"Compass" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... may. That's the very thing we've lost, senorito. Look around! Now, can you tell east from west, or north from south? No, not a single point of the compass. If we only knew one, that would be enough. But we don't, and, therefore, as I've said, we're lost—dead, downright lost; and, for anything beyond this, we'll have to go a groping. At a crawl, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... four angles of a painting there is nothing more difficult to confine than sunlight and atmosphere, so in literature is it a task of the highest achievement to compass the wind on the heath, the sunshine and the rain. We know the dark background, the mystery and the awe of the forest, how powerfully they are suggested to us by some old writers and some modern ones, such as Spenser ...
— Isopel Berners - The History of certain doings in a Staffordshire Dingle, July, 1825 • George Borrow
... good than bad; It's safer being meek than fierce: It's fitter being sane than mad. My own hope is, a sun will pierce The thickest cloud earth ever stretched; That, after Last, returns the First, Though a wide compass round be fetched; That what began best, can't end worst, Nor what ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps
... [Greek: ablabeia], for innocency is that disposition of mind which would offend no one) and several other virtues are comprehended under frugality; but if this quality were of less importance, and confined in as small a compass as some imagine, the surname of Piso[36] would not have been in so great esteem. But as we allow him not the name of a frugal man (frugi), who either quits his post through fear, which is cowardice; or who reserves to his own use what was privately committed to ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... inches in diameter. It is of a pale yellow, striped with green. It should, however, be used in the young, green state; for, when mature, it is not so good as many of the other sorts. It bears very abundantly; and, as it does not run, may be grown in smaller compass than the ...
— The Field and Garden Vegetables of America • Fearing Burr
... o' nowhere, where the worst is like the best; Where there aren't no p'ints o' compass, an' a man can get a rest; Where a breeze is like a blizzard, an' the weather at its best; Dogs and Huskies does the workin' and the Devil does ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... which the extraordinary popularity of the work fully justified, on their power of exciting the interest of a wide audience by pictures and reflexions drawn from a field which embraced the whole compass of ordinary life and ordinary knowledge, no kind of practical themes being positively excluded except such as were political, and all literary topics being held admissible, for which it seemed possible to command attention from ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... capital American biography, of an American naval hero, scarcely less renowned and no less gallant and gifted with an heroic spirit than Nelson, the great British admiral. There is scarcely a more stirring life in the whole compass of literature than that of Jones; and the important part he played in giving force and almost life itself to the American navy, then in its earliest infancy, renders his history peculiarly interesting and attractive. No man ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... they all agreed to raise the siege. The prince, who drew with him a great train of carriages charged with provision and ammunition for the relief of the city, like a wary general, kept at a distance from the enemy, and fetching a great compass about, brings all safe into the city, and enters into York himself with ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... spouting little recitations, and gradually practised until he could take his part in amateur stage performances. As he put it, "I found that the majesty of Coriolanus and the humour of Paul Pry were alike within my compass, and I impartially included both these celebrated parts in my repertoire." Nothing ever diverts a stage-struck youth from his fell purpose unless he is absolutely pelted off the boards. Devine loathed his office; he hated the sight of a business letter, and he finally appeared ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... than honey, smoother than cream, more odorous than musk; its banks are of chrysolite and it is drunk out of silver cups set around it thick as stars. Two pipes conduct it to the Prophet's Pond which is an exact square, one month's journey in compass. Kausar is spirituous like wine; Salsabil sweet like clarified honey; the Fount of Mildness is like milk and the Fount of Mercy ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... accustomed to coast along the Norwegian shore; and had been only once across to Stromstad. But he had brought with him a fellow better acquainted, he assured me, with the rocks by which they were to steer our course, for we had not a compass on board; yet, as he was half a fool, I had little confidence in his skill. There was then great reason to fear that we had lost our way, and were straying amidst a labyrinth ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... he looked upon you, Ned!" said Tomlinson, gravely; "'t is but rarely out of Scotland that a man can see so big a rogue in so little a compass!" ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Fouldrey has certainly been much larger at the erection of the castle than it is at present; but the sea, having reduced it to its present small compass, has abated the rapid career of its destruction. It now wastes the western shore of Walney, and forms a new tract out of the ruins, which proves a barrier to its progress upon the Peel of Fouldrey, and at some future period may be an accession to this island, in place of the land which ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... before or since been so well supplied with information as to what was going on and what was intended to take place. When out of the line, in a camp near Neuville Vitasse, I had to give the observers a certain amount of practical training in the use of the compass and protractor, and map reading. But after that I was free to do what I liked within reason, and I generally devoted my spare time to salvage. The observers often turned out to assist me in this, and Lieut. Odell on several occasions gave ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... alternative which it is framed to escape. So it is always. The difficulties of faith are small by comparison with those of unbelief, gnats beside camels, and that that is so is plain from the short duration of each unbelieving explanation of Jesus. One can remember in the compass of one's own life more than one assailant taking the field with much trumpeting and flag-waving, whose attack failed and is forgotten. The child's story tells of a giant who determined to slay his enemy, and belaboured an empty bed with ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... by what paths I have been brought To this dread pass, methinks even thou mayst guess;— Why this should be, my mind can compass not; ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... "Unless my compass lied, and it has never done so before, we have gone north by west since we started, and we are—or ought to be at this moment—four hundred miles from what the white man ...
— Lost In The Air • Roy J. Snell
... fishing village of Huizen, where the women have a neat but very sedate costume. They wear white caps with curved sides that add grace to a pretty cheek. Having, however, the odd fancy that a flat chest is more desirable than a rounded one, they compress their busts into narrow compass, striving as far as possible to preserve vertical lines. At the waist a plethora of petticoats begins, spreading the skirts to inordinate width ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... similar to my own, that you are not disheartened, that you will persevere and endeavor at all hazards to attain the main object. I will devote all my time, all my thoughts, all my exertions, all the fortune I possess and all the money I can borrow, to compass and complete the business we have undertaken; and if fortune should by any future disaster deprive us of our reward, we will at least have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... most interesting objects in the whole compass of Natural History. The little architect is called the Taylor Bird, Taylor Wren, or Taylor Warbler, from the art with which it makes its nest, sewing some dry leaves to a green one at the extremity of a twig, and thus forming a hollow cone, which it afterwards lines. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 386, August 22, 1829 • Various
... pushed out for the other side; for Nature can make us do anything she likes. At first we made rapid progress, and the sky was not very threatening, while I took bearings occasionally with a pocket compass to enable me to find my way back more surely in case the storm should become blinding; but the structure lines of the glacier were my main guide. Toward the west side we came to a closely crevassed section in which we had ...
— Stickeen • John Muir
... waves, you then looked down, as it were, upon a low, sandy coast, close to you, and covered with foam and breakers. "She behaves nobly," observed the captain, stepping aft to the binnacle, and looking at the compass; "if the wind does not baffle us, we shall weather." The captain had scarcely time to make the observation, when the sails shivered and flapped like thunder. "Up with the helm; what are you ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... me. I felt as if at last we had got our job narrowed to a decent compass, for I had hated casting about in the dark. ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... overcome with excessive heat. Bloody Bill, as the men invariably called him, was standing at the tiller, but his post for the present was a sinecure, and he whiled away the time by alternately gazing in dreamy abstraction at the compass in the binnacle, and by walking to the taffrail in order to spit into the sea. In one of these turns he came near to where I was standing, and, leaning over the side, looked long and earnestly down ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... autumn of last year (November 7th) to our most northern point this summer, then the drift is 305 miles, or 5 deg. 5'. We got fully 4 deg. north, from 77 deg. 43' to 81 deg. 53'. To give the course of the drift is a difficult task in these latitudes, as there is a perceptible deviation of the compass with every degree of longitude as one passes east or west; the change, of course, given in degrees will be almost exactly the same as the number of degrees of longitude that have been passed. Our average course will be about N. 36 deg. W. The direction of our drift is consequently a much ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... on all sides, the tempest beats upon us in all directions, and from no quarter whatever does a single ray of good fortune shine upon us. Amidst all this darkness, did the cardinal see less clearly? Did he lose his head during all this tempest? Did he not still hold the helm in one hand, and the compass in the other? Did he throw himself into the boat to save his life? Nay, if the great ship he commanded were to be lost, did he not show that he was ready to die before all the rest? Was it luck that drew him out of this labyrinth, or was it his own prudence, steadiness, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... love, wisdom, and operation are simultaneous; but he has separated them in his ultimate manifestations, and we are obliged to separate them in our analysis, in order that they may in any degree come within the compass ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... miles south of the island of Takeshima. The "Izumrud" had used her superior speed to get away to the south-west. The four battered ships that remained with him saw more than twenty enemies appear from all points of the compass, including Togo's battleships and heavy armoured cruisers, all as fit for work as when the first fighting began. They opened fire at long range ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... of critics recognise that the shorter Greek version is also much interpolated; whilst the Syriac version, which, so far as MSS. are concerned, is by far the most ancient text of any letters which we possess, reduces their number to three, and their contents to a very small compass indeed. It is not surprising that the vast majority of critics have expressed doubt more or less strong regarding the authenticity of all these epistles, and that so large a number have repudiated them altogether. One thing is quite evident—that, amidst such a mass of falsification, ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... against the stream, stopped it in his course, guided it with one hand, and with the other laid hard about him with a huge great oar, hoisted the sail, hied up along the mast by the shrouds, ran upon the edge of the decks, set the compass in order, tackled the bowlines, and steered the helm. Coming out of the water, he ran furiously up against a hill, and with the same alacrity and swiftness ran down again. He climbed up at trees like a cat, and leaped from the one to the other like ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... were turning into paths that would lead my soul astray. However much I may love myself and the world, however much I may seek my own, below all and above all is the conviction that time is fleeting, and life here but as a span, that if I compass the whole world, and lose my own soul, I have made a fearful exchange. There are a great many things regarded by business men as allowable. They are so common in trade, that scarcely one man in a score ...
— All's for the Best • T. S. Arthur
... course of her strangely eventful career, sometimes as the result of appalling revolutions ans sometimes as the fruit of a dastardly assassin's dagger; but amid all He who was Abraham's shield and exceeding great reward deigned to compass our Queen with songs of deliverance. Never was any monarch so much prayed for; and that she may long reign over us is a petition that in special measure has prevailed. Not three score years and ten, but four score ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... in height by an inch and a half in width. Yet so numerous are the adjustments in shape of which this small organ is capable that the phenomenal soprano, Mara, could make 100 changes in pitch between any two notes in her voice, and as this had a compass of twenty-one notes, it follows that she could produce no less than 21,000 changes in pitch within a range of twenty-one notes. While in Mara's day this no doubt was attributed to a natural gift of voice, modern study of voice-physiology and of the metaphysics of voice-production readily ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... the gowns, designed the style and cut, tried them on, and saw that we were properly and immaculately turned out to the smallest detail. On performance nights I never had any thing before going on, and assisted by the aid of tight lacing I could generally manage to squeeze my waist within the compass of 24 inches. I recollect one evening when I was rather more than usually tightened up, I had in the course of the piece to sit on a couch that was particularly low-seated. I did not notice this for the moment, but when I tried to rise I found myself in considerable ...
— Recollections of Calcutta for over Half a Century • Montague Massey
... right arm on which to lean, a safe harbor where adverse winds never blow, nor rough seas roll, makes a most inviting picture. But alas! even good husbands sometime die, and the family drifts out on the great ocean of life, without chart or compass, or the least knowledge of the science of navigation. In such emergencies the woman trained to self-protection, self-independence, and self-support holds the vantage ground against all theories ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... There are very few poets of whose quality and genius a fair idea can not be given by a few judicious selections. A large body of noble and beautiful poetry, of verse which is "a joy forever," can also be given in a very small compass. And the mechanical attribute of size, it must be remembered, is very important in making a successful anthology, for an essential quality of a volume of selections is that it should be easily portable, that it should be a book which can be slipt into the pocket and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... Duke,(2) there was a Proctor named St. Aignan, who had married a gentlewoman of the neighbourhood. She was more beautiful than virtuous, and on account of her beauty and light behaviour was much sought after by the Bishop of Sees,(3) who, in order to compass his ends, managed the husband so well, that the latter not only failed to perceive the vicious conduct of his wife and of the Bishop, but was further led to forget the affection he had always shown in the service of his master ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. I. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... ample supper of mutton pillau, Mirza Hassan proceeds to say his prayers, borrowing my compass to get the proper bearings for Mecca, which I have explained to him during the afternoon. With no little dismay he discovers that, according to my explanations, he has for years been bobbing his head daily several degrees east of the holy city, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... of the firmest of the inexpensive easels, and one which will fold up into as small a compass as any practical easel will. It will hold perfectly well a good-sized canvas, even with its frame, and will not tumble ...
— The Painter in Oil - A complete treatise on the principles and technique - necessary to the painting of pictures in oil colors • Daniel Burleigh Parkhurst
... a quadruped who has learned to use his front legs for other things than walking. Some hold that he has learned to use his head. But there are three things man cannot do, and four which he cannot compass: to see, to think, to judge, and to act—to see the obvious; to think upon the thing seen; to judge between our own resultant and conflicting thoughts, with no furtive finger of desire to tip the balance; and to act upon that judgment without ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... still lay right behind the two; Doubtless it had an Indian clearance been. This needs not much to fit it for the plow, So they of brush and rubbish rid it clean, And broke it up. Then a rail fence was seen Most speedily to compass it around. Soon spring wheat sown was looking brightly green, While in the garden useful plants were found, And these good prospects made the ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... left the cabin, and after a few minutes' thought the captain spoke to the boy. "Christopher," said he, "bring me the great compass from its box near the helmsman's stand. Bring it secretly. The men should all be on the lower deck making ready to sail. Let no one ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... steersman's eye to have wandered; "You ——, ——, little, mutton-faced Dutchman," Nares would bawl, "you want a booting to keep you on your course! I know a little city-front slush when I see one. Just you glue your eye to that compass, or I'll show you round the vessel at the butt-end of my boot." Or suppose a hand to linger aft, whither he had perhaps been summoned not a minute before. "Mr. Daniells, will you oblige me by stepping clear of that main-sheet?" the captain ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... similar muscles to develop, similar lungs that require fresh air, and similar nerves to be braced and strengthened. It is not considered lady-like to be natural—all then: movements must be measured by rule and compass! ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... the exposed side. The farmer tried to hunch himself into the least compass possible, but his broad back and powerful frame interfered with his efforts to make a human hedgehog of himself. He was hit twice, once by a grazing shot that brought out blood on his cheek, the other a stinger on ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... work his invention in public was different from experimenting with it in his shed in London. It was leaving the laboratory to take its place in life; and it would be a triumph to see the daring trick succeed, every day, at the fixed hour, within a restricted compass; to see it go through the opening above; to see that machine worked by a young girl in whom one would have suspected neither the strength nor the nerve: it would make the public infer the excellence of the engine. Now Jimmy was possessed, above all, of scientific enthusiasm. ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... that it was that very moment of tremulousness which Jesus Christ seized, in order to pour an unstinted flood of praise for the firmness of his convictions, on the wavering head of the Forerunner. So, if we feel that though the needle of our compass points true to the pole, yet when the compass-frame is shaken, the needle sometimes vibrates away from its true direction, do not let us be cast down, but believe that a merciful allowance is made for human weakness. This man was great; first, because ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... parted to meet at the office next week. Sir W. Warren and I thence did walk through the rain to Half-Way House, and there I eat a piece of boiled beef and he and I talked over several businesses, among others our design upon the mast docke, which I hope to compass and get 2 or L300 by. Thence to Redriffe, where we parted, and I home, where busy all the afternoon. Stepped to Colvill's to set right a business of money, where he told me that for certain De Ruyter is come home, with all his fleete, which is ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... the author, to fill this chapter chiefly with extracts from various medical writers, giving some of the most important directions on this subject; but finding these extracts too prolix for a work of this kind, she has condensed them into a shorter compass. Some are quoted verbatim, and some are abridged, chiefly from the writings of Doctors Combe, Bell, and Eberle, who are among the most approved writers on ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher
... bring up the subject to Croisset, who did no more than reply with a hunch of his shoulders and a quick look which warned the engineer to keep his silence. After their second meal the journey was resumed, and by referring occasionally to his compass Howland observed that the trail was swinging gradually to the eastward. Long before dusk exhaustion compelled him to ride once more on the sledge. Croisset seemed tireless, and under the early glow ...
— The Danger Trail • James Oliver Curwood
... to me were carried away. To make sure of everything, he sent people the next morning to examine whether I had anything concealed on my person. They stripped me with the utmost rudeness of all my gold, amber, my watch, and pocket-compass. The gold and amber were gratifying to Moorish avarice, but the compass was ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... man. He has made his fortunes himself; and says that England may be richer than other kingdoms, by as plain methods as he himself is richer than other men; though, at the same time, I can say this of him, that there is not a point in the compass but blows home a ship in which he is ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others
... Manbo drum music for the first time, it sounds dull and monotonous, but as the ear grows accustomed to the roll the compass can be detected and the skill of the drummer becomes apparent. Now loud and then soft, now fast and then slow, the tune is rattled off in perfect measure and with inspiring verve. As one travels through the crocodile-infested lake region in the middle Agsan on a calm night, the Manbo drums may ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... seventh row of four, which cannot be obtained in any other way. It obviously does not affect the problem whether this seventh row is a hundred miles long or a hundred feet, so long as they were really in a straight line—a point that might perhaps be settled by the captain's pocket compass. ...
— The Canterbury Puzzles - And Other Curious Problems • Henry Ernest Dudeney
... and slept several hours very soundly, and then suddenly found myself wide awake. I got up, and as I did almost every night, went out to look after my cattle. I found all but one of them, and fetched a compass about the barns and stables, searching until I found her. As I passed in front of the door I heard moanings and cryings from a bench against the side of the house, and stopped. It was dawn, and I could ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... its true place among other, and perhaps greater, epochs. Its elements of mere violence and disturbance will fill less space in the eyes of mankind; its permanent creations, more. As an epoch of purely political energy, concentrating the work of generations within the compass of twenty five years, it will perhaps scarcely ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... passed since it was considered something of an achievement to visit Iceland. The traveler who had the hardihood to penetrate the chilly fogs of the North, and journey by the compass through a region of everlasting snows and desolating fires, could well afford to stay at home during the remainder of his life, satisfied with the reputation generally accorded him by his fellow-men. It was something to have plunged ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... have wished it," confesses he, reluctantly, as though compelled to frankness, "but to compass ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... since my head was cut off! A man in my days might offer to dispute de omni scibile, and in accepting the challenge I, as a young man, was not guilty of any extraordinary presumption, for all which books could teach was, at that time, within the compass of a diligent and ardent student. Even then we had difficulties to contend with which were unknown to the ancients. The curse of Babel fell lightly upon them. The Greeks despised other nations too much to think of acquiring their languages for the love ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... more than a mythical existence are jumbled together in hopeless confusion—but his geographical curiosity was insatiable. My travelling-map—the first thing of the kind he had ever seen—interested him deeply. When he found that by simply examining it and glancing at my compass I could tell him the direction and distance of places he knew, his face was like that of a child who sees for the first time a conjuror's performance; and when I explained the trick to him, and taught him to calculate the distance to Bokhara—the ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... of the question involved in the dissension between Ann Yearsley and Mrs. H. More, lay in a small compass, and they deserve to be faithfully stated; the public are interested in the refutation of charges of ingratitude, which, if substantiated, would tend to repress assistance toward the humbler children of genius. The baneful effects arising from a charge ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... dusty, that, after walking a few miles upon it, I lost patience altogether with what seemed to be its unreasonable windings, and again made an effort to strike across country by means of by-paths, in order to reach the spot where, according to the map and compass, I thought Vayrac ought to be. I came to a seventeenth century country-house, large enough to be termed a chateau, but now the dwelling of some peasant-farmer. It was a dilapidated, apparently owl-haunted building, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... for me to compass this, although thou mayest think that it will not be easy. Horses shall I have, and chivalry; and my lord and kinsman Arthur will obtain for me all these things. And I shall gain thy daughter, and thou shalt ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... to be rich and honorable; to enjoy ease; and to pursue pleasure. But how small is the number of those who compass these objects! In this country, the great body of mankind are, indeed, possest of competence; a safer and happier lot than that to which they aspire; yet few, very few are rich. Here, also, the great ...
— The world's great sermons, Volume 3 - Massillon to Mason • Grenville Kleiser
... the compass of an octavo volume Mr. Dixon has compressed a great variety of facts, many original, and all skilfully arranged, so as to produce an authentic moral portrait of his hero. The literary merits of the volume include great research, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... in small compass. The principle involved deserves to be heartily recommended. Dick never heard of the lines, but he knew the principle well, so he began to "never mind it" by sitting down beside his companions and whistling vociferously. As the wind rendered this a difficult ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... have chosen this part of the internal evidence, because the arguments, which it furnishes, are not only very decisive, but also lie within a moderate compass. For the same reason of brevity, I have confined my observations to a part only of this part, viz. to words, considered with respect to their significations and inflexions. A complete examination of this ...
— The Rowley Poems • Thomas Chatterton
... and remained for some time hidden in her house, where I was witness to many consultations for the removal of Mazarin from power. I even made a last attempt to persuade the cardinal himself to release the princes; in four nocturnal interviews I tried to show him how all parties were uniting to compass his ruin, but was unable to convince him without betraying secrets which were not my own. Mazarin gave me ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various
... the good man; "only stay a little, my boy, until we make sure what we're about. I've got my pocket-compass here, but we must have something to measure off the feet when we have found the peg. You run across to Tom Brooke's house and fetch that measuring-rod he used to lay out his new byre. While you're gone I'll pace off the distance marked on the paper ...
— Stolen Treasure • Howard Pyle
... herds of the elephant and buffalo, as well as antelopes and lions, though but few animals of any kind appeared to be here now. Looking south by west from this height over the broad valley of the Pangani, I was able to take compass bearings on some cones in the Uzegura country, belonging to the Nguru hills. The whole country below appeared to be covered with the richest vegetation, and in the river we could hear the murmuring sound of a waterfall, said by the Beluches to be a barrier to the navigation ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... proportions of Dryden in his verse, thus hitting upon a kind of cross between prose and poetry. In judging Milton, however, we should not forget that in verse the music makes a part of the meaning, and that no one before or since has been able to give to simple pentameters the majesty and compass of the organ. He was ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... I went to Carlsruhe, famous for the manner in which the streets meet at the Castle, from every point of the compass. Some thirty streets meet here like so many sticks of a circular fan. Near the Botanic Garden, is a large Hall of Art rich in paintings ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... again. What possibilities lay in the girl's nature for strength and weakness, for hot-headed folly, for sacrifice and passion and unselfish service, she knew as do those who have been the victims of such natures themselves. Jacqueline, if it were in human possibility to compass it, should profit by her ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... WILL love her more—I have an opportunity of winning favour, of doing service, which shall bind him to me; yes, he shall have the girl, if I have art to compass the matter. I must ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... for the hard-pressed Arthur. It is followed by the strains of Merlin's harp in the castle and his assurance of victory, and these in turn by very descriptive incantation music summoning the demon and the supernatural agencies which will compass the defeat of Arthur's enemies. Then comes the interview between the demon and the Fay Morgana, in which he learns the secret of Merlin's weakness. In the next scene Arthur returns from his victory over the Saxons to the tempo of a stirring march, and accompanied by the joyous choruses of ...
— The Standard Operas (12th edition) • George P. Upton
... haunters. He rightly surmises that the evil influences, which seem in some way to emanate from a small empty room, really proceed from a living being. His interpretation is skilful and subtle enough not to detract from the simple horror of the tale. A miniature, certain volatile essences, a compass, a lodestone and other properties are found in a room below that which appeared to be the source of the horrors. It proves that the man, whose face is portrayed on the miniature has been able through the exertion of will-power to prolong his life for two centuries, and to preserve ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... the music of their language, while thus engaged in laughter and endearments, in such a way as to render it intelligible to those whose ears have never listened to its melody. The compass of their voices, particularly that of the youth, was wonderful—extending from the deepest bass to tones that were even feminine in softness. The eyes of the father followed the plastic and ingenious movements of the son with open delight, and he never failed to smile in ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... after his old fashion, to the room behind the bank in which sat the manager and the manager's one clerk, and stood upon the rug before the fireplace just as though nothing had happened,—or as nearly as though nothing had happened as was within the compass of his powers. He could not quite do it. In keeping up an appearance intended to be natural he was obliged to be somewhat milder than his wont. The manager did not behave nearly as well as he did, and the clerks ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... forthcoming. But when, still earlier by a century and a half, we behold a man who was not only architect, engineer, and sculptor, and in painting the rival of Angelo, but who, as Hallam proves, 'anticipated in the compass of a few pages the discoveries which made Galileo, Kepler, Maestlin, Maurolycus, and Castelli immortal,' it may well 'strike us,' he suggests 'with something like the awe of supernatural knowledge;' and in the presence of Leonardo da Vinci the ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... compass this desire, frankly puzzled him. It were cowardly to contemplate knockin' the block off'n P. Sybarite; the disparity of their statures forebade; moreover, George entertained a vexatious suspicion that P. Sybarite's explanation on his recent downfall had not been altogether ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... trip to London, and that I intended to reimburse him when I saw Mr. Dix. For I knew that his wallet was not over full, since he had left the half of his savings with his mother. Much to my secret delight, he agreed to this as within the compass of a gentleman's acceptance. Had he not, I had the full intention of leaving him to post it alone, and of offering myself to the master of ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... doubt of that," said Armine, "and what's worse, that fog is coming up; but I've got my little compass here, and if I keep to the south-west, and down, I must strike ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arise; question of this must on all sides either be honestly met or dishonestly eluded. For observe, that attempt to escape payment for the purest values, no less than for the grossest, is dishonest. If one seek to compass possession of ordinary goods without compensation, we at once apply the opprobrious term of theft or fraud. Why does the same sort of attempt cease to be fraudulent when it is carried up to a higher degree and applied to possessions more precious? If he that evades the revenue law ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... the straggling trees, dwarfed and bent by the wind, ran east and west in a deeply indented line. In some places they boldly stretched out toward the Pole in long promontories; in others they fell back in wide bays which Blake, steering by compass, held straight across, afterward plunging again into the scrub. Three days were spent in struggling through the broadest tongue, but, as a rule, a few hours' arduous march brought them out into the open. Even there the ground was very rough and broken, and they were thankful for ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss
... fitted with masts from these trees, made of one piece of timber, without its being necessary to splice them or make them of different pieces. For the hulls of the ships, the keels, futtock-timbers, top-timbers, and any other kinds of supports and braces, compass-timbers, transoms, knees small and large, and rudders, all sorts of good timber are easily found; as well as good planking for the sides, decks, and upper-works, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... bend our necks, and yet within the toils of Fate Entangled are the gods themselves. To Fate, then, be all honour given. Yet Fate itself can compass nought, 'tis but the bringer of the meed For every deed that we perform. As then our acts shape our rewards, of what avail are gods or Fate? Let honour therefore be ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the golden rule of restricting our baggage to the least possible weight and compass, we allowed ourselves but one pony a piece for our necessaries, in addition to what were required for our small tent and cooking utensils, Sturt's surveying instruments being all carried by Affgh[a]n porters whom he hired ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... the thighs, and not wilted neither, till coition hath done that office for them. Master Shaxpur did likewise observe how yt ye sieur de Montaine hath also spoken of a certain emperor of such mighty prowess that he did take ten maidenheddes in ye compass of a single night, ye while his empress did entertain two and twenty lusty knights between her sheetes, yet was not satisfied; whereat ye merrie Countess Granby saith a ram is yet ye emperor's superior, sith he wil tup above a hundred yewes 'twixt sun and sun; and after, if he can have none more ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and cross-bars of his komatik all came in for a critical overhauling. The contents of the nonny-bag were amply replenished; the matches in the water-tight bottle were tested for dampness; his small compass was securely lashed to the chain of his belt. His one bottle of spirits, "kept against sickness," was carefully stowed with the tea and hardtack. A bundle of warm wraps, with his axe, and even a few dry splits, completed his equipment. Then once more Surefoot ...
— Labrador Days - Tales of the Sea Toilers • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... is a filial duty and a just confession of His majesty and dominion. The Lord's Prayer is closed with a solemn "Amen," set as a seal to the document of the supplication, attesting its genuineness as the true expression of the suppliant's soul; gathering within the compass of a word the meaning of all that has been uttered or thought. So let it be is the literal ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... of His right hand rests upon the hour. Ye who can discern the face of the sky, - the 233:18 sign material, - how much more should ye discern the sign mental, and compass the de- struction of sin and sickness by overcoming the thoughts 233:21 which produce them, and by understanding the spiritual idea which corrects and destroys them. To reveal this truth was our Master's mission to all mankind, including 233:24 ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... along the roof-tree, trembling lest he should be discovered by some lynx-eyed villain in the throng of his pursuers. Happily, the broad brick chimney afforded him some shelter, of which he was quick to take advantage. Rolling himself up into the smallest possible compass, he sat for a long time crouching behind the chimney; while the police were rummaging under the beds and in the closets of the house, in the hope of ...
— Boyhood in Norway • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... course I ought to pursue; I might as well have looked for landmarks in the midst of the ocean. How many miles I had run or in what direction, I had no idea; and around me the prairie was rolling in steep swells and pitches, without a single distinctive feature to guide me. I had a little compass hung at my neck; and ignorant that the Platte at this point diverged considerably from its easterly course, I thought that by keeping to the northward I should certainly reach it. So I turned and rode ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... in form and inspired in its sentiment by the Provencal lyrics, lies within the compass of about one hundred and thirty years, from 1150 to 1280. The Crusade of 1147 served, doubtless, as a point of meeting for men of the North and of the South; but, apart from this, we may bear in mind the fact that the mediaeval poet wandered at will from country to country ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... of January, 1797,[69] he says, "I sincerely deplore the situation of our affairs with France. War with them and consequent alliance with Great Britain will completely compass the object of the executive council from the commencement of the war between France and England; taken up by some of them from that moment; ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst. The street is Pyncheon street; the house is the old Pyncheon house; and an elm tree, of wide circumference, rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by the title of the Pyncheon elm. On my occasional visits to the town ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks
... superfluous hand So many nobler bodies to create, Greater so manifold, to this one use, For aught appears, and on their Orbs impose Such restless revolution day by day Repeated, while the sedentary Earth, That better might with far less compass move, Served by more noble than herself, attains Her end without least motion, and receives, As tribute, such a sumless journey brought Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light; Speed, to describe ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... his mother's mouth, In childhood, while he sat upon her knee, Rose to remembrance: how that on the sea. Sat somewhere a Great Mist which no sun's heat Could melt, nor wind make wander from, its seat. So great it was, the fastest ship would need Seven days to compass it, with all her speed. And they of deepest lore and wisest wit Deemed that an island in the midst of it Bloomed like a rosebush ring'd with snows, a place Of pleasance, folded in that white embrace And chill. But never yet ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... who was now pretty well advanced, "I believe widin the compass of written or spoken language—and I might on that subject appeal to Mr. Thaddeus O'Phats here, who is a good authority on that particular subject, or indeed on any one that involves the beauty of elocution—I say, then, there is not widin the compass of spoken language ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... book deals with British Colonial policy historically from the beginnings of English colonisation down to the present day. The subject has been treated by itself, and it has thus been possible within a reasonable compass to deal with a mass of authority which must otherwise be sought in the State papers. The volume is divided into five parts:—(1) The Period of Beginnings, 1497-1650; (2) Trade Ascendancy, 1651-1830; (3) The ...
— The Wallypug in London • G. E. Farrow
... with a compass to the diameter shown and then divide off the outside into an unequal number of divisions as shown. Draw a light pencil line through each of these marks to the centre of the circle. Now with your scissors cut out the disc, after which you cut ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... great mystery, and hard to learn. Flesh and blood, our animal nature, will never compass it all; for it belongs, not to the flesh, but to the spirit. But our spirits, our immortal souls, may learn the lesson at last, if we feed them continually with the thought of Christ; if we meditate upon whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honourable, ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... in a small compass. Our reform would leave woman just where God placed her—a moral, accountable being, endowed with talents whose scope and character indicate the work she is to do; and who is responsible primarily to her Creator for the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the prairie school-house in which she had been educated; and her ideals seemed to Ralph as pathetic as the ornaments made of corks and cigar-bands with which her infant hands had been taught to adorn it. He was beginning to understand this, and learning to adapt himself to the narrow compass of her experience. The task of opening new windows in her mind was inspiring enough to give him infinite patience; and he would not yet own to himself that her pliancy and variety ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... compelled continually to exchange bodies, as well as souls, is the evil side, and commits crimes so atrocious, that the miserable doctor is well-nigh driven to despair. It is a powerful subject, powerfully treated, and contains in its small compass more moral teaching than a hundred sermons. It has, particularly in America, been used by many clergymen as ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... finite,' and ending—who can tell where? But as we cannot honestly arrogate to ourselves any skill in the scientia scientiarum, or say, 'The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He set a compass upon the face of the deep;' we shall leave aesthetic science to those who think that they comprehend it; we shall, as simple disciples of Bacon, deal with facts and with history as 'the will of God revealed in facts.' We will ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... felt keenly the sarcasm which his wild blundering talk brought upon him. He was, not long before his last illness, provoked into retaliating. He wisely betook himself to his pen; and at that weapon he proved himself a match for all his assailants together. Within a small compass he drew with a singularly easy and vigorous pencil the characters of nine or ten of his intimate associates. Though this little work did not receive his last touches, it must always be regarded as a ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Southern writer, describing the country and the strange combat, says: "The country was sombre—a land of thicket, undergrowth, jungle, ooze, where men could not see each other twenty yards off, and assaults had to be made by the compass. The fights there were not even as easy as night attacks in open country, for at night you can travel by the stars. Death came unseen; regiments stumbled on each other, and sent swift destruction into each other's ranks, guided by the crackling ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... capable of yielding of itself. Our moments of peace are, I think, always associated with some form of beauty, of this spark of harmony within corresponding with some infinite source without. Like a mariner's compass, we are restless until we find repose in this one direction. In moments of beauty (for beauty is, strictly speaking, a state of mind rather than an attribute of certain objects, although certain things have the power of inducing it more than others) we seem to ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... most remarkable characters in it, are very conspicuous. But to him who really endeavours to discover the country of an anonymous writer, such an argument, unless reduced to very minute details, and contracted into a very narrow compass, will not appear satisfactory. He will recollect that the extremes of society are very uniform, that courts resemble each other as well as prisons; and that, as was once observed, if King Christophe's courtiers were examined, the great features of their character ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... by the production of which the author has conferred no less honor upon his country than he has won praise and fame for himself, and than which, we can assure them, they can find nothing more attractive or interesting within the compass of modern ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... man at the wheel has a compass before him, and he looks at that, and so knows how to point the ship's head. As America is in the west, he keeps it ...
— The Young Emigrants; Madelaine Tube; The Boy and the Book; and - Crystal Palace • Susan Anne Livingston Ridley Sedgwick
... control. In His treatment of the old commandments as to oaths, He expands them by extending the prohibitions from one kind of oath to all kinds. The movement in the former case is downwards and inwards; in the latter it is outwards, the compass sweeping a wider circle. Perjury, a false oath, was all that had been forbidden. He forbids all. We may note that the forms of colloquial swearing, which our Lord specifies, are not to be taken as an exhaustive enumeration of what is forbidden. They are in the nature of a parenthesis, and the sentence ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... despicable character. Honest optimates would wish to maintain the Senate's preponderance from affection to it, and from belief in its being the mainstay of the State. Honest populares, like the Gracchi, who saw the evils of senatorial rule, tried to win the popular vote to compass its overthrow. Dishonest politicians of either side advocated conservatism or change simply from the most selfish personal ambition; and in time of general moral laxity it is the dishonest politicians who give the tone to a party. The most unscrupulous members of the ruling ring, the most ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... welcome guest, the season when the lawyer's vacation gave him leisure for a long visit, revive him to the mind. The Danube, on whose banks he died—the Severn, by whose banks he appears to have been buried—nay, the points of the compass—are associated with him. Sometimes the association is slighter still; and in a few pieces the allusion is so distant that it would not have been perceived without the clew. Such is the following (one of several ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... subjects, even when his affairs abroad are setled, it is to be fear'd they may conspire privily; from which a Prince sufficiently secure himself by shunning to be hated or contemned, and keeping himself in his peoples good opinion, which it is necessary for him to compass, as formerly we treated at large. And one of the powerfullest remedies a Prince can have against conspiracies, is, not to be hated nor dispised by the universality; for alwaies he that conspires, beleeves the Princes death is acceptable to the subject: but when he thinks ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... faithful, painstaking piece of work, and condenses into brief compass a vast amount of information, which all tourists to the summer resorts of New England will ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... temperate breezes, the sweetness of the mornings being most delightful, the weather like an Andalusian April, and only the song of the nightingale wanting. On the 17th the men began to murmur. They were frightened by the strange phenomena of the variations of the compass, but the explanation Columbus gave restored their tranquillity. On the 18th they saw many birds and a great ridge of low-lying cloud, and they expected to see land. On the 20th they saw two pelicans, and they were sure the land must be near. In this, however, they were disappointed, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... night she went down below; by daybreak she was on deck again. She found Mr. Dugdale in his old place by the compass and the telescope. He had slept by snatches where he sat, never giving up his watch for ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... also with the care of the playing fields: the more that the work needed for a game is thrown upon the players themselves, the more does it contribute to education. And so too with constructive work of any kind that, with some help of suggestion or direction, is within the compass even of comparatively unskilled labour. A lengthy list could be given of things accomplished in this way, with an educational value all the greater for their practical purpose, from Ruskin's famous road down to the last field ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... severe Against the stranger to these shores conveyed! So should I not esteem my death too dear A ransom for thy worthier life were paid. But none is here so great, sir cavalier, Nor of such puissance as to lend thee aid; And what thou askest, though a scanty grace, Were difficult to compass in ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... when a child soils her best frock, we put her in the corner with a scolding; but when she tells a fib we quell her little soul within her by a terrible quiescence. To be eloquently indignant without a word is within the compass of the thoughtfully stolid. It was thus that Lady Frances was at first treated by her stepmother. She was, however, at once taken up to London, subjected to the louder anger of her father, and made to prepare for the Saxon Alps. At first, indeed, her immediate destiny ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... the night are delightful to me, since in solitude I realise better the all-embracing Presence of God. The good angels are there round about us like a company of soldiers on guard. The truth of God, says the Psalmist, shall compass thee with a shield; thou shall not be afraid of the ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... where the monotony of ignoble streets is broken only by an occasional church, a Board School, or a public-house. From the city's cathedral to every point of the compass, except the west, they stretch almost without limit till they reach the bedraggled fields maturing for development. They form by far the larger part of an Empire's capital. Each of them is, in fact, a vast town, great enough, as far as numbers ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... pity? May thine eyes look down With tenderness and blessings, and behold Thy servant. Oh! have mercy; hear my cry And unbewitch me from the evil spells, That I may see thy glory... Oh! how long Shall these my foes pursue me, working ill, And robbing me of joy?... Oh! how long Shall demons compass me about and cause Affliction without end?... I thee adore— The gift of strength is thine and thou art strong— The weakly are made strong, yet I am weak... O hear me! I am glutted with my grief— This flood of grief by evil winds distressed; My ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... the same as the North. He will be the President of the whole country. He will not execute the laws by the compass, but according to the Constitution. I do not speak for General Garfield, nor by any authority from his friends. No one wishes to injure the South. The Republican party feels in honor bound to protect all citizens, white and black. It must do this in order ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... scientific men hold, that our dream-thinking is uncontrolled and undirected by the will. The will—the inhibiting and guiding power—finds rest and refreshment in sleep, while the mind, like a barque without rudder or compass, drifts aimlessly upon an uncharted sea. But curiously enough, these fantasies and inter-twistings of thought are to be found in great imaginative poems like Spenser's "Faerie Queene." Lamb was impressed by the analogy between our dream-thinking and the work of the imagination. Speaking ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... parade of erudition, No pretence of calm judicial tone, But the stimulating ebullition Of a sort of humanized cyclone; Unafraid of flagrant paradoxes, Unashamed of often seeing red, Here's a thinker who the compass boxes Standing most ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... Overreach, how is it with Your honourable daughter? has her honour Slept well tonight? or, will her honour please To accept this monkey, dog, or paroquet? (This is state in ladies) or my eldest son To be her page, to wait upon her?—— My ends, my ends are compass'd! then for Wellborn And the lands; were he once married to the widow— I have him here——I can scarce contain myself, I am so full of joy; nay, joy ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 4, April 1810 • Various
... we of course bring together the different parts of speech just as they happen to be needed. Though a sentence of ordinary length usually embraces more than one half of them, it is not often that we find them all in so small a compass. Sentences sometimes abound in words of a particular kind, and are quite destitute of those of some other sort. The following examples will illustrate these remarks. (1) ARTICLES: "A square is less beautiful than a circle; and the reason seems to be, that the attention is divided among ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... Chronicle volume 14 page 103. The writer referred to was Bory de Saint-Vincent, who wrote the Voyage dans les quatre principales iles des mers d'Afrique, Paris 1804.) He related, on the alleged authority of an officer, that, being in want of a magnetic needle to replace one belonging to a compass which had been injured, he applied to the commodore, who had several in a drawer in his cabin. Baudin found one, but as it was somewhat rusty, the officer feared that the magnetic properties of the steel would be impaired. Baudin expressed his regret, and said: ...
— Terre Napoleon - A history of French explorations and projects in Australia • Ernest Scott
... produced a small compass and handed it to Charley. "Steer due west as near as you can," ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... the right to privacy and the mother-tongue, I have lingered long, feeling these to be not only of prime importance and wide application, but also to be quite beyond my power to make lucid in short compass. I trust that they have been made lucid. I must now get on to further anecdotes, illustrating other and less subtle causes of misunderstanding; and I feel somewhat like the author of Don Juan when he exclaims that he almost wishes he had ne'er begun that very remarkable poem. I ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... worry Sophie felt an insane desire to laugh. Was this tragedy only or, after all, a comedy? If Betty loved Justin? Her imagination could scarcely compass the consequences ...
— Glory of Youth • Temple Bailey
... codes have a similar merit. A gentleman of high judicial position and very great Indian experience has expressed to me his high admiration of the Evidence Act. It is, he says, 'a wonderful piece of work, boiling down so much into so small a compass.' It is 'an achievement to be proud of,' although parts of it, he adds, are open to criticism, and especially to the criticism that it is 'over the heads of those who have to deal with it.' It presupposes outside knowledge which they often do not possess. These ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... subject. That the exclusion of Chinese labor is demanded in other countries where like conditions prevail is strongly evidenced in the Dominion of Canada, where Chinese immigration is now regulated by laws more exclusive than our own. If existing laws are inadequate to compass the end in view, I shall be prepared to give earnest consideration to any further remedial measures, within the treaty limits, which the wisdom of ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... I have set down, from being awkwardly packed in a small compass, may not appear to fit into each other with all the exactness of a dissecting-map, I am sure, that, as they really occurred spread over a necessary time, they seemed natural and simple enough. Mrs. Hunesley, Doctor Dastick's favorite niece, was the schoolmate of Miss Kate Hurribattle, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... challenge some one whose footsteps were heard approaching it. The person stopped on their challenge, and presently after was heard the sound of a rote, (a small species of lute,) the strings of which were managed by means of a small wheel. After a short prelude, a manly voice, of good compass, sung verses, which, translated into modern language, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... sunlight may compass us round, Hate may arise up against us, or hope may confound; Love may forsake us; yet may not the ...
— Studies in Song, A Century of Roundels, Sonnets on English Dramatic Poets, The Heptalogia, Etc - From Swinburne's Poems Volume V. • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... a representation of persons in bondage; in fact, it is a representation of their masters,—the oppressor representing the oppressed.'—'Is it in the compass of human imagination to devise a more perfect exemplification of the art of committing the lamb to the tender custody of the wolf?'—'The representative is thus constituted, not the friend, agent and ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God." The apostle here states in the most simple terms the true Christian faith, and brings it into such a short compass that none can mistake him. The belief that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is the true faith, and a denial of that ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... thirty to forty miles, and see neither a person nor a house. The more intelligent do sometimes guide their steps by sun, moon, and stars, or by glimpses of mountain peaks or natural features on the far and high horizon, or by the needle of the compass; but the perils are not illusory, and occasionally the most experienced have ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... the Gaboon pagans lodge their idols. Behind each larger establishment there is a dwarf hut, the miniature of a dwelling-place, carefully closed; I thought these were offices, but Hotaloya Andrews taught me otherwise. He called them in his broken English "Compass-houses," a literal translation of "Nago Mbwiri," and, sturdily refusing me admittance, left me as wise as before. The reason afterwards proved to be that "Ologo he kill man ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... near the river, facing eastward, and standing four-square, with an immense veranda about its sides, and a flight of steps in front spreading broadly downward, as we open arms to a child. From the veranda nine miles of river were seen; and in their compass, near at hand, the shady garden full of rare and beautiful flowers; farther away broad fields of cane and rice, and the distant quarters of the slaves, and on the horizon everywhere a dark belt of ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... must have had the coarse-growing, yellow-flowered, daisy-like PRAIRIE ROSIN-WEED (Silphium laciniatum) in mind when he wrote this stanza of "Evangeline," his lines apply with more exactness to the delicate prickly lettuce, our eastern compass plant. Not until 1895 did Professor J. C. Arthur discover that when the garden lettuce is allowed to flower, its stem leaves also exhibit polarity. The great lower leaves of the rosin-weed, which stand nearly vertical, with their faces to the east and west, and their ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... a condition more exalted than his own is in a constant state of disquietude, like the needle of the compass which trembles incessantly until it points to the north. An ancient proverb makes the happiness of this life to consist in wishing to be what we ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... common frame of reference the compass points of the postwar era we've relied upon to understand ourselves. And that was our world until now. The events of the year just ended, the Revolution of '89, have been a chain reaction, changes so striking that it marks the beginning ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... with executions that makes us suspect that in this estimate he may have been thinking rather of the number of convictions than of the hangings. Yet his figures are those of a man who was on the ground, and cannot be lightly discounted. Moreover, James Howell, writing in 1648, says that "within the compass of two years, near upon three hundred Witches were arraign'd and the major part executed in Essex and Suffolk only."[98] If these estimates be correct—or even if they approach correctness—a remarkable fact appears. Hopkins and Stearne, in fourteen ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... dust in the tea and the smaller leaves and stems frequently form lines of dots. These are significant of a journey, and their extent and direction shows its length and the point of the compass towards which it will extend: the handle for this purpose being considered as due south. If the consultant is at home and lines lead from the handle right round the cup and back to the handle, it ...
— Tea-Cup Reading, and the Art of Fortune-Telling by Tea Leaves • 'A Highland Seer'
... Cormorants opened their eyes when they heard a slight splashing in the water. Something was about to invade their retreat. They had not long to wait. Slowly into the stream waded a Bittern. Seeing the Cormorants there he stopped; and, drawing himself up into as small a compass as possible, he sunk his head in his shoulders, and nothing could be seen of his long neck, while his bill was thrust up in the air as if he cared nothing for his neighbors or their affairs. The Cormorants heartily wished he would go away, ...
— Round-about Rambles in Lands of Fact and Fancy • Frank Richard Stockton
... search of," said Monsieur Carmaignac, "would fit in a narrow compass—servants are so ingenious sometimes. ...
— The Room in the Dragon Volant • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and all acts of this nature are very successful because they are attended with dignity without any odium. That which generally draws an unaccountable odium upon even the most necessary actions of statesmen, is that, in order to compass them, they are commonly obliged to struggle with very great difficulties, which, when they are surmounted, are certain to render them objects both of envy and hatred. When a considerable occasion offers, where there is no victory ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... quiet harbour. Not a fleck or film of cloud floated between us and the serene and darkening sky; a profound, delightful calm brooded over land and water. Although there was no moon, the stars served us as lights and compass until two o'clock in the morning, by which time we had reached the head of the lake (which is thirty-five miles in length), where we landed, extemporized a tent out of the boat sail, and turned in for ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker |
