"Descry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cannot describe the fear, and the dool, and the misery it caused. All flocked to the kirk-yett; and the friends of the newly buried stood by the mools, which were yet dark, and the brown newly cast divots, that had not yet taken root, looking, with mournful faces, to descry any ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... the golden dreams anon, Born as the busy day's last murmurs die, In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom, Their breathing lips and golden locks descry, And as the bees o'er bright flowers joyous roam, Around their ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... and when he is gone there wants one and there's an end."[J] He, to be sure, has no conversation, and that is his discretion—but others display then as now a bolder discretion, and in their talk "fly for sanctuary rather to nonsense which few descry, than to nothing ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, may at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. [14] They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of Diocletian; and they pass the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... a last farewell to home. Yonder it lies on the point—the fjord sparkling in front, pine and fir woods around, a little smiling meadow-land and long wood-clad ridges behind. Through the glass one could descry a summer-clad figure by the ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... them from the tower side, across the cleared space. He waved his kepi several times that they might see him better. Lacour trembled for him. The enemy might descry him; he was simply making a target of himself by cutting across that open space in order to reach them the sooner. . . . And he trembled still more as he came nearer. . . ...
— The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... horseback on certain elevated positions, felt little inclination to either hope or despair, but torn with doubts were equally distressed by confidence and fear. The battle was so nearly balanced that they suffered tortures at the sight, straining to spy out some advantage, and quivering lest they descry some setback. Their souls were filled with prayers for success and against misfortune, and with alternating strength and fear. In fact, not being able to endure it long, they leaped from their horses and joined the combat. ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio
... eye Of the day can scarce descry, Fairer sight he looks not on Than the pleasant ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... For I could see no reason why her opinions should prevent her from corresponding with one who, whatever might or might not seem to him true, yet cared for the truth, and must treat with respect every form in which he could descry its predominating presence. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... he could descry her, walking about the yard in the pale sunshine. He had expected to find her preoccupied as usual; but to-day she was strolling restlessly to and fro in front of the house, quite near it and quite idle. When she ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... an easie thing is to descry The gentle blood, however it be wrapt In sade misfortunes foule deformity And wretched sorrowes which have often hapt! For,—howsoever it may grow mis-shapt Like this wyld man being undisciplyned That to all virtue it may seeme unapt,— Yet it will ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. II. • Thomas De Quincey
... descry one danger or another drawing near; either suspicious-looking boats on the beach, or great squadrons of cavalry advancing so cunningly that they looked like nothing but a single horse. But Ansgarius saw through their stealthy tactics; he wheeled ...
— Tales of Two Countries • Alexander Kielland
... thou didst threat me with the cord; Come forth and brave my sword, if you dare!" But he met with no reply, and never could descry The glitter ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... Bobby had neither sling nor stone. It was all very well to announce in fine frenzy that he would smash the Consolidated, destroy the political ring, drive Sam Stone and his henchmen out of town and wrest all his goods and gear from Silas Trimmer; but until he could find a place to plant his foot, descry an opening in the armor and procure an adequate weapon, he might just as well bottle his fuming and wait; so Bobby waited. In the meantime he stuck very closely to the Brightlight office, finding there, in the practice of petty economics and the struggle ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... might not come again for long left the Argonauts on the empty Libyan land. And when they came forth and saw that vast level of sand stretching like a mist away into the distance, a deadly fear came over each of them. No spring of water could they descry; no path; no herdsman's cabin; over all that vast land there was silence and dead calm. And one said to the other: "What land is this? Whither have we come? Would that the tempest had overwhelmed us, or would that ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... rose-pink; the sides rich dark brown, with blotches of bright green and rose colour; the roof purple and brown. The water is very deep and of a fine olive green, and, being remarkably clear, the light stones lying at the bottom are distinctly visible, among which at my last visit we could