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Description   Listen
noun
Description  n.  
1.
The act of describing; a delineation by marks or signs.
2.
A sketch or account of anything in words; a portraiture or representation in language; an enumeration of the essential qualities of a thing or species. "Milton has descriptions of morning."
3.
A class to which a certain representation is applicable; kind; sort. "A difference... between them and another description of public creditors." "The plates were all of the meanest description."
Synonyms: Account; definition; recital; relation; detail; narrative; narration; explanation; delineation; representation; kind; sort. See Definition.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Description" Quotes from Famous Books



... been set forth in this chapter might be regarded as a heavy indictment of crime and disorder, but I cannot avoid adding one confirmatory piece of evidence, as eloquent as it is accurate. This is the fearful description of the state of Kerry which appears in Judge O'Brien's charge to the Grand Jury at the Assizes, founded, of course, on the report of outrages submitted to him. It is impossible to guess in what stronger words his opinions would have been expressed if the total number of outrages ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey

... misleading description of Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael's, to which, since my early days in Kings Port, my imagination may be said to have been harnessed, came back into my mind. I turned its injustice over and over beneath the light which the total Hortense now shed upon it—or rather, not the total Hortense, but my ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister

... horribly, of me! I am not half so black as they allege. You know, exaggeration is to them What whiskey is to most men. But time bursts Their bubbles—or at least we come to take Their work as merely art. Thus their description As art is not so bad; but if you seek For truth, it's ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke

... usually fired the imagination of comic authors? When La Bruyere came across this particular type, he realised, on analysing it, that he had got hold of a recipe for the wholesale manufacture of comic effects. As a matter of fact he overdid it, and gave us far too lengthy and detailed a description of Menalque, coming back to his subject, dwelling and expatiating on it beyond all bounds. The very facility of the subject fascinated him. Absentmindedness, indeed, is not perhaps the actual fountain-head of the comic, but surely it is contiguous to a certain stream of facts and ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson

... true," Porter said with prim severity. "There was malfunction of crucial units under stress. But another phase was not made public. The astronaut's mission—one of them, at least—was to hunt outer space for foreign bodies of any description." ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman

... Zarate, commander of a Spanish ship scuttled by Drake off Guatalco, gives this description to the Spanish government of the Englishman's equipage: "The general of the Englishmen is the same who five years ago took Nombre de Dios, about thirty-five years old, short, with a ruddy beard, one ...
— Vikings of the Pacific - The Adventures of the Explorers who Came from the West, Eastward • Agnes C. Laut

... wooden flight of steps which led from the box down to the line and walked along the metals towards the tunnel till we stood on the spot where poor Davidson had been found dead that morning. I examined the ground and all around it most carefully. Everything tallied exactly with the description I had received. There could be no possible way of approaching the spot except by going along the line, as the rocky sides ...
— A Master of Mysteries • L. T. Meade

... wish you the same success in Ireland which attended your last Government; your only difficulty will be to maintain the high character which your Administration bore, in the minds of every description of people. You will certainly be received by the sanguine expectations of the whole country; and from my heart and soul I earnestly hope that you may return home with the same popularity and credit that you ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... the palace of Vulcan, to obtain new arms for her son. The description of the wonderful works of Vulcan; and, lastly, that noble one of the ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... distribution of the light in the best authenticated picture has been supposed to favour this conjecture. But under any supposition, this, the second of the three noted English family pictures, is of the greatest interest. I shall record a minute and curious description given of this 'More Family,' which is still in the possession of a descendant of the ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler

... 367. Harrison, in his Description of Britain, printed in 1577, has the following passage, (chap. 13:) "Certes there is no prince in Europe that hath a more beautiful sort of ships than the queen's majesty of England at this present; and those generally are of such exceeding ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume

... that in this description of the principal kinds of poetry, only three of the poems included in this book have been mentioned. This is because the other three—The Traveller, The Deserted Village, and The Cotter's Saturday Night—do not ...
— Selections from Five English Poets • Various

... monks had forsaken their home even before the Reformation, for the first Lanison had acquired in the Eighth Henry's reign a property "long fallen into ruinous decay," according to an old parchment. Possibly the writer of this description had not seen the Abbey, trusting, perchance, to the testimony of a man who had not seen it either, for certainly much of the present building was in existence then, and could hardly have been as ruinous as the parchment would lead one to suppose. It ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner

... the Dead" is a translation of the title "Todtenbuch," given by Dr. R. Lepsius to his edition of a papyrus at Turin, containing a very long selection of the Chapters,[1] which he published in 1842. "Book of the Dead" is on the whole a very satisfactory general description of these Chapters, for they deal almost entirely with the dead, and they were written entirely for the dead. They have nothing to do with the worship of the gods by those who live on the earth, and such prayers and hymns as are incorporated with ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... at hearing this News from Liamil, were beyond all Description. He made her repeat the Oath, which she had at first swore, never to require the Rights of the Favorite Sultana, but be satisfied with the Honours of the Handkerchief. He drew her a Plan for her Rule of Life, regulated her Behaviour to the Queen, and instructed ...
— The Amours of Zeokinizul, King of the Kofirans - Translated from the Arabic of the famous Traveller Krinelbol • Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crbillon

... ducats, considering the advantage to be gained. And now she was afraid that she, and her husband, and children were no nearer heaven than they were before she had bought the indulgences; and from the description Tetzel gave of it, purgatory must be a very disagreeable place, but she comforted herself by thinking that Tetzel might have imposed on his hearers in ...
— Count Ulrich of Lindburg - A Tale of the Reformation in Germany • W.H.G. Kingston

... how absurd it would be for one of us to be perpetually insisting on the fact that he was a man, to be taking that as his continual description of himself, and pressing it upon people's attention as if there was something strange about it. The idea is preposterous; and the very frequency and emphasis with which the name comes from our Lord's lips, lead one to suspect that there is something lying behind it more than appears on ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... description of the child followed, but this did not interest me, and I did not linger over it. The child was no stranger to me. I knew her well and consequently was quite aware of her personal characteristics. It was the great amount offered for her discovery and restoration ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... description of this scenery, and the fate of De Retz, the high-wrought and glowing romance by Mr. Ritchie called ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... even an idea," Tom sighed. "Corbett, I wish you would hurry over to Blixton and rout out the police. I've an idea that Sambo may have a hiding place in the town. Nicolas, too, may have been taken that way. I'll sit down and write out a good description of the rascal." ...
— The Young Engineers on the Gulf - The Dread Mystery of the Million Dollar Breakwater • H. Irving Hancock

... deserves a special description. On the right rises the dome of the Gouter. Opposite it is Mont Blanc, rearing itself two thousand seven hundred feet above it. On the left are the "Rouges" rocks and Mont Maudit. This immense circle is one mass of glittering whiteness. ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne

... novelist would wind up such a delightful romance," I said. "There would have been at least twenty or thirty pages of lurid description." ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan

... upon that unprotected and wealthy metropolis. An army had been enrolled—a force of 86,016 foot, and 13,831 cavalry; but it was an army on paper merely. Even of the 86,000, only 48,000 were set down as trained; and it is certain that the training had been of the most meagre and unsatisfactory description. Leicester was to be commander-in-chief; but we have already seen that nobleman measuring himself, not much to his advantage, with Alexander Farnese, in the Isle of Bommel, on the sands of Blankenburg, and at the gates of Sluys. His army was to consist ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... off" in the woods will enjoy the reading of this poem—the description is so life-like and exhilarating. ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson

... they do make their fortunes, but not from sealing. There are so many tense situations, so very well described, that the book might almost have come from the pen of George Manville Fenn. A well-written and interesting book, and with a very good description of the Franco-Prussian War, the war which is so often ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson

... Friday, the day of the big races in Indianapolis. The town was full of people. Tourists from all over managed to make the city just at that time, and the streets were crowded with motor cars of every description. Gladys looked sharply at every car they passed on the way out of the city to see if her trunk was on the back of any of them, but ...
— The Campfire Girls Go Motoring • Hildegard G. Frey

... by the officers of the Royal Artillery are the largest, and as a description of one is a description of all, I will take one up in regular order, rather than quote ...
— Tales of the Malayan Coast - From Penang to the Philippines • Rounsevelle Wildman

... much, for the November of 1860 at Quincy stood apart from other memories as lurid beyond description. Although no one believed in civil war, the air reeked of it, and the Republicans organized their clubs and parades as Wide-Awakes in a form military in all things except weapons. Henry reached home in time to see the last of these processions, stretching in ranks ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... demand men of ripe age, proved intelligence, great rectitude, and perfect discretion; and it is one of the miracles wrought by Heaven in favor of Paris, that some men of that stamp are always forthcoming. Any description of the Palais de Justice would be incomplete without due mention of these preventive officials, as they may be called, the most powerful adjuncts of the law; for though it must be owned that the force of circumstances has abrogated the ancient ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... The Description of a Woman. Printed in Witts Recreations, 1645, and contained also in Ashmole MS. 38, where it is signed: "Finis. Robert Herrick." Our version is taken from Witts Recreations, with the exception of the readings show and grow (for shown and grown, in ll. 15 ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... snarled he. "Why, they have had almost time enough to get to Holland or Siam, and dispose of their loot. I can't see what the police are thinking of not to round them up quicker than this. Since they have a description of the men and can even call them by names there is ...
— Christopher and the Clockmakers • Sara Ware Bassett

... belonging to Mr McIntyre of Edinburgh, stands unrivalled for his cleverness and the peculiarity of his habits. Dandie would bring any article he was sent for by his master, selecting it from a heap of others of the same description. ...
— Stories of Animal Sagacity • W.H.G. Kingston

... beautiful things in those Pieces, which indeed together form one beautiful thing. That battle of Agincourt strikes me as one of the most perfect things, in its sort, we anywhere have of Shakspeare's. The description of the two hosts: the worn-out, jaded English; the dread hour, big with destiny, when the battle shall begin; and then that deathless valour: "Ye good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England!" There is a noble Patriotism in it,—far other than the ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... a Short description of the Harbour, or River, we have been in, which I named after the Ship, Endeavour River. It is only a small Barr Harbour or Creek, which runs winding 3 or 4 Leagues in land, at the Head of which is a small fresh Water Brook, as I was told, ...
— Captain Cook's Journal During the First Voyage Round the World • James Cook

... waterways in and around Basra. The main thoroughfares run at right angles to the river, but there are numerous narrow branches communicating from one to the other, in some places forming a network of little channels. Some of these were beautiful beyond description. The tide is felt in all these waters, and sometimes, during a spring tide, the effect of some of these date palm plantations, with the ground just covered, is strange. Hundreds of palms seem to be growing up out of a lake, and ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell

... recent literature certainly proves this to be one of them. There is nothing dainty or picturesque in the presentment of a naked character washing himself; yet how few of our later novels or notes of travel are without that bit of description; generally set-off by an ungainly reflection on the dirt of some other person, class, or community. The noxious affectation is everywhere. Even the Salvation officer cannot now write his contribution to the War Cry without a detailed account of the bath he took on this or ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... On this plantation, and in this domestic circle, I myself afterward sojourned, and from them enlisted in the army. The initials are fictitious, but the description is perfect.—G.W.C.] ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various

... nor gentlemen-kidnappers, suing for his patronage, volunteering to howl on their track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and pledging their honour to hunt down and deliver up, provided they had a description of the "flesh-marks," and were suitably stimulated by pieces of silver.[A] Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in all the auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand-cuffs, foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... his mother, and an expression of covert amusement was on his face as he reflected that his mother herself answered her own description of poor Maria, and did not dream of it. In fact, the two, although one was partly of New England heritage, and the other of a wholly different, more southern State, they were typically alike. They could meet only to love or quarrel; ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... I had never seen) occurring the day before, I had been obliged to post off to Ireland, and pay proper respect by appearing at the funeral. When I returned the duchess had gone, and Gustave had, half-ironically, consoled my evident annoyance by telling me that he had given such a description of me to his friend that she shared my sorrow, and had left a polite message to that effect. That I was not much consoled needs no saying. That I required consolation will appear not unnatural when I say that the duchess was one ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope

... own men was evident. When within sixty paces a mutual rush, or charge, ensued; but the overlapping of the Americans crowded the flanks of the enemy in upon his centre and produced confusion, to which the preceding fire doubtless had contributed. Scott's own description is that "the wings of the enemy being outflanked, and in some measure doubled upon, were mouldered away like a rope of sand."[297] In this brief and brilliant struggle only the one brigade ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... certainly not one of them. It would be much nearer the truth to put the thing in the bold and bald terms of the old Irish song, and to call him "The anti-Irish Irishman." But it is only fair to say that the description is far less of a monstrosity than the anti-English Englishman would be; because the Irish are so much stronger in self-criticism. Compared with the constant self-flattery of the English, nearly every Irishman is an anti-Irish Irishman. But ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton

... long description. In his first visit he had told Miss Leaf all about himself that there was to be known; that he was, as they were, a poor teacher, who had altogether "made himself," as so many Scotch students do. His father, whom he scarcely remembered, ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... contents of the trunk which he picked up at sea, when mate of the coasting vessel, was the property of the Marquis de Fontanges. During their passage home in the Windsor Castle, he had renewed the subject to M. de Fontanges, and from the description which he gave from memory, the latter appeared to be of the same opinion. The conversation had not been revived until some time after their arrival in England, when Newton, anxious to restore the articles, desired M. de Fontanges to communicate with the marquis, and request that he would appoint ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... one. It was night. Never had the Mississippi presented a more remarkable appearance. Broad bayous, swollen beyond our powers of description, swirled to and fro in the darkness under trees garlanded with Spanish moss. All moss other than Spanish had been swept away by the angry ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... Kofn Ford when first Isolde made his acquaintance. The girl recalled a description she had heard of the tall young Englishman galloping along the flat road to the rescue of the pretty, terrified Countess, whose Arab had been merely cantering along, capering now and again from sheer light-heartedness and without malicious intent, until its timid rider chose to scream, when ...
— A Modern Mercenary • Kate Prichard and Hesketh Vernon Hesketh-Prichard

... Flag description: blue with the red cross of Saint George (patron saint of England) edged in white superimposed on the diagonal red cross of Saint Patrick (patron saint of Ireland) and which is superimposed on the diagonal white cross of Saint Andrew (patron saint of Scotland); known as the Union ...
— The 2001 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... character of his intellect; there he fell a thousand leagues below my mother, to whom he looked up with affectionate astonishment. But, as a man of action, he ran so far ahead of men generally, that he ceased to impress one as commonplace. He, if any man ever did, realized the Roman poet's description of being natus rebus agendis—sent into this world not for talking, but for doing; not for counsel, but for execution. On that field he was a portentous man, a monster; and, viewing him as such, I am disposed to concede ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... obediently to the dull routine of the place, and felt so little interest in it, that he could not conceive that his father should do so either. There were of course occasional exciting incidents, but to relate them would have required so much explanation, such a list of personages, such a description of circumstances, that he felt unable to embark upon it. His father asked him whether he would not like some of his school friends to visit him at home, and he rejected the suggestion with a kind of incredulous ...
— Beside Still Waters • Arthur Christopher Benson

... pink and gold, then long shadows came over the forest, and the distant trees began to melt together into a gigantic dark wall. To the dweller in cities all this vast loneliness and desolation would have been dreary and weird beyond description; he would have shuddered with superstitious awe, starting in fear at the slightest sound, but there was no such quality in it for Henry Ware. He saw only comradeship and the friendly veil of the great creeping shadow. His eye could pierce the thickest ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler

... all ataunto once more, by routing out and sending aloft spare topgallant-masts and yards, bending new sails, overhauling and making good the rigging, and, in short, repairing all damage of every description; and with such goodwill did they work that in ten days from the date of their seizure of the brig everything had been done that it was possible to do, and, so far as the outward appearance of the craft was concerned, ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood

... equally good, but we have not space for them. This is a description of winter as we have it here, compounded of the elements of extreme cold, a transparent atmosphere, and brilliant sunshine. No English poet can see such a scene, at least in his own country: Ambrose Phillips did see something like it in Sweden, and described it in a poetical epistle ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various

... Amazement at his Approach. You endeavoured to have fled, but the Phantome caught you in his Arms. You may easily guess at the Change you suffered in this Embrace. For my own Part, though I am still too full of the [frightful [2]] Idea, I will not shock you with a Description of it. I was so startled at the Sight that my Sleep immediately left me, and I found my self awake, at leisure to consider of a Dream which seems too extraordinary to be without a Meaning. I am, Madam, with the greatest Passion, Your most Obedient, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... prologue and epilogue, as they may be termed, are in "the romance or ballad-measure of the Spanish." The resemblance between the two poems is certainly more than accidental. On the other hand, a vivid and impassioned description of Oriental scenery and customs was, as Gifford observed, new and original, and though, by his own admission, Byron was indebted to Vathek (or rather S. Henley's notes to Vathek) and to D'Herbelot's ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... been long entombed, and who was incapable of resuming the healthy glow and hue of life. He was not particularly tall, but extremely well made, and, like the men of the south, had small hands and feet. But what astonished Franz, who had treated Gaetano's description as a fable, was the splendor of the apartment in which he found himself. The entire chamber was lined with crimson brocade, worked with flowers of gold. In a recess was a kind of divan, surmounted with a stand of Arabian swords in silver scabbards, and the handles resplendent ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... considerable portion of one of them, and that hemp and tobacco are among the valuable products of the other two; that Tennessee is the very largest corn-producing state in the Union, showing her soil and climate are particularly adapted to this description of grain, and that Kentucky and Missouri are unsurpassed as grazing countries, and there is little ground to suppose that any change in their husbandry will very greatly or suddenly augment the production of wheat. Let us come now to the States of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds

... day.' Free fights between bands of rival voters armed with clubs, swords, and firearms, injuries from which men were not expected to recover, order restored by the intervention of the military—these were no unusual incidents in an old-time Canadian election. The contest in Hastings was of this description, and Baldwin was defeated. He stood for election in the second riding of York, and he was again defeated. Finally LaFontaine did for him what he had done for LaFontaine. The French member for Rimouski resigned ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan

... began with a description of the scenery of the eastern approach to Verona, with special remarks upon its magnificent fortifications, consisting of a steep ditch, some thirty feet deep by sixty or eighty wide, cut out of the solid rock, and the precipice-like ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... the river was covered over with barges, wherries and vessels of every description. Busy as it was fleets of swans were sailing upon its smooth surface, the noise of their gabble mingling agreeably with the song of ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison

... there to divide the multitude moving in one direction from those flowing in another. These streets are covered with roofs of glass, which exclude the rain and snow, but not the air. And then the wonder and glory of the shops! They surpass all description. Below all the business streets are subterranean streets, where vast trains are drawn, by smokeless and noiseless electric motors, some carrying passengers, others freight. At every street corner there are electric elevators, by which passengers can ascend or descend to the trains. And high ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... low to-night, and went to Musard's ball—a most curious scene; two large rooms in the rue St. Honore almost thrown into one, a numerous and excellent orchestra, a prodigious crowd of people, most of them in costume, and all the women masked. There was every description of costume, but that which was the most general was the dress of a French post-boy, in which both males and females seemed to delight. It was well-regulated uproar and orderly confusion. When the music struck up ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville

... his call. But it brought him back to actualities. He lighted his lamp and brought down the letter-file from which had been extracted the description of the wreck for Gardner ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... description of this destroying god, who was the colour of a stripped banana and tall as a palm tree, had fire in his mouth and eyes upon his hands—it was some time before he could recognise the "eyes"—and whose companions ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle

... new cottages for all the agricultural labourers on the estate. It is shameful that while the proprietors' houses, and the farmers' houses, have been enlarged and improved so much during the last century, the cottage of the hind and the cotter should still be of the same miserable description; the partitions to be made at the labourer's own expense, and too generally done by the enclosed beds, which are not right things in a sanitary point of view. The money value of the rent is increased, too, for ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence

... long after the cessation of the war, a canoe arrived with several natives, all of whom wore clothing of a much more civilised description than is usually seen among South-Sea savages. They had a long, earnest talk with the natives, but Jarwin was not allowed to hear it, or to show himself. Next day they went away. For some time after that Big Chief was very thoughtful, but silent, ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne

... this description does not weary you?" and Kate shone on Carmichael, who would have talked on the Council of Nice or the rotation of crops to ...
— Kate Carnegie and Those Ministers • Ian Maclaren

... stall; water-venders and venders of carpooses (water-melons) and a score of different eatables are meandering through. Here, if your guide be an honest fellow, he can pilot you into stuffy little holes full of antique articles of every description, where genuine bargains can be picked up; or, if he be dishonest, and in league with equally dishonest tricksters, whose places are antiquaries only in name, he can lead you where everything is basest imitation. In the former case, if anything is ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens

... other curious nondescript articles, some of which, in the superstitious opinions of that period, seemed to be designed for magical purposes. The library of this singular character was of the same miscellaneous description with its other effects. Curious manuscripts of classical antiquity lay mingled with the voluminous labours of Christian divines, and of those painstaking sages who professed the chemical science, and proffered to guide their students into the most secret recesses ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott

... chess some description will be more novel. Their chess-board, like ours, has sixty-four squares, which are not distinguished into alternate black and white squares. The pieces are not placed on the squares, but on the corners of the squares. The board is divided into two equal ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various

... abandoned itself to gloomy forebodings. It was evident that they must endure the fire of the enemy all the next day. But there was no longer any choice; for it was only at the end of this night of agony and suffering of every description that the first beams were secured in the river. It is hard to comprehend how men could submit to stand up to their mouths in water filled with ice, and rallying all the strength which nature had given them, with all that the energy of devotion furnished, and drive piles several feet deep ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... too distant from Sagasta-weekee for the report of their gun to reach that place. However, just as soon as Mr Ross saw the storm approaching he summoned every available man, and had boats in readiness to begin the search as soon as it was possible to risk the angry waves which a cyclone of this description stirs up. For at least three hours they had to wait ere they could make a start. Then in the still angry waters they shoved out their boats, and in different directions started ...
— Winter Adventures of Three Boys • Egerton R. Young

... there was a boy who lived in the country. It was said of him that he was "ruddy and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to." I think that description fits a country lad. Well, this boy had brothers who were away from home in the army, fighting. One day the boy's father said to him, "I wish you would go down and see how your brothers are getting along, and take with you this present." The boy started ...
— The Children's Six Minutes • Bruce S. Wright

... Although meagre, the description was sufficient. Trove had no longer any doubt of this—that the stranger he had seen at Darrel's had been hiding in the bush that day whose ...
— Darrel of the Blessed Isles • Irving Bacheller

... point if it is simply a lowering, without any building up; while apart from any other considerations, to herd, without due specialization, a number of criminals and misdemeanants (for that last is the true description of very many who are punished by this system of incarceration) tends, in many instances, to increase, by "evil communications," the numbers of those who are in for a first offence only, and would not, but for the enforced bad ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking

... an affair of state which does not concern you," replied Philostratus. "Read my description of Achilles. I represent him among other heroes such as Caracalla might be. Try, on your part, to see him in that light. I know that it is sometimes a pleasure to him to justify the good opinion of others. Encourage your imagination ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... labour themselves yet get profit from labour; in the exploiting world to labour for one's own profit is quite an accidental occurrence. With what right, then, does exploitation dare to plume itself upon making use of self-interest as a motive to labour? Some one else's interest is the right description of the motive to labour that comes into play under exploitation; and that this should prove itself to be more effective than the self-interest which economic justice has to introduce into the modern world as a novelty it would be somewhat difficult ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka

... his tip, that he supposed she meant the Home for Working Girls that lay in those parts. Looking up at the large, red-fronted building, with its countless uncurtained windows, Joan realized that the man's description was probably nearer the truth than ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson

... last two days more. She adjusted herself, put on her little air of self-possession, and going down, made herself resolutely agreeable. Only ladies were assembled, and Lady Pentreath was amusing them with a description of a drawing-room under the Regency, and the figure that was cut by ladies and gentlemen in 1819, the year she ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot

... years before the birth of Christ. His ancestor, Solon, was the great law-giver of Athens 600 years before the Christian era. Solon visited Egypt. Plutarch says, "Solon attempted in verse a large description, or rather fabulous account of the Atlantic Island, which he had learned from the wise men of Sais, and which particularly concerned the Athenians; but by reason of his age, not want of leisure (as ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... made an honest fight against the immoral always. I might describe this chill, I say, as vividly as I felt it at that moment, but it would be of no use to do so, because, however realistic it might prove as a bit of description, no man would believe that the incident really happened; and yet it did happen as truly as I write, and it has happened a dozen times since, and I am certain that it will happen many times again, though I would give all that I possess ...
— Ghosts I have Met and Some Others • John Kendrick Bangs

... shown to several modern instances of works nominally of the same description as the present were alone to be considered, it might seem that the old maxim, that nothing ought to be said of the dead but what is good, is in a fair way of being dilated into an understanding that every thing is good that has been said by the dead. The ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge

... enough, but the flies were far worse. Ceiling, walls, and floor were black with them. One not only ate them with one's food, but they inflicted a nasty, poisonous bite. As for the smells, they were beyond description; but the fact that a dead camel was slowly decomposing in the immediate vicinity of our dwelling may have had something to ...
— A Ride to India across Persia and Baluchistan • Harry De Windt

... Spruce, had been run over by Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, as that gentleman, driving his car himself, and staring indifferently through his monocle, had 'timed' his rush through the village to a minute and a half, on a bet with Lord Charlemont,—and 'gashed and jambled' was the only description to apply to the innocent little animal as it lay dead in the dust. Bob Keeley cried for days,—cried so much, in fact, over what he considered 'a wicked murder' that his mother sent for 'Passon' to console him. And Walden, with ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... they had made a resistance of the most valiant description, and now, despairing of success or rescue, and seeing the hosts of their besiegers increasing day by day, they hoisted a flag upon the walls and sent a deputation to the kings, asking for terms if ...
— The Boy Knight • G.A. Henty

... twice in my life have taken possession of me, in addressing the public. The first time was three or four years since, when I favoured the reader—inexcusably, and for no earthly reason that either the indulgent reader or the intrusive author could imagine—with a description of my way of life in the deep quietude of an Old Manse. And now—because, beyond my deserts, I was happy enough to find a listener or two on the former occasion—I again seize the public by the button, and talk of ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... was agent in charge of the Passamaquoddies in Maine. To this lady, who has a great influence over the Indians, and is much interested in their folk-lore and legends, I am indebted for a large collection of very interesting material of the most varied description. ...
— The Algonquin Legends of New England • Charles Godfrey Leland

... have given a description of some good games, it may be as well to warn our readers of some bad or foolish ones, which are either calculated to spoil their clothes, make them very dirty, or are ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin

... the literary quality of the Hindoo epic in comparison with Homer's work, we are at once impressed with the immense superiority of the Greek poem in artistic proportion, point, and precision. The Hindoo poet flounders along, amid a maze of prolix description and wearisome simile. Trifles are amplified and repeated, and the whole poem resembles a wild forest abounding in rich tropical vegetation, palms and flowers, but without paths, roads, or limits. Or rather, we are reminded of one of the highly painted ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... description of battles, nor the study of strategical campaigns, but good whole-some fiction with a little of the historical interwoven. These are authentic, instructive and exciting narratives on the greatest war ...
— The Go Ahead Boys and Simon's Mine • Ross Kay

... hastened to ask numberless questions about Dora—"How old was she? Did he think her pretty, and hadn't she better go to the funeral the next day and bring her home for a waiting-maid?— she wanted one sadly, and from the description, the orphan ...
— Dora Deane • Mary J. Holmes

... fervor that went on under the trees of the quiet seminary hill; of the little chapel with its churchyard to the west, commanding the lakes, the woods, the rising bosom of hills. The story was disconnected, lapsing into mere exclamations, rising to animated description as one memory wakened another in the chain of human associations. Bovine, heavy, and animal, yet peaceful, was that picture of Wisconsin farm lands, saturated with a few strong impressions,—the scents of ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... found Garrofat seated upon the royal throne, while at his right stood the eight governors of the provinces. The prince easily distinguished Doola from Azalia's description. Like his brother, he was beardless; while a golden crown surmounted by a red cone shaped hat was perched above his ...
— Bright-Wits, Prince of Mogadore • Burren Laughlin and L. L. Flood

... to ask Uncle Bob about his cane. He whittled it out himself. It has a crooked handle with ivory on the top. Bob has it, and has cut initials in it." [There is a stick, but description inaccurate.] "He has the skin also, and the ring. And he remembers Bob killing the cat and tying its tail to the fence to see him kick before he died. He and Bob and a lot of the fellows all together in Smith's field, I think he said. Bob knew Smith. And the ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... inexpedient for us to give a full and minute description of the several points and peculiarities of the mechanism of this apparatus; but we may so far explain as to say that a horizontal lever inside of the boiler, being mounted on a pivot near its centre, and connected to a buoy or float at one end, as represented in the engraving, (a part ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various

... description I would be willing to believe it," said I. "However, he will be easy to mark. Such a monster can hardly be mistaken ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane

... cried, clapping her hands in delight. She remembered that it was in the Rue St. Dominique, but when I attempted to win from her a description of the furniture, the view from our two windows, she evaded it. I turned the conversation to you—I don't mention it to offend you—but there was not the faintest recollection! Completely forgotten! I spoke of Tannemann—nothing, nothing! Not until I recalled the little dog could ...
— How Women Love - (Soul Analysis) • Max Simon Nordau

... description of it to Josiah that mornin', and had explained it all out to him—all about the Argant, and Jules, and the breast of the American Eagle ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... not very tall, with a mottled red face, and large protruding eyes. As regards his own person, Mr Grimes might have been taken as a fair sample of the English innkeeper, as described for many years past. But in his outer garments he was very unlike that description. He wore a black, swallow-tailed coat, made, however, to set very loose upon his back, a black waistcoat, and black pantaloons. He carried, moreover, in his hands a black chimney-pot hat. Not only have the top-boots and breeches ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... From the description given by the old banker, Lucien had recognized his Esther. Much annoyed that his smile should have been observed, he took advantage of a moment when coffee was served, and the conversation became general, to ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... blood dripping from the colonel's left boot. A projectile of some description had carried away the heel of the foot-covering and forced the steel shank into ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... of the Subject. Influence of Foods on the Health and Morality of the Community. The Most Important Question of Dietetics. Classes of Foods. Description of Proteids. The Starches. Conversion of Starches into Sugars. Fruit Sugar. The Fats. Salts. Effect of ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon

... read a minute description of Laodice from the rabbi of the synagogue in Ascalon; under the great seals of the Roman state, he found and read the oath of the prefect, that such a maiden as the rabbi had described had been married before him to Philadelphus Maccabaeus fourteen years ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller

... no illustration, at second hand, of the methods of the French generals during the Revolutionary period could produce the impression given by a simple exhibition of the broadsides issued by the proconsuls of that period; no description of the collapse of the triumvirate and the Reign of Terror could equal a half-hour's reading from the "Moniteur''; and all accounts of the Empire were dim compared to grandiose statements read from the original bulletins ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... Darwinism. Darwin wants us to believe that all living things, from the lowly violet to the giant redwoods of California, from the microscopic animalcule to the Mastodon, the Dinotherium,—monsters the very description of which fill us with horror,—bats with wings twenty feet in breadth, flying dragons, tortoises ten feet high and eighteen feet long, etc., etc., came one and all from the same primordial germ. This demand is ...
— What is Darwinism? • Charles Hodge

... and larger gum-trees farther on, I continued, to see if there were not another channel. Proceeded three miles over low limestone rises, with small flats between, on which was growing spinifex, and the gum-trees which I had seen—exactly the same description of country from which I was forced to return through want of water on my former journey from Mount Denison to north-west. I therefore returned to the creek, which I find to be the Bonney, now much smaller, but containing plenty of water—followed it down to north-north-west ...
— Explorations in Australia, The Journals of John McDouall Stuart • John McDouall Stuart

... do that," he assented, with pleasure in her notion; "and that would be better. I suppose that is what would be aimed at in a description of the scene, which would be tiresome if it didn't give the feeling ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... India gave Zoroaster much of the Primitive Truth, 617-l. India, the Patriarchal religion originally practiced by the people of, 360-l. Indian books, maxims from the, 169-m. Indian Mysteries, ceremonies and description of the, 428. Indian or Great Plague claimed to have originated from the English tax on salt, 812-m. Indian philosophy gave birth to the Egyptian Mysteries, 372-l. Indian philosophy spread through Persia and Chaldea to Egypt, 372-l. Indian Sacred Name of the One Deity manifested as—, 205-u. ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... his seat, and moved over to the window. He stood gazing out of it. Ailsa Mowbray's eyes followed his movements. They regarded him closely, and she thought of his own description of himself. Yes, he was not beautiful. Wholesome, strong, capable. But he was fat—so fat. A shortish, tubby man whose figure added ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum

... drawings over. No words can describe the intensity of the "plague of the heart" in this man; the reader should examine the manuscript carefully if he desires to see how low human nature can sink. I had written a description of one or two of the drawings in order to give some conception of them to persons not able to refer to the book; but the mere description so saddened and polluted my pages that I could not retain it. I will only, therefore, name the principal ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin

... of profound melancholy breathes around the whole spot. It seems to be more connected with the dead than with the living world. And the hamlet which now occupies the commanding site is of the most wretched description. All its houses, which date from the fifteenth century, are ruinous, and are among the worst in Italy; and the baronial castle which crowns the highest point,—built nearly a thousand years ago, the scene of many a conflict ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan

... to translate Homer, and some continuations of the Ennian Annals, such as the "Istrian War" of Hostius and the "Annals (perhaps) of the Gallic War" by Aulus Furius (about 650), which to all appearance took up the narrative at the very point where Ennius had broken off—the description of the Istrian war of 576 and 577. In didactic and elegiac poetry no prominent name appears. The only successes which the recitative poetry of this period has to show, belong to the domain of what was called ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen

... read the description of yourself in the Radiator this morning? I wish't I'd 'a had time to cut it out. I guess I'll have to start a separate bag for YOUR ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... of the various types of beetle-larvae enumerated above (pp. 50-56) concluded with a short description of the legless grub, which is the young form of a weevil or a bark-beetle. This is a larva in which the head alone has its cuticle firm and hard; the rest of the body is covered with a pale, flexible cuticle, so that the grub is often described as 'fleshy.' ...
— The Life-Story of Insects • Geo. H. Carpenter

... away into a wordless reverie of the dreariest description. Suddenly she roused herself, clenching her ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... he delivered his famous lecture at the Academy of Music. It was a marvelous address, in which with apparently no effort he led his audience to heights of appreciative enthusiasm in the most felicitous description of the beautiful and wonderful things he had seen, and then dropped them from the sublime to the ridiculous by some absurd reference ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock

... to the Voluspa, the following description of a wandering Vala or prophetess may be thought both desirable and interesting: "We find them present at the birth of children, when they seem to represent the Norns. They acquired their knowledge either by means of seid, during the night, while all others ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson

... writer of this interesting description was certainly in imminent danger of his life, when he trusted himself upon the pirate ship, and unquestionably nothing could have justified such a hazardous step but the desperate circumstances in which he was placed. The honor and influence of Captain England, however, protected ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston

... momentous and delicate office was Don Francisco de Bobadilla, an officer of the royal household, and a commander of the military and religious order of Calatrava. Oviedo pronounces him a very honest and religious man; [69] but he is represented by others, and his actions corroborate the description, as needy, passionate, and ambitious; three powerful objections to his exercising the rights of judicature in a case requiring the utmost patience, candor, and circumspection, and where the judge was ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving

... and a relaxation from graver pursuits, the perusal of a well-written story, by a writer of genius, is a high intellectual pleasure; and it is a description of literature to which all classes of readers, old and young, are attracted as by a powerful instinct; nor would we have any of them debarred from its enjoyment in a reasonable degree. But to make it the exclusive literary diet, as some do,—to devour ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles

... year we are now arrived at, as well as for some years previous, I have been chiefly studying German metaphysics in the writings of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, &c. And how and in what manner do I live?—in short, what class or description of men do I belong to? I am at this period—viz. in 1812—living in a cottage and with a single female servant (honi soit qui mal y pense), who amongst my neighbours passes by the name of my "housekeeper." ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... seemed to me as though the people of this country had got so mixed up about the matter that it was the duty of some private soldier to write a description of the decisive battle of the war, and as I was the private soldier who fought that battle on the Union side, against fearful odds, viz: against a Confederate soldier who was braver than I was, ...
— How Private George W. Peck Put Down The Rebellion - or, The Funny Experiences of a Raw Recruit - 1887 • George W. Peck

... Sedgwick said: "Get me that prospectus, Jack: I want to see it before I make up my mind." Jack complied, and Sedgwick read it carefully through. The statement of the mine, the description of its development, and of the value of the ore, had been prepared by an expert so eminent that he could not afford to sell his name to ...
— The Wedge of Gold • C. C. Goodwin

... of Paul are an admirable Christian picture of death, representing it not as an awful thing, but as something comforting and pleasant to contemplate. For how could Paul present a more attractive description than when he describes it as stripped of its power and repulsiveness and makes it the medium through which we attain life and joy? What is more desirable than to be freed from sin and the punishment and misery it involves, and to possess a joyful, cheerful heart and conscience? For where there is ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... cloths, porcelain, shrines, urns, cabinets, chairs all wrought in the highest art, silks of every description, and sights and sights of it. Fans, parasols, lanterns, fireworks of all kinds, mattings, straw ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley

... us that He who was to become our Mediator should be very God and very man. The work to be by Him performed was of no common description, being to restore us to the divine favour so as to make us sons of God and heirs of the heavenly kingdom. In Him the divinity was so conjoined with the humanity that the entire properties of each nature remained entire, and yet the two natures constitute only one Christ. Everything needful ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... was built in the open, from rough-made lumber, a few steps, and a platform on top of that, the slave to be sold. He would look at the crowd as the auctioner would give a general description of the ability and physical standing of the man. He heard the bids as they came in wondering what his ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Kentucky Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... one who knows not how to guide the white horses is driving it." Such language might in time easily become the common language for describing times of drought; and so, at length, would grow up, out of what was at first merely a description, in figurative language, of a natural happening, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V2 • Charles H. Sylvester

... the above description) has, I suppose, been long extinct in Scotland; but the old remembered beggar, even in my own time, like the Baccoch, or travelling cripple of Ireland, was expected to merit his quarters by something beyond an exposition ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... person who hath either of them, and will communicate, or permit the same to be copied or perused, he is earnestly desired to give notice thereof to Mr. Mathew Imber, one of the aldermen of the city of Winchester, in the county of Southampton, who is compleating the idea or description of the ancient and present state of that ancient city, to be speedily printed; together with a faithful collection of all the memorable and useful things relating to the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various

... during his lifetime may now without impropriety be given to what was written in all sincerity by one of his oldest and most intimate friends. It was Mrs. Kemble who described him as 'an eccentric man of genius, who took more pains to avoid fame than others do to seek it,' and this description is fully borne out by the account she gave of him in the offending passage ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald to Fanny Kemble (1871-1883) • Edward FitzGerald

... had opened very wide and very round as Mr Jones's description proceeded; gradually, as his surprise increased, his mouth also opened and elongated, but he said never a word, ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne

... the war, although their effect in drawing reinforcements to Palestine may have had far-reaching results in other zones such as Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, as they formed such a pretty field day, so like our manoeuvres at home, I venture upon a short description, in the hope that it may be of interest to those whose soldiering experience has been confined to the home front. There was no horrid barbed wire to contend with, nor gas. There were not even trenches, ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock

... ell; and amiddlemost thereof stood a quadrangular hall with four-fold saloons, one fronting other, whilst in each was set apart a cabinet for private converse. At the head of every saloon a latticed window projected over the garden whereof the description shall follow in its place; and they paved the ground with vari-coloured marbles and alabastrine slabs which were dubbed with bezel stones and onyx[FN186] of Al-Yaman. The ceilings were inlaid with choice gems and lapis lazuli and precious metals: the walls were coated with white ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton

... Gaoler's Daughter after the release of Palamon, and the scene of the portraits, as we may in a double sense call it, in which Emilia, after weighing against each other in solitude the likenesses of the cousins, receives from her own kinsfolk a full and laboured description of their leading champions on either side. Even setting apart for once and for a moment the sovereign evidence of mere style, we must recognise in this last instance a beautiful and significant ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... including Jean Pere, went as far as the upper lakes, returning with samples of copper ore. But the distance from Quebec was too great for profitable transportation and, although Pere Dablon in 1670 sent down an accurate description of the great masses of ore in the Lake Superior region, many generations were to pass before any serious attempt could be made to develop this source of wealth. Nearer at hand some titaniferous iron ore was discovered, at Baie St. Paul below Quebec, ...
— Crusaders of New France - A Chronicle of the Fleur-de-Lis in the Wilderness - Chronicles of America, Volume 4 • William Bennett Munro

... orchard of ancient apple and pear trees, all dead at the top, a negro cabin beside which are two black heart cherry trees, higher than the farmhouse and more than three feet through; and yet farther back, hemp and tobacco fields and a woodland pasture of oak and walnut trees. At least this was a description of my home ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... description of the way Robert Browning walked the streets of Florence. Only a few years after this poem was printed, he was glancing o'er the books on stalls in the square of San Lorenzo, and found the old yellow volume which he ...
— Robert Browning: How To Know Him • William Lyon Phelps

... making and breaking of reputations was temporarily a matter of considerable annoyance to a Fellow of the Royal Society—ran through a well-kept index of the books in the library of Challis Court—an index written clearly on cards that occupied a great nest of accessible drawers; two cards with a full description to each book, alphabetically arranged, one card under the title of the work and one under ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford

... the hope of bringing Lord Palmerston to a proper understanding of his relation to the Sovereign. Even when the catastrophe came, and its tenor had to be communicated by the Premier to Parliament, the Preamble was generously omitted; but in consequence of its description by Lord Palmerston, in a letter published by Mr Ashley, as an angry memorandum, it was printed in full in The Life ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria

... should rush forth and devour them. More than that they even endeavour to propitiate him by the performance of certain rites, which, however childish and absurd they may seem to us, are very solemn affairs for these simple folk. The rites were witnessed by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, whose description I will summarise. It offers an interesting and instructive example of a ritual observed by primitive savages, who are clearly standing on, if they have not already ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer

... can be scarce held faultless, yet his power of detailed description has preserved us a living picture of Ranelagh in the height of its glory. Balls and fetes succeeded each other. Lysons tell us that "for some time previously to 1750 a kind of masquerade, called a Jubilee Ball, was much in fashion ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton

... Rhine enabled him to judge. Schiller modestly owns his obligations to Homer's descriptions of Charybdis, Odyss. I., 12. The property of the higher order of imagination to reflect truth, though not familiar to experience, is singularly illustrated in this description. Schiller had never ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)

... errand. The rattling wagons jostled by at intervals, a rare hansom came spinning down from London, there sounded the same hum and jangle of the gliding trams. The languid life of the pavement was unaltered; a few people, un-classed, without salience or possible description, lounged and walked from east to west, and from west to east, or slowly dropped into the byways to wander in the black waste to the north, or perhaps go astray in the systems that stretched towards the river. He glanced down these by-roads as he passed, and was astonished, as always, at their ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen

... Desmond searched in all directions for trees which might yield pitch or a gum of some description which would serve to pay over the outside of the boat, but they ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston

... small neat beard, too compact to be called "full," though worn equally, as for a mark where other marks were wanting, on lip and cheek and chin. His neat, colourless face, provided with the merely indispensable features, suggested immediately, for a description, that it was CLEAR, and in this manner somewhat resembled a small decent room, clean-swept and unencumbered with furniture, but drawing a particular advantage, as might presently be noted, from the outlook of a pair of ample and uncurtained windows. There was something in Adam Verver's eyes that ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... Lieutenant Loeser, bearer of dispatches from Governor Mason to the government at Washington (who also brought on about $20,000 of gold dust, which he deposited at Washington,) with a general description of the gold region, the climate, &c., of California. He says the gold region is very large, and there is sufficient ore to profitably employ one hundred thousand persons for generations to come. So far as discovered, the gold is found in an extent of country four hundred miles long, by one ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... for studying the complicated processes of metabolism in man was obviously the first task in equipping the Nutrition Laboratory. As several series of experiments have already been made with these respiration calorimeters, it is deemed advisable to publish the description of the apparatus as used at present. New features in the apparatus are, however, frequently introduced as opportunity to increase accuracy or ...
— Respiration Calorimeters for Studying the Respiratory Exchange and Energy Transformations of Man • Francis Gano Benedict

... few miles; and sometimes to travel rapidly over vast tracts of country. Disclaiming any intention of making one of those travelling romances, with which the tourist literature of the day is overstocked, the Author has confined himself to a plain description of facts and things as they came within the sphere of his own observation. But though Dr. Tschudi lays claim to no merit beyond the truthfulness of his narrative, yet the reader will no doubt readily concede to him the merit of extensive ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi

... from a reliable source, we have a fine description of the effect produced by Washington's personal appearance and manners on the mind ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... there remains, as has been pointed out above, the objection that this method is not without danger. For this reason many in the Middle and Lower classes, and all without exception in the Polygonal and Circular orders, prefer a third method, the description of which shall be reserved for ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott

... this, and somewhat also by the fact that Early had left word in Staunton that he would fight at Waynesboro', I directed Merritt to move toward that place with Custer, to be closely followed by Devin, who was to detach one brigade to destroy supplies at Swoope's depot. The by-roads were miry beyond description, rain having fallen almost incessantly since we left Winchester, but notwithstanding the down-pour the column pushed on, men and horses growing almost unrecognizable from the mud covering them from head ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan

... your cursed metaphors," cried Don Lope, "or I'll blow such a storm about thine ears, as to surpass all description." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... from the cups down the guests' throats. Every one talked, all hearts expanding under the good cheer. Jacim, although a Jew, did not hesitate to express his admiration of the planets. A merchant from Aphaka amazed the nomads with his description of the marvels in the temple of Hierapolis; and they wished to know the cost of a pilgrimage to that place. Others held fast to the principles of their native religion. A German, who was nearly blind, sang a hymn celebrating that promontory in Scandinavia ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert

... ask about them." He also said they were but short away from the dairy, and were eating their morning meal. Helgi asked if they sat in a ring or side by side in a line. He said they sat in a ring, on their saddles. [Sidenote: The description of Helgi's enemies] Helgi said, "Tell me now of their looks, and I will see if I can guess from what they looked like who the men may be." The lad said, "There sat a man in a stained saddle, in a blue cloak. He was great of growth, and valiant-looking; he was ...
— Laxdaela Saga - Translated from the Icelandic • Anonymous

... in the foregoing predictions alluded expressly and entirely to the actual moral, political, and above all, to the religious character and condition of the Haytians, he could scarcely have given a more correct description of it. ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various

... errors have been maintained in this version of this book. They have been marked with a [TN-], which refers to a description in the complete list found at the end of the text. Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been maintained. A list of inconsistently spelled and hyphenated words is found at the end of ...
— The Ancient Monuments of North and South America, 2nd ed. • C. S. Rafinesque

... were; and, sirs, I am a man that would rather live united in a coppice than in a forest with backbiters and tale-bearers: strangers, I drink to you." And so he went down the whole string, indicating with the neck of the bottle, like a showman with his pole, and giving a neat description of each, which though pithy was invariably false; for the showman had no real eye for character, and had misunderstood every one of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... hesitating at a single murder, asked if he should blow out the brains of all the passengers, coachman and all. But Wild, whose moderation we have before noted, would not permit him; and therefore, having given him an exact description of the devoted person, with his other necessary instructions, he dismissed him, with the strictest orders to avoid, if possible, doing hurt to any ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding



Words linked to "Description" :   sketch, word-painting, kind, delineation, speech act, vignette, detailing, specification, particularisation, sort, characterization, word picture, depiction, particularization, characterisation, verbal description



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