"Discern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... pushed the door open and he and Aimee slipped within. The place, whatever it was, appeared deserted, a dark, bare, backstairs region—for he stumbled over a bucket—from which to the right he could just discern a hall leading into the forward part of the palace, wanly lighted some distance on, with the pale flicker of ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... hours' boiling. Beat it very fine in a marble mortar, with four ounces of fine lump sugar, four ounces of fresh butter, the yolks of six eggs, four good spoonfuls of sweet thick cream, and one spoonful of orange-flower water. Beat all these ingredients so well together that you cannot discern a particle of the orange-peel. Roll out your puff paste as thin as possible, lay it in pattypans, fill them with the ingredients, but do not cover them. Bake them in an oven no hotter than for cheesecakes; but for frying you must make them with crust ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury
... the door open, stood still a minute or two blinking into the darkness. A big lamp that flickered in the wind cast an uncertain gleam upon the slushy whiteness under foot, and the blurred outline of a towering water-tank showed dimly through the sliding snow. He could also just discern the great locomotive waiting on the side-track, and the sibilant hiss of steam that mingled with the moaning of the wind whirling a white haze out of the obscurity. Beyond the track, and showing only now and then, the lights ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... is preaching, let him imagine himself conversing earnestly with an intelligent and highly gifted, but uneducated man or woman, in his own parlor, or with his younger children. Would any but an idiot keep on talking, when, with half an eye, he might discern TEDIOUS, wrought by himself, upon the uncalloused ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... at once, and replying, "Very well, I shall come down," proceeded to dress in all haste, but to my horror, I could not discern a vestige of my clothes; nothing remained of the habiliments I possessed only the day before—even my portmanteau had disappeared. After a most diligent search, I discovered on a chair in a corner of the room, ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... idolizing them, I am sure they are still, in many ways, of great use to us; and in former times they have been of the greatest. They do confine, and they do greatly narrow, the market for the Americans; but my perfect conviction of this does not help me in the least to discern how the revenue laws form any security whatsoever to the commercial regulations, or that these commercial regulations are the true ground of the quarrel, or that the giving way, in any one instance of authority, is to lose all that may ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... judgments received. He even knew at times a stirring of the senses, which is the farthest that many of his kind ever progress in the direction of love. Of the nobler features in Emma's character, he of course remained ignorant; they did not enter into his demands upon woman, and he was unable to discern them even when they were brought prominently before him. She would keep his house admirably, would never contradict him, would mother his children to perfection, and even would, go so far as to take an intelligent ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... thirty miles, is a jumble of mountains tossed together in the wildest confusion, and exhibiting no definite outline. At the east, far inland, lay the long ridge of which Mangerton is the loftiest point. At the north alone could we discern an extensive view, where a rich and well cultivated valley extended along Dingle Bay as far as Ballyheige. But the grandeur of the scene Jay at our feet. Beneath us yawned at every side chasms of seemingly unfathomable depth, whose darkness it was impossible to penetrate, as the sun was sinking ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... lightness of a shadow. The boat came opposite him, passed on, and touched the landing-steps at the further end. One of its occupants was a man, as Stephen had known by the easy stroke of the oars. When the pair ascended the steps, and came into greater prominence, he was enabled to discern that the second personage was a woman; also that she wore a white decoration—apparently a feather—in her hat or bonnet, which spot of white was the only distinctly visible portion ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... conical buoy at the entrance of Hamley river bent its head shorewards as the strong tide swept past it. From the low point beneath Calshott Castle a flying machine rose suddenly, circled round in a wide sweep and then sped swiftly eastwards towards Spit-head. In the roads off Cowes we could discern many yachts at anchor. One of the Hamburg-American lines crept cautiously up the Solent. A belated cruiser, four-funneled, black and grim, on her way to join the Fleet, followed the huge German steamer. The ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... even A sin turn in the wards of Heaven, (As ethics of the text-book go), So little men their own deeds know, Or through the intricate melee Guess whitherward draws the battle-sway; So little, if they know the deed, Discern what therefrom shall succeed. To wisest moralists 'tis but given To work rough border-law of Heaven, Within this narrow life of ours, These marches 'twixt delimitless Powers. Is it, if Heaven the future showed, Is it the all-severest mode To see ourselves with the eyes of ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... a step and lifted her face to his, trying to look into his eyes more deeply than she had ever looked; but before she could discern what they expressed he had taken hold of her hands and bent his head to ...