descry great fishes, probably bass, pursuing shoals of launces." By "launces" the writer meant what we should now call the lancelet. Just south of Dollar is the old smugglers' cave known as Raven's Hugo. Below ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... from about the eighth day to the full, it requires no very vivid imagination to descry on the westward side of the lunar disk a large patch very strikingly resembling a rabbit or hare. The oriental noticing this figure, his poetical fancy developed the myth-making faculty, which ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... Paul's reference to the glory that shall be revealed in us there is a hint as to the cause of man's unwillingness to suffer: faith is yet weak and fails to descry the hidden glory; that glory is yet to be revealed in us. Could we but behold it with mortal vision, what noble, patient martyrs we should be! Suppose one stood on yonder side of the Elbe with a chest full of ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... afraid that they might become a little too bumptious on the strength of it, and be after giving us another job. But they did more than simply bear us company; they bore us to the cool grove, which I have said we could descry from the deck of our ship, there to be introduced to certain worthies, and to make kef in their company. Nothing to my mind comes up to an al fresco entertainment—in proper season and country, be it understood; for an English gipsy party is a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... I was on a wide, whitened Alpine plain. It was night. In front of me, towered on high the rugged peaks of the Matterhorn, imposing in their grandeur; further on, in the illimitable distance, I could descry the rounded, snowcapp'd head of Mont Blanc, rearing itself heavenward, where the pale, treacherous moon kept her silent watch, and from whence the glistening stars twinkled down through an ocean of space, touching frosted particles of matter with scintillations of light, and making them glitter ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... desire. Her acting, as she replied by gesture to the question of the king, was perfect in its realization of the simplicity of Elsa. Nevertheless I, at any rate, as I searched her features through the lorgnon that Mrs. Sullivan had silently handed to me, could descry beneath the actress the girl—the spoilt and splendid child of Good Fortune, who in the very spring of youth had tasted the joy of sovereign power, that unique and terrible dominion over mankind which ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... first century of human sympathy,—the age when half wonderingly we began to descry in others that transfigured spark of divinity which we call Myself; when clodhoppers and peasants, and tramps and thieves, and millionaires and—sometimes—Negroes, became throbbing souls whose warm pulsing life touched us so nearly that we half gasped ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... endeavoured to confine myself within my means, or, rather, like the possessor of an extended estate, to hand it down in an unembarrassed condition. I have laid a trifle of timber here and there, and grubbed up a little brushwood, but merely to open the view, and I think I can descry in the eye of the gentleman who is to move the first resolution that he distinctly sees his way. Thanking you for the courtesy with which you have heard me, and not at all doubting that we shall lay a strong ...
— Speeches: Literary and Social • Charles Dickens
... born. At last, for so his destiny required, With walking giddy, and with thinking tired, He through a little window cast his sight, Though thick of bars, that gave a scanty light: 230 But even that glimmering served him to descry ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... was far more to make London miserable to him: he was now at last disgusted with his trade: this continuous feeding on the labor of others was no work for a gentleman! he began to descry in it certain analogies which grew more and more unpleasant as he regarded them. For his poetizing he was sick of that also. True, the quality or value of what he had written was nowise in itself affected by its failure to meet acceptance. It had certainly ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... our elephants bore us back to Siemrap through an avenue of colonnades similar to that by which we had come; and as we advanced we could still descry other gates and pillars far in the distance, marking the line of some ancient avenue ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... morning, the whole army, in order of battle, began to descry the enemy from the rising grounds about a mile from Naseby, and moved towards them. They were drawn up on a little ascent in a large common fallow-field, in one line, extending from one side of the field to the other, the field something ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... in blue! Lord Fauconberg, canst thou divine What is the curve, or what the line, That makes this girl, like lightning, send Looks of our long lamented friend? If Richard liv'd, that sorcery spell Quickly his lion-heart would quell: He never could her glance descry, And any wish'd-for boon deny! She's weeping too!—most strangely wrought By workings of another's thought! She knows no English; yet I speak That language, and her paling cheek With watery floods is overcast.