"Descriptive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... savages are also of importance, since it is now an accepted belief that the ancestors of civilized races evolved along similar lines and passed through corresponding stages of nascent culture. Herbert Spencer's Descriptive Sociology presents an unequalled mass of facts regarding existing primitive races, but, unfortunately, its inartistic method of arrangement makes it repellent to the general reader. E. B. Tyler's Primitive Culture and Anthropology; Lord Avebury's Prehistoric Times, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... produces, through the Narrative portions, a certain show of outward method; but of true logical method and sequence there is too little. Apart from its multifarious sections and subdivisions, the Work naturally falls into two Parts; a Historical-Descriptive, and a Philosophical-Speculative: but falls, unhappily, by no firm line of demarcation; in that labyrinthic combination, each Part overlaps, and indents, and indeed runs quite through the other. Many sections are of a debatable rubric or even quite nondescript ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... French novelists. She is vigorous in conception, often great in the apprehension and the contrast of characters. She knows passion, as has been hinted, at a white heat, when all the lower particles are remoulded by its power. Her descriptive talent is very great, and her poetic feeling exquisite. She wants but little of being a poet, but that little is indispensable. Yet she keeps us always hovering on the borders of enchanted fields. She has, to a signal degree, that power of exact transcript from her own mind, ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... which find their analogue in nature, where structure is seldom rigidly geometrical. The author hazards the theory that still another reason why a Gothic cathedral seems so living a thing is because it abounds in contrasts between what, for lack of more descriptive adjectives, he is forced to call ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon
... briefly descriptive lists of best books and authors by authorities in different fields on which some time is spent in making selection, talks about books, pooling knowledge of them, with no course of reading even advised and much less prescribed, is the ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... epic poet, left us the unfinished Faerie Queene, an allegorical epic which shows the influence of Ariosto and other Italian poets, and contains exquisitely beautiful passages descriptive of nature, etc. His allegorical plot affords every facility for the display of his graceful verse, and is outlined in ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... this. Thomson, in the full meridian of the eighteenth century, wrote poems upon the subject of Nature; but it would be foolish to suppose that Wordsworth and Coleridge merely carried on a fashion which Thomson had begun. Nature, with them, was something more than a peg for descriptive and didactic verse; it was the manifestation of the vast and mysterious forces of the world. The publication of The Ancient Mariner is a landmark in the history of letters, not because of its descriptions of natural objects, but because ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... literature in every way.... The book is well worth the reading, not only for the strangeness of the story, but for the fancy and poetic sentiment that pervade it, for the brilliancy of the invention that has been brought to bear upon it, and for the immense vividness and animation of the descriptive narrative.—Saturday Evening Gazette, Boston. ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... introduction to what follows, where the calling, to which the Servant of God had been destined from the womb appears as quite unique.—From the bowels of my mother hath He made mention of my name. The name is here not an ordinary proper name, but a name descriptive of the nature,—one by which His office and vocation are designated. This making mention was, in the case of Christ, not a thing concealed; the prophecy before us received its palpable confirmation and fulfilment; inasmuch ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... the West! the region of the Father of Rivers," there thou canst see the cradle of a new-born humanity. So I was told by the learned expounders of descriptive geography, who believe that they know the world, because they have seen ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... the charm and clearness of Mr. Haweis' style in descriptive musical essays will need no commendation of these 'Memories,' which are not only vivid but critical."—The ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various
... Properly, this chapter, descriptive of the Island of Nantucket, should have been our first; but had that been the case, alas, for the simple tale of Natalie! How many would have passed it by with but one thought, and that thought invariably,—Nantucket! pooh! ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... boyhood. However, Clara had always enjoyed reading them. But lying flat on one of the top shelves he discovered, nearly at the end of his task, an oblong tome which did interest him: "Cazenove's Architectural Views of European Capitals, with descriptive letterpress." It had an old-fashioned look, and was probably some relic of his father's predecessor in the establishment. Another example of the lack ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... a multitude of condemned criminals. When the discourse was finished, they all joined in prayer with much fervour and enthusiasm, beating their breasts and falling upon their faces. Then the monk stood up, and in a very distinct voice, read several passages of scripture descriptive of the sufferings of Christ. The organ then struck up the Miserere, and all of a sudden the church was plunged in profound darkness; all but a sculptured representation of the Crucifixion, which seemed to hang in the air illuminated. I felt rather frightened, and would ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... this List sent POST-PAID, on receipt of the advertised price. For a more full description of the works here advertised, see Ticknor and Fields's "Descriptive Catalogue," which will be sent gratuitously ...
— Tales of a Wayside Inn • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... If there are others, they are dark, muddy, narrow, and damp, and all come respectfully to salute this noble street, which commands them. Where am I? For once in this street no one cares to come out of it, so pleasant it is. But I owed this filial homage, this descriptive hymn sung from the heart to my natal street, at the corners of which there are wanting only the brave figures of my good master Rabelais, and of Monsieur Descartes, both unknown to the people of the country. To resume: the said Carandas was, on his return from Flanders, ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... a little relaxation in the way of becoming straighter. Unluckily, those nice blue eyes were everywhere at all hours, and one fine morning Smithson was appalled at finding himself in a detachment bound for the field, and bearing on his descriptive list an ill-natured ...
— The Autobiography of a Quack And The Case Of George Dedlow • S. Weir Mitchell
... with the descriptive art in a high degree, and his vivacious style communicates the characters and habits of the birds with ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... exchanged tales descriptive of their prowess, Maggie leaned back in the shadow. Her eyes dwelt wonderingly and rather wistfully upon Pete's face. The broken furniture, grimey walls, and general disorder and dirt of her home of a sudden appeared before her and began to take a ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... ship by herself; carried from Syria all the way to Northumberland, and there wrecked upon the coast; thence yet again driven up and down among the waves for five years, she and her child; and yet, all this while, Chaucer does not let fall a single word descriptive of the sea, or express any emotion whatever about it, or about the ship. He simply tells us the lady sailed here and was wrecked there; but neither he nor his audience appear to be capable of receiving any ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin
... owners and inmates of the little "Bootjack," from whom and which, as this chapter is exceedingly discursive and descriptive, we must separate the reader for a while, and carry him—it is only into Bond Street, so no gentleman need be afraid—carry him into Bond Street, where some other ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and, for the matter of that, the old author, who thinks that he has a perfect right to choose between the verse form and the prose form simply according as he can versify or not, is grievously in the wrong. There is no more justification for, say, a purely didactic poem or descriptive poem than there is for the rhyming which begins somebody's treatise on optics with ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker
... country (the Auvergne region), Bergson found time for private study and original work. He was engaged on his Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience. This essay, which, in its English translation, bears the more definite and descriptive title, Time and Free Will, was submitted, along with a short Latin Thesis on Aristotle, for the degree of Docteur-es-Lettres, to which he was admitted by the University of Paris in 1889. The work was published in the same year by Felix ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... all indicative of the genuine Scottish character, and well distinguish a person fitted to move steadily and wisely through the world, with a strength of resolution to ensure success, and a disposition to enjoy it."—Historical and Descriptive Account of Heriot's Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by Messrs James and John ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... The poem itself is descriptive of what the author saw and felt on the night of September 13, 1814, as he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British during the War of 1812. The city of Washington had been sacked, bombarded, and burned by the British, and now in their march of destruction, ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... I? Nowhere. I return home in common time, but tuneless. On the other hand, besides being certain that Friar Tuck's jovial song will "catch on," I must record the complete satisfaction with which I heard the substantial whack on the drum so descriptive of Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert-sans-Sullivan's heavy fall "at the ropes." This last effect, being as novel as it is effective, attracted the attention of the wily and observant DRURIOLANUS, who mentally booked the effect as something startlingly new and original for his next Pantomime. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... essentially lyrical and subjective, though his intellectual breadth and culture (almost unrivaled among his musical compeers) always kept him from narrowness as a composer. He led the van in the formation of that pictorial and descriptive style of music which has asserted itself in German music, but his essentially lyric personality in his attitude to the outer world presented the external thoroughly saturated and modified by his own moods ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris
... man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." Micah 6:8. The life of Enoch is descriptive of the Christian's life, and it is said that he "walked with God." Hand in hand with God, heart in heart, and life in life, is the true Christian way. In order to walk thus with God, we must be in agreement ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... Harland are of surpassing excellence. By intrinsic power of character-drawing and descriptive facility, they hold the reader's attention with the ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... may have spent hours in trying to produce something of the same result by sadly different means, will measure the difference between the roundabout, faint descriptive tokens of respectable prose and the immediate projection of the figure by the pencil. A charming story-teller indeed he would be who should write as Mr. Abbey draws. However, what is style for one art is style for other, so blessed ...
— Picture and Text - 1893 • Henry James
... a vaudeville star," Fuellenberg continued with his descriptive catalogue. "He will appear in New ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... writes of our own wide country. Indeed, the vividness of his poems about the slaves at St. Helena's Island and elsewhere make them among the finest of all his local poems. One called "The Pass of the Sierra" may easily bear the palm among much descriptive writing. ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields
... by Caricatures, and Mr. R. H. Evans, the well-known bibliopole, towards an anecdotical catalogue of the works of this clever satirist: and the result of the labours of these gentlemen has just been published under the title of Historical and Descriptive Account of the Caricatures of James Gillray, comprising a Political and Humorous History of the latter Part of the Reign of George III. The volume will be found not only an interesting key to Mr. Bohn's edition of Gillray, and a guide to those who may be making a separate collection of his works, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... distinguish new counties, towns, or villages, or such great natural features of the earth as mountains and rivers. I have always gladly adopted aboriginal names and, in the absence of these, I have endeavoured to find some good reason for the application of others, considering descriptive names the best, such being in general the character of those used by the natives of this and other countries. Names of individuals seem eligible enough when at all connected with the history of the discovery or that of the nation by whom it was made. The capes on the coast I was then approaching ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... were here—there are heaps of English nurses in the streets. I expect to sleep in this place and proceed to my destination to-morrow. How I wish I could send you a really descriptive letter! If I did, I fear you would not get it—so I have to write in generalities. None of this seems real—it's a kind of wild pretence from which I shall awake-and when I tell you my dream you'll laugh and say, "How absurd of you, dreaming that you were a soldier. ...
— Carry On • Coningsby Dawson
... like the volcanic earth as if in travail, and, according to the Socratic fancy, [157] to bring them to the birth, was after all the proper function of the teacher, however unusual it might seem in so ancient a university. "Fantastic!"—from first to last, that was the descriptive epithet; and the very word, carrying us to Shakespeare, reminds one how characteristic of the age such habit was, and that it was pre- eminently due to Italy. A man of books, he had yet so vivid a hold on people and things, that the traits and tricks of the audience seemed to strike from ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... whether an earlier use of this word, as descriptive of a malt liquor, will be found than the one noticed by our correspondent; for it was only about 1722 that Harwood, a London brewer, commenced brewing this liquor, which he called "entire," or "entire butt," implying that it was drawn from one cask or ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... Euripides! For that, again, is the really descriptive word, with which Euripides, a lover of sophisms, as Aristophanes knows, himself supplies us. Well;—this softened version of the Bacchic madness is a sophism of Euripides; and Dionysus Omophagus—the eater of raw flesh, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... present. My wife pronounced her the ideal mother of a family, and just what the wife of such a man as Cyrus Talbert ought to be, but no doubt because Mrs. Talbert's characteristics were not so salient as her mother's, my wife was less definitely descriptive of her. ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... Massachusetts. It is curious to trace in these first flights of a genius that has since learned its legitimate field, a tendency to the breadth of Motley's later efforts, an instinctive and evidently unconscious passion for the descriptive, an admirably curbed yet still powerful impatience of the light fetters, the toy regulations of the realm of Fiction, and an earnestness that has since bloomed in the world of Fact and History. The very imperfections of the novelist have become the charms of the historian. His student-life ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... alluded to my particular friend Miss Nancy. Perhaps I ought to say, at starting, that Miss Nancy is a man, and that I use the name bestowed upon him by his enemies, because it is, in a very important sense, descriptive. Miss Nancy's boots are faithfully polished twice a day. His linen is immaculate; and the tie of his cravat is square and faultless. He never makes a mistake in grammar while engaged in conversation. He is versed in all the forms and usages of society, and particularly at home ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... discharged. It can easily be seen that no matter how good the books brought out by a firm, they would be likely to remain on stockroom shelves if readers were not properly made aware of their issue. The name "Publicity department" is the most descriptive title that can be given to the part of the staff devoting its energies to the many variations of ...
— The Building of a Book • Various
... he declares, I think without proof, that descriptive poetry was by no means the excellence of Pope; he draws this inference from the few images introduced in this poem, which would not equally belong to any other place. He must inquire, whether Windsor forest has, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... measures. Though termed a new kind of music, however, it was not new. The king took up the key-note of the human heart—the primitive scale, or what has been defined the scale of nature, and produced some of those wild and plaintive strains which we now call Scottish melodies. His poetry was descriptive of, and adapted to the feelings, customs, and manners of his countrymen; and he followed, doubtless, the same course in the music which he composed. By his skill and education, he rendered his compositions ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... highest place in the world! And when you have got to this height you find [a great lake between two mountains, and out of it] a fine river running through a plain.... The plain is called PAMIER.' The bearing and descriptive details here given point clearly to the plain of the Great Pamir and Victoria Lake, its characteristic feature. About sixty-two miles are reckoned from Langar-kisht, the last village on the northern branch of the Ab-i-Panja ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... occasionally to utter unofficial words of cheer. But these utterances were taken for what they were worth, and the experience of four months had taught us to estimate their value at rather less than nothing. When, therefore, towards two o'clock in the afternoon the unfolding of a tale descriptive of an approaching body of eight thousand cavalry had begun, we derisively snapped our fingers at the story. With amazing persistence the narrative was shouted aloud, and with a positiveness which such angry retorts as "Am I a fool!" "Don't come it on me!" ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... or four personal cases, the notes taken at the time of such visits, paid several thousands of miles apart, might almost be read as descriptive of the ...
— Seen and Unseen • E. Katharine Bates
... during the last ten years, this Series of CAMBRIDGE CLASS-BOOKS FOR THE USE OF SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, which is intended to embrace all branches of Education, from the most elementary to the most advanced, and to keep pace with the latest discoveries in Science. A descriptive Catalogue, stating the object aimed at in each work, with their size and prices, will be forwarded on application. Of those hitherto published, the sale of many thousands is a sufficient indication of the manner in which they have been appreciated ...
— The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] - Introduction and Publisher's Advertising • William Shakespeare
... incompatible with the plan of this work, which in no single instance has contemplated the inclusion of any but the most momentous events. Besides, existing conditions have received protracted mention in the preceding descriptive and statistical departments where appear evidences of the County's present vast wealth and resources, numberless charms ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head
... that this cool style is by far the most effectual in the end. The more strained and heated style of some other modern authors will be very effectual for awhile, but the excitement of the reader will flag sooner. The reason is, that too much descriptive and passionate power is expended on minor portions of the tale; and the enthusiasm of the reader is partially exhausted before he comes to the grand catastrophe, where it should be most of all elicited. ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... Queen," and the court which she then maintained at "the royal palace of Greenwich." After noticing the appearance of the presence-chamber,—"the floor, after the English fashion, strewed with hay,"—the writer gives a descriptive portrait of her ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 180, April 9, 1853 • Various
... "Critical Notices" kindly at the advent of humbler merit, treated "Merry-Mount" with the distinction implied in a review of nearly twenty pages. This was a great contrast to the brief and slighting notice of "Morton's Hope." The reviewer thinks the author's descriptive power wholly exceeds his conception of character and invention ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of the "old-fashioned" flowers of our gardens—in fact, a native species, having a black tuberous root, which forms a distinct, though invisible characteristic of the species. As the old names are somewhat descriptive, I give them—viz., Geranium-leaved Anemone, and ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... to say a descriptive word or two concerning the various persons with whom our friend Bob was for some time to be so ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... hydrographic surveyors and nautical cartographers to achieve standardization in nautical charts and electronic chart displays; to provide advice on nautical cartography and hydrography; to develop the sciences in the field of hydrography and techniques used for descriptive oceanography ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... every point. I cannot but think that everything is managed much silenter than with the Britannia; a calm all day, the evening passed very pleasantly in general conversation. Finished reading Bryant's "Poems," some very good and highly descriptive. Had some conversation with several Irish women about returning home, afterwards insulted by some of their countrymen. The longitude is discovered best by a ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood
... body, and undoubtedly eventuates in nervous disorders. On receipt of a postcard, The Universal Digestive Tea Co., Ltd., Colonial Warehouse, Kendal, will send a Sample of this tea, and name of nearest Agent, also a Descriptive Pamphlet compiled by Albert Broadbent, Author of "Science in the Daily ...
— Reform Cookery Book (4th edition) - Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. • Mrs. Mill
... compact, marvelous unit of organization, discipline and system? If you have not seen it you cannot imagine what it is like. If you have seen it you cannot tell what it is like. In one case the conceptive faculty fails you; in the other the descriptive. I, who have seen this sight, am not foolish enough to undertake to put it down with pencil on paper. I think I know something of the limitations of the written English language. What I do mean to try to do in this chapter is to record some of my ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... poem, from Tennyson's "In Memoriam," might be headed "April," and serve as descriptive of ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... 1780.[631] He settled in Ahmedabad and gained so large a following that the authorities became alarmed and imprisoned him. But his popularity only increased: he became the centre of a great religious movement: hymns descriptive of his virtues and sufferings were sung by his followers and when he was released he found himself at the head of a band which was almost an army. He erected a temple in the village of Wartal in Baroda, which he made the centre of his sect, and recruited followers by means of periodical ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... of the Currency or Money of the Aborigines and Colonial States, and United States Coins, with Historical and Descriptive Notices of each Coin or Series. By Montroville Wilson Dickerson, M.D. Illustrated by Nineteen Plates of Fac-Similes. Philadelphia. J.B. Lippincott & Co. 4to. pp. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... black leather, I would fix my eyes on the dignified high-church rector, and the dignified high-church clerk, and watch the movement of their lips, from which, as they read their respective portions of the venerable liturgy, would roll many a portentous word descriptive of the wondrous works of the ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... abhorrence of the punishment and equal sympathy with the sufferer. The women were particularly affected; Daringa shed tears, and Barangaroo, kindling into anger, snatched a stick and menaced the executioner. The conduct of these women, on this occasion, was exactly descriptive of their characters. The former was ever meek and feminine, ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... have also opened the Eastern world to our view. Count Platen, on the other hand, hung fluctuating between the antique Persian and German.—Cosmopolitism was greatly strengthened by the historical romances in vogue in England, descriptive of olden time, and which found innumerable imitators in Germany. They were, at all events, thus far beneficial; they led us from the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... and a descriptive one too," thought Hugh; but, considering that there would come many a better opportunity of combating the boy's fears than now, he simply said: "Very well, Harry,"—and proceeded to leave the avenue by the other side. But Harry ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... is fit only for the contact of surfaces,—but thought leaps the chasm. For this reason I am able to use words descriptive of objects distant from my senses. I have felt the rondure of the infant's tender form. I can apply this perception to the landscape ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... a man of business. And these are good copy. Now, about this Egypt. I will put the matter in the shape of a business proposition. Will you undertake, if I pay your passage, and your friend's, with all travelling expenses, to let me have three descriptive articles a week, on Cairo, the Nile, Syria, and India, running to about two thousand words apiece, at three guineas ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... that he was perpetually wiring to—and all so irreproachably!—as Lady Bradeen. Lady Bradeen was Cissy, Lady Bradeen was Mary, Lady Bradeen was the friend of Fritz and of Gussy, the customer of Marguerite, and the close ally in short (as was ideally right, only the girl had not yet found a descriptive term that was) of the most magnificent of men. Nothing could equal the frequency and variety of his communications to her ladyship but their extraordinary, their abysmal propriety. It was just the talk—so profuse sometimes that she wondered what was left for ...
— In the Cage • Henry James
... in the White Hart, waiting for steak and onions, I read in a book descriptive of the place that a whale had come to Wisbeach once, and I considered that a whale coming up to Wisbeach on a tide would certainly stay there; not indeed for the delights of the town (of which I say nothing), but because ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... would be useful. These chapters were written for and published in The Bazaar, in 1885 and following years. Some alterations and additions have been made, and the whole is now offered as a thoroughly practical and descriptive work on ...
— Cactus Culture For Amateurs • W. Watson
... truly said, "has the character of youth in its defects and its beauties. The redundance of its descriptive passages is in marked contrast to the terseness of description which Horace studies in his Odes; and there is something declamatory in its general tone which is at variance with the simpler utterance of lyrical art. On the other hand, it has all the warmth ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... we get of New England character are free from any distortion, and their humorous phases are always entertaining. Mr. TROWBRIDGE'S brilliant descriptive faculty is shown to great advantage in the opening chapter of the book by a vivid picture of a village fire, and is manifested elsewhere with equally telling ...
— Four Young Explorers - Sight-Seeing in the Tropics • Oliver Optic
... the chief end of science is descriptive formulation has probably been clear to keen analytic minds since the time of Galileo, especially to the great discoverers in astronomy, mechanics, and dynamics. But as a definitely stated conception, corrective of misunderstandings, the view of science ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... and dramatic descriptions of things which I cannot but recognise. M. S—-, with his pince- nez, the Doctor, and, above all, the rapids of the Ogowe, rolling his hands round and round each other and clashing them forward with a descriptive ejaculation of "Whish, flash, bum, bum, bump," and then comes what evidently represents a terrific fight for life against terrific odds. Wish to goodness I knew French, for wishing to see these rapids, I cannot help feeling anxious and worried at not fully understanding ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... voice, "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more." The ladies stood their ground courageously for a time, but while the Chaplain, playing his own accompaniment, was singing My Maryland, with words descriptive of Lee's invasion and retreat from Maryland, including the words, "And they left Antietam in their track, in their track," the ladies threw open the front door and rushed precipitately to the street and thence to their homes. It was afterwards said that ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... followed by Le Ventre de Paris, which reached a second edition. It contained some excellent descriptive writing, but was severely attacked by certain critics, who denounced it as the apotheosis of gluttony, while they resented the transference of a pork butcher's shop to literature and took particular exceptions to a certain ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... manuscript. But on reflection I realized that, although the matter came through Mrs. Piper, it could not have come from her, wherever it came from; and that if George Eliot were communicating tidings naturally within our comprehension, and merely descriptive of superficial experience as distinct from reflection, and were communicating, through a poor telephone, words to be recorded by an indifferent scribe, this material would not seem absolutely incongruous with its alleged source, and to a reader knowing that the stuff claimed ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... village newspapers by writing them descriptive letters. The parish rector and the dissenting preachers were waited upon and presented with family tickets; while we placarded the town till it was scarcely recognizable to ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... because they are many, be arranged. I believe that it would be found convenient by the political student to arrange them under three main heads: descriptive facts as to the human type; quantitative facts as to inherited variations from that type observed either in individuals or groups of individuals; and facts, both quantitative and descriptive, as to the environment into which men are born, and the observed effect of that environment upon their ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas
... modern historians, Taine, has at times so imperfectly understood the events of the great French Revolution is, that it never occurred to him to study the genius of crowds. He took as his guide in the study of this complicated period the descriptive method resorted to by naturalists; but the moral forces are almost absent in the case of the phenomena which naturalists have to study. Yet it is precisely these forces that constitute the true mainsprings ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... Newgate—in an amateur capacity, of course; and, having carried our intention into effect, we proceed to lay its results before our readers, in the hope—founded more upon the nature of the subject, than on any presumptuous confidence in our own descriptive powers—that this paper may not be found wholly devoid of interest. We have only to premise, that we do not intend to fatigue the reader with any statistical accounts of the prison; they will be found ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... much have troubled me if she had assented to the literal meaning of my words. The mahogany box was placed in a proper position, and I peeped in through its small round magnifying-window while the girl sat by my side and gave short descriptive sketches as one after another the pictures were unfolded to my view. We visited together—at least, our imaginations did—full many a famous city in the streets of which I had long yearned to tread. Once, ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... connected with the Natural History Department of the British Museum, and was appointed Keeper of the Zoological collections in 1840. He was the author of 'Illustrations of Indian Zoology,' 'The Knowsley Menagerie,' etc., and of innumerable descriptive Zoological papers.), at the British Museum, attacked me in fine style: "You have just reproduced Lamarck's doctrine and nothing else, and here Lyell and others have been attacking him for twenty years, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... the nineteenth century it was no longer necessary to be a born pattern designer in sound to be a composer. One had but to be a dramatist or a poet completely susceptible to the dramatic and descriptive powers of sound. A race of literary and theatrical musicians appeared; and Meyerbeer, the first of them, made an extraordinary impression. The frankly delirious description of his Robert the Devil in Balzac's short story entitled Gambra, and Goethe's astonishingly mistaken notion ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... Captain Colenso, for your passenger: I will not say comrade-in-arms—naval warfare being so far beyond my knowledge, which it would perhaps be more descriptive to call ignorance. But I can pay—" I thrust a hand nervously into my breast-pocket, and blessed Flora for her waterproof bag. "Excuse me, Captain, if I speak with my friend here ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... years' sacrifice said to be so efficacious. On conclusion of the sacrifice, Saraswati appeared in person before the king and chose him for husband. And he begat upon her a son named Tansu. Here occurs a sloka descriptive of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Sterne is unmistakably among writers of the former class. It is by his humour—his humour of character, his dramatic as distinct from his critical descriptive personal humour—though, of course, he possesses this also, as all humourists must—that he lives and will live. In Tristram Shandy, as in the Sermons, there is a sufficiency of wit, and considerably more than a sufficiency of humorous reflection, innuendo, and persiflage; but it is the ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... "Now, there's enough descriptive colour to give you a proper mental picture. If you had left me alone I'd have finished it ten minutes ago. The rest moves with accelerated rhythm. It begins with the cracking of a stick in the forest. Hark! ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... those heights, who knows! If the new sensation ever seemed worth the trouble.—In a year or two, we shall meet and compare notes. Don't expect long descriptive letters; I don't care to do indifferently what other people have done well and put into print—it's a waste of energy. But you are sure to have far more interesting and original things to tell about; it will read so piquantly, I'm ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... at this moment, things that nobody can make head nor tail of, stories in verse that begin in the middle, like The Corsair and Lara. They set up to be original, forsooth, and indulge in stanzas that nobody can understand, and descriptive poetry after the pattern of the younger men who discovered Delille, and imagine that they are doing something new. Poets have been swarming like cockchafers for two years past. I have lost twenty thousand francs through poetry in the last twelvemonth. You ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... board her. The mayor of San Francisco and the chief of police reported that nothing suspicious was to be seen upon her, and the port authorities announced that her papers were correct and in order in every detail. Many photographs and columns of descriptive matter ...
— Revolution and Other Essays • Jack London
... descriptive, and never fundamental. We can describe the appearance and conditions of a process; but not ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... movements of her head and shoulders which might indicate emotions, such as pleasant excitement at the sudden development of the situation, or impatience at my delay in the delivery of interesting passages; and I imagined that during the interpolation of descriptive matter she appeared to be anxious to get through with it as quickly as possible, and to go on with ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... the mortars, from all the batteries, are flashes, clouds of smoke, and thunderings, which bring to mind the gorgeous imagery of the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, descriptive of the scenes of the ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... in the foregoing pages to those scenes, descriptive, grotesque, and sentimental, which took place at the Bower of Nature and Winchester, it is proper that we should now go back to the domain of Apple Orchard, and the inhabitants of that realm, so long lost sight of in the contemplation of the graces and attractions of Miss Sallianna, and the ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... the wild left to the only less stormed-against centre. Here a strong blue current, French and Richardson, strove against a staunch grey ledge—a part of D. H. Hill's line, with Anderson to support. Here was a sunken road, that, later, was given a descriptive name. Here was the Bloody Lane. Lee was found standing upon a knoll, calm and grand. "I yet look for A. P. Hill," he said. "He has a talent for appearing at identically ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... the form and diction of the Carmina Vagorum, it is enough to say two things at the present time. First, a large portion of these pieces, including a majority of the satires and longer descriptive poems, are composed in measures borrowed from hymnology, follow the diction of the Church, and imitate the double-rhyming rhythms of her sequences. It is not unnatural, this being the case, that parodies of hymns should be comparatively ...
— Wine, Women, and Song - Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse • Various
... at him with the expression for which he had as yet found no word more adequately descriptive than his vague "queer." "I haven't exactly the habit of walking about Paris streets ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... fourth of July, her twenty-first birthday, that she entered the reception room at the "Anchorage", and presented in conjunction with Doctor Grantlin's letter, a copy of the newspaper printed at X—, which contained an article descriptive of the discovery of the picture on the glass door; and expressive of the profound sympathy of the public for the prisoner ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... operations in Eastern Maine and Nova Scotia during the Revolution," the statement is made that Aukpaque signifies a beautiful expanding of the river occasioned by numerous islands, but, while this is perfectly correct as descriptive of the locality, it is more probable that Aukpaque—or its Indian equivalent Ek-pa-hawk—means "the head of the tide," or beginning of swift water. Kidder speaks of the site of Aukpaque as "almost unknown and difficult to locate." Commenting on this statement, the ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... narrow sloping back and a broad hat resting the brim on it. My report to her spoke of an old gentleman of dark complexion, as the only traveller on the platform. She has faith in the efficiency of her descriptive powers, and so she was willing to drive off immediately. The intention was a start to London. Colonel De Craye came up and effected in five minutes what I ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... full of eloquence. The scenery and events are of that kind most calculated to fasten on the popular imagination. The author has a singular faculty of condensing narration and description, and bringing the scene and deed right before the eye, without any of the tedious minutiae in which most descriptive writers indulge. Consequently his observations are flashed upon the mind of the reader rather than conveyed to it, piece by piece. If Mr. Webber would soften a little the ravenousness of his style, and treat his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... other fields. His sonnets, particularly those upon "Chaucer," "Milton," "The Divina Commedia," "A Nameless Grave," "Felton," "Sumner," "Nature," "My Books," are among the imperishable treasures of the English language. In descriptive pieces like "Keramos" and "The Hanging of the Crane," in such personal and occasional verses as "The Herons of Elmwood," "The Fiftieth Birthday of Agassiz," and the noble "Morituri Salutamus" written for his classmates in 1875, he exhibits his tenderness of affection and all the ripeness ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... stock phrases, dinned into their ears at every turn. The man who would settle his difficulty by trying the physical metal of his adversary is of the past. By the new order he is taboo as a savage. Individual self-restraint rings out in our vocabulary as nationally descriptive. The babe at the mother's knee learns first the virtue of it; the child at school is tutored to it soundly; the man in life is lectured with it regularly. ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... tale from the point of view, not of the leading actor, but of some minor personage in the story. In this case again, analysis of character is precluded; but the narrator may delineate the leading actor directly, through descriptive and expository comment. In stories where the hero is an extraordinary person, and could not without immodesty descant upon his own unusual capabilities, it is of obvious advantage to represent him from the point of view of an admiring friend. Thus when Poe invented the detective story, he ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... Gosse's purely descriptive power, his aptitude for still-life and landscape, is unmistakably vivid and sound. Take, for an instance, this description ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... Musique. I have had the honor, Monsieur, of dancing at Erfurth before their Imperial Majesties the Emperors Napoleon and Alexander, and a host of minor sovereigns. Those, Monsieur, were the high and palmy days of the art. We performed a ballet descriptive of the siege of Troy, and I undertook the part of a river god—the god Scamander, en effet. The great ladies of the court, Monsieur, were graciously pleased to admire my proportions as the god Scamander. I ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... The descriptive bit was to eliminate any possibility of getting a high, useless girl's sled, which would go to pieces in less ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... been, he said, so much accustomed to words, descriptive of the cruelty of this traffic, that we had almost forgotten their meaning. He wished that some person, educated as an Englishman, with suitable powers of eloquence, but now for the first time informed of all the horrors of it, were to address their lordships ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... which offers a view little inferior to that of the Dyke. At Saddlescombe, by the way, lives one of the most learned Sussex ornithologists of the day, and a writer upon the natural history of the county (so cavalierly treated in this book!), for whose quick eye and descriptive hand the readers of Blackwood have reason to be grateful. Immediately beneath Newtimber Hill lies Newtimber, consisting of a house or two, a moated grange, and a little church, which, though only a few yards from the London road, is so hidden that it might be miles from ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... applaud the delicacy and propriety of the descriptive parts of Mr. Taylor's work: they are rare and brief, and they are inseparable from the human interest of the narrative with which they are interwoven. The style of the whole fiction is clear and simple, and, in the more dramatic scenes,—like that of old Barton's funeral,—rises ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various
... Pistis-Sophia[130] the idea is immensely expanded, and there is much said of an Aeonian Hierarchy called the Five Trees. As this, however, may have been a later development, let us turn to the ancient Hindu Shastras, and select one out of the many passages that could be adduced, descriptive of the Ashvattha Tree, the Tree of Life, "the Ashvattha of golden wings," where the bird-souls get their wings and fly away happily, as the Sanatsujatiya tells us. The passage we choose is from the Bhagavad Gita, that marvellous philosophical episode from the Mahabharata, ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead
... than accurate. Thus Shakespeare and Bacon wrote largely in the reign of James I, but their work is Elizabethan in spirit; and Bunyan is no less a Puritan because he happened to write after the Restoration. The name Metaphysical poets, given by Dr. Johnson, is somewhat suggestive but not descriptive of the followers of Donne; the name Caroline or Cavalier poets brings to mind the careless temper of the Royalists who followed King Charles with a devotion of which he was unworthy; and the name Spenserian poets recalls the little ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... descriptive information regarding the cathedral of Manila (especially the present structure, completed in 1879), see Fonseca's Resena cronologica de la catedral de ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... origin in the observations on some of the more singular peculiarities of the fabric made by the author at the Cardiff meeting of the Association in 1849. These remarks were further developed in a paper in the Archaeologia Cambrensis; and have now been expanded into the present descriptive and historical account of a building which, to use Mr. Freeman's words, "in many respects, both of its history and architecture, stands quite alone among English churches." Mr. Freeman's ability to do justice to such a subject is well known: and his work will therefore assuredly find a welcome ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 47, Saturday, September 21, 1850 • Various
... poem, so you cannot judge,' said Philip, thinking this extremely fanciful and ultra-fastidious. 'Your rule would exclude all descriptive poetry, unless it was written ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrangement of species in any permanently (even over a limited period) namable order; nor then, unless a great man is born to perceive and exhibit such order. In the meantime, the simplest and most descriptive nomenclature is the best. Every one of these birds, for instance, might be called falco in Latin, hawk in English, some word being added to distinguish the genus, which should describe its principal aspect or habit. Falco montium, ...
— Love's Meinie - Three Lectures on Greek and English Birds • John Ruskin
... roar of his battle is not yet quite passed away, nor his ghastly wounds forgotten. The citizens of Camden have lately enclosed his grave, and placed on it handsome marble, with an epitaph gratefully descriptive of his VIRTUES and SERVICES, that the people of future days may, like Washington, heave the sigh when they read of "the generous stranger who came from a distant land to fight their battles, and to water, with his blood, the tree ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... as above—catalogue misleader, "Dinner on the Line;" or would a "Meal on the Track" be less descriptive?—Mind stuffed with those "erroneous, hazy, distorted first impressions," which, according to, and with the approval of Mr Aberich Mackay, the "Anglo-Indian" hastens to throw away; and which I, not being in the least Anglo-anything, wish ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... the neighborhood, is a gentleman's modern residence of no great pretensions either as to size or beauty. He perhaps alludes to Belleck Abbey, which is a fine building; but, notwithstanding its title, is of still more modern date than the so-called castle. I am not aware of any recent historical or descriptive work on the county generally. Caesar Otway, Maxwell, and the Saxon in Ireland, have confined their descriptions to the "Wild West;" and the crowd of tourists appear to follow in their track, leaving the far finer central and eastern districts ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 231, April 1, 1854 • Various
... Congress passed over. It was the long one, and ran into May 1792. I find in the collection only three letters to Mr. Lear dated in that year. The first is from Mount Vernon, July 30, '92, soon after he had left Philadelphia, and is familiarly descriptive of his journey homewards. His horses plagued him a good deal, he says, and the sick mare, owing to a dose of physic administered the night he reached Chester, was so much weakened as to be unable to carry Austin [one of the postilions] further than the Susquehannah; ...
— Washington in Domestic Life • Richard Rush
... of the remaining apa? ?e?? mue?a with initial m are descriptive compounds. Among them are the following adjectives: Maiden-tongued, maiden-widowed, man-entered (before noted as obsolete), many-headed, marble-breasted, marble-constant, marble-hearted, marrow-eating, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... all, it was Nan who furnished the greater part of the composition. Mrs. Challoner was rather verbose and descriptive in her style. Nan cut down her sentences ruthlessly, and so pruned and simplified the whole epistle that her mother failed to trace her own handiwork: and at the last she added a postscript in her ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... centuries exhausted their imaginative and descriptive powers in developing the feelings which this extraordinary phenomenon, in the midst of the classic land of Italy, awakens. They have spoken of desolation as the fitting shroud of departed greatness; of the mournful feelings which arise on approaching the seat of lost ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... to me a slope on the Himalayas. It was about eight years ago, and a few fellows were at a smoker given to some Tommies returning from India, when a bottle-nosed individual, talking about a long march his battalion had made up the Himalayas, in excellent descriptive exclaimed, "'Twasn't a 'ill, 'twasn't a graydyent, 'twas a blooming precipice, guvnor." The Himalayas and the country I am now describing have therefore something ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... illustrated is too "descriptive" and not sufficiently "monumental" to be assigned to the Timourid age, and so I give it to the late fifteenth century, to those delicious years when the old tradition, though weakened, had not been smothered under the scenic ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... Stilwell, the hero, and of Peterborough, Mr. Henty has woven an interesting and instructive narrative descriptive of this portion of the War of the Spanish ...
— Historic Boys - Their Endeavours, Their Achievements, and Their Times • Elbridge Streeter Brooks
... was individualized by the voice and by a slight change of expression. But the reader stood perfectly still, and the instant transition of the voice from the dramatic to the descriptive tone was unfailing and extraordinary. This was perfection of art. Nor was the evenness of the variety less striking. Every character was indicated with the same felicity. Of course the previous image in the hearer's mind must be considered in estimating ...
— From the Easy Chair, vol. 1 • George William Curtis
... English composition, algebra through quadratic equations, plane geometry, descriptive geography, physical geography, United States history and the ...
— Go Ahead Boys and the Racing Motorboat • Ross Kay
... Tritons. From the formality of the design it would appear to be of great antiquity before the introduction of fine taste into the world. It is probable that this beautiful allegory was originally an hieroglyphic picture (before the invention of letters) descriptive of the formation of the earth from the ocean, which seems to have been an opinion of many ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... finished pieces of work that Crawford has produced. The picturesque setting, Calabria and its surroundings, the beautiful Sorrento and the Gulf of Salerno, with the bewitching accessories that climate, sea, and sky afford, give Mr. Crawford rich opportunities to show his rare descriptive powers. As a whole the book is strong and beautiful through its simplicity, and ranks among the choicest of the ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... involuntary flow of thought which is ever passing through the mind; but by the active mental operation called "thinking,"—the voluntary exertion of the powers of the mind upon the idea presented to it, and which we have denominated "reiteration,"[1] as perhaps best descriptive of that thinking of the presented idea "over again," by which alone, as we shall see, the mind is ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... meet the new and growing demand for analysis of the feelings and the intimate thoughts and sensations of real men and women. A minor form of literature which had a brief but popular vogue ministered less directly to the same need. The "Character," a brief descriptive essay on a contemporary type—a tobacco seller, an old college butler or the like—was popular because in its own way it matched the newly awakened taste for realism and fact. The drama which in the hands of Ben Jonson had attacked folly and wickedness proper to ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... which we preserve in the English form, MOUNT DESERT. He observed that the distance across the channel to the mainland on the north side was less than a hundred paces. The rocky and barren summits of this cluster of little mountains obviously induced him to give to the island its appropriate and descriptive name Vide Vol. II. p. 39. Dr. Edward Ballard derives the Indian name of this island, Pemetiq, from peme'te, sloping, and ki, land. He adds that it probably denoted a single locality which was taken by Biard's company ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... says of the following stanza (xxxiv): "Such a strange and romantic dream as may be naturally expected to flow from the extraordinary events of the day. It might, perhaps, be quoted as one of Mr. Scott's most successful efforts in descriptive poetry. Some few lines of it are indeed unrivalled ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... today only partially descriptive of facts. The act of March 2, 1909, provides that new ambassadorships may be created only with the consent of Congress,[277] while the Foreign Service Act of 1924[278] organizes the foreign service, both its diplomatic and its consular divisions, in detail as to grades, ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... that this force was being directed toward incredible ends. By this time, too, the papers were full of accounts of the destruction of civilian populations. Something new, and certainly evil, was at work among mankind. Nobody was ready with a name for it. None of the well-worn words descriptive of human behaviour seemed adequate. The epithets grouped about the name of "Attila" were too personal, too dramatic, too full of ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... flight. He had not seen Chiquita for a week; he had been so busy getting the first part of his monograph into shape that he had not come to the reef. And all that week, the other men had been—. A word from the university slang came into his mind—twosing—came into it with a new significance. How descriptive that word ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... follow a chronological order or to enforce a rigid principle of selection of any kind. The aim has been to bring within moderate compass a collection of these songs of the people which should fairly represent the range, the descriptive felicity, the dramatic power, and the genuine poetic feeling of a body of verse which is still, it is to be feared, unfamiliar to a large number of those to whom it ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... Portuguese war-ship, and the few other vessels at anchor, but we could never exhaust the variety of those varied mountain slopes and tops. Their picturesqueness of form and their delight of color would beggar any thesaurus of its descriptive reserves, and yet leave their beauty almost unhinted. A drop-curtain were here a vain simile; the chromatic glories of colored postal-cards might suggest the scene, but then again they might overdo it. Nature is modest in her most magnificent ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... provided so that it can be used for hand or tripod work as desired. All complicated adjustments have been dispensed with so that the instrument can be manipulated with ease by the youngest amateur. Full and explicit instructions are sent with each camera. Send 5c stamps for sample picture and descriptive circulars. ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [April, 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... so low in my life,' said the lady who always brought back an A.D.C. from the Castle, and the phrase was cited afterwards as being admirably descriptive of the festival. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... words, he seemed so to enter into their spirit—as some earnest descriptive speakers will—as unconsciously to wreathe his form and sidelong crest his head, till he all but seemed the creature described. Meantime, the stranger regarded him with little surprise, apparently, though with much contemplativeness of a ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... more significant writer is Michael Prishvin. He belongs to an older generation and attracted some attention by good work in the line of descriptive journalism before he came in touch with Remizov. A man of the soil, he was capable of following Remizov's lead in making his Russian more colloquial and less bookish, without slavishly imitating him. He was unfortunately ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak
... boys and girls were hired out in prominent families in the city and by their intelligence, orderly conduct and other evidences of good breeding came to be known far and wide as "The Edmondson Children," the phrase being taken as descriptive of all that was excellent and desirable in a slave. The one incurable grief of these humble parents was that in bringing children into the world they were helping to perpetuate the institution of slavery. The fear that ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Vol. I. Jan. 1916 • Various
... instances this abridged account contains descriptive touches not given in the original narrative. These variations are given in the form of notes to the ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey |
