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Ancient   Listen
adjective
Ancient  adj.  
1.
Old; that happened or existed in former times, usually at a great distance of time; belonging to times long past; specifically applied to the times before the fall of the Roman empire; opposed to modern; as, ancient authors, literature, history; ancient days. "Witness those ancient empires of the earth." "Gildas Albanius... much ancienter than his namesake surnamed the Wise."
2.
Old; that has been of long duration; of long standing; of great age; as, an ancient forest; an ancient castle. "Our ancient bickerings." "Remove not the ancient landmarks, which thy fathers have set." "An ancient man, strangely habited, asked for quarters."
3.
Known for a long time, or from early times; opposed to recent or new; as, the ancient continent. "A friend, perhaps, or an ancient acquaintance."
4.
Dignified, like an aged man; magisterial; venerable. (Archaic) "He wrought but some few hours of the day, and then would he seem very grave and ancient."
5.
Experienced; versed. (Obs.) "Though (he) was the youngest brother, yet he was the most ancient in the business of the realm."
6.
Former; sometime. (Obs.) "They mourned their ancient leader lost."
Ancient demesne (Eng. Law), a tenure by which all manors belonging to the crown, in the reign of William the Conqueror, were held. The numbers, names, etc., of these were all entered in a book called Domesday Book.
Ancient lights (Law), windows and other openings which have been enjoined without molestation for more than twenty years. In England, and in some of the United States, they acquire a prescriptive right.
Synonyms: Old; primitive; pristine; antique; antiquated; old-fashioned; obsolete. Ancient, Antiquated, Obsolete, Antique, Antic, Old. Ancient is opposed to modern, and has antiquity; as, an ancient family, ancient landmarks, ancient institutions, systems of thought, etc. Antiquated describes that which has gone out of use or fashion; as, antiquated furniture, antiquated laws, rules, etc. Obsolete is commonly used, instead of antiquated, in reference to language, customs, etc.; as, an obsolete word or phrase, an obsolete expression. Antique is applied, in present usage, either to that which has come down from the ancients; as, an antique cameo, bust, etc.; or to that which is made to imitate some ancient work of art; as, an antique temple. In the days of Shakespeare, antique was often used for ancient; as, "an antique song," "an antique Roman;" and hence, from singularity often attached to what is ancient, it was used in the sense of grotesque; as, "an oak whose antique root peeps out; " and hence came our present word antic, denoting grotesque or ridiculous. We usually apply both ancient and old to things subject to gradual decay. We say, an old man, an ancient record; but never, the old stars, an old river or mountain. In general, however, ancient is opposed to modern, and old to new, fresh, or recent. When we speak of a thing that existed formerly, which has ceased to exist, we commonly use ancient; as, ancient republics, ancient heroes; and not old republics, old heroes. But when the thing which began or existed in former times is still in existence, we use either ancient or old; as, ancient statues or paintings, or old statues or paintings; ancient authors, or old authors, meaning books.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ancient" Quotes from Famous Books



... belief that hallucinations can be induced by one or other form of crystal-gazing, in ancient Peru, on the other side of the continent among the Huille-che, in Fez, in Madagascar, in Siberia, among Apaches, Hurons, Iroquois, Australian black fellows, Maoris, and in Polynesia. This is assuredly a wide ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang

... in its entirety held even by the most enlightened, and that the sketch I have given you of the formation of all religions is, in fact, the idea which I myself have formed as the result of all I have learned, both as one initiated in all the learning of the ancient Egyptians and from my own studies both of our oldest records and the traditions of all the peoples with whom Egypt has come in contact. But that all our gods merely represent attributes of the one deity, and have no personal existence as represented in our temples, ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty

... brilliants which flashed among the braids of her black hair was worthy to be the bridal-diadem of a queen. The Countess Baillou was tall and stately in her beauty, hers was the fascination of the dark-eyed Italian, united to the majesty of a daughter of ancient Rome, and the union was irresistible. Her throat was slender, her head small, and her classic oval face was of a pale, pearly hue, without a tinge of the rose, which, while it lends animation to a woman's face, detracts from the camelia-like purity ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach

... the no-longer-existent theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields, which Christopher Rich had rebuilt in 1714, and which his son John had made notorious for pantomimes. Here the Beggar's Opera, precursor of a long line of similar productions, had just been successfully produced. Finally, most ancient of them all, there was the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane, otherwise the King's Play House, or Old House. The virtual patentees at this time were the actors Colley Cibber, Robert Wilks, and Barton Booth. The two former were just playing the Provok'd Husband, in which the famous Mrs. ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson

... pledge ourselves to the restoration of our faith through the ultimate triumph of the British arms. Nobody outside of America believes that she can ever make good her claims of independence. No one has ever taken seriously her attempt at self-government. France, alone, actuated by that ancient hatred for England, inspired by the lust of conquest and the greed of spoliation, has sent her ships to our aid. But has she furnished the Colonies with a superior force of arms? Has she rendered herself liable for any indebtedness? ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... on solitary mountain peaks, bringing multitudes to Her feet, and working cures; then, as if weary of wandering to be adored, She wished—so it had seemed—to fix the worship in one place, and had deserted Her ancient ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans

... the matter to a pitch of extravagance, yet it was certainly founded upon a natural, rational principle. Who are so naturally our friends as those who are born such? I defy a New-Yorker, though callous'd over with city politeness, to be otherwise than pleased with a view of ancient hospitality to relations, when exercised by a person of good-breeding ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... them merely for the little occupation of scratching his hands and standing on tiptoe, for their pretty redness.... You remember what Balzac says about projecting any piece of work?—"C'est fumier des cigarettes enchantees...." Well, well! The data obtainable about the ancient gods in their days of adversity are few and far between: a quotation here and there from the Fathers; two or three legends; Venus reappearing; the persecutions of Apollo in Styria; Proserpina going, in Chaucer, to reign over the fairies; a few obscure religious persecutions in the Middle ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... older I shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There were twenty guests, and it was the first time since ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... masculine idea, and thereby capable of producing an offspring. Now we hear much of the Father and the Son, but we hear nothing of the Mother in the ordinary religions of the day. But in the Kabbalah we find that the Ancient of Days conforms himself simultaneously into the Father and the Mother, and thus begets the Son. Now this ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... well-disposed! He is the Quaker among dogs. All the viciousness and currishness seem to have been weeded out of him; he seldom quarrels, or fights, or plays, like other dogs. Two strange hounds, meeting for the first time, behave as civilly toward each other as two men. I know a hound that has an ancient, wrinkled, human, far-away look that reminds one of the bust of Homer among the Elgin marbles. He looks like the mountains toward which ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... dignity, so inviolable a fidelity, both to his friend and to his Church! She recalled that scarred brow—that kind and brotherly affection—that passionate sympathy which had made the heir of one of the most ancient names in England the intimate counsellor and ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... neglect of this study in the academies and seminaries subject to their visitation; and they mention it as a remarkable fact, that in many of them preference is given to the study of the Grecian and Roman antiquities. They say: "The constitutions, laws, manners, and customs of ancient Greece and Rome are made subjects of regular study, quarter after quarter, while our own constitutional jurisprudence, and the every day occurring principles of our civil jurisprudence, are not admitted as a ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young

... into a regular traffic, to see that so inveterate a custom is not easily to be eradicated. Our aim should be to turn the minds of men gently and continuously to better ways, and not to pass suddenly from one extreme to the other. The architect whose skill is able to correct the weakness of an ancient building, and to bring it into some degree of symmetry without first pulling it down, deserves far greater praise than the man who must throw it into ruins in order to construct something entirely new. It is difficult to change the established order without changing ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... tell of myself; having been nowhere but to that Naseby. I am among my old haunts: so have not to travel. But I shall be very glad to hear that you are the better for having done so; and remain your ancient Bedesman, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald

... a limited Deity then, i.e. a Being really circumscribed in power, and not verbally only by a confinement to necessary truth, is at variance with our fundamental idea of a God; to depart from which is to retrograde from modern thought to ancient, and to go from Christianity back again to Paganism. The God of ancient religion was either not a personal Being or not an omnipotent Being; the God of modern religion is both. For, indeed, civilisation ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... eating the bread of independence is an old and deeply rooted feeling. There is an ancient fable of AEsop about the Dog and the Wolf which portrays this sentiment in a very quaint and delightful manner. ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker

... they had evidently explored the sea but little. The Phoenicians then ruled the waves. The Greeks in those early times knew scarcely anything of the world beyond Greece proper and the neighboring islands and shores. Scarcely an echo of the din of life from the then ancient and mighty cities of Egypt and Chaldaea seems ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers

... Sandymere, Miss Challoner had gone out, and, in accordance with ancient custom, the cloth had been removed from the great mahogany table. Its glistening surface was broken only by a decanter, two choice wine-glasses, and a tall silver candlestick. Lighting a cigar, ...
— The Intriguers • Harold Bindloss

... from yonder ivy-mantled tow'r The moping owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bow'r, Molest her ancient solitary reign. ...
— Poems Every Child Should Know - The What-Every-Child-Should-Know-Library • Various

... a saying, ancient as the hills, that "truth is stranger than fiction," and in a most startling manner has this axiom been brought home to me within ...
— The Smoky God • Willis George Emerson

... posts were descried upon its summit, which we conjectured to be those on which the French had affixed a record of their visit, as well as the more ancient one of the Dutch navigators, Dirk Hartog and Vlaming; for they were very conspicuously placed and appeared to be in ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King

... could not help roaring with laughter at Andy's novel contrivance for keeping oysters fresh. Andy was desired to take the "ancient and fish-like smell" out of the room, amidst jeers and abuse; and, as he fumbled his way to the kitchen in the dark, lamenting the hard fate of servants, who can never give satisfaction, though they do everything ...
— Handy Andy, Vol. 2 - A Tale of Irish Life • Samuel Lover

... General Oglethorpe was sold by Calderwood in 1788. It comprised standard works of Ancient and Modern History, of the Drama, Poetry, and ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris

... in brief a woman, That put strange garments on, and came thus far To seek an ancient friend: And having spent her stock of idle words, And feeling some tears coming, Hastes now to clasp Sir Walter Woodvil's knees, And beg a boon for Margaret, his poor ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... now the whole facade of the college rose before him, with a pretty picture in the foreground; a tall handsome student, leaning against the trunk of an ancient elm, and talking to the girl who sat on the turf, with a basket of freshly-ironed shirts resting on the grass beside her. The identical straw hat, which Cuthbert had left behind him when summoned home, was upon the student's head, and as the timid shrinking girl glanced up ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... thy labour? But Philosophy never thought it lawful to forsake the innocent in his trouble. Should I fear any accusations, as though this were any new matter? For dost thou think that this is the first time that Wisdom hath been exposed to danger by wicked men? Have we not in ancient times before our Plato's age had oftentimes great conflicts with the rashness of folly? And while he lived, had not his master Socrates the victory of an unjust death in my presence, whose inheritance, when ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius

... a minister of the established church of Scotland, descended from a very ancient clan, and his mother nearly related to a noble family in the northern part of that kingdom. While the son was boarded at a public school, where he made good progress in the Latin tongue, his father ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett

... ringing and the great people were not yet come, I had leisure to glance over the church, which smelt as earthy as a grave, and to think what a shady, ancient, solemn little church it was. The windows, heavily shaded by trees, admitted a subdued light that made the faces around me pale, and darkened the old brasses in the pavement and the time and damp-worn monuments, and rendered the sunshine in the little ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens

... same extent. Almost everything that is worth saying has been already said, more or less happily. A vast amount has been said which is not in the least worth saying, which is for the most part demonstrably foolish or wrong. As Shakespere is by far the greatest of all writers, ancient or modern, so he has been the subject of commentatorial folly to an extent which dwarfs the expense of that folly on any other single subject. It is impossible to notice the results of this folly except at great length; it is doubtful whether they are worth ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury

... York, built around an ancient enmity, born of the scorn of the aristocrat for one of ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... of his art Tacitus certainly had neither equal nor second among the ancient historians. Herodotus, though he wrote in a dramatic form, had little of dramatic genius. The frequent dialogues which he introduces give vivacity and movement to the narrative, but are not strikingly characteristic. Xenophon ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... wrested from them; and the victors being satisfied, took leave of each other at Roijore (Raichur), and returned to their several dominions. The raaje of Beejanuggur since this battle has never recovered its ancient splendour; and the city itself has been so destroyed that it is now totally in ruins and uninhabited,[343] while the country has been seized by the zemindars (petty chiefs), each of whom hath assumed an independent power in his ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... no lazy hand will brook; So work with might and main. Your ancient hammers ply, And sparks will swiftly fly Beneath your arms that rain The fast, resounding blows; While zeal to please him glows ...
— Psyche • Moliere

... tribes that we know of—the Los Angelitos and the Carmelitos. The latter started from one man and woman. He was called Lopez, and he was descended from the ancient Mexicans and was very black. He was a cowherd in the ranges beyond Carmel, and his wife was a maidservant in the great Del Monte Hotel. It was seven years before we first got in touch with the Los Ange-litos. They have a good country down there, but it is too warm. I estimate ...
— The Scarlet Plague • Jack London

... at Castlemount, now belonging to Miss Paton, just opposite the ruined castle. Among other visitors to St. Andrews known to my father were Professors Tait and Crum Brown, who inveigled him into making trial of the "Royal and Ancient" game, which then, as now, was the staple resource of the famous little city. I have a vivid recollection of his being hopelessly bunkered three or four holes from home, and can testify that he bore the moral strain with more than usual calm as compared with the generality ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley

... reached the end of Whitehall, and the splendid panorama of Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament lay before them. The most stately of ancient English buildings was contrasted with the most beautiful of modern ones. How anything so graceful came to be built by this tasteless and utilitarian nation must remain a marvel to the traveller. The sun was shining upon the gold-work ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle

... for our regiment to remove to the ancient town of Ayr—news which delighted me greatly. Next day the regiment, numbering about a thousand men, mustered for the last time in Edinburgh. The inhabitants of Auld Reekie turned out in their thousands to see us march to the railway station and to bid us adieu. The regimental band—which, by-the-bye, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... nations of antiquity lived and prospered in arid and semiarid countries. In the more or less rainless regions of China, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, Mexico, and Peru, the greatest cities and the mightiest peoples flourished in ancient days. Of the great civilizations of history only that of Europe has rooted in a humid climate. As Hilgard has suggested, history teaches that a high civilization goes hand in hand with a soil that thirsts for water. To-day, current events point to ...
— Dry-Farming • John A. Widtsoe

... novel stands alone among the Rougon-Macquart series for its pure, idyllic grace. Angelique, a daughter of Sidonie Rougon (Le Curee), had been deserted by her mother, and was adopted by a maker of ecclesiastical embroideries, who with his wife lived and worked under the shadow of an ancient cathedral. In this atmosphere the child grew to womanhood, and as she fashioned the rich embroideries of the sacred vestments she had a vision of love and happiness which was ultimately realized, though the realization proved too much for her frail strength, ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson

... and were among the mountains. Wonderful little towns perched fortified on rocks and peaks, mountains rose straight up off the level plain, like old topographical prints, rivers wandered in the wild, rocky places, it all seemed ancient and shaggy, savage still, under all its remote civilization, this region of the Alban Mountains south of Rome. So the train clambered up and down, and ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence

... combination of letters that will more clearly express the horrible, echoing, hollow sound which, after what seemed to be a long interval, but which was almost momentary, rose out of the ancient shaft, followed by strange and sickening splashings and a ...
— Sappers and Miners - The Flood beneath the Sea • George Manville Fenn

... were then called) Samotheans. This prince is commended by Berosus to be so plentifullie indued with wisedome and learning, that Annius taketh him to be the vndoubted author of the begining and name of the philosophers called Druides, whome Caesar and all other ancient Greeke and Latine writers doo affirme to haue had their begining in Britaine, and to haue bin brought from thence into Gallia, insomuch that when there arose any doubt in that countrie touching any point of ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (1 of 8) • Raphael Holinshed

... of the tower and turn our eyes to the west. Here you behold in the distance a range of mountains bounding the Vega, the ancient barrier between Moslem Granada and the land of the Christians. Among the heights you may still discern warrior towns, whose gray walls and battlements seem of a piece with the rocks on which they are built; while here and there is a solitary atalaya or watch-tower, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... polished at the ends and painted with royal emblems, from which projections no doubt, in early periods, many a banner of triumph had floated and many a knightly pennon. Bishop Brent was fond of this room, and carefully maintained its ancient character in the style of its furniture and general surroundings. The wide angle-nook and high carved chimney-piece, supported by two sculptured angel-figures of heroic size, was left unmodernised, and in winter the gaping recess was filled ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... verse that it is ill work deciding between them. In the sense in which poetry is best understood, all literature is poetry—or is, at any rate, poetical in quality. Macaulay's ill-informed and unjust denunciations live because his genuine emotion made them into poetry, while his Lays of Ancient Rome are dead because they are not the expression of a genuine emotion. As the literary taste develops, this quality of emotion, restrained or loosed, will be more and more widely perceived at large in literature. It is the quality that must be looked for. It is ...
— Literary Taste: How to Form It • Arnold Bennett

... printed regarding the Choir School of St Stephen's and its routine in Haydn's time. They have been well summarized by one of his biographers. [See Miss Townsend's Haydn, p. 9.] The Cantorei was of very ancient foundation. Mention is made of it as early as 1441, and its constitution may be gathered from directions given regarding it about the period 1558-1571. It was newly constituted in 1663, and many alterations were made then and afterwards, but in Haydn's day it was still practically what it had ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden

... secret of it. He has searched every attic from Breakwater to Moreland. I caught an old junk dealer in our barn the other morning, and while I watched him get down the road I saw Reed come along. Of course, he had hired the man to search where he himself could not go. He is after some sort of ancient rustic ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose

... the iron gratings of the upper Claverias, giving on the roofs, there was generally a voice singing the ancient couplet, no doubt inspired ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... hardly noticed that we were approaching Kuntsevo, or that the sky was becoming overcast and beginning to threaten rain. On the right, the sun was slowly sinking behind the ancient trees of the Kuntsevo park—one half of its brilliant disc obscured with grey, subluminous cloud, and the other half sending forth spokes of flaming light which threw the old trees into striking relief as they stood there with their dense crowns of green showing against a blue patch ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy

... thus, in ancient days of Caledon, [10] Was thy voice mute amid the festal crowd, When lay of hopeless love, or glory won, Aroused the fearful or subdued the proud. At each according pause was heard aloud Thine ardent symphony sublime and high! Fair dames and crested ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... seemed to be required by the coast in the vicinity of Miss Millet's cottage during the following week! Any one observing the frequency of Jeff's visits to it, and his prolonged earnest gazing at the sea, would have imagined that the ancient smuggling days had revived, or that the old tendency of the French to suddenly come o'er and find the Britons awaiting them on shore, was ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne

... for the Town of Boston, have receivd your kind Letters inclosing the noble & patriotick Resolves of the Metropolis of the ancient Colony ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams

... and he answers very wittily, but his way of speaking makes me smile, and I tell him why. He expressed himself exactly in the style of Boccacio. My remark pleases him, but I soon prove to him that it is not the right way to speak, however perfect may have been the language of that ancient writer. In less than a quarter of an hour we are excellent friends, for we find that our ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... manifestations of life had their proper place and proportion, according to which man could work in joy. She and he were accidents of the story. They might go out into darkness to-night; there was eternal time and multitudes of others to take their place, to feel the ancient, purifying fire—to ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... one in which Our Lord was placed was cut out of the side of a rock, and had for a door a great stone against the entrance. Our Lord was not placed in a coffin, but was wrapped in a linen cloth. It was the custom of the Jewish people and of many other ancient nations to embalm the bodies of the dead, wrap them in cloths, and cover them with sweet spices. (Matt. 27:59). Thus it was that Mary Magdalene and other good women came early in the morning to anoint the body of Our Lord. But you will say, why ...
— Baltimore Catechism No. 4 (of 4) - An Explanation Of The Baltimore Catechism of Christian Doctrine • Thomas L. Kinkead

... a whistle. After a time they sit down and nod this way and that to the music, as though engaged in training the muscles of the neck. But the drums and gongs go faster, till the long hair of the woman flies round with her head. The whistling is varied by a chant, SADONG, in an ancient language now ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... of Scituate, Massachusetts, one of the most ancient settlements of the old colony, that we trace back the local colour which pervades the poem. The history of the place is memorable and interesting. The people come of a hardy and determined ancestry, ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... ancient Jews, were divided into tribes, and these were subdivided into families; a family meaning in this connection not one household, but a large congeries of households, including all those that were of known relationship to each other. These groups of relatives ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott

... on behalf of a princess who is his god-daughter. He bids me hand you, therefore, your patent of Roman Senator, and request you to present yourself at the Capitol in Rome on June 15, when you will be installed with all the ancient ceremonies." ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... At length the tower of a lighthouse started out clear white against blue, as a shaft of sunshine struck it. Next, the nearer mountains slowly turned to green, as a chameleon changes: the Admiralty Island came clearly into view; the ancient nest of those fierce pirates who for centuries scourged the Mediterranean; and last of all, the climbing town of Algiers, old Al-Djezair-el-Bahadja, took form like thick patterns of mother-o'-pearl set in bright green enamel, ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... a quarter of a mile when the road ended suddenly at the base of another wall. A break in the wall told of an ancient gateway but the gate itself was gone, probably rotted into dust ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... best of spirits. He welcomed the visitors with a cordiality that would rival the meeting of two long lost friends. The front has no main entrance; the main door is around the back. There are conspicuous displays of many ancient burlap bags, heavy laden, hanging from high rafters, which contained corn ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... to catch a thief!' says Aunt Golding, and I felt glad to hear her laugh once more; 'my love-passages are of too ancient a date to serve me, it seems, but yours are fresh and new, my Lucy. But what of Andrew? is ...
— Andrew Golding - A Tale of the Great Plague • Anne E. Keeling

... for conjecture for weeks, and many were the strange stories afloat. Some of the old dames thought the captain was going to be married after all. Then the young widows and ancient maidens who had heard much about Captain Lane, sighed and looked disconsolate. Every kind of a story but the truth ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,

... that justice had not been administered to him on the preceding day through a desire to please the people, before either he could go through with his claim, or an opportunity of reply was afforded to Virginius, Appius interrupts him. The preamble with which he prefaced the sentence, ancient authors may have handed down perhaps with truth; because I no where find any one that was likely (to have been used) on so scandalous a business, it seems, that the naked fact should be stated as ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... powers that guard innocence and celibacy," soliloquized Kenelm Chillingly, "but I have had a narrow escape! and had that amphibious creature been in girl's clothes instead of boy's, when she intervened like the deity of the ancient drama, I might have plunged my armorial Fishes into hot water. Though, indeed, it is hard to suppose that a young lady head-over-ears in love with Mr. Compton yesterday could have consigned her affections to me to-day. Still she looked as if she ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... so shalt thou have mastery over her and find thyself lord of thine own house and home.[FN269] Tarry here awhile until I come again." So saying the damsel passed into another room and I remained sitting and talking with her mother and praised her excellence and kindness towards me. The ancient dame also related strange and rare deeds of wonder done by her with pure purpose and lawful means, till the girl returned with an ewer in hand and said, "O Sidi Nu'uman, my magical art doth tell me that Aminah is at this present away from home but she will return thither presently. Meanwhile she ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... of the highest culture. It is degrading to his dignity. All culture based on such a hypothesis must be a culture of the flesh, and not of the spirit. It is the culture of materialism, not of Christianity. Between modern materialism and the cultivated heathenism of the ancient Greeks the difference is not worth the naming. "To assume the existence of a soul," says Vogt, "which uses the brain as an instrument with which to work as it pleases, is utter nonsense. Physiology distinctly ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen

... scenery of this river is not the castles, the antique towns, the dense woods or the teeming vineyards lining rocks where a chamois could hardly stand—all this it has in common with the Rhine—but the volcanic region of the Eifel, the lakes in ancient craters, the tossed masses of lava and tufa, the great wastes strewn with dark boulders, the rifts that are called valleys and are like the Iceland gorges, the poor, starved villages and the extraordinary rusticity, not to say coarseness, of the inhabitants. This grotesque, interesting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various

... holiness had many religious ceremonies and a counsel with the ministers, hence the heir could not see him. The prince went immediately to the grand secretary, who next to the minister of war had most significance at the court of the pharaoh. That ancient official, a priest at one of the temples in Memphis, received the prince politely but coldly, and when he had heard ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... shoulders. "It's possible," he said; "of course, though, the sign, the triangle, is not a Chinese character. As a character, of course it is the Greek Delta. But it may be no character at all. In the signs of the ancient Cabala, the triangle, apex upward as it was in this case, was the symbol of fire; ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... gentle birth(148) and narrow means, going out from his northern home to win his fortune in the world, and to fight his way, armed with courage, hunger, and keen wits. His crest is a shattered oak-tree, with green leaves yet springing from it. On his ancient coat-of-arms there is a lion and a horn; this shield of his was battered and dinted in a hundred fights and brawls,(149) through which the stout Scotchman bore it courageously. You see somehow that he is a gentleman, through all his battling and struggling, his poverty, his hard-fought successes, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... had had matters in her own hands, and the house grew more lonely and cheerless each year. Mr. Denner's office was in his garden, and was of brick, like his house, but nearer the road, and without the softening touch of ivy; it was damp and mildewed, and one felt instinctively that the ancient law books must have a film of ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland

... and true to their highest instincts. We may call it an essentially heathenish intercourse, free and irresponsible in its nature, and practising all the virtues gratuitously. It is not the highest sympathy merely, but a pure and lofty society, a fragmentary and godlike intercourse of ancient date, still kept up at intervals, which, remembering itself, does not hesitate to disregard the humbler rights and duties of humanity. It requires immaculate and godlike qualities full-grown, and exists at all only by condescension ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... feel' Hume, David, refused assistance except on conditions Hume, Mrs., 'Too poor' Humour of Scotch language Humour, Scottish, described in Annals of the Parish Humour, Scottish, description of Hymns ancient and modern ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay

... Frazer always wore an ancient military hat with a leather thong at the back of his head drawn tight across his flowing hair. The brim of this hat turned up in the back as if he had slept in it many years, which was indeed the case, and down in the front so low ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden

... near-sighted in history, but to look before and after; see their own part and lot in the rising up and going down of empires and faiths since first recorded time began; and what I am contending for is that even if you can take your young men and women no farther than the mere vestibule of this ancient and ever venerable Temple of many marvels, you will have opened to them the way to a kind of knowledge that not only enlightens the understanding, but enriches the character—which is a higher thing than ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 1: On Popular Culture • John Morley

... lady's ennui, while her pride and love of aristocratic exclusiveness equally gratified the same feelings for her patroness. And from the mist that enwrapped her origin, the ingenious and perhaps self-deceived young creature had contrived to evolve such a grand fable of "ancient descent" and "noble but reduced family," that everybody regarded her in the same light as she regarded herself. And surely, as the quick-sighted Mrs. Gwynne often said, no daughter of a long illustrious line was ever prouder than ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)

... on to join the battalions that were already on their way towards the distant lake amid noise and crash and devastation. It seemed as if ice and snow and water had combined to revive the picture if not the reality of ancient chaos! ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne

... about the double share of the inheritance that went with the birthright. What he thought of was the priestly service, which was the prerogative of the first-born in ancient times, and Jacob was loth to have his impious brother Esau play the priest, he who ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg

... I'm not much of an executioner, girls, but I can plan and you can execute, and in that way I get my finger in the pie. Now, I believe I've a practical idea that will work out beautifully. Dorfield is an ancient city and has been inhabited for generations. Almost every house contains a lot of articles that are not in use—are put aside and forgotten—or are not in any way necessary to the comfort and happiness of the owners, yet would be highly ...
— Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls • Edith Van Dyne (AKA L. Frank Baum)

... Old deserving stone-masons saw themselves suddenly set aside and had then and there to take to breaking stones; and this young fellow who had strayed into the town straightway ignored and discounted the experience of their many years. They tried, by the most ancient of all methods, to teach the young man modesty. But they gave it up. Peter Jorgensen had the strength of three men and the courage of ten. It was not good to meddle with one who had stolen his capacities from God himself, or perhaps was in league with Satan. So they ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... several passages which conducted from the new to the more ancient parts of the mansion, and having arrived in the old hall of the castle, the utter silence of the hour, for it was very late in the night, the idea of the nature of the enterprise in which he was engaging himself, a sensation of remoteness from anything like human companionship, but, more than ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... of the ancient line had been allowed to appear to the world as the work of France itself; Napoleon's fate could only be fixed by his conquerors. After the fall of Paris, Napoleon remained at Fontainebleau awaiting events. The soldiers and the younger officers of his army were still ready to fight ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... trains. When she saw him assisted into the Pullman by the porter she turned with a little sigh, and walked up the rise toward Forty-second Street. She could almost wish she were going with him, although seaweed and mollusk gathering was a messy business, and the vessel he sailed in was an ancient converted coaster with few comforts for womenkind. Louise Grayling had been hobbled by city life for nearly a year now and she began to ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper

... importance of the part which the British have played, which we shall not realize till the war is over. In England no newspapers were suppressed; casualty lists were published; she gave publicity to dissensions and mistakes which others concealed, in keeping with her ancient birthright of free institutions which work out conclusions through discussion rather than take them ready-made from any ruler ...
— My Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... return from Meridian was one from Captain D. F. Boyd, of Louisiana, written from the jail in Natchez, telling me that he was a prisoner of war in our hands; had been captured in Louisiana by some of our scouts; and he bespoke my friendly assistance. Boyd was Professor of Ancient Languages at the Louisiana Seminary of Learning during my administration, in 1859-'60; was an accomplished scholar, of moderate views in politics, but, being a Virginian, was drawn, like all others of his kind, into the vortex of the rebellion by the events of 1861, which broke up colleges and every ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... impossible to get upon it without the assistance of ladders, and which he named Santa Maria la Redonda, or the round island of St Mary. To another island he gave the name of Santa Maria et Antigua or ancient St Mary, the coast of which extended fifteen or twenty leagues. Many other islands were seen to the northward, which were very high, and covered with woods. He anchored at one of these which he named ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr

... time "They caught in far-off flashes—as the child "Half thinks he can remember how one came "And took him in her hand and shew'd him that "He thinks, she call'd the sun. Proud ships rear high "On ancient billows that have torn the roots "Of cliffs, and bitten at the golden lips "Of firm, sleek beaches, till they conquer'd all, "And sow'd the reeling earth with salted waves. "Wrecks plunge, prow foremost, down still, solemn ...
— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... adjoining, the chapel there is a small Sunday school, It was erected about 15 years ago; the scholars previous to that time having met in a little building in Lord's-walk. The average attendance of scholars at present is about 60. The chapel, internally, is small, clean, plain, and ancient- looking. A central aisle runs directly up to the pulpit, and it is flanked with a range of high old-fashioned pews, some being plain, a few lined with a red-coloured material, and several with faded green ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus

... self-confidence and of assurance in the immortality of his verses, and in this respect the author's opinion was constant and uniform. He never scruples to express it,... and perhaps there is no writer of ancient or modern times who, for the quantity of such writings left behind him, has so frequently or so strongly declared that what he had produced in this department of poetry 'the world would not ...
— The Art of Literature • Arthur Schopenhauer

... of ancient poets, The fair humanities of old religion, The power, the beauty, and the majesty That had their haunts in dale or piny mountain, Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring, Or chasms and watery depths,—all these have vanished; They live no longer ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett

... eldest brother, Jason, became a "Seeker"; the "Seekers" of that day believed that the devout of their times could, through prayer and faith, secure the "gifts" of the Gospel which were granted to the ancient apostles.* He was one of the early believers in faith-cure, and was, we are told, himself cured by that means in 1835. One of Lucy's sisters had a miraculous recovery from illness. After being an invalid for two years she was "borne away to the world of spirits, "where she ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... that witticisms at the expense of vice are abhorrent to him. He takes up the charges in detail: it is said that the doctrine is new, doubtful, and uncertain, unconfirmed by miracles, opposed to the fathers and ancient custom, schismatical and productive of schism, and that its fruits are sects, seditions, license. On no point is he so emphatic as the repudiation of the personal charges: the people he pleads for have never raised their voice in faction or ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... Robert Stephenson was the designer and chief engineer, is, without exception, the greatest work of the kind in the world. For gigantic proportions and vast length and strength there is nothing to compare with it in ancient or modern times. The entire bridge, with its approaches, is only about sixty yards short of two miles, being five times longer than the Britannia across the Menai Straits, seven and a half times longer ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... expressed, required vigilance: but, if this was judiciously maintained, the task was for the most part an easy and pleasant one. I know not if it be worth while to mention that the hills and glens on which my charge pastured at this period formed a portion of what in ancient times was termed the Forest of Rankleburn. The names of places in the district, though there were no other more intelligible traditions, might serve to shew that it is a range of country to which both kings and nobles had resorted. If from morning to night I was away ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... approached so as to be just without reach of the spring of the creature, and levelling his piece, while he could see the cougar shut its eyes and cling closer to the limb, fired. The sound of the gun rang through the ancient forest, and in an instant the beast, jumping from the limb, fell at his feet. So sudden was this, that Arundel had hardly time to withdraw the weapon from his shoulder, before the animal had made the spring. The first impulse of the youth on finding the ferocious brute thus near, was to club his ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams

... exhuberant as to anticipate every want."—Frazee's Gram., p. 43. "The quotors " " which denote that one or more words are extracted from another author."—Day's District School Gram., p. 112. "Ninevah and Assyria were two of the most noted cities of ancient history."—Ib., p. 32 and p. 88. "Ninevah, the capital of Assyria, is a celebrated ancient city."—Ib., p. 88. "It may, however, be rendered definite by introducing some definition of time; as, yesterday, last ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... itself. Second-class men-of-war which were not required with the grand fleet and a single first-class dreadnought of the latest type, the Queen Elizabeth, in conjunction with a French squadron, bombarded and reduced the ancient forts at the entrance to the Dardanelles and then attacked those in the narrows. British bluejackets even smoked their pipes and cracked jokes as they sat on the crest of Achi Baba, which became an impregnable Turkish position after the British Mediterranean ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various

... an old Vacaville crony who would appear, and stories would fly of those boy times—of the exploits up Putah Creek with Pee Wee Allen; of the prayer-meeting when Carl bet he could out-pray the minister's son, and won; of the tediously thought-out assaults upon an ancient hired man on the place, that would fill a book and delight the heart of Tom Sawyer himself; and how his mother used to sigh and add to it all, "If only he had ever come home on time to his meals!" (And he has one son just like him. Carl's brothers tell me: "Just give up trying ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker

... having the preceding year instituted the Royal Academy of Arts in London, Johnson had now the honour of being appointed Professor in Ancient Literature[202]. In the course of the year he wrote some letters to Mrs. Thrale, passed some part of the summer at Oxford and at Lichfield, and when at Oxford ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell

... old masters. Mr. Copley was patient, admiring her if he admired nothing else; but even he did admire and enjoy some of the works of art in which the museum is so rich; and one day he and Dolly had a rare bit of talk over the collection of ancient glass. Such hours made Dolly only the more grieved and distressed when she afterwards perceived that her father had been solacing himself with other and very much ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner

... and James Harrison] set out for Wray, our beloved friend John Yeardley being our guide. We called by the way at Thomas Barrow's, of Wenington Hall, and drank tea; then proceeded to Wray. There were but few Friends here, but they have a very large ancient meeting-house, and my concern being principally towards the inhabitants, and proper information thereof being given, abundance attended; the meeting-house both above and below stairs was pretty well filled; and their behavior was deserving ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley

... envied our possessions. You know how Cortez, long ago, came from Spain and when our forefathers met him with friendliness he slew men, women, and children, tore down their ancient temples, and set the churches ...
— The Mexican Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins

... through his tears and choked up so that the words would not come without being resolutely forced through a tightened throat, the sympathetic audience, including Mrs. Bingle and Melissa— and on one occasion an ancient maiden from the floor above—wept copiously and with the ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon

... it is called "urucu," whence the French name "rocou;" and the Peruvians have still another designation for it, "achote." Of course each tribe of Indians calls it by a separate name. The botanic name, Bixa, is the ancient name by which it was known to the Indians of Hayti, for it is found in most parts of tropical America growing wild, although it is also cultivated. It is an article in great demand among all the Indians ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... permanent the ties that united the two nations and to give stability to the treaties of alliance and of commerce which form the basis of this union. These treaties were so well maintained by the Congress formed under the ancient Confederation that they thought it their duty to interpose their authority whenever any laws made by individual States appeared to infringe their stipulations, and particularly in 1785, when the States of New Hampshire and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson

... and could not say to what songs his cradle had been rocked, what mother had nursed him, who were the playmates of childhood or by what woods and streams he had wandered. When I read O'Grady I was as such a man who suddenly feels ancient memories rushing at him, and knows he was born in a royal house, that he had mixed with the mighty of heaven and earth and had the very noblest for his companions. It was the memory of race which rose up within me as I read, and I felt exalted ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady

... small articles. Salis bur y (Sauls): a town in North Carolina. sav age: wild, untamed. scare crow: an object set up to scare crows and other birds away from crops. score: the number twenty. serv ice: benefit, favor. shek el: ancient coin. shreds: strips, fragments. Si ling (Se): a Chinese empress. sim ple ton: a foolish person. six pence: six pennies—about twelve cents in United States money. squire: a justice of the peace. state ly: dignified, majestic. stat ues: likeness ...
— The Child's World - Third Reader • Hetty Browne, Sarah Withers, W.K. Tate

... different from their usual order. A new disposition took place, not dreamt of in the theories of speculative politicians, and of which few examples in the least resembling it have been seen in the modern world, none at all in the ancient. In other instances, a political body that acts as a commonwealth was first settled, and trade followed as a consequence of the protection obtained by political power; but here the course of affairs was reversed. The constitution of the Company began in commerce and ended in empire. ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... defence is equally the interest of the whole. Ireland has never recognised this community of interest with England. Quebec, it is true, stands aloof and indifferent to the ideals of the sister provinces; but there is no bitter religious hatred, no fierce, anti-national aims fostered by ancient traditions, life-long feuds and unscrupulous agitation, and every Canadian knows that Quebec would fight to the last against American aggression, if only to preserve her religious independence. There is no such bond here—or, ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various

... hope. He sees a race long stagnant, stretching its giant limbs with the first vague movements of returning life. He is a poor sort of patriot; he calls himself, I suppose, a white man, yet he shamelessly confesses he would rather see Asia's millions rise from the ruins of their ancient civilization to take their part in the future of humanity, than that half the population of the globe should remain bound in savagery for the pleasure and the profit of ...
— Idle Ideas in 1905 • Jerome K. Jerome

... that no systematic use has yet been made of wood-cutting on its own terms; and only here and there, even in the best books, is there an example of what might be done by it. The frontispieces to the two volumes of Mr. Birch's "Ancient Pottery and Porcelain," and such simpler cuts as that at p. 273 of the first volume, show what might be cheaply done for illustration of archaic classical work; two or three volumes of such cuts chosen from the best vases of European collections and illustrated by a short and trustworthy ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... and for it Jonson was duly arraigned at Old Bailey, tried, and convicted. He was sent to prison and such goods and chattels as he had "were forfeited." It is a thought to give one pause that, but for the ancient law permitting convicted felons to plead, as it was called, the benefit of clergy, Jonson might have been hanged for this deed. The circumstance that the poet could read and write saved him; and he received only a brand of the letter ...
— Every Man Out Of His Humour • Ben Jonson

... from David, as being a Shedder of Blood, but not from Solomon his son, so may you lay your Hand to much Treasure in Gold, Silver, and Precious Stones, but chiefly the GREAT RUBY OF CEYLON, whose beauty excels all the jewels of the Earth, I myself having looked upon it, and knowing it to be, as an Ancient Writer saith, 'a Spectacle Glorious and ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... me all this time, and now we left the road and moved over the plain to the stream that here widened into a pool fringed with rushes and a few twisted trees. An ancient, half-sunken boat drowsing under the bank he hailed again in the name of Saint Christopher. Dismounting, he fastened his mule to a willow and proceeded to place me, then himself found a root of a tree, and taking out his knife fell to sharpening pencil. ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston

... it at all," said Charley. "There is plenty of water in this range. You see that old silver mine, up there?" pointing to an ancient dump on the mountainside back of the house. "Well, the lower level of that has a foot ...
— The Forbidden Trail • Honore Willsie

... state could give no official authority to their codes, their object was mainly practical; but they reveal not merely a general interest in the legal arrangements existing at the moment, but a clear consciousness that these rested upon a solid substratum of ancient law, dating from a time before the Conquest. Towards this ancient law the nation had lately turned, and had been answered by the promise in Henry's coronation charter. Worn with the tyranny of William Rufus, men had looked back ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams



Words linked to "Ancient" :   Ancient Greek, old, Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, oldster, ancientness, soul, somebody, past, ancient history, antediluvian



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