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Ray   Listen
noun
Ray  n.  
1.
One of a number of lines or parts diverging from a common point or center, like the radii of a circle; as, a star of six rays.
2.
(Bot.) A radiating part of a flower or plant; the marginal florets of a compound flower, as an aster or a sunflower; one of the pedicels of an umbel or other circular flower cluster; radius. See Radius.
3.
(Zool.)
(a)
One of the radiating spines, or cartilages, supporting the fins of fishes.
(b)
One of the spheromeres of a radiate, especially one of the arms of a starfish or an ophiuran.
4.
(Physics)
(a)
A line of light or heat proceeding from a radiant or reflecting point; a single element of light or heat propagated continuously; as, a solar ray; a polarized ray.
(b)
One of the component elements of the total radiation from a body; any definite or limited portion of the spectrum; as, the red ray; the violet ray. See Illust. under Light.
5.
Sight; perception; vision; from an old theory of vision, that sight was something which proceeded from the eye to the object seen. "All eyes direct their rays On him, and crowds turn coxcombs as they gaze."
6.
(Geom.) One of a system of diverging lines passing through a point, and regarded as extending indefinitely in both directions. See Half-ray.
Bundle of rays. (Geom.) See Pencil of rays, below.
Extraordinary ray (Opt.), that one of two parts of a ray divided by double refraction which does not follow the ordinary law of refraction.
Ordinary ray (Opt.) that one of the two parts of a ray divided by double refraction which follows the usual or ordinary law of refraction.
Pencil of rays (Geom.), a definite system of rays.
Ray flower, or Ray floret (Bot.), one of the marginal flowers of the capitulum in such composite plants as the aster, goldenrod, daisy, and sunflower. They have an elongated, strap-shaped corolla, while the corollas of the disk flowers are tubular and five-lobed.
Ray point (Geom.), the common point of a pencil of rays.
Roentgen ray, Röntgen ray (Phys.), a form of electromagnetic radiation generated in a very highly exhausted vacuum tube by an electrical discharge; now more commonly called X-ray. It is composed of electromagnetic radiation of wavelength shorter than that of ultraviolet light but longer than that of gamma rays. It is capable of passing through many bodies opaque to light, and producing photographic and fluorescent effects by which means pictures showing the internal structure of opaque objects are made, called X-rays, radiographs, sciagraphs, X-ray photographs, radiograms. So called from the discoverer, W. C. Röntgen.
X ray, the Röntgen ray; so called by its discoverer because of its enigmatical character, x being an algebraic symbol for an unknown quantity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ray" Quotes from Famous Books



... obscure niche he now occupies no light falls upon his face—not a ray. If there did, it would disclose the countenance of Harry Blew; and as oft before, with an expression upon it not easily understood. But no one sees, much less makes ...
— The Flag of Distress - A Story of the South Sea • Mayne Reid

... all the winter's rage despise Defended by the riding-hood's disguise: Or underneath the umbrella's oily shed Safe through the wet on clinking pattens tread. Let Persian dames th' umbrellas rich display, To guard their beauties from the sunny ray, Or sweating slaves support the shady load, When Eastern monarchs show their state abroad, Britain in winter only knows its aid To guard from chilly showers the ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster

... with King Mithridates the fire, and even the altar upon which it burned, was swept away; then they say that it must not be lighted from another fire, but that an entirely new fire must be made, lighted by a pure and undefiled ray from the sun. They usually light it with mirrors made by hollowing the surface of an isosceles right-angled triangle, which conducts all the rays of light into one point. Now when it is placed opposite to the sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch

... or rather the stumble home, proved to be the worst part of the expedition. Not a ray of starlight had we to guide us,—nothing but inky blackness around and over us. We tried to make Nettle go first, intending to follow his lead, and trusting to his keeping the track; but Nettle's place was at my heels, and neither coaxing ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker

... not a mere bricklayer of words, has what for want of better epithet is called a style. There be writers whose style is broad and deep and lucid like a lake. It shimmers bravely as some ray of fancy touches it, or it tosses in billows with some stormy stress of feeling. And yet, you who read must spread some personal sail and bring some gale of favoring interest all your own, to carry you ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis

... for whom he cared could ever have a right in this lovely house. When these guests had gone he would shut up the place forever, unless——. But possibilities of delight seemed very vague to Stephen as he stood there in his home unlighted by Katie's presence. All at once he felt a long keen ray from Sir Temple's eyes upon his face. That gentleman had a fondness for making out his own narratives of people and things; he preferred Mss. to print, that is, the Mss. of the histories he found ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various

... selected as corral boss of the detachment. The most picturesque figure, the most boyish member, and as brave a soldier as ever shouldered a musket; broad of shoulder, stout of limb, full of joke, as cheerful as a ray of sunlight, this man was the incarnation of courage and devotion. He loved a mule. He was proud of the job. With the instinct of a true teamster, he had snapped up the best pair of mules in the whole corral and was out before the detachment ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... a darkened room, when the pin is illuminated by a ray of sunlight coming through a ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman

... me, my feres five, And see ye kelp of me guid ray; And the worst cloak o' this company Even yet may cross ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3) • Walter Scott

... the world, can be indifferent to the movements and destiny of this little colony. Henceforth, Antigua is the morning star of our nation, and though it glimmers faintly through a lurid sky, yet we hail it, and catch at every ray as the token of a bright sun which may yet burst gloriously ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... lustrous brow The golden curls fell sportively unpent, While through the choir she went With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground, Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair; But still her jealous hair Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, With hand of purest hue, Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. Then from her eyes a soul so fiery ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds

... Grecian mythology and Elizabethan poetry exerted a stronger influence over him than his medical instructor. One day when Keats should have been listening to a surgical lecture, "there came," he says, "a sunbeam into the room and with it a whole troop of creatures floating in the ray: and I was off with them to Oberon ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck

... look to her—and the whole nation to look to her—now when she can barely struggle with her wretched existence! Her misery—her utter despair—she cannot describe! Her only support—the only ray of comfort she gets for a moment, is in the firm conviction and certainty of his nearness, his undying love, and of their eternal reunion! Only she prays always, and pines for the latter with an anxiety she cannot describe. Like dear Lady Canning, the Queen's ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria

... soaring shape, like air-launched eagle, seemed To fill the sky, and shadow half the world? As well the Eagle's self might be expected To second the small jay! My shadow, mine? Yes, but distorted by the skew-cast ray Of a far lesser sun than lit the noon Of my meridian glory. So I spurn The shrunken simulacrum! And they shriek, Shout censure at me, the cur-crowd who crouched, Ere that a woman's hate and a boy's pride Smote ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... is love; the root and fountain of all love which is in you and me, and angels, and all created beings. And therefore his love is as much greater than ours, or than the love of angels and archangels, as the whole sun is greater than one ray of sun-light. Say rather, as much greater and more glorious as the sun is greater and more glorious than the light which sparkles in the dew-drop on the grass. The love and goodness and holiness of a saint or an angel is the light in that dew-drop, borrowed ...
— The Good News of God • Charles Kingsley

... lifted his gaze at last, for she was close beside him. And what a ray of loving old-comradeship shone on him from those star-bright orbs of hers, undulled by the years that had lightly frosted her dark hair. She put out her hand, and held it out until he had apologised for his greasy paw, and given it ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge

... to accuse the old monk of having lost his wits; but what was afterwards his sorrow, when he saw his three plants gradually fading away in their spring-time! With each setting sun a leaf fell and dried up, while the leaves of the other stems thrived more and more with every breeze, every ray of the sun, every drop of dew. He went to dream every day before his dear plants, with exceeding sadness. He soon saw them wither away, even to the last leaf. On the same day the others ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various

... recluse. He would pass the time of day with his neighbors when he met them in the street, but he was never known to enter into conversation with any one. The blinds were always drawn in his front windows, and at night there was not a ray of light to be seen about the house. His only servants were a couple somewhat advanced in years, who were as foreign and uncommunicative as himself. The master of the house would be away for months at a time and the neighbors had all sorts ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various

... God and His righteousness?" Laura Filbert's clear glance was disturbed by a ray of curiosity, but the inflexible quality of her ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)

... Selected Essays of Frederick Jackson Turner, intro. by Ray Allen Billington (Englewood Cliffs, ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf

... saving her lover, Franklin, by teeth and bleeding hands. Dora, the patient, serving a loveless existence, saving her rival from starvation and destitution. The stern, dark, exiled Florentine poet, with that one silver ray in his clouded life—Beatrice. ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... scarce could count a minute, Ere the bright dome and all within it, Kings, Fiddlers, Emperors, all were gone— And nothing now was seen or heard But the bright river, rushing on, Happy as an enfranchised bird, And prouder of that natural ray, Shining along its chainless way— More proudly happy thus to glide In simple grandeur to the sea, Than when, in sparkling fetters tied, 'Twas deckt with all that kingly pride Could ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... engineer, or of the merely accomplished soldier, that points the way to heroic achievements. It is the vivid inspiration that enables its happy possessor, at critical moments, to see and follow the bright clear line, which, like a ray of light at midnight, shining among manifold doubtful indications, guides his steps. Whether it leads him to success or to failure, he may not know; but that it is the path of wisdom, of duty, and of honor, he knows full well by the persuasion within,—by conviction, the ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... has found its way into every garden, for it increases rapidly, is very hardy, and its brightness commends it to all. It is the "most gladsome of the early flowers. None gives more glowing welcome to the season, or strikes on our first glance with a ray of keener pleasure, when, with some bright morning's warmth, the solitary golden fringes have kindled into knots of thick-clustered yellow bloom on the borders of the cottage garden. At a distance the eye is caught by that glowing patch, its warm heart open to the sun, and dear to the ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe

... moment he had revealed a fragment of decomposed quartz, like discolored honeycombed cheese, half filling the pan. But on its side, where the pick had struck it glancingly, there was a yellow streak like a ray of sunshine! And as he strove to lift it he felt in that unmistakable omnipotency of weight that it was ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... night when three bells strike the hour Up in the old clock's lofty tower, A flashing beam, a darting ray Their message of ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... the hallway, a door went shut hastily, cutting off the laugh of a woman taken by surprise. A senseless noise oozed from the walls, worse than silence. From under each door a broken ray of light ...
— The Inferno • Henri Barbusse

... machinations? But Black Claus, the witchfinder, is there to wrestle with the powers of evil. And hear me! That fair sweet girl is the only comfort of my wretched life. My soul grows calm and soothed when I look upon that lovely face. A ray of sunshine gleams upon the darkness of my path when her smile beams upon me. My heart leaps within me for joy when her small white hand drops an offering into my beggar's bowl. She is my only life, my only joy, and my guardian angel. And couldst thou harm her, woman, no torment should ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various

... only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... entitled to twenty-four.[12] There are tales of him which do indeed seem most marvellous of the things that he did; as, for instance, how he made ready an army because one day in the morning, while standing dressing at a window which was closed, a ray of the sun came into his eyes, and he cried out that he would not rest until he had killed or vanquished whomsoever had dared to enter his apartments while he was dressing. All his nobles could not dissuade him from his purpose, even though they told him it was the sun ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell

... vastness and secrets trembling to disclosure. Life was intolerably dull and stupid, and its taste was bad in his mouth. A black screen was drawn across his mirror of inner vision, and fancy lay in a darkened sick-room where entered no ray of light. He envied Joe, down in the village, rampant, tearing the slats off the bar, his brain gnawing with maggots, exulting in maudlin ways over maudlin things, fantastically and gloriously drunk and forgetful of Monday ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London

... their developments to our senses, suggest to us the notion of cause and effect, and of what are called the laws of nature. This doctrine I have drawn out in my Sermon for Michaelmas day, written in 1831. I say of the Angels, "Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God." Again, I ask what would be the thoughts of a man who, "when examining a flower, or a herb, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman

... the room, who stopped short as it fell upon her ears. She stood there looking, consciously and rather seriously, at Mr. Ransom; a smile of exceeding faintness played about her lips—it was just perceptible enough to light up the native gravity of her face. It might have been likened to a thin ray of moonlight resting upon the ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... how, even now, the chained dog that stood on the bridge was found every morning hung over the railing in his chain. All these tales recurred to Joergen's mind, and made him shiver; and there was but one sun ray which shone upon him, and that was the recollection of the blooming ...
— The Sand-Hills of Jutland • Hans Christian Andersen

... the town into action. Plans for a better kind of tenement were called for, and a premium was put on every ray of light and breath of air that could be let into it. It was not much, for the plans clung to the twenty-five-foot lot which was the primal curse, and the type of tenement evolved, the double-decker of the "dumb-bell" shape, while it seemed at the time a great advance upon the ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... a dungeon where no ray of daylight ever penetrated, loaded with chains, and scantily supplied with the coarsest food. No wonder despair took possession of his heart, and he longed for death as a relief, when one night (or one day, for both were equally dark to him) ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... possessive case, they are construed as nouns; and, if wholly such, have neither adverbs nor active regimen: as, "He laugheth at the shaking of a spear."—Job, xli, 29. "There is no searching of his understanding."—Isaiah, xl, 28. "In their setting of their threshold by ray threshold."—Ezekiel, xliii, 8. "That any man should make my glorying void."—1 Cor., ix, 15. The terms so converted form the class of verbal or participial nouns. But some late authors—(J. ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown

... mind in them that was in Christ Jesus! to what dreadful liabilities was he continually subjected! how destitute of friendly counsel and aid, even in his greatest extremities! how heavy was the midnight of woe which shrouded in blackness the last ray of hope, and filled the future with terror and gloom! what longings after freedom took possession of his breast, and how his misery augmented, in proportion as he grew reflective and intelligent,—thus demonstrating that a happy slave is an extinct man! how ...
— The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - An American Slave • Frederick Douglass

... The Prana Aura. The Auric Colors. Thought Forms. The X-Ray Sense. Microscopic Vision. Space Clairvoyance. The Psychic Telescope. Radio-Activity. Sensing the Higher Vibrations. Viewing Distant Scenes. Time Clairvoyance. Past Time Clairvoyance. The Mystery Seeing the Past. Analogies of the Physical Plane. Thousand Year Old Light. Reading the ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita

... to the God that is lame, And crave from the fire on his stithy a ray; Philosophers kneel to the God without name, Like the people of Athens, agnostics are they; The hunter a fawn to Diana will slay, The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours; But the wise man will ask, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford

... worse off than the higher plains of Assyria. A temperature of 120 deg. in the shade is no unusual occurrence in Baghdad; true, it can be reduced to 100 deg. in the cellars of the houses by carefully excluding the faintest ray of light, and it is there that the inhabitants mostly spend their days in summer. The oppression is such that Europeans are entirely unmanned and unfitted for any kind of activity. "Camels sicken, and birds are so distressed by the high ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin

... emblem of perpetual union! Let the foundations be laid, let the superstructure be built up and cemented, let each stone be raised and reverted, In a spirit of national brotherhood! And may the earliest ray of the rising sun—till that sun shall set to rise no more—draw forth from it dally, as from the fabled statue of antiquity, a strain of national harmony, which shall strike a responsive chord in every heart ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... shutters were closed, with the exception of one small opening, that, in daylight, would have admitted a straggling ray of light to fall upon the corpse. Now, however, that the sombre shades of evening had wrapped everything in gloom, the room appeared in total darkness, so that the most of those adventurers who had ventured into the place shrunk back until lights were procured from the lower part ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... of men one blazing morning, and the sound of the cutting-machine was a music that carried me back to days when I had followed the reaper in the Mississippi Valley, from the first ray of sunrise to the last ray of sunset, eaten five times a day, drunk water out of a jug under the shock, and once picked up a bundle with a snake in it and jumped fourteen feet, more or less, straight ...
— Dwellers in Arcady - The Story of an Abandoned Farm • Albert Bigelow Paine

... as a surveyor knows a garden-plot he has measured. He watches the snows that gather around the poles of Mars; he is on the lookout for the expected comet at the moment when its faint stain of diffused light first shows itself; he analyzes the ray that comes from the sun's photosphere; he measures the rings of Saturn; he counts his asteroids to see that none are missing, as the shepherd counts the sheep in his flock. A strange unearthly being; lonely, dwelling far apart ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... imagination wove its sweet fancies around this hero of her dreams, and she began unconsciously to look forward to the time when she should meet him again. Well for her that it was so! for she was a "pale meek blossom" unsuited for rough blasts, and the only ray of sunshine which was ever to fall across her life lay in the love ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt

... their beards. I am not disposed either to question or to justify their Scandinavian origin; [8] nor to pursue the migrations of the Lombards through unknown regions and marvellous adventures. About the time of Augustus and Trajan, a ray of historic light breaks on the darkness of their antiquities, and they are discovered, for the first time, between the Elbe and the Oder. Fierce, beyond the example of the Germans, they delighted to propagate the tremendous belief, that their heads were formed like the heads of dogs, and that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon

... as the first faint beam in mercy shewn Unto the barren-sighted, Where, on the yet unbroken darkness thrown, A sunny ray hath lighted, The glory of thy presence streameth down On us, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various

... her sky—the whole of life seemed stretching out before her filled with the promise of love and happiness. And now, with unbelievable suddenness, black and bitter storm-clouds had arisen and covered the entire heavens, till not even a flickering ray of light was visible. She remembered her strange, unconquerable fear of the yacht ... like a sleek cat watching at a mousehole.... Well, the cat had sprung now—leaped suddenly, striking into her very heart with ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... rose-colored, all the aspirations of his manhood, for recognition, honor, a place in the life of his time, were mere illusions compared to this wonderful crown of life—a woman's love. Where did it come from into this miserable world, this heavenly ray, this pure gift out of the divine beneficence, this spotless flower in a humanity so astray, this sure prophecy of the final redemption of the world? The immeasurable love of a good woman! And to him! Philip felt humble ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... would be improbable that a river canoe could live any time worth mentioning. Progress below 'Como Point by means of mere paddling he considered impossible. There was nothing for it but a big sailing canoe, and there was no big sailing canoe to be had. I think Mr. Glass got a ray of comfort out of the fact that Messrs. John Holt's sub-agent was, equally with himself, unable to ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... plying her ever active needle, at the same small window which overlooked the churchyard. The declining sun was throwing dark shadows across the graves. A ray of it gleamed on a corner of the particular tombstone which, being built against her house, slightly encroached upon her window. No one was with the old woman save a large cat, to whom she was in the habit ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... returned again into this land; and soon after that he let his men build castles on the borders. Then upon the feast of St. Michael, the fourth day before the nones of October, (125) appeared an uncommon star, shining in the evening, and soon hastening to set. It (126) was seen south-west, and the ray that stood off from it was thought very long, shining south-east. And it appeared on this wise nearly all the week. Many men supposed that it was a comet. Soon after this Archbishop Anselm of Canterbury obtained leave (127) of the king (though it was contrary ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown

... Him whose eternal thought every living thing, humble or sublime, translates after its own fashion. He speaks to you in the dark nights and in the bright light of dawn, in the infinite radiance of the worlds beyond all reckoning, and in the humble stalk that awaits, in the valley bottom, its ray of light and its drop of dew. Listen!—If there is anguish in the voice of poor humanity, there are in great nature profound words of soothing, of hope. Look at the flower in the fields, listen to the birds in the skies! After the distrest voices ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various

... Clerkenwell Green; with Mutton Lane on the East and the fields on the West. By Town's End Lane (called Coppice Row since the levelling of the coppice-crowned knoll over which it ran) through Pickled-Egg Walk (now Crawford's Passage) one came to Hockley-in-the-Hole or Hockley Hole, now Ray Street. The leveller has been at work upon the eminences that surrounded it. In Hockley Hole, dealers in rags and old iron congregated. This gave it the name of Rag Street, euphonized into Ray Street since 1774. In the Spectator's time its Bear Garden, upon the site of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... in the lobby; the remembered syllables which he had uttered mingled with the faint scent of his broadcloth, the whiteness of his wristbands, the gleam of his studs, the droop of his moustaches, the downward ray of his glance, and the proud, nimble carriage of his great limbs,—and formed in her mind the image of an ideal. An image regarded not with any tenderness, but with naive admiration, and unquestioning respect! And yet also with more than that, for when she ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... the rain and make the greens grow," were old Sally's last words. But there did not seem much chance of rain yet, for the sun was still shining splendidly, and as the children entered the shadowy barn, Tuvvy's dark figure was lighted up by a ray which came straight through the little window. Maisie seated herself modestly in the background on a chopping-block, while Dennis asked his questions, for she was rather in awe of Tuvvy, though she liked the barn very much, ...
— Black, White and Gray - A Story of Three Homes • Amy Walton

... S. Wright, Reverend Charles B. Ray, and Dr. J. McCune Smith, three representative Negroes of New York City, to make out a list of the Negroes who should receive from him parcels of land. His only restrictions upon them in making this selection were that ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various

... of Vicenza was at Chatillon or Lusigny for the purpose of treating for a peace, the orders of the Emperor delayed or hastened the conclusion of the treaty according to his successes or repulses. On the appearance of a ray of hope he demanded more than they were willing to grant, imitating in this respect the example which the allied sovereigns had set him, whose requirements since the armistice of Dresden increased in proportion as they advanced towards France. At last everything was finally broken ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... ruined itself whilst it ruined the monarchy. It carried the hatred of the Revolution even to posterity; and though they did not take an active part in the crimes of the Revolution, yet their best wishes were with it. Every fresh excess of the people gave a new ray of hope to its enemies: such is the policy of despair, blind and ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... The swift obedient utmost flight Of radiant sky-wide waves of light, Far couriers of the central sun, Crossing a million miles as one— Still going—going— Limitless joy that needs no knowing Each last least flickering ray One with the ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... when it moved again. Muller had drawn his right leg back with his knee bent a trifle, and there was a rattle as he brought the long fork down to the charge. Thus, when the man was free the deadly points twinkled in a ray from the lantern within a foot of his breast. It was also unpleasantly evident that a heave of the farmer's shoulder would bury them in ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss

... know it. Nor come I here to supplicate your pardon; nor has my heart contained a ray of hope that you would grant it. All I dare ask is, that you will ...
— The Stranger - A Drama, in Five Acts • August von Kotzebue

... boat is thrown a vivid ray of sunshine. You'd think that it wuz the real thing, and that you could warm your fingers at it, but it hain't—it is only painted sunshine. But it beats all I ever see; I wouldn't hesitate for a minute to use ...
— Samantha at the World's Fair • Marietta Holley

... eclipses enabled astronomers to make. It was thus found that light travels at the enormous speed of about one hundred and eighty-five thousand miles per second. It moves so quickly that within a single second a ray would flash two hundred times from London to ...
— Young Folks' Library, Volume XI (of 20) - Wonders of Earth, Sea and Sky • Various

... perceive," said the king, "the divinity who dissipates the storm, and brings back fine weather." In fact, even as the king spoke, a ray of sunlight streamed through the forest, and caused the rain-drops which rested upon the leaves, or fell vertically among the openings in the branches of the trees, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... sat closely guarded in the apartments of the Stadholder, while the country and very soon all Europe were ringing with the news of his downfall, imprisonment, and disgrace. The news was a thunder-bolt to the lovers of religious liberty, a ray of dazzling sunlight after a ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... stories his favorite companion had related to him. What curious and subtle processes had the queer fellow not been watching in the closely guarded quiet of the room where the stranger had spent his days; the strange thing cowering in its darkness; the ray of light piercing the cloud one day and seeming lost again the next; the struggles the imprisoned thing made to come forth— to cry out that it was but immured, not wholly conquered, and that some hour ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... head. "Couldn't give you another ray to save my life," he said; "but if you send for a few of my friends, they will be happy to come and ...
— The Butterfly's Ball - The Grasshopper's Feast • R.M. Ballantyne

... the ranks of labor goes the salt of pride of profession, preventing rot and keeping all fresh in the main, because on the humblest of the workers there shines the bright ray of hope of recognition and advancement, progress and success. As long as this vista is seen stretching before all is well with labor. There will be friction, of course, between capital and labor, but it will be healthy friction, ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... father was sometimes better and sometimes worse. "But he has never been so very, very bad, since Henry Grantly and mamma's cousin came and told us about the cheque." That word Henry Grantly made the dean understand that there might yet be a ray of sunshine among ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope

... cloud what giant shapes career! The ghosts of Ossian skim the misty vale, And hosts of sylphids on the moonbeams sail. This gloomy alcove darkling to the sight, Where meeting trees create eternal night; Save, when from yonder stream the sunny ray, Reflected, gives a dubious gleam of day; Recalls, endearing to my alter'd mind, Times, when beneath the boxen hedge reclined, I watch'd the lapwing to her clamorous brood; Or lured the robin to its scatter'd food; Or woke with song the woodland echo wild, And at each gay response ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White

... to dig for her was a question I could not answer. To assist me, I brought the supposed craft of the red man's children to bear; but of no avail. Not one of over two hundred could give me the least ray of light. Then I got down to principles and discovered that there were some mounds around which were scattered butterflies' and grasshoppers' legs and wings, parts of frogs and toads, and the little pellets usually ejected by owls in the process of digestion. I also found that ...
— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... at the crash and at Walter's cry. The boy had grabbed up the torch and pressed the switch. He shot the round ray of the lamp into ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr

... daughter of Videha's King, And the fair blossom soon from her to spring, As erst, obedient to my sire's command, I left the empire of the sea-girt land. Good is my queen, and spotless; but the blame Is hard to bear, the mockery and the shame. Men blame the pure Moon for the darkened ray, When the black shadow takes the light away. And, O my brothers, if ye wish to see Rama live long from this reproach set free, Let not your pity labour to control The firm sad purpose of his ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... carved in the living rock were just behind the face of the precipice, and in each of these an arrow-slit had been pierced outward to the daylight, and so the captive had a thin ray from the blessed sun for his comfort. The case of one of these poor fellows was particularly hard. From his dusky swallow's hole high up in that vast wall of native rock he could peer out through the arrow-slit and see his ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... I want just to see a ray of the sun," said Hippolyte. "Can one drink to the sun's health, do ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... conversations of the rabbis must be instructive"]: Some sailors reported to me what follows: "The wave which engulfs [which tries to engulf] a vessel seems to have at its head [seems to be preceded by] a ray of white fire [a white flame, which is a wicked angel]. But we beat it with rods (alvata (Alef Lamed Vav Vav Tav Alef) [rods, as in these words 'neither with a rod ((Alef Lamed He)) nor with a lance' in the treatise Shabbat ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber

... when held opposite the sun admitted the light against the inside of the ring behind. On this was marked the hours and the quarters, and the time was known by observing the number or the quarter on which the slender ray that came in from ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... If there was one ray of light in the whole of the ghastly business, it was that Mary Bolitho's name had never been mentioned. The truth was, no one knew of his dreams concerning her. No one fancied that he had ever given her a thought. It was generally believed in the ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking

... followed the views held by the Babylonians and Assyrians regarding the life after death. Everything connected with death is gloomy. The grave is as dark as Aralu; the funeral rites consist of dirges that lament not so much the loss sustained by the living as the sad fate in store for the dead. Not a ray of sunshine illumines the darkness that surrounds these rites. All that is hoped for is to protect the dead against the attack of demons greedy for human flesh, to secure rest for the body, and to guard the dead ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow

... her with that bright expression in his eyes and with the smile that she had always liked so much, which lighted up like a ray of sunshine the ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson

... chimaerae, or little sea-wolves, by some, which is akin to, and about the size of, the pezegallo, or elephant-fish. Sharks, likewise, sometimes frequent the Sound, for the natives have some of their teeth in their possession; and we saw some pieces of ray, or scate, which seemed to have been pretty large. The other marine animals that ought to be mentioned here, are a small cruciated medusa, or blubber, star-fish, which differ somewhat from the common ones, two small sorts of crabs, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr

... early sister, ere the sun, Has, from behind yon hill, his course begun? Scarce has the swallow to the morning ray, Ventur'd to modulate his twittering lay. The early cock, whom richest plumes adorn Has yet but faintly hail'd the golden morn; Whilst thou, to some unknown attraction true, With hasty footsteps brush the silv'ry dew! What festival to-day, do you prepare, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis

... about to plunge; no longer reflecting that our eyes now and for ever were and would be the only ones which might perceive the divine magnificence of this terrestrial exhibition. An enthusiastic transport, akin to happiness, burst, like a sudden ray from the sun, on our darkened life. Precious attribute of woe-worn humanity! that can snatch extatic emotion, even from under the very share and harrow, that ruthlessly ploughs up and lays ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley

... around the tent, as if for moral support, but didn't find any. A singular quiet had fallen on the place; a sort of disconcerting quiet. A warning ray of sense must have come into Dorgan's fuddled brain as he looked again at the old puncher, for without a word he ...
— Injun and Whitey to the Rescue • William S. Hart

... hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, Representative John J. Jenkins, in the chair, expressed regret that George W. Ray of New York, the chairman, was unavoidably absent and said: "He is very much in sympathy with what the ladies desire to say this morning—much more so than the present occupant of the chair." Mrs. Carrie ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper

... who is a vastly better cicerone. The present ambassador in Japan is, of course, one of the foremost men of this generation. His Balkan studies are as supremely competent as his monumental work on British Nudibranchiate Mollusca, published by the Ray Society when Sir Charles, having resigned the Governorship of East Africa, was Vice-Chancellor of Sheffield University. Equally admired are his researches into Chinese linguistics and his monograph, the first in the language, on that most obscure subject, Finnish ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein

... was made. They sat there in silence till the grey light of morning crept slowly in. Still they did not lie down to rest; they were waiting for De Casson. He came before a ray of sunshine had pierced the leaden light. Tall, massive, proudly built, his white hair a rim about his forehead, his deep eyes watchful and piercing, he looked a soldier in disguise, as indeed he was to-day as much a soldier as when he fought ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... few moments a light was produced, and placed aloft on a crag in the cavern; but the ray it gave was feeble and dull, and left all beyond the immediate spot in which they stood, in a darkness little ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... her mouth when the mist passed away from them, and from all the seaward expanse of ocean. Not a wrack of it was left, and in its place the strong sea-breath beat upon their faces. Far in the west the angry disc of the sun was sinking into the foam. A great red ray shot from its bent edge and lay upon the awakened waters, like a path of fire. The ominous light fell full upon the little boat and full upon Beatrice's lips. Then it passed on and lost itself in the deep mists which still ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard

... with gills resembling those of the cyclostomes but whose lower jaw is free-moving. This order, which is the most important in the class, consists of two families. Examples: the ray and the shark." ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne

... minarets of spruce and pine bulked close and sprinkled with snow. Blanketed in white, the upland mesas lay like great, tideless lakes, silent and desolate from green-edged shore to shore. The shadowy caverns of the timberlands, touched here and there with a ray of sunlight, thrilled to the creeping fingers of the cold. Tough fibers of the stiff-ranked pines parted with a crackling groan, as though unable to bear silently the reiterant stabbing of the frost needles. The frozen gum of the black spruce glowed ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... thy mystic altar, heavenly truth, I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth. Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay, And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray.'" ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... lying in that sick-chamber brutalized, crime-stained, ignorant as the bullocks of the plains, and, like them, reared and driven for the slaughter; yet there was not one among them to whom some ray of light failed to come from those words, through whom some thrill failed to pass as they heard them. Out yonder in the free air, in the barrack court, or on the plains, the Little One would rate them furiously, mock them ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]

... Darwin, and in that of the designer of Jesse tree windows, but it had kindled no fire; it now turns out that Canon Kingsley had once called instinct inherited memory, {40a} but the idea, if born alive at all, died on the page on which it saw light: Professor Ray Lankester, again called attention to Professor Hering's address (Nature, July 13, 1876), but no discussion followed, and the matter dropped without having produced visible effect. As for offspring remembering in any legitimate sense of the words what it had done, ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler

... out a sudden ray of light; and by it both the half-throttled boy and the wholly frightened girl could see the man who had thus intruded himself upon ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... myriads of stars are now seen surrounded by nebulous haze. We put a higher aperture on, and thus pierce further and further into space; the haze is resolved into myriads more stars, and more haze comes up from the deep beyond, showing that the visual ray was not yet strong enough to fathom the mighty distance; but let the full aperture be applied and mark the result. Mist and haze have disappeared; the telescope has pierced right through the stupendous distance, and only ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein

... hard to beat; but beaten it would be, by the brutality of the bullet which had inflicted an internal injury past repair, against which the energy of the boy's youth might hold out for a few days—not more. That was why he had been allowed to bring his son home—to die. If there had been a ray, a possibility of hope, every resource of science would have been brought to bear on saving him, there in that casualty clearing-station, itself a large hospital, where ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... thank him for permitting me to work up the results. Our thanks are due to Dr. Hose, at whose invitation we went to Sarawak, and without whose zeal, knowledge of the country, and wonderful influence over the natives this work could not have been accomplished. Mr. S. H. Ray also assisted us as amanuensis. Most of the figures were tabulated for me by Miss Barbara Friere-Marreco and the remainder by Miss Lilian Whitehouse, who also has greatly assisted me ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall

... lolling, see-sawing method of balancing his body upon his chair; the other, erect and solemn, and as steady on his seat as if he were nailed to it. It was a fine, tranquil balmy evening; the sun had just set, and the clouds still retained the rosy tints which they had caught from his parting ray. Here and there, at scattered intervals, you might see the cottages peeping from the trees around them; or mark the smoke that rose from their roofs—roofs green with mosses and house-leek,—in graceful and spiral curls against the clear soft air. It was an English scene, ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... a couple of mouthfuls, I decided that I was unable to appreciate the merits of my cake, as I had been, after repeated efforts, to appreciate those of a somewhat similar concoction known under the name of "Vyazemsky." So I gave the cake to the grateful stewardess, and went out on deck to look at a ray of sunlight. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... The heavens open in a circular whirl among the storm darkness, cherubs whirling distantly like innumerable motes in a sunbeam; the angel steps forward on a ray of light, projecting into the ink-black night. The herds have perceived the vision, and rush headlong in all directions, while the trees groan beneath the blast of that opening of heaven. A horse, seen in profile, with the light striking on his ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)

... he was far too excited to sleep, such a ray of gratitude for his sympathy shone from Sabine's eyes that our hero was mightily moved, and did ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag

... precious, and worthy of study, inasmuch as it enshrines the imperishable monuments of the thought and genius of the race on whose lips it was born. The study of the words and forms in which a nation clothed its thoughts throws many a ray of light on phases of the evolution of the race itself, which would otherwise have remained dark. The history of a language and literature is in some measure an epitome of the history of a people. We miss all these points of interest in your artificial language, and we shall, therefore, refuse ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark

... Loc made a sign to his treasurer who, raising heavy tapestries, disclosed an enormous iron-bound coffer covered with plates of open ironwork. This coffer being opened out poured thousands of rays of different and lovely tints, and each ray seemed to leap out of a precious stone most artistically cut. King Loc dipped in his hands and there flowed in glittering confusion violet amethysts and virgins' stones, emeralds of three kinds, one dark green, another called the honey emerald because of its colour, and the ...
— Honey-Bee - 1911 • Anatole France

... had gone and twilight was just merging into night. A ray of light from the lantern at the end of the quay went trembling across the sea, and in the little harbour the dusky shapes of a few small craft lay motionless ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs

... response. He opened the door wide, and in low, something tremulous tones, invited her to enter; then caught up a chair, dusted it with his bonnet, and placed it for her by the window, where a red ray of the setting sun fell on a huge flowered hydrangea. Her quick eye caught sight of his ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald

... made five days after the Arabic's destruction, was viewed as the first ray of hope in the crisis. A disavowal of unfriendly intent was seen in the regrets expressed for the loss of American lives. There was a disposition to credit Germany with cherishing a desire to avert a rupture with the United States and to go to ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)

... call the octopus a devil-fish," said Mr. Choate. "This is all wrong. They are both large and vicious creatures, but entirely different in looks. The devil-fish belongs to the ray family, and, as you see, is a huge bat-like creature which uses its body fins with a waving, undulating motion, and propels itself through ...
— Around the World in Ten Days • Chelsea Curtis Fraser

... woollen petticoat in black and gray stripes, too short by several inches, exposed her legs. She might have belonged to some tribe of Red-Skins described by Cooper, for her legs, neck, and arms were the color of brick. No ray of intelligence enlivened her vacant face. A few whitish hairs served her for eyebrows; the eyes themselves, of a dull blue, were cold and wan; and her mouth was so formed as to show the teeth, which were crooked, but as white as those of ...
— Adieu • Honore de Balzac

... began to hum a tune over softly. It was as black now as it was in the deepest part of the ancient quarry, but that did not seem to matter, for it was only the darkness of evening, and if he waited there and kept on working, he would see, first of all, a long pallid ray that would grow brighter, and bring as it were some light and hope, while as soon as he could get out a stone he would be able to see the sea, perhaps even make out the cutter, ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... for a Martha and Mary. Their eyes were just of the same colour, but a striking test of the difference in their operation was seen in the demeanour of Trip, the black-and-tan terrier, whenever that much-suspected dog unwarily exposed himself to the freezing arctic ray of Mrs. Poyser's glance. Her tongue was not less keen than her eye, and, whenever a damsel came within earshot, seemed to take up an unfinished lecture, as a barrel-organ takes up a tune, precisely at the point where it ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot

... was equipped and lighted: and was in fact very soon abandoned. It has been said that the site was too elevated, that it would be quite obscured by fogs and mists in those very seasons when its friendly ray was the most required;—it might be so, but certainly that was never proved by the experiment: and it seems strange that these grounds of objection were not suggested to the projectors ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon

... weary, Not flattering itself to die for thee. And yet, thank God, it was one moment only, That, lapt in darkness and the loss of thee, Sun of my soul, and half my senses dead Through very weariness and lack of love, My heart throbbed once responsive to a ray That glimmered through its gloom from other eyes, And seemed to promise rest and hope again. My presence shall not grieve thee any more, My Julian, my husband. I will find A quiet place where I will seek thy God. ...
— The Poetical Works of George MacDonald in Two Volumes, Volume I • George MacDonald

... Blaine had been notified! Could she depend on that Miss Craig, who had melted away at the first approach of peril? Yet surely there must be help! Did not the Woman's League keep a lawyer in the court? Would he not be ready to defend her? That was a ray of hope! She cheered up wonderfully under it. She began to feel that it was somehow glorious to thus serve the cause she was sworn to serve. She even had a dim hope—almost a fear—that her father had been sent for. She wanted to see a familiar face, even though ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim

... the Potomac to-night, Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming, Their tents in the ray of the clear autumn moon, And the light of the watch-fires gleaming. A tremulous sigh from the gentle night wind Through the forest leaves slowly is creeping, While the stars up above, with their glittering eyes, Keep watch while ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof

... a long pause after this. I stood straight up against the wall, my heart still going like a sledge-hammer, but with a ray of hope now shining in my bosom. Silver leant back against the wall, his arms crossed, his pipe in the corner of his mouth, as calm as though he had been in church; yet his eye kept wandering furtively, and he kept ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... hast! I will not sprinkle golden powder on it; it gleams of itself in one place and another with gold, where it waves. I will add, perhaps, barely a sprinkle here and there; but lightly, lightly, as if a sun ray had freshened it. Wonderful must thy Lygian country be where such ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... to remove the barricade until a thin ray of sunlight appeared through a crack in the ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne

... situation Mrs. Page was confined of a daughter, on the 31st of March; and this miserable life continued from the 4th of January, 1841, to August of the same year. Their first ray of hope was the Royalist coming to fetch them: the steamer followed, and ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel

... United States. But as this was quite impossible she longed passionately for some power, personal and irresistible, that would compel the attention of the elect in the city of her birth and ultimately bring them to her feet. And here she had a ray ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton



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