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Ray   /reɪ/   Listen
Ray

noun
1.
A column of light (as from a beacon).  Synonyms: beam, beam of light, irradiation, light beam, ray of light, shaft, shaft of light.
2.
A branch of an umbel or an umbelliform inflorescence.
3.
(mathematics) a straight line extending from a point.
4.
A group of nearly parallel lines of electromagnetic radiation.  Synonyms: beam, electron beam.
5.
The syllable naming the second (supertonic) note of any major scale in solmization.  Synonym: re.
6.
Any of the stiff bony spines in the fin of a fish.
7.
Cartilaginous fishes having horizontally flattened bodies and enlarged winglike pectoral fins with gills on the underside; most swim by moving the pectoral fins.



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"Ray" Quotes from Famous Books



... cloth and mosquito netting, and sweat and stifle in the attempt, but he snuffs you and powders you all the same. He puffs his finest clouds in your face, and round and round you till you find bedding and clothing are no more protection against him than they are against the Roentgen ray. One particular night he came in great strength to Dakhala, heaped waves of sand over us, dug great hollows around our quarters, and completed his diabolical games by completely overturning two of my colleagues' tents. I saw my friends emerge from ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh

... Melmoth's for a month; don't be alarm'd, Lucy! I see all her perfections, but I see them with the cold eye of admiration only: a woman engaged loses all her attractions as a woman; there is no love without a ray of hope: my only ambition is to be her friend; I want to be the confidant of her passion. With what spirit such a ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... ovule, is alone affected. But why, because the reproductive system is disturbed, this or that part should vary more or less, we are profoundly ignorant. Nevertheless, we can here and there dimly catch a faint ray of light, and we may feel sure that there must be some cause for each deviation ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... poor boys of the castle looked over the wall, And they saw that ruffian, ould Cromwell, a-feeding on powder and ball, And the fellow that married his daughter, a-chawing grape-shot in his jaw, 'Twas bowld I-ray-ton they called him, ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... vigil? I could not hear a sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same state of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut off the least ray of light, and we waited ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... appeared the morning light Up rose the mighty anchorite, And thus to youthful Rama said, Who lay upon his leafy bed:— "High fate is hers who calls thee son: Arise, 'tis break of day; Rise, Chief, and let those rites be done Due at the morning's ray." At that great sage's high behest Up sprang the princely pair, To bathing rites themselves addressed, And breathed the holiest prayer. Their morning task completed, they To Visvamitra came, That store of holy works, to pay ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... displeased look, as if the lady would have fain declined; no indeterminate thoughts, no indefinite sensations; no languishment; and above all never more the portentous, the ominous look which often in that entrancing dance exhibits to us the mysticism of the Sybil, without one ray of her inspiration. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, January 1844 - Volume 23, Number 1 • Various

... shall trace it even in such abnormal literature of indulgence as the erotic work commonly ascribed to Meursius. We shall trace it in the orgies of Tiberius at Capri; or of Quartilla, as Petronius describes them, at Neapolis. It is like a ray of light coming in at the top of a dark cavern, whose inmates see not it, but by it; and which only brings to them a consciousness of shadow. It is this supernatural element that leavens natural passion, and gives its mad rage to it. It creates for it 'a twilight where virtues are vices.' ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock

... to Barrow, 'See that first ray, like an arrow, How it tinges all the fringes Of the sullen drifting skies. They told me to begin it At five-thirty to the minute, And at thirty-one I'm in it, Or my ...
— Songs of Action • Arthur Conan Doyle

... see no charms for vanity; personal pride is greatly moderated. Nor shall your title of citizenship exclude you from worlds of imagination or of devotion. The Comic spirit is not hostile to the sweetest songfully poetic. Chaucer bubbles with it: Shakespeare overflows: there is a mild moon's ray of it (pale with super-refinement through distance from our flesh and blood planet) in Comus. Pope has it, and it is the daylight side of the night half obscuring Cowper. It is only hostile to the priestly element, when that, by baleful swelling, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... theure Mann Gottes, mein verehrter Luther'! reason, will, understanding are words, to which real entities correspond; and we may in a sound and good sense say that reason is the ray, the projected disk or image, from the Sun of Righteousness, an echo from the Eternal Word—'the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world'; and that when the will placeth itself in a right ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... deserted. In a few houses of the higher class, lights might be seen dimly shining through the casements of the small chambers, hard beside the doorway, appropriated to the use of the Atriensis, or slave whose charge it was to guard the entrance of the court. But, for the most part, not a single ray cheered the dull murky streets, except that here and there, before the holy shrine, or vaster and more elaborate temple, of some one of Rome's hundred gods, the votive lanthorns, though shorn of half their beams by ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert

... the boy could see but one ray of hope, and that centered about Nestor, Jimmie, and the Boy Scouts. He knew, from the call of the Black Bear Patrol signal, on the mountain, that his friends, loyal to the core, were not far away, but he did not know how many ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson

... "that you're a greater fool even than poor Samuel. Is not your engagement to a nice, gentlemanly, clever man like Jasper Quentyns the one ray of brightness in this desolate day? You, child, ...
— A Young Mutineer • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... collected the following luxuries there:— The cat-fish, the sturgeon, and hickory shad, Bass and gar in such plenty it made their hearts glad; The sun and the moon-fish, the star-fish and dab, The sting-ray and sheepshead, drum, grooper and crab; Turkey-buzzards, swans, eagles, form'd excellent hashes, When flavour'd with tallow-nuts, pompions, and squashes; Baked frogs, "en surprise," from a forest on fire, Flamingoes, removed by a huge Lammergeyer; Gulls, ravens, herons, ...
— The Quadrupeds' Pic-Nic • F. B. C.

... new life awaiting them all made her too restless to lie still any longer. She got up, to sit on the edge of the bed and switch on the light. Dale was gone—he had been summoned to adjust one of the machines in the ship's X-ray room—and Billy was asleep, nothing showing of him above the covers but a crop of brown hair and the furry nose of his ...
— Space Prison • Tom Godwin

... visible fear of finding some accident produced by the wind or rain; but, after a careful inspection of the fountain, the grotto, and the arbor, which were its three principal ornaments, the excellent face of the gardener was lighted by a ray of joy, as the weather was by the ray of sun. He perceived, not only that everything was in its place, but that the reservoir was full to overflowing. He thought he might indulge in playing his fountain, a treat which, ordinarily, following the example of Louis XIV., he only allowed himself ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... mission, and the hope of everlasting life it brought to the perishing. He led them back to the hour when moral darkness enshrouded the world, and mankind were doomed to perish under the frown of an offended God. There was but one ray to cheer the gloom, the prophetic promise of the Messiah who should come to redeem the world. To this they looked, and vainly dreamed that he should appear in regal splendor, to gather his followers and form a temporal kingdom. Far from this, the angel's song was breathed ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various

... discovering those in the dressing-room. These eluded her for some minutes, but at length, all lights being turned off, Aunt Ruth found herself in total darkness. She groped about in it for some time without success, for the heavy curtains had been closely drawn, and not a ray of light penetrated the spacious rooms from any quarter. After having followed the wall for what seemed an interminable distance without reaching a recognizable position, she was forced to call to her husband. He was asleep, and responded only after being many times addressed. ...
— The Twenty-Fourth of June • Grace S. Richmond

... mischiefs of the occupation there now seems to come no single ray of light. The present year will not pass over without a change in the local situation at Cairo, from which a conference is likely to result. A passage near the end of Lord Rosebery's despatch shows that he is prepared to have a conference forced upon him. Had we invited it, such a conference ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn

... the tides of hope and fear, by crises in the headlines today that become mere footnotes tomorrow. Both the successes and the setbacks of the past year remain on our agenda of unfinished business. For every apparent blessing contains the seeds of danger—every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope—and the one unchangeable certainty is that ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... the castle wall. It had probably been originally a projection from the building; and the small fissure, which communicated with the dungeon, contrived for air, had terminated within it. But the aperture had been a little enlarged by decay, and admitted a dim ray of light to its recesses, although it could not be observed by those who visited the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... no mind for sleep sat there beside the fire and watched the sun sink behind the low black line of the mainland, now plainly visible in the cleared air. It dyed the waves blood red, and shot out one long ray to crimson a single floating cloud, no larger than a man's hand, high in the blue. Sea birds, a countless multitude, went to and fro with harsh cries from island to marsh, and marsh to island. The marshes were still green; they lay, a half moon of fantastic shapes, each ...
— To Have and To Hold • Mary Johnston

... RAY, JOHN (1627-1705).—Naturalist, s. of a blacksmith at Black Notley, Essex, was at Camb., where he became a Fellow of Trinity, and successively lecturer on Greek and mathematics. His first publication ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin

... turned down: not a ray of light stole through them, only the spicy air. There was something solemn stalking in the entries, and all through the house. It seemed as if there was ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich

... smile warms her sad lips as she says this, and lights up her shining eyes like a ray of sunlight. Then it fades, ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford

... This first ray of awakening memory was more radiant to the Priestess than a thousand stars could have produced if all their rays could have blended into one. But calmness was her external bearing. Seldom any manifestation of an unusual emotion, was ...
— Within the Temple of Isis • Belle M. Wagner

... the headlands comes the day, Though moon and planet on a sky of gold, Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled, Have floated long before the sun's first ray Has shot across the waters to display Amalfi in her dotage; as of old His beams lit up her splendours manifold, Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay. His smile makes every barren hill-side blush In rose and purple for the glories fled, As early watchers note th' encroaching ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan

... counted himself among the launched, no doubt, and had breasted seas; but the boy was alive, a trencherman lad, in the coming schoolmaster, and told him profitable facts concerning his condition; besides throwing a luminous ray on the arcane of our elusive youthful. If they have no stout zest for ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... drowning, were killed by the force with which they were dashed on shore: there, with broken bones and gnashed and blood-stained bodies, they slept in death, like men who had fallen in some great battle. It was noon, but not a ray of sunlight glinted across the ghastly scene. Every sound was lost in the terrific roar of the great, heaving hills of water, which rolled in continuously; huge masses of wet gray cloud hung over all, obscuring or transforming every visible object. Far ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul

... services to tell what has been done on me. The performance repels me as crude and rather bad taste. I swear to you on my honor as an American woman and a mother that what I have written you is true, absolutely. If you can give me any light or if my experience may perchance give you a helping ray, my renewed lease on life may have had some purpose after all, which I have often ...
— Psychotherapy • Hugo Muensterberg

... not then winde up that light In ribands, and o'er-cloud in night, Like the sun in's early ray; But shake your head, and ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... traceries on wall and ceiling, at the things she had loved—the beautiful porcelains, the delicate, brocaded hangings. Then she passed out on to the terrace. What a wondrous summer evening it was! The sun was sinking low in the west—when the last ray had vanished the soldiers would come to drag her away. It was time, she must hasten—and yet she lingered. She leaned on the balustrade and contemplated the palace. Her thoughts travelled back to the days when Ludwigsburg ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay

... I heard a tumult of voices behind us, some in praise and some in blame of what had been done. We walked on in silence broken only by the measured tramp of the guards. Presently the moon passed behind a cloud and the world was dark. Then from the edge of the cloud sprang out a ray of light that lay straight and narrow above us on the heavens. Seti studied ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... motions, looks, and eyes; At every word a reputation dies. Snuff, or the fan, supply each pause of chat, With singing, laughing, ogling, and all that. Meanwhile, declining from the noon of day, The sun obliquely shoots his burning ray; The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, And wretches hang that jurymen may dine; The merchant from th' Exchange returns in peace, And the long labours of the toilet cease. Belinda now, whom thirst of fame invites, Burns to encounter ...
— English Poets of the Eighteenth Century • Selected and Edited with an Introduction by Ernest Bernbaum

... the Cajano property of the great Lorenzo. The stables were admirably arranged, and of permanent character; the neatness was equal to that of the dairies of Holland. The Swiss cows, of a pretty dun-color, were kept stalled, and luxuriously fed upon freshly cut ray-grass, clover, or vetches, with an occasional sprinkling of meal; the calves were invariably reared by hand; and the average per diem of milk, throughout the season, was stated at fourteen quarts; and I think Madonna Clarice never strained more than this ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... made and concluded near the mouth of the Mississinewa, upon the Wabash, in the State of Indiana, between Lewis Cass, James B. Ray, and John Tipton, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Potawatamie tribe of Indians, on the 16th ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson

... any of the stars (which are beyond all doubt so many suns to other systems) be of so dark a color as that above mentioned, they may be calculated to give the most insufferable heat to those dolorous systems dependent upon them (and to reprobate spirits placed there), without one ray of cheerful light; and may therefore be the scenes of future punishments." This letter is addressed to Dr. Heirschel at Slow. Some have placed the infernal regions inside the earth, but {300} others have filled this ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan

... low door-stone was Mrs. Graffam, the poor woman of the plain. It was almost night; the sun had gone down, leaving a long red line upon the western horizon, which cast a lurid ray upon the gathering twilight. The poor children of that log-house were fast asleep: for all that day they had been out upon the plain, where the sun, from a cloudless sky, glared down upon them; and now the evening shade was beautiful, and so soothing too, ...
— Be Courteous • Mrs. M. H. Maxwell

... and residential buildings, our journey became an enjoyable one indeed. We reached our destination—an extensive and somewhat straggling one- storied building, with large lofty rooms shrouded in semi-darkness by the "jalousies" or Venetian shutters which are used to carefully exclude every ray of sunlight—about noon; and received a most cordial and hearty welcome from our host, a most hospitable Scotchman, and his family, and here—not to unnecessarily spin out my yarn—we spent one of the ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood

... phases of a color,—as its intense illumination, where the chroma is greatly weakened, and the strongest chroma which is found in a much lower value. "Purity" is also to be avoided in speaking of pigments, for not one of our pigments represents a single pure ray of ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell

... me. And for just a moment, I think, an odd look of longing came into his searching honest eyes which studied my face as though he were counting every freckle and line and eyelash there. He continued to X-ray me with that hungry stare of his until I took my hand away and could feel the blood ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer

... our physical wants and left our spirits with all their demands, like so many children away out in the darkness without hope, uneasy, restless, always dissatisfied, and ever trying to get into the possession of the knowledge of the unseen and future, without one ray of mental light shining out from the heavens upon our relations to perfect our condition and declare the glorious goodness of an all-wise Creator? Volney says, "Provident nature having endowed the heart of man with inexhaustible ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, Volume 1, January, 1880 • Various

... morning broke, the light wind died away, When he who had the watch sung out and swore, If 't was not land that rose with the sun's ray, He wish'd that land he never might see more; And the rest rubb'd their eyes and saw a bay, Or thought they saw, and shaped their course for shore; For shore it was, and gradually grew Distinct, and high, ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron

... sorrow, when he saw his three plants gradually fading away in their spring-time! With each setting sun a leaf fell and dried up, while the leaves of the other stems thrived more and more with every breeze, every ray of the sun, every drop of dew. He went to dream every day before his dear plants, with exceeding sadness. He soon saw them wither away, even to the last leaf. On the same day the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... Munitions and medical and surgical glass and X-ray tubes made entirely by women, and the Exhibitions record the progress of women in Munitions in the ...
— Women and War Work • Helen Fraser

... fault with those who look with contempt upon the men who disdain Christianity, as if it were beneath them, when it is remembered that among the rejecters of our holy faith are no men to whom we have a right to be grateful for any discovery that has added a dollar to the world's exchequer, or a "ray to the brightness of the world's civilization."—DR. DEEMS, in ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... believe our coming back was a reality, and then exclaimed:—"Good boys! O, you have saved us all! God bless you forever! Such boys should never die!" It was some time before they could talk without weeping. Hope almost died within them, and now when the first bright ray came it almost turned reason from its throne. A brighter happier look came to them than we had seen, and then they plied us with questions the first of ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly

... is like the autumn leaf Which trembles in the moon's pale ray, Its hold is frail, its date is brief, Restless, and soon to pass away; Yet when that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The wind bewail the leafless tree; But none shall breathe a ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly

... spin for Ditte for stockings and for vest, Spin, spin away, Oh, and spin, spin away! Some shall be of silver and golden all the rest, Fal-de-ray, ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo

... declamatory exaggeration. Let it then be just observed, without one ambitious epithet, that since that period when ancient history, strictly so named, left off describing the state of mankind, more than a myriad of millions of our race have been on earth, and quitted it without one ray of the knowledge the most important to spirits sojourning here, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster

... cried Laddie, and this time a ray of bright, white light shone in the window, full ...
— Six Little Bunkers at Cousin Tom's • Laura Lee Hope

... subdued way, for his stomach, unused to such prolonged fasting, felt very uncomfortable. When darkness came on baby Maggot became alarmed, but, just about the time of his father's approach, the moon shone out and cast a cheering ray down the shaft, which relieved his ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne

... eloquently than I can speak. He has positively decided not to be a candidate for re-election. While we are thereby plunged into grief of the darkest hue, I am here to tell you that our grief is mitigated by the most gorgeous ray of light that ever beamed upon the human race. It is my pleasure, gentlemen of the Republican Party—and ladies of the same sect—to ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon

... undressing, he thought he heard a confused noise in the apartment of the next house adjoining his. The noise increased. He placed his hand upon the wall, and felt it jar under successive shocks. Suddenly a current of air blew in upon him, and at the same time a faint ray of light streamed through an opening ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage

... example? You are sleeping peacefully in a ray of the sun that covers the threshold of the kitchen with pearls. The earthenware pots are amusing themselves by elbowing and nudging one another on the edge of the shelves trimmed with paper lace-work. The copper stewpans play at scattering spots ...
— Our Friend the Dog • Maurice Maeterlinck

... first knock at the door of her dreams, the first prismatic ray of romance that had penetrated the penumbra of brutal realities in which ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner

... woman would come home! I ain't fit to deal with 'em. They make my head go round, and get the better of me. Oh, Johnny! Isn't it enough that your dear mother has provided you with that sweet sister?" indicating Moloch; "isn't it enough that you were seven boys before without a ray of gal, and that your dear mother went through what she DID go through, on purpose that you might all of you have a little sister, but must you so behave yourself as ...
— The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargin • Charles Dickens

... Highness rode off to Crummyn, where all was darkness, except, indeed, one small ray of light that glanced from the lower windows of the cloister—for it was standing at that time. He dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and knocked at the window, through which he had a glimpse of an old woman, in nun's garments, ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold

... ray, Thou purest light above: Let no false flame seduce to stray Where gulf or steep lie hid for harm; But lead where music's healing charm May ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various

... are different parts of speech, I allow their plea of identical derivation and exclude them from my list. On the other hand, the substantive beam is an example of such a false homophone as I include. Beam may signify a balk of timber, or a ray of light. Milton's ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... prolong the war, or, what is worse, plunge the North into the irretrievable disaster of internal conflict—and that undermining influence is dissension among ourselves. Such a consummation would bring joy to the hearts of our enemies and lend them the first ray of real hope that ultimate separation will be their purchased peace. We will not here draw a picture of that fallacious peace, that suicidal gap, whose festering political sore would breed misery and ruin, not only for ourselves, but for our posterity, for ages to come. But let ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... when Beauty granted, I hung with gaze enchanted, Like him the sprite Whom maids by night Oft meet in glen that's haunted. Like him, too, Beauty won me; But when the spell was on me, If once their ray Was turned away, O! winds could ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... Look, above, afar, Throbs in the darkness with triumphant ray A little yet an all-commanding star, The morning star that heralds forth ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... hair perfumed with odors. His left hand held the lyre, his right the ivory wand with which he struck its chords. Like one inspired, he seemed to drink the morning air and glitter in the morning ray. The seamen gazed with admiration. He strode forward to the vessel's side and looked down into the deep blue sea. Addressing his lyre, he sang, "Companion of my voice, come with me to the realm of shades. Though Cerberus may growl, we know the power of song can tame his rage. Ye heroes of Elysium, ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... long arms eagerly about the neck of the little black boy, the inspector of police could not help thinking: "At last I have seen one teacher who loves his pupils!" Madou, however, displayed the utmost indifference. His face was positively without expression; not a ray of shame or of apprehension was visible. His eyes were wide open, but he seemed to see nothing; his face was pale—and the pallor of a negro is something appalling. He was covered with mud from head to foot, and looked like some amphibious ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... eye, so that the fish is actually provided with a bull's eye lantern. In other cases the light may rather serve as a defence, some having, as, for instance, in the genus Scopelus, a pair of large ones in the tail, so that "a strong ray of light shot forth from the stern-chaser may dazzle and frighten ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock

... arm of his chair, she darted a violet ray of half reproach and half mischievousness into his amused and retrospective eyes. "There used to be room for two in that ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... cheered one's heart like an open fire. So did Aunt Madge. There wasn't so much of her in size, but there was what you might call a "warm tone" over her whole face, which made you think of sunshine and fair weather. So in walked "an open fire" and a "ray of sunshine," and "took off their things." Of course there were laughing and kissing; and Fly, without being requested, hugged Uncle 'Gustus ...
— Prudy Keeping House • Sophie May

... existences grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom, The sperm-whale at the surface blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes, The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray, Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do, The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere, The change onward from ours ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... low archway for shelter from the rain, and watched the faces of those who passed, to find in one among them a ray of encouragement or hope. Some frowned, some smiled, some muttered to themselves, some made slight gestures, as if anticipating the conversation in which they would shortly be engaged, some wore the cunning look ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... A ray of hope entered the mind of the field-cornet. He took off his broad felt hat, and held it up to the full stretch of his arm. The wind was blowing from the north, and the swarm was directly to the west of the kraal. The cloud of locusts had approached from the north, as they ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... monosyllable Gal to the name of the place: thus the southern shore of Botany Bay is called Gwea, and the people who inhabit it style themselves Gweagal. Those who live on the north shore of Port Jackson are called Cam-mer-ray-gal, that part of the harbour being distinguished from others by the name of Cam-mer-ray. Of this last family or tribe we have heard Bennillong and other natives speak (before we knew them ourselves) as of a very powerful people, who could oblige ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... that bright expression in his eyes and with the smile that she had always liked so much, which lighted up like a ray of sunshine the lean, brown, ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... came running at the crash and at Walter's cry. The boy had grabbed up the torch and pressed the switch. He shot the round ray of the lamp into the ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr

... beholding this smiling land of groves and verdure stretched out before me. A few glooming vapours, I can hardly call them clouds, rested upon the extremities of the landscape; and, through their medium, the sun cast an oblique and dewy ray. Peasants were returning homeward from the cultivated hillocks and corn-fields, singing as they went, and calling to each other over the hills; whilst the women were milking goats before the wickets of the cottages, and preparing ...
— Dreams, Waking Thoughts, and Incidents • William Beckford

... took no notice of the silly speech and sat idle for some minutes, gazing at the Count with an expression in which love, admiration and pity were very oddly mingled. Pale and ill as she looked, there was a ray of light and a movement of life in her face during those few moments. Then she took again her glass tube and her bits of paper and resumed her task of making shells, with a little heave of her thin chest that betrayed the suppression ...
— A Cigarette-Maker's Romance • F. Marion Crawford

... had arrived early that morning and would take up matters at once. Nine o'clock was set for the hearing, which would take place in the quartermaster's office. Consultations were being held among the two factions, and the only ray of light was the reported frigidity of the special officer. He was such a superior personage that ordinary mortals felt a chill radiating from his person on their slightest approach. His credentials were from the War Department and were such as to leave no doubt but that he was the autocrat ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... worshipful personages in their day, no doubt, but doomed to appear forever intrusive and impertinent within the precincts which Shakspeare has made his own. His renown is tyrannous, and suffers nothing else to be recognized within the scope of its material presence, unless illuminated by some side-ray from himself. The clerk informed me that interments no longer take place in any part of the church. And it is better so; for methinks a person of delicate individuality, curious about his burial-place, and desirous of six feet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 63, January, 1863 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... things God hath prepared for them that love Him."[10] And all this will come soon—very soon—if we love Jesus ardently. It seems to me that God has no need of years to perfect His labour of love in a soul. One ray from His Heart can in an instant make His flower blossom forth, never to fade. . . . Celine, during the fleeting moments that remain to us, let us save souls! I feel that Our Spouse asks us for souls—above all, for the souls of Priests. . . . It is He Who ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)

... noonday sun, that makes this close-shut valley, as it is complimentarily called, a veritable furnace. It is in reality a deep winding cleft between lofty, yellow rocks, by virtue of position and formation a naturally formed sun-trap, not a ray being lost. Words can give no idea of the scorching, blinding heat this August afternoon. Yet a little girl who acts as our guide confronts the sun bareheaded, and as we go we find dozens of relic-vendors equally unprotected. No one seems to require ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... subdivided all my symptoms. He dived again into my physical being. He consulted German authorities. I squirmed and lied and resisted all I could, but he said he owed me an eternal debt that could only be liquidated by an absolute cure. He wanted to tie me up and shoot me with an X-ray. He ordered me to wear white socks. He had a long, terrifying look at a drop of my blood. He jerked hairs out of my head to sample my nerve force. He said I was a baffling subject, but that he meant to make me well if it took the last shot in the scientific locker. And he wound up ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne

... much less," said Julia, but with a certain shame-faced change of tone that perhaps, if Percy had been more experienced, might have given him a ray of hope. ...
— A Perilous Secret • Charles Reade

... invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, he heard that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed in ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... had passed, till soft and green and gray in the distance. A huge smoke pall, its feathery top drifting slowly eastward, hung over a cup-shaped depression, and below it stretched a darker line, from which occasionally emerged a solitary stack, or above which a church spire, caught by an errant ray from the setting sun, would flash a momentary beacon. Slowly the mantle seemed to fade and mingle with the twilight, and even as they watched, a light flashed out, a single pin-prick of a light, and then another and another, ...
— Stubble • George Looms

... ray of the Holy Spirit, that this was the Divine Ideal; that the Redeemer could not contradict the Creator; that the Kingdom was consistent with the home; and the presence of the King with the caress of woman and the laughter of the child, and ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer

... beyond, and to enter a plantation on the bank of the river. Here, concealed behind the first tree which was large enough to hide me, I could command a view of the bridge, and I could fairly count on detecting her, if she returned to the river, while there was a ray of light to see her by. It was not easy walking in the obscurity of the plantation: I had almost to grope my way to the nearest tree ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... saw her one friend in the world. A ray of sunlight streamed in through the narrow staircase window on to Miss Bright. It makes the black cap which covers her whole head, with strings flying back over her shoulders, look very rusty. It makes her old alpaca ...
— The Girl's Own Paper, Vol. VIII, No. 354, October 9, 1886 • Various

... in devising the most efficacious means to insure success in their researches. Don Manuel appeared more composed in his demeanor, for he placed much confidence in the influence and abilities of his ally. Hope, that with its cheering ray lights us even on the gloomy borders of the tomb, now in part dispelled the heavy cloud that overshadowed the ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... were lost. We were guilty and condemned. We were in a state of despair. Nothing within the compass of human means could avail in the least to avert the impending wrath of God. All wisdom became foolishness. All resource was futile. Not a ray of hope remained—not the least flickering gleam. Whichever way the eye turned, there was darkness—horror—despair. But Christ came, and hope again visited the earth. It was when we were helpless—hopeless—justly exposed to the horrors and agonies of the world of ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble

... his fortune became shrunken toward nothingness, by reason of injudicious investments. He married a charming woman, who, after a brief period of wedded happiness, gave her life to the birth of the single child of the union, Mary. Afterward, in his distress over this loss, Ray Turner seemed even more incompetent for the management of business affairs. As the years passed, the daughter grew toward maturity in an experience of ever-increasing penury. Nevertheless, there was no actual want of the necessities of life, though always a woful lack of its elegancies. The ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... a single feeble ray was visible in the inhabited wing. Henry Denvil had fallen asleep in his chair. He awoke, looked at his watch, and rose. Eight o'clock. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the glass; it was pale and worn. He resumed his chair. The clock ticked in-doors; the rain fell steadily out-of-doors. ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various

... we came back, the great arc-lights now sending their uncertain, shifting glare across the road and serving to show the heavy dust through which we moved. Seen sideways, the ray of light looked solid, ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross

... few moments as this altercation arose, half hoping that in the quarrel between these two something might escape them which could give her some ray of hope, but she heard nothing of that kind. Yet as she listened to the voices of the two, contrasting so strangely in their tones, and to their language, which was so very peculiar, a strange suspicion came to ...
— The Living Link • James De Mille

... zone we notice the hieroglyphics for the days of the month arranged in a circle. The A shaped ray from the head of the sun indicates where we are to commence to read; and we notice they must be read from right to left. Resting on this circle of day, we notice four great pointers not unlike a large capital ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen

... over the manuscript; and a ray of afternoon sunshine, stealing in between a mullion of the oriel and the edge of a drawn blind, touched his bowed and silvery head as if with a benediction. He was in his seventy-third year; lineal and sole-surviving descendant of that Alberic de Blanchminster ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... velvet are the contrasting silken materials. In satin the threads are laid along so that the shining surface ripples with every ray of sunshine, and the shadows are melted into half-lights by the reflections from every fold. It makes a dazzling garment, splendid in its radiant sheen; whereas in velvet, where each thread is placed upright and shorn smoothly, all light is absorbed and there are no reflections, ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford

... What ray of sunshine breaks through the clouds of the father's grief? The conviction that his boy "is waiting" ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education

... warship's deck and then vanished. Still the man stood there watching, a puzzled, anxious look coming into his face. Quickly the light reappeared—two flashes, a pause, two flashes, a pause, and then a single flash. It was such a light as might have been made by a pocket torch, a feeble ray barely strong enough to carry to the adjacent shore, a light that if it had been flashed from some sheltered nook by the boat davits might not even have attracted the attention of the officer on the bridge nor of the ship's watchmen. Manifestly it was a signal intended for ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston

... philosophy is distinctly recognized by many of the greatest of the Fathers, as Justin, Clement, Origen, Augustine, and Theodoret. Justin Martyr believed that a ray of the Divine Logos shone on the mind of the heathen, and that the human soul instinctively turned towards God as the plant turns towards the sun. "Every race of men participated in the Word. And they who lived with the Word ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker

... the riot of emotions with which that night ended and through the years of bitter struggle which followed, that picture was the one ray of sunlight ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon

... talk was but a condiment, and these gatherings themselves only accidents in the career of the lantern-bearer. The essence of this bliss was to walk by yourself in the black night, the slide shut, the top-coat buttoned, not a ray escaping, whether to conduct your footsteps or to make your glory public,—a mere pillar of darkness in the dark; and all the while, deep down in the privacy of your fool's heart, to know you had a bull's-eye at your belt, and to exult ...
— Talks To Teachers On Psychology; And To Students On Some Of Life's Ideals • William James

... endlessly, Yet tenfold pangs shall force them to avow, Even on their beds of torment, where they howl, My honor and the justice of their doom. What then avail their virtuous deeds, their thoughts Of purity, with radiant genius bright, Or lit with human reason's earthly ray? Many are call'd but few ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran

... noise disturbed the quiet room. Then, trembling, she stuck her head out of the bed, sure that he was there, watching, ready to beat her. Except for a ray of sun shining through the window, she saw nothing, and she said to her self: "He must ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... bad dreams, owing to the firing out at sea yesterday; and at last I could sleep no more, feeling sure that sommat boded of His coming. And I said to Cantle, I'll ray myself, and go up to Beacon, and ask if anything have been heard or seen to- night. And ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy

... and they plunged into the dense shadow of the thickets. A clearer space was revealed to them when they reached the edge of the central lawn. At the same moment a ray of moonlight pierced the clouds; and they saw the castle, with its pointed turrets arranged around the tapering spire to which, no doubt, it owed its name. There was no light in ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc

... with a ray of the imagination necessary to a comprehension of Poe's genius given us at least a decent sketch of his brief life! Was Poe in a state of mental aberration when he made Griswold his literary executor? Is the world forever to hear of him only from those who see the dark side ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... heavenly truth, I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth. Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay, And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray, Then shall my soul, now lost in clouds below, Soar ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke

... a moment till the little steeds and their haughty riders were directly in front of us, not fifty paces away, and, to our intense surprise and discomfort, halted. There they stood, with the first ray of the rising sun resting full upon them, seventeen horsemen, officers, and just back of them about 5,000 infantrymen, all within a stone's throw of us. What made our position all the more precarious, the infantry was standing at a "rest," and were, as all soldiers do ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves

... getting cold," said Pete Johnson. "Good grub hurts no one. Let's eat it. Then I'll let a little ray of intelligence filter into ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes

... battered figures of the studies in morbid analysis which pass for fiction in the magazines. We must get that luminous word normal before the reading public at once, and you will be rightly seen in its benign ray and recognized from the start—yes! in advance of the start—for what you are: types of the loveliness of our average life, the fairest blossoms of that faith in human nature which has flourished here into the most beautiful and glorious civilization of all ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells



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