"Discerning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... did he know his theme, but he had the ability to explain it. He spoke without hesitation or embarrassment, and revealed the same splendid dignity that his father had shown, all flavored by the same dash of indifference for the auditor. But the discerning ones saw that he surpassed his father, in that he carried more reserve and showed a suavity that was not ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... of the house's interior was one of well-chosen but unostentatious comfort, and the materials and furnishings used were all so nicely adapted to their setting that only to more discerning eyes than those of the Stuarts' neighbours would they have expressed unusual ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... perhaps say with another great man, "What must God be if He is pleased by things which simply displease His educated creatures?" In a country where the churches were once far more crowded than in Belgium, I was told by a discerning man, Prince Alexis Obolensky, a former Procurator of the Holy Synod, that all such devotion is simply superstition. He said he would gladly give me all Russia's spirituality if I could give him a tenth of England's moral earnestness. And ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... by long attrition tried, Placed by the purer metal's side, Displays at length a dingy hue, That proves its former claim untrue; So time's discerning hand hath art To set the ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... supposed, that the difficulties of his employment, being means to shew his abilities, were gratefull to him; for he was every way qualified for busines; his naturall faculties being very strong and pregnant, his understanding, aided by a good phansy, made him quick in discerning the nature of any busines; and thro' a cold brain he became deliberate and of a sound judgement. His memory was great, and he made it greater by confiding in it. His elocution was very fluent, and it was a great part of his talent readily to reply, or freely ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... and Ben. They were discerning, and capable of grasping a dog man's point of view. "Then there's Queen, for one wheeler. You know we're only allowed three dogs, an' we ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... she was under age, had refused to deal with him. When I began to question the snake, it hissed, "Mind your own business." I replied that this was my business, and asked the detectives to investigate. Discerning quickly what it was that we had discovered, they promptly locked the thing in an iron cage, like any other wild beast. The girl was cared for. Her anxiety was expressed in her words, "What will my ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various
... of slavery and the slave-trade, however, the real crisis came in the calm that succeeded the storm, in that day when, in the opinion of most men, the question seemed already settled. And indeed it needed an exceptionally clear and discerning mind, in 1787, to deny that slavery and the slave-trade in the United States of America were doomed to early annihilation. It seemed certainly a legitimate deduction from the history of the preceding century to conclude that, as the system had risen, flourished, and fallen ...
— The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America - 1638-1870 • W. E. B. Du Bois
... strong—on discerning us, at once prepared for action. Though very tired, we took up positions and began to engage the advancing foe. We succeeded in checking their progress, and certainly had the best of the situation till ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... I may mention That this erudition sham Is but classical pretension, The result of steady "cram.": Periphrastic methods spurning, To my readers all discerning I admit this show of learning Is the ...
— Songs of a Savoyard • W. S. Gilbert
... look no further than this world; while the poor, oppressed and ground to the earth by those whom they feel to be no better than themselves, having that innate sense of justice common to all men, and discerning the inequality of worldly lots, are not slow to place implicit belief in the doctrine of a final judgment, at which all inequalities will be righted, and both rich and poor will stand side by side; the former gaining no advantage from his riches, the latter being at no disadvantage ...
— Irish Wonders • D. R. McAnally, Jr.
... language more opprobrious, what actions more exasperating, than those used on this occasion? Words, I am sensible, are no justification of blows, but they serve as the grand clew to discover the temper and the designs of the agents; they serve also to give us light in discerning the apprehensions and thoughts of those who are the ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... example, the criticism of the mechanical theory of matter, and the definition of sensation), before I had read M. Bergson's book, it cannot be denied that its perusal has so strongly modified my ideas that a great part of these are due to him without my feeling capable of exactly discerning which; for ideas have a much more impersonal character than observations and experiments. It would therefore have been ungrateful to criticise him before ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... be the opinion of many that the ideas of other men's minds were properly perceived by the ear, or had at least a necessary and inseparable tie with the sounds that were affixed to them. All which seems to arise from want of a due application of our discerning faculty, thereby to discriminate between the ideas that are in our understandings, and consider them apart from each other; which would preserve us from confounding those that are different, and make us see what ideas ...
— An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • George Berkeley
... of Miss Gardner's should appeal powerfully to English readers because its subject has the provocations of novelty; because the work is gracefully and sympathetically written, with discerning and intimate knowledge of fact and of character, and yet discriminating and just; and because it embodies once more the story, especially dear to our hearts, of the struggle of a patriotic race for freedom and national existence." (Rest of review, ...
— Kosciuszko - A Biography • Monica Mary Gardner
... otherwise the exercise of his goodness would be restricted, and that would be restricting his goodness itself, if it did not prompt him to the best, if he were lacking in good will. Or again it would be restricting his wisdom and his power, if he lacked the knowledge necessary for discerning the best and for finding the means to obtain it, or if he lacked the strength necessary for employing these means. There is, however, ambiguity in the assertion that love of virtue and hatred of vice are infinite ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... so actual as Mr. Belloc's is inevitably attracted by such an opportunity. The discerning reader will find the crown and best achievement of all his varied work in the seven volumes of essays which ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell
... Yalensians, already established there, made his lot easier, and they combined against a lone Harvardian, who bitterly resented Harwood's habit of smoking a cob pipe in the library at night. The bouquet of Dan's pipe was pretty well dispelled by morning save to the discerning nostril of the harvard man, who protested against it, and said the offense was indictable at common law. Harwood stood stoutly for his rights and privileges, and for Yale democracy, which he declared his pipe exemplified. There ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... rulers was really a sign of corruption, and a warning to keep away from them. What a blow at their self-complacency! And how profoundly true it is that the more punctiliously white the hypocrite's outside, the more foul is he within, and the wider berth will all discerning people give him! The terrible force of the figure needs no dwelling on. In Christ's estimate, such a soul was the very dwelling-place of death; and foul odours and worms and corruption filled its sickening recesses. Terrible words to come from His lips into which grace was poured, and bold words ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... bit of work in the nature of secret service, Captain Prescott," he continued, "and it demands a wary eye and a discerning mind." ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... road, there was a small ship of Brasil that came from thence, which bare with them, and seemed by striking her sailes, as though she would also haue ancred: but taking her fittest occasion hoised againe, and would haue passed vp the riuer, but the Generall presently discerning her purpose, sent out a pinnesse or two after her, which forced her in such sort, as she ran herselfe upon the Rocks: all the men escaped out of her, and the lading (being many chests of sugar) was made nothing woorth, by the salt water. In his going thither also, he tooke ships of the port ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... literature hath better succeeded than the nameless, fameless man—or woman, was it?—or haply some innocent shrewd child—who whilom did enunciate that MAN IS A WRITING ANIMAL: true as arithmetic, clear as the sunbeam, rational as Euclid, a discerning, just, exclusive definition. That he is "capable of laughter," is well enough even for thy deathless fame, O Stagyrite! but equally (so Buffon testifies) are apes and monkeys, horses and hyenas; whether perforce of tickling or sympathy, or native notions of the humorous, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... MARMADUKE Discerning Monitor, my faithful Wilfred, Why art thou here? [Turning to WALLACE.] Wallace, upon these Borders, Many there be whose eyes will not want cause To weep that I am gone. Brothers in arms! Raise on that dreary Waste a monument That may ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight
... inquiries, will by the same labour and acuteness separate the chaff from the corn—the false from the true. It is the young, the light, the superficial, who are easily misled by error, and incapable of discerning its fallacy; but tell me, if it is the light, the young, the superficial, who are in the habit of reading the abstruse and subtle speculations of the philosopher. No, no! believe me that it is the very studies ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... faithfully pictured to the just apprehension of the discerning inquirer. Naturally therefore the author, whose narratives of his wanderings in more than one quarter of the globe had been favourably received, was not indisposed to commit to the press the result of his observations ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... Balzac defended himself against the criticisms of Mme. Zulma Carraud, whom he had met at Versailles at the home of his sister Laure, and whose esteem and affection he was anxious to keep. Mme. Carraud was a broad-minded and discerning woman, of delicate sensibility and an upright nature. Her husband was Commander Carraud, director of studies at the Military School of Saint-Cyr, and later inspector of the powder works at Angouleme. Balzac loved her as a confidential friend,—who, at the same time, ...
— Honor de Balzac • Albert Keim and Louis Lumet
... first ye come all to get auguries of birds, even such is in all things your carriage, Be the matter a matter of trade, or of earning your bread, or of any one's marriage. And all things ye lay to the charge of a bird that belong to discerning prediction: Winged fame is a bird, as you reckon: you sneeze, and the sign's as a bird for conviction: All tokens are 'birds' with you—sounds too, and lackeys, and donkeys. Then must it not follow That we ARE to you ...
— Studies in Song • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent. He who overcomes others is strong; he who overcomes himself is mighty. He who is satisfied with his lot is rich; he who goes on acting with ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... his only son, on that very piece of primitive rock which still stands visible, though Temple and altar have long since gone; and which for many a day was the place of the altar on which the sacrifices of Israel were offered. It is no mere forcing of Christian meanings on to old stories, but the discerning of that prophetic and spiritual element which God has impressed upon these histories of the past, especially in all their climaxes and crises, when we see in the fact that God provided the ram which became the appointed sacrifice, through which ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... have cast off all the strife and derision, They have put on all the joy of our yearning; We falter feebly from vision to vision, Never discerning. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... them. All which would have drawn Esther very near to them and made them delightful to her, but that she knew very well they desired no such approach. Whether it were simply because she and her father were 'dissenters' Esther could not tell; whatever the reason, her sensitive nature and discerning vision saw the fact. They made visits of neighbourly politeness to the one English family that was within reach; but more than politeness they desired neither to give nor receive. I suppose it was this perception which made the sight of the pair so irritating to Esther. They ...
— A Red Wallflower • Susan Warner
... hung up against a wall. While the flame of the candle was diametrically opposite to the centre, the rays equally diverging, gave so powerful a light as is scarce credible; but on the least variation from the focus, the charm ceased. The lady discerning in this man a genius which might be improved to better purposes than deceiving the country people, desired him not to hide his talents, but to push himself in the world by the abilities of which he seemed possessed. 'Madam, said he, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... I discovered what nothing but my domtiferous vanity had prevented me from discerning from the first: this was a religious procession bearing the banners of the church and singing Aves and Te Deums. I had known such processions before in St. Louis on saints' days, and always headed by the two most beautiful maidens in the town, bearing ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... dust, and staying without touching the ground. And Naishadha stood revealed to his shadow, his fading garlands, himself stained with dust and sweat, resting on the ground with winking eyes. And, O Bharata, discerning the gods and the virtuous Nala the daughter of Bhima chose Naishadha according to her truth. And the large-eyed damsel then bashfully caught the hem of his garment and placed round his neck a floral wreath of exceeding grace. And when that fair-complexioned maiden had ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... discovered in the Doldrums. Chapter 9: In which the Good Intent makes a running fight: Mr. Toley makes a suggestion. Chapter 10: In which our hero arrives in the Golden East, and Mr. Diggle presents him to a native prince. Chapter 11: In which the Babu tells the story of King Vikramaditya; and the discerning reader may find more than appears on the surface. Chapter 12: In which our hero is offered freedom at the price of honor; and Mr. Diggle finds that others can quote Latin on occasion. Chapter 13: In which Mr. Diggle illustrates his argument; and there are strange doings in ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... The most difficult discerning of a mans Dream, from his waking thoughts, is then, when by some accident we observe not that we have slept: which is easie to happen to a man full of fearfull thoughts; and whose conscience is much troubled; ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... probably at least five thousand young women in these United States, any one of whom you would certainly marry, if you were thrown much into her company, and nobody more attractive were near, and she had no objection. And you, my dear young lady, justly pride yourself on your discerning delicacy; but if I should say that there are twenty thousand young men, any one of whom, if he offered his hand and heart under favorable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 27, January, 1860 • Various
... must dawn some day. Would it be a gracious dawning of pearly tints and roselit radiance, gradually filling that eager young soul to the brim with the greater joys of life? Or would it be fiery and terrible, a blinding, relentless burst of light, from which she would shrink appalled, discerning the wrath of the gods before ever she had ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... his elephant, and his guard marched proudly before him. The cat, with his hands tied together, stood weeping. Upon arriving at the execution grounds and discerning that the cat was not yet executed, the King said angrily to the hangman: "Why is it this prisoner is still ...
— The Cat and the Mouse - A Book of Persian Fairy Tales • Hartwell James
... unwittingly lured him on to his ruin. Louis Napoleon's military prestige received a serious blow, and his reputation as a statesman likewise; and although the splendor of his government and throne was as great as ever, his fall, in the eyes of the discerning, was ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... beloved AEschylus in his pocket, Adams smoking his pipe by the inn fire, or surrounded by his "children" as he called his parishioners vying "with each other in demonstrations of duty and love," fully justifies John Forster's comment on Fielding's manly habit of "discerning what was good and beautiful in the homeliest aspects of humanity." Before the true dignity of Abraham Adams, whether he be publicly rebuking the Squire and Pamela for laughing in church, or emerging unstained from adventures with hogs-wash and worse, the accident of ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... my daughter is always obedient and kind, yet a shade too sober for one so young; but her mother was always thoughtful, dear woman, and I suppose it's the child's inheritance." Mr. Mordecai sighed. And Rebecca, discerning the drift of his thought, recurred quickly ...
— Leah Mordecai • Mrs. Belle Kendrick Abbott
... he was a spontaneous clear man. Very gentle, too, though full of fire; simple, brave, graceful. What he did, and what he said, came from him as light from a luminous body, and had thus always in it a high and rare merit, which any of the more discerning could appreciate fully. ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... period of halcyon weather. A kinder, more discerning and more helpful chief than Edmund Yates no aspiring young journalist ever had. He was as genial and as quick to recognise honest effort as Dawson himself, and he knew ten times better what he wanted, and a thousand times more about the taste ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... might well express astonishment at the rash and groundless statement in "Blackwood" (Dec. 1839), that the third part of Christabel which Dr. Maginn sent to that magazine in 1820 "perplexed the public, and pleased even Coleridge." How far the "discerning public" were imposed upon I know not; the following extract will show how far the poet-philosopher was "pleased" ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various
... the amazed scout. The Hibernian character of the act was, that while it revealed to him his man, it also, although in a less degree, betrayed the location of Mickey himself, whose delighted astonishment may be imagined, when, instead of discerning a crouching, painted Apache, he recognized the familiar figure of ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... had not one grain of this discerning faculty, which is but seldom to be met with in the sublimest genius. His character was mean to a degree, and consequently susceptible of unreasonable jealousies and distrusts, which of all characters is the most opposite to that of a good partisan, who is indispensably obliged ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... mind will at once perceive the advantage of our system of amusement mingled with instruction, and perceive that upon its simple basis a noble structure may be afterwards raised; and minds well stored with useful lore, and capable of discerning evil in whatever shape it presents itself, and extracting honey from every object, will be farmed, which, when they become numerous, will cause a glorious change in the moral world, the first germ of which will be traced to ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... Heroines of each blackguard alley; Better sure record in story Such as shine their sex's glory! Herald! haste, with me proclaim Those of literary fame. Hannah More's pathetic pen, Painting high th' impassion'd scene; Carter's piety and learning, Little Burney's quick discerning; Cowley's neatly pointed wit, Healing those her satires hit; Smiling Streatfield's iv'ry neck, Nose, and notions—a la Grecque! Let Chapone retain a place, And the mother of her Grace[1], Each art of conversation knowing, ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... young man who ate bortsch with the air of having invented it. Sledonti's "Poems of Death and Passion" were now being sold by the thousand in seven European languages, and were about to be translated into Syrian, a circumstance which made the discerning critics of the Nuremberg rather shy of maturing their future judgments ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... wept piteously, muttering at intervals his disjointed exclamations of impatience at the coldness of the place and the agony of his recent wounds. Speechless and tearless the wretched woman looked vacantly down on his face. There was little difficulty in discerning from that fixed, distracted gaze the nature of the tie that bound the mourning woman to the suffering boy. The expression of rigid and awful despair that lowered in her fixed, gloomy eyes, the livid paleness that discoloured her compressed lips, the spasms that ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... acute, discerning, penetrating, sharp, clear-sighted, discriminating, penetrative, shrewd, crafty, keen, perspicacious, subtile, cunning, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... nevertheless, even to its bitter end; ever ready, in that desperate game of politics—become to her a craving and a passion—to descend to the darkest cabals or adopt the rashest resolves; with an incomparable faculty of discerning the actual state of affairs or the predominant evil of the moment, and of strength of mind and boldness of heart enough to grapple with and destroy it at any cost; a devoted friend and an implacable enemy; and, finally, the most formidable foe that Richelieu and Mazarin, in their turn, encountered:—such ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... forerunner, the most excellent of Saints, John Baptist, being full of joy in Thy presence, leapt while yet in the womb of his mother, for joy in the Holy Ghost; and afterwards discerning Jesus walking amongst men, humbled himself exceedingly, and said, with devout affection, The friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom's voice;(2) even so I wish to be inflamed with great and holy desires, and to present myself ...
— The Imitation of Christ • Thomas a Kempis
... knowledge it comes to pass in this way. See, my father, what rest I can have in this life, now that what I once had in prayer and loneliness—therein our Lord used to comfort me—has become in general a torment of this kind; while, at the same time, it is so full of sweetness, that the soul, discerning its inestimable worth, prefers it to all those consolations which it formerly had. It seems also to be a safer state, because it is the way of the cross; and involves, in my opinion, a joy of exceeding worth, ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... men—held upon this subject just before his death. In a word, when I consider the faculties with which the human mind is endued; its amazing celerity; its wonderful power in recollecting past events, and sagacity in discerning future; together with its numberless discoveries in the several arts and sciences, I feel a conscious conviction that this active, comprehensive principle can not possibly be of a mortal nature. And as this unceasing activity of the soul derives its energy from its own intrinsic and essential powers, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... he lay perdue beneath his covert, in all appearance bereft of life. He was not deceived in his prognostic; she no sooner eyed the golden crescent than, inflamed with curiosity or cupidity, she directed thitherward her steps, and discerning the carcase of a man, from which, she thought, there would be a necessity for disengaging it, she lifted up her weapon, in order to make sure of her purchase; and in the very instant of discharging her blow, received a brace of ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett
... we hold the brain-impression of his mistake, so that every time we look at him we make it stronger? He is not the gainer thereby, and we certainly are the losers. Repeated brain-impressions of another's faults prevent our discerning his virtues. We are constantly attributing to him disagreeable motives, which arise solely from our idea of him, and of which he is quite innocent. Not only so, but our mistaken impressions increase his difficulty in rising to the best ...
— As a Matter of Course • Annie Payson Call
... in discerning these attributes of which I have no absolute idea, it is in the form of unavoidable deductions, and by the right use of my reason; but I affirm them without understanding them, and at bottom that is no affirmation ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... think of the uses he had made of them. He had fallen into the possession of a fine property on the attainment of his manhood; he had been endowed with more than average gifts of intellect; never-failing health had been given to him, and a vision fairly clear in discerning good from evil; and now to what a pass had he brought himself! And that man Fothergill had put all this before him in so terribly clear a light! Now that the day for his final demolishment had arrived, the necessity that he should be demolished—finished away at once, out of sight ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... a courteous manner is the test of its sincerity. If one is polite invariably everywhere but at home, one's politeness is as superficial as a disguise, and as easily penetrated by the discerning. ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... Government dreaded. They had been stunned by the unexpected blow struck by the people in asserting the independence of the legislature: for whatever credit the Parliament of that day may assume for the part which they acted in that business, it requires no argument to prove to a discerning man, that they were passive instruments in the people's hand—they only re-echoed the voice of an armed nation which they conceived too loud to be smothered, and were hurried on irresistibly by that enthusiastic ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... The careful and discerning observer of these problems (for such they indeed are) discovers that the high prices for books, which the trade is never tired of citing as an encouragement to its connections, are almost invariably associated with conditions which are adventitious ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... appeared to anticipate. Was there not, when one came to think of it, a melancholy, a pessimism ingrained within the temperament of the complainful hero that would ill assort with those instincts toward frivolity the careful observer could not avoid discerning in the charming yet nevertheless somewhat shallow ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... himself—half-malicious, half-ferocious; he almost immediately got up and took his leave; then, for the first time, I observed the agitation of my grandfather, and I must tell you, Maximilian, that I am the only person capable of discerning emotion in his paralyzed frame. And I suspected that the conversation that had been carried on in his presence (for they always say and do what they like before the dear old man, without the smallest regard for his feelings) had made ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... creditably severe on highway robbers, for one thing,—destroys you "fifteen baronial robber-towers" at a stroke; was also concerned in the Hungarian-Bohemian DONNYBROOK, and did that also well. But nothing struck a discerning public like the talent he had for speaking. Spoke "four hours at a stretch in Kaiser Max's Diets, in elegantly flowing Latin;" with a fair share of meaning, too;—and had bursts of parliamentary eloquence in him that ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. III. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Hohenzollerns In Brandenburg—1412-1718 • Thomas Carlyle
... White Cloud should fail to please a discerning public, it will not prove that a good, well-written history of a colony like New Zealand is not wanted, and may not succeed, but merely that I have not done the work well enough. That may easily be, inasmuch ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... any other but so bewitched a time as this, it would have been looked on as an high usurpation, and breach of privilege. He indeed sat still, for the most part, and interposed very little; sometimes a word or two. But the most discerning opinion was, that he did herein as he rowed for having had his face first to the Conventicle Bill, he turned short to the Lord Ross's. So that, indeed, it is credible, the King, in prospect of ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... grew more and more feeble, and both she and I knew that the end was not far off. Never once, however, did we allude to such a catastrophe; and whenever I fixed my eyes earnestly upon her in the vain hope of discerning some more favourable symptom, she would pretend not ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... abhorring lying and swearing, being just, in all that lay in his power, to his word; not seeming to revenge injuries, loving to reconcile differences and make friendships with all. He had a sharp quick eye, with an excellent discerning of persons, being of good judgment and quick wit.' 'He was tall of stature, strong boned, though not corpulent, somewhat of a ruddy face, with sparkling eyes, wearing his hair on his upper lip; his hair reddish, but ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... he began to repent of what he had done. He, who hated scenes, dreaded tears, would not annoy Freda for the world, to have raised such emotion! He did not understand it. Lady Mary had assured him Freda would be so glad to be allowed to marry Rowland. And she was so discerning and clever! But he ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... constituted as to be continually alternating between high elation and the depths of despondency; discerning to-day ominous indications of ruin in an incident of no account, and to-morrow scorning imperiously to recognise danger in the fierce rising of a province. It may almost be said that each letter of his to Lord Auckland ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... on foot laden with gold passing through some evil-haunted wood, in the dark and unarmed. And he reflected that it would be well for the protege to watch, without seeming to do so, over the protector, to become the discerning Telemachus of the blind Mentor, to point out to him the quagmires, to defend him against the highwaymen, to aid him, in a word, in his combats amid all that swarm of nocturnal ambuscades which he felt were prowling ferociously around the Nabob ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... them saw it in the light that I did. It either appeared to them a casual and unimportant circumstance, or they thought it sufficiently accounted for by Mr. Falkland's infirmity and misfortunes. Did it really contain such an extent of arguments and application, that nobody but I was discerning enough to see? ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... also ground for increasing, fearful apprehension, by adding to the immediate, what may be the ultimate effect of the measures which have been described. In a collective view they appear to the best acquainted and discerning to be, in all their adaptations, tending to one end, to complete the destruction of the original principles of the college and school, and to establish a new modified system, to strengthen the interests of a party or sect, ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... shot up from the nadir of obscurity, not very far, but enough to bring his versatility under the notice of the discerning Secretary of State, who, having been a friend of the father, offered the son a berth in the diplomatic corps. A consulate in a South American republic, during a revolutionary crisis, where he had shown consummate skill in ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... every honest man of good sense would discover in those books only a crowd of absurdities. Thus the oracles of God are not even made for those for whom they are addressed; it is requisite to be initiated in the mysteries of a priesthood, to have the privilege of discerning in the holy writings the light which the Divinity destined to all his dear children. But are the theologians themselves able to make plain the difficulties which the sacred books present in every page? ...
— Letters to Eugenia - or, a Preservative Against Religious Prejudices • Baron d'Holbach
... out by the royal African company in 1726, assures us, "that the discerning natives account it their greatest unhappiness, that they were ever visited by the Europeans. They say that we Christians introduced the traffic of slaves; and that before our coming they lived in peace. ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... domain—and when we got up, the person the blue was on was a very wrinkled old man, with a yellow wrinkled face and a soft felt hat and blue blouse-like coat, and I see that I ought not to conceal any longer from the discerning reader that it was exactly what we had been looking for. It was indeed a Celestial Chinaman in deep difficulties with these boys who were, as Alice said afterwards, truly fiends in mortal shape. They were laughing at the old Chinaman, and shouting to each other, and their language ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... society are calculated to exert in impelling him forward. The effect will be not only to do more for society as a whole, but to make superior men by means of self-education. 'He who does anything because it is the custom, makes no choice. He gains no practice either in discerning or desiring what is best. The mental and moral, like the muscular powers, are improved only by being used. The faculties are called into no exercise by doing a thing merely because others do it, no more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the judgment of men who knew him best, he had endowments which might have made him, had he not been the chief of inventors, the most powerful of advocates, the boldest and most effective of artists, the most discerning of scientific physicians, or an administrative officer worthy of the highest place and of the best days in ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... or logic, geometry, music, and arithmetic, by myself without much difficulty or any instruction, I understood, Thou knowest, O Lord my God; because both quickness and understanding and acuteness in discerning is Thy gift.' Or, again, speaking of the youthful excellences ('excellently hadst Thou made him') of that son who was the son of his beloved mistress: 'I had no part in that ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... and the surest guides, to give force and fullness and clearness and sincerity and independence and elevation and generosity and serenity to his mind, that he may know the method and law of the process by which error is conquered and truth is won, discerning knowledge from probability and prejudice from belief, that he may learn to master what he rejects as fully as what he adopts, that he may understand the origin as well as the strength and vitality of systems and the better motive of men who are ...
— Immortal Memories • Clement Shorter
... divested of the natural storge(in Greek) that seems to raise the kind in general above themselves, and inspire them with extraordinary degrees of cunning and address, may be still endued with a more enlarged faculty of discerning what species are suitable and congenerous nursing-mothers for its disregarded eggs and young, and may deposit them only under their care, this would be adding wonder to wonder, and instancing in a fresh manner that the methods of Providence are not subjected to any mode or rule, but astonish ...
— The Natural History of Selborne • Gilbert White
... went out proud, self-reliant, pluming himself upon his many prerogatives, his blue blood, his pure descent, his Rabbinical knowledge, his Pharisaical training, his external religious earnestness, his rigid morality; he rode into Damascus blind in the eyes, but seeing in the soul, and discerning that all these things were, as he says in his strong, vehement way, 'but dung' in comparison with his ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... virtue increased, in others carelessness was thrown aside, the self-conceit of others was stopped; and all were persuaded to despise the assaults of the Evil One, and marvelled at the grace given Anthony from the Lord for the discerning of spirits. So their cells were in the mountains, like tabernacles filled with holy bands of men who sang psalms, loved reading, fasted, prayed, rejoiced in the hope of things to come, labored in almsgiving, and maintained ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... his newly-found certitude. He reached home June 20, 1844, and five days later presented his letter to Bishop McCloskey. Concerning the acquaintance then begun, which, on the bishop's part, soon took the form of a discerning and wise direction, and eventually deepened into a life-long friendship, we shall have more to say hereafter. The diary chronicles their first meeting and gives the reason of the brief delay which ensued before Isaac was admitted to conditional ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Epistle of Prayer, the Epistle of Discretion in Stirrings of the Soul, and the Treatise of Discerning of Spirits[19]—are associated in the manuscripts with four other works: the Divine Cloud of Unknowing, the Epistle of Privy Counsel, a paraphrase of the Mystical Theology of Dionysius entitled Dionise Hid Divinity, ...
— The Cell of Self-Knowledge - Seven Early English Mystical Treaties • Various
... will; mixed with a certain bitterness, partly derived from temperament, and partly from the general cast of his feelings and reflections. The dissatisfaction with life and the world, felt more or less in the present state of society and intellect by every discerning and highly conscientious mind, gave in his case a rather melancholy tinge to the character, very natural to those whose passive moral susceptibilities are more than proportioned to their active energies. For it must be said, that the strength of will of which his manner seemed to give ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... her brain, prevented her from discerning in any corner of her mind the thought of Rouletabille. ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... its manifestly purer text. Petyt, subsequent to his call to the Bar, in 1670, was for many years Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London. Now we know that Lord Essex, an intimate friend and connection of the Earl of Southampton, and like Southampton a generous and discerning patron of letters, was for some time in the "free custody" of the Lord Keeper of the Tower. Further, Southampton, who had joined Essex in his rebellion, had been tried and convicted with his friend, and though the Queen spared his life, he was not released from the Tower until the ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash
... be reached by the learned and discerning, the devotion of the common people showed no signs of flagging. In the parish church of St. Stephen at Noyon, it was not the Christian proto-martyr alone that was decorated with a cap and other gewgaws, when his ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... keen, preserves it against influences which tend to deaden it, and makes the taste more sure and trustworthy. A man who has long had acquaintance with the best in any department of art comes to have, almost unconsciously to himself, an instinctive power of discerning good work from bad, of recognising on the instant the sound and true method and style, and of feeling a fresh and constant delight in such work. His education comes not by didactic, but ...
— Books and Culture • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... ofttimes, though the artist may not flout the universe, he shows his carelessness of natural fact and needs the snubbing. It is in this range that the little critic walks triumphantly posing as a shrewd and a discerning one. He holds up inconsistencies with his deft thumb and finger and cries, "what a smart boy am I." And yet in spite of him Rubens, for the sake of a better line in the foreground of one of his greatest compositions dares to reconstruct a horse with his ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... conscious of none; but do hate to be unquiet at home. So, late up, silent, and not supping, but hearing her utter some words of discontent to me with silence, and so to bed, weeping to myself for grief, which she discerning, come to bed, and mighty kind, and so with great joy on both ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... insert it,' Leigh Hunt writes in his valuable and interesting preface to this poem, when he printed it in 1832, 'because I thought that the public at large had not become sufficiently discerning to do justice to the sincerity and kind-heartedness of the spirit that walked in this flaming robe of verse.' Days of outrage have passed away, and with them the exasperation that would cause such an appeal to the many to be injurious. Without being aware of them, ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... the young recluse author puts on paper what she would herself like to be, and what she thinks she might be if only her eyes were bluer, her purse longer, or men more wise and discerning. In painting the slights offered to her favorite ideal, she conceives the slights that might possibly be offered to herself, and the triumphant way in which she would (under somewhat more auspicious circumstances) delight to live them ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... indulgences in Germany, and in paying their money the good friar Tetzel informed the superstitious people that they might release themselves not only from past, but also future sins. This pious imposition did not escape the discerning eye of Luther; he published, in 1517, a thesis, containing ninety-five propositions on indulgences, and challenged opposition. Tetzel was not silent on the occasion; but while he, with the voice of authority, called his opponent a damnable heretic, and whilst he burnt ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... young bride's little head!" said Grandfer, peeping in the same direction, and discerning Thomasin, who was waiting beside her aunt in a miserable and awkward way. "Not quite settled in yet—well, ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... a nun, the picture she made with the young mountaineer's head upon her lap would have startled the world. None of those discerning critics who stalk the galleries on varnishing day could have passed a canvas such as this without bending their rusty knees at least one creak in humble reverence. For God had carefully blessed her with a Madonna-like loveliness, a ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... chastises trespassers, fights its enemies, and defends its home. It manifests a degree of intelligence, but its sagacity is instinctive. Reason, though not so acute as instinct, becomes, by education, discerning and keenly penetrative, and reveals the very secrets of profound thought. We recall the aptness of Prof. Agassiz's remark: "There is even a certain antagonism between instinct and intelligence, so that instinct ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... We therefore remained but a short time, and once more pushed forward. As evening approached we began to feel very anxious, for without water the oxen ould scarcely perform their next day's journey. The sun, verging towards the west, was shining in our eyes and prevented us from discerning objects in that direction. At length Mr Tidey, who was on ahead, shouted to me that he saw a hollow, with shrubs growing round it, and that in all probability water would be found at the bottom; I got up alongside him, and ...
— With Axe and Rifle • W.H.G. Kingston
... touch with undergraduate thought and life. In the early years of their teaching this sympathetic and kindly understanding was fresh and strong, and they used it in their classroom and wove it into the tissue of their tutorial activities. A discerning observer of college faculties can even today discover in them men and women who entered them by the same door as these great ones of old, irregularly as we would say now,—without the hallmark, and whose good teaching is a surprise ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... received it from God. Moving along the Alpine valleys the traveler sees huge bowlders lying in the stream, and, looking to the mountain side, his eye rests upon the very cliff from which the bowlder fell. Thus discerning the noble qualities in mother or patriot, in hero or friend, we trace their beautiful qualities back to God, from whom all noble souls borrow their excellence. In the largest sense all the elements of power in sea and sky and ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... was no world, I could not feign that I did not exist. And I judged that I might take it as a general rule that the things which we conceive very clearly and very distinctly are all true, and that the only difficulty lies in the way of discerning which those things ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... different—great financiers were behind the fluctuations of values told by the tongue of the ticker, and behind them was the wealth of the Republic and still in the far distance the power of the American people. Few of them ever looked below the grease paint, nor did the most discerning ever detect the laugh on the ...
— Peter - A Novel of Which He is Not the Hero • F. Hopkinson Smith
... (The discerning reader can hardly fail to trace in the foregoing unvarnished account of our subject's ancestry and environment many of the factors which have contributed to the unique success he has attained as a writer. Nor can he fail to trace a certain ...
— Our Friend John Burroughs • Clara Barrus
... furnish us with so many resources on the same matter, as the lack of intelligence makes us hesitate at each thing our imagination presents, and hinders us from at first discerning which is ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... called she all flowers that grew in field, Discerning all their fashions and properties; Upon the awful Thistle she beheld, And saw him keeped* by a bush of spears; Considering him so able for the wars, A radiant crown of rubies she him gave, And said, 'In field go forth, and ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... by coarse spies who reported every word to the king. With a mind of the richest endowments, of the most discerning eagerness for knowledge, but without any suitable male society, it is no wonder that the young man went astray. In comparison with other German courts, the Prussian might be regarded as very virtuous: but frivolity toward women and a lack ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... guests had departed, Frithiof informed his confidant and chief companion, Bjoern, of his determination to follow them and openly ask for Ingeborg's hand. His ship was prepared, and after a swift sail touched the shore near Balder's shrine. Discerning the royal brothers seated in state on Bele's tomb to listen to the petitions of their subjects, Frithiof immediately presented himself before them, and manfully made his request, adding that the old king had always loved him and would surely have ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... not to be questioned, but that it is an art, and an art worth your Learning: the question wil rather be, whether you be capable of learning it? For he that learns it, must not onely bring an enquiring, searching, and discerning wit; but he must bring also that patience you talk of, and a love and propensity to the art itself: but having once got and practised it, then doubt not but the Art will (both for the pleasure and profit of it) prove like to Vertue, ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... do with sight in the murky thickness of a tree-trunk? Hearing is likewise absent. In the never-troubled silence of the oak's inmost heart, the sense of hearing would be a non-sense. Where sounds are lacking, of what use is the faculty of discerning them? Should there be any doubts, I will reply to them with the following experiment. Split lengthwise, the grub's abode leaves a half-tunnel wherein I can watch the occupant's doings. When left alone, it now gnaws the front of its gallery, now rests, fixed by its ambulacra ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... thus that from Argentan to Caen I found myself seated between a stout motherly person from Auvergne, and a little dark man from whose direction was wafted so strong an odour of garlic that I had no difficulty discerning from what region he hailed. Next to him were a bourgeois couple whose mourning attire, red eyes and swollen faces bespoke plainly enough the bereavement they had just suffered. Silent, indifferent to everything and everybody, their hands ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... face was pale and framed in a silky auburn beard; his nose was aquiline and strong; his eyes the keenest that I have ever seen; his forehead lofty and intelligent. He seemed pervaded by an air of feverish restlessness, something surpassing the vivida vis animi, something that marked him to discerning eyes for a man of incessant action of body and ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... events are those which cast their shadows, so to speak, within the circle of the cup. In this way the tea-leaves may be consulted once a day, and many of the minor happenings of life foreseen with considerable accuracy, according to the skill in discerning the symbols and the intuition required to interpret them which may be possessed by the seer. Adepts like the Highland peasant-women can and do foretell events that subsequently occur, and that with ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... ready market here at liberal prices. I cite his case (for he is one of several Americans who have recently sold their European patents here at high figures) as a final answer to those who croak that our country is disgraced, and regret that any American ever came near the Exhibition. Had these discerning and patriotic gentlemen been interested in these patents, they might have taken a different view of the matter. Even my New-York friend, whose toadyism in exhibiting a capital pair of Oars inscribed "A present ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... a later day, new cantos were added, which, following the fortunes of the hero, record at length that he was killed by a dragon. A digest and running commentary of the poem may be found in Turner's Anglo-Saxons; and no one can read it without discerning the history shining clearly out of the mists of fable. The primitive manners, modes of life, forms of expression, are all historically delineated. In it the intimate relations between the king and his people are portrayed. The Saxon cyning is compounded of cyn, people, ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... light little fire in her eyes, that told of strong will and deep passions; and besides, her striking appearance had won sufficient admiration to have completely spoiled her, if a guardian the most vigilant as well as most discerning, had not been ever at hand to speak the right word to and do the right thing ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... The result of this sustained mental endeavour is not a book, but a man. It cannot be embodied in print, it consists in the living word. True learning does not consist in the possession of a stock of facts—the merit of a dictionary—but in the discerning spirit, a power of appreciation, judicium as it was called in the sixteenth century—which is the result of the possession of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... could think of anybody else. Quick-sighted in these affairs as the matron thought herself, she saw but one side of the question: blind and dull of comprehension as she thought Lady Clonbrony on this subject, she was herself so completely blinded by her own prejudices, as to be incapable of discerning the plain thing that was before her eyes; VIDELICET, that Lord Colambre preferred Grace Nugent. Lord Colambre made no proposal before the end of the week, but this Mrs. Broadhurst attributed to an unexpected occurrence, which prevented things from going on in ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... Miss Newville," his lordship replied, not discerning the quiet sarcasm. "Of course I am not, for if I lose, I curse my luck, and am ready to punch somebody's head, and rip out some swear words, but if I win, I am ready to bless the other fellow for playing a king when he should have laid down ...
— Daughters of the Revolution and Their Times - 1769 - 1776 A Historical Romance • Charles Carleton Coffin
... was unable to take in the situation, but her wits got into working order pretty quickly, and only her quivering lips would have betrayed her to a more discerning person. Mrs. Stone, however, saw nothing but an inclination to weep, and, stooping over Toinette, said, soothingly: "There, there, dear, don't hurry to rise, you are a little nervous this morning and ...
— Caps and Capers - A Story of Boarding-School Life • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... such favour showest, How shall I thy praise declare? Through ten million calaps {18} hoary If with cataract's voice I roar, Yet of Foutsa's force and glory I may not the sum out-pour Whosoe'er the title learning Of the earth's protector high, Shall, whene'er his form discerning, On it gaze with steadfast eye, And at times shall offer dresses, Offer fitting drink and food. He ten thousand joys possesses, And escapes each trouble rude. Whoso into deed shall carry Of the law each precept, he Through all time alive shall ...
— Targum • George Borrow
... already incurred, I have resolved that these four volumes shall be the heralds or avant-couriers of the Tales which are yet in my possession, nothing doubting that they will be eagerly devoured, and the remainder anxiously demanded, by the unanimous voice of a discerning public. I rest, esteemed Reader, thine as thou shalt ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... have been better, so the reader may probably come to say to himself, if this attempted disguise had been entirely dispensed with. By the time he has reached the sixth essay, "Only Temper," the discerning reader, familiar with George Eliot's books, will be ready to affirm that this is no other than the author herself speaking very frankly and finely her own sentiments. In this essay the moral temper of her mind appears, and her strong inclination to subordinate the individual to the social ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... necessary—was it really necessary, Rufus?" whispered Garside, who alone had overheard, and whose paler face and tremulous figure betrayed fears which his swarthy senior partner would have scorned to feel. "This Carter is a most artful and discerning man. I am so afraid you have barked up the wrong tree. Was ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... a most interesting personage to people who were making collections, and he attained, besides ingenuity, genuine taste and skill in detecting marks and discerning values. In a year he had as nice a knowledge of china and pottery as any one in the country, and if the farmers' wives were so much the poorer by the loss of what had been in the family for generations, they ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... book for reading in bed—this little anthology of prose, collected by Pearsall Smith. He knows what good prose is, having written some of the daintiest bits of our time in his "Trivia," a book with which I occasionally delight a truly discerning customer. What a fascination there is in good prose—"the cool element of prose" as Milton calls it—a sort of fluid happiness of the mind, unshaken by the violent pangs of great poetry. I am not subtle enough to describe it, but in the steadily cumulating satisfaction of first-class prose ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley
... Dimly discerning through the thicket the steep path that climbed to such liberty as she sought, seeing far off the place towards which her stumbling feet were set, where life should be lived with alert readiness and response, oblivious of its personal achievements, its ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay
... ordinary man. He was one of the most remarkable of a coterie of remarkable men whom a remarkable queen (Elizabeth) gathered around her, and to whom she owed much of the grandeur of her remarkable reign. Elizabeth's greatest gift was a capacity for discerning and using great minds, and she had the good fortune to find many around her at that period of time. Raleigh won her favor, and received from her many benefits, among which was the honor of knighthood with its emoluments, which she conferred. In the end her favor ...
— The White Doe - The Fate of Virginia Dare • Sallie Southall Cotten
... apprehension, keen, acute, alive, brainy, awake, bright, quick, sharp; quick witted, keen witted, clear witted, sharp-eyed, sharp sighted, sharp witted; wide- awake; canny, shrewd, astute; clear-headed; farsighted &c 510; discerning, perspicacious, penetrating, piercing; argute^; quick-witted, nimble-witted, needle-witted; sharp as a needle, sharp as a tack; alive to &c (cognizant) 490; clever &c (apt) 698; arch &c (cunning) 702; pas si bete [Fr.]; acute &c 682. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... to the boards of directors of which he was a member had been invaluable. The article ended with a list of the clubs to which he belonged, of the societies which he had organized and of those of which he was a member,—and it might have been remarked by a discerning reader that most of these societies were State affairs. Finally there was a pen portrait of an Apollo Belvidere who wore the rough garb of a farmer (on the days when the press ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... but I did think that she might well fall in love with Bob Evers, at least as well as he with her. Was this, then, the way in which a woman would be likely to speak of the young man with whom she had fallen in love? To me the appreciation sounded too frank and discerning and acute. Yet I could not call it dispassionate, and frankness was this woman's outstanding merit, though I was beginning to discover others as well. Moreover, the fact remained that they had been greatly talked about; ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... A more discerning man would have foreseen that he could not treat a great being like the late Emperor of the French as though he were a Corsican brigand without having to pay a severe penalty. An ordinary prisoner might have submitted with amiable resignation to the disciplinary ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... periodical introduces us to the first professional man of letters in America. It is "The Man at Home," by Charles Brockden Brown. Although unsigned, no one familiar with Brown's style could read a page without discerning him in the short snap-shot sentences of the story. On page 228 of the first volume three pages of the "Sky-Walk" are "extracted from Brown's MSS." The singular title of this unfinished story, which was afterward woven into the web of "Edgar Huntley," seems to have been as puzzling to readers then ...
— The Philadelphia Magazines and their Contributors 1741-1850 • Albert Smyth
... together!" The painter, reddening with despite, Whispers, "My friend, by Jove, you're right. 'Tis not enough our art to know, Till less of it we learn to show; My picture must be done again I see, to please discerning men." ...
— Aesop, in Rhyme - Old Friends in a New Dress • Marmaduke Park
... as le Bourdon reached the commencement of that which might be called his path across the marsh, he stopped and looked backward. He was now sufficiently removed from the low acclivity to see objects on its summit, and had no difficulty in discerning all that the waning fire illuminated. There stood the Chippewa erect against the tree as if still bound with thongs, while the sentinel was slowly approaching him. The dogs were on their feet, and gave two or three sharp barks, which had the ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... were very quick and accurate in discerning the identity of a vessel by the cut of her sails, the length of her masts and yards, and the way they were stayed; even if she were hull down they could tell by this alone. Several of the disabled vessel's ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman |
