"Discernment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the friends he ever had, and he made the wrath of his enemies to praise him. This was not by cunning or intrigue in the low acceptation of the term, but by far-seeing reason and discernment. He always told only enough of his plans and purposes to induce the belief that he had communicated all; yet he reserved enough ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... moment or two, and concluded that she was right. In truth, the time had come to me when I believed that Jane, with her good sense and acute discernment, could not be wrong in anything, and I think so yet. So I took comfort on faith from her, and asked: "Do you remember what you said should happen before ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... justice, your quick discernment, and invariable regard to merit, wisely intended to inculcate these genuine sentiments of true honor and passion for glory, from which the greatest military achievements have been derived, first heightened our natural emulation and ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... of his book do really go to Paris and Naples, some to Calcutta, there is a sort of legal fiction that such an assumption is steadily taking root. Yet, unhappily, that ugly barrier of languages interferes. Schamyl, the Circassian chief, though much of a savage, is not so wanting in taste and discernment as to be backward in reading any book of yours or mine. Doubtless he yearns to read it. But then, you see, that infernal Tchirkass language steps between our book, the darling, and him, the discerning reader. Now, just such a barrier existed for the Spectator in the travelling arrangements ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... who wear them, and the kind of services on which they will come to be bestowed. An Upper House of mere diplomatists—skilful only to overreach—imprudent enough to substitute cunning for wisdom—ignorant enough to deem the people not merely their inferiors in rank, but in discernment also—weak enough to believe that laws may be enacted with no regard to the general good—wrapped up in themselves, and acquainted with the masses only through their eavesdroppers and dependants—would bring titles ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... pedestal. The hall itself, despite its profusion of strangely sculptured treasures, is never crowded, but before this stone you may almost always find some one standing, gazing with more or less of discernment at the strange characters that are graven neatly across its upturned, glass-protected face. A glance at this graven surface suffices to show that three sets of inscriptions are recorded there. The upper one, occupying about one-fourth of the surface, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... up together, he somewhat lumbering, as if Mrs. Blake's character were too much for his discernment, and Mrs. Manlius not quite sure of herself ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... read, and all the more because it is written not only with critical discernment but with ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... happiness and vice our misery: it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole species. For what else can have an influence of this nature? But, in order to pave the way for such a sentiment and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... purpose that during that interval they may be guided by our reason, and not by their own. We can not surrender this trust. But there is a way of faithfully fulfilling the duties of it—if we have discernment to see it, and skill to follow it—which will make the years of their childhood years of tranquillity and happiness, both ...
— Gentle Measures in the Management and Training of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... himself, and gives me occasional quotations, when be thinks that they show a spirit and mode of appreciation which will win my gratitude. He has carefully read through the articles which were accompanied by your kind letter, and he has a high opinion of the feeling and discernment exhibited in them. Some concluding passages which he read aloud to me are such as I register among the grounds of any encouragement in looking backward on what I have written, if not in looking forward to my ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... truth was always exaggerated by schoolmasters, for their own interest; and pretended to wonder that the usher had not mingled more probability with his praise. Trunnion was offended at her indifference and want of faith and believing that she refined too much in her discernment, swore that Jennings had declared the truth, and nothing but the truth; for he himself had prophesied, from the beginning, that the boy would turn out a credit to his family. But by this time Mrs. Pickle was blessed with a daughter, whom she had brought into ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... in discernment than the beasts of the field," she said, as she came up to him. "That boy is actually vexed because I will not go and play at Tom Tiddler's Ground with him. He positively expected that I would be Tiddler! Tiddler! Did you ever hear of such a name? It sounds ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... interaction with others, and thus affecting him. He is wholly unaware that love is his very life; not only the general life of his whole body, and the general life of all his thoughts, but also the life of all their particulars. This a man of discernment can perceive when it is said: If you remove the affection which is from love, can you think anything, or do anything? Do not thought, speech, and action, grow cold in the measure in which the affection which is from ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... pleasant rivulet. It seems singular to me, on reflection, that I never availed myself of his kind invitation. I say singular, for the extraordinary, under whatever form, had long had no slight interest for me; and I had discernment enough to perceive that yon was no common man. Yet I went not near him, certainly not from bashfulness, or timidity, feelings to which I had long been an entire stranger. Am I to regret this? perhaps, for I might have learned both wisdom and righteousness from those calm, quiet lips, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... an air of truth to a piece, and to interest the spectator in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances, therefore, cannot wholly be rejected; but if there be anything in the art which requires peculiar nicety of discernment, it is the disposition of these minute circumstantial parts which, according to the judgment employed in the choice, become so useful to truth or ...
— Seven Discourses on Art • Joshua Reynolds
... town. Within four and twenty hours, Sheridan was offered a thousand pounds for the copyright of the speech, if he would himself correct it for the press. The impression made by this remarkable display of eloquence on severe and experienced critics, whose discernment may be supposed to have been quickened by emulation, was deep and permanent. Mr. Windham, twenty years later, said that the speech deserved all its fame, and was, in spite of some faults of taste, such as were seldom wanting either in the literary ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... should once have done, condemning endowments in themselves, and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the national debt. On the contrary, I urged strenuously the importance of a provision for education, not dependent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on the knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calculated to establish and keep up a higher standard of instruction than is likely to be spontaneously demanded by the buyers of the article. All these opinions have been confirmed and strengthened by the whole of my ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... oracle, my honest fellow!" said Gibbons, laughing; "it is a pity that your zeal and discernment should not be rewarded by some ...
— The Rivals of Acadia - An Old Story of the New World • Harriet Vaughan Cheney
... Mr. Johnson had made the proposal, I should have been severely hurt, have thought him unkind and unfeeling, but not impertinent. The privilege of intimacy you had no claim to, and should have referred the man to myself, if you had not sufficient discernment to quash it at once. I am, sir, poor and destitute; yet I have a spirit that will never bend, or take indirect methods to obtain the consequences I despise; nay, if to support life it was necessary to act contrary to my principles, the struggle would soon ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... I beg leave, in lieu of offering any sentiments of my own, to refer you to the opinions of Sieur Hedelin, as set forth in the ninth paragraph of the chapter of "Injuriae per applicationem, per constructionem, et per se," in his "Duelli Lex scripta, et non; aliterque." The nicety of your discernment in all the matters here treated, will be sufficient, I am assured, to convince you that the mere circumstance of me referring you to this admirable passage, ought to satisfy your request, as a man of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... willing enough to meet McVay in a grim interchange over his strange combination of facility and crime, of doom and triviality. But when it became any question of playing upon Cecilia's unconsciousness of the situation, he writhed. Yet, a little discernment would have shown him how natural, how encouraging from his own point of view her unconsciousness was. To fall in love thoroughly is sufficiently disconcerting. Which of us needs to be told that it is an absorbing process, that life looks different, ...
— The Burglar and the Blizzard • Alice Duer Miller
... distressing object. Her partners in sin were to suffer "great tribulation," and "her children," or disciples, he would kill with death, or deadly pestilence. Thus would this whole corrupt party be visited with divine judgments according to their works; while their great pretensions to wisdom and discernment, "as they speak," or as they term it, will be shown to be nothing but ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... embellisheth so much of the neighbourhood of our city. Our brethren of Salem in New Jersey have carried the art of banking to a still higher degree of perfection." It is really an admirable contrivance, which greatly redounds to the honour of the parties concerned; and shows a spirit of discernment and perseverance which is highly praiseworthy: if the Virginians would imitate your example, the state of their husbandry would greatly improve. I have not heard of any such association in any other parts of the continent; Pennsylvania hitherto seems to ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... to be the most exacting of all the Arts, the cultivation of which presents the greatest difficulties, for a consummate interpretation of a musical work so as to permit an appreciation of its real value, a clear view of its physiognomy, or discernment of its real meaning and true character, is only achieved in relatively few cases. Of creative artists, the composer is almost the only one who is dependent upon a multitude of intermediate agents between the public and himself; intermediate agents, either intelligent or ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... material might well have tempted to a mere piling of squalor upon squalor. A fine discretion has given a noble dignity to a record through which shines the unquenchable human spirit. One passage, full of affectionate discernment about London, will cause a flicker of just pride in everyone who is authentic Cockney, whether by birth or adoption. A big book of its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 14, 1920 • Various
... gooseberry eyes. short sight &c 443; clear sight, sharp sight, quick sight, eagle sight, piercing sight, penetrating sight, clear glance, sharp glance, quick glance, eagle glance, piercing glance, penetrating glance, clear eye, sharp eye, quick eye, eagle eye, piercing eye, penetrating eye; perspicacity, discernment; catopsis^. eagle, hawk; cat, lynx; Argus^. evil eye; basilisk, cockatrice [Myth.]. V. see, behold, discern, perceive, have in sight, descry, sight, make out, discover, distinguish, recognize, spy, espy, ken [Scot.]; get a sight of, have a sight of, catch a sight ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... blacksmith could reply, Mother Bunch, who had more discernment, exclaimed: "Goodness, Agricola—how pale you are! Whatever ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... discovery Mr Kavanagh seems to have made is, that he knew nothing of grammar; and had he stopped here, he would have been entitled to no small praise for discernment. But this was but a stepping-stone ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... with protestations of attachment and fidelity; and he took care to contrive occasions of adding marginal notes with his own hand, in which he adroitly displayed in a distinguished manner his devotion, discernment, and activity. All his reports in general bore the same stamp: with much of cunning, and much of talent, they offered to the eye a rare and valuable assemblage of quickness and judgment, of moderation and firmness: at every word you might ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... analyzed with ability and finish.... This is a story to be admired for its discernment ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... compared to heaven and earth in their supporting and containing, their overshadowing and curtaining all things; he may be compared to the four seasons in their alternating progress, and to the sun and moon in their successive shining.... Quick in apprehension, clear in discernment, of far-reaching intellect and all-embracing knowledge, he was fitted to exercise rule; magnanimous, generous, benign, and mild, he was fitted to exercise forbearance; impulsive, energetic, firm, and ...
— Chips From A German Workshop - Volume I - Essays on the Science of Religion • Friedrich Max Mueller
... of food and the pleasure that essentially results therefrom pertain to the touch. Hence the Philosopher says (De Anima ii, 3) that "touch is the sense of food, for food is hot or cold, wet or dry." To the taste belongs the discernment of savors, which make the food pleasant to eat, in so far as they are signs of its being ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... long at the club and the card-table that night; over the bits of pasteboard, however, his zest failed to flare high, although instinctively he played with a discernment that came from long practice. But the sight of a handful of gold pieces here, of a little pile there, the varying shiftings of the bright disks, as the vagaries of chance sent them this way or that, seemed to move him in no great degree,—perhaps because the winning or losing of a ...
— Half A Chance • Frederic S. Isham
... I spoke about my own life and interests, with an unsparing discernment, of which I should have been incapable a month ago, and in return I gained the key to his own character. It was devotion to the sea, wedded to a fire of pent-up patriotism struggling incessantly for an outlet in strenuous physical expression; a humanity, born of ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... was dropped anent the old Siwash with so strange a look upon his face. No end of men remembered afterward that they had been struck by his extraordinary figure, and forever afterward prided themselves upon their swift discernment ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... inventions of human mind. I set myself, therefore, to establish such a law, in full belief that men are intended, without excessive difficulty, and by use of their general common sense, to know good things from bad; and that it is only because they will not be at the pains required for the discernment, that the world is so widely encumbered with forgeries and basenesses. I found the work simpler than I had hoped; the reasonable things ranged themselves in the order I required, and the foolish things fell aside, and took themselves away so soon as they were looked in the ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... he knew how to distinguish between the dreams sent by God and those produced by evil angels. Such discernment is useful to the hermit, who lives surrounded by apparitions, and who, in avoiding men, is sure to meet with spirits. The deserts are full of phantoms. When the pilgrims drew near the ruined castle, ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... reconsider the words of the response given, {but} involved in dark obscurity, and they ponder them among themselves. Upon that, the son of Prometheus soothes the daughter of Epimetheus with {these} gentle words, and says, "Either is my discernment fallacious, or the oracles are just, and advise no sacrilege. The earth is the great mother; I suspect that the stones in the body of the earth are the bones meant; these we are ordered to throw behind our backs." Although she, descended from Titan,[68] is moved ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... into office of the most different description. It looks as if the first object were to neutralise his mischievous tendencies. But I am in doubt whether to entertain this supposition would be really a compliment to the discernment of my superiors, or a breach of charity; therefore it is ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... Further, Augustine says (De Correp. et Grat. x) that "God so ordered the life of the angels and men, as to show first what they could do by free-will, then what they could do by His grace, and by the discernment of righteousness." God thus first created men and angels in the state of natural free-will only; and afterwards bestowed grace ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... the condition of things in the South. I resolved not to let him do so. I had conscientiously endeavored to see Southern conditions as they were. I had not permitted any political considerations or any preconceived opinions on my part to obscure my perception and discernment in the slightest degree. I had told the truth, as I learned it and understood it, with the severest accuracy, and I thought it due to the country that the truth ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... was considered an able lawyer, and on many occasions exhibited a very clear and correct judicial discernment of intricate cases. It was one of his peculiarities that he never sat on the bench with his brother judges, but always at the clerk's table. Different reasons for this practice have been given, but the simple fact seems to have been, that he was deaf, and heard ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... seemed to think very differently from Messrs. Godwin and Holcroft of Mr. Cooper's capabilities. If they had not the genius, the discernment, or the "spirits learned in human dealings" of our hero's patrons, they had self-sufficiency and obstinacy in abundance, and what was more unfortunate, they had the power in their hands; a power which in such persons is rarely softened in its exercise by liberality or candor. These, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... moved laughingly away, leaving the young man marvelling heavily at the discernment of the girl who had cleverly discovered that which he fancied he had carefully concealed. As Armitage watched him with amused interest, he sighed deeply and made his way ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... literature, has enabled me to go further, and to clear up the most intricate parts of my subject by new researches. The distinction of epochs is here most important, the compilation of the Talmud extending from the year 200 to about the year 500. We have brought to it as much discernment as is possible in the actual state of these studies. Dates so recent will excite some fears among persons habituated to accord value to a document only for the period in which it was written. But such scruples would here be out of place. The teaching of the Jews from the Asmonean ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... and bantered, saying, "Inquire of our priests, and not of us, as to what concerns religion. We acquiesce entirely in what they declare; because no point of religion is an object of decision in the understanding. Have you never heard that the understanding is without any sense or discernment in mysteries, which constitute the whole of religion? And what have actions to do with religion? Is not the soul made blessed by the muttering of words from a devout heart concerning expiation, satisfaction, ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... his prisoner troubled M. Daburon a great deal. He was further extremely surprised to find the discernment of the old detective at fault; just as though Tabaret were infallible. Tabaret had predicted an unexceptionable alibi; and this alibi was not forthcoming. Why? Had this subtle villain something better than that? What artful defence had he to fall back upon? ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... first proved too bad for even a midshipman's palate; and the ham, when the cover and sawdust were taken away, was animated by nondescripts, and only half of it eatable. I was tried by a court of inquiry by my messmates for want of discernment, and found guilty; and the Yankee who had cheated us was sentenced to be hanged, but as he was out of sight, the penalty was not carried into execution. We once more anchored at the mole, after having ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman
... disturbed the Father's mind; for, on the whole, the official testimonies concerning his Son were steadily favourable. The Duke too treated young Schiller, whose talents had not escaped his sharpness of insight, with particular goodwill, nay distinction. To this Prince, used to the accurate discernment of spiritual gifts, the complaints of certain Teachers, that Schiller's slow progress in Jurisprudence proceeded from want of head, were of no weight whatever; and he answered expressly, "Leave me that one alone; he will come to something yet!" But that Schiller gave his main strength to what ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... fifty miles. These refused homage, very many of them; said they were "incorporated with Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ill habits ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... among savages, should not have differed from them—should have gloried, perhaps in those refinements in cruelty, which they consider an accomplishment, but which we shudder to hear related. It is not probable that we should have had native discernment sufficient to have raised us above our fellows—to have enabled us to discover their delusions and the absurdity of their views. Had we been denied revelation, we should probably have been ignorant of our fallen state and need ...
— Sermons on Various Important Subjects • Andrew Lee
... most egregiously high-handed manner in the matter of the precipitation and declaration of the war itself, and subsequently likewise in the ruthless invasion of Belgium and treatment of her people and her cities. The want of discernment of what was going on outside the sphere of her own psychology led her into fatal delusions as to the attitude of England, of Ireland, of Belgium, Italy, India, and so forth. It caused her generals to miscalculate and seriously under-estimate the strategic forces opposed to ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... my determination not to allow the interview gave rise between Her Majesty and myself was but momentary. The Queen had too much discernment not to appreciate the basis upon which my denial was grounded, even before she was convinced by the result how correct had been my reflection. She felt her error, and, by the mediation of the Duke of Dorset, we were reunited more closely ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XV. and XVI., Volume 4 • Madame du Hausset, and of an Unknown English Girl and the Princess Lamballe
... my dear child, allow us the credit of our own discernment. And don't take offence at my familiarity. I am afraid I am spoilt since ...
— Touch and Go • D. H. Lawrence
... by the unsuspicious Hall to the bar of the Three Hens, but the mysterious stranger had gone and left no trace. Poor, humble, with nothing but his good character to rely on, Mr. Hall now cast himself with confidence on the discernment of ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... mention here that souls which are yet in themselves, whatever degree of light and ardor they have attained, are unqualified for it. They often think they have this discernment, when it is nothing else but sympathy or antipathy of nature. Our Lord destroyed in me every sort of natural antipathy. The soul must be very pure, and depending on God alone, that all these things may be experienced in Him. In proportion as this maid became inwardly purified, my ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... society. But the admirable training in strict moral principles with which she had been privileged furnished weapons of defence against the more specious temptations which presented themselves; whilst her quick discernment easily penetrated the thin shell of external polish covering worthlessness of character. It was also fortunate for her that at the outset of her London experience she became acquainted with such a sterling man ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... elevated by the command of Galba on a fairer and more lofty cross. Occasional rescripts issued from the throne to decide the questions which, by their novelty or importance, appeared to surpass the authority and discernment of a proconsul. Transportation and beheading were reserved for honorable persons; meaner criminals were either hanged, or burned, or buried in the mines, or exposed to the wild beasts of the amphitheatre. Armed robbers were pursued and extirpated as the enemies ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Often a husband led his wife and presented her himself to one of his brothers when that gave him pleasure. When he (Karmath) saw that he had become absolute master of their minds, had assured himself of their obedience, and found out the degree of their intelligence and discernment, he began to lead them quite astray. He put before them arguments borrowed from the doctrines of the Dualists. They fell in easily with all that he proposed, and then he took away from them all religion and released them from all those duties of piety, ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... galled her intolerably was this discernment of the way in which—at least since their honeymoon—he must have been criticising and judging her—judging her by comparison with another woman. She seemed to see at a glance, the whole process of his mind, and her ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... essentials, he would lose no chance of a swing through looking for more than the bare necessities. When the physicist describes the pendulum in terms of a formula such as t 2pi[squareroot(l/g)] he exhibits a similar discernment. He has found that the time occupied by an oscillation of any pendulum may be calculated exclusively in terms of its length and the acceleration due to gravity. The monkey's higher proficiency and the formula alike represent a knowledge that is ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... hand of Van Buren had shaped its character and inspired its winning qualities. It had the instant effect that Van Buren plainly invoked for it—the unanimous election of Rufus King. Perhaps, on the whole, nothing in Van Buren's official life showed greater political courage or discernment. It is not so famous as his Sherrod Williams letter of 1836, or the celebrated Texas letter with which he faced the crisis of 1844, but it ranks with the public utterances of those years when he took the risk of meeting ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... seem greatly disturbed in having to make the request. Nay, pardon me, comte, but I am rarely deceived, young as I am; for while with some persons I place my friendship at the disposal of my understanding, with others I call my distrust to my aid, by which my discernment is increased. I repeat, that you do not prefer your request as though ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... free, although compelled to hide myself, I had sufficient resources at my disposal not to quit England before having, in my turn, liberated Sidney. What more can I say to you? The instinct of life, the fear of death, doubtless obscured my judgment, troubled my discernment. I accepted, for I believed everything Sidney said to me. Alas! why was ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... with these the incentive is principally ambition, which, by degrees, became mis-shaped into a specious patriotism. It is known how an ardently desired object pursued for a long period is apt to so monopolize and infatuate the mind as to totally vitiate and pervert the sense of discernment between right and wrong, both as to the legitimacy of the object and the means to be employed for its attainment. As the realization remains deferred and the efforts are increased, the object from being considered legitimate is by degrees invested ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... High Office your Lordship deservedly bears; not as an Acquisition of Fortune, but your Intellectual Endowments; Conspicuous (among other Excellencies) by the Inclination Your Lordship discovers to promote Natural Knowledge: As it justifies the Discernment of that Assembly, to pitch upon Your Lordship for their President, so does it no less discover the Candor, yea, I presume to say, the Sublimity of your Mind, in so generously honoring them with your Acceptance of the Choice ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... brought with him into the diplomatic career advantages such as few, even the most highly gifted, can boast of. During his sojourn in Spain he performed many eminent services for the government which employed him; services which, I believe, it had sufficient discernment to see, and gratitude to reward. He had to encounter, however, the full brunt of the low and stupid malignity of the party who, shortly after the time of which I am speaking, usurped the management of the affairs ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... Various Subjects, by Launcelot Temple, Esq.; the former had been published in 1758. Wilkes was supposed to have contributed something to these lively trifles, which, under an air of impertinent levity, are sometimes marked by originality and discernment. His poem called Day, an epistle which he had addressed to Wilkes in 1761, was not admitted by the author to take its place among the rest. For the dispute which gave rise to this omission he was afterwards sorry; and in his last illness declared, that what he had got in the army he owed ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... they saw thro' all my private Views and Designs, and with what Facility they brought about my Disgrace; and therefore, when I have discover'd in any of those concern'd with me in Business, a fine Discernment, and a Genius for great Affairs, I have from that Minute look'd upon such as dangerous, and for that Reason either procured their Disgrace, or under the Pretence of doing them Honour, prevail'd upon the Emperor to confer upon them the Government of some distant Province, where they are removed ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... of it, when the being of the British nation, I mean the being of its importance, however strange it may now appear to some, will depend on her union with America. It requires but a small portion of the gift of discernment for any one to foresee, that providence will erect a mighty empire in America; and our posterity will have it recorded in history, that their fathers migrated from an ISLAND in a distant part of the world, the inhabitants of which had long been revered for wisdom and valour. ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... will answer all the purposes of beauty; the subtle relation between all kinds of truth and fitness in our life forbids that bad taste should ever be harmless to our moral sensibility or our intellectual discernment; and—more than that—as it is probable that fine musical harmonies have a sanative influence over our bodily organization, it is also probable that just coloring and lovely combinations of lines may be necessary to the complete well-being ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot
... are told how he looked and what he said and how he said it, with what gestures and in what tone, we feel as if it would be impossible for the simplest person in the world to be mistaken as to his real character. My friends, especially my young friends, so far from the discernment of character being easy, it is, on the contrary, an art most difficult, and very rarely attained. Nature's indications are a kind of handwriting the characters in which are known to few, so that, for instance, the quick, enquiring glance of an eye, in which one may easily read—who knows ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant
... afford us greater pride than revisiting a well-known and celebrated city after many years' absence. The pleasure derived from the hope of enjoyment, the self-satisfaction flowing from the presumption of our profound knowledge of the place, and the feeling of mental superiority attached to our discernment in returning to the spot, which, at the moment, appears to us the particular region of the earth peculiarly worthy of a second visit—or a third, as the case may be—all combine to stuff the lining of the diligence, the packsaddle ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... objections to which I saw as clearly as they. But it would be an endless talk for an authour to point out upon every occasion the precise object he has in view. Contenting himself with the approbation of readers of discernment and taste, he ought not to complain that some are found who cannot or will not understand him.] I took my host's advice, and drank some brandy, which I found an effectual cure for my head-ach. When I rose, I went into Dr Johnson's room, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... and applied himself to the completion of a sketch on which he had expressed extraordinary pains. It was a religious composition, and represented the temptations of a pot-bellied Saint Anthony. The young artist, however destitute of elevation, had, nevertheless, discernment enough to be dissatisfied with his own work, and many were the patient erasures and improvements which saint and devil underwent, yet all in vain. The large, old-fashioned room was silent, and, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... of Dr. Johnson—"Though a stern true-born Englishman, and fully prejudiced against all other nations, he had discernment enough to see, and candour enough to censure, the cold reserve too common among Englishmen towards strangers. 'Sir,' said he, (Johnson) 'two men of any other nation who are shown into a room together, at a house where ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... the opinion of Pestalozzi, and one which has ever since his day been gaining ground, that education of some kind should begin from the cradle. Whoever has watched, with any discernment, the wide-eyed gaze of the infant at surrounding objects knows very well that education does begin thus early, whether we intend it or not; and that these fingerings and suckings of everything it can lay hold of, these open-mouthed listenings ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... might give of myself—of the ease and placid outlook he preserved for me—some help to his distress and melancholy. But I was a child: no more than a child—unwise, unhelpful, in a lad's way vaguely feeling the need of me from whom no service was due: having intuitive discernment, but no grown tact and wisdom. That he was scarred, two-fingered, wooden-legged, a servant of the bottle, was apart: and why not? for I was nourished by the ape that he was; and a child loves (this at least) him who, elsewhere however repugnant, fosters him. I could not help with any spoken ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... this chance to come he watched her, noting her every movement, her troubled smile, her air of being apart and above her surroundings. He noticed, too, the set face of the young man at her side and, with the discernment of one whose own interest is captive, saw the half-concealed longing in his eyes. He felt a quick antipathy to this young man. His assured position at the girl's side accentuated how far he himself was removed ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... rewards of a worldly life. Who gave to him this wisdom and this almost superhuman virtue? Who gave to him this insight into the fundamental principles of morality? Who, in this respect, made him a greater light and a clearer expounder than the Christian Paley? Who made him, in all spiritual discernment, a wiser man than the gifted John Stuart Mill, who seems to have been a candid searcher after truth? In the wisdom of Socrates you see some higher force than intellectual hardihood or intellectual clearness. How much this pagan did to emancipate and elevate the soul! How much he did to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... (said Lady Scudamore embracing me with great affection) what a delicate way of thinking you have in these matters, and what a quick discernment for one of your years! Oh! how I honour ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... respect to our own times. As a contribution to the History of Art, his work is unquestionably the most valuable which has yet appeared in England. His research has been unwearied; he has availed himself of the best results of German investigation—his own acuteness of discernment in cases of approximating or derivative style is considerable—and he has set before the English reader an outline of the relations of the primitive schools of Sacred art which we think so thoroughly verified in all its more important ramifications, that, with whatever ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... discernment, perceiving that this short and bold interview was useless, and that he ought to withdraw, put his cigar between his lips, puffed a "Good-day, gentlemen," and turned back meditatively, along the path towards the pines ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair
... committees, to the Committee of Supervision,[3192] murmuring, threatening, and showing their bloody pikes. That is the evidence of having done their work well. They boast of it to Petion, impress upon him how "just and attentive" they were,[3193] their discernment, the time given to the work, so many days and so many hours; they ask only for what is "due to them"; when the treasurer, on paying them, demands their names, they give them without the slightest hesitation. ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... kind renders the evidence more credible, as Chrysostom states (Hom. i in Matth.), because if the witnesses agreed in every point, even in the minutest of details, they would seem to have conspired together to say the same thing: but this must be left to the prudent discernment of the judge. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... from the improvements of that laborious people; and however little the majority of these pious travellers might have had such objects in their view, something useful must unavoidably have stuck to them; a few certainly saw with more discernment, and rendered their travels serviceable to their country by importing other things besides miracles and legends. Thus a communication was opened between this remote island and countries of which it otherwise ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... pleasant to remember, is it not, my son, that your mother had a keener discernment, and did not give way to the dictates of a ...
— The Unspeakable Gentleman • John P. Marquand
... never doubting that by dint of persevering observation the mystery would be disclosed to me next spring. At last this spring, so fervently desired, arrived; I brought to bear all the patience, all the imagination, all the insight and discernment that I may possess; but, to my utter shame and still greater regret, the secret escaped me. Oh, how painful are those tortures of indecision, when one has to postpone till the following year an investigation which has led to ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... porters at their gates, to deny admittance to the worthy, and to lay violent hands upon the collars of the elect, and say: 'There is nobody at home'; and verily they tell what is true:—When the master has not reason or judgment, understanding or discernment, the porter reported right of him, saying: 'There ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... entered, followed by two scullions bearing in three baskets a dinner, and six bottles of wine selected with discernment. ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... of his imperfect discernment of associations of thought that were not of a purely logical character was afforded, we used to think, by the decided and almost contemptuous manner in which he always rejected the theory of what is ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... disprove Chatterton's frank confession, respecting this poem; for he perceived clearly that the style, the colouring, and images, are nearly the same in this, and the second poem with the same title, and that every reader of any discernment must see at the first glance, that he who wrote the first Battle of Hastings was the authour of all the other poems ascribed to Rowley. —It is observable that Chatterton in the Battle of Hastings, No. 2, frequently imitates ...
— Cursory Observations on the Poems Attributed to Thomas Rowley (1782) • Edmond Malone
... of one chapter of St. Matthew and one of St. Luke. But on the principle that personal observation, a good memory, honesty of purpose, and so forth, are the only requirements necessary, we may proceed to carry forward the work of excision with spirit, so that we be but careful to use discernment. For example, we may begin with the Call of St. Matthew, and the Feast which he made to our LORD in his own house. Who so competent to relate this, as the Evangelist himself? Whenever, in short, the Twelve were present, St. Matthew, (as one of the Twelve,) may be assumed to have ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... among his paper testimonials. About the whole system of Testimonials Milton is considerably dubious. He does not deny that a public testimonial may be an honour, and that there may be proper occasion for such things; but, real discernment of merit being rare, and those who give and those who seek testimonials being but a jumble of the good and the bad together, the abuses of the system bring it into discredit. "The man of highest quality needs another's testimonial the least; nor does any good ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... Nevertheless, I wish to put on record that I regard his attitude as one of intolerance, bigotry, fanaticism, and impudence—sheer, unadulterated impertinence. Who made him the judge of the thoughts and acts of other men's inner lives? Who gave to him the wisdom and power of discernment to know that he was right and these others wrong? Poor, arrogant fool. His worries were not the result of genuine affection and deep human sympathy, the irrepressible and uncontrollable desires and longings of his heart to bring others into the full light of God's love, ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... effect, and the ground is cut from under Lamarck's feet; if, on the other hand, his view is unfounded, the Lamarckian reaction, already strong, will gain still further strength. The issue, therefore, is important, and is being fiercely contested by those who have invested their all of reputation for discernment in ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... that Lady Fitzgerald was not the lawful wife of her husband; and had come to this conclusion on, as he still thought, sufficient evidence. But now he was proved to have been wrong; his character for shrewdness and discernment would be damaged, and his great ally and chum Mr. Die, the Chancery barrister, would be down on him with unmitigated sarcasm. A man who has been right so frequently as Mr. Prendergast, does not like to find that he is ever in the wrong. And then, had his decision not ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... comfort the human soul. Contrast the gloom of Marcus Aurelius with the joy of David in Psalm cxix.; and Seneca, also, with all his discernment, and his eloquent presentation of beautiful precepts, was one of the saddest, darkest characters of Roman history. He was the man who schemed with Catiline, and who at the same time that he wrote epigrams urged Nero onward with ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... Foreseen, and the Unforeseen; the Foreseen is the Effect of the Understanding and of the Will, and the Unforeseen is the Effect of the Discernment of the Eye, and of Custom; which being upheld by this Quality, has no sooner discerned an Action or Opening of the Enemy, than all the Parts which are to act, display themselves to oppose or attack him, as if they depended on the ...
— The Art of Fencing - The Use of the Small Sword • Monsieur L'Abbat
... on and on about things Norman either already knew or did not wish to know—he was thinking of her. "If she happens to meet a man with enough discernment to fall in love with her," he said to himself, "he certainly will never weary. What a pity that such a girl shouldn't have had a chance, should be wasted on some unappreciative chucklehead of her class! What a pity she hasn't ambition—or the quality, whatever it is—that ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... last approached what the owl-like discernment of Caesar pronounced to be a small farmhouse with a few out-buildings. But it was no easy matter to arouse the drowsy countrymen, and a still more difficult task to convince the good man of the house that his nocturnal visitors were ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... surprise, from a few words dropped casually, this man ascertained that their greatest leader was disposed so far to relent, as not to destroy ALL the pale-faces in his power. Whom, and how many he meant to spare, Ungque could not tell; but his quick, practised discernment detected the general disposition, and his ruthless tendency to oppose, caused him to cast about for the means of resisting this sudden inclination to show mercy. With the Weasel, the moving principle was ever that of the demagogue; it was to flatter the mass that he ...
— Oak Openings • James Fenimore Cooper
... destruction? Why were they scattered over the face of the earth, their titles abolished, their escutcheons defaced, their parks wasted, their palaces dismantled, their heritage given to strangers? Because they had no sympathy with the people, no discernment of the signs of their time; because, in the pride and narrowness of their hearts, they called those whose warnings might have saved them theorists and speculators; because they refused all concession till the time had arrived when no concession ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... agility that betrayed the diplomacy of his countenance into ingenuous exultation, Dennis followed the foreman into the warehouse, and the latter at once began his instructions as to the system of marking, and Dennis mastered its simple mysteries with a quickness that was not only flattering to the discernment of his instructor but an indorsement of ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... does the enduement of the Spirit more distinctly manifest itself than in the fine discernment of revealed truth which it imparts. As in service, the contrast between working in the power of the Spirit and in the energy of the flesh is easily discernible, even more clearly in knowledge and teaching ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... last hour, when he swallowed poison to avoid being delivered up to the Romans, he never ceased to combat their ambition with all the powers of his gigantic intellect. If history had preserved no other proof of his profound political discernment, it would be sufficiently established by the memorable words he addressed to the senate of Carthage on the probable fate of Rome:—"Nulla magna civitas diu quiescere potest. Si fores hostem non habet, domi invenit; ut praevalida corpora ab externis causis tutae videntur, sed suis ipsa viribus conficiuntur. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... with students is that they do not take time to polish the jewels which the composers have selected with such keen aesthetic discernment. They think it enough if they merely succeed in playing the note. How horrible! A machine can play the notes, but there is only one machine with a soul and that is the artist. To think that an artist should play only the notes and forget the ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... the genius of the French language; he possessed, after the manner of his nation and his time, le grand gout; he honoured Boileau; he exalted Racine in the highest degree; and, to the praise of his discernment, it may be said ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... of the cause which produced it or the degree of its manifestation. However slightly or severely it may be exhibited, it is all the same. The nicest observation may be demanded for its detection, and it may need the most thoroughly trained powers of discernment to identify and locate it, as in cases in which the animal is said to be fainting, tender, or to go sore. On the contrary, the patient may be so far affected as to refuse utterly to use an injured leg, and under ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... be, who, walking his garden, should scent only the earthy savour of leaves dead or dying, never perceiving, and that afar off, the heavenly odour of roses fresh to-day from the Maker's hands. The discerning by spiritual aroma may lead to discernment by the eye, and to that careful scrutiny, and thence greater knowledge, of which the eye ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald
... immigration question. One says, "Close the doors and let in nobody;" and the other says, "Open wide the doors and let in everybody." I am in sympathy with neither of these classes. There is a happy middle path—a path of discernment and judgment.—Commissioner Robert ...
— Aliens or Americans? • Howard B. Grose
... lieutenant had left the cell, Dumiger eagerly tore open Marguerite's letter, without remarking that it had been opened ere it reached him. He read it through with that rapidity of glance and mental discernment which fear and love combined can alone give. It was with a groan of horror that he allowed the letter to drop from his hands, for the full extent of the difficulties of his situation now broke upon him. She told ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... keen observation and discernment, as a traverser of wild regions and a student of aboriginal life and character, that his pages are made to abound with such vivid and vigorous delineations. He has great skill in description, whether on a grand scale or in the minutest details of adventure or of scenery. He ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... of revising and enlarging the scope of the federal authority, so as to answer the necessary purposes of the Union, grew up in many minds, and by natural degrees, during the experienced inefficacy of the old Confederation. The discernment of General Hamilton must have rendered him an early patron of the idea. That the public attention was called to it by yourself at an early period ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... Mackenzie. He persisted in it so as to make his friends generally believe that the cause of reform was ruined by you. His abuse of you and your friends, and the Methodists, is more than I can stand. He has certainly manifested a great want of discernment, or he has acted from design. I see that the Hamilton Free Press has called in the aid of Mr. F. Collins, of the Canadian Freeman, to assist in abusing ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... a great reach of Discernment, a deep Knowledge, and abundance of Candor requir'd to qualifie a Man for an equal Judge of the Poetry and ingenious Compositions of two Nations, whose Tempers, Humours, Manners, Customs, and Tastes, are so vastly ...
— The Present State of Wit (1711) - In A Letter To A Friend In The Country • John Gay
... fear that my motives could be misjudged or that political prejudices could defeat the just consideration of the merits of my conduct. The result has shewn how safe is this reliance upon the patriotic temper and enlightened discernment of the people. That measure has now been before them and has stood the test of all the severe analysis which its general importance, the interests it affected, and the apprehensions it excited were calculated to produce, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... the Ki family worshipping on Tai-shan, [7] the Master said to Yen Yu, "Cannot you save him from this?" He replied, "It is beyond my power." "Alas, alas!" exclaimed the Master, "are we to say that the spirits of T'ai-shan have not as much discernment as Lin Fang?" ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... make you acquainted with my friend, Good In—er—Mr. Imsen." Pete considered that he was behaving with great discernment and tact. "This is Miss Georgie Howard, the new operator." He twinkled his little eyes at her maliciously. "Say, he ain't got but one chin, and he's only twenty-three years old." He felt that the inference was too ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... the scion of a proud and aristocratic family, who had not been too proud, however, to leave her to starve. Altogether, Miss Husted was an exceedingly romantic, high-strung, middle-aged spinster, miles and miles above her station in life, whose heart and purse were open to any foreigner who had discernment enough to see her weakness and tact enough to pander to it by hinting at his noble lineage. This love of things and beings aristocratic was more than a weakness. It was a disease, for it kept poor a good soul, who otherwise might have been, if not well-to-do, at least ...
— The Music Master - Novelized from the Play • Charles Klein
... what the writer has aimed at, so do words serve to make thought comprehensible; but only up to a certain point. If words are piled up beyond this point they make the thought that is being communicated more and more obscure. To hit that point is the problem of style and a matter of discernment; for every superfluous word prevents its purpose being carried out. Voltaire means this when he says: l'adjectif est l'ennemi du substantif. (But, truly, many authors try to hide their poverty of thought under ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... was indeed remarkable, inasmuch as he possessed, combined, the perfection of physical beauty, mental powers and refined accomplishments. He was generally beloved during his youth for his great powers of discernment, his thirst after knowledge, and his disposition to inquire into the causes of mental phenomena, of the conditions of society, and of the visible manifestations of nature. He was also much beloved for his PURE natural sympathy for all who were suffering afflictions either of a physical ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 9. September, 1880 • Various
... Margaret was exposed to as much observation and inquiry as a country village affords, respecting her disappointed attachment—that the Greys were very angry, and praised Margaret to every person they met—that Mr Walcot eulogised Mrs Rowland's discernment to all Mrs Rowland's party—that Mrs Howell and Miss Miskin lifted up their eyes in thankfulness at Mr Enderby's escape from such a connection—that Mr Hope was reported to be rather flat in spirits—and that Margaret was certainly ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... only an oppressive notion of there being some significance that really mattered in this man's story. That mattered to her. For the first time the shadow of danger and death crossed her mind. Was that the significance? Suddenly, in a flash of acute discernment, she saw herself involved helplessly in that story, as one is ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... patience, but the great mass of the people have not attained the level of Christianity; they are savage both in heart and mind, with no outlook wider than that of the family. It is the Italian proletariat which is judged by the Yugoslavs, whose otherwise acute discernment has been warped by the unhappy circumstances of the time. Indifferent to the fact that he himself is a compound of physical energy and oriental mysticism, the Yugoslav has become inclined to contemplate merely the physical side of the Italian, and for the most part that portion of it which ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... it has been more frequented than formerly; and I found it to be a prevailing sentiment, that were it not for the advantages of Cape Town, Simon's Bay would, in every respect, be preferable for the royal dockyard, and the equipment of His Majesty's ships. It was remarked to me by an officer of discernment, captain of the flag ship, that instances of vessels being driven from their anchors by winds blowing into Simon's Bay, were exceedingly rare. He had observed that the strain upon the cables with these winds, was ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis • Matthew Flinders
... there the Duke of Gloucester, brother of George III, king of England, came to that city and was present at a dinner given in his honor at the house of the governor of the garrison, the Count de Broglie. This count was a person of great sympathy and discernment. He had been observing the tall, red-haired boy of quiet, assured manner and few words, who represented so distinguished a family and gave so great promise for a future career. Eighteen years before he had seen this boy's father fall in battle, so he had a special interest in him. He ...
— Lafayette • Martha Foote Crow
... been written in vain if I have not made clear what the world owes this rare woman, not only for the sedulous care which kept the invalid genius alive long after the time allotted to him in the book of fate, but for the intellectual sympathy and keen discernment with which ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez |
