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Distance   /dˈɪstəns/   Listen
Distance

noun
1.
The property created by the space between two objects or points.
2.
A distant region.
3.
Size of the gap between two places.  Synonym: length.  "He determined the length of the shortest line segment joining the two points"
4.
Indifference by personal withdrawal.  Synonym: aloofness.
5.
The interval between two times.  Synonym: space.  "It all happened in the space of 10 minutes"
6.
A remote point in time.  "At a distance of ten years he had forgotten many of the details"



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"Distance" Quotes from Famous Books



... as if he had never seen her before. He asked her how she had come to think such a thing, and was perplexed by her embarrassments. She was sorry for her liking for Gounod's melodies. It seemed to alienate them; they seemed to have drifted apart. She saw a silently widening distance, as if two ships were moving away. One day he asked her if she were going to communion next Sunday. She answered that she did not think so, and sat thinking a long while, for she had become suddenly aware that she was not as pious as she used to be. ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... their wings, and Icarus felt himself sustained, like a halcyon-bird in the hollow of a wave, like a child uplifted by his mother, he forgot everything in the world but joy. He forgot Crete and the other islands that he had passed over: he saw but vaguely that winged thing in the distance before him that was his father Daedalus. He longed for one draught of flight to quench the thirst of his captivity: he stretched out his arms to the sky and made towards ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... The distance was trifling, the water was shallow, the bed of the river was (fortunately for me) of sand. Beyond the fright and the wetting I had nothing to complain of. In a few moments I was out of the water and up ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins

... two heads (Great and Little Ararat), and not on the top of either. Various attempts have been made in different ages to ascend these tremendous mountain pyramids, but in vain. Their forms, snows, and glaciers are insurmountable obstacles: the distance being so great from the commencement of the icy region to the highest points, cold alone would be the destruction of any one who had the hardihood ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben

... meeting Jan. 26, 27, 1892, the Rev. Joseph Cook gave an address. Lucy Stone presided at the New England convention and Mrs. Howe at the Festival. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt was the speaker from a distance. Letters were read from the Hon. Thomas B. Reed, Terence V. Powderly and U. S. Senators Joseph M. Carey and Francis ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... King, and vndone me: I haue wedded her, not bedded her, and sworne to make the not eternall. You shall heare I am runne away, know it before the report come. If there bee bredth enough in the world, I will hold a long distance. My duty to you. Your vnfortunate sonne, Bertram. This is not well rash and vnbridled boy, To flye the fauours of so good a King, To plucke his indignation on thy head, By the misprising of a Maide too vertuous For the ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... and gone on his way, but not before witnessing Cleek's obeisance, and flashing upon him a sharp, searching look. Cleek quickened his steps and shortened the distance between them. Now or never was the time to put to the test that wild thought which last night had hammered on his brain, for it was certain that this man was in very truth a genuine Cingalese, and, as such, must know! He stretched forth his hand and touched ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... Like most attempts to define boundaries running through unexplored territories, the treaty terms admitted of two interpretations. The boundary line from Portland Channel to Mount St. Elias was stipulated to run everywhere a distance of ten marine leagues from the coast and to follow its sinuosities. This particular coast, however, is bitten into by long fiords stretching far into the country. Great Britain held that these were not part of the sea in the sense of the treaty and that the line should ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... a bewildered stop. Fainter and more indistinguishable had Lad's floundering tracks become. Now,—by dint of distance and snow,—they ceased to be visible in the welter of drifted whiteness under the glare of ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... spears, fighting armies, were no more than what we call the Aurora Borealis or northern lights, or ignited vapours floating in the air; showers of stones, of ashes, or of fire, were no other than the effects of the eruptions of some volcano at a considerable distance; showers of milk were caused by some quality in the air, condensing, and giving a whitish colour to the water; and those of blood are now well known to be only the red spots left upon the earth, on stones and leaves of trees, by the butterflies which hatch in ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian

... wind they could hear a yell from a distance, and then came more cries from the deck, followed by a bump on the side of ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... From this distance the whole scene was a riot of color and great red and purple auroral lights of Venus, which at this midnight hour rode the upper sky, tinged everything vividly. The archway lights were soft rose, silver and gold. Some of the tiny islands, from sources hidden were bathed in bright silver. ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings

... on so narrow a road, with the canal on one side, and a deep drop into meadows on the other, an adventure would be disagreeable. But it was not all straight sailing ahead. Outside the traffic, I put on speed to make up for lost time, and the car quickly ate up the distance between Amsterdam ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... the distance the gypsies are heard singing "No More at Evening." They sing until ...
— Redemption and Two Other Plays • Leo Tolstoy et al

... A canal ran parallel with it at a distance of fifty yards, and on the canal a boat was moving in the direction of Hanbridge at the rate of a mile an hour. Such was the only other vehicle in sight. The outskirts of Knype, the nearest town, did not begin ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... mockery, had nicknamed "The Saints". Riggness was reached in twenty minutes, the train stopped at the small wayside station, and the Rodenhurst party got out in a hurry. They were to descend to the beach, and walk along the shore to Linkthwaite Bay, a distance of about three miles, geologizing as they went. A steep zigzag path led down the side of the cliff to the sands, and when once her flock was all collected at the bottom, Miss Roberts improved the occasion by giving a short lecture on the formation of the rocks which formed the ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil

... personal freedom, but he has not yet come to a comprehension of that higher liberty which is law; passions are unbridled, the whim of the moment is an all-compelling power, and the time was yet far in the distance when society could feel ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... the turkey and some other animals they have an antipathy to a red colour, and are excited by it to mischief. When in a state of liberty they run with great swiftness, keeping pace with the speed of an ordinary horse. Upon an attack or alarm they fly to a short distance, and then suddenly face about and draw up in battle-array with surprising quickness and regularity; their horns being laid back, and their muzzles projecting. Upon the nearer approach of the danger that presses on them they make a second flight, and a second time halt and form; and this excellent ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden

... was certainly not of palatial dimensions or accommodations. Before the war it had been a tobacco warehouse, situated close by the Lynchburg Canal, and a short distance from James River, whose waters ran by in full view of the longing eyes which gazed upon them from the close-barred prison windows. For the story which we have to tell some description of the make-up of this ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... on across a drift close at hand.' When we got opposite it, he kept straight on; I called to him, and said this was where we were to cross. His reply was, 'Come on.' I then said to Captain Elliot, 'They intend taking us back to Pretorius,' a distance of some forty miles. Suddenly the escort (which had all at once increased from two to eight men, which Captain Elliot pointed out to me, and I replied, 'I suppose they are determined we shall not escape, which they need not be afraid of, as we are too keen to get over the border') wheeled sharp ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke

... death. The man, a well-built young fellow of perhaps twenty-eight, had been shot in the right eye, a ball having penetrated the brain, killing him instantly. The face showed marks of flame and powder, proving that the weapon—undoubtedly a pistol—had been discharged from a very short distance. ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett

... active, and years in that retreat had told upon her not at all. She would still walk to Liscannor, and thence round, when the tide was low, beneath the cliffs, and up by a path which the boys had made from the foot through the rocks to the summit, though the distance was over ten miles, and the ascent was very steep. She would remain for hours on the rocks, looking down upon the sea, when the weather was almost at its roughest. When the winds were still, and the sun was setting across the ocean, and the tame waves were only ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope

... severall kinds, and sorts of earths quarreyes of stone, minerals, and mines of mettalls, then in any other Realme whatsoever; notwithstanding no one place hath beene observed to have them either in such plentie, or variety in so small a distance, as this. For here is found not onely white and yellow marle, plaister, oker, rudd, or rubricke, free-stone, an hard greet-stone, a soft reddish stone, iron-stone, brimstone, vitreall, nitre, allum, lead, copper, (and without doubt diverse mixtures of these) but ...
— Spadacrene Anglica - The English Spa Fountain • Edmund Deane

... was the munificent sum of L17 10 s. He reared and educated a numerous family of twelve children. Every Sunday he entertained those members of his congregation who came from a distance, taught the village school, acted as scrivener and lawyer for the district, farmed, and helped his neighbours in haymaking and sheep-shearing, spun cloth, studied natural history, and, in spite of all this, was throughout a devoted and earnest parish priest. He was certainly entitled to ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield

... give an account of her feeling for children; it was something like the sacred awe of the lover. "Whenever I see Florence and Julia again I shall feel like a fond but bashful suitor, who views at a distance the fair personage to whom, in his clownish awe, he dare not risk a near approach. Such is the clearest idea I can give you of my feeling towards children I like, but to whom I am a stranger—and to what children am I ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair

... was not absolutely sheer. At the distance of twelve or fourteen feet below, a great bulging shelf of rock projected. They fell upon this. The boy had instantly loosed his hold of the reins, and slipped away from the prostrate animal. The mare, quieted only ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock

... a perfect terror on all the estates within their reach, it was essential that they should be given a severe lesson, and this could only be done by their principal villages, which lay at some considerable distance from the base of operations, being visited in force. The difficult country and the paucity of transport necessitated the columns being lightly equipped; no tents were to be allowed, and baggage and followers were to be reduced ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts

... which bound the oxen to their burden. He spoke to his beasts, and accompanied his word with a goad from a pointed stick he held in his hand, when his farther progress was stopped by Henri's calling from a little distance down the road. ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Col. 2:15.) They cannot harm those who hide in Christ. Sin, death, the wrath of God, hell, the devil are mortified in Christ. Where Christ is near the powers of evil must keep their distance. St. John says: "And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... sort, were drenched to the skin. On the following morning the sun shone forth, and the disembarkation continued. No enemy was encountered till the 19th, when two or three Russian guns opened fire, and a body of Cossacks were seen hovering in the distance. The Earl of Cardigan instantly charged them, and they retreated till the British cavalry were led within range of the fire of their guns, when four dragoons were killed and six wounded,—the first of the many thousands who fell during ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... asking. And we can see—no need of the glass—ahead, astern, abeam, aloft, some thousands of them streaming in the fresh west wind, and within signal distance of their beautiful waving folds a multitude of men and women in whom the sense of patriotism must have become immeasurably deepened for ...
— The U-boat hunters • James B. Connolly

... and made his mitre fall from his head. If I had stayed there a moment longer the Bishop, with all the monks, would have fallen upon me. I descended the four steps of the altar in great haste, for I was nimble enough at that time, and looked on the battle at a distance, which appeared so comical that I could not but laugh, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... was seen coming around the headland. This was one of his own boats, which had been posted as a sentinel, and which now brought the news that two vessels were coming in at the mouth of the river, but that as the distance was great and the night was coming on they could not decide what manner of craft ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton

... was conscious of a rushing, whispering sound in the air, and something went past him at a tremendous pace into the sky. The wind stirred his hair as it passed, and a moment later he heard voices far away in the distance—up in the sky or within the house he could not tell—singing mournfully the song ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood

... distance, is done at night, both by Europeans and natives, and if a native has to walk far he usually carries a mat, and when the day begins to get hot he unrolls his mat and lies down on it by the roadside. It does not surprise any one, ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough

... an' money an' all the rest, like him," Henry rejoined. "Long-distance funerals is somethin' you an' ...
— White Fang • Jack London

... at some distance from the others, "That is my girl, Brownie! You're firing on all forty barrels. You're an Operator, all right; and it takes a damn good one to lie like ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith

... a short distance away, had a border of tall trees and a hem of rushes, while on its quiet black surface there ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various

... coast road, yes. It's about twice the distance, with the ups and downs, and you can't ride all the way. ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... seated on her Saratoga trunk as on a throne, was gazing blandly down upon the earnest features of the Commander, who, at her feet, guitar in hand, was evidently repeating some musical composition. His subaltern sat near him, divided in admiration of his chief and the guest. Miss Keene, at a little distance, aided by the secretary, was holding an animated conversation with a short, stout, Sancho Panza-looking man, whom the Padre recognized as ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte

... letters, nay, even readable words and sentences. As we watched this tardy progress in impatient silence, suddenly, as if stung by some poisonous reptile, the Indian sprang upon his legs, and, making eager signs for us to approach, pointing at the same time eagerly to something a short distance beyond where he stood. A near approach revealed a tiny hand and part of an arm ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... with it until it either masters the free principle in our government, or is so far mastered by the free principle as for the public mind to rest in the belief that it is going to its end. This sentiment, which I now express in this way, was, at no great distance of time, perhaps in different language, and in connection with some collateral ideas, expressed by Governor Seward. Judge Douglas has been so much annoyed by the expression of that sentiment that he has constantly, I believe, in almost all his speeches ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln

... unwearying assistance We of the Ruling Race, when sorely tried, Can keep intrusive persons at a distance, And let unseasonable matters slide; Thou at whose blast the powers of irritation Yield to a soft and gentlemanly lull Of solid peace and flat Procrastination, These to thy praise and honour, good ...
— Rhymes of the East and Re-collected Verses • John Kendall (AKA Dum-Dum)

... come upon the two Erwyns walking with their attendant in Kensington Gardens, and, seeing them at some distance, Robin asked her companion to turn ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and costly luxuries shamed even the ornate enrichment of her father's mansion; fearfully, too, she regarded the hieroglyphical inscriptions on the walls—the faces of the mysterious images, which at every corner gazed upon her—the tripod at a little distance—and, above all, the grave and remarkable countenance of Arbaces himself: a long white robe like a veil half covered his raven locks, and flowed to his feet: his face was made even more impressive by its present paleness; and his dark and penetrating eyes seemed to pierce the ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

... as slightly as possible. Painting, on the other hand, delights in exhibiting, along with the principal figures, all the details of the surrounding locality and all secondary circumstances, and to open a prospect into a boundless distance in the background; and light and shade with perspective are its peculiar charms. Hence the Dramatic, and especially the Tragic Art, of the ancients, annihilates in some measure the external circumstances of space and ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black

... the journey thither was not made with the comfort and facility with which it is now accomplished; and the Professor himself has told how, on landing from the North off the ferry-boat at Newport, he walked all the way to St Andrews—a distance of eleven miles—along with the carrier's son by the side of the cart which conveyed his luggage to its destination. Widely different as were the future careers of those two youths, there were various interesting points of contact in their lives, the one becoming an eminent ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell

... Horatio Heatherbloom had walked slowly on; he was now some distance from the one-time "emporium." Where should he go? His fortunes had not been enhanced materially by his brief excursion into the realms of melody; he had thirty cents in cash and a "dollar-and-a-half appetite." An untidy place ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... tracks away; hills ascending; then pleasantly away, away, through a forest away, through a forest away; we see a water-the water of Goonmarrup. Along the river away, along the river away, a short distance we go, then away, away, away, through ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc

... I ne'er beheld? I have beheld it. From thence am I come hither: O! that sight, It glimmers still before me, like some landscape Left in the distance,—some delicious landscape! My road conducted me through countries where 110 The war has not yet reached. Life, life, my father— My venerable father, life has charms Which we have ne'er experienced. We have been But voyaging along its barren coasts, Like ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... would have been a blessing for the common weal of Europe. But, alas! the evil genius of jealousy, which so often forbids cordial relations between soldier and statesman, already stood shrouded in the distance, darkly menacing the strenuous patriot, who was wearing his life out in exertions for what he deemed the true ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... S.S.W. of Laibach by rail, Pop. (1900) 3636, mostly Slovene. About a mile from the town is the entrance to the famous stalactite cavern of Adelsberg, the largest and most magnificent in Europe. The cavern is divided into four grottoes, with two lateral ramifications which reach to the distance of about a mile and a half from the entrance. The river Poik enters the cavern 60 ft. below its mouth, and is heard murmuring in its recesses. In the Kaiser-Ferdinand grotto, the third of the chain, a great ball is annually ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... with the infantry, and the batteries of heavy calibre are distributed along the line, or concentrated on some important point where their fire may be most effectual. They reach the enemy's forces at a distance, and arrest the impulsion of his attack. They may also be employed to draw the fire of his artillery; but their movements are too slow and ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... the Adams family doctor, lived but three blocks away, and through the snow and the night Charley ran the whole distance. The doctor said that he'd be along immediately, or as soon as he had finished his supper; and arrive he did, when Charley had been ...
— Gold Seekers of '49 • Edwin L. Sabin

... flying about her ears, appeared to frighten her afresh, and she tore up the opposite ascent, which was longer and steeper than the last, like a mad creature. I was glad to perceive, however, that the pace at which she had come, and the distance (which must have been several miles), were beginning to tell—her glossy coat was stained with sweat and dust, while her breath, drawn with short and laboured sobs, her heaving flanks, and the tremulous motion of her limbs, afforded convincing proofs that the struggle ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley

... the world from a corner of a drawing-room, I learnt more of it in a few days than I should have done in a whole year from guesses and inquiries. I doubt whether I should ever have understood society, if I had always been obliged to view it from a certain distance. My brain refused to form a clear image of the ideas which occupied the brains of others. But as soon as I found myself in the midst of this chaos, the confused mass was compelled to fall into some sort of order and reveal a large part of ...
— Mauprat • George Sand

... fired a second shot followed by a third, which went through the little top-mast of the St. Francis. Vergor then made preparations for the combat, the frigate continuing to approach and firing four cannon shots at his sails. When within speaking distance Vergor called through his trumpet that he was in command of a ship of the King of France carrying provisions and munitions to the troops of his majesty. The English captain in reply ordered him to lay to or he would sink him. Vergor repeated his announcement in English, but, for answer ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond

... but he did not seem anxious about getting to Brighton. And at last his patience, or his obstinacy, was rewarded; he saw two figures—away along there—that he instantly recognized; even at a greater distance he could have told that one of these was Honnor Cunyngham, for who else in all England walked like that? The two ladies were unattended by either man or maid; and as they came along they seemed rather concerned at the ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... 1519] Coasting down the east of South America, [October 21, 1519] exploring the inlets and rivers, he entered the straits that bear his name and covered their 360 miles in thirty-eight days. After following the coast up some distance north, he struck across the Pacific, the breadth of which he much underestimated. For ninety-eight days he was driven by the east trade-wind without once sighting land save two desert islands, while his crew endured extremities of hunger, thirst and scurvy. At last he came to ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... waited to hear her out before he started in pursuit. As if favored by fortune, he caught a glimpse of Edith's purple dress among the trees in the distance. She had no umbrella, and was wandering about pale and ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... years which, according to the author of "Supernatural Religion," he lived there, he must have constantly had intercourse with Alexandrian Jews and Christians. It is as probable as not that during this period he had had converse with Philo himself, for the distance between Jerusalem and Alexandria was comparatively trifling. At Pentecost there were present Jews and proselytes from Egypt and the parts of Libya about Cyrene. There was also a Synagogue of the Alexandrians. Now I assert ...
— The Lost Gospel and Its Contents - Or, The Author of "Supernatural Religion" Refuted by Himself • Michael F. Sadler

... the cob pipe's empty stomach and lighting a match thereto and sending a few initiatory puffs into the air, these mountaineers made off in the darkness toward their homes in different directions. Some went in groups, some by twos, some singly. Seen from a distance in the blackness of the night these companies resembled a regiment of glow-worms in a potato patch. From over the flint hills in the distance came the familiar rattle and rumble of old-fashioned lumber wagons whose occupants had come far to hear the much-discussed preacher from "over east." Now and ...
— The Deacon of Dobbinsville - A Story Based on Actual Happenings • John A. Morrison

... considered a pattern of rigid propriety and decorum of conduct. Not the shadow of military crime had ever been laid to his charge. He was punctual at all parades and drills; kept the company to which he was attached in a perfect hot water of discipline; never missed his distance in marching past, or failed in a military manoeuvre; paid his mess-bill regularly to the hour, nay, minute, of the settling day; and was never, on any one occasion, known to enter the paymaster's office, ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson

... under him. They were rough hewn, and given light he reckoned he could go down by 'em with a bit of luck and the Lord to guide his feet. Then he considered how far it might be to the bottom, and dropped a piece of stone or two, and was a good bit heartened to find the distance weren't so very tremendous. In fact he judged himself to be about half-way down and reckoned that another thirty feet or thereabout would get him to the end. He took off his coat then and flung it down; and next he started, with his heart in his ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts

... too much interested in gazing into upstairs windows, where hundreds of people were at work in tiny, dark rooms, to pay much attention to the first stops at stations that their train made. They knew they were still some distance from Mrs. Curtis's. Madge was completely fascinated at the spectacle of a fat, frowsy woman holding a baby by its skirt on the sill of a six-story tenement house. Just as the car went by the baby made a leap toward the train. Madge smothered her scream as the woman jerked the ...
— Madge Morton's Victory • Amy D.V. Chalmers

... least, my dear friend. I do not dispute the value or your document. You have discovered what I have found it impossible to do—the true 'Cynthia,' which was lost at a little distance from our coast, and at a specified epoch; but permit me to say, that this only confirms precisely my theory, for the vessel was a Canadian one, or in other words, English, and the Irish element is very strong in some parts of Canada, and I have therefore ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne

... of the shaft were the heavy upright guides, running from top to bottom and serving to keep in place the cross-head, which was fitted to move easily between them. Down, down they went, for what seemed to the boy a limitless distance. They had passed a great square chamber, opening into along, lighted corridor which Mr. Everett had told him were the station and cross-cut at the four-hundred level, and still they were sinking. All at once they came to a sudden ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray

... uncle Ben had come out of the woods, and was coming to live on our plantation, my joy knew no bounds. On the day when he was expected to arrive I got permission to go out on the road some distance and meet them. Early in the morning I caught a horse and started. Every wagon I met filled me with hope and fear blended; hope that the wagon contained my uncle and aunt, and fear that it did not. I rode on, on, on, all that day, until my heart was sick ...
— Biography of a Slave - Being the Experiences of Rev. Charles Thompson • Charles Thompson

... shone; they crossed over one another, and fled into the distance until lost to sight. The train windows were shut; silence reigned in the station; from time to time there resounded a violent hammering on the axles; a curtain here or there was raised, and behind the misted glass the dishevelled head of a ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja

... and lovely, the fields bathed in silvery light and the wooded uplands shrouded in a soft, gray shadow, from the heart of which a single lighted window gleamed forth, a spot of rosy warmth. The bark of a watch-dog came softened by distance from some solitary farmstead, and far away below, the hoot of a steamer, creeping up the river to ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman

... there, or even to remain, and begged them if they wished to save their own lives, to leave the ground. Kline replied, "Do you really think so?" "Yes," was the answer, "the sooner you leave, the better, if you would prevent bloodshed." Kline then left the ground, retiring into a very safe distance into a cornfield, and toward the woods. The blacks were so exasperated by his threats, that, but for the interposition of the two white Friends, it is very doubtful whether he would have escaped without injury. Messrs. Hanaway and Lewis both exerted their influence ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still

... all story—story! You are the father of every military blunder that has been made during the war. You are on your road to h—l, sir, with this Government, and you are not a mile off this minute." Lincoln calmly retorted, "Senator, that is just about the distance from here to the Capitol, is it not?" The exasperated Wade grabbed his hat and rushed angrily from the ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne

... waste land toward the crumbling Spanish convent. In this place there was a fine sense of repose, of vast quiet. Everything was dead; the soft spring air gave no life. Even in the geniality of the April day, with the brilliant, theatrical waters of the lake in the distance, the scene was gaunt, savage. To the north, a broad dark shadow that stretched out into the lake defined the city. Nearer, the ample wings of the white Art Building seemed to stand guard against the improprieties of civilization. To the far south, a line of thin ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... told herself how foolish she was, for he had a cold, and this keen air would have been sure to give him more. The electric-car passed her, and she had a grateful sense of companionship. She looked after its diminishing light in the distance, and almost wished that she had stopped it, but car-fares had ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I waved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited; sometimes lying on the bank, wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving about to warm ourselves, until we saw our boat coming round. We got aboard easily, and rowed ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... hoary In the distance, gray and dead; There no wreaths of godless glory To his mist-like tresses wed, And the foot-fall of the Ages Reigns ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor

... island-folk would exchange their cattle for cloth, corn, tea, &c., which they could not produce themselves. The island is volcanic in origin, and is exposed to the most terrific gales; the building used as a church stood at some distance from Mr. Dodgson's dwelling, and on one occasion the wind was so strong that he had to crawl on his hands and knees for the whole distance that separated ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood

... whom he reports as having levelled light reproaches against so great a philosopher, and who of them has even left an accusation of him committed to writing, etc. The whole faction of the Epicureans, always wandering at an equal distance from truth, and thinking everything ridiculous which they do not understand, has ridiculed the sacred volume, and the most venerable mysteries of nature. But Colotes, who is somewhat celebrated and remarkable for ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... those days was an important city, numbering five thousand solteros (unmarried men). On the way back to the village, we visited the arbol huerfano—orphan tree—a cypress, so called because it is the only tree of its kind in this district. Quechol says that a long line of such trees, at a distance of several leagues apart, was planted by the Spaniards, and he and the villagers mentioned a number of them in different places. Passing once more by the spot of martyrdom, a white capulin was pointed out, as being the very tree represented in the ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr

... moon had come out there would be wafted through the limpid air the sounds of a frightened bird fluttering, of a bulrush rubbing against its fellows in the gentle breeze, and of a fish rising with a splash. Over the dark water there would gather a thin, transparent mist; and though, in the distance, night would be looming, and seemingly enveloping the entire horizon, everything closer at hand would be standing out as though shaped with a chisel—banks, boats, little islands, and all. Beside the margin a derelict barrel would be turning over and over in the water; ...
— Poor Folk • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... perceived that the water was both clear and deep. Hastily he divested himself of his clothing and "Stockie" slowly followed his example. As they stood naked on the bank, before their plunge, a snake shot out almost from under then feet, and swam gracefully over the surface to a stump a little distance off. That was enough for "Stockie," who resumed his clothes. Paul did not like the idea of snakes in the water, still he had traveled far for a swim and he was resolved to have it and so he plunged headlong in. Round and round among the stumps he swam. He saw several ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... entrance to the desert is from Cobija, where the ascent at once begins, and continues for a distance of about three leagues, including the dried-up bed of a torrent, formed in the steep surface of rock. About fifteen leagues from the coast, and parallel with it, a chain of higher mountains rises to a height of between 7000 and 8000 feet. From the summit of these—and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 461 - Volume 18, New Series, October 30, 1852 • Various

... process goes on as the generations of men pass on their way, with their eyes fixed, as they cannot help being, on the great human heights of their own and earlier days. Many of these look great only when you are close to them. At a little distance they are seen to be small and soon they disappear altogether. The true mountains remain but they do not keep the same shape. Each succeeding generation sees the peaks of humanity from a new point of view which cannot ...
— Milton • John Bailey

... passing through the narrow aperture between the obliquely inclined wing and the body of the instrument. The dimensions of the resonant box are as follows: height, 1.28 meters; width, 0.27 meter; and thickness, 0.075 meter. Distance between the two bridges, or length of the sonorous portion of the cords, about 1 meter; width of the wings, 0.14 meter. Distance between the sounding board and the wings, 0.42 meter. Inclination of the wings, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various

... dizzy with what I had seen that, as my feet touched the ground, I staggered like a drunken man, and then I heard my name sounded and passed from one flunky to another up the magnificent staircase into the blue haze of the hallway, and gradually sounding fainter and fainter until it was lost in the distance of the mysterious corridor. I still staggered as I mounted the steps, and the Major ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs

... under his paternal rule about 300 agricultural tenants besides the villagers of Sneem, who mostly have lots lying contiguous to, or at some little distance from, their houses. The holdings, albeit averaging the grass of six cows, vary very considerably in size and quality. Thus one farmer holds 803 acres, or "the grass of twenty-four cows," with mountain run attached, at a rent of 35l., while another who has ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... extending to between four and five months. Three or four weeks are allowed for in London, and two or three weeks in Paris. If the tour be extended and more time be consumed, the additional expense may easily be calculated. Bradshaw's 'Continental Guide' will give the exact cost and distance on the railways; and for hotel expenses, lunches, and fees, a dollar a day will provide the economical traveller. He will need no courier, nor, if he knows the language (French will do, but it is better also to understand Italian and German), a valet de place. Both ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... for Nobs' return, I could not but speculate upon my chances should I be attacked by some formidable beast. I was some distance from the forest and armed with weapons in the use of which I was quite untrained, though I had practiced some with the spear since leaving the Kro-lu country. I must admit that my thoughts were not pleasant ones, verging almost upon cowardice, until I chanced ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... Which in fact it did in this case. P.S.—Nanjivell ought to rhyme with civil. What a mistake when it rhymes with D—!—Yours faithfully'—and I signed my name. Then, on second thoughts, I tacked on another pos'script. At this distance o' time I can't be sure if 'twas 'Flee from the Wrath to Come' or 'The Wages o' Sin is Death'—but I think the latter, as bein' less easily twisted into a threat. . . . That," added the corporal after a pause, "closed ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)

... a small distance, escorted by those who called themselves friends and relations; and after a mollah had said a prayer, accompanied by the voices of all present, I was invited, as the nearest relative, to place the ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier

... the same day, and almost at the same hour, in which occurred the scene and conversation at the rectory recorded in our last chapter, sat Lord Vargrave and Caroline alone. The party had dispersed, as was usual, at noon. They heard at a distance the sounds of the billiard-balls. Lord Doltimore was playing with Colonel Legard, one of the best players in Europe, but who, fortunately for Doltimore, had of late made it a rule never to play for money. Mrs. and the Misses Cipher, and most of the guests, were in the billiard-room ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book III • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... truth, Miss Benson heard the long-drawn, quivering sighs which came from the poor heavy heart, when it was left to silence, and had leisure to review the past; and her quick accustomed ear caught also the low mutterings of the thunder in the distance, in the shape of Sally's soliloquies, which, like the asides at a theatre, were intended to be heard. Suddenly, Miss Benson called Ruth out of the room, upstairs into her own bed-chamber, and then began rummaging in little old-fashioned boxes, drawn out of an equally old-fashioned ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... fearful distance thither, Pathfinder!" Mabel rejoined, the party being so near together that all which was said by one was overheard by the others. "I am afraid none of us could live to ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper

... because bucalauns are sacred to the faeries. They spent the whole night burning them, the constable repeating spells the while. In the morning the little girl was found, the story goes, wandering in the field. She said the faeries had taken her away a great distance, riding on a faery horse. At last she saw a big river, and the man who had tried to keep her from being carried off was drifting down it—such are the topsy-turvydoms of faery glamour—in a cockleshell. On the way her companions had mentioned ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats

... as despair seized him. He had always coveted adventure but this was too much and he felt himself to be utterly helpless in this dreadful predicament. Even as he stood there in a state of pitiable consternation, a shrill whistle sounded in the distance, which was echoed back from ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... when he learned anything new he froze on to it like grim death. By and by he got a book that was some help, but not much. It told about some of the birds as if you had them in your hand. But this heroic youth only saw them at a distance and he was stuck. One day he saw a wild Duck on a pond so far away he could only see some spots of colour, but he made a sketch of it, and later he found out from that rough sketch that it was a Whistler, and then this wonderful boy had an idea. All the Ducks are different; all have little blots ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton

... of things was becoming, in fact, almost too much for Lady Agatha. Most unpleasant things were happening at home, and occasionally Castle Clare loomed up grayly in the distance like a spectre. Certain tradespeople who ought, in Lady Claraway's opinion, to have kept quiet and waited in patience until things became better, were becoming hideously persistent. In view of the fact that Alix's next ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... ten o'clock when Pete and Jack, in their Scout uniforms, hard to detect at any distance, even in broad daylight, and making them almost invisible at night, took up their vigil. The place seemed to be as silent and deserted as a tomb. Lights were few and far between, but each of them carried an electric torch supplied by Mr. Carew. These they ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland

... gulf, no impassable barrier, between the language of birds, dogs, anthropoid apes, and human speech."[253] "The warning or summoning cry, the germ of the demonstrative roots, is the parent of the names of number, sex, and distance; the emotional cry of which our interjections are but the relics, in combination with the demonstratives, prepares the outlines of the sentence, and already represents the verb and the names of states or actions. Imitation, direct or symbolical, ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... eye, Rip saw Dowst's heavy space boots and knew the private was right with him. As they drove down, one of the Connies stepped a little distance away from the others, probably to get a better look at Santos. The Connie sensed something and turned, just as Rip and Dowst flashed downward on ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin

... had not quite set, they pitched their camp at the foot of a round knoll amidst a valley where was water and grass; and looking down thence, they had a sight of the fruitful plain, wherein lay Cheaping Knowe all goodly blue in the distance. ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris

... sun-stroke on the one hand and with frost-stroke on the other; but we have no atmosphere to speak of in New York and New England, except now and then during the dog-days, or the fitful and uncertain Indian Summer. An atmosphere, the quality of tone and mellowness in the near distance, is the product of a more humid climate. Hence, as we go south from New York,the atmospheric effects become more rich and varied, until on reaching the Potomac you find an atmosphere as well as a climate. The latter is still on the vehement American ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs

... After ascending some distance, Rollo, who went forward, came out upon the landing which led to a range of corridors in the second story, as it were. There were several of these corridors, running side by side, all along the building. ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott

... returned. In vain the old mate and the midshipman scanned the horizon. Not a sail was to be seen approaching the island. Two or three vessels only passed far away in the offing. Many other rocky isles were rising out of the ocean like blue mounds, some of them faint and misty from the distance they were off. Towards one of them the boats had directed their course. It was well-known that many of them were, and had been for ages, the haunts ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston

... considering turning aside and making another detour, he had an object lesson of the effect he produced upon his countrymen. An Indian appeared at a little distance. He was gathering wood, and as he straightened from stooping his eyes fell upon Pio. With a yell he dropped his load and fled at topmost speed, emitting such sounds as we try, but vainly, to utter in a nightmare. This, though a tribute to ...
— The Penance of Magdalena & Other Tales of the California Missions • J. Smeaton Chase

... visit from him one bright afternoon, and was standing by one of the pillars of the vine-covered porch, gazing up at the blue sky above her and waiting to hear the whistle of the train. When she saw her friend from the distance she waved her hand to him and went to meet him, laughing, "I am going to take you out to see my stream and my bobolink to-day. You have not seen our country yet, ...
— King Midas • Upton Sinclair

... walked in advance of the persons who accompanied him, and took much pleasure in being first to call by their names the various localities he passed. A peasant, seeing him thus some distance from his suite, cried out to him familiarly, "Oh, citizen, is the Emperor going to pass soon?"—"Yes," replied ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... one inspired, Pale Melancholy sat retired; And from her wild sequester'd seat, In notes by distance made more sweet, Pour'd through the mellow horn her pensive soul: And, dashing soft from rocks around, Bubbling runnels join'd the sound; Through glades and glooms the mingled measures stole, Or o'er some haunted stream with fond delay Round a holy calm diffusing, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... from Hannibal's cavalry, by occupying the mountains overhanging the Carthaginian camp, where he remained quiet as long as the enemy did, but when they moved he used to accompany them, showing himself at intervals upon the heights at such a distance as not to be forced to fight against his will, and yet, from the very slowness of his movements, making the enemy fear that at every moment he was about to attack. By these dilatory manoeuvres he incurred general contempt, and was looked upon ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... wall, on autumn afternoons; this figure is but the faintest, most spectral of them all. It is the image of what the history it symbolises has more and more become for the world, paler and paler as it recedes into the distance. Criticism came with its appeal from mystical unrealities to originals, and restored no lifelike reality but these transparent shadows, spirits which ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater

... close contact, like Moliere or Saint-Simon. He cut his life in two, writing by night, sleeping by day, and after sparing not a single hour for calling, promenades or sentiment. Indeed, he would not admit this troublesome factor of sentiment, except at a distance and through letters—"because it forms one's style"! At any rate, that is the kind of love he most willingly admitted—unless an exception be made of the mysterious intimacies of which his correspondence has left traces. During his youth he had followed this same habit of heavy labor, and as ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe

... to the subject.—Though it is impossible, at this distance of time, to ascertain as a fact who were the writers of those four books (and this alone is sufficient to hold them in doubt, and where we doubt we do not believe) it is not difficult to ascertain negatively that they were not written by the persons to whom they are ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine



Words linked to "Distance" :   point, maintain, light time, size, time interval, closeness, focal length, hold, piece, elevation, farness, spatial arrangement, nigh, distant, arm's length, minute, remove, close, keep, way, hour, wavelength, farawayness, wingspan, leg, span, spacing, hour angle, far, yardage, region, interval, mileage, remoteness, point in time, part, long-distance runner, milage, wingspread, gauge, separation, altitude, near, wheelbase, indifference, nearness, leave behind, leap



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