— The Reef • Edith Wharton
... the city any more; and that if they kept within it themselves they should not be any more conquered, for God had blinded their minds for the transgressions they had been guilty of, nor could they see how much greater forces the Romans had than those that were now expelled, no more than they could discern how a famine was creeping upon them, for hitherto they had fed themselves out of the public miseries and drank the blood of the city. But now poverty had for a long time seized upon the better part, and a great many had died already ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... Shepherd hears, A cry as of a Dog or Fox; He halts, and searches with his eyes Among the scatter'd rocks: And now at distance can discern A stirring in a brake of fern; From which immediately leaps out A ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... to the uttermost in the cause and the war which were still pending. At the end of that desperate road, along which he had dared stubbornly and against so much advice to lead the nation, he seemed now to discern the goal. That he should be permitted to guide to the end in that journey, and that his judgment and leadership should receive the crown of success and approval, was a reward, almost a right, which he must intensely desire and which he could not lose ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... and at the period when sleep is the strongest, that my attention became riveted upon the singular movements of some animal which appeared to be feeding upon the withered grass which covered the plain. Sometimes it moved near enough to allow me to almost discern what it was, and then it would recede and be lost from sight for a few minutes, to again appear and ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... bosoms echo back the shouts of the many and strong That things are all as they best may be, save a few to be right ere long, And my eyes have not the vision in them to discern what to these is so clear, The blot seems straightway in me alone; one better he ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... helping her mother with the tea things, but her round eyes were first to discern the pair who came in ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... to tossue, and embroider; but whether it be as manual operation of substantial refined stuffs, with apt and solid instruments, or only curious cobwebs, unpalpable rainbows, and a phantastic imitation of the actions of more terrestrial mortals, since it transcended all the senses of the seer to discern whether, I leave to conjecture ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... lived by each of us? People in ancient times thought so. Inborn dispositions, so different in children, caused them to believe in impressions left by previous existences in the imperishable germ of man. From the time when intelligence begins to show itself in children we faintly discern a general attitude towards things, which is very like a memory thereof. It would appear that, according to this system, no one is unconnected with the elements he introduces into life at ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... arms we discern the fading gleam of the spirit of mediaeval chivalry, soon to vanish before the new art of war. Rough and violent as were these displays as compared with the pastimes of later days, the magnificence with which they were conducted, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... on an unknown thing to discern its real nature; it thus consists of seeking reasons in favour of some supposition to the exclusion of other suppositions; it is not inference, but merely an oscillation of the mind to come to a right conclusion. When there is doubt (sa@ms'aya) about the specific nature of anything we have ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... subjoining, from the same interesting authority, that long after the time even of the publication just referred to, the town of Caen was surrounded by lofty and thick stone walls—upon the tops of which three men could walk a-breast: and from thence the inhabitants could discern, across those large and beautiful gardens, "the vessels sailing in the river Orne, and unloading their cargoes by the sides of walls." It appears indeed to have been a sort of lounge, or fashionable promenade—by means of various ladders for the ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... and greater part was overcast by one huge cloud stretching from the mountaintops. The black cloud, blending in the absence of any wind with the mountains, moved slowly onwards, its curved edges sharply denned against the deep starry sky. Only in front of him could the Cossack discern the Terek and the distance beyond. Behind and on both sides he was surrounded by a wall of reeds. Occasionally the reeds would sway and rustle against one another apparently without cause. Seen from down below, against the clear part of the sky, their waving tufts looked like ...
— The Cossacks • Leo Tolstoy
... conjugal roof; they are mouse-traps, in which the unwary are always caught. But she begged and prayed, and even cried, and at last said: "You shall see how I will love you there." Her wish seemed so strange that I could not explain it to myself; but on thinking it over, I thought I could discern a profound hatred for her husband, the secret vengeance of a woman who takes a pleasure in deceiving him, and who, moreover, wishes to deceive him ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... passed before their eyes like a flash, save when the steam concealed it fitfully from the view; the travellers could scarcely discern the fort of Chupenie, twenty miles south-westward from Benares, the ancient stronghold of the rajahs of Behar; or Ghazipur and its famous rose-water factories; or the tomb of Lord Cornwallis, rising on the ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... John and Peter and Charles, and they tilled the soil of France; but on their bowed shoulders rests the universal burden; these dumb figures are eloquent of the uncomplaining, hopeless "peasanthood" of the world. In the actual to discern the ideal, in the appearance to penetrate to the reality, without taking leave of the material to reveal the spiritual,—this is the mystery and vocation of the artist, and his achievement ...
— The Enjoyment of Art • Carleton Noyes
... divided impulses which threatened her with repentance of her own acts. Whether Grandcourt had been offended or not there was no judging: his manners were unchanged, but Gwendolen's acuteness had not gone deeper than to discern that his manners were no clue for her, and because these were unchanged she was not the less ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... and for better care. But very soon after reaching Onega hemmorhage began again. Then followed weeks of struggle for life. Everything possible was done for him with the means at hand. Although the hospital afforded no X-ray to discern the location of the fatal arterial lesion through which his life was secretly spurting away, the post mortem revealed the fact that the Bolshevik rifle bullet had severed a tiny ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... through rents in the twirling, heat-laden atmosphere the dim shapes of bridges mirrored by the water beneath him; and once the two islands apparently swept toward him, a blur of green; while at the end of the valley, framed by hills, he seemed to discern the odd-looking Transbordeur ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker
... Legation a guard of soldiers. The British Legation is guarded by infantry soldiers—an untidy, ragged, undisciplined lot, with cylindrical hats worn at all angles on the side of the head, and with uniforms so dirty and torn that it is difficult to discern what they should be like. Nearly all other Legations are provided with soldiers of the (Persian) Cossack regiment, who are infinitely better drilled and clothed than the infantry regiments. They are quite military in appearance. It was believed ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... interposed the Cardinal quietly "Nothing indeed can prevent thee,—no one can hinder thee from walking the world according to thine own will and direction. Thou must take good and evil as they come, and strive thy best to discern between them— and if the love of God cannot help thee—well!—perchance the love ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... They had never tried. Oh, Miss Lavington! cannot you see that in those barbarous and profligate ages of the later empire, it was impossible for men to discern the spiritual beauty of marriage, degraded as it had been by heathen brutality? Do you not see that there must have been a continual tendency in the minds of a celibate clergy to look with contempt, almost with spite, on pleasures ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... in the church about the decrepitude of the monastery; thoughts which had sprung from his own personal judgment, pleasing to his self-esteem, and therefore tainted by that arrogance of the spirit which his beloved mystics had taught him to discern and abhor. Clasping his hands, he fixed his gaze on the wild ridge of the hill, picturing to himself Benedetto praying there, and, in an act of silent renunciation, he humbly relinquished his own desires concerning the young man's future. He praised God ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... you discover any sail at sea, either to windward or to leeward of the admiral, or if any two or three of our fleet shall discover any such like sail which the admiral cannot discern, if she be a great ship and but one, you shall strike your main topsail and hoist it again so often as you judge the ship to be hundred tons of burthen; or if you judge her to be 200 tons to strike and hoist twice; if 300 tons thrice, and answerable to ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... Moon, was at times inspired with the love of mortals. Her greatest favorite was Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy. She stole him away, and prevailed on Jupiter to grant him immortality; but forgetting to have youth joined in the gift, after some time she began to discern, to her great mortification, that he was growing old. When his hair was quite white she left his society; but he still had the range of her palace, lived on ambrosial food, and was clad in celestial raiment. At length he lost the power of using his ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... with her head resting against—was it a tweed arm or the bank? She moved a little, and found that first impressions are apt to prove misleading. It was the bank. She opened her eyes to see a brown, red-lined hat on the ground beside her, half full of water, through which she could dimly discern the golden submerged name of the maker. She seemed to have been contemplating it with vague interest for about an hour, when she became aware that some one was dabbing her forehead ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... yet to form their works with skill requires an exertion of judgment, and frequently of taste, of which their contemners appear to have no due conception. Such literary labours it is thought the learned will not be found to want; and the unlearned cannot discern the value. But to such Abridgers as Monsieur Le Grand, in his "Tales of the Minstrels," and Mr. Ellis, in his "English Metrical Romances," we owe much; and such writers must bring to their task a congeniality ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... Hackney Marshes. It is ... nasty. At every ten paces there is the black mouth of an alley with just space enough for the passage of one person. Within the jaws of each alley is a lounging figure—man, woman, or child, Londoner or foreigner, you cannot discern. But it is there, silent, watchful, expectant. And if you choose to venture, you may examine more closely. You may note that the faces that peer at you are faces such as one only sees elsewhere in the picture of Felicien Rops. Sometimes it is a curl-sweet ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... the patriotic cause. After 1848 the building of the Italian nation becomes, indeed, essentially the story of Piedmontese organization, leadership, conquest, and expansion. Victor Emmanuel, honest and liberal-minded, was not a statesman of the first rank, but he had the wisdom to discern and to rely upon the statesmanship of one of the most remarkable of ministers in the history of modern Europe, Count Cavour. When, in 1850, Cavour entered the Piedmontese ministry he was known already as an ardent advocate of both constitutionalism and national unification, ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... eyes lightened unpleasantly as he made this remark, and Marius Longford, quick to discern every shade of tone in a voice, recognised a touch of satire in the seemingly casual words. He made no observation, however, but kept his lynx eyes and ears open, watching and listening for anything that might perchance be of use in furthering his ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... forsook the coast of England. So again on Tuesday, the 30 of July, seven weeks after, we got sight of land, being immediately embayed in the Grand Bay, or some other great bay; the certainty whereof we could not judge, so great haze and fog did hang upon the coast, as neither we might discern the land well, nor take the sun's height. But by our best computation we were then in the 51 degrees of latitude. Forsaking this bay and uncomfortable coast (nothing appearing unto us but hideous rocks and mountains, bare of trees, and void of any green herb) ...
— Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Voyage to Newfoundland • Edward Hayes
... "'Your common sense may discern what is needed,' said Bill. 'I wish you'd come at least once a week to dinner. My wife would be delighted, to have you, Soc. You are one of the few men who ...
— Keeping up with Lizzie • Irving Bacheller
... Don Philippe Belvidero placed his father's corpse on the table. After kissing the stern forehead and the gray hair he put out the lamp. The soft rays of the moonlight which cast fantastic reflections over the scenery allowed the pious Philippe to discern his father's body dimly, as something white in the midst of the darkness. The young man moistened a cloth in the liquid and then, deep in prayer, he faithfully anointed the revered head. The silence was intense. Then he heard indescribable rustlings, but he attributed them to the wind ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... resolved never to republish the book as a whole; some parts of it being, by the established fame of Turner, rendered unnecessary; and others having been always useless, in their praise of excellence which the public will never give the labour necessary to discern. But, finding lately that one of my dearest friends, who, in advanced age, retains the cheerfulness and easily delighted temper of bright youth, had written out, for her own pleasure, a large number of passages from 'Modern Painters,' it seemed to me certain that what ...
— Frondes Agrestes - Readings in 'Modern Painters' • John Ruskin
... introduction to another piece was written, and was read, at the same meeting, by a member of my own class. I fear that there is a sly hit intended by the writer, which I do not discern, at somebody, or something, related to freedom. This I suspected from the applause it excited on the part of those who I know are the most deadly foes we have to free institutions. I obtained a copy of this introduction. It will serve, at least, to show ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... at various points during the Workshop. At the session devoted to national and international computer networks, LYNCH, Howard BESSER, Ronald LARSEN, and Edwin BROWNRIGG highlighted the virtues of Internet today and of the network that will evolve from Internet. Listeners could discern in these narratives a vision of an information democracy in which millions of citizens freely find and use what they need. LYNCH noted that a lack of standards inhibits disseminating multimedia on the network, a topic also discussed by BESSER. LARSEN addressed the issues of network scalability ...
— LOC WORKSHOP ON ELECTRONIC TEXTS • James Daly
... conception, it will easily be perceived how anxious I must be to truly discern and express the relation between such objects as works of art by common consent so highly honoured, and at the same time so active in their effect upon the most exquisitely endowed of mankind. Especially since to-day caprice, humour and temperament are, by the majority of ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... to trace, if we could, what share the several domesticated animals have had in the development of the human races; but this task is not to be done. We can, however, discern that the Arab without the camel and the horse would not have found the place in history which he has filled, and that our own race could not have attained its place save for the aid which the horned cattle, sheep, and a host of other helpers which we have pressed into service, have afforded. ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... of reasoning is so plain, and so evidently agrees with the interests of all nations, as well as with those of Holland, that it is impossible for any unprejudiced person not to discern that all exclusive companies destroy, instead of promoting, the commerce of the countries in which they are established. The same great statesman already quoted observes, "That the more any country extends its foreign conquests, the more of its stock must necessarily be spent, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... worthily be told in other than the language of spirits: and where is the alphabet of men that can fix that unearthly tongue,—or how shouldst thou from henceforth, or thy fellows upon earth, attain to its delicate conceptions? behold, all these thine intimates are wroth with thee; they discern evil upon thy soul: the place of their sojourn ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... opposition to this administration, and consequently associated with them in his votes, he will, like Mercer, end with them. The augury I draw from this is that there is a steady good sense in the legislature, and in the body of the nation, joined with good intentions, which will lead them to discern and to pursue the public good under all circumstances which can arise, and that no ignis faiuus will be able to lead them long astray. In the present case, the public sentiment, as far as declarations of it have yet come in, is, without a single exception, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... and pardons, "as if," to quote the words of an old writer, "God had given his sheep, not to be pastured, but to be shaven and shorn." This state of things had gone on for centuries, and the people like dumb, driven cattle had submitted. But those who could discern the signs of the times must have seen now that it could not go on much longer. The spread of education was rapidly increasing, several new colleges having been founded in Oxford during Wycliffe's lifetime. A strong spirit of independence, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... gazed as I slowly withdrew; My path I could hardly discern; So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... still more familiar to the watcher—the ting of metal upon metal, as of crow-bars and other tools cast carelessly, one upon the other, in the loading of the shadowy vehicle. Making a telescope of his hands to shut out the glare from the lighted windows of the power-house, Judson could dimly discern the two figures mounting to their places on the deck of the thing which he now knew to be a hand-car. A moment later, to the musical click-click of wheels passing over rail-joints, the little car shot through ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... and is forced to rely upon main strength, which involves a serious expenditure of vitality, with only doubtful results. He works all his life against perpetual friction, because no one had the foresight or insight to discern that this was the flaw in ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... O Lord, and hidden in the moss. But Thou wilt hear, discern and love me; though small, devout am I, and ...
— Sielanka: An Idyll • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... tackling, repair to the river, where you have seen them swim in skulls or shoals. in the summer-time, in a hot afternoon, about three or four of the clock; and watch their going forth of their deep holes, and returning, which you may well discern, for they return about four of the clock, most of them seeking food at the bottom, yet one or two will lie on the top of the water, rolling and tumbling themselves, whilst the rest are under him at the bottom; and so you shall perceive him to ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... for and strive for. But I ought to have remembered that, since you have nobody at your side to look after your interests, it behoved me to be doubly careful. In short, Ethelberta, I am not in a position to marry, nor can I discern when I shall be, and I feel it would be an injustice to ask you to be bound in any way to one lower and less talented than you. You cannot, from what you say, think it desirable that the engagement should continue. I have no right to ask you to be my betrothed, ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... sounds? Of what advantage would agreeable scents have been to us if nostrils suited to their reception had not been given? And for the pleasures of the taste, how could we ever have enjoyed these, if the tongue had not been fitted to discern and relish them? Further, does it not appear to you wisely provided that since the eye is of a delicate make, it is guarded with the eyelid drawn back when the eye is used, and covering it in sleep? How well does the hair at the extremity of the ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... perceive in them, indicate the rhetorician seeking to set forth his motive, rather than the lover pouring out his soul. Contrary to the commonly received legend, I am bound to record my opinion that love played a secondary part in Tasso's destinies. It is true that we can discern the silhouettes of some Court-ladies whom he fancied more than others. The first of these was Laura Peperara, for whom he is supposed to have produced some sixty compositions. The second was the Princess Leonora d'Este. Tasso's ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... search before I was altogether benighted. I had cut a stick to help me along, or I should not have been able to get over the rough ground so well. I had gone on some way when a loud hiss close to me made me start, and I could just discern a big snake wriggling out from a crevice near which I had passed. I turned aside, when I was saluted in the same way. I was about to go back, when I saw two snakes wriggling along across the only place ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... author for her sister and herself; but this could not be the case. Cassandra's character might indeed represent the 'sense' of Elinor, but Jane's had little in common with the 'sensibility' of Marianne. The young woman who, before the age of twenty, could so clearly discern the failings of Marianne Dashwood, could hardly have been subject ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh
... Bohemians, but are nothing better than thieves and vagabonds, if indeed they be not the chosen people of the prince of darkness himself. She looked carefully all round the room, and after opening one of the drawers of mahogany wood, and taking something therefrom which I could not discern, she approached to the side of my bed, and looked earnestly upon me as I lay. I could not keep up the delusion any longer, and opened my eyes. She continued gazing steadfastly upon me without alteration of her countenance or uttering any word, whether of apology ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... words are indeed full of wit, and worthy of consideration, and occur in the Reply to the Questions of a Provincial (vol. III, ch. 140, p. 761 seqq.). Here they are: 'By the clear and distinct sense we have of our existence we do not discern whether we exist through ourselves or derive our being from another. We discern that only by reflexion, that is, through meditation upon our powerlessness in the matter of conserving ourselves as much as we would, and of freeing ourselves from dependence upon the ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... could faintly discern the feet of the person carrying the light, but was unable to learn anything of the character of the person. He was torn between his desire to escape from the apartment and the wish to learn the identity of ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... brushes that intersect the plains on its borders. Mr. Gould is gifted with the eye of an observer; but from the extreme shyness of its disposition, it generally escapes the attention of ordinary travelers, and it seldom allows itself to be approached near enough for the spectator to discern its colors. Its 'harsh, grating, scolding note,' betrays its haunts to the intruder; but, when disturbed, it seeks the tops of the highest trees, and, generally, ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... natural idleness of boys, and that pernicious love of play against which he is doomed to wage perpetual war. A man of sense will see the same thing with a different eye; in this pernicious love of play he will discern the symptoms of a love of science, and, instead of deploring the natural idleness of children, he will admire the activity which they display in the pursuit of knowledge. He will feel that it is his business to direct this activity, ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... this appeal; and the invalid looked anxiously at his wife. The last sat at her work, which had now got to be less awkward to her, with her eyes bent on her needle, and her countenance rigid, and, so far as the eye could discern, her ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... sceptical, who sees what is concealed from all others. He describes the being and unfolds the nature of souls and spirits, and knows both what is, and what is not. From the acuteness of his sight, the metaphysician cannot discern what lies directly ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg
... how their master willingly submitted to the mandate of the state—which he knew was morally mistaken—in spite of the possibilities of escape, and how he took up the cup of hemlock in his own hand, even offering libation from its deadly contents, do we not discern in his whole proceeding and demeanor, an act of self-immolation? No physical compulsion here, as in ordinary cases of execution. True the verdict of the judges was compulsory: it said, "Thou shalt die,—and ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... He will lose his reckoning and be quite out at sea, though only ten steps from home. He never knows enough to turn a corner. All his intelligence is like light, moving only in straight lines. He is impetuous and timid, and has not the smallest presence of mind or sagacity to discern between friend and foe. He has no confidence in any earthly power that does not reside in an old hen. Her cluck will he follow to the last ditch, and to nothing else will he give heed. I am afraid that the Interpreter was putting almost too fine a point upon it, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... state of uproar. So far as the evidence to hand can be trusted, this stimulative stage, which varies much in races and in individuals, is succeeded by a certain exaltation and mental lucidity—I seem to discern some signs of it in our young friend here—which, after an appreciable interval, turns to coma, deepening rapidly into death. I fancy, so far as my toxicology carries me, that there are some ...
— The Poison Belt • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Theophilus ad Autolycum, l. i. p. 345. Edit. Benedictin. Paris, 1742. * Note: A candid sceptic might discern some impropriety in the Bishop being called upon to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... Johnson could discern a tenuous ribbon of orange—the poppies. And perhaps ahead a little shadow blotted the face of the alkali, which, being reached and entered, spread like fire until it, too, filled the whole plain, until it, too, arrogated to itself the right of typifying Soda ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... the town. I could discern some buildings on top of a small hill, evidently one of the back streets of Yuma. After tying my boat, I hid my small load in some mesquite trees, then climbed the hill and passed between two peculiar stone houses dark as dungeons. They ...
— Through the Grand Canyon from Wyoming to Mexico • E. L. Kolb
... an opinion. The keenness of observation is blunted by food and wine; the delicate perceptions are gone; and what is left of the intelligence is generally devoted to finding faults in your partner's play. The consciousness of mistakes on your own part, which he is in no condition to discern, instead of suggesting charity, induces irritation, and you are persuaded, till you get the next man, that you are mated with the worst player in all Christendom. Moreover, that 'one more rubber' with which you propose to finish is generally ...
— Some Private Views • James Payn
... half-scornful references to "bread-throwing," she joined with evident pleasure in the badinage and more practical fun which struck the note of the supper. Only Orde thought to discern even in her more boisterous movements a graceful, courteous restraint, to catch in the bend of her head a dainty concession to the joy of the moment, to hear in the tones of her laughter a reservation of herself, which nevertheless was not at all ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the top of the stairs, had stretched out his hand to feel his way by the wall, and had paused to listen for a sound or to discern a glimmer of light to guide him, when suddenly the air about him seemed to break into life, and before he had time to turn and throw his back against the wall, strong arms were about his shoulders and legs. In an instant ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... adorned by dormers and gables. In front of the house, on its southern side, lay the garden, with its paths and clipped hedges, and the little pond half overgrown by sedge and thick bushes. On the northern side, towards the sea, he could discern the carriage drive, and the extensive level yard with the ancient lime tree standing in the middle of it. Beyond that came four warehouses standing in a row, all painted yellow, with brown doors; and further on still, close down to the innermost curve ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... small restaurant that nestles at the foot of the Roseg Glacier. Then its scarred sides, brightened by the crimson and violet rays of the setting sun, looked friendly and inviting. Though its base was a good mile distant across the snow-smoothed surface of the ice, she could discern every crevice and ledge and steep couloir. Now, all these distinguishing features were merged in the sea-blue mist. The great wall itself seemed to be one vast, unscalable precipice, capped by a series ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... prove this to be the fact? No! if you shall ever know anything of the Christian struggle with innate corruption; if you shall ever, in the expressive phrase of Scripture, have your senses exercised as in a gymnasium [1] to discern good and evil, and see yourself with self-abhorrence; your views will harmonize most profoundly and exactly with theirs. And, furthermore, you will not in the process create any new sinfulness. You will merely see the existing depravity of the human heart. You will simply see what is,—is ...
— Sermons to the Natural Man • William G.T. Shedd
... speaking, it is a preference of sound to sense. But the man, and especially the father, who is not fond of babies; who does not feel his heart softened when he touches their almost boneless limbs; when he sees their little eyes first begin to discern; when he hears their tender accents; the man whose heart does not beat truly to this test, is, to say the best of ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... from the man. By infinitely gradual sidelong slitherings he moved a few paces from the door of Mother Holf's house, and stood six feet perhaps, or eight, on the right-hand side of it. The three came on. He strained his eyes in the effort to discern their features. In that dim light certainty was impossible, but the one in the middle might well be Bauer: the height, the walk, and the make were much what Bauer's were. If it were Bauer, then Bauer had friends, and Bauer and his friends seemed to be stalking some game. Always most carefully and ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... partly apply such remedies to the disease as being very noxious and nothing meet; to the high displeasure of God, great infamy to the Faculty, and the grievous damage and destruction of divers of the King's people, most especially of them that cannot discern the cunning ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence
... mind, and she could not ascertain which of them was king Nala. And at whomsoever (among them) she looked, she regarded him to be the king of the Nishadhas. And filled with anxiety, the beautious one thought within herself, "Oh, how shall I distinguish the celestials, and how discern the royal Nala?" And thinking thus, the daughter of Vidarbha became filled with grief. And, O Bharata, recollecting the marks belonging to the celestials, of which she had heard, she thought, "Those attributes of the celestials, of which I have heard ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... conditions born of a phenomenal material progress have deadened the sense as to what constitutes real progress, and that the working-woman of to-day contends not only with visible but invisible obstacles, the nature of which we are but just beginning to discern. Twenty years ago one of the wisest of modern French thinkers, M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, wrote of women wage-earners: "From the economic point of view, woman, who has next to no material force, and whose arms are advantageously ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 21, August, 1891 • Various
... who have done no wrong.] & of at sou{m}me [gh]et arn su{m}me such sotte[gh] for madde, As lyttel barne[gh] on barme at neuer bale wro[gh]t, & wy{m}men vnwytt at wale ne coue at on hande fro at o{er} for[24] alle is hy[gh]e worlde, 512 [Sidenote: And there are others who cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand.] Bitwene e stele & e stayre disserne no[gh]t cu{n}en, What rule renes i{n} rou{n} bitwene e ry[gh]t hande & his lyfte, a[gh] his lyf schulde lost be er-for; [Sidenote: There are ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... showed an ardent submissive affection which promised to fulfil his most agreeable previsions of marriage. It had once or twice crossed his mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to account for the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him better; so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon but ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... meanest of Mr. Hastings's predecessors were does not appear to your Committee; nor are they able to discern the ground of propriety or decency for his assuming to himself a right to call any of them mean persons. But if such mean persons have possessed that degree of confidence from his immediate employers ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to all are here: The planets seven, the gloomy air, Hell, and the Furies' forked hair, Pluto's blue fire, and Hecat's tree, With magic spells so compass thee, That no eye may thy body see! So, Faustus, now, for all their holiness, Do what thou wilt, thou shalt not be discern'd. ...
— Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... 12.—In these two verses, as in the preceding, the thoughtful reader will discern a beautiful allusion in the history of these witnesses, to the death and life of our blessed Master. "For if they have been planted together in the likeness of his death, they shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection." Yes, they have communion with him in death and life,—in grace ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... as a need. Through needs we become persons. The capacity for dissatisfaction is the sublime thing in man. We can know our poor estate. We can say, That which I am I would not be. Passing the blind point of appetite, we come into the region of want or need; if we then can discern what is requisite to supply this need, we may be said to have a desire. That desire, if specific and urgent, we ...
— The Nature of Goodness • George Herbert Palmer
... resumption of my ring, as well as of the bear's grease in moderation, are the last marks I can discern, now, in ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... religious sentiment, and made that the basis of its poetry,—the Indo-European genius places its highest spiritual life in the imaginative reason, and makes that the basis of its poetry, we are none the better for wanting the perception to discern a natural law, which is, after all, like every natural law, irresistible; we are none the better for trying to make ourselves Semitic, when Nature has made us Indo-European, and to shift the basis of our poetry. We may mean well; all manner of good may happen ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... Thursday, the 28th of April, Jeanne was able to discern from the heights of Olivet the belfries of the town, the towers of Saint-Paul and Saint-Pierre-Empont, whence the watchmen announced her approach. The army descended the slopes towards the Loire and stopped at the Bouchet ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... Creoles, upon coffee mixed with rice boiled in water. He was delighted with the order and neatness which prevailed in the little cottage, the harmony of the two interesting families, and the zeal of their old servants. 'Here,' exclaimed he, 'I discern only wooden furniture, but I find serene contenances, and hearts of gold.' Paul, enchanted with the affability of the governor, said to him, 'I wish to be your friend; you are a good man.' Monsieur de la ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... you not see anything out of the common?' They replied that they saw nothing unusual. 'I do not know,' says Leif, 'whether it is a ship or a skerry that I see.' Now they saw it, and said that it must be a skerry. But he was so much more sharp-sighted than they, that he was able to discern men upon the skerry. 'I think it best to tack,' says Leif, 'so that we may draw near to them and be able to render them assistance, if they stand in need of it. And if they should not be peaceably disposed, we shall have better command of the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... of European Science and Literature during the last half century, we may discern the great currents, or chief tendencies, of speculative thought, in so far as it bears on the evidences and doctrines of Religion, in several distinct but closely related systems of opinion, which, whether ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... characteristic of any state of feeling as the nature of the diffusive wave that embodies it, or the various organs specially roused into action by it, together with the manner of the action. The only drawback is our comparative ignorance, and our inability to discern the precise character of the diffusive currents in every case; a radical imperfection in the science of mind as constituted ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... garments. Prying loose another lump, Alfred, holding the substance at arm's length, scrutinizing it closely, endeavoring to analyze it. A "cluck-cluck" caused him to look aloft and there, on a beam, sat ten or twelve contented "dominicker" hens. He could discern but half of their bodies—that part that goes over the fence last. Rudely awaking the invalid, Alfred brushing, picking and pinching the white and greenish bumps from face and night-shirt, indulging in language not proper even on a Texas ranch, he slowly ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... profession, who duly printed and published their criticisms. The awful Churchill's favourite seat was in the front row of the pit, next the orchestra. "In this place he thought he could best discern the real workings of the passions in the actors, or what they substituted instead of them," says poor Tom Davies, whose dread of the critic was extreme. "During the run of 'Cymbeline,'" he wrote apologetically ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... words applied to that whole situation of hers with her father which he was beginning dimly to discern. In his boyish admiration and compassion he took both her hands in his. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the side of Rudolf, when he was aroused by the sound of a voice, whose tones even at this dreadful moment thrilled through his soul with horror. Enveloped in a thick fog which had been gradually spreading around the scene of the combat, he could discern the fiend Heidelberger and his charmed circle; with an air of triumph they chanted the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 338, Saturday, November 1, 1828. • Various
... not expect to sleep, yet she did sleep, and it seemed to have been only a moment until Florence called her. She followed Florence outside. It was the dark hour before dawn. She could discern saddled horses being held by cowboys. There was an air of hurry and mystery about the departure. Helen, who came tip-toeing out with Madeline's other guests, whispered that it was like an escape. She was delighted. The others were amused. To Madeline ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... of granite piled one upon another, and beetling like battlements far above them. While two of the men remained in the camp with the horses, Captain Bonneville, accompanied by the other men [man], set out to climb a neighboring height, hoping to gain a commanding prospect, and discern some practicable route through this stupendous labyrinth. After much toil, he reached the summit of a lofty cliff, but it was only to behold gigantic peaks rising all around, and towering far into the snowy regions of the atmosphere. Selecting ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... me, bearing the emblems and trophies of a king. They were as a series of great historical events, and I beheld behind them, following and followed, an awful and indistinct image, like the vision of Job. It moved on, and I could not discern the form thereof, but there were honours and heraldries, and sorrow, and silence, and I heard the stir of a profound homage performing within the breasts of all the witnesses. But I must not indulge myself farther on this subject. I cannot hope to excite in you the emotions with ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... consequence of delicacy. Freedom of conduct has emancipated many women's minds; but my conduct has most rigidly been governed by my principles, till the improvement of my understanding has enabled me to discern the fallacy of prejudices at war with ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... next day a traveling-carriage passed through the Barriere d'Enfer, so covered with dust and scratches that no one could discern the arms. The four horses that drew it went at a rapid pace, until it arrived before an hotel of handsome appearance, in the Rue de la Jussienne, at the door of which two men, one of whom was in full dress, were waiting. The carriage entered the courtyard of ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere |
