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adjective
nearer  adj.  Less distant in space; as, we walked to the nearer house.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Nearer" Quotes from Famous Books



... counselled flight, but dignity forbade it. He stared hard at Mrs. Kingdom, and a smile of rare appreciation on that lady's face endeavoured to fade slowly and naturally into another expression. The chair came nearer. ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... cannon human flesh. Each time a soldier was struck down, I was taking a step nearer death, I was approaching the spot where the shells were falling heavily, crushing the men whose turn had come to die. The corpses were forming heaps in that place, and soon the shells would strike into nothing more than a mound of mangled flesh; ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various

... peace, as they do not believe in our capacity and firm resolve to carry it out. Whatever confirms their views in this respect widens the distance between us and peace; the only way to bring us really nearer to peace is to adopt an attitude that will lead them to ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin

... I found on the floor, among piles of books, a small copy of Maud, a shilling volume, bound in blue paper. I put it into his hands and, pulling the lamp nearer him, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... of all the languages of the Northern Congo bend (bounded on the north, east and west by the main stream of the Congo), and perhaps the corrupt dialects of the Northern Kasai, Kwilu and Kwango (Babuma, Bahuana, Bambala, Ba-yaka, Bakutu, &c.), where these are not nearer allied to Teke (No. 18) ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 3 - "Banks" to "Bassoon" • Various

... "Come a little nearer, and I will soon settle you. You had better have remained in the country. It is lucky for you that your dirty soapsuds only went on my feet, for I would have taken you over my knees and given you a good spanking if one drop had gone in my face. What ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... drive out to Drangey. In the teeth of the wind it went, till it came to the island, where Illugi and Grettir saw it, but knowing it boded them ill, they thrust it out from shore; yet next morning was it there again, nearer the ladders than before; but again they drove it out to sea. The days wore on to summer, and a gale sprang up with wet; the brothers being short of firewood, Noise was sent down to the shore to look for drift, grumbling at being ...
— The Book of Romance • Various

... and it was now to obtain a better one that he was following her across the sea. To say to herself that he was a kind of grim fate was well enough for a fanciful young woman who was able to take much for granted in him; but the reader has a right to a nearer ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... the meal was a "welcome home," for a dozen of the nearer friends were there to hear the chapters of their hero's life. Jim was in fine feather and he told of their Chicago life as none other could have done, with jest and sly digs at himself and happy tributes to the one who had held his hand when ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton

... written by anybody that ever saw it: but as to hunting, except his horses wore something like mud-pattens or snow-shoes, it is difficult to conceive it. Almost the whole Forest is like a great sponge, water standing in every part. In the part nearer to Xchurch forest trees, especially beeches, seem to grow well. We stopped to bait at Lyndhurst, a small place high up in the Forest: a good view, such as it is, from the churchyard. The hills of the Isle of Wight occasionally in sight. On ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy

... of the idea of sin, that enchantment by concepts of carnality, which has engaged a certain type of man, to the exclusion of all other notions, since the dawn of history. The remote ancestors of our Puritan-Philistines of today are to be met with in the Old Testament and the New, and their nearer grandfathers clamoured against the snares of the flesh in all the councils of the Early Church. Not only Western Christianity has had to reckon with them: they have brothers today among the Mohammedan Sufi and in obscure Buddhist ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken

... cricket," he said, "but it's a field one. You don't know what that is, though," he continued, as a queer sound saluted my ears,—a low, dull whirring, rising and falling, sometimes nearer, sometimes distant, till it ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... "It's a little nearer, too, and you'll see by casting a glimpse westward that things are doing over Grass ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... WilliamIII., Prince of Orange. Louis XIV. seized the principality of Orange in 1672, but lost it by the peace of Ryswick. On the death of WilliamIII. there were two claimants—John William Friso of Nassau-Dietz, designated by William's will, and FrederickI, King of Prussia, who claimed to be nearer of kin, and to have been appointed by the will of Frederick-Henry. Thereupon Louis XIV. declared the principality a forfeited fief of the French crown, and assigned it to the Prince of Conti. The Parliament of Paris decided that this last prince ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black

... mean? Is it, I ask, confessed, then,—is it confessed that we are no nearer a peace than we were when we snatched up this bit of paper called, or miscalled, a treaty, and ratified it? Have we yet to fight it out to the utmost, as if ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... gratitude. From the time they are thrown off in the field, as a proof of the pleasure they feel in being employed, the tail is in perpetual motion, upon the increased vibration of which the experienced sportsman well knows when he is getting nearer to the game. As the dog approaches it, the more energetic he becomes. Tremulous whimpers escape him as a matter of doubt occurs, and he is all eagerness as he hits again on the scent. The Clumber breed of spaniels have long been celebrated for their strength and powers of ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse

... sorrows, pleasures and pains, takes them away, and teaches Life's lessons aright. The transition from our lower sense of Life to a new and higher sense thereof, even though it be through the door named death, yields a clearer and [30] nearer sense of Life to those who ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... was a lull in the enemy's attack and seeking safety behind the schanze when shells were falling too rapidly. It was an uneven contest, but the bravery of the one man inspired the others, and the end of the day saw the Boers nearer victory than they were in the morning. At Tafelkop, on March 30th, three burghers were caught napping by three British soldiers, who suddenly appeared before them and shouted, "Hands up!" While the ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas

... a-leap to the switch, and, in the same second, the blaze of the chandelier flamed brilliantly over all. The others stood motionless, blinking in the sudden radiance—all save Griggs, who moved stealthily in that same moment, a little nearer the door into the passage, which was nearest ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana

... we have received in the natural order. It is as if we said that no man possesses the natural power to see thorough a stone wall, or thorough the earth. Certainly all men are equal here; for the man whose eagle eye can recognize a friend at the distance of ten miles, is no nearer seeing thorough the earth than another, whose sight is so bad that he can scarcely recognize his own father at a distance of a few steps. So it is with seeing God. No man has the power in himself by nature, and, therefore, no one can develop it by study. Even the angels, who are ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux

... "Now, Brutus, lie still." He gave a peculiar whistle, waited a moment, and repeated it, twice, thrice. At the first call there was a fluttering in the branches overhead. At the second call one saw the silhouettes of tiny bodies dropping from branch to branch ever nearer to the boy below. At the third, there was a flutter, a rush of wings, and a flock of dear little birds came flying to John's shoulder, to his out-stretched arms, to his head; so that presently he looked like a green bush which they had chosen ...
— John of the Woods • Abbie Farwell Brown

... intersect a little; for a wall in common even to two adjoining cells would save some little labour and wax. Hence, it would continually be more and more advantageous to our humble-bees, if they were to make their cells more and more regular, nearer together, and aggregated into a mass, like the cells of the Melipona; for in this case a large part of the bounding surface of each cell would serve to bound the adjoining cells, and much labour and wax would be saved. Again, from the same ...
— On the Origin of Species - 6th Edition • Charles Darwin

... hunted out the big, cloth-covered hymnal that was there. She found "Asleep in Jesus" and played it over and over on the piano. The bass was a trifle difficult, but that didn't matter. Then she found other hymns which were in accord with her mood: "Abide with Me"; "Nearer My God to Thee"; "One Sweetly Solemn Thought." The last was sublimely beautiful; it almost stole her favour away from "Asleep in Jesus." ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... in the Caucasus of late have been surprising enough to awaken the interest of Western Europe, even amidst her own nearer anxieties. Last year it was said that the conquest of Achulgo, the stronghold of the redoubtable Schamyl, had effectually broken the power of that daring leader. In direct contradiction to such reports, later accounts from Daghestan tell of the reappearance of the notable partisan amidst the ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various

... the powers and functions of the body have greatly changed. The despised and contemned knights and burgesses, that were not worthy to have seats provided for them when the king was delivering them his speech, now rule the world; or, at least, come nearer to the possession of that dominion than any other power has ever done, in ancient or modern times. They decide who shall administer the government, and in what way. They make the laws, settle questions of trade and commerce, decide ...
— Charles I - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... adventure. Even Tamalpais, the gentle mountain which rose beyond everything, changed ever with the change in her veil of mist or fog or rain-rift. The third panel, lying far to the right, showed first dim mountain ranges and the mouths of mighty rivers, and then, nearer by, masts, stacks and shipping, fringing ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin

... distresses which fancy has feigned, to excite sorrow and commiseration; and while we survey them, we are apt altogether to forget her frailties; we think of her faults with less indignation, and approve of our tears as if they were shed for a person who had attained much nearer to pure virtue. With regard to the queen's person, all contemporary authors agree in ascribing to Mary the utmost beauty of countenance, and elegance of shape, of which the human form is capable. Her hair was black, ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton

... was very much in earnest in what I said to you just now. I have seen a good deal of the world, and you nothing at all, and I cannot help believing that the time when you may need some one's help is a good deal nearer than you yourself imagine." ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... &c. This may be as true as it seems beautiful; but it is utterly meaningless. Though we should prolong this litany through ten pages (it has been filtered through a thousand volumes), we should be no nearer to the ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... having progressed an inch or two on the way of infinity," Mallard replied. "That brings me no nearer to an end." ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... twenty-two, however much saner and stronger, and any one looking closely into my mind during that period might well have imagined growth finished altogether. It is particularly evident to me now that I came no nearer to any understanding of women during that time. That Locarno affair was infinitely more to me than I had supposed. It ended something—nipped something in the bud perhaps—took me at a stride from a vague, fine, ignorant, closed world of emotion ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... how the mere form of their expression differs. That which is important is the attitude we hold to the forms with which we are surrounded. To-day the form of our belief is changed; the fashion of our dress is scientific and not allegorical, but are we any nearer the realization that it is a dress and no more, and not the real expression of ...
— Simon Magus • George Robert Stow Mead

... River! What a name For yesterdays come back again today, Reborn to be tomorrows still the same— A landgrave built it when the English came; Then men made houses well With cunning hands. And service wore a nearer, feudal guise— Witness the stone where "Rose, ...
— Carolina Chansons - Legends of the Low Country • DuBose Heyward and Hervey Allen

... electrons going to the 2 plate except this habit. And there are plenty of stay-at-home electrons to stop them as they rush along. They bump and jostle, but some of them are stopped or else diverted so that they go bumping around without getting any nearer plate 2. Of course, they spend all their energy this way, getting every one all stirred ...
— Letters of a Radio-Engineer to His Son • John Mills

... said. You've learned all that over there—and a good deal more besides. There have been no folderols in her education. I've made her practical. Come, draw up your chair nearer and tell me something of the Van Ostends and that little Alice who was the means of Aileen's coming to me. I hear she is growing ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller

... his enthusiasm he had forgotten the present, forgotten the horror which was coming nearer with great strides as the morning brightened in the sky. He saw only the future—not the immediate future—death, with his back against the wall of the courtyard, his face turned to the rising sun; but the splendid, strenuous ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes

... He was nearer the door now, and just beyond it he caught a glimpse of the white flesh of Aura's ankle as she stood beside the house. The man put a hand on the Very Young Man's throat. The Very Young Man caught it by the wrist, but he could feel the growing ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... city by the bitter trades, the fog was crawling into one's very marrow. And the hills were steep. Sometimes she took the cable car to the end of the line, then walked to the Presidio; but that brought the sand-hills nearer, and she went home with smarting eyes. Protected by her window, she found beauty even in the summer mood of San Francisco; and sometimes she went up into the tower of the Belmont house and watched the ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... the night. As his naked feet struck the graveled driveway, he stopped abruptly, reached under the steps to a hiding-place he knew well, and pulled forth a huge knotty club—his old companion on many a mad night adventure on the hills. The frantic hullabaloo of the dogs was coming nearer, and, swinging the club, he sprang straight into the thickets to ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London

... Quentin girls were nearer to Matilda's age than I, but they too were very happy and looked very nice in the hobble-de-hoy stage of girlhood. I am sure that they much preferred the company of their young brothers to the company of the drawing-room; but they did what they were told to ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... three miles long. In reaching the point where the disaster had occurred I had to pass the divisions of Smith and Wallace. I saw no sign of excitement on the portion of the line held by Smith; Wallace was nearer the scene of conflict and had taken part in it. He had, at an opportune time, sent Thayer's brigade to the support of McClernand and thereby contributed to hold the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... abandoned portion of the Pennsylvania Canal. Beside this again, as though some monster had passed leaving a track clear of trees, stretches the right of way of the first "Pennsylvania," and a little nearer swings the magnificent double-tracked bed of the railroad of today. Between these lines of travel may be read the history of the past two centuries of American commerce, for the vital factors in the development ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert

... knowledge to attempt to enquire. According to Tiele, the religion of Egypt was at the beginning polytheistic, but developed in two opposite directions: in the one direction gods were multiplied by the addition of local gods, and in the other the Egyptians drew nearer and nearer to monotheism. [Footnote: Geschiedenis van den Godedienst in de Oudheid, Amsterdam, 1893, p. 25. A number of valuable remarks on this subject are given by Lieblein in Egyptian Religion, p. 10.] Dr. Wiedemann takes the view that three main ...
— Egyptian Ideas of the Future Life • E. A. Wallis Budge

... Venice. In misty weather they are blue, and in clear weather silver, and the October sunset loves them. They rise in tender azure before you as you issue from the southern gate of Padua, and grow in loveliness as you draw nearer to them from the rich plain that washes their feet with endless harvests of oil ...
— Italian Journeys • William Dean Howells

... eggs, butter and bacon are concerned, we have enough and to spare within protecting range of rifle and revolver, but for fresh beef and mutton and flour we must depend upon Cork. Now the mysterious agent in Cork who sends us the supplies cannot get them carried nearer to the house than the railway station at Kilmallock, the interesting little town at which one of the county members keeps the inn and "runs" the cars, a fact whereof the citizens are not a little proud. When we receive the news, letter or telegram, announcing ...
— Disturbed Ireland - Being the Letters Written During the Winter of 1880-81. • Bernard H. Becker

... quiet and peaceful lives, and do not like to admit strangers to their privacy. They numbered in 1874 about five thousand persons, including children, and were then scattered through thirteen states, in which they own over one hundred and fifty thousand acres of land—probably nearer one hundred and eighty thousand, for the more prosperous frequently own farms at a distance, and the exact amount of their holdings is not easily ascertained. As they have sometimes been accused of being land monopolists, it is curious to see that ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... that no sensible man among you, who has supported the present Members on account of their steady adherence to Ministers, can be induced to change his conduct, or be persuaded that the hour is either come, or approaching, when, for the sake of bringing the power of Opposition in this County nearer to an equality with that of Ministers, it will be his duty to vote against those Representatives in whom he has hitherto confided. No, if Mr. Brougham had not individually passed far beyond the line ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... analogie in inflexion, And Since the same words which allow of this accord may have it in severall distinct manners they are not all (if I may be permitted to say so) neither of Kin, nor alliance in the same degree; their relation is sometimes nearer, Sometimes at a greater distance, for we may by way of analogie discours at the same rate of the genealogie of words as we do of the degrees of consanguinity; for if the one sort be rang'd under the same Line either direct or Collaterall, the others admitt of a little ...
— A Philosophicall Essay for the Reunion of the Languages - Or, The Art of Knowing All by the Mastery of One • Pierre Besnier

... of the time as little of the real feelings of the one as we should about the domestic relations of the other. But there are ways and means for lifting the veil which equally favour our national idiosyncrasy; and a new and remarkable novel is one of them—especially the nearer it comes to real life. We invite our neighbour to a walk with the deliberate and malicious object of getting thoroughly acquainted with him. We ask no impertinent questions— we proffer no indiscreet confidences—we do not even sound him, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson

... a nearer view of the subject, we may soon perceive the motive which causes the right of suffrage to depend upon the presumption of incapacity; the most extended system differing only in this respect from the most restricted, by the appreciation of those conditions on ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... the impression, he moved still nearer. "You jump to conclusions," he said, abruptly. "What ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston

... Slavonia, heading west by north: nearer came the waterspout, heading south by east. It soon became evident that the spout could not get by before the Slavonia reached it, and it was now too late to slow up—indeed, a collision was manifestly unavoidable from the start. Lorentzen had scarcely reached the bridge ...
— The Jungle Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis

... sir," said May, laughing, as he laid a large slice on her plate, which, however she did not touch, but put it aside for Helen; then observing that Mr. Stillinghast had finished his breakfast, she wheeled his chair nearer the fire, handed him his pipe, and the newspaper, and ran upstairs, to see if Helen was awake. But she still slept, and looked so innocently beautiful, that May paused a few moments by her pillow, to gaze at her. "She is like the descriptions which ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey

... Bertha left her toys and came to sit down by her teacher—who had now laid aside her work—her young face wearing a very sober look. After a while she slipped one hand into that of Violet, who clasped it kindly and drew her still nearer. ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

... to hear he has had a good fight, Mrs. Dr. dear. Perhaps it may knock that poetry nonsense out of him. And I never, no, never could bear that little viper of a Dan Reese. Will you not sit nearer to the fire, Mrs. Marshall Elliott? These November ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... was well worth seeing, we visited Kenilworth. The relentless rain only allowed us a glimpse of this memorable ruin. Well, the last time I was here, in 1815,[160] these trophies of time were quite neglected. Now they approach so much nearer the splendour of Thunder-ten-tronckh, as to have a door at least, if not windows. They are, in short, preserved and protected. So much for the novels. I observed decent children begging here, a thing uncommon in England: and I recollect the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott

... When he drew nearer he perceived it to be a spring van, ordinary in shape, but singular in colour, this being a lurid red. The driver walked beside it; and, like his van, he was completely red. One dye of that tincture covered his clothes, the cap upon his head, his boots, his face, and ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy

... the eyes of all who then saw it for them to notice its beauty. The sun was low enough in the west to turn the mist that filled the distant valley of the river into golden haze. Above, on either bank of the Dee, there lay the moorland heights swelling one behind the other; the nearer, russet brown with the tints of the fading bracken; the more distant, gray and dim against the rich autumnal sky. The red and fluted tiles of the gabled houses rose in crowded irregularity on one side of the river, while the newer suburb was built in more orderly and less ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell

... Tom," said Mark. "How dark it's getting. Easy—easy there; just dip so as to get nearer the shore. The current's so swift we may ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... he planted a left full on the nose of the nearer assailant and knocked him backwards over a sprawling chair. Then turning attention to the other, he was barely in time to duck an uppercut—and out of the corners of his eyes caught the glint of brass-knuckles on the fist ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance

... it was silly of him; but please to remember that he was quite as far from being blase as—as we used to be; and that he was just now becoming really in love with Elizabeth. And love is much nearer kin to pity than pity is to love. So he lay there and pitied Elizabeth, and wondered when the wedding was to be. He must have Clara find this out from Brassfield. And he thought regretfully of Madame le Claire. His reflections ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... of the same result much nearer our own times. Schiller's Raeuber, that wonderful play, written by a green youth, perverted the taste and imagination of all the young men in Germany. An accomplished critic of our own country (Hazlitt), speaking of this play, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay

... are loose." One of the party, Miss Findeisen, asked whether they would attack us, to which the matron replied, "That is just what they would do," and hurried us along. The baying grew louder and nearer at times and then more distant, as the dogs rushed back and forth, and this went on until we reached the sewing room. The effect of this upon our nerves can better be imagined than described . . ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens

... Franconia; "it will all be well, one of these days. You, as well as uncle, must bear with trouble. It is a world of trouble and trial." She draws her chair nearer him, and listens to his narrative of being carried off,—his endeavours to please his strange master down in Mississippi,—the curious manner in which his name was changed,—the sum he was compelled to pay for his time, and the good he effected while pursuing the object of his mission on the neighbouring ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams

... night. Speed was now no object. It was, they knew, hopeless to attack in broad daylight, as the Indians would be probably more than a match for them, and Ethel's life would be inevitably sacrificed. They walked, therefore, until within six or seven miles of the gorge, nearer than which they dared not go, lest they might be seen ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty

... to me he would be a corpse, with waxen hands and dull eyes, and I should see the shroud around his face; and next day he would not suspect, nor the next, and all the time his handful of days would be wasting swiftly away and that awful thing coming nearer and nearer, his fate closing steadily around him and no one knowing it but Seppi and me. Twelve days—only twelve days. It was awful to think of. I noticed that in my thoughts I was not calling him ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... Stonecrop only moved the faster in the same direction, giving a loud scream to call him back. And now a faint light came dancing down by the water, drawing closer and closer to the children till they could see that it was a man carrying a lantern. Nearer and nearer it came, and Dick cleared his throat and began, "Oh, please—," whereupon the man stopped so short that Dick stopped too, and Elsie came up close to him and clung to his arm. Then the light disappeared and the man gave a peculiar whistle. ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... lose. Most birds are nesting then, and in full song and plumage. And what is a bird without its song? Do we not wait for the stranger to speak? It seems to me that I do not know a bird till I have heard its voice; then I come nearer it at once, and it possesses a human interest to me. I have met the Gray-cheeked Thrush (Turdus aliciae) in the woods, and held him in my hand; still I do not know him. The silence of the Cedar-Bird throws ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 104, June, 1866 • Various

... was a duty that had to be undertaken, as the men naturally looked to me for protection. In the whole of my life I have never experienced anything more nerve-shaking than to hear the deep roars of these dreadful monsters growing gradually nearer and nearer, and to know that some one or other of us was doomed to be their victim before morning dawned. Once they reached the vicinity of the camps, the roars completely ceased, and we knew that they were stalking for their prey. Shouts would then pass from camp to camp, "Khabar ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... worlds to meet the waste of eternity? Were the earth dissolved into gases by fusion, what would become of its satellite the moon? Might not the principles of our planet, thus volatilized, yield to its nearer attraction, assemble around that orb, which, losing its governing influence, should be left to wander in infinite space, subject to a new but eccentric law of gravity, until finally reduced again within the limits of some new system? ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... the oars came nearer, and presently as he looked through the covert of leaves the dusky outline of a great war canoe came into view. It contained at least twenty warriors, of what tribe he could not tell, but they were wet, and they looked cold and miserable. Soon they were opposite him, ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler

... brightest points in all the bright side was, that, in living so constantly through her illness with Fanny, who lived with God, I had been perforce brought nearer to Him, and therefore naturally learned to dread Him less and love Him more than I had done; so that I hoped, as I know my mother did, that the sunshine of His grace would help to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various

... an impossible task, Godmother Voldoiseau!" he heard the mysterious young under-gardener declare. "I am no nearer her than when I came. And I never shall be till you restore me ...
— In Brief Authority • F. Anstey

... your chair a leetle nearer the kitchen door, if you please," said Mrs. Hill, "and I can make up my biscuit and hear ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... may, by following out to the terminus of the penetrating railways, find cheap and good lands awaiting them, and where just as beautiful homes may be made as in that portion nearer the river—now teeming with life and industries—but which, a few brief years since, was as desolate and untenanted as are the unbroken prairies to the westward. The prices vary, according to location and character, from five to fifteen dollars per ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill

... sinners to a sincere repentance, he sets before their eyes the terrors of the last judgment. In the twentieth, he exhorts them to redouble their fervor in preparing their souls for the Paschal communion, the nearer that time approached; especially by forgiving all injuries. In the twenty-first, which was spoken on Easter-day, after the return of the patriarch, he recites great part of Flavian's speech, and the emperor's gracious ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... sharp rebuke, the captain of the harriers hung his head, and allowed the falconer to get two steps in advance of him nearer to D'Artagnan. ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... scene presented itself. An hour previously a dark mass had been sighted near the western shore of the lake, which mass had at first been taken for an island; but, on a nearer approach, the supposed island had resolved itself into an immense fleet of canoes, in number about three hundred, manned by from four to twenty men in each, rapidly making its way toward the western shore. So large a concourse of craft, coupled with the fact that the crews were elaborately ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood

... 1839, "an article on Lockhart's 'Scott,' written by (p. 161) Cooper in the "Knickerbocker," which was lent me by Barry Cornwall. I think it capital. I see none of Cooper's faults; and I think a proper castigation is applied to the vulgar minds of Scott and Lockhart. Indeed, the nearer I approach the circle of these men the less disposed do I find myself to like them." Sumner subsequently wrote, that Procter fully concurred in the conclusions advanced in the review. But these were not the prevalent opinions, in this country at least. Great was the outcry against Cooper for ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury

... midnight—the first cattle-market day at Falkirk being on Tuesday—but the first thing he observed on drawing near to the house, which remains on the farm to this day, although a new one has been built, was the main room lighted up. On coming nearer, he heard voices fast and loud, and one was that of M'Donald! It was all over! M'Donald had fairly beat M'Combie in the chase. My father got hold of Mrs Geddes, worn-out and disappointed, and got quietly to bed; and I have often heard him tell how M'Donald's peals of laughter rang in his ears as ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie

... their preparations and renew the fires. When Catharine softly unlatched the front door, everything was ready—warm blankets, hot milk, hot water bottles. But now they hardly dared speak to each other; dread kept them dumb. Nearer and nearer came the sound of feet and lowered voices. Soon they could hear the swing of the gate leading into the garden. Four men entered, carrying something. Meynell walked ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... hath brought me low. It is a plague nearer than the skin, it overwhelms my soul as an earthquake, it is farther than the height of the sky, and harder to win than the treasures of the Fairy Folk. If I contend with it, it is like a combat with a spectre; if I fly to the ends of the earth from it, it is there; if I seek ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston

... intentions frustrated, of hopes that deceive, and of fair prospects that turn to ashes, of good lives that go wrong, of sweet natures turned to bitterness in the unaided struggle. His voice grew stronger and clearer, as his body responded to the kindling theme in his soul. He stepped away from the desk nearer the rail, the bowed head was raised. "What does it matter?" he said. "It is only for a little while, my children." Those who heard him that day say that his face shone like that of an angel, and that his voice was like a victorious clarion, so clear, so sweet, so inspiring, as he spoke ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... angels withdraw themselves, and evil spirits come into nearer companionship; hence, the bestiality and cruelty of drunkenness. The man, changing his internal associates, receives by inflex a new order of influence, and passively acts therefrom. He becomes, for the time, the human agent by which evil spirits effect their wicked purposes; ...
— The Two Wives - or, Lost and Won • T. S. Arthur

... part of the Irish race, however, this cold paralysis of distrust had no operation. The Irish in Great Britain, always outdoing all others in the keenness of their Nationalism, were nearer the main current of the war, and were more in touch with the truth about English feeling. They had a double impulse, as Redmond had; they saw how to serve their own cause in serving Europe's freedom; and their response was magnificent. Mr. T.P. O'Connor probably raised more recruits by ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn

... raging all along the entrenchments of the allied army. Again and again Luxemburg brought up his troops within pistolshot of the breastwork; but he could bring them no nearer. Again and again they recoiled from the heavy fire which was poured on their front and on their flanks. It seemed that all was over. Luxemburg retired to a spot which was out of gunshot, and summoned a few of his chief officers to a consultation. They talked together during some time; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... would not have been too heavy a price to pay if national unity could have been maintained. Never did it seem nearer at hand. With fresh memories of Alba's regime and the wholesale executions of the Council of Blood, under the direct influence of the terrible news from Antwerp, the Belgian Catholics were never more ready to wipe off old grievances, to forget the sacrileges ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts

... nearer, "yet if Guinness were in his grave now, I fancy he would think my business of more importance to him than life itself would be." He was talking against time, she saw—talking while he inspected her to ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Volume 11, No. 26, May, 1873 • Various

... when you are reminded by the instruments, It is not the violins and the cornets, it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza, nor that of the men's chorus, nor that of the women's chorus, It is nearer and farther ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... reason." And this is the main reason why you cannot answer brother Fuller's important questions on THE OPEN BOOK OF REV. x: 2. It requires some one that has followed the truth, the present truth, nearer than you have, to reply to such questions, and they as surely involve the days as a cry at midnight brought us to the end of them. Do you not see how you are first blowing hot and then blowing cold? Six weeks ago, ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates

... to feel all the time you ought to be and could be something very different, and yet never get a step nearer it! That is to be miserable. Still it is a mercy to know it. There ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald

... King's letter, that he, the King, holds joy not impossible to one with artist-gifts, who leaves behind living works. Looking over the sea, as he writes, he says, "Yon rower with the moulded muscles there, lowering the sail, is nearer it that I." He presents with clearness, and with rigid logic, the DILEMMA of the growing soul; shows the vanity of living in works left behind, and in the memory of posterity, while he, the feeling, thinking, acting man, shall sleep in his urn. The horror of the ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... was thus engaged, the tramp of horses and the loud shouting of men were heard at a distance. They came near, and nearer. ...
— Rienzi • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... sunny distance, O'er the river's further brim, Like a stern old Norman warder, Stood the castle tall and grim, And, nearer a grassy ruin, Where an old name ...
— Verses and Rhymes by the way • Nora Pembroke

... Willmer & Co. Immediately, i.e. half past eleven, a sudden squall came on, a great part of the sail was immediately taken in—rain and much colder, also much rocking of the ship; we have to be thankful that it has happened now, rather than in the night and especially when nearer land. Immediately after dinner one of the most terrible rolls we have ever had, I suppose more glasses were broken this day than on any former one. About two we had quite a thunder storm with very heavy rain. After dinner we went to the stern ...
— A Journey to America in 1834 • Robert Heywood

... back in the wind, and her rosary and crucifix beating about her shoulders with the hard riding, but her white face was brave with a divine trust. Yet even as she urged us I saw how imposible was her plea, for the men in front were already nearer to the place than we were. At the same time a pony dashed up beside me, and Little Blue Flower's voice ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... who supposed himself far enough from camp not to be troubled by spectators, swimming with a powerful side-stroke upstream. Ida sat down again, and both of them watched him as he drew a little nearer. So many times every minute his left arm swept out into the sunlight as he flung it forward with far-stretched palm. It fell with the faintest splash, and there was a little puff of spray as his head dipped and the water washed across his lips. Then the white limbs flashed amidst the green ...
— The Gold Trail • Harold Bindloss

... Then they came nearer and used more wiles, saying: "We cannot break the cord, though 'tis stronger than it looks, but thou, O mighty one, will be able to snap it ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... species. The nostrils, however, are much wider, about as wide from wing to wing, as the white man's mouth from corner to corner, and the internal bones, called the turbinated, on which the olfactory nerves are spread, are larger and project nearer to the opening of the nostrils than in the white man. Hence the negro approximates the lower animals in his sense of smell, and can detect snakes by that sense alone. All the senses are more acute, but less delicate and discriminating, than the white man's. He has a good ear ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... the buying corn of the Pole, the Russian, or the Prussian, enable them to give high prices for our manufactures, why do not you give the same advantages to those nearer home? For my own part, I believe, after all, that the home market is our best resource, and that there we dispose of the greatest proportion of our manufactured articles. It has, and I think with truth, been stated, that two-thirds of the whole quantity of our manufactures ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... uncertain outline (reflecting that lax morality which confounds the limits of light and darkness, right and wrong) of the latter. On the other hand, the more that Intellect, or the spirit of Form, intervenes in its severe precision, the less pure, the paler grow the colors, the nearer they tend to the hue of marble, of the bas-relief. We thus find the purest and brightest colors only in Fra Angelico's pictures, with a general predominance of blue, which we have observed to prevail more or less in so many of the Semi-Byzantine ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... majestic form of Monadnock, if not the highest, one of the very noblest peaks in the Granite State. In an opposite direction, and nearly one hundred miles from Monadnock, stood old Greylock, the greatest elevation in Massachusetts; while much nearer by—in fact, seeming almost at our feet when compared with these immense ranges—lay the charming Deerfield valley, up from which rose the curling smoke of the locomotive as it moved steadily westward, until hidden from view by a sudden ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various

... Theodosia a long letter of business and nonsense last evening from Chester. I am now about twelve miles nearer to you, and shall sleep to-night within thirty-five miles (only six hours' ride), and shall to-morrow ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... withal, told me, to his certain knowledge, this guide of mine had never been at the house, neither did he know the way to it, but as he had got some marks of the way, which he had received, as I or any other may do; and, if I followed him all my days, I should be never the nearer to it, and should find at last, I had spent my time, money and labour ...
— A Short History of a Long Travel from Babylon to Bethel • Stephen Crisp

... my eyes for beauties nearer at hand," said Bernenstein, whose volatile temper soon ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope

... Salt Range is from 1000 feet to 2000 feet above sea level. The rise between Lahore and Rawalpindi is just over a thousand feet. Low hills usually form a feature of the landscape, pleasing at a distance or when softened by the evening light, but bare and jagged on a nearer view. The chief hills are the Margalla range between Hazara and Rawalpindi, the Kalachitta and the Khairimurat hills running east and west through Attock and the very dry and broken Narrara hills on the right bank of the Indus in the same district. Between the Margalla and Kalachitta ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... their present state. You give them a higher relish for those privileges which they can never attain, and turn what you intend for a blessing into a curse. No, if they must remain in their present situation, keep them in the lowest state of ignorance and degradation. The nearer you bring them to the condition of brutes, the better chance do you give ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison

... a brawling stream, that stepping lightly Adown a natural stair of tangled roots, Is presently received in a sweet grove Of eglantine, a place of burial Far lovelier than its cradle; for unseen But taken with the sweetness of the place, It giveth out a constant melody That drowns the nearer echoes. Lower down Spreads out a little lake, that, flooding, makes Cushions of yellow sand; and from the woods That belt it rise three dark tall cypresses; Three cypresses, symbols of mortal woe, ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... way through the darkness, faintly illuminated by the distant glow of the conflagration. He skirted the dockyard, and drew nearer to the walls of the courtyard surrounding the fort, remembering how, nearly twelve months before, he had come almost the same way from the jetty with the decoy message from Captain Barker. Then he had been a source of amusement ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang

... common ancestor, has made our families equal: nay, nor was it out of brotherly affection, which another might yet have justly done; for certainly, unless I had bestowed this honor out of regard to God, and to his laws, I had not passed by myself, and given it to another, as being nearer of kin to myself than to my brother, and having a closer intimacy with myself than I have with him; for surely it would not be a wise thing for me to expose myself to the dangers of offending, and to bestow the happy employment on this account upon another. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... As she moved nearer she gave a start of surprise. The lights in the night-life room were out. The transom showed black and empty above the ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... we came to Badarpur, twelve miles over a plain, with the range of hills on our left approaching nearer and nearer the road, and separating us from the old city of Delhi. We passed through Faridpur, once a large town, and called after its founder, Shaikh Farid, whose mosque is still in good order, though there is no person to read or hear prayers in it.[2] We passed also two fine bridges, one ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... nothing but as they drew nearer he exclaimed: "Look! They've got the Pelican sewed up tighter than a drum. Looks like Mascola hasn't tumbled on ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... that there are persons also in that party who have not neglected all their opportunities in that kind. The object of the Republicans is to bring back the policy and practice of the Republic to some nearer agreement with the traditions of the fathers. They also have a National Idea,—for some of them are capable of distinguishing "a phrase from an idea," or Mr. Choate would find it easier to convert them. They propose to create ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... your respectability and well-doing in life rest mainly with yourselves, but far, far beyond earthly respectability and well-doing, and compared with which they are as nothing, your eternal happiness rests with yourselves. You know your duty, but snares and temptations from without beset you, and the nearer you approach to manhood the more strongly will you feel this. With God's help, with God's word, and with humble hearts you will stand in spite of everything, but should you leave off seeking in earnest for the first, and applying to the second, should you learn to trust in yourselves, ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... the servant, trembling. "I was going to gather some peas in.... I looked into the orchard next door ... to see if there ... I saw a man swinging.... I thought it was Teo ... I went nearer to gather peas, and I saw that it was not he but it was another, and was dead ... I ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal

... stranger, helping himself to a third glass of wine; "here's a health to your young folk! And now to business." Here the visitor, drawing his chair nearer to his host, assuming a more grave aspect, and dropping something of his stilted pronunciation, ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... coming out now without ceremony. He was quick to perceive the effect he had produced. To soften it, he placed a comfortable chair on the hearthrug, and said, in his ordinary friendly way: "Sit nearer the fire: we can talk more comfortably. Now," he continued, standing with his back to the mantelpiece, "let me tell you, Miss McQuinch, that when you talk of my turning people away from my door you are not talking fair and square sense to me. I dont turn my acquaintances ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw

... might have been done there. For a law passed under the Empire in 1852, and undisturbed for obvious reasons by the Third Republic, allows the prefect of a department to determine into what sections he will divide a large commune for the purpose, according to the law, of 'bringing the electors nearer to the electoral urn.' This opens the way, of course, to a good deal of what in America would be known as official 'gerrymandering.' The thing may be of any country. The name we owe to Mr. Elbridge Gerry, once Vice-President ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert

... in himself, belittling his own gifts, enlarging his own lacks, glorifying his friend. He had never had a deeply intimate boy friend before; the team was his friend, the squad; Honor had sufficed for a nearer tie. It was to be different, now; a sharing. She was to resent a little in the beginning, before she, too, came under the spell of ...
— Play the Game! • Ruth Comfort Mitchell



Words linked to "Nearer" :   nigher, comparative



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