Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Illuminating   /ɪlˈumənˌeɪtɪŋ/   Listen
Illuminating

adjective
1.
Tending to increase knowledge or dissipate ignorance.  Synonyms: enlightening, informative.  "An illuminating lecture"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Illuminating" Quotes from Famous Books



... stood up, gaunt, straight, twisting his sparse imperial, and blinking a bit doubtfully at the messenger. But Linton was not so much at a loss for reasons. He was an earnest young man with slow, illuminating smile. ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... longer cared a whit for charges or convictions of all the crimes in the calendar. This fact is less trifling than it seems; for it proves the value of strategy as opposed to brute and sometimes brutal force, of which I shall presently give some illuminating examples. ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... bedchamber of many memories—exquisite and tragic—became intolerable to her. She opened the double doors and passed into the Chapel-Room beyond, the light thrown by the tall wax candles set in silver branches upon her toilet-table, passing with her through the widely open doors and faintly illuminating the near end of the great room. There was other subdued light in the room as well. For a glowing mass of coal and wood still remained in the brass basket upon the hearth, and the ruddy brightness of ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet

... instruments, the newest publications, intimacy with men of pursuits kindred to my own,—in short, all things necessary to insure a profitable devotion of my life to my beloved science. I had an abundance of money, few desires that were not bounded by my illuminating mirror on one side and my object-glass on the other; what, therefore, was to prevent my becoming an illustrious investigator of the veiled worlds? It was with the most buoyant hopes that I left my New England home and established ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... consideration," I replied, "which is the most difficult thing in the world for the Englishman to offer anybody." "But, you don't mean to say," he continued, "that they really want to cut our throats on account of our bad manners?" I cannot phrase it better, nor can I give a more illuminating illustration of the misunderstanding. That is exactly the reason, and the paramount reason, why nations and why individuals attempt to cut one another's throats. Whatever the fundamental differences may have been that have led to war between nations, the tiny spark that started the explosion ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier

... a quarter of a mile back through the great hull, and completely across the fuselage. To the extreme nose it ran, and throughout there were scattered little globes that gave off an intense white light, illuminating all of the interior. Translucent bull's-eyes ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell

... She remembered the old tale of the maiden wedded to the beautiful and strange elf-king. Was the legend symbolic of that mysterious thread—call it genius or what you will—that runs its erratic course through humanity's woof, marring yet illuminating the staid design, never straightened with its fellow-threads, never tied, and never to be followed to its source? With the feeling of having for an instant held in her hand the key to the riddle of his nature, Mary went to Stefan and ran her fingers ...
— The Nest Builder • Beatrice Forbes-Robertson Hale

... to reply to the appeal of Aramis, a second cloud of smoke mounted slowly to the heavens, and from the bosom of that cloud sparkled an arrow of flame, which described its parabola like a rainbow, and fell into the sea, where it continued to burn, illuminating a space of a quarter of a league ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... nose violently, snapped his gold snuff-box, and waddled to the window, where, below, in the early dusk, torches and rush-lights burned, illuminating the cavalry horses tethered along their picket-rope, and the trooper on guard, pacing his beat, musket ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers

... in this to make it seem an illuminating fact. For instance, take the "janitor point" in "The German Senator." We may imagine the characters of a two-act working up through a routine, and then one saying ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page

... illuminating facts these surveys have revealed is that only those men and women can be happy together whose natures automatically encourage each other in the doing of the things each likes to do, in the way ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict

... a delight to discover the illuminating thoughts which came to the minds of these men; and, on the other hand, it is amusing to see how recklessly they launched themselves on boundless seas when they were unprovided with chart and compass. They were like brilliant children, who know little of the dangers of ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton

... Thing or assembly at Viborg, the Danish nobles burn the laws of the king—they flame up high, illuminating the period and the lawgiver, and throw a glory into the dark prison tower, where an old man is growing grey and bent. With his finger he marks out a groove in the stone table. It is the popular king who sits there, once the ruler of three ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen

... This was illuminating to Thirlwell, since it justified his fears. The mining regulations were complicated, and it was not unusual for unscrupulous speculators to dispute a poor man's claim. He knew of instances where grave injustice had been done. Moreover, he noted that ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss

... various documents which make us aware of this situation, so general then, but so strongly in contrast with modern methods, three explicit statements by Heywood are so illuminating that they deserve quotation. One occurs in the preface to his Rape ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson

... embers began to burn, and a faint tongue of flame flickered, danced, went out, and flickered up again, illuminating the darkness sufficiently to let him make out that the banked up snow had largely melted, and that Tregelly had crawled away from where he had lain, and come over to his, Dallas's, side, apparently to place his heavy ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn

... said the Bishop slowly. "I felt it to be an illuminating document, but it did not seem to call for an answer. It was in itself a response ...
— Prisoners - Fast Bound In Misery And Iron • Mary Cholmondeley

... purplish light shot through the darkness and sped forward like some miniature meteor. It shed a curious illuminating glow all about, and the ground, and the objects on it were brought into relief ...
— Tom Swift and his Electric Rifle • Victor Appleton

... anti-illuminating marquis, since the memorable night of the passing of the Reform Bill, has constantly kept open house, at least, so we are informed by a person who lately ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon

... The most illuminating passage in the whole of M. Copin Albancelli's book is where he describes an experience that befell him after he had taken the degree of Rose-Croix. It was then that one of his superiors took him aside and addressed him ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster

... thought which has been working at home, added to the new and illuminating; more liberal viewpoint regarding the Negro attained by the American whites who served with him in France, will come; is already born, a new national judgment and charity of opinion and treatment, that will not abate; will grow and flourish ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... the very day-star shrank from illuminating so infamous a deed with friendly light; for the dazzling, searching sun of the first of August veiled its radiant face with a greyish-white mist, and the desecrated sea wrinkled its brow, changed its pure azure robe to yellowish grey and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... two of the men present. Cobbens might interpret an expression of approval on her part as a sign that she forgave him for humiliating her protege and had outgrown her fancy, but to Leigh such an expression would mean infinitely more. Thus they waited, each hoping for the significant and illuminating word. But none was given. At the lawyer's mention of dignity in connection with himself, a slight smile hovered about the corners of her lips, but it found no reflection in the cold brightness of her eyes. She made as if she failed to realise that a comment was expected, or as if the subject ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins

... like bowers of roses, and a great many of them liked it so much that they turned on every jet in the house, and left them turned on all day, so that in the mere matter of consumption twice as much of my aromatic illuminating air was used in a week as the companies had charged for under the old system, and we used the same metres, too. In addition to this, as a mere life-saving device, my invention proved to have a wonderful value. In the ...
— Alice in Blunderland - An Iridescent Dream • John Kendrick Bangs

... train slowed down, Harry arose and stood in the aisle. The stranger also stood up, and Harry noticed that his bearing was military. He looked around, his eyes met Harry's—perhaps he had been observing him in the night—and he smiled. It was a rare, illuminating smile that made him wonderfully attractive, and Harry smiled back. He did not know it, but he was growing lonely, with the loneliness of youth, and he wanted ...
— The Guns of Bull Run - A Story of the Civil War's Eve • Joseph A. Altsheler

... the Academy in December, 1906, was held in Howard University, and at that session the audience that assembled in the small chapel of Howard University listened to an illuminating discussion upon the "Economic Condition of the Negro." Kelly Miller's paper upon "Labor Conditions in the North" attracted some attention in the "Washington Post." I do hope the scholars of the race will perpetuate the organization, which was the dream of ...
— Alexander Crummell: An Apostle of Negro Culture - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 20 • William H. Ferris

... made it difficult to remove himself when he sank into that deep chair by her fireside, and she became silent and turned from him her small brooding face. It was as if she guarded obstinately her secret, as if he waited, was compelled to wait, for the illuminating hour. ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... the difference is between presumption or effrontery and the poise that we have in mind, this simple illustration should be illuminating. ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke

... one illuminating flash of comprehension, it was all clear to him. With a stare of blank wonder he saw and understood, and fell back appalled at the demoniacal ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer

... you have to read to me in return, dear Master," I echoed, eager to testify to my recovered faith. "By then the book will be finished on which all our hopes and affections are set. Ten times more precious, more illuminating than anything I have seen, will be what I hear from ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors

... once read his maps by the light of a burning spring. Unlike the early explorer young Harkins determined to do something about it. The legal mind of the lad spurred his zeal to find the cause of the illuminating flame. ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas

... illuminating figures, quoted from "The I.W.A. in the Lumber Industry," by James Rowan, will give some idea of the magnitude and power of the ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... an alacrity which argues remarkable faith and courage—of a sort! Archdeacon Verity had carefully planned this visit for his son, although it obliged the young man to leave home two days earlier than he need otherwise have done. It was illuminating to note how the father brought all the resources of a fine presence, an important manner and full-toned archidiaconal voice to bear upon proving the expediency of the young man visiting this particular relation, over whose career and reputation he had so often, in the past, pursed up his lips ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet

... arms dropped at his sides, very straight in the middle of the tent, the light from the smoke hole illuminating the top of his body, while ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington

... However, she spared him until they had taken Mrs. Madison to the parlor and gone to the library, where he might smoke his after-dinner cigar. He sat down in front of a window, and the sunlight poured over him, glistening his handsome head and illuminating his skin. Betty supposed that some women might fall quite desperately in love with him; and in addition to his beauty he was a noble and high-minded gentleman, whose narrowness was due to the secluded life he chose ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton

... the scene was, as may be supposed, grand in the extreme. The space below was lighted up by continuous flashes and bursts of flame, throwing a flood of light among the thick forest of trees and gardens, while shells would burst high over the city, illuminating the spires and domes, and bringing into prominence every object around. There was not only the roll of the heavy guns and mortars, but the sharp rattle of musketry, and the hiss of the huge rocket, as it cut through the ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths

... Jennie was now plunged was so wonderful, so illuminating, that she could scarcely believe this was the same world that she had inhabited before. Kane was no lover of vulgar display. The appointments with which he surrounded himself were always simple and elegant. He knew at a glance what Jennie needed, ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser

... importance is the date, some three or four years later than Gorboduc and seventy years earlier than The Misfortunes of Arthur. When we call to mind the form finally adopted for tragedy by Shakespeare, we shall find this play an illuminating beacon, lighting the first steps along the right path. The author was well acquainted with classical drama, as may be seen in his use of stichomythia, amongst other things, and possibly in his preference for a Grecian ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne

... the tapers illuminating the altar which enclosed St. Gall's mortal remains was an instantaneous cure for toothache, diseased eyes, and total deafness; a vase used by the martyred Willabrod for bathing thrice a year, still ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten

... who chanced to find herself the guardian of an elf-child was given certain water with which to wash its face. The liquid had the property of illuminating the infant's face with a supernatural brightness, and the woman ventured to try it upon herself, and in doing so splashed a little into one eye. This gave her the fairy sight. One day in the market-place she saw a fairy ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

... manuscripts written by the monks, generally on parchment or vellum, and beautifully illuminated with a border round every page, in brilliant colours intermixed with gold. In every monastery some of the monks were always employed in making copies of the manuscripts their libraries contained, and others in illuminating them; but these written books were so expensive that none but very rich people could afford to buy them. Lady Clifford, however, possessed a few of these valuable works, and was intending that her son, who was now in his seventh year, should begin to study them, when a heavy ...
— The Grateful Indian - And other Stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... artistic illustration of Scripture texts—because it so illustrates the happy freedom and wisdom of the Mildmay methods, which seek to develop the strength of each sister in the line of her special aptitudes. Two of the deaconesses have marked ability as artists, and they devote their time to illuminating texts and adorning Christmas and Easter cards with rare and exquisite designs. From the sale of these illuminations over five thousand dollars were realized last year for the benefit of ...
— Deaconesses in Europe - and their Lessons for America • Jane M. Bancroft

... that he forgot the slight shock her previous remark had caused him. It was undeniably exciting to meet a lady who found the van der Luydens' Duke dull, and dared to utter the opinion. He longed to question her, to hear more about the life of which her careless words had given him so illuminating a glimpse; but he feared to touch on distressing memories, and before he could think of anything to say she had strayed back to her ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton

... not to injure itself by injuring the child. Thousands of children are now being subjected to conditions in school far more injurious than the factory and shop conditions against which the national and state child labor committees have aroused universal indignation. Two illuminating studies of school buildings in New York City were made last year by the Committee on the Physical Welfare of School Children, and later by the Board of Education. Similar studies should be made of every schoolroom. Whereas our discussions of buildings and curriculum have hitherto ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen

... successful enough to enable him to pay with his own resources the crews of the Alfred and Providence, so that when he set sail in the Ranger he had advanced L1500 to the United States. After the close of the war, at a period of comparative inactivity, he began a profitable trade in illuminating oils, and in his character as prize money agent he continued to show his business dexterity. He began a long campaign of a year of most pertinacious and vigorous dunning for money due the United States, himself, and the officers and sailors under his command. He wrote innumerable ...
— Paul Jones • Hutchins Hapgood

... and Modernity. The great charm of this finest of all the towers in the Exposition is its wonderful rhythmic feeling. The graceful flow of line from the base toward the top is never interrupted, in spite of the many sculptural adornments used on all sides. In front of the tower are two very ornate illuminating shafts, showing Leo Lentelli's diabolical cleverness in making ornament out of human figures. Leo Lentelli's style is particularly well adapted to Mullgardt's Court of Abundance. Its care-free, subtle quality, full of animation, presenting new motives at every turn, is most ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus

... feminine world, but few modern books (if any) have treated of that world so happily, with such complete acceptance, unbiassed and unprejudiced, yet with such selective tact and variety of gaiety. She comes to the complete understanding of Henrietta by illuminating all the facets in her character and all the threads of her destiny, and this is an unusual achievement, made all the more remarkable by a brightness and quickness of mind which give delightful life to a multitude of incidents which are in themselves new ...
— The Third Miss Symons • Flora Macdonald Mayor

... romance. The scene is laid in Salem, as if he could not escape a strange fascination in the witch-haunted town of our early history. It is the same black canvas upon which plays the rainbow-flash of his fancy, never, in its brightest moment, more than illuminating the gloom. This marks all his writings. They have a terrible beauty, like the siren, and their fascination is ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis

... understand the lure of the States now, Mr. Boswell," she said one evening as the two sat in the library with the wind howling down Boswell's exaggerations and the fire illuminating the girl's face. "Kenmore prices were impossible, but one can go wild here for so little. Just fancy! That whole beautiful suit ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock

... sunlight glinted into that little white, glistening, frozen desert, illuminating it with a cold and dazzling flame. No living thing appeared among this ocean of hills; there was no stir in that immeasurable solitude, no noise disturbed the ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... invisible; and in His only begotten Son, our Lord and God, the fashioner and maker of all creation, not having any one like him—therefore there is one God of all, who, in our opinion, is God—and there is one Holy Spirit, the illuminating and sanctifying power—as Christ said to his apostles for correction, "Behold I send the promise of my Father to you, but remain ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be indued with power from on high"; and again, "And ye shall receive power coming upon you from ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... appears that cannons had been fired in honor of the day, and students were now forbidden to have a share in this on pain of degradation. The same prohibition was found necessary again in 1755, at which time the practice had grown up of illuminating the College buildings upon Commencement eve. But the habit of drinking spirituous liquor, and of furnishing it to friends, on this public occasion, grew up into more serious evils. In the year 1737, the Trustees, having found that there was a great expense ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall

... in an illuminating passage of his Apologia, explains how he made for himself images of personified nations, and hints that behind his belief in the real existence of such images was his sense of the convenience of creating them. He says that he identified the ...
— Human Nature In Politics - Third Edition • Graham Wallas

... moonlight illuminating the weird tumulus, but the glare of a battery of searchlights, suggesting, as Gootes irreverently remarked, the opening of a new supermarket. During my absence the National Guard had arrived and focused the great ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore

... John, "why cannot the illuminating microscope, say the hydro-oxygen, be applied to render distinct, and, if necessary, even to magnify, the focal object?" Sir David sprung from his chair' [and well he might, though not] 'in an ecstasy of conviction, and, leaping half-way to the ceiling, exclaimed, "Thou art the ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor

... the lady, half-rising, an expression of pleasure illuminating her face, "Why—surely, my little namesake! ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith

... interdependence of the two, and the possibility of so balancing the plant and animal life in the tank that it is never necessary to change the water, can be made very interesting, and, needless to say, very illuminating. The fish cannot live out of the water, and yet it breathes air. There is always air in the water unless it has been artificially removed as by boiling, and this little bit of air is enough for the fish, which is ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... opulence, a powerful top-note, and conspicuous social gifts succeed, they will have either to neglect or taint their special talent in order to survive. It does not follow that because a man's special qualities and inclinations are towards, let us say, illuminating inquiries into the constitution of matter, or profound and beautiful or simply beautiful renderings of his individual vision of life, that he is indifferent to or independent of honour, of all the freedoms to do and to rest from doing that come ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells

... of two sisters and here, despite my promise of two paragraphs ago, I cannot resist the temptation to quote one short but tremendously illuminating line. The author is speaking now of two sisters and of the elder she says, she "was by no means beautiful but she was intensely good." How often it happens that those who are by no means beautiful are intensely good—how ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford

... untraceable way with my conscious mind. And that consciousness itself hangs and drifts about the region where the inner world and the outer world meet, much as a patch of limelight drifts about the stage, illuminating, affecting, following no manifest law except that usually it centres upon ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... roar of the report. He looked for the bigger ship to answer in kind, but the next flash came from the right as before. This time he saw a bright sheet of fire go up from the vessel on the left, illuminating her spars and topsails. The sound of the cannon was drowned in an instant by a terrific explosion. Jeremy trembled on his rock. The ships were in darkness for a moment after that first great flare, and then, before another shot could be fired, little tongues of flame began to spread along the hull ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader

... illuminating," he said at last. "I owe you immense thanks." And he put out a pair of hands, thin, brown, and weather-stained as his face, and pressed one of hers. "We're ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... top under cover of darkness. It was risking a good deal to line up a whole company outside the trench a few yards in rear of the front line, knowing that an enemy machine gun was located about a hundred yards away, and that the machine gunner might fire an illuminating flare at any moment, and so expose the men ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts

... the introduction of printing the demand {49} for MS. copies had grown very active, stimulated, perhaps, by the coming into general use of linen paper instead of the more costly parchment. The scriptoria of the monasteries were the places where the transcribing and illuminating of MSS. went on, professional copyists resorting to Westminster Abbey, for example, to make their copies of books belonging to the monastic library. Caxton's choice of a spot was, therefore, significant. His new art for multiplying copies began to supersede the old method of transcription at ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers

... of lower and higher strata of mind. When we carry over the language of material things into the less easily pictured psychic realm, it is sometimes well to remind ourselves that figures of speech, if taken too literally, are more misleading than illuminating. When we speak of the deep-laid instinctive lower levels of mind and the higher acquired levels, we must not imagine that these strata are really laid in neat, mutually exclusive layers, one on top of the other in ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury

... associated,—and as much as from 4000L. to 5000L. of capital were invested in the new works. The new method of lighting speedily became popular amongst manufacturers, from its superior safety, cheapness, and illuminating power. The mills of Phillips and Lee of Manchester were fitted up in 1805; and those of Burley and Kennedy, also of Manchester, and of Messrs. Gott, of Leeds, ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles

... collecting materials from despatches, diaries and so on, as well as drawing on their own obvious first-hand knowledge, have achieved a fairy-tale of mechanics. That the crews were no less wonderful than their machines we knew before, but the writers' modest yet illuminating account of the difficulties under which they worked is none the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various

... comparison between himself and Meredith. Professor William Lyon Phelps, who is one of the best and sanest of American critics, says they are both pagans, but Meredith was an optimist, while Hardy is a pessimist. Then he adds this illuminating comment: "Mr. Hardy is a great novelist; whereas, to adapt a phrase that Arnold applied to Emerson, I should say that Mr. Meredith was not a great novelist; he was a great man ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... 1906-1907, a very exhaustive and illuminating investigation was made under the general supervision of Dr. Wallin, one of the most eminent authorities on the relationship of the physical and the mental in the work of our schools. Dr. Wallin called to his assistance many experts, both medical and ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd

... was on that account, I strongly suspect, that he seized with avidity upon the theory of poetical genius being allied to madness, which he got hold of in some idiotic book everybody was reading a few years ago. It struck him as being truth itself— illuminating like the sun. He adopted it devoutly. He bored me with it sometimes. Once, just to shut him up, I asked quietly if this theory which he regarded as so incontrovertible did not cause him some uneasiness about his wife and the dear girls? He transfixed me with a pitying stare ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad

... studying the most modern experimental researches. At present we are engaged upon Thought and Imagination. I must confess that I do not find this course very illuminating, though I agree that it is necessary to know something of these researches. In modern psychology there is nothing at all adequate to the subject of our method. These investigators seem to me like persons looking at a tree, and noting the most obvious of its external forms: the shape of a leaf, a ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori

... descended into a basin full of dark, cool recesses, where the slabs of the Roman foundations gleam through the clear green water—as in this attitude I surrendered myself to contemplation and reverie, it seemed to me that I touched for a moment the ancient world. Such moments are illuminating, and the light of this one mingles, in my memory, with the dusky greenness of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 3 • Various

... still in the form of an ass, as addressing his prayers to Isis, whom he speaks of as the same as Ceres, Venus, Diana, and Proserpine, and as illuminating the walls of many cities simultaneously with her feminine lustre, and substituting her quivering light for the bright rays of the Sun. She appears to him in his vision as a beautiful female, "over whose ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike

... already over her head; they had deprived her complexion of its natural freshness, and left the first slight traces of age upon her pure and noble forehead. But her large dark eyes were beaming still in the imperishable fire of her inward youth, and a sweet and winning smile, illuminating her whole countenance as though a ray of the setting sun had fallen upon it, was playing around her charming lips. Her graceful and elegant figure was wrapped in a closely fitting gown of dark-green velvet, richly trimmed with ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... a hand into his pocket and brought out a roll of magnesium wire, gave Wriggs his gun to hold, and then lit one end which flashed out into a brilliant whitish light, surrounded by dense fumes of smoke, and illuminating the vast hall in which they stood, for here the tiny river ran in a wide-spreading plain of smooth lava which must at one time have been a lake of molten stone, now hard, cold, and dry, save where the water glided on like ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn

... Tom to Tim, for the illuminating current had been cut off when the blast was fired. "Let's ...
— Tom Swift and his Big Tunnel - or, The Hidden City of the Andes • Victor Appleton

... in a support, clamping it fast, so that it would be held steady over the flame. Then he turned on more of the illuminating gas, which, coming through the Bunsen burner, was made intensely hot. A little column of flame now enveloped the big test tube ...
— Through Space to Mars • Roy Rockwood

... except a tiny wax model, a likeness full of spirit, slightly encouraging to the perplexed artist. The girl was beautiful; eyes, hair, teeth, coloring—all enticed him as man. As sculptor the shapeless, hopeless figure was a thing for sack-like garments, not for candid clay or the illuminating commentary of marble. She drew a silk shawl closer about ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker

... be as well to state that this was written before the writer had read Karl Kautsky's illuminating work, "Ethics and the ...
— Socialism: Positive and Negative • Robert Rives La Monte

... figures the arrangement of the different apparatus necessary for the manufacture and compression of illuminating gas on the system of Mr. Pintsch, as well as the arrangements adopted by the inventor for the lighting of railway cars and buoys. This system has been adopted to some extent in both Germany and England, and is also being ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... naphtha, etc., for illuminating purposes, if inflammable at less temperature than 110 deg. F., held invalid "except so far as the section named operates within the United States, but without the limits of any State," as being a ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin

... discovered that there was nothing particularly sweet in his life when once Kate Theory had been excluded from it He had stayed away to keep himself from falling in love with her; but this expedient was in itself illuminating, for he perceived that, according to the vulgar adage, he was locking the stable door after the horse had been stolen. As he paced the deck of his ship and looked toward Posilippo, his tenderness crystallized; the thick, smoky flame of a sentiment that knew itself ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James

... the attention of the enemy, and called forth a responsive fire. Suddenly a row of blue lights appeared along the walls, illuminating the place, and showing that the Afghans were manning them in expectation of an escalade. All this time the British engineers were quietly piling their powder-bags at the Cabul gate. It was a work that required great courage, and it was done well; ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston

... champagne, lest I should be too happy. Frank's wonderful face grew delicately flushed. The room resounded with discreet chatter, and the tinkle of glass and silver and porcelain. The upper part of it remained in shadow, but every table was a centre of rosy light, illuminating faces and jewels and napery. And in my sweet illusion I thought that every face had found the secret of joy, and that even the old had preserved it. Pleasure reigned. Pleasure was the sole goddess. And how satisfying then ...
— Sacred And Profane Love • E. Arnold Bennett

... there must be bad debts in the world, why, it is mere egoism not to like that we in particular should make them instead of our fellow-citizens. I am telling the history of very simple people, who had never had any illuminating doubts as ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot

... in the ark than that which came from precious stones. Why do not our modern jewellers take a hint from the ancient safety-boat, and light up accordingly? We dare say old Tavernier, that knowing French gem-trader of the seventeenth century, had the art of illuminating his chateau at Aubonne in a way wondrous to the beholder. Among all the jewellers, ancient or modern, Jean Baptiste Tavernier seems to us the most interesting character. His great knowledge of precious stones, his ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various

... rescue at least one mute, inglorious Milton from neglect, has written to me. There! He has read my article on 'The Astronomical Theory with regard to the Early Religions'; he has perceived the profound wisdom, the research, the illuminating genius of that work—by the way, I don't think I ever fully explained to you my notions on ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various

... waters. Vanessa, meanwhile, in a Bayswater back street, was making out the weekly laundry list, attending bargain sales, and, in her more adventurous moments, trying new ways of cooking whiting. Occasionally she went to bridge parties, where, if the play was not illuminating, at least one learned a great deal about the private life of some of the Royal and Imperial Houses. Vanessa, in a way, was glad that Clyde had done the proper thing. She had a strong natural bias towards respectability, though she would have preferred to have been respectable ...
— Reginald in Russia and Other Sketches • Saki (H.H. Munro)

... where the Saskatchewan swung in a half-moon to the south and west, he found a low, squat building with a light hung over the door illuminating a bit of humor in the form of a printed legend which said that it was "King Edward's Hotel." The scrub bush of the forest grew within a hundred yards of it, and in this bush Jan tied his dogs and left ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood

... of this new critic. It need only be said that he realizes, as does Mr. Van Doren, the singularity of Peacock's genius; that, though neither has succeeded in showing precisely why it is unique, the English critic has brought forward some highly illuminating suggestions; and that reduction by a half would be the greatest improvement ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His.' And every one of us, if we will, may have dwelling in our hearts, in the greatness of His strength, in the sweetness of His love, in the clearness of His illuminating wisdom, the Incarnate Word, the Comforter, the All-in-all whom ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... window, and saw that all the houses in the street were illuminated. His landlady came bustling into his apartment, followed by waiters with candles. His spirits instantly rose, though he did not clearly know the cause of the rejoicings. "I give you joy, ma'am. What are you all illuminating for?" said ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth

... throw light upon the dark places of history, necessarily left unclear by the historian. Poetry has the right and duty of setting facts in a clear light, and of illuminating the darkness by its sunny beams. The poetry of the romance writer seeks to deduce historical characteristics from historical facts, and to draw from the spirit of history an elucidation of historical characters, so that the writer may be able to detect their inmost thoughts and feelings, and in ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach

... reduced Theft and Robbery into a regular System." Further, he could generally bribe or deter the prosecutor. And in a last resource "rotten Members of the Law" forged his defence, and abundant false witnesses supported it. An illuminating example of the methods employed by our Georgian ancestors towards "deterring" prosecution occurs in a smuggling case of 1748, perpetrated shortly before Fielding first took office. A party of smugglers caught a custom-house officer ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden

... his serene, lucid mode of thought, those dark secrets; yet he did not deny that precisely under these, perhaps uncouth, veils, higher conceptions had first been brought to barbarous and sensual men, that, through awe-inspiring symbols, powerful, illuminating ideas had been awakened, the belief in one God, ruling over all, had been introduced, virtue had been represented more desirably, and hope for the continuance of our existence had been purified both from the false terrors of a dark superstition and from ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... one of brave and successful exploration, of interesting anecdote, of human feeling, with scientific accuracy characterizing the fund of information, and many photographs illuminating the text. ...
— Bobby of the Labrador • Dillon Wallace

... he was enclosing in his network of questions. And she had seen him look at Robin when he had passed or spoken to them. An illuminating flash brought back to her that he had cleverly found out from her when they were to walk together, and where they were to go. She had not been quick enough to detect this before, but she saw it now. Girls who looked like that—yes! But it could not be—serious. An ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... wore away, till at length I woke to see the gleam of dawn penetrating the smoke-hole and dimly illuminating the recumbent form of Kaatje, which to me looked most unattractive. Presently I heard a discreet tapping on the doorboard of the hut which I at once removed, wriggling swiftly through the hole, careless ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard

... foundation and tie of all, as the future will grandly develop,) UNIONISM, in its truest and amplest sense, form'd the hard-pan of his character. These he seal'd with his life. The tragic splendor of his death, purging, illuminating all, throws round his form, his head, an aureole that will remain and will grow brighter through time, while history lives, and love of country lasts. By many has this Union been help'd; but if one name, one man, ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... looked to him as if weighted with mysterious knowledge, as if something infinitely illuminating were to issue from his bearded lips. The boy had a sudden conviction that Fowler was about to say something that would answer the longing that had so oppressed him lately. He hunched his broad, thin shoulders forward, his clear blue eyes on ...
— Judith of the Godless Valley • Honore Willsie

... greater mind in the Church of England, no greater mind, I am disposed to think, in the English nation. His intellect has the range of an Acton, his forthrightness is the match of Dr. Johnson's, and his wit, less biting though little less courageous than Voltaire's, has the illuminating quality, if not the divine playfulness, of ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... gives us this illuminating exposition of his own views on the moral validity of the main characters, thus disposing once for all of the one-sided interpretations made by persons anxious to use this or that aspect of the play in support of their own political or social idiosyncrasies: ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg

... sharp breath as she watched him. And when she saw his lips curving into a slight smile—wholesome, though grave; with a hint of boyish amusement in them—she got another quick impression of his character, new and startling and illuminating. ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer

... the sweetest thing that God ever made. I had not known a woman could be so fair and sweet. Her beauty awes me, the purity of her soul shines so clearly through it like an illuminating lamp. I love her with all my power of loving and I am thankful that it is so. It would have been hard to die without having known love. I am glad that it has come to me, even if its price is unspeakable ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... standpoint of verbal scholarship, the gist of his criticism being that its authenticity was at least doubtful. From this argument he diverged into one of wider scope, insisting on how much is doubtful in what the Gospels record as the sayings of our Lord generally, from which illuminating reflection he advanced to one wider still. It was as follows: Since we know so little of what Christ really said about God, how much less can we really know of the nature of God himself; of what he loves, condemns, or, in his infinite mercy, pardons?—the moral being that we ought to cast stones ...
— Memoirs of Life and Literature • W. H. Mallock

... the look of heedful and anxious love which it always wore in her remembrance, and which, even since her death, had so often laid the impediment of a gentle remonstrance in her daughter's pathway. She saw her own face, glowing with girlish beauty, and illuminating all the interior of the dusky mirror in which she had been wont to gaze at it. There she beheld another countenance, of a man well stricken in years, a pale, thin, scholar-like visage, with eyes dim and bleared by the lamp-light ...
— The Scarlet Letter • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... small orchestra where Kreutzer played, he made no friends among the other musical performers; when the manager of the dingy little theatre politely tried to pump him as to details of his history he managed to evade all answers in the least illuminating, although he never failed to do so ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey

... ours, by the way) bought a quantity of David's orange-colored winsey, and finding that it wore like iron, wished to order more. She used the word "reproduce" in her telegram, as there was one pattern and one color she specially liked. Perhaps the context was not illuminating, but at any rate the word "reproduce" was not in David's vocabulary, and putting back his spectacles he told me his difficulty in deciphering the exact meaning of his fine-lady patron. He called at the Free kirk manse,—the meenister was no at hame; then to the library,—it was closed; ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... against each other like the bells of a church ringing a tocsin, at which he was much pleased, and thanked them, right and left, by a nod of the head, while promenading in the rays of the sun, which were illuminating his domain. Therein so splendidly did the brown colour of his hair shine forth, that one would have thought him a northern king in his sable furs. After his twists, turns, jumps and capers, he munched two grains of ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... great transparent dome hung the flaming disk of Jupiter, so oppressively near that it seemed about to crash onto the asteroid. Its rays poured in a ruddy flood over the settlement, clearly illuminating each detail; and comparatively close against the face of the mighty planet they could see the whitish globe of Satellite III. It offered the nearest haven. They might arrive famished, but in the power-equipped space-suits which Friday ...
— The Affair of the Brains • Anthony Gilmore

... fire, his shadow looming in gigantic proportions on the white canopy of a covered wagon. Fitful gusts of wind fretted the blaze; it roared and crackled and sputtered, now illuminating the still forms, then enveloping them in fantastic obscurity. Hare shivered, perhaps from the cold air, perhaps from growing dread. Westward lay the desert, an impenetrable black void; in front, the gloomy mountain wall lifted ...
— The Heritage of the Desert • Zane Grey

... intoxication that might dwell in pleasure—in pleasure accepted solely as a pursuit, as an end in and for itself alone. Then, a moment later, standing by her desk in her room upstairs, she remembered, in an illuminating flash, the look with which Kemper had parted ...
— The Wheel of Life • Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow

... the road where there was no traffic and few houses in sight, he half turned in his seat and told Ruth in brisk, illuminating sentences what she ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson

... delectation a doggerel ballad of his own composition. The hero was myself and there was a glowing anticipation of the arrival of a heroine. And as I listened my interest would wax intense at the picture of this world-charming bride illuminating the lap of the future in which she sat enthroned. The list of the jewellery with which she was bedecked from head to foot, and the unheard of splendour of the preparations for the bridal, might have turned older and wiser ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore

... and herein is a great loss, speaking not with reference to his very late pictures, his English landscape, or even his Italian views, but in vivid recollection of his fascinating river views, with their busy boats, under illuminating skies, such as, alas! he has ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various

... and you will never be able to develop equally the various mental powers. To expand one it is necessary to repress the others. By giving your reason the rude aliment of scholastic argument, you neglect your imagination. By illuminating your mind you overshadow your heart. You congratulate yourself at the discovery of a problem, the solution of which you have long sought for. Scientific journals become filled with numerous dissertations about it, academies decree ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various

... painting there is illuminating, for which smaller brushes and gold and silver paint are needed. Illuminating texts is a favorite Sunday ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher

... had loved. Such was their idea of the value of these religious books, and more especially of the New Testament, that they were bound in costly covers, adorned with precious stones—the labour of transcribing and illuminating them being almost incalculable. The invention of machinery, alas! in these latter days has banished for ever such conscientious labours of love, and neither books nor anything else are impressed ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux

... many colleges and universities where the pupils are taught grammar, the Turkish and Arabic languages, rhetoric, philosophy, and poetry. The literary men are numerous; they pursue their studies till they are entitled to the honors of the colleges; afterwards they devote themselves to copying and illuminating manuscripts. ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta

... Forrester thought at first. Then he saw that the light was coming from the woman herself—or from her clothing. The dress she wore was a satinlike sheath that glowed with an aura even brighter than the room. Her blonde hair picked up the radiance and glowed, too, illuminating a face that was at once regal, inviting and passionate. It was, Forrester thought, a ...
— Pagan Passions • Gordon Randall Garrett

... in 1870 on the extent of the obligation incurred by the signatory powers to the Quintuple Treaty of 1839 guaranteeing the neutrality of Belgium. Shorn from their context as they were, these sentences are by no means illuminating, and it cannot be said that their citation in this form by Sir Edward Grey was a very felicitous one. During the paper polemics of the past months these detached words of Gladstone have been freely used by Germany's ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... portraits, side by side. Surely she recognised that face—the bold, coarse-featured man, with his pretentious smile? But the girl, no; a young and very pretty girl, smirking a little, with feathery hair which faded off into an aureole. The text was illuminating. ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... "Un moment, Monsieur le Bourreau." It never was so bad with us that we could not laugh. At last we turned into a porte-cochere, under which the coachman bent literally double: total darkness: then suddenly trees, lamps, and buildings; and one, brighter than the rest by an open portal, illuminating large printed ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth

... he was right—he had seen white men who had caught the breath of China accepting just such opportunities as the one offered to him after his dismissal by Augustine Heard. At the Dutch Hong he'd be expected to talk about his late employer. Such situations, he had realized in a rarely illuminating flash, were only ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer

... occurrence of others for the aid straightforward, mutual logic could give. She had learned to await the Extraordinary Case with something like eagerness. Sometimes, it was true, its incidents were painful; but invariably they were absorbing in their interest, and occasionally illuminating beyond description. Of names and persons it was not necessary she should hear anything—the drama, the ethics, were enough. With an absolute respect for his professional reserves, she asked no questions he could not reply to freely, and avoided even the innocent ...
— Emily Fox-Seton - Being The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... at that moment, my comings and goings were not matters in which I was consulted. Panic fear raging within, outwardly I was calm as possible, and stood, turning the revolvers over and over, asking myself what it could be that I was intended to do with them. All at once it came to me in an illuminating flash,—I was to fire at the lock of the drawer, ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh

... distrustful nod of recognition upon Gaffer, plainly importing, 'Ah! we know all about YOU, and you'll overdo it some day;' and to inform Mr Mortimer Lightwood and friends, that he would attend them immediately. Then, he finished ruling the work he had in hand (it might have been illuminating a missal, he was so calm), in a very neat and methodical manner, showing not the slightest consciousness of the woman who was banging herself with increased violence, and shrieking most terrifically for some ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens

... suggested. Arthur B. Davies is a lyric poet with a decidedly Celtic tendency. It is the smile of a radiant twilight in his brain. It is a country of green moon whispers and of shadowed movement. Imagination illuminating the moment of fancy with rhythmic persuasiveness. It is the Pandaean mystery unfolded with symphonic accompaniment. You have in these pictures the romances of the human mind made irresistible with melodic certainty. They are chansons sans paroles, ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... desolation the only protuberance visible for miles and miles is Professor Bottomly. Perhaps the pallid Arctic sun is setting behind the majestic figure of Professor Bottomly, radiating a blinding glory to the zenith, illuminating the crowning act of her career with ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers

... seventh volume of the Jewish Quarterly Review. Once for all Mr. Montefiore has selected many of the most beautiful and most vital passages of Philo, and much as I should have liked to unearth new gems, as beautiful and as illuminating, I have often found myself irresistibly attracted to Mr. Montefiore's passages. Dr. Neumark's book, Geschichte der juedischen Philosophie des Mittelalters, appeared after my manuscript was set up, or I should have dealt ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich

... own things looked rather suspicious; for our host, instead of sitting down again at the dinner-table, walked to a bow-window overlooking the anchorage, and exactly facing the setting sun, at that hour illuminating the whole landscape in the gorgeous style peculiar to combined mountain and lake scenery. "Why should we not enjoy this pleasant prospect while we are discussing our wine?" said the master of the house. At that instant the door ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall

... During this brief but illuminating conversation the Princess and Joan could do nothing else but gaze from one man to the other in mute surprise, and Joan was grieved beyond measure that Felix should treat Alec's father with such scant courtesy. Even while they were making for ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... went out of the little lady's face, as if some illuminating lamp had suddenly been quenched behind it. She seemed fairly to droop under her disappointment. As for the rest, the name of Martin Seymour evidently conveyed no especial meaning to her ears. How could she know that ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1904 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... particular mode and the precise period of relieving himself from the unwarrantable interference which threatened to defeat his plans. The luxury of feeling that he had his man in his power was its own reward. One who watches in the dark, outside, while his enemy, in utter unconsciousness, is illuminating his apartment and himself so that every movement of his head and every button on his coat can be seen and counted, especially if he holds a loaded rifle in his hand, experiences a peculiar kind of pleasure, which he naturally hates to bring to its climax by ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various

... the musical motifs, probably nothing is better for general readers than the volume "The Epic of Sounds," by Freda Winworth. The more scholarly work of Professor Lavignac is indispensable for the student of Wagner's dramas. There is much illuminating comment on the sources and materials in "Legends of the Wagner Drama" by J. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch

... across the sands to where the sailors were awaiting us in the edge of the bush. While the bluejackets cut off the retreat of the hissing, snapping monster, Hawkinson set up his camera and, when all was ready, some one touched off a flare, illuminating the beach and jungle as though the search-light of a warship had been turned upon them. In this manner we obtained a series of motion-pictures which are, I believe, from the zoological standpoint, unique. Before leaving the island we killed two tortoises for food for the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell

... and I saw a hand, nothing but a hand applying a lighted match to the iron grating which was fastened over the bows of the boat, which was covered with wood, as if it had been a floating funeral pile, and which soon was blazing brightly and illuminating the boat and the two men, an old, thin, pale, wrinkled sailor, with a pocket-handkerchief tied round his head, instead of a cap, and Tremoulin, whose fair beard glistened in ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... enough if it was to be passed with the woman whom she knew, in the coming struggle, would fight with tools which she, Meg, would not dare or deign to touch. As vivid as her vision of the tomb was her memory of Millicent Mervill's beauty. She could see it illuminating their desert hut; she could feel it eclipsing her own less vivid colouring as the sun had ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer

... she perceived that the topmost missives were sliding over the edge in the breeze raised by that gusty sneeze. The big square envelope tumbled clumsily down upon its back and lay staring, quite close to the flickering gas. Bea's wilful eyes rested on it one illuminating instant, and then leaped away, while her cheeks whitened suddenly. The name on the valentine was ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz

... ever, used for suicides." Stone spoke with more assurance. "I have found in my practice, Kent, that suicides can be classed as follows: drowning by the young, pistols by the adult, and hanging by the aged; women generally prefer asphyxiation, using illuminating gas. But this is beside the question, unless"—bending a penetrating look at his companion—"unless you believe Jimmie ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... Possibly you (the Bauddha) will rejoin that, if the idea is to be apprehended by something different from it, that something also must be apprehended by something different and so on ad infinitum. And, moreover, you will perhaps object that as each cognition is of an essentially illuminating nature like a lamp, the assumption of a further cognition is uncalled for; for as they are both equally illuminating the one cannot give light to the other.—But both these objections are unfounded. As the idea only is apprehended, and there is ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut

... touched Christopher with a sudden melancholy, and it appeared to him when he went on again that a shadow had fallen over the brightness of the autumn fields. Disturbed by the unrest which follows any illuminating vision of ideal beauty, he asked himself almost angrily, in an effort to divert his thoughts, if it were possible that he was weakening in his purpose, since he no longer found the old zest in his hatred of Fletcher. The deadness of his emotions ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow

... with its indescribable odour, seemingly composed of several parts of cellar mould, a great many parts of dry rot or unsunned dust, the whole veined through and through with small streaks of escaped illuminating gas—if this heavy, lifeless air is more welcome to your nostrils than could be the clover-sweetened breath of the greenest pasture; if that great black gulf, yawning beyond the extinguished footlights, ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris

... Eckermann, the other beloved friend of Goethe, he possessed the power of eliciting the great poet-philosopher's dicta on all imaginable topics. Zelter wrote to Goethe on anything and everything, trivial and otherwise, but his letters never failed to educe strains of the most illuminating comment. The "Letters to Zelter" were published in Berlin in 1833, and the following epitome is ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... carbonized, of compact and heavy substance, free from sulphur, and for which there is an unlimited demand not only for fuel but for fertilization; 3. Peat Tar, of extraordinary value simply as Tar, an admirable preservative of Timber, and readily convertible into Illuminating Gas of exceeding brilliancy and power; 4. Acetate of Lime; and 5. a crude Sulphate of Ammonia, well known as a fertilizer of abundant energy. The company is already at work, and expect soon to have six working stations in different parts of the country, professing its ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley



Words linked to "Illuminating" :   enlightening, unenlightening



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com