"Discernible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... face, and the lineaments of the body, grow more plain and visible with time and age; but the peculiar physiognomy of the mind is most discernible in children.—Locke. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... the air, and the chief leaping to his feet, and accompanied by the warrior, who had been concealed, the two sprung into the open space in front. Arundel too, hastened after them. In the star-light no objects were clearly discernible, but dark figures could be dimly seen, engaged in hand to hand contests, and the cracking of dry branches under trampling feet could be heard. These sounds were mingled with thick panting breaths, ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... appropriated in their style, and in that particular could not be at all distinguished. JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, I think every man whatever has a peculiar style[816], which may be discovered by nice examination and comparison with others: but a man must write a great deal to make his style obviously discernible. As logicians say, this appropriation of style is infinite ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... chance Upon a place where once a home had been; Fragments of ruined walls, half-overgrown With moss, for even stones had their green robe. It had been a small cottage, with a plot Of garden-ground in front, mapped out with walks Now scarce discernible, but that the grass Was thinner, the ground harder to the foot: The place was simply shadowed with an old Almost erased human carefulness. Close by the ruined wall, where once had been The door dividing ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... ears open for a handy weapon with which to jab Cappy through that same old rift in his armor—his passion for a large profit through an adroit and ingenious deal in a commodity where even a very modest profit was not discernible to ordinary mortals. ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... as he proceeded the varied emotions of indignation, horror, and fear that were evoked by Bascomb's plain speaking were easily enough discernible upon the countenances of his audience. They flushed and turned pale by turns, they wrung their hands, and once his Excellency the Governor started to his feet and shook his fist savagely at the little group on the Adventure's poop, but was instantly dragged ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... position amid tumultuous and irrepressible cheers. That infinitesimal creature, upon whom some score of others, as minute as he, are gazing in open-mouthed admiration, is a famous philosopher, expounding to a select audience their capacity for the Infinite. That scarce discernible pufflet of smoke and dust is a revolution. That speck there is a reformer, just arranging the lever with which he is to move the world. And lo, there creeps forward the shadow of a skeleton that blows one breath between its grinning teeth, and all our distinguished actors are whisked off the slippery ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... colours are modified so as to be equally in harmony with the prevalent forms and colours of marshy vegetation. Mr. J. M. Lester, in a paper read before the Rugby School Natural History Society, observes:—"The wood-dove, when perched amongst the branches of its favourite fir, is scarcely discernible; whereas, were it among some lighter foliage, the blue and purple tints in its plumage would far sooner betray it. The robin redbreast too, although it might be thought that the red on its breast made it much easier to be seen, is in reality not at all endangered by it, ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... and had one-tenth of his brains. With regard to every other measurement, however, there was not the slightest doubt but that in a few years he would equal his distinguished father's outlines, a fact already discernible in his middle distance. In looking around for the missing nine-tenths of gray matter his father had found it under Philip Colton's hat, and the formation of the firm, with himself as special and his son as ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... the poet of Hell and Death. The tall trees rose straight and slender, like the barren masts of sailing ships; the gentle aromatic odour, the light subdued; the purple mist, so faint as to be scarcely discernible, a mere tinge of warmth in the day—all gave him an exquisite sense of rest. Here he could forget his trouble, and give himself over to the love which seemed his real life; here the recollection of Mrs. Wallace gained flesh and blood, seeming so real that he almost stretched out his arms to ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... delicately moulded? The man's skin was tanned, by exposure, to a tint but a few shades lighter than that of his gold-brown beard—a beard scrupulously groomed, trimmed to a nicety and by no means deforming the lower part of the face since the line of jaw and chin remained clearly discernible. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... the number of rabbits discernible by Annixter's field glasses on ahead was far into the thousands. What seemed to be ground resolved itself, when seen through the glasses, into a maze of small, moving bodies, leaping, ducking, doubling, ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... I will never consent," cried Angus, with a resoluteness through which his first eager sense of relief was clearly discernible. Truly, there was coming upon him, with this mania of speculation, the same desperation which causes the gambler to clutch money from the starving hands of those who even ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... to trace all this to the wise policy of the first James and his successors. The judicious education of Alastair Ionraic, and consequent cultivation of those habits which, by identifying the people with the monarch through the laws, render a nation securely great, is equally discernible in John of Killin and his posterity. The successors of the Earls of Ross were turbulent and tenacious of their rights, but they were irreclaimable. The youthful Lord of the Isles, at the instigation of his haughty mother, deserted ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... refuge, the storm continually increasing. Although we ran pretty quick, we had scarcely got half-way back, before it became so foggy and dark, that the land, which had hitherto been our guide, was no longer discernible. We could not see three hundred fathoms from the ship. The change in our pilot's countenance showed that our situation had become critical. The little, stout, and hitherto phlegmatic fellow became suddenly animated by a new spirit. His black ...
— A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1823, 24, 25, and 26. Vol. 1 • Otto von Kotzebue
... on account of so many hidden faults of which I am truly guilty in Thy sight. Thou, Lord, saidst to Shimei, 'Curse David.' Glory be to Thy name that hast chosen to preserve me, exercised with so many griefs, that I may serve Thyself. There is one great sin discernible in my soul, which I confess before the whole world. I have never served Thee in proportion to my strength; that little talent of Thy grace which Thou hast deigned to grant me I have not yet turned to full account—whether because I have followed ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... visible, its sinister cross plainly discernible, and dived. The sentry heard something sizzle down and—a mighty flash lit up the woods: the whole earth trembled violently beneath a fierce concussion. The roar echoed and re-echoed, was followed by a continuous shower of litter tearing or trickling ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... there is already discernible a tendency to diarrhoea and dysentery. The men are living principally upon salt meat, and there is a lack of vegetables. I have been here since Sunday and have tasted fresh meat but once since that time. I am only one of the many. Of course the worst ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... a supernatural grandeur. The gloom of the chapel is faintly relieved by the tapers of the sisters; the vaulted roof is just discernible in a pale blue light, rendered terrific by the splendour of the altar blazing with a hundred illuminated torches; while the lofty peals of the deep-toned organ, swell round the echoing cloisters with "Il cantar che nell' anima si sente;" and the "rapt ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various
... have put on the fleecy garb of her winter's wear. The cloud-spirits are slowly weaving her white mantle. As yet, indeed, there is barely a rime like hoarfrost over the brown surface of the street; the withered green of the grass-plat is still discernible; and the slated roofs of the houses do but begin to look gray, instead of black. All the snow that has yet fallen within the circumference of my view, were it heaped up together, would hardly equal the hillock of a grave. Thus gradually, ...
— Snow Flakes (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... called Hagol [Arabic], bore from hence E. b. S; it is a fruitful valley by the water side, with large date plantations, which were clearly discernible. It is in possession of the tribe of Arabs called Akraba [Arabic]. Behind them, in the mountains, dwells the strong and warlike tribe of Omran [Arabic]. Hagol is one long day's journey from Akaba; to ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... American naval architecture of choice description; amongst the rest, a frigate and several other ships of war lying in ordinary. Everything appeared to indicate good management and efficiency, as far as a landsman could judge. This was very discernible on board the vessels we were allowed to inspect, where the utmost order and cleanliness prevailed. The officers, I thought, seemed to exact great deference from the men, and their martinet bearing ill accorded with a republican service, being decidedly more marked than on board British ships of war ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... heard a faint noise. Routing out the good old creature, that I might take observations, eggs still, and no chickens, were discernible, but the tiniest, little, silvery, sunny-hearted chirp that you ever heard, inside the eggs, and a little, tender pecking from every imprisoned chick, standing at his crystal door, and, with his faint, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... we more than gain by the fidelity of the whole. We acquire a lively and accurate impression of the general character—of the thoughts, and the manners, and the men of the age and the land. It is so also with legends, sparingly used, and of which the nature is discernible from fact by the most superficial gaze; we more sensibly feel that it was the Greeks who were engaged at Marathon when we read of the dream of Hippias or the apparition of Theseus. Finally, an historian of Greece will, almost without an effort, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... pillar of the Solander Rock, lying off the south-western extremity of the New Zealand, is sharply outlined against the steel-blue sky. Far beyond that stern sentinel, the converging shores of Foveaux Strait are just discernible in dim outline through a low haze. Ahead the jagged and formidable rocks of Stewart Island, bathed in a mellow golden glow, give no hint of their terrible appearance what time the Storm-fiend of the south-west cries havoc and urges ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... stopped there for breakfast, and saw the streets only as we passed through them. On leaving Augsburg, the Tyrolean Alps, though nearly forty leagues away, were in sight. About eighteen leagues off was also discernible an immense forest; of this we had a nearer view as we advanced, for it encircles Munich at some distance from the town. We arrived here on Sunday, the 4th, in the afternoon. . .My address is opposite the Sendlinger Thor Number 37. I have a very pretty chamber on the lower floor with ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... October day stepped lightly over the garden, little red tongues of fire might be seen to leap and vanish in the smoke. Harold, anon staggering under armfuls of leaves, anon stoking vigorously, was discernible only at fitful intervals. It was another sort of smoke that the inner eye of Selina was looking upon,—a smoke that hung in sullen banks round the masts and the hulls of the fighting ships; a smoke from beneath which came thunder and the crash and the splinter-rip, the ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame
... of this situation are complicated but discernible. And one of the chief, outside the carelessness of the nation in letting the slave start with nothing, is the widespread opinion among the merchants and employers of the Black Belt that only by the slavery of debt can the Negro be kept at work. Without doubt, some pressure ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... origin, though they possess added virtues of their own. 'The New York Herald,' as conducted by James Gordon Bennett the First, modelled its scurrilous energy upon the Press of our eighteenth century. The influence of Junius and the pamphleteers was discernible in its columns, and many of its articles might have been signed by Wilkes himself. But there was something in 'The Herald' which you would seek in vain in Perry's 'Morning Chronicle,' say, or 'The North Briton,' and that was the free-and-easy style of the backwoods. Gordon Bennett grasped as well ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... spice, through slopes set with sleeping folded poppies and Mariposa lilies, past cactus groves, columnar, stately, mystic; the mesa slopes receding, its great bulk dim mass, the twin notches that marked the Pass of the Goats hardly discernible against the sky. They crossed a white road, unfenced but evidently a main source ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn
... fast coming stars glittering like so many jewels on its breast. The glow of evening had almost faded, but there was a wan, tremulous light from the moon, and a clearness, produced by the reflection of such an expanse of water, which still rendered objects in his cell quite discernible. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... ceases—ceases as suddenly as it began—and all is still again in the woodland. But it is not so dark as before. A faint glow of white light is discernible behind the ragged line of the tree tops. The deluge of darkness is receding from the face of the earth, as the mighty waters receded ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... in volume, and the distant light brightened until a long line of white foam was clearly discernible. It approached with extraordinary speed. There was a sudden puff of air. It lasted but a few seconds, ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... a thing of heroism and gorgeous ruin. The nose of its engine looked as if it had nuzzled its way through a thousand debacles; its dark-blue sides were coated with dust and mud to the colour of an armoured car. The letters M. E. T. were barely discernible through the grey. Its windows were shattered to mere jags and spikes and splinters of glass that ...
— A Journal of Impressions in Belgium • May Sinclair
... watchmakers. .. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise meat is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very readily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; and you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature. BOOK III. ( Duodecimo), CHAPTER II. ( Algerine Porpoise). — A pirate. Very savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... originated in the Nile valley. Asecond centre of development is found in the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, not uninfluenced by the older Egyptian art. Through various channels the Greeks inherited from both Egyptian and Assyrian art, the two influences being discernible even through the strongly original aspect of Greek architecture. The Romans in turn, adopting the external details of Greek architecture, transformed its substance by substituting the Etruscan arch for the Greek construction of columns and lintels. They developed a complete and original system ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... charge of having dealt darkly with the king. He died among them—how has not been told. We will not discuss the conjectures here. A savour of North Sea foam and ballad pirates hangs about the early chronicles of the family. Indications of an ancestry that had lived between the wave and the cloud were discernible in their notions of right and wrong. But a settlement on solid earth has its influences. They were chivalrous knights bannerets, and leaders in the tented field, paying and taking fair ransom for captures; and they were good landlords, good masters blithely followed to the wars. Sing an old battle ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pause, languid, resting from its revels of flight. Such a pool lay at the foot of the longest fall. A barrier of sand circled from the cliff as the brim for this bowl of the waters. To this point, Marshal Stone and Uncle Dick were now come. The tracks were plainly discernible in the sand, along the edge of the pool. There were the huge misshapen outlines of the outlaw's bare feet, deep-sunken from the heavy weight of the man. Beside them showed the slender prints made by the captive, lightly pressed. These tracks followed the curving bar, along the water's edge. They ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... must smile at Hirata's good faith in the changelessness of oral tradition; but I believe that folk-lorists would discover in the character of the older myths, intrinsic evidence of immense antiquity.—Chinese influence is discernible in both works; yet certain parts have a particular quality not to be found, I imagine, in anything Chinese,—a primeval artlessness, a weirdness, and a strangeness [112] having nothing in common with other mythical literature. For example, we have, in the story of ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... was again obscured, but still the dark outline of the hill which formed our encampment was discernible on the horizon. Riding side by side, on we hurried,—now splashing through the deep wet marshes, now plunging through small streams. Our horses were high in mettle, and we spared them not. By taking a wide detour we had outflanked ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... vagaries. Looking into this glass Mrs. Makebelieve would comment minutely upon the two faces therein, and, pointing to her own triumphantly genuine nose and the fact that her husband's nose had been of quite discernible proportions, she would seek in labyrinths of pedigree for a reason to justify her daughter's lack; she passed all her sisters in this review, with an army of aunts and great-aunts, rifling the tombs of grandparents and ...
— Mary, Mary • James Stephens
... felt the muscle of his forearm contract, and there swept over her a strange dread. His eyes sought the spot indicated in a perfectly natural manner, and there was no evidence of perturbation in his gaze or posture. The foot of a man was dimly discernible in the shadow, protruding from behind a great earthen jar. Without a word he led her across the porch to ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... town was in sight, and groups of flannel-shirted, dusty-booted, slouchily attired citizens were discernible coming out ...
— Bruvver Jim's Baby • Philip Verrill Mighels
... of poison will be found. No sign of violence will be discovered anywhere upon the body. Sudden heart failure—that will be apparent. The cause obscure. Organs seemingly healthy; no discernible disease. Muscular failure. Death from natural causes. A case interesting to the medical world, perhaps, but with no suggestion of foul play about it. Now let me ...
— The Master Detective - Being Some Further Investigations of Christopher Quarles • Percy James Brebner
... To take in sail was his first thought; then, with the assistance of the clumsy seamen, he rolled out a small cannon-piece, and for one long hour did he keep up an incessant fire. The coming storm was now plainly discernible; the distant rolling of thunder was heard, the sea was agitated, and occasionally a flaw would shake the rattlings. They were in momentary expectation that the storm would burst upon them. Harry had left his firing, and ascending the ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... Spanish Arabs, however, is discernible not so much in the amount of knowledge, as in the impulse, which they communicated to the long-dormant energies of Europe. Their invasion was coeval with the commencement of that night of darkness, which divides the modern from the ancient world. The soil had been impoverished by long, assiduous ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... are plying again, but they stop at nightfall, and the river is inky-smooth, with the same long weed-like reflections as in August. Only the reflections are fewer and paler; bright lights are muffled everywhere. The line of the quays is scarcely discernible, and the heights of the Trocadero are lost in the blur of night, which presently effaces even the firm tower-tops of Notre-Dame. Down the damp pavements only a few street lamps throw their watery zigzags. The shops are shut, and the windows above them thickly curtained. The faces of the ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton
... ancestry is plainly miscellaneous and impromptu. He is, we like to say, a synthetic dog. He is young: six months; we fear that some of the errors now frequently urged against the rising generation are plainly discernible in him. And Mike, who is grizzled and grown somewhat dour, shows toward our Gissing much the attitude of Dr. Eliot toward the younger litter ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... some animal was very discernible, and Mr. Nelson agreed with me that it was the Kanguroo; but how these animals can get from the main I know not, unless brought over by the natives to breed, that they may take them with more ease, and render a supply of food certain to them; as on the continent the ...
— A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat • William Bligh
... M'Nicholl, who had been gazing for some time with his telescope in a particular direction, called the attention of his companions to some bright specks of light barely discernible in that part of the horizon towards which the Projectile was evidently moving. His words were hardly uttered when his companions announced the same discovery. They could soon all see the glittering specks not only becoming more ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... prototype; and accordingly, whenever we can thoroughly investigate their history, we find in them some internal evidence of successive additions by the invention of new words or the modification of old ones. Proofs also of borrowing are discernible, letters being retained in the spelling of some words which have no longer any meaning as they are now pronounced—no connection with any corresponding sounds. Such redundant or silent letters, once useful in the parent speech, have been aptly compared by Mr. Darwin ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... there were men of the sort that the grandest lifeboat crews are made of, and six Porthoustock fishermen, taking the best boat they could find, went out from their cove across the wind-torn sea towards the rocks barely discernible in the early morning light. Little it was that they could do, though, and worn out with their strivings against the wind and sea, they returned with only one boy and the news that the vessel disappeared almost immediately after she struck, at five o'clock, and all ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... there was some rain; and thunder and lightning were at work in the heavens in the direction of the adjacent continent: the air was full of wild, unnatural lucidity, as if the frequent flashes left a sort of twilight behind them; and objects were discernible at a distance of two or three leagues. We had been busy in the first watch, as the omens denoted easterly weather; the English bark was struggling along the troubled waters, already quite a league on ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... discernible between tertiary individuals and their supposed descendants of the present day affords no argument against Darwin's theory, as has been rashly thought, but is decidedly in its favor. If the identification were so perfect ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... daily excursion and they had doubtless followed their accustomed trail. So it turned out. All the way to that road-house, eight miles farther, we followed the trail left by those dogs, growing fainter and fainter indeed as the new snow fell upon it, but still discernible until we had almost reached the road-house. It led across open swampy wastes, and presently across two considerable lakes, over which we should never have been able to find our way, for the trail ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... waking up, and every time she opened her eyes there was enough diffused light from the street to show her the white plaster figures, standing on the chest of drawers in odd contrast to their environment of text and martyr, and the Gothic-framed Crucifix-picture that was only discernible now as a Latin cross, the figure thereon being obscured ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... the butt is joined to its flange g, by the means described under the head of wippen flange; but in this action the center-pin is held firmly in the butt by a small strip of brass containing a set screw; somewhat obscure in the cut, but discernible. As explained elsewhere, all center-pins turn in the flange and not in ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... One exchanged a "Hallo" with the leading man and passed on until a much bigger white shape loomed up in the obscurity of the noon-twilight, the going underfoot changed and skis fetched up against a great lump of ice which was scarcely discernible in the confusing darkness, and one realised that what little light there was to the northward had been blotted out by one of the big grounded icebergs. Directly one realised which berg it was a new course would be shaped, say to ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... when we left the hotel, and in the grim courtyard where I found myself after the ride there was nothing discernible save the shadowy forms of my abductors, the champing, foam-flecked horses, and the somber walls of a huge building which loomed up on three sides of me. I had very little time for thought, for my companion took me familiarly by one arm and led ...
— Princess Zara • Ross Beeckman
... hidden the cow. Now wherein does one cow-track differ from another? There must be a difference, or the tracker could not have performed the feat; a difference minute, shadowy, and not detectible by you or me, or by the late Sherlock Holmes, and yet discernible by a member of a race charged by some people with occupying the bottom place in the gradations ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to the dim light of the coals in the fireplace, I saw first the shapes of the door and window, looking blacker than the black of the walls. Next, the distinction between wall and floor became discernible, and at last I was sensible to the form and full expanse of the floor from end to end and side to side. Nothing was visible and ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... in colour, variety in size, variety in character and habit. In size there is the difference between the huge terminalia towering up 200 feet high and the tiny little potentilla; between the atlas moth 12 inches in spread and the hardly discernible midges; between the elephant, massive enough to trample its way through the densest forest, and the humble little mouse peeping out of its hole in the ground. In colour the difference ranges from the light blue of the forget-me-not ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... landward through the cottonwoods, followed by the men in single file, but halted them while the rear was still discernible in the green tangle. Presently they unslung carbines, and I distinctly heard galloping. It was not far beyond the cottonwoods. The Yankees were after us. Suddenly it ceased. Over yonder, shoreward in the thicket, came a sharp command ...
— The Cavalier • George Washington Cable
... narration, and contains less genuine occurrence and more ill-considered attempts at whimsicality, yet throughout this volume there are indications that the author is awakening to the vulnerability of his position, and this is in no other particular more easily discernible than in the half-hearted defiance of the critics and his anticipation of their censure. The change, so extraordinary in the third volume, is foreshadowed in the second. Purely sentimental, effusive, and abundantly teary is the story of the rescued ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... inferiority; some because of their extraordinary affectations of expression, repelling the multitude, who do not choose to risk their brains through unlimited pages of labyrinthine rhetoric; some, perhaps, because of their doubtful paternity, evidences of French origin being in many places discernible. Here, however, there appears a manifest improvement. This story is exquisitely simple in conception, and the narration is mostly full of ease and grace, although the unfolding of the plot is less direct than might have been expected from an author who professes so deep ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... study the hands of statesmen is afforded in those of Lord Palmerston, Count Cavour, Sir Stratford Canning, and Lord Melbourne. The fallacy of attaching special qualities to any distinctive trait in the hand of an eminent person is most readily discernible here. One should avoid a posteriori reasoning. It would be the same for a physiognomist to argue a man a statesman from a facial resemblance to Mr. Gladstone, or that he is fit to write tragedies because he owns the ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... deities. Thus in its outward form the Buddhism of the invaders tended to be a compound of Indian, Greek and Persian ideas in which Sun worship played a large part, for not only Indian myths, but Apollo and Helios and the Persian Mithra all entered into it. Persian influence in art is discernible as early as the architecture of Asoka: in doctrine it has something to do with such figures as Vairocana and Amitabha. Graeco-Roman influence also was powerful in art and through art affected religion. In Asoka's time likenesses of ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... appear as if von Kluck was right. A big cargo steamer, now dimly discernible to the boys, was rolling in the trough of a heavy sea, urged on by a vicious wind from the northwest. Her range lights showed clearly at the mast heads. A gleam of red indicated that the vessel was ...
— Boy Scouts in the North Sea - The Mystery of a Sub • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of those men who are called the salt of the earth. His cheerfulness was unbounded, and it was matched by his goodness of heart, his broad charity, and common sense. He and his wife spoke English with an accent which was only discernible through its un-English emphasis and a certain carefulness and deliberation. Edna's husband spoke English with no accent whatever. The Ratignolles understood each other perfectly. If ever the fusion of two human beings into one has been accomplished on this sphere ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin
... the depth at which they were travelling, proved to be almost as transparent as crystal, of a dark olive-green tint beneath them, merging by imperceptible gradations to a faint greenish-blue above; the surface being discernible by the shifting lace work of gold incessantly playing over it where the sun's beams caught the ridges of the faint rippling wavelets raised by the languid summer breeze. Even small objects, such as medusae, and fragments of ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... they appear to have been brought. The summit of this tumulus was nearly 30 feet in diameter, and there was a raised way to it, leading from the east, like a modern turnpike. The summit was level. The outline of the semicircular pavement and the walk is still discernible. The earth composing this mound was entirely removed several years since. The writer was present at its removal and carefully examined ...
— A Further Contribution to the Study of the Mortuary Customs of the North American Indians • H.C. Yarrow
... feeling than incurious, indignant contempt. Yet the lovingness of Romola's soul had clung to that image in the past, and while she stood rigidly aloof, there was a yearning search in her eyes for something too faintly discernible. ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... behind, nearly straight across anterior margin, bluntly serrate behind; shell deep, highly arched in cross section; height of shell 53 per cent of width; surface of shell having longitudinal striations; middorsal keel weakly developed, scarcely discernible except on third central lamina; lateral margin of carapace not at all reflected, posterolateral margins flared outward; central laminae all broader than ...
— A New Subspecies of Slider Turtle (Pseudemys scripta) from Coahuila, Mexico • John M. Legler
... most fortunate for her. She had scarcely luffed up again, after ascertaining the brig's nationality, when again the welcome cry was heard, and the helm shifted in pursuit. Soon the new chase became clearly discernible from the quarter-deck, when she proved to be a large ship running to the northward and eastward under a press of canvas. So determinedly was she "cracking on" as to have everything set, even to her main-royal, notwithstanding ...
— The Cruise of the Alabama and the Sumter • Raphael Semmes
... in nature throws off a gaseous emanation, partaking of its particular shape. These gaseous particles are not discernible with the material eye, excepting when by chance they coalesce, and then a phosphorescent light ensues, ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... other's gaze. They were about the same height and had the same English type of face, while Winston's eyes were gray and his companion's an indefinite blue that approached the former color, but there the resemblance, which was not more than discernible, ended. Winston was quietly-spoken and somewhat grim, a plain prairie farmer in appearance, while a vague but recognizable stamp of breeding and distinction still clung to Courthorne. He would have appeared more in place in the States upon the southern ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... brace of shelves built across the corresponding window and brilliantly stacked with ribbons of a score of colors and as many widths. A considerable flow of daylight thus diverted, The Convenience Merchandise Corner, even of early afternoon, fades out into half-discernible corners; a rear-wall display of overalls and striped denim coats crowded back into indefinitude, the haberdashery counter, with a giant gilt shirt-stud suspended ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... to mention here, in reference to the minuteness attainable by paper negatives, that a railway notice of six lines is perfectly legible, and even the erasure for a new secretary's name is discernible in the accompanying specimen, which was obtained with one of Ross's landscape lenses, without any stop whatever being used, and after an exposure of five minutes during a heavy rain. The sky is scarcely so dense as could be desired, which will be fully accounted for by the dull ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... on where she was, reading the inscription on the tombstones; some of them so faint with time as to be hardly discernible. While standing up to make out one that seemed of a rather better class than the rest, she observed Nancy Cale, the clerk's wife, sitting in the church-porch and watching her attentively. The poor old woman had been ill for a long time, and Alice was surprised to see her out. ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 5, May, 1891 • Various
... was clearly discernible except when the swiftly-flying clouds obscured the moon's light. The soughing of the wind in the tree-tops, together with the soft springy turf, helped to somewhat deaden the sound of Golightly's hoofs. The good horse scented danger in the air and in the tone of his mistress's ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... a brightly lighted, uncurtained window, beyond which were figures, plainly discernible. The figures were moving, one bringing a pail, another stooping—the scene was not one of still waiting but of tense action. She caught a glimpse of Doctor Brainard's tall form bending above something at one side, then she saw Brown himself ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... open—and something like a distinct view of the country was attainable.... Pundit says that the route for the great Kanadaw railroad must have been in some measure marked out about nine hundred years ago! In fact, he goes so far as to assert that actual traces of a road are still discernible—traces referable to a period quite as remote as that mentioned. The track, it appears was double only; ours, you know, has twelve paths; and three or four new ones are in preparation. The ancient rails were very slight, and placed so close together as to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... the city. The huge bottle-shaped chimneys of the power plant injected heavy black smoke into the wet air. In Faber Street the once brilliant signs above the "ten-foot" buildings seemed dulled, the telegraph poles starker, nakeder than ever, their wires scarcely discernible against the smeared sky. The pedestrians were sombrely garbed, and went about in "rubbers"—the most depressing of all articles worn by man. Sodden piles of snow still hid the curb and gutters, but the pavements were trailed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... directly in front of us, about 1400 yards distant. It stood out in bold relief against a blue-grey sky, and on the summit, and against the sky, the figures of men could be distinctly seen passing to and fro. These were only discernible with the aid of field-glasses, and at that time no great certainty was felt as to their being our ...
— 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
... accustomed from childhood to contemplate the admirable works of art, which, even in the thirteenth century, Italy began to produce. Hence their imaginations received so strong a bias that, even in their writings, a taste for graphic delineation is discernible. The progress of things in England has been in all respects different. The consequence is, that English historical pictures are poems on canvas; while Italian poems are pictures painted to the mind by means of words. Of this national characteristic ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... delayed by any doubt as to course. The trail of the lancer troop is now easily discernible, made since the storm passed over. Any one of the Rangers could follow it in ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... sort of wind is said to whistle, and an other to roar; when a serpent is said to hiss, a fly to buzz, and falling timber to crash; when a stream is said to flow, and hail to rattle; the analogy between the word and the thing signified, is plainly discernible."—Blair's Rhet., p. 55. But let it not be supposed that participles or infinitives, when they are governed by prepositions, are therefore in the objective case; for case is no attribute of either of these classes of words: they are indeclinable in English, whatever ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... well-built with solid road-bed, massive stone culverts, iron bridges, and heavy steel rails. The first and second class coaches are not attractive in appearance, and though the fare for the former is double that of the latter, the chief discernible difference is that in the first class compartment, which is usually in one end of a second- class car, the seats are curved and the passengers fewer in number, while in the second-class the seats are straight boards and are ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... narrow way. As the horsemen came near, the loungers in the lower part of the street displayed a singularly unanimous desire to close in and follow them. There were hundreds of townspeople gathered on the pavements, and not a few vehicles occupied the roadway; so these concerted movements were not discernible to any one who was not a past master in the revolutionary art like Poluski, and to him only because ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... discernible opening in the brush shouldered a big roan. Tossing up his head, he stretched out in the long, easy lope of the desert-bred, his rider sitting him loosely and ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... over the North, early Sunday morning, April 14th, the tension broke. For many observers then and afterward, the only North discernible that fateful Sabbath was an enraged, defiant, impulsive nation, forgetful for the moment of all its differences, and uniting all its voices in one hoarse cry for vengeance. There seemed to be no other thought. Lincoln gave it formal utterance, that same day, by assembling ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... up, Lyveden uncovered and pointed to a weather-beaten arm, upon which the words FRANCE 4 MILES were still discernible. ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... walk could be heard on the other side of the fence, and a trio of cloaked and umbrella-screened figures were for a moment discernible. They vanished behind the gymnasium; and again nothing resounded but the river murmurs and the clock-like ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... action by the presentation of motives is the weaving of the plot. And in this Lyly is not so satisfactory, though, of course, far in advance of his predecessors. A steady improvement, however, is discernible as he proceeds. In the earlier plays the page element does little more than afford comic relief: the encounters between Manes and his friends, and between Manes and his master, can hardly be dignified by the name of plot. It is in Midas, as I have already suggested, ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... of the most enthusiastic patriots of Florence, in his History, inscribed to one of the most amiable and estimable of the Popes, in his public despatches, in his private memoranda, the same obliquity of moral principle for which The Prince is so severely censured is more or less discernible. We doubt whether it would be possible to find, in all the many volumes of his compositions, a single expression indicating that dissimulation and treachery had ever struck ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... mountain, and at one and a half miles came down again into the valley, which one of our party called the "Valley of desolation." Taking the trail upon the left, we followed it until it led us to the mouth of a canon, through which ran an old Indian or game trail, which was hardly discernible, and had evidently been long abandoned. Retracing our steps for a quarter of a mile, and taking a cut-off through the sage brush, we followed another trail upon our right up through a steep, dry coulee. From the head of the coulee we went through ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... into this new stream, so freshly severed as to show green from sap yet flowing, while the soft mud about the base of the big rock bore evidence of having been tramped, although the distance was so great the nature of the marks was not discernible. To be sure, native denizens of the forest might account for this, yet the sight aroused suspicion and a determination to examine more closely, while the fear of prowling enemies made me strenuous in objecting to the building ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... trained in skilful, courageous labor; they make their way upward, rarely as geniuses, most commonly as painstaking, honest men, with the skill and conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them. Their lives have no discernible echo beyond the neighborhood where they dwelt, but you are almost sure to find there some good piece of road, some building, some application of mineral produce, some improvement in farming practice, some reform of parish abuses, with which their ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... 48,000. While it was being collected, the Danes sacked Canterbury and barbarously slew the archbishop Alphege. The tribute was paid soon afterwards; and about the same time the Danish leader Thurkill entered the English service. From 1013 an important change is discernible in the character of the Danish attacks, which now became definitely political in their aim. In this year Sweyn sailed up the Trent and received the submission of northern England, and then marching south, he attacked London. Failing to take it, he ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... critical study of the books of Moses two eras seem to be discernible. The earlier, the Elohistic, when God was only known by the name, "Elohim." The latter, the "Jehovahstic," beginning at a ...
— Mysticism and its Results - Being an Inquiry into the Uses and Abuses of Secrecy • John Delafield
... walked slowly beyond the house to the circle of cedars. As he was pushing aside the branches, his eyes detected something white, out near the gate, moving through the deep shadows of the trees. He stopped, puzzled. A faint radiance from the stars made the spot where he stood quite discernible and, now seeing him, this white thing, whatever it was, changed its course and approached. As it came he saw that it seemed to be stumbling, or staggering, and he thought that it was moaning. Then ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... eager for space and air, a true daughter of Hungary, Marsa loved to ride through the beautiful, silent park, down the long, almost deserted avenues, toward the bit of pale blue horizon discernible in the distance at the end of the sombre arch formed by the trees. Birds, startled by the horses' hoofs, rose here and there out of the bushes, pouring forth their caroling to the clear ether; and Marsa, spurring ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... this fault is discernible, it is a creature of ignorance and weakness. It is repulsive. It is simply detestible; in some, more than in others. There is no fault so easily discovered, and there is none so quickly denounced. The affected ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... instruction to a despotic prince, his master, to whom he dared not to utter the dictates of truth, in any other garb. In the obscurity of those remote ages, the evidences of particular facts are too faintly discernible to be relied upon: All that can be assumed as certain, therefore, is that the elementary parts of the dramatic art had then been conceived and rudely practised. But the first regular play was produced in Greece, where the great Eschylus, whose works are handed down to us, flourished not only ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... authorities were responsible for the painter's assault on the lily. It would appear that a high percentage of white and grey horses had been shot in the several sorties; hence the necessity of varnishing the survivors. The white animals were more discernible to the eye behind a Mauser. Condy's Fluid was the "varnish" utilised; and curious to relate, one noble steed was, not khaki, but green after treatment. Perhaps he wanted to ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... of the stream are almost uninhabited. The hills rise from the water's edge, and if ever a narrow vale divides them, it is but to open drearier solitudes to the eye. In such a valley would stand a saw-mill, and huddled about it a few poor huts, while a friendless road, scarce discernible from the boat, wound up from the river through the valley, and led to wildernesses all the forlorner for the devastation of their forests. Now and then an island, rugged as the shores, broke the long reaches of the grim river with its massive rock and dark evergreen, and seemed in the distance ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... Just so in a muddy and clogged body, that is swagged down with heavy and unnatural nourishments; it must needs happen that the gayety and splendor of the mind be confused and dulled, and that it ramble and roll after little and scarce discernible objects, since it wants clearness and vigor ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... Macchiavellic pretence-of-belief,—in consecrated dough-wafers, and the godhood of a poor old Italian Man! Nevertheless in that immeasurable Confusion and Corruption, which struggles there so blindly to become less confused and corrupt, there is, as we said, this one salient point of a New Life discernible: the deep fixed Determination to have done with Shams. A determination, which, consciously or unconsciously, is fixed; which waxes ever more fixed, into very madness and fixed-idea; which in such embodiment as lies provided there, shall now unfold itself rapidly: monstrous, stupendous, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... summer's drought—rose and sank in fantastic mounds and shapes like tiny fortresses of ghosts or ghouls; the street itself soon became merged in the general surroundings, only a tiny footway, scarcely discernible in the gathering darkness, wound upwards to the summit ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... see the whole neighboring country in panorama. Other houses were discernible at infrequent intervals along the road which wound southward through the lowland between the hills where the boys were and the Vosges Mountains (the "Blue Alsatian Mountains") to the west. Through the long, daylight hours Tom studied the country carefully. Now, as never before ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... have a telescope in which no obvious fault is discernible, the next thing is to test its powers in actual work. In what is to follow I shall endeavor to describe some of the principal objects in the heavens from which the amateur observer may expect to derive pleasure and instruction, and which may at the same time serve as tests of the excellence ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... I was led on to a further consideration. I saw that the principle of development not only accounted for certain facts, but was in itself a remarkable philosophical phenomenon, giving a character to the whole course of Christian thought. It was discernible from the first years of the Catholic teaching up to the present day, and gave to that teaching a unity and individuality. It served as a sort of test, which the Anglican could not exhibit, that modern Rome was in truth ancient Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople, just ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... from farm to farm, to the sound of [152] his harp. His name?—It was scarcely a name at all, in the diffident syllables he uttered in answer to that question, on first coming there; but of names known to them it came nearest to a malignant one in Scripture, Apollyon. Apollyon had a just discernible tonsure, but probably no right ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... arguments used by its votaries should make us suspect that there is a dumb logic of a more respectable sort behind them. There is, underlying this love of types and emblems, a strong conviction that if "one eternal purpose runs" through the ages, it must be discernible in small things as well as in great. Everything in the world, if we could see things as they are, must be symbolic of the Divine Power which made it and maintains it in being. We cannot believe that anything in life is meaningless, or has no significance beyond ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... they still take place, but are intermingled with, and disguised by, the homogeneous and closely allied effects of other causes. They are no longer a, b, c, d, e, existing side by side, and continuing to be separately discernible; they are a, -a, 1/2b, -b, 2b, etc.; some of which cancel one another, while many others do not appear distinguishably, but merge in one sum; forming altogether a result, between which and the causes whereby it was produced there is often an insurmountable difficulty in ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... summons with all the speed in his power. He stopped not to question her, but hurried down stairs and across the meadow which lay between the house and the rock. The shrieks were no longer to be heard; but a blazing light was clearly discernible between the columns of the temple. Irregular steps, hewn in the stone, led him to the summit. On three sides, this edifice touched the very verge of the cliff. On the fourth side, which might be regarded as the front, there was an area of small extent, to which the rude staircase ...
— Wieland; or The Transformation - An American Tale • Charles Brockden Brown
... 2007, the government established the "National Coordinating Committee to Combat and Prevent Trafficking in Persons," which improved inter-governmental coordination on anti-trafficking initiatives; Egypt made no discernible efforts to punish trafficking crimes in 2007 and the Egyptian penal code does not prohibit all forms of trafficking; Egypt did not increase its services to trafficking victims during the reporting ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... was the girl's manner, that despite a faint wistfulness discernible in her face, Thorne put aside the half-thought formulated in his brain by the familiar mention of Jim Byrd's name. He allowed himself to be persuaded to re-pocket part of the game, particularly a brace of ducks, which the soul of the general loved. As he rose from his seat on ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland
... when a stew of oysters was distributed among the people, Lieutenant Bligh observes (in the MS. Journal), 'In the distribution of it, the voraciousness of some and the moderation of others were very discernible. The master began to be dissatisfied the first, because it was not made into a larger quantity by the addition of water, and showed a turbulent disposition, until I laid my commands on him to be silent.' Again, on his refusing bread to the men, because they were collecting oysters, he says, 'this ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... pamphlet, and that in Lyons' book, was well suited to a "pale-ale house." It was so pale as scarcely to be discernible in either book or pamphlet—almost entirely faded out. That was why Benjamin's pamphlet pleased Lyons so much—the religion in it was not too much for a ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... nostrils. Under their feet the earth worked and moved as if boa constrictors were wriggling down there soft bodies, lightly covered. When they had found their way up to the Snout they came upon a pile of corpses, a dozen or more, thrown one on top of another like sacks of flour, faintly discernible in the darkness. While the two officers stood there, rumbling, squirting sounds began to come from this heap, first from one body, then from another—gases, swelling in the liquefying entrails of the dead men. They seemed to be complaining to one another; ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... solitary from the sea." Of this effect Byron may have had actual experience; but Hobhouse, in describing the prospect from Cape Janissary, is careful to record that "Athos itself is said to be sometimes visible in the utmost distance (circ. 90 miles), but it was not discernible during our stay on the spot." (Murray's Handbook for Greece, p. 843; Childe Harold, edited by H. F. Tozer, p. 233; Travels in Albania, 1858, ii. 103. Compare, too, the fragment entitled the Monk ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... against her shoulder, saying nothing. But I think in that moment he too saw, glittering and bare, the long-veiled Hand which, for this year past, I had seen stretched out of the immutable heavens, claiming that which was its own. Ever after there was discernible in John's countenance a something which all the cares of his anxious yet happy life had never written there—an ineffaceable record, ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... opinion is discernible in regard to the foundation of this belief. If some few persons, depraved by false philosophy, presume from time to time to rise up against this doctrine, they are immediately disclaimed by the public voice. They continue singular ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... the balcony which overlooks Subiaco, the Sabine Hills, and the shell-shaped tract watered by the Anio. Before entering his cell Don Clemente stopped to look at the distant lights of Subiaco; he thought of the little red villa, nearer but not discernible; he thought of the woman. Intrigues, the Abbot had said. Did she still love Piero Maironi? Had she discovered, did she know that he had sought refuge at Santa Scolastica? Had she recognised him? If so, what did she propose to do? Probably she was not staying in the Selvas' very ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro
... seemed too cautious not to dare beyond his tried strength, more especially in designing a subject of several figures. His true genius as alone conspicuous in those where much of the portrait was admissible; and such was his "Tragic Muse," a strictly historical picture: was it equally discernible in his "Nativity" for the window in New College Chapel? We think not. There is nothing in his "Nativity" that has not been better done by others; yet, as a whole, it is good; and if the subject demands a more creative power, and a higher daring than was habitual to him, we are yet charmed with the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... pale circles of fire were the most noticeable characteristics of the long, tawny cat that crept through the bamboos. Except for them, she would hardly have been discernible at all. The yellow grass made a perfect background, her black stripes looked like the streaks of shadow between the stalks of bamboo, and for one that is lame she crept with an astounding silence. One couldn't ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... having paid a most exorbitant sum for slight accommodation, I started from Arroyolos, which is a town or large village situated on very elevated ground, and discernible afar off. It can boast of the remains of a large ancient and seemingly Moorish castle, which stands on a hill on the left as you take the road ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... retract some distance within the sheath. Independently of this sheath, arteries are usually described as being formed of three coats, named, from the relative positions, external, middle, and internal. This applies to their structure so far as it is discernible by the naked eye. The internal, serous, or tunica intima, is the thinnest, and is continuous with the lining membrane of the heart. It is made up of two layers—an inner, consisting of a layer of epithelial scales, and an outer, transparent, whitish, highly elastic, and perforated. The middle ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... until sometimes after prolonged failure she would throw herself back in her chair: "My God!" (the easy "Mon Dieu" of the foreigner) "am I a fool that you can't understand? Here, So-and-so"—to some one on whose countenance a faint gleam of comprehension was discernible—"tell these flapdoodles of the ages what I mean." With vanity, conceit, pretence of knowledge, she was merciless, if the pupil were a promising one; keen shafts of irony would pierce the sham. With some she ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... discourse: "This is," said he, "Mr. Bickerstaff, a proper argument for you to treat in your article from this place; and if you would send your Pacolet into all our brains, you would find, that a little fibre or valve, scarce discernible, makes the distinction between a politician and an idiot. We should therefore throw a veil upon those unhappy instances of human nature, who seem to breathe without the direction of reason and understanding, ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... shelter of the bank the snow had drifted deep, but, oddly enough, its placid surface was churned up, as if from an explosion or some desperate conflict that had been lately waged. It had been tossed up and thrown down. What caused him to stare was the fact that no footprints were discernible—nothing except queer, wavering parallel streaks that led downward from the snowy turmoil to the level ground below. They resembled the tracks of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... curiosity is discernible amongst the other passengers to learn how she—whoever she ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... maintain the analogy - the soul is dissolved in the body. With the growing independence of the nerves, the soul itself gains independence from the body. At the same time it undergoes a process similar to contraction whereby it becomes discernible to itself as an entity distinguished from the surrounding world. In this way the soul is enabled, eventually, to meet the world from outside as a ...
— Man or Matter • Ernst Lehrs
... the out-houses, all showed a prosperous state of affairs with the owner. Soon the large porch with its green blinds, and the sweetbrier entwining them, came in view, and the family party that occupied it were discernible. Before Mr. Barbour had reached the point for alighting from his horse, a servant stood in readiness to take charge of him, and Alice Weston emerged from her hiding-place among the roses, with her usual sweet words of welcome. Mr. Weston, the owner of the mansion ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... in an attitude which seemed to render such a support necessary. I was dumb, immovable, but far enough from a state of tranquility; agitation, joy, gratitude, ardent indefinite wishes, restrained by the fear of giving displeasure, which my unpractised heart too much dreaded, were sufficiently discernible. She neither appeared more tranquil, nor less intimidated than myself—uneasy at my present situation; confounded at having brought me there, beginning to tremble for the effects of a sign which she had made without reflecting on the consequences, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... been stored away with moisture in it beyond a certain degree. If a wisp of clover is taken from the least cured portion of the winrow or cock, and twisted between the hands, it is considered ready for being stored if no liquid is discernible. If overcured, when thus twisted it will break asunder. A skilled workman can also judge fairly well of the degree of the curing by the weight when lifted with ...
— Clovers and How to Grow Them • Thomas Shaw
... the associative processes. As Meumann shows, it is instructive to study the qualitative differences between the responses of bright and dull children, apart from questions of sentence structure. These differences are especially discernible in (a) the logical qualities of the associations, and (b) the definiteness of statement. As regards (a), bright children are much more likely to use the given words as keystones in the construction ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... whole Mediterranean Sea, which, with the Arabian Gulf, was seen to separate Africa from Europe and Asia, was full in our view. The political divisions of these quarters of the world were, of course, undistinguishable; and few of the natural were discernible by the naked eye. The Alps were marked by a white streak, though less bright than the water. By the aid of our glass, we could just discern the Danube, the Nile, and a river which empties itself ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... large indeed now, his cheeks sunken, and every rib of his emaciated body plainly discernible to whomsoever should care to count them. Constant terror, perhaps, had had as much to do with his physical condition as had improper food. Tarzan noticed the change and was worried. He had hoped to see his balu wax sturdy and strong. His ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... inconvenience—and it is indeed a trifling one, dear Sir—which we have experienced is in connection with the bathroom. Elegantly appointed and spacious as this room is, commodious as we find the actual bath itself, yet we feel that in the matter of the waste-pipe the high standard of efficiency so discernible elsewhere is sadly lacking. Were I alone I should not complain; but unfortunately there are two of us; and, for the second one, the weariness of waiting while the waters of the first bath exude drop by drop is almost more than can be borne. I speak with knowledge, ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... use of the speculative understanding is discernible in many things to which even the common crowd turn for happiness, as news of that which is of little or no practical concern to self, sight-seeing, theatre-going, novels, poetry, art, scenery, as well as speculative science and high literature. A certain ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... the natives had really climbed the baobab, and now they were seen rising on all sides, winding along the boughs like reptiles, and advancing slowly but surely, all the time plainly enough discernible, not merely to the eye but to the nostrils, by the horrible odors of the rancid grease with which they ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne
... publish because it is history, and descends to the list of those humble beings who builded so well for us the institutions which we now enjoy in this country. It is yellow with age, and much frayed out at the foldings, being in those spots no longer discernible. It runs: ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... rheumatism, ciatics, and lumbagos; and the good people of New England, abandoning the study of the occult sciences, turned their attention to the more profitable hocus pocus of trade, and soon became expert in the legerdemain art of turning a penny. Still, however, a tinge of the old leaven is discernible, even unto this day, in their characters; witches occasionally start up among them in different disguises, as physicians, civilians and divines. The people at large show a keenness, a cleverness and a profundity of wisdom, that savors ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... learned doctors and ecclesiastics assert, that on the extinction of the body the immortal part was set at liberty and unloosed, she could not restrain her anxious curiosity to observe if such separation were visible or discernible; that none had she been able in any degree to discover. She was suspected of Hugonotism, and was so devout as to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various
... grandmother, who had kept a little grocer's shop there in the days of Louis Philippe. However, he became interested in an old painting which hung in the bed-room, on the wall facing the bed, amidst some childish and valueless engravings. But partially discernible in the waning light, this painting represented a woman seated on some projecting stone-work, on the threshold of a great stern building, whence she seemed to have been driven forth. The folding doors of bronze had for ever closed behind her, yet ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... historic cathedral, he would break off his narrative, and in an invocation, an apostrophe, a lengthy prayer, would give a free outlet to that effluence which, in the earlier volumes, remained buried beneath the form of his prose, discernible only in a rippling of its surface, and perhaps even more delightful, more harmonious when it was thus veiled from the eye, when the reader could give no precise indication of where the murmur of the current began, or ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... in sight, and the roar of the water was so great that it was impossible to hear the hounds. However, I determined to crawl along his track, which was plainly discernible, the high grass being broken into a regular lane which skirted the precipice of the great waterfall in ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... water-hole in all that wide desert lying between. With this certainty of water, they ventured to press their animals to swifter pace, although the sand made travelling heavy, and the trail itself was scarcely discernible. It was a hard, wearisome ride, hour after hour through the same dull, dreary landscape of desolation, the hot, remorseless sun beating down upon them, reflecting up into their blistered faces from the hot surface of sand. There was scarcely a breath ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... now adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates—for if we noticed every gate that was unlocked for us to pass through, and locked again as soon as we had passed, we should require a gate at every comma—we came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were discernible, passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women: the majority of whom, however, as soon as they were aware of the presence of strangers, retreated to their wards. One side of this yard is railed ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... would take a much closer observation, and some familiarity with the two to identify the man more exactly. In the corral were a swirl of horses and an overhanging cloud of dust, with two or three figures discernible in the midst, and away in the little pasture two other figures were galloping after a fleeing dozen of horses. While he looked, old Patsy came out of the messhouse, and went, with flapping flour-sack ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... transparent, or delicate about dust. Dust would not remain in the atmosphere for months, it would settle in a very short time, and if thick enough in the atmosphere to obstruct the light of the sun it would be visible, discernible, to the eye, and manifest on the face of nature. Years ago, before the age of the weather map, we might have thought that the atmosphere followed the surface of the earth like the water on a grindstone, but it does not. As already seen, the wind is from the area of high ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... aggravated form, followed by what is called the "cold stage," marked by great severity of griping pain in the stomach, accompanied with frequent and copious watery evacuations, and presently with cramps in all parts of the body; after which the extremities become chilled, the pulse scarcely discernible, the result of which is stupor and ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... There was little light in the moonless sky; there came none from the castle, which in its dim outline of towers and battlements might have been the enchanted palace of some fairy tale, so soundless, so lightless, so unpeopled did it seem. There was a faint gleam discernible in the windows of the Inn on the other side of the gorge from which he ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... sleep. Still motionless, she sat staring out into the darkness, and her heart, her poor heart, seemed dead and cold. There! did not the stranger enter the portico? He certainly did; and, as his figure became more distinctly discernible in the uncertain light, her pulses began to throb violently—those pulses which she a moment ago believed would never again beat with lively emotion. She leaned back closer to the wall, and stared at the figure with ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... this republic; and allusion is made to it in every other foreign review of our political condition. It is obviously inconsistent with our national dignity that a remedy should not be immediately applied; but when we seek for such, only two courses of action are discernible, in the maze of political quibbles and constitutional scruples that at once suggest themselves. One is, to repeal the Organic Act and place the Territory under military control; the other is, to buy the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... close under the horse's feet, and stopped to look back almost within reach of the riding-whip; clouds of starlings, in their odd, irresolute way, rose from the high bulrushes and settled again, without discernible cause; little wandering companies of sparrows undulated from hedge to hedge; a great rabbit-hawk sat alone in the top of a lofty pecan-tree; that petted rowdy, the mocking-bird, dropped down into the path to offer fight to the horse, and, failing in that, flew up again and ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... acquiesced. The Roman Catholics were discriminated against, and the nonconformists were not requited for their services; but out of many minor injustices and wrongs, a condition better than anything which had preceded it was soon discernible. The principle was established that royal power was not absolute, nor self-continuing; it could be created only by the representatives of the people, who could take it away again if its trustee were guilty of breach of contract. The dynastic theory was disallowed; kings were to come by election, ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... minute details of past facts known only to yourself, why should he not foresee the events to be produced by existing causes? The world of ideas is cut out, so to speak, on the pattern of the physical world; the same phenomena should be discernible in both, allowing for the difference of the medium. As, for instance, a corporeal body actually projects an image upon the atmosphere—a spectral double detected and recorded by the daguerreotype; so also ideas, ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... back to where the weary horses huddled beneath the bank, grouped about the man so helplessly swaddled in blankets on the ground. They were dim, pitiable objects, barely discernible through the flying scud, yet Hamlin was quick to perceive the advantage of their position—the overhanging bluff was complete protection from any attack except along the open bank of the river. Two armed men could defend the spot against odds. And below, a hundred yards ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish
... gave up searching, Alexa had the old door of the laird's closet, discernible enough on the inside, reopened, and the room cleaned. Almost unfurnished as it was, she made of it her sitting-parlor. But often her work or her book would lie on her lap, and she would find herself praying for the dear father ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... spirits and ancestors—are not peculiar to those countries but are almost, if not quite, universal in certain stages of religious development. They can, for instance, be traced in Europe. But whereas they exist here as survivals discernible only to the eye of research and even at the beginning of the Christian era had ceased to be the obvious characteristics of European paganism, in Asia they are still obvious. Age and logic have not impaired their vigour, and official theology, far from persecuting them, has accommodated ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... fascination about this winsome little maid which few could resist. She had all her brother's impulsiveness, all his enthusiasm, and, it may be safely asserted, all his abiding faith in the sacred and unimpeachable character of cadet friendships. If she possessed a little streak of romance that was not discernible in him, she managed to keep it well in the background; and though she had her favorites in the corps, she was so frank and cordial and joyous in her manner to all that it was impossible to say which one, if any, she regarded in the ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... city so called was the sacred city of the Solymi{256}. At all events the intention not merely of reproducing the Hebrew word, but also of making it significant in Greek, of finding {Greek: hieron} in it, is plainly discernible. For indeed the Greeks were exceedingly intolerant of foreign words, till they had laid aside their foreign appearance—of all words which they could not thus quicken with a Greek soul; and, with a very characteristic vanity, an ignoring of all other tongues ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench |
