"Ray" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up the steps to the store piazza. Rose stepped forward and looked in the door. "Father's in there, and Tommy Ray," she whispered. "You needn't be afraid to go in." But she entered as she spoke, and Rebecca ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... guarded. Well, they had crowned him, but never should Umballa, through any signature of his, put his hand into the royal treasury. Besides, this time he had seen pity and sympathy in the faces of many who had looked upon his entrance to the city. The one ray of comfort lay in the ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... he managed to cajole the publishers in the beginning he does not tell us. They are not so easily managed now. And there is the story of the pious editor who began the serial publication of "Rachel Ray," and although paying Trollope his honorarium, stopped it abruptly because there was a dancing party in the story! In all this the author of "The Warden" and "Barchester Towers" nothing extenuates nor puts down aught in malice. And I must say that for me this autobiography is very good reading. ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan
... drop of sweetness in the bitterness of his cup—one ray of light in the darkness of his outlook; and that was the consciousness that he could still go on seeing and loving and serving Elisabeth, although he might never be able to tell her he was doing so. He hoped ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... but gracious; plain of speech, And freely kindling under beauty's ray, He dares to speak of what he loves; to-day He talked of art, and led ...
— Ionica • William Cory (AKA William Johnson)
... majesty expanded and filled your spirit with a full satisfaction that left a perfect delight without the slightest feeling of oppression. Grandly majestic and dignified in all his deportment, he was genial as the sunlight of this beautiful day; and not a ray of that cordial social intercourse but brought warmth to the heart as it did light ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... would or no. The glory of the Gospel has informed our natural reason, and we cannot undo the blessed process, strive we as much as we will. The "inward Light," (as we call it,) is the lingering twilight of the Day of Creation, in the case of the heathen,—the reflected ray of the noontide of the Gospel, even in the case of the modern unbeliever. We cannot escape from these conditions of our being, although we may affect to ignore them, or pretend to turn our eyes the other way. ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... soft and beautiful in the calm of the summer night, but it oppressed him with its solitude. In one place he could see a faint ray of light, apparently from some cottage window; but that soon went out, and the scene that had been so bright in the morning was now shrouded in a gloom which ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... eastern house-fronts, and to the great plane-trees holding the Square garden, like giants encamped. Landsowne House, in its lordly seclusion from the rest of the Square, seemed specially to have gathered the fog to itself, and was almost lost from sight. Not a ray of light escaped the closely-shuttered windows. The events of the mensis mirabilis were rushing on. Bulgaria, Austria, Turkey, had laid down their arms—the German cry for an armistice had rung through Europe. But still London lay dark and muffled. ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... clouds divide, and dawning day Tints the quadrangle with its earliest ray. The College, in Blackwood's ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... and killed by Typhon. The fragments of his body are preserved and cared for by his consort, Isis. After his death he let a ray of his own light fall upon her, and she bore him Horus. This Horus takes up the earthly tasks of Osiris. He is the second Osiris, still imperfect, but progressing towards ...
— Christianity As A Mystical Fact - And The Mysteries of Antiquity • Rudolf Steiner
... dash of ice water on the spine. And Collins knew that that quality was lacking in Breed's cry. The personality of the gray wolf was marked by absolute savagery, his bleak outlook on life undiluted by a single ray of that humor which is so evident in every act of the dog and the prairie wolf; and this difference of temperament was reflected in his voice, apparent to the ears of the animal world, apparent to Collins only in the different way in which his subconscious mind reacted to ...
— The Yellow Horde • Hal G. Evarts
... Park Cemetery; no ray of sunlight fell upon his open grave, but the weather was mild, and among the budded trees passed a breath which was the promise of spring. Joseph Snowdon and the Byasses were Jane's only companions in the mourning-carriage; but at the cemetery they were joined by Sidney ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... short sketch, entitled "Eugene Field in Denver," Wolfe Londoner speaks of his friend as a "bright ray of laughing sunshine across this shadowy vale, a mine of sentiment and charity, an avalanche of fun and happiness," but one who "never in all the run of his merry, joyous career was known to wake ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... dress right through, and it is pretty well salted. I should love to have Lucy and Louise and Maud along on this trip, with sister Mary, too. What a jolly lot of tramps we would make! Well, their one ray of hope is to "pull through" the free academy and get on their own feet. There is plenty of good in store for all who can bring themselves in line to get it. Holding a dish right side up to catch ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... generally used, but there is an almost square shape, two and a half inches by three, also in favor, and especially used by unmarried ladies where the shortness of their name would be too much emphasized in the longer card. For instance: "Miss Ray" would be quite justified in choosing the square style, while "Miss Ethelinda Crane" or "Mrs. Algernon Spencer" would find the length of their names displayed to better advantage on the ...
— Social Life - or, The Manners and Customs of Polite Society • Maud C. Cooke
... much of it set up, by lurking around in the silent, shrinking, bright-eyed fashion that he has. Tommy Gregg is so single-minded in his investigations that I can easily imagine that he might seem as impersonal as an observant ray of sunlight in the window. Anyway, he had evidently seen everything, and nobody had ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... ashore. As with most frigates, the sick-bay of the Neversink was on the berth-deck—the third deck from above. It was in the extreme forward part of that deck, embracing the triangular area in the bows of the ship. It was, therefore, a subterranean vault, into which scarce a ray of heaven's glad light ever penetrated, ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... as the entomologist knew, were pitch-black places which no ray of light ever entered. He had been afraid he would be forced to stumble blindly in unlit depths, able to see nothing at all, on a par with the blind creatures among whom he moved. Yet he and Jim could see ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... same with that already explained in connection with the law-books, but the more definite physical interpretation of hell as a hole in the ground (garta, just as in the Rig Veda) is retained. Agastya sees his ancestors 'in a hole,' which they call 'a hell' (n[i]ray[a]). This is evidently the hell known to the law-punsters and epic (i. 74. 39) as puttra, 'the put hell' from which the son (putra) delivers (tra). For these ancestors are in the 'hole' because Agastya, their ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... imagined that the true artist must regard himself as the imperfect vehicle of the cosmic emotion—that beneath every difficulty overcome a new one lurked, the vision widening as the scope enlarged. To be initiated into these creative struggles, to shed on the toiler's path the consolatory ray of faith and encouragement, had seemed the chief privilege of her marriage. But there is something supererogatory in believing in a man obviously disposed to perform that service for himself; and Claudia's ardor gradually spent itself against the dense surface of her husband's complacency. ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... awful world we strive to pursue men, and send after them our impotent party verdicts of condemnation or acquittal. We set up our paltry little rods to measure Heaven immeasurable, as if, in comparison to that, Newton's mind or Pascal's or Shakspeare's was any loftier than mine; as if the ray which travels from the sun would reach me sooner than the man who blacks my boots. Measured by that altitude, the tallest and the smallest among us are so alike diminutive and pitifully base, that I say we should take ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... headlines today that become mere footnotes tomorrow. Both the successes and the setbacks of the past year remain on our agenda of unfinished business. For every apparent blessing contains the seeds of danger—every area of trouble gives out a ray of hope—and the one unchangeable certainty is that ...
— State of the Union Addresses of John F. Kennedy • John F. Kennedy
... many husbands would term some of them perfections!—the married life of Thomas and Janet Dodds might have gone on for another five years, and five to that, if it had not been that Thomas, in a weary hour, cast a glance with a scarlet ray in it on a certain Mary Blyth, who lived in the Grassmarket—a woman of whom our legend says no more than that she was a widow, besides being fair to the eye, and pleasant to the ear. We could wish that we had it not to say; ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Vol. XXIII. • Various
... sunset struggling through the branches and tangled leaves that intervened; and the downy peach peered provokingly from amongst the sheltering green, where, all the summer long, it had stolen the first blush of saffron-vested Aurora, when seraph hands unbar the gates of morning, and the last ray of golden light that paused at the flame-wrought portals of expiring day to look reluctant back. Another change came over the face of nature, and delicate-footed spring seemed to have come again with her lap ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... seem to the reader, with, unexpected force and conviction from out of the tranquillity of a serene old age,—Wordsworth's mission is concluded. The prophecy of his boyhood is fulfilled, and the "dear native regions" whence his dawning genius rose have been gilded by the last ray of its declining fire. There remains but the domestic chronicle of a few more years of mingled sadness and peace. And I will first cite a characteristic passage from a letter to his American correspondent, Mr. Reed, describing ...
— Wordsworth • F. W. H. Myers
... the Union dining-room, only to find that Jarvis had discarded the crutches and with some of the boys had gone out to Rhodes, then, as now, a popular resort for the students. Later, we learned that he danced several times. The next morning an X-ray clearly showed a complete fracture ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... Raoul I, on the evening of her betrothal to her cousin Richard, who lived in the castle, having seated herself at her window in the Tower of David, saw him at his window in the Tower of Charlemagne, and, thinking she heard him call her, as at that moment a ray of moonlight seemed to throw a bridge between them, she walked toward him. But when in the middle she made in her haste a false step and overpassed the ray, she fell, and was crushed at the foot of the tower. So since that day, each night when the moon ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola
... ray of sunshine was streaming in at the large window, and flooding half the room with its comfortable warmth and cheerful light. But the Marchese, though he held a scaldino (a little earthenware pot filled with burning braise) in his hand, and was apparently shivering with cold, sat ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... one web of superstition broken, one ray of light let in on darkness, one principle of liberty secured, are worth the living for, he mused. Fame!—it is the flower of a day, that dies when the next sun rises. But to do something, however little, to free men from their chains, to aid something, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... tribute of harmony, and soothing themselves to rest with songs. All these beauties of Nature were for a while withdrawn. The stars served to alleviate the frown of night, rather than to recover the objects from their obscurity. A faint ray scarcely reflected, and only gave the straining ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to India; of a Shipwreck on board the Lady Castlereagh; and a Description of New South Wales • W. B. Cramp
... inhabited by regret. The past she tried to put from her, but remorse is physical; it declines to be dismissed. She would have killed herself, but she no longer dared. Besides, in the future there was light. In some ray of it she must have walked, for when at the foot of Mount Taurus, in a little Cappadocian village, years later, she died, it was at the ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... abasement were pierced by one ray of sunlight; the United States refused the tribute demanded by the Barbary Rovers. From its very birth the new nation had, in common with all other maritime countries, accepted as a necessary evil a practice it was now full time to abolish. As early as 1785 the Dey ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... itself clear this afternoon, at any rate, and as the wretched outcast wandered out into the night, it seemed as if the one ray of light which yesterday had glimmered for him, even across the darkness, was now quenched for ever, and that there was nothing left either to ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... marble slab that was the entry door, reflecting the blazing light at a different angle. Behind it, McGillis's tightly grinning face. Under McGillis's face, the stab of blue-white light reflected a glancing ray from the old-fashioned solid-missile service pistol that Jason had insisted all four men arm themselves with ...
— Zero Data • Charles Saphro
... guide, taking the hand of our heroine and looking up into her countenance with guileless simplicity, but earnest affection; "How could I be sorry that a ray of the sun came across the gloom of a cheerless day—that light has broken in upon darkness, though it remained so short a time? I do not flatter myself with being able to march quite so light-hearted as I once used to could, or to sleep as sound, for some time to come; but I ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... woke next morning with a vague impression of having lost something. He gazed indolently at the sunlight filtering through the curtains of his sleeping-room. Beyond the archway to the adjoining room of his suite, a ray of sunshine lay like living gold upon the soft, ...
— Overland Red - A Romance of the Moonstone Canon Trail • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... know why, but at that, suddenly and inexplicably, as if I had glimpsed a ray of light, ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... parlour, facing the entrance, by the side of something vast and black heaped up in the adjacent chair. He had the look on his pink and naturally pleasant face of one who has abandoned hope. On seeing Mr. Twist a ray of interest lit him up, and he half rose. The formless mass in the next chair which Mr. Twist had taken for inanimate matter, probably cushions and wraps, and now perceived was one of the higher mammals, put out ...
— Christopher and Columbus • Countess Elizabeth Von Arnim
... great space he lay in that strange condition, inert and still—neither dead nor living but, as it were, suspended, hanging midway between nothingness and existence. His was a darkness unbroken by a ray of thought or sensation, a dreamless inanition, a vast space of peace. The tumult of his mind had swelled and risen to an abrupt climax of silence. Where was the man? Where is any man when insensibility ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... lee of the porch, the match was blown out, for I was hampered by the handbag which I carried. Thus reminded of its presence, however, I recollected that my pocket-lamp was in it. Quickly opening the bag, I took out the lamp, and, passing around the corner of the steps, directed a ray of light into the narrow passage which communicated with the rear ...
— The Hand Of Fu-Manchu - Being a New Phase in the Activities of Fu-Manchu, the Devil Doctor • Sax Rohmer
... and freshness to man—burst upon the crowded city in clear and radiant glory. Through costly-coloured glass and paper-mended window, through cathedral dome and rotten crevice, it shed its equal ray. It lighted up the room where the murdered woman lay. It did. He tried to shut it out, but it would stream in. If the sight had been a ghastly one in the dull morning, what was it, now, in all ...
— Oliver Twist • Charles Dickens
... meanness, the temptations not merely from without but from within that assail us, our power to conquer these or our miserable yielding at times, with no one, perhaps, even guessing at our degradation except the divine spark of conscience that inexorably turns a searching ray on every thought and ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... to the tail itself, the curve is the most noticeable feature, and if we consider the extraordinary length of these appendages, the astounding velocity at which comets move in their orbits, and the time that would elapse before a ray of light, emitted from the nucleus, would reach the end of the tail, perhaps the curve—which, if I am not deceived in my observations, always dips toward its orbit—can be accounted for. If a comet moved ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... him, to beckon, to recede, to allure, and to wane again. She fell at last into unquiet slumber, vexed by deformed, fleeting, shapeless phantoms; and, waking, as the sun, through a veil of hazy cloud, glinted with a sickly ray across the casement, she heard her father settled back betimes to his one pursuit, and calling forth from his Familiar a low mournful strain, like a ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... thou idle Odalisque! for life Hath now its own fair picture to display— The diamond in its rare effulgent ray,— Beauty in Love hath reached ...
— Enamels and Cameos and other Poems • Theophile Gautier
... against the side of the ship in the madness of despair. I measured the misery of those around me by what I myself suffered. Shut up in the dark with ninety-nine distressed young men, like so many galley slaves, or Guinea negroes, excluded from the benefit of the common air, without one ray of light or comfort, and without a single word expressive of compassion from any officer of the ship. I never was so near sinking into despair. We naturally cling to life, but now I should have welcomed death. To be confined, and even chained any where in the light of the sun, is a ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... the instinct of the Archangel's presence which has animated his architecture. The masculine, military energy of Saint Michael lives still in every stone. The genius that realized this warlike emotion has stamped his power everywhere, on every centimetre of his work; in every ray of light; on the mass of every shadow; wherever the eye falls; still more strongly on all that the eye divines, and in the shadows that are felt like the lights. The architect intended it all. Any one who doubts has only to step through the doorway in the corner into the ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... the broad-faced sun, how he smiles On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray, On the leaping waters and gay young isles, Ay, look, and ...
— The Elson Readers, Book 5 • William H. Elson and Christine M. Keck
... and Talbott were just badly informed. They have an automatic ship and evidently don't know too much about it. You see, the electroparalysis ray has one basic element around which it functions—magnetism. The jolt they handed us was of such size that it created a magnetic field around their ship. If they had been going through an asteroid belt they would have been bombarded into ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... the chauffeur sounded his horn to announce his arrival. Then the door opened, shedding a long ray of light across the ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... evidence of having been inhabited for some time. There was a cunningly contrived fireplace made of stones, against which pieces of birch bark were placed in such a position that not a ray of light could get out of the cavern. The bed of black coals between the stones still smoked; a quantity of parched corn lay on a little rocky shelf which jutted out from the wall; a piece of jerked meat and a buckskin pouch ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... beyond the headlands comes the day, Though moon and planet on a sky of gold, Chequered with orange and vermilion-stoled, Have floated long before the sun's first ray Has shot across the waters to display Amalfi in her dotage; as of old His beams lit up her splendours manifold, Her quays and palaces that fringed the bay. His smile makes every barren hill-side blush In rose and purple for the glories fled, As early watchers note th' encroaching flush From proud ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... color,—as its intense illumination, where the chroma is greatly weakened, and the strongest chroma which is found in a much lower value. "Purity" is also to be avoided in speaking of pigments, for not one of our pigments represents a single pure ray of the spectrum. ...
— A Color Notation - A measured color system, based on the three qualities Hue, - Value and Chroma • Albert H. Munsell
... doctors twice already when they told me I was dying, and I am going to make this chap look silly, too, for I don't intend to go out." Soon after he relapsed into unconsciousness. Meningitis affects the eyes, and the poor S.B. could not bear one ray of light, so the cabin was carefully darkened, and the electrician replaced the white bulbs in the cabin and alley-way with green ones. As we were approaching the equator the heat in that closed-up cabin was absolutely suffocating, ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... match-maker would lay far more stress upon the second. But still, in any case, this growing tendency to treat the practice of "paying attention" in the spirit of exact science offers at least one ray of hope to those who complain that, do what they will, they cannot escape having to pay this dangerous tribute. The tendency must sooner or later bear fruit in a generally recognised code of courtship (whether ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... glimmering taper's light, Adorns and cheers the way; And still, the darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray. ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... Third, Alexius accepted the kind invitation of his sister Irene, the wife of Philip of Swabia, king of the Romans. But in his passage through Italy, he heard that the flower of Western chivalry was assembled at Venice for the deliverance of the Holy Land; and a ray of hope was kindled in his bosom, that their invincible swords might be employed ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the marrow-sheath run the marrow-rays 'dividing the vascular circle into numerous compact segments.' A 'ray' cannot divide anything into a segment. Only a partition, or a knife, can do that. But we shall find presently that marrow rays ought to be called marrow-plates, and are really mural, forming more or less ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... that were blown to bits when the shells burst," said some one to me who was waiting there in the sickly ray of entombed light. "You talk about a mess! Look, there's the padre hooking down ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... turned towards me sharply. She peered right through me, as if she were a Roentgen ray. I could see she was asking herself whether this was a conspiracy, and whether I had come there on purpose to meet 'Harold.' But I flatter myself I am tolerably mistress of my own countenance. I did not blench. 'How do you know?' she asked quickly, ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... pursued, but on account of circumstances and conditions which they can neither control nor prevent. They would not hesitate to raise the arm of revolt if they had any hope, or if they believed that ultimate success would be the result thereof. But as matters now stand they can detect no ray of hope, and can see no avenue of escape. Hence nothing remains for them to do but to hold the chain of political oppression and subjugation, while their former political subordinates rivet and fasten the same around their unwilling necks. They find they can do nothing but ...
— The Facts of Reconstruction • John R. Lynch
... created only to give them a good time in it. Now and then a little wind shivered among the boughs, and brought down a shower of white petals which shimmered in the slant beams of the moonlight; and now a ray touched some tall head of grass, and forthwith it blossomed into silver, and stirred itself with a quiet joy, like a new-born saint just awaking in paradise. And ever and anon came on the still air the soft eternal pulsations of the distant sea, sound mournfulest, most mysterious, of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 15, January, 1859 • Various
... I know not. In the dark mystery that shrouds her fate— In the dread agony of this suspense, Where I can grasp at naught of certainty— One single ray of comfort beams upon me. From out the ruins of the tyrant's power Alone can she be rescued from the grave. Their strongholds must be levell'd, every one, Ere we can penetrate her ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... bands encase a wide white band; centered on the white band is a disk with a blue and white wave pattern on the lower half and a gold and white ray pattern on the upper half; a stylized red, blue, and white ship rides on the wave pattern; the French flag ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... "Ray was very troubled. Somehow he made Sabina angry—the last thing he meant to do. He's sorry now that he spoke. She thought he was considering himself, and he really was ...
— The Spinners • Eden Phillpotts
... write a sentence. He could say the same thing over and over again in a hundred different ways. The feeble forms of official satire were at his command. [He could bray ironically at subordinate officers. He had the inborn arrogance required for official "snubbing." Being without a ray of good feeling or modesty, he could allow himself to write with ceremonial rudeness of men who in his inmost heart he knew to be in every way his superiors.] He desired exceedingly to be thought supercilious, and he thus became almost necessary to the Government of ...
— Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series • George Robert Aberigh-Mackay
... from the worst of fears, leaned from the window towards him. A slanting ray caught the floating cloud of her amber hair, her face glowed rosily, her eyes beamed on the new-comer, and she broke into such an enchanting ripple of laughter as he had never heard from those soft lips since it had been his privilege to kiss them. Then something happened within him. ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... said not a word. I did not weep. I made a strong effort upon the soul within me. But my little Anselm said, 'Father, why do you look so? Is any thing the matter?' Nevertheless I did not weep, nor say a word all the day, nor the night that followed. In the morning a ray of light fell upon us through the window of our sad prison, and I beheld in those four little faces the likeness of my own face, and then I began to gnaw my hands for misery. My children, thinking I did it for hunger, raised themselves on the floor, and said, 'Father, we should be less miserable ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... to be poured down, and in all directions indeed it is diffused, yet it is not effused. For this diffusion is extension: Accordingly its rays are called Extensions because they are extended. But one may judge what kind of a thing a ray is, if he looks at the sun's light passing through a narrow opening into a darkened room, for it is extended in a right line, and as it were is divided when it meets with any solid body which stands in the way and intercepts the air beyond; but there the light remains fixed and does not ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... losing her health; and then, you see, there's Aunt Zeruah, she mounts guard at our house, and keeps up such strict police regulations that a fellow can't do a thing. The parlors are splendid, but so lonesome and dismal!—not a ray of sunshine, in fact not a ray of light, except when a visitor is calling, and then they open a crack. They're afraid of flies, and yet, dear knows, they keep every looking-glass and picture-frame muffled to its throat from March to December. I'd like, for curiosity, to see ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... sharp ray sighting from the tip of the wand. And the Foanna following that beam, the three Terrans coming after ... ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... The power ray from behind ripped out great gobs of the sheltering bushes. But running naturally, bent close to the bottom of the ravine, Jon Karyl dodged the bare spots. The oxygen made the tremendous exertion easy for his lungs ...
— Acid Bath • Vaseleos Garson
... at white heat, one of those inward flashes of indignation that transcend any scarlet blaze of anger. Her eyes glowed with a fiery ray, and the curves of mouth and chin seemed as ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... in our common acceptation, much greater than this and more full, which is a force and assurance of the soul, equally despising all sorts of adverse accidents, equable, uniform, and constant, of which ours is no more than one little ray. Use, education, example, and custom can do all in all to the establishment of that whereof I am speaking, and with great facility render it common, as by the experience of our civil wars is manifest ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... thing grew serious. He was now fifty-eight. He could afford to dally no longer: it was necessary to find the secret of the hermetic science at once, or give up the search. Trevisan pondered over his critical position for two entire months; but at the end of that time a ray of hope flashed across the gloom of his meditations. The nature of the hope we do not know; we can only tell what was the course of action on which it determined him. He arose suddenly from his depression, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 453 - Volume 18, New Series, September 4, 1852 • Various
... S. and S. simpering; "do you tbink so? Do you know I wrote a long letter to Mrs. Ray just before I came here, this very afternoon,—quite a long letter! ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... hours Diana's mind was like a stormy sea, where the thunder and the lightning were not wanting any more than the wind. Once in a while, like the faint blink of a sun-ray through the clouds, came an echo of the words Basil had quoted—"In the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge"—but they hurt her so that she fled from them. The contrast of their peace with her ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... the same time to a crossing of lanes. The branch to the left was overhung with trees, deeply sunken and dark. Not a ray of moonlight penetrated its recesses; and I took it at a venture. The wretch followed my example in silence; and for some time we crunched together over frozen pools without a word. Then he found his voice, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... or scenery or adventure or sport, or the softest, daintiest refinements of man's invention given me the half of luxury I drank in from that little breeze. So the commonest things—a dash of cool water on the wrists, a gulp of hot tea, a warm, dry blanket, a whiff of tobacco, a ray of sunshine—are more really the luxuries than all the comforts and sybaritisms we buy. Undoubtedly the latter would also rise to the higher category if we were to work for their essence instead of merely signing club cheques or paying ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... nor would it occur to me to speak its name, except that, even in its sorrowful deprivation, it still retains so much of that outward lustre, which, like the brightness on the prophet's face, ought to be a ray from an illumination within, as to afford me an illustration of the point on which I am engaged, viz., what should be the material dwelling-place and appearance, the local circumstances, and the secular concomitants of a great University. Pictures are drawn in tales of romance, of spirits seemingly ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the comfort of Sandsgaard which attracted him—of that he was quite certain; neither had he any feeling for the young lady except interest, a deep, earnest interest, after all the stirring impressions he had received through her. She had a wonderful power over him. Her words seemed to shed a ray of light over much which he had hitherto overlooked. He had, like the rest of us, the germs of doubt in his heart, and he was still so young and fresh that his aspirations were but loosely covered, and had not yet had time to wither entirely in his heart. When, therefore, ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... not taught. Public sentiment, as well as State law, prevents the enlightened master, who would fit the slave by knowledge for greater usefulness, from letting a ray of light in upon his darkened mind. The black knows his task, his name, and his dinner-hour. He knows there is a something within him—he does not understand precisely what—that the white man calls his soul, which he is told will not rest in the ground when his body is ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... a sudden ray from the setting sun broke through the cloud-wrack and fell upon her slender figure until she glowed in the eyes of the startled spectators like a statue cut in burnished bronze. Thus illumined, as it were, by a light from heaven ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... had just appeared, said he had been reading them with great sadness. "There is," said he, "something in the noble brotherly love of Charles to brighten, and hallow, and relieve that sadness; but Keats's deathbed is the blackness of midnight, unmitigated by one ray of light!"] ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... Church. Five hundred years before Jacques and Isabelle d'Arc had crossed that very threshold, carrying the precious babe Joan to be baptized. The glowing ray of the sanctuary light welcomed us, and, perhaps, turned to jewels the tears of joy ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... birch-trees wept in fragrant balm; The aspens slept beneath the calm; The silver light, with quivering glance, Played on the water's still expanse,— Wild were the heart whose passion's sway Could rage beneath the sober ray! He felt its calm, that warrior guest, While thus he communed with his breast:— 'Why is it, at each turn I trace Some memory of that exiled race? Can I not mountain maiden spy, But she must bear ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... incapable of protecting, but even of discerning, the objects to which they ought to have been attached. The Venice of modern fiction and drama is a thing of yesterday, a mere efflorescence of decay, a stage dream which the first ray of daylight must dissipate into dust. No prisoner, whose name is worth remembering, or whose sorrow deserved sympathy, ever crossed that "Bridge of Sighs," which is the centre of the Byronic ideal of Venice; no great merchant of Venice ever saw that Rialto ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... operating through a long course of ages, would have produced not only a sturdy independence among the bulk of the English nation, but to some extent also, a local independence of the country as regards the capital and the court. It might have been foreseen, that instead of concentrating every separate ray of genius and renown into one grand halo around the throne, this habitual effort of the popular mind would have had a tendency to scatter those rays more equally over the land, making the green valley and ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... horses. She was sold on one of those days from her master in Carrollton to one Mr. Morris, who lived in Newman, Ga. Mr. Morris paid $1100.00 for her. She remained with him for a short while and was later sold to one Mr. Ray who paid the price of $1200.00. Both of these masters were very kind to her, but she was finally sold back to her former master, Mr. Archibald Burke of ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... an easy stroke. The red blurr of the fire on the point was growing larger, while the diminished blaze of lights on the high altar of the cathedral pierced the mist with an orange ray. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... is—but I shall probably never have the chance to say what I wish to say,"—he replied,—and he leaned against the stairway just where the light in the saloon sent forth a bright ray upon his face, showing it to be dark with a certain frowning perplexity—"You have studied many things in your own impulsive feminine fashion, and you are beyond all the stupidity of the would- be agreeable female who thinks a prettily feigned ignorance becoming, ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... which he found misseltoe growing, viz. oak, ash, lime-tree, elm, hazel, willow, white beam, purging thorn, quicken-tree, apple-tree, crab-tree, white-thorn." Vide p. 351. Philosophical Letters between the late learned Mr. Ray and several of his Ingenious Correspondents, &c.: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... empty when she entered. The shutters had been closed against the sun, and it had become cool and pleasant. Here and there, among the copper utensils, and wherever a chance ray made a gleam of light, the magpie was hopping about, uttering short, piercing cries. In the recess of the niche containing the colored prints, sat the old man Vincart, dozing, in his usual supine attitude, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the discovery," I said. "Yours shall be the glory. Fame shall crown you; and perhaps if there remains any reflected light in the form of a by-product, some modest and negligible little ray may chance to ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... lessons of history and understand for our practical guidance how wars must differ in character according to the nature of the motives and circumstances from which they proceed. This conception, he claims, is the first ray of light to guide us to a true theory of war and thereby enable us to classify wars and distinguish ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... half-light, watery and drowsy, filled the room through the slits of the blinds. The extinguished wicks of the candles smoked with faint streams. The tobacco smoke swirled in blue, layered shrouds, but a ray of sunlight that had cut its way through the heart-shaped hollow in a window shutter, transpierced the cabinet obliquely with a joyous, golden sword of dust, and in liquid, hot gold splashed upon the paper ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... market-day for Sfax. There were little piles of vivid fruit beside white walls where a broad ray of sunlight found them. There were silversmiths at work, tent-makers, and the makers of camel harness. The tanners had laid skins for us to walk over. There were exotic smells. I went exploring the crooked turnings with an indifference which was studied. I was getting an interesting ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... Hugh. You were hers first; you are hers now. I would kill myself rather than lake you from her. Go to her—go to her at once. You must!" She was nervous, half-crazed, yet true nobility shone above all like a gem of purest ray. ...
— Nedra • George Barr McCutcheon
... power of composition. One evening, as I entered the opera, feeling myself strongly incited and overpowered by my ideas, I put my money again into my pocket, returned to my apartment, locked the door, and, having close drawn all the curtains, that every ray of light might be excluded, I went to bed, abandoning myself entirely to this musical and poetical 'oestrum', and in seven or eight hours rapidly composed the greatest part of an act. I can truly say my love for the Princess of Ferrara (for I was Tasso for the moment) ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... not been for the Ray Society, I know not how the present volume could have been published; and therefore I beg to return my most sincere thanks to the Council of this distinguished Institution. To Mr. G. B. Sowerby, Junr., I am under obligations for ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin
... from the soul, I say to you, my queen'—she's always queen to him—'I say to you, I have loved you more than I have loved myself. But if you could come, if you could stand at my bedside before it is too late, before it is too late—too late—'" Willie's voice broke into a wail. The ray of light was almost ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough |
