"Arcturus" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Aeetes, on board a Colchian ship, to win the boundless wealth of their father; for he, when dying, had enjoined this journey upon them. And lo, on that day they were very near that island. But Zeus had impelled the north wind's might to blow, marking by rain the moist path of Arcturus; and all day long he was stirring the leaves upon the mountains, breathing gently upon the topmost sprays; but at night he rushed upon the sea with monstrous force, and with his shrieking blasts uplifted ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... his own Oran the Monk turned tale-teller. If you doubt that he was shanachie, not druid, compare the two legends in "Beyond the Blue Septentrions." The ordered beauty of the legend that tells of the derivation of the name of Arthur from Arcturus falls familiarly on our ears. It is evidently made under a lamp by one who has read many old legends. It is no druidic revelation. The other, that which ends with the three great hero-leaps of Fionn from the Arctic Floes to the Pole, from the Pole up to Arcturus, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... great exertion to call a fly, and another to subside into it—idleness on matchless moonlight nights, on land or on water—idleness with an affectation of astronomical study, just up to speculating on the identity of Aldebaran or Arcturus, but scarcely equal to metaphysics—idleness that lends itself readily to turning tables and automatic writing, and gets some convincing phenomena, and finds out that so-and-so is an extraordinary medium—idleness that says that ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... visible during our winter time, is not only very much brighter in reality than our sun, but must be many times larger; and there are others known to be very much larger than Sirius. It has been computed that Arcturus is in mass 500,000 times as large as ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... described the stars collectively as a "heavenly flock"; the sun was the "old sheep"; the seven planets were the "old-sheep stars"; the whole of the stars had certain "shepherds," and Sibzianna (which, according to Sayce and Bosanquet, is the modern Arcturus, the brightest star in the northern sky) was the "star of the shepherds of the heavenly herds." The Accadians bequeathed their system to the Babylonians, and cuneiform tablets and cylinders, boundary stones, and Euphratean art generally, point to the existence of a well-defined system of star ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 7, Slice 2 - "Constantine Pavlovich" to "Convention" • Various
... thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth (? the Zodiac) in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? Job, xxxviii, 31-33. Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. Job, ix, 9. Seek him that maketh the ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... Donati passed over many stars which were visible distinctly through its tail. Among these stars was a very bright one—the well-known Arcturus. The comet, fortunately, happened to pass over Arcturus, and though nearly the densest part of the comet was interposed between the earth and the star, yet Arcturus twinkled on with undiminished lustre through the thickness of this stupendous curtain. Recent observations ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Goethe were all wrong in their methods of creation; but they still cannot obscure, to ordinary vision, the lustre of these luminaries as they placidly shine in the intellectual firmament, which is literally over our heads. They are as palpable, to the eye of the mind, as Sirius, Arcturus, the Southern Cross, and the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, are to the bodily sense. M. Taine has recently assailed the Paradise Lost with the happiest of French epigrams; he tries to prove that, in construction, ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... clear-obscure, from sundown to 9 o'clock. I went down to the Delaware, and cross'd and cross'd. Venus like blazing silver well up in the west. The large pale thin crescent of the new moon, half an hour high, sinking languidly under a bar-sinister of cloud, and then emerging. Arcturus right overhead. A faint fragrant sea-odor wafted up from the south. The gloaming, the temper'd coolness, with every feature of the scene, indescribably soothing and tonic—one of those hours that give hints to the soul, impossible to put in a statement. (Ah, where would be any food for spirituality ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... Spectrum Analysis, that matter is built up of {69} molecules. These molecules, according to the most competent judgment, were incapable of sub-division without change of substance, and were absolutely fixed for each substance. "A molecule of hydrogen, for example, whether in Sirius, or in Arcturus, executes its vibrations in precisely the same time." The relations of the parts and movements of the planetary systems may and do change, but "the molecules—the foundation-stones of the natural universe—remain unbroken ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... of the little books. "I think we will do well to investigate a planet which the Venusians call 'Sanus.' It belongs to the tremendous planetary family of the giant star Arcturus. I haven't read any details at all; I didn't want to know more than you. We can proceed with our discoveries on ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... frolicked for five hours on end, or possibly six. [34] I kept no count of what was said nor how the time flew by. I only know that when at last we emerged from our ambrosial shelter the muscles of my stomach had grown sore from the strain of laughter, and Arcturus was twinkling overhead. ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... visible and tangible universe, in the desires and cravings of this same human heart; this little human heart beating blindly beneath a waistcoat or a blouse. Its owner is little bigger than a beetle or an ant, and the habitat of that owner is a speck in space; a pygmy in comparison with Sirius or Arcturus, and invisible from the ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... spot, dismissing the rest, and built a wall of circumvallation round the town, dividing the ground among the various cities present; a ditch being made within and without the lines, from which they got their bricks. All being finished by about the rising of Arcturus, they left men enough to man half the wall, the rest being manned by the Boeotians, and drawing off their army dispersed to their several cities. The Plataeans had before sent off their wives and children and oldest men and the mass of the non-combatants ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... enemies, and desirous to begin at a greater distance, and further on in the country, sailed on past Pachynus. They had not gone far, before stress of weather, the wind blowing hard at north, drove the fleet from the coast; and it being now about the time that Arcturus rises, a violent storm of wind and rain came on, with thunder and lightning, the mariners were at their wits' end, and ignorant what course they ran, until on a sudden they found they were driving with the sea on Cercina, the island on the coast of Africa, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... out of the belt of Bootes the clear splendour of Arcturus has risen; now the grape-clusters take thought of the sickle, and men thatch their cottages against winter; but thou hast neither warm fleecy cloak nor garment indoors, and thou wilt be shrivelled up with ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail
... heat from a person's hand thirty feet away. The suggestion to employ such an apparatus in astronomical observations occurs at once, and it may be noted that in one instance the heat of rays of light from the remote star Arcturus gave results. ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... Arcturus are slackened; Orion goes forth from his place On the slopes of the night, leading homeward ...
— More Songs From Vagabondia • Bliss Carman and Richard Hovey
... pointing to the Pole star, and across it to Cassiopeia's bright zigzag high in the heavens; the barren square of Pegasus, with its long tail stretching to the Milky Way, and the points that cluster round Perseus; Arcturus, white Vega and yellow Capella; the Twins, and beyond them the Little Dog twinkling through a coppice of naked trees to eastward; yet further round the Pleiads climbing, with red Aldebaran after them; below them Orion's belt, and last of all, Sirius flashing like ...
— Noughts and Crosses • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... fixed stars of the first magnitude is dependent upon the apparent diameter of the latter bodies — an extremely undertain optical element. If even we assume, with Herschel, that the apparent diameter of Arcturus is only a tenth part of a second, it still follows that the true diameter of this star is eleven times greater than ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... complete distinctness, here and now, of the ideas of "duty" and "interest" whatever may have been the origin of those ideas. No one pretends that ingratitude may, in any past abyss of time, have been a virtue, or that it may be such now in Arcturus or the Pleiades. Indeed, a certain eminent writer of the utilitarian school of ethics has amusingly and very instructively shown how radically distinct even in his own mind are the two ideas which he nevertheless ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... kind master is on his back, and so he will run till he drop. Good Widderin! think of the time when thy sire rushed triumphant through the shouting thousands at Epsom, and all England heard that Arcturus had won the Derby. Think of the time when thy grandam, carrying Sheik Abdullah, bore down in a whirlwind of sand on the toiling affrighted caravan. Ah! thou knowest not of these things, but yet thy ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... boons—one the joy of Dionysus not to be laid up—the other to be laid up. About the fruits of autumn let the law be as follows: He who gathers the storing fruits of autumn, whether grapes or figs, before the time of the vintage, which is the rising of Arcturus, shall pay fifty drachmas as a fine to Dionysus, if he gathers on his own ground; if on his neighbour's ground, a mina, and two-thirds of a mina if on that of any one else. The grapes or figs not used for storing a man may gather when ...
— Laws • Plato
... relative position with regard to each other, he could observe no change. Although it is established that our sun is approaching the constellation of Hercules at the rate of more than 126,000,000 miles a year, and although Arcturus is traveling through space at the rate of fifty-four miles a second—three times faster than the earth goes round the sun,—yet such is the remoteness of those stars that no appreciable change is evident to the senses. The fixed ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... you were six-and-twenty years of age." You see he knew better than papa and mamma and parish register. It was easier for him to think and say I lied, on a twopenny matter connected with my own affairs, than to imagine he was mistaken. Years ago, in a time when we were very mad wags, Arcturus and myself met a gentleman from China who knew the language. We began to speak Chinese against him. We said we were born in China. We were two to one. We spoke the mandarin dialect with perfect fluency. We had the company with us; as in the old, old days, the squeak of ...
— English Satires • Various
... had taught, sang to the harp, of the moon, how she goes on her way, and of the sun, how his light is darkened. He sang also of men, and of the beasts of the field, whence they come; and of the stars, Arcturus, and the Greater Bear and the Less, and the Hyades; and of the winter sun, why he hastens to dip himself in the ocean; and of the winter nights, why they tarry so long. The queen also talked much ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... starshine lights upon our heads, and where mine is a little bald, I dare say you can see it glisten in the darkness. The mountain and the mouse. That is like to be all we shall ever have to do with Arcturus or Aldebaran. Can you apply a parable?' he added, laying his hand upon Will's shoulder. 'It is not the same thing as a reason, but ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... life, with exquisite wings, Is one with all earth's moving things; The light that burns in great Arcturus Is tinct with gold ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... clear knowledge his oblivious sense. For sure I am he can recall the time, When he with his two flocks, and I with one Beside him, grazed Cithaeron's pasture wide Good six months' space of three successive years, From spring to rising of Arcturus; then For the bleak winter season, I drove mine To their own folds, he his to Laius' stalls. Do I talk idly, ...
— The Seven Plays in English Verse • Sophocles
... yet array'd in green. Hard blows the breeze, but with a warmer force. The melting ground, the brimming watercourse, The wak'ning air, the birds' returning flight, The longer sunshine, and the shorter night, Arcturus' beams, and Corvus' glitt'ring rays, Diffuse a promise of the genial days. Yon muddy remnant of the winter snow Shrinks humbly in the equinoctial glow, Whilst in the fields precocious grass-blades peep Above the earth so lately wrapt in sleep. What sweet, elusive odor fills the soil, To rouse ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... Arcturus brings the spring back As surely now as when He rose on eastern islands For Grecian girls ...
— Flame and Shadow • Sara Teasdale
... rule the changing year: When rude Boreas oppresses, Fall the leaves; they reappear, Wooed by Zephyr's soft caresses. Fields that Sirius burns deep grown By Arcturus' watch were sown: Each the reign of law confesses, Keeps the ...
— The Consolation of Philosophy • Boethius
... Word clothed in Syllables of Unsurpassable Sweetness—He that holdeth the Pleiades in His Right Hand—Blissful Forecasts—Shall God weigh out Arcturus to Stop the Unreasoning Clamor of the Fool who Hath Said in His Heart there Is No ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... vigil, hail Arcturus on his chariot pale, Leading him with a fiery flight— Over the ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... according to you, the departed visit not the silent Erebus, nor the dark realm of pallid Pluto; the same spirit animates a body in a different world. Death, if what you say is true, is but the middle of a long life. Happy the error of those that live under Arcturus; the worst of fears is to them unknown—the fear ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand |
