"Descriptive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and marches through the desert and wilderness—has never been, and probably never will be, exhibited. Mr. Stanley informed me that he was preparing a work on the savage tribes of North America and of the islands of the Pacific, which, when completed on his plan, will be the most comprehensive and descriptive of the subject of any that ...
— What I Saw in California • Edwin Bryant
... while vivid, was not descriptive, and Farnham could not guess what it meant. Perhaps something had gone wrong in the jockey club; perhaps Goldsmith Maid was off her feed; perhaps pig-iron had gone up or down a dollar a ton. These were all subjects of profound interest to Temple and much ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... he taught also Michelangelo and put him upon the designing of his relief of the battle of the Lapithae and Centaurs. At the time of Lorenzo and Giuliano's famous tournament in the Piazza of S. Croce, Poliziano wrote, as I have said, the descriptive allegorical poem which gave Botticelli ideas for his "Birth of Venus" and "Primavera". He lives chiefly by his Latin poems; but he did much to make the language of Tuscany a literary tongue. His elegy on the death of Lorenzo has real feeling in it and proves him to have esteemed ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... published in the eighteenth century, and he commenced with physical geography. His successors, Cummings, Worcester, and others abandoned that scientific arrangement and introduced the learners to political and descriptive geography. Moreover, their teaching of physical geography was devoted to definitions to be learned by rote. Many of the text-books in use in the schools were framed upon similar erroneous ideas. The first sentence in Murray's Grammar was a definition of the science, and ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... reward for his political services as a satirist, an office almost identical with Chaucer's. But he held it for little more than a year.), though doubtless it must have brought him into constant contact with merchants and with shipmen, and may have suggested to him many a broad descriptive touch. On the other hand, it is not necessary to be a poet to feel something of that ineffable ennui of official life, which even the self-compensatory practice of arriving late at one's desk, but departing from it early, can only abate, but not ...
— Chaucer • Adolphus William Ward
... issued at intervals during the last ten years, this Series of CAMBRIDGE CLASS-BOOKS FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, which is intended to embrace all branches of Education, from the most elementary to the most advanced, and to keep pace with the latest discoveries in Science. A descriptive Catalogue, stating the object aimed at in each work, with their size and prices, will be forwarded on application. Of those hitherto published, the sale of many thousands is a sufficient indication of the manner in which they have been appreciated ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... source of mythology. In the primitive stage of language, all nouns had a gender, either male or female; and verbs, even auxiliary verbs, it is alleged, expressed activity of some sort. On the basis of these facts it has been inferred, that, at a later day, figurative expressions, descriptive of natural changes, were taken as literal; as if one should interpret the saying, "the sun follows the dawn," as meaning that one person pursues another. By this kind of misunderstanding, it has been thought, a throng of mythological tales ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... celebrate our not having had any scraps with any foreign country for some little time, was simply immense. There were descriptive tableaux and groups, and the one undertaken by your Blanche—swords being turned into ploughshares and the figure of Peace standing in the middle, with Bellona crouching at her feet—was said to be an easy winner. I was Peace, of course, in chiffon draperies, with my hair down. I hadn't ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, July 15, 1914 • Various
... spring of the year 1896, a course of public lectures, illustrated by lantern views, was given by himself, descriptive of his own travels in Egypt, which were attended by full audiences of junior pupils, and many adults. In 1897 he gave a similar series of lectures on his travels in Palestine, and these proving equally popular, a third supplementary course was ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... fire, though history leaves it in darkness to enjoy a lull of 200 years. In the early part of the second century Ptolemy, the geographer, speaks of it as a city of the Kentish people; but Mr. Craik very ingeniously conjectures that the Greek writer took his information from Phoenician works descriptive of Britain, written before even the invasion of Caesar. Theodosius, a general of the Emperor Valentinian, who saved London from gathered hordes of Scots, Picts, Franks, and Saxons, is supposed to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... application, professing to include only the domain which Comte calls abstract or general Science, which has for its object the discovery of the laws which regulate Phenomena in all conceivable cases within their domain, and excluding the sphere of what he denominates concrete, particular, or descriptive Science, whose function it is to apply these laws to the history of existing beings. This throws such Natural Sciences as Botany, Zoology, Mineralogy, Geology, etc., out of his range. He also excludes the domain of practical Knowledge, comprising what is included ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Mount Lafayette, since the visit of that brave old Frenchman in 1825 or 1826. If they had asked his opinion, he would have told them the names of mountains couldn't be altered, and especially names like that, so appropriate, so descriptive, and so picturesque. A little hard white cloud, that looked like a hundred fleeces of wool rolled into one, was climbing rapidly along up the northwestern ridge, that ascended to the lonely top of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and propriety of the descriptive parts of Mr. Taylor's work: they are rare and brief, and they are inseparable from the human interest of the narrative with which they are interwoven. The style of the whole fiction is clear and simple, and, in the more dramatic ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... now not very obvious, but it has been assumed by, and conceded by common consent to, the inhabitants of New England. It is a name, though sometimes satirically used, of which they have great reason to be proud, as it is descriptive of a most cultivated, intelligent, enterprising, frugal, and industrious population, who may well challenge a comparison with the inhabitants of any other country in the world; but it has only ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Oldbuck," said the Baronet, "you do Mr. Dousterswivel less than justice. He has undertaken to make this discovery by the use of his art, and by applying characters descriptive of the Intelligences presiding over the planetary hour in which the experiment is to be made; and you require him to proceed, under pain of punishment, without allowing him the use of any of the preliminaries which he considers as the means ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... paper in the past as well as the present. My wife pronounced her the ideal mother of a family, and just what the wife of such a man as Cyrus Talbert ought to be, but no doubt because Mrs. Talbert's characteristics were not so salient as her mother's, my wife was less definitely descriptive of her. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... with its dust and tears lay cold among the faded flowers." What could be simpler than these brief sentences, yet how peculiarly suggestive they are; what immediate pictures they make! And this magical simplicity is particularly successful in his descriptive passages, notably of natural effects, effects caught with an instinctively selected touch or two, an expressive detail, a grey or coloured word. How lightly sketched, and yet how clearly realized in the imagination, is the ancestral ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... the tales that are told of that winter in Archangel. They are descriptive as well as narrative but there is not much coherence to the chapter. However, to the soldiers who were there, or who were out and in Archangel during the winter of 1918-19 this ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... woman in all grades of society. When we open these volumes, we enter a gallery of striking and varied pictures, which glow with all the color, chiaroscuro and life-like detail of a Dutch panel. The power of Balzac is unique as a descriptive writer; his knowledge of the female heart is more profound, and covers a far wider range than anything exhibited by a provincial author, such as Richardson. But he has also the marvelous faculty of suggesting spiritual facts in the life and consciousness of his characters, by ...
— Introduction to the Dramas of Balzac • Epiphanius Wilson and J. Walker McSpadden
... diary which gives us several interesting glimpses of college life in those early days. To John Robertson succeeded Mr John Johnston, author of Latin poems in praise of our reformers and martyrs, and of Latin verses descriptive of the ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... A view of the Chapel, from the Diorama, in the Regent's Park, with ample descriptive details, will be found in ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, - Issue 479, March 5, 1831 • Various
... yellow spheres with a red covering was confused in Western Asia with the yellow-berried plant which was known to have sedative properties. Hence the plant was confused with the mineral and so acquired all the magical properties of the Great Mother's elixir. But the Indian name is descriptive of the actual properties of the plant and is possibly the origin of the ...
— The Evolution of the Dragon • G. Elliot Smith
... New York. Aspiring journalists, retiring editors, playrights and composers, a few actors and crowds of would-be poets flocked to the exquisite drawing-rooms hung with yellow, wherein the owner of so much magnificence lounged in her golden hammock. Sonnets were written of her descriptive of orioles flying in the golden west, and newspaper paragraphs indited weekly in her praise referred to her as the "Semiramus of a new and adoring society world." Baskets of flowers, tubs of flowers, ...
— Crowded Out! and Other Sketches • Susie F. Harrison
... his friend exchanged tales descriptive of their prowess, Maggie leaned back in the shadow. Her eyes dwelt wonderingly and rather wistfully upon Pete's face. The broken furniture, grimey walls, and general disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden appeared before her ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... their propaganda without at the same time attracting the notice of the civil authorities the rationalist party had recourse to various devices. Pamphlets and books were published, professedly descriptive of manners and customs in foreign countries, but directed in reality against civil and religious institutions in France. Typical examples of this class of literature were the /Persian Letters/ of Montesquieu, ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... the skill of his groupings, and the graphicness gave rise to such an idea, it would seem to have its foundation as well in Nature as in superstition. Matthew has more detail, more thought; Luke is more picturesque, more descriptive. John has more deep feeling; Luke more action, more life. The Annunciation, the Widow of Nain, the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Rich Man and Lazarus, and the incident to which we shall presently advert, are found in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... nomenclature, ordinary language has likewise a terminology for describing things according to their qualities and structure. Such is the function of all the names of colours, sounds, tastes, contrasts of temperature, of hardness, of pleasantness; in short, of all descriptive adjectives, and all names for the parts and processes of things. Any word connoting a quality may be used to describe many very different things, as long as they ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... a record was made appears evident when we consider certain early charts, follow carefully the testimony which the evolution of Australian cartography affords, and take cognisance of various descriptive passages to be ...
— The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea • George Collingridge
... passed and nothing was heard to break the tense silence of the wonderful region. Indeed, the silence itself was almost oppressive. It was George who had declared that "the silence was something you could hear." Strange as the expression is it is almost descriptive of the conditions under which the Go Ahead ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay
... for saying so. I don't care so much for what happens, now. I am right glad I got here to save you from that——" he paused, searching for a word which would be descriptive and yet not improper in the presence of a lady, but his vocabulary was not rich and he said at last, "that snide. But I should have done that to him anyhow; so don't cry on that account. Mattie, will you tell me good-by?" ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... access to whatever pertaining to Switzerland had gone on record in the monthlies and quarterlies; while at the three larger libraries of New York—the Astor, the Mercantile, and the Columbia College—I found the principal descriptive and historical works on Switzerland. But from all these sources only a slender stock of information with regard to the influence of the Initiative and Referendum on the later political and economic ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... know the charm and clearness of Mr. Haweis' style in descriptive musical essays will need no commendation of these 'Memories,' which are not only vivid but critical."—The ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... In Mr. Spencer's 'Descriptive Sociology' the religion of the Bushmen is thus disposed of. 'Pray to an insect of the caterpillar kind for success in the chase.' That is rather meagre. They make arrow-poison out of caterpillars,[2] though Dr. Bleek, perhaps correctly, identifies ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... of the war for the Union about five millions of negroes were added to the citizenship of the United States. By the census of 1890 this number had become over seven and a half millions. I use the word negro because the descriptive term black or colored is not determinative. There are many varieties of negroes among the African tribes, but all of them agree in certain physiological if not psychological characteristics, which separate them from all ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Borrow—that the Bardd Cwsc is encumbered to a certain degree with useless matter, is no doubt well founded. There is a tendency to dwell inordinately upon the horrible, more particularly in the Vision of Hell; a tiring sameness in the descriptive passages, an occasional lapse from the tragic to the ludicrous, and an intrusion of the common-place in the midst of a speech or a scene, marring the dignity of the one and the ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... the appointed means by which the highest nature of man is to be disciplined and developed. Assuming happiness to be the end of being, sorrow may be the indispensable condition through which it is to be reached. Hence St. Paul's noble paradox descriptive of the Christian life,—"as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... AND WALES; an Historical and Descriptive Sketch of the various classes of Monumental Memorials which have been in use in this country from about the time of the Norman Conquest. Profusely illustrated with Wood Engravings. To be published in Four Parts. Part I. price 7s. 6d., Part II. 2s. 6d. By ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... what the future promised. But his fancy never ran away with him or carried him captive into the regions of poetry. Imagination of this sort is readily curbed and controlled, and, if less brilliant, is safer than that defined by Shakespeare. For this reason, Mr. Webster rarely indulged in long, descriptive passages, and, while he showed the highest power in treating anything with a touch of humanity about it, he was sparing of images drawn wholly from nature, and was not peculiarly successful in depicting in words natural scenery or phenomena. The result is, that in his highest flights, while ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... found to take his place." They then go on to make several astounding charges. The lecture-list of the university does not include for the faculty of arts a single professor of the physical or natural sciences, or the name of a solitary teacher in descriptive geometry, geology, zoology, comparative anatomy, mineralogy, mining, astronomy, philology, ethnology, mechanics, electricity, or optics. Of the prizes and exhibitions, the number offered in classics equals that of those offered in all other studies ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... subject as in form and style. The most marked difference lies in the fact that it supplements the recognized methods of literary and scientific exposition with the more striking devices of narrative, descriptive, ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... problem of the successive introduction of animals on the earth. I had never thought of the larger and more philosophical view of nature as one great world, but considered the study of animals only as it was taught by descriptive zoology in those days. At about this time, however, I made the acquaintance of two young botanists, Braun and Schimper, both of whom have since become distinguished in the annals of science. Botany had in those days received a new impulse ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... his earthly lot: Nor is it wholly certain If Death for him or not Rings down the final curtain, Or if, when hence he's fled To worlds or worse or better, He'll send per Mr St—d A crisp descriptive letter! ...
— Lyra Frivola • A. D. Godley
... ride," read himself "nearly blind" (Cyrus Redding's "Recollections of the Author of Vathek," 'New Monthly Magazine', vol. lxxi. p. 307). He also wrote two burlesque novels, to ridicule, it is said, those written by his sister, Mrs. Henry: 'Azemia; a Descriptive and Sentimental Novel. By Jacquetta Agneta Mariana Jenks of Bellgrove Priory in Wales' (1796); and 'Modern Novel-Writing, or the Elegant Enthusiast. By the Rt. Hon. Lady Harriet Marlow'(1797). He represented Wells from 1784 to 1790, and Hindon ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... curving elastic root that half supported, half encompassed them. The girl's capricious, fitful manner succumbed as before to the near contact of her companion. Looking into her eyes, Low fell into a sweet, selfish lover's monologue, descriptive of his past and present feelings towards her, which she accepted with a heightened color, a slight exchange of sentiment, and a strange curiosity. The sun had painted their half-embraced silhouettes against the slanting tree-trunk, ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... this tax on her descriptive powers by the announcement of dinner, and Gwendolen's question was soon indirectly answered by her uncle, who dwelt much on the advantages he had secured for them in getting a place like Offendene. Except the rent, it involved no more expense ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... to him, and he once more resolved to try Boston, and did so. He made his home, however, in Malden, renting half of a small house on Washington Street. Having inked his pen on agricultural subjects, descriptive pieces, and even on a few poems, he took up newspaper work. Entering the office of the Boston Journal he worked without pay, giving the Journal three months' service in writing editorials, and reporting meetings. ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... is a complete personal history of the soldier and follows him wherever he goes. It contains: a descriptive list, report of assignment, record of prior service, current enlistment, military record, record of allotments, clothing account and settlement, deposits, indorsements (this latter to give reasons for change of status ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... the dignity of a name—Main Street, which formed the north side of the Square. In Carlow County, descriptive location is usually accomplished by designating the adjacent, as, "Up at Bardlocks'," "Down by Schofields'," "Right where Hibbards live," "Acrost from Sol. Tibbs's," or, "Other side of Jones's field." In winter, Main Street was a series of frozen gorges land hummocks; in fall ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... names have been applied to this disease, among which "bunch" and "brooming" have most frequently been used. The authors strongly feel that the accepted common name should be "bunch" for the following reasons: (1). The term is very descriptive of the symptoms of the disorder. (2). It is the accepted name of a disease of pecan and hickory species that is very similar if not identical to the one occurring on walnut species. (3). The names "brooming" and "witches'-broom" ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... into full flower with Lope de Vega and his innumerable followers. The old meter of the romance was adopted as a favorite form by all sorts and conditions of poets and was turned from its primitive epic simplicity to the utmost variety of subjects, descriptive, lyric and satiric. ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... the pink sheet, I perceived that this liveliest of evening journals was not going to be left behind by the Globe in providing the public with particulars of the latest sensation. Under the heading of "A Motor Pirate," with descriptive headlines extending across a couple of columns, and as attractively alliterative as the cunning pen of a smart sub-editor could make them, was the account of a similar incident. At first I thought it must be the same occurrence, but a brief perusal showed me that this impression was ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... (with his connivance) have every intention of retaining that attitude. With all its faults Rebellion remains gloriously distinct from the rubbish-heap of fiction by virtue of its intense sincerity and its frequent flashes of fine descriptive writing. The question of sex dominates it, and those of us who still think that such problems are merely sustenance for the prurient-minded may cast it impatiently aside. But others who like to watch a clever ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Sept. 26, 1917 • Various
... the auditor is furnished with the title or program of the work being performed; but we contend nevertheless that this music, regardless of its connection with imagery, must at the same time be sound music, and that no matter how vividly descriptive our tonal art may become, if it cannot stand the test of many hearings as music, entirely apart from the imagery aroused, it is not worthy to endure. It is not the meaning of the music which makes us want ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... a nervous effect upon her star halfback was as difficult to determine as why some folks got short of breath in the proximity of a cat. "Cat asthma", this was called. There weren't any words exactly descriptive of Speed's disorder for he was courageous to a fault. In the heat of battle he played with an abandon and a drive that usually carried him through to his objectives. It wasn't, then, a matter of his actually being "afraid" of anything. But, still, ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... unmarried men or boys, as could be seen from their heads wanting the ring at the top, which is the mark of those who have been allowed by the king to take to themselves wives. As they marched along they shouted and sang songs descriptive of the deeds they had performed, or of those they intended to do, referring sometimes to their prowess in having captured a party of white men, who had not ventured to strike a blow for freedom; ...
— Hendricks the Hunter - The Border Farm, a Tale of Zululand • W.H.G. Kingston
... among the Northern Indians is one of the most firmly rooted of all their superstitions. The term is by no means well chosen or descriptive of the strange ungodly rite; it is in reality a charm or spell which one man is supposed to lay upon another. It is employed for various purposes and by different means of operations. You will hear of one man 'making medicine' to ascertain what time the Company's boats may be expected, ...
— Owindia • Charlotte Selina Bompas
... no notice of this flower in Gerarde; and in Sowerby, out of eighteen lines of closely printed descriptive text, no notice of its crosslet form, while the petals are only stated to be "roundish-concave," terms equally applicable to at least one-half of all flower petals in the {93} world. The leaves are said to be very deeply pinnately ...
— Proserpina, Volume 1 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... concepts plastic in a music of a brilliance and a sprightliness and mordancy that not overmany classic symphonies can rival. Other and former composers, no doubt, had dreamt of making the orchestra more concretely expressive, more precisely narrative and descriptive. The "Pastoral" symphony is by no means the first piece of deliberately, confessedly programmatic music. And before Strauss, both Berlioz and Liszt had experimented with the narrative, descriptive, analytical ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... phases of the war, have started a campaign of education in regard to the war itself. There are articles contrasting the armies of the days of Garibaldi and the great King Victor Emmanuel with those of the present. There are also articles, historical and descriptive, sociological and economic, on Trieste, Trent, and other cities of Unredeemed Italy, and historical monographs showing the bonds that formerly bound Italy to England and to France which have now been cemented anew, ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... His sonnets, particularly those upon "Chaucer," "Milton," "The Divina Commedia," "A Nameless Grave," "Felton," "Sumner," "Nature," "My Books," are among the imperishable treasures of the English language. In descriptive pieces like "Keramos" and "The Hanging of the Crane," in such personal and occasional verses as "The Herons of Elmwood," "The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz," and the noble "Morituri Salutamus" written ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... vigorous in conception, often great in the apprehension and the contrast of characters. She knows passion, as has been hinted, at a white heat, when all the lower particles are remoulded by its power. Her descriptive talent is very great, and her poetic feeling exquisite. She wants but little of being a poet, but that little is indispensable. Yet she keeps us always hovering on the borders of enchanted fields. She has, to a signal degree, that power of exact transcript from ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... south was. It was an oligarchy called a democracy. I do not speak this word in an offensive sense, but simply as descriptive of the character of the government of the south before the war. One-third of the people of the south were slaves. More than another third were deprived, by the nature of the institutions among which they lived, of many of the advantages absolutely indispensable ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... finished my letter, and unwillingly resolved to send you all that bad news, rather than leave you ignorant of our doings; but I have the pleasure of mending your prospect a little. Yesterday the Common Council met, and resolved upon instructions to their members, which, except one not very descriptive paragraph, contains nothing personal -,against our new earl; and ends with resolutions "to stand by our present constitution." Mind what followed! One of them proposed to insert "the King and Royal Family" before the words, "our present constitution;" ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... from the highway. What was believed to be the oldest pine-tree in the county gave to the place the popular name of "Grey Pine" and being accepted by the family when they came there to live, "Penhallow's Folly" ceased to be considered descriptive. ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell
... because such conduct was very offensive to me; but under the circumstances I would overlook the matter and come to the point. I now went into an earnest expostulation with him upon the extravagant length of his report. I said it was expensive, unnecessary, and awkwardly constructed; there were no descriptive passages in it, no poetry, no sentiment no heroes, no plot, no pictures—not even wood-cuts. Nobody would read it, that was a clear case. I urged him not to ruin his reputation by getting out a thing like that. If he ever hoped to succeed in literature ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bluffing, of course, and I knew from their contemptuous smiles that they knew it, too. They probably had given fictitious names, and the descriptive information which the bureau required consisted of a few generalities, such as height, weight and the like. I cursed myself for a stupid, careless fool. The three men had been the only passengers from Venus and they had kept to themselves the entire trip. Once or twice ...
— Larson's Luck • Gerald Vance
... of morals,"[2] claims that veracity "usually increases with civilization," and he seeks to show why it is so. But this view of Lecky's is an unfounded assumption, in support of which he proffers no evidence; while Herbert Spencer's exhibit of facts, in his "Cyclopaedia of Descriptive Sociology," seems to disprove the claim of Lecky; and he directly asserts that "surviving remnants of some primitive races in India have natures in which truthfulness seems to be organic; that not only to the surrounding Hindoos, ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... ever read "Pauline" will forget the masterful poetry descriptive of the lover's wild-wood retreat, the exquisite lines beginning "Walled in with a sloped mound of matted shrubs, tangled, old and green"? There is indeed a new, ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... Greek words meaning "purple" and "begotten," hence, born in the purple, royal. This term, or "porphyrogenitus," was applied in the Byzantine empire to children of the monarch born after his accession to the throne. It is not clear whether the word is used here as a descriptive adjective or as the ...
— Selections From Poe • J. Montgomery Gambrill
... we must not overlook the delicacy of many of their descriptive portions. If in the flights of his imagination he is like the strong-winged bird of passage, in his exquisite choice of descriptive epithets he reminds me of the tenui-rostrals. His subtle selective instinct penetrates the vocabulary for the one word he wants, ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... not," replied Captain Foster heartily, holding out his hand. "And now, let us say no more about it. You were not able to make out the name of the boat, but you must have had a good look at her for descriptive purposes." ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock
... of Astronomy, this Science consists almost wholly of the application of the Laws of Mathematics to the movements of the celestial bodies. Restricting Astronomy proper to this domain, where, as a Science, it strictly belongs, and setting aside its merely descriptive and conjectural features, as hardly an integral part of the Science itself, we have another Exact ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... itself completely, and allowed complex and difficult constructions in sound. The development of music—slow and belated as compared to the other arts—has perhaps been due, in part at least, to the fact that the affective imagination, its chief province (imitative, descriptive, picturesque music being only an episode and accessory), being made up, contrary to sensorial imagination, of tenuous, subtle, fugitive states, has been long in seeking its methods of analysis and of expression. However it be, Bach and the contrapuntists, by their treatment in an ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... girls are going to sing," announced Jack. "Then I shall have a chance to clap my hands at pretty Mabel," and he went, through one of those inimitable boys' pranks, neither funny nor tragic, but just descriptive. ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose
... interpolators who sought thus awkwardly to improve the author's theology at the cost of his poetry. But it is enough to consider the elements of this particular question for a moment to perceive that there can be but one solution. Jahveh makes a long and crushing reply to Job, gradually merges into fine descriptive but irrelevant poetry, and then suddenly calls for a rejoinder. The hero, humbled to the dust, exclaims[48] that he is vile and conscious of his impotence, and will lay his hand upon his mouth and open his lips no more. Here the matter should end, for Job has ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... wherewith his life should sail' wasted 'to a thread.' Polonius tells Laertes, 'the wind sits in the shoulder of your sail'—a technical expression, the singular propriety of which a naval critic has recently established; whilst some of the commentators on the passage in King Lear, descriptive of the prospect from Dover Cliffs, affirm that the comparison as to apparent size, of the ship to her cock-boat, and the cock-boat to a buoy, discover a perfect knowledge of the relative proportions of the objects named. In Hamlet, Othello, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 429 - Volume 17, New Series, March 20, 1852 • Various
... The descriptive powers of the Historian, though the most popular, are among the lowest of his endowments. That Schiller was not wanting in the nobler requisites of his art, might he proved from his reflections on this very incident, 'striking like a hand from the clouds ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... breathed these words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit—as some earnest descriptive speakers will—as unconsciously to wreathe his form and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creature described. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise, apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a mystical ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... sentences usually are. The opposition might throw out the measure, and the ministry with it, if they had strength to do so; but there had been sufficient discussion on the clauses, and there should be no more. In the descriptive words of Burnet: "This put those in great difficulties who had resolved to object to several articles, and to insist on demanding several alterations in them, for they could not come at any debate about them; they could not object to the recital, it being mere matter of fact; and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... I suppose, do more than say one word about that descriptive clause in my text, It 'passeth understanding.' The understanding is not the faculty by which men lay hold of the peace of God any more than you can see a picture with your ears or hear music with your eyes. To everything its ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... the charge of never being able to wind up a novel,—with such subsidiary sketches as Gurth, Prior Aymer, Isaac, Front-de-Boeuf (Urfried, I fear, will not quite do, except in the final interview with her tempter-victim), Athelstane, and others—give such a plethora of creative and descriptive wealth as nobody but Scott has ever put together in prose. Even the nominal hero, it is to be observed, escapes the curse of most of Scott's young men (the young men to several of whom Thackeray would have liked ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... perfect earmark of eighteenth-century descriptive verse: the shore is gilded and so are groves, clouds, etc. Contentment gilds the scene, and the stars gild the gloomy night (Parnell) or the glowing ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... second part, a small piece of Eve et David serving as the link between them. But it is almost sufficient by and to itself. Lucien de Rubempre ou le Journalisme would be the most straightforward and descriptive title for it, and one which Balzac in some of his moods would have ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... appeared in scores of newspapers, with a cross marking the abode of Priam and Alice. It was beset and infested by journalists of several nationalities from morn till night. Cameras were as common in it as lamp-posts. And a famous descriptive reporter of the Sunday News had got lodgings, at a high figure, exactly opposite No. 29. Priam and Alice could do nothing without publicity. And if it would be an exaggeration to assert, that evening papers appeared with ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... obtained a pass to go to Bourdeaux, to visit some of her relations. The pass was willingly given up to Mad. de Fleury; and upon reading it over it was found to answer tolerably well—the colour of the eyes and hair at least would do; though the words un nez gros were not precisely descriptive of this lady's. Annette's mother, who had always worn the provincial dress of Auvergne, furnished the high cornette, stiff stays, boddice, &c.; and equipped in these, Mad. de Fleury was so admirably well ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... bare and pallid, it must seem very wrong in her to use tints so daring; but if one believes that life here, as elsewhere, may be passionate as Petrarch and deep as Beethoven, there appears no reason why all descriptive art ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... invincible sadness, a sense of loss and bitter solitude, as though he had been robbed and exiled. For a moment he ceased to be a member of society with a position, a career, and a name attached to all this, like a descriptive label of some complicated compound. He was a simple human being removed from the delightful world of crescents and squares. He stood alone, naked and afraid, like the first man on the first day of evil. There are in life events, contacts, glimpses, that seem brutally to ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... turn upon the stage. It may be doubted whether he was, either by the bent of nature or habits of study, much qualified for tragedy. It does not appear that he had much sense of the pathetic; and his diffusive and descriptive style produced declamation rather than dialogue. His friend Mr. Lyttelton was now in power, and conferred upon him the office of Surveyor-General of the Leeward Islands; from which, when his deputy was paid, he received about ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... so descriptive, so explicit and the impression produced on Tom Verity's mind so vivid that, carried away by indignation, he found himself ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... Knowledge is always descriptive, and never fundamental. We can describe the appearance and conditions of a process; but not ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... selection of sailor songs published by John Ashton. The names of the writers are not given, but their strong nautical flavour and queer composition indicate their origin. No landsman can ever imitate the sailor when the power of song or composition is on him. He puts his own funny sentiment and descriptive faculty into his work, which is exclusively ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... Descriptive of a Dinner at Mr Ralph Nickleby's, and of the Manner in which the Company entertained themselves, before Dinner, at ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... though the generals had elected to fight in such surroundings through an inexcusable striving after theatrical effect—as though they wished to furnish the war correspondents with a chance for descriptive writing. With the horrors of war as horrible as they are without any aid from these contrasts, their presence always seemed not only sinful but bad art; as unnecessary as turning a red light on ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... a few words descriptive of the later course of the struggle for independence? The death of Hidalgo left many patriots still alive, and one of these, Moreles the muleteer, kept up the war with varying fortunes until 1815, when he, too, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... poet, left us the unfinished Faerie Queene, an allegorical epic which shows the influence of Ariosto and other Italian poets, and contains exquisitely beautiful passages descriptive of nature, etc. His allegorical plot affords every facility for the display of his graceful verse, and is outlined ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... of newspaper from the table and held it before my eyes, deliberately turning up the oil-lamp wick that I might read it. I recognized it at once. It was the clipping from the newspaper, descriptive of the murdered man, which I had cut out in the train and placed in ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert
... Milne-Edwards describes in his interesting Rapport sur les Progres recents des Sciences zoologiques en France (Paris) 1867, how "About the year 1826, two young naturalists, formed in the schools of Cuvier, Geoffroy and Majendie, considered that zoology, after having been purely descriptive or systematic and then anatomical, ought to take on a more physiological character; they considered that it was not enough to observe living objects in the repose of death, and that it was desirable to get to ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... Sightseeing Tours: Descriptive folders and other literature may be obtained at the Chamber of Commerce and at the hotels and information bureaus in San Francisco about trips supervised by licensed sightseeing companies. Some of the outstanding attractions of the ...
— Fascinating San Francisco • Fred Brandt and Andrew Y. Wood
... which one day touched upon this chord, her work fell from her hands, her eyes flashed, and she poured forth, in old Scripture phraseology, her indignation, her aspirations, and her glowing faith. She wholly identified her race with the Jews in their wanderings and their captivity, and the old descriptive and prophetic words fell from her lips, as if wrung from her heart, startling one by the wondrous fitness of the application. There was such magnetic power in her intense earnestness, her strong emotions, and her certain and exultant trust in God and his providence, that it held me spell-bound. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... English composition, algebra through quadratic equations, plane geometry, descriptive geography, physical geography, United States history and the outlines of ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... given for the use of various collections of fairy tales and for the use of any particular fairy tale that has been presented in outline, descriptive narrative, criticism, or dramatization. Among collections special mention should be made of The Fairy Library, by Kate D. Wiggin and Nora A. Smith; the Fairy Books, by Clifton Johnson; and ...
— A Study of Fairy Tales • Laura F. Kready
... belief in the origin of species making any difference in descriptive work, I am sure it is incorrect, for I did all my barnacle work under this point of view. Only I often groaned that I was not allowed simply to decide whether a difference was sufficient to deserve ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... an account of it, which is not without interest, though it is in his dignified style, which does not condescend to Boswellian touches of character. In 1773 the Scotch Highlands were still a little known region, justifying a book descriptive of manners and customs, and touching upon antiquities now the commonplaces of innumerable guide books. Scott was still an infant, and the day of enthusiasm, real or affected, for mountain scenery had not ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen
... use of an unphilosophical epithet) and as the first inhabitants of the world were employed in the culture of the field, and in surveying the scenery of external Nature, it is probable that the first rude draughts of Poetry were extemporary effusions, either descriptive of the scenes of pastoral life, or extolling the attributes of the Supreme Being. On this account Plato says that Poetry was originally Entheos Mimesis[8], or an inspired imitation of those objects which produced either pleasure or admiration. ...
— An Essay on the Lyric Poetry of the Ancients • John Ogilvie
... of Aberystwyth peculiar in their joy. A Shropshire newspaper published a leading article of a column and a half descriptive of "six hours by the seaside for half-a-crown,"—the return excursion fare from Shrewsbury and Oswestry, while Poolonians could travel for a florin. The result was a mighty rush of trippers, not the less attracted, possibly, by the additional announcement ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... incorporation as a membership corporation. The stated purposes are to promote and encourage social intercourse and good fellowship and to advance the interests of the community. The name selected is the Fat and Skinny Club. If this be the most appropriate name descriptive of its membership it is better that it remain unincorporated. ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... small islands not identifiable by their names but said to have been in Kibi, which was the term then applied to the provinces of Bingo, Bitchu, and Bizen, lying along the south coast of the Inland Sea and thus facing the sun, so that the descriptive epithet "sun-direction" applied to ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... much space in the foregoing pages to those scenes, descriptive, grotesque, and sentimental, which took place at the Bower of Nature and Winchester, it is proper that we should now go back to the domain of Apple Orchard, and the inhabitants of that realm, so long lost sight of in the contemplation ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... their conceptions in what seems to us a crude, inconsistent, and very undescriptive language. Chemists use a language which is certainly symbolical, but also intelligible, and on the whole fairly descriptive ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir
... rise to those heights, who knows! If the new sensation ever seemed worth the trouble.—In a year or two, we shall meet and compare notes. Don't expect long descriptive letters; I don't care to do indifferently what other people have done well and put into print—it's a waste of energy. But you are sure to have far more interesting and original things to tell about; it will read so ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... is certain that her friends excused in her, because she had a right to it, a tone which they would have reckoned intolerable in any other. Many years since, one of her earliest and fastest friends quoted Spenser's sonnet as accurately descriptive of Margaret:— ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... also bristling with hairs. Length: 16 to 18 millimetres (.63 to .7 inch.—Translator's Note.); width: about 3 millimetres." (.12 inch.—Translator's Note.) A quarter of a century and more has elapsed since I jotted down this descriptive sketch; and to-day, at Serignan, I find in the Eumenes' larder the same game which I noticed long ago at Carpentras. Time and distance have not altered the nature of ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... of Madame Elisabeth gave to all she said and did a noble character, descriptive of that of her soul. On the day on which this worthy descendant of Saint Louis was sacrificed, the executioner, in tying her hands behind her, raised up one of the ends of her handkerchief. Madame Elisabeth, with ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... descriptive parts of this song, there are none more beautiful than the four following stanzas, which have a great force and spirit in them, and are filled with very natural circumstances. The thought in the third stanza was never touched by any other poet, and is such a one as would ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison
... resolution of the 2d of this month, I transmit to both Houses those instructions to and dispatches from the envoys extraordinary of the United States to the French Republic which were mentioned in my message of the 19th of March last, omitting only some names and a few expressions descriptive of the persons. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... under Dawson's banner, on the Birmingham Morning News, I was the junior reporter, but in the course of a month or two, I was promoted and became the recognised descriptive writer on the staff. Throughout my journalistic experience I have been fortunate in one respect. The men under whom I have worked have, for the most part, had the knack of extorting one's best, and one of the ways of extorting the best of an enthusiastic youngster is to let him know ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... secrets that Rodney had not yet had opportunity to tell him. Of course the captain was delighted to see the recruit from Louisiana, shook him by the hand as if he had been a younger brother, and sent for an officer to take his descriptive list. He was not required to pass the surgeon, and the oath he took was to the effect that he would obey Governor Jackson and nobody else. This being done Dick took him off to introduce him to the members ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... Natural tone is employed in ordinary speaking or descriptive language, and is expressed with less expenditure of breath than any other quality of voice. It is entirely free ...
— The Canadian Elocutionist • Anna Kelsey Howard
... seeking a secure hiding-place for it, and is resolved at all costs on knowing the secret. And again in the vaults beneath the house Sir Jocelin reports that Ul-Jabal "holds the lantern near the ground, with his head bent down": can anything be better descriptive of the attitude of search? Yet each is so sure that the other possesses the gem, that neither is able to suspect that both ...
— Prince Zaleski • M.P. Shiel
... behind. The road generally runs into a main road with shops and traffic. Here and there in the residential road are little oases of shops, patronised by the neighbourhood, and some of the children may live over these. The home life is more ordinary and needs less descriptive detail, but there are some features that must be considered. The decencies, not to say refinements of eating, sleeping and washing are taken for granted: there is often a bath-room and always a kitchen. The father's occupation may be local, ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... number of the Spectator, is another good example of Sidney's ability in delineating character. The passage in which Musidorus is represented showing off the paces of his horse,[73] a subject especially adapted to excite the best effort of the author, is a very remarkable effort of descriptive power, for the insertion of which, unfortunately, space is wanting here. Sidney might have quoted his description of Pamela sewing, to justify his belief that "It is not rhyming and versing that ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... laughed, and Uncle Remus supplemented this indorsement of his descriptive powers with ...
— Uncle Remus • Joel Chandler Harris
... names are descriptive only of a portion of it. Where the phrase Chung Yung occurs in the quotations from Confucius, in nearly every chapter from the second to the eleventh, we do well to translate it by 'the course of the Mean,' or some similar terms; but ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) • James Legge
... not until he was sent to college at Perpignan, that he really began to take an interest in books, and his favorites were the more solid studies—algebra, descriptive geometry, surveying, and draftsmanship. His bent even at this early day seemed ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... us a copy of the Stockton (Cal.) Evening Mail of November 9, 1893, containing a seven column article descriptive of Abraham Schell's vineyard at Knight's Ferry, Cal. We quote from it: 'A characteristic act of Abraham Schell was to give a deed to the entire place and all of its appurtenances, last summer, to Herrick R. Schell, his nephew, who ...
— The Adventures of a Forty-niner • Daniel Knower |