— Fair maid, we ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... Switzerland to tour, and are therefore liable to need our machines; while they go to Florence to look at pictures, and a bicycle would doubtless prove inconvenient in the Uffizi or the Pitti. Still, we may sell a few. But I descry another opening. You write ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... ships were peaceably lying at anchor in the bay; and the only thing in motion was a row-boat, the heavy monotonous stroke of whose oars rose in the stillness of the morning air. Not a single habitation of man could I descry, nor any vestige of a human being, except that mass of something upon the rock far down beneath be one, and I think it is, for I see the sheep-dog ever returning again and ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... a tolerably smooth sea. All night Lord Howe had carried a press of sail to keep up with the French fleet, which he rightly conjectured would be doing the same; and as he eagerly looked forth at early dawn, great was his satisfaction to descry them, about six miles off, on the starboard or lee bow of his fleet, still steering in line of battle on the larboard tack. His great fear had been that the French Admiral would weather on him and escape; now he felt sure ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the orchard and then walk across the meadow. It is a crisp autumn day, about ten o'clock in the morning, and the sun is shining. The golden ears are piling up under my magic skill, and there is peace. As I take down another bundle from the shock I descry what seems to be a sort of procession wending its way through the orchard. Then the rail fence is surmounted, and the procession solemnly moves across the meadow. In time the president and an assortment ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... up, and we both fixed our eyes on the object: the distance was so great that it was at first with difficulty that we could distinguish whether it moved or not. A quarter of an hour, however, dispelled all doubts, for within this time it had nearly reached the bottom of the hill, and we could descry a figure seated on an ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... from some desert shore, Doth home's green isles descry, And, vainly longing, gazes o'er The waste of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... a desperate one, for it was far more likely that the Spaniards' ships would come along, and descry the raft, than that the latter should meet with the pinnace. However, there seemed no other resource. The materials for the raft were scanty and weak; and when Captain Francis, with three companions, got fairly out of the bay, the ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... clouds of sand. The violence of the wind was terrible; and only by creeping forward between the gusts was it possible to pass among the sand-hills; and now the salt spray flew up from the sea like down, while the ocean foamed like a roaring cataract towards the beach. It required a practised eye to descry the vessel out in the offing. The vessel was a noble brig. The billows now lifted it over the reef, three or four cables' lengths out of the usual channel. It drove towards the land, struck against the second reef, ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... a massive flight of spiral steps, of Egyptian marble, ascends to the fourth story, forming a balcony at each, where ottomans are placed, and from which a fine view of the curvature presents itself, from whence those who have ascended may descry those ascending. On the second story is a corridor, with moulded juttings and fretwork overhead; these are hung with festoons of jasmines and other delicate flowers, extending its whole length, and lighted by globular lamps, the ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... lack of warmth they wane, Freeze to the marble of their images, And, pinnacled on man's subserviency, Through the thick sacrificial haze discern Unheeding lives and loves, as some cold peak Through icy mists may enviously descry Warm vales unzoned to the all-fruitful sun. So they along an immortality Of endless-envistaed homage strain their gaze, If haply some rash votary, empty-urned, But light of foot, with all-adventuring hand, Break rank, fling past the people and the priest, Up the last step, on to the inmost shrine, ...
— Artemis to Actaeon and Other Worlds • Edith Wharton
... Putting on my glittering armor and taking in my hands my two long spears, I went upon the ship's fore-deck, for thence I looked for the first sight of Scylla of the rocks, who brought my men disaster. Nowhere could I descry her; I tried my eyes with searching up and ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... experimenting in the Brtlinka quarter, gallop off to try to charge the Prussians in the rear;—"pleasanter by far," judge many of them, "to plunder the Prussian Camp," which they descry in those regions; whither accordingly they rush. Too many of them; and the Hussars as one man. To the sorrowful indignation of Prince Karl, whose right arm (or wing) is fallen paralytic in this manner. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... into the expanse of the harbour. Once out in it we could almost imagine ourselves at sea, for, from the low deck of the Lily, we only see the higher grounds and hill-tops round, looking like islands in the distance, as we cannot descry the continuity of shore. And now we have leisure to make closer acquaintance with ...
— Brighter Britain! (Volume 1 of 2) - or Settler and Maori in Northern New Zealand • William Delisle Hay
... sleep, and golden dreams anon, Born as the busy day's last murmurs die, In swarms tumultuous flitting through the gloom Their breathing lips and golden locks descry. And as the bees o'er bright flowers joyous roam, Around ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... aloud (O son of Bharat!), lo! The Princess marked five of that throng alike In form and garb and visage. There they stood, Each from the next undifferenced, but each Nala's own self;—yet which might Nala be In nowise could that doubting maid descry. Who took her eye seemed Nala while she gazed, Until she looked upon his like; and so Pondered the lovely lady, sore-perplexed, Thinking, "How shall I tell which be the gods, And which is noble Nala?" Deep-distressed And meditative waxed she, musing hard What those signs ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... of our small barques, named the Gabriel, was sent by our general to bear in with the land, to descry it, where, being on land, they met with the people of the country, which seemed very humane and civilised, and offered to traffic with our men, proffering them fowls and skins for knives and other trifles, whose courtesy caused us to think that they had small conversation ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... crags of broken rocks are twirled on high, Here molten stones and scattered cinders fly: Its fury reaches the remotest coast, And strows the Asiatic shore with dust. 160 Now does the sailor from the neighbouring main Look after Gallic towns and forts in vain; No more his wonted marks he can descry, But sees a long unmeasured ruin lie; Whilst, pointing to the naked coast, he shows His wondering mates where towns and steeples rose, Where crowded citizens he lately view'd, And singles out the place ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... Albion's channel ride. View the whole earth's vast landscape unconfin'd, Or view in Britain all her glories join'd. Then let the firmament thy wonder raise; 'Twill raise thy wonder, but transcend thy praise. How far from east to west? the lab'ring eye Can scarce the distant azure bounds descry: Wide theatre! where tempests play at large, And God's right hand can all its wrath discharge. Mark how those radiant lamps inflame the pole, Call forth the seasons, and the year control: They shine thro' time, with an unalter'd ray: See this grand period rise, and that ...
— The Poetical Works of Edward Young, Volume 2 • Edward Young
... had water'd, we steer'd for the Havana, and between Portobello and Carthagena, we spied a Sail; as she clapp'd upon a Wind, as soon as she descry'd us, and we went upon One Mast, we soon met, but were as willing to shake her off, as we had been to speak to her. She proved a Forty Gun French Ship, which handled us without the least Ceremony. We began the Fight by a Broad-side, as we were under her Stern, which raked her fore ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... would have shrunk from. But by one bound from the earth, the active youth caught hold of the lower branch, and swung himself up into the tree, and in a minute more gained the top of the cliff, from which he could easily descry a human figure descending the valley. It was not that of a shepherd, or of a hunter, and scarcely any others used to traverse this deserted solitude, especially coming from the north, since the reader may remember that the brook took its rise ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... who, at the beginning of a new century, stand with shaded eyes, gazing into the future, striving to descry the outlines of the shadowy figures which loom before us in the distance, nothing seems of so gracious a promise, as the outline we seem to discern of a condition of human life in which a closer union than the world has yet seen shall exist between the man ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... rose, and how? No maker of this work can I perceive, Quoth he—and that there is one, scarce believe; For who should such a maker be? "Art," said a spider sage. "Art built the work you see, For, wheresoever turns your eye, Fix'd laws, and order you descry; And hence, a fair conclusion grows, That from the hand of Art, the building rose." At this the fly, in his conceptions proud, Laugh'd out aloud, And with a sneer of scorn, replied— "Most learned sir, I oft have tried, At this same Art to get a sight, But never on him yet could light; ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... Britain first saw the light; he who annihilated the sea pride of Spain, and dragged the humbled banner of France in triumph at his stem. He was born yonder, towards the west, and of him there is a glorious relic in that old town; in its dark flint guildhouse, the roof of which you can just descry rising above that maze of buildings, in the upper hall of justice, is a species of glass shrine, in which the relic is to be seen; a sword of curious workmanship, the blade is of keen Toledan steel, the heft of ivory and mother-of-pearl. ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... him by the hair, and turned him over on his back, then threw myself upon my back, and dragged his head up high enough upon my breast to lift his mouth out of water, supporting him and myself by vigorous strokes with my feet. Looking round, as we rose on the crest of a sea, I could dimly descry the brig through the rapidly increasing gloom; and to my horror she appeared to be a long distance away. I had time only, however, for a momentary glance, when we sank into the trough, and I lost sight of ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... scowls the far-famed hold Piled by the hands of giants For godlike kings of old; From sea-girt Populonia, Whose sentinels descry Sardinia's snowy mountain-tops ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... her in the way of truth and of salvation; and that, as she was not sufficiently informed in such high matters, the Bishop and the Inquisitor offered her the choice of one or more of the assessors to act as her counsel." The accused, in presence of this assembly, in which she did not descry a single friendly face, mildly answered: "For what you admonish me as to my good, and concerning our faith, I thank you; as to the counsel you offer me, I have no intention to forsake the counsel of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... me not, though I be gray, Lady, this I know you'll say; Better look the roses red, When with white commingled. Black your hairs are; mine are white; This begets the more delight, When things meet most opposite; As in pictures we descry ...
— A Selection From The Lyrical Poems Of Robert Herrick • Robert Herrick
... missed her maid and her train at a place outside of Versailles—an adventure that had been a novel and delightful break in the prescribed routine of her much-chaperoned life. She crossed the waiting-room to a window and, holding aside her veil, looked out. At first she could descry only a few dim lights, and these blurred in her sight. As her eyes grew accustomed to the darkness she saw a superbly built horse standing near the window. Beyond was a bare square. Or, if it was a street, it was the widest one Madeline had ever ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... the high trees she did descry A little smoke, whose vapour, thin and light, Reeking aloft, uprolled to the sky, Which cheerful sign did send unto her sight, That in the same ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... 'tis fit and clear That each should consider what's most near. But as the general says, say I, One should always the whole of a case descry. We call ourselves all the Friedlander's troops; The burgher, on whom we're billeted, stoops Our wants to supply, and cooks our soups. His ox, or his horse, the peasant must chain To our baggage-car, and may grumble in vain. Just let a lance-corp'ral, with seven good men, Tow'rd a village from ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... penetrated into the room,—strangely mournful, a reminder of the immense and ineffable melancholy of a city which could not wholly lose itself in sleep. The window lightened. He could descry his wife's portable clock on the night-table. A quarter to four. Turning over savagely in bed, he muttered: "My night's done for. And nearly five hours to breakfast. Good God!" The cycle resumed, and ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... where the high road now runs, and so on to the hamlet of Maghgerabane; above which, on the Skerry—a gloomy, low-browed, basaltic precipice before him—like a dark porch or portico, in the very face of the rock, halfway up, he will descry the cave in question. He should now cross the Glenwherry at the village, in its grassy gorge, and draw nearer to the portico on the hillside beyond it, keeping a steady look-out for the roots of oaks, for they are still to be discovered ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 2, December 1875 • Various
... defender of the region's interests," the local weekly and party organ called him. And that morning, as he stepped off the train, the deputy, deaf to the Royal March and to the vivas, stood up on tiptoe, trying to descry through the waving banners the Blue House nestling in the distance ...
— The Torrent - Entre Naranjos • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... thy curious eye, Involved in night, her mazy depths betray; Till at their source thy piercing search descry The streams, that bathe with Life our ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... develop under our hands. We have seen the blindness and deadness to each other which are our natural inheritance; and, in spite of them, we have been led to acknowledge an inner meaning which passeth show, and which may be present in the lives of others where we least descry it. And now we are led to say that such inner meaning can be complete and valid for us also, only when the inner joy, courage, and endurance are joined ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James
... I pray That thou wilt not go lightly nigh them, But ride about another way, Far distant off thou may'st descry them." ...
— Proud Signild - and Other Ballads • Thomas J. Wise
... he had suggested previously to Governor Harrison. It is well known that the same views entertained by Washington and Jefferson were held and advocated by Mr. Madison, long before the most prescient statesman could descry the faintest image of that colossal empire of population, wealth and rapid development now lying west ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... Russia And Lithuania, ye who have upraised Fraternal banners against a common foe, Against mine enemy, yon crafty villain. Ye sons of Slavs, speedily will I lead Your dread battalions to the longed-for conflict. But soft! Methinks among you I descry New faces. ...
— Boris Godunov - A Drama in Verse • Alexander Pushkin
... Marmara, which was known to the ancients by the denomination of Propontis. The navigation from the issue of the Bosphorus to the entrance of the Hellespont is about one hundred and twenty miles. Those who steer their westward course through the middle of the Propontis, amt at once descry the high lands of Thrace and Bithynia, and never lose sight of the lofty summit of Mount Olympus, covered with eternal snows. They leave on the left a deep gulf, at the bottom of which Nicomedia was seated, the Imperial residence of Diocletian; and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... said De Vaux. "Yet would I rather than my best horse I had taken that watch myself. There is mystery in it, young man, as a plain man may descry, though he cannot see through it. Cowardice? Pshaw! No coward ever fought as I have seen thee do. Treachery? I cannot think traitors die in their treason so calmly. Thou hast been trained from thy post by some deep guile—some well-devised stratagem—the cry of some ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... man so charm'd his guest, As they familiar grew, The stranger to his guidance bent, Tho' born of spirit high: At last the long'd-for hour was come, On what slow wings it flew! But now the dear returning group, They from the hill descry. ...
— Ballads - Founded On Anecdotes Relating To Animals • William Hayley
... O'Shea climbed first, for his tones were heard caressing and coaxing the pony, which he led. Caius saw the cart, a black mass, disappear over the top of the hill, which was here not more than twenty feet high. When it was gone he could dimly descry a dark figure, which he supposed to be the boy, standing on the top, as if waiting to see what he would do; so, after holding short counsel with himself, he, too, began to stagger upward, marvelling more and more at the feat of the pony as he went, for though the precipice ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... in the morning, after being commended to God by Mr. Paz, we worked out of Savannah-la-Mar, and, having gained an offing with a light breeze, hoisted all her bits of canvas, even to a light jib-topsail we found on board—chiefly, I think, to impress her late owner, whom we could descry on the shore, watching us. He had steadfastly refused to believe us capable of handling a boat, whereas of our party Plinny and Mr. Goodfellow were the only landlubbers. Miss Belcher could take the helm with the best of us, and indeed ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... it sufficient, grace is ever nigh; If in the path of rectitude you tread, No ill shall harm you; you will soon descry The tempter's snare, ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... statesman trembling in his blast, The cumb'rous citizen of portly paunch, Unwont to soar beyond the smoaking haunch; The meagre bard behind the moving tun, His shadow seeming lengthen'd by the sun; Who forms scarce visible shall thus descry, Like flitting clouds athwart the mental sky; From giant bodies then bare gleams of mind, Like mountain watch-lights blinking to the wind; Nor blush to find his unperverted eye Flash on his heart, and ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... specially will the light shine out in fairness. What light can he have in him who is always on his own side, and will never descry reason or right on that of his adversary? And certainly, if he that showeth mercy, as well he that showeth justice, ought to do it ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... vivid dreams concerning the heroes of my last-read novel, and I would keep picturing to myself some leader of an army or some statesman or marvellously strong man or devoted lover or another, and looking round me in, a nervous expectation that I should suddenly descry HER somewhere near me, in a meadow or behind a tree. Yet, whenever these rambles led me near peasants engaged at their work, all my ignoring of the existence of the "common people" did not prevent me from experiencing an involuntary, overpowering ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... hill-tops that meet the northern sky, Long moving lines of rising dust your vision may descry; And now the wind, an instant, tears the cloud veil aside, And floats aloft our spangled flag in glory and in pride; And bayonets in the sunlight gleam, and bands brave music pour— We are coming, Father Abraham—three hundred ...
— The Good Old Songs We Used to Sing, '61 to '65 • Osbourne H. Oldroyd
... have passed, one after one, Wearing their radiance to the darkened room,—— Surely, new-comers to Oblivion May still descry, in that all-quenching gloom, Rare faces, lovely, lifted and alight, Like tapers burning through ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... leafy boughs of a spreading pine in a few minutes, and could descry a broad plain, with tents scattered here and there; still farther on the broad uplands frame buildings with a red and white flag floating to the wind could be seen. Back of all this he could make out a broad expanse of water and a few ungainly craft, lazily ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... dreadful nor'wester howled along and lashed the narrow sea between England and the Continent; yet I kept our frail skiff before it, hoping, at daylight, to descry the lowlands of Belgium. The heart-broken woman rested motionless in the stern-sheets. We covered her with all the available garments, and, even in the midst of our own griefs, could not help feeling that the suddenness of her double desolation had ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Durdles seats himself upon a step. Mr. Jasper seats himself upon another. The odour from the wicker bottle (which has somehow passed into Durdles's keeping) soon intimates that the cork has been taken out; but this is not ascertainable through the sense of sight, since neither can descry the other. And yet, in talking, they turn to one another, as though their faces ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... credulity. Frederic comported himself like a man—the more courageously because the host's cold eye was upon him, and he surmised that sighs and sentimentality would meet very scant indulgence in that quarter. Moreover, he was not so unreasonable as to descry insupportable hardships in this parting. By agreement with Mr. Aylett and his sister, he was, if all went prosperously, to revisit Ridgeley at the end of six weeks, when his design was to entreat his betrothed ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... in Alba whom we can dimly descry around Agricola's fortified frontier between the firths of Forth and Clyde, about 81-82 A.D. When Agricola pushed north of the Forth and Tay he still met men who had considerable knowledge of the art of war. In his battle at Mons Graupius (perhaps at the junction ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... round and you may descry the Tuscan Sea. Our situation is reported to be among the highest of the Apennines. Marcipor has made the sign to me that dinner is ready. Pass ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... had been shed, incendiarism had been perpetrated, disloyalty had spread; and the main causes of this state of things were the infatuation of the colonists in favour of commercial protection, and the inability of the governor-general of the Canadas, and of the ministry at home, to descry the policy which was most calculated to serve the interests of the mother country and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... insolent, By that small loss, or rout, at LEXINGTON, Prevent our purpose and the night by-past, Have push'd intrenchments, and some flimsy works, With rude achievement, on the rocky brow, Of that tall hill. A ship-boy, with the day, From the tall mast-head, of the Admiral, Descry'd their aim, and gave the swift alarm. Our glasses mark, but one small regiment there, Yet, ev'ry hour we languish in delay, Inspires fresh hope, and fills their pig'my souls, With thoughts of holding it. You hear the sound Of spades and pick-axes, ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... cause that they did not advance fast enough. When the sun went down, they must become men and fall into the sea and drown. Then she prayed a prayer from the depths of her heart; but still she could descry no rock. The dark clouds came nearer in a great black threatening body rolling forward like a mass of lead, and the lightning burst forth, ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... Providential Channel, through which Captain Cook entered with the greatest difficulty in 1770. He arrived outside the Barrier Reef, rolling heavily to the swell with no wind, and finding it impossible to descry a single opening. Hope seemed at an end, when, providentially, Captain Cook espied from his masthead what looked like deep water between two rocks, through which he safely steered his vessel. From Restoration Island to Cape Weymouth we were considerably exposed to the sea, and rolled about ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... they dream the truth—or descry the hidden skeleton at the festival, wreathed in flowers and veiled with glittering, filmy draperies, which yet put forth its bony fingers to beckon ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... wherefore else that start, which discomposes 5 The drowsy waters lingering in your eye? And are you really able to descry That precipice three yards beyond ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... the toun she trotted by him; A lang half-mile she could descry him; Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, She ran wi' speed: A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson
... offense, That always shows great pride, or little sense: Those heads, as stomachs, are not sure the best, Which nauseate all, and nothing can digest. Yet let not each gay turn thy rapture move; For fools admire, but men of sense approve: As things seem large which we through mist descry, Dullness is ever ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... Nob Hill, the hill of palaces, must certainly be counted the best part of San Francisco. It is there that the millionaires are gathered together vying with each other in display. From thence, looking down over the business wards of the city, we can descry a building with a little belfry, and that is the Stock Exchange, the heart of San Francisco: a great pump we might call it, continually pumping up the savings of the lower quarters into the pockets ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... back-streams, a sort of knot in the interminable loops and windings of the delta. Here and there in the line of tree-tops was a gap showing where some waterway came through. Here and there, too, I could descry a tiny beach of mud a yard or two wide, with a hut and a canoe tied to the mangrove roots, and black, naked people crouched on their hams in the shadows cast by the forest, engaged in their—to me—mysterious business of living. They were far-away and more or ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... invitation were so theatrically conveyed or not, it is probable that the Norsemen made their first acquaintance with Apulia on a pilgrimage to the Italian Michael's mount; and it is certain that Melo, whom we dimly descry as a patriot of enlarged views and indomitable constancy, provided them with arms and horses, raised troops in Salerno and Benevento to assist them, and directed them against the Greeks. This happened in 1017. Twelve years later we find the town of Aversa built and occupied by Normans ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... More I look'd, the more I deem'd That it wild and desert seem'd: Not a road was there in sight; Not a house and not a wight; Not a bird and not a brute, Not a rill, and not a root; Not an emmet, not a fly, Not a thing I mote descry: Sore I doubted therewithal Whether death would me befall. Nor was wonder, for around Full three hundred miles of ground, Right across on every side Lay the ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... voice, whose tones the very air Seemed trembling with delight to bear; From leafy wood, and misty stream, From bush, and brake, and morning beam, Would turn away my wandering eye, A dearer object to descry, Till voice so sweet, and form so bright, Grew part of hearing ...
— Mazelli, and Other Poems • George W. Sands
... the title to which Lord Borland of the old time was heir; and now that all doubt as to the identity of the man was over, although, let her strain her vision as she might, she could not, through the deformation of years, descry the youthful visage, she felt that all action on the part of the generation in possession was none the less forestalled and precluded by the presence of one in the house who had evidently long waited his arrival, and had certainly but begun ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... and the first recognisable bulks at which attention is arrested are in truth those shadowy Fichtean divisions: such are the rude beginnings of logical architecture. In its inability to descry anything definite and fixed, for want of an acquired empirical background and a distinct memory, the mind flounders forward in a dream full of prophecies and wayward identifications. The world possesses as yet in its regard only the superficial forms that appear in revery, it ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... the harbors, the havens of rest, That solace can give to a heart that's opprest? They are hid from the vision beyond the blue sky, Yet the eye of sweet Faith their portals descry! ...
— The Old Hanging Fork and Other Poems • George W. Doneghy
... with any notion of concerning himself with the assassin's apprehension and punishment did P. Sybarite waste that moment of hasty survey. His eyes were only keen and eager to descry the yellow Western Union message; and when he had looked everywhere else, his glance dropped to his feet and found it there—a torn and crumpled envelope with its enclosure flattened ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... and responsibility of a daily paper, not less than from the party and political involvements incident to it; and here was the material part of the answer made. "Many thanks for your affectionate letter, which is full of generous truth. These considerations weigh with me, heavily: but I think I descry in these times, greater stimulants to such an effort; greater chance of some fair recognition of it; greater means of persevering in it, or retiring from it unscratched by any weapon one should care for; than at any other period. And most of all I have, sometimes, that possibility of failing ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... this day, although, after hurriedly getting my letters (for the starting hour of the boat had now drawn near), I followed where he had gone down Court Street, and his cosmopolitan figure would have been easy to descry at any distance along that scantily peopled pavement. He had evidently found the bank ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... to those eyes That between earth and stars descry, Lovelier for the shadows there, Children of air, ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare
... equator. A few hundred miles more, and the Glory of the South Seas would lie safe inside the strong harbor of Panama. Drake ordered the thirty cannon ready for action, and in a loud voice offered the present of his own golden chain to the man who should first descry the sails of the Spanish treasure. For once his luck failed him. The wind suddenly fell. Before Drake needed to issue the order, his "brave boys" were over decks and out in the small boats rowing for dear life, towing the Golden ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut
... walk abroad. He did not like it, and began to wish he was safe at home. The bushes round him began to rustle noisily, and a gate in the field swung to and fro with an almost human groan. He fancied he could descry wandering lights and white gleams in the darkness, and the vague consciousness of something ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... were few graziers who went on the way, But unto the Cripple for passage did pay. And every brave merchant that he did descry, He emptied their purses ...
— Devon, Its Moorlands, Streams and Coasts • Rosalind Northcote
... the opposite shores of Lambeth. His eye sought eagerly, along the curves of the river, the grey remains of the fabled Tower of Julius, and the walls, gates, and turrets, that rose by the stream, or above the dense mass of silent roofs; then it strained hard to descry the tops of the more distant masts of the infant navy, fostered under Alfred, the far-seeing, for the future civilisation of wastes unknown, and the ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... when thou wert of gentle mood, And held with all the weary winds a truce, Upon the other shore I could descry Where, faintly outlined in the western sky, A mystic rainbow-girdled Headland stood, Whose silver sandals thou dost ...
— Across the Sea and Other Poems. • Thomas S. Chard
... And now, Jeanie stood at the door, with her hand before her eyes to avoid the rays of the level sun, and looked alternately along the various tracks which led towards their dwelling, to see if she could descry the nymph-like form of her sister. There was a wall and a stile which separated the royal domain, or King's Park, as it is called, from the public road; to this pass she frequently directed her attention, ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... accountable for his actions till his immersion in the waves brought him rudely to his senses. After coming to the surface, he looked about for the steamer, and was astounded to see it already so far away that it seemed to him impossible for a boat's crew to descry him in that heaving expanse of ocean. To add to his dismay, the vessel seemed to steam on as though determined to ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi |
