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Discernible   Listen
adjective
Discernible  adj.  Capable of being discerned by the eye or the understanding; as, a star is discernible by the eye; the identity of difference of ideas is discernible by the understanding. "The effect of the privations and sufferings... was discernible to the last in his temper and deportment."
Synonyms: Perceptible; distinguishable; apparent; visible; evident; manifest.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Discernible" Quotes from Famous Books



... 33 instruments about which information has been secured, a correlation is discernible between the apparent manual compass and the pitch C string lengths. Sixteen of the instruments ascend to f'''. For these, the length of the pitch C string varies from 10-1/4" to 13-3/4". The remaining instruments, with either a'' or c''' as the highest ...
— Italian Harpsichord-Building in the 16th and 17th Centuries • John D. Shortridge

... larger by more than two years' growth than when you first saw her, and she has on a black frock under her pinafore. Mrs. Poyser too has on a black gown, which seems to heighten the family likeness between her and Dinah. In other respects there is little outward change now discernible in our old friends, or in the pleasant house-place, bright with polished ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... a little fire. In the right panel another native sits on his heels cooking a meal; a bamboo slopes across the cell behind him, and supports a poor ragged cloth, a purda, I suppose, and behind, are just discernible his wife and child. These wayfarers make me at once think of a new and original treatment for a holy family, but hold! These passages of light and colour, form fading into nothingness, are they not worth understanding alone, are ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch

... necessity, segregation was ignored on many occasions, and black and white soldiers often worked and lived together in hospitals,[2-83] rest camps, schools, and, more rarely, units. But these were isolated cases, touching relatively few men, and they had no discernible effect on racial policy. Of much more importance was the deliberate integration in officer training schools and in the divisions fighting in the European theater in 1945. McCloy referred to these deviations from policy as experiments "too limited to afford general conclusions."[2-84] But if they ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.

... as discernible, is that of a cultivated gentleman. It is not that of Mr. Leavenworth; for I have studied his chirography toe much lately not to know it at a glance; but it may be—Hold!" I suddenly exclaimed, "have you any mucilage handy? I think, if I could paste these strips down ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... woods. We could look down on the summits of the trees, some living and some dead; some erect, others leaning at every angle, and others still piled in masses together by the passage of a hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge, the turbid waters of the Missouri were discernible through the boughs, rolling powerfully along at the foot of the woody declivities ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.

... man's hat, which stood full high in the crown; and his cloak, patched with black and blue and red, like Joseph's coat of many colors in its old age; and his breeches, which had been sewed over with so many patterns that the original was scarce discernible; and his tattered hose; and his shoes, cobbled above and below. And while as he made the change in dress he made so many whimsical comments also about a man's pride and the dress that makes a man, that the palmer was like to choke ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... mountain upon whose summit the light had been descried. There the glass revealed white towers and columns rising from a mass of brilliant tropical green, and now smitten by the late sun; but save these towers and columns not a sign of life or habitation was discernible. No smoke arose, no wharf or dock broke the serene outline of the black wall lapped by the warm sea; and there was no sound save that of strong torrents afar off. Lonely, inscrutable, the great mass stood, slightly shelved here and there to harbour ...
— Romance Island • Zona Gale

... fancied himself the greatest genius in the world. He was, moreover, under the impression that he suffered from a gigantic, monstrous tooth. Of the two idiosyncrasies, the latter alone made his lunacy discernible, too many individuals being affected with the other symptom to render it an anomalous feature of the human mind. My friend was in the habit of protesting that this enormous tooth increased periodically, and threatened to encroach upon his entire jaw. ...
— Great Violinists And Pianists • George T. Ferris

... a stew of oysters was distributed among the people, Lieutenant Bligh observes (in the MS. Journal), 'In the distribution of it, the voraciousness of some and the moderation of others were very discernible. The master began to be dissatisfied the first, because it was not made into a larger quantity by the addition of water, and showed a turbulent disposition, until I laid my commands on him to be silent.' Again, on his refusing bread ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow

... the gathering gloom and was soon out on the heather. Away on the left, but scarcely discernible, was Swart Houe Cross, on Egton Low Moor, and straight in front lay the Skelder Inn. A light gleamed from one of the lower windows, and by it I guided my steps, being determined to partake of tea before turning my steps homeward. I stepped into the little parlour, with its sanded floor, and ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home

... site at the edge of a meadow several miles in length, and that seemed from the abrupt bluffs that bordered it to have been once the bottom of a lake, this two-story weather-board frame was readily discernible. Its location made it a prominent point, too, upon the picket line, and it was favored above its fellows by daily and nightly occupancy by officers of the command. At this period the Regiment almost lived upon the picket line. An old wench, with several chalky complexioned children, whose paternal ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong

... sheet of apparently unruffled ocean, which every moment gained a deeper and a deeper tint of blue and began already to assume a slight appearance of convexity. At a vast distance to the eastward, although perfectly discernible, extended the islands of Great Britain, the entire Atlantic coasts of France and Spain, with a small portion of the northern part of the continent of Africa. Of individual edifices not a trace could be discovered, and the proudest cities of mankind ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe

... the vast numbers of salons of the eighteenth century, three types are discernible, each of which was prominent and in full sway throughout the century up to the Revolution. To the first class belong the great literary and philosophical salons which, though not political in nature, finally changed politics; such were the circles of ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... new book which he always carried over to be read in the company. Oh, those years! How the books marked their going! Even way back in his little boyhood! "Hans Brinker or the Silver Skates." He touched its worn blue back and silver letters scarcely discernible. "The Call of the Wild." How he had thrilled to the sorrows of that dog! And how many life lessons had been wrapped up in the creature's experience! How had he drifted so far away from it all? How could he have done it? No one had pushed him, he had ...
— The City of Fire • Grace Livingston Hill

... and musky as before described. On each side of these rivers there are shoals of sand; and near their mouths are fine groves of tall spreading green trees, which are the marks by which they may be found, as their mouths are narrow, and not discernible at a distance. These rivers are seldom frequented by the Spaniards, except for refreshments, for which they are well adapted, as all the adjoining country abounds with every kind of provisions that this part of the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr

... government and of a common capital. It became a rallying point for all true Germans, a subject of mutual congratulation to the Bavarian and the Westphalian, to the citizen of Frankfort, and to the citizen of Nuremberg. Then first it was manifest that the Germans were truly a nation. Then first was discernible that patriotic spirit which, in 1813, achieved the great deliverance of central Europe, and which still guards, and long will guard, against foreign ambition the old freedom of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... large city lying at the foot of the Alleghanies, and in ascending the Alleghanies fine scenery and great engineering feats are discernible. From this we ran on to Pittsburg, which claims to be the best lighted city in America, the streets being brilliantly illuminated by arc and incandescent electric lights. Nine bridges cross the Allegheny, and five the Monongahela rivers. Pittsburg has ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett

... while aboard of a man-of-war to touch at these islands. The French had then held possession of the Marquesas some time, and already prided themselves upon the beneficial effects of their jurisdiction, as discernible in the deportment of the natives. To be sure, in one of their efforts at reform they had slaughtered about a hundred and fifty of them at Whitihoo—but let that pass. At the time I mention, the French squadron was rendezvousing in the bay of Nukuheva, and during an interview between one of their ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

... by a seething, howling tangle of humanity)—there to receive the plainest of instructions. They were to quell the disorder and to single out for punishment, whenever possible, the strangers, the obvious authors of the rebellion, easily discernible by their scarlet blouses. Not that the judge was particular about the lives or deaths of a few natives; he knew that any injuries received by his countrymen would strengthen his case against the outsiders. ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas

... was withering, and a resentful grumble arose, amidst which old Stuppeny's dedication of himself to a new sphere was hoarsely discernible. However the men scrambled to their feet and tramped off in various directions; Joanna stopped Fuller, the shepherd, as ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith

... Self-existing Power, Himself undiscovered, but making this world discernible, with five elements, and other principles of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding His idea, or dispelling ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... proportion of its population, we are naturally prepared to find a general resemblance in manners and customs between this part of its inhabitants, and kindred sects established in adjacent countries; accordingly, the differences are so faint as to be scarcely discernible in a single instance.” Now, I must here observe, that Nepal, in the proper sense of the word, when Colonel Kirkpatrick wrote, had not been governed for half a century by chiefs, who even pretended to be descended of a Hindu colony, ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton

... marks in term's order. Not many I dare say." Again, "When you are excited reports go bad. I have been shouting rather, kicking up a shine. Once there was a small fight which was twigged. Norway is a serious matter." There was an undercurrent of nervousness, discernible only to her eyes. She could not account for it till she had him home, and they were on the edge of adventure. It was lest he should be seasick and disgrace himself in the esteem of young Nugent, who, as a naval officer, ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... be impenetrable. That is, if a mass of them really touched each other, that mass would not be condensible by any force. But atoms of matter do not touch. It is thinkable, but not demonstrable, that condensation might go on till there were no discernible ...
— Among the Forces • Henry White Warren

... instant, glanced mournfully around the dreary room, and, shivering slightly, drooped her head again on her hand. Week after week went slowly by, and she was removed to Mrs. Wood's house, but no improvement was discernible, and the belief became general that the child's mind had sunk into hopeless imbecility. The kind-hearted miller and his wife endeavored to coax her out of her chair by the chimney-corner, but she crouched there, a ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans

... and her head, relatively small with tight-drawn hair, was uncovered. She was not as compelling under the sun as in candle light, he observed. Her face, unpainted, was pale, an expression of petulance discernible. Yet she was more potent than any other woman he had encountered. "Isn't that the garden?" she asked, waving beyond the end of the house. "I like gardens." She moved off in the direction indicated; and—as he felt she expected, ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer

... ("Philosophical Transactions" 1839 page 39.), a distinct line marking an old sea-level, and which will be strictly horizontal, if the subsequent elevatory movements have been so: for in these cases no discernible effects will be produced, except during the long intervening periods of rest; whereas in the case of step-formed coasts, such as those described in this and the preceding chapter, the terraces themselves are accumulated during the slow elevatory process, ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... during childhood, and especially during the second period of childhood, there exists a larger number of sexual differences both mental and physical. Some of these are obviously discernible when we compare isolated individuals; others only become apparent when we institute a statistical comparison. And when such differences appear in childhood, we find that they are quantitatively less extensive than the sexual differences of adults. For the sexual life ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... innocent, must, without a trial, undergo a penalty the traces whereof he carries to the grave; for to a man-of-war's-man's experienced eye the marks of a naval scourging with the "cat" are through life discernible. And with these marks on his back, this image of his Creator must rise at the Last Day. Yet so untouchable is true dignity, that there are cases wherein to be flogged at the gangway is no dishonour; though, to abase and hurl down the last pride of some sailor who has piqued him, be ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville

... his glasses, with which he inspected her finger; and gravely announced to the company: "The laceration is, in fact, discernible. May I be permitted, madam," added he, "to kiss this fair hand, which I should never have suspected of having ever ...
— Peg Woffington • Charles Reade

... small meagre man, sallow and dingy, with a restless wandering look in his dull eyes, and an excessive timidity about his deep reverences, which gave him the air of a man who had been long a solitary prisoner. Yet through all this squalor and wretchedness there were some traces discernible of comparative youth and former good looks. Lady Cheverel, though not very tender-hearted, still less sentimental, was essentially kind, and liked to dispense benefits like a goddess, who looks down benignly on the halt, the maimed, and the blind that approach her shrine. ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... supernatural grandeur. The gloom of the chapel is faintly relieved by the tapers of the sisters; the vaulted roof is just discernible in a pale blue light, rendered terrific by the splendour of the altar blazing with a hundred illuminated torches; while the lofty peals of the deep-toned organ, swell round the echoing cloisters with "Il cantar che nell' anima si sente;" and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. - Volume 10, No. 270, Saturday, August 25, 1827. • Various

... literature rather to refine upon what was before them, than to new inquiries. The language of the Pandects is of the silver age; it might therefore be expected, that it would have improved the general style of the times; but this improvement is seldom discernible. ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... this diving-bell the eggs are laid and the young hatched, under the constant watch of the old spider. Few people care to take the trouble to gaze for any time into a shallow, still piece of water, in which the bottom is plainly discernible, and a crop of water-weeds makes a wall on either side of some central "well." If they do find some such pond near the Thames banks or a shallow backwater, they may see after a few minutes much that is new and suggestive of strange activities. Everything will be quiet and motionless ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish

... industry, and an inheritance of faculties trained in skilful, courageous labor; they make their way upward, rarely as geniuses, most commonly as painstaking, honest men, with the skill and conscience to do well the tasks that lie before them. Their lives have no discernible echo beyond the neighborhood where they dwelt; but you are almost sure to find there some good piece of road, some building, some application of mineral produce, some improvement in farming practice, some reform of parish abuses, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various

... having recourse to an external machinery of incidents to create and evolve the crisis I desire to produce, I have ventured to display somewhat minutely the mood itself in its rise and progress, and have suffered the agency by which it is influenced and determined, to be generally discernible in its effects alone, and subordinate throughout, if not altogether excluded." The poem, though dramatic, is not a drama, and canons which are applicable to a piece intended for stage-representation would here—Browning pleads—be rather a hindrance than a ...
— Robert Browning • Edward Dowden

... bed of water-worn pebbles. At the entrance to this dark recess, upon the face of a flat rock, appeared painted hands, some with six fingers, some with four, and others with only two. They were painted with a dark brown pigment, and were easily discernible. It was the sight of these hands, and the assertion that they had reference to the measures of gold obtained, as set forth on the paper found by Hartog in the locker of the "Santa Isabel", that decided us to explore farther into the heart ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes

... interspersed with what is intended to be lighter matter on the fashions, foibles, and prominent characters of the day. Gibbon owns the authorship of the first article on Lord Lyttelton's history of Henry the Second, and his hand is discernible in the account of the fourth volume of Lardner's work On the Credibility of the Gospel History. The first has no merit beyond a faithful report. The latter is written with much more zest and vigour, and shows the interest that he already took in Christian antiquities. Other articles, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison

... chasms scooped out by a recent gale, pieces of the ancient soil laid bare, which had been covered up by the sand-flood nearly two centuries before. In one of the openings the marks of the ancient furrows were still discernible; in another, the thin stratum of ferruginous soil had apparently never been brought under the plough; and I found it charged with roots of the common brake (Pteris aquilina), in a perfect state of keeping, but black and brittle as coal. Beneath this layer of soil ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller

... to perceive that, between and beyond the cliffs, green grass and trees were discernible. Fritz could distinguish many tall palms, and Ernest hoped they would prove to be cocoanut trees, and enjoyed the thoughts of drinking the ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester

... site of an ancient city of palaces, overthrown and crumbled into atoms by an earthquake. Here and there, some cows were feeding; and sometimes a large crow winged his way lazily before us, lessening and lessening slowly in the open distance, until he was lost to sight. No human beings were discernible anywhere; the majestic loneliness and stillness of the scene were almost oppressive both to eye and ear. Above us, immense fleecy masses of brilliant white cloud, wind-driven from the Atlantic, soared up grandly, higher and higher over the bright blue sky. Everywhere, the view had an impressively ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... and speculation. While the general columns made news and capital of his wealth, special society columns, which dealt with the ultra-fashionable, ignored him entirely. Already the machination of certain Chicago social figures in distributing information as to his past was discernible in the attitude of those clubs, organizations, and even churches, membership in which constitutes a form of social passport to better and higher earthly, if not spiritual, realms. His emissaries were active enough, but soon found ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser

... child. They are cleanly, hospitable, and generous, and passionately fond of their children. They seldom talk above a whisper among themselves, and however intoxicated—which they sometimes become—never quarrel; nay, more, an angry look is never discernible. They use tobacco; not chewing it, however, but simply keeping it between the lips, for the purpose of appeasing hunger and preserving their teeth. They live towards the head-waters of the Essequibo. On ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston

... he saw certain letters dotted over, not entirely perceptible, yet quite discernible. He turned the paper over. The reverse was perfectly clear. He held it to the light but ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... ancestors were now admitted. A regular communication was opened between our shores and that part of Europe in which the traces of ancient power and policy were yet discernible. Many noble monuments which have since been destroyed or defaced still retained their pristine magnificence; and travellers, to whom Livy and Sallust were unintelligible, might gain from the Roman ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... employment was unbounded. His letters from the time he joined the Tank Corps sing with happiness. Having pushed all obstacles aside in order to walk the sacrificial road, he found great gladness in breasting its steeps. A singular change is discernible in his letters in the last seven months of his life. No longer was there any reference in them to political affairs at home or to international events. He who used to follow the progress of the world with so much intentness had not a word ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones

... painter's assault on the lily. It would appear that a high percentage of white and grey horses had been shot in the several sorties; hence the necessity of varnishing the survivors. The white animals were more discernible to the eye behind a Mauser. Condy's Fluid was the "varnish" utilised; and curious to relate, one noble steed was, not khaki, but green after treatment. Perhaps he ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... retract some distance within the sheath. Independently of this sheath, arteries are usually described as being formed of three coats, named, from the relative positions, external, middle, and internal. This applies to their structure so far as it is discernible by the naked eye. The internal, serous, or tunica intima, is the thinnest, and is continuous with the lining membrane of the heart. It is made up of two layers—an inner, consisting of a layer of epithelial scales, and an outer, transparent, whitish, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... situated at the extreme point, by its native name of Cerabaroa; but it is only the right coast upon entering the gulf bears that name, the left coast being called Aburema. Numerous and fertile islands dot the gulf, and the bottom affords excellent anchorage. The clearness of the water makes it easily discernible, and fish are very abundant. The country round about is equal in fertility to the very best. The Spaniards captured two natives who wore gold necklaces, which they called guanines. These collars are delicately wrought in the form of eagles, lions, ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt

... the fence in the heavy shadow, hardly discernible even to her straining eyes that had grown accustomed to the dark. She heard the light clatter of his feet and knew that he was running, with the speed and desperation of a hounded deer, then she straightened and lifted her eyes to the rustling ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck

... beautiful islets, which stud the broad bosom of the St. Lawrence, are evidently of volcanic origin. That of Kamouraska displays vast masses of granite, which rise in the form of conical hills, one of which attains the height of five hundred feet. The same features are discernible in the Penguins, and even the strata about Quebec still indicate the same mysterious agency.* [* "Encyclopaedia ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland

... strokes were bringing them swiftly nearer the opposite shore where yellow dots of light proclaimed the position of the summer cottages. One dot, larger, detached itself from the others and indicated the flare on the end of the landing float. Outlines began to be darkly discernible, the moon's silver mirror was shivered by lances of gold. Very soon their ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... the man's business, but it is finished; and judging from the satisfaction discernible on his face as he raised the lamp and turned to depart, the result must have been according to his best hope. He took off his robe, and tossed it to his slaves; then he laid a hand upon the edge of the sarcophagus preparatory ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace

... candles in the hall, making the vast place seem more vast and ghostly. The east window was discernible only as a vague oblong patch of grey ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... inexplicable little shake of her head which said a great many things; and then she and her aunt were left alone. Mrs. Rossitur drew her to her bosom with a look so exceeding fond that its sadness was hardly discernible. It was mingled however with ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... pass we looked straight down upon another sea, starlit and dimly discernible, and upon slopes and mountain spurs descending into dense woodland over which, along the bluffs of the ridge, the lights of a few lonely hill-farms twinkled. Stephanu found for us the track of which Marc'antonio had spoken, and although ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine

... covey of partridges ran across the path close under the horse's feet, and stopped to look back almost within reach of the riding-whip; clouds of starlings, in their odd, irresolute way, rose from the high bulrushes and settled again, without discernible cause; little wandering companies of sparrows undulated from hedge to hedge; a great rabbit-hawk sat alone in the top of a lofty pecan-tree; that petted rowdy, the mocking-bird, dropped down into the path to offer fight to the horse, and, failing in ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable

... terrible shouts, which was answered alternately by sounding all their military instruments of music. The whole of these people were almost naked, having targets of various colours, and made a very gallant appearance. On the approach of this prodigious fleet, our caravel and boats were hardly discernible, so completely did the enemy cover the face of the water. Terrified by so prodigious a multitude, the naires of Cochin all ran away, only Grandagora and Frangora remaining, who were on board the caravel, or they would ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr

... Christian churches in every province of Kiushiu except Hiuga and Osumi, and also in Kioto, Osaka, Sendai, and Kanagawa in Kaga; and it was only in eight provinces of Japan that Christianity had gained no footing. An increased activity in the operations of the missionaries is discernible about this time. The Dominicans in Satsuma, the Franciscans in Yedo (Tokio), and the Jesuits in the capital and southern provinces, seem to have been vying with each other which should gain most converts; and the circuit made by Cerqueyra, in which he visited all the Jesuit establishments ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various

... Rome of previous eras of quasi-religious experience. Totemism not discernible. Taboo, and the means adopted of escaping from it; both survived at Rome into an age of real religion. Examples: impurity (or holiness) of new-born infants; of a corpse; of women in certain worships; of strangers; of criminals. Almost complete absence ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler

... her cavalier. Nesta waved hand to her, and nodded. Mrs. Marsett withdrew her eyes; her doing so, silent though it was, resembled the drag back to sea of the shingle-wave below her, such a screaming of tattle she heard in the questions discernible through the attitude of the cavalier and of the lady, who paused to stare, before the leap up in the saddle. 'Who is she?—what is she?—how did you know her?—where does she come from?—wears her hat ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the moon sank. The night was windless and black; but the bearing of the Chevrette had been taken by compass, and the boats pulled gently on, till, ghost-like in the gloom, the doomed ship was discernible. A soft air from the land began to blow at that moment. Suddenly the Chevrette and the batteries overhead broke into flame. The boats were discovered! The officers leaped to their feet in the stern of each boat, and urged the men on. The leading boats crashed against the Chevrette's ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett

... Gospel.—During these two years he wrote nothing; it was a time of internal mental activity and silent progress. But, when he began to write again, the results of it were at once discernible. The Epistles written after this imprisonment have a mellower tone and set forth a profounder view of doctrine than his earlier writings. There is no contradiction, indeed, or inconsistency between his earlier and later views: ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker

... swept past him on the crest of a passing wave. For less than a second he could see on the shimmer of the night sky the shape of a boat, the heads of men, the blades of oars pointing upward while being got out hurriedly. Then all this sank out of sight, reappeared once more far off and hardly discernible, before vanishing ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad

... natives had really climbed the baobab, and now they were seen rising on all sides, winding along the boughs like reptiles, and advancing slowly but surely, all the time plainly enough discernible, not merely to the eye but to the nostrils, by the horrible odors of the rancid grease with which they ...
— Five Weeks in a Balloon • Jules Verne

... there was a band of Indians quite distinctly discernible. My uncle looked at them for a moment quite intently and in ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott

... dumb, immovable, but far enough from a state of tranquility; agitation, joy, gratitude, ardent indefinite wishes, restrained by the fear of giving displeasure, which my unpractised heart too much dreaded, were sufficiently discernible. She neither appeared more tranquil, nor less intimidated than myself—uneasy at my present situation; confounded at having brought me there, beginning to tremble for the effects of a sign which she had made without reflecting on the consequences, neither giving ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... down on the stool and opened my note-book. I headed the page: "Sunrise in July: observations and emotions," and I wrote down at once, lest I should forget it, that towards three o'clock a faint light is discernible, and added that this light gets stronger as ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome

... least twice a year—once in spring (in May and June in Nebraskan specimens) from winter to summer pelage, and once in autumn (in October and November in Nebraskan specimens) from summer to winter pelage. Of the two molts, the one in spring is most easily discernible because the contrast in color between worn winter pelage and fresh summer pelage is considerably greater than that between worn summer pelage and fresh winter pelage, and because the progress of spring molt is seemingly more regular than that of autumn molt. In spring, molt proceeds posteriorly ...
— Geographic Variation in the Harvest Mouse, Reithrodontomys megalotis, On the Central Great Plains And in Adjacent Regions • J. Knox Jones

... along with the smoke she was watching. As the quick-footed dusk of the short October day stepped lightly over the garden, little red tongues of fire might be seen to leap and vanish in the smoke. Harold, anon staggering under armfuls of leaves, anon stoking vigorously, was discernible only at fitful intervals. It was another sort of smoke that the inner eye of Selina was looking upon,—a smoke that hung in sullen banks round the masts and the hulls of the fighting ships; a smoke from beneath which came thunder and the crash and the splinter-rip, the shout ...
— Dream Days • Kenneth Grahame

... against those who still had spirit enough to resent it with a moan. These were lifted carefully to one side and abandoned. Some had sense enough to ask in their weak way for water. Absurd! Their clothes were soaken, their hair dank; their white faces, dimly discernible, were clammy and cold. Besides, none of us had any water. There was plenty coming, though, for before midnight a thunderstorm broke upon us with great violence. The rain, which had for hours been a dull drizzle, fell with a copiousness that stifled ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce

... College, Oxbridge, where, for some time, a rumour prevailed, to the terror of Pen's tutor and tradesmen, that Pendennis, maddened at losing his degree, had made away with himself—a battered cap, in which his name was almost discernible, together with a seal bearing his crest of an eagle looking at a now extinct sun, had been found three miles on the Fenbury road, near a mill-stream, and, for four-and-twenty hours, it was supposed that poor Pen had flung ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray

... guns. Further up we stoop to gather some daphnes and disclose a battery screened by fragrant and blooming flowers. From the top the view is magnificent; the white wings of commerce which sprinkle the sea look like sea-gulls, and steamships are only discernible by the long line of smoke trailing behind them. Far below us, on the Spanish side, lies the town, a thick mass of yellow, white, and brown houses; and nestling in the bay is the shipping, looking like toy-boats. The ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou

... deserted. The churches of Ani were built with lava, and crosses of black lava were let in very curiously into the red lava. With the exception of the churches and the king's palace, the city is level with the ground, the foundations of the houses being alone discernible. These churches were covered with Armenian inscriptions ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger

... summoned a soldier and sent him to the engineer with a message calling for more speed. After another minute the increase in speed was easily discernible. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Lieutenants - or, Serving Old Glory as Line Officers • H. Irving Hancock

... city, eager for space and air, a true daughter of Hungary, Marsa loved to ride through the beautiful, silent park, down the long, almost deserted avenues, toward the bit of pale blue horizon discernible in the distance at the end of the sombre arch formed by the trees. Birds, startled by the horses' hoofs, rose here and there out of the bushes, pouring forth their caroling to the clear ether; and Marsa, spurring her thoroughbred, would dash in a mad ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... discoveries, for there are some well-known specimens still in existence of which the eyelids, lashes, eyebrows, and hair are still in their natural state, and this after an interval of thousands of years. In some mummies, for instance, the contour of the features is plainly discernible, and surely this is scientific "preparation of specimens" not to be excelled in ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne

... alone," said Miss Sylvette de Long, in a tone not part of her role. "When the traffic policeman sticks up his mitt it's time to halt, see?" Lines not before discernible in Miss De Long's face had long since begun to creep out, smoky shadows beneath her eyes and a sunburst of fine lines showing through the ...
— Humoresque - A Laugh On Life With A Tear Behind It • Fannie Hurst

... along Prairie Avenue. This was a sharply cold night, and very dark, but equally still. It was between twelve and one o'clock—nearer one than twelve—as he climbed the hill on his homeward way, and, instead of taking the short cut, turned northward and struck for the gloomy mass of sheds dimly discernible some forty yards from the crest. He had heard other officers speak of the fact that Mr. Hayne's lights were burning until long after midnight, and that, dropping in there, they had found him seated at his desk with a green shade over his eyes, studying by the aid of two student-lamps; ...
— The Deserter • Charles King

... This isolation in the case of man is singularly great for the reason that he is the only creature we know in the realm who is so far endowed with consciousness that he can appreciate his position and know the measure of his solitude. In the case of all individuals the discernible is only a small part of what exists. In man the measure of this presentation is, even to himself, very small, and that which he can readily make evident to his neighbor is an exceedingly limited part of the real ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... divine origin—like that, for instance, which binds the earth to the sun—was perfected in the beginning by its Author. Such, my brothers, was the religion of the first family; such was the religion of our father Mizraim, who could not have been blind to the formula of creation, nowhere so discernible as in the first faith and the earliest worship. Perfection is God; simplicity is perfection. The curse of curses is that men will not let ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace

... hand for ever on her heart, hiding her wound. It was a look that reminded Jane, and was somehow, she felt, intended to remind her, that Gertrude was pure spirit as well as pure womanhood in her too discernible emotion. Was it not spiritual to serve as she served, to spend as she spent herself, so angelically, bearing the dreadful weight of Brodrick's marriage—the consequences, so to speak, of that ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... substances of which the copy was made up. But this plastic entity (sattva) which is so predominant in thought is at its lowest limit of subordination in matter. Similarly mass is not noticed in thought, but some such notions as are associated with mass may be discernible in ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta

... Tuam, it had declined to the third or fourth order of brilliancy. In twelve days, dating from its first apparition in the Irish heavens, it had sunk to the eighth rank, and it went on waning until the 26th of June, when it ceased to be discernible except through the medium of the telescope. This was a remarkable, though certainly not an unprecedented proceeding on the part of a star; but one singular circumstance in its behavior was that, after the lapse of nearly two months, ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes

... state of elevation that, like the two rivals in the Roman State, one could no longer bear an equal, nor the other a superior. Of the gradual abatement of kindness between friends, the beginning is often scarcely discernible to themselves, and the process is continued by petty provocations, and incivilities sometimes peevishly returned, and sometimes contemptuously neglected, which would escape all attention but that of pride, and drop from any memory but that ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson

... Having been on the highest deck, with some ventilation from above, they were less in want of air than the grown-up people, though they seemed to enjoy the exercise allowed them even more than the rest; but not a particle of the animation of childhood was discernible among any of them. From the way they moved about, they seemed to fancy that their dance was but a prelude to their being put to death to fill the cooking-pots of the white men, which their Arab captors had told them would ...
— The Three Commanders • W.H.G. Kingston

... between two houses close to the inn, and struck a narrow track, scarcely discernible, which ran behind other houses, and then plunged into the thickest part of the wood. A single person, traversing the covert, might have made such a track; or pigs, or children. But it was the first idea that occurred to us, and put us all on the alert. The Captain carried a ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman

... at nightfall, and the river is inky-smooth, with the same long weed-like reflections as in August. Only the reflections are fewer and paler; bright lights are muffled everywhere. The line of the quays is scarcely discernible, and the heights of the Trocadero are lost in the blur of night, which presently effaces even the firm tower-tops of Notre-Dame. Down the damp pavements only a few street lamps throw their watery zigzags. The shops are shut, and the windows ...
— Fighting France - From Dunkerque to Belport • Edith Wharton

... appropriated in their style, and in that particular could not be at all distinguished. JOHNSON. "Why, sir, I think every man whatever has a peculiar style, which may be discerned by nice examination and comparison with others: but a man must write a great deal to make his style obviously discernible. As logicians say, this appropriation of style is infinite in ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... of loess as it occurs where exposed in ravines or on slopes in the vicinity. It is contended that if any previous excavation had been made here and filled up afterwards the mixed earth would be easily distinguished from that which was not removed, and that the line of demarcation would be easily discernible. ...
— Archeological Investigations - Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin 76 • Gerard Fowke

... practical, but not of an imaginative and speculative people. It was propagated, like the dominion of Rome, by conquest. It either took the place of the language of the conquered nation, or became ingrafted upon it, and gradually pervaded its composition; hence its presence is discernible ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... his ear, and a hope began to rise in his breast that no immediate danger threatened. A short distance away, embowered among the trees, was the house of Burrowes. The door was closed, and not a sign of life was discernible about the place. ...
— The Tapu Of Banderah - 1901 • Louis Becke

... committed to them by the publication of her third novel, and I myself definitely classed by holding the opinion that this work was inferior to its immediate predecessor. Was it worse because she had been keeping worse company? If her secret was, as she had told me, her life—a fact discernible in her increasing bloom, an air of conscious privilege that, cleverly corrected by pretty charities, gave distinction to her appearance—it had yet not a direct influence on her work. That only made one—everything only made one—yearn the more for it; only rounded ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... passionate and bold element of the Sinfonia Eroica was distinctly discernible, especially in the first movement. The slow movement, on the contrary, contained reminiscences of my former musical mysticism. A kind of repeated interrogative exclamation of the minor third merging ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... their ears as they tramped silently on towards the boat; but not a sound was heard suggesting that the enemy grasped the fact that the strategy had been cleverly carried out. The dull reflection of the fires had from time to time been faintly discernible upon the low-hanging mist; but this soon died out, and fortune seemed to be smiling kindly ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn

... did not think exactly as I spoke, strive as I might to believe the man in jest. Too much solemnity and sorrow both were discernible in his worn and rugged features, hewn grandly as if from granite, to admit of a hope like this. His words were earnest, and some great calamity was in store, I could not doubt, or at least he apprehended such. For some time he replied not, then, slowing pointing to the base of the stricken ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... the idea that these marks are obscure and difficult for plain people to discover. Make no mistake, my brethren, they are as easily seen as are the apples on a tree. The fruits of the spirit are as discernible to any one honest enough and fearless enough to look; and the first and supreme of all is that which we have been considering this morning. The question for you and for me, my brethren, is simply this: Are our lives full of the ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor

... long level of the sand-bank, I perceived a group that became discernible as three persons attached to an invalid's chair, moving leisurely toward us. I was in the state of mind between divination and doubt when the riddle is not impossible to read, would but the heart cease its hurry an instant; ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... the face of Joe Noy. His muscles seemed to follow the bones underneath them; and now beholding him, the surprised spectators saw a man of gigantic proportions gigantically moved. Yet, while sorrow was discernible in his voice, the corners of his mouth were dragged up till his lips resembled a half-moon on its back, and the lids and corners of his eyes were full of laughter wrinkles, while the eyes themselves were ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts

... River. Some of the potsherds were one-third of an inch thick, and large enough to show that they had been parts of a large jar. They were made of coarse paste, either gray or brown in colour. Some had a kind of rude finish, the marks of a coarse fibre cloth being clearly discernible on the outside. Others were primitively decorated with incisions. One sherd of really fine thin red ware was picked up, but there was no trace of ornamentation on it. We found, besides, a few cores of felsite and some shapeless flakes ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... wanting to perfect beauty. In nearly every old building which has gradually grown up, been altered and enlarged by various generations, as need arose, each generation working in its own style, and often with little regard to what already existed, incongruities are sure to be discernible. But what is lost in unity of design increases the interest in the building, historically and architecturally regarded. And it is worthy of notice that at Wimborne, more than at many places, the enlargers of the church have contented themselves with adding to the building without removing the ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory • Thomas Perkins

... Those without flowers contain more leaves, as in Horsechestnut. In the centre of these buds the leaves are small and undeveloped. The flower is very easy to examine, the floral envelopes, stamens and pistils, being plainly discernible. The bud may also be studied in cross-section. This shows the whole arrangement. The plan is not so simple as in Horsechestnut, where the leaves are opposite. The subject of leaf-arrangement should be passed over until phyllotaxy is ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell

... fifty-seven steps conducts to the truncated top of the teocalli, where the human victims were sacrificed. On each side of the great stairs is a flight of small stairs. The facing of the stories is adorned with hieroglyphics, in which serpents and crocodiles, carved in relievo, are discernible. Each story contains a great number of square niches, symmetrically distributed. In the first story we reckon twenty-four on each side, in the second twenty, and in the third sixteen. The number of these niches in the body ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson

... other Smritis.' For other Smritis, that of Manu e.g., teach that Brahman is the universal cause. Thus Manu says, 'This (world) existed in the shape of darkness, and so on. Then the divine Self existent, indiscernible but making discernible all this, the great elements and the rest, appeared with irresistible power, dispelling the darkness. He, desiring to produce beings of many kinds from his own body, first with a thought created the waters, and placed his seed in them' (Manu ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... in which the forest was extremely dense, and emerged upon a low hill, covered with oak, maple and elm, without much undergrowth. Here Henry was the first to see a low, barely discernible light upon the eastern horizon, and he called the attention of the others to it. All of them knew that it was the glow of the Indian campfire, and apparently nothing but heavy forest lay ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler

... Capons-grease, and let it gently melt together over the Fire, but not Boyl; then take a quantity of Wheat-ears, as you think your use shall require, and cut the straw about a foot long besides the Ears, and from the Ear lime the straw six Inches; the warmer it is, the less discernible it will be. Then to the Field adjacent, carrying a bag of Chaff, and thresh'd Ears, scatter them twenty Yards wide, and stick the lim'd ears (declining downwards) here, and there; Then traverse the Fields, disturb ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... in height at its greatest altitude, were formed of the soft rock, out of which it had been excavated apparently uncounted ages before. They were daubed with grotesque figures in faded, but still discernible, colors. Most of these figures had to do with scenes of violence, and in almost all of them the figure of what appeared to be an enormous rattlesnake, with ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering

... shore emptied his weapon, but with what success he could not tell. A head amid the dark waves was not easily discernible. Another and larger object, however, was plainly apparent about a hundred yards from land—a fishing-boat that swung at anchor. Would the other succeed in reaching it, for that was, no doubt, his purpose, or had one of the leaden missives told? The man, with weapon hot, ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham

... rapidly along through the lower rooms, now gleaming, now intercepted, as the walls or the windows intervened, and suddenly disappeared. Alonzo gazed earnestly a few moments, and hastily returned back. No noise was to be heard, no new objects were discernible.—He clambered over the garden wall, and went around to the back side of the house. Here all was solemn and silent as in front. Immediately a faint light appeared through one of the chamber windows; it grew brighter; a candle entered the chamber; the sash was flung up, and Melissa ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... is so constantly divided by numerous islands, that its great width is not discernible: it seldom has less than two or three channels, often more: it courses through a succession of bold bluffs, rising sometimes perpendicularly, and always abruptly from the banks or flat land, occasionally diversified by the prairies, which descend to the edge of the stream. These bluffs are similar ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... back-ribs', which should also be deep, as in a strong-bodied horse, of which we say, when so formed, that he has a good 'spur place;' a point highly esteemed in him. Nor is he sufficiently descriptive of the hinder legs of the hound; for there is a length of thigh discernible in first-rate hounds which, like the well-let-down hock of the horse, gives them much superiority of speed, and is also a great security against their laming themselves in leaping fences, which they are more apt to do when they become blown and consequently weak. The fore legs, ...
— The Dog - A nineteenth-century dog-lovers' manual, - a combination of the essential and the esoteric. • William Youatt

... in his History, inscribed to one of the most amiable and estimable of the Popes, in his public despatches, in his private memoranda, the same obliquity of moral principle for which The Prince is so severely censured is more or less discernible. We doubt whether it would be possible to find, in all the many volumes of his compositions, a single expression indicating that dissimulation and treachery had ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... again you may discover some slight defects which were not discernible at your first interview," observed Headland, smiling. "Did I not think this very possible I would advise you not to call at your cousins as you propose. Otherwise I should certainly say, keep out of ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston

... to Lang's—or the trail rather, for it consisted of two wheel-tracks scarcely discernible on the prairie grass and only to be guessed at in the sagebrush—lay straight south across a succession of flats, now wide, now narrow, cut at frequent intervals by the winding, wood-fringed Little Missouri; a region of green slopes and rocky walls and stately pinnacles and luxuriant ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn

... Nonnus we may see the method of deviation. Pharos, a tower, is taken for Pharos a garment; and this altered to [Greek: Chiton]: and, after all, the genuine history is discernible, notwithstanding the veil which is spread over it. The author says, that, at the bottom, [Greek: eueklostoio Chitonos], of the well-woven garment, flowed the Ocean, which surrounded the world. This is certainly ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... Tom, speaking with energetic decision, though there was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you will live to see the debts all paid. You shall pay them with ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... determined by our Understanding or Reason, is the ultimate test. "When a man keeps his word, there is a certain congruity or consistency between the action and the occasion, between the making of a promise and its fulfilment; and wherever such congruity is discernible, the action is right." This is the view of Cudworth, Clarke, and Price. It may be called the Intellectual or ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain

... with as much delight as they would show in scattering luster over an embroidered dress, or knitting the links of a coat of mail. But ships cannot be drawn at times of rest. More complicated in their anatomy than the human frame itself, so far as that frame is outwardly discernible; liable to all kinds of strange accidental variety in position and movement, yet in each position subject to imperative laws which can only be followed by unerring knowledge; and involving, in the roundings and foldings of sail and hull, delicacies of drawing greater than exist in any other inorganic ...
— The Harbours of England • John Ruskin

... the rein next him, and pulled the horses round almost at a right angle. The nave of the hind-wheel just shaved the post as it flew by. The whole thing passed so swiftly that before the market-gardener recovered from his consternation the engine was only discernible in the distance by the sparks that flew from its wheels as it held on ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne

... the window, but all they saw was Ademar crossing the inner court with rapid steps, and disappearing within the Earl's tower. There was some noise in the outer court, but no discernible solution of it. The ladies went back to their work. Much to their surprise, ten minutes later, the Earl himself entered the chamber. It was not at all his wont to come there. When he had occasion to send orders to Clarice concerning his household arrangements, he either sent for her or ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt

... judicious as prudently to advise, direct, inform, and satisfy the people in holy matters; when they demand it, or beg it from him. Which to perform readily and judiciously requires much more discretion and skill, than, upon long deliberation, to make a continued talk of an hour, without any great discernible failings. So that were a Minister tied up, never to speak one sentence of his own invention out of the pulpit in his whole lifetime; yet doubtless many other occasions there be, for which neither wisdom nor reputation ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe

... end of the lake, watching for an hour until it had slipped behind some point and was lost to sight. Then I scanned the heavens to see if the storm I knew must come would break before it was time for the yachting party to return. Low on the northern horizon clouds were mustering, their heads barely discernible above the rim of the world. But for the camel's warning I would not have seen them. The storm was surely coming. By six o'clock, or thereabouts, it would burst. The party was to have its fish-fry at six, at some point on the south shore. ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis

... seen better days; even a landsman could tell that. But from the blunt bows to the weather-scarred stern, on which the name was faintly discernible, the hulk had an air about it, the air of something that has lived; it was eloquent of a ...
— The Cruise of the Jasper B. • Don Marquis

... his broken sleep, all night, and he was back again at sunrise. It was a bright frosty morning. The whole composition before him, when he stood where he had stood last night, was clearly discernible in its minutest details. He had surveyed it closely for some minutes, and was about to withdraw his eyes, when they were ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens

... of this rapid spread over Africa are easily discernible. The Mohammedans, though they appeared at first as conquerors, became at length Africans by their permanent residence on the soil, and they went forth afterwards in propagating their faith, not as warriors, but as fellow-citizens ...
— The American Missionary, Volume 42, No. 12, December, 1888 • Various

... thunder and lightning were at work in the heavens in the direction of the adjacent continent: the air was full of wild, unnatural lucidity, as if the frequent flashes left a sort of twilight behind them; and objects were discernible at a distance of two or three leagues. We had been busy in the first watch, as the omens denoted easterly weather; the English bark was struggling along the troubled waters, already quite a league on our ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper

... far as is discernible from the immediate prospect, we cannot look to an early disappearance of deafness from the race, there are indications at present that deafness is tending to become less. The probabilities are that the future will be able to report advance, and ...
— The Deaf - Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their - Education in the United States • Harry Best

... yes, they were getting on. I took up my post by the window. It was really quite interesting to watch the boat getting smaller and smaller; finally I opened the window, even looked through my field-glasses. As it was not yet quite light, I could not see them very clearly, but the red hat was still discernible. Then the boat disappeared behind an island. I dressed and went down. The children were all still in bed, but the wife, Regine, was up. How calmly and naturally ...
— Look Back on Happiness • Knut Hamsun

... and this want are absolute, and that in this sense he is a thing of mere evil. They are frightful, but if they were absolute Iago would be a monster, not a man. The fact is, he tries to make them absolute and cannot succeed; and the traces of conscience, shame and humanity, though faint, are discernible. If his egoism were absolute he would be perfectly indifferent to the opinion of others; and he clearly is not so. His very irritation at goodness, again, is a sign that his faith in his creed is not entirely firm; and it is not entirely firm because he himself has ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley

... are several reasons discernible by us why Jesus Christ should thus be "appointed to judge ...
— Parish Papers • Norman Macleod

... forty-eight hours after reception of the injury. It shows well the small amount of gross destruction suffered by the subcutaneous tissue, and the rapid repair which follows, since macroscopically the track is scarcely discernible. Reference to plate I. shows the remarkable fact that even at this early date considerable progress towards definite healing has occurred, and a thin layer of stratified epidermis covers the original opening. The question may be raised whether the origin ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins

... bound with cords: there is she watched and kept without meat or sleep for the space of four-and-twenty hours (for they say within that time they shall see her imps come and suck); a little hole is likewise made in the door for the imps to come in at, and, lest they should come in some less discernible shape, they that watch are taught to be ever and anon sweeping the room, and if they see any spiders or flies to kill them; and if they cannot kill them, then they may be sure they are ...
— The Superstitions of Witchcraft • Howard Williams

... advance from the affected mannerism of his age to a more genuine tragic style. When we compare it with the Phaedra of Pradon, which was so well received by his contemporaries for no other reason than because no trace whatever of antiquity was discernible in it, but every thing reduced to the scale of a modern miniature portrait for a toilette, we must entertain a higher admiration of the poet who had so strong a feeling for the excellence of the ancient poets, and the courage to attach himself to them, and dared, ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel

... supernatural messenger. Frankly say that he was a man only, and we have really given up that intellectual ground of confidence in a God on which for many centuries men have stood. And, in that involuntary and most regretful surrender, and in the first impression following it, that the only discernible order is a mechanical order, with no room for worship, no hope of immortality, lies the tragedy of the thinking world to-day. For a multitude of minds, God is eclipsed, and the earth lies in shadow. In shadow, but not in despair. For still ...
— The Chief End of Man • George S. Merriam



Words linked to "Discernible" :   observable, discernable, evident, discern, noticeable, perceptible, indiscernible



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