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Compass   /kˈəmpəs/   Listen
Compass

verb
(past & past part. compassed; pres. part. compassing)
1.
Bring about; accomplish.
2.
Travel around, either by plane or ship.  Synonym: circumnavigate.
3.
Get the meaning of something.  Synonyms: apprehend, comprehend, dig, get the picture, grasp, grok, savvy.



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"Compass" Quotes from Famous Books



... parties which sought to compass world-predominance for Germany. The Pan-German, Colonial, and Navy Leagues had gained enormous influence since 1905, when they induced the Kaiser to visit Tangiers; and early in 1911 they issued pamphlets urging ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... much time in the chase, that it began to grow dark before we had got a mile on our way; still, as we had a compass with us, we were able to keep in the ...
— Adventures in Australia • W.H.G. Kingston

... may be employed as a first rough approximation. It is well known that the needle of the compass, when free to move horizontally, oscillates upon its pivot and settles in a direction termed the magnetic meridian. This does not coincide with the true north and south line, but the difference between them is generally ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various

... place, flee far away, And seek a new and better fatherland. Here is the spirit's lofty pride repressed; Here baseness smothers each auspicious spark Ere it can break into a burning flame. Come, let us fly;—lo, to the free-born mind The world's wide compass is a fatherland! ...
— Early Plays - Catiline, The Warrior's Barrow, Olaf Liljekrans • Henrik Ibsen

... airship and the aeroplane became accepted units of warfare it was only natural that efforts should be concentrated upon the evolution of ways and means to compass their destruction or, at least, to restrict their field of activity. But aircraft appeared to have an immense advantage in combat. They possess virtually unlimited space in which to manoeuvre, and are able to select the elevation from which to hurl their missiles ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot

... Picture took her feigning from poetry; from geometry her rule, compass, lines, proportion, and the whole symmetry. Parrhasius was the first won reputation by adding symmetry to picture; he added subtlety to the countenance, elegancy to the hair, love-lines to the face, and by the public voice of all artificers, deserved honour in the outer lines. Eupompus gave it splendour ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... rigidity of the larynx occasions diminished compass of the singing-voice, the notes of the upper register being the first to disappear. In some few cases of arrested development, the voice of the man retains the soprano compass of the ...
— The Child-Voice in Singing • Francis E. Howard

... a wild, bright dream really clear—she questioned Billy Stitts concerning the roads. He was familiar with every route in miles, whether roadway, trail, or "course by compass," as he termed trackless cruising in the desert. He gave her directions with the utmost minutae of detail as to every highway to Starlight. He drew her a plan. She was sure that she could almost ride to Starlight in the ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... "Give not the compass and the level to the false measurer; for with true instruments, he will make untrue apportionments. And he will say: 'See, I carry on me the level, the rule and the square, and I am a good measurer.' So long as men shall be covetous and cruel, will they make the most merciful laws cruel, ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France

... name. My first sorrow was in being obliged to leave you; for I had to leave you with those human angels, the sweet sisters of charity, while I went forth to make a home for you. My voice, as is sometimes the case, was richer, stronger and of greater compass after I had passed through maternity. I accepted a position with a travelling theatrical company, where I was to sing a solo in one act. My success was not phenomenal, but it WAS success nevertheless. I followed ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... and clever juggle by which she used Alencon's ambition to wed her as a means to compass her ends without marrying him. Huguenots flocked to Alencon's standard, whilst he sent by every post love-lorn epistles to Elizabeth, praying her to aid him to free Flanders from the bloodthirsty Spaniards. On July 7, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol X • Various

... had brought solitude to Lynbrook, dispersing the hunting colony to various points of the compass, and sending Mr. Langhope to Egypt and the Riviera, while Mrs. Ansell, as usual, took up her annual tour of a social circuit whose extreme points were marked by Boston and Baltimore—and then he made his ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton

... said; Then first the bounds of neighborhood outspread Beyond all confines of old ethnic dread. Vainly the Jew might wag his covenant head: [181] 'ALL MEN ARE NEIGHBORS,' so the sweet Voice said. So, when man's arms had circled all man's race, The liberal compass of his warm embrace Stretched bigger yet in the dark bounds of space; With hands a-grope he felt smooth Nature's grace, Drew her to breast and kissed her sweetheart face: Yea man found neighbors in great hills and trees And streams and clouds ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier

... his disciples as to the value of his process. Follow this clue of utility throughout the whole labyrinth, see what a clear answer it offers at every point, and you cannot doubt that you are in possession of the true compass for such a navigation. Indeed, it seems to be indisputable that Bentham's arguments are the really relevant and important arguments. How can we decide any of the points which come up for discussion? Should a witness be cross-examined? Should his evidence ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... more than made a hasty toilet, when Arthur came in. After telling me who had, during my absence, called to see me, and after attending to some trifling wants which I expressed, he shuffled his feet in a style that I had learned to recognize as indicating a desire to say something not within the compass of our purely business relationship—a liberty which the precedents of our first two days of acquaintanceship in connection with later events had solidified into a ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake

... travelling in nearly a straight line across the country, our compass course being 329 degrees from the north. After we had made about three miles we reached a swampy lake, called Nirrooba, covered with wild-fowl. We here halted and prepared our breakfast whilst the natives went out to hunt. I soon shot a brace of ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... and companion-in-arms," he cried; and the words rang out in such a sonorous voice they seemed to impress even himself—for it was noticeable that after a remark, the General always seemed astonished, as if startled by the words that came out of his mouth—and that seemed suddenly to expand the compass of his ideas and the depth of ...
— Monsieur de Camors, Complete • Octave Feuillet

... scarcely afford the expense of keeping me in this school. I know I am a foundationer and my education is free; but there are other small expenses that have to be met. Even for me to live at home is almost more than they can compass. You can therefore imagine the great and wonderful delight of being able to secure a scholarship of sixty pounds a year. I could scarcely have managed it without this help. It was noble of Cassandra to offer it, and I—I accepted it, Miss Ravenscroft. After that, of course, I couldn't ...
— The Rebel of the School • Mrs. L. T. Meade

... it isn't odd but only natural—that in all the pictures seen by Rosalie there scarcely is a picture that ever shows the children all together. They hardly ever, within the compass of her pictures, were together. As in their schoolhood, so much more in adolescence, they never showed a least desire for one another's company. They had their friends, each one, and much preferred ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson

... larkspurs, peonies, stocks, and carnations, with an arbour of privet, not unlike a sentry-box, where one lives in a delicious green light, and looks out on the gayest of all gay flower-beds. That house was built on purpose to show in what an exceeding small compass comfort may be packed. Well, I ...
— Our Village • Mary Russell Mitford

... see the cabin roof. There Bill cut off an eight-inch jack pine, leaving the stump approximately four feet high. This he hewed square, the four flat sides of the post facing respectively the cardinal points of the compass. On one smoothed surface Bill set to work with his pocketknife. Hazel sat down and watched while he busied himself at this. And when he had finished ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... any expansive compass to give the measure of his powers, or to found national impression; Lichtenberg, though a very sagacious observer, never rose into what can be called a power, he did not modify his age; yet these were both men of extraordinary talent, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... and then she shipped a sea, and once her deck was quite full of water, up to the gunwale nearly.' And as for her future skipper, he says, 'I had plenty of work at navigation. It really is very puzzling at first; so much to remember—currents, compass, variation, sun's declination, equation of time, lee way, &c. But I think I have done my work pretty well up to now, and of course it is a great pleasure as well as a considerable advantage to be able to give out the true and magnetic course of the ship, and to be able from day to day ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... bag somewhere—where?" The gardens had no points of the compass, so far as she was concerned. She had been walking for the most part on grass—that was all she knew. Even the road to the Orchid House had now split itself into three. But there was no bag in the Orchid House. It must, therefore, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... tolerably insane amusement for a foreigner to go tramping over wild fields and valleys in Northern Norway with no other guide than the thing they call an ordnance map and a bit of a pocket-compass. And to do the same without intent to slay the beasts, the birds, or the fish of the country seems, to my way of thinking, even more mad still. Perhaps I am peculiarly constituted, but that's the way it strikes me personally. So I was ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... quite cross the Pasty to let the Gravie come out the better in baking, then rub some seasoning in those Cuts, and do not lay any else because it will make it look ill-favoured and black, then put some paste rouled thin about the Meat to keep it in compass, and lay Butter on the top, then close it up and bake it very well, but you must trim it up with several Fancies made in the same Paste, and make also a Tunnel or Vent, and just when you are going to set it into the Oven, put in half a Pint of Clarret Wine, that will season ...
— The Queen-like Closet or Rich Cabinet • Hannah Wolley

... exposed to the air till dry; they then cut them into pieces, two inches long; these are put into (buckul) an earthen pot; they then pour the smin into the buckul till it is covered. This meat and butter, besides being palatable, is comprised in a small compass, and feeds many. When this butter has been thus prepared and kept twelve or fifteen years, it is called budra, and is supposed to contain penetrating active medicinal qualities. I have seen some ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... sun, shouted after me that I should not get to the top that night. I soon reached the head of the valley, but as I could not see the summit from this point, I ascended a low mountain on the opposite side, and took its bearing with my compass. I at once entered the woods, and began to climb the steep side of the mountain in a diagonal direction, taking the bearing of a tree every dozen rods. The ascent was by no means difficult or unpleasant, and occupied much less time than ...
— A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers • Henry David Thoreau

... in order to get the maximum range they let fly the arrows, not horizontally, but up into the air. Sir W. Raleigh (Hist. of the World, III. x. 8) says that Xenophon "trained his archers to short compass, who had been accustomed to the point blank," but this is surely ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon

... him Matthew. Henry's Commentary, that the word of God would lie in a very small compass, the great bulk of the book being man's work. I also urged on him the absolute necessity of reading what God had given for our learning, and the danger of ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth

... radiance of his most pure religion and most religious purity. But his people will not easily let him go from their house, and he will never go to live elsewhere unless it be under compulsion and against his will, so your legation must be strong and strenuous: you must struggle to compass the matter even with urgent prayers until you get this man and him only. Then for the future your mind will be released from the anxieties of this care, and this lofty religion will make a noble growth to your excellency's renown. You will discover in this one man, with the whole circle ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson

... she was not informed of what passed. Only she was aware that some crisis must be expected, for her mother was ceaselessly restless and full of expectation. She had put all her jewels and valuables into as small a compass as possible, and talked more than ever of her plans for giving her daughter either to the Archduke Matthias, or to some great noble, as if the English crown were already within her grasp. Anxious, curious, and feeling injured by the want of confidence, yet not ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge

... facie under a disadvantage which is all their own. My meaning will be best illustrated if I may be allowed to adduce and briefly discuss a few examples. And I will begin with a crucial case;—the most conspicuous doubtless within the whole compass of the New Testament. I mean the last twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel; which verses are either bracketed off, or else entirely severed from the rest of the Gospel, by Tischendorf, Tregelles, Alford ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon

... evening breeze. Far away to the north stretched a mountain range, blue in the distance; to the south lay the luxuriant valley of the stream. The streets were narrow and laid out with a total disregard of the points of the compass. ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... at the affair from all points of view, and repeated to himself the same deep moral truths (such as "There's no doing nowt wi' a young woman afore she's forty") about thirty-nine times, and pitied himself from every quarter of the compass, he rose to go to bed; he did not expect to sleep. But the gas was not yet in order, and he had only one candle, which was nearly at its latter end. The ladies—Helen and ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett

... which he claimed to be injurious to the former. M. Wolowski replies, that the rights of authors, without machinery, would be nil; that, without paper-mills, type foundries, and printing-offices, there could be no sale of verse and prose; that many a mechanical invention,—the compass, for instance, the telescope, or the steam-engine,—is quite as valuable ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... of the provinces of the Netherlands being now for the first time united under one sovereign, such a junction marks the limits of a second epoch in their history. It would be a presumptuous and vain attempt to trace, in a compass so confined as ours, the various changes in manners and customs which arose in these countries during a period of one thousand years. The extended and profound remarks of many celebrated writers on the state of Europe from the decline of the Roman power to ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan

... complied with by the lodgings it would be possible for this lady to occupy were such as have rarely been complied with, even in houses built specially to meet their requirements. Each window had to confront, not a particular quarter, but a particular ninetieth, of the compass. A full view of the sea had to be achieved from a sitting-room not exposed to its glare, an attribute destructive of human eyesight, and fraught with curious effects on the nerves. But the bedrooms had to look in directions foreign to human experience—directions ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan

... and snuggled close up to him with the baby in her arms. He waited only an hour, and then fastened Kazan in the traces again, and buckled the straps once more about his own waist. In the silent gloom that was almost night Pierre carried his compass in his hand, and at last, late in the afternoon, they came to a break in the timber-line, and ahead of them lay a plain, across which Radisson pointed ...
— Kazan • James Oliver Curwood

... completely surrounded eighteen miles south of the island of Takeshima. The "Izumrud" had used her superior speed to get away to the south-west. The four battered ships that remained with him saw more than twenty enemies appear from all points of the compass, including Togo's battleships and heavy armoured cruisers, all as fit for work as when the first fighting began. They opened fire at long ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale

... reading off the newspapers into the best Greek I could furnish extempore; for the necessity of ransacking my memory and invention for all sorts and combinations of periphrastic expressions as equivalents for modern ideas, images, relations of things, &c., gave me a compass of diction which would never have been called out by a dull translation of moral essays, &c. "That boy," said one of my masters, pointing the attention of a stranger to me, "that boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you and I could address an English one." He ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... A woman fair for men to see, The earth did compass thy estate, Thou didst hold life and death in fee, And every ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters

... plates soldered laterally with solders of different metallic proportions. The differing lines of shadow, caused by the difference in the solders, were visible evidence that a new means of detecting flaws and chemical variations in metals had been found. A photograph of a compass showed the needle and dial taken through the closed brass cover. The markings of the dial were in red metallic paint, and thus interfered with the rays, and were reproduced. "Since the rays had this great ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various

... reminded of its peculiarities. With intermission of one full day, and occasional hours, been raining ever since. If it must rain, Homburg as good a place to be in as most public haunts; lies within narrow compass; soil rapidly absorbent; if it rains in torrents at ten o'clock, and sun afterwards comes out, roadways dry by noon. Then there is the Kurhaus always open; palatial building, not to be outdone in size and beauty by Casino at Monte Carlo; but sound of roulette tablets ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various

... "The needle of the compass." She stretched a sleeve out toward me and I observed for the first time the miniature compasses woven in the cloth. Surely, one does not ...
— Hearts and Masks • Harold MacGrath

... was full, the boys drew up, and looked off toward the southwest. Whitey had been depending on Injun's never-failing sense of direction to carry them aright. This ability to point toward any point of the compass, in the dark, was one of Injun's gifts—though he didn't know what a compass was. And sure enough, away off there against the gray of the clouds was a line of high, tiny crosses, telegraph poles, near which stretched the ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you, for ye devour widows' houses, and, for a pretense, make long prayers: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Woe unto you, for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves! Woe unto you, for ye are as graves which appear not; and the men that walk over them are ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... for I am on an errand to Otter from Thiodolf: the War-duke, when he had questioned some of those whom we took on the Day of the Ridge, began to have a deeming that the Romans had beguiled us, and will fall on the Mark by the way of the south-east heaths: so now is he hastening to fetch a compass and follow that road either to overtake them or prevent them; and he biddeth Otter tarry not, but ride hard along the water to meet them if he may, or ever they have set their hands to the dwellings of ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris

... has been at sea a month. He has tacked to every point of the compass, been driven by gales, becalmed in doldrums. At length Euroclydon leaps on him, and he lets her drive. And when for many days and nights neither sun nor stars appear, how can he tell where he is, which way he drives, where the ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... walked immediately to a window as if irresolute and embarrassed, and for about the space of five seconds she repented what she had done—censured it as unwise, blushed over it as indelicate. She longed to be able to speak of the weather or the concert, but could only compass the relief of taking a newspaper in her hand. The distressing pause was over, however; he turned round in half a minute, and coming towards the table where she sat, said in a voice of ...
— Memoir of Jane Austen • James Edward Austen-Leigh

... a glimpse of Mrs. Carew with her mask off; in the company of the child, if I could compass it; if not, then entirely alone with her own thoughts, plans ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green

... As if a man should bind his thoughts and knowledge down to what was known, believed, or written in ages past! As though a man should fear and tremble, should hesitate to reach out after, to labor to know, all that his intellect and energy can compass. As though to be good he must accept situations, sentiments, ideas ready-made, and dwarf his intellect and bind his mental ability by ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener

... inside the cavern, perhaps in deadly danger, and he was going to risk his own life and his daughter's to save him. And risk there undoubtedly was. A breeze had arisen and agitated the surface of the water, so that the ingress was smaller than ever and more difficult to compass. When waves lashed the tideless Mediterranean even the Capri fishermen shunned entering the grotto, for they knew its perils only too well. Telling Lorna to lie flat on her back Mr. Carson took the same position, and with infinite difficulty managed ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil

... challenge, and presently after was heard the sound of a rote, (a small species of lute,) the strings of which were managed by means of a small wheel. After a short prelude, a manly voice, of good compass, sung verses, which, translated into modern language, might ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... Confederate Army of Tennessee, to which he has given an enormous amount of careful research. To him I am indebted for much of the most valuable part of my information concerning the Confederate troops. From the materials thus gathered I have tried to give, within the compass of a Loyal Legion paper, a clear and truthful account of the affair just as it happened. That opinions will differ, is shown by the fact that Judge Young holds General Brown responsible for the Confederate failure, while I believe that Cheatham, Stewart and Bate were all greater sinners ...
— The Battle of Spring Hill, Tennessee - read after the stated meeting held February 2d, 1907 • John K. Shellenberger

... I ask. So—let them say it if they will. Let all that great cloud of witnesses compass me about, lads and maidens, children and infants, whose bones cumber the churchyards yonder in Dunchester. I defy them, for it is done and cannot be undone. Yet, in their company are two whose eyes I dread to meet: Jane, my daughter, whose life was sacrificed through me, and Ernest Merchison, ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... quite as deserted as any country road! And as for a sense of direction, he had none whatever—even if the car had not been persistently swerving and changing its course every little while. If he had been able to form even an approximate idea of the compass direction in which they had started, he might possibly have been able in a general way to counteract this further effort of theirs to confuse him; but without the initial ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard

... small sea-bird, which is seldom seen but near the shores of the isles; we, therefore, conjectured that we had passed some land at no great distance. As we advanced to the west, the variation of the compass gradually increased, so that on the 29th, being in the latitude of 21 deg. 26' S., longitude 170 deg. 40' W., it was 10 ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook

... appreciation through the process of comparison, largely unconscious, by which what we call good taste is acquired. There are certain works of art that seem to have fulfilled this requirement in the highest possible degree, thus attaining to perfection within their compass. Such, for example, are some of Sappho's or Goethe's lyrics, or the Fifth Canto of the Inferno. Nothing more perfect, more beautiful of their kind can be conceived. And to see how works of art may differ in degree of perfection of sympathetic vision, one has only to recall lesser works expressing ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... was in the sound that jangled up one's nerves, but each time I heard it my hair fairly lifted. Then she laid the little body down in a position that seemed to have something to do with the points of the compass, for she took a long time arranging it before she was satisfied with the direction ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford

... compliant, or whether they were not somewhat afraid of a famine, because the spoils they had gotten by rapine would not be sufficient for them long; so he made use of this relaxation in order to compass his own designs. Accordingly, as the usual appointed time when he must distribute subsistence money to the soldiers was now come, he gave orders that the commanders should put the army into battle array, in the face of the enemy, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... Rembrandt, Blake, Wordsworth, Emily Bronte, Whitman, Turner, Wagner and the Congolese fetish-makers are not. But, whatever we may mean, assuredly we do not mean that one set is superior to the other. They differ widely; but they differ in the means by which they compass the same end. It is absurd to argue that civilization is either favourable or unfavourable to art; but it is reasonable to suppose that it may be the one or the other to a particular artist. Different temperaments ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell

... if that is to be our destination. But, if the gentleman's journey lies further, I could show him another way which fetches a compass ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey

... Altenheim an accomplished girdler. To become a master, it was necessary to prepare his 'master-piece,' as a specimen of what he could do; and the task allotted to him was to engrave on copper, without rule or compass, the prince's family-crest, and then to gild the work richly. This accomplished, he was received into the guild of masters with much pomp, strange ceremonies, and old-fashioned feasting—all at the charge of the poor beginner. 'Without reckoning the heavy expenses of his mastership, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 436 - Volume 17, New Series, May 8, 1852 • Various

... him. Thus the steps that led up to this September night were easy, natural, and gradual. This child of circumstances, a born plainsman like the Indian, read in plain, forest, and mountain, things which were not visible to other eyes. The stars were his compass by night, the heat waves of the plain warned him of the tempting mirage, while the cloud on the mountain's peak or the wind in the pines which sheltered him alike spoke to him ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams

... methinks this motto hath some kind of reference, AUT NUNQUAM TENTES, AUT PERFICE. As though he would have charactered, in a word, the genius of his house, or express somewhat of a higher inclination, than lay within his compass; that he was a courtier is apparent, for he stood always in her eye and ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton

... boys, glanced about them. What was there to excite him? Other caves had the same sort of formation, the chambers and the openings: and while they wondered John drew a compass from his pocket, and after holding it ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Treasures of the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay

... fashioned out of nothing and brought into being, though I cannot see the maker and provider, yet from his harmonious and marvellous fashioning of me have come to the knowledge of his wisdom, not to the full measure of that wisdom, but to the full compass of my powers; yea I have seen that I was not brought forth by chance, nor made of myself, but that he fashioned me, as it pleased him, and set me to have dominion over his creatures, howbeit making me lower than some; that, ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus

... around, and continued to follow way-paths back. Clarence had no pocket compass, such as people who get lost ought to possess. And it was getting relentlessly darker and darker. Joy had never been lost before, and she was surprised to find the feeling of panic that possessed her when she grasped ...
— The Wishing-Ring Man • Margaret Widdemer

... ere we had found any way. I know all the earth does not yield the like confluence of streams and branches, the one crossing the other so many times, and all so fair and large, and so like one another as no man can tell which to take. And if we went by the sun or compass, hoping thereby to go directly one way or the other, yet that way also we were carried in a circle among multitudes of islands. Every island was so bordered with big trees as no man could see any farther than the breadth of the river ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris

... generations we have developed our homing instincts. Those who did not, also did not live to father others who might have had the same lack. We are hounds who can run on a scent, and we are migrators who have better than a compass within our own bodies." ...
— Voodoo Planet • Andrew North

... ink, but only by prayer and fasting can we hope to grasp his message. Both afford examples of very strange and experienced spirits trammelled by the limitations of imperfect humanity. Their dreams cannot be expressed in terms within the present human compass. Debussy's extraordinary music may be explained in the same way. Those who seek to follow such a lead follow a Jack-o'-lantern. The more I see of the work of the Johnsons the more fully I recognise it to embody all that we do not ask ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... trying to compass the inane. You are trying to duplicate your dreams, dreams without a hint of the sun. The painter at least copies or interprets real life; while the composer dips his finger in the air, making endless sound-scrolls—noises ...
— Visionaries • James Huneker

... morning of that day he had arrived at the pretty town of Herridon among the hills and moors, set apart for the idle and ailing of this world. Of the world literally, for there might be seen at the pump-room visitors from every point of the compass—Hindoo gentlemen brought by sons who ate their legal dinners near Temple Bar; invalided officers from Hongkong, Bombay, Aden, the Gold Coast and otherwhere; Australian squatters and their daughters; attaches of foreign embassies; a prince ...
— An Unpardonable Liar • Gilbert Parker

... we finally quitted Eton, I again saw the king, and always with renewed interest. He was kind to every body—condescending and affable in a degree which I am bound to remember with personal gratitude; and one thing I had heard of him, which even then, and much more as my mind opened to a wider compass of deeper reflection, won my respect. I have always reverenced a man of whom it could be truly said that he had once, and once only, (for more than once implies another unsoundness in the quality of the passion,) been desperately in love; in love, that is to say, in a terrific excess, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey

... particularly to Lucien—would enable them, in case of need, to draw sustenance from plants and trees, from roots and fruits—to find resources where ignorant men might starve. They knew how to kindle a fire without either flint, steel, or detonating powder. They could discover their direction without a compass—from the rocks, and the trees, and the signs of the heavens; and, in addition to all, they had been taught, as far as was then known, the geography of that vast wilderness that stretched from their own home to the far shores of the ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid

... line of the enemy's trenches having been captured on a front of 3000 yards with ten machine guns; but one brigade alone lost 45 officers and 1179 men, and La Basse and the Aubers ridge were as forbidding as ever. It was not by victories of that compass that the Germans would be diverted from their Galician drive; and the other major operation in the Dardanelles to which the Entente had been committed gave ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... pities my ignorance, or is manifestly preparing to expose the various instances in which I unconsciously disgrace myself. I shudder at this too corporeal auditor, and turn towards another point of the compass where the haze is unbroken. Why should I not indulge this remaining illusion, since I do not take my approving choral paradise as a warrant for setting the press to work again and making some thousand sheets of superior paper unsaleable? I leave my manuscripts to a judgment outside my imagination, ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot

... obeys and illustrates one or another of these laws, so universal are they, so inseparably attendant upon every kind of manifestation in time and space. It is the number of them which finds illustration within small compass, and the aptness and completeness of such illustration, which makes for beauty, because beauty is the fine flower of a sort of sublime ingenuity. A work of art is nothing if not artful: like an acrostic, the more different ways it can be read—up, down, across, ...
— The Beautiful Necessity • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... in the compass than I was before the last fight,' he went on, without heeding his hostess, and as if he talked to the dog, who stood with his chin on his knee, looking up in his face. 'Where thou, Marquis, canst walk, I doubt not to creep; but if thou ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... o'clock in the morning we came to a fall that we could not compass, sheer a hundred feet or more. So we had to attack the steep walls of the canyon. After a hard struggle we were on the mountain ridges again, traversing the flower pastures, creeping through openings in the brush, scrambling over the dwarf fir, then ...
— Alaska Days with John Muir • Samual Hall Young

... certain place called and known by the name of Blennerhassett's Island, in the county of Wood and District of Virginia aforesaid, and within the jurisdiction of this court, with force and arms, unlawfully, falsely, maliciously, and traitorously did compass, imagine, and intend to raise and levy war, insurrection, and rebellion against the ...
— Lewis Rand • Mary Johnston

... Scotland; and when he asked the way to Panley she lost patience and threatened to set her dog at him. This discouraged him so much that he was afraid to speak to the other strangers whom he met. Having the sun as a compass, he oscillated between Scotland and Panley according to the fluctuation of his courage. At last he yielded to hunger, fatigue, and loneliness, devoted his remaining energy to the task of getting back to school; struck the common at last, and hastened to surrender himself to the doctor, who menaced ...
— Cashel Byron's Profession • George Bernard Shaw

... which enter, with marvelous diversity, into so many ears and hearts? Much less are we able to analyze the inner workings of the mind—its thoughts, its meditations, its memory. Why, then, should we presume, with our reason, to compass and comprehend the eternal, invisible ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther

... he'll be baith glad and prood to mak ye as guid a pair o' beets as he can compass," answered Maggie. "Jist step in here, sir, and lat him ken what ye want. My bairn's greitin, and I maun gang til 'im; it's seldom ...
— Salted With Fire • George MacDonald

... possessions. "The history of book-collecting," says a caustic critic, "is a history relieved but rarely by acts of pure and undiluted unselfishness." This is true, but are there not virtues so heroic that plain human nature can ill aspire to compass them? ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier

... and if it be a thing within my power to compass, it shall be granted, even according ...
— The Flamingo Feather • Kirk Munroe

... stipulated with the Turkish sultan, and ratified the treaty by an oath of allegiance, from which he could absolve his conscience so soon as the Mogul arms had retired from Anatolia. But the fears and fancy of nations ascribed to the ambitious Tamerlane a new design of vast and romantic compass; a design of subduing Egypt and Africa, marching from the Nile to the Atlantic Ocean, entering Europe by the Straits of Gibraltar, and, after imposing his yoke on the kingdoms of Christendom, of returning home by the deserts of Russia and Tartary. This remote, and ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon

... writer, that if the sun himself, which enlightens this part of the creation, were extinguished, and all the host of planetary worlds which move about him were annihilated, they would not be missed by an eye that can take in the whole compass of nature any more than a grain of sand upon the sea-shore. The bulk of which they consist, and the space which they occupy, are so exceedingly little in comparison of the whole, that their loss would leave scarce a blank in the immensity of God's works. If, then, not our globe only, but this ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various

... All wet through. No poles. Not so much as a walking-stick in the party. Reach the summit, at about one in the day. Dead darkness as of night. Mr. P. (excellent fellow to the last) uneasy. C. D. produces compass from pocket. Mr. P. reassured. Farm-house where dog-cart was left, N.N.W. Mr. P. complimentary. Descent commenced. C. D. with compass triumphant, until compass, with the heat and wet of C. D.'s pocket, breaks. ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster

... were several distinguished musicians, some of whom removed to Europe for the sake of greater freedom.[2] The highest individual achievement was that of Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, of Philadelphia. This singer was of the very first rank. Her voice was of remarkable sweetness and had a compass of twenty-seven notes. She sang before many distinguished audiences in both Europe and America and was frequently compared with Jenny Lind, then at ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... ye more than dead! Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, In order to their stations leap, And Music's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony This universal frame began: From harmony, to harmony, Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... everything dear and valuable to you, it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations. Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... "Your compass needle," he said, "points to the North Pole, and although it has never been to the Pole, and cannot even conceive of it, yet it testifies irresistibly to the existence of ...
— Where the Blue Begins • Christopher Morley

... was in an L; there were two windows looking out upon a bricked yard. Bel Bree kept the points of the compass in her head. ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney

... it, is itself a road, whereas on earth, whether it be mountain or desert or field, roads have first painfully to be made. Man's definitive conquest of the sea dates from the middle of the fifteenth century when, by improvements in the art of sailing and by the extended use of the mariner's compass, it first became possible to undertake long voyages with assurance. These discoveries are associated with the name of Prince Henry of Portugal, whose life-long ambition it was, to quote the words engraved on his monument at the southern extremity of Portugal, 'to lay open the regions of West ...
— Progress and History • Various

... comprehend all this, that we cannot set definite boundaries to these seemingly conflicting views, is not at all surprising; for we are but finite.[55] Even His universe partakes so much of His prerogative of infinity that it is utterly beyond the compass of our finite minds. Indeed, if either the Bible or the book of nature contained nothing beyond what we could easily comprehend, would it not diminish our reverence and awe for the One behind them, Whom we now regard as infinite in power ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price

... Kickubaroo. Now and then also the river was very broad, extending almost into a lake. This under some, circumstances might be to our advantage, but during the night we ran the risk of losing our way, for though Charley still had in his possession the pocket compass, it was so dark that we could not see it, and we did not venture to strike a light. Charley and I, however, paddled along with all our might, hoping that even should our savage pursuers again catch sight of us, they would ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston

... slow, Watch fast," another with the names of places shown when the hour coincides with our noonday, such as Samarcand and Aleppo, etc., all round the world. Nearer the centre are degrees, then the months divided into days. There is a circle marked with the points and divisions of the compass, and within, a diagram of the compass, the points ...
— John Keble's Parishes • Charlotte M Yonge

... shall reserve some subjects to my further experience in children's ways and tempers, and in order to benefit myself by the good instructions I shall receive from your delightful conversation, in that compass of time, if God spare us to one another: and then it will, moreover, be still worthier of the perusal of the most honoured and best beloved of all my correspondents, much honoured and beloved as they ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... (I can say no less), That I should be preserved in that distress That I have met with here! Oh, blessed be That hand that from it hath deliver'd me! Dangers in darkness, heaven, hell, and sin, Did compass me, while I this vale was in; Yea, snares, and pits, and traps, and nets did lie My path about, that worthless, silly I Might have been catch'd, entangled, and cast down, But since I live, let ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells

... and generous spirit ruled the hour; Old jealousies were drowned in brotherhood, Philanthropy rejoiced that skill and power, Servants to science, compass all men's good; And over all Religion's banner stood, Upheld by thee, true Patriarch of the plan Which in two hemispheres was schemed to shower Mercies from God on universal man. Yes, this electric chain from East to West More ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... language (Latin, Arabic, Finnish) the concepts cluster more thickly, the words are more richly chambered, but there is a tendency, on the whole, to keep the range of concrete significance in the single word down to a moderate compass. A polysynthetic language, as its name implies, is more than ordinarily synthetic. The elaboration of the word is extreme. Concepts which we should never dream of treating in a subordinate fashion are symbolized by derivational affixes or "symbolic" changes in the radical ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... locality and the relations of the river Euphrates and Tigris satisfy the requirements of the text by such a location as this: how about the other two and the countries which they compass? The troubles of the earlier commentators will warn us, that we need not be too ready to force names, and to identify one river, and then, because we have fixed that, make the country which the text ...
— Creation and Its Records • B.H. Baden-Powell

... she is alone. I don't feel in the mood to compass Bertie's inane conversation," thinks Mrs. Roche as the flaxen ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham

... his Dedication, the uncertainty of the orthography prevailing at the time he writes, and yet we find him spelling words several different ways, even within the compass of a single sentence, without being able to lay the blame upon the printers; thus we find him writing judgement on p. 11, judge p. 8, and judg p. 33, but juge p. 18; and there are numberless other instances ...
— Of the Orthographie and Congruitie of the Britan Tongue - A Treates, noe shorter than necessarie, for the Schooles • Alexander Hume

... of the other stars are nearly in line with it, and so are called 'pointers.' When you stand looking at the pole-star you are facing the north, and of course, when you know where the north is, you can tell all the other points of the compass." ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne

... with even more violence, and has a circular motion. Ships have had their masts bodily twisted out of them, and many, more unfortunate, have been ingulfed in the maelstrom created by its fury. From its veering so suddenly to every point of the compass, the usual precautions against ordinary gales afford but little protection. A heavy, boding swell precedes, to give notice of the dreaded Ty-foong. The aquatic birds, with natural instinct, take wing and fly before its approach; whilst on shore the air is filled with insects in ...
— Kathay: A Cruise in the China Seas • W. Hastings Macaulay

... the pilot-house; please, step in. Here is the steering wheel, and by means of these brass tubes the steersman communicates with the engineer. Look up to the ceiling. It is decorated with multitudinous charts and maps. Before we leave this room do not forget to glance at the mariner's compass in its ...
— By Water to the Columbian Exposition • Johanna S. Wisthaler

... morning, about six weeks after his return home, Tryon received a letter from Judge Straight with reference to the note left with him at Patesville for collection. This communication properly required an answer, which might have been made in writing within the compass of ten lines. No sooner, however, had Tryon read the letter than he began to perceive reasons why it should be answered in person. He had left Patesville under extremely painful circumstances, vowing that he would never ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... you will be a marked man in this neighborhood. It's none too savory at best. You know how these gunmen hate any policeman, and now they've got your photograph and your number they won't lose a minute to use that knowledge. Keep your eyes on all points of the compass when ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball

... the throne in favor of its lawful occupant, threw off all semblance of allegiance, and assumed a high-handed and arrogant bearing, especially exhibited towards the queen and her family, with whom the regent was at bitter feud. To compass their destruction was then his first care, and he openly declared to the mutinous palace guard that their grievances would not be redressed until they had compassed the queen's death. He even suggested to them how they were to set about it—nay, ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith

... in his joy at the thought of revenge, he fell upon Ganelon's neck and kissed him. Then he bade his attendants bring royal gifts, which he bestowed upon the traitor; after which they both took a solemn oath to compass the fall of Roland,—Ganelon swearing by the cross on his sword-hilt, and Marsilius by the Koran, the sacred ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene

... him and in front of him are snares and pitfalls. His brain and nervous system are filled with emotions and desires which lure him here and there. Temptations are beckoning and passions urging him. He has no guide to show the way and no compass to direct his course. He knows that the journey will bring him to disaster in the end. He does not know the time or the nature of the last catastrophe he shall meet. Every step is taken in doubt and pain ...
— Crime: Its Cause and Treatment • Clarence Darrow

... feet, Were the songs of David less pure and sweet? So in light and shadow the preacher went, God's erring and human instrument; And the hearts of the people where he passed Swayed as the reeds sway in the blast, Under the spell of a voice which took In its compass the flow of Siloa's brook, And the mystical chime of the bells of gold On the ephod's hem of the priest of old,— Now the roll of thunder, and now the awe Of the trumpet heard in the Mount ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... harmony. This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony, through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)

... the wheel, motionless except for an occasional scant shifting of his hands. He was sailing by compass; the patent log, trailing behind on its long cord, maintained a constant, jerking register on its dial. He had resolutely banished all thought save that of navigation. Halvard was occupied forward, clearing the deck of ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer

... and to B——. I was in a hurry to tell them the good news. I have the very weak middle notes which accompany the abnormal compass of my voice. I have found a method of singing that strengthens them wonderfully, so that they are almost as strong as the rest. This delights me, and I am eager to write about it to B——, who is so much interested in my voice. But for that, it ...
— Marie Bashkirtseff (From Childhood to Girlhood) • Marie Bashkirtseff

... summary is compacted to the utmost, often to the point of abruptness; as, we speak of a summary statement or a summary dismissal. That which is terse (L. tersus, from tergo, rub off) has an elegant and finished completeness within the smallest possible compass, as if rubbed or polished down to the utmost. A sententious style is one abounding in sentences that are singly striking or memorable, apart from the context; the word may be used invidiously of that which is pretentiously ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald

... thou utterest in prayer the words, "Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come," thou dost most fearfully condemn thyself, for is it not a mockery to ask for that thou wilt not seek to promote even unto the uttermost, within the narrow compass of thine ...
— Daily Strength for Daily Needs • Mary W. Tileston

... equal horizontal bands of black (top), red, and yellow with the coat of arms centered; the coat of arms contains, in yellow, a hammer and compass encircled by a wreath of grain with a black, red, and gold ribbon at the bottom; similar to the flag of the FRG which does not have a ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... many note-compass the tune is next the place of your first note, and how many notes above and below that, so as you may begin the tune of your first note, as the rest may be sung in the compass of your and the people's voices, without Squeaking above or Grumbling below. For the better understanding ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton

... father, ever have come out as the champion of a man connected with such a fatal event? Not but that Freydet had a warm heart, but the absorbing thought of his candidature brought his mind, like a compass needle, always round to the same point; howsoever shaken and turned about, it came back still to the Academic Pole. And as the wounded man smiled at his friends, feeling a little foolish at finding himself, for all his cleverness, lying there at full length, ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet

... natives with them. Then he took aim, with an imaginary gun, up at the roof of the hut, and said "Bang" very loud, and a chorus of approving laughter from the negroes showed that he was understood. Then one of them pointed towards the various points of the compass, and looked interrogatively at Frank. The sun was streaming in through the doorway, and he was thus able to judge of the direction in which the camp must lie. He made a sweep with his hand towards the northwest, signifying that they ...
— By Sheer Pluck - A Tale of the Ashanti War • G. A. Henty

... attracted the attention of the pilots, and filled them with consternation. It seemed as if the very laws of nature were changing as they advanced, and that they were entering another world, subject to unknown influences. They apprehended that the compass was about to lose its mysterious virtues, and, without this guide, what was to become of them in a vast and trackless ocean? Columbus tasked his science and ingenuity for reasons with which to allay their terrors. He told them that the direction of the needle was not to the polar star, but to ...
— Great Epochs in American History, Volume I. - Voyages Of Discovery And Early Explorations: 1000 A.D.-1682 • Various

... through a profound chemical work, and listened to courses of chemical lectures, should she come to domestic life, which presents a constant series of chemical experiments and changes, and go blindly along as without chart or compass, unable to tell what will take out a stain, or what will brighten a metal, what are common poisons and what their antidotes, and not knowing enough of the laws of caloric to understand how to warm a house, or of the laws of atmosphere to know how to ventilate one? Why should the preparation ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe

... the four quarters of Atlantis, divided by its four rivers, as we shall see a little farther on, represented in a dance, where the dancers arrange themselves according to the four cardinal points of the compass; the dancers are painted to represent the black and red races, while "the first and only man" represents the white race; and the name of the dance is a reminiscence of Baal, the ancient god of the races ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly

... dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience, anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter in hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental elevation and abasement—these are the material with which talk is fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such argument as is proper to the exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should proceed by instances; ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... to rove within confines?" he asked, feeling the vacant spaces in his nature: the want of all those birds, forest trees, household habits, weeds, instincts of the brooks, and tints and tones of the local species which lie in some neighborhood's compass, and ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend

... according to their particular fancy. The Conductor came in, and the following were a few of the questions put to him:—One old fellow, who was wrapped up in a horse-blanket, and who apparently had about two pounds of pigtail in his mouth, wanted to know, "What pint of compass the keers was travelin in?" An old lady, surrounded by band-boxes and enveloped in flannels, wanted to know what time the eight o'clock train left Rock Island for "Dubu-kue?" A carroty-haired young man wanted to know if "free omyibuses" ran from ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne

... Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks But bears it out even to the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the sky, drew afar off and stood against the fence, and gave me plenty of room to fall off. But when I suddenly felt the world heave up beneath me, I uttered a wild shriek—clenched my hands in the animal's black hair and, madly flinging propriety to any point of the compass that happened to be behind me, I cast one pantalette over the enameled back, and thus astride safely crossed the pasture—and lo, it was not I who fell, but their faces instead! When they came to take me down somehow the animal seemed ...
— Ten American Girls From History • Kate Dickinson Sweetser

... the setting sun were being vanquished by the soft moonlight, the venturesome party waved farewell to the watchers on the little tug and started on their journey over the seemingly illimitable sand-dunes. They trekked in single file and by the aid of the stars and a compass easily kept their eastward course. The murmur of the surf grew fainter and fainter until not a sound broke the stillness, the soft footfall of the camels being inaudible even to the men who led ...
— A Rip Van Winkle Of The Kalahari - Seven Tales of South-West Africa • Frederick Cornell

... and mizzen-mast, with "haul-yards," travellers, down-hauls, sheets, &c. Her canvas consisted of foresail, mainsail, and mizzen with a yard for each. She carried also a jib, the casks for water and provisions, a boat's "bittacle" ( binnacle), with compass and lamp. She was further furnished with a couple of creeping irons for getting up the smugglers' kegs, a grapnel, a chest of arms and ammunition, the Custom House Jack and ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton

... reflection wake, And o'er the past a winding passage take: Ah! what a scene of change arrests the mind, Within the compass of five months behind! In many a home is hushed the voice of mirth, And sorrow, as a flood, o'erflows the earth. Here one, by sad misfortune followed fast, In hopeless indigence is plunged at last. Another, by disaster thrown aside, Has got a ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth

... insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you use an arc-and-compass breastpin." ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various

... and, therefore, intensely exciting. This action sets all his powers on the strain. He feels the delight of one who executes successfully a feat thoroughly congenial to his special aptitude, and only just within his compass; and, as he is fearless by nature, the fact that a single slip will cost him his life only increases his pleasure. His exhilaration breaks out in the ghastly words with which he greets the sunrise after the night of the drunken tumult which ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... faint flush on the clear olive complexion). "You laugh at me, Leo! Nicolo! He was all, as they say here, sham—sham jewelry, sham clothes, all pretence, except the oil for his hair—that was plenty and substantial, yes. And a sham voice—he told lies to the maestro about his wonderful compass—" ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black

... whole of these buildings stood a strong stockade, about twelve feet high, loop-holed for musquetry, with a bastion at each angle, facing the four principal points of the compass, on each of which was placed a small gun, that the men had been trained to work. The entrance to the fort was from the westward, and in the direction of the agency house, which two of these ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson

... shown in that brief but powerful description of eloquence of his; let us pause to listen to a sentence or two: "True eloquence indeed does not consist in speech.... Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it.... Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it.... The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine

... to his comrades, and their replies came from every point of the compass—the same rumbling, hoarse, wailing howls that had notified them where a prize awaited them. A minute later, the brute trotted back to his place, where he sat down until ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)

... To-night me compass grief and fears, To-night while drip heart-broken tears; There seems to be no one to save My weeping ...
— The Sylvan Cabin - A Centenary Ode on the Birth of Lincoln and Other Verse • Edward Smyth Jones

... remarks, "they were not dressed above their condition; for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful of their dress and appearance, and even, if they please, decorated with such little trinkets as come within the compass of their means." ...
— Captains of Industry - or, Men of Business Who Did Something Besides Making Money • James Parton

... lifeless. Still, with the stillness of death for thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of years. The food we ate seemed saturated with the vileness of sulphur; it seeped into our water-bags; it turned us to the color of saffron; it was terrible, frightening, inconceivable. And still we went on by compass, and M'sieu showed no fear—even less, gentlemen, ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... north of the Province of Canterbury; and now I am writing to you from the extreme south. I hope you do not forget to reverse in your own mind the ordinary ideas of heat and cold, as connected with those points of the compass. The distance from our house to this is about 160 miles, and we actually took two days and a half to get here!—besides, into these miles was compressed the fatigue of a dozen English railway journeys of the same length. But, I suppose, as usual, you will not ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker

... since I returned to the United States, made several important improvements, which I regret my limited time will not permit me to describe or send you.... I have so changed the form of the apparatus, and condensed it into so small a compass, that you would scarcely know it for the same instrument ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse

... had had 2 husbands, or even 4, I should want to keep 'em apart - settin' up in high chairs on different sides of my heart. Why, if I'd had 4, I'd have 'em to the different pints of the compass, east, west, north, south, as far apart from each other as my heart would admit of. Ketch me a lumpin' in all the precious memories of my Josiah with them of any other man, bond or free, Jew or Genteel; no, and I'd refrain from tellin' to the new ...
— Samantha at Saratoga • Marietta Holley

... nature for strength and weakness, for hot-headed folly, for sacrifice and passion and unselfish service, she knew as do those who have been the victims of such natures themselves. Jacqueline, if it were in human possibility to compass it, should profit ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... written, we find no observation on Master Payne's voice, in which nature has been very bountiful to him. We heard him a few times, with no little pain strain it out of its compass. He need not do so; since, judiciously managed, it is equal to all the purposes of his profession. Those are dangerous experiments, by which he may spoil a voice naturally clear, melodious, and of tolerable ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... petitions to the king, in relation to his own personal expenditure, as well as that of his courtiers; requiring him to diminish the charges of his table, attire, etc., and, bluntly, to "bring his appetite within a more reasonable compass;" to all which he readily gave his assent. (Sempere y Guarinos, Historia del Luxo, y de las Leyes Suntuarias de Espana, (Madrid, 1788,) tom. i. pp. 91, 92.) The English reader is reminded of a very different result, which attended a similar interposition of the commons in the time ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... told me he fished him a compass and transit out'n the river after them Governmint Yellow-Legs wrecked on Butcher's Bar." The speaker added cheerfully: "Since the Whites come into the country I reckon all told you could count the boats that's got through without trouble on ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... American—liberality, gave good measure and over-flowing. Often the jovial man of metes and bounds would dispense altogether with the tripod and chain. Mounted on a pony that could cover something near a "vara" at a step, with a pocket compass to direct his course, he would trot out a survey by counting the beat of his pony's hoofs, mark his corners, and write out his field notes with the complacency produced by an act of duty well performed. Sometimes—and who could ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry

... the French Criticks call Marvellous, but at the same time probable by reason of the Passage last mentioned. As soon as the Infernal Palace is finished, we are told the Multitude and Rabble of Spirits immediately shrunk themselves into a small Compass, that there might be Room for such a numberless Assembly in this capacious Hall. But it is the Poets Refinement upon this Thought which I most admire, and which is indeed very noble in its self. For ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... the form on tender ground? It gives itself its glow, its light; And though each moment changing found. Is ever whole and ever bright. In narrow compass 'tis confined, Within the smallest frame it lies; Yet all things great that move thy mind, That form alone ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... and the canvas soaking up the damp till every stretch might have been owned for the matter of color by a coalman. 'Twas 'bout ship often enough, Mr. Robinson being full of anxiety and impatience, and watching the compass for a shift of wind as if he was a cat and there was a mouse in the binnacle. I could have sworn the handsome party would have been beam-ended by the dance; it turned the stomachs of two of the crew, ...
— In Luck at Last • Walter Besant

... free and undaunted, on his native soil, that no description can convey an adequate idea of his striking appearance. The lion is exquisitely formed by nature for the predatory habits which he is destined to pursue. Combining in comparatively small compass the qualities of power and agility, he is enabled, by means of the tremendous machinery with which nature has gifted him, easily to overcome and destroy almost every beast of the forest, however superior to him in ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various

... patched up with gold and emeralds, would have confuted itself. Yet Schottus in his notes upon Curtius has been taken with this motly description: and in opposition to all good history, thinks that this idle story of a navel relates to the compass. Hyde too has adopted this notion; and proceeds to shew how each circumstance may be made to agree with the properties of the magnet. [751]Illa nempe Jovis effigies videtur semiglobulare quiddam, uti est compassus marinus, forma umbilici librarii, seu umbonis, ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume I. • Jacob Bryant

... of Canterbury. The rigid and fearless metropolitan, instead of telling stories at his table and winking at his infamies, openly rebuked his extortions and exposed his robberies. The disappointed minister of Arcadius then bent his energies to compass the ruin of the prelate; but, before he could effect his purpose, he was himself disgraced at court. The army in revolt had demanded his head, and Eutropius fled to the metropolitan church of Saint Sophia. Chrysostom seized the occasion ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord

... her possessions in the smallest possible compass. The money she had lent to Emma would be sufficient for the journey to Carthage, which was the nearest Gentile town, and thither she was determined to go without an hour's delay, ready now to work or beg her way on the ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall

... these—as electricity, magnetism, and chemical force—which can also be proved to come indirectly from the sun, but the proof can not be given here. We can detect the work of the sunbeams in the flash of the lightning and the roar of the thunder, in the turning of the compass-needle to the north, and in all the wonders of chemical science, as certainly as in the growing plant or the ...
— Harper's Young People, June 15, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... is betwixt God and him? Esther, when she went to supplicate the king her husband for her people, made use neither of her beauty nor relation, nor the privileges of which she might have had temptation to make use of, especially at such a time, and in such exigencies, as then did compass her about; but, I say, she made not use of them to thrust herself into his presence, but knew, and kept her distance, standing in the inward court of his palace until he held out the golden sceptre to her; then Esther drew near, and touched the top ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan

... day of the descent, the effect of Mars' attraction, which had for some time so disturbed the position of the Astronaut as to take his disc completely out of the field of the meta-compass, became decidedly predominant over that of the Sun. I had to change the direction of the apergic current first to the left-hand conductor, and afterwards, as the greater weight of the floor turned the Astronaut completely over, bringing ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... in a world of toil and moil suggests paradise. Some have urged that elite youth, exempt from the struggle to live and left to the freedom of their own inclinations, might serve as a biological and ethnic compass to point out the goal of human destiny. But the spontaneous expressions of this best age and condition of life, with no other occupation than their own development, have shown reversions as often as ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall

... overhauling them matters," remarked Sam Wad, another quarter-gunner, "and he chalked it all out by the square and compass. It seems reasonable, too." ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper

... It was not now practicable to give that investigation. This was one of those questions which it would be intolerable to mix up with purely political and party debates. If there was a subject in the whole compass of human life and experience that was sacred beyond all other subjects it was the character and position of woman. Did his honorable friend ask him to admit that the question deserved the fullest consideration? He gave him that admission freely. Did he ask whether he (Mr. Gladstone) wished to ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... sweet fancies to mind— Some to grieve, some to gladden; around them they cast The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past. Away in the distance is heard the vast sound From the streets of the city that compass it round, Like the echo of fountains or ocean's deep call; Yet that fountain's low singing is ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury



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