come in, and get something to carry you over the bridge. Cambridge cars stopped running long ago. I say you shall!" He began to raise his voice. A light flashed in a window across the way, and a sash was lifted; some ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is often badly sung, and its form is none too favorable to good tone even when made as large as distinctness will allow. The lips must be drawn a little away from the teeth as in a smile, but don't overdo it, and the teeth slightly parted. The lips should not be drawn back, exposing the teeth and gums, nor should they be contracted and pressed against the ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard
... a language not known or learned by rote but overheard—each passage probably but once—as somebody recited fragments. In this instance (that of the mythical maid) 'the difficulty ... is that the original impressions had not the strength—that is, the distinctness—of the reproduction. An unknown language overheard is ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... of the Reformation down we can form the picture with more distinctness. Seehofen, son of a citizen of Munich, while a student at Wittenberg, received Luther's doctrine, and through him many of his townsmen. The most learned and able opponent whom the Reformer had to encounter was John Eck, chancellor of the Bavarian University ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... next day I called on a dozen houses, more or less, and was pleasantly met everywhere; I remember that; but I don't recall the name of a single one of them! You can see by this, from the distinctness with which I recall everything connected with my visit to Mr. Wiebusch, what a relief ...
— A Man of Samples • Wm. H. Maher
... strangely seemed to her that she was going down the long, sweet lane of Burleigh Grange. The magic of that perfume, and something of kindred sweetness in the sad, wailing music, brought old times and scenes before her with preternatural distinctness. Then she became conscious of a something making still darker and deeper the gloomy shadows cast by the black hangings of the scene,—a presence, not palpable or visible to the senses, but terribly real to the finer ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 23, September, 1859 • Various
... came through with the hastening throng. He caught Witherspoon's wandering eye. Strangers looking for each other are guided by a peculiar instinct, but Witherspoon stood questioning that instinct. The mother could see nothing with distinctness. The young man held up a ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... sure that Garrick or Kean or Siddons, with all their genius and study, fall short of a lazy dream in an arm-chair! Kean had not only a thousand things to tell Zachariah—meanings in innumerable passages which had before been overlooked—but he gave the character of Othello such vivid distinctness that it might almost be called a creation. He was exactly the kind of actor, moreover, to impress him. He was great, grand, passionate, overwhelming with a like emotion the apprentice and the critic. Everybody after listening to a play or reading a book uses it when he comes to himself again ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... now tolled with awful distinctness, filling him with unwonted chills—tolled, as if to discourage his memory in its struggle to lift itself out of a lapse apparently intended to be final as the grave— tolled solemnly, as if his were the soul being rung into the next life. A rush ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... ships at strange wharfs might lie under it afar. I wondered if there did dwell Prester John and if he would step down to give us welcome. The torrent of event strikes us day and night, all the hours, all the moments. Who can tell with distinctness color and ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... time blessed with long and keen vision, I saw this beautiful face with perfect distinctness. I saw even the blue veins that traced their wanderings on the whiteness of ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... scenery was striking and picturesque. On the other side crags and trees and snowy houses were reflected in the lake with a wonderful distinctness, and streams of light from many a distant window shot far abroad over the still waters. On this side, near at hand, great mansions, white with moonlight, glared out from the midst of masses of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... valley they seemed to see by contrast the true summer of the sunny south, which is often far from sunny. But seen from the top of the mountain the valley was full of golden rays. Now the roofs of the villages showed plainly and they saw with distinctness the long silver lines that marked the flowing of the rivers and creeks. To the east and to the west further than the eye could reach rose the long line of dim blue mountains that ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Hagan went through them—he had put his suit-case across his knees to form a desk—and carefully made marginal jottings. Cary, who had often tried to write in trains, could not but admire the man's laborious patience. He painted his letters and figures over and over again, in order to secure distinctness, in spite of the swaying of the train, and frequently stopped to suck the point ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... looming of the mountain across the narrow valley, and the precipice close at hand behind the building, then once more intervening, white and dense of texture, forming a background which imparted a singular distinctness to the figures grouped in the open space of the barn beneath ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... paper so small as to contain only a few lines. In this poem the descriptive powers of Ercilla are remarkable, and his characters, especially those of the American chiefs, are drawn with force and distinctness. The whole poem is pervaded by that deep sense of loyalty, always a chief ingredient in Spanish honor and heroism, and which, in Ercilla, seems never to have been chilled by the ingratitude of the master to ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... darkness, and listened. We all heard it. The sound came as regularly as a heart-beat, and it was no muffled stroke. The oarsman was using his paddle openly and fast. The sound came from behind us, a little to the north, and, judging from its growing distinctness, it was following hard in our track. There was nothing for it but a race. I ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... all these weary weeks, that which she could find no words to tell her sister, had come upon her. "I shall be a cripple all my life," she had written; that was all. Now the thin coverlet betrayed with terrible distinctness her mutilated form. Effie saw it, and the sight of it made the row of white beds and the suffering faces on them turn round. She took one step forward, putting forth her hands like one who is blind, and then fell ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... which he took to-night. It was a glorious July night, and the scent of the flowers came to him with a curious distinctness as he let himself down from the dormitory window. At any other time he might have made a lengthy halt, and enjoyed the scents and small summer noises, but now he felt that it would be better not to delay. There was a ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... as well as the south and east peninsulas of Gilolo—possess no aboriginal tribes, but are inhabited by people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corroborative proof of the distinctness of the Malayan and Papuan races, and the separation of the geographical areas they inhabit. If these two great races were direct modifications, the one of the other, we should expect to find in the intervening region some homogeneous indigenous ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume II. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... possessed of a scruple of honesty is discomfited, and that the greatest scoundrel of all is approved in the end and rewarded. The comedy is so admirably written and contrived, the personages stand out with such lifelike distinctness in their several kinds, and the whole is animated with such verve and resourcefulness that "The Alchemist" is a new marvel every time it is read. Lastly of this group comes the tremendous comedy, "Bartholomew ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... Distinctness depends upon several things. First, the voice must be loud enough to be heard without difficulty in every part of the room. To produce this result, one should speak especially to those in the rear, carefully watching to ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... common history, and yet left it a mine of inexhaustible knowledge for all future time. Out of the sweet and dear delight of this encyclopedian reserve two or three facts appeared with a present distinctness. One of these was that Burnamy had regarded her refusal to be definite at Carlsbad as definite refusal, and had meant never to see her again, and certainly never to speak again of love to her. Another point was that she had not resented his coming back that last ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... spin into the warp and woof of the tapestry time had already woven this thread of new color. But so startling was it in hue that it refused to blend, standing out against the duller tones of the past with appalling distinctness; and never was it more irreconcilable than when the familiar confines of the little fishing hamlet by the sea were reached and those who struggled to harmonize it saw it in contrast with ...
— Flood Tide • Sara Ware Bassett
... to such matters as verbal mistakes, you must recollect that the greater part of the proof was wholly uncorrected. But the reader might certainly do his work better. I do not think you will find room to complain of any want of distinctness in my definition of Owen's position touching the Hippocampus question. I mean to give the whole history of the business in a note, so that the paraphrase of Sir Philip Egerton's line "To which Huxley replies that Owen he lies," shall ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... sometimes—and this is perhaps the better way—it is acted. Thus, if the word were "Treason," one way would be to make the acts themselves anything that occurred to you, merely saying "Tree" with some distinctness in the first; "Son" or "Sun" in the second; and "Treason" in the third. The other and more interesting way would be to make the first act relate to tree-felling or tree planting, or, say, a performance by Mr. Tree; the second to a son or the sun; and the third to some treasonable situation, such ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... statement of their case. They had made conditions, and those conditions had been reluctantly complied with; and, to prevent future errors, the nature of the compact ought to be explained with the utmost distinctness. They had replaced the bishops in authority, and the bishops might be made use of at some future time, indirectly or directly, to disturb the settlement. A fresh pontiff might refuse to recognise the concessions of his predecessors. The papal supremacy, the secularisation of the church property, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... need of money now—the greatest need, Ivan Fyodorovitch. You don't know in what need he is," Smerdyakov explained, with perfect composure and remarkable distinctness. "He looks on that three thousand as his own, too. He said so to me himself. 'My father still owes me just three thousand,' he said. And besides that, consider, Ivan Fyodorovitch, there is something else perfectly true. It's as good as certain, so to say, that Agrafena Alexandrovna will force him, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... pay it back, had failed to produce more than a passing pang in the bosom of the close, calculating, economical Mrs. Markham; but when the danger was past, it kept recurring again and again, with very unpleasant distinctness, that Aunt Barbara was an expense they could well do without. Nobody could quarrel with Aunt Barbara—she was so mild, and gentle, and peaceable—and Mrs. Markham did not quarrel with her, but she thought about her all the time, and ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
... will charge; and sooner or later, move you must. Then, suddenly, he is bounding forward, by leap after leap, hurling his huge strength through the air, straight at you, and as the distance lessens you see his burning eyes with frightful distinctness. Two more such bounds as the last will do it. Take care, for within ten seconds either you or he will be dead. There is no ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... groan, and for a moment was silent. During the brief period, I heard, with awful distinctness, the sound of the pickaxe, as it was struck against the rocks upon the island, worked, I had no ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... low and the embers sent only a feeble glow around the Council Rock. Behind them the forest stretched darkly away, and in the stillness that brooded over them the sound of the lapping water beneath came up with a curious distinctness. Oh-Pshaw shuddered as she heard it and drew ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... flow in the brain, the eye cannot at all perceive; for innumerable fibers are there so interwoven that taken together they appear like a soft continuous mass; and yet it is in accord with these that each thing and all things of the will and understanding flow with the utmost distinctness into acts. How again they interweave themselves in the body is clear from the various plexuses, such as those of the heart, the mesentery, and others; and also from the knots called ganglions, into which many fibers enter from every region and there intermingle, and when variously ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... horse-dealer in Bergamo without difficulty, and they travelled along in the same carriage together, and then across the lake. When they left the boat they went towards the inn, where the big post-wagon stood with the horses already harnessed. It all came back to Rico's memory with great distinctness,—how he had stood there in the night, quite alone, after the students had all gone their ways; and opposite he espied the stable-door where he had seen the lantern hanging, and had found the friendly sheep-dealer again. ...
— Rico And Wiseli - Rico And Stineli, And How Wiseli Was Provided For • Johanna Spyri
... offer was followed by a hiss. What followed next Stephen will always remember. When Judge Whipple drew himself up to his full six feet, that was a warning to those that knew him. As he doubled the bid, the words came out with the aggressive distinctness of a man who through a long life has been used to opposition. He with the gnawed yellow mustache pushed himself clear of the barouche, his smouldering cigar butt dropping to the floor. But ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... door-post, her pale head thrown out in strong relief by the dark stones, stood as if absolutely detached from her surroundings, communing over troubled thoughts with her own soul, he said with deliberate distinctness: ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... with distinctness were the occasional barking and baying of a dog, as he saw the rising moon, and the dull shuffle of the shifting cattle, which were being guarded by ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster
... Boar" for "The Red Lion." They differ as much from each other in general make and aspect as do their nominal prototypes. To give every one of their thousands "a local habitation and a name" of striking distinctness, has required an ingenuity which has produced many interesting feats of house- building and nomenclature. Both these departments of genius figure largely in the poetry and classics of the institution, with which the reading million of America ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... introduced. The lady's face, however, he could not clearly visualise, and Miss Angus reported nothing but a view of an empty ball-room, with polished floor and many lights. The gentleman made another effort, and remembered his partner with some distinctness. Miss Angus then described another room, not a ball-room, comfortably furnished, in which a girl with brown hair drawn back from her forehead, and attired in a high-necked white blouse, was reading, or writing letters, under a bright light in an unshaded glass ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... of one species will fecundate the germen of another species, whereas the pollen of this latter will never act on the germen of the former; so that the simple fact of mutual impregnation certainly has no relation whatever to the distinctness in creation of the two forms. When two species are attempted to be crossed which are so distantly allied that offspring are never produced, it has been observed in some cases that the pollen commences its proper action by ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... and still more than that,—cannot you guess yet why I have summoned you here?" continued Angelique, rising and laying her left hand firmly upon the shoulder of La Corriveau, as she bent her head and whispered with terrible distinctness in her ear. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... first flush of joy, she had forgotten it. She had spent lonely nights struggling for rudiments; she had sought and fought to refashion herself, so that, if he came, he need not be ashamed of her. And now he had come, and, with a terrible clarity and distinctness, she realized how pitifully little she had been able to accomplish. Would she pass muster? She stood there before him, frightened, self-conscious and palpitating, then her voice came in ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... length commenced his departure, but he was distant only a few paces when the Duke heard a laugh coming from the gloom of the shadowed Judengasse. It was a laugh which, though low-pitched and quiet, had a resonant distinctness which caused it to ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... uncomfortable, and yet she was vexed with herself for feeling so. But Mr. Brand, as he stood there looking at her with his small, kind, persistent eyes, represented an immense body of half-obliterated obligations, that were rising again into a certain distinctness. ...
— The Europeans • Henry James
... There is a gray-haired old dame with the Iwillik tribe at Depot Island who was a grown woman at the time of Sir William Edward Parry's visit there in 1821, and remembers the circumstances with all the distinctness that marks the early reminiscences of the old in every country. There was another woman there apparently as old, but there was no early event by which her age could be traced except that she told 'The Herald' correspondent ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... subject, with a clearness and perspicuity very uncommon indeed amongst these orators. His voice, however, is greatly in his disfavour ; for he forces it so violently, either from earnestness or a fear of not being heard, that, though it answered the purpose of giving the most perfect distinctness to what he uttered, its sound had an unpleasing and crude quality that amazed and disappointed me. The command of his language and fluency of his delivery, joined to the compact style of his reasoning and conciseness of his arguments, were all that could answer my expectations: ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... risk in the jolly-boat and waved my arms wildly; when, as if in answer, the search-light flashed out again and bathed me in its refulgent beams. Some moments, long moments to me, passed in feverish conjecture; and then in the pathway of the light I saw in all distinctness the outline of a long-boat, fully manned, and she was coming straight to me. There could be no more doubt of it; I had passed through much suffering, but it was all child's play to the "might have been"; and in the reaction I laughed aloud like an hysterical woman, and blushed to remember those great ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... the self-asserting verb. And so it is that the native American hangs upon the little words: he does not clip and slur "the smaller parts of speech," and what his tongue loses in colour it gains in distinctness. ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... Japanese spoke with great distinctness— "you will necessarily admit our advantage. That means, you will understand, a smaller commission on ...
— The Girl and The Bill - An American Story of Mystery, Romance and Adventure • Bannister Merwin
... whole surface of the Scheldt presented one sheet of fire; the country all round was as visible as at noon; the flags, the arms of the soldiers, and every object on the bridge, in the fleet, or the forts, stood out clearly to view; and the pitchy darkness of the sky gave increased effect to the marked distinctness of all. Astonishment was soon succeeded by consternation, when one of the three machines burst with a terrific noise before they reached their intended mark, but time enough to offer a sample of their nature. The prince of Parma, with numerous officers and soldiers rushed to ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... Israel by the symbol that he would push the Syrians till he should consume them (2 Chron. xvii. 10). About the time of the captivity, and in the hands of Ezekiel, this species of parable appears with great distinctness of outline, and considerable fulness of detail. When a frivolous people would not take warning of their danger, the prophet, godly and grave, took a broad flat tile, and sketched on it the outline of a besieged ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... spread out cleanly with the sharp distinctness that precedes the setting sun. She rode on until she began to wonder if it would indeed be night-fall before she reached her destination. They had ridden longer and faster than had ever been intended. It seemed odd that they had ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... which during the last few hours had become charged with undreamed-of horrors—and there was to be no peace. In the shadowy darkness which rested upon the white-churned sea flying past him, he saw again, with horrible distinctness, the face, the figure of the man who for those few brief minutes he had hated with a desperate and passionate hatred. He saw the broken photograph, the glass splintered into a thousand pieces. He saw the man himself, choking, sinking down beneath the black waters; heard the stifled ...
— The Cinema Murder • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was to be given as her Commissioners who were present should decide, and that the Convention had no control or authority in the matter. Some conversation was then had between the Commissioners who favored and those who opposed the pending proposition, which I did not hear with sufficient distinctness to understand, and in a minute or two Governor King announced that the vote of ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... so well known. The Radical draper did not immediately give way, but his neighbours reminded him of propriety. Quarrier had just scrutinized the person of the lady about to speak, when her voice fell upon his ears with a pleasant distinctness. ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing
... laid one shaking arm and crooked hand upon the edge of the quilt, while with the other he grasped his hickory staff. His face had a strange, ashy color, through which the dark, corded veins on his temples showed with singular distinctness. But his eye was unusually bright and keen, and its cunning, suspicious expression did not escape ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... to, stammered, and blushed up to his eyes, and stammered again; but finally managed to say, with more or less distinctness, that of course whatever was agreeable to Mrs. and Miss Mellen was agreeable to him, and that he begged not to be considered in any way in ...
— "Some Say" - Neighbours in Cyrus • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... daughters that you know not with distinctness the cause of my complaints. I believe she who lives with me knows them no better; one very dreadful one is however removed by dear Sophia's recovery. It is kind in you to quarrel no more about expressions which were not meant to offend; ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... is made one with nature,' by Wordsworth in the lines on Tintern Abbey, and lately by Mr. Roden Noel in his noble poems of Pantheism. It is more or less strongly felt by all who have recognised the indubitable fact that religious belief is undergoing a sure process of change from the dogmatic distinctness of the past to some at present dimly descried creed of the future. Such periods of transition are of necessity full of discomfort, doubt, and anxiety, vague, variable, and unsatisfying. The men in ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... sentences with meretricious finery, or high-sounding, supernumerary words. When he did use the jewelry of rhetoric, he would quietly set a metaphor in his page or throw a comparison into his speech which would serve to light up with startling distinctness the colossal proportions of his argument. Of humor he had none; but his wit and sarcasm at times would glitter like the brandished cimeter of Saladin, and, descending, would cut as keenly. The pathetic he never attempted; ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... contradiction. It might be an instinct, an impulse, and, if accompanied with consciousness, a desire; but a will it could not be. And this every human being knows with equal clearness, though different minds may reflect on it with different degrees of distinctness; for who would not smile at the notion of a rose willing to put forth its buds and expand them ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... the botanists of last year's crew—was engaged in collecting viburnum specimens, when all at once I caught sight of something red in a dead spruce on the mountain-side just across the tiny lake. I leveled my glass, and saw with perfect distinctness, as I thought, two pine grosbeaks in bright male costume,—birds I had never seen before except in winter. Presently a third one, in dull plumage, came into view, having been hidden till now behind the bole. The trio remained ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... that an impassable social barrier existed between Maria Consuelo and himself. Yet, in his total ignorance of her origin and previous life the stories which had been circulated about her recalled themselves with unpleasant distinctness. Nothing that Spicca had said when they had dined together had made the matter any clearer, though the assurance that the deceased Aranjuez had come to his end by Spicca's instrumentality sufficiently contradicted ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... with Hulot, looked towards the summit in the direction pointed out by Barbette, and, as the fog was beginning to lift, he could see with some distinctness the column of white ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... occasional weird night sounds of birds and animals in the depths of the woods. The deep quiet was oppressive after the city's multitude of noises. Earlier in the evening while he talked with his aunt he had remarked upon the great distinctness with which the putt-putt of a motorboat somewhere on the lake had carried. Now when a whip-poor-will flew to a nearby tree its rapid-fire call flung wide insistently: Whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel, whip'rweel. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... rested. A faint glimmer was just then tingeing the sky and everything around them was still as death. The gentle lapping of the waves against the rocky shore, the barking of the dogs in Malaga, and the occasional crow of a rooster rang out with wonderful distinctness. The anchor light of the ship about one mile away twinkled as though only a little distance off. Not yet feeling secure they began climbing upwards. The progress was arrested by a hoarse sound coming from the direction of the ship. As they sat on the rocks to listen, they ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... use of hypotheses in scientific investigation, except that they are characterized by his peculiar distinctness and accuracy of thought, do not differ from the views generally entertained by writers on the subject. We are induced to refer to the topic, to point out what seems to us a harsh measure dealt out to the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... the street where the fire was, it was deafening, and it kept its own distinctness above all other noises; and with the fire-bells, the saving and losing of household goods, and the trampling and talking of the crowd, there were noises not a few. Dennis and I were together, for ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... revolution, however, the division of sentiment was not marked with sufficient distinctness, nor the passions of the people agitated with sufficient violence, for any powerful effect to be produced on the two parties in America. But when the monarchy was completely overthrown, and a republic decreed,[67] the people of the United States seemed electrified ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 4 (of 5) • John Marshall
... was the only one Curdie could see with any distinctness. She sat sideways to him, and the light of the fire shone full upon her face. He could not consider her handsome. Her nose was certainly broader at the end than its extreme length, and her eyes, instead of being horizontal, ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... bodies in its way, is either altogether lost or scattered, and very much and very frequently hindered in its passage; but when it hath a plain and smooth way through an empty space, and comes to the ear uninterrupted, the passage is so sudden, that it preserves its articulate distinctness, as well as the words it carries. You may observe that empty vessels, when knocked, answer presently, send out a noise to a great distance, and oftentimes the sound whirled round in the hollow breaks out with a considerable ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... the corridor into the adjoining room. He sat motionless, without opening his eyes; but now another sight forced itself under his lowered lids. It was the precise photographic picture of that other room. Everything in it rose before him and pressed itself upon his vision with the same acuity of distinctness as the objects surrounding him. A step sounded on the floor, and he knew which way the step was directed, what pieces of furniture it had to skirt, where it would probably pause, and what was likely to arrest it. He ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... which the stringency can only be appreciated by those who have personally experienced them. It may be added that the lines within which movement is permitted, and beyond which there is to be no travelling, were chalked with as much distinctness in the one case as in the other. In England the judge follows the analogies of reported decisions on insulated groups of facts. At Rome, as the intervention of the Praetor was at first dictated by simple concern for the ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... from the life-page of my domestic experience; it was so endeared to my memory that I was not like to forget it, and yet, in the course of years, its outlines would probably fade a trifle if I did not take care to preserve their distinctness; for that reason I had written ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... Joan saw with startling distinctness the bits of balsam and pine at her feet and pale pink daisies in the grass, and then the dry withered boughs. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... acknowledgment; it being a particular effort of good nature, and generally the fruit of a direct appeal. Miss Etty talks more than she did, too. While I am talking nonsense with Little Handsome, I hear her amusing my good aunty, and I catch a few words, her utterance having a peculiar distinctness, and the lowest tones being fine and clear, like those of a good singer on a pianissimo strain. It is a peculiarly ladylike articulation; was she born and bred in Ratborough, I wonder? She never speaks while we are ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... widely-spread analogy, would have been in some degree sterile if intercrossed; and such sterility will be admitted as almost certain by all those who believe that the lessened fertility of crossed forms is an infallible criterion of specific distinctness. Anyhow these animals keep distinct in the countries which they inhabit in common. On the other hand, all domestic dogs, which are here supposed to be descended {31} from several distinct species, are, as far as is known, ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... Contrary to MacGregor's assertion the lions had not been frightened away, for their deep, characteristic roar could be heard with greater distinctness than before, although they were ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... economic organization of the Socialist regime, with its private and public functions more or less clearly defined, is not very difficult of conception. These are foreshadowed with varying degrees of distinctness in present society, and the light of experience illumines the pathway before us. It is when we come to the methods of organization and management, the spirit of the economic organization of the future state, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... taken to themselves form and reality, are still wandering in the limbo of the soul, what is there to astonish us in the strange apparitions which sometimes come to visit our pillow? At any rate, the fact remains that I was not able to force the phantom to tell me its name, nor to give any shape or distinctness ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... cheek, the look of sorrow, all fired some dormant train of recollection in the old man's breast; and the face of his dead brother seemed present before him, with the very look it bore on some occasion of boyish grief, of which every minutest circumstance flashed upon his mind, with the distinctness of a ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... admirable character of SHAKESPERE.] He should trace her in all her windings, in her deepest recesses, in all her varied forms. It was thus that LUCRETIUS and VIRGIL, that THOMSON and COWPER were enabled to unfold their scenery with such distinctness and truth: and on this plan, while wandering through his native fields, attentive to 'each rural sight, each rural sound,' has Mr. BLOOMFIELD ...
— The Farmer's Boy - A Rural Poem • Robert Bloomfield
... I had,' he said, at last, with a slow distinctness,' all your money, and all my own too. When I came back here, I had my new stock, it is true, but it was much of it unpaid for. My first struggle was to get my neck out ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... am very rarely able to recall any object whatever with any sort of distinctness. Very occasionally an object or image will recall itself, but even then it is more like a generalised image than an individual image. I seem to be almost destitute of visualising ...
— Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development • Francis Galton
... the same story. He speaks of a clear idea of substance; but he has not proved that such an idea is within the compass of the mind. A man's own notion that he sees clearly, is no proof that he really sees clearly; and the distinctness of a definition in itself is no evidence that it corresponds adequately with the object of it. No doubt a man who professes to have an idea of substance as an existing thing, cannot doubt, as long as he ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... with more and different lenses; but would he not see with augmented power within the natural limits of vision? At any rate some persons seem to have opened more eyes than others, they see with such force and distinctness; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where that of others fails like a spent or impotent bullet. How many eyes did Gilbert White open? how many did Henry Thoreau? how many did Audubon? how many does the hunter, matching his sight ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... manner she has ever put forth, with most energetic distinctness, those other great elementary truths, which either are an explanation of her mission or give a character to her work. She does not teach that human nature is irreclaimable, else wherefore should she be sent? not that it is to be shattered and reversed, but to be extricated, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... internal recti muscles to give just the right amount of convergence. If slight pressure is exerted against one of the eyes, the action of the muscles is interfered with and, as a consequence, one sees double. The advantages of two eyes over one in seeing lie in the greater distinctness and broader range of vision and in the greater correctness of judgments ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... limb and its body bones— pelvic limb and girdle— are shown in Figure 2. The limb skeleton corresponds closely with that of the fore-limb. The femur (fe.) answers to the humerus, and is to be distinguished from it by the greater distinctness of its proximal head (hd.) and by the absence of an olecranon fossa from its distal end. The tibia (ti the radius) is fused for the distal half of its length with the fibula (fb. ulna). A tarsus (tarsalia) equals the carpus.* Two of the proximal tarsalia may be noted: ...
— Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata • H. G. Wells |